10.3 Reciprocal Love
© 2018 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
Love one another. – What is reciprocal Love? Reciprocal Love is Father in Person.
In the long sentence of Ephesians 4:11-16, Paul begins with ministry and ends with the reciprocity among us through which Jesus constructs Father’s House. But in going from ministry to reciprocity, Paul places the mechanism that makes it all real. But, speaking the truth in love, (we) may increase in all things into Him. By speaking Christ into one another inside of Father, we may increase in all things into Christ who is causing us to be together Father seen and known.
Part of Christ. We speak what we see, and we see what we speak.
That the sharing (koinonia) of your faith may be energeoed by the acknowledgment of every good thing which is inside of (one another) into (becoming) Christ Jesus (Philemon 1:6). – Faith which energeoes through love (Galatians 5:6b). – Increase into (becoming) Him – the revelation of Father.
I guess what I am trying to say is that the seventh most important verse in the Bible is always our practical application. Our every interaction is part of Christ IF we are confident that our every interaction is part of Christ. And thus “increase” means coming to know what is already so.
Father in Person. So here you are visiting in a Christ Community as a guest. After the meal, you relax on the couch, watching the family wash the dishes. Some gravitate towards the cooking utensils, others towards the center counter used for washing the dining utensils. Some wash, some dry, and others put away. And while young and old, men and women, are busy washing the dishes together, they are laughing and talking.
What is it you are seeing? – Father Himself in Person. And what makes it Father Himself in Person? – The confidence inside each one busy working and talking that Father Himself IS all their connections together, that God is Love.
Going both Ways. Now, as I consider the patterns of home, the pattern of creating rooms inside and out, I draw from that two things. The first is that the house is always going in two directions at the same time. That a house for God in us and a house for us in God is happening simultaneously in everything we are doing. And the second is that there are many different functions of human life and of life together. At the same time, there are many rooms inside of God, rooms for one and rooms for many.
Then, when I bring Ephesians 3:17-19 into this way of thinking, I discover that the in-between part (verses 18 and 19a) is saying much more than we have considered. First, the measurements of verse 18 are going in both directions.
The Measurement of Christ. In other words, as the measurement of God, our place (or places) in Him is comprehensible on the one hand and without limit on the other. We can know God now, but our knowing will increase forever. Yet the measurement goes in the other direction as well, the measure that is each individual member, each believer in Jesus, a room for God, the revelation of Jesus Christ.
But we know from Ephesians 4:16 that Jesus builds Father’s House through or via the connections among believers in every local church – for such is the measurement or fullness of Christ. Then we look at Ephesians 3:19a – knowing the love of Christ.
Surpassing Love. As I look more closely at the Greek of Ephesians 3:19a, I see that the meaning of “knowing a love which passes knowledge” is not actually what Paul said. The love of Christ is surpassing, but Paul was not thinking only of how much Jesus loves each one of us. Yes, each one of us must know how much we are loved, but that is not the revelation of God.
The love of Christ is reciprocal love – a love flowing back and forth between Father and Son. That some love, then, we also know in the back and forth among us together in every local church. The love Paul wants us to know, the Love inside of which is found all the fullness of God, is reciprocal Love.
Father Living. Reciprocal Love is not that which builds the place where Father lives. Reciprocal Love is Father living.
The false Adamic “self,” in its judgment, must see itself as fiercely independent in order to “stay free” from all those contemptible others. Then, when that same false self sees, either in the Spirit of Christ or in the spirit of Marx, that individualism is unreal and destructive, it rushes into collectivism, which is even more unreal and destructive than individualism.
There is no “self-abasement” in reciprocal love, no loss of our persons in the “group.” Reciprocal love is giving honor to others AND receiving honor in return. Reciprocal love is us living.
Marriage Love. Now, some of us have some small experience of reciprocal love inside our marriage. And those who might think that such an honor was not found in their marriage, still we have some idea of what marriage love should be, a back and forth in honor.
Yet it is ridiculous that I should be teaching this topic. I’m not very good at reciprocal love. I do a bit to support my wife, but not as much as she needs; I know that. And she does more to support me than I deserve. I know that as well. It does make some sense, however, for God to have me, in particular, talking about something quite beyond my abilities. That is, I KNOW that if I am to know this love of Christ, this reciprocal Love flowing back and forth between me and other believers, then I need Father Himself in Person to be that Love.
The Hostile Self. When people first move into Christian community, the hostile self is dominant, much more than they imagine in their estimation of themselves as being “spiritually mature.” And the hostile self, in looking at these “low” others, sees their differences to be a threat.
For instance, I have never enjoyed sports. But sports on television I loathe. In fact, I know boredom in only one setting, that is, when I am forced to sit in a room with a football game on TV. Thus, in my early years in community, when I saw brothers in the community “glued” to the sports channel on their radio, I saw their interest as UNGODLY.
Enjoying Your Enjoyment. At the same time, I have been in situations where my dislike of sports was seen as a threat by those who immersed themselves in sports.
Inside of the love of Christ, however, I now see you as your own wondrous person, your own personal expression of my Jesus. For that reason, I am very interested in you, in what you enjoy and do. That does not mean that I must like watching sports if that’s what you do. It means I enjoy your enjoyment of sports while you highly regard me in my dislike of what you enjoy. Your being different from me is not a threat to me, but rather my unending wealth – and vice versa.
Valuing One Another. Individualism views differences in others with hostility. Collectivism solves the differences in others by the force of the leading individual of a group imposing his or her ways on everyone else.
Reciprocal love enjoys one another, bearing one another’s burdens, even while setting one another free.
Individualism is hostile selves hacking away at all other hostile selves. Collectivism is many hostile selves bowing in conquered subservience, that is fear, to the most violent self. (Using God as a whip is the worst form of violence.)
Reciprocal love is the pure and holy enjoyment of one another’s differences, each an expression of Father.
Our Faith Is God’s Channel. Let’s return to the central portion of Ephesians 4:16. Joined and held together through every member’s supply, according to the energeia by which every part contributes its measure.
God’s body, that is, God made visible, happens in the joining together, the built together, the held together. The word “through,” that is, the Greek dia, is always positioning faith for us. Christ comes through our faith to reveal Father. Thus the supply and energeia of each member is not the source of God made visible, but the channel. God is fully responsible for making symmorphy in koinonia actually work; our part is to believe that He IS.
Supply. The “supply” is not a verb, but a noun; each member’s supply. And each member’s supply is humanly limited and divinely unlimited. Respect means that I never expect you to be “all that God is,” yet I always expect God through you. I allow you to be limited, even while I see and know an unlimited Father coming to me through every interaction with you. – And vice versa. You allow me to be limited, even while you see and know an unlimited Father coming to you through every interaction with me.
Our expectation is always in God, never against one another.
Great Weight of Value. I want to consider further two allélón verses.
Carry one another’s great weight of value, and thus you shall fulfill [complete the measurement of] the law of Christ. (Galatians 6.2 – JSV). – And be kind with one another, tender-hearted, forgiving [giving favor to] each other, in exactly the same way that God inside of Christ gave favor freely to you (Ephesians 4:32 – JSV). (I am now calling my own paraphrase of the New Testament the Jesus Secret Version – JSV from here on.)
I am coming to know, in the certainty of my own faith, the favor of God towards me in which I live and move and have my being. Then I turn and, in that same faith, extend that same favor freely to you.
Not Burden but Value. Yes, looking up the Greek word, baros, translated “burden,” I discover that it actually means that which is of great value, substance, and significance. We always thought it meant “sympathizing with people’s problems,” or “putting up with one another.” But baros is translated elsewhere as “eternal weight of glory.” And in this case, both “weight” and “fulfill” are, in actuality, terms of measurement – the measurement of Christ.
The key word in Galatians 6:2, however, is allélón, that is, reciprocity, or one another. You are NOT a burden to me; you are all the measure of Christ given to you. – And vice versa.
NOT a One-Way Love. And this I have never known – to walk together with other believers in Jesus as the local Church, in a Community of Christ, and in our daily back and forth, seeing each other as the measurement of the great value that is Christ, Jesus Himself coming to me through your own measure of Him and Jesus Himself coming to you through my own measure.
You see, my side, then, is always my laying down my life for you, for indeed, to extend the same favor towards you in which I walk is for me to give myself away. But that’s not what we are talking about, essential background, yes, but we are contemplating reciprocal love, a mutual giving and receiving of Father Himself in Person. There is only one way such a thing could be, and that is our believing that God IS.
Faith in spite of Ignorance. I think you have seen all through this session, that I have taken on a topic I know almost nothing about. Yet, in never having known Reciprocal Love, God as all our connections together, that is, the First Day of the Feast of Tabernacles, I still do what the gospel teaches me to do. I speak what God speaks as if it is my only reality.
This is what it means to call forth Christ into the human experience, the Ekenosis, calling forth God into visibility, God having a Body through which He is able to express Himself in creation. And that is to believe with all assurance of faith that God IS, in fact, all of our connections together, even when we do not see.
When We Hurt One Another. So – what about when I act in thoughtless ways, when I hurt others with my gross inability to relate? Is God “inside” such interaction? Yes, even when I do something that hurts you and you do something that hurts me, God still walks in full symmorphy with us, in our koinonia, our life together. God comes always and only through our faith.
Nothing is good in itself, even when I “treat you right.” If I did everything you think I should do to “prove” that I love you, still it would be a meaningless waste of time. It is through our faith that we, working with Father and Father with us, turn all things towards goodness.
Known in Weakness First. Even when I do badly, and offend and feel bad and ask forgiveness, receiving forgiveness in return, even such interaction we place inside our full union with Christ, knowing that Jesus carries in Himself all of our interaction together.
Let’s return, now, to our first placement of Ephesians 4:16; let’s place again these words. [God’s Body], joined and held together through every member’s supply, according to the energeia by which every part contributes its measure.
The awfulness of the hostile world in which we live, the gross darkness and strong delusion pressing down upon our brethren, all of it rules the human experience because God is not known. God is known only through the reciprocal energeia and supply among believers in Jesus, and that, only by faith.
No Greater Treasure. It is an incontestable fact that God is not known in this world. It is the unending contention of all that I teach that God’s PURPOSE is to be known by all.
And it is the deepest definition of Symmorphy that shows us that this greatest of all Wonders, God making Himself visible, comes through the mutual sharing, the deepest valuing, of the great wealth that is Christ in the measure, the energeia, of each one of us, given to the other, through all the interactions among us in life together as the Church.
There is no greater treasure to be won than to be a member of that Body when, for the first time, the entire cosmos stops dead in its tracks and says, “Look at those Christians LOVING ONE ANOTHER. Okay, now we KNOW that is God now, through Jesus Sent, walking this earth.”
Yet our great Treasure is not the acknowledgment of the world; our great treasure is possessing one another as Jesus Himself.