Articles
Self-Sacrificial Love Commanded
“By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him” (1 John 4:9). God’s love is self-giving, unselfish, and concerned with the well-being of His creation. People often love themselves, or perhaps love others to the brink of self-sacrifice, but nobody has loved us as freely, openly, and fully as God. By virtue of our creation God loves us (John 3:16) – after spending the time and energy to design us and put us in this universe, He is now doubly concerned over our spiritual well-being. “He would not have made us only to ignore us or treat us with indifference… He is concerned not only to give us positive blessings of His good creation, but to remove the negative consequences of sin. Thus in terms of concern, God does not love us less now that we are sinners; He loves us even more” (God The Redeemer, Cottrell, p. 337). It should impress us that God loves us so much in spite of our sin. It goes to show that even if I have nothing in worldly terms (because of hardships) and even less in spiritual terms (because of my sins), God still loves me. He loves us even when we are stripped of everything. Even though we are nothing more than sinners in our world, the love with which God loves us is incomparable (Romans 5:8).
This is, perhaps, the hardest kind of love to emulate because it does not necessarily come naturally. We do not always have a fond affection for those we are called to love unselfishly. In fact, our feelings might be quite the opposite, as Jesus instructs us to love our enemies and do good to them (Matthew 5:44ff). I don’t know how much I “like” my enemies, or have any affection or kinship with them, but I am expected to love them, nevertheless. This is why it is so important to understand the difference between the various kinds of love in the scriptures. While our language has one generic word for “love”, as we know the Greeks have several different words which have all clumsily been translated as “love” in English. I am not commanded to “eros” (passionate sensual love) my enemies, certainly! I am not necessarily commanded to “phileo” (familial and friendship love) my enemies either. But we must express a selfless, sacrificial “agape” love toward them. This kind of love is what defines us, as we see from John 13:34-35. It is how others will know who we are, and what sets us apart.
