CHRISTIANITY: MORALITY - The centrality of Love

EXPLORING CHRISTIANITY - MORALITY

THE BIBLE
Can we trust a book written 2000 years ago?

EYEWITNESS
Did the writers of the New Testament get their picture of Jesus right?

GOD - MAN
Is Jesus really God?

RESURRECTION
Did Jesus really rise from the dead?

RELIGIONS
With so many religions, why Christianity?

SUFFERING
If there is a God, why is there so much suffering?

TRINITY
Understanding the Trinity.

SCIENCE
The complementary nature of Science & Christianity.

FORGIVENESS
What it is and why it matters?

GUIDANCE
How does God guide?

REPENTANCE
What it is and why you can't get to heaven without it.

BORN AGAIN
What does it mean to be converted and born again?

SAVING FAITH
The kind of faith that will get you to heaven

ASSURANCE
Can I know for sure that I am going to heaven?

TRUTH
What is truth and does it matter?

MORALITY
Does it matter how we live? A Christian view of morality.

THE CHURCH
God's vision for his family, the Church. A call to the churches of the new millennium.

PURPOSE
How can I find a great purpose for living?

IDENTITY
Who am I; Finding my true identity as a human being and as a child of God.

SELF-ESTEEM
How can I feel good about my self? The Christian basis for proper sel-esteem.

LIFE AFTER DEATHChristianity's Hope & Challenge.

THE CROSS
Why did Jesus Die? What the Bible says about the Cross.

Grace
The importance of grace in the New Testament.

The centrality of love

One thing that is constantly emphasised in the New Testament is the centrality of love. The following are some examples.

In answer to the question, "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied by quoting two commands from the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy, the command to love God and the command to love our neighbours as ourselves. He added, "All the Law of Moses and the Books of the Prophets are based on these two commandments" (Matthew 22:36-40).

"One of the purposes of authentic Christianity is to take people out of themselves, to provide them with the means to overcome self-centredness and distorted self-love"
James Hitchcock

On his last night with his disciples before his crucifixion, Jesus said to them, "I am giving you a new command. You must love each other, just as I have loved you. If you love each other, everyone will know that you are my disciples" (John 13:34, 35). The important words here are "as I have loved you". He had given them a perfect example of love in his relationship with them over two to three years. Now he commands them to do the same.

Paul considered love so important that he wrote a whole chapter on it (1 Corinthians 13). He said, "All that the Law says can be summed up in the command to love others as much as you love yourself" (Galatians 5:14; see also Romans 13:8-10).

Again he said, "Live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God" (Ephesians 5:2).

After giving a list of Christian virtues, he said, "And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity" (Colossians 3:14).

It is interesting that the command to "love one another" is found at the heart of every passage of ethical instructions which Paul gives (see Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:13, 22; Ephesians 5:2; Colossians 3:14; I Thessalonians 4:9). It is as if he regards other commands as merely an explanation of what it means to love.

James describes the command to love others as ourselves as "the royal law" (James 2:8).

We are commanded to do many things for each other in the New Testament, but the command to "love one another" occurs 16 times.

Why is love so important? Simply because it demonstrates the true character of God. God is a Trinity of persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who have always existed in relationships of love*. The Bible says that "God is love" (1 John 4:8). In enlarging the family and adopting us as his children, he calls us to demonstrate the true nature of the family. He commands us even to love our enemies because that is what God does (Matthew 5:43-48). "You must always act like your Father in heaven" (v. 48). And there is nothing that will more readily convince others of the true nature of God than Christians showing this love to one another. "If you love each other, everyone will know that you are my disciples" (John 13:35).

*I have explored this theme further in the booklets Understanding the Trinity and God's Vision for His Family, the Church: A Call to the Churches of the New Millennium.

It is interesting that the Bible never defines what love is. However, it clearly says what it is like, and, in doing so, always refers to the cross. "We know what love is because Jesus gave his life for us" (1 John 3:16). We learn what love is by seeing how God has acted. "God showed how much he loved us by having Christ die for us, even though we were sinful" (Romans 5:8). "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins...since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another" (1 John 4:10, 11). It is the cross that defines so much of how we should behave in the New Testament - i.e. our attitude to our marriage partner (Ephesians 5:25) or to those who mistreat us (1 Peter 2:18-24) or to sin and suffering generally (Hebrews 12:1-4).

Christian love, then, is not primarily a matter of feelings. It is self-giving action on behalf of another. As James Hitchcock observed in an article, 'Self, Jesus and God', in Summons to Faith (ed. Peter Williamson & Kevin Perotta):

One of the purposes of authentic Christianity is to take people out of themselves, to provide them with the means to overcome self-centredness and distorted self-love.

Ultimately, we are called to imitate Christ, a repeated theme of the New Testament, for in doing so we are actually imitating God. R. E. O. White, in Biblical Ethics, claims that this perspective is "the nearest principle in Christianity to a moral absolute," for it "remains the heart of the Christian ethic."