ON LOVE; PART DCXLIV
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GoodWill IS Love in Action
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FIRST IS THE GREAT COMMANDMENTS: “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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WHAT THEN IS LOVE? 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.
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PLUS THE EVER IMPORTANT AND HIGH IDEAL TAUGHT TO US BY THE CHRIST: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” (Matthew 7:12)
As we continue in our discussion of the Epistle of James, we should try to see how that many of the individual sayings are seen by most as independent unrelated thoughts without a central theme by many in the church yet today. Overall it IS a bad habit to see the words of the apostles and the Master out of context and in our view this is a general problem that plagues the right understanding of many regarding their True messages. And we see this tendency to out of context sayings and unseen messages as more prevalent in the words of James. This, along with the apostle’s use of the more obscure Greek words and the erroneous rendering of them and many others, may be a part of the reason that the works of James ARE not accorded the same value as the works of the Apostle Paul. There IS much in this epistle however that IS so straightforward and so blunt that the reality IS inescapable and these ideas are generally not among those that are found in the liturgies and the sermons that the average man will hear. And James’ words are among those where doctrinal dilution is seemingly more prevalent; in James’ Epistle there seems to be a greater tendency to see his words in a carnal light rather than a spiritual one and to interpret them is that way.
It IS and has been our view that the Epistle of James IS a spiritual endeavor and a look at the Way of the disciple who IS faced with the seemingly inevitable sense of duality that afflicts the aspirant and the disciple. We see that much of James’ words ARE intended to help the man who strives to see this pull of the world, the realities of succumbing to these attractions and attachments; and he shows us the tools that we DO have, the spiritual tools, that can help us to endure. Much of this IS based in the realities of the Sermon on the Mount where the Master gives us the straightforward instructions of discipleship and he gives these to His disciples as well as the multitudes who must decide on their own futures; to follow His words on Love and on seeking the Kingdom, or to remain in the world. And this same IS offered to us by His words as we read them and allow them to reflect in our spiritual lives; these words from the Sermon, like those from James, ARE NOT understood nor realized except as one looks at them in their intended spiritual tone and as instructions on the Way of the disciple.
We have always seen a special importance in the words from the Sermon as well as the words of James and it IS for this reason that we have spent so much time in discussing these spiritual works that can define the nature of the disciple; his thoughts, his attitudes and his actions. If one would go back over the last one hundred plus essays, beginning at In the Words of Jesus part 939 where we began our lengthy discussion of the Sermon on the Mount and then James Epistle, one would find few places where our ideas agree with the ideas of doctrine as regards the purpose and the intent of the messages of both Jesus and James. Most ALL of these disagreements are founded in a difference of perspective. We clearly see that these words are our instructions in discipleship, that the Sermon IS intended for those early followers of the Master and ALL who would desire to join them and that the words of James are intended to reinforce, to amplify and to clarify much of the Master’s ideas for the man who has chosen to strive toward the Kingdom of God. In this light we see both of these works as the best and perhaps the only way of Truly understanding the Way of the disciple and the trials and tribulations of becoming one as a man must break away from the world that he KNOWS and lives in.
As so we have spent much time on these ideas and have come to that point in James where the reality of DOING can be found in the ability of the aspirant and the disciple to work in patience; to work while waiting to be “delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” which IS the overcoming of that duality in which he lives. It IS in this that the aspirant and the disciple alike, those who ARE yet somewhat mired in their own lives in the world, find “the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:21, 23) which we see as the end point in our personal journey to the Kingdom of God. James shows us the reality of patience, of longsuffering and of our steadfast focus upon the Truth of the Kingdom; he shows us by the example of the husbandman that this IS not a waiting patience but an active patience in which we work for the “precious fruit” of our labors byour consistent and steadfast focus. James tells us of many of the perils that the aspirant and the disciple face in this work, how that they can effect the spiritual Life of the man, and how that they can be overcome and even prevented and it IS here in this section that begins with his words on patience that we find more of James’ examples of encouragement and hope as well as instructive tools so that we can endure. Repeating our selection again:
“Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold , the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient ; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door. Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience. Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy. “But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation. Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms. Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him” (James 5:7-15).
James’ instructive tools are found in the ideas that we began discussing a few posts back. First as he speaks to those who are afflicted which we understand and the reality of this Life of duality where the temptations come and take our attention, this IS a spiritual affliction that the apostle tells us can be combated by prayer, not prayer in the common sense but prayer in our sense of communion with God and the God Within. In this we can take some of the bite out of the temptations that beset us and while this IS NO guarantee of success, it IS a tool to use as we stand in the work of patiently striving toward that strait gate. To the man who may have succumbed to some of the temptations that afflict the spiritual sense of the aspirant and the disciple and who has reverted to some of the pleasures and comforts perceived in the world, James speaks about being merry and in this we read that we should NOT be merry about our reversion away from our focus on the things of God but that we should DO whatsoever to bring our focus back and this IS what we should see in this idea of “let him sing psalms“.
We should note here that we can be wrong in our assessment of what the apostle means in these two ideas but this IS how that we see these things and we ARE sure that this view IS of greater value to the man who seeks God than the views seen in much of the Christian commentary which approach these things from a worldly perspective. James words and the words of ALL of the writers of the New Testament ARE spiritual in nature and not in regard to the things of the world and we should be able to most clearly see this in James’ Epistle as he IS the one who tells us that: “know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4). It IS James who also tells us that the man of pure religion, the man who IS Truly focused upon God, IS the man who will “keep himself unspotted from the world” (James 1:27).
James next instructive tool IS that one that we began discussion in the last essay where he addresses “Is any sick among you? “. Here we noted that the rendering of sick in this instance IS misleading from the perspective of the ideas that this English word gives us; the better rendering as we saw from the lexicon 2 and which IS confirmed in our other sources, IS weakness. In this the better view of the apostle’s question IS “is any weak among you” and in this we can see the continuation of the ideas that we present regarding the afflictions that a man suffers by temptation in his duality, his sense of double vision. We should try to see here that healing IS a general term that covers ALL that can afflict a man from deformities, to one’s inability to see or hear, to general illness and that this also includes whatsoever psychological and mental maladies of the day. And, for us as aspirants and disciples this also includes the afflictions of temptation which we see and feel and recognize as a malefic factor in our lives as we strive toward the Kingdom of God and the fullness of discipleship.
It IS this latter that James IS addressing here and this IS easily seen in the overall context of his writing. It IS the man who strives that feels this weakness in the face of the temptations, the attractions and the attachments, to the things of the world and here again we must stress that these temptations need not be to the gross things of the world but ONLY to the world, that part of the carnal Life that we are leaving behind. In saying this we should see that this idea of temptation will be different for each individual and it will also vary as the man progresses, as he grows. The aspirant for example IS more prone to a greater variety of temptations that IS the disciple and this IS based purely on his developed ability to clearly focus upon the Good, the Beautiful and the True. Here then we have the man who IS weak in regard to his own sense of temptation, the man who CAN NOT see himself resisting and his lack of vision helps to propel his sense of failure. James tells this man to “call for the elders of the church“, to call upon men of like mind who have greater experience and who may have fought the same battle that this man IS facing. These men, these elders, can “pray over him” and in this we should get the sense of this prayer as: a word of counsel and advice 8, as John Gill offered in his commentary.
This prayer of course can be much more that the simplicity of counsel and advice and this especially in our view of prayer as communion. Here we would have men expressing their own sense of this communion, expressing the Love and the Power of their own Souls, as a way of helping this man who IS weak and who has sought them out. We should remember here the apostle’s words ARE that this man himself should “call for the elders of the church” as he recognizes his own weakness. We must say here again that we DO NOT understand the intent of the end part of this saying, that the elders treatment of the weak man would include “anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord“. We understand the technical ideas here but we DO NOT understand the purpose. Commentary IS also rather silent regarding the apostle’s intent and both John Gill and the authors of the Commentary Critical and Explanatory of the Whole Bible see the idea of healing sick bodies and cite their doctrinal beliefs as regards healing in general.
From our perceptive the idea here should be tied to the former idea of prayer, that in this anointing there IS a way that the weak man who has called on the elders IS helped in his weakness and helped to re-focus upon the things of God. Perhaps the greater key here IS in the idea that this IS done in the “name of the Lord” but we CAN NOT tell as the ideas behind the Greek words used here are ONLY anointing and oil. So this remains for now a mystery for us but one that we are quite sure IS related in some way to the communion of prayer and the help of the elders as they bring the man back to his focus upon God. This theme of prayer continues into the next sayings and here we should try to see the idea of “save the sick” in the unique way that this IS presented. Here, in this final saying from our selection above we also have the idea of a “prayer of faith” as the kind of prayer that will “save the sick“. We have our understanding of both faith and prayer, which are contrary to the ideas of doctrine, and which work out in our view of these ideas from James but before we come to this we should note these doctrinal interpretations:
- John Gill tells us that: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick; That is, the prayer of the elders, being put up in faith by them, and in which the sick person joins by faith; such a prayer is a means of bringing down from God a blessing on the sick man, and of restoring him to his former health: and the Lord shall raise him up; from his bed of sickness, on which he is laid, and bring him forth to praise his name, and to fear and glorify him 8. We should note here that sick men DO NOT need saving in the context that this word IS generally offered…as salvation, and that in the generality of this statement, this would include ALL men who may “call for the elders of the church“, that ALL would be saved. Mr. Gill seems to be seeing the idea of the sick here in a different light than the sick who called upon the elders whom he calls saints. Again these ideas are seen in from the perspective of the world and NOT the needed spiritual view. The rest of this IS purely doctrinal.
- The Commentary Critical offers a much abbreviated interpretation of James’ words as they say that: prayer–He does not say the oil shall save: it is but the symbol. save–plainly not as Rome says, “save” the soul. but heal “the sick”: as the words, “the Lord shall raise him up,” prove. So the same Greek is translated, “made (thee) whole,” Matthew 9:21 Matthew 9:22. Here the oil from the last verse IS said to be but a symbol but we are still without a True understanding; a symbol of what?
There IS additional difficulty with the word rendered here as saved and this is the author’s of the Commentary Critical point as they reference the sayings from Matthew’s Gospel where this word IS rendered whole; and we should note that in other places it is rendered as heal.
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 Chris.t |
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.
This Quote of the Day is the antithesis of glamour and illusion. In this mantram are the thoughts about ourselves and our brothers in the world that can diffuse those forces that hold a man in the world of things and prevent his spiritual progress.
Mantram of Unification
The sons of men are one and I am one with them.
I seek to love, not hate;
I seek to serve and not exact due service;
I seek to heal, not hurt.
Let pain bring due reward of light and love.
Let the Soul control the outer form, and life and all events,
And bring to light the love that underlies the happenings of the time.
Let vision come and insight.
Let the future stand revealed.
Let inner union demonstrate and outer cleavages be gone.
Let love prevail.
Let all men love.
The Mantram of Unification is a meditation and a prayer that at first affirms the unity of all men and the Brotherhood of Man based on the Fatherhood of God. The first stanza sets forth several truly Christian ideals in Unity, Love, Service and Healing. The second stanza is a invocation to the Lord and to our own Souls asking that from the pain (if there can truly be any) incurred in focusing on the Spirit and not the world will come Light and Love into our lives and that we begin to function as Souls through our conscious personalities. We ask that the spiritual control of our lives will bring to light for us the Love that underlies world events; a Love that the world oriented man will not see working out behind the scenes and also that the Love that we bring forth, individually and as a world group, can be seen by all and ultimately in all. Finally, in the last stanza we ask for those things that are needed for Love to abound. Vision and insight so that we can direct our attention properly; revelation of the future in the sense that all can see the Power of Love in the world; inner union so that we do not fall back into the world’s ways, that we faint not; and that a sense of separation, the antithesis of brotherhood, ends as we know it today. Let Love Prevail, Let All Men Love.spiritual control of our lives will bring to light for us the Love that underlies world events; a Love that the world oriented man will not see working out behind the scenes.
Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!
- 2 New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
- 8 Bible commentaries on BibleStudyTools.com
