ON LOVE; PART DCXI
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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 concluded our long look at our selection from the third chapter of the Epistle of James where he outlines the attributes of Wisdom from above, Wisdom from God, which we can understand as ALL that we can presume to be thoughts and revelations of Truth. The apostle tells us that they ARE ONLY Truth if they have the attributes of such and the leading idea here IS that these thoughts and revelations, these realizations and ideas, ARE from God and it IS ONLY logical, even from a human perspective, that they would be “first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy” (James 3:17). While it makes sense to us that any thing from God would possess these attributes, this IS NOT the common understanding of the man in the world who sees God as that He is involved in the mundane events of one’s personal Life in this world and this IS easily seen in the prayer habits of many who regularly pray for a greater share of the comforts and pleasures of the world and who ‘thank God’ for their receiving any of these things that they may have prayed for or not.
James addresses these ideas in his words but these ARE NOT understood as they should be and this has been a big part of our discussion which we summarize in the last essay. The bottom line IS the reality that if what one desires, prays for, or receives IS for the benefit of the self and in the interests of the self in the world, it IS NOT from God…..it IS from the world. In this statement we have expanded the idea of Wisdom from above to be effective in most ALL things and if we read the words of the Master and His apostles with this in mind, we will see that this IS a fundamental part of the teaching as it regards the temporal things of the world. In saying this we ARE NOT discounting the effects of prayer which, when properly focused in an unselfish way, CAN and DOES produce visible results and while we may not understand the dynamics here, we CAN NOT deny the process. However, there IS a reality to the focus and the unselfishness; in the Gospel stories of healing and in James words on this in a later chapter, we can find the reality of these things but we should note that these ARE NOT just the result of prayer, these ARE the result of the focused attention of the healer and his own degree of righteousness. The kind of healing that we see in the world today IS at best haphazard and if there IS a man who can heal consistently, he IS likely one of great spiritual accomplishment and one who would be world renowned in an instant. The degree of ‘magical’ type healing and other similar psychic occurrences has faded from the ideas that we hear about in stories from past times of wizards and sorcerers and this fading seems to be in proportion to the growth of the more mental abilities of mankind who now thinks his way through Life instead of the feeling and emotion of ways of old.
This however IS NOT our point as what we are saying here IS in regard to things from God and not things from the psychic abilities of men; in things from God the self IS NOT a factor nor can it be; one’s focus must be upon the things of God. And focus IS the key, in these times past where these ‘magical’ things were more apparent, the focus was upon the self and the self in the world and this IS what produced results in much the same way as the man today who IS ardently focused upon his career and carnal Life will be able to find success in his endeavors. Most ALL else is haphazard; there are no special gifts that will result in one’s winning the lottery; no special prayers nor requests of God or the Saints will result in the steady flow of any kind of worldly benefit and we should try to see that any apparent effect is based more in the focus of the man than in the intercession of others and that such focus must be of a spiritual nature in order to gain spiritual results. There ARE many, many things that happen in this world that we DO NOT understand but there IS an underlying reality to be seen in Life: things of God come from God and things of or for one’s benefit in the world come from the world….”God is no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34).
On the other side of this IS the reality of those things that DO come from God and the reality that these ARE ALL spiritual things; they are revelations and realizations, thoughts and ideas, that ARE NOT selfish in nature and that DO meet the attributes that the apostle has listed for us. We should understand here that even in these revelations and realizations, or what may seem to be such, there can creep in that sense of self that IS always with a man until he has been able to overcome that sense. It IS in this reality that the apostle writes his words which ARE directed to the aspirant and the disciple but which are applicable to the thoughts and ideas that come to any man. And perhaps in this idea we can find a reason for the obscurity of language that the apostle seems to use, that in the apparent vagueness of the words we can find both a carnal and a spiritual component and we should ever remember here that we are talking about those things that a man believes come from God. Here, perhaps the more religious man whose focus is on the world and the self can find some use in these words by which he can measure the spiritual usefulness of such a thought or idea. In the end however we ARE speaking about Wisdom from God and in this sense it IS ONLY the man whose focus IS upon the Truth who will be able to receive such; and it IS for him that this tool offered by James becomes important. And, we should understand that the reality of this ALL is a personal and individual experience that each man must see for himself; no other can tell a man that what he is seeing as Truth IS such but himself.
Our next words from James close out this chapter and for us these are rather unrelated to the discussion that we have just completed on what IS or IS NOT Wisdom from above; we read: “And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace” (James 3:18). Perhaps it is better to see this as a link between the man who sees Wisdom from above or who believes that he DOES, and the beginning of the next chapter which starts with words of war. Our focus here begins with the idea of the fruit of righteousness and in the Master’s use of the idea of fruit as what IS produced in the Life of a man. Connecting this to righteousness we should be able to see the overall idea IS a spiritual one, that righteousness IS embedded in the idea of keeping His words as it IS a quality of God. Let us look here at some of the Master’s words. First we should see the idea of righteousness as a quality of God as the Master tell us that to find the Truth of the needs of a man, the spiritual Truth of Life, one should understand that “your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:32-33). Here the Master IS speaking about the things that are the necessities of Life in food and clothing but we should see this in the deeper tone as well. The Master begins this discussion saying “Take no thought for your life” and then adds the other ideas and in this we should understand the deeper Truth. Jesus IS speaking to the multitudes and it IS for them that the ideas of food and clothing would resonate but for the disciple who IS focused upon the Lord, these things ARE already meaningless. But for ALL who hear Him the deeper message IS intended: “seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness“. It IS this righteousness, this DOING ALL things in the world, ALL thoughts, attitudes and actions, according to the word of God which IS essentially founded and grounded in Love.
Vincent offers a rather lengthy essay on righteousness and it kindred terms which is based in classical Greek and we take this part from his words as they set for us the New Testament understanding for this Greek word dikaiosune which IS rendered as righteousness: It is desirable that the classical usage of these terms should be understood, in order to throw into sharper relief the Biblical usage, according to which God is the absolute and final standard of right, and every wrong is a sin against God (Psalm 51:4). Each man stands in direct and primary relation to the holy God as He is by the law of His own nature. Righteousness is union with God in character. To the Greek mind of the legendary age such a conception is both strange and essentially impossible, since the Greek divinity is only the Greek man exaggerated in his virtues and vices alike. According to the christian ideal, righteousness is character, and the norm of character is likeness to God. This idea includes all the social aspects of right. Love and duty toward God involve love and duty to the neighbor 4. In this we should see that righteousness IS essentially keeping His word and we should understand here again that these things work out in Life by degree; while there IS a point at which one IS righteous, there is a leading up to this point where a man will act in righteousness. The lexicon offers us these ideas: in a broad sense: state of him who is as he ought to be, righteousness, the condition acceptable to God the doctrine concerning the way in which man may attain a state approved of God; integrity, virtue, purity of life, rightness, correctness of thinking feeling, and acting; in a narrower sense, justice or the virtue which gives each his due 2. We should see our own ideas here; that righteousness covers the entirety of the expression of a man in the world and in the lexicon’s view of a state approved of God we should see ONLY the idea of the completeness of keeping His words as this IS the reality of righteousness.
In the Master’s other words to the multitudes where we read that “For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20) and in this we should try to see the idea that we just left, Wisdom from above. Here the Master is speaking of the Pharisees and the scribes who believe that they ARE righteous but who ARE actually living according to the ways of the world which are covered by their doctrines and traditions that tell them that they ARE of God. The Pharisees and the scribes believe that they ARE righteous but the man who seeks heaven must actually be righteous and most any degree of True righteousness IS better than and exceeds that feigned righteousness of these Jewish religious leaders. We must remember here that while they may NOT have been righteous in the Lord’s view, these men DO think themselves as righteous as they mistake their thoughts and revelations as that they ARE from above. In this combination of sayings from the Sermon, we should be able to understand that one must be righteous in order to be accounted worthy of the Kingdom and that the degree of one’s righteousness begins with being more righteous that the mistaken Pharisee and scribe. He does not say that some degree of righteousness will present one to the Kingdom but rather that without greater righteousness there IS NO presentation; one should also understand that this sense of righteousness IS His righteousness, that of the Lord.
The Apostle John tells us this: “let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous” (1 John 3:7). Here we can see the extended idea that the Master presents above and that Vincent somewhat explains for us, saying that in righteousness we find union with God in character. And there is an allied thought here between righteousness and the very nature of whatsoever a man expresses and thinks IS according to God…that it IS “first pure“. In our discussion on this point we saw the relationship between pure and holy and we concluded that pure is a man’s expression of this holiness which IS of God; in relation to that Wisdom from above we see pure simply then as Godlike and in this sense the word rendered as righteous has this same connotation. The expression by of a man of such purity IS righteousness whereby we can see righteousness as the activity of purity in the world. From the perspective of an individual we can see the the Soul, the God Within, is holy and the ALL that flows into the Life of a man in the world from the Soul IS then pure and, the expression of this purity IS righteousness and, then, likeness to God as Vincent tells us above.
We should understand here that righteousness IS found in keeping His words and while there is doctrinal disagreement with the idea that a man can be Godlike, this IS clearly the case as we ARE ever invited to “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). We are also told by the Master that we can be as He IS as He tells disciples that “The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master” (Luke 6:40) and we should note here the inclusion of the idea of perfection. It IS unclear how the doctines that tells us that we CAN NOT be Godlike originated or the idea that we CAN NOT be as the Christ, or DO as He tells us that we can DO in His saying that “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do” (John 14:12). This of course CAN NOT be understood in the common idea of believing but in the idea of one who “believeth on” Him which Vincent tells us IS to to accept and adopt His precepts and example as binding upon the life 4 and which we see as keeping His words.
Contrary to these things the lexicon tells us that dikaios, which is rendered as righteous, means: used of him whose way of thinking, feeling, and acting is wholly conformed to the will of God, and who therefore needs no rectification in the heart or life; to which they add the idea that: only Christ truly. There IS a reality to the divinity of man but this must be seen in the view of the True man and his expression in the world. The True man, the Soul IS divine; he IS part and parcel of God. this however IS not the condition of the man in the world whose focus IS NOT on God and on his own divinity. It is in one’s focus that a man comes to keep His words; it IS in His words that the holy reality of the God Within becomes the purity of the expression of the man in the world; and this expression IS the activity of righteousness in the world….His righteousness.
We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.
| Aspect |
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
- 4 Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
