Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
ON GOD; Part CX
“Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace” (James 3: 13-18).
When we understand that the ideas in the biblical usage of the word translated as mercy there is the necessity to realize that being miserable and afflicted, being wretched and in need, all these ideas that are within the defining terms that we viewed in the last post; that these apply not only to the physically miserable, afflicted, and wretched but to the spiritual, those not yet on the Path, then the words in our saying from James can make much more sense for us. It is apparent here that although we have used this verse numerous times in an effort to define how a man can know that a thing is from God, we have never really understood what it says. In taking this verse word by word we are discovering a wealth of revelation and a new wealth of meaning hidden in the ideas of the Apostle James. From the negative side words, envy and strife, to the positive side words that we have been discussing for several days, pure, peaceable, gentle, easy to be intreated, and now mercy, we have found that there is so much more to be understood regarding the way of Wisdom and the reality of the “wisdom that is from above“. At first look we did not accept the ONLY defining terms that there are regarding mercy because we saw them as they related to the ideas above and which we saw as pertaining to the flesh; for us this seemed to be saying that the “wisdom that is from above” is “full of mercy” only for the afflicted, the miserable and the wretched in the world PHYSICALLY, and for us this made little sense. However, when Vincent tells us that: Strictly speaking, the word as applied to God, cannot include either of these elements, since grief cannot be ascribed to Him, and suffering is the legitimate result of sin. The sentiment in God assumes the character of pitying love4, we were awakened to this new idea because this “wisdom that is from above” is from God.
This leaves us with the greater understanding that the “wisdom that is from above” is “full of mercy” for all who are not yet where the Master wants us to be, and that is in discipleship. In this pitying love from God flows that realization for all who receive it that we must look out on the world of men in the same way as the Love of God looks out upon us. Both the lexicon and Vincent share these words which we can now accept with understanding of their True meaning: Mercy is kindness and goodwill toward the miserable and afflicted, joined with a desire to relieve them2, 4.
Our next word is again a short phrase: “good fruits” and this is written with the conjunction “and” between it and “full of mercy” so that we know that there is a connection and this is how it is viewed by most. Because we did not want either word, mercy or good fruits, lost within the other, we have separated them and for us this was right as there is, as we have said, a wealth of understanding hidden in the idea of “full of mercy“. Again we must remember the context of this saying; it is the Wisdom from above that IS all these itemized things and it is the Wisdom from above that we now explore as being full of “good fruits“. If we read into this saying the teachings of the Master, we can come to a quick understanding not only of what it is that He means in His teaching but how it all works out in the life of the disciple. The Master gives us several sayings on fruit:
- Jesus tells us, speaking of false teachers, that: “Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringet hnot forth good fruit is hewn down , and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them” (Matthew 7:16-20).
- In Luke’s Gospel this same idea is given with out the mention of a teacher and with an expansion of the thought into treasure in the next verse; He says: “For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. For every tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh” (Luke 6:43-45).
- Like treasure, the Master speaks of fruit in similar fashion saying: “Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit” (Matthew 12:33).
- In the Parable of the Sower the Master equates good fruits with the result of the word of God falling onto good ground, that is into the heart of the right minded man; He says: “he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth , some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty” (Matthew 13:23). He says this same thing in another gospel as: “that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience” (Luke 8:15).
- Finally, as regards disciples, the Master tells us: “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing…..Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples” (John 15:5, 8).
Standing on its own we should be able to see in the idea of fruit the good works which James speaks about in the first verse of our section above. Remember that the idea of conversation refers to one’s manner of living and that we took the American Standard Version as our interpretation which says “let him show by his good life his works in meekness of wisdom” which is the showing of the outward Life of the disciple and the aspirant. This good works is the same as the good works spoken of by the Master who tells us to “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16) and this glorifying of the Father is the same as we find above in His telling us “Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples“. Do we see the common thread of good works and good fruit and the attachment of these to discipleship? Looking through the sayings above and we see that the measure of a man in form, the measure of a conscious personality, is the fruit that he bears and looking at the saying from James we see that this fruit comes to the consciousness in the Wisdom from above. The Wisdom from above is full of “good fruits” putting these into the heart of the man in form, into his consciousness and these become, the “good treasure of his heart“. Contrary to this we would see that there is a thought or a revelation that does not have this good fruit and that does not encourage a man to express it as good fruit but rather he is encouraged to express some self-serving thing which is from the personality, from the world.
The Master tells us that it is “by their fruits ye shall know them” and this should be seen in most all references, from the preacher and teacher to the wisdom that we may believe is from God which is what we are speaking of in this verse from James Epistle. Similarly, for ALL of us there is the understanding that “the tree is known by his fruit“. We should remember here that the apostle is speaking to disciples and aspirants and not just casual believers in his day and these deeper understandings that we are discovering are meant for them; then and today the casual believer will not see the depth of these sayings but they are nonetheless meaningful even to them as they are still a basic instruction in how to discern what is Wisdom from above. Confirming this premise is the Master’s use of the Parable of the Sower and His interpretation of it to His disciples telling them that “he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth…..” and then from the Gospel of Luke, in different words, He says: “that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience“. So who bears fruit is the man who “in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it” and we know that those who do keep His words only can be Truly be His disciples. We close this part on the idea of good fruits with the recollection that there is, according to the Apostle Paul, those ideals which are called “fruit of the Spirit“. Paul tells us that:
- “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance” (Galatians 5:22).
- “For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth” (Ephesians 5:9).
These are what we should be seeing in the “wisdom that is from above” as is written within James idea of full of “good fruits“‘; this is the treasure in the heart of the True follower of the Master.
We will continue with these thoughts and our last two words 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.
We leave our Quote of the Day from yesterday again today and likely for several days so that we can understand the intent of these affirmations which are intended for use by aspirant and disciples such as we believe that we are. Our opening and general statement on these verses has been moved to the bottom. We repeat here the ideas from yesterday as regards our need to foster Love.
The entirety of the New Testament has for its objective the essence of this next part of our affirmation which says that All that hinders and obstructs the showing of the Light must disappear before the purposes of the Soul. From the previous stanza we found that the purpose of the Soul is that we should foster Love among men and this of course can not be done unless a man expresses this Love himself thereby heeding the words of the Master. We should understand as well that the words we are discussing today are tied to the first part of the stanza, that which we discussed in the last post and which is what we are affirming; that we will to love and tread the Way of Love which we can see as another way of saying that we are aspirants to discipleship and disciples who know that we must do this. It is in this that we who are willing and treading can more clearly see what it is that hinders and obstructs; from the heights of this way, this Path, we can look down upon the consciousness which is within the personality and we can discern what it is that is hindering or obstructing our showing of the Light.
When a man is mired in the world of things, he is a part of it, a part of all that he does and in this state it is difficult to see what there is that hinders one’s spiritual growth. We often say in these posts that what is called evil in scripture is not necessarily evil as we understand the word today and which is mostly the understanding given us by doctrine. By example the Pharisees are not necessarily evil as we are led to understand them; they are misguided by the precepts of their own religion and their own doctrines and are extremely religious withing the confines of them. They likely should have been the first to recognize the presence of the Master but they were blinded by the light of their own self righteousness and this is an affliction that is not limited to them. This plays into the discussion above regarding KNOWING that what we believe as spiritual men is actually spiritual, Wisdom from above, and we should see that what it is that hinders and obstructs the Light is that same thing that prevents us from seeing the reality of thoughts and revelation…..illusion and glamour. Unless we look ardently at what it is that is coming to us in thoughts, in what we may believe are revelations or wisdom from above, we are likely to be confused by our own illusions and glamour regarding our own lives and Life itself; to be confused by what it is that we believe that we know. It is only when we take the time to measure what it is that we are hearing that we can actually measure it and it is in this way that we can clear away much of what hinders and obstructs.
Can we understand that the reality of these evils is in the misplaced sense of one’s focus; that as men we focus upon the things of the world not realizing that our reality is in the world of the Soul. For the murderer and the thief, the adulterer and the man who covets other’s goods, the course seems firm; to stop doing those things….. to repent. But we forget that the Master speaks to these as well as ALL other men who are focused upon the things of the flesh. For the murderer and the others to repent in our doctrinal understanding would be that they stop, they change, and that they become like other men but this is not the message of the Master. His message is that from the perspective of the other men we must repent and become as men of God, as disciples, and as those accounted worthy of the Kingdom and His Presence. This is the reality of it all and in this are the hindrances and the obstructions obliterated.
We will continue with our thoughts on this 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.
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.
- 2 New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
- 4 Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
