To Love God Or Fear Him

Biblegems #294

Question: The Bible says that we are to love God (Dt. 6:5), but also says in the very same chapter that we are to fear Him (Dt. 6:13), even though 1 John 4:18 claims there is no fear in love. I’m confused…

Let’s begin with the passage in First John:

         1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

Context is everything. From the beginning of chapter four John encourages his readers to love one another with the same love God shows them through His Son, Jesus Christ. Such love demonstrates they truly belong to God and have nothing to fear on the Day of Judgment:

         1 John 4:17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: n this world we are like Jesus.

For those who truly know the love of God through Jesus Christ and treat others with that same love, there is no fear of punishment or condemnation from God.

Deuteronomy 6:5, 13, on the other hand, specifically teach that we are to both love God and fear Him:

         Deut. 6:5  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

Deut. 6:13  Fear the Lord your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name.

Love and fear are not mutually exclusive. In this context, both have little to do with emotions or feelings. You cannot make anyone feel love just by telling them to do so, nor can you make somebody feel afraid just by telling them to do so. Both love and fear are intended to convey actions in this case, not feelings.

To love God with the whole heart, soul and strength is to devote your entire being to God. To fear God, in this context, is connected with serving Him and acting as His representative when making promises and commitments. Our lives are to be spent acting as God’s emissaries, His ambassadors. We are not our own masters. Consequently, everything we do and say carries consequences beyond their own immediate impact. Every person will have to give an account to God as to how well we acted on His behalf in this life.

         Rom. 14:12  So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.

The Bible teaches, therefore, that God is King as well as Creator, and that every human being is designed to be completely devoted to Him, exercising that devotion in how we live, love, work and play. To do otherwise is to rebel against God, His Kingdom and His design for our lives. Just as an earthly ambassador represents his own country in a foreign land by everything he or she says and does, so too are we ambassadors of the Kingdom of God to a world in rebellion against God. Our behavior reflects God’s character; and we who claim to be His followers are especially accountable.

         Heb. 12:28  Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire.”

   

Is “Be Ye Perfect” Possible?

Biblegems #243

Question: Why does Jesus tell us “to be perfect” when perfection, this side of heaven is impossible?

In both the Old and New Testaments, the words translated most often into English as “perfect” (Heb. Tamam; Gk. Telios) mean perfect in the sense of “complete,” “mature” or “finished.”

The word first appears in Scripture in Dt. 32:4, where it says of God, “He is the Rock, his works are perfect (tamam), and all His ways are just.” Here, the meaning of perfection emphasizes the sense of “complete” or “finished”—a reference to His completed work on day six of creation in Genesis, where all He made was declared “very good” (Gen. 1:31). As the Scripture says,

         Heb. 4:3b …And yet his work has been finished since the creation of the world.

Elsewhere in the Old Testament tamam carries the idea of flawlessness:

         2 Sam. 22:31   As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the LORD is flawless.

The last use of the word “perfect” in the Bible has to do with how a believer has “matured” spiritually in being governed by the love of God:

         1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love. But perfect (mature) love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect (mature) in love. 

In this case, being “made perfect” (telios) in love is viewed as a process in which some believers are further along than others. “Perfect” in this sense pictures a completed, finished process where the believer has come to full maturity in this matter of selfless love.

In a similar way, when Jesus says, “be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect,” He uses the word “perfect” in the sense of “spiritually mature.”

The word “therefore” makes it clear that Jesus is addressing a specific issue brought up in the preceding verses. Just before His statement about being perfect, Jesus challenges the popular saying among the Jews at the time, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy” (Matt. 5:43). Instead, He says, those who truly want to be like God will “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…” (Matt. 5:44). After all, He explains, God causes the sun and rain to benefit both the righteous and unrighteous (Matt. 5:45), so we should do likewise (46-47).

When it comes to your behavior in dealing with challenging interpersonal relationships, “Be perfect, (i.e., spiritually mature) therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect (spiritually mature).”

Homosexuality & The Love Of God

Biblegems #102

Question: How does one reconcile the apparent contradiction that God, who is love, condemns homosexuality, even when two people of the same gender genuinely love each other? And what if that same couple love God as well? Who are we to judge?

Introduction:

There are many who read this question for whom the answer seems so straightforward they can’t imagine how anyone could be confused. They would say something like: “God says homosexuality is sin, end of subject.” However, many others reading this are saying something like: “Finally, someone has the courage to ask what I’ve been wanting to ask for so long!” In either case, I hope you will read on, because even if you are not asking this question, you know people who are—but who may be to afraid to ask out loud. And there are too many Christians afraid to answer the question out loud.

There are several components to the question above: The love of God, human love, the nature of homosexuality, passing judgment on others, etc. I cannot possibly answer all of these interrelated questions in one 500 word blog. So this will be the first of a multi-part response. I know as I post each blog some readers will be saying, “Yeah, but what about…” —because I have to approach this piecemeal, not as a whole. Please be patient, and try to see each blog post as one incomplete part of a larger whole.  

I have used 200 words already just introducing this topic. Therefore, for this week’s blog post, the 500 word limit I attempt to impose on myself for your easier reading begins now:

God is love.

         1 John 4:8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Love is the very essence of God’s nature. It is not so much what He feels, or even what He does, it is who God is. That is very different from human love. Human love at its most superficial reflects how we feel, and that feeling is fleeting, inconsistent. God’s love is constant, unchanging. Human love at its highest chooses to be loving even when not being loved in return— something also achieved with great inconsistency. God always loves, and always acts in love, because He is love itself—unselfish, self-sacrificing, always seeking the welfare of those who need His love.

Obviously, then, true love must be measured against the highest, perfect standard, which is God. The goal of true love is not for God to love like us, but for us to love as He does. So when John says, Whoever does not love does not know God, God is the standard: whoever does not love [i.e., as God loves] does not know God.

So how do we love as God loves? Jesus gives us the answer:

         John 14:15 If you love me, you will obey what I command.

To disobey God is to selfishly choose what we want rather than lovingly choose to live as He designed us to live. We did not design ourselves. We are created with a carefully crafted design and purpose by a God whose very nature is love. We are designed to be like Him:

         Gen. 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

         God designed human sexuality as a union between male and female, and that union is designed to be a mirror image of Himself.

Gen. 2:18 The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

Gen. 2:22-24 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

The “suitable helper,” according to God’s perfect design, was not male to male or female to female, but the union between a man and a woman who share a similar essence, but who have been intentionally separated by God into two genders. It is part of God’s design for human beings that we find our truest self by becoming united with our “other half.” For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.