ON LOVE; PART DCCXCIII
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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. While this IS from an older definition of Charity, which IS rendered in the King James Bible from the same Greek word agape which IS generally rendered as Love, we should amend our own definition here to include the idea that in the reality of Love a man will accord to ALL men ALL things that he would accord to himself and to say that Love IS our thoughts and attitude of the equality of ALL men regardless of their outward nature or appearance…that ALL ARE equally children of Our One God
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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)
In the last post we discussed again the reality of the equality of terms from the words of the New Testament; that IS that when the result IS the same that various ideas that lead to that result ARE equal in strength and that each encompasses the dynamics of the others. Similarly, when there IS a single idea that leads to various results, that these results and causes also encompass each other. Thus when we see the idea that to keep His words IS to be His True disciple and that to keep His words makes one accounted worthy of the Kingdom of God, we see that the Kingdom of God and True discipleship ARE equal. While some may claim that the ideas we present ARE NOT the same, that for a man to “enter into the kingdom of heaven” he must “doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21) IS different from Jesus words to those who followed Him saying “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed” (John 8:31), we DO see the strong relationship according to the Master’s own words saying: “Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works” (John 14:10). Here we see the Oneness of the Father and the Son, a Oneness that Jesus testifies to further as He says “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30) and a Oneness that shows us that to DO His will IS to continue in His words which IS the reality of keeping His words as the word of God.
When we can see this clearly, when we can understand that the reality of the Kingdom and of discipleship ARE the same in the Life of the man in the world and that this comes from keeping His words, we can then also see how that to keep His words results in yet more equivalent ideas such as those that we have been discussing now for many posts, specifically the idea of the Presence of God which IS His grace and His Love as this flows into the Life of the man in accordance with His words saying:
“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” (John 14:21-24).
Again, there are some who will say that these ideas that we present ARE NOT the same, that His manifesting Himself and the way that the Father and the Son abide with a man IS NOT the same as the reality of discipleship and the Kingdom of God. We should however understand that the cause of this Presence in one’s Life, whether we see this as manifestation or as abiding or as the reality that these present as His Presence, IS the same idea that one must “hath my commandments, and keepeth them“. And these who CAN NOT or will NOT see this realty of the equality of these ideas ARE likely those who DO NOT understand the reciprocal nature that IS presented here, the quid pro quo that is clearly presented by the Master but which IS washed away by the minds of men as they formulate their doctrines. And a large part of the doctrinal failure here can be tied to the ideas of the Church Fathers and their reliance upon the Jewish doctrines and traditions in effect in the time of Christ which, from our perspective, IS NO more evident than in the doctrinal view of Jesus words which we read in this from Luke: “And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:20-21). It IS when one can see that the reality of the Kingdom IS within each man and that it goes unrealized, that the Truths that underlie these equivalent ideas and terms can be revealed; it IS in KNOWING the Kingdom Within that the Presence of God IS realized and, as we have often discussed. This happens in the Life of a man by measure and brings him from the fledgling aspirant in Repentance to the reality of that perfection to which the Master refers when He tells us to “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). This IS the same sense of perfect that the Master speaks of in His own prayer saying of “I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one” (John 17:23). In this we should see the idea of the equality of this sense of perfection with the reality of discipleship, His Presence and being accounted worthy of the Kingdom of God.
In the Master’s words on the Kingdom of God we have the evidence of the reality of the Christ Within and the God Within as these continually reside in man as the unrealized divinity which IS his own Soul. It IS the Soul that IS “made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in expectation that the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:20-21). In this we see the very Plan of God as it operates within the lives of men in this world who, as Souls ARE lost in the morass of thoughts and feelings that ARE an integral part of the human experience; Souls who ARE seeking their own deliverance from the illusion and the glamours to which they have been subjected. Our rendering of these words from the Apostle Paul shows the expectation that rather that the hope of God and this IS based in our own thoughts as well as our understanding that we take from Vincent of the Greek words used; Mr. Vincents ideas are discussed in In the Words of Jesus part 926. In our understanding of the apostle’s words we see the deeper reality of Life in this world and while we CAN NOT see the purpose, we DO sense or glimpse some idea from Paul’s additonal idea saying “we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:22-23); it IS in the deepest ideas of this Redemption that we ourselves ARE freed from this “bondage of corruption” and it IS perhaps in this that we Truly serve the Plan of God in relation to His world from which our bodies ARE formed as ARE the bodies of ALL of His creatures.
Our point here IS NOT this idea of deliverance but rather to show the equality of words and the central point in understanding that realty from Jesus’ words on the Kingdom of God, a reality that the Master never uses in relation to that place one should go after death in this world. And there ARE other relationships as well that we can bring together here including that one that comes in the Truth of being “born of God” as the Apostle John frames this, a reality that IS a man’s own when he IS DOING as the Master says; here again we have an equality of ideas as the apostle says such things as:
- “ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him” (1 John 2:29).
- “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God” (1 John 3:9)
- “every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love” (1 John 4:7-8).
If we can understand the idea of seed from the second saying above as the grace of God, the Presence of God, or, as the lexicon includes in their definition of the Greek word sperma, that this idea of seed IS: whatever possesses vital force or life giving power of divine energy of the Holy Spirit operating within the soul by which we are regenerated 2, we can likely see deeper into this idea. And if we can see this word as Vincent shows us, that this seed IS: the divine principle of life 4, we can better understand the dynamic relationships. Here then we can see the equivalence of righteousness, of not DOING according to the ways of the world which IS the essence of sin, and of Love which IS for us the equivalence to keeping His words as we read from Paul’s words saying: “all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Galatians 5:14). Can we see how that this ALL works together? It IS perhaps in the equivalency of terms that many ARE confused and confounded by the words of the Master and His apostles and we should see in this the how that the parabolic nature of their words IS extended. Taking then this idea of “born of God“, and the righteousness, and sense of keeping His words, that John shows us along with the Master’s words on righteousness as being a Quality of God, we can then relate these ideas to the Master’s words to Nicodemus saying “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).
In the deeper ideas that we can relate to the Master’s use of the Greek word rendered as see, we should be able to understand that the reality here IS NOT the eye, nor IS it any of the physical senses. The reality here IS one’s realization of that Kingdom that IS within and the ‘residents’ of that Kingdom in the Christ and the Father. And this realization IS that same grace, that same Presence that the Master tells us of above and in this we can see yet deeper into the equivalency of these ideas and these words. And such IS the reality of the ideas from Paul that we presented in the last essay, ideas that rest in the reality of keeping His words and which ARE then equivalent to those ideas of realized divinity that we discuss above; it IS the man who can enter the Kingdom of God that keeps His words and it IS this man that we read of above in His words that “God dwelleth in him, and he in God“; it IS this man who would “be in Christ” along with the other parallels that we have drawn saying:
- As the man who “be in Christ“, that IS one who dwells in Him which IS the reality of “God dwelleth in him, and he in God” as the Master says above, that “if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
- As the man who finds the Peace of the Presence of God through the realization that comes in moving one’s focus from the things of the world to the things of God which Paul frames for us as “Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace” (Ephesians 2:15).
- As the man who has His Presence, the man who “hath my commandments, and keepeth them“, that he “put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Ephesians 4:24).
- As the man who has Transformed himself from the ways of the world and has “put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him” (Colossians 3:10).
It IS ALL of these ideas and these words that show us the dynamic state of the man who keeps His words and in the simple idea of this man who has the full realization of the Presence of God, we have ALL of these other ideas covered. This IS the Kingdom, this IS discipleship and this IS the reality of being “born again” and we should ever understand how these things come upon the man by degree, by the same measure that he focuses upon the things of God. This shift of focus from the self in the world to the things of God IS the basic Truth and teaching of the gospels and the epistles and it IS this shift that begins with the Repentance of the man in the world as he begins to heed the prompting of his own Soul to the Good, the Beautiful and the True, the prompting to focus upon the things of God.
We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.
| Aspect |
Potency |
Aspect of Man |
In Relation to the Great Invocation |
In relation to the Christ |
|
GOD, The Father |
Will or Power |
Spirit or Life |
Center where the Will of God IS KNOWN |
Life |
|
Son, The Christ |
Love and Wisdom |
Soul or Christ Within |
Heart of God |
Truth |
|
Holy Spirit |
Light or Activity |
Life Within |
Mind of God |
Way |
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.
Repeating a Quote of the Day from the past that has some significance in relation to what we are discussing here, that the Kingdom of God and therefore God is within us ALL and that it IS His Presence which a man realizes by measure as he begins his journey to the Kingdom of God. Here Lord Tennyson poetically tells us just how close God Truly IS and how it is that we touch Him
Speak to Him, thou, for He hears,
and Spirit with Spirit can meet
Closer is He than breathing,
and nearer than hands and feet.
(Alfred, Lord Tennyson 1809–1892)
From the poem The Higher Pantheism which puts forth the authors spiritual belief. Whether we agree with him or not, the quote if spiritually perfect for all of Christianity as well as any other world religion.
The thought behind the idea above IS NOT unlike that which we have been carrying as our Quote of the Day for many essays; It IS in the closeness that Lord Tennyson shows us that we should see the idea that “God dwells in the inner part of every man” which we read in the previous Quote of the Day. For us this saying and the previous one show us the closeness of the spiritual self to the Father and then too the closeness of the spiritual self with the personality of man. Men may like to think of God as something outside and above but the reality, as we have seen in so many of the sayings of the Master, is that God is with us and in us and we need only to let ourselves be drawn and to focus upon Him. And, if we can use these words from the Gospel of Thomas here we can perhaps see much: “When you come to know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will realize that you are the children of the living Father“
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
