First, what is love?
1 Corinthians 13
13:1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, [1] but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; [2] 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Some examples
Romans 9.1-8
9:1 I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit— 2 that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, [10] my kinsmen according to the flesh. 4 They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. 5 To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.
6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, 7 and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 8 This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.
- This is anguish of the deepest kind. If ever Paul’s letters come off as hard and ungracious, read this again. And, lo, guess where this passage moves to: musings on God’s sovereign grace, the Potter and His clay, vessels of mercy and vessels of wrath. (This hurts like hell, because I know some, if not most, of my friends are vessels of wrath waiting for destruction. They will never know the joy or peace in Christ… I am thankful for Paul’s tears. AND I am praying for God to prove me wrong. He can and I’m praying He will, especially for the ones I love the most. It hurts, what am I supposed to do? I pray and I cry and a try to share the word. That is my portion, the rest I must leave to God).
Philemon 3.17-21
17 Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. 18 For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
- Notice Paul’s tears and then what he says about the end for those who are not in Christ. He is saying their end is destruction… AND he says this with tears in his eyes, NOT with a sense of glee or arrogant self-knowledge, but with great sadness. He speaks what is their true end, but he sees no joy in it, which is why, I think, he then goes on to remind his readers about their joy so that they would not despair because of the lost.
Luke 19.41-44
41 And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, 42 saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. 43 For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side 44 and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”
- God needs nothing and He still weeps over His enemies, those who killed Him. I am even more grateful for the tears of Christ.
Luke 11.35
35 Jesus wept.
- Lazarus was dead, but Jesus was going to raise Him. Knowing this, Jesus still wept because of sin and death.
John 3.16-17
16 “For God so loved the world, [9] that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
- He gave His only Son to suffer and die for His enemies, that they might be saved for joy and peace and love and truth in Him. See Isaiah 53 and John 15.13 as well. God suffered and died. (He did rise from the dead too, so suffering ain’t the whole story, but it’s a BIG part).
I’ll post further thoughts tomorrow.
(Note: all quotations are from the ESV).
