The greatness of love

Published in God's Message (Pasugo) magazine, Feb 2007

WHEN THE PHARISEES asked our Lord Jesus Christ which the great commandment in the law is, He answered that the first and great commandment is that man shall love the Lord God and the second is that he shall love his neighbor as himself (Matt. 22:36-39).

This is clear proof of the greatness of love. In fact, in the absence of love, anything that man does for his neighbor, and especially for the Lord God and Lord Jesus Christ is in vain – however great the deed may be. The Apostle Paul says, “… And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (I Cor. 13:13, New King James Version)

The emphasis placed on the superiority of love over faith and hope is not meant to diminish the importance of faith or of great works. According to the Apostle Paul, faith is important and valuable to our Lord Jesus Christ – if it is “faith working through love” (Gal. 5:6, Ibid.).

Thus a person who does not have love is nothing even if by all his faith he is able to remove mountains. The Bible explicitly states: “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing” (I Cor. 13:1-3, Ibid.).

Therefore, the person who is worthy in the sight of God is he who genuinely loves Him. If anyone wishes his service and worship to be valued and accepted by God, he must make sure that he does it out of love, and not on account of selfish motive.

The Bible teaches that we, human beings, have been the ones chosen by God since the beginning to accord Him everlasting love. Even before the foundation of the world God had already chosen man to be holy and without blame before Him in love (Eph. 1:4).

The Bible also teaches how man will be able to accomplish this or how he should love God who created him. “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome” (I John 5:3, NKJV). Hence, man need not invent ways to express and manifest his love for God, for He has already made known through His words written in the Bible what He wants: We should prove our love for Him by keeping His commandments. Whoever refuses to obey God’s commands does not truly love Him.

“Let love be without hypocrisy,” says the Apostle Paul (Rom. 12:9, Ibid.) The love that is without hypocrisy is “love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith” (I Tim. 1:5, Ibid.). A person whose love is hypocritical, pretentious or insincere may be able to cheat his fellowman but he will never be able to deceive God, for He knows everything, even what is in man’s heart and mind. He thus knows well whether our love for Him comes from a pure heart or is hypocritical.

For this reason, those who purport to serve God but actually only pursue their own gain, those whose service does not stem from sincere love but merely seeks to satisfy themselves, do not please God but commit a terrible sin. And they will not be able to hide this from Him. God says through the prophet Ezekiel: “So they come to you as people do, they sit before you as My people, and they hear your words, but they do not do them; for with their mouth they show much love, but their hearts pursue their own gain” (Ezek. 33:31, Ibid.)

Here God reproves people who come to Him, but whose purported love for Him does not come form their heart, because they are obviously only after their own gain. Such people in our time are those whose only and real motive in joining a religion is so that God will help them succeed in their business, make progress in their profession, recover from illness, and other similar gains. And although apparently they desire to serve God, they nevertheless refuse to do His bidding, reasoning out that man will not be justified by works for, allegedly, faith alone is what really matters.

The proof that man who merely professes faith but does not demonstrate it by works will not become acceptable to God is Christ’s warning on what will happen on Judgment Day to those who do not do the will of God in heaven: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord’, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” (Matt. 7:21:23, Ibid.)

Obedience to God’s command is an essential characteristics of a man who truly loves Him. But man whom God created is weak (Matt. 26:41) such that even though he aspires to do good, which is God’s command, yet he finds that by himself he is incapable of doing it, and instead what he does is the contrary – the evil that he does not wish to do (Rom. 7:12, 18-20).

Thus, before God created man, He predestined him to adoption as a son by the Lord Jesus Christ to Himself (Eph. 1:5) so that through man’s relationship with Christ His purpose can be achieved: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10, NKJV). Therefore, on his own, man will not be able to live up to God’s purpose that he be holy and without blame before Him in love because he sins. Man needs to be created in Christ and this is by means of being part of the one new man, which Christ created in Himself, as recorded in the Scripture: “having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace” (Eph. 2:15, Ibid.). The one new man is composed of one head and one body. Christ is the head and the Church is His body (Col. 1:18).

Therefore, in order for man to fulfill God’s purpose in creating him he needs to join the true Church whom Christ recognizes as His own body. It is in this Church where man can prove his genuine love for God, which is manifested by his obedience to His commands.

Moreover, inside the true Church man will receive God’s perfect love, as taught in the Bible: “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (I John 4:10, NKJV). Because of God’s great love for us, “ even when we were dead in trespasses, [He] made us alive together with Christ …” (Eph. 2:4-5, Ibid.). How was it that we were considered dead and because of that we need to be made alive? When we sinned we were placed under God’s judgment, the second death in the lake of fire, and hence we were then counted as dead. But on account of God’s great love, we were made alive, The Bible says: “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him” (Rom. 5:8-9, Ibid.).

God sent His only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to die for our sins. It is by this that God’s great love for man was made manifest because through this we have been justified and as a consequence we shall be saved from His wrath on Christ’s Second Advent.

We are certain that it is the Church of Christ which received God’s perfect love since it is the one justified by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ: “Take heed therefore to yourselves and to all the flock over which the Holy Spirit has appointed you overseers, to feed the church of Christ which he has purchased with his blood” (Acts 20:28, Lamsa Translation).

What was also proven to us when the Lord Jesus Christ gave Himself up to us? He says, “Greater love has no one than this, that to lay down one’s life for his friends” (John 15:13, NKJV). Did not Christ do the greatest deed for the Church by making the supreme sacrifice for it? Thus, it is only just that we love the Lord God above all and the Lord Jesus Christ by being faithfully obedient to them for they accorded us the greatest love of all.