IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 458

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON LOVE; PART L

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GoodWill IS Love in Action

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“Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink ? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:34-40).

It is important for us to understand the reality of man, his nature and his constitution and hence we leave our chart day after day. While it may not make sense to ALL, and while it is but a broad outline, it is necessary for us to see and to realize that we are not this body and we are not this personality but we are the Life and the consciousness that is behind these outer appearances. Science KNOWS most only what it can see and for this reason the Soul and the Spirit that IS man is left as merely a religious theory; There is however a sense in the world, and likely there has ever been, that this Life is more that what is seen and that this reality is greater that we can imagine. It is this sense of Life that flows from the Soul of man and is in a way a part of that prompting that we often speak of, the imparting of the True Life’s presence to the form Life, through which the Soul ‘hopes’ to wrest the attention away from the clamor of the world of things and the concerns of the lower carnal self in that world. It is this ‘hope’ that prevents the world from a wholesale resorting to the barbarism of the past and it is this ‘hope’ that we should see in Paul’s words regarding the True Life of the Soul; in regard to the resurrection he says “let us eat and drink; for to morrow we die” (1 Corinthians 15:32) and this is to say that if there is nothing more let us just fill ourselves in our lusts. Can we see that it is this ‘hope’ that prevents this and that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom?

Aspect of God	Potency	Aspect of Man
Father	Will  or Power	Spirit or Life
Son, The Christ	Love and Wisdom	Soul or Christ Within
Holy Spirit	Light or Activity	Life Within the Form

We have been using a new word here for the last few days and this word is wrest which we should take to mean in our context here that the Soul attempts to pull away the attention that the man is paying to the things of the world and to bring this focus ‘back’ to the reality of Life. This idea is inconsequential in regard to the man who is mired in the things of the world and gives no thought to anything else, it is however an important part of our understanding of the duality that ensues once a man realizes that there is that sense of prompting and seeks the source; in the ensuing struggle the lower and the higher aspects of the man, the carnal man in the world and the Soul in the Presence of God, wrestle for control of the personality, the mind and the emotions of the man. We should try to see this struggle more as the Soul vs. the status quo, the learned and comfortable Life in the world; the form life does what it does in its place and in its time within a rather infinite range of attitudes and behaviors and ‘fights off’ the reality that the Soul brings as this reality has for its intent to take the man out of this zone of comfort and to set him in the direction of the Path to Life.

Most ALL of scripture is a treatise on this choice that we, as men in form, must make and the gospels are replete with the Master’s instructions on what choice to make. His instruction however do not tell the man why, other than to tell us that to choose what He says is the Path to the Kingdom of God and the Path to discipleship. He infers that to NOT follow in His word, in His instructions, keeps a man in this world of things. The basic problem with scripture in this context is that the interpretation of good and of evil is not properly discerned; we should see good as the Master points out saying “there is none good but one, that is, God” (Matthew 19:17) and in this Jesus deflects even Himself being called good. As regards evil, the way is not so clear as this; let us look at the Master’s use of the Greek word poneros which is translated in evil and wicked contexts. Before we begin, let us look also at the way that the lexicon defines poneros: full of labours, annoyances, hardships; pressed and harassed by labours, bringing toils, annoyances, perils; of a time full of peril to Christian faith and steadfastness; causing pain and trouble; bad, of a bad nature or condition, in a physical sense: diseased or blind, in an ethical sense: evil wicked, bad. The word is used in the nominative case in Mt. 6:13. This usually denotes a title in the Greek. Hence Christ is saying, deliver us  from “The Evil”, and is probably referring to Satan². Comparing this to the secular definition from Webster’s 1913 edition we can see that the secular is even more demanding of ‘badness’ than the lexicon; Webster’s says as an adjective: 1.Having qualities tending to injury and mischief; having a nature or properties which tend to badness; mischievous; not good; worthless or deleterious; poor; as, an evil beast; and evil plant; an evil crop. 2.Having or exhibiting bad moral qualities; morally corrupt; wicked; wrong; vicious;as, evil conduct, thoughts, heart, words, and the like. 3.Producing or threatening sorrow, distress, injury, or calamity; unpropitious; calamitous;as, evil tidings; evil arrows; evil days ¹. As a noun: 1.Anything which impairs the happiness of a being or deprives a being of any good; anything which causes suffering of any kind to sentient beings; injury; mischief; harm; — opposed to good. 2.Moral badness, or the deviation of a moral being from the principles of virtue imposed by conscience, or by the will of the Supreme Being, or by the principles of a lawful human authority; disposition to do wrong; moral offence; wickedness; depravity. 3. malady or disease; especially in the phrase king’s evil, the scrofula ¹.

Perhaps this Webster’s definition find its origins in Strong’s which tells us that poneros mean bad, the negativ quality of an  object; evil, wicked,crime, the negative moral quality of a person or action opposed to God and his goodness³. Reading this makes it easy to understand why the average man has this staunch view of this word and, we must add, that it is used to paint this picture at times in the gospels. Our view is however that this is not the meaning that we should take from it in many instances of the Master’s use of the word. As we move on here we should note that there are other words that are related to this in some way as Vine’s explains a bit further on and this relationship can be best seen in the way that the same gospel ‘scene’ uses the two different Greek words. This word, kakos is used as evil in the Master’s saying from Mark’s Gospel: “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders” (Mark 7:21) and in the kindred saying as we see in Matthew’s Gospel where we read “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies” (Matthew 15:19) the word poneros is used. While this may seem to add to our difficulty in properly discerning the meanings, it is likely  that we can treat them, for our purposes here as the same word. Vine’s explains it this way which we post without the many bible text references:

1. kakos stands for “whatever is evil in character, base,” in distinction (wherever the distinction is observable) from poneros (see No. 2), which indicates “what is evil in influence and effect, malignant.” Kakos is the wider term and often covers the meaning of poneros. Kakos is antithetic to kalos, “fair, advisable, good in character,” and to agathos, “beneficial, useful, good in act;” hence it denotes what is useless, incapable, bad; poneros is essentially antithetic to chrestos, “kind, gracious, serviceable;” hence it denotes what is destructive, injurious, evil. As evidence that poneros and kakos have much in common, though still not interchangeable, each is used of thoughts. The use of kakos may be broadly divided as follows: (a) of what is morally or ethically “evil,” whether of persons,or qualities, emotions, passions, deeds,; (b) of what is injurious, destructive, baneful, pernicious, where kakos and poneros come in that order, “noisome and grievous.” 2. poneros: akin to ponos, “labor, toil,” denotes “evil that causes labor, pain, sorrow, malignant evil” (see No. 1); it is used (a) with the meaning bad, worthless, in the physical sense; in the moral or ethical sense, “evil,” wicked; of persons; of “evil” spirits; of a generation; of thing; (b) with the meaning toilsome, painful,  Cp. poneria, “iniquity, wickedness.” For its use as a noun see B, No. 2. 3. phaulos primarily denotes “slight, trivial, blown about by every wind;” then, “mean, common, bad,” in the sense of being worthless, paltry or contemptible, belonging to a low order of things; in John 5:29, those who have practiced “evil” things, RV, “ill” (phaula), are set in contrast to those who have done good things (agatha); the same contrast is presented in Rom. 9:11; 2 Cor. 5:10, in each of which the most authentic mss. have phaulos for kakos; he who practices “evil” things (RV, “ill”) hates the light, John 3:20; jealousy and strife are accompanied by “every vile deed,” Jas. 3:16. It is used as a noun in Titus 2:8 (see B, No. 4). See BAD, ILL, VILE ⁶.

In all of this above we get the idea only of evil as it is understood in secular terms and as reinforced by Strong’s which puts the meaning as the opposite to what one could consider good and in all we get only the idea of bad, malicious, wicked, etc.  To help us make our point we have left two things for the end; Vincent’s comments regarding a particular use of the word and part of the Webster’s definition of evil from the 1913 edition. Vincent refers to a saying by the Apostle James that we recently looked as saying: “For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work” (James 3:16) and, while this uses yet another Greek word, phaulos, that is rendered as evil and which is included in the Vine’s notes above, Vincent gives us some understanding of the ideas of all of these words although he does not intentionally do so. Speaking of phaulos he tells us: Evil (faulon). An inadequate rendering, because it fails to bring out the particular phase of evil which is dominant in the word: worthlessness, good-for-nothingness. In classical Greek it has the meanings slight, trivial, paltry, which run into bad. In the New Testament it appears in this latest stage, and is set over against good. See John iii. 20; v. 29; Tit. ii. 8. Rev., vile, which, according to its etymology, Lat., vilis, follows the same process of development from cheap, or paltry, to bad ⁴. From the mixed use of these ideas as noted in Vine’s and explained for us by the others we should wonder why they are all translated as evil especially knowing what ideas are connoted by that word. There is a sentence however in the Websters’s definition that we will use here to continue our discussion of this important word, a word that when properly understood can bring the proper understanding of so much of the words of the Master and as the same time tear down the illusion that if one is not evil, then one is good and entitled to His Kingdom. Our understanding then begins with this from Webster’s: Anything which impairs the happiness of a being or deprives a being of any good; anything which causes suffering of any kind to sentient beings; injury; mischief; harm; — opposed to good ¹.

While it may seem like we are overdoing this by so much detail in definitions and interpretations, it is important that we build a proper foundation for our approach which is different than the established doctrine that has been in use for more than 2000 years. It is our contention that the use of this word is not restricted to the normal understandings of the ideas of evil but rather are used in these various forms to denote the singular idea of men living in a carnal way in the world of things instead of in the Goodness of the Kingdom of God; that evil applies to ALL of us who are not focused upon the things of God. There are degrees of evil just as there are degrees of most everything that we speak about in this blog and these range from the innocence of focus upon the world of things and upon the self and the wants of the self to the most vile men imaginable…all are evil and we will explain this view using the words of the Master as our guide beginning with these verses listed below.

• “That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45).
• “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” (Matthew 7:11).
• “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders” (Mark 7:21).
• “Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake” (Luke 6:22).
• “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 6:45).
• “And in that same hour he cured many of their infirmities and plagues, and of evil spirits; and unto many that were blind he gave sight” (Luke 7:21).
• “And when the people were gathered thick together , he began to say , This is an evil generation: they seek a sign; and there shall no sign be given it, but the sign of Jonas the prophet” (Luke 11:29).
• “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved” (John 3:19-20).
• “And shall come forth ; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation” (John 5:29)
• “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil” (John 17:15)
• “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen” (Matthew 6:13).

We will continue with our thoughts in the next post and try to see the reality of the Master’s use of these words translated as evil.

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.:

So that we do not forget that the reality of this ALL is still LOVE which is our Truth regardless of whatever other realizations may come to us in Life, we present here again the Apostle Paul’s words followed by our own understanding of this reality:

….but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law (Romans 13:8-10).

The first of all the commandments is, Hear , O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: 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 12:29-31)

We should remember always to link to this Greatest Commandment that other saying of the Master that gives to us the practical understanding of how to love one’s self plus the practical instruction on how it is that we CAN Love our neighbour; He tells us:

Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them

(Matthew 7:12)

Unlike so much of the Master’s sayings that come to us in the form of parables and for which we can only surmise that we have the spiritual presence to understand, these sayings are very straightforward and they are the key to many of the promises of spiritual life; they are the very key to the Kingdom of God. To these sayings we add our adopted definition of the Greek word agape (agapao) which is translated into the English words Love and Charity and which is:

‘In a general sense love is benevolence, good will; that disposition of heart which inclines men to think favorably of their fellow men, and to do them good. In a theological sense, it includes supreme love to God, and universal good will to men’

 

• ¹ Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1828 and 1913
• ² from 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, 188
• ⁶ Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, 1996