What is the love that God shows to man?

“What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.  You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.  O Lord, our lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” – Psalm 8:4-8

God’s love since the beginning has been a self-sacrificing love.  In the Old Testament, this love in Hebrew is referred to as ahab (or aheb).  Ahab can be defined as an affectionate love.  Man confuses and reduces the meaning of this affection due to his limited understanding by experience through earthly relationships.  The affection is not sexual nor is it bound by emotion and displayed through a hug, kiss, etc.

To understand this affection, we need to understand what God loves affectionately.  The best way to do this is by using a verse that sums up what the bible in its entirety speaks about God’s love.  This verse sums up all the love that God displays in the bible:

“The Lord loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love” – Psalm 33:5

Righteousness and justice are not mutually exclusive since we are justified through our righteousness and it is faith and sanctification that make us righteous (James 2:24).  Ultimately, sanctification proves our faith (Galatians 5:24, Romans 8:13) since sanctification allows us to become Christ-like in our deeds, love, and life (see Growing from Faith to Love).

God’s love for justice is demonstrated through the first covenant at Mt. Sinai and his covenant with those that believe in Christ.  For those that believe, although we are guilty of much and should be condemned to eternal separation from God, in his perfect justice wrath and love collided at the cross so that Christ, the replacement for our sins,  was assigned our punishment so that we could receive eternal life.

God loves righteousness,which is doing right by faith. When we accept Christ and prove our faith through sanctification and obedience, we are made righteous. When we demonstrate our love for God by keeping His justful laws, we are renewed in His image by loving the Law of Justice and acting in Christ-like love (self-sacrificing) through our righteousness.

Let’s not project our earthly relational frameworks onto the God of this universe.  God’s thoughts and ways are higher than ours.  His affection is for righteousness and justice which translate to a love that is displayed as self-sacrificing.  Why has the modern church twisted this and think of God as a boyfriend/girlfriend; a being to fulfill one’s desires, needs, and voids.  The God of the bible is holier than the God that has been created through the emergent church.  Perhaps it becomes much tougher to love a God that doesn’t love us in the ways in which we define love.  Therefore, many are being manipulated into salvation since they haven’t received and weighed the costs of learning the deeper truths of Christianity.  Check yourselves and let the anointing of the Holy One teach you these truths (1 John 2:20,27)!

-M

“¹⁶This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.”

1 John 3:16

Humility is mentioned ten times throughout the bible (NAS).  Each time it is mentioned, it is tied to either wisdom or pride.  Humility is tied to wisdom in the sense that humility comes before honor but after wisdom (Proverbs 15:33, 18:12).  The Greek word for humility is Tepeinophrosune, which means having a humble opinion of one’s self and in the deep sense of one’s moral littleness. Therefore, humility is the opposite of pride.  Galatians 6:4 says it is okay to have pride, as long as you are not comparing yourself to someone else.  In order to love, one must lay down their pride.  Yet, in order to lay down pride, one must have wisdom, knowledge, and goodness which all come through trials of self-control and perseverance (see Growing from Faith to Love).  Therefore, to obtain the love that God calls of us requires a spiritual labor.

The love that we are called to strive for is a love that is self-sacrificing.  We are called to replicate this love.  The verb “love” is translated in the Greek as agape.  In the Old Testament, this Greek verb can be translated into Hebrew as aheb.  Thus, agape and aheb are interchangeable.  Aheb is the Hebrew word used to describe Isaac’s love for Esau, Jacob’s love for Joseph, David’s love for Jonathan, Samson’s love for Delilah, etc.  Agape is used to describe the love of God and the love that we are commanded to reflect.  Agape is different from another form of love in the Greek called eros, which is used to describe love of a sexual nature.  Therefore, the verb aheb is used to describe biblical love relationships in the Old Testament (i.e.: David and Jonathan’s mutual love) and is not a love that is sexual in nature, but a love that is self-sacrificing.

God is love.  This means in all things, God demonstrates love:  When God judges, He judges in love; When God tests, He tests in love;  As God rules, He rules in love.; When God creates, He creates in love.  This love is a self-sacrificing love that ultimately led to the cross, where both wrath and love collided to demonstrate that even in our weak states, God still loved us and offered a means to redemption.

As 2 Peter 1:5-7 states, this love (agape) that we are called to strive toward comes after godliness.  Even in our state of godliness, perfect love can be absent although love is still evident.  Our God is not just a God that is God because of His ubiquity and power.  Our God is a God that is God because of His love.  As Christ-followers, we are called to replicate this self-sacrificing love in its complete state.  Anything else is simply permissible.

With our spouses, the verb agapao is used (Ephesians 5:25).  Agapao is used to describe the act of loving; a derivation of agape.  Luke 10:27, Christ confirms to the lawyer that we are called to love God in a self-sacrificing way, not an emotional way.  Again, we see that we are called to love – but love not as we know it today through emotion or sexuality.  We are called to replicate the self-sacrificing love that God demonstrated through Christ.

A Christian may be eager to seek this state of love or may strive to demonstrate it.  However, only by going through the biblical route of sanctification can one truly accomplish this.  Without knowledge, one cannot understand the love of God.  Without wisdom, one cannot teach the love of God.  Without godliness, one cannot demonstrate the love of God.  Without humility, one cannot share the love of God purely.  And without going through tests of self-control and perseverance, one cannot increase knowledge, wisdom, and understanding.  Therefore, to accomplish sanctification requires more than what we have been taught or are used to!

-M

Some of my favorite verses on sanctification are 2 Peter 1:5-9:

“For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.

James 1:4-5:

“Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.  If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God…”

James 3:13:

“Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in humility that comes from wisdom.”

Combining these three verses together marks the biblical route of growing from faith to love:

Faith, Goodness, Knowledge, Self-Control, Perseverance, Wisdom, Humility, Godliness, Love

Over the next few days, I am going to take us through a study of what exactly Peter and James meant.  For instance, what is the difference between goodness and godliness, self-control and perseverance, knowledge and wisdom, etc.  Better yet, what is the love that we are called to obtain?  Having a knowledge of these insights helps us to mark our progress in the Lord and to realize where we need the most work.

-M