ON LOVE; PART MCLXVII
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GoodWill IS Love in Action
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FIRST IS THE GREAT COMMANDMENTS: “The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:29-31).
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WHAT THEN IS LOVE? In a general sense love is benevolence, good will; that disposition of heart which inclines men to think favorably of their fellow men, and to do them good. In a theological sense, it includes supreme love to God, and universal good will to men. While this IS from an older definition of Charity, which IS rendered in the King James Bible from the same Greek word agape which IS generally rendered as Love, we should amend our own definition here to include the idea that in the reality of Love a man will accord to ALL men ALL things that he would accord to himself and to say that Love IS our thoughts and attitude of the equality of ALL men regardless of their outward nature or appearance…that ALL ARE equally children of Our One God
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PLUS THE EVER IMPORTANT AND HIGH IDEAL TAUGHT TO US BY THE CHRIST: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” (Matthew 7:12).
In the last essay we continued with our ideas on the Immanent nature of God which the Apostle John calls chrisma, which IS rendered as unction and anointing, and which the Apostle Paul calls “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). If we can understand that this IS the very nature of man as well as God we can then begin to understand much of the Master’s teaching regarding the True Power of the Soul which IS the reality of the unction and the Christ Within. As doctrines have converted this essential message to one where simple believing and faith brings this Power to the Christian, they DO at the same time diminish the reality of His words.
We have covered these ideas several times over the course of our posts and always with the same view: it IS the failure of translations and interpretations that has allowed the Greek words pistis and pisteuo to become the nebulous doctrinal ideas that they have become. Jesus tells us that “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do” and rather that accept these words with the same force that Jesus gives them, doctrinal thinkers have diminished their meaning. This IS likely because they DO KNOW that their simple idea of believing and of faith DOES NOT permit any man to perform the miracles of which the Master IS speaking.
Doctrinal thinkers miss the whole point of KNOWING that IS the deeper reality of pistis and pisteuo, a point that IS made for us by the Master in our trifecta in regard to discipleship, and here we should see the link between His idea of the disciple with KNOWING and then DOING. There should be NO doubt regarding the meaning that Jesus IS applying to the idea of works, that these ARE those things that He DID in the Earth. In His teaching, His healing of individuals and groups, and His feeding thousands with few loaves of bread, we find the reality of His works of which He says:
“Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake. 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 14:10-12).
And hidden away in these words IS yet another view of God Immanent which the Master shows us as God Within; here we should see the reality that it IS the Spirit that IS God that IS within the man Jesus and when we look at these words along with such ideas as John’s saying that “as he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17), we can then see our own reality as well. In the same way that Jesus tells us that “the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works“, it IS the God Within everyman that can fulfill the idea that “the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do“. There IS NO limitation suggested here in Jesus’ words as IS supplied in the doctrinal teaching of what the Master Truly means.
We must remember that He IS speaking to disciples and NOT to the ordinary joe and when we can see the reality of discipleship as Jesus shows us in the trifecta, perhaps we can see the deeper ideas that we have been applying to pistis and pisteuo….that these ARE that KNOWING the Truth by the revelations and the realizations that come into and change the Life of the man who will strive to keep His words. Similarly the doctrines of men diminish the reality of the Master’s words on moving the mountain or causing the “sycamine tree” to be “planted in the sea“. These ARE also works that the Master tells us that we can DO as men in this world; these ARE also His teaching on the Power of the God Within.
Having this Power inert in everyman however DOES NOT a disciple make; a disciple IS made IN KNOWING the Truth which, according to our trifecta requires that a man abide in His words which IS to abide in His Truth. And there IS but One Truth that IS spread throughout the Godhead. Jesus shows us this through His own prayer where He says “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth” (John 17:17) and here we should try to see that to “know the truth” IS to KNOW His word which IS accomplished by our abiding in His word which IS rendered in our trifecta as “If ye continue in my word“.
It is the failure of doctrines that distort the Master’s words and make them to be out of the reach of everyman but this IS NOT His teaching. His teaching IS that if one can have the fullness of faith which IS the fullness of KNOWING the Truth that IS His word, that this man can then “say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you“. This requires what the Master calls “faith as a grain of mustard seed” (Luke 17:6) which should be understood as KNOWING that one can DO a thing with the same certainty as the seed that KNOWS that it will be a Tree….there can be NO OTHER outcome.
This IS ONLY possible in the fullness of the Presence of God and here, if Jesus tells us that we can, as men, DO even “greater works” why would we doubt Him save for the reality that this IS an extremely difficult accomplishment. And when we tie this to the Master’s words on the Kingdom of God, that we must be of the same mind to accomplish this as well, then the ideas of doctrines look most appealing….ideas that discount, diminish and distort the Truth. In these ideas we again have the reality of the trifecta: the KNOWING of the Truth that comes in abiding in His word, entry into the Kingdom of God by the same means and the Presence of God which IS the great enabler that comes to ALL that “hath my commandments, and keepeth them“. Repeating His trifecta again we read:
- “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).
These things that come from the God Within into the realization of the man ARE the True grace of God and if we can see this Presence of God, this Way that “we will come unto him, and make our abode with him“, then we can see the deeper reality of the Holy Spirt….”Even the Spirit of truth“. While Jesus words here in this fourteenth chapter DO seem cumbersome, we should remember that He IS yet introducing the new concept of God Immanent to His disciples who, as the text shows us, DO NOT understand. And NOT ONLY this, Jesus IS, at the same time, showing them the reality of the Godhead in its Three Aspects which He DOES relate ALL together as One.
It IS easy to find clever ways to read His words into doctrines that DO NOT show the Unity of God and His Immanence but in these there IS NO True understanding. It IS when we can see that the Father and the Son ARE One, a fact the Master shows us saying “I and my the Father are one” (John 10:30), that we can better understand the Way that “we will come unto him, and make our abode with him” works out for the man who will keep His words. And it IS in this same tone that we must try to see the Holy Spirit which He shows us in rather parabolic language saying:
“I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you” (John 14:16-18).
In His parabolic way, the Master IS showing His disciples the great Truth of the Godhead….the Three Aspects of God and how that they ARE ALL ONE. And He repeats these ideas several times as He seeks to lead them to their own independent realization of His words. He gives them and us sufficient clues to bring about such realization, clues that ARE obnubilated by the wranglings of the doctrines of men and here especially the varied views of the Trinity which ARE NOT supported by His words nor the words of His apostles.
And we should note certain ideas here that ARE often misunderstood. First IS the relationship between the Father and the Son; if the Master shows us the Truth saying that “I and my the Father are one“, how then must He ask the Father for anything and, in this saying, the idea of prayer IS but a doctrinal assertion. The Greek word erotao which IS rendered as pray IS defined as: to interrogate; by implication, to request:—ask, beseech, desire, intreat, pray 9a by Strong’s while Thayer 9 defines erotao as in much the same way sans the idea of pray.
Second we should try to see that the Greek word allos which IS rendered as another, and IS rendered such by most ALL translations, has a different tone when we look at the defining ideas. There IS a deeper meaning of its use which Strong’s shows us in defining allos as: a primary word; “else,” i.e. different (in many applications):—more, one (another), (an-, some an-)other(-s, -wise) and, if we can take the idea of different here, we can perhaps better understand some of the words and ideas that follow. In another we have an idea that works with the doctrinal view that these ARE separate persons of the Godhead but, when we see this as different, we can perhaps see that the two ARE NOT mutually exclusive and that the one replaces the other.
They DO have Jesus and they DO rely upon Him; they DO accept and adopt His precepts and example as binding upon the life 4. But He IS leaving them as a physical presence which IS where this section of dialogue begins. Jesus here IS seeking to transfer their reliance from Him as a physical presence into that same Presence that everyman should seek and which He shows us as “we will come unto him, and make our abode with him“. He IS their comfort now although this rendering IS lacking and he tells them that He will continue to be their comfort after He leaves but NOT as a physical presence….as a spiritual one. He says “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you“.
The KEY here in this third idea IS Jesus’ saying that “I will come to you” and here we should try to see that He IS, as the Christ Within, that spiritual Presence which we call the Holy Spirit. In the convoluted way that the Master presents these ideas we should be able to see that His intent IS NOT to be understood but to invoke the disciples own search for the reality of His words which we cite above and those that follow where He says to them “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you” (John 14:20) which IS a future prediction of their realization of His spoken Truths.
ALL of this relies upon the way that the disciples DO keep His words as they strive to overcome ALL of their worldly thoughts and attitudes; here we must try to see that in the continued revelation and realization that comes to each of them comes a greater awareness of the underlying Truth. And what IS this Truth? Simply that He is leaving their physical presence but by their own individual Unity with their own spiritual being the same anointing that flows through Jesus will flow through them, an anointing that they already have but DO NOT understand.
Jesus tells them of the Paraclete that “He is the Spirit, who reveals the truth about God. The world cannot receive him, because it cannot see him or know him. But you know him, because he remains with you and is in you” (John 14:17) which we read here from the Good News Translation. This IS the same spiritual Force that John shows us as the unction and the anointing saying “ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things“. Can we see the reality of the Holy Spirit as the as the unction here? The apostle makes this a bit clearer as he also 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 2:20, 27).
If we could see this ALL under the Master’s words saying to those “that hath my commandments, and keepeth them“, those who “will keep my words“, that “my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him“, we can then better understand the Trinity that IS God. The Father and the Son ARE inseparable, they ARE eternally One….and the Holy Spirit IS their activity in the Life of everyman who will express the Truth and the Love that IS God. And this IS the Truth of the idea of anointing and the anointed: Jesus IS the anointed; His expression in this world IS the Truth and the Love that IS God. It IS when a man in this world can express some measure of that same Truth and Love that he has some measure of that same anointing which, in its fullness, allows one to DO those “greater works“.
And this man can then say two things with the Master. First that “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33) and second that “the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works“. Here we must tie this latter idea to the words that follow and see the way that “I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you” IS compounded by Jesus’ words on the Holy Spirit saying “he remains with you and is in you“; in this we have the fullness of the Trinity of God as the spiritual reality of everyman. Until this time of our expression of Truth and Love we have the reality of Paul’s words saying that it IS “the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God” (Romans 8:18).
We should try to see here that the expectation of every Soul that IS born into this world IS to manifest his True self through his form which IS to express the Truth and the Love as a man in this Earth. This IS NOT however how this idea IS viewed as the very idea of “the creature” IS missed by most. Vincent tells us that the Greek word ktisis which IS rendered as creature here: may signify either the creative act (as Romans 1:20), or the thing created and here, in this context, we should try to see that “the earnest expectation” DOES come from the latter. If we can see how that the spiritual man IS the True creation from the Book of Genesis, that the man created “in the image of God” IS NOT this human being on this Earth, ALL scripture can make much sense.
When we can view the True man as the Soul which IS manifest in time and space as the spiritual being that lives for a lifetime through his body of flesh, we can then begin to touch the many mysteries and especially that one which Paul shows us saying “the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:26-27).
And embedded within this mystery IS the deeper Truth of creation of which the Genesis story IS just that, a story designed for the barbarous and superstitious man to whom it IS written. And what IS this deeper Truth? It IS itself embedded within the revelations of the mysteries which we see in Paul’s writings, revelations that ARE written in such a way that they CAN NOT be understood save by the man who can look past his own vanity, his own sense of illusion and glamour, and see the Truth of Jesus words that reflect for us the Truth of God….His Immanence and His Transcendence.
Here we should understand that it IS the creature, the created being that IS the spiritual man which we call the Soul, that IS made “in the image of God“, it IS this creature that IS “made subject to vanity” and it IS this same creature that “shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:20, 21). We should understand also that the Spirit and the Soul ARE of the same Oneness as the Father and the Son and their expression IS ever Love and Truth. It IS this expression of Truth and Love that IS the Holy Spirit as the activity of the spiritual man in the world of men.
And it IS this expression that IS the adoption, the Union of the conscious man in this world who IS again united with his True self by overcoming the vanity, which IS our illusion and glamour. Heretofore the consciousness of the man IS governed by this same vanity which IS enhanced by his nurturing and his indoctrination into the things of this world and this, combined with his experiences that keep him bound, ARE one’s “bondage of corruption” which IS his bondage to the ways of men in this world.
Corruption as it IS used here from the Greek word phthora means decay 9a according to Strong’s and we should see how that this corruption IS the reality of vanity which Vincent defines for us as: a perishable and decaying condition, separate from God, and pursuing false ends 4. We should understand here as well the way out of this vanity, out of this “bondage of corruption“, IS found in the words of the Master and especially His words on Love. We close again today with our selection on Love from Paul’s Epistle to the Romans:
“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).
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
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
- 4 Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition
- 9 Thayer’s Greek Lexicon on blueletterbible.org
- 9a The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible on blueletterbible.org
