Monthly Archives: May 2012

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON GOD; Part CXIV

“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 spent time in the last post on the last verse from the section above and we commented upon how it does seem misplaced but it is, at the same time, connected to the main part by the conjunction and. For this reason we are seeking the relationship between this and the verses that precede it and perhaps in looking at the nature of these verses we can find one. We start with the idea of a man believing that he is endued with knowledge who is answering the Apostle James’ question in the affirmative thus making himself liable for the rest of the words that James offers us. We must assume that the apostle is speaking to a spiritual man, one who may believe that he is a disciple, as we do not know how this word was perceived in James’ day, or he may be an aspirant which would cover all three. This aspirant is told that he should show this wisdom and this knowledge in a humble way and through living a good Life from which will flow his good works. Works is a much maligned word in the Christian vocabulary today and likely because it is not properly understood and because of a misplaced emphasis on some equally misunderstood words by the Apostle Paul. James’ Epistle is filled with positive speaking about works while Paul’s writings tend to downplay works in favor of faith, at least this is how this is understood and taught by much of the church. Paul cautions us to not be in works as were the Pharisees who caused the Master’s remarks saying: “All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe , that observe and do ; but do not ye after their works: for they say , and do not…..But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments” (Matthew 23:3-5). Add to this that Paul is cautioning all to not do “by the deeds of the law” (Romans 3:20) which is to say not to do the right thing because it is the law but, as the Christ tells us, to do the right thing because in one’s heart he knows that it is the right thing. The word translated as deeds here is the same Greek word that is generally translated as deeds.

James on the other hand takes the ideas of the Master into his ideas on works and he sees them in EVERYTHING that a man may do, his very actions through the day, his thoughts and his desires. James speaks highly of works and echos the Master’s saying that we should “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). Can we see here our point and that the same point is in James’ saying as; it is by our good works that others will know our relationship with the Master and with our God and this is by our very actions…..all of them. James tells us that we should “shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom” and we know that conversation is, according to Vincent, to be comprehended as ones manner of living, one’s mode of life or conduct⁴ and, as the American Standard Version renders it “let him show by his good life his works“. Can we understand this idea that our works are ALL that we do and the way that people will see us? This is a very important point.

So the apostle asks the question and gives us instruction on how we should act if we believe that we are wise and then tells us the hard truth that “…if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts” that we are not going to be showing good works through a good Life and in this state we should “glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish“. Note here the question and the requirement for each to search out his own heart and we now know the real meanings of envy and strife, that they relate to our sense of self, in being selfish, self-devoted and serving one’s own selfish interests. He tells us also that we should “lie not against the truth” that we should not allow ourselves to be deceived or to deceive ourselves in thinking that any of these ideas of self are Wisdom, or words, or any sort of thing from God; he says to us clearly that if the self is the object then “This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish“. Do we see how James is writing to us? asking us and telling us so that we must make our own determination. Are we wise then do we act wise so that others can see this Wisdom? Do we have only self-interest and self-devotion at heart and do we delude ourselves into thinking that what we do is from God? He concludes this section telling us that whenever the self is the center in self-devotion and self-interest, in emulation, that we should know that its source is the world, it is earthly, sensual, devilish. James goes on then to tell us what IS from above and gives us a list against which to measure every thought and every revelation and we have covered these in some detail over the last several posts. Contrary to the the ideas we have above in the Wisdom that is NOT from above, we should see these sources as individual wells of that Wisdom and all of them in some way selfish or for the self; they can be earthly or sensual or devilish or any combination of these and in any degree. The list of measure for the Wisdom from above however is not to do with its source as we know that it is from above and we should see also that these ideas are all connected and, by the phrasing, they are all incorporated into every thought, every revelation, every thing that we perceive to be from above.

We come now to the last verse which is where we started above. Through this whole section the apostle is teaching us the Truth of Wisdom; that if we have it and if it is from above, there is but one way to show it and if this wisdom causes us to act in a selfish and self-serving manner, in self-devotion and with self-interests as our objective, then we KNOW that this wisdom is NOT from above. If we express, through the Wisdom, the thoughts and the revelations that we deem are from above, the several qualities that the apostle lists for us and which we have interpreted over the last posts, we can be assured that this Wisdom IS from above. Looking again at our list we see that this Wisdom from above IS:

• First pure and we understand this in Vincent’s terms that The other qualities are secondary as outgrowths of this primary quality⁴. We should see in the idea of pure the essence of the Master’s teachings and understand that the Wisdom that is Truly from above would cause us to act according to His words; ALL of them.
• The next quality is peaceable and here we should see much more than its relationship to war and to strife. For this word that has many meanings and uses in scripture we chose to see it as GoodWill which we KNOW IS Love in Action and as an ideal that has for its objective the teachings of the Master on Love. We take this idea of peace in the Master’s words regarding it saying: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you” (John 14:27), as a statement on Love for in this we cannot see any ideas of war and strife but only of Love. And, when the Master or any of His disciples say “Peace be unto you” (John 20-21) what else can he mean but the tranquility that we can feel and express based upon His Love.
• Next is gentle which is rendered as forbearance by the Revised Version. In forbearance we should should see these ideas from Webster’s Ceasing; pausing; withholding from action; exercising patience and indulgence. Patient; long suffering¹. From this and the words that Vincent attributes to Aristotle saying one who is satisfied with less than his due⁴, we have, in a word,  taken the understanding that we, as men, should be caused to be and to feel content based upon any thought from above; no matter what it may be. If this Wisdom meets the criteria of ALL these qualities listed by the apostle, we will be content and happy with it and desire nothing more for the self. Notwithstanding we should also see the ideas of patience and indulgence as regards our actions with others.
• The next quality is easy to be intreated and in this we do not agree with the variety of renderings of this by the different translations, many of which are dissimilar. We chose to take the ideas from the older dictionaries and, as found in Webster’s definitions, importunity; as we commented on in our essay, we have explored this word before. Our prior understanding is that importunity is in the asking of a friend for a thing of need and based on its usage in the words of the Master this is a valid understanding. Here we have the other side of this; we have the idea from the perspective of the one who is asked, that he will comply with the request of a friend…easily and this because it is the right thing to do.
• Full of mercy and good fruits is the next thought and although we had separated these before we will deal with them together here. Mercy is generally defined in scripture as: Mercy is kindness and goodwill toward the miserable and afflicted, joined with a desire to relieve them⁴ and this as it reflects upon our brothers in form; that is the physically miserable, afflicted, etc. Based on its use in the New Testament we have come to see this as the miserable and the afflicted by way of being caught in the world of things with no apparent way out; afflicted in one’s state of being lost and separated form the reality of the True Self.  For fruits we need only to look at the words of the Master as we noted above and the sayings of His apostles. From Paul we have the “fruit of the Spirit” which we should see incorporated into this idea of good fruits and we should especially see the totality of fruits within his words regarding such fruit as “all goodness and righteousness and truth” (Ephesian 5:9).
• Without partiality was a difficult saying to explore as the ideas proffered by the normal ‘biblical’ contributors do not come to be in line with our own thoughts on this matter. It is seen by many and even by scholars to refer to variance and doubting but not even our sources can agree on the defining terms. We however have taken this to refer to a state of God in that He is NO respecter of persons; we have discounted the ideas regarding doubt as this is the purpose of the whole of the saying; to KNOW that a thought or revelation is from above. So we see here impartial, free from prejudice³.
• Without hypocrisy is the last item listed on James’ list and and we do take this one rather literally as it occurs in James’ saying. There is no mystery to this idea and it is one idea that is played large by Master in His many sayings against those who entertained these thoughts.

This brings us back again to the last verse which says that “And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace” and which we have interpreted as that righteousness itself is the fruit which should be realized in Paul’s saying above which defines fruit of the spirit. Paul tells us that this is “all goodness and righteousness and truth” and here we should take hold of the idea of righteousness; that righteousness is the fruit which is sown in peace

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 beb 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.

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 Strongs Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible – 2001
• ⁴ Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888