Introduction

God’s love should be the central matter in the life of mankind. In the letters of John we find a type of love unknown to the natural man who has not been born again and that emanates from the heart of a regenerated live by the Holy Spirit that inhabits in the believer in Christ, in a Christ-man who has taken us to the same presence of the Father, from who’s heart that love emanates. The Bible however shows different types of love: God’s love for man, the love of the natural man that may be to other people or things in the world. But for the Church to be united in Christ, for the Church –and every church that form it in the world in history– it may be seen as the true disciples of Yahshua, Jesus Christ, who proved that there is no greater love than the one of who gives his life for his friends (John 15:13), something that John has experienced before and latter explained (1 John 4:7-21), it is necessary that amongst the brothers in Christ that love that John has exposed in the three letters that have his name, and that was inspired by the Holy Spirit, can be seen and experienced. In this work we will see love under the complete perspective, beginning with love in all his forms, from God and from love under the Biblical prism, and after we will look into the love of God in specific and how this love has been perceived and experienced as a base on which we can then expose the development of the exposition of the type of love that the letters of John teach so we can tell the difference that love makes in comparison with other types of love: of God that comes from Him, and the one of the natural man. Once we have developed and analyzed the exposition that John makes in his letters of the type of love that Bible teaches, we will be able to realize that they are one of the pillars of the New Testament towards guaranteeing the true love that they expose so the Church can have the reference of the true Christian in all ages.

 

Love in The Bible

Love in the Bible covers all kind of love there are. Both God’s love, as well as man’s love, in its facets of goodness, jealousy, carnal passion, to the material, to money “root of all evils” (1 Ti. 6:10) or the love in Song of Songs[1], shows the love of Solomon to the Shulammite, and hers for the king, that has so many times been interpreted as the love of God to the Church, but we can use for the love in marriage. John’s Gospel and his three epistles show a type of love that it is not natural to man, but that is given by God and it is outside the rational, for our nature reveals against God’s nature, and is egoist which reminded me of the book of John Eldredge[2] that deals with the wild heart of man before he knows God, and how is the fight for the heart that at the end God wins through faith. This is also related with the social condition of man, developed in a given environment who learns how to relate on a human way waiting to be accepted and to accept others to be able to love them and be loved, which is within the basic needs of man[3] in God’s plan for family on the base of the cultural anthropology in three purposes of marriage that God has created between a man and a woman: partnership, complement and procreation, roles in which to develop love. On the other hand we may also find in the Bible God’s love as the foundation of Christian missions in the world, where one can see love to the neighbour is staged here as something with a supernatural[4] call, for it is Christ himself who cares for the lost man to make him a massager and ambassador, for his beginning and end come from God, for it is not a human cause, but a divine mission.

The books in the Bible that mostly emanate the love of God for man and the love of man for God, as well as the fraternal love between the believer and others, are Psalms, Song of Songs, the Gospel of John and the three letters of John. That does not mean that other books do not expose the love of God, such as it does in the letters of Paul (1 Corinthians 13), or Peter (1 Peter 4:8), but we can say that John is the author of love.

To go deeper into the origin of love from understanding and meaning we can use resources like Biblical dictionaries. In the Biblical Dictionary Vila-Escuain[5] we read that love in the Old Testament comes from the Hebrew word ahabah to describe the love between Jacob and Rachel (Ge. 29:20) or of David for Jonathan. Also, in the New Testament we find agape to describe love or divine origin, from the Father to the Son (John 3:35) or of God to the world (John 3:16) that Paul describes in its full splendour (1 Corinthians 13); the word eros does not appear as it focuses to desire and avidity. We also find the term philantropia for love focused to man (Titus 3:4) from the father to the son like Abraham for Isaac, from the husband to the wife. This series concludes that the Bible teaches about love, that God “is” love, not that it is one of His gifts, but His own essence. If God is love and love is of God, man cannot do more than desire that love that he does not know naturally but that God gives.

 

The Love of God

About the love of God that He gives man, following the previous chapter, we see that our Lord has always managed to communicate with us to show us that love, a love that He describes the following way: “For so God loved the world that He gave His only begotten Sun, so that whoever believes in Him, shall not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16. Of this love we are going to talk now. In the book The City of God from Saint Augustine[6] he talks about such a city has its foundations on the love of God. According to Augustine there are two cities, each has its foundations on a love. The one of God that we have mentioned and that is based in the love of God, and another one with its foundations on the love to one self. If we want to live the love of God in that city of the heart, we will see, as Millard Erickson says in his book Systematic Theology[7] about the goodness of God, and inside the chapter His love includes: Benevolence, Grace, Mercy, Persistence and continues with another point: love and justice of God, a point of tension? Love is the first attribute of God. But what caught my attention and would like to point out is “persistence (Hebrew: ‘erek ‘appayin – Ex. 34-6; and Greek makrothumia)” referring to His love for us, because our God is: “longsuffering and abundant in mercy.” (Psalm 86:15). God’s love never fails, like it teaches the book of Isaiah 49:15-16 in that it is unalterable and infallible. Also the love of God includes having placed His Holy Spirit in us, who are His temple, and claims in us “Abba, Father” every day and in each moment having given us an eternal link with the Father, in Christ (1 John 1:3) Charles Spurgeon tells in his inspired book “Holy Spirit” [8].

The Bible includes some verses as relevant about the love of God, that I would like to point out, like Psalm 91:14: “Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him on high, because he has known My name.” Or Jeremiah 31:3: “The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying: “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with loving kindness I have drawn you.” The apostle Paul in line with the apostle John teaches about love in Colossians 3:14: “And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.” Also the apostle Peter in his first letter 4:8: “And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.” These three apostles are three columns of Christianity that show the great unity of the Revelation of God about His love for His beloved Church through His chosen and that we are all taught that God loves us and in how much He does. Rick Warren, in his love “Purpose Driven Church[9]” talks about the love of Christ in action when He would congregate the multitudes. These where lost people, not saints, people to whom He would show His love spending time with them and teaching them, to the point that He did not care that they called Him “friend of sinners” by the religious, while the wounded and the children gravitated around Him. Our challenge is how to love our neighbour in the same way as Jesus loves us. That is the subject of the next publication. In the meantime let us exercise in mercy and love of God.

Read Part II

[1] Holy Bible, New King James. (Bible Gateway), Song of Songs.

[2] John Eldredge. Wild At Heart. Discover the Secrets of a Man’s Soul. Nashville, Tennessee, (Thomas Nelson, 2001), 130.

[3] Stephan A. Grunlan, y Marvin K. Mayers. Antropología Cultural, Una Perspectiva Cristiana. (Editorial Vida, 1988), 164-165.

 

[4] Hayward, Armstrong, Mark McClellan, Davis Sallis. Introducción a la Misiología. Reaching and Teaching International Ministries. (Louisville, Kentucky, USA, 2011), 14. 

[5] Ventura, Samuel Vila. “Nuevo Diccionario Bíblico Ilustrado”. (TERRASSA, Barcelona:

Editorial CLIE, 1985), 51.

[6] Justo L. González. Historia del Cristianismo. Tomo I.( Miami. EE.UU.: Unilit, 1994), 229.

[7] Millard J, Erickson. Teología sistemática. Viladecavalls, Barcelona. España. Editorial CLIE, 2008), 316-320.

[8] Charles Spurgeon. Holy Spirit. (New Kensington. P.A. Whitaker House, 2000), 146.

[9] Rick Warren. Purpose Driven Church. (Grand Rapids, Michigan. Zondervan, 1995), 208.