1 John 4:7-10; The Passion History – Part 2: Gethsemane
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
There are many things that can be inferred about God from the Holy Scriptures: God is almighty, eternal, immutable, omniscient, omnipresent, holy, a spirit, good, gracious, faithful, etc. While these attributes are all certainly true and appropriate, we need to be careful, however, not to infer more than what Scripture has plainly revealed about God, or to claim something affirmative about God when Scripture is silent. In respect of such caution, there is school of theological thought called apophatic theology, or negative theology, in which nothing is stated in the affirmative concerning God, but only in the negative. For example, in apophatic theology, it could be said that God is not omniscient or omnipotent, for such words are limited by virtue of their being human and creaturely and they simply cannot capture or communicate in fullness what it means for God to be omniscient or omnipotent. We see a little bit of this type of thinking in the Nicene Creed when we confess that God the Father is the maker of all things “visible and invisible,” and that Jesus Christ is “begotten, not made.” To confess that God is the maker of things that are “visible” is an affirmative statement that cannot capture the fullness of what it means that God has made all things, thus the negative “invisible” is also used to bolster its meaning. Likewise, to confess that Jesus Christ is “begotten” is an affirmative statement that is bolstered by the negative “not made.” Perhaps this strikes you as odd or purely academic – and that is fine – but hopefully it causes you to pause a moment to consider how limited our language truly is, particularly when trying to describe our limitless God. Therefore, it is always best to stick with what God’s Word in the Holy Scriptures has plainly said and not infer more than it has said nor rationalize away what it has said because it seems difficult or impossible to human reason.
Quite often, when we talk about God and His attributes, someone will counter saying, “You can’t put God in a box.” The Swiss theologian Jean Calvin struggled with precisely that issue when considering the manner of Christ’s presence in the Sacrament of the Altar. Because Jesus had ascended bodily to the right hand of the Father in heaven, Calvin posited, He could not possibly be in the bread and the wine on the altar at the same time. Relatedly, Calvin also posited that because the bread the wine are finite objects, they cannot possibly contain the physical body and blood of Jesus who is infinite. In other words, subjecting the Holy Scriptures to fallen human reason and logic, Calvin was arguing, “You can’t put God in a box.” While it is surely true that mere mortal creatures cannot put God in a box, there are times, however, that God, according to the clear testimony and meaning of Scripture, seemingly puts Himself in a box. The Sacrament of the Altar is precisely one of those times, as are Jesus’ incarnation and virgin birth and His bodily resurrection, ascension, and Parousia on the Last Day.
It shouldn’t surprise you that God is challenging to define, to put in a box. After all, God is before all things and the source, origin, and Creator of all things. What can the pot say concerning the potter who made it? Thus, if we are to affirm anything about our God we must turn to His Word, the Holy Scriptures, and what He has revealed concerning Himself through this means. This Lent we are meditating upon one of the chief attributes God has revealed concerning Himself: “God is love.” Three simple, unambiguous words: God – is – love. You want to know something about our mysterious and inscrutable God? Well, this is it: God – is – love. We cannot put God into a box, but God has put Himself into a box, so to speak – a heart-shaped box, for God is love. We cannot know much about God, but we do know something about love – imperfectly, mind you, but still. By exploring this love, by sharing this love with one another and with others we can know something about our God who is love.
St. John says that “love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.” In other words, if you have love, that love is from God. And, if you are able to love another, that is because of God’s love for you. For, when you love others, you love them with God’s love. Your love is God’s love flowing through you so that you are both the beneficiary and the benefactor of God’s love. On the contrary, John continues, “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” And so it is that the love of God is made manifest through us.
Of course, we do not know God’s love as an emotion, but as a will, a disposition, and as an action. That is to say, we do not know God’s love in an abstract way, but we know God’s love in an intensely personal way: We know God’s love in Jesus Christ and Him crucified. “In this the love of God was made manifest among us,” St. John proclaims, “that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him.” This is the same St. John who penned the Gospel in a nutshell: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” Let me unpack the meaning of this too-familiar passage: God loved the world in this way – He gave His only Son Jesus Christ over to death on the cross for the sins of the world and every single man and woman in it so that absolutely anyone who trusts in Jesus, regardless of what he has done or she has left undone, should not perish eternally, but instead should share in Jesus’ eternal life. This is what it means that God is love. This is what God’s love looks like and does. God’s love looks like the Father giving His Son as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. God’s love looks like the Son so loving His Father that He willingly laid down His own life unto death for the world and the men and women in it He loved so much and in this way.
“In this is love,” John continues, “not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” As I stated earlier, we do not have this love within ourselves unless God has poured His love into us. Unless we have been the undeserving recipients of God’s love, we have no love for God, no love of God for ourselves, and no love to share with others. Because God has loved us, however, we do have love for others, and, as Jesus empowered us in His New Commandment, we are to love others as He has loved us, and by this act of loving others, others will know that we are Jesus’ disciples – they will know we are Jesus’ disciples when we have love for one another.
What can we say about God? Let us say what God has said about Himself through St. John: “God is love.” The next question, necessarily then, is “What then is love?” St. John has answered that question as well: God’s love is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. This is how God so loved the world. What does it mean for us to love God? To love God is to love those whom God loves, your brother and sister in Christ, your neighbor, your enemy. Jesus has commanded you, which means He has empowered you and sent you to love with His love. It’s not about thinking, and it’s not even about doing, but it’s about being. As St. John has said, “We love because he first loved us.”
In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment