ON LOVE; PART M

ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•Α

GoodWill IS Love in Action

ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•Α

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).

ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ

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

ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ

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 our ideas that relate ALL things spiritual to the grace of God as this should be understood. His grace, while it IS free and perhaps can be called a gift, there IS a certain quid pro quo involved. While the common idea of gift IS that it IS: something given voluntarily without payment in return or something bestowed or acquired without any particular effort by the recipient or without its being earned ⁷ as we read in today’s dictionary, there IS a greater reality to the way that this Greek words dorea and doron ARE intended. For us the gift IS something given and in our context of something given by God there IS ONLY grace which comes to men in many different ways.

Among the gifts that ARE found in the New Testament we find “the gift of the Holy Ghost” and here we should see that to receive such gift a man must “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins” (Acts 2:28). In our view of this idea there IS a quid pro quo and if we can understand the Truth of Repentance as the change of one’s focus off of the things of the world and onto the things of God and see the reality of being baptized an a man’s immersion into that focus upon God, we can see the reality of the flow of grace as that man’s realization of the Truth….his realization of the Spirit Within. As we so often note, much of the doctrinal ideas of Truth are formed from out of context verses and words and in this it IS easy to misunderstand the intent of the Master’s words and the words of His apostles. Another example of the common view of the idea of gifts IS in Paul’s words saying: “the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life“.

Standing alone there IS NO exchange in this idea of the gift and Vincent tells us that this should be seen as: Rev., rightly, free gift (compare Romans 5:15). In sharp contrast with wages ⁴. Vincent’s emphasis IS on the idea that this gift IS free but when we look at the context we can see that there IS a quid pro quo and that this word that IS rendered as gift IS from another Greek word, charisma, which IS derived from charis and which IS defined as grace. In context we read:

“But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed ? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:17-23).

While the ideas here ARE rather clearly defined, the point IS missed by doctrines that see ONLY the closing line. Here in the reality of fruit we should be able to see and to understand the flow of grace and the natural exchanges that the apostle highlights. Speaking to men who “were the servants of sin“, men whose focus was upon themselves and the things of the self in the world, he shows them how that they “have obeyed from the heart” and in this ARE “made free from sin“. It IS then by this freedom that they “became the servants of righteousness“. Paul shows them the contrast and implores them to continue, to “now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness“; and he shows them the reality of Life that IS based in this continuing: that in place of that “fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed” that they now have “fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life“. And why this fruit? simply because they ARE “made free from sin, and become servants to God“. Can we see the quid pro quo here which IS the same as that which is found throughout our trifecta of spiritual reality which we repeat here again saying:

• “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free“ (John 8:31-32).
• “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).
• “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).

In each of these idea IS that same gift of grace which IS the revelations and realizations by the man in this world of the Truth, the Presence of God and the Kingdom of God; this IS the gift and this IS the grace. Through these ideas we should try to understand the twofold nature of the “the fruit of the Spirit“; on the one part it IS the inflow of grace into the conscious mind of the man in the world, an inflow that IS motivated by and IS the revelation of Truth to the man who will keep His words and, by measure, to the man who will strive to DO so. On the other part IS the expression of the fruit received which IS one’s use of the realization of the grace of God by the man in the world. Perhaps here in this idea we can glimpse the intent behind Paul’s use of those two words which can be rendered as goodness and see the way that ἀγαθωσύνη energizes the χρηστότης ⁴ , as Vincent shows us, which IS to say that agathosune energizes the chrestotes. In our text from Paul this would read as that the goodness energizes the kindness. Repeating the apostle’s words again we read:

“For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts” (Galatians  5:17-24).

If we can equate the ideas of grace and gift which IS from the Greek word charisma which IS always rendered as gift and which has its roots in charis which we KNOW as grace, we can then take ALL these word ideas and relate them to ALL that comes to a man from the Godhead. This takes away the rather nebulous ideas attached to grace and this simplifies our understanding according to the trifecta above. We should try to see here that ALL that comes from God IS spiritual and that ALL things spiritual ARE the revelations that ARE shown to the consciousness of the man from his own Soul which IS part and parcel of God. This IS grace, this IS fruit, this IS Truth and this IS the product of a man’s focus upon the things of God. Here, while the Soul IS ever prompting his consciousness in form with these revelations, it IS ONLY in one’s focus upon the things of God that these can be glimpsed; and it IS only in this glimpse and one’s striving toward its realization by expression that this CAN be seen as fruit in the Life of the man in this world.

Here we can perhaps more clearly see the idea of the twofold nature of fruit as this IS presented by Jesus and by His apostle’s. We must remember here that there IS a great limitation in the words that we can use to describe the ideas that ARE presented by the parabolic use of Greek words. This understood, we should try to see how that by the very description of this fruit as “the fruit of the Spirit” that it DOES come from God. As Jesus tells us that “God is a Spirit” (John 4:24), we should remember how that Vincent shows us this. Citing the Revised Version which renders this as “God is spirit“, he tells us: Spirit is the emphatic word; Spirit is God. The phrase describes the nature, not the personality of God. Compare the expressions, God is light; God is love ⁴. If we can understand that “God is spirit” and can understand that the True man IS also Spirit, then we can see that the reality of “the fruit of the Spirit” IS such that comes from God and thereby from the Spirit of man.

On the other hand, this idea of fruit must be seen as Jesus presents this, as the expression by the man in this world. If it IS True that “by their fruits ye shall know them” (Matthew 7:20), then we must be able to see such fruit in ourselves and in others….we must be able to see the expression of this fruit. At the same time we should be able to see how that a man can produce this fruit in his life “some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some an hundred” (Mark 4:20) through what the Apostle Luke tells us IS  to “having heard the word, keep it” (Luke 8:15). In this we should try to see that as this fruit comes into the realization of the man in the world which IS his measure of grace, that this fruit becomes his expression, he “beareth fruit , and bringeth forth” (Matthew 13:23) and at such time as one can “bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples” (John 15:8).

It IS in this twofold nature of grace, of fruit, and even of faith that we should try to see the twofold nature of the idea of goodness which we can better understand as GoodWill. In the idea that agathosune energizes the chrestotes we can see how that this works out in the Life of the man whose focus IS upon God. There IS grace received as the Will to Good and there IS grace dispensed as GoodWill toward ALL. It IS in this same way that we have tried to understand Paul’s use of chara which IS rendered as joy and which also comes from the same root word as DOES charis which IS grace. Under the umbrella idea of Love which IS the first in Paul’s list of “the fruit of the Spirit” we have then the inflow of grace or the expression of it as chara and the expressions then also of Peace and longsuffering as we have previously discussed. Chara and charis ARE sister words, both ARE from the same root chairo and, based upon the way that yet another sister word IS rendered as gift, we should try to see that NONE of these ideas ARE properly presented in spiritual terms by doctrine.

However, in our search for the Truth of Paul’s list of “the fruit of the Spirit” NONE of this Truly matters; it IS ONLY that the common idea of joy should be replaced by some sense of grace as something from God that IS then expressed to the world of men as a “fruit of the Spirit” that IS important. In this view the idea of grace as ALL things that come from God works from either side of what we see as a twofold nature and this same IS True of our current words that ARE rendered as kindness and goodness….the one, goodness, agathosune, flowing into the Life of a man from the Soul and the other goodness, chrestotes, flowing out of his Life toward ALL others as GoodWill. Perhaps we can make this clearer in saying that agathosune IS the Will to Good, as part of the Will of God and thereby the God and Christ Within, while chrestotes IS GoodWill or the expression of the Love of God to men.

In ALL of this we are trying to see that the common ideas of joy and of kindness DO NOT meet the criteria of a “fruit of the Spirit” and must have deeper meanings which we have likely touched upon over the course of this discussion. Similarly the common ideas of Peace and patience DO NOT meet the criteria which we have discerned from Jesus’ words regarding such”fruit of the Spirit” nor the very idea that comes in this phrase. Peace and patience however ARE easier to understand as fruit when we apply the words of Jesus and the reality of understanding that comes in the grace and that must perforce be a component of such fruit. Simply this “fruit of the Spirit” IS spiritual and comes from the Spirit which IS God and IS, for lack of any better idea, His grace.

We will continue with our thoughts in the next post. 

Aspect of  God	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.

This Quote of the Day is the antithesis of glamour and illusion. In this mantram are the thoughts about ourselves and our brothers in the world that can diffuse these forces that hold a man in the world of things and prevent his spiritual progress.

Mantram of Unification

The sons of men are one and I am one with them.
I seek to love, not hate;
I seek to serve and not exact due service;
I seek to heal, not hurt.

Let pain bring due reward of light and love.
Let the Soul control the outer form, and life and all events,
And bring to light the love that underlies the happenings of the time.

Let vision come and insight.
Let the future stand revealed.
Let inner union demonstrate and outer cleavages be gone.
Let love prevail.
Let all men love.

The Mantram of Unification is a meditation and a prayer that at first affirms the unity of all men and the Brotherhood of Man based on the Fatherhood of God. The first stanza sets forth several truly Christian ideals in Unity, Love, Service and Healing. The second stanza is a invocation to the Lord and to our own Souls asking that from the pain (if there can truly be any) incurred in focusing on the Spirit and not the world will come Light and Love into our lives and that we begin to function as Souls through our conscious personalities. We ask that the spiritual control of our lives will bring to light for us the Love that underlies world events; a Love that the world oriented man will not see working out behind the scenes and also that the Love that we bring forth, individually and as a world group, can be seen by all and ultimately in all. Finally, in the last stanza we ask for those things that are needed for Love to abound. Vision and insight so that we can direct our attention properly; revelation of the future in the sense that all can see the Power of Love in the world; inner union so that we do not fall back into the world’s ways, that we faint not; and that a sense of separation, the antithesis of brotherhood, ends as we know it today. Let Love Prevail, Let All Men Love.

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
• ⁷ Dictionary.com Unabridged based on Random House Dictionary – 2011