Beginning again with God’s Love
I’ve begun again to dive into God’s love—for me, for us, for everyone (and by “again” I mean perhaps for the first time as I continue to integrate the cognitive and affective aspects of life).
Too often it feels that God’s love becomes an abstraction, separated from the concrete reality of God in our actual lives.
But “God demonstrates his own love for us”— not as an abstraction, but concretely—in this, “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
So I’m going to spend the next several days (perhaps weeks) reflecting on, unfolding the significance of, and seeking the grace of “a deeper awareness of God’s love for me” by looking at this demonstration of God’s love (and adding insights from attachment theory when I can).
WHAT IS A DEMONSTRATION of God’s Love?
First off, what is a “demonstration” of God’s love? What is a “proof”, as some translations have it?
1) the action or process of showing the existence or truth of something by giving proof or evidence.
2) a practical exhibition and explanation of how something works or is performed.
Remember those scientific demonstrations in high school or college?
—The professor would set up chemicals in beakers and mix them. And POOF!! Something crazy would happen.
—Or there would be all these physical objects, and a lever, or pulleys, and they would move something so heavy with just a little effort.
—Or there would be balloons and a big jar that demonstrated air pressure and a vacuum.
These scientific demonstrations show—in a dramatic way—the reality of certain scientific principles.
And these demonstrations were meant to capture the imagination so that we would want to learn more, so that we could see the significance of the science.
This is the kind of demonstration God made—the demonstration of God’s love.
FROM ABSTRACTION TO DEMONSTRATION of God’s Love
In seems that in many Christians circles we have made God’s love into an abstraction, an idea, a hope, or a wish.
On one side (more conservative-fundamentalist), God’s love is an abstraction connected to only to individual salvation. It seems hardly connected to other aspects of life or thought about God. For this group, God’s justice, wrath, and holiness, and our politics, discipleship, and evangelism seem hardly connected to the concrete reality of how “God demonstrates his own love for us”.
On the other side (more progressive-liberal), God’s love is an abstraction disconnected from the reality of “Jesus Christ”. For this group, people will quote Romans 8:39, that “nothing can separate us from the love of God” while ignoring that this love is “in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Both groups focus on the what of love (though they disagree profoundly) rather than on the how of love’s demonstration.
NOT AN IDEA WE ALREADY HAD
The truth is, “God’s love” is not an idea that we know without God’s “demonstration” of it.
It seems people on the right and the left already know what “God’s love” means and how it connects to the other ideas of theology, of politics, of sexuality, and salvation.
But we don’t first have an idea of God’s love, and then fit it our ideas of salvation, the gospel, or discipleship.
Rather, God demonstrates…God proves…God outwardly expresses the inner working…of love in this, “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
It is this practical proof, the deliberate demonstration of love that we must focus on if we really want to understand—if we are really to achieve a deeper awareness of—God’s love for us.
Posts in “Unsystematic Thought’s on God’s Demonstration of Love” Series:
- From Abstraction to Demonstration of Love (#1)
- While We Were Still Weak (#2)
- God Proves to Us (#3)
- On God’s Unique Kind of Love (#4)
- While We Were Still Warring (#5)
- Enemy Love as Forgiveness (#6)
Other Posts on Love
- Should Love Change Us, or Accept Us?
- God’s Love is Not a Starter Kit
- Why Sacrificial Love Misses the Point?
- Why Enemy Love in the Borderland?