Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
ON LOVE; PART CCLXII
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
“Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart” (Ephesians 4:13-18).
When we can see the intent in the Old Testament words of Jehovah that are given to the world through Moses over 3500 years ago, we will see that the words on Love and the interrelationships in Active GoodWill between a man and his neighbor, his brother and the stranger who qualifies as both, are of Supreme importance in the ability of the man in those days to keep His words and be subject to the positive side of the promises which are in a large part corporate and not individual. The words of the Lord through Moses are rather clear: “Wherefore it shall come to pass, if ye hearken to these judgments, and keep, and do them, that the LORD thy God shall keep unto thee the covenant and the mercy which he sware unto thy fathers: And he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee: he will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep, in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee. Thou shalt be blessed above all people: there shall not be male or female barren among you, or among your cattle” (Deuteronomy 7:12-14). In this IS the establishment of the law and the responsibility of each man as well as the responsibility of the state to ensure their doing and, as one reads the Old Testament text he will see that so much of this recorded law is in regard to the punishment and the atonement for sins committed by the individual and the assumed transgressions of the nation. This being said, we should at the same time realize that the majority of the law IS in regard to the interrelationships of the people and the individual’s actions within these and, aside from the the so called Five Books of Moses or the Pentateuch, the remainder of the Old Testament is a story about the brief successes and the many failures of the Jewish society through the periods of the Judges and the Kings. There is much in this reading that IS contrary to the Truth of God, there is much wrath and anger and many severe punishments as well as many wars in which the Lord takes a rather active part. There is even the strange story about Elisha, the prophetic successor to Elijah, which reads thus: “And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up , thou bald head; go up , thou bald head. And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them. And he went from thence to mount Carmel, and from thence he returned to Samaria” (2 Kings 2:23-25). Here today we can and should see that this IS NOT God’s actions as we KNOW God and this simply because “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16).
We have ofttimes reminded that these were barbaric times and that these were superstitious and emotionally driven people and we should add here that these are a people who required a stern hand and a strong law to keep them and to remind them of the Truth of Life and the newer teachings in this time of the ONE God, Transcendent and above ALL. It is written and understood in esoteric circles that there is never a time where mankind is left to flounder in this world where he IS subjected to the vanity, the illusion and the glamour, without some form of divine guidance and we should see that the guidance is meet for the times and not too far beyond the existing social conventions so as to be utterly alien to the people. And we have such a time here with these Jews in the wilderness as they are brought out of Egypt and we should understand here that the divine conventions put in place are not the same as those in Abraham’s time, over 600 years earlier, nor in the time of the Prophets which is about 700 years after the Exodus. There IS an evolution of thought and of humanity generally over this period and while we DO NOT KNOW much about Abraham’s time, we can see from the written text the degree of barbarism in the ‘corrective actions’ by ‘God’ at Sodom and Gomorrah and at the slaughter of the kings both of which are found in the early parts of the Book of Genesis. At the same time there is much KNOWN regarding the major Prophets of the Old Testament who are frequently quoted by the Master and His apostles and here, while barbarism still reigns and the ‘punishments’ of the people still continue, we see a pulling back of the direct influence of the Lord and the personal responsibility for the state now found in the action of the individual kings or better, their individual reigns. We can see, if we so look, the individual responsibility of man as represented by the story of Abraham and his descendants along with the ‘personal’ guidance of the God Within who speaks with the man in the world when the personality is Truly listening and we see here that the rewards are some strange combination of those opposites of God and mammon while the punishments are isolation and even death. This results in the captivity if your will of the Jewish people as they are kept in Egypt for 400 years in which time the revert back totally to the ways of the world and we should note here that this IS a part of the Plan of God as Abraham is told this by the Lord saying in more than prediction that: “Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years” (Genesis 15:13). This then brings us to Moses, the deliverer, and the giver of the law which we discuss briefly above and the sense of corporateness rather than individuality in regards to keeping the law although we must see that the corporate is the totality of the individuals. Here, an elaborate ritualistic mechanism is put into place that says to us today that while there is NO expectation of the corporate adherence to the law, that this system of sacrifice and holy days IS intended to keep the mind of the man on God and to give him cover, both individually and corporately, from the harshness of the law if he willingly complies in the ritual practices as he tries to adapt.
But these things become rote and they lose their spiritual impact and stand then as merely the law that must be followed to avoid the ‘wrath’ of God. Life in Israel goes forward then into the time of the Judges who become mediators of the rights and wrongs of the people and then to the Kings of which we have a long list, and here we see the splitting of the Nation into two parts with the one comprised of the Ten Tribes and called Israel falling further and further away from the Truth of the law and the other, called Judah, where the standing of the people with God and His laws varies dependent upon the king and his reign. It IS in this time of the Kings that the major Prophets come and interpret for the people the newer realities found in the law as well as their making prophetic pronouncements regarding the future should the path of the kings continue to bring the people away from the law. By example here we can look to the ritualistic killing of animals in atoning sacrifices for the individual and corporate sins of the people which IS done according to law but at the same time is done because the law is not followed and in the lack of True understanding of this; even the understanding of the Wise King Solomon of whom we read “And the king, and all Israel with him, offered sacrifice before the LORD. 63 And Solomon offered a sacrifice of peace offerings, which he offered unto the LORD, two and twenty thousand oxen, and an hundred and twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the children of Israel dedicated the house of the LORD” (1 Kings 8:62-63) DOES NOT see the Truth of the laws of sacrifice. Can we but imagine the enormity of this undertaking as it is done in accordance with the prescribed ways which themselves are onerous and can we see the emotional and the mental state of the society that does this? This is spoken about as a credit to the King, as a sign of his devotion and Love for God, but it misses the point of why there is such sacrifice in the first place. We should note here that Solomon is among the first of the kings and the last to serve as king before the split of the nation, which split he is partly the cause of, and we should note as well that this is the beginning of the further downward spiraling of the nation and the spiritual degradation of the society. Here also we have the beginning of the times and the roles of the prophets, as well as their newer and better interpretations of the law, better because the society had advanced despite the apparent dysfunctional relationship with their sense of God. It is in this time of the prophets that a deeper understanding of the law is offered to the people but it is offered in the guise of prophesy and much IS not comprehended or else it is ignored only to be better understood by succeeding generations and ofttimes only after the prophecy had been fulfilled. And here, by example we point to this saying in prophecy that the Master chooses to repeat saying to the Pharisees and the religious rulers of the Jews: “But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice” (Matthew 9:13) which saying echoes that of the Prophet Hosea who, speaking for the Lord, says: “For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings” (Hosea 6:6). This in turn echoes these words from the Prophet Isaiah who speaks with many words, in the same time frame, to the remnant that IS Judah.
“Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah. Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. (Isaiah 1:214).
All through his warning and this reinterpretation of the words of the law, the prophet is largely ignored as we note in the reality that these sacrifices are still going on in Jesus’ day and continue until the sacking of the Temple some 35 years after His crucifixion. And not that this is an isolated point of ignoring the writings of the prophet or at best interpreting them in the more convenient way to suit the needs of the people; there are the many prophecies regarding Christ as well which take no effect even though He is among them in the world. We should see in All of this the role of illusion and of glamour and the words of the Apostle Paul on vanity as the people see and hear only what they choose to as men in the world and only what is good for the self and this is not unlike today. We should note as well that there are some who ARE aware in Jesus day and the gospels bring this to Light in this saying from Mark’s Gospel as the scribe, who asks Jesus “Which is the first commandment of all?“, hears His response as the commandments on Love as His pronouncement of the Great Commandments and His acclimation that “There is none other commandment greater than these“; the scribe then retorts: “Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he: And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices“. Here this scribe, a scholar at the law, understands the progression of the law and the reality of it and this causes the apostles comment and the Master’s reply saying: “And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God” (Mark 12:28, 32-34). And this word rendered as discreetly is better rendered as wisely.
In this idea of scribe we should see the same as we say a few posts back of the use of the word lawyer in Luke’s Gospel and we should try to see here that there are some who do understand but that they are likely not very outspoken as the dominant or authoritative persons may have believed quite differently. And we get a taste of this reality from sayings such as these:
- “There was a man of the Pharisees, named *Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night” (John 3:1-2).
- “And there was much murmuring among the people concerning him: for some said *, He is a good man: others *said , Nay; but he deceiveth the people. Howbeit no man spake openly of him for fear of the Jews” (John 7:12-13).
- “And after this Joseph of Arimathaea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore, and took the body of Jesus“. (John 19:38).
The dynamic we see at play here is likely a continuation of what had ever been happening in the Jewish culture and this is not much different than what happens today as self expression tends to be stifled by the fundamentalist attitudes of those who follow the lead of the religious, political or social groups in which they find themselves; often by birth and seldom by choice. Can we see that it is likely in recognition of this habit of following that stories such as that of the scribe above are reported in such detail? And this habit is a hard one to break as is evidenced by the many Jew’s in Jesus’ day who DO NOT allow themselves to see the reality of the Master’s Life and His works as the reality that He IS the Messiah.
Our overall point here is that there IS an evolution in the thoughts of man regarding the law and this from a corresponding evolution in the teachings of the Truth of the law and these realities are found spread throughout the Old Testament for those who can break the bond of doctrine and seek them out. And the teachings of the Master give us clue to these realities as while on the one hand He tells us that “For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled” (Matthew 5:18), on the other hand he tells us of the conversion of the law from the corporate reality and the harshness of the Books of Moses to the place where the law is subservient to Love. The Master tells us of this subservience in so much of what He says but especially in the uplifting of the Great Commandments to that status above ALL others. And not only this, we should note as well the ideas incorporated in His simple sayings from the Sermon on the Mount like:
- “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill ; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say , Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire” (Matthew 5:21-22).
- “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart” (Matthew 5:27:28).
- “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you” (Matthew 5:43-44).
We may think or say that before the Master they had the words of the law and that after the Master we have the heart of the law and this would be True. But it IS also True that the prophets began this process hundreds of years before but their message was muted by the powers and the authority of the religious leaders who, although they may have believed their own teachings, were acting on behalf of the self and the self in the world and not on God’s behalf. And here we see that the human phenomenon that puts the self ahead of ALL has its roots in antiquity and this IS the message of Paul on vanity and this IS our message regarding the illusion and the glamour with which humanity struggles yet today and, within the grasp of this same illusion and glamour, man’s most basic beliefs are based upon the perceived authority of those who profess to KNOW, who profess to have special guidance, and in this man continues to follow even when in his heart of hearts he DOES NOT Truly agree. And we see in our words today that the word of God was not and IS NOT stagnant but that it is ever evolving, ever changing to meet the needs of any particular generation and it is only the illusion and the glamour that are amplified by the pronouncements of those who claim to KNOW which can keep man captive. The way out is clearly stated by the Master as He tells us this while in part quoting the prophet: “And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see and shall not perceive: For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them” (Matthew 13:14-15).
And to those who stop following blindly behind the leaders, to those who exercise their own spiritual reality and break the mold of doctrine; to the disciple and to the aspirant He says: “But blessed are your eyes, for they see : and your ears, for they hear. For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them” (Matthew 13:16-17).
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.
Staying on the theme of Love we repeat again the sayings of the Apostle Paul that put this Love into perspective.
But earnestly desire the best gifts. And yet I show you a more excellent way. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 12:31, 13:1-13 (New King James Version)Regardless of our daily theme, the underlying theme of our posts and of this entire blog is Love. In these words from Paul we should be able to see the overriding importance of Love in the Life of each of us. This is a common theme throughout the gospels and the other writings of the apostles and a theme that is not nearly understood. In our theme today regarding Paul’s writings to the Romans and in the previous discussions on them we seek to impart the better understanding of the reality of Life, the Life of the True man as the Christ Within, the Soul, as it is from this perspective that we can gain that revelation of Truth and, as Paul says above, be free from the condemnation and the vanity of Life in form, free from the illusion and the glamour. We repeat here what we said about these verses in a prior post:
Today’s Quote of the Day from the Apostle Paul is his testimony to the power of Love. After speaking at length about the gifts of the Spirit that one should desire in order to be of service to the Lord, he says plainly that Love is a more excellent way. Love in the context of these verses is not the sentimental or affectionate kind that we ordinarily think of but rather 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. This defining of Love is covered in some depth in a previous post; In the Words of Jesus part 47.
