ON LOVE; PART MCCLXXVII
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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).
Much of the last two essays has been focused upon the Apostle Paul’s words to the Corinthians which end with a note about the “natural man“, a moniker that the Christian world refuses to wear as they attribute the idea to ALL who ARE NOT Christian. Some here even distinguish between denominations and sects as they see other parts of the church as NOT being ‘saved‘ according to their understanding of the idea; for example to many Protestants the Catholic IS NOT considered to be “born again“. The reality IS however that ALL are the “natural man“; ALL who have NOT found the wherewithal to Truly Love God according to the Master’s defining ideas on what this Love represents. While most ALL of the church embraces the words of the Apostle Paul as the foundation of their doctrine, they DO so at the expense of NOT seeing nor understanding the Truth that the Lord Himself presents to us and here we should note this Truth IS keeping His words and one’s expression of agape as He defines this idea.
Paul’s words to the Corinthians here begin with some Old Testament text from Isaiah which IS written as “For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him” (Isaiah 64:4) and we should understand here that it IS Paul, a former Pharisee of the Jews, who sees the idea of “waiteth for him” in terms of agape. In this context ALL that follows IS those “things which God hath prepared for them that love him” and here we should see that ALL ARE “the things of the Spirit of God“….things that “God hath revealed….unto us by his Spirit“. Here we should understand the dynamic link between these words and the words of the Master which show us how that such things ARE revealed and we should try to see as well that such ARE “the deep things of God” which should ever be interpreted as the Truth.
To have such things revealed “unto us by his Spirit” one must have some form of communication with His Spirit and here we must remember that God IS both Spirit and He IS Love. The former idea IS from the words of Jesus who tells us “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24) while the latter comes from the Apostle John who tells us plainly that “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16). In this we should try to see that if God IS both that these ideas ARE also synonymous….that Spirit IS Love. While Paul writes about the differences between the “the spirit of man” and “the Spirit of God“, these ideas must be understood from a spiritual perspective and NOT a carnal one as IS the common way for men to view most ALL things.
The “the spirit of man” should be understood as this IS presented; it IS what motivates his Life and IS his own carnal expression which reflects his own proclivities as a man along with his measure of nurturing and indoctrination….ALL of this compounded by his Life’ experience. Contrary to this IS “the Spirit of God” of which everyman IS part and parcel; this Spirit IS ALL things that ARE written of it; this IS the Spirit of Truth, the Spirit that IS God and the Spirit that IS Love. This Spirit IS the unction that John shows us saying “ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things” (1 John 2:20) and this IS as well what Paul shows us as “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). It IS important here to understand that such things as ARE written by the apostles suggest the Truth in terms that the reader can understand; we should try to see that the reader who IS Truly communicating with “the Spirit of God” DOES have realizations of the Truth. The things that ARE hidden ARE ONLY hidden from the man who DOES NOT Truly seek that Truth. Repeating Paul’s words we read:
“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. 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. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man” (1 Corinthians 2:9-15).
Paul goes on to speak about such realization of Truth as he writes that “we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God“; here we should understand that as men, they DO have that “spirit of the world” which IS “the spirit of man” but, speaking to disciples who have some measure of Truth, he shows them that this has been overcome….that “the spirit which is of God” has become the dominant motivation of their lives. Again, “the spirit which is of God” IS that same unction, that same anointing, of which John tells us “the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him” (1 John 2:27). This IS an easy idea to understand for the man who can look past his doctrinal orientation, for the man who has NOT however this IS but “foolishness unto him“. It IS this realization that IS promised to us by the Master in our trifecta which IS our Path to KNOWING; we repeat Jesus’ words 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).
That doctrinal thinkers DO make themselves into the man who DOES “know the things that are freely given to us of God” IS however a false representation and one that IS tied into the most basic doctrinal failure. Jesus clearly states for us that “He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings” and we should see this as an eternal pronouncement and NOT one that IS ONLY intended to guide men until their adoption of Paul’s words as their way to salvation. And this idea goes yet deeper as we read in John’s words 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? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also” (1 John 4:16, 20-21).
This sense of Love, of agape, IS NOT that common idea of Love which IS embraced by the world of men; the Truth of agape IS yet another ‘mystery’ which, for the doctrinal thinker and ALL others who they believe ARE the “natural man“, remain “foolishness unto him“. The Truth of agape comes with the realization that its expression IS with NO “respect to persons” (James 2:9) which idea can create, in the carnal mind, a separation from close Loved ones according to the flesh. Jesus however makes this point clear in the gospels; against the idea of being “worthy of me” according to Matthew and against the idea of True discipleship according to Luke; based in this dual view presented by His apostles, we should be able to understand the symmetry of these idea and understand that like many such dual ideas, these ARE synonymous.
The ideas of Love for God and Love for one another ARE lost in the doctrinal miasma that excludes the Master’s Truths in favor of men’s conclusion that they ARE saved by a magical atonement created out of isolated and out of context verses from the New Testament. In this many ARE lost from the perspective that they fail to search further and it IS this hindrance that prevents even spiritually inclined men from seeking the greater Truth and the deeper meanings of Jesus words and the clarifying and amplifying words of His apostles. While this may seem a harsh criticism, it IS presented as a basic Truth of Life in this world of vanity, of illusion and glamour, which the doctrines of men both feed and support by their own denials of their own ability to “be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 2:9).
This acceptance of men’s futility without embracing the doctrinal ideas of accepting the Lord are based in part in Jesus own words saying “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing” (John 15:5); if however we can dissect these ideas, a greater Truth can come forth. In the idea of the vine and the branches we should see much more that what doctrines teach; this vine and branches symbology ONLY work through the idea of abiding and here, as we discussed in the last essay John’s saying that “he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16), we should see the dual nature of the various ideas presented by the Greek word meno. This same word IS rendered in terms of abiding and dwelling as well as continue which IS how it IS rendered in Jesus’ words from our trifecta 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“.
In the combination of the New Testament ideas of meno we can more clearly see the intent; first that this abiding or dwelling IS mutual, if we dwell in the Lord , the Lord perforce abides in us and, when we can see this as the realization of the man who has found some measure of Truth, we can then better understand that there ARE certain and specific ways to make this happen in one’s Life. The primary idea here IS found in our trifecta, both in the first part where we abide in His word and in the third part where Jesus tells us that “we will come unto him, and make our abode with“….”He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them“. These clearly stated ideas ARE from the Master’s own words but men have created a doctrinal blockade around them, a blockade that IS, for the most part, caused by the perceived impossibility of being “doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves“.
Again we should try to see that the deception IS the reality of the doctrinal ideas which ARE the blockade of Truth, a Truth that men CAN NOT accept, a Truth which puts the responsibility for one’s True salvation upon himself; this IS however where the Master puts the responsibility. We can trace the whole idea of this perception of impossibility to the laps of men who have NOT sincerely tried to be “doers of the word“; the man who DOES sincerely try will ONLY find his measure of success, a measure that IS directly proportional to one’s sincerity. This IS NOT to disparage the church fathers or any since them but ONLY to point out that reality of the deception that ensues especially in the Life of the man who has made himself to believe that there IS another way or, as Paul tells us, “another gospel” (Galatians 1:6) by which to live.
Paul speaks about the “the spirit of the world” and here we should try to see that this spirit IS that same vanity, that same “bondage of corruption” that keeps men from Truly being “made free” in “the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:20, 21). It IS this vanity which IS the root cause of the deception that comes with NOT being a DOER and if we can see the idea of being “hearers only” as the plight of the religious who hears the word against the backdrop of doctrine, we can then have a clearer picture of our own bondage. There IS a reality to the simplicity of James approach to this idea that IS missed by most ALL who subscribe to their doctrinal approaches, approaches which have morphed into what we see today in the many thousands of denominations and sects that have come out of the ONE original gospel.
Further, the doctrinal thinker, along with his belief that he IS on the right side of such ideas that we see from Paul above (that he IS NOT the “natural man” and IS among those of whom Paul says have “the spirit which is of God” active in there lives) also believes that their interpretation of Paul’s words ARE the original gospel and that anything contrary to their belief IS “another gospel“. Can we see the point here? Can we see how difficult it IS to dislodge one from his doctrinal beliefs or to convince him that there IS a deeper message that has been missed by most ALL men for 2000 years. We can see this in the way that the Master showed us how that the Jew’s own religion also missed the Truth of the deeper message for the 1500 years between Moses giving the law and Jesus showing the greater Truth; despite this the doctrinal thinker will NOT concede that perhaps he too IS guilty.
Moses law was exasperated by the inclusion into the law of the ancillary ideas whose purpose was to encourage a superstitious and barbarous people to follow some moral code as well as those parts that offered a man absolution for his faults. What happens here IS the acceptance of the ancillary parts of the law while virtually ignoring the original pronouncement which we call the Ten Commandments plus the amplifying and clarifying ideas that ARE included among the ideas of the rites and rituals of the ancillary parts. The long history of prophets coming among the Jews to offer correction IS well documented as IS the reality that they ARE NOT heeded but rather persecuted. We see this in Jesus’ words that tell His disciples such things as “Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you” (Matthew 5:12) and, as He says in his list of woes against the Jew’s leaders “behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city” (Matthew 23:34).
The prophets came and their teachings were ignored as they were persecuted and killed; the final Prophet in the man Jesus was then also persecuted and killed….ALL to protect the doctrines of men. And the Jew’s still hold onto their doctrinal ideas although they have been modified according to the times; most ALL still deny the Master as their Messiah while most of those that DO accept Him DO so according to the doctrines of men. Jesus’ success IS founded in the way that His apostles ARE made ready to embark on the Great Commission and thinking that Paul IS any different IS perhaps part of the unfortunate reasons that his words have become doctrine; instead of amplifying and clarifying the Master’s words, they ARE interpreted into a separate doctrine that IS NOT the Great Commission, it IS ONLY “another gospel“.
While the doctrinal church believes that their approach, based in their interpretations of Paul’s words, ARE the the Truth and NOT “another gospel“, they DO NOT grasp the most KEY elements of the Great Commission. They rather interpret this into the teaching of their various doctrines around the world….to the nations as they call this. Jesus call clearly says what should be done and what the original apostles and Paul actually DID; here we should understand that the verbiage of the translated ideas from the Great Commission in framed to suit the preconditioned ideas of the early church and most ALL who follow.
Most ALL translations maintain the idea of people while many DO change the King James idea of teaching the nations into making disciples of them. In our library only the Good News Translation renders Jesus words in a most literal way saying “Go, then, to all peoples everywhere and make them my disciples: baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). In this we have the reality of people rather than nations and the reality that the objective IS to “make them my disciples“. Our point, which we have repeated several times over the course of our blog, IS that ONLY disciples can make disciples; this IS NOT the purview of the missionary or the priest save for those that ARE themselves disciples according to the Master’s own definitions, the simplest of which IS in our trifecta as those who will “continue in my word“.
For the most part these missionaries and priests teach “another gospel“, specifically the version into which they ARE indoctrinated; they DO NOT teach the Master’s words on Love but their substituted ideas of salvation, grace and faith plus their view of the atoning quality of Jesus’ death. Well meaning as they ARE, they fail to carry forth Jesus directive; first by NOT being disciples themselves and then by teaching their several doctrinal approaches over “Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20). Can we see here the continual spread of “another gospel” under the guise of His Truth? The point here CAN NOT be denied, it IS clear and concise; however, it IS largely ignored in favor of the doctrines of men which ARE but a pale shadow of the Truth.
Just as the Jews religious leaders taught the people their pale shadow of doctrine, the Christians have DONE much the same; they continually ignore the most basic Truths of His words in favor of their own doctrines and we should see here one difference; the Jews had a few different approaches in the teaching of the Pharisee, the Sadducee and groups like the Samaritans while the Christians have thousands of different approaches according to their school of thought. There IS some relevance here in this idea of school of thought to Paul’s own words 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. Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?” (1 Corinthians 1:11-13); this IS perhaps the very beginning of the doctrinal separation of the words of the Master.
The trap of doctrines which ensnared the Jews has also befallen the Christian who DOES NOT see that the primary focus of Paul, and ALL the apostles writing in the New Testament, IS the Truth of Jesus’ teaching. Just as the Jews built their ‘castles in the air’, so did the Christians and they built them upon the foundations of religion taken out of the Jew’s culture 2000 years ago. Just as the Jew’s missed the deeper Truths embedded in their rites and rituals; just as they missed the reality behind the festivals and the abhorrent sacrifices of animals, so DOES the Christian who yet today maintains the necessity for the physical act of baptism while disputing which method IS right. The idea presented by Jesus in the Great Commission has naught to do with water nor with the words spoken during these various rituals, the idea IS simply the immersion of a man into the Truth of the Trinity which IS God. The Truth of baptism, the immersion, IS an integral part of discipleship where one must perforce be focused upon the Lord according to His words that ARE the Great Commandments.
The True gospel IS summarized in Jesus words that ARE the Great Commission and this from the perspective of “Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” which IS, simply put, teaching men to keep His words which have come to find ONLY a subservient place in the doctrines of men. The substitution of doctrines for Truth has, over the course of 2000 years, created a secondary Truth which IS embraced by the doctrinal Christian who sees NO error in his thoughts and feelings regarding his placement of the Truth of Jesus words into a “Christ divided“. The apostles and some that followed in their footsteps DID keep His words and ARE True disciples who had garnered the spiritual Power to DO the “greater works” that the Master promised; we have counted Paul and Peter and John among these because this IS the information that we have but we should at the same time understand the the rest of the Twelve ARE NOT likely far behind; the merely lack literary advocates or else their own writings were lost.
We should NOT forget the others of whom we DO have a written record; Stephen and Philip of whom we read in the Book of Acts and such characters as Barnabas, John Mark, and their fellow disciples who ARE also mentioned. There ARE also Timothy and Titus who ARE the recipients of certain letters from Paul and while we DO NOT KNOW how and when the tecaching of the Master was degraded into the doctrines of men, we can be reasonably sure that these of whom we read DID carry forth the instructions of the Master in what we call the Great Commission. Here we must ever remember that the basis for this Great Commission IS the Great Commandments of which Jesus tells us “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:40) and that “There is none other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:31).
When Jesus instructs His disciples to be “Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you“, IS it NOT right to believe that such ideas as the Great Commandments, being the greatest commandments, IS what He intends to be the primary subject of such teaching? We should add to this the Master’s words regarding His own phrasing of the Golden Rule; here we read that “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“; we should see how that Jesus elevates this idea into the arena of the Great Commandments by His command. This IS the gospel and these ARE the KEY to the gospel, the ‘good news’ by which men ARE set free and this we should take from Paul’s words that equate these ideas of keeping His words, His commandments, and our expression of Love for God (evidenced by the same idea of keeping His words); Paul tells us:
“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).
This should all be clear to every Christian but it IS NOT; the Great Commission should NOT be merely a practice of proselyting but should rather be a movement by disciples to make disciples according to His words and NOT the doctrines of men. But this IS NOT where the world IS nor where it has been and perhaps this has ever been the expected result of this perhaps great experiment of Life in form. This IS NOT to imply that we ARE the subject of such experiment from a scientific perspective but rahter that we ARE participants in a saga of Life where our singular objective as Souls in this world IS to escape and to experience those “exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust” (2 Peter 1:4); which IS to overcome ALL that keeps us bound to this world on every level including our view of religion.
Jesus tells us that “ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” but we must ever remember that there IS a caveat here, a quid pro quo as there IS in most every spiritual promise. For the Truth He tells us that one must “continue in my word” and that from this flows the state of being His “disciples indeed“. It IS this man who KNOWS the Truth that IS the disciple and it IS this man that can “Go, then, to all peoples everywhere and make them my disciples“; and it IS this man who can Truly immerse another in the Truth of God and understand the mystery that IS “the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit“. We should remember here that the Master’s words ARE that men should be baptized, immersed, into the “name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit“.
Here we should recall our recent discussion (In the Words of Jesus Part 1633) on this idea of the into the Name and understand that the mere recital of names in prayer and worship IS NOT the intent of this idea. We should understand that the idea here IS immersion into a singular focus upon the Lord and that the idea of the Name signifies ideas such as that: By a usage chiefly Hebraistic the name is used for everything which the name covers, everything the thought or feeling of which is roused in the mind by mentioning, hearing, remembering, the name, i. e. for one’s rank, authority, interests, pleasure, command, excellences, deeds 9 as Thayer’s tells us; it IS these things that one IS being baptized into. Can we see that to be immersed into the rank, authority, interests, pleasure, command, excellences, deeds, etc. of the Trinity IS to take the values of the Trinity upon oneself? Values which ARE the fullness of KNOWING and the expression of agape, ideas which ARE far more spiritually True than the attachment of His name to a prayer or one’s participation in a ceremony that has lost its True meaning.
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 |
Quote of the Day:
Let the peace of God rule in your hearts
- 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 Philosopher
