IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 1135

ON LOVE; PART DCCXXIV

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GoodWill IS Love in Action

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FIRST IS THE GREAT COMMANDMENTS: “The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:29-31).

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WHAT THEN IS LOVE? In a general sense love is benevolence, good will; that disposition of heart which inclines men to think favorably of their fellow men, and to do them good. In a theological sense, it includes supreme love to God, and universal good will to men.

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PLUS THE EVER IMPORTANT AND HIGH IDEAL TAUGHT TO US BY THE CHRIST: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” (Matthew 7:12).

We ended the last essay with the words of the Apostle John saying “No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:12-16). These words, like most ALL that the apostle writes, ARE addressed to disciples who we should assume ARE men who have Repented and who have some understanding, from their own unction or anointing, of the Truths that ARE being expressed. Part of the tone of the apostle’s epistle is to separate the man who IS the disciple, the man who Truly follows in the Way of the Lord, from the man who may feign such or the man who has not yet the wherewithal to Truly keep His words or to strive toward that lofty goal. A great part of this separation IS to be founded in one’s own self-searching of his own heart regarding the matters that the apostle brings to us. John’s tone IS clear from the beginning as He tells us “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie , and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:6-7).

There are much simpler Truths in this last quotation from John’s Epistle than there ARE in the first one above but the underlying reality IS the same. It IS for the man to KNOW, to spiritually discern, the reality of darkness and the Truth of Light and here we should hearken back to the apostle’s other words and to the words of the Master. In John’s idea from his gospel we read: “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (John 3:18-19) as this IS written by the apostle. That this IS attributed to the Master by some IS NOT the point here nor IS the right understanding of the idea of condemned; the point here IS in Light, that it IS the Life of Christ that brings us Light, that it IS to follow Him and to keep His words that IS the Truth of “He that believeth on him” and that the darkness IS the ways of men, ways that ARE NOT changed by the Advent of the Master but which remain in and of the world. Here then we can see the idea of our subject saying from John’s Epistle, that if a man claims fellowship, if a man claims to follow Him, and yet remains in and of the world, his claim IS a lie. The Truth of this fellowship IS to walk in the Light that He brings, the Light that the apostles speaks of in his Prologue saying “In him was life; and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4). It IS when we follow Him that “we walk in the light, as he is in the light” and in this following IS that we keep His words. And there IS evidence of this following in our “fellowship one with another“.

Our point in going to these words from John’s Epistle today IS to show that the greater reality of grace, that this IS NOT founded in the actions of men in the world but in the actions of men whose focus IS upon the things of God. While Paul’s words on grace, faith and works have been misunderstood and even manipulatied by men over the centuries, the words of John on fellowship and on Love have been even more so afflicted with worldly attitudes. In the apostle’s words on fellowship, many see ONLY the ideas of fellow Christians; this IS NOT however John’s intent. Although this idea can be easily taken from the way that he lays out his thoughts and the way that his words ARE rendered and understood in English, the reality of His teaching IS NO different than the Master’s whose sense of fellowship and Love ARE universal as we read above in the Great Commandments and the Golden Rule. The Master teaches us much on Love and His words CAN NOT be mistaken as we see above and as we read in the Sermon on the Mount; His words are confirmed for us in the Apostle Paul’s Epistles and in the words of the Apostle James as well. However, there are many in the doctrinal church that DO NOT give this same clarity to John’s words and there ARE some that dilute and change the Master’s own words on Love to better blend with their own more liberal view of John’s intent….that the Love need only be offered to Christians. We should remember that John’s style and his choice of words differs from the other writers and that he never uses the word neighbor in his gospel account nor in His epistles and this alone should lay for us some clue as to his ideas on fellowship, brother and “one another.

What then IS this “fellowship one with another” and how does this result in that degree of grace that John frames for us as “the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin“. First we should understand that this “fellowship one with another” IS the same as that fellowship that we may claim with the Master and this IS NOT merely friendliness or any other like idea; this IS that we follow Him and keep His words. In our words below from our current selection from the fourteenth chapter of John’s Gospel, we read about Love and keeping His words and it IS in this context that we should understand this idea of fellowship with the Lord; in this fellowship we Love and in this fellowship we keep His words and subordinate ourselves to Him. This idea of Love IS shown us in several ways in our current sayings as well as in the previous sayings from this chapter where we read “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15); this IS the reality of fellowship with the Lord and here we should remember that His commandments include those at the top of our essay where we read that we “shalt love thy neighbour as thyself“. We repeat our current selection here for the utmost understanding of the idea of and the extent of this Love from the perspective of Love for God which IS the reality of “fellowship with him“

“At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me. These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you” (John 14:20-26).

It IS unfortunate that the doctrinal approach to John’s word leads many to dilute the Master’s own words and here perhaps we can take a deeper look at just what this fellowship IS. Vincent tells us this in relationship to God: This word introduces us to one of the main thoughts of the Epistle. The true life in man, which comes through the acceptance of Jesus as the Son of God, consists in fellowship with God and with man. On the word, see on Acts 2:42; see on Luke 5:10. The verb κοινωνέω to come into fellowship, to be made a partner, to be partaker of, occurs 1 Peter 4:13; 2 John 1:11; Hebrews 2:14, etc. The expression here, ( ἔχειν κοινωνίαν ) is stronger, since it expresses the enjoyment or realization of fellowship, as compared with the mere fact of fellowship. See on John 16:22 ⁴. We should try to see here that this word is meant to connote some degree of interpersonal relationship which can run through many phases from the fellowship of another’s company to the deeper ideas of fellowship with God. Here we have a similar circumstance as we find in the other ideas of Love for others; that this can be the emotional or mental attachment and attraction to things and people or this can denote the deeper ideas of Love as we should see them in Love for God; the deepest of commitment from the perspective of our spiritual sense. Can we see in this the ideas that are behind Paul’s use of the word adoption? ‘that the adopted son as this IS used in Romans shows: in a peculiar and intimate sense, one with the heavenly Father’ ⁴. Again we have a range of meanings which must be considered and the reality of the intent of the apostle IS clearly what we see in Mr. Vincent’s quotation from Mr. Merivale.

The depth of these interpersonal ideas and these ideas regarding the relationship of God to man are easily misunderstood by the man whose focus IS NOT upon spiritual things, the man whose discernment IS after the ways of the world. And this misplaced focus IS the unfortunate cause for so much of the misunderstanding surrounding this most important idea from the Master. The lexicon, as part of the definition of koinonia which IS here rendered fellowship, tells us that this word can mean communion ² and in regard to the relationship of God and man this IS easily seen along with the greater ideas found in Love and in adoption. Here we can see the approach of man to God and the idea that IS embedded in the Master’s words saying “my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him” from our current selection. In this idea we should be able to see the reality of communion as grace and then see grace as that it comes to us in our realizations and revelations of God and our sense of Oneness with Him. If we can see grace in this light, in this most spiritual way, then we should be able to see fellowship and Love in an equal way, as communion with Him, and understand that His communion with us IS the result of our action in fellowship and Love. This IS the Master’s message….”If a man love me, he will keep my words“. And this IS the result “my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him“. This IS communion and this IS fellowship….this IS the Truth of Love.

This then IS the reality of Love and of fellowship, that this IS communion with God through our own sense of God Within and IS the idea behind Paul’s use of the example of adoption. This also then IS grace as the result of our right thoughts and attitudes toward God, the reward if you will for our focus. Grace in this sense IS its own reward; our communion with the Lord brings a deeper sense of communion; an ever increasing upward spiral of Love for God that results in and ever increasing downward spiral of grace and communion into the consciousness of the man in the world. ALL of this however must become our expression to the world as well and in the same sense of fellowship and communion; this IS the reality of Love. In our selection from John’s Gospel, the idea of Love IS the idea of our communion with God and in this our Love for our fellow man IS assumed in the reality of keeping His words; and in this especially His words on Love as reflected in the Great Commandments. John DOES NOT expound upon this idea but this DOES NOT mean that Love IS NOT at the forefront of the Truth of the Master’s words as the apostle reflects them for us. 

And this IS where doctrines can lead us astray, at the intersection of fellowship and Love as this IS understood by men whose vision IS NOT on the most inclusive interpretation of the Master’s words, and those who allow the lower and more restrictive ideas of fellowship to degrade the True intent of Love. Vincent’s ideas above are an accurate depiction of the word rendered as fellowship as seen through doctrinally focused eyes. He sees the depth of the idea in regard to God and Christ in his own doctrinal sense but he loses this as he discusses the saying that we have above regarding “fellowship one with another“; here he tells us that this IS: Not, we with God and God with us, but with our brethren. Fellowship with God exhibits and proves itself by fellowship with Christians ⁴. This however IS NOT the Master’s intent nor IS this the apostle’s own meaning here….the doctrinal assumptions are based in his choice of language and in the sense of an easier path of Love for the carnal minds of men. In the apostle’s words from the fourth chapter of his epistle that we cited yesterday and above, we should be able to discern his True intent which IS somehow lost in the many words of doctrine regarding the ideas of confession and of His being ‘the Saviour of the world‘. While these ARE important ideas to understand, they are intended to compliment the message of Love and NOT to replace it. The greater Truth IS found in his words “If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us“; it IS this saying that follows upon the Master’s own words saying “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him“. 

And it IS in this respect that John gives us his own unique view of grace, his own unique view of the Holy Spirit in the Life of the man whose focus IS upon the things of God. This He offers us in the simple words that “Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit“; this IS NOT to be understood in the simplicity of confession but in the reality of Love and communion which can only fully come to the man who keeps his words, and which we can ALL receive by degree based upon our measure of focus upon the Good, the Beautiful and the True….our focus upon the things of God. It IS in the fullness of Love as the expression of the man in the world, his expression toward God and toward everyman, that we can understand the depth of John’s words saying: “God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him“.

We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.

Note on the Quote of the Day

This daily blog also has a Quote of the Day which may not be in any way related to the essay. Many of these will be from the Bible and some just prayers or meditations that may have an influence on you and are in line with the subject matter of this blog. As the quote will change daily and will not store with the post, it is repeated in this section with the book reference and comment.

We repeat here again a saying that is from the Bhagavad Gita, which goes well with our theme of the God Within, the Soul, which we see as the Christ Within and while this is good in the Christian world and is True based upon our understanding of the Christ as the manifestation of God, we should also see in these words below that it does not matter what these divine ideas are called; that it matters not what we call this Inner Man, that he is the same in ALL, he is the Soul.

Thou carriest within thee a sublime Friend whom thou knowest not. For God dwells in the inner part of every man, but few know how to find Him. The man who sacrifices his desires and his works to the Beings from whom the principles of everything stem, and by whom the Universe was formed, through this sacrifice attains perfection. For one who finds his happiness and joy within himself, and also his wisdom within himself is one with God. And, mark well, the soul which has found God is freed from rebirth and death, from old age and pain, and drinks the water of Immortality.—Bhagavad-Gita

It is difficult to tell just what verses of the Bhagavad Gita the above is from; whether it is a paraphrase or a combination. It is from the book “The Great Initiates” by Édouard Schuré which was originally published in French in 1889 and perhaps it is in the translation of the verses that they become hard to recognize. However, the sheer beauty of the presentation caught my attention and so I share it with you. The Path to the Kingdom is the same no matter what religion one professes.

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!

• ² New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
• ⁴ Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888