Monthly Archives: April 2012

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON GOD; Part LXXXV

“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 have spent many days now on a discussion that started with the verse from the above chapter of the First Epistle of John regarding propitiation. Using this word as our backdrop we embarked on a journey through the common Christian doctrine of the vicarious atonement of the Christ; that is that He died for our sins as a substitution for us. In a sentence we can see the idea as: Christ was a substitute for others in that he took their place and suffered their punishment. It was also a legal act whereby Christ fulfilled the law and lawfully paid the penalty of sin**. We discussed also that there many varieties regarding the doctrine of atonement both within the formula of vicarious atonement and in other church views such as the ‘ransom theory’ as well. In some cases multiple theories are found together in a single doctrinal approach. Our view is of course that whenever there is such a variety of views regarding a single occurrence and a single source of the information that there is the work of the minds of men involved and that in these creations of men we most always will find illusion, glamour and deception. Our view, as we have expounded it, is that there is no vicarious atonement and no atonement at all in the sense that the church sees it; we see each of the sayings that we covered from the Old Testament and the New Testament words of the apostles as scripture based on the teachings of the Master and as amplified by Paul, Peter and John. The Master Truly lived and died and was resurrected and all was done in accordance with the Great Plan of God and was scripted to come about as it did long before the Christ appeared among us. In His Life, death and resurrection we should be able to see the our own as well and through the combination of His teachings and His actions we should be able to KNOW that the True death is the death of the personality consciousness, that we no longer live for the things of the world, and the resurrection is the new birth through with our consciousness is born again in the Spirit of the Christ Within. This makes one a disciple and this makes one accounted worthy of the Kingdom of God which is, as the Master tells us, here and now.

There is of course no secret to any of this; while much of the mystery of it ALL is said to us in parables by the Master and in ambiguity by the apostles, the key points are rather plainly stated by the Master and His apostles. We should understand that much of the sayings of the apostles are only ambiguous to those who cannot see past the supporting parables that the Master spoke. We should understand as well that to men in form, as conscious personalities, the revelation of the parables and the clarity of the ambiguity will come from acting upon the key points that are rather plainly stated. Without going too far into this in today’s post we would point to the Master’s teaching on Love as a primary example of a point that is plainly stated as in these words is the key to much for us both individually and corporately. We post here again the Master’s words on Love, our interpretation of what that Love is and the Master’s teaching on how a man can both accomplish this and understand it:

Of all that the Master told us, He considered this as the Greatest of Commandments. So much of what we are to understand as aspirants or as believers is found in the precept that we must KEEP HIS WORDS:

“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 12:30-31).

We ask ourselves WHAT THEN IS LOVE? 

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.

We add to this  THE EVER IMPORTANT AND HIGH IDEAL TAUGHT TO US BY THE CHRIST which can serve to both give us an understanding of what it means to Love oneself and how it is that we can Love our neighbor:

“Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” (Matthew 7:12).

Can we see first of all the straightforward approach in these sayings by the Master and can we see that for over 2000 years mankind has marveled at His words but at the same time has reinterpreted them to mean whatever men in every era have wanted them to mean insofar as making them convenient to the Earthly ways of man. This is a hard saying but it is a True one nonetheless and an honest look at the history of the church and the Christian countries throughout their time will reveal this sad Truth. These sayings are of paramount importance as the teachings of the Christ are concerned but throughout history they have been ignored; not only by the average unknowing man but by those who have professed to KNOW as well. One more rather plainly stated saying of the Master before we move on to our next verse from our chapter above:

“And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?“

(Luke 6:46)

Our next verse then is:

• “Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another“. This saying comes on the heels of the one that led us into our journey on propitiation and atonement. This former saying as well as some before it are said in example, to show that “God so loved us” and this is a point that we should not miss. The former sayings tell us that “God sent his only begotten Son into the world” and this we know and recognize in the reality of His birth, His coming into this world in the fullness of a Son of God which is a thing that all the rest of us must earn. We should see that the Master brought to Earth the fullness of the Love of God which He IS as “God is love” and He brought this into a world polluted by the greed, anger and lust which the Hindu call the gates of Hell. The former sayings also tell us that God “sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” which we now know to be so much more that the doctrines have allowed. In the idea of propitiation we have the reconciling of man to God and this is True both by the work of the Master in a general sense, as we see through His example and His teachings on the way to God, to His Kingdom and to discipleship, and in an individual sense through the recognition of the Christ Within which is part and parcel of the Kingdom of God that is within each of us. We noted that propitiation can be defined for our understanding as reconciliation and that Here in propitiation we find reconciliation and in reconciliation we find repentance and in repentance we find the remission of sins. However, we must see too that for the propitiation to have the effect of reconciling a man to God that there need be that repentance, that change, and it is in this that there can be that remission or that release from the wiles of the world. Now it is these ideas, the idea of the “only begotten Son” and the idea of His being the “propitiation for our sins” that are covered under the saying in this verse that “God so loved us” and we should see these ideas as the evidence of that Love. Knowing this, the apostle tells us, as did the Master, that “we ought also to love one another” and in this saying there should be nothing but clarity. It is sorrowful that the simplicity of this saying on Love is not seen in the way that the apostle intended it, that is as an amplification of the Master’s words, and by example let us look briefly at the words of some of our commentators:

1. John Gill in his Exposition of the Bible⁸ says we ought also to love one another; for those who are the objects of God’s love ought to be the objects of ours; and if God has loved our fellow Christians and brethren to such a degree, as to send his Son to die for them, we ought to love them too; and if we are interested in the same love, the obligation is still the greater; and if God loved them with so great a love, when they did not love him, but were enemies to him, then surely we ought to love them now they are become the friends of God, and ours also; as God loved them freely, and when unlovely, and us likewise in the same manner, and under the same circumstances, then we ought to love, and continue to love the saints, though there may be something in their temper and conduct disagreeable: God is to be imitated in his love; and his love to us, which is unmerited and matchless, should influence and engage us to the love of the brethren, who have a far greater claim to our love than we can make to the love of God; and which indeed is none at all, but what he is pleased to give us⁸ . Can we see that from our perspective this is the effect of illusion, glamour and deception and that the doctrines built around this type of Love ignore the teachings of the Master in exchange for the narrow view that John is writing to Christians and that somehow many see in these words the non-existent exclusion of ALL others.
2. The Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible⁸ says this: 11. God’s love to us is the grand motive for our love to one another ( 1 John 3:16 ). if–as we all admit as a fact. we . . . also–as being born of God, and therefore resembling our Father who is love. In proportion as we appreciate God’s love to us, we love Him and also the brethren, the children (by regeneration) of the same God, the representatives of the unseen God⁸ . Can we see the same dynamic at play here regarding Love and how it is related to another verse for support which says “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (1 John 3:16). Can we see the compounding of this idea of restricting the Love to Christians in the assumption that “he laid down his life for us” as to be only in that reference. Again we say that in the words of the apostles we should seek for and find only words and ideas that amplify the words and the ideas of the Master; all other perspectives are rather hypocritical and some even belittling to the words and the commandments that He gave to us. However, they are more convenient and more changeable into the multiplicity of doctrines that govern the lives of men.

• “No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us“. This next saying has two parts and the first is rather hard to understand except in its specific wording as a fact which is a repetition of the same idea from John’s Gospel. Depending on the school of thought, there can be found the ideas from the Old Testament that men have seen God. There should be no thought of contradiction here as there are many ways to look at this saying and, for us, the way would be that John is referring to the reality of God, that is as Spirit which is that Sacred Substance that cannot be seen by men in form. In the Old Testament and likely elsewhere as well men had seen the effect of God or a vision of Him which would comport with a mans understanding of what God is. There is no need to get into the specifics here as this in not an important point except as the apostle offers it as fact and this is how it should be accepted, as a spiritual fact. Continuing, John tells us that is it is in Love that we find God, “If we love one another, God dwelleth in us“. This is not unlike another saying that we have discussed recently and which comes up again shortly in discussing this chapter and which we state here to avoid confusion: “God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him“. Can we see the relationship here; that to “love one another” is equivalent to “he that dwelleth in love” and can we see that by the very context, when rightly discerned, this can not be restricted to any group? We add here the Master’s own words offered in similar fashion saying: “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love” (John 15:10) and in this we should see a relationship that puts this all together with the perspective of the Master’s commandments of which He says that our verses on Love above are the greatest. This verse ends with the idea of perfection which is used by the Master to indicate True discipleship and True attainment of the Kingdom. Here John is telling us that “If we love one another” then “his love is perfected in us” and this is a saying of Great Power. If “God is love” and that Love can be perfected in us by our Love for our brother and our neighbor, what does that make us when we do? Ponder on this.

In relation to the idea of “he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him“, we had coined our own phrase (In the Words of Jesus parts 244 and 248) which says:  

Live in Love, Live in God

Live in God, God Lives in us

We will continue with our verses from our chapter in 1 John in the next post.

Note on the Quote of the Day