IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 1009

ON LOVE; PART DXCVIII

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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 reviewed again our progress on the list of attributes for what IS that Wisdom from above as James presents this to us in his Epistle. Our fascination with this listing IS evident throughout our more than one thousand posts on this blog and we see ALL his words as a cornerstone for the man who Truly seeks to be a disciple and find the Truth of the Kingdom of God. While we frequently cite James’ blunt and direct manner of writing, we are discovering more and more that he also embraces a distinct parabolic style as he uses words which many DO NOT see as he intends them because their focus is on the more worldly ideas that the words seem to embrace. We have always tried to view James’ words in a spiritual way as we do ALL that we read in the New Testament and it IS in this view that the apostle’s intent IS seen. While this IS true of ALL of the writings of the apostles in both the gospels and the epistles, it seems more True in James words and perhaps because his manner IS so blunt; and this bluntness IS likely also a reason why his words are not given the same ‘religious’ force as are those of the Apostle Paul who IS NOT so blunt and who affords the reader a greater ability to find cover for his own thoughts and attitudes.

James directly confronts what he sees as the variability in men’s approach to God and what we see as the use of doctrinal approaches to religion and salvation that likely began in his day; many of which continue to today. He speaks strongly about temptation and its effects on the man who DOES NOT resist and he speaks even more strongly about the need to be a DOER of the word and not merely one who hears and believes the Truth. James bluntly tells us of the reality of True religion in such a way that it can indict most ALL men who to themselves “seem to be religious” but who DO NOT “keep himself unspotted from the world” (James 1:26, 27) and he does so in a way that most see only the ideas presented about the tongue and the “fatherless and widows” and NOT the reality of being unspotted which we discuss in some detail in In the Words of Jesus part 988. The apostle tells us bluntly about the royal law and about the reality of having NO “respect of persons” which we understand because it IS our focus but which is missed by many who use see only his example of the well dressed nature of the rich man as opposed to the vile garb of the poor man; many believe that this IS the whole of the idea of having NO respect and at the same time few heed even these words. And James tells us strongly about the intimate relationship between faith and works and how one can KNOW True faith by the works that it produces; in this we see the greater reality of our comment regarding the apostles opposition to the establishment of the doctrinal approaches as this IS in direct opposition to what has become a doctrinal reality. Here many assign motives to James’ words to cover their reliance on what they perceive to be the message of Paul but which IS in reality an out of context doctrinal approach. James speaks to us about teaching and cautions us about the perils of teaching doctrine over Truth but his words ARE NOT seen in this way, they are rather seen as the harshness of teaching that was perhaps employed by some and they see James’ use of the word tongue as only that organ that should be controlled rather than the entirety of a man’s expression which in teaching would be to set forth his own beliefs and doctrines as the word of God.

His intent here is that whatsoever one believes, whatsoever one’s doctrine, whatsoever one sees as wisdom, IS NOT if it is in any way related to the self and the self in the world; if it in any way promotes one’s individual perception of Truth over the reality of Truth. He tells us in obscure terms that if the self in the world IS involved in a thought or an attitude that this IS NOT from above but IS rather “earthly, sensual, devilish” and because of the obscurity of his words this IS NOT seen by the man whose focus IS on these same thoughts and attitudes as his own sense of wisdom. But James goes on to tell us what we are discussing now; he tells us how it IS that we can KNOW what IS Wisdom from above in this list of attributes that ALL thoughts from God, from one’s own Soul and Christ Within, should possess. Here again there IS the use of obscure words by the apostle and here this is compounded by the purveyors of doctrine who fail to see the apostles’ intent and render his words in carnal tones. Repeating again our selection of sayings for this discussion:

“Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh. 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” (James 3:11-17).

Many fail to view James’ words in the final verse as that they ARE the attributes of Wisdom from God. In such a view one IS forced to seek the meaning of James’ words that would be relatable to this theme that the thought or attitude that one believes to be from God must meet these criteria. We will not go over the first four words again here as we have discussed them and reviewed them already and the last essay was such a review except that we did introduce our next word or phrase which IS “full of mercy“. Here while the text and most commentary include the idea of “good fruits” with mercy, we will discuss these separately as we see these as separate thoughts from the apostle. As we said in the last essay, this word rendered as mercy IS not clearly understood as most ALL sources equate this expression of Love with the poor and the downtrodden and, of course, in this context this idea CAN NOT work. The definition we cited from in the last post is not from Vincent but from the lexicon where we read that mercy IS:  kindness and goodwill toward the miserable and afflicted, joined with a desire to relieve them ², and this is typical of what IS said in most every reference book. Vincent actually says that : Mercy (ἔλεος); The word emphasizes the misery with which grace (see on Luke 1:30) deals; hence, peculiarly the sense of human wretchedness coupled with the impulse to relieve it, which issues in gracious ministry. Bengel remarks, “Grace takes away the fault, mercy the misery”⁴. As we noted in the last essay this Greek word eleos corresponds to the Hebrew word checed where the definitions includes ALL that we would see in the kindness and the goodwill but without the ideas of wretchedness and affliction and it IS from this definition that we take our idea of lovingkindness which we see as applicable to ALL. There are several words that are rendered as mercy and merciful in the New Testament and all have some degree of these ideas of the downtrodden and pity upon them. We are only concerned with eleos however and a sampling of other definitions includes:

• Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words tells us: “is the outward manifestation of pity; it assumes need on the part of him who receives it, and resources adequate to meet the need on the part of him who shows it ⁶.
• Easton’s Bible Dictionary tells us that mercy IS: compassion for the miserable. Its object is misery. By the atoning sacrifice of Christ a way is open for the exercise of mercy towards the sons of men, in harmony with the demands of truth and righteousness (Gen 19:19; Exd 20:6; 34:6,7; Psa 85:10; 86:15,16). In Christ mercy and truth meet together. Mercy is also a Christian grace (Mat 5:7; 18:33-35) **.
• Strong’s tells us that eleos means: mercy, pity,; the moral quality of feeling compassion and especially of showing kindness toward someone in need. this can refer to a human kindness and to God’s kindness to humankind ³.

In our view none of these ideas reflect James use of this word eleos and when we add these to those we cited in the last post and what we said when we came across this word in a previous essay on James Epistle (parts 991 and 992) one can get a good feel for our amazement at the way this word IS understood. For our understanding we find the ideas behind lovingkindness to be a greater reality and can repeat here our idea that mercy and Love not only correspond, but that they are the same and perhaps we should see them as that mercy is the effect of Love which IS the cause; that mercy IS the implementation of Love; that mercy IS the essence of GoodWill. We are likely alone in our understanding here of mercy but a review of its uses can show that while we may not be totally accurate in our assessment, we ARE significantly closer to the intent of the writers than are these ideas from our reference books.

Discerning how this Wisdom from above is “full of mercy” IS a much easier task using our ideas as we can hardly put the common understanding into this list of the attributes of Wisdom. Can we see that the idea of the thoughts and attitudes of the man which ARE Wisdom would be an expression of lovingkindness which IS an effective expression of Love and GoodWill, that there would be NO thing coming from the Soul, from the Christ Within, that would be contrary to this and that in the idea of pure this interpretation of mercy can be an integral part. Here we should understand that to restrict these ideas to the poor and unfortunate would make little sense as the apostle has already told us that there must be NO “respect to person” and this idea DOES go both ways and DOES mean ALL persons. We should also look forward in our saying as the next idea after “good fruits” IS that this Wisdom from above IS “without partiality” which should have this same effect of being beneficial to ALL. In the combined idea of “mercy and good fruits” John Gill tells us: full of mercy and good fruits; of compassion and beneficence to the poor; feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the widows and fatherless in their affliction; and doing all other good works and duties, both with respect to God and man, as fruits of grace, and of the Spirit ⁸. Here we have the same ideas of the poor and downtrodden which Mr. Gill expands upon in the next part, “without partiality“, by taking away the universal property of this idea and saying: without partiality: to one another; or making a difference between them; showing no respect to persons; bestowing upon the poor and indigent, without any distinction ⁸. In our view here there should be no preference for the rich nor for the poor and Mr. Gill’s idea becomes an altered thought in the view of not seeing such with any distinction. Our view of ALL men should be seen simply as men without attributing any worldly ideas to them. The Commentary Critical and Explanatory of the Whole Bible has but a few words regarding mercy from this saying which we read as: full of mercy–as to a neighbor’s MISERIES ⁸, and it IS their idea to capitalize the word.

Our view here of this Greek word eleos seems to be a clear understanding of it as the effectiveness of Love and that this IS an attribute of whatsoever one deems as Wisdom from God…ONLY Love comes from God and His Love IS Universally applied. No other idea on this word can work in this context and we should note that James seems to tie this to the next words “good fruits” by the conjunction and. In James use of this idea of “good fruits” we are left to wonder what this means as he does not explain this phrase and here again we can see the relationship between James’ writing and that of Paul, or we must take it that this idea IS commonly understood in that day. This IS the same way that we look at faith and works as James writes in opposition to the common understanding of Paul’s words, not in opposition to his complete ideas but in opposition to the way these are interpreted, and in this we can see that these thoughts on faith without works  were likely prevalent in the day. Regarding fruits we find Paul gives us a True definition of what this fruit IS while the Master only alludes to it as the goodness or the evil of one’s Life and here we can assume that the Truth of fruit is either a common understanding or that James relies on Paul’s words which would be already KNOWN. This of course does not Truly matter and we should see the idea of “good fruits” in the same light as Paul presents this in as his listing of the “fruit of the spirit” saying: “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,  Meekness, temperance” (Galatians 5:22-23) and then again saying “the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth” (Ephesians 5:9).

In this we should see that James IS including ALL of these qualities of the Spirit as components of that Wisdom from above and in ALL logic there can be NO other way to see this as this Wisdom IS from God. And, if we choose to look as the full idea of “full of mercy and good fruits” as a single saying, we can likely see that the “good fruits” are an explanation of the mercy; that these fruits ARE that mercy in action. There are many ways to view these ideas but ALL must be seen within the context of what the apostle IS explaining; the attributes of Wisdom that IS from above, from God, and in this Wisdom there can ONLY be these ideas that we are setting forth. In this Wisdom there can be no thing from the world.

We close today with this idea from Matthew Henry’s words on “the wisdom that is from above“. His approach IS largely doctrinal but he offers us this at the beginning of his words on the whole topic of Wisdom which we find worthy of repeating here: Observe here, True wisdom is God’s gift. It is not gained by conversing with men, nor by the knowledge of the world (as some think and speak), but it comes from above. It consists of these several things:—1. It is pure, without mixture of maxims or aims that would debase it: and it is free from iniquity and defilements, not allowing of any known sin, but studious of holiness both in heart and life ⁸. For the rest of his rather lengthy commentary Mr. Henry follows the common understanding of the words as in Peace among men and gentle.

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.

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. 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: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen. (Matthew 28:18-20)

This is called by some of the church the Great Commission and so it is. It is however hardly understood and at times grossly misapplied. Somewhere in the centuries that have passed since the Master left us we have come to think that the meaning of this is just to preach the word through any particular doctrine and baptize according to any particular belief. Vincent tells us that the word translated as teach here should be seen as make disciples of ⁴ and the lexicon bears this out. There is nowhere in scripture an actual defining understanding of the concept of baptism and we generally think of it as the immersion into or the pouring on of water and that somehow this clears us of sin. This is but an outward sign however of real spiritual undertaking by the conscious man and it is only when a man is ready to commit to the Master that a baptism can be considered real. We will leave this as the Quote of the Day for a few days and try to find in it some true meaning. Keeping in mind our four points, we should ponder on this.

The Master is speaking to disciples and not the multitudes and these are those that do believe on Him and follow Him and keep His words. Hard sayings for man in the world but claimed by many nonetheless. There IS a reality in the idea that the disciple should be “Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” which IS His words that ARE to be kept and in this light we add these ideas from the Buddha: “Love yourself and watch – today, tomorrow, always. 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)⁵.

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!

• 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
• ⁶ Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, 1996
• ⁸ Bible commentaries on BibleStudyTools.com
• ** Easton, M. G. “Mercy”, Easton’s Bible Dictionary. Blue Letter Bible. 1897. 24 Jun, 1996