IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 907

ON LOVE; PART CDXCVI

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GoodWill IS Love in Action

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“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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“Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:36-40).

Our last essay continued with the words of the Apostle John’s First Epistle where we are told that “God is love” and we are told this two times in a short span of verses. The first instance is in regard to our Love for each other where we read: “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and 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). In this we should find the criteria for ALL else that He says regarding being “of God” and being “born of God” which, as we discussed in the last post, have uniquely different intentions. The idea of being “of God” is offered in regard to KNOWING what IS the overall intent of a person and while John uses this in regard to teachers, we should note that it reaches across ALL men. Here in these words we painted the picture of the aspirant and the man who is still focused in himself in the world and this John paints as the KNOWING the difference between “the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error” (1 John 4:6). The point that we tried to establish in the last essay is just this, that this level of KNOWING God, of KNOWING what IS of God and what is of the world, revolves around the idea of confessing the Lord which IS, as Vincent helps us to see, that it implies identification of the confessor with the confessed, and thus takes confession out of the category of mere formal or verbal acknowledgment ⁴. This IS an important point in much the same way as the True ideas believing in or on the Master and having True faith as we have been discussing. None of these terms can be seen to be the mere acknowledgement that is emotionally or mentally based; these MUST be seen as spiritual, as flowing into the Life of the man from above, from the Soul, as it IS here that the Truth of KNOWING exists.

In John’s words here we should take the idea that to confess the Master is to acknowledge Him and more; it is to realize and understand His divine nature, to identify with Him and strive to keep His words. To merely acknowledge that the Master IS the Christ and is of God has no spiritual benefit unless one is at least striving to do as He instructs and while Vincent recalled the words from Matthew saying “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 7:21) as his example of the Master’s own use of these ideas, he leaves out the end part on DOING as He says: “he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven“. And We should also look at this similar saying from Luke, that rhetorical question that the Master asks saying: “why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). The message here IS the same from this perspective of saying or of confessing, that while these may be important steps they ARE NOT the end; the end IS in DOING. So in John’s words here we have this reality, that confessing the Master is to strive to DO as He says and this IS the great separation between Truth and error; this IS where one begins to see and to understand the illusion and the glamour, that those things of the world ARE error from a spiritual perspective. The apostle goes on to tell us that it IS here, in this True spirit of confession, that one can overcome those who speak and act in error and this should be seen to include one’s own carnal self. Here in this idea of overcoming we should see that degree of KNOWING that enables one to begin to see the Truth. It is here that the man can see the reality that those who do not have this same sense of confession “are of the world: therefore speak they of the world“. This IS the dividing line; it is these who “are of the world” on the one side and those who “are of God” on the other.

This leads up to the first instance of  “God is love” that we began with above; the apostle sets the stage for us by identifying this dividing line; on the one side we see the aspirant who is such by degree and on the other side we have the man whose Life is still firmly fixed in the world and this too is by degree; as we have said previously, this latter group encompasses even the religious who are not Truly striving to keep His words. We should not be mistaken here but should understand that the confession of which the apostle speaks IS NOT the mere affirmation of any thing; it IS NOT in reciting NOR IS it in any form of ritual; this is a intensely personal endeavor of striving, of setting one’s goal as the Kingdom of God by keeping His words; there ARE NO shortcuts and, as the Apostle James tells us, if we ARE NOT DOING we ARE “deceiving your own selves“. And this sense of deception moves onward with the man; here we speak about confession and striving but this moves on to the end game  as well where we MUST be “doers of the word, and not hearers only”  (James 1:22); this idea of deception ever follows the man in the world until such time as he can Truly overcome the world; not the overcoming that we see above in this idea of confession but the level of it in which we can say with the Master that “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

John leads us from this idea of confession and our view of striving to the fullness of the idea of Love as in the words with which we began, the words of the first instance of “God is love“. This IS a separate thought, an additional idea for the man who has come to KNOW the Truth through confession, the Truth through realizing and understanding the Master’s divine nature where he will identify with Him and to strive to keep His words. It IS to these, the apostles affirmed audience, his confessed audience, that he goes on to say “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love“. Here perhaps the apostle is offering his own understanding that this part of keeping His words is a difficult endeavor and we, nearly 2000 years later, KNOW that this IS True; this Love that the Master teaches and that John amplifies and clarifies for us is significantly more difficult than most of the other parts of the law toward which men strive to accomplish. It IS here in Love that the apostle tells us that one IS “born of God” and here we should realize the words of the Apostle Paul that “For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself“. Can we see the reality of Life here in these ideas from the apostles, that it IS in the fulfillment of the Love that we are “born again” that we are “born of God” and that it IS in this that we take upon ourselves the very nature of the Master and of the Father because “God is love“?

We should see here why it IS our own mantram that says the the whole of our spiritual reality, both individual and corporate, begins and ends in Love and we should see as well the words of the Master at the top of our essay as they reflect the Great Commandments of which Jesus tells us that “There is none other commandment greater than these“. The second instance of John’s telling us that “God is love” is offered in a different context a bit further on in the fourth chapter of his epistle; we read: “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 4:16). Doctrine focuses upon the verses before this, the verses that are not so demanding regarding Love and that feed the sense of emotional and mental affirmation. From the doctrinal perspective the Truth IS seen in this part: “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein  is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins”  (1 John 4:9-10). There is much Truth in these words but this Truth is exaggerated by most doctrine and misunderstood by far too many. Jesus the Christ IS the “only begotten Son“, the ONLY time that “all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9) was made present in the Earth from His birth and whether one believes that the divine virgin birth IS real or not should not effect this reality of His divine Presence. And He does come that we “might live through him“, through His words and His example and the realization of our own essential divinity, our own Christ Within. In the final idea here of propitiation there is much confusion and much of the doctrine of atonement is fixed in these words; the word means appeasing according to the lexicon ² and conciliation according to the modern usage which tells us also that the verb propitiate means: to make favorably inclined; appease; conciliate ⁷. While the idea of the Master’s taking on the sins of the world is used by doctrine as the forgiveness of the sins of the individual for the man who confesses and believes according to their terms, the reality IS much deeper. Here we should see the simplicity of the idea that we ARE reconciled to God by our DOING here in this world; there is naught that can reconcile a man but this DOING and this begins of course with one’s striving; forgiveness is a separate issue here and is a supremely personal thing as it IS oneself that must forgive both others and oneself; it IS NOT the Transcendent God or Christ but it IS the God Within and the Christ Within that forgives in this True sense. So then we are reconciled to God by our DOING and our DOING is motivated by the Christ and our own view of Him through our own Christ Within; this IS the purpose of His birth and Life among us, to show us this way to God and to our own spiritual reality and, if the world were not in this state of sin, this state of worldly and self focus, then He would not have had to come among us as He did.

These ideas however put the onus upon the man in the world while the doctrinal view put the burden upon the Christ; the latter however IS but deception as we read in James that it IS only in the DOING that we can achieve. John continues saying that: “Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. 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 4:11-16). Much of this IS NOT seen clearly, especially those parts that do put the onus upon the man himself. Here again the concentration of doctrine is upon the ideas that are the more convenient as we read “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“. Here we have the misunderstood idea of the “Saviour of the world” and the misapplied idea of confession. The idea here of Savior is as a title according to doctrine and tradition; this word IS always rendered as Saviour in the King James Version but the lexicon tells us that this Greek word soter means: saviour, deliverer, preserver ² and  while other translations do render this as deliverer, the majority use Saviour. In the Truest sense this idea of saving can be seen as a reality but it is not by His atonement nor by His forgiveness nor any of those doctrinal ideas; the sense can only be Truly seen in the idea of His example and His words that each must follow; this IS how one IS saved….this IS how one IS “delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).

The more important parts of these words from John are not found in these two phrases on the Saviour and on confession, the important parts ARE found in the reality of the Love that each man must express in his Life in this world as it IS by this that one IS saved. In this Love the whole of the Law and the whole of His word are accomplished in the perfect application of Love. The beauty of the words is inescapable for any who take to the Path, for any who strive, as in these words we find the totality of our journey accomplished: “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 this Spirit IS the Christ Within and the activity of the Christ Within IS the Spirit of the Christ, of God, it IS the Holy Spirit expressed in our lives in the world. And how IS this so? ONLY  “If we love one another“.

Finally we read the second instance of “God is love” as the reality of this in the Life of the man in the world and the idea in these words rendered as dwell we should read the greater idea of abide as we read in the Gospel narrative on the vine and the branches. Here the common sense approach works best; God IS Love and if we as men abide in Love, that IS live in Love which idea IS also a part of this word rendered as dwell and as abide, then we must per force abide in God, that IS that we Live in God who IS Love. And this word that IS here rendered as dwelleth, and which is also rendered as abide in many places, is rendered as continue in that saying by the Master: “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed” (John 8:31). Can we see here that this IS to abide in His word, to live in His word and to dwell in His word; can we see here that this IS to keep His word. Here in our current idea then we have this same dynamic, that we live in Love; this IS the outward action of one’s Life in the world and the rest IS our realization of God; it IS here that we KNOW that God dwells, abides and lives in us and that we dwell, abide and live in Him.

This IS our reality and while doctrine may try to paint this picture based in confession and the atonement of His Life and death, we KNOW that it IS painted in Love and in the ultimate reality that “we love one another“. This IS the reality of the Great Commandment, this IS the fulfillment of the Law and the keeping of His words, this IS being accounted worthy of the Kingdom and this IS the Truth of discipleship.

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.

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. 
Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness 
in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. 
There is no fear in love; 
but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. 
He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
We love him, because he first loved us. 
If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: 
for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, 
how can he love God whom he hath not seen? 
And this commandment have we from him, 
That he who loveth God love his brother also
1 John 4:16-21

Today’s Quote of the Day from the First Epistle of John is his reflection on God and on Love. John tells us that God is Love and, as we have discussed, Love is certainly as aspect and an attribute of the Godhead and one which is supremely represented by the Christ. John tells us further that without Love there is no relationship with God and likens the Truth of dwelling in Love to being in His Kingdom and in His Presence. He draws for us the idea of Love for ones fellowman being the prime prerequisite for Love of God for although one may say that he Loves God, it cannot be True unless he first Loves his fellowman. In John’s words the equation is certain: “he who loveth God love his brother also“. And, lest we forget that the idea of Love that the Master teaches in not the emotional attraction that we live with daily, we repeat again: LOVE is….

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’. To this we add the ever important High Ideal as taught by the Christ: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” (Matthew 7:12).

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