Defining
Biblical Love. Galations 5:14
Galatians
When we come to this particular verse it starts
off with a reminder, expressed here in the clause that starts off in the Greek
with the word gar [gar]. Whenever we
see this word we immediately know that we are getting an explanation of
something that precedes. What exactly is the apostle
Paul explaining? He has just made a rather harsh, sarcastic statement in verse
12: “I wish that those who are troubling you would even mutilate themselves.”
Paul is very strong in his rejection of the teaching of these people; it is not
helpful at all. Our society today brings to these questions like love and care
a whole series of assumptions and presuppositions. If defines love in terms of
emotion and sentimentality. The result of psychology in the last 100 years has
been to change our focus from the objective external to the subjective
internal, and what we focus more and more on is what is going on inside of a
person, getting in touch with our emotions, letting our emotions out,
expressing our emotions, and all of this kind of subjectivity which just
emphasizes a lot of instability. Emotions are inherently unstable and they
shift with the circumstances so that when things are going well we respond one
way but as soon as things change we react the other way.
When we read something like this we can be
absolutely appalled at the apostle Paul, but the problem is we don’t understand
love. We define it in terms of emotion and sentimentality, in terms of
From this we see that love must be based
on absolute values which in turn must be based on absolute virtue. There is no
absolute virtue in the human realm and human experience because every human
being is tainted by sin and the sin nature, so the only place that we have
absolute virtue is in the character and essence of God because God is absolute
righteousness, and that is the source of all virtue for love to have any value.
If love is going to have value in any human relationship and not be subservient
to the shifting winds of circumstances then love must be based on an absolute
virtue that is grounded in the character of God.
Mankind lacks absolute virtue and in order
for him to have any kind of enduring love he must have an absolute foundation for
that love. So we learn from this that true love is going to begin with personal
love for God the Father. For there to be any true love with any virtue and any
significance, with absolute virtue at its core, then it must begin with
personal love for God the Father. Personal love for God the Father is generated
from doctrine. You cannot love someone you do not know. Love is a result of
knowledge. True love for God begins by learning doctrine, it doesn’t just
happen. From this we learn that only when God is the model and the motive for
love can we fulfill the mandate to love other believers. Because of Paul’s
person al love for God the Father and because of his orientation to doctrine
and love for the truth he is able to exhibit impersonal love towards the Galatian believers and toward the Judaizers, and in the
process he castigates and reproves the Judaizers, and
warns the Galatians not to fall into their false legalistic teachings.
The doctrine of personal love for
God the Father
1.
Personal love for
God the Father is one of the ten stress-busters that we have been studying that
God has provided for handling the outside pressure of adversity. Adversity and
testing are the two realms of testing that we face in the spiritual life.
2.
These
stress-busters are related to our development in the spiritual life. They are a
fortress that God has provided to strengthen our soul and to defend our soul
against the outside pressure of adversity.
3.
The love triplex
develops simultaneously. If we advance in personal love for God the Father it
has its impact in our ability to exhibit impersonal love an unconditional love
for all mankind and to focus on Jesus Christ in occupation with Christ.
4.
When Jesus
summarized the entire law He did it in terms of love. Matthew 22:35-37 NASB
“One
of them, a lawyer, asked Him {a question,} testing Him, ‘Teacher, which is the
great commandment in the Law?’ And He said to him, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE
LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND
WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’” This is a quote from Deuteronomy 6:5. The principle here is
that we have to make God the highest priority in our life. This happens
dynamically as we learn to recover fellowship through confession of sin, and we
have the filling of the Holy Spirit and through the faith-rest drill and grace
orientation. Through the faith-rest drill we learn the promises of God, the
provisions of God, and begin to mix things with the promises of God. We apply
those in the midst of testing and adversity, and under grace orientation we
begin to learn all that God has freely provided us—that we don’t have to earn
it or deserve it, we don’t have to gain God’s blessing or barter with God for
His blessing. Grace orientation means that God has given us everything at the
moment of salvation. Our responsibility is to begin aligning our thinking with
Bible doctrine—doctrinal orientation. As we align ourselves with doctrinal
orientation under the filling of God the Holy Spirit, and we begin by using the
faith-rest drill and begin to appreciate God’s grace, we begin to grow and
advance spiritually. It takes time. As we do this we begin to learn about God,
about what he has done for us, and we begin to develop appreciation for who God is and what he has done. Jesus went on to say: Matthew
22:39 NASB “The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’” The word there for neighbor is the
word plesion [plhsion] which is a word
which means anyone who comes into your sphere of life. [40] “On these two
commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
5.
How do we love the Lord? How do we measure our love for God the
Father? The Bible’s criterion: Deuteronomy 11:1 NASB “You shall
therefore love the LORD your God, and always keep His charge, His statutes, His
ordinances, and His commandments.” The love for the Lord is related there to
obedience to divine mandates. [13] “It shall come about, if you listen
obediently to my commandments which I am commanding you today, to love the LORD your God and to
serve Him with all your heart and all your soul.” Again, it is related to
priorities, obedience, mandates, and to serving God. [22] “For if you are
careful to keep all this commandment which I am
commanding you to do, to love the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways and
hold fast to Him”—exclusivity, passion, intensity for God is part of loving the
Lord and obedience to His mandates. This includes rejecting false doctrine,
which implies that you know doctrine well enough to be able to spot and reject
false doctrine. That means we have to spend much time in Bible class learning
what the Bible teaches so that we can spot the errors. Deuteronomy 13:3 NASB “you
shall not listen to the words of that [false] prophet or that dreamer of dreams;
for the LORD your God is
testing you to find out if you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all
your soul.” Deuteronomy 19:9 NASB “if you
carefully observe all this commandment which I command
you today, to love the LORD your God, and to walk in His ways always…”
[30:6] “Moreover the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and
the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with
all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live… [16] in that I command you today to love the LORD
your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and
His judgments, that you may live and multiply, and that the LORD
your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it.” Joshua
6.
The point that Jesus is making in
reiterating the Old Testament passage is that the highest priority for the
believer is personal love for God the Father. It is derived first by learning
doctrine and is at its essence an activity of the cognitive function of the
mentality of the soul that works itself out in terms of obedience to divine
mandates.
7.
Relationship with God takes priority over relationship with men. Relationship
with God affects our relationship with others. We do not adjust our
relationship with people first so that we can think that because we get along
well with others we have a good relationship with God. The Bible does not say
that fellowship is social interaction with other believers. In fact, when we do
have fellowship, spoken of in terms of human fellowship, the center point of that
social interaction is doctrine and Christ. So that what we are doing right now
(studying in Bible class) is the height of the biblical concept of Christian
fellowship—we are studying the Word of God and are focused on that. Acts
8.
Personal love for God is the motivation and provides the only
virtue and integrity for unconditional love to function. Personal love for God
motivates impersonal love for all mankind.
9.
Matthew