Month: November 2018

The doctrine of the love of God is sometimes portrayed within Christian circles as much easier and more obvious than it really is, and this is achieved by overlooking some of the distinctions the Bible itself introduces when it depicts the love of God.¹

I have been captured by Paul’s prayer that we would come to experience the magnitude and complexity of the love of God not merely as a doctrine but as a life-changing reality (Eph. 3:17-18).  Although this unexplainable love can be known, it is not automatic or simple.

There are several ways to explore the greatness of God’s love.  One is to consider the magnitude as it reaches through history, spans geography, and penetrates every culture to every person.  Another is to look at the qualities of God’s love: eternal, loyal, holy, gracious, etc.  I am exploring a third way by considering the complexity of God’s love as evidenced by the many ways it is expressed or demonstrated.

I am coming to understand that His love is not monochromatic but iridescent (like a rainbow).  That is, as His love touches broken humanity, the “white light” of His love is refracted and reflected into a rainbow of colors.

Before we look at the various expressions of God’s love, I want to preface the discussion by clarifying several concepts that set the stage for understanding its complexity.

1. Definitions
2. Intra-Trinitarian source
3. Expression and experience

1.  Word definition/meaning

It is obvious that love has many forms.  Two Greek words are used to express love forms in the New Testament:  pheleo and agape.  The word pheleo is used to express a love of affection and approval.  The word agape, however, has a broader meaning ranging from affectionate love to benevolent love.²  Agape was the word for love that New Testament writers chose to express the gracious, benevolent love of God given to undeserving humanity.  This grace kind of love was added to the historic use of agape, and eventually came to dominate its meaning.  However, the grace aspect of agape is not its only meaning in Scripture and it would be incorrect to remove the element of affection from our understanding of the word.

While the Hebrew and Greek words for “love” have various shades and intensities of meaning, they may be summed up in some such definition as this: Love, whether used of God or man, is an earnest and anxious desire for and an active and beneficent interest in the well-being of the one loved.³                      

 The love relationship within the Trinity affirms that the grace aspect of agape is not its only meaning in Scripture.

2.  Intra-Trinitarian love

This refers to the love that exists within the Trinity.⁴  John refers to this love when he said, “God is love” (1 John 4:8).  God not only loves, but He is love.  Love resides within the essence of who God is.  John is not saying that God equals love, but rather that love is a trait of divinity (along with His other traits such as holiness and justice).  John is not making love the “trump card” in the deck of God’s attributes.  He is saying that love is part of the essence of God, permeates all His other characteristics, and is the source of love as we know it.

Therefore, it should not surprise us to see love expressed within the Trinity.  Jesus described the Father’s love for Him as both agapeo (John 3:35) and pheleo (John 5:20) even as the Son loves (John 14:31) the Father.  It is this amazing intra-Trinitarian love into which we are now invited.  Jesus prayed this invitation for His disciples (John 17:26):

I have made your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You love Me may be in them, and I in them.

The intra-Trinitarian love is the source of all love.  It is the “white light” that contains various expressions.  It is the love that is incomprehensible yet expressed in such ways that we can begin to understand its complexity when we observe how God loves broken humanity.

 3.  Expression and response

Unless love is expressed in some way, it may exist but be unknown.  Within the intra-Trinitarian love, Jesus explains how it is expressed and responded to:

For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; (John 5:20).

But so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me (John 14:31).

For us to know God’s love it must be expressed and to be experienced it requires a response.  In John 3:16 Jesus explained that God’s love was expressed in the giving of his only begotten Son.  But to experience that love, one must respond by believing “in Him”.

A word of caution:  the condition of responding to His love, should not be equated with meriting His love.  God’s love in all of its expressions is always initiated by God and unmerited.  But unmerited does not mean unconditional. [See TAD Blog 12 Reducing Tension in Discipleship (2)]

With these three critical concepts in mind, in the next blog we will explore four of the colors of God’s iridescent love.  The following blog we will look at the love language of God and then tie them into our pursuit of knowing Christ on the resurrection side of the cross.

1.  DA Carson, “The Uncomfortable Doctrine of the Love of God.” pg.15
2.  Thayer word studies defines agapeo: to be well pleased to be fond of, love dearly. But also “embracing especially the judgment and the deliberate assent of the will as a matter of principle, duty, and propriety”.
3. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia.  Love in its broadest meaning can also been described as a deep personal longing for the object of the love.  This implies ascribing value, feeling of affection, and seeking the welfare of that which is loved.
4. DA Carson, “The Uncomfortable Doctrine of the Love of God.” pg. 16

“Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so” was the alleged response twentieth century theologian Karl Barth gave when asked to summarize his life’s work in theology.   The astounding simplicity, magnitude and beauty of the love of God has amazed theologians, poets, and ordinary people down through history.  However, while it is simple to say, the love of God is not a simple concept to understand or grasp.

The apostle Paul obviously did not believe the love of God was simple or shallow.  His prayer for the church was,

“…that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:17-19 NASB).

Paul was convinced that the love of God was not only a foundation, but also a vast reality to be explored.  But we need help.  God’s love is vast and unknowable in its complexity yet comprehensible in ever increasing degrees through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Paul’s prayer for our ability to grasp this amazing aspect of God’s nature, indicates not only its importance but its complexity.

I am concerned that in our current culture of sound bites and over generalizations, we have trivialized and distorted this critically important quality of God so that it is no longer a wonder to pursue.  Paul challenges us to not only think in terms of its vast magnitude but also of its great complexity.  Comprehending God’s love is a central theme throughout our journey of discipleship as we grow in our love for God and our love for others.

However, our journey to understand the depth of God’s love is hindered not only by our contentment with sound bite thinking but also by an inadequate vocabulary.  Our single English word “love” covers a huge span of meanings.  We “love” pizza, our dog, our children, our spouse, and even God; one word for many expressions of love.

The Old Testament Hebrew language has two main words for love.  The word “ahab” is equivalent to the English “to love” in the sense of having a strong emotional attachment to and/or desire to possess an object or be in its presence.  It is found in all periods of Hebrew writing and approximately 250 times in the Bible.  The other word “checed” is often translated loving-kindness and is a covenant term of relationship between God and Israel.  It is a clear demonstration of grace over merit.¹

With the revelation of God’s redemptive love in Christ, New Testament writers in Greek needed a new word that didn’t have the emotional, romantic or merit elements.  Avoiding the word “eros” (a physical love) and the word “pheleo” (an affectionate love) they chose a common (yet somewhat obscure) Greek word for love (agape).  They used it in a specific, focused way “mainly referring to unconditional, self-sacrificing, giving love to all – both friend and enemy”.²

But beyond an expanded vocabulary, theologians down through history have expressed the amazing complexity of God’s love by using various adjectives to describe it including:  Intra-Trinitarian³, complacent⁴, benevolent, compassionate, merciful, and affectionate.^5,6

Both the unity and complexity of the love of God can be illustrated by the characteristics of light in the physical world.  White light demonstrates unity, but it is actually very complex consisting of all the colors of the rainbow.  When white light touches a prism, it is refracted into its various colors.  Likewise, when God’s love touches the prism of broken humanity, the complexity of its various “colors” is revealed.  We are like a diamond (prism) God is shaping to reflect the brilliance of His love in all its hues.

In the following blogs I want to explore the amazing, beautiful, iridescent expressions of the love of God through the primary colors of what I will call His:

• Creative sustaining love
• Redemptive saving love
• Covenant family love
• Intimate friendship love

We will find that they are interconnected and critical to discipleship on the resurrection side of the cross.  Since our love for God is based on His love for us (1 John 4:19), the more we understand the complexity of His love, the greater our love can be in return.

1. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE)
2. New World Encyclopedia, electronic version
3. Love within the Trinity
4. Complacent in classical use does not mean passivity, but a love towards that which pleases
5. The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God, DA Carson
6. James Boyce, Chapter 10 of Boyce’s Abstract of Systematic Theology.