by J. Christian Andrews
November 2, 2015
"These things I command you, so that you will love one another." - Jesus (John 15:17 ESV)
There is a great deal of talk about love “out there.” The slogan d’jour is “Love wins.” It’s on signs in love parades and has been widely shown and seen in popular culture love fests and rallies. What most of this chatter misses, though, is a clear definition of love.
In popular culture, love is more than likely a fluffy, cosmic ball of good feelings. Under this definition, love is the sentiment that says everything that feels good is good. To be loving is to allow anyone to create their own definition of good according to the good feelings that well up inside a person. There is a great subjectivity to this ideology. If you make me feel good or if you allow me to feel good then you love me. When I am allowed to feel good, then clearly love is winning.
Conversely, this subjective interpretation of love can lead to negativity when there is any questioning or criticism of those good feelings. If I feel excluded, if I feel condemned, or even if I feel like someone is even questioning my good feelings and the conclusions I draw about those feelings, I am not being loved. In such cases it is not love that is winning. Instead bigotry or hatred is winning, and by implication love is losing. The fluffy, cosmic ball of good feelings is being challenged.
That the idea of love fills the pages of Holy Scripture is without question, but how do we understand the love of the Bible, the love of God, the love we are commanded to have for one another? Is God telling us to jump on board the cosmic ball of good feelings band-wagon?
A deeper look at God’s word for love will reveal a completely different idea than the one advertised on the “Love Wins” placards. The word God uses for love is a rare one in the popular literature of the ancient Greeks. It is a word that is really unique to the Holy Writings. It differs considerably from the contemporary idea that love is about feelings at all. God’s word is actually about self-sacrifice, and it is exemplified in what God has done for us. First God saw our desperate need, a need caused by our inborn desire to rebel against His laws, against His standards for life. This rebellion caused a deep rift between us and God, a rift which we cannot span no matter how hard we try. To span the rift, God became a human being so that a perfect human being could suffer the consequences of our rebellion for us and thus also span the rift we cannot span. God came to us in Jesus who died willingly for us, experiencing for us the punishment our rebellion deserves. Jesus actually became our sin so that we could become His righteousness. God showed His love, and that He is love, by this cosmic act of self-sacrifice. There are really no feelings involved and certainly no condoning of those acts that “make us feel good.” Instead there is condemnation that is relieved by God’s self-sacrifice.
This then is the attitude we, the redeemed, are called to emulate. When we are told to love, we are not told to condone everyone’s ideas about what makes them feel good. When we are told to love, we are called to a life of self-sacrifice. Instead of hanging on to what we want and demanding to get our own way, we are called to do right for each other. This is where, indeed, love wins.