Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
ON GOD; Part XXXI
“God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him“
(1 John 4:16)
We spent our time yesterday on this saying by the Apostle John regarding the Love that is God and how this can work out in our understanding of our relationships with our fellow man. There is no deeper revelation in the entirety of the New Testament than that which the sincere seeker will find in these few words by the apostle. We should now have a clearer understanding of the relationship between the words dwelleth, abideth and live seeing that they all refer to the active Life of a man. Today we will try to clarify the idea that comes forth in dwelleth and abideth as regards location of that Life as we did not really address this aspect in a straightforward way. Unlike the general understanding of these words in a physical sense, a worldly sense, we are not looking at location as a particular place in time and space but rather as the point of focus of one’s Life, the focus of one’s consciousness. We said yesterday that: The word dwelleth here is generally rendered abide in other translations and it is a rather mystical and misunderstood message using either word and we offered Vincent’s understanding which led us to the word Live4 and, while this is a Truth, it is not a complete one considering what we are saying here today. Today we seek to render the understanding of these words which we defined as to Live in as to include the nature of that Living and thereby complete both our definitions and the thoughts that we have already presented.
What then does it mean to “dwelleth in love“, or to Live in Love? As we discussed in the last post this means that we follow Him and keep His words as regards our relationships with others and this is a Truth. As we further discussed this action by the man puts him into that place where he “dwelleth in God” and we use the idea here of place so as to gain the understanding that there is no real physical place and to show that this is all a part of one’s journey in consciousness. We need not go anywhere to “dwelleth in God“; we need not go anywhere to “dwelleth in love“. We need only to change our perspective and our realization of who and what we Truly are. This brings us back again to one of our keywords in our journey to discipleship and to His Kingdom…..focus.
The Greek word meno which is translated as dwelleth and abideth in our context is a word that carries with it an array of understandings. The lexicon tells us that meno means to remain, abide; in reference to place: to sojourn, tarry, not to depart, to continue to be present, to be held, kept, continually; in reference to time: to continue to be, not to perish, to last, endure; of persons, to survive, live; in reference to state or condition: to remain as one, not to become another or different, to wait for, await one2. Do we see here that these defining terms, with little exception, are referencing the physical while the tenor of the ideas from John point directly to the metaphysical? Strong’s gives us a bit more by defining meno as: to stay, remain, live, dwell, abide; to be in a state that begins and continues, yet may or may not end or stop. “To abide in Christ” is to follow his example of a life obedient to the will of God3. This last idea seems the right perspective from a doctrinal view and is the effect of what we are calling focus. Strong’s creates for us in this word meno another synonym for believeth in or believeth on which we understand as to follow Him and to keep His words and which we can now put also under our general heading of focus. Vine’s tells us, amid many scripture references, that the word meno is used of place, of time and of qualities which adds yet another dimension as we can see here from the Apostle Paul’s saying that: “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity” (1 Corinthians 13:13).
From this we can see that these ideals, as qualities, can abide or Live and this is referenced also by other sayings which tend to give a Truer picture of the idea that meno is intended to convey to us:
- “For the truth’s sake, which dwelleth in us, and shall be with us for ever” (2 John 1:2). According to our understanding, here we have the idea that Truth can live in us.
- “But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?” (1 John 3:17). In this we have the sense of the Love of God dwelling, that is Living, in a man and by John’s words the opposite is true when one does not pour out Love on his brother which we know as any man from the Greek adelphos.
- “Let brotherly love continue” (Hebrews 13:1). Here, meno is translated as continue, and should carry the idea of letting brotherly Love Live which is a much better sentiment than to let it continue because the whole of the idea of these verses seems to be the establishment of this Love.
These examples are intended to give us the understanding that to abide, that is to Live, is a much deeper word than we get from the general ideas of dwelleth or abideth and that in our context here it is indicative to the Life of an ideal or of a spiritual man in that ideal. The idea here should be clear to all who are thinking of this in ways other than those of the physical man and his existence although this is difficult to express because of the limitations of words and language. Our comment at the top of this essay saying that this single saying by John is of the deepest of revelations can be seen in the summation of all of the above points plus those ideas that we put forth yesterday. To Live in Love is to express that Love that is God to ALL through our daily lives; this Love becomes the expression of our Self by way of the Light of the Soul which pours forth from the Christ Within and this whole event is made possible by changing one’s focus from life in the world to Life as the Soul. It is in doing this, in changing one’s focus, that we come to Live in Love and this then becomes and is our realization that we Live in God and that God Lives in us. Here is also a True testimony to the understanding that we are part and parcel of God; that God is both Immanent within us and His creation and at the same time Transcendent and beyond it ALL.
If we Live in Love then, according to the scriptural references above, Love Lives in us as well and the essence of this is that we become ONE and, since “God is Love” this all comes to make even rational sense so long as the viewpoint is not the strictly physical.
Live in Love, Live in God
Live in God, God Lives in us
God is Love, then we are Love as well and in this comes the reality of the teaching of the Master. How has this be missed by so many for so long?
We will continue with our thoughts in the next post and further address the Master’s words on the relationship between this Love and our fellowman.
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.
As we come nearer to the end of our look at this Quote of the Day we come upon the last two verses which make plain and simple statements of fact and which we should see in the vein that they are offered. That is, this is the reality of right and wrong; not merely the right and wrong as the things that a man does but also the added understanding of the righteous versus the worldly which is how the majority of humanity should view these sayings. The subject is the millions of little things that a man can and will do that will keep him from the Light of the Soul which, as we know, will only shine through for those who focus upon the higher spiritual Life. Again we must understand this by degree and we must understand as well that for us, the whole of the New Testament is aimed at making and keeping one as a disciple of the Master and not merely as a source of inspiration and a testament of good and evil. The statement of fact: that all who do not heed the call of the Master to repent and to keep His words, all who let the carnal personality consciousness rule in their Life, are considered here as those who “hateth the light” and who are wound up in the ways of the world. They do not come to the Light, to the Christ Within, because in this Light they can clearly see the error of their ways. We must remember that the idea of evil here need not bring for us that worldly understanding of it but rather we should see this as Strong’s tells us. The definition of the Greek word poneros according to Strong’s is bad, the negative quality of an object; evil, wicked, crime; the negative moral quality of a person or action opposed to God and His goodness3. Can we see in this last definition of negative moral quality the idea of this word meaning the opposite of righteousness? We will continue with these thoughts in the next post.
That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish , but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest , that they are wrought in God (John 3:15-21).
Today’s Quote of the Day contains several points that we have covered in our essays and contains some of the more difficult sayings of the Master as regards our perspective on spiritual Life. John 3:16 is much spoken of in the Christian Church and upon it much of church doctrines are established and built. Over the next several days we will continue to post this as our Quote and we will take in parts daily as to try to ascertain the Truth of the Master’s teaching. We should remember that this is spoken to Nicodemus as part of the Masters dissertation on being born again.
- 2 New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
- 3 Strongest Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible – 2001
- 4 Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
