Ultimately,
we as Christians will come to the titled question concerning a deficit of
love we see within ourselves. We read so many verses that seem to condemn
us or at least expose this lack. John
13:34-35 A new
commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved
you, that ye also love one another. 35By
this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to
another.
We fail to see that Jesus was asking the disciples to do what they
were not yet equipped to do. How could they “love
one another; as I have loved you”? Jesus loved man
with the only love in the universe, the love of the Father; and thus He
was saying they also should love with the Father’s love. But that would
be impossible for any man until he receives God’s life and love, via the
Spirit of Christ, to be a man’s life and love, to dwell within his
spirit. Since Jesus was not yet crucified to become the life-giving spirit
(1Cor 15:45), no man could yet receive Him and be equally equipped with
God’s loving life. Therefore, this was impossible for any man at that
time. Jesus was setting men up to see their deficit and need of God and
His loving life. Upon the resurrection of Christ, that loving life was
available to “as many as received Him” – it would make them “the
sons of God” (John 1:12). These sons in Christ bear the very same
love-life, as of the Father.
The truth is that we all live by the
motive of love all the time. We’ve always lived by love and we’ve
always been lovers. God, in whose image we were made, is love (1John 4:8);
so it is to be expected that we, would be bearers of this characteristic
of our creator. Uniquely, God’s love only flows outward. God’s love,
“agape” in Greek is rooted in “agab” in Hebrew, meaning “to
breathe.” Agape love is God breathing out His self as love and life.
Recall that God breathed the breath of life into the clay of Adam’s
created form to give it life. Adam was created and enlivened by God’s
breath as love. Love is the essence of God “flowing out.” God’s
substance is spirit. (We see this in John 4:24, where the article
“a” is not in the earliest manuscripts.) We sense physically the
essence of what we take in, as odor, or taste, etc. We have God’s
essence of love by the sense of touching Him in Spirit. God’s love may
be called “other-love” or a love that flows outward to others.
Originally, man was created in this way; he was made “very good”
(Gen. 1:31) and even upright (Ecc. 7:29).
The problem is that the love
characteristic placed within man by God’s breath at creation was soon
turned or distorted. It is considered that the fall of Adam occurred only
several days after he was created. At the fall, the “other-love,”
placed by God into man, became distorted to become “self-love.” Hence,
we see all of mankind is always consumed with the issues of self-love. We
are all concerned that what we do or say may “appear” as an
“other-lover;” while in fact we seek acclaim or reputation in order to
satisfy our drive for self-love. Hence, it is for God, who looks upon the
heart (1Sam 16:7), knowing the thoughts and intents of the heart of men,
to work in man to receive the deposit the real love of God, via Christ,
into man, as the “other-love.”
At
the fall Adam gained the “self-loving” Serpent “as a father.”
(The Devil is only “as a father” to all mankind as Adam’s
offspring, but not really mankind’s father. In John 8:44, “father,”
may be translated from Greek, pater, “one who is as or stands
in the place of a father”). Conversely, God, who is a literal
Father to the Christian, is an “other-lover.” The Devil has usurped
all of man in Adam, who was intended by God to become God’s love
recipient, love bearer and expression of love in the earth.
The
Devil himself is the ultimate self-lover, proclaiming himself to be as the
most-high God (Isa 14:13-14). The Devil is the sinner from the beginning
(1Jn 3:8), which was before Gen 1:2. The Serpent now works in mankind (Eph
2:2) by the sinful nature of himself (Rom 7:17, 20), which he injected
into the body (Rom 7:18-23) of man at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good
and Evil (Rom 5:12).
The
Serpent tempted Eve in the garden saying, Genesis
3:5 For God
doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened,
and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
Allegorically,
Eve represents three groups of people - fallen mankind, Israel and the
Church, which is His very body.
1)
Eve here was deceived – not Adam (1Tim 2:14), representing the
condition of all mankind. Adam followed willingly as Christ would later
follow man by being a partaker of Adamic human flesh through incarnation.
Yet, Christ never sinned.
2)
Eve, the wife of Adam, is as Israel, espoused to Christ (2Cor
11:2), but fallen to independence from God.
3)
Eve also is as the Church, which is His body (Eph 5:24, 28) in
today’s dispensation of grace. Eve was of Adam’s body, as seen in
Adam’s statement, “bone of his bones and flesh of His flesh” (Gen
2:23). Today, the Church is not the bride (That’s Israel), but rather,
His body – even more intimate. It is one thing to be counterpart to
Christ as a bride, but quite another to be one with Him – that is His
body.
I
believe that it was the lure of knowledge to make one wise that was most
alluring to Eve (2Cor 11:3). In eating from the tree of knowledge,
Eve believed the Devil’s lure that the tree’s fruit would make one
wise, that she could perhaps run her own life – as the God’s of her
own live. Scripture confirms this happening in Genesis
3:22a And the Lord
God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us,
So,
here we see that God says essentially, “Adam and Eve have become
as gods,” since they had in fact illicitly gained the God-like
knowledge of good and evil. So what is wrong with this? The problem is
that the knowledge makes man think he can live wisely without dependence
upon God. Man wrongfully assumes that by now knowing good and evil, he
surely could live it. Wrong assumption! Adam and Eve did not yet possess a
life to match the knowledge they had gained. I would guess that we all
have at times known what might have been right or wrong and still done
otherwise? Christ in us can live out that knowledge spontaneously, as we
depend upon Him. His love-life is expressed as we maintain intimacy with
Him, permitting Him to live and love through us. We needed to have the
very life of God Himself in order to live out God’s knowledge by His
spontaneous nature. The expression of the God-like nature only flows out
of the God-life. You might ask, “What’s wrong with knowledge apart
from God’s life?” Scripture records that Jesus’ view, indicating
the very point of knowledge, missed by the religious Pharisees. John
5:39-40 (Ye) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have
eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. 40And
ye will not come to me, that ye might have life eternal (God’s
life). God’s life is the object for mankind, but knowledge in
itself is impotent. In the synoptic Gospels we see that the Jews knew the
place of Messiah’s birth and many details of the Messiah’s coming –
yet the did not recognize God’s Life standing in front of them. Christ
as the Word of God is the living expression and declaration of His Father.
Many Christians study and rightly divide scripture (2Tim 2:15) and yet do
not come to know Christ as their literal life. These may know facts and
even now Him as savior, but not as their very life (Col 3:4b, Gal 2:20a);
so they do not bear the expression or marks of His love-life.
Paul said, “knowledge puffeth up”(1Cor 8:1) and “will
vanish away” (1Cor 13:8), but charity (love) edifies (builds up) and
will never cease, because God’s life is everlasting. Many Christians are
misled and mistaken, seeking knowledge, even correct knowledge, but
knowledge in itself does not give life. It is only the Spirit of God in
Christ, who is the love-life to man. 2
Cor. 3:6 Who
also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter,
but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
We
ought not seek “knowledge” as “gnosis” (information), but rather
“ginosko” (experiential knowing), which brings us to know Him who is
life. Only His life bears love. Jesus said to know the Father and the Son (know,
ginosko, “coming to knowledge, experientially”) is life
eternal (John 17:3). This far exceeds knowing the Scripture or about God
and Christ. So to know God, as the love-life, is intimate. This kind of
knowing is experiential – not an arms length exercise. It is to receive
Christ as our very indwelling life (Gal 2:20).
This
love of “self as god” is now, since Adam’s fall, the driving force
within the breast of every human being born into the world. Actually what
occurred is that man gained another nature – that of the usurping
father, the Devil, who speaks lies from man’s flesh, moment by moment. A
self-loving nature was now implanted in man’s flesh, henceforth
prompting his every move.
As
very small children, the self-loving nature is obvious – the world
revolved around our egocentric SELF. We cried out often saying, “I want
…” But as we grew older we became more adept at covering the unseemly
motive of our heart and learned how to be more subtle and manipulative to
gain the wants of our self, while appearing as God – as
“other-lovers.” We as Christians may do good works in a visible way so
we may be seen, so as to gain reputation and acclaim or praise from others
– feeding our self-love. God eventually exposes this degraded hidden
motive of the fallen heart of man. He reveals our love of self to us by
conviction, in the expectation that we might give up by turning to trust
Christ’s life in us as our all, now and forever.
The
religion of man and his institutions has always been preoccupied with
outer appearances, while God looks upon the heart. This is my definition
of “religion.” “Religion is the work of man to find, please and
serve God by his own self-effort.” Conversely, pure Christianity is
Christ literally living within a human being, and then spontaneously
living His life out through a man as that man’s very life. We are
deceived and deceive our self by employing the methods promoted by
religion, until God intervenes in our lives. We may have lived in denial
for many, many years or not really seen ourselves as we were. But God is
at work to expose us to us.
In
fact, the Christian is not really a self-lover. As rebirthed Christian, we
are a new creation (2Cor 5:17), as of a new “Christ race,” born within
our spirit (John 3:6). This is our real new self. In our spirit we are
the “other-lovers.” We come to express His other-love by first being
born of the very Seed (Gal 3:16) of the loins of God our Father. Christ is
that incorruptible Seed (1Pet 1:23) who transmits the Father’s very life
to us (John 14:23). As His Only Begotten Son, Christ, the Seed of the
Father, bears the spiritual DNA of God the Father, with His
“other-love,” in our human spirit. DNA metaphorically speaks of
Christ as being life-giving (1Cor 15:45), bearing the Divine nature,
(2Peter 1:4), which is of His organic life.
Consider that every life bears the nature of that life. Apple trees
bear apples by the spontaneous nature of the apple tree life.
Religiously,
we may do what appears as noble Christian work, but out of the impure
motive of lifting up ourselves. Man’s rejection of God’s 100% grace
(Rom 11:6), by preferring to earn his righteous
“standing” by good works, is rooted in this degraded motive of
our self-love. Religious practices are a way to be in control – so our
self may claim credit – feeding our self-love. Many study Scripture,
pray and serve God out of this impure motive. We do not know how far man
has fallen to flesh until God begins to reveal the hidden motives of the
heart (Heb 4:12b) by the indwelling Christ who shines (2Cor 4:4, 6) and
speaks in our spirit, via our conscience (Heb 9:4). Only Christ as the
Word, speaking within us, is sharper than any two-edged sword, dividing
our soulish self from what is of Him in our spirit (Heb 4:12a).
So,
we as Christians are in fact complete (Col. 2:10). We are already
perfectly equipped in spirit, but our immediate state of living in
our soul-self is unchanged until God, by His grace, intervenes by exposing
us to us. Until then we are deceived, or deceitful closet self-lovers. In standing
and in fact in spirit, we are other-lovers, as bearers of His life; yet in
our current state we may still live out our old ways of
self-love. Hence, beyond regeneration, we must be renewed in our soul
(Titus 3:5).
I
consider Christ’s indwelling of man’s spirit as the Trojan horse
placed within a man’s human spirit (Zechar. 12:1), from the time of his
rebirth. Christ, as the light of life, shines upon our self-soul to expose
our motive and state, not to motivate us to try harder, but rather so as
to cause us to give up trying to make it on our own and trust Him. When we
see that we in ourselves are hopeless, then we may turn to Christ (2Cor
3:16), permitting His indwelling life to flow out His love-life through
us, as He wills. Only then are we becoming transformed in soul, from` one
level of expression to another level of the glorious expression of His
life (2Cor 3:18).
God
gave the law to man to expose man’s corrupted love. Religious men
embrace religious law in order to have an outer measure of their
self-worth, so they can see themselves or be seen by others, as righteous
(Mat 6:5-6). Actually, the law has the ability to bring out the worst in
man – man’s self-love, exposing man’s hope in his self, by the use
of self-effort. The law brings this out because law empowers sin to be
manifested. 1 Cor. 15:56b
and the strength (dunamis, power) of sin is the law. Romans 7:7a
What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not
known sin, but by the law: The hope of God is that man
would try very hard to keep the law and then fail, prompting man to turn
to receive God’s grace and love. Dependence upon Christ’s propitiatory
work is the only way for man to have a righteous standing before God; and
dependence upon Christ’s indwelling life is the only way for man’s
righteous living. Hence, the law was given to stir up sin, not to make us
sin less. Romans 5:20a
Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. Oh,
the wisdom and love of God.
By
the Father’s work within us (Philip 2:13) we can finally come to a place
whereby we are complete by simply receiving His love. It is only then,
having received His grace and love, that we may be “as He is”
in our living (1John 4:17). We then, as His Church, may be bearers of His
other-love, becoming His new creation in Christ – growing up to be that “perfect
(completed) man” (Eph 4:13). Our confidence and rest then is not at
all of our self-doing, but rather it is because we know that we now stand
and live in His love by 100% grace. By living in His love, we
now permit His love to flow out of us to others. 1
John 4:17
Herein is our love made perfect (complete, to run its course),
that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he
is, so are we (right now) in this world.
Having
received His love, it now may run its course to and through us. God, who
is love in Christ, is now in us; and so God’s love may now flow through
our renewed, co-operative, subservient, self-soul, unto others. Apart from
our utter continual dependence upon Him, living in His 100% grace and
love, we have no love to offer; except expressions of the corrupted love
of self. So, the only work ordained by God for all mankind is to trust in,
cling to and rely upon the grace and love of God in Christ, who the Father
sent to live in us as the Father’s loving life. (John 6:29) -End
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