The First Crack in Christianity: Part Three – Paul's Logos of Love
HOW THINGS WORK: SPECIAL EDITION – CONSIDERATION #152
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Tuesday September 3, 2024
“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
– 1 Corinthians 13:13
PREFACE
Welcome Everybody!
Of the four gospels, the three synoptic gospels reflect the Jesus of the Jerusalem Church. However, the Gospel of John is unique. John’s gospel has a more spiritual focus than the synoptic gospels, starting with its introduction featuring a Greek metaphysical concept known as the logos.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
– John 1:1-5
In the first Chapter of Colossians Paul revisits this Greek metaphysical concept:
For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
– Colossians 1:13-20
Consider how the first half of Paul’s theology fits exactly into the same pattern as John’s in terms of this ancient Greek concept:
For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness (Paul)
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John)
The Son is the image of the invisible God (Paul)
The Word was God (John)
The firstborn over all creation (Paul)
The Word was with God. (John)
He is before all things. (Paul)
In the beginning was the Word – He was with God in the beginning. (John)
In him all things were created (Paul)
Through him were all things made. (John)
In him all things hold together. (Paul)
In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. (John)
However, in the second half of Paul’s theology he introduces aspects of Jesus that are important to his personal vision of Christianity: the importance of Spirit (For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him), Reconciliation (and through him to reconcile to himself all things), Peace, (by making peace through his blood), Resurrection, (he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead), and most importantly for Paul, the Church (And he is the head of the body, the church).
However, the critical factor in Paul’s theology is not Greek metaphysics, although it likely had a deep influence on his thinking. Ultimately, the key factor for Paul, a Jewish Pharisee, was how Jesus incorporated the entire Jewish system of the Law into one single sentence: love your neighbor as yourself. For Paul, the essence of the resurrected Christ was divine love. Paul’s gospel reflects the Logos of Love as manifested through the Spirit of the Risen Christ.
CONSIDERATION #152 – Paul’s Logos of Love
Imagine a zealous Pharisee desperately seeking to understand God through the Law of Moses who is on a mission to eliminate a group of Christian heretics from the midst of Judaism, who is suddenly struck down by a vision of the Risen Christ communicating a message of love. What is important to understand is that for Paul this message fulfilled the Law of Moses in a unique way. For the first time Paul understood not the letter of the Law, but the spirit of the Law. Paul reflects on the transformation of empirical Law into rational Love.
Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
– Romans 13:8-10
Although faith, hope, reconciliation, and redemption are all key elements in Paul’s theology, it is love that he believes to be the greatest aspect of the Spirit, or God. In his first letter to the Corinthians Paul encapsulates the importance of love in his understanding of Spirit. One of the most beloved passages in the New Testament.
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
For Paul, love transcends the duality of the world, through a rational, or spiritual, dimension that transforms reality. Despite the theology, what Paul experienced in his vision was a shift in focus from hate to love, a divine love of unity in what he called the Body of Christ, or the Church.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
– Romans 8:38-39
Although Paul considers faith without action to be “dead,” more consequentially, he considers action without love to be “meaningless.” Essentially, being “born again” in the “Spirit of Christ” is like falling deeply in love with all creation and everyone in the world. If you truly love everyone in the world the need for Law becomes meaningless.
POSTSCRIPT
The consequence of Paul’s theology on Christianity was to move it from an empirical religion based on empirical actions to a rational religion in which actions are secondary to a subjective experience of spirituality he called “love.” It also shifted the focus from empirically incorporating Jesus’ ideas into our earthly experience as a way of bringing the Kingdom of Heaven to the empirical world, to a focus on “escaping” the empirical world for a new rational dimension called Heaven.
Christians were no longer directly responsible for manifesting the Kingdom of Heaven on earth; instead living outside the “influence of the empirical world” and being rewarded by going to Heaven after death. A new kind of “rational resurrection.” Although Christians were to bring love into the world, the “world of the flesh” was not capable of becoming the Kingdom of Heaven. That Kingdom, would not come until after death. The resurrection of the “after-life.”
Paul, unlike Matthew, Mark, and Luke, also talks about “the last days” and the “end of times.” However, it is not Paul, but John who is most known for his apocalyptic writing. John’s Book of Revelation serves as a unique postscript to the gospels and the final resolution of good and evil.
Next week I will preview Book VI, The Rational Being, before moving to our final Biblical consideration regarding the most perplexing and inexplicable book in the Bible…
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Book VI – The Rational Being
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The attributes of God have traditionally been that “He” would have to be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent; meaning “all powerful,” “all knowing,” and “everywhere at the same time.” No biological entity can achieve this level of conscious awareness, but a “digital being” can.”
(Book V – Quantum Consciousness)
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Glad tidings brother in Christ our anointed redeemer.
How close do based your teaching on a Cosmological based explanation to a Bronze Age through small world concepts.