IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 1387

ON LOVE; PART MXXVI

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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).

We ended the last essay with a selection from Proverbs where Solomon speaks of Wisdom and if we could see this word in its True Light, we could then better understand our own spiritual reality as this IS presented by the Master and His apostles. There ARE many things said about Wisdom in the New Testament and these begin with the story of John the Baptist where the angel of the Lord tells Zacharias that John’s mission IS “to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1:17). Here the Greek word phronēsis IS rendered as Wisdom and the only other use of this word IS rendered as prudence. We begin here with this word to show the human view of Wisdom in this word that the lexicon tells us also means: understanding; knowledge and holy love of the will of God ².

Here we should try to see how that this “wisdom of the just” IS the expression of the man in this world and while this IS Wisdom, prudence and understanding, it IS NOT the source of these; the deeper reality of Wisdom IS shown us by the Apostle James who says “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“. We should see here that this Greek word sophia, which IS always rendered as Wisdom, has a two fold nature; one IS “the wisdom that is from above” and the other IS NOT; James shows us that the Wisdom that IS of this world “descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish” (James 3:17, 15).

We should see two things in James’ words; first IS that the idea of “the wisdom that is from above” has  attributes which ARE similar to those that the Apostle Paul gives us in his list of “the fruit of the Spirit” and second IS that in its nature, in its being “from above“, we have the same dynamic as that this Wisdom IS from the Spirit, from the Soul where Love and Wisdom reign. If we can then put these ideas together we can see how that the entirety of Paul’s list of “the fruit of the Spirit” IS Love and Wisdom and perhaps we can see as well that James’ view of wisdom which “descendeth not from above” IS the fullness of the ideas that ARE contrary to God which Paul lists for us as “the works of the flesh“. Repeating Paul’s words again we read:

“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).

This takes us back then to the mission of the Baptist; we should try to see here how that to express the “wisdom of the just” IS to express “the fruit of the Spirit” and to remain disobedient IS to express “the works of the flesh“. Now this distinction of Wisdom versus wisdom, the Wisdom of God, or the Wisdom that IS God, versus the wisdom of men, IS rather clearly stated in the New Testament and the value and nature of Wisdom IS rather clearly stated in the Old Testament….but this yet confounds most men. In the doctrinal view of the Life of the believer who IS NOT necessarily a DOER, many believe that they have Wisdom whilst they only have some measure of wisdom and in this idea we should remember that we have a guide to the source in James’ words.

On the lower side of wisdom IS ALL that “is earthly, sensual, devilish” and if we could see how that these ideas work in the carnal lives of men we could then have the KEY to True Wisdom. Things that ARE earthly ARE of this lower wisdom and in this idea we should see ALL that IS NOT spiritual….ALL that IS NOT concerned with the things of God. The Greek word psuchikos which IS rendered as sensual brings us a more complex idea however; the word IS derived from psuche which IS generally rendered as Soul and Life. It IS apparent from its usage here that this IS NOT the intent of psuchikos and we should note that this word IS rendered as natural in Paul’s writings. Perhaps in the dual idea of Wisdom that we can get a clearer view of the duality involved in understanding the idea of the Soul, an idea that IS very misrepresented in much of doctrine. 

So how DO we interpret psuchikos? Neither sensual nor natural give us a clear picture of this lower wisdom which John Gill interprets as: it is sensual, or natural; what a natural man, one destitute of the Spirit of God, and without the knowledge of the things of the Spirit, may have . This IS but the doctrinal division of men that separates those who believe according to doctrine from those who DO not while the greater Truth IS found in a view of separation between those who Truly strive to keep His words and those who DO NOT. Nonetheless, Mr. Gill DOES NOT see the apostle’s intent which IS better captured by Vincent who comments on psuchikos as this IS used in the Book of Jude; we read: As ψυχή denotes life in the distinctness of individual existence, “the centre of the personal being, the I of each individual,” so this adjective derived from it denotes what pertains to man as man, the natural personality as distinguished from the renewed man. So 1 Corinthians 2:14; 1 Corinthians 15:44:. The rendering sensual, here and James 3:15, is inferential: sensual because natural and unrenewed In contrast with this is….The spirit….The higher spiritual life ⁴.

Vincent is comparing ψυχή which IS psuche with psuchikos and he shows us how that the Soul,  the Life or the mind, as this IS defined by the lexicon ², IS “the centre of the personal being, the I of each individual”. If we can extend this idea from the carnal to the spiritual, we can then get a sense of the whole idea of the Soul who gives or lends his very being to the Life in form but who, at the same time, remains as the spiritual being and the extension of that being into the world. On the lower side of this it IS easy to see the idea of psuche as the mind and the Life of the man in the world which ARE common doctrinal ideas. It IS the higher side however that IS the Truth of men’s being; it IS the Soul which “was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same” and it IS the Soul which “shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God“. It IS the Life of the True man, the True centre of the personal being, which brings the Love and the Wisdom into this world of men.

It IS in seeing the Soul, the psuche, as the True Life of the man which IS obnubilated by the vanity, by the illusion and the glamour, until such time as he may cause the psuchikos, the man as man, to seek the Truth by heeding his prompting, which IS to gain the attention of the natural man and take the focus off of the clamor of Life into which he has been nurtured and indoctrinated, that we can see the deeper Truths of revelation and realization. It IS in the prompting of the Soul that the man in the world has such revelations of Truth and the Presence of God and His Kingdom; these become the realizations of the man in the heart, in the consciousness of the man. It IS in these realizations which begin as a mere glimmer of Light that his focus changes and it IS in this focus that he strives. In this IS the journey of a man from being that psuchikos, that sensual and natural man in the world, to realizing that he IS NOT that man but IS the psuche, the Soul, that gives the body Life and Light; and it IS the fullness of this realization that IS found in our trifecta which we repeat here again:

• “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).

This reality of psuche and psuchikos IS yet another view of the duality of Life and in this view IS the duality of Wisdom. There IS “the wisdom that is from above” and there IS wisdom which “descendeth not from above“. We should not that the Greek word, anothen, which IS rendered here as above IS rendered as again in the phrase “born again” from John’s Gospel; in this we should try to see the relevance of the heavenly man as opposed to the earthly man, another view of duality,  and understand perhaps that “the wisdom that is from above” IS the providence of the man who IS “born again“; this IS the man who can “enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5, 3). It IS this man who keeps His words according to our trifecta; this IS NOT the man whose wisdom IS yet carnal, whose wisdom “is earthly, sensual, devilish“.

And we should understand here the relationship between faith, that KNOWING of the Truth, and Wisdom and understand that these ARE the same in effect in the Life of a man….Faith IS the sense of KNOWING and Wisdom IS what IS KNOWN. In this correspondence we should also see how that Love and Wisdom ARE the sum total of ALL of “the fruit of the Spirit“; Vincent tells us: Love, in this passage, is that fruit of the Spirit which dominates all the others ⁴, and in this we should see how that the rest of the list can be easily seen as aspects of Love, of agape. To this we should add the idea that Wisdom, that KNOWING that IS faith and which Jesus shows us comes to the man who will “continue in my word“, can be seen to be inclusive of ALL of the ideas presented in the list; it IS the man who KNOWS some measure of the Truth, the man who IS the “good ground” that will “bring forth fruit, some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some an hundred” (Mark 4:20); this IS the man that will keep His words.

It IS easy to confuse wisdom with Wisdom but the Apostle Paul DOES offer us a complimentary view to that which we have from James above which we will use to close this essay and discuss further in the next. While James contrasts that True Wisdom with that wisdom which “descendeth not from above” in terms that can be likened to “the fruit of the Spirit” and the “the works of the flesh“, these ideas ARE NOT generally seen in this context. In the idea that the lower wisdom “is earthly, sensual, devilish” we should see the idea that these ARE contrary to the spirit of the Great Commandments in the same way that Paul’s list IS contrary; in earthly we have opposition to the Great Commandment idea of Love for God and in sensual, in the wisdom of man as man, we have the self-centered view where the Truth of “love thy neighbour as thyself” IS NOT to be found. Here we should understand that this Love, this agape which IS expressed to ALL, IS a part of “the wisdom that is from above” and that in one’s expression of this agape IS the evidence of that Wisdom.

In the word that IS rendered devilish there IS much misunderstanding as there IS with ALL such words that ARE rendered in terms of devil(s) or Satan and much of this error IS bound to the sense of superstition and fear which we find in so much of doctrine. Our word here IS daimoniodes which the lexicon tells us IS: resembling or proceeding from an evil spirit, demon-like ². The root of this word IS daimonion and daimon according to the lexicon with the former meaning: the divine power, deity, divinity; a spirit, a being inferior to God, superior to men; evil spirits or the messengers and ministers of the devil and the latter meaning: a god, a goddess; an inferior deity, whether good or bad; in the NT, an evil spirit ². It IS in the sense of confusion offered by these words that leads most to the singular idea of the devil as a being with a personality of evil which IS also the common idea behind another Greek word, diabolos.

Vincent tells us of diabolos, in comparison to daimonion and daimon, that: This should be distinguished from another word, also wrongly rendered devil in the A. V.- δαίμων, and its more common neuter form δαιμόνιον, both of which should be translated demon, meaning the unclean spirits which possessed men, and were cast out by Christ and his apostles. The Rev., unfortunately, and against the protest of the American revisers, retains devil for both words, except in Acts 17:18, where it renders as A. V. gods ⁴. We have then demons and devils and gods and in the mix of these ideas apart from the superstitions afforded by doctrines we should try to see the True intent of James use of daimoniodes: as the self-serving attitude of men by which many ARE overwhelmed to the point of possession by their own manic and depressive states of being. We close with this from Paul:

“my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought: But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.0 But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:4-14).

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 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 a Quote of the Day that we spent much time with over the course of our essays. In this affirmation we find the Truth of discipleship as we have been ever been expressing and here we can relate our themes of the last few days; “take no thought” for the things of the world and that we approach the Kingdom and discipleship in the nature of the little child, in humbleness, meekness, unashamed in any way and unassuming. The message that this imparts for us today IS that it IS the Soul that is at work in the world of men as it expresses to some degree the purpose, power and the will through Life in this world. These words are from a meditation offered to his students by our Tibetan brother and in which we find greater understanding of the message of the Master. This IS Truly the way of the disciple.

My Soul has purpose, power and will; these three are needed on the Way of Liberation.

My Soul must foster love among the sons of men; this is its major purpose.

I, therefore, will to love and tread the Way of Love. All that hinders and obstructs the showing of the Light must disappear before the purposes of the Soul.

My will is one with the great Will of God;. that Holy Will requires that all men serve. And unto the purposes of the Plan I lend my little will.

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