In the article What Does it Mean… God is Love?, we looked at the four Greek words for love, (storge, philia, eros and agape), and concluded that it is appropriate to look at these four types of love and view them as different levels, and understandings of the same unifying concept: love. While we did look at the obvious explanation of what theos agape or (as 1st John 4:16b translated into English reads,) ‘God is Love’ means, it’s time to continue our look for a more meaningful answer.
There is a good reason for our search for the ‘deeper meaning’ of John’s statement. In closing out the series of articles on the Beatitudes, we boldly declared that in teaching the Beatitudes to the people, part of what Yeshua was trying to teach us is that we are a part of God! The problem then, is this: If we can’t define God any better than to say theos agape, or ‘God is love’, then it doesn’t really make any difference whether we say we are a part of God or not, since this obvious answer doesn’t bring us any closer to knowing what it means to say that we’re a part of God.
Let’s look at the Apostle Paul’s recorded speech to the Greeks at Mars’ hill which is in the second part of the 17th chapter of Acts. In addressing those gathered at the hill that day, Paul says “For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’” (Acts 17:28 NRSV) The word “in” is an important word here, and its meaning plays an important role in our understanding of what Paul is saying; so let’s take a more detailed look at the word “in”. (Note also, that the word “in” plays just as important a role in the verse from 1st John, as he writes that “Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.”)
We believe that when Paul said “In Him, we live and move and have our being”, then we must really live “in” God. He must be “in” the earth, the air, the environment around us, and even our clothes; the “in” must include everything – all of creation “in” which we find ourselves existing. If we look at Strong’s concordance we find that the word “in” derives from the Greek word, en. There are people in the church who would quickly point out that the word en may have been translated as “in” but was really meant to be “among”. In fact, we do indeed find that there are times when en has been translated as “among”. We find 2800 instances in the New Testament of the “Authorized version” (Strong’s reference to the King James Version of the bible) which resulted from translating the Greek word en. It is translated into English as: “in” – 1902 times; “by” – 163 times; “with” – 140 times; “among” – 117 times; “at” – 113 times; “on” – 62 times; “through” – 39 times; and there are 264 other times when it is translated as part of other phrases. So in terms of how the word en has been translated, it certainly can, and has been interpreted as “among”.
In the Gospel of John, chapter 15, verse 5, Yeshua tells his disciples that “I am the vine, you are the branches.” Now, we are not winegrowers, but we are aware that for centuries, people who have grown grapes have performed what is known as genetic engineering. They do so by combining the genes from various grapevines. This is done by taking a branch from one grape vine and splicing it into another grape vine. The effect of this, when successful, is that the vine repairs the splice itself, and makes the new branch part of the vine. The resulting grapes grow with the combined qualities from the newly spliced branch, (those qualities having come from the original vine which the branch was taken from,) and the vine which the branch was spliced into. After several years of growth, only a well trained eye would be able to detect the area where the splicing was done. Over time, the winegrower will have succeeded at significantly impacting the taste of their grapes to produce a better tasting wine.
The point here is that when the branch has been spliced into the vine, the grapes on the branch will grow only because the branch and the vine have become the same plant. The branch isn’t “among” the vine, because if that were the case, then there would be no flow of water and nutrients through the branch (from the vine) to the grapes. There would be no resulting grapes, and the branch itself would wither and die. Because of this fact, we can look at Yeshua’s statement, “I am the vine, you are the branches”, together with Paul’s statement, “in Him, we live and move, and have our being” and conclude that not only do we find God all around us, because we are “in” Him, but we even find God “in” us – we find that we are indeed a part of God, as we are connected to the vine, itself.
We’ll come back and look at Yeshua’s statement from John 15 some more, but lets look at Paul’s statement again. We can imagine that some people might go to Acts 17 and read the chapter. In doing so, they might conclude that in addressing the Greeks, Paul is only quoting various Greek poets, as an opening or as a way to introduce his remarks. They might suggest that he was just trying to warm up his audience. But Paul is actually introducing a doctrine of pantheism*. In this verse, Paul clearly states that he is quoting the Greek poets. Look at the verse again. “For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’” So, the church would conclude that Paul was using the phrase “in Him…” to open the conversation with the Greeks, by tapping into some of their own popular philosophies, and that he wasn’t actually trying to say that we are “in” God.
Here is the problem with the argument that Paul was only trying to open the conversation with the Greeks, and didn’t really intend to validate pantheism. In the next verse, Paul says “Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, [or an idol,] an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals.” (Acts 17:29 NRSV) Here, Paul is denouncing the practice of idol worship, which he had seen all around the city of Athens (as pointed out in Acts 17:16). If he knew and understood that it was necessary to denounce the practice of idolatry, which goes against the Father’s will, then we can assume that if Paul had found the idea of pantheism to be incorrect, or incompatible with his understanding of the Father’s will, and God’s existence; he would have denounced pantheism at that point, as well. Instead, he embraced it. From this, we can conclude that pantheism is consistent with Paul’s understanding of God’s existence. Therefore, when Paul says “in Him…” he is declaring his agreement with the idea that we actually live “in” God.
The question which we started off with was “What does it mean to say that ‘God is Love’?”, and it doesn’t seem like we’ve talked about love at all. Yet, one of the aspects of Yeshua’s life is that he was sent to be the personification of the love that God is, and an example of this love for us to follow. In the first article What does it mean … God is Love?, we suggested that in Matthew 5 verse 48, (“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”,) Yeshua was trying to communicate to us the need to try to love each other at least as much as the Father loves us. This is meant to give us a goal to work towards, with the complete understanding that we are not going to achieve this goal in our lifetimes.
It has been suggested (by a retired Pastor of the church), that this sort of belief only sets us up for failure, because we can’t possibly succeed. He suggested that we would feel bad, (and cause others to feel bad if they listened to us,) when we don’t succeed at loving each other as much as the Father loves us. This would be true, except for one key fact: We are not implying that we are responsible for loving each other as well as the Father loves us. Instead, we are stating that we are responsible only for doing our best to love each other as much as we can. It is when we do our best to love each other, that we ‘bear the good fruits’ of love. And naturally, we find ourselves back at the verse from the Gospel of John, chapter 15. Bearing the fruits of love (and doing so as well as we are capable of,) is but another way of describing our success as we learn to put the needs of others ahead of our own needs.
Above, we included this link to the passage from John’s Gospel, chapter 15: 1-11
In regards to John Chapter 15: 1-11: We won’t go over each verse, but it’s important to point out a few ideas. Verse two (“Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit”) reinforces our understanding from the first article that the four loves are parts of the whole; a range of love. Even the tax collecting scoundrels who know only storge will be pruned so that they can learn to love better, and bear more fruit.
In verse 3, Yeshua says “You have already been cleansed, by the word that I have spoken to you” It would be easy to think that this might have to do with being cleansed from sin, but this isn’t the case. The word ‘cleansed’ in this verse, is used to indicate that we have been pruned, and are now ready to bear the fruits of love in improved ways, by following the words and teachings of Yeshua.
As we get down to verse 10, (“If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.”) we find that our earlier look at verse 3 is validated, as the commandments from Yeshua are all about love, and these are the words and teachings which he has given us. But we also find another interesting fact: When we talked about the peacemakers (from the 3rd article on the seventh Beatitude), we identified them as being huios theos, even as Yeshua is huios theos. Here we find once again, that he places us on level ground with himself, by saying that with Him, we can abide in the Father’s love.
When we first introduced verse 5 earlier in this article, we talked about the ‘splicing’ of a branch to the grape vine. But with a closer look at the passage from John, we see no mention of splicing at all. In fact, if we read the passage again, we find that Yeshua is implying that we start off as part of the vine. It is only when the branch fails to bear fruit that it is cut away from the vine. But again, we need to remember that key fact: we are not held to the standards that Yeshua, or our Father have set. Those levels of love are only set before us as a goal to aim at, not as a standard to be judged by at pruning time. You might wonder – does pruning take place at all? If we say that we’re only responsible for our own individual progress, do any of the branches get cut away? Well of course they do, or Yeshua wouldn’t have said that they do.
If we look at the bearing of the good fruits of love, as we have said before, these equate to learning to be in higher self, or to learning to put the needs of others ahead of our own needs. Do you remember the example from the first article of the second graders learning math? Some second graders don’t learn to do the math as well as others do. It might be that they don’t understand it; that they did well enough to pass out of the first grade, but didn’t learn the math well enough to be able to move on to the (relatively) more difficult math of second grade. Or it could be, (even in the second grade,) that they don’t care and don’t try. If we watch the news or even pay attention to what’s going on around us, it doesn’t take us long to realize that there are people who don’t seem to care, and don’t seem to try to work at bearing the fruits of love, even in some simple form, like storge. We are not pronouncing judgment on these people, we are simply stating the fact that they exist. These are the people who have made no effort to try and learn how to love others, or put the needs of others ahead of their own needs. These are the people to whom Yeshua refers when he says “Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers.”
What does this mean for us? It means that we need to learn to love others, better. It means that we need to try to learn to put their needs ahead of our own needs; whether it be a family member, or even someone you don’t know. But mostly, it means you need to do your best, to try and love others as well as the Father loves you!
As you might expect, we have uncovered some of the details needed to arrive at a more meaningful answer, but there are more things to consider. The series continues in part 3: Enlightening Information
Grace and peace to you all,
Paul
*Pantheism is a doctrine, or way of thinking about God, that states that “God is all” and “all is God”. The doctrine of monotheism suggests that there is “one” God, who rules over the universe, without being a part of it. He can be found, sitting on His throne in heaven. Traditional western Christianity teaches monotheism, and they claim that pantheism is a heresy.
Another thing to note about pantheism is that sometimes this doctrine is practiced in a way that doesn’t recognize a personal God. In noting that God is also our ‘Father’, we (aNewChristianity.org) differ on this point.
For more information on the various “theisms” (ways of thinking about God) practiced by humankind, you can get a good start at Wikipedia.org: Pantheism.
