IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 937

ON LOVE; PART DXXVI

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GoodWill IS Love in Action

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“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).

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“Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:36-40).

In the last essay we tied together the realities of the teaching of the Master on Love that is found in the Great Commandments above with the reality of forsaking ALL for the Kingdom of God. In this combination we should see that we must give up ALL attractions and attachments to the things and the ways of the world in order to Truly free ourselves and it IS in this freedom that a man CAN and DOES find himself in the Kingdom of God. This is the essential Truth that the Master unfolds for us and that we must take as our own example; as He said and DID so must we be able to do and to say with Him that “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). We should understand that these Truths are rather clearly stated but that they are at the same time invisible to most men who NO NOT understand the overall intent of the Master’s words nor the words of His apostles; these ARE the same and in them we should see our own responsibilities as aspirants and as disciples. These ARE also encapsulated for us in the right understanding of the so called Great Commission; not in the doctrinal view of this but in the reality that we painted in the last post and which says that: we, as disciples, should make disciples of others, of all men, immersing them in the reality of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost and teaching them to keep His words as we KNOW that we must do. This we take from the verbiage of the King James Version which says: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20). We can further condense our own words to more simply say that: we, as disciples, should make disciples of others, of all men, immersing them in the reality of God and teaching them to keep His words as we do.

As does the doctrinal church, we should put ourselves in the place of the apostles and here we should accept one very important criteria which IS that we are not hypocrites, that we teach and so do ourselves. Here is a difficult part of our view of this commission as there are very few who actually DO keep His words in their entirety; most, like us, strive to do so but are yet caught in the realm of duality…but this should not deter us. In this we act in honesty of our own position and we do not judge any and here we should also see that our position IS NOT to comment upon what wrongs which others may be doing but rather to comment upon the words of the Master and allow each man to decide for himself his own fate. That there are things happening in this world with which we DO NO agree is a reality but nothing IS Truly wrong save that which harms another; not only in our belief system but in reality. In this role we must ever be careful NOT to judge the motives or the actions of another but rather to understand that we ARE seeing the actions of a brother who DOES NOT yet see as we do, and, that in different circumstances we may be in the same mind set as he is. Now we comment against the doctrinal church and we do so with a purpose which IS NOT to condemn but to try to understand their motives and point out the sometimes stark differences between the Truth of the words of the Master and the doctrines of men many of which ARE created to offer cover to the man in the world against the seeming harshness of the Truth. In this light we should try to see the current controversies regarding homosexuality, abortion and even birth control which are used as a wedge to point and out the deficiencies of others on actions for which there IS NO True teaching save a few isolated words that, for example, paint homosexuality as wrong but not as any more wrong that those other things that a man can do in Life. The Master gives us some very important words regarding judgement and we KNOW them well but we DO NOT understand the import; He tells us:

• “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:1-5).
• “Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned  forgive, and ye shall be forgiven” (Luke 6:36-37).
• “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment” (John 7:24).
• “They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? This they said tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself , and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground” (John 8:4-8).
• “First establish yourself in the way, then teach, and so defeat sorrow. To straighten the crooked you must first do a harder thing – straighten yourself” (Dhammapada; on Yourself).

This idea of judgement should be seen in the context of Love and the sentiment of the first two points above should show us this reality from the perspective of the second part of the Great Commandment which we read above. In this we are to Love others as we Love our selves. This idea should incorporate the positive and the negative and the precepts of the Golden Rule as well. We can rather clearly see in the idea of retribution here in these words on judgement but there is no hard rule that if one judges or condemns that the same will happen to him except in the reality of sowing and reaping as this reality exists if in no other way than the mindset of the one who judges will establish. There are complex psychological ideas at play here and our own reality should be in the Truth that these ARE the words of the Master whose greater idea may be that if a man IS keeping His words then there is little or nothing to be judged or condemned for. The Master’s words ARE the reality of sowing and reaping from the perspective of the man in the world but IS NOT seen by the many who believe that it IS God in heaven Who is looking down in judgement; If this were the case there are few if any that would escape such judgement. John Gill frames this idea of judgement according to the Golden Rule from the saying in Matthew saying: It would be well, if persons subject to a censorious spirit, would put themselves in the case and circumstances the persons are in they judge; and then consider, what judgment they would choose others should pass on them ⁸.

Greater than this however is hypocrisy which the Master teaches us on in regard to the mote and the beam and we should note that this IS parabolic saying IS about judgement as well. We should understand that the Master is not speaking about any particular thing that another may be ‘guilty’ of and here we should see ALL things and that there IS NO relationship between the moat and the beam required. The point is simply that one man should not see the wrongs that another may be doing when he himself is also doing some wrong; here the Apostle James makes this clear for us saying: “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all” (James 2:10). In this we should see that the degree that one sees in the wrongs of another are equalized in the fact that they ARE ALL equally bad. Here we should see that hypocrisy does not require for one to speak or act against another’s wrong only if they are doing the same but, that one should not speak against another’s wrong if he has ANY wrong himself; and this in thought, in attitude and in action. We should note here that were a man innocent of ALL, that he would NOT be judging….period. As we cite John Gill above with his good comment on this idea of judgement as it works with the Golden Rule, we should also point out here his doctrinal ideas on the allowance for this in the church as he says: Judge not, that ye be not judged. This is not to be understood of any sort of judgment; not of judgment in the civil courts of judicature, by proper magistrates, which ought to be made and pass, according to the nature of the case; nor of judgment in the churches of Christ, where offenders are to be called to an account, examined, tried, and dealt with according to the rules of the Gospel; nor of every private judgment, which one man may make upon another, without any detriment to him; but of rash judgment, interpreting men’s words and deeds to the worst sense, and censuring them in a very severe manner; even passing sentence on them, with respect to their eternal state and condition ⁸.

Can we see how these ideas can limit the reality of the Master’s ideas? Can we see how these ideas are the workings of men. Here the only allowance that can be found in our view is in the sense of the civil laws of the land and even here these should be subject to that higher idea of “righteous judgement” according to the Master’s words above saying: “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment“. In this we should see that the only “righteous judgement” would be that which IS in the same view as we would expect from the Master and from the Father; judgement in Truth, without prejudice, and without the entering in of the feelings of the judge about the one that IS judged or the offense. Many an innocent man is jailed or even put to death based upon the case that IS sold to the jury regarding a man rather than upon the facts and many a guilty man is set free based upon this same kind of criteria. Here in these words from John’s Gospel the Master IS speaking about a civil matter and while this is hidden from view because the law in that day was religion as well, this IS nonetheless so as the Master is questioning the Pharisee’s judgments against him according to the law of Moses. We do not live in a perfect world and these types of judgments will continue; we should see our point here as that for the man who IS the aspirant and the man who seeks greater spiritual reality that these things should NOT happen as they are contrary to the reality of the Master’s words and His intent.

There is a similar lesson hidden in Jesus’ the encounter with the woman caught in adultery. Many see the Master’s words as most artful in diffusing this situation but the Truth IS that this is the Master’s ultimate teaching of judgement and hypocrisy and incorporates the reality that we speak of above, that there need be no relationship between what one is judging another for and the sense of sin that he may have himself. We should see as well that it IS in this light of blamelessness on the part of the judge, it is on the part of first removing the beam from one’s own eye, that we can judge another and, we should remember here our own idea that in this state of blamelessness, this state of keeping His words, that one will not judge. These ideas are not however the view of much of the Christian doctrine where the idea of adultery plays a larger role as does the idea of sin; we read this from John Gill: he that is without sin among you; meaning, not that was entirely free from sin, in heart, in lip, and life; for there is no such person; the most holy man in life is not, in such sense, free from sin; but that was without any notorious sin, or was not guilty of some scandalous sin, and particularly this of adultery; which was in this age a prevailing sin, and even among their doctors; hence our Lord calls that generation an adulterous one ⁸. Here again we limit the reality of the Master’s words so as to allow for the actions of men and this is seen as well in this from the Commentary Critical and Exposition of the Whole Bible were we read: He that is without sin–not meaning sinless altogether; nor yet, guiltless of a literal breach of the Seventh Commandment; but probably, he whose conscience acquits him of any such sin ⁸. Do we not think that if this IS what the Master meant that this IS what He would have said? And do we think that the entire crowd was guilty of adultery?

If we tie these things together with His words on Love and the Golden Rule, there IS NO way that these judgments can be made in the heart of the aspirant nor the disciple and this must be the perspective of ANY who Truly seek the Kingdom. This idea of judgement is intricately woven into the fabric of Love, the True Love as the Master teaches us, and this IS not a new idea. This idea of judgement IS, like the Great Commandments on Love, taken from the law as presented by Moses where we read: “Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour”  and it IS but a few verses further down that we read “Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD” (Leviticus 19:15, 18). We KNOW from history that these were not followed nor properly taught by the priests and the rulers of the Jews; neither by the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the scribes. We do KNOW however that some of the more learned did understand that these are important precepts of the law as we have discussed in previous essays. The Master expands on both of these ideas and, much like the Pharisees in Jesus’ day preferred to teach tithing and sacrifice and the such type of things over the Truth of the law, so religious men yet today minimize the Master’s words as we see here in these commentaries where they DO NOT see the fullness of His teachings.

We included above a thought from the Buddha which should be seen in much the same light which IS that before one can “straighten the crooked” or even suggest or judge another to expand upon this thought, that that man must be himself straight. Here again we should understand from the lack of a specific context that this would include more than merely that which one would correct and in the idea that “you must first do a harder thing – straighten yourself” we should see the reality of being free from sin oneself; not a particular sin but sin. Here, and in our sense of freedom that we speak about above, the freedom that comes from looking past the temporal thoughts, attitudes and actions of the self in the world, the freedom found in forsaking, we should see the reality of the Apostle Paul’s words that tell that we: “shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). This IS NOT by magic nor IS it my some special decree, this IS by our keeping His words which start and end in Love.

We will continue with our 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 repeat here a Quote of the Day that we spent much time with over the course of our essays. In this affirmation we find the Truth of discipleship as we have been ever been expressing and here we can relate our themes of the last few days; “take no thought” for the things of the world and that we approach the Kingdom and discipleship in the nature of the little child, in humbleness, meekness, unashamed in any way and unassuming. The message that this imparts for us today IS that it IS the Soul that is at work in the world of men as it expresses to some degree the purpose, power and the will through Life in this world. These words are from a meditation offered to his students by our Tibetan brother and in which we find greater understanding of the message of the Master. This IS Truly the way of the disciple.

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.

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!

• ⁸ Bible commentaries on BibleStudyTools.com