ON LOVE; PART CMLXXV

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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. While this IS from an older definition of Charity, which IS rendered in the King James Bible from the same Greek word agape which IS generally rendered as Love, we should amend our own definition here to include the idea that in the reality of Love a man will accord to ALL men ALL things that he would accord to himself and to say that Love IS our thoughts and attitude of the equality of ALL men regardless of their outward nature or appearance…that ALL ARE equally children of Our One God

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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).

In the last essay we continued our discussion of the second segment of the Apostle Paul’s list of “the works of the flesh” and again focused upon the idea of factions and the factious behavior of men in the world. We noted how that this idea of factions as the divisions of men along innumerable lines of thought and attitude as well as those more carnal divisions as race, color and the like IS the singular cause of what IS rendered from the apostle’s words as hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings and murders. In previous posts we discussed how that these rendered ideas vary from translation to translation and how that ALL of them ARE in regard to the way that one man acts toward another in the absence of that Love which the Master teaches us as agape. We should remember that while Vincent tells us that factions IS the proper translation of the word rendered as strife ⁴, other translations see factions in the word that IS rendered as heresies and see the division that factions IS in the word rendered as seditions.

Our point again IS that the whole idea of factions and divisions IS the KEY to understanding the apostle’s intent as he cautions his readers to look past ALL things carnal and to see ALL men as they ARE….as spiritual beings. This IS the ONLY view that allows for men to see ALL others in the same Light and it IS in this frame of thought and attitude that one will NOT “do such things” as we read again in Paul’s words:

“For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts” (Galatians  5:17-24).

There ARE many places where Paul shows us this sense of equality but to understand this we must look past the common ideas given to those words that ARE rendered as gentiles. Two Greek words have this rendering in the King James Bible: hellen and ethnos. Hellen IS rendered as both Greek and as gentile and when we look at the way that Paul uses this idea in his Epistle to the Romans, we should be able to sense that Greek IS NOT his intent but rather gentiles or, for better clarity, those who ARE NOT Jews. The apostle’s intent here IS to show this sense of equality and that the separation of Jews from non-Jews IS a working of the minds of men; we read:

“after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; Who will render to every man according to his deeds: To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life: But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile; But glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile: For there is no respect of persons with God. For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law; (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified” (Romans 2:5:13).

We should note several things here; first that the apostle uses both words, ethnos and hellen, in this selection and that it IS in this context that, as well as the fact that this Epistle IS to the Romans, we should see his intent IS ALL that ARE NOT Jews. Here the apostle IS showing us that the Jew bears first responsibility because it IS to the Jew that the law that Jesus fulfills according to His own words saying “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil” (Matthew 5:17) was given. In this Greek word pleroo which IS rendered as fulfill, we should try to see the lexicon’s deeper definitions saying: to carry into effect, bring to realisation, realise ². The second thing to note here IS that this IS the context of the equality through which God sees men and the context of that saying that we ofttimes use, that “there is no respect of persons with God“. Third, we should note the parenthetical statement at the end of our selection and understand that the parenthetical nature of this IS defined by men and that this IS the very same idea that we often present from the Apostle James saying: “be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22).

Here in these ideas IS the apostle’s rebuttal to ALL that interpret his other words as to say that there IS NO necessity to be a DOER, that it IS NOT what one DOES in this Life that matters, and that it IS ONLY in the ‘saving grace‘ of Jesus through believing in Him as Lord and Savior that one IS ‘saved‘. It IS in this doctrinal assertion that IS spread across most ALL denominations and sects of Christianity that IS the bane of the Truth yet today. It IS here that we again must try to realize and understand that the One Truth IS found in keeping His words and that it IS this Truth that comes by measure to the man who will strive to DO so. It IS through this striving that one can come to see the True sense of Jesus’ words, a Truth that the apostles clarify and amplify to the man who can break away from his nurturing and his indoctrination and understand the simplicity of what we repeat here as our trifecta.

• “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free“ (John 8:31-32).
• “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).
• “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. Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto him, 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. 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 14:21-24).

That the central point of the trifecta IS found in a man’s expression of Love may NOT be in the text of these words, the reality of Love IS expressed by the Master in many ways but NONE so simply as we have above in the Great Commandments and in the Golden Rule. It IS this sense of Love that IS the Truth of keeping His words as the apostles tell us and it IS in this sense of Love that we must understand the idea that “there is no respect of persons with God“; and it IS in this sense of Love that we should see James  words saying that “if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin” (James 2:9). When we can understand the depth of this sense of Love and how that it IS NOT found in the emotional and mental attractions and the attachments that men have for others and for the things of Life in form, we can then understand how that the very idea of factions and of divisions IS contrary to Jesus’s words and contrary to the essence of the Great Commandments.

Again, this IS what Paul IS cautioning the disciples at Galatia against. It IS against the human tendency to see oneself and one’s group as separate and sometimes superior to others while the basic Truth of One Humanity, One World and One God seldom enter into one’s thinking. Here, in this idea of One Humanity we should be able to see the carnal component to the singular spiritual Truth that ALL ARE part and parcel of the One God. It IS in the reality of the Immanence of God, that He IS Truly within each and every living thing in this Earth, both the animate and the inanimate, that must be seen and which can be easily seen by any who recognize that God simply IS and that ALL that IS must perforce be a part of His very Being.

It IS in this realization of Truth and the unifying idea that there IS One God that we find the antithesis of factions as the division of men over lines of thought, of attitude and of appearance. When we can see that God IS the totality of ALL things that exist and that there IS naught that can exist beyond Him, we can then begin to understand the simplicity of the complexity of Life as we must come to KNOW it; a simplicity that Paul shows us in terms of the Transcendency of God saying that “in him we live, and move, and have our being“. But more, it IS in this same segment from the Book of Acts that we find the basis for that Unity and for the equality that we must come to recognize; we read:

“God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed , and the bounds of their habitation; That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him , though he be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring” (Acts 17:24-28).

The apostle DOES NOT deny here that there ARE differences among men and he DOES show us how that it IS the One God that “giveth to all life, and breath, and all things“. If we can break this idea down, it IS easy to understand that this giving IS NOT felt equally by ALL men in this world and that in this idea we should see the Life that IS behind the carnal existence of men. If we can see how that Paul’s saying that “in him we live, and move, and have our being” IS in regard to ALL manner of Life; that it includes the spiritual and the carnal, we can then see the greater argument against factions and divisions. And Paul makes this argument more directly as he tells his readers “Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment” (1 Corinthians 1:10).

That the apostle’s words here were NOT heeded IS apparent in the thousands of different denominations and sects of Christianity and we should try to see that it IS these particular sort of factions that Paul specifically speaks against as he ask for men to “be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment“. There was but one word of Truth that the apostle spoke yet those hearing it say different ideas in their yet carnally oriented minds and they came to say and believe those things that caused Paul to write saying “it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:11-12).

It IS this same Greek word, eris, that IS rendered in our selection as variance and in these words as contentions and in this we should be able to see the apostle’s point as regards men’s treatment of the One Truth. To get us closer to this understanding of the crux of the apostle’s intent we need only read further along in his First Epistle to the Corinthians where the apostle writes that:

“ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal? Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase” (1 Corinthians 3:3-6).

The point here IS clear and it IS this point that should be seen in our selection above on “the works of the flesh“, that the crux of Paul’s argument can be seen as in relation to spiritual matters. But while this IS True it IS also True that his words cut across ALL divisions and factions that ARE the creation of men, many of which DO have a seemingly spiritual component.

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.

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 these 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 n

o 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
• ⁴  Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888