The Nature Of Love

“ In this, the love of God is manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. 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.”

1 John 4: 9 - 10

Almost every advert I’m seeing for February sales shows the idea of Valentine’s love.

“Love is different for everyone - no matter what love looks like to you, we’ve got lots of ways to help you express it. Why not treat that special someone this Valentine’s Day? Whether it's your significant other, mother, brother, toddler, or terrier. Show them just how much they mean to you by designing and printing a unique gift.”

The Beatles sang, “all you need is love” and then they broke up. Love may be the most confusing desire of all humanity. I’m a young man from New Zealand and hoping to move over to Sydney this year. Having grown up in a messianic Jewish home, where the love of God was regularly addressed, I’m especially hopeful to live my life to reflect his love no matter where I live.

The scriptures assert in both Testaments that God is love. God made human beings in his own image and gave them spiritual life. Thus, we are creatures with whom God can have intimate fellowship, creatures who can know God, which is the essence of life.

God displayed His love to humanity and humanity must display love back to God. This may be why God created the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

In His love God had provided everything for Adam and Eve to live. But He had commanded them not to eat of this one tree. In the day they did they would die, their relationship with God would be destroyed.

What would love do in this case? The response of God was to let them choose him. The response of Adam and Eve indicated their rejection of the relationship God desired for them.

Thus, it would be an act of love and allegiance to God to heed His command and not eat of the tree. It would say, “I love God and value knowing Him more than the knowledge and temporary pleasure eating the fruit would give. I put Him before myself.” Obeying God and refusing to take what He had forbidden is the act that would make the nature of the love between God and man true.

We know, however, that man did not obey God. They broke His one command and in doing so rejected God and died. They could no longer know the fellowship and innocence they had previously enjoyed.

Adam and Eve rejected God’s love, but God allowed animals to die in our place. (Gen 3:21). This could not fully restore the relationship that had existed between man and God, but it allowed man to continue living and thus obtain the hope that God, in love, would truly reconcile humanity back to Himself.

Later God gave the Torah to the Jewish people for us to express love back to God, but the law could not fully accomplish God’s purposes.

As believers in Jesus, we believe God’s ultimate act of love was sending Jesus, His only Son to this world. But, what was the nature of this love and what did this act of love accomplish?

The Psalmist wrote (and the writer of Hebrews explained it was Yeshua himself), “I take joy in doing your will, my God, for your instructions are written on my heart.”

(Psalm 40: 7-8)

This submission was shown the night before Jesus was killed. Knowing of His imminent death, and struck with grief so great that He sweat like drops of blood, Jesus prayed, “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” Luke 22:42

Perfect submission.

After this, He was nailed to the cross. This was the perfect sacrifice given to pay the price for our sins.

It was this sacrifice that was able to cleanse humanity from its sin and rebellion. Thus, it is the perfect expression of God’s love for humanity, because it was the price He was willing to pay to redeem them to himself.

This is how God’s love was made manifest among us and it is in this alone that we can see the true nature of love. That although man had rebelled against Him, God gave everything, His only Son, that we might be made right with Him again. And Yeshua demonstrated God’s love in His total submission to God’s will and giving Himself as the sacrifice for our sins.

What is your response to God’s love being made manifest among us? You must accept the sacrifice He made by placing your faith in the Lord Jesus. And we all must submit our lives unto God, walking humbly in fellowship with Him and holding close to the hope of eternal life that we have in Him.

The Beatles were close. All you need is [God’s] love!

By Jonathan Bronn

February 2021