ON LOVE; PART MCCXXI
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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 some ideas on the covenant between men and God, with the differences between the New Covenant and the Old Covenant. While the Old Covenant IS clearly to the nation of Israel in the time of Moses, many Christian doctrines yet rely upon the ideas of a covenant between the Lord and the patriarchs, citing the promises to them as enduring yet today. Such doctrines use their view of these promises and the supposed result of them in the patriarchs lives to teach their prosperity gospel without giving heed to the quid pro quo that IS clearly established through Moses’ law. Many instead intermingle their ideas from the time of the patriarchs with selected New Testament ideas to form a hybrid religious view that DOES attract many and which has produced many millionaires in the ranks of the teachers.
The Old Covenant between the Lord and the patriarchs should have given way to the updated and clearly stated covenant that IS tied to Moses giving of the law and this newer version of the Old Covenant should have given way to the New Covenant that IS brought to us by the Master. Jesus tells us however that we should “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) and in this we should see that both the Old, as presented by Moses, and the New ARE equally valid. It IS in this Light that we have been discussing the two Paths to True salvation….the Path of Love that IS the New Covenant and the Path of keeping His words which IS the Old.
While there IS little doctrinal clarity on just what the New Covenant IS, there IS extreme clarity for the Old Covenant which IS simply stated in Moses words; speaking as the Lord he says: “And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth: And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God” (Deuteronomy 28:1-2). This IS followed by a list of those blessings….blessings that ARE for the nation and NOT the individual who, while he will receive his measure of benefit, is destined to rise and fall with the nation.
And, perhaps for the sake of clarity, Moses DOES include the Lord’s words on what will become of the nation that DOES NOT heed the words of the covenant….cursing. Moses tells the people this saying: “But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee” (Deuteronomy 28:15). What follows IS a list of the curses which ARE at first the opposite of the blessings but which then include a horrific picture of Life for the Jew. Needles to say, the nation DOES NOT “hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God” which becomes then the historical account of the Jews in the Old Testament narrative and in the corrective words of the prophets.
The New Covenant IS NOT nearly so clearly stated but it IS shown us in the words of the Master and the amplifying and clarifying words of His apostles. The quid pro quo IS evident throughout the Master’s words as He shows us the results of keeping His words. As we have discussed before, perhaps the most important point of the New Covenant IS that it IS directed to the individual and NOT the nation; NO longer DOES the individual merely flow along with the fate of the nation; here the individual is become responsible for his own salvation.
While many see the New Covenant as that it IS a covenant of grace as compared to the Old Covenant of works, this IS but a doctrinal approach and one that IS ill defined because of a lack of True understanding of just what IS grace. Much of the doctrines covering New Testament covenant theology ARE based in the writings of the Apostle Paul, writings that ARE misapplied, and misinterpreted out of context snippets from his words. Others see the New Covenant as one that IS about Christ but here the theological opinions vary greatly along denominational lines.
For us the New Covenant IS found in Jesus’ words; in His teachings and His example and our part of the covenant IS simply that we keep His words. This IS of course an extension of the prerequisite to the blessings of the Old Covenant. In this we can then extend the simplicity of the New Covenant to the most important Christian idea….Love. Paul shows us the validity and the reality of this extension as he shows us the parallel Paths to Truth, Paths which the doctrinal church seems to dismiss rather that embrace. Paul tells us that “all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Galatians 5:14) and, perhaps to be clear, he expounds upon this in our selection from his Epistle to the Romans which we read again saying:
“Owe no man any thing, but agapao one another: for he that agapao 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 agape thy neighbour as thyself. Agape worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore agape 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).
While the idea of both of these writings from the apostle show us how that the expression of Love IS tantamount to keeping the law, many DO NOT see this idea in relation to keeping Jesus’ words and His commandments. What we should see in Paul’s words IS that men’s part of the covenant can take either of these two paths….one can strive to keep His words or one can strive to express Love as agape in the reality of the Great Commandment that “Thou shalt agape thy neighbour as thyself“.
In the doctrines of men however these Truths ARE lost to the doctrinal view of grace as the ‘free‘ gift of God to ALL will believe. In this many rely upon the rites and the rituals of the denominations and sects; some on baptism and other ‘sacraments’, some upon confessing and affirming that Jesus IS Lord according to the formula presented in Romans, while others rely upon some combination of these ideas. As with the reality of grace, the idea of believing, a cornerstone in ALL these approaches, IS equally misunderstood and IS become more a matter of mental and emotional affirmation than the Truth of believing which IS KNOWING. For us the common understanding of faith and believing that come from the Greek words pistis and pisteuo ARE but a shadow of the Truth.
Jesus shows us the True meaning of these Greek words in the way that He uses them and from His words we should be able to clearly see how that mere mental and emotional affirmation IS NOT the reality of these ideas. The bar IS set high for Truly believing; Jesus tells us that “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do” (John 14:12) and we should be able to easily see here that mere affirmation DOES NOT allow for such “greater works“. And here we should remember Vincent’s words on just what believing in and believing on the Master Truly means; he tells us that: to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ is not merely to believe the facts of His historic life or of His saving energy as facts, but to accept Him as Savior, Teacher, Sympathizer, Judge; to rest the soul upon Him for present and future salvation, and to accept and adopt His precepts and example as binding upon the life 4.
This IS the reality of believing and while Vincent IS specifically showing us the idea of believing in and believing on, the greater reality IS that his ideas apply to ALL uses of pisteuo from which one can gain some spiritual power or benefit. Here we should see that while Jesus words saying “That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith” (Mark 11:23) ARE NOT according to Vincent’s criteria of in and on, the reality IS still the same. Mere mental and emotional affirmation will NOT move the mountain….KNOWING in one’s heart without doubt however will. And we ARE NOT left to wonder how that one can come to this sense of KNOWING; Jesus tells us in the first part of our trifecta which we repeat here again 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).
We should see here that True believing comes to us as we accept and adopt His precepts and example as binding upon the life and we should see as well that this IS the same criteria for KNOWING which the Master shows us saying “If ye continue in my word“. While some may NOT see the link here between KNOWING the Truth and the idea of KNOWING without doubt that one can move that mountain or plant the “sycamine tree” (Luke 17:6) in the sea, the reality IS that it IS the Truth of one’s nature and relationship to God that enables such things and those “greater works“….ALL are the product of the dual Paths of keeping His words and expressing agape to ALL. In the wranglings of doctrine however the True message of faith and believing, of pistis and pisteuo, ARE lost to the idea that ONLY God can DO such things; this IS however contrary to the straightforward and clearly stated message of the Master.
ALL comes down to pistis; ALL spiritual accomplishments require that a man KNOW that he can DO whatever IS his objective and so long as this objective has a spiritual component, that IS that such an objective has a spiritual goal, this simple rule of KNOWING will work. We can look again at the reality of and the Truth of pistis as faith in Jesus comparison of one’s faith to “a grain of mustard seed” (Matthew 17:20). Doctrines see this as a teaching on the size of the seed, that as tiny as it may be, this IS ALL of the faith that one needs but this IS an illogical point of view. There IS NO relationship between a physical size and a psychic idea….one CAN NOT be measured against the other which IS evermore True regarding the True spiritual idea of faith which IS that KNOWING that comes by measure through keeping His words.
Our view here IS notably different than the many doctrinal views of this idea of “a grain of mustard seed“; our view has naught to DO with the size of the seed which idea likely comes from other parabolic words from Jesus, namely His comparison of the mustard seed to the Kingdom of God. In these sayings the idea IS to show that such a small seed can grow into a tree that IS “greater than all herbs” (Mark 4:32) and that this IS how the Kingdom of God can grow in the Life of everyman. In this context the size comparison IS a valid point but this IS NOT so in regard to faith….in regard to pistis. Here we must look at the nature of the mustard seed and NOT its size.
There IS a parabolic twist here in the idea that a mustard seed can indeed have faith which IS missed in interpretation of doctrines. In the Apostle Matthew’s Gospel Jesus tells us of the mustard seed in relation to His apostles’ lack of pistis which IS rendered as unbelief; here we read that: “Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? And Jesus said unto them,Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you” (Matthew 17:19-20). The Apostle Luke uses the same idea of “faith as a grain of mustard seed” in answer to the apostles’ saying to Him “Increase our faith“.
Rather than moving the mountain Luke’s version uses the idea of the “sycamine tree“….”planted in the sea” (Luke 17:5, 6) but the gist of the Master’s words IS the same. In both of these views of the Power of pistis the doctrinal approach IS to the size of the seed compared to the measure of faith, with the view of faith being much the same as believing. We should remember here that Jesus IS speaking to His apostles, men who have exhibited their level of faith and believing; we should note as well that this apostles’ level of faith and believing IS NOT enough. In this we can either see that either their level of faith has NOT reached mustard seed proportions or that there IS another part to this parabolic idea.
If we see the former then we must find a way to explain the apostles’ ability as “they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them” (Mark 6:13). While it may be convenient to say that they had sufficient faith for these things but NOT enough to overcome their unbelief, this makes little sense as they DO have faith to DO whatsoever they did. If we approach this from the totality of KNOWING however, we can perhaps see the greater point of why they could NOT heal a certain man and why they believed that they need yet more pistis.
The answer for us in hidden in the parabolic idea of “faith as a grain of mustard seed” and here again we should see that there IS NO sense of faith for a mustard seed….the seed has neither mind nor emotions. There IS however one thing that the mustard seed DOES possess….the conclusion that it can ONLY become a mustard plant. This IS the sense of KNOWING that we should take from the Master’s parabolic idea of “faith as a grain of mustard seed“; this IS a sense of KNOWING that IS far beyond the common ideas of faith and believing and this IS that same sense of KNOWING that Jesus shows us in our trifecta. This IS a sense of KNOWING that comes from the Soul in revelation and in realization by the man in form….this IS a KNOWING based in the Truth of who and what we ARE as Souls in this world.
Jesus tells us that this KNOWING comes to a man “If ye continue in my word” and this IS NO idle statement but rather a statement of that Truth that teaches us that if one’s focus IS turned to God, “nothing wavering” (James 1:6) that he can be then among the “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). It IS in this “divine nature” that we can understand and DO those “greater works“….that we can move the mountain and “say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you” (Luke 17:5, 6). We should try to understand that the force of ALL this comes in keeping His words and that the resultant revelation and realization ARE spiritual and that there IS NO thing carnal in this grace from God….that IS that the grace IS the revelation and the realization of Truth.
Perhaps the first Truth IS one’s coming to KNOW himself as a Soul in form and we should understand here that this alone DOES require some measure of focus upon the things of God. We should see as well that this first sense of KNOWING is rather far from that realization by which one can DO “greater works“, this small measure of grace however IS the starting point for many. Repentance IS an act in time, a decision to change the focus of one’s Life from from the self to the things of God and it IS in this that the Truth begins to flow. We should understand here that one’s Repentance IS intimately tied to the idea of striving and the required impetus to both strive and to Repent IS based in one’s heeding the prompting of his own Soul which serves as one’s motivation to seek out the deeper Truths.
Repentance, while an act in time, IS a process that continues in the Life of a man and we should try to see how that this process IS one’s Transformation. Here we can see Paul’s point in saying that we should “be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God“; we can also see here that this IS focusing on the things of God while being “conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) IS to remain focused on the things of the self in this world. If we can understand that it IS in Repentance, in striving to DO so, that the mind IS renewed by the realizations of the Truth that flow in keeping His words and in one’s expression of agape, we can then see how that ALL works through the increased measure of KNOWING….in an upward spiral that ends in having such “faith as a grain of mustard seed“.
It IS speaking of one’s early time of striving, the beginning of one’s process of Repentance and Transformation, that the Apostle James offers us his caution saying that until one can get to that point where he NO longer looks back longingly at his former Life, that he will NOT have “nothing wavering“. One’s measure of KNOWING comes in direct proportion to one’s measure of focus upon the things of God; this IS the way that it must be as the reality of those “greater works” CAN NOT be trusted to one that “wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed“. This James tells us saying “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord” (James 1:5-7).
The apostle then adds that “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways” (James 1:8) and while this seemingly points to a man whose focus IS upon himself and the self in this world, it IS NOT. By its very phrasing we should see the ‘religious’, the doctrinal thinker who may see the need to fully focus upon the things of God but yet follows his more carnal nature while pursuing the his own desires for the things of this world. And such things ARE NOT restricted to the physical comforts but rather include the thoughts, the attitudes and the actions that ARE expressed in place of one’s expression of agape which IS ever the True sign of a man’s fruit. Here we should remember Jesus’ words saying “Ye shall know them by their fruits” and then again that “by their fruits ye shall know them” (Matthew 7: 16, 20).
We close today with Paul’s words to the Corinthians which we have been studying, words that outline for us the importance of agape in a ‘religious’ setting as well as the defining quality which must be understood to be defining both agape and the Lord, thereby discounting the common interpretations of the Greek words. The Apostle says:
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not agape, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not agape, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not agape, it profiteth me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
“Agape suffereth long, and is kind; agape envieth not; agape vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Agape never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8).
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
We are eliminating this section of comment on the Quote of the Day in favor of just showing that quote. On the front page of our blog, as the quote changes, it may not be the same as what is listed in this section and while we do not change our Quote very often, much of the reason is found in the accompanying ideas that have been included and the time it takes to change this as well. Without this section we will try to change our selection of the Quote of the Day more frequently. Our new section with a new quote we appear as:
Quote of the Day:
Let the peace of God rule in your hearts
- 4 Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition
Those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road.
Voltaire, Writer and Philosopher
