February is Valentine month. The central concept of this annual emphasis is "Love". The base for love, for the believing Christian, is the character of God as He is revealed through the Holy Scriptures, the Bible. In contradiction to God's love is self-love. It is a part of the human nature, but it is not to be part of the new spiritual nature of a born again believer.

Self-love is the only kind of love that is innately born within a person. This love is self-centered and has its interest in appeasing the demands and desires of the individual. Self-love may be observed even in the smallest of infants and the oldest adults. Unfortunately, many only know self-love and do not mature into a higher form of love. Age alone does not always improve our basic instincts. Certainly, everyone understands that a world of selfish people would be devastating. A higher form of love must be taught, experienced and shared. Self-love is only a little different from lust, James 3:1-41, which ends in desiring to have to the extent that people will kill to obtain, fight wars, and yet not be at peace even with themselves. The word for self-love (lust) is "epithymia" and is used 29 times in the scriptures -- always in a negative and forbidden manner and never in a positive context, Ephesians 2:3; 4:22; Titus 2:12; Romans 1:26,27. It is most characteristic of those who do not know God, I Thessalonians 4:3-5.

II. LOVE AS IT IS CONSTRUED IN THE BIBLE (GOD'S LOVE IS NEEDED, I John 4:8)

To explain the meaning of the word love in our English use of the word is next to impossible. It is so subjective that everyone hears the word as used within their personal experiences or imagination. It spreads throughout the whole emotional range from fuzzy feelings in one's stomach to a total commitment of life itself. One word is used to fit a whole range of experiences and occurrences. The New Testament Greek language had different words for different levels of love.

A. The Greek concept of Eros love gets its meaning from the ancient God of love and the Roman counterpart, Cupid. The use of eros love primarily suggests a deviant sensual, physical and sexual love. This word is not used in the Bible.

B. The Greek concept of Phileo love is used in the scriptures to suggest a warm tender affection that would normally take place in the feelings of a parent for a child or among siblings within a family. It is a high level of human love, as it would be displayed from one person to another. This is love, as family members would have for each other. It is the highest form of natural love yet it is not supernatural. Because of its limitations and human source, it is not the love that one needs in worship to God nor is it the love one needs in service for God. It is sufficient for humanitarian achievements, but powerless to produce spiritual accomplishments.

C. The Greek concept of Agape love has its meaning primarily in Holy Scriptures. Greek literature gives little information about God's love since it is foreign to the Greek lifestyle. Agape love is God's and expresses an idea previously unknown. We know about God's love through revelation rather than culture. This is the love of God the Father toward the Son, John 17:26. It is the attitude of God toward lost mankind, John 3:16; Romans 5:8. It is the attitude of God toward believers, John 14:21, and thus sets the example for believers, John 13:14. It is the essential nature of God, I John 4:8, and this love can only be received from God -- the sole source of agape love. It is unavailable to the unbeliever and is the very life that moves and motivates the believing individual, II Corinthians 5:13.

By any standard of measurement, the Apostle Paul was a successful Christian. In fact, he is the one person, other than the Lord Jesus that we are to use as an example. He was inspired of the Holy Spirit to write thirteen books of the New Testament, teach the other disciples the theology of the Christian church, and at the same time took the gospel to the Gentile nations. The only information Paul received from God at his conversion was that he would be beaten, jailed and rejected in every city he entered with the gospel, Acts 9:16; 20:23; Galatians 6:17.

It is well within the scope of this article to call attention to the vast difference between the way God motivated the early Christian and the manner in which popular preachers attempted to move the masses. God did not promise any New Testament believer an easy prosperous position in this world! How very different and distant we have become from the Lord!

We are not left to wonder about what made him such a successful servant for the Lord. It was the love of Christ, II Corinthians 5:14. It was not Paul's love for Christ! Rather it was Christ's love put into Paul's heart that moved him into a totally committed life of ministry -- both in methods and message. Christ's love in Paul's life "constrained" him. Constrain, "sunecho" is a word that means to compress, compel, press, etc. It is used to describe one taken with a fever, or as one compelled to move along by a compressive crowd. The love of Christ in the life of every believer is the true motivating force of God. It is questionable that any lasting ministry for God will be accomplished through any other motivating method.

The Christian pattern for a family is different from the world in general. The text in the Ephesians epistle models the family on a higher standard than is obtainable without God's love. The surprising teaching of this text is that while we are to model up to God's love, we are at the same time taught to model down as individual members of a family. Actually, we are to model down in submission, 5:21,22; 6:1. Submission is not to be mistaken as a statement of inferiority, but rather it is a role of organization. An illustration of this submissive role may be seen within the Trinity. Jesus was in willing submission to the Father when He said, "not my will be done, but yours"; the Holy Spirit was in submission to the Lord and acknowledged His leadership when Jesus said;" I will send the Holy Spirit". Yet, every Trinitarian Bible teacher understands that willing submission within the trinity is a demonstration of response to the role rather than a statement of inferiority/superiority.

Within a family, modeling down and up at the same time will not work well without the love of Christ placed within each family member. It is needed for respect, appreciation, individual identity, changing levels of maturity, responsibility, achievement, etc.

The husband/wife/family role taught in this text only works well with the highest form of love, "as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it," 6:25. This is a self-sacrificing love available from God by asking for it. With this love one can be both longsuffering with people and patient with situations. Both are needed in the family of God. Both express the essential nature of God.

Love is used forty-six times in the epistle of First John. It is used to demonstrate that individuals were Christians, to explain how to get along with others, and as a drawing force to reach unbelievers. However it is also used to explain the conditions on which God accepts our love. He will not receive love from the believer who attempts to love Him and love the world at the same time. This is the world system operating under the leadership of Satan that is referred to in this text. It is incongruous that one could think that they could love the Lord and the very system that hates our only Lord and Savior at the same time, John 7:7!

While isolation from the world is not the will of God, separation from it is clearly both His teaching and His will. It makes no sense for the church of Christ to attempt to appease the world or to pattern after it.

The seeming contradiction of the Bible in relationship to the world disappears when we realize the different ways in which the word is used. It is used as follows: 1) the universe of which the earth is a part, 2) the earth in contrast to heaven, 3) the human race, 4) it was used to show that Gentiles was different from Jewish, 5) present human affairs and condition in opposition to the work of God, 6) possessions, 7) language groups.

The love of God for the world He created and for the human race is an unlimited, infinite, universal love. However, God does not love everything and every action of man in an unlimited love. Some things He hates. The vital manner is that His love as demonstrated in its redemptive quality at Calvary is sufficient payment for sin--the whole collective problem of sin.

Clearly, God's love must also be the sole payment for sin. It is contradictory thinking to assume the sacrificial death of God's son is insufficient payment for sin and, thus, other religious activities must be included for one’s redemption. Christ's death cannot be both sufficient and insufficient at the same time. In the text above, faith in God's love as displayed at Calvary is the needed human ingredient for one to be spiritually "born again". Yet the message that is made simple by God has become complex and misleading by religion. The evidence of this may be seen in a recent poll in the United States showing that while 86 out of 100 adults claim to be Christian, only 68 claim to be committed believers and less than one-half of the Christians say they are born again. This, by definition, demonstrates that 55 "Christians" out of every 100 are admittedly trusting something other than Christ's death on Calvary as the sole and sufficient substitionary payment for their sins.

Love (agape) that comes from God, indwells in, and flows through an individual is the truest demonstration that one has experienced the converting grace of God. This love may be noticed when a believer "keeps God's Word", 2:5; loves God the Father in replacement of the normal love of the world, 2:15; loves other people, 3:10,14; 3:23; 4:11-21; and loves to keep God's commandments 5:2,3.

The love that God delivers into our lives by believing in Him, and develops in us by abiding in Him will be displayed to others by our loving like Him.

Reverend Glenn Armstrong, D.D.

January 23, 2006

VII. LOVE AS IT IS COMMANDED BY CHRIST (LOVE ONE ANOTHER, I John 2:5; 3:14)