Jeff Carter
In the last few months we have looked at some of the traditional virtues associated with the celebration of Advent, the coming of Messiah. We saw how Hope is the motivation God designed into mankind to allow us to keep going, even when circumstances might cause us to cause us to want to quit. And we explored the idea of Joy, how it differs from happiness, how it is commanded by God, and that it is a choice we can make. But as we journey through the season of Easter, we reach the pinnacle, the purpose for all the others. Love. What is love and how does the Christmas story and Easter story categorically define love for us?
In many ways the Bible is simply a love story. It is love that drives salvation history forward. Love is the central theme of history and the defining characteristic of what it means to be a Christian (John 13:35). Love is the thread that ties together creation and redemption—and everything in between. Love is the story of God creating and then rescuing His children; of sacrificing His own Son to be in relationship with us. Love is the subtext underlying every passage in the Bible.
When we think of love being discussed in the Bible, we recall the familiar passage where Paul lays out in 1 Corinthians 13 the priority of love and, in context, what love does to hold the body together. He says of faith, hope and love, the greatest is love. In this “love chapter” he describes a lot about love—what love does and does not do, but a clear definition is not really offered. So if we are to really understand the enormity of the sacrificial love of God and the ramifications of the injunction laid upon us to reflect that kind of love, we should attempt to define love a little more clearly. When we are able to say that we “love” our God for the sacrifice He made by sending His Son to die on the cross and also say that we “love” a certain flavor of potato chips, we know some clarification of the term is needed.
In his book, “The Four Loves,” C. S. Lewis takes us on a journey that he himself had taken with regard to how to define the idea of love. Based on four Greek words for different aspects of love, Lewis refined and honed his categories into four distinct types. This helps to lay some groundwork for how we might conceive of love in the many different contexts of life.
The first type is “storge;” what Lewis calls “affection.” Sometimes used to refer to familial love (parent/child or other family members), Lewis broadens this to include all those we have affection for. It is the love of enjoying someone or something and can also include the feelings we have for our pets.
The next kind of love is “phileo (or philia);” what Lewis refers to as “friendship.” We see this reflected in the familiar name, “Philadelphia;” the city of brotherly love. Phileo is a love of common interest; a love of those who care about the same things.
A third kind of love is called “eros” in Greek and is another way of speaking of romantic love. Lewis equates this with what we call, “being in love.” Eros goes beyond merely a sexual relationship and seeks emotional connection with the other person.
The last kind of love is “agape” love; what Lewis refers to as “charity.” This is different than the rest because it is modeled for us by God Himself. It is sometimes referred to as a divine kind of love and the source of all the others. It is our love of God and the love from God. This is indeed the most unselfish kind of love where the needs of the other is all that matters and nothing is asked for in return. It loves the unlovable and undeserving and is unconditional.
One thing the world will try to convince us about love is that we are slaves to it. Countless movies and romantic novels would have us believe that love is an overwhelming force that we, in essence, must bow down to. But scripture paints a different picture. Regardless of the type of love in view we must understand that love is a choice. We cheapen love when we intimate that we have no power over it. Even the picture presented in the phrase “falling in love” furthers one of the biggest misconceptions (or, dare I say, lies) about love that the world would have us believe—namely, that love is out of our control—that love is just a feeling that we simply must submit to.
This misconception drives the depressingly high divorce rate we find in our world. When people see love as only a feeling, and those feelings sometimes wane, they believe that love is gone—and then are compelled to abandon those relationships. No, love is a choice. It is a decision of the will. It is a commitment to someone or some thing that transcends mere feelings. Yes, there are attendant feelings that accompany the phenomenon of love, but to reduce love to just a feeling is to not give love its due.
We need to see that love is a verb. It is something we do. It is something we choose. To highlight the fact that love is a choice, we need to remember that love is commanded of us. Jesus called this the greatest commandment: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matt 22:37-40). And lest we miss the significance of this statement, Jesus is saying, “If I could sum up the entire Old Testament Law into one word, it would be the command to love.” We are obliged to love whether we like it or not. If it was a mere feeling that comes upon us—completely out of our control, how could we be accountable to obey that command?
One way to define something is to describe what it is not. In theology this is called “apophatic theology.” This is where we try to describe who God is by detailing what He is not. Sometimes something is so vast and difficult to get your mind around that the only way to really approach it is to begin by ruling out what it isn’t. The same idea applies to love. Love is such a grand, magnificent, glorious, concept, with so many brilliant facets, that to do justice to the topic, you sometimes have to simply start by describing what love is not. There are a lot of opposites of love. It can be said that the opposite of love is hate. Some have also described the opposite of love as fear. But another opposite of love is selfishness. C.S. Lewis highlights this for us:
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” (Lewis, The Four Loves).
Here Lewis equates love with the willingness to be open, transparent and vulnerable. But he also highlights that to ensure your heart is safe from hurt or pain or the sting of rejection that you must wrap it in the coffin of your selfishness. What a perfect picture of the opposite of love. It is selfishness. It is a kind of death whereby you cut yourself off from, yes, the pain of rejection, but you also do not truly live—in that you isolate yourself and insulate yourself from connecting with anyone or anything. It is the height of selfishness to never open yourself up to another—to never sacrificially give for another’s benefit. With love comes connection and intimacy, but also comes vulnerability and risk. And that is the glory of love. When it is requited; when the object of our love is worthy of sacrifice and self-giving—this makes it all worthwhile. To love is to be selfless.
So we’ve seen the different types of love. We’ve seen that love is vulnerable. Love is a choice and is commanded of us. Love is selfless. We will continue this discussion next time to see that love is also sacrifice.
-Jeff