Monthly Archives: April 2012

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON GOD; Part LXXXIX

“Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them. We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error. 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. 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. 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. 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 4:1-21).

We looked again rather intently on the idea of “dwelleth in him, and he in God” as it is presented to us in yesterday’s verse from our chapter above and we again compared this idea to the Master’s use of “Abide in me, and I in you” which, while referring to Him, should be seen as well as referring to God as we do KNOW the reality of His saying that “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30). The Master amplifies this for us in the combination of He and the Father in saying: “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” (John 14:23) and here we should also see what we called as two of the other criteria for a man to “dwelleth in him, and he in God” and these are of course “If a man love me” and the evidence of this in “he will keep my words“. Now it may appear that we are introducing a new idea in Love for the Master when yesterday we portrayed this as “If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:12) but we need to remember also the Apostle John’s words that “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar” (1 John 4:20) which tells us that if we Love God we MUST Love our brother also and this is a verse we will address in greater detail later on from this chapter. We KNOW too the relationship between the sayings of the Master regarding His words and His commandments, that we should see them as essentially the same idea as He does tie them together in Love; we have above His saying that “If a man love me, he will keep my words” and a bit earlier in this same chapter His saying that “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15) and in this we should be able to see the point. Vincent however would take this a bit further, he says, referring to the verse above, that: My word (lo>gon mou). The entire gospel message, as distinguished from its separate parts or commandments⁴.

Using then the verse from our chapter we looked also at the word that is translated as confess and we noted the multiplicity of meanings and translations that can be applied to it. We took particular note of Vincent’s thoughts that put this word into the same Light of understanding in which we see our words above, to dwell in and to abide in, and to which we can extend his thoughts to believing in and believing on which, of course, we know as to follow Him and to keep His words. As we have before, let us look at Vincent’s thoughts on believeth in, or on and then on confess so we can see the similarity in the terms used from the Greek which is Vincent’s expertise:

• 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 life⁴.
• The idea is that of confessing Christ out of a state of oneness with him. “Abide in me, and being in me, confess me.” It implies indentification of the confessor with the confessed, and thus takes confession out of the category of mere formal or verbal acknowledgment. “Not every one that saith unto me ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.” The true confessor of Christ is one whose faith rests in him. Observe that this gives great force to the corresponding clause, in which Christ places himself in a similar relation with those whom he confesses. “I will confess in him.” It shall be as if I spoke abiding in him. “I in them and thou in me, that they may be perfected into one, and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me” (John xvii. 23)⁴.

Can we see the synergy in these ideas? Continuing with our right understanding of confess we should also look here at the Master’s saying from the synoptic gospels:

• “Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men , him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 10:32).
• “Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men , him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God” (Luke 12:8).

We can see here the logical sense that Vincent makes of this by reminding ourselves of that saying that we have posted in two recent posts that: “And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46) which should, as does Vincent’s own reference, tell us clearly that confession as we understand it in doctrine is simply not enough. To this add the Master’s full words saying: “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); can we see here what Vincent calls great force as regards the sayings on confession above, that there is infinitely more to confession than we are outwardly presented with.

Looking briefly at the doctrinal sense of this we should be able to see clearly the dichotomy that exists between doctrine and what we would consider reality:

• John Gill in his Exposition of the Bible⁸ says Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men The confession of Christ here, more especially designed, does not so much intend, though it may include, that which is less public, and is necessary to be made by every believer in Christ: for it is not enough to believe in him, with the heart, but confession of him must also be made with the mouth; and which lies in ascribing their whole salvation to him, giving him the glory of it; declaring their faith in him to others, and what he has done for their souls; and subjecting themselves to his ordinances, and joining in fellowship with his church and people: which confession, as it ought to be both by words and deeds, and to be hearty and sincere, so likewise visible, open, and before men. This, I say, may be included in the sense of these words; but what they chiefly relate to, is a confession of Christ by his ministers, in the public preaching of the Gospel; who ought openly, and boldly, to acknowledge, and declare, that Christ is truly and properly God, the eternal Son of God⁸. Can we see the stark reality of doctrine in here which plainly does not see the way that this word is so tied to the other sayings of the Master. Buried in this is the admonition that one would always expect from the church in Gill’s saying that and subjecting themselves to his ordinances and this would appear to be a sort of afterthought and not a saying that reflects what we see in the Lord, Lord verses above from Matthew and Luke.
• Mr. Gill continues saying that him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven: as he has a perfect knowledge of them, and bears an affectionate love to them; so he will openly own, and acknowledge them as his ministers, and speak in the praise and commendation of their works and labours; though they have been performed through the gifts, grace, and strength, which he has communicated to them: he will introduce them into his Father’s presence, and recommend them to him, to be honoured, blessed, and glorified by him. In this we should understand the working our of one’s own spirituality in Life and not in the mystical pronouncement of the Son to the Father as it is portrayed for this verse by Gill. We should see that in the True sense of confession, that we are keeping His words and the reward of this is communion with the Christ Within and through this communion with the Christ as our True Master and with the Father.

We can carry these thoughts over into the next verse from each of the synoptics which carry the converse of confess in the idea of denial; the Master says:

• “But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 10:33).
• “But he that denieth me before men shall be denied before the angels of God” (Luke 12:9).

This word deny is quite clear and it means what we commonly believe and the context for it is set up by the previous verse. We should have now come to understand that the idea of confess is more than what we commonly think insofar as the action of the Master would be concerned. We should understand that with ALL working our under the law that this confession is a purely personal thing and involves the totality of keeping His words and following Him as we see, in His own words, that calling Him our Lord is not enough. The idea of denial is for our benefit, to show us how the opposing idea works and in this idea we should see the totality of the effort…not following Him and not keeping His words. Can we not see in this the totality of all ideas regarding the word deny be they temporary, as in the case of the Apostle Peter, or overwhelming as in the case of the man who does not even think about his spiritual Life? The reality is in the relationship between the man as a conscious personality and the man as a Soul; confessing the Lord is to accept Him, abide in Him and keep His words and this brings the Power and the Love of the Soul to bear on the Life of the man in the world thereby making of him an aspirant and a disciple. Conversely, to deny the Lord is to refuse Him and this can be true in an infinite range of degrees as we say above. In any degree however there is the resistance of the personality consciousness to accept and live in the Light of the Soul, the Christ Within. Can we see also here that the overriding cause of all this is illusion, glamour and deception?

We spent more time on this than planned in an effort to understand the Truth of confession and the importance of putting this idea into the same Light as believing on or believing in the Master and of abiding in Him or dwelling in Him. Remembering that these ideas are all the same as following Him and keeping His words, we should also see that the accomplishment of these things makes of the man a disciple and makes one accounted worthy of the Kingdom of God. We continue now with our next verse:

“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”. Here we have several themes that we have covered in some detail in our past posts and with which we are familiar. By review will touch upon a some points and foremost among them is the FACT that “God is love” with the key to our understanding in this being IS. We remember from the Old Testament that when Moses asked God saying “Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?“, His reply was simple and straightforward and filled with much mystery in that day. The Lord did not lay claim to any feats of doing, supernatural or otherwise, although He knew what was in the superstitious minds of men in that day; He simply told Moses “I AM THAT I AM: and he said , Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you” (Exodus 3:13-14). From this we take our understanding that GOD IS; in this passage from Exodus we find the WHO of GOD and in this passage from the Gospel of John we find the WHAT of GOD. Love is His very nature and Love is the True man’s very nature as well. The Christ is for us the incarnation of the fullness of that Love on Earth and the Christ Within is our personal manifestation of that Love as an incarnating Soul.

Careful reading of the words of the Master should only tell us one very important thing and that is that we as men in form, as conscious personalities, are to express this same Love in all that we say and all that we do on this Earth and it is when a man can do this that he will be in the fullness of the God Within and a disciple of the Christ in the Kingdom of God. Now we must understand Love from the proper perspective which is not found in the attractive qualities of ourselves and others; these are True and many but they are not the essence of the Love that the Master would have us express which is that same Love that He expressed and the same Love that IS God. Can we understand the depth of this? Can we see that as part and parcel of our GREAT GOD that we are ALL equal in His eyes and that we should see and express this equality in ALL that we do. Can we see also that we are manifestations of the ONE GOD, taking form here on EARTH, and learning to suppress the illusion, glamour and deception of the world and to let that Christ Love that we Truly are express itself here and now. GOD IS LOVE and from a cosmic perspective we should see that in the defining terms of this Love there is the beauty and the order of the planets and the stars above and we should see also how all things work together for the benefit of the whole. Should we think that we as men are the highest forms of consciousness that exists, we would be greatly mistaken for even in our True consciousness which is that of the Soul there is still beyond this Spirit and forms of Life that we cannot even imagine, much less comprehend.

We will complete these thoughts on Love and then get to the other point is this saying in the next post. In line with the ideas above we leave with this same saying as we have posited before from a rather famous mystic and occultist that says:

Every Man and Woman is a Star

and with this saying from the Master:

…..with God all things are possible.

(Mark 10:27)

Note on the Quote of the Day