Monthly Archives: March 2014

ON LOVE; PART DLXXXI

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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 continued with our discussion on the second chapter from the Epistle of James and spent much time on what the apostle calls the royal law, that law on Love which he cites in the same way as does the Master; that “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself“. He ties this for us to the additional reality that the man who Loves as the Master instructs will NOT have “respect of persons” as this IS contrary to the law. The apostle goes further then to show the importance of this idea that seems as an addendum to the law of Love by saying that to have “respect of persons“, to hold one above another for any reason, IS sin and he reminds us that any and ALL sin IS transgression of the law…be it murder or be it our failure in Love. As we look upon the Christian landscape yet today, this idea IS NOT held by many and, as we have been saying throughout our blog, the teaching of the Master on Love, that part that He calls the Greatest Commandments as we cite above, seems relegated to the background in the teaching of the church. And this IS James’ message; that this Love IS the royal law, that this Love, combined with the reality of equanimity in a man’s expression of it by having NO “respect of persons“, IS the reality of the DOER and IS the Truth of the Truly religious man who DOES “keep himself unspotted from the world“.

It IS the ways of the world that diminish the teaching on Love and the apostle tells us this in his words about the “fatherless and widows in their affliction”  (James 1:27) where we should try to see that the law of Moses that governs this idea is left vacant by the Jews in their daily affairs and that the Master does call out the scribe and the Pharisee, those who should be Truly religious, for their own failure against it. For us these seemingly obscure words on the “fatherless and widows” ARE to show the way that this concept of having NO “respect of persons” has been ignored by those who claim to be religious and that this concept IS a necessary part of True religion. The apostle’s words are parabolic from the perspective that these ideas ARE NOT clearly spelled out and require some degree of understanding the overall point of his teaching here on Love as it MUST effect the Life of the aspirant, the disciple and the True seeker; it IS likely ONLY in the perception of persons such as these that his words take on some degree of clarity; we repeat our current verses for clarity:

“If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well: But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors. For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty. For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment” (James 28-13).

As we noted in the last essay, much of James’ ideas on this royal law and its addendum are properly seen by the commentators and from our perspective this IS because there is little in these words that can be seen differently. However, the practice of these ideas and the teaching of them seems forgotten in the overall tenor of the rest of the commentary as doctrine generally takes the idea of keeping the law out of the vision of Truth and many see this as works. It IS on this idea of works and keeping the law that much of Christianity has gone astray as so many see James’ words as secondary to those of Apostle Paul while at the same time misunderstanding the intent of the Paul’s words in which so many believe that they have found safe harbor and salvation. And, as we have ventured to say at the beginning of our work on James’ Epistle, there seems to be an intentional objection to the perceptions that many have of Paul’s writing in the words of James; NOT an objection to Paul’s words, but to the perceptions that many have on the ideas of the law and on the relationship between faith and works. James, as we see in the previous essays, has addressed the idea of the law and of works under the law from the perspective of being a DOER, and this especially in the idea of the Truth of Love, and he defines for us, in terms of what one should and should not DO, the Life of the aspirant, the disciple and the True seeker. From here James goes on to discuss the specific ideas of faith and works and we will get to this after we take care of the final ideas in these sayings; James’ words on judgment and the Truth of mercy.

As we noted in the last essay, this idea of being judged by the Law IS a personal and individual assessment by the man of his own conduct, his own thoughts, attitudes and actions in the world. He must ask himself if he has understood the ideas of Love and the law, the way of the DOER and the Truly religious man, and if the Truths of these IS his own expression to the world; DOES he “So speak ye, and so do“. It IS this self assessment that shows a man his own standing against the Truth and his own place on the Path which leads to that strait gate that opens into the Kingdom of God. There IS NO other logical idea that can be attached to these words “So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty“; the reference is to be among those who can so judge in Truth. We cited John Gill’s ideas on the types of judgement from his comments on this saying and we noted that these ARE NOT a valid assessment nor are they a True commentary of the ideas presented by James; here we present the ideas from The Commentary Critical and Explanatory of the Whole Bible which are more of a commentary and where we can perhaps see the idea of their lean toward what they presume from the teaching of Paul:

judged by the law of liberty–( James 1:25 ); that is, the Gospel law of love, which is not a law of external constraint, but of internal, free, instinctive inclination. The law of liberty, through God’s mercy, frees us from the curse of the law, that henceforth we should be free to love and obey willingly. If we will not in turn practice the law of love to our neighbor, that law of grace condemns us still more heavily than the old law, which spake nothing but wrath to him who offended in the least particular ( James 2:13 ). Compare Matthew 18:32-35 , John 12:48 , Revelation 6:16 , “Wrath of the (merciful) Lamb.”

We DO NOT understand their idea of the law of grace which seems to carry the ideas of Paul’s words on faith and grace into these words from James and we should try to see how that the idea of the law of liberty is seen by them as agreement with their own doctrinal assertions even though these assertions seem quite contrary to the words of James on DOING. James flows into the next saying on judgment and mercy which, while it follows upon this idea of being among those who are judged according to the law as we say above, should be seen in relation to the DOING rather than the common idea that this is a continuation of James idea on this judgment. If we can take this apart, we can make much sense of these ideas which begins with the first, that the man who would be a DOER, the aspirant and the disciple, should heed these words on Love and on having NO “respect of persons” as one and understand that the latter part IS the functioning of the former part in the world; that to show NO “respect of persons” in ones expression of Love IS the True Way. It IS this that he must speak and DO; this Universal Love must be the totality of the disciple’s expression. It must be his thoughts, his attitudes and his actions and in DOING this the man IS acting as one who can be judged by the law; by his very compliance with the law he can see himself as the DOER and as the Truly religious man who DOES “keep himself unspotted from the world“.

And the apostle continues; not in relation to the idea of judgment but in the idea of DOING this Truth of Love; that if one does not show this mercy, this Universal Love, that there will be NO mercy for him in his judgment of his own actions in Love; he will not have that liberty, that salvation, that can ONLY come in one’s expression of Universal Love to ALL. This idea of Love IS the reality of the Master’s teaching and here in James’ parabolic approach there is much confusion by those who DO NOT see this reality. The final thought that “mercy rejoiceth against judgment” should be seen as it IS presented, that mercy as the application of Love to ALL in the world and that this sense of Love IS of God while the judgment IS of the world as we judge worldly actions against our own sense of the Truth. Much commentary on these ideas of mercy and judgment are rather nebulous as there IS no clear understanding of the apostle’s intent:

• John Gill tells us: and mercy rejoiceth against judgment; that is merciful men, who have shown mercy to the poor saints, will not be afraid of the awful judgment, but rather rejoice or glory, as the word signifies, in the view of it, since they will obtain mercy at that day, and hear, Come, ye blessed of my Father ⁸. This IS a doctrinal presentation that sees mercy as we read in the last essay, that it IS: kindness or good will towards the miserable and the afflicted, joined with a desire to help them ².
• The Commentary Critical and Explanatory offers us this on this whole verse: The converse of, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” ( Matthew 5:7 ). Translate, “The judgment (which is coming on all of us) shall be without mercy to him who hath showed no mercy.” It shall be such toward every one as every one shall have been [BENGEL]. “Mercy” here corresponds to “love,” James 2:8 . mercy rejoiceth against judgment–Mercy, so far from fearing judgment in the case of its followers, actually glorifieth against it, knowing that it cannot condemn them. Not that their mercy is the ground of their acquittal, but the mercy of God in Christ towards them, producing mercy on their part towards their fellow men, makes them to triumph over judgment, which all in themselves otherwise deserve ⁸. We should note here that the authors DO see this idea of mercy as Love and they treat this as such but hold judgement in the doctrinal way as that this IS  coming on all of us as the judgment of God in the end. 

Our reality is that mercy and Love not only correspond here but that they are the same and perhaps we should see them as that mercy is the effect of Love which IS the cause and while we may not have the intent of James’ words exactly right, we do have the reality of the idea. And the Master teaches us this as well in His words to the Pharisees where, repeating the words of the prophets, He tells us that the Lord has said through them that “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice“. Here the context  in the Master’s words IS similar to James as Jesus says in the complete thought that: “But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless” (Mat5thew 12:7); here we should KNOW that condemned is better rendered as judged. The reality of the prophet’s words are that the Lord desired mercy, NOT toward Himself, but as the expression of Love in the world which IS in accordance with the commandments at the top of our essay. From our perspective this idea of mercy IS never restricted to the miserable and the afflicted as IS the common understanding and even Vincent’s idea that it IS the mercy of God that takes away the misery ⁴ as we read in the last post CAN NOT be the final word on the intent in that saying as we noted.

Later in our work on this Epistle of James we will find this idea of mercy again as the apostle uses it as an attribute of that Wisdom from above and in this case these ideas of applying mercy to the miserable and the afflicted DOES NOT work as a definition for this Greek word eleos. If however this idea of the miserable and the afflicted can be seen as the generality of the human condition, of the state of being of the man in the world whose focus IS on those things of the world, if this IS his affliction and if this IS the cause of his misery from a spiritual perspective, then these words and ideas can work. In this view we can have mercy as they see that the word must be seen along with our view that mercy IS Love, it IS the effective application of Love to ALL which then SHOULD NOT BE UNDERSTOOD AS APPLICABLE TO THE DOWNTRODDEN nor as though it IS for the poor saints as Mr. Gill paints this. For us then this is a settled idea, that mercy IS the Love as it IS expressed to ALL and that this Love is far superior to any other view of our brothers in the world who we see without judgment and who we see equally without any “respect to persons“. And, in this view, the totality of the apostle’s words work out in a steady building stream of refraining from the ways of the world, resisting the temptations and to  “keep himself unspotted from the world” while being a DOER of the word in ALL things and especially in Love and in its Universal application as mercy to ALL men. The apostle continues from here into the ideas of DOING from another perspective and that is its relation to faith; our next verses are:

“What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?” (James 2:14-20).

We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.

Aspect of God	Potency	Aspect of Man	In Relation to the Great Invocation	In relation to the Christ
GOD, The Father	Will or Power	Spirit or Life	Center where the Will of God IS KNOWN	Life
Son, The Christ	Love and Wisdom	Soul or Christ Within	Heart of God	Truth
Holy Spirit	Light or Activity	Life Within	Mind of God	Way

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.

Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful (Colossians 3:12-15).

In this Quote of the Day we find the Apostle Paul speaking to the followers and believers at Colosse and instructing them in how it is that they should act and be. These are the virtues which establish the ways of disciples of the Master. We note here that Paul tells us the importance of Love which is translated here as Charity but which we know from previous posts is from the same Greek word as Love. We should see also that it is the same Love that we defined as a combination of our English definitions of both words, Love and Charity:

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. Plus the ever important High Ideal as taught by the Christ: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” (Matthew 7:12).

Paul ends this with what comes naturally when we are in the Presence of the Master and this is to be in His Peace; as we seek and we strive toward Him we should notice the aura of Peace that overcomes us and in that Peace we find all of the virtues enumerated above.

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!

• ² New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
• ⁴ Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
• ⁸ Bible commentaries on BibleStudyTools.com