Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
ON LOVE; PART LXXXVI
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•Α
“And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it. If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live , ye shall live also. 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 14:13-26).
Our overriding message here should be that as Christian’s, one should not be looking back to the Old Testament for Life instructions as the instruction given there is archaic and pointed toward the people of that day and that culture. Furthermore, the end result is to be the same in regards to one’s worthiness of reward. That is that even if a man believes that the Old Testament material rewards of possessions and lands and great harvests and even long Earthly Life are for the man of this day, he should also believe that the requirements are FULL compliance with the laws as there is no substitute given that washes these requirements away and replaces them with believing in Christ Jesus. We should here also remember that the reality of believing in or believing on the Christ is to keep His words which are inclusive of the commandments of the Old Testament in principal if not in actual fact as the laws of Moses are very verbose and are given in a time where there is little codification of one’s civil responsibility. For us who KNOW some Truth, the reality of our believing in the Master is as we read it in Vincent’s writings and which we repeat here so that we KNOW that affirmation of devotion is not the key but rather it is one’s actions in Love and GoodWill. Vincent tells us that:
To believe in, or on, is more than mere acceptance of a statement. It is so to accept a statement or a person as to rest upon them, to trust them practically; to draw upon and avail one’s self of all that is offered to him in them. Hence to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ is not merely to believe the facts of His historic life or of His saving energy as facts, but to accept Him as Savior, Teacher, Sympathizer, Judge; to rest the soul upon Him for present and future salvation, and to accept and adopt His precepts and example as binding upon the life.4
We should understand also that Being half righteous does not give one half reward is the Truth of spiritual Life then and now and in this we can likely glimpse the idea that the man in Moses days that fulfilled ALL of the law was in his time as much a disciple as the man today who keeps ALL of the teachings of the Christ. This reality is reflected upon by the Apostle James who tells us unequivocally that:
“If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye dowell: But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors. For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit adultery , said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty” (James 2:8-12).
This is an important principal that is not given proper weight by any denomination or sect and the proper understanding is offered for us in most ALL translations; for example:
- New International Version (NIV) “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it”
- Douay-Rheims (RHE) “And whosoever shall keep the whole law, but offend in one point, is become guilty of all“
- Good News Translation (GNT) “Whoever breaks one commandment is guilty of breaking them all. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all“
- New Living Translation (NLT) “And the person who keeps all of the laws except one is as guilty as the person who has broken all of God’s laws“
Can we see the stark reality painted for us by the apostle and held firm in the various translations. We especially should understand that included in the list of commandments is the Love for one’s neighbor, or brother and stranger as we read in the Old Testament, and this is specifically pointed out in our text from James above. Can we see in this the reality of the Master’s admonishment that we must strive and His caution that the way is not easy as He says to us that: “Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in , and shall not be able” (Luke 13:24).
The reality in this all is not hidden from view or offered in deep parables but it is largely ignored in favor of the doctrines that at times teach contrary messages and while these messages may offer comfort and safe harbor to the masses, they are at the same time a delusion that causes many to believe that they are at the gates of heaven. Unfortunately the gate is only that one fabricated in the doctrines but, as we have said before, these delusions can be beneficial to the spiritual Life of many who would otherwise have no spiritual Life at all. Yet, one can not help but to wonder where the civilization would be if the Truth of the Master’s teachings were KNOWN down the centuries; would we have any better striven for the promise of the Kingdom or would we have acted as did the Jews in the prior dispensation doing things by wrote instead of the heart?
Neither is the reality of our main subject which is desire as it is depicted by the Master in forsaking ALL an in His admonition that we “take no thought” hidden in any way; here too the thoughts are rather clearly given especially in the idea of forsaking ALL. In our opinion, this forsaking ALL is a forgotten theme and the Master’s admonition is reinterpreted by doctrine to mean that one should not worry and even with this idea of worry there are many in the churches today who cannot help but to do so.
There is much about desire in the New Testament that does not bear this word as its name but which are allied thoughts as are the two above, forsaking ALL and to “take no thought“. If ALL things are forsaken it is because a man has overcome the desire to have them; he sees that compared with the “glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21), ALL things of this world are rather meaningless and temporal and fall well into the sentiment of Solomon when he tells us that “As he came forth of his mother’s womb, naked shall he return to go as he came, and shall take nothing of his labour, which he may carry away in his hand” (Ecclesiastes 5:15). We should also see that this idea of forsaking includes ALL which makes this to extend to family and friends, likes and dislikes….it includes ALL things. The Master makes clear the reality family in His own understanding of the terms; He tells us this Truth in this exchange from Matthew’s Gospel:
“While he yet talked to the people, behold , his mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him. Then one said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee. But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother” (Matthew 12:46-50).
Can we see the reality in these words, the reality that we should let seep into our own lives? Can we see that these blood relationships are relationships of the world and that as the True man, the Christ Within expressing through form as we see in the Life of the Master, we recognize ALL who are expressing this same way as our True brethren as regards our view of the man in the world. Of course we must place ourselves into this position of expressing divinity to properly understand this but we should at the same time be able to glimpse this reality.
We have then the idea of forsaking being of itself a form of cessation of desire which is the theme that we find in the words of the Buddha that we posted for several days recently. We find this cessation of desire in the Master’s admonition to “take no thought” as well and here we see the idea that if we are desiring something we are thinking about it, it floods our mind and our emotions and, if no thing else, keeps our focus upon the things desired and upon the world. These things can quickly become the treasure of one’s heart and in these sayings by the Master we should also be able to see the role of desire. The Master tells us that “For where your treasure is , there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:21) and we see this treasure as what a man focuses upon, what he attends to which is the same understanding regarding desire as a man will focus upon and attend to his own desires. The Master is rather clear in this concept saying in another place that: “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh” (Luke 6:45).
We must understand the ideas of sin and evil as the focus of the man on the things of the world and, in this context, this focus upon those things is desire for those things. We have discussed these ideas before and gave them much attention in In the Words of Jesus part 401 where we say in conclusion that: Can we see the confusion in the understanding of this word? Not only in its usage in the gospels and epistles but in the various ideas given by the ‘authorities’ on its meaning. No doubt there is evil and there is evil spoken of in the New Testament but this word and this usage do not measure up to the common understanding and it is in this realization that a man can come to the better conclusion, that he IS included in what the apostle is saying and what the Master is saying regarding sin and evil as these words do, in so many places, refer to the natural ways of man in the world and not to the extraordinarily bad things that a man can do to another. Another way of looking at this is in the defining terms for sin; According to the lexicon, the Greek word harmartano which is translated as sin means to be without a share in; to miss the mark; to err, be mistaken; to miss or wander from the path of uprightness and honour, to do or go wrong; to wander from the law of God, violate God’s law, sin 2. There is nothing here that gives us the same understanding as the common use of the word sin which is defined in modern terms as 1. transgression of divine law: the sin of Adam. 2. any act regarded as such a transgression, especially a willful or deliberate violation of some religious or moral principle. 3. any reprehensible or regrettable action, behavior, lapse, etc.; great fault or offense: It’s a sin to waste time.7
Taking the common meaning, we should be able to see that the reality of the two Greatest Commandments is a transgression of divine law yet at the same time it is not considered a sin by man’s common morality. At the same time the common morality seems to limit sin to the egregious acts that a man can do while the lexicon tells us that simply missing the mark is sin and this missing should be construed as not keeping to the precepts of the Lord, any precept. Our proper understanding of these ideas of evil and sin can help us to see that ALL that a man does that IS NOT in concert with the words of the Lord is sin and is evil and hence we ascribe to these words the sense of focusing on as attending to the things of the world instead of the proper focus upon the things of God and here we bring this all back to the idea of desire.
The apostles have much to say about these ideas as well as we close today with this from the Apostle John:
“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away , and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever” (1 John 2:15-17).
We will discuss this and cite other examples of the apostles comments on desire in future essays and we should see here that the lower side of Love is from John’s perspective desire and that this desire should not be expressed toward the world or the things of the world.
|
Potency |
Aspect of Man |
In relation to the Christ |
|
GOD, The Father |
Will or Power |
Spirit or Life |
Life |
|
Son, The Christ |
Love and Wisdom |
Soul or Christ Within |
Truth |
|
Holy Spirit |
Light or Activity |
Life Within |
Way |
We will continue with our thoughts in the next post as we continue with our use of the Great Invocation as the Quote of the Day.
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.:
Today we post a World Prayer that is also included in the Prayers and Meditation section with some explanation of its source and its use. We are entering a time of the year which we can consider more sacred by way of the newness of Spring which should reflect in our newness of Life. This is the Festival of Easter and a time of rejoicing; not only for the Resurrection of the Lord from the Christian perspective but also for the teaching that is incorporated in the Master’s sacrifice 2000 years ago and in His continued sacrifice. We should remember His parting words: “I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (Matthew 28:20)
From the point of Light within the Mind of God
Let light stream forth into the minds of men.
Let Light descend on Earth.
From the point of Love within the Heart of God
Let love stream forth into the hearts of men.
May Christ return to Earth.
From the centre where the Will of God is known
Let purpose guide the little wills of men–
The purpose which the Masters know and serve.
From the centre which we call the race of men
Let the Plan of Love and Light work out
And may it seal the door where evil dwells.
Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth.
- 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
