These essays are written in sequence and build on each other. Read the preceding essay here.
We continue with our discussion about the right mindset to appreciate the Nature of God1.
We have established that God “wants” nothing in the human sense. Everything that God wills is only willed out of Love.
Therefore it is correct to say that God’s Will is One with God’s Love. They are two separate aspects of Him, but they are unified in Him.
In earthly terms, this tells us that His Will as expressed in (for example) the Ten Commandments, cannot be separated from His Love as expressed in The Word of Christ.
On the one hand, the Will is unbreakable:
Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets:
–– KJV, Matthew 5: 17-20
I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
For verily I say unto you,
Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments,
and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven:
but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
For I say unto you,
That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees,
ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
On the other hand, the Will is an expression of Love:
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
— Matt 22:37-40
and with all thy soul,
and with all thy mind.
This is the first and great commandment.
And the second is like unto it,
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Through Moses, God’s Will for humanity on earth was revealed to the Jews.
But human beings had already become too materialistic, so they focused on the earthly externals of the law instead of its spirit. Eventually they understood neither God’s Will nor His Love.
Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law?
— John 7:19
For example: instead of understanding that observance of the Sabbath Day is to prompt man to regularly put aside time to reflect on his spiritual journey (and thus become more spiritualized and less materialistic), man focused on physical rest on Sabbath Day.
Men believed they were righteous if they remained physically idle on that day, even if they were spiritually inactive. They lost the actual meaning of the commandment because they focused on earthly externals instead of spiritual understanding.
Therefore men were not keeping the law.
This superficial approach does not only apply to the Jews and the Mosaic law, but to all the revelations that human beings have been given, across all cultures and at all times.
The ignorant human spirit that is out of sync with God’s Will (the Laws of Creation) and God’s Love must eventually face eternal (spiritual) death, just as a human body that refuses to eat must face physical death.
Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him
— John 4:14
shall never thirst;
but the water that I shall give him
shall be in him a well of water
springing up into everlasting life.
In an Act of Love, Christ brought The Living Word. We have already discussed in detail the fact that The Word is only understood, that is digested, through actual living practice of it.
The drinking of the water is the spiritual digestion of the Word through the daily effort to implement Its precepts in daily life in a spirit of love. This gives spiritual life.
The Word renews our understanding of God’s Will and God’s Love, and reunifies both concepts.
Through The Word we can now understand that keeping the law is the same as living in love which is the same as drinking of the water of life which is equivalent to obeying God’s Will.
Today’s Resolution
- We shall seek true righteousness, which is the natural adherence to God’s Law out of the spirit of love.
- For the curious reader the book “Thinking About God” by Stephen Lampe provides an extensive overview of some of the issues raised here. ↩︎
The Word, (Re)Discovered 