Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
ON GOD; Part CII
“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).
Today, before we get caught up in a different discussion as we so often do, let us complete our consideration of our chapter from John’s Epistle that has now been included in our daily posts for many days. In the last verse that we covered we encountered the idea of fear which sent us on a journey again through some additional ideas on illusion, glamour and deception. We should note here that it is fear that can actually feed deception and that, in a way, we use illusion and glamour to cover our fears while, at the same time, fear produces the illusion and the glamour that we encounter. This is a rather obtuse statement about a subject that is difficult to explain as words fail us when we encounter these things of the world and try to discern them in a spiritual way. We may see our point and understand it but we cannot adequately express it. This is like saying that if we Love as the Master portrays it for us then we will find the “Kingdom of God and His righteousness” and, at the same time if we seek to be righteous as in His command that we “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33) we are sure to find that Love of which He speaks. Fear is a many faceted idea and it covers many things that are not even considered as fear by the man in form; we noted that it is fear that produces doctrines and many there are that are intended to cover a fear and here we will give that same example again regarding Love that we discussed in the last post. We are commanded to “thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Mark 12:31) and this is a difficult saying to understand and to accomplish as it requires that a man be virtually a saint (which is ever the Master’s intention) and to draw away from the ways and the things of the world. This creates a dilemma for the man, or rather mankind, as he cannot see how he can satisfy the dictates of the Master and still retain his sense of self in the world and this because he does not understand his basic divinity. This dilemma is fear and from more than one Christian perspective; there is fear that one will not be seen by others as following the Master’s words, there fear of the eternal damnation that arises in this idea of not following, there is fear that is engendered in the personality where a man sees himself as failing because he cannot accomplish this great thing and there are likely other scenarios as well. These sensations of fear are not only individual but occur in groups as well and in group leaders also suffer this same dilemma. It is here that a doctrine is created that covers this fear and alleviates it as the doctrine is not so difficult to perform as is the commandment. In the case of the saying of the Master above we can see that it is largely ignored except as it is a nice sentiment; it is replaced by the interpretations of His and His apostles other words that are interpreted as telling the man that he just needs to Love his Christian brother. We made an analogy two posts back that we should here repeat: Wisdom is to deception as Love is to fear and our point here is that none of these pairs can coexist; if we have Love working in our lives there can be no fear and, if we have Wisdom working in our lives there can be no deception. Of course we should remember that these are the higher correspondences of Love and Wisdom and not those of the world; the love and the wisdom of the world greatly contribute to the illusion and the glamour and thereby to the deception and the fear. Ponder on this.
While we did get kind of caught up again by what was intended as a brief review, we should see in this some ideas of importance; not only in our own lives but in the Loving understanding of our brother’s as well. We close this idea with this from the Master: “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. 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 14:26-27). We have covered this idea of the Comforter before which we understand, outside of the common doctrine, as the activity of the Christ Within in our conscious selves and in the world. What then is the Master saying here? that the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, the activity of the Christ Within in form, teaches us “all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you“. We should know here that when the activity of the Christ Within is being expressed through the form, that we will “Enter….in at the strait gate” (Matthew 7:13) toward communion with Him and His Kingdom and this is ever our objective and our goal. Jesus ends here with His offering of Peace to His disciples in whom the Christ Within is working and we should see, behind the parabolic nature of these sayings, what is the source of that peace….The Peace of God. We will end this saying here as the next part likely belongs to the next verse and not the former and is telling them not to fear because He is going away. Our point should be made here in that it is in the Peace of God, the Power and Love of the Christ Within, that we have the things from above including the Wisdom from above and in this there is no deception for the Comforter shows the conscious man ALL things.
We continue now with the next verse from out chapter above which simply states that “We love him, because he first loved us” which really has no specific message as it appears in the King James Version (KJV). However there is a much different understanding found in some of the other translations which simply say “We love“. Vincent tells us of this that: We love Him (hJmei~v ajgapw~men aujto<n). The best texts omit Him. Some render let us love, as ver. 7. The statement is general, relating to the entire operation of the principle of love. All human love is preceded and generated by the love of God4. This gives a very different appreciation of the idea that the apostle is expressing. We Love because He first Loved us can be then understood as we Love because He IS Love which saying can be seen to both follow the preceding verses or to lead up to the following verses which tell 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?“. “God is love” and therefore His entire creation MUST be Love and MUST express Love and hidden deep within every facet of this creation Love can be found. We must understand here that the primary manifestation of God, of the Christ, is the Kingdom of God, the spiritual man that gives His Life to the form that appears on this Earth. We have spoken of this before in these posts and we should try to understand that this is ALL a deep mystery. While we can glimpse the reality of man as the Soul and appreciate this when we are striving toward the Kingdom, we cannot understand the purpose and the function of man in this world, the man that exists apart from this existence has no need for this existence that can be readily discerned. There are some thoughts and theories about this but none that we can discuss at this time with any degree of confidence or intelligence. Suffice it to say at this juncture that the Soul of man is destined to live Life after Life in form on this Earth until such a time as he can express the fullness of the Soul, the Christ Within, through this Life on Earth and it is at this time that he is made free. We should also understand that as Spirit and Soul that we enter into this arrangement with full awareness and in a Spirit of Love for whatever it is that we are accomplishing beyond the fact of our own freedom. It is said that the True disciple will stay to help His brothers until they are all FREE or until some Higher Calling and this is in the True nature of Love.
So “God is love” and we, in our True reality as Spirit and as Souls, are Love as well and through our ardent desire to express that reality through form we bring that Love to bear on the Earth and this is the apostle’s next thought. The thought is clear but ignored by most ALL insofar as seeing one’s brother as EVERYMAN and this plays well with our ideas above on doctrines that are developed to cover a man who can not achieve the High Calling of the Master. This word brother is a complex one with many meanings and with several different Greek words that can translate into it. The lexicon tells us of the Greek word adelphos that it means a brother, whether born of the same two parents or only of the same father or mother; having the same national ancestor, belonging to the same people, or countryman; any fellow or man; a fellow believer, united to another by the bond of affection; an associate in employment or office; brethren in Christ; his brothers by blood; all men; apostles; Christians, as those who are exalted to the same heavenly place. We should note that there is a great range of meaning here which is mostly dictated by doctrine and which includes the broadest sense of the word as all men; and any fellow or man and, understanding the intent of the Christ as we do, should we not take the broadest as our ideal? Strong’s paints this a bit differently for us saying that adelphos means brother, fellow countryman, neighbour (often inclusive in gender); by extension a fellow believer in the family of faith3 and in this we should see that the ideas generated by extension are doctrinal in nature. Can we see that it is likely, based on the teachings of the Master, that John considers ALL men as brothers? It is our premise that this is so and that this saying is in regard to Love for ANYMAN. Can we see how the idea that if a man says He Loves God and hates anyone, “he is a liar” that there is no separation here of who a man can hate.
And what does it mean that “he is a liar” but that it is impossible to be in such a state; it is impossible to hate ANYMAN and at the same time to Love God. Now hate is a strong word which is subject to definition but the apostle does not leave us in doubt as to what he means as he continues to tell us what we need to know; the next part reveals the meaning in the apostles words saying that “he that loveth not his brother” as the defining terms for hate. John’s premise is sound here as relates to the teachings of the master who tells us that we must “love thy neighbour as thyself“. Can we see the apostle’s idea here as being that if we do not Love our brother who we see, how can we Love God who we cannot see; this then is not so much to show hate but only lack of Love. We can add to this the idea that if we do Love our brother, we can see God through the Christ Within, through the Soul. The apostle ends this chapter by telling us, in no uncertain terms, that we have a commandment from the Master that “he who loveth God love his brother also” and this is the message in a nutshell from the beginning to the end.
In the beginning of this post we saw the commandment that the Master calls a part of the Great Commandment which tells us that “thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” and it is in this that we should see a dynamic relationship to most ALL of the Master’s other teachings. This Greatest Commandment must be reckoned as of vital importance and not a nice saying and John is telling us here that if we cannot do this it is impossible to Love God as well.
We will continue with our thoughts on this final part of this chapter from John’s First Epistle in our 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 this Quote of the Day is from the sayings of the Buddha, the Dhammapada, as it is of profound importance in our journey to God and the realization of our own Christ Within.
However many holy words you read, however many you speak, What good will they do you If you do not act upon them? Are you a shepherd who counts another man’s sheep, never sharing the way? Read as few words as you like, and speak fewer. But act upon the dharma (law). Give up the old ways – passion, enmity, folly. Know the truth and find peace. Share the way. Dhammapada (on Choices)5
Can we see the ideas of the Apostle James in this saying? James tells us that “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22).
- 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
- 5 Dhammapada Translated by Thomas Byrom
