This text is seldom quoted from the Old Testament, but often quoted from the New, as though authored at the time of Jesus. It is recorded that Jesus used the words, but we are confident that he was embellishing Leviticus 19:18. On three occasions Matthew quoted Jesus using the sentence – (5:43-46; 19:19; 22:39). The Apostle John remembered a remarkable application of the principle when he recalled the statement of Jesus to the disciples just before the crucifixion: Love one another; as I have loved you, so you are to love one another. If there is this love among you, then all will know that you are my disciples. (John 13:34) Jesus made love significant evidence of one’s faith related to him, and a necessity for Christian discipleship.
There is limited commentary about love in the Old Testament. There is ample evidence that love was a major matter for the ancients, but they commonly lived on the edges of survival, carnality and hardship so that they seemed to feel limited ranges for love quotients. It was reserved mostly for one’s own family orientation, and even then, sometimes faded. Love was at the beginning in the relationship of Adam and Eve, but weakened when sin diluted it. Jesus reinforced the first virtue of love to his disciples and called his followers to lives and attitudes of love. One test of love, he pointed out, is partly in the eagerness to forgive, even forgive violations of love responsibility. A major belief in Christian theology is that God’s nature includes love (agape).
When Moses told the people to love each other (neighbors), he gave the reason to do so. To love is to reflect God. Not to love is to deny God in some way. Jesus gave the same motivation and reason for love. Love each other. Why? Because I have loved you, he said. He did not say to love because it is a natural thing to do; nor was it because one would get more from love than if he did not love; nor was it for sensual gratification; nor was it because nice people told us to love; but it was because God loves that we ought also to love. To love rightly is to be Christ-like, reflecting God. Love is to take hold of the individual’s human nature. This identifies with God’s nature.
To love one another in the right way is to join, to the degree that man can, the nature of God. For God is love, we are told. The most compelling evidence that man misses out in faith with God is that he simply does not love in the way Jesus told us to love. Jesus used an important word we commonly miss when he stated that if there is this love among us, we will be identified as the Lord’s children. There are other kinds of love, but the one that is eternal is this one. What is this one? It is God’s love, shed abroad in our hearts. It is not sexual love. It is not brotherly love. It is not family love. It is not self-love. It is not love of things. It is not love of love. This love is God’s love. Even Christians may not be aware that this is the special love that the World yearns for, but may not perceive, is energized from the nature of God – in Christ, through his Holy Spirit. This is divine love, but can be shared to persons, if sought on God’s terms. Love can become a part of our natures. We are not in love, but we become loving persons. Loving persons are not selective. They just love, even the unloving, even the unlovable. They love because, now in God’s love, they must. This is akin to the love recited in 1 Corinthians 13, describing God’s love. My life is devoted to progress in discovering and living out the divine love quotient so to become a loving person. In this, love becomes automatic from a person fully formed to righteous love. It is irresistible for the loving person even when it is resisted by the persons loved. Nothing else will do well enough in the love of God. God’s love is in the immortal lover. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020