22.2 The Substance of Love
© 2015 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you (John 15:12). Jesus takes this commandment immediately into the actions of story AND into the impossible. Notice the “just as.” Can we be just like God? Can we love JUST AS Jesus loves? Yes, we can, but only as Jesus enters into us through our active faith to be all that He speaks, to be Himself as us.
In this lesson, however, we will not delve into the story into which Jesus casts this greatest passion of His heart. Rather, we must first place the substance and source of love, what it is and from whence it comes.
Clarity of Love
Love one another fervently with a pure heart (1 Peter 1:22b). Owe no one anything except to love one another (Romans 13:8a). Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God (1 John 4:7).
Therefore, be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma (Ephesians 5:1-2). But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. (Colossians 3:14).
Carried in Love
Reading through these verses on love immediately raises the point – BUT! – I certainly don’t love like this. Yes, that’s the whole reason why Christ must be our only life. In ourselves, being like God is certainly beyond us, but if we believe in ourselves, we are capable of trying – a little bit. In contrast, as we believe that these words ARE the Lord Jesus alive in our hearts, and that love IS perfected in us, then what was once impossible becomes our very hearts.
We never break our fellowship with God when we act momentarily in ways we would deem “unloving.” We know that Christ carries us through all things in love.
What Is Love?
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another (1 John 4:7-11).
1. God is love. 2. Love is NOT us loving God, but God loving us. 3. We love others ONLY out from God loving us.
God Is Love
God is love is the central part of the Father. God has three aspects. His form is Spirit and His expression is Light. But Love is His heart. God is love is the basis upon which we know God first and always as a Person, deeply, intimately personal. Love is the basis of person-hood.
But look at the incredible progression in 1 John 4. Love has nothing to do with our ability to produce – NOT that we love God. We are never the producer of love. God is Love. God enters into us, loving us. Then, God in us, loving us, flows out as our love for one another.
We Will Never Love
We will never love one another until we rest utterly in the Father in us loving us, loving every part of us, everything we are and all of our ways of doing things.
I will never love you until I know that the Father thinks that He would rather spend time with me, part of me, one person with me, more than anything else He could be doing in all creation. You will never love me until you know that the Father thinks that He would rather spend time with you, part of you, one person with you, more than anything else He could be doing.
Love flowing out of us has one source, the covenant bond of love by which we walk together as one person with the Father, utterly loved.
The Bond of Perfection
But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection (Colossians 3:14). It is clear that we cannot “put on love” except that we are putting on God. God alone is love.
But Paul says that love is the “bond of perfection.” We have seen that we are bound together as one person with the Father through the Lord Jesus Christ in every specific Word that He speaks. Word is the connection, but love is the glue.
Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world (1 John 4:17).
An Appearance of Love
Consider Paul’s stark declaration regarding the appearance of love at the beginning of his chapter on love. Someone can sell everything they have and give all of it to the poor – through their entire lives. And then, in a moment of desperate need, give themselves as a bodily sacrifice for others. Yet all of it is one big waste of time – because they do not love.
Because they do not God in them and God out from them.
You see, all humans would argue that their very life is love proven out. But Paul and John say no! The Person of God in me loving me is the only source of love.
The Foundations of Love
Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails (1 Corinthians 13:4-8b).
Alas, this is but an introductory course, and here we must focus only on the foundation for the story line that is love.
| Panta stegei | Panta pisteuei | Panta elpizei | Panta hypomenei |
| All bears | All believes | All hopes | All endures |
First we must ask this question. Is it “bears up under all things” or “bears for all?” Is it “hopes in all things” or “hopes for all?”
How Do We Hear?
The popular way of seeing and hearing places God over there and us over here. This God over there is “testing us” (except James says He never does) to see if we will believe in Him as we go through all things in life, to see if we will persevere under the load of everything that happens to us in life.
This way of “knowing” explains the translators’ choice of presenting these words, but the Greek allows us to hear and to know God in quite a different way. When we know that God in us alone is love, then we know that God does not “test” Himself, but that He proves Himself true. And thus here is how we read 1 Corinthians 13:7. Love bears for all, believes for all, hopes for all, endures for all.
Endures for All
- Hupomenó: to stay behind, to await, to endure. I remain behind, I stand my ground, I show endurance, I endure, I bear up against, I persevere. – Remaining under the load.
- Meno: to abide – as in “Abide in Me and I in you.”
- Hupo: by, under, about.
Patience, otherwise known as sharing heart with God. It’s not about us, it’s about God in us, loving us first and then flowing out from that communion of love, loving others.
I contend that hupomeno IS being the Mercy Seat for all.
For All
- Panta: all. This inflection of the word, pas, however, makes ALL the direct object, the ones benefiting from the action.
- Stego: to cover closely (so as to keep water out), generally to bear up under. I cover, I conceal, I ward off, I bear with, I endure patiently.
- Pisteuó: to believe, to entrust. I believe, I have faith in, I trust in; I am entrusted with. Comes from “I am persuaded by – the word God speaks.”
- Elpizó: to expect, to hope (for). I hope, I hope for, I expect, I trust. – Actively entwined with the expectation of God.
The Heart of Father
Yet we must be utterly grounded in God-IS. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance (hupomone – noun); and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us (Rom. 5:3-5).
Has been poured out – present perfect, beginning at some point in the past (Gethsemane) and made perfect and complete in every present moment. Because the Love of God is already first POURED OUT in our hearts, then all difficulty works in us the heart of Father.
The Shaping of the Human Heart
We are positioning for the most important session in this course, coming up next, the shaping of the human heart to contain and to reveal the heart of God Almighty.
We see that Paul uses the exact same words, here in Romans 5:3-5, that James used in “the testing of your faith produces patience,” even though the translators chose differing English words. More than that, Peter’s rendition of this same truth, “the genuineness of your faith, though it is tested by fire,” uses the same Greek word: dokimion, the fruit coming out of fire – glory – sharing heart with God.
But first we must know the story by which Heart is revealed.