I’ve based this whole blog on my belief that the Greek word “agapé” was very important for the beginning of Christianity. But then something went wrong. Finally, after being mistakenly downplayed for several centuries, its importance was rediscovered in the late 19th Century.
The spiritual power represented by that word was crucial to both St. Paul and the Gospel According to John. Even though when those parts of the New Testament were first translated into English and became the origin of the new word ‘charity,’ for almost 2 centuries subsequent English versions mistranslated ‘agapé’ as ‘love.’ When this mistake began to be recognized in the 20th Century, its true spiritual power began to be realized. Finally, the breakthrough came when ‘agape’ was left untranslated in English versions — then the meaning of John’s Gospel gained greater power.
When I look back into the Gospel According to John, I’m struck by the way it’s organized by circles of themes. It becomes possible to open to any place in the gospel and find that the theme being presented there will eventually circle through other themes and come back.
So I began to wonder if there was one of those many themes that served as a center about which all the other themes circled. Over the decades that I’ve looked into that gospel, I’ve begun to think that all the themes were built from key Greek words (remembering, of course, that the Gospel of John was originally written in Greek).
So it’s not surprising that I think the central theme for that gospel is agapé. That theme then stands out as so important that I think it is the central organizing theme about which all the other themes circle. The central presentation of that theme came in the Last Supper scene in chapters 13-17. Those chapters contain the final teachings that Jesus was giving his disciples. I can’t help but think he was telling them to listen to his summing up of his whole ministry. So, of course, the theme there is the importance of agapé to all that he had been doing the whole time they were with him.
Ch. 13 starts with a demonstration of a change that agapé brings to society’s view of relationships. That demonstration was washing his disciples’ feet. It shocked the disciples! He was showing how society’s view of relationships needed to be turned upside down. And the power of agapé would do just that. And Jesus tells them they are to do for each other what he has done for them both in that demonstration and throughout his whole ministry.
Then the chapter moves to Judas going out to betray his master. After Jesus reflects on what that betrayal means to his great work, Jesus says, “Now I will give you a new commandment.” By leaving ‘agapé’ untranslated into English, so as not to diminish its spiritual meaning with the word ‘love,’ we have the new commandment in these words, “Share agapé with each other as I have shared agapé with you. So you must share agapé with each other. This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples, when you show agapé with each other.”
He was telling them — that’s what it’s all about! That’s the central theme of everything Jesus did. So agapé is the basis of their identity as his disciples. (Then in Ch. 14 there is a statement that doesn’t translate very well into English, and so people have not understand the full spiritual impact of it.) Vs. 15 expresses the way the spiritual power of agapé actually helps human beings live by that new commandment.
Many years earlier in my life, before I understood that the English word ‘love’ was not the right translation of ‘agapé,’ I couldn’t understand what Jesus meant by calling that a NEW commandment. What was new about it? Wasn’t it just the ancient commandment from the Book of Leviticus that got translated into English as “Love your neighbor as yourself”? But of course, the “new” aspect only becomes clear when we use the Greek word ‘agapé.’ And that gains its full meaning when we understand agapé as a spiritual power. That’s why Paul could say that its divine power had been poured into our heart by the Holy Spirit.
And so the very next verse (Jn. 14:16) talks about God sending more spiritual power as the disciples continue to live by agapé. (A few verses later he concludes with another statement that is a little clumsy when we try to translate it into English.) Vs. 21 could be a little clearer when agapé is left untranslated: “Whoever continues in my agapé will receive agapé from my Father, and I will continue showing agapé to them and reveal myself to them.” I think he meant increased agapé from the Father — the more agapé is shared, the more it’s increased in people’s living, the more its divine power is received.
Another awkward phrasing is in 15:9-12: “As the Father has shared agapé with me, so I have shared agapé with you. Remain on in my agapé. And you will remain in my agapé if you keep my commandments, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in His agapé. I have said this to you that my joy may be yours and your joy may be fulfilled. This is my commandment: share agapé with one another as I have shared agapé with you.”
Those verses also show the connection between true joy and agapé. For it is the spiritual power of agapé that brings a person into deep joy as a person lives by the power of agapé.
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
Monday, May 18, 2015
Agapé and Logos
After I realized that the central theme for the Gospel According to John is agapé, because in the account of the Last Supper so much importance is given to agapé as the summary of all that Jesus had been doing for his whole ministry, I searched through the other themes. That took me back to the opening of the Gospel.
I still remember a time when I was studying for the ministry when we were learning about the Greek word ‘logos.’ One day when I was contemplating what ‘logos’ meant, I had the realization that it was the power of love. But not just any kind of love. To convey the full meaning of the way ‘logos’ appears in the opening of John, there had to be a focus on divine love and its creative power. Then later on in the class we learned that ‘agape’ pointed to that divine love. So not only was there spiritual meaning to the way ‘logos’ was used to open John’s gospel, but also there was spiritual meaning to the way Jesus used ‘agape’ in his teachings at the Last Supper. After all these decades I’ve come to see that just as the simple English attempt to translate ‘logos’ as ‘word’ was way off in giving the meaning of ‘logos,’ so I’ve come to realize that ‘love’ is way off in giving the meaning of ‘agapé.’
So what do we have in those opening verses? When we look for their meaning from the theme of agapé, we are able to show how the opening verses circle back to the teaching about agapé during the Last Supper. In the first 4 verses of John we find a description of logos as the spiritual power of divine creativity. It brought life to all that is — and infused all of life with deeply spiritual meaning. So John was showing that the eternal creative Essence came to flesh. Then he identified that eternal creative Essence with Jesus. And he then implied that Jesus identified with the eternal creative Essence.
And that seems to be the basis for the summary of his ministry as waking up people to the awareness of the agapé that had been poured into our hearts from the beginning of our creation. The spiritual meaning of agapé is divine creativity underlying human relationships — and of life itself. The ministry of Jesus opened people’s awareness of the power of agapé in their hearts; among other actions, it helped people see their identity with the eternal creative Essence.
So the opening of the Gospel According to John can be understood to mean:
In the beginning was the creative power. The creative power was in God’s presence, and the creative power was divine. He was present with divine power in the beginning. Through him all things came into being, and apart from him not a thing came to be. That which had come to be in him was life, and this life was the light of humanity. The light shines on in the darkness, for the darkness did not overcome it. … To those who did accept him he empowered to become God’s children.
The proof of those verses comes in both action and teaching. We look to what Jesus did among people and to what he taught. When Jesus is portrayed as identifying with the logos (as eternal creative Essence), and when he is quoted as saying “I am …” in a spiritual sense, those words were meant to realize that he identified more with eternal creative Essence than with the ego-identity people saw as ‘Jesus.’ And he was calling people to change their own way of viewing their own identity in the way he did.
The first example we can point to in John is when Jesus looked at the temple in Jerusalem, he said, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” Obviously, he wasn’t meaning that he, in the form of Jesus, would build the temple. He was using “I” to mean the eternal creative Essence would be recognized as the true human identity and so there would no longer be any need for a structural temple. And when he said, “The water that I give will become in those who drink it a spring of water that bubbles up into eternal life,” he was referring to the “I” of eternal creative Essence, and when people become deeply aware of it within themselves, they will recognize their true identification with eternal life. So when he said, “I am not from this world,” he was saying that he wasn’t identifying with the ego-identity they saw as ‘Jesus’ but was identifying with eternal creative Essence. Then when he said, “I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved,” he was saying that salvation is found in identifying with eternal creative Essence and not with anything else.
I still remember a time when I was studying for the ministry when we were learning about the Greek word ‘logos.’ One day when I was contemplating what ‘logos’ meant, I had the realization that it was the power of love. But not just any kind of love. To convey the full meaning of the way ‘logos’ appears in the opening of John, there had to be a focus on divine love and its creative power. Then later on in the class we learned that ‘agape’ pointed to that divine love. So not only was there spiritual meaning to the way ‘logos’ was used to open John’s gospel, but also there was spiritual meaning to the way Jesus used ‘agape’ in his teachings at the Last Supper. After all these decades I’ve come to see that just as the simple English attempt to translate ‘logos’ as ‘word’ was way off in giving the meaning of ‘logos,’ so I’ve come to realize that ‘love’ is way off in giving the meaning of ‘agapé.’
So what do we have in those opening verses? When we look for their meaning from the theme of agapé, we are able to show how the opening verses circle back to the teaching about agapé during the Last Supper. In the first 4 verses of John we find a description of logos as the spiritual power of divine creativity. It brought life to all that is — and infused all of life with deeply spiritual meaning. So John was showing that the eternal creative Essence came to flesh. Then he identified that eternal creative Essence with Jesus. And he then implied that Jesus identified with the eternal creative Essence.
And that seems to be the basis for the summary of his ministry as waking up people to the awareness of the agapé that had been poured into our hearts from the beginning of our creation. The spiritual meaning of agapé is divine creativity underlying human relationships — and of life itself. The ministry of Jesus opened people’s awareness of the power of agapé in their hearts; among other actions, it helped people see their identity with the eternal creative Essence.
So the opening of the Gospel According to John can be understood to mean:
In the beginning was the creative power. The creative power was in God’s presence, and the creative power was divine. He was present with divine power in the beginning. Through him all things came into being, and apart from him not a thing came to be. That which had come to be in him was life, and this life was the light of humanity. The light shines on in the darkness, for the darkness did not overcome it. … To those who did accept him he empowered to become God’s children.
The proof of those verses comes in both action and teaching. We look to what Jesus did among people and to what he taught. When Jesus is portrayed as identifying with the logos (as eternal creative Essence), and when he is quoted as saying “I am …” in a spiritual sense, those words were meant to realize that he identified more with eternal creative Essence than with the ego-identity people saw as ‘Jesus.’ And he was calling people to change their own way of viewing their own identity in the way he did.
The first example we can point to in John is when Jesus looked at the temple in Jerusalem, he said, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” Obviously, he wasn’t meaning that he, in the form of Jesus, would build the temple. He was using “I” to mean the eternal creative Essence would be recognized as the true human identity and so there would no longer be any need for a structural temple. And when he said, “The water that I give will become in those who drink it a spring of water that bubbles up into eternal life,” he was referring to the “I” of eternal creative Essence, and when people become deeply aware of it within themselves, they will recognize their true identification with eternal life. So when he said, “I am not from this world,” he was saying that he wasn’t identifying with the ego-identity they saw as ‘Jesus’ but was identifying with eternal creative Essence. Then when he said, “I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved,” he was saying that salvation is found in identifying with eternal creative Essence and not with anything else.
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