Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
ON GOD; Part CVIII
“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).
We left off yesterday in the midst of our discussion of the words that make up what can be considered one of the paramount sayings in the entire New Testament in that it tells us in simple terms the reality of how to KNOW that what we believe is ‘from God’ is such. ‘From God’ is a very broad term to use here but it does cover most everything that should be included in the things that a man believes to be True from a spiritual level. The entirety of the verses above tells us that if a thought or feeling, or what we believe is a communication from God in some way, has for its objective something for the self as a man on Earth it is likely not from God. We saw the importance of how the right discernment of the words used relate to this idea of self; how in envy there is the idea of emulation which is more than our common thought of the word and the definition that we offered told us that this word is in regard of the man in the world and his place within it and that this could be in a good sense or a bad. We should remember again that good or bad is not here the issue and that it seldom is in our discussions but it is rather the point of one’s focus on the world versus on God. To be clear, this is the point of the Apostle James in his writing here and we should understand that in his terms “earthly, sensual, devilish” that he is not giving us synonyms but rather giving us three distinct areas as the types of thought or belief or revelation that ARE NOT from above. In the idea of emulation and the accompanying word strife we should see this self-interest and self-devotion and the accompanying idea of selfishness that are all contrary to any idea or thought that would come from above.
We should not misunderstand the point here; the context of this entire epistle is toward a man and his sense of discipleship. In the realm of receiving from God, anything that brings a man closer to that goal and to His Presence, these words are important and are True. However, there can be communication with one’s own Soul and with heavenly realms that are not toward this end but are rather toward the revelation of some thing in the world whose time has come. Great inventions and discoveries are made by men who are in some different way receiving from above and whose goal in any particular lifetime may not be discipleship and it is easy to look through history and identify such people. It is not our place to here to speak to how and why these things can and do happen but we should be comfortable in the understanding that this is ALL covered under the Great and Awesome Plan of God. From the child prodigy to the renowned physicist, there are things at work that are covered under that Great Plan and which can be counted under the heading of the “mysteries of the kingdom of God” (Luke 8:10).
Our point here is to say again that these verses tell us that if a thing is for the use and the benefit of the self in form the carnal man, if it is for his sole benefit or the benefit of him and his close relations, then the communication that we think brings this to us is likely NOT from God but from the personality and from the world of thought in which we live. The apostle then gives us the converse of these ideas of what is NOT from God by telling us the properties of what IS or can be from God saying that “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” which, as we said, tells us in simple terms the reality of how to KNOW that what we believe is ‘from God’ is such. In looking at the words in the last post we found that the idea behind “is first pure” not only numbers this as the first in the list but also, as Vincent tells us, that The idea is not first numerically, but first essentially. The other qualities are secondary as outgrowths of this primary quality4. Understanding this concept plus the definitions of the word pure we should come away with the idea of keeping His words and then that this is the first measure of what may come to us ‘from God’, that it should coincide with His word. Our next word was peaceable which is rather straightforward and our takeaway from this idea is that whatsoever we think is from God is in line with His Very Nature which is Love. All too often we look at the word peace only in relation to war and to strife; this however is not the intent here which, if it were, would be to say that of this state of Wisdom from God, that it might be as an antonym to war and strife. Let us look here instead at the words of the Master who says “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth , give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled , neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27). Appropriate non war or strife definitions of peace are found in the older versions of Webster’s which tell us that: In a general sense, a state of quiet or tranquillity; freedom from disturbance or agitation; applicable to society, to individuals, or to the temper of the mind1 from the 1828 version and a state of quiet or tranquillity; freedom from disturbance or agitation; calm; repose1 from the 1913 version. Can we see in these any thing that would apply to the ideas that are in the Master’s words of His peace or in the apostles use of the term we see as peaceable? Can we see that there must be something more and that perhaps our own keynote, GoodWill, is an appropriate understanding? This would be saying that any and ALL things that we would believe come from God would come embodying this ideal which is simply Love in Action for the perspective of a man and the Will to Good from the perspective of the Soul and from God. We use and say this word peace all the time and seldom with reference to war; we say peace be with you in greetings at church and while we may have an inner feeling of what this means, what is it in real words but GoodWill.
- Our next word here is gentle which, like peaceable, seems rather straightforward. Other translations of the this verse use considerate, kind, modest and courteous but none of these seem to go well with our understanding of the purpose of this verse which is to help us to discern those thoughts and revelations from above so that we are speaking about the revelations themselves. The lexicon tells us that the Greek word epiekes which is translated as gentle means: seemingly, suitable; equitable, fair, mild, gentle2 while Strong’s tells us that it means gentle; considerate3 and none of this gives us the right understanding either. Vincent tells us of this word epiekes: Gentle (ejpieike>sin). A common derivation of this word is from ei]kw, to yield. Hence the meaning, mild, yielding, indulgent. But the true derivation is from eijko>v, reasonable; and the word implies rather the not being unduly rigorous: “Wherein not strictness of legal right, but consideration for one another, is the rule of practice” (Alford). Compare Philippians 4:5, where, for moderation (to< ejpieike<v) , Rev. gives forbearance, with gentleness in margin. According to Aristotle, the word stands in contrast with ajkribodi>kaiov, one who is exactingly just, as one who is satisfied with less than his due4. These ideas from Vincent are from the same Greek word as it is used in 1 Peter; can we see the manifold ideas here in this word for which there is apparently no right English word? For us there is a safe harbor in the idea of forbearance as this is depicted in the Revised Verison for the saying in 1 Peter and in the vague idea we may get from Aristotle although there is no word to cover this except perhaps content. Taking this then a bit further, let us look at the definitions of forbearing; Websters tells us that this means: Ceasing; pausing; withholding from action; exercising patience and indulgence. Patient; long suffering1. Remember that we are speaking of the nature of the Wisdom from above and not about our own feelings or ways and in this context we can see that that Wisdom would be forbearing as we define it here, it would not seek to push us in any way against others; yes, it would be gentle, and, in accordance with Aristotle it would be content with itself and would not cause the man to seek more nor to believe that he deserves more. Perhaps a way of looking at this would be in a combination of ALL the words we have seen here in our translation plus those others that are based upon all of these defining terms we have put forth; this would be that in place of the simple idea of gentle we would see a combination of gentle, considerate, kind, modest and courteous.
- Our next word is really a short saying: “easy to be intreated” and this is also a difficult word to understand. Looking at this the same way, other translations of the bible use easy to be entreated (modern spelling), open to reason, easy to be persuaded, obedient, reasonable, and willing to yield. Again remembering the context that we have put this all in, that the Wisdom from above is these things, what is is that we see here but that a thought or a revelation from above would be open to reason, that is that would not cause nor allow the recipient of it to form hard and fast understandings that would not allow for the pure, peaceable and forbearing nature that we discuss above. Strong’s give us this on the Greek word eupeithes which is translated as we see above: submissive, obedient, compliant3 while the lexicon tells us that it means easily obeying, compliant2. Assuming that the English word in the King James Version (KJV) and the American Standard Version (RSV) are correctly stated as entreated (intreated) we do get some help from Websters which tells us that entreated means: ENTRE”ATED, pp. Earnestly supplicated, besought or solicited; importuned; urgently requested. Prevailed on by urgent solicitation; consenting to grant what is desired. Used; managed. This is a very different understanding than that which is offered above and since Vincent is silent on this word other than to tell us that this is its only usage, perhaps we could use these ideas from the dictionary for our understanding of its use in this verse and can start with importuned which is in itself a complex word that is difficult to understand in our terms.
We will continue with these thoughts 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.
Our next task here is to discuss in more detail the ideas that are presented with the statement that My Soul must foster love among the sons of men; this is its major purpose. Over the last few posts we did discuss this idea but we have not really gotten to the core of the understanding that is imparted to us in it. It is telling us in so many ways what the Christ is telling us except again, the perspective is changed. The Master speaking more that 2000 years ago tell us that we should “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:39). Through our studies of the words of the Master and His apostles we can see that this, if practiced properly and universally, will bring a man into the Kingdom of God because it is the Power of the Soul that will actually accomplish this and, once there we are then bound by the Masters command, the Great Commission as it is called which is properly seen as “Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19; American Standard Version). This is the responsibility of each and every one who is or would become a disciple but not in the way that this is interpreted in the missionary world that still persists to today. We know that discipleship is a state of being that is beyond the mere believing and professing, it is an active work of doing the words of the Master and especially those in which He tells us of the requirements of being a True Disciple and attaining the Kingdom. So then to all who feel this Light of the Soul coming through into his consciousness, we know our responsibility which is told us again in more simple language in our the second stanza of our saying below and not only does this say that it is our responsibility, it says that it is our very purpose.
As we approach World GoodWill Day, the Christ Festival, which occurs on the 4th of June we should plan to take this opportunity to pledge ourselves to a greater role in bringing about that sense of GoodWill in the world and, of course, this starts with each and every one of us in our daily lives at home, at work and in our communities.
We will continue with our thoughts on our affirmation and on World GoodWill Day 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.
- 1 Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1828 and 1913
- 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
