Outside the Camp

The first qual­ity of the com­pos­ite “fruit of the spirit” is “love”. The Greek word used here is agape. Agape is just one of the many Greek words for love. While it is sel­dom found in non-Biblical, ancient man­u­scripts in the Chris­t­ian scrip­tures it is the most fre­quently used word for “love”, appear­ing over one hun­dred times. Agape was also the favored Greek word for love in the Sep­tu­agint trans­la­tion of the Hebrew Scriptures.

In the Sep­tu­agint, agape is used in a vari­ety of dif­fer­ent ways. It is used for roman­tic love between a man and woman as used through­out Solomon’s Song of Songs. It is employed for fam­ily love; such as that that exists between fathers and sons (Gen­e­sis 22:2; 25:28; 44:20) It is used to show affec­tion that one might have toward his coun­try­man (Lev 19:18) his mas­ter (Exo­dus 21:5) his king (1 Sam 16:21) or his friends (1 Sam 20:17). It also exten­sively used to describe the spe­cial affec­tion that God has for his peo­ple (Deut 7:8; 1 Kings 10:9) and the deep love that they should have for him in return. (Duet 6:5). It is in this way that the agape is fully real­ized. Thus in the Psalms agape is used numer­ous times to describe affec­tion between humans and Heaven. The author of the 119 Psalm uses agape thir­teen times to describe his love for God’s laws, his words, his com­mand­ments, and his reminders.

In the Chris­t­ian Scrip­tures agape love is fur­ther ele­vated as the ideal to which dis­ci­ples of Christ strive for. It is the com­pos­ite love that is man­i­fest through­out the entire fam­ily of God, from Father to Son, from Christ to his body, from believer to believer, from God to the world. It is the very essence of God himself.

Before Jesus came to earth no man knew the heights of God’s love and this pro­hib­ited any man from really com­ing to know God. Jesus, as God’s Word, his chief mes­sen­ger revealed this love to us and allowed us an unob­structed view of the Deity him­self. (1 John 4:9; John 1;18) In his life our Lord phys­i­cally embod­ied love. As he loved those put into his care he was liv­ing exam­ple of his Father’s own love. (John 15:9)

When Jesus came to earth, God’s peo­ple were bur­dened by the reli­gious teach­ers of the day. Instead of teach­ing the Law of Moses, the legal­is­tic sect of the Phar­isees added to it numer­ous human tra­di­tions dis­guised as law. In doing so they ignored the spirit of the law and neglected impor­tant ele­ments like love for God. (Luke 11:42) Jesus pro­vided relief from that reli­gious sys­tem of bondage and pro­vided an eas­ier, gen­tle yoke. (Matthew 11:29,30) Instead of adding to the Law he dis­tilled it down to its very basic ele­ments – or spir­i­tual essence. When asked by an “expert in reli­gious law” about the great­est com­mand­ment in the Law Jesus answered affir­ma­tively, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” The sec­ond great­est was, “Love your neigh­bor as your­self.” (Matthew 22:37,39) The apos­tle Paul, him­self once a Phar­isee, came to real­ize this impor­tant point from the Lord for he too sum­ma­rized, “love is the ful­fill­ment of the law.” (Romans 13:10) Jesus stated that he came to earth to ful­fill the Law. (Matthew 5:17) He did so by lov­ing per­fectly down to the end as he lay down his life for the sake of the world.

Fur­ther­more on the night before his death Jesus com­manded his fol­low­ers three times to, “love one another”. (John 13:34; 15:12, 17) Jesus stressed that this agape love was to be the iden­ti­fy­ing mark of his true dis­ci­ples. (John 13:35) Jesus referred to this as a new com­mand­ment and he instructs his fol­low­ers to, “love one another. Just as I have loved you.” (John 13:34)

It could be asked, in what sense was this a new com­mand­ment? After all, as we have noted, love was com­manded in the Law of Moses and Jesus had ear­lier called atten­tion to the supe­ri­or­ity of law of love above all oth­ers. The answer is that it was a new com­mand­ment in the inten­sity of the love that would be dis­played. Jesus called them to love “as I have loved you”. Fur­ther elab­o­rat­ing on his own pow­er­ful love, Jesus stated, “No one has greater love than this — that one lays down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) Jesus would prove his love by will­ingly giv­ing his own life so that oth­ers would live. Agape is a self-sacrificing love so deep that a per­son will gladly lay down their life for oth­ers. The Law com­mand­ment that Jesus cited ear­lier required that a per­son love their neigh­bor as they loved them­selves. Jesus now gives the supe­rior stan­dard of lov­ing oth­ers more than we love ourselves.

The scope of our love is also extended along with the inten­sity of it. Jesus ampli­fies the Law when he said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neigh­bor’ and ‘hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemy and pray for those who per­se­cute you,” (Matthew 5:43,44) Our love is no longer restricted to those who will love us back — those who we would nor­mally be inclined to love. It’s not even con­fined to just fam­ily or neigh­bor. From Jesus’ per­spec­tive “our neigh­bor” becomes any­one within the scope our lives – even those that we may con­sider to be our ene­mies. He illus­trated this in his para­ble of the “good Samar­i­tan”. Therein, it was the Samar­i­tan, the reli­gious enemy of the Jew who proved to be the neigh­bor of the Jew, by show­ing love that tran­scended national ani­mos­ity, big­otry and prej­u­dice. (Luke 10:29–37) Such non-discriminate love brings great rewards. Lov­ing our ene­mies allows us be seen as “sons of the Most High, because he is kind to ungrate­ful and evil peo­ple.” (Luke 6:35)

When we reflect on Jesus’ com­mand to love as he had loved our mind may nat­u­rally look toward his sac­ri­fi­cial death; and rightly so, for this was the great­est exam­ple of love in the entire his­tory of the Uni­verse. How­ever it is impor­tant to note that he spoke in the past tense say­ing, “love … as I have loved you”. This was before his death so we must take notice of how his entire life course was one of self-sacrificing love. Paul later com­mented upon Jesus’ unselfish way of think­ing, saying,:

“You should have the same atti­tude toward one another that Christ Jesus had, who though he existed in the form of God did not regard equal­ity with God as some­thing to be grasped but emp­tied him­self, by tak­ing on the form of a slave, by look­ing like other men, and by shar­ing in human nature. He hum­bled him­self, by becom­ing obe­di­ent to the point of death — even death on a cross!” (Philip­pi­ans 2:5–8)

Jesus’ entire earthly life course was marked by that noble love. He was will­ing to forgo com­fort and totally expend him­self in the ser­vice of oth­ers. (Matthew 8:20) As Paul writes to the Corinthi­ans “love is not self-serving” — 1 Cor 13:5

As dis­ci­ples of Christ we are entrusted with this sacred task of show­ing love to the world; but, within the com­mu­nity of believ­ers such love should burn with a holy inten­sity. This is the essence of Chris­tian­ity. John is some­times called the “apos­tle of love” as he above all oth­ers really seemed to grasp the divine rev­e­la­tion of love in Jesus’ life and death. He was espe­cially endear­ing to Christ him­self for John was referred to as “the dis­ci­ple whom he loved”. (John 19:26) In a let­ter to a con­gre­ga­tion John dis­tills the gospel mes­sage to, “we should love one another” (1 John 3:11) Lov­ing our fel­low Chris­tians is the tes­ti­mony that we “have crossed over from death to life.” (1 John 3:14) Jesus’ own death is how we have “come to know love” and we are thus called to “lay down our lives for our fel­low Chris­tians”. (1 John 3:16) And while we would gladly die for our brother or sis­ter our whole life course should be of lov­ing self-sacrifice and putting the inter­ests of oth­ers ahead of our own. Love is more than just a life­less the­o­log­i­cal con­cept but a moti­vat­ing force for good. As John writes, “Lit­tle chil­dren, let us not love with word or with tongue but in deed and truth.” (1 John 3:18)

Through Christ we are brought into a com­mu­nity of believ­ers, called the church or ekkle­sia and it is in this forum that we are tested in per­fect­ing our love as fel­low chil­dren of God. It is here that we show our love for Jesus by tak­ing care of those who are his own. After his res­ur­rec­tion, Jesus stressed to Peter that if he truly loved him that he would shep­herd and feed his sheep. (John 21:15–17) Peter there­fore gives admo­ni­tion to “love one another earnestly”, to “love the fam­ily of believ­ers” (1 Peter 1:22; 2:17) He raises the promi­nence of love when he says, “Above all keep your love for one another fer­vent, because love cov­ers a mul­ti­tude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8)

Like­wise in the apos­tle Paul’s let­ters to the con­gre­ga­tion, love is held high above all other things and is the tonic for keep­ing the Chris­t­ian com­mu­nity alive and fruit­ful. A prime exam­ple is at Gala­tians 5:6 where Paul states that in the body of Christ the only thing that mat­ters is “faith work­ing through love.” One of the more pas­sion­ate dis­cus­sions of love by Paul is in 1 Corinthi­ans 13. He begins by saying:

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but I do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clang­ing cym­bal. And if I have prophecy, and know all mys­ter­ies and all knowl­edge, and if I have all faith so that I can remove moun­tains, but do not have love, I am noth­ing. If I give away every­thing I own, and if I give over my body in order to boast, but do not have love, I receive no ben­e­fit.” (v. 1–3)

In the first three verses Paul shows the supe­ri­or­ity of love over other Chris­t­ian pur­suits and empha­sizes how with­out love all of our works of faith are null and void. Like tongues and prophecy, love is a gifted through the Spirit of God; it the prime gift supe­rior to all oth­ers. He continues:

“Love is patient, love is kind, it is not envi­ous. Love does not brag, it is not puffed up. It is not rude, it is not self-serving, it is not eas­ily angered or resent­ful. It is not glad about injus­tice, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (v. 4–7)

In his list­ing of the fruitage of the spirit, love is first and fore­most. We here notice how some of the other qual­i­ties of the “fruit of the spirit” such as kind­ness, joy, peace, and long-suffering, are summed in love.

“Love never ends. But if there are prophe­cies, they will be set aside; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowl­edge, it will be set aside. For we know in part, and we proph­esy in part, but when what is per­fect comes, the par­tial will be set aside. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I rea­soned like a child. But when I became an adult, I set aside child­ish ways. For now we see in a mir­ror indi­rectly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I have been fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the great­est of these is love.” (v. 8–12)

Paul shows the endur­ing, per­ma­nent qual­ity of love. God is ever­last­ing and since God is love, love too is eter­nal. As we grow toward matu­rity and full­ness in the Christ we are gifted by the Holy Spirit to build up oth­ers in love. When we all reach com­plete matu­rity we will be love just as God is love. At that time our faith and hope will be met with the real­ity of the tran­scen­dent love that is God.

Paul wrote those words to a con­gre­ga­tion that was plagued by divi­sion and their gath­er­ings instead of build­ing up were tear­ing down the body of Christ. (1 Cor 1:12,13; 11:18) As Chris­tians we are encour­aged to meet together with our brethren in order “to spur one another on to good works.” (Hebrews 10:24, 25) The Corinthian Chris­tians had failed in that fun­da­men­tal pur­pose in meet­ing together. As a con­gre­ga­tion they had lost sight of the body of Christ and with it began to devalue each other. (1 Cor 12) The appro­pri­ate anti­dote to this bit­ter poi­son was man­i­fest­ing the love of God and Christ.

Sim­i­larly, to the con­gre­ga­tion in Colos­sae Paul wrote, “There­fore, as the elect of God, holy and dearly loved, clothe your­selves with a heart of mercy, kind­ness, humil­ity, gen­tle­ness, and patience, bear­ing with one another and for­giv­ing one another, if some­one hap­pens to have a com­plaint against any­one else. Just as the Lord has for­given you, so you also for­give oth­ers. And to all these virtues add love, which is the per­fect bond.” (Coloss­ian 3:13–14) Again Paul here stresses the pre­em­i­nence of love over Chris­t­ian qual­i­ties. The entire body of believ­ers is likened to a build­ing, specif­i­cally that of Almighty God. (1 Peter 2:4,5) With the tem­ple of Solomon no mor­tar was used and the stones where chis­eled and cut to fit and held in place by fric­tion. It is expected that in our rela­tions with fel­low “liv­ing stones” we will rub against each other from time to time; but, love, the “per­fect” or “com­plete” bond, will hold us together and cause us not to divide. Love is essen­tial to the suc­cess and growth of any body of believ­ers as love is the unit­ing force between us. (Phil 2:2)

In John’s writ­ings we have and unbri­dled view of full­ness of the shared love between the Father and his chil­dren, and between believ­ers. He calls to our atten­tion how God has loved us by call­ing us to be his chil­dren. (1 John 3:1) Like­wise when we “love one another” we reflect God’s love and this pro­vides evi­dence that we have been fathered by God and know him. (1 John 4:7) Jesus opened the way for us to enter God’s fam­ily as chil­dren of God. (John 1:12,13) The same eter­nal love that flows back and forth from Father to Son is extended to us as fel­low fam­ily mem­bers. When we gen­er­ate that love in our lives we prove that we are part of this fam­ily and we have con­fi­dence in our rela­tion­ship with God.

Love frees us from fear. Fear of death pre­vi­ously held mankind in slav­ery until we were released by Jesus’ lov­ing sac­ri­fice. (Hebrews 2:14, 15) Love releases mankind from fear of oth­ers and fear of death. We have con­fi­dence that our eter­nal lives, our soul is secure in God’s gra­cious hands and in the power of Jesus’ tri­umph over death. If called to, our love will take us to the death of our own phys­i­cal body. Paul writes, “God did not give us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and self-control.” (1 Tim­o­thy 1:7) Love also frees us from the fear of not mea­sur­ing up and falling into judg­ment. John writes, “There is no fear in love, but per­fect love dri­ves out fear, because fear has to do with pun­ish­ment. The one who fears pun­ish­ment has not been per­fected in love.” (1 John 4:18) We can be con­fi­dent of God’s love for us despite the dark­ness of our per­sonal past. As it is writ­ten, “God demon­strates his own love for us, in that while we were still sin­ners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8) God’s love tells us that we are good enough and thus we have faith in our eter­nal security.

The love that Jesus showed was in reflec­tion of his Father. John writes, “For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that every­one who believes in him will not per­ish but have eter­nal life”. (John 3:16) Just as Jesus proved his love for mankind by dying for all, our Father in heaven proved his. He unselfishly gave his very best, his only son, to the world. Few humans would will­fully die for another, and even fewer would give up their child for the sake of oth­ers; but God did this very thing for us. Who can argue against the awe­some, resplen­dent love of our Heav­enly Father? Paul asks, “If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not with­hold his own Son, but gave him up for all us, will he not with him also give us every­thing else?” (Romans 8:31,32)

One of the most won­der­ful con­cepts in the revealed Word is that God can live in us and through us when we love oth­ers. Peter calls this “his most mag­nif­i­cent and pre­cious promise … that we may become par­tak­ers of the divine nature.” The essence, or divine nature is love for “God is love.” (1 John 4:8) “God is love, and the one who resides in love resides in God, and God resides in him.” (1 John 4:16) Regard­ing Jesus, Paul writes, “For in him all full­ness of the deity lives in bod­ily form” (Colos­sians 2:9) So in Jesus, the full­ness of God’s love was made man­i­fest and yet the sacred truth is that we our­selves can become con­duits for God’s love. Paul prays that church in Eph­esus would, “know the love of Christ that sur­passes knowl­edge, so that [they] may be filled up to the full­ness of God. (Eph­esians 3:19) The same full­ness that dwelled within Jesus is man­i­fest in those who believe and love him. “The love of God has been poured out into our hearts” (Romans 5:5) By prac­tic­ing the truth in love we grow into a more pure bod­ily man­i­fes­ta­tion of Jesus Christ. (Eph­esians 4:15)

Love then becomes the bind­ing force at work within the fam­ily of believ­ers and it is a reflec­tion of that love that is the eter­nal force within the God­head. There is a pow­er­ful unity that exists between Father and Son; indeed, they are one. (John 10:30) We as chil­dren of God are invited into that union so that we too become one with the Father and the Son. (John 17:21) Through love, God resides in us just as he dwells in his Son Jesus. John con­firms this when he writes, “God is love, and the one who resides in love resides in God, and God resides in him.” (1 John 4:16) Though no one has seen God when we love oth­ers we bring a vis­i­ble rep­re­sen­ta­tion of him in the same man­ner that his Son showed him to the world.

Our love for oth­ers should be the nat­ural reflec­tion of the intense love that we have for our heav­enly Father and his Son, Christ Jesus. “We love because he loved us first.” (1 John 4:19) For exam­ple, we man­i­fest our love for Jesus by obey­ing his com­mand­ments, chief of which is his com­mand to love one another. (John 14:15) By lov­ing Jesus, our Father loves us in response, and Jesus loves us and reveals him­self to us. (John 14:21) This is because Jesus’ com­mands come from God the Father. When Jesus fol­lowed his Father’s com­mands he proved his love for him just as when we obey these com­mands we in turn become recip­i­ents for that same love. (John 15:10) Love of Christ brings is resound­ing sat­is­fac­tion and leads to our sal­va­tion, as Peter writes “You have not seen him, but you love him. You do not see him now but you believe in him, and so you rejoice with an inde­scrib­able and glo­ri­ous joy, because you are attain­ing the goal of your faith – the sal­va­tion of your souls.” (1 Peter 1:8,9) And for those who man­i­fest love for God and Christ we are brought into a bond that no man can sever. Paul asks rhetor­i­cally, “Who will sep­a­rate us from the love of the Christ?” The answer is no one and noth­ing for Jesus’ devo­tion to those who love him is intense and per­fect. “[Noth­ing] will be able to sep­a­rate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:35–39) This love then is ever­last­ing and the future is only bright for those who have come to know the love of God and we have just been given a token of what awaits us in the future for it is writ­ten “Things that no eye has seen, or ear heard, or mind imag­ined are the things God has pre­pared for those who love him.” (1 Cor 2:9)