LET’S TALK ABOUT LOVE, PART 1
Warsaw Christian Church, Richard M. Bowman, Pastor
Text:1 John 4:8-12
¶ Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No-one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
There is almost universal agreement on the importance of love. Everyone seems to agree, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love.” If love would only prevail in the world, an earthly paradise would result. Since there is such universal agreement concerning the importance of love, one wonders why we don’t see more of it. We sing about it; we write books about it; we all want to see more of it, so what is the problem?
One possible explanation is that many do not understand what love is or its source. There are many ideas about the nature of love. As Christians, we want to know how God defines love. What does the Bible say about love? So today, we begin a quest that will take several weeks to complete. Our goal is to look closely and carefully at love as God defines it.
Part of our problem is seen in the fact that the English language has but one word used for different kinds of love. We love God; we love our family; we love our friends; we love our dog; we love ice cream, etc. Clearly, the word “love” has different meanings in these expressions. I hope we mean something deeper when we say, “I love Jesus” than when we say, “I love ice cream.” I am sure you have heard before that the Greek language of the New Testament uses several different words for “love.”
When the Greeks spoke of love in the sense of feelings for friends, they normally used the word “phileo.” Our words “Philadelphia” and philanthropist” are based on this Greek word. When the Greeks spoke of the strong physical attraction between a man and a woman, they used the word “eros.” Our word “erotic” derives from the Greek term. When the New Testament writers spoke of the love of God, they used the word “agape.” As Christians, this is the love we are to manifest toward others. In all there are 8 words in the Greek language translated as “love.”
Our focus in this series will be on that highest form of love, agape. It is the love characteristic of God and is to be characteristic of Christian people. We are all familiar with the statement in 1 John 4:16, “God is love.” The term used is “agape.” We learn in this brief statement that love is central to the divine nature. God has other attributes besides love, but love is His chief attribute. God is a being whose love embraces the entire human race. That is expressed in the oft-quoted words in John 3:16, “God so loved the world . . .” But what does “agape/love” mean? For now, I will suggest that this divine love can be understood as “goodwill.” We can count on the fact that God’s goodwill covers us no matter who we are or what we have done. When Jesus was born, we read that He came to bring peace on earth and goodwill toward men (Luke 2:14).
Some jump too quickly to the conclusion; therefore, hell cannot be real. There can be no such thing as the wrath of God. Such thoughts are seen as conflicting with God’s universal goodwill. If we allow the Scriptures to guide our thinking, we learn that divine wrath is also an attribute of God. But how can God’s love and goodwill be compatible with divine wrath? Let’s look at a human example. A human judge may be a man of goodwill, yet he will sentence a criminal to death because the law requires it. He has no personal animosity toward the criminal. He would prefer to act with kindness, yet he will pronounce the sentence of death.
Isaiah spoke of God’s wrath as his “strange work.” He wrote these words about God’s wrath being poured out upon His own people, Israel. “The LORD will rise up as he did at Mount Perazim, he will rouse himself as in the Valley of Gibeon—to do his work, his strange work, and perform his task, his alien task” (Isa 28:21). The idea seems to be that judgment does not bring pleasure to God. It is necessary, yet it is “strange” to Him. God delights in showing mercy, grace, and kindness, while His anger and wrath are described as His “strange work.”
Just as human society is organized around laws, so also is the kingdom of God. The sum of the matter is this: Those who trust in God and submit to His will receive nothing but love and goodwill from Him. Those who rebel against God will experience His strange work. God takes no pleasure in expressing His wrath, but He must and will punish wickedness. Ezekiel 33:11 says, “As I live, says the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from their ways and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways; for why will you die, O house of Israel?” God takes pleasure in us when we turn from our wicked ways and seek to walk in the paths of righteousness. Nevertheless, those who defy the will of God will experience His wrath. Agape love and divine wrath are not incompatible. We must never assume that we all have a free pass into heaven because God is love.
We need to notice next that John says, “God is love.” He does not say, “Love is God.” If we say, “love is God” then we are tempted to define love as we wish and declare it to be good. The young man who whispers into the ear of his beloved, saying, “If you love me you will submit to my desires,” may be expressing erotic love, but he is not communicating the love of God. We dare not assume that as long as we feel “love,” then whatever we do is godly. Love, as we define it, is not God; rather, God is love. He explains when and how His love acts.
We humans sometimes try to drag God into our illicit “love” affairs, proving that we do not understand God’s love. We think it is okay to abandon our spouse and enter into a “love affair” with our neighbor. “If you knew my wife (husband), you would understand.” Erotic love is not Christian love. The Bible is clear: erotic love gains the approval of God only within the bonds of marriage between a man and woman. Having an affair with a lady who seems prettier and sexier than your wife may feel like “love,” but God calls it “sin.”
Our next step in understanding the nature of divine love is to recall that Jesus Christ is God in human form, the incarnate deity. Jesus is love incarnate. If you want to know what agape is, watch Jesus. Everything you ever wanted to know about love and were afraid to ask is revealed in the words and deeds of Jesus. First, we are called upon to love and trust Him. Second, He then declared, “If you love me, keep my commandments (John 14:15). They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them (John 14:21). If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.”(John 15:10).
We express divine love when we trust Jesus, love Jesus, and obey Jesus. We thus arrive at the following definition of Christian love. “Christian love (agape) is goodwill directed toward others motivated by our love for Jesus, and in harmony with His commands.” Agape love can only be known and experienced in relationship to Jesus Christ. You will not find this love in the secular world where Christ is unknown. You can find erotic love (eros) or friendship love (phileo), but agape is found only in those who love and trust Jesus.
The other forms of love are transformed when agape is present. For example, unbelieving parents have a natural affection for their children. This love will move the parent to feed, clothe and protect the child. Unbelieving parents do want the best for their children. When agape is added, the parents now have a deep concern for the eternal well-being of the child. Christian parents, in whom dwells the love of God, have a new priority: their children’s salvation. No Christian parent is content as long as they have a child living outside the grace of Jesus. Christian parents still have the same concerns about food, clothing, protection, education, etc. for their children, but the eternal well-being of the child now moves to the top of the list.
Since the love of God is expressed in obedience to the commands of Jesus, it behooves us to be earnest students of Scripture. The Bible is our handbook on how to practice love. Some may be thinking, “But doesn’t love just come naturally? You can’t really command love.” It is true that, to some extent, the human forms of love seem to be natural. Most of us did not need a lot of instruction on expressing erotic love, and love of family and friends does seem to be natural, at least to some degree. However, it is different with agape. Christian love is difficult and challenging. Not only does it not come naturally, but it is also contrary to our fallen human nature. Those who think they can practice divine love without a thorough knowledge of Scripture and the ministry of the Holy Spirit are sadly mistaken. The book tells us what to do, and the Spirit gives us the strength to do it.
I hope all of us are committed to learning and practicing Christian love. It requires of us a sincere faith in the Son of God and a willingness to learn and practice His commands. If you are not presently motivated in this direction, I close with a few reminders from God’s Word. When John wrote, “God is love,” he added this line: “Whoever lives in love (agape) lives in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16). He also said, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:8). He also wrote these sobering words: “Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen” (1 John 4:20).
I don’t think we can afford to be unloving persons with such words before us. If we are not practicing agape/Christian love, John says that our claim to be Christians is a lie. We will continue looking at this fundamental matter next week.
