The Fork in the Road: The Man or the Plan, Part 9 (Why Love?)

To understand God, we must first understand Jesus. And to understand Jesus, we need to consider one of the central passages that explain his work on earth —

(Phi 2:5-11 ESV) 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

This is one of the most important Christological passages in the Bible, because it explains so much of what Jesus is about. It deserves a very extensive treatment. I covered it in some depth in the “Cruciform God” series. And that’s a very, very important series. If you ever feel the urge to read old blog posts, read that series first. It’s powerfully changed my thinking in many areas, and I’m still working to conform my theology to the insights gained in that study.

V. 5 tells us to be like Jesus by conforming our minds to the story of Jesus. V. 6 teaches that before he was born in human form, Jesus was “in the form of God” and enjoyed “equality with God.” But despite these unspeakable advantages and blessings, Jesus surrendered them for us. And thus begins a story of love.

V. 7 tells us that Jesus “made himself nothing.” Some translations say that he “emptied himself.” The Greek for this is kenosis. If your pour a pitcher of water out until it’s empty, that would be kenosis. If the pitcher emptied itself, it would be kenosis as used in this passage.

V. 7 continues by telling us that Jesus took the form of a slave. The Greek is doulos (slave) not diakonos (servant). Paul uses “slave” to emphasize that Jesus preserved no rights of any kind for himself. He emptied himself to take on complete subjection. And he took on the likeness (=form) of men.

And he did this in an age without air conditioning, deodorant, soap, shampoo, detergent, or antibiotics, a world where the common man walked wherever he went and a nation that was under the rule of a hated, repressive, totalitarian Roman government.

V. 8 explains that Jesus humbled himself by becoming obedient to death on the cross. He submitted to the will of the Father.

Why? Why would a member of the Godhead voluntarily subject himself to such humiliation and degradation? To such an agonizing death? Now, think a bit about it before you read on. And then ask yourself, why would the human Jesus subject himself to such a life? Why not give up his humanity and return to heaven? His disciples weren’t too swift. The people almost all rejected him and his teaching. And his death was excruciating!

The first and obvious answer is love, of course. Jesus, before his incarnation, must have loved the people of this planet very much indeed. And he showed his love by his actions — not just the healing and the teaching, but by choosing to walk among us, to suffer alongside us in the wretchedness of a life that we’d consider impoverished and miserable, dealing with people at their worst, although rarely — ever so occasionally — at their best.

His love was a sacrificial, serving, self-giving love that chose to walk alongside the objects of its love. Jesus could have sent us regular monthly checks from heaven, and that would have been a kind of love, but he preferred to come to earth himself. That’s a truer, deeper love.

And his love was not in any respect self-seeking. Here’s the hard part for us. Yes, God will reward us for our love. The Bible is quite clear on that. But, no, if we do it for the reward, it’s not really love. It’s selfish. It’s a bit of a paradox, isn’t it?

When I was very young, my mother told me if I hugged my grandmother, I’d get a piece of candy corn. And so I did it for the candy. My grandmother might have felt loved by the hug, but my love was for candy corn, not her. And my mother knew this. But she figured if I acted like a loving grandchild long enough, the feelings would eventually come. You see, sometimes we have to do before we feel.

Just so, when my kids used to fight, we’d make them apologize, even though they very clearly didn’t mean it. They had to act the right way in hopes they’d come to feel the right way. It’s parenting 101.

Therefore, yes, the scriptures do tell us we’ll be rewarded for good deeds done. And we will. But the goal is for us to act out of love — without regard to the reward. Because that’s the only way to be like Jesus. Some of the time, we elders have to pull out the “treasures in heaven” argument to persuade members to act right, but that’s for the immature. For the mature, it’s enough to remind them of the Golden Rule. When they stop to consider the feelings of people they love, they change. Love is enough.

Jesus was already equal with God before he took human form. He didn’t sacrifice himself to get a promotion! He did it out of selfless love. And we should learn to be like Jesus.

Now, you see, the more we understand Jesus, the more we understand how to obey a simple command such as “love your neighbor.” Very easy to say. Not hard to understand. Very difficult to do. Fortunately, God helps us be like Jesus by giving us the Spirit.

(Rom 5:3-6 ESV) 3 More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. 6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

What allows us to endure suffering? Love. How do we have love that strong? By the power of the Spirit — which helps us be more like Jesus, who also endured suffering out of love.

Now, this isn’t a pleasant lesson at all. We like to think that “love” means getting certain easy-to-obey rules right. We actually argue that true love means obeying God, and obeying God means getting the worship services and church organization right. But the scriptures want us to think in another direction entirely. True love means surrendering yourself for the sake of others. And that’s hard. Anyone can worship without a piano for his entire life — and never mess up once. Easy. But loving others like Jesus? Only God himself could pull that off. If we took that one seriously, we’d truly be on our knees begging for God’s help to do it, rather than feeling justified by our expertise in reading the silences.

Notice in particular that Jesus obeyed God by sacrificing himself for people. We don’t read of Jesus engaging in great acts of worship. He didn’t lead great devos. He didn’t compose hymns. He taught and preached, but he did this mainly in streets and on the hillsides and over dinner. Sure, like any rabbi, he taught in the synagogues, but this was not the core of his obedience. It was just one more opportunity to teach the good news of the Kingdom.

You see, the deepest obedience to God is found in serving our fellow man. It’s not done through Five Acts. It’s done in the ghettos, in the slums, and in the streets. True obedience is love, and true love is self-giving for others.

And this is because God is like Jesus. What Jesus did was obedience to God because it’s what God wanted. The love demonstrated by Jesus is God’s word to us about who God really is. Jesus reveals God to us. And Jesus showed God’s true nature by his service and his sacrifice.

The Eastern Orthodox have a doctrine called theosis. Theosis is to become like God. And Christians are supposed to engage in theosis — we are charged to become like God (which we covered in the last post). (The Orthodox get this right.)

Jesus reveals God. Therefore, kenosis is theosis. To serve, suffer, and sacrifice for others is to be like Jesus and so to become like God.

(John 14:9 ESV) 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?”

(Col 1:15 ESV) 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

In short, when the scriptures teach us to love, and when Paul declares that nothing counts for anything except faith working through love, and when Jesus commands the Golden Rule and tells us that loving God and loving our neighbor are the two highest commands, we are being told how to be like God. And this is the key to God’s redemptive plan to set the world right, to restore what was broken in the Fall, and to restore us to right relationships with God and each other.

We want to find a set of rules and steps. But the scriptures teach us it’s about becoming like God — and that leads to the necessity of love — and by understanding this, we understand why love is at the heart of Christianity. It’s at the heart of God.