ON LOVE; PART DCCXLV
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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).
We began the last post saying that we ARE continuing with our ideas on the Way to the Kingdom of God, the Way to His grace and the Way of discipleship. We began by speaking of the these ideas and how that these ARE firmly founded in the Master’s words and the words of His apostles. We went on to cite what we understand as the two central points around which these interrelated spiritual realities revolve, to discuss these and to show how that these two points are intimately related as well. We spent much time in the last essay discussing the many ways that we ARE told that the great KEY to Kingdom of God and to His grace IS found in the reality that we keep His words; this IS the first of the central points and this IS one that IS underestimated by the doctrinal church which cites believing and faith from the perspective of a man’s assent to these ideas as the way to the Kingdom and to salvation and which sees the grace of God as the ongoing favor of God to such who believe as the various doctrines may decree. As we have discussed in past essays, this view IS largely based in the various interpretations of the Apostle Paul’s writings on faith and grace, interpretations which are allowed to supplant the teachings and the example of the Master and which form the basis for the doctrinal idea of justification; an idea which can be simply stated as: we are justified only by faith in Christ, and not by any manner of goodness of our own.
In our view this doctrinal assessment IS contrary to the words of the Master who speaks to us about His Presence and the Presence of the Father in terms that are rendered for us as manifestation and of their abiding with the man who Loves Him in the world, the man who keeps His words. For us there IS an overwhelming clarity in these words which IS missed or is changed by the doctrinal view and, of course, we must ever remember the parabolic nature of the Master’s speech and the way that the apostles follow Jesus’ model. While our view of this idea of keeping His words IS cemented for us in this fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of John which we have been studying, the Truth of this reality IS spread across most ALL of His words as well as the words of the apostles; and this includes the writings of the apostle Paul wherein the right reading of his epistles will lead us to the same conclusion: that the Way to the Kingdom, the Way to His grace and the Way of discipleship ARE found in our ability to keep His words. We repeat here the Master’s words from the fourteenth chapter of John’s Gospel:
- “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him” (John 14:21).
- “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. (John 14:23)
- He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me” (John 14:24).
While we generally cite these ideas as two points, today we have made them into three; two positively framed and one negatively framed. The first two here show clearly the relationship between our Love for God and His Love for us which we discussed near the end of the last essay where we see that our Love IS found in keeping His words and His Love is found in His Presence in the Life of the man who DOES. In these ideas we should see the quid pro quo, that sense of reward that we call grace. We should try to see here that the very idea of the grace of God IS His Presence in one’s Life, a Presence that IS always inherent as the reality of the True man, the Soul and which becomes the realization and the revelation of the man in the world who can keep his words. We should try to see as well that keeping His words IS both the cause and the effect as this works out in the Life of a man by degree and in an ever upward and expanding spiral Path that lead to the Kingdom of God. The last point from Jesus’ words above is framed in the negative and, while it DOES NOT show us the idea of the reward, it DOES show us the Unity that we must see as we approach God, that the Father and the Son ARE One, that One IS the expression of the Other, and that both ARE realized to be within the man who keeps His words according to the first two points. Language and the simplicity of human comprehension of spiritual matters IS our ONLY impediment to understanding these Truths which are revealed to us in ever increasing measure as the Presence of God grows in the Life of the man in the world.
And we must note how that in the Master’s words this idea of keeping His words IS tied to the idea of Love; here as Love for Him and His Love for us and expanded to our Love for ALL men by the very idea of keeping His words. And we should NOT forget that other saying: “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15) which sets the stage if you will for ALL that follows. In the reality that Love IS NOT merely that emotional and mental sense of attraction and attachment, we can find the Truer meanings and the Truth of the intent of the scriptural ideas of Love from the very beginning. In the laws of Moses there ARE two sets of laws and while we may not be versed in the names and ideas that men have had about these for the last 3500 years, we DO KNOW the separation of them in the realities of Life. On the one hand we have the laws that ARE concerned with the rites and the rituals of the Jews, on the role of sacrifice and of things unclean; these are in part guidelines for safe living as we see in the dietary rules and they are in part the responsibilities of men who stray from the Truth of the other kind of commandments. These other commandments are those which ARE concerned with the interaction of one man with another and man’s relationship with God. It IS in this class that we find those commandments that the Master has elevated to the status of the Great Commandments which we have again at the top of our essay. These greatest of commandments ARE in regard to these relationships….of man with man and of man with God, and these ARE NOT counted among the Ten Commandments which were on the stone tablets that Moses brought down from the Mountaintop. In this we should see that while men have always seen the Ten Commandments as the crux of the reality of the law in those days, it IS these rather hidden ideas that were the True center of Moses words and, we should note here that the Ten Commandments DO find at their own center those two that Jesus would proclaim greatest and of which He would say that “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:40).
That there ARE Ten commandments IS according to scripture but what exactly they ARE IS yet a matter of doctrine as the manner of counting IS different according to the various traditions, both Jewish and Christian. Our point here IS that these ancient commandments from the ‘finger of God’ ARE NOT the totality of the law and, according to the Master, these ARE NOT the most important parts of the law either. This IS missed by many. There ARE several ways in which various doctrines have split these Ten ideas by subject or type but this too IS arbitrary and according to the various theologies. From our view there IS a synergy between these Ten Commandments and the two that the Master references as the Greatest Commandments and this can be shown in the relationship of each of the Ten with one or both of the two. For many of these Ten the idea of Love for God, as expressed in the original statement from Deuteronomy and reiterated as above by the Master, IS inclusive; that IS that they are covered in these words: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5). There can be debate on which ideas from the Ten are covered here but an honest assessment would show that most ALL can be seen within the intent of the totality of man’s Love toward God….that it supersedes ALL things.
Similarly, we can see that many of the Ten ARE covered under the reality and the Truth of the words from Leviticus that the Master also reiterates as the second of the Great Commandments. These seemingly illusive words: “thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Leviticus 19:18) ARE among the clearest of statements in the entirety of the bible, but they are confounded by the thoughts of men, thoughts of self, and a lack of understanding of just what this idea of Love Truly IS…how that this should be defined. This then IS the challenge: to KNOW the Truth of this idea of Love as it applies to men. This Love shows itself as Love for God in our ability to keep His words…this IS how that our Love IS KNOWN as we see in our sayings above; and this Love shows itself as God’s Love for us in His grace and we should try to see here how that it IS through this very grace that we come to the ability to Love Him. This too IS shown in our sayings above and, while this may be better understood as His Presence, we should try to understand the totality of the relationship of these ideas; that at once when we move our focus away from the things of the world and onto the things of God, at once when we should Repent, the flow of grace begins and so also begins our journey upon that upward spiral Path to the glory of God. And the increments of this glory ARE His grace which IS seen in the revelations and the realizations of Truth that move us ever closer to the fullness of His Presence.
So then we have the idea of grace as the reality of Love from God and we have the idea of our expression of this grace as the reality of our Love for God. And in this expression IS our keeping His words which IS “the fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22) and which IS the “wisdom that is from above” (James 3:17). It IS this same expression that IS our Love for our fellowman, a Love that must be seen as it IS apart from the human experience of Love, the human emotional and mental attraction and attachment to others and to things in this world. It IS in this view that these three ways of Love, Love from God, Love for God and Love for ALL men must be understood: that these ARE spiritual ideas founded in the Unity and the Oneness of God and man and then between mam and man and, while the ideas of One Humanity, One World and One God DO show us this Unity, the greater idea of our spiritual Oneness IS the greater Truth. When we can understand that as Souls we ARE ALL the same save for our accumulated ability to express our divine nature through form, we will have realized a great part of the mystery of Life and of the Kingdom of God. We should understand here how that these realizations come to us in this same grace of God and must be expressed in the reality of our Love for God and for man. In the complex simplicity of these ideas lies the secret to our salvation and the reality of our DOING “the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).
We close today by repeating these words from the Apostle John who shows us the greater reality of these relationships of Love in a rather transparent way which IS NOT understood by most according to his intent:
“Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect , that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is , so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen , how can he love God whom he hath not seen ? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also” (1 John 4:7-21).
And we repeat here our current selection which includes that most important part regarding the divine Life of the Master and His example to us as men:
“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe. Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me. But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence” (John 14:26-31).
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.
We repeat here again a saying that is from the Bhagavad Gita, which goes well with our theme of the God Within, the Soul, which we see as the Christ Within and while this is good in the Christian world and is True based upon our understanding of the Christ as the manifestation of God, we should also see in these words below that it does not matter what these divine ideas are called; that it matters not what we call this Inner Man, that he is the same in ALL, he is the Soul.
Thou carriest within thee a sublime Friend whom thou knowest not. For God dwells in the inner part of every man, but few know how to find Him. The man who sacrifices his desires and his works to the Beings from whom the principles of everything stem, and by whom the Universe was formed, through this sacrifice attains perfection. For one who finds his happiness and joy within himself, and also his wisdom within himself is one with God. And, mark well, the soul which has found God is freed from rebirth and death, from old age and pain, and drinks the water of Immortality.—Bhagavad-Gita
It is difficult to tell just what verses of the Bhagavad Gita the above is from; whether it is a paraphrase or a combination. It is from the book “The Great Initiates” by Édouard Schuré which was originally published in French in 1889 and perhaps it is in the translation of the verses that they become hard to recognize. However, the sheer beauty of the presentation caught my attention and so I share it with you. The Path to the Kingdom is the same no matter what religion one professes.
