How Far?
How far will a person travel for love? What is a person willing to do for love? These types of questions are asked and displayed in movies, songs, and TV programs. I could spend 90,000 words tracing themes of love in songs, movies, books, etc. And frankly, humanity is obsessed with understanding and obtaining love.
I mean, we have an entire day – Valentine’s Day – built around the idea of love. I think humanity has continuously pursued love, even with the proliferation of information in our internet age. Everyone is looking around for love and to be loved, but people often look in the wrong places.
One of my concerns with Christians when discussing love is that culture has polluted the mind. Culture has created radical and unrealistic expectations of love. The culture has inoculated the Christian mind to define love as something it is not. There needs to be a course correction in the church, when it comes to understanding love, and Advent seems like a good time to provide a biblical perspective.
Don’t Reduce Love
The profundity of love has been reduced in multiple ways. I love my dog, Winston. He’s been a faithful dog, and when I am traveling, he becomes the man of the house, trolling and protecting the property like a good guard dog. When he dies, I’ll cry like a baby. I love my wife. My love for her is unlike anything I have experienced with any other person. My love for her is different than my love for my dog. These examples of love are familiar and perhaps healthy. But there are examples of love that are degrading and quite the opposite of the covenantal love we read in the Bible.
A ten-minute stroll through a social media feed or going up and down the television dial shows us that love has been sexualized. I am not talking about the intimacy between a husband and wife. I am talking about the soft-core porn that attempts to invade every home through technology. Here is the bottom line. Humanity has taken something good and ruined it through sinful and selfish desires.
So what is the way back to understanding and embracing love the way God designed it? And what does love have to do with the incarnation of Jesus Christ? Let me take you back to a time that was not time – before the creation of the world.
Love and Creation
I think it’s fair to say the love offered by the culture is wildly confusing, and a definition of love changes with the wind. But what if we could know a love that is consistent, true, and pure? I think Holy Scripture provides a way for us to think about love that edifies and endures.
Before the Creation of the World
The profundity of love is found with Godhead before the creation of the universe. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have loved each other with perfect purity and goodness. 1 John 4:7-8 tells us about the connection between love and God. We read,
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
– 1 John 4:7–8
If you have never memorized a passage in the Bible, begin with God is love. David Jakeman hits the proverbial nail on the head. He says,
John is not identifying a quality which God possesses; he is making a statement about the essence of God’s being. It is not simply that God loves, but that he is love. We are helped to understand this when we remember that God is revealed in Scripture as the holy Trinity, three persons in one God. We shall never be able to comprehend the full meaning of this with our finite minds, but at least we can grasp that at the heart of the deity there is a dynamic inter-relationship of love.
– David Jackman, The Message of John’s Letters: Living in the Love of God
If the essence of God is love, then God created the universe out of love. And the crown jewel of God’s creation is man.
But as we know, sin entered the world because of the sinful actions of Adam and Even. And now, the perfect and pure love between God and man was stained. But God would still make way for wicked man to experience true and lasting love (see Genesis 3:15). In short, God does not give up on his covenant people, even though his covenant people are turning left when God’s love is drawing them right. Ephesians 1 tells us about the relentless plan of God’s love. Here is an essential run-on sentence from the Apostle Paul.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.
– Ephesians 1:3–6
There is an exegetical debate whether in love qualifies the previous statement on election or the following statement on predestination. Let the debate rage on, but I’ll simply say yes. The point is that God acts out of love, and his plan of love presupposed His actions of love.
Love and the Incarnation
The plan of God’s love for man is further seen through the incarnation of Jesus Christ. 1 John 4 helps us to see why God the Son was sent into the world.
In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.
– 1 John 4:8–9
The love of God in eternity past has been made manifest through the incarnation of Jesus Christ. The incarnation of Jesus Christ is connected to the mission of God for man to be reconciled to God. The mission of the Son is made crystal clear in the birth narrative in the Gospel of Matthew.
She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.
– Matthew 1:21
Wowza. The Son of God was born into the world to die for others. Now we are getting at a depth of God’s love.
No Greater Love
Ok. Let’s review. God is love. And God acts in love. Out of love, God created everything good. Adam and Eve messed up God’s goodness, thus polluting the purity of love. But God always had a plan of redemption for sinful man to experience God’s special love once again. Now here is how and why God’s love was on display.
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
– John 15:13
How did the Son of God die? By laying down his life. According to Jesus, the greatest act of love is self-sacrifice. And why did Jesus lay down his life? Because he considers any person elected in love a friend.
So yeah, the love of God is clearly seen this Christmas season. Next time you look at a manger scene, remember that baby Jesus was born into the world. Jesus grew up to be a man. And throughout his life, he never sinned. Not once. He had no earthly reason to be punished. But the crucifixion of Jesus was the only acceptable sacrifice to appease the wrath of God. Therefore, out of love, Jesus did what we could not do for ourselves. He took upon himself the punishment we deserve.
This is love.
Shawn Powers is the lead pastor of Redemption Hill Church. You can follow him on Twitter at shawn_DSM.