Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
ON GOD; Part CIV
“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).
The Apostle John repeats here for us the words “And this commandment have we from him” which should be seen as reflecting the understanding of the apostle regarding the commandment that we post so often that tells us that “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 19:19). In a previous chapter of this epistle John tells us this way: “And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment” (1 John 3:23). We noted at the end of yesterday’s post, in the Quote of the Day section, how it is that our inspired writing is colored by the personality in which we as Souls live. It is in this understanding that we can realize that our differences here on this Earth are infinite in scope, that each of them is a unique being that has been able to live as a disciple in the form into which he was born, his nature, and what over the years that form has become, his nurture. Thus the differences in approach and in attitude from John to Peter and to Paul. So we see that John approaches this commandment differently than the writers of the synoptic gospels both in his attribution of words to the Master and his repeating of the ideas in his epistles. We can not KNOW why it is so that John reports this commandment so differently but we should Know that based upon the entirety of the Master’s teachings that they are really the same idea heard by different men and reported differently. We also can not say how often the Master uttered these ideas and that there is a time that He did say these words as the John reports and repeats. The reality is that none of this matters as the Love that is expressed by each of these sayings is the SAME Love that IS God and that is intended for ALL men:
- “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:34-35)
- ‘This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you….These things I command you, that ye love one another” (John 15:12, 17).
- “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).
Can we see the sameness of intent in these sayings? Those from John’s Gospel are spoken to the apostles and the disciples alone; the first point above is at the Last Supper and after the washing of the disciple’s feet, neither of these thoughts appear in the synoptics. The second point is said to the disciples alone again after the monologue about the vine and the branches and again insofar as time, in close proximity to the time noted above; again, these things are not included in the synoptic gospels. The last point is from the synoptics but it is not found in John’s Gospel as John approaches less of the historical value in his writing and speaks of the more intimate encounters with the Master, especially near the end. So we should see that in speaking to the disciples alone, that the tone of John’s writing and the content is uniquely his. We must assume for the sake of clarity that John is aware of the discourse on Love that is found in the synoptics and from this perspective we should understand that the sayings in his gospel are the Master’s repeating these things to show their overriding importance to each of them saying implicitly that they must do this, Love one another, so that the world will KNOW them as following the commandments of the Master, as His disciples. From this perspective we can understand that there is no difference in the intent of the sayings; the difference is merely in the audience addressed.
The more important part of this for the man in this world is however the last part of John’s idea which plays into the Master’s saying on Love from the synoptic gospels which is in the third point above. The Master tells us that we must Love God and, as we have portrayed this in a previous post, we must Love God with EVERYTHING; this of course is taken from the idea of “all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength” and there should be no doubt as to this meaning and intent. John tells us here in the end of this chapter “That he who loveth God love his brother also” and he says this as a matter of fact, echoing the saying by the Master in His telling of the Greatest Commandment. John is saying in effect that a man cannot do a part of this dual commandment of Loving God with EVERYTHING and to “love his brother also” which MUST be seen in the same way as ones neighbour and as one another. Both of these parts are necessary to the spiritual Life, to right standing with God, to discipleship and to attainment of the Kingdom and whatsoever we may think is Godly and deserving of Heaven and discipleship, if it is less than what is found in these Greatest Commandments, it is but illusion and it is glamour and we are deceived. This is also the crux of the saying of James which so clearly tells us of our state and our fate saying: “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22). This is the importance of Love and the reason for John’s writing on it in such a fashion as to call a man a liar if he claims the first part of this dual commandment without the second and these words should be etched into our consciousness in such a way that we think about them at every turn. As we did reveal earlier, we should not be fooled by the wording here which includes hate because the apostle clarifies his intent to be “loveth not” in the end saying: “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?“
Having now completed our remarks about the Chapter above, we should take pause and note again the sincerity and the strength of John’s discourse on Love which takes up much of this chapter and the majority of this entire epistle as well. We should note as well that as he starts here with words of caution regarding what we listen to, what we hear and believe as we interpreted this thought in yesterday’s post. The apostle tells us that we should “believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God“. When we had this first part in our discussion (In the Words of Jesus parts 287 and 289 which is where we began our look at this chapter) we looked at it in a similar way to that which we looked at the saying from Mark’s Gospel that we discussed in the last post. The caution in that saying by the Master is “Take heed what ye hear” (Mark 4:24) caused us to try to clearly understand what it is that He is telling His disciples. While we did not introduce the idea from Jame’s Epistle on “wisdom from above” (James 3:17) until a bit later when we came to the thoughts invoked by John’s phrase regarding “the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error“, can we not now see that it could be applied to this entire beginning of this discourse by John on Love? The idea brought out here is the same although the wording is different; The Master cautions us simply by saying to try everything that we hear to the total extent of that word which we saw means to hear, pay attention, understand, obey3 and to which we have now applied believe as our understanding; He does not get into any perspective on this as to whether what comes to us is wrong or right or, for that matter, where we may perceive it is coming from. Speaking to disciples the Master says simply “Take heed what ye hear“. John on the other hand has a different perspective and, although he is writing to disciples and believers, he likely KNOWS that his words will be shared with and read by others who may be just beginning their journey and in this he is more specific although, from our perspective, his idea is couched in words that we do not readily understand today. When we look at John’s saying in today’s reality we should try to understand that ALL things that we hear and that we see and ALL thoughts that come from these things are essentially coming to a man from pneuma, which is translated Spirit and which is as we know a very far reaching word. Strong’s tells us that this Greek word pneuma means wind, breath, things which are commonly perceived as having no material substance, by extension: spirit, heart, mind, the immaterial part of the inner person that can respond to God3. Do we see the point here? that the very thoughts that we have from whatsoever source can be seen as pneuma and that we must be careful to discern the source of these thoughts, whether they be “the spirit of truth” or whether they be “the spirit of error“.
Our understanding here should be clear and that is that even as disciples and aspirants we must ever be careful to understand and to know the source of our thoughts, especially those that can lead us into action. In this the Apostle Peter can be our guide; he was, according to the gospel stories, the strongest and most relied upon disciple of the Master and yet even in this exalted position the Master had to speak rather harshly to him several times and we know that it is he who did not have the faith to walk on the lake and it is he who disputed with the Master regarding what was about to happen and it is he that denied him after He was taken in the garden. The thoughts that led Peter to act in these ways were not the “wisdom from above” and we know that they were not spoken in his ear by one who would deceive him; these are the Peter’s own thoughts from his personality which he took as thoughts from above. This is our caution that we should be ever aware and that we should “Take heed what ye hear” and that we should “believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God“.
In yesterdays Quote of the Day we discussed the ideas of the infallibility or the inerrancy of scripture and we posted a saying from the Apostle Paul to Timothy which is: “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). We noted how that many in the church take this saying as being in support of their understanding of inerrancy and infallibility but there is really nothing in this that should lead one to take this thought. That “All scripture is given by inspiration of God” is a great truth which should be seen as the action of the God Within, the Christ Within as we say, the Soul. It is this Soul factor working through the consciousness of the man in form that is the Holy Spirit. So many in the church do have this right, that it is the Holy Spirit that works through the man to do these Holy things; he is just missing the point of what exactly the Holy Spirit is and how it is that God does work through the man in form. Here again we can take the ideas from our text above and over the last few posts and put them into the same understanding as we should be able to gain here with this verse from Paul. The Master cautions us on what we hear and John cautions us on believing not every pneuma while Paul tells us that scripture is inspiration or pneuma from God. In all of these the subject can be seen as the same; the thoughts that a man entertains in his consciousness. As inspiration they are from above and for the disciples that the Master and John are cautioning they can be from either above or from the personality while the way to tell is clearly told to us by James.
Our last point here is that these words by Paul to Timothy are in regard to the Old Testament that they both grew up with as Jews and had no real bearing upon the New Testament which did not exist. It is also unlikely that as Paul was writing his letters that he ever thought that they would end up as scripture and would be followed and believed even above the words of the Christ. In other words, it is unlikely that Paul knew that he was writing scripture although we should have no doubt that his words are inspired. We should remember also that the words come from inspired thoughts but are written by the personality of the man which interprets and colors them and it is in this context that we are cautioned to take heed. Until the fullness of discipleship we likely can not be free from the ways of the personality and this again is shown to us in the Life of Peter as we note above. All these sayings and all of their meaning is in regard to discipleship for it is only here that the Truth can flow through from the Christ Within to a man’s consciousness in the world.
We will continue with our thoughts on discipleship 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.
As we approached the time of the Wesak Festival we noted that there are Three Spiritual Festivals in three consecutive months each falling on the day of the Full Moon in the respective month. The first is the Festival of Easter, the second is the Wesak, the Festival of the Buddha and the third is the festival of the Christ which is coming next at the Full Moon of Gemini which will occur on June the 5th and which is alternatively called World Invocation Day. There is a little more that three weeks between now and the Christ’s Festival and we will try to use that time to attain a better understanding of what this day should mean to us. We will start here today with this set of affirmative sayings regarding discipleship and its requirements from the perspective of the willing disciple. We will get into the source of this saying as well as our thoughts on its meaning and intent over the next few posts and we will leave it here as the Quote of the Day until we can accomplish this. Spoken as the aspirant or disciple in form who is invoking fullness of the power of the Christ Within, he first acknowledges what he must bring to bear on the personalty, then what he must do with this purpose, power and will……LOVE.
We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.
My soul has purpose, power and will; these three are needed on the Way of Liberation.
My soul must foster love among the sons of men; this is its major purpose.
I, therefore, will to love and tread the Way of Love. All that hinders and obstructs the showing of the Light must disappear before the purposes of the Soul.
My will is one with the great Will of God;. that Holy Will requires that all men serve. And unto the purposes of the Plan I lend my little will.
- 3 Strongest Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible – 2001
