A while back I posted what I thought was one of my more controversial posts on the absence of the commandment to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength" in the letters of the NT. Surprisingly it got no comments!
I've continued to muse on this, and asked a number of people about it. As I've continued to read the NT with this in the back of my mind I continue to be struck that while we are often commanded to love our neighbour, we never seem to be commanded to love God. Today I came across 1 John 3:23. Like Jesus in Mark 13 he seems to group together two commandments in one "commandment" (singular).
this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ [vertical] and love one another [horizontal]
This seems a good summary of the NT ethic. Faith towards God, and love towards our neighbour. God's love for us is always the primary thing in our relationship towards him. Our love towards others is always the primary thing in our relationship towards them. It is the two-kinds of righteousness thing again. In one dimension we are passive, in the other active.
Serious challenge though: find me a commandment to love God, or Christ, post-Cross.
It is implicit in some places, and it is assumed that we will love God if we are Christians, but I am yet to find a place where we are commanded to do so. My bible knowledge is pretty thin though.
Yes, I really like this. To paraphrase: 'God doesn't need your love, your neighbour does.'
ReplyDeleteIs this why Jesus calls it a 'new command'? Because once He has fulfilled man's duty to love God in our place He hands on the filled-full law as a law of liberty. Be loved and pass it on.
"Is this why Jesus calls it a 'new command'?"
ReplyDeleteIt had crossed my mind. I can't say I really understand it, but in 1 John 2:8 the reason he gives for the newness of the commandment, is because of what has already been done/is already happening. It is because of what Christ has done outside of us, that the commandment has changed.
Hi there,
ReplyDeleteWhilst there might not be many places with the specific commandment to love God (exempting of course the paramount of Matt. 22:37), The NT certainly assumes that if we have come to partake of Christ, we do love Him already - He puts our love for Him inside us, because we cannot naturally love Him at all (John 3:19).
For example, Luke 16:13, John 8:42, Rom. 8:28, 1 Cor. 2:9, 2 Thess. 3:5, Heb. 6:10, James 1:12, 2:5, 1 John 4:20-21 and 5:2-3 all assume that the basic disposition of the Christian is to love God - one simply cannot even be converted if they do not love God, hence whenever we read of being exhorted to "believe", "repent", and all those motions of soul relating to faith, we are being exhorted to turn away from love of ourselves and idols, and to love God!
The reason we are not often commanded to love God, I think, is that to be a Christian is to love God. It is an assumption, rather than a command.
Hope this is helpful.
Love in Christ,
Arron
Hi Arron,
ReplyDeleteI'll have to come back to you once I've finished this assignment I have to do by end of Tuesday. I've been thinking about this some more and would probably like to write a new post about it.
But I agree that we are expected to love God, just as we are expected to love our neighbour. Surely it was obvious to the Jews too, but they were given the explicit command. I think there must be something to that.
I think the "love of God" in 2 Thessalonians 3:5 which you mention is referring to God's love rather than our love (as in the NIV). And there are plenty of examples like it and that really does flag up to me that God's love is so primary in our relationship with him, that our love does have to take a back seat - not because it is unimportant, but because it is entirely dependant. As you say
"to be a Christian is to love God". You would not want to say the opposite, because "He puts our love for Him inside us", a love which is responding to his love. He loves first. God took the initiative.
Cf. 1 John 4:10: "In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."; Galatians 4:9: "But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God".
Thanks for your thoughts though Arron. Keep them coming, because they are always helpful.