[aron]

To understand a person, never look at the person. Instead look at their relationships. We are defined by our relations with others.

In the case of Jesus Christ, it is clearly, first and always foremost, his relationship with the Father in heaven. "He (Christ) trusted in God (the Father). Let Him (the Father) save him (the Son) now." You see trust, obedience, salvation. Every other human being, because of Adam's fall, has their relation with God marred, if not severed. But not Christ. He and the Father are one. "When you see me, you see the Father" and "The words that I speak are not from myself but the Father has given me to speak."

And secondly but intrinsically tied to the first is Jesus with the Twelve, that "he loved them to the uttermost" and "greater love hath no man than this, that..." &c. Now, here's where it really gets interesting. Jesus's love towards others was so great that the Twelve could not contain it, it spilled over to the nearby crowds. When they asked him to send the hungry crowds away, he replied, "You give them something to eat."

This pattern of out flowing, uncontainable and irresistible love was formally institutionalized (if I may be permitted the term) in the first chapters of the Acts of the Apostles. Now, the disciples trust and obey the Spirit of the Son, outpoured on all flesh, and they hold everything in common, trusting in God in all things, sharing all things, helping those who suffer and hunger. They are driven by love.

It is in this vein, I think, that Paul's outreach to the gentiles should be seen. Paul was in relation to the Father through the Son, and to the Son through his relationship with the Twelve and the Judean & Syrian cohorts. But this love was so great that it could not be held in parochial containers but spilled beyond the borders of the Levant and into the whole world. Thus, the mandate for Paul the apostle to the gentiles as Peter was to the Jews.

What I'm saying is that the law of Christ is not a dictate for observance and measure (success v/v failure) but rather an acknowledgment of standing fact, of reality. Like the law of gravity - it just is, whether you see it or not, or how you name it. "As in heaven, so on earth". In heaven the relations of the constituents of the Kingdom is the same as Jesus with the Father. His relation never changed. He (Christ) trusted in Him (the Father)". We see that, vicariously enter in, and now have a basis to relate with one another. That's how "Jesus" became "the Twelve" and then became "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ". The immutable law never changed.