What is Love? (Baby, Don't Hurt Me)

It seems that the hot topic in the church and in the world today is love. We read in 1 John 4:8 that he who does not love does not know God because God is love. This has led many to believe that, through an interpretation of this verse and perhaps other passages[1], that love (as they conceive of it) is the definition of God. Now I will go on record and make the theological statement (in agreement especially with John and Christ himself) that we can know God and know Him truly, though only in part.[2] But I will also encourage you to examine what you mean (and what John means) when you say that God is love.

We see God exhibit his love in manifold ways through the lens of Scripture. The Father loves the Son in a unique, intra-Trinitarian way. The Son is ultimately lovely and the love between the Father and Son is, in some systems, personalized into the Holy Spirit. God also shows his love by disciplining his people and pruning their sin. He shows his love through common grace, bringing rain down on the just and the unjust[3]. He showed his love by the specific act of sending Christ[4]. He shows a specific love toward his elect that he does not show toward those outside the fold[5]. I note these different manifestations of His love to complicate our definition. Love is not a sentimental, “Do what makes you happy”, emotion. In Luke 13, some people come to Jesus and tell him a story about Galileans who were murdered by Pilate during a religious service. Such a story is comparable to you being told about a number of Christians massacred by government-sanctioned terrorists during the Eucharist. How does Jesus respond? “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” Does that sound cold and callous to you? As a good Christian concerned with justice, don't you want to see the wicked punished and the righteous vindicated? That’s because you haven’t truly grasped Christ’s hatred of sin. You haven’t come into contact with the agonizing, excruciating pain that He experiences in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross. My challenge to you, as it is to myself, is to pray that God shows you the pain that sin causes and breaks your heart. Christ's commandments are to love God and to love your neighbor, but without the proper mobilization of the former, the latter is anemic. Our love has to be properly rooted in Truth, and we all know who the Truth is.

All of this is to encourage us, the Church, to love God and one another. And one clear manifestation of this is the church’s acknowledgement of the perniciousness and ubiquity of sin, both within and outside its “walls”. We must not tolerate it within our walls or within ourselves*. If we truly love our neighbors in the Church, we must be willing to confront them in their sin, whether it is adultery, lying or some other offense. At its core, if we are the people of God and therefore the body of Christ, we cannot allow a wound to fester. We have to be willing to treat it with salve, which will be initially painful but ultimately healing, or if the wound does not respond to treatment, the limb must be amputated.[6] Love does not delight in unrighteousness but it delights in the Truth. Let us delight in the Truth so that the world may know that we are His and that the love that the Father had for the Son in the beginning is now in us.

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[1] Lest I assume a biblical framework that is not holistic.

[2] 1 Corinthians 13:12

[3] Matthew 5:45

[4] John 3:16

[5] Exemplified in the privilege of Israel and the statement Paul quotes in Romans 9:13

[6] If you think this is harsh, read Matthew 18:15-17. Church discipline is a good, real thing. 
*Obviously the Church's authority is not binding for those outside, which Paul speaks on. But if someone is in severe, unrepentant sin and claiming to be a believer, Paul's got some stuff to say about that.