Wholeness and Agape in the Great Commandment

In my last posting I talked about noticing many different understandings I started getting when I read the agape versions of NT passages. After that reflection on the “new” commandment, another example came to me when I took very seriously the word “whole” in the Great Commandment (especially in the Common English Bible translation).

I saw the word ‘whole’ as a clue that something is required that goes beyond what a separated ego identity can do.

When we are commanded to give our whole being into our agape relationship with God, that has a profound impact on our sense of identity. But all ego identities (that people in the modern world think they have to form) cannot act as whole beings. Even though people think an ego is the best defense and protection against the sheer craziness of modern society, there is something wrong with putting that much faith in production that is based on separating from the wholeness of Life. So it just cannot work for a person to “love God with an ego identity” -- because there is no wholeness there. Any ego identity is merely too fragmented. Something else is needed.

An ego identity is so dependent on being separate, that no ego identity can do anything as a whole being. Of course, that’s the main problem with all ego identities in the modern world -- the very act of trying to develop an identity in life by forming a separate entity causes a terrible fracturing in the identity, because it is a false effort. In reality we are actually all connected, not separated.

That all-important sense of wholeness, which is necessary for faith development, cannot happen for a person who tries to identify mainly with that false impression of being separated from God. A person has to get beyond any type of ego identity in order to realize the wholeness of a relationship with God.

When I read through all those verses with ‘agape’ left in its originally intended form, I was able to realize how agape brings wholeness to a person’s life. So it is from the wholeness of an agape relationship with God that a person is able to be fully and completely alive with God. A person’s true identity in life brings that spiritual sense of wholeness when it is developed from the agape relationship.