This essay continues a sequence. Read the previous one here.
We say we want a “loving” God, but what we really want is a “soft and all-forgiving” God. How can we harvest love if we do not sow love? And how can we sow love other than by obeying His Will?
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We continue with the discussion we started in “‘Knowing Of’ Is Not Knowing”.1.
The Unity of The Will And The Love
We have established that the Creator “wants” nothing in the human sense (ref. “God ‘Wants’ Nothing“).
Everything that He wills is only Willed out of Love.
Therefore: God’s Will is Unified with God’s Love. They are two separate aspects of Him, but they are unified in Him.
This understanding is fundamental to correct interpretation of The Word.
In earthly terms, this means 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, His 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.
On the other hand, His Will is an expression of His Love:
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
— Matt 22:37-40
…
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.
We Never Understood His Will
Through Moses, God’s Will for humanity on earth was revealed to the Jews.
But human beings had already become too materialistic, so we focused on the earthly externals of the law instead of its spirit. Eventually we 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
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Example: Remember The Sabbath Day
The Sabbath Day is to prompt us to regularly put aside time to reflect on our spiritual journey (and thus become more spiritualized and less materialistic). But we have 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 focused on earthly externals instead of spiritual understanding.
Therefore men were not keeping the law.
This superficialism applies not only to the Jews and the Mosaic law, but to all the revelations that human beings have been given, in all cultures and at all times.
The Wages of Sin
The 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, which is an explanation of God’s Will.
The Word is only understood, that is digested, through actual living practice of it (ref. “On Human Words“).
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.
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.
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- For the curious reader the book “Thinking About God” by Stephen Lampe provides interesting perspectives on some of the issues raised here. ↩︎
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