ON LOVE; PART MCXCIV

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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 spent much of the last essay discussing how that the precept of Love began in the laws of Moses, was reinforced by the prophets and was emphasized by the Master while at the same time being relatively ignored as the intended expression of ALL men. We noted as well that as Jesus elevates the seemingly obscure ideas on Love to the status of the Great Commandments and that there ARE those Jews in that day that DO KNOW their import; the scribes, or lawyers as the Apostle Luke tells us, admit to the religious intent of this Love saying “to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices” (Mark 12:33).

While the stories differ between the Apostles Mark and Luke, the reality IS the same; the lawyer that Luke cites says the same thing as the scribe above which we read as that Jesus “said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself” (Luke 10:26-27). Three things should be understood here; first that the concept of Love IS introduced in the law of Moses; second that the prophets DO try to change the course of Judaism from the rites and the rituals and the ceremonial onto the Truth that the whole of the law IS intended to be “in their inward parts” and “in their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:33).

But the Jews substituted the rites and the rituals and the ceremonial for the Truth of Love and much of their denial of the Christ IS found in this: in the way that the Jew looked to the Messiah to support the rites and the rituals and the ceremonial which had become their doctrine. We KNOW from the gospel narrative that He DOES NOT support their doctrine and we should note that He shows them this throughout the gospels, carrying forward the message of the prophets saying such things as  “Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Mark 7:6-7).

If we can look behind these ideas we can perhaps see the deeper meaning of Jesus’ words that show us that the precept of Love has ever been a fundamental and primary part of the Great Truth that IS Love, that IS agape. In the Master’s words that show us the deeper meaning of the second of the Great Commandments, the Golden Rule, we find again the link to the law as would be found “in their inward parts” and “in their hearts“. The Golden Rule IS the Master’s explanatory on Love which Jesus offers us saying “all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12) and when we add to this His words saying that “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:40), we should be able to see that deeper meaning more clearly.

The Great Commandments and the Golden Rule ARE, in a very special sense, “the law and the prophets” and it IS upon these that the words of both ARE suspended. And to this we must add the Life and the teachings of Jesus who tells us “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). This fulfillment IS the teaching of the Master, His precepts and His example, but, despite its clarity, the doctrines of men still DO NOT grasp the reality of Love, of agape, as His singular message to men….to both the Jews whose doctrine substituted the rites and the rituals and the ceremonial for the Truth of Love and to the NOT yet formed Christian who has since made his own substitution of similar rites and rituals and doctrinal theories that DO NOT conform to His words.

Although He DOES so parabolically, Jesus DOES offer men in those days His strong admonition that the the new ‘Christian’ view of God should NOT be an adaptation of the Old way of the Jews. It IS evident yet today that the Truth of His words was never seen as many Christian denomination place much emphasis upon the Old Testament in their teachings. Our point here IS NOT that the Old Testament should NOT play a role in the Christian religion but rather that it should NOT be a part of the foundation of the Christian religion as it has become.

The Prophet Jeremiah shows us this reality which IS carried forward in the Book of Hebrews as they speak of the New Covenant which IS introduced by the prophets and carried forward, fulfilled if you will, by the Master; Jeremiah says “this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jeremiah 31:33). Doctrines however DO NOT understand that this covenant which IS to be “in their inward parts” and “in their hearts” IS a covenant of Love, a covenant that exchanges the promises of the trifecta for one’s expression of Love according to the Golden Rule and the Great Commandments.

While the Christian religions have shed the rites and the rituals and the ceremonial of the Jews, they have installed their own symbols, their own rites and rituals, and have established their own doctrinal approach of salvation and atonement; ideas gleaned from out of context words offered by the apostles. So very few teach the Truth of Love even though it IS this theme that fills the Old Testament teaching of the laws of Moses and much of the words of the prophets who rail against the Jews failure to live according to the law. We should remember here that it IS NOT because they DO NOT KNOW some measure of the Truth as we see in the words of the scribe and the lawyer from that last essay, it IS because they, as a teaching church, DO NOT have the wherewithal to present a Truth that they themselves DO NOT live.

It IS these same Jews who DO KNOW, these same officers of the Jewish church, that resist the words of Jesus and look past His many miracles because they will NOT look past their own doctrinal ideas of what their Messiah should be and what He should teach. Jesus teaches Love and NOT the sabbath and He never mentions the idea of circumcision except from a historical perspective in relation to the Jewish practice. While Jesus IS circumcised, the ONLY purpose in His Life IS that this confirms His status a member of the Jewish nation under the law of Moses. The Master never speaks of it as a requirement and He relegates the idea of the sabbath to be a far less stringent thing than the Jew’s doctrines portray.

The idea of the sabbath plays a substantial role in the gospels and it seems that the narrative purposely picks out instances where the Master IS accused of NOT keeping that day according to Jewish doctrine. While the sabbath of the Old Testament IS tied to the Book of Genesis creation story, it IS NOT a factor in the Jewish Life until Moses introduces it and here we should try to see that there IS little spiritual purpose to this; if we can see this as a simple tool employed to force the Jew to change from his way of Life in Egypt and to help cement a nation with rules of order, we can then better understand the way that Jesus treats this previously sacred part of the law.

What Jesus shows us IS that the idea of the sabbath IS NOT sacred and that the way that the Jew had come to see this IS in error and IS NOT according to the original intent. We should understand here that while we view Moses’ role in the formation of the Jewish religion as partly based in his own perspective as a man in this world, we DO at the same time see that his motivations ARE purely spiritual and his edicts ARE very much in response to the times in which he lives. It IS Moses’ role to bring the Jewish nation out of their superstition and their idolatry in a time when these and the barbarous nature of men ruled the day.

Such things as circumcision and the sabbath became fundamental parts of the religious Life of the Jew through their doctrinal approach to God and it IS these, along with the teaching on the role of the sacrifice, that greatly contribute to the rites and the rituals and the ceremonial which overwhelmed their view. It IS this that the prophets speak much against as they try to show that it IS the “the weightier matters of the law” that they should attend to. While the idea of sacrifice DOES end as a part of the Jewish religious experience, it DOES NOT end according to the teaching of the prophets but according to circumstance. The Prophet Isaiah offers the Jews, centuries earlier, a rhetorical questions that asks “To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats” (Isaiah 1:11).

Jesus puts this into a clearer perspective as He tells the Jews “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anisea and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone” (Matthew 23:23). We should try to see here that the Master IS speaking to a class of men, those learned in the Mosaic law and in the sacred writings, an interpreter, teacher  ⁹, which IS the definition of those Greek words rendered as scribe and as lawyer. Here we should see the idea of tithe in a much broader way….as representative of ALL that causes them to omit “the weightier matters of the law“.

It IS the scribe and the lawyer who acknowledge the role of Love in the law and who show us that this IS considered as a most important part of the law but, by their very behavior toward the Christ, we see at the same time that they DO NOT practice this having substituted their doctrines in its place. Luke tells us that the lawyer tells Jesus that the Great Commandments ARE the high points of the law while Mark tells us that says of these same Great Commandments that they ARE “more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices” (Mark 12:33). Our point here IS that the religious leaders of the Jewish people DO KNOW the Truth of the law and that they DO NOT practice it nor Truly teach is IS a historical fact that IS evidenced by the Master’s words to them.

And the same IS True yet today. Christian doctrines lean on the idea of God’s Love and cite the importance of Love as a teaching of the Master yet they DO NOT practice it nor DO they Truly teach it as the most spiritual of biblical concepts. We should remember here that Love as a biblical concept IS very clearly shown to us; from the Old Testament words from the writings of Moses, to the reinforcement of the idea of Love offered by the prophets to the singular emphasis on Love that IS the central part of Jesus’ message. Yet men DO NOT understand the most basic ideas that ARE agape and, in our reading of the defining ideas from Thayer’s and Strong’s, it appears that they never have.

Today’s doctrinal ideas regarding agape show us that this IS is considered to be the Love originating from God or Christ for mankind; many say that agape IS the God kind of Love.  It IS seen as well as the covenant Love of God for humans, as well as the human reciprocal Love for God but we should remember that Love for God comes with its own special requirement which Jesus shows us in the trifecta. This same agape extends to the love of one’s fellow man which, according to the Apostle John, IS a prerequisite for the reciprocal Love for God. There IS indeed circular idea at play here and one which clearly shown us by the Master and His Apostles.

First there IS the words of Jesus who says “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me” and then “If a man love me, he will keep my words“. Both of these ARE from our trifecta which also shows us the converse of these ideas saying “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“. We should note here how that Jesus IS relating His words with the Father’s so that there IS NO question regarding what words one must keep. The point here IS that one CAN NOT Love God in the absence of keeping His words.

Next we must look at what His words DO say; according to the Great Commandments one must Love God, which IS essentially keeping His words. To this we must add the second of the Great Commandments which IS to “love thy neighbour as thyself“; here we see that without such Love one IS NOT keeping His words and, as Jesus tells us, this man IS “He that loveth me not“. John’s words show us this same idea saying “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?” (1 John 4:20). What we should see here IS that to Love God one must “love thy neighbour as thyself” and the most difficult part of DOING so IS KNOWING just what that Love, that agape, actually IS.

To understand agape one must first understand that this IS NOT that mental and emotional attraction and attachment to others and to things; agape IS NOT eros, neither is it philia, nor storge; these ARE ALL separate Greek words, each with their own defining ideas, which ARE ALL lumped together into the English word Love. With agape, these Greek word ideas ARE considered the four types of Love found in the bible and we should see here that the Greeks employed six different words, some count seven, to express different types of what we call simply Love. In this we have the basis for our difficulty in understanding the reality of agape in ALL of Western culture.

As we have discussed, Jesus DOES show us rather clearly what the reality of agape Truly IS and, as history has shown us, this reality has NOT been applied to the idea of Love in the minds of men. Much like the nebulous ideas that ARE applied to pistis and pisteuo and the misinterpreted ideas of grace and salvation, agape IS wholly misrepresented by the doctrinal church which DOES NOT divorce the True idea from the meanings of eros, philia and storge except perhaps in a most philosophical way. To say that agape IS the God kind of Love means little when one DOES NOT understand the deep significance and reality that one should understand in the idea that “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself“. It IS this most basic Judeo-Christian idea that stands behind the trifecta which we repeat here saying:

• “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).

The grace that IS the results of the trifecta IS a True representation, an ipso facto representation if you will, of the Way that grace works and what charis Truly IS. If one will keep His words and, as He shows us in the first point above saying “If ye continue in my word“, then one can expect the charis, the grace, to flow as the “the truth” which “shall make you free“, entry “into the kingdom of heaven” here and now as well as the Presence of God in one’s Life which Jesus shows us saying “we will come unto him, and make our abode with him“. This IS grace….spiritual rewards that flow through keeping His words which ARE NOT just words but ARE “in their inward parts” and “in their hearts” which the prophet tells us IS the reality of the New Covenant, a reality that IS lost in the doctrines of men.

This grace will come by measure into the Life of everyman who will strive to keep His words and we should try to understand here that this IS what the Apostle Paul IS showing us: this grace will NOT come to the man who strives to keeps his words as words, the man who will perform by rote the tenets of the law without that law being “in their inward parts” and “in their hearts“. So then how IS this idea of keeping His words Truly measured? Simply in the idea of agape, an idea that IS moot in the lives of men who by rote keep the law, but which IS alive and awake in the man in whom the heart of the law IS “in their inward parts” and “in their hearts“. This IS what we should take from our selection from Paul that we have been carrying for many posts; we read again:

“Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed”  (Romans 13:8-11).

Grace then, in the form of spiritual reward, comes to the man who will keep His words of which Jesus tells us that “the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me“. We should try to see here that Jesus’ words and the Father’s words ARE the same; there IS NO point of separation and in this we should see as well that the law which IS presented by Moses, reinforced by the prophets and emphasized by the Master IS one and the same albeit offered in different terms. We must at the same time try to separate the ceremonial, the rite and the ritual, from the crux of the law and in this there IS a rather natural separation between those precepts that can be universally applied: there ARE those regarding the interactions between men, the commandments on Love for God and for one’s fellow man which in practice DO accomplish the full intent of the Ten Commandments.

The rest ARE for the Jews in their day; Jesus shows us the reality of the sabbath in the New Dispensation as He says that “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath” (Mark 2:27-28). Jesus shows us also the reality of the dietary laws in the New Dispensation as He shows us that “Hear, and understand: Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man” (Matthew 15:10-11). Similarly Jesus diminishes the laws on leprosy as we read regarding the leper asking if the Master would heal him; He “put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed” (Matthew 8:3). We see this same as He enters into “the house of Simon the leper” (Matthew 26:6).

While these ideas may sound as though they ARE contrary to Jesus’ 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“, they can be better understood in terms of that fulfilment. We should note that the Jesus words here ARE a combination of the law and the prophets and if we can understand the Greek word pleroo which IS rendered as fulfil in terms of completing ², we can perhaps see the point of ALL of this. We should note as well that most ALL of the doctrinal church agrees, perhaps with different reasoning, with these ideas on the sabbath, the dietary laws and leprosy as these ARE NO longer considered as part of the New Dispensation.

 

We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.

HAPPY

THANKSGIVING

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.

We change our Quote of the Day today to the words from Solomon on Wisdom along with our thoughts on them from the original postings of them in In the Words of Jesus parts 46 and 556.  These words ARE a testament to those things that we should be asking of the Lord and which are representative of the Holy Ghost. Wisdom, understanding and knowledge which will lead us  to understanding the fear (reverence and respect and awe) of the Lord and the knowledge of God so that in this world we can understand righteousness and judgement and equity and be preserved by discretion and understanding. Thus are we in a position to treat everyone as we would want to be treated ourselves.

Since we are centered on the ideas of Wisdom today we offer the following from Proverbs as our Quote of the Day. Solomon, who is KNOWN for his Wisdom, which we read in the story of his Life was His gift from God, a gift that he receives because he does not want for the things of the world. But Solomon gains as well the things of the world in plenty and as his Life story proceeds we can see clearly that it is his Life in the world that is to his detriment. The wisdom however produces for us the writings of the Book of Proverbs and it is this that he is remembered for. His Life is interesting reading and is well documented in the Books of Kings and Chronicles.

….incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding; Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God. For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding. He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous: he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly. He keepeth the paths of judgment, and preserveth the way of his saints. Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path. When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul; Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee (Proverbs 2:2-11).

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts

• ² New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
• ⁹ Thayer’s Greek Lexicon on blueletterbible.org

Those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road. 

Voltaire,
Writer and Philosophe