Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more... duh, duh, duh, deh, dih, duh
Sadly, English is a terrible language. We have one word for "love". Whether it is you love ice cream (mmm, ice cream), lolcats, God, your neighbor, or your wife. We even say "make love" and say its "lovely" (pretty).
Fortunately, the ancient Greeks had three words for "love" - eros, phileo, and agape.
"Eros" is the sexual attraction kind of love. I can't find it in my concordance (It's not used in the Bible). This is a message to all the Christian singers with the songs about how "Jesus is my boyfriend". It's not that type of love. The old time hymn writers had a much better understanding of this, and we play fast and loose with it today...
"Phileo" is the type of love we are most familiar with. It is the sort of feeling for friends and people you like. It is a feeling of good will and "wanting the best". Happiness and warmth from thinking about them and being with them. It is not the kind of love God has for us. (God does not have our picture on His refrigerator).
"Agape" is God's love for us. It is a concept almost entirely foreign to us. It is a love of choice. To choose to love when the object of love does not (necessarily) deserve it. To give sacrificially ("give until it hurts") to the one loved.
How does God show us this love?
The greatest example of God's love is the life and death of Jesus. Without the life and death of Jesus, no one could be saved. It is through Jesus that we come to know the Father.
God also shows love to the unsaved (Matthew 5:45). Instead of striking them dead instantly, He allows them to live. He even allows them to thrive and prosper. This in no way indicates His pleasure with their behavior! It is an expression of His love for those who are not deserving.
What lesson can we learn from God's love?
Some people are in the difficult position where someone they love (be it phileo or agape) is hurtful. I've found the book "Love Must Be Tough" (James Dobson) to be very helpful in this matter.
The Biblical stance must be to leave that situation.
Maybe the person will see the error of their way, maybe not.
But their is a theology lesson here as well. Some day, God will "leave the situation" for every unsaved person.
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6 comments:
Ned,
A few things to comment on:
1. There are actually four (or 5!) different Greek words—Storge and Thelema are also words for love.
2. God loves us in an Agape, Eros, and Philios way. Philios and Eros are both referenced as
well as Agape.
a. Song of Solomon is a relationship/poem that shows God with His lover. It will make you blush if you read it.
b. Ephesians 5 talks about a marriage between Christ and the Church and mentions how “the two shall become one” which is a reference to a sexual union but He says it’s regarding Christ and the Church.
3. God loves us in an Eros way as we are the Church. The Church is feminine…ergo we are feminine and Christ is masculine. As members of the Church, we open ourselves up to Christ and allow Him to enter us. He fills us with His love and as He enters us—two things happen: 1. New Life and 2. Extreme joy. This is the “Great Mystery” that Paul refers to in Ephesians 5:31-32 and it truly is a sexual union between us and Him. We become one with Him.
4. You still don’t tell us what love is. What is it? What is the definition? What does it mean to love your wife? What does it mean to love your enemy? What does it mean to love your friends and how does it relate to God?
God loves all men both saved and unsaved. His desire is for all men to be saved. Christ's death was sufficient for all men. The fact that there are some people who may not be saved is because those people did not come to Him. Not because God had it out for them from the beginning of time. Yes, God knows these people are not saved but it's through their free will that they are not saved.
"God also shows love to the unsaved (Matthew 5:45). Instead of striking them dead instantly, He allows them to live. He even allows them to thrive and prosper. This in no way indicates His pleasure with their behavior! It is an expression of His love for those who are not deserving."
And he also shows his love by unmercilessly torturing them for eternity in hell?
"Some people are in the difficult position where someone they love (be it phileo or agape) is hurtful. I've found the book "Love Must Be Tough" (James Dobson) to be very helpful in this matter.
The Biblical stance must be to leave that situation."
If only Xians could actually heed this and see the hurtful "love" that god supposedly gives.
Hi theden,
1. Thanks for that, I can't find storge and thelema in my concordance, though...
2. I would frame it more as agape love supersedes eros and philios.
The Song is primarily a song of a husband to a wife. Yes, Christ is the husband of the Church, but in a way that is better than the way we experience love. That's why there is no marriage in Heaven. Being one in God is better than eros love.
In addition to the husband/wife analogies, the word used for God "knowing" the elect is the same as the word for a husband "knowing" his wife.
But I would take the opposite emphasis. The union of a man and woman is a shadow of the reality of being one with God (which is more perfect, and better); rather than use analogies of a husband and wife to apply to God (a subtle point).
4. I don't think I (or anyone) really knows how to love as God does. It is self-sacrifice, and putting the needs of others before ourselves. Giving to those who do not deserve it, and who cannot or even will not repay it or even be very thankful.
It is an area for growth :)
I don't think God loves the unsaved the same way. How do you interpret Romans 9:13? ("As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated") I think the Bible clearly teaches that the unsaved are "vessels of wrath" and "children of the devil". But it's not our job to identify these people. We have to assume any given person may be saved (eventually).
GCT: "And he also shows his love by unmercilessly torturing them for eternity in hell?"
As I've said before, God does not torture people in Hell. God removes His loving presence from them (leaving His wrath). People in Hell are hateful and hurtful to God. Eventually His patience runs out and He leaves them.
"If only Xians could actually heed this and see the hurtful 'love' that god supposedly gives."
You assume a lot about me (and other Christians). Do you know about my relationships with other people? How I experience the love of God?
Ned,
Storge and Thelema are not scripturally used but are words for love in Greek. Honestly you probably don’t need to concern yourself with these words.
No argument about the agape love superseding eros/philios.
Song of songs is not about a husband to a wife. It’s God to us. It would not be considered divinely inspired (and I believe was debated on if it was divinely inspired) if it was only about a husband and wife.
Regarding marriage, yes, there is no marriage in heaven but the reasoning for that is that marriage points a husband and wife to God. The relationship is a visible sign of God’s love for them. i.e. it’s a sacrament and bestows grace on us . When your wife is frustrated with you (or vice versa), it gives you an inkling of what God has to put up with. Hopefully, you treat your wife with love (and vice versa) and forgiveness the way God does with you! Anyhow, once you have attained heaven, there is no need for the sacramental relationship as you have attained the oneness with God that is mirrored in your relationship with your wife.
Yes, I agree that it’s a “shadow of the reality” although I would say that the relationship mirrors the reality of being one with God which is more perfect and better as God is perfect.
The love between a husband and wife is not an analogy that applies to God. I believe that it points to God. I believe that God is in the center of a marital relationship and that the reason a husband and wife don’t split up is ONLY because of the grace of God. When a couple is married, they need to come to God for help. Without God’s grace, that marriage will fail. I believe that a love between a husband and wife is a love that is indissoluble and can only be broken by death. This is the reason why the Catholic Church does not recognize divorce (along with the fact that Scripture tells us this). To say that a man can end his marriage with his wife would be akin to saying that God can sever His relationship with us. That doesn’t happen.
“I don't think I (or anyone) really knows how to love as God does. It is self-sacrifice, and putting the needs of others before ourselves. Giving to those who do not deserve it, and who cannot or even will not repay it or even be very thankful.”
I think God shows us this very clearly. He does this through our relationships. Of family, of friends and of our enemies. Do you have children? Have you raised them? Do you feed them? Can they possibly repay you for all that you’ve done for them? Can you possibly repay your parents for all they’ve done for you? Do you feel that there is anything you can do to start to pay your parents for all they’ve done? What has your child done to deserve your love? What did you do to deserve your parents’ love? Do you make sacrifices for your children? Have you given your entire life over to your wife and children? That selfless love that a father gives to a wife and children is very much a visible sign of God’s love for us. God gives us these relationships to give us a better understanding of what He’s done for us.
God does love the unsaved the same way. God is love (1 John 4:8). God is pure love. To have a relationship with God is to love God because that’s what He is. God cannot hate (people) because He is love. As Christ explains, “He makes the sun rise on the good and the bad and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.” (Matthew 5:45) His love covers all. In Scripture, when the word “hate” is used (with the exception of “God hates sin” or “God hates divorce”), it’s a semitic usage meaning “loved less.” So in Romans 9, when we read that God “loved Jacob, but Esau I hated,” what that means is that He loved Esau less. To get a better understanding of how this is used, please look at Luke 14:26 and compare it with Matthew 10:37. In Luke, Jesus doesn’t mean that we must come to Him and hate our mothers and fathers. No, it means (as Matthew 10:37 shows), that we must love Christ more than we love our parents.
Regarding the “vessels of wrath,” These are obviously not “children of the devil” as the creator of them was God (Romans 9:21). Who are the “vessels of wrath?” Think about what Paul is saying, we are all lumps of clay. We can either allow God to mold us and transform us into what He wants (through our obedience and love) or we can be belligerent and fight with Him as He tries to mold us. We become a “vessel of wrath” through disobedience (Romans 9:19-20) which will assure us destruction. God wants us to be “lumps of clay” where we are moulded and transformed by Him to be vessels to be used by Him for something greater. Not to be disobedient and question God as to why He’s trying to mould us (“Why have you created me so?”).
Regarding “Children of the Devil”, we need to understand what John is talking about. In short, Children of the Devil are those who sin. (1 John 3: 8) Those who do not have God first and foremost in their hearts. In this passage, John references specifically to Cain and Abel. In order to understand this, we need to understand what Cain’s sin was. It started way before killing Abel. Cain did not have God first and foremost in his heart. His sacrifice to God wasn't sufficient. His focus was not on God but rather on what his brother was doing. He became jealous because he was more focused on God’s relationship with Abel than on God’s relationship with himself and from that grew envy and hatred and finally murder. The sin started long before the killing. The sin started when he kept his best for himself rather than sacrifice it to God--showing that God was not first in his heart and continued when he stopped loving his brother.
God wants us to be like Abel. God wants us to focus ourselves on Him and for us to sacrifice our best (as Abel). God does not want us to be a “vessel of wrath.” He wants to mold us. He wants us to say “God, I’m Yours! Transform me into what You will!” Not to focus on our brother to see if God’s pleased with them. Cain did that. That’s not what God wants.
nedbrek,
"As I've said before, God does not torture people in Hell. God removes His loving presence from them (leaving His wrath). People in Hell are hateful and hurtful to God. Eventually His patience runs out and He leaves them."
Which is a form of torture, according to you. god knows this, yet he does it anyway, thus he is complicit in the torture. There is no way around this. If hell exists and if people are tortured there, it is because god does it/set up the system that way.
"You assume a lot about me (and other Christians). Do you know about my relationships with other people? How I experience the love of God?"
Your relationship with other people has nothing at all to do with this. How you experience the love of god maybe. Of course, god is sitting there with a gun to your head saying that you must love him or go to hell. If you think that is love, well so be it. To me, it sounds like battered wife syndrome. Here is an entity that supposedly loves you, but will put you through all kinds of tests to make sure you are worthy to be with him (living on Earth). Yet, if he really loved you, why would that even be necessary? If he decides you aren't worthy, you get tortured for eternity, yet supposedly he loves you. Yes, he loves you enough to cast you into the lake of fire and burn you for eternity. And, he will do this for such small things as not believing in Jesus Christ, even though he can't be bothered to supply evidence of himself, or show himself to us. And this is love? If that is love, I'd rather have the Earthly variety where love is about caring for the other person, empathy, not putting unrealistic demands on the other person, etc.
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