IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 751

ON LOVE; PART CCCXL

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GoodWill IS Love in Action

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For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled. (2 Corinthians 10:3-6).

In the last essay we looked at some of the negative side of Paul’s words on the fruit of the Spirit; we arrived on this topic from our look at sin as this relates to the commandments of the Lord on Love. While we never quite addressed it in this way, we should see that to NOT DO what is instructed is as much sin as DOING what one is instructed NOT TO DO from the perspective of the law. From the perspective of the Master this is of course changes a bit as in His words and those of His apostles one fulfills the law by the New and True emphasis on the Law of Love and this idea is captured by the Apostle Paul in his rather straightforward saying that “love is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:8-10). The law however does not disappear, it yet exists as we noted in the Master’s words saying “…it is easier for heaven and earth to pass , than one tittle of the law to fail” (Luke 16:17) and so also in the apostles lengthy list of those things that offend as he tells us “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like” (Galatians 5:19-21). Here we have our list that we began in the last essay along with Paul’s words that these are “the works of the flesh” or, as we state it, the signs of and results of a man’s focus on the self and the self in the world. In several of the words that we looked at yesterday we found the inclusion of our idea of focus as well as the understanding that these offenses ARE selfish in nature and are committed by the self-centerd, self-absorbed and self-devoted man in the world. We noted as well that the common understandings are the conventions of men and do not necessarily account for the original intent of the Greek words rendered here or the word is misunderstood and some are not seen in the fullest and broadest view. In fact, few of the words that we have covered in our last essay that discusses Paul’s words from adultery through strife  from his list are commonly understood in the in their intended meaning.

Looking at Paul’s motivation here which we can see in his words as to set forth this list of things that a man should NOT DO in thought, attitude or action and which he follows with a another list, “the fruit of the Spirit“, which reflects the righteous thoughts and actions of the man in the world who IS focused on the Soul, the Christ Within, and the things of God. Paul gives us a rather straightforward saying here as well which, while differently oriented, offers the same understanding as what we see above as “love is the fulfilling of the law“; he tells us that “if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law” (Galatians 5:18). These are in essence the same saying from differing approaches; if one is expressing that Love as the Master teaches us, we can see him as being led by the Spirit and, if one is led by the Spirit, he will per force be expressing that Love that the Master teaches and in this is the reality of both sayings and the Truth that such a man IS “not under the law” while at the same time he IS “fulfilling of the law“. Nonetheless, we must come to understand what the law IS as there are few in the world who ARE Truly “led of the Spirit” and who are Truly expressing that Love as the Master teaches and we can see those who are simply by the Master’s words that tell us clearly that “by their fruits ye shall know them” (Matthew 7:20). These words that we are discussing can be seen as the antithesis of “the fruit of the Spirit” which Paul writes for us as: “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance” (Galatians 5:22-23). Looking at this list we are hard pressed to find aught that can be for the self or for the self in the world and naught that can be seen as focused in the self in the world.

• Our next word here is another tricky one and one that is easily misunderstood as based upon the rendering in the King James Bible, seditions; this Greek word dichostasia is otherwise rendered as divisions by the King James translators and generally as dissensions and divisions in other translations. According to Webster’s, the word sedition has as an obsolete definition of: Dissension; division; schism ¹ hence the other renderings in our bible texts and the King James choice of this word; the word in common usage mans: 1. incitement of discontent or rebellion against a government. 2. any action, especially in speech or writing, promoting such discontent or rebellion ⁷. Our point here is that sedition as we understand it cannot be the intent of the apostle and that dissensions or divisions if used in similar context can not as well and the reasoning here is rather simple; in our view these ideas unlikely are the meaning of Paul’s use of this word because his own writings are seditious as this is defined and in this context they are divisive and cause dissent. We CAN NOT  imagine the apostle telling us that a thing that he does himself is sin and the argument that he is referring only to those things that can be deemed against Christianity are washed away because at this time there IS no Christianity, as we can understand it, in existence; this plus the reality that he would not let a single word stand in regard to a very interpretable idea and one that is beneficial if it is conducted from the apostle’s perspective. Based on the very nature of this list on we can then try to see the continuation of Paul’s theme of the things of the flesh, the thoughts, attitudes and actions, that are of and for the self in the world, we can easily see these ideas in that context; divisions, dissensions and even seditions that are selfishly based are wrong and of the flesh whilst the nature of the seditions, division or dissension done or caused by the apostle are right and for the greater good in the promotion of Love and the other fruit of the Spirit. If this IS not the case, every well meaning and beneficial revolt through history is wrong in the eyes of God.
• This next word has similar issues as heresies is also a misplaced word here in the context of its True meaning and is uses by the Master and His apostles. This from Webster’s 1828 edition will help to explain our point: 1. A fundamental error in religion, or an error of opinion respecting some fundamental doctrine of religion. But in countries where there is an established church, an opinion is deemed heresy, when it differs from that of the church. The Scriptures being the standard of faith, any opinion that is repugnant to its doctrines, is heresy; but as men differ in the interpretation of Scripture, an opinion deemed heretical by one body of christians,may be deemed orthodox by another. In Scripture and primitive usage, heresy meant merely sect, party, or the doctrines of a sect, as we now use denomination or persuasion, implying no reproach ¹. The word’s usage in Paul’s day then is as sect and the lexicon relates this to the prior word saying: dissensions arising from diversity of opinions and aims ². Again we are hard pressed to see this as the reality of Paul’s words unless he is referring to such sects being established for selfish purposes which, we might add, is likely True of some of the many thousands of denominations as sects in the world today. On its own, we can see that Paul himself is involved in creating sects as every church that he relates to in his epistles is a bit different based in the culture in that particular area and different as well from those established in Jewish lands. As the word stands in modern usage it is untenable as Paul’s intent as these ideas of opinion would cast many denominations into this mold of heresy. As sect we can not imagine a place where this idea would be sin save in the gross prostitution of the ideas of a sect to personal and selfish gain and denominations can be seen in this same way. Again, the only way that this word aptly applies as a thing of the flesh, as a thought, an attitude or an action, of the man in the world; when the motivation and the goal is for the self and it IS in this light that one would have to examine his own activities.
• Next we come to envyings which is a word that has an apparent link to the self in the world and one’s selfishness and we can see there that the focus would be on the of things that one would want. This word is more however than just wanting as the modern definition shows the relationship here to covetousness; our dictionary tells us that envy means: a feeling of discontent or covetousness with regard to another’s advantages, success, possessions, etc.⁷. This is typical of the way that this word is viewed in our older dictionaries and likely can be accepted as the selfish attitude that it IS. We should note here that in the list from yesterday as well as the ideas that we have discussed from the Apostle James’ similarly intended but much shorter list, the idea of emulations is sometimes rendered as envy and sometimes as jealousy while this Greek word phthonos is more accurately rendered as envy.  These words are ALL connected with our idea that this entire list of sins, this list of the “the works of the flesh“, are ALL in reference to the selfish nature of the man in the world and his focus upon that self which IS sin and this as opposed to his focus upon the things of God and his expression of the fruit of the Spirit.
• The next word, murders, is not included in many of the translations and Vincent simply tells us to: Omit from the text ⁴ and this likely because it is not found in the newer and more trusted original texts. This word IS the only act of aggression toward another in the entire list we should note that ALL acts of aggression are sin and are caused by one of these ideas of self that are on Paul’s list and, in this view, it is likely that it did not belong on the list but was added in a manuscript that was available to the King James translators. The meaning of this word is clear as the intentional taking of another’s Life and, as we said, its cause will most likely be found in the Paul’s list of these “the works of the flesh“.
• The next word, drunkenness, is a bit different in nature than those before as here, while still a self-centered act and definitely of the flesh, there is also the action of carelessness. The idea here is not that one should not take a drink but rather that one should not drink to excess, one should not get drunk, intentionally or not, because of the severity of the ramifications of doing so. Including the personal toll that drinking takes on the alcoholic and the binge drinker plus the homicides and accidental deaths caused by the drunk persons, it is estimated that nearly four percent of ALL deaths in the world are related to this idea of drunkenness….and this does not include those severely injured. To be sure, the apostle is speaking about them all as the toll of the drinker is not only on himself and those he may kill and injure, as the effects of drunkenness is also felt in the family and the entire social structure. Can we see the sin in drunkenness? can we see the selfish attitudes and actions?
• Our last word is revellings and this is another word that is likely not well understood. Rendered from the Greek word komos, this word takes on much of what can be see as innocent fun by its definition and so, like some of these other words above, seditions and heresies to name two, there must be some place where the good natured fun and revelry ends and the idea of komos begins. The lexicon tells us this of komos: a revel, carousal; a nocturnal and riotous procession of half drunken and frolicsome fellows who after supper parade through the streets with torches and music in honour of Bacchus or some other deity, and sing and play before houses of male and female friends; hence used generally of feasts and drinking parties that are protracted till late at night and indulge in revelry ². Our vision here would be of a combination of drunkenness with fornication and perhaps adultery and this can be seen as well in these ideas from Vincent who tells us simply: Comp. Romans 13:13; 1 Peter 4:3. In both passages coupled with drunkenness as here. See on 1 Peter 4:3 ⁴. In part Vincent’s words words from Peter’s Epistle, which speak of Greek customs, tells us similar, that: The word originally signifies merely a merry-making; most probably a village festival, from κώμη , a village. In the cities such entertainments grew into carouses, in which the party of revellers paraded the streets with torches, singing, dancing, and all kinds of frolics…..Peter, in his introduction, addresses the sojourners in Galatia, where the Phrygian worship of Cybele, the great mother of the gods, prevailed, with its wild orgies and hideous mutilations ⁴. This point then should be clear and perhaps is as a reminder of the harms caused by drunkenness; these in addition to the reckless and careless homicides and injuries to others.

The apostle closes out his list saying “and such like” which tells us that there are other ideas as well that can be added to this list and, from our perspective we would say that these would include all thoughts, attitudes and actions that have the self in the world at the center and as the motivation for action. And this IS NOT to say that ALL these ideas are wrong or grossly evil, it is to say that these ideas are those “works of the flesh“, those things that we should ALL understand as sin because they ARE NOT focused upon the things of God. And this is the idea of the Master in telling us to strive; it is these things that we strive to overcome as we move closer to the strait gate. The world has made most of these words by the apostle to be about sex but they are clearly not ALL so, they are about the simpler human frailty of selfishness and this IS perhaps the more difficult thing to overcome, the more difficult thing to admit and the more difficult thing to see in Repentance.

Here in our interpretation of the apostle’s words we should have a clearer idea of the nature of sin and the nature of what it is that we must overcome by our focus upon the Soul and the things of God and Paul also paints for us a picture of the man who is so focused, that he will express “the fruit of the Spirit” WHICH IS “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance” as opposed to this list of words of the man focused in the world that we have been discussing.

We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.

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 repeat here again a saying that is from the Bhagavad Gita, which goes well with our theme of the God Within, the Soul, which we see as the Christ Within and while this is good in the Christian world and is True based upon our understanding of the Christ as the manifestation of God, we should also see in these words below that it does not matter what these divine ideas are called; that it matters not what we call this Inner Man, that he is the same in ALL, he is the Soul.

Thou carriest within thee a sublime Friend whom thou knowest not. For God dwells in the inner part of every man, but few know how to find Him. The man who sacrifices his desires and his works to the Beings from whom the principles of everything stem, and by whom the Universe was formed, through this sacrifice attains perfection. For one who finds his happiness and joy within himself, and also his wisdom within himself is one with God. And, mark well, the soul which has found God is freed from rebirth and death, from old age and pain, and drinks the water of Immortality.—Bhagavad-Gita

It is difficult to tell just what verses of the Bhagavad Gita the above is from; whether it is a paraphrase or a combination. It is from the book “The Great Initiates” by Édouard Schuré which was originally published in French in 1889 and perhaps it is in the translation of the verses that they become hard to recognize. However, the sheer beauty of the presentation caught my attention and so I share it with you. The Path to the Kingdom is the same no matter what religion one professes.

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!

• ¹ Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1828 and 1913
• ² New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
• ³ Strongest Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible – 2001
• ⁴ Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
• ⁷ Dictionary.com Unabridged based on Random House Dictionary – 2011