God Is Love (1 John 4:8)
Eros is a love that seeks only after God. Sounds great at first glance. But this is the foundation of almost every religion or spiritual quests. This is why great shrines and temples have been built. Eros is indeed a very serious searching for God.
Agape’ is much different than Eros. It is not limited to humans seeking after God. Agape’ includes God seeking after us too!
And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. (Jer 29:13)
“…for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” (Luke 19:10)
God always initiates and our part is simply one of response:
In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:10)
We love Him because He first loved us. (1 John 4:19)
My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand. (John 10:27-29)
If we perceive God’s love as Eros, we will tend to view God as kind of playing “hide and seek” with us. Making Himself as difficult as possible for us to find when we need Him. We will tend to believe that it is hard work to search out God, and we will almost always be unsure if we will be successful. In contrast, how near does God actually come to everyone of us?
“God wanted people to look for him, and perhaps in searching all around for him, they would find him. But he is not far from any of us.” (Acts 17:27, ERV)
The true light was coming into the world. This is the true light that gives light to all people. (John 1:9)
Friend, how near is Jesus to you now? How earnestly is He seeking you? Jesus is as near as the word of faith:
“THE WORD IS NEAR YOU, IN YOUR MOUTH AND IN YOUR HEART” (that is, the word of faith which we preach) (Rom 10:8)
Through His Word, Jesus is already there beside you. Jesus has found you. Jesus is knocking on the door to your heart right now:
Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and eat with you. And you will eat with me. (Rev 3:20)
Says the true Witness, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” Every warning, reproof, and entreaty in the Word of God, or through His delegated messengers, is a knock at the door of the heart; it is the voice of Jesus, asking for entrance. With every knock unheeded, your determination to open becomes weaker and weaker. If the voice of Jesus is not heeded at once, it becomes confused in the mind with a multitude of other voices, the world’s care and business engross the attention, and conviction dies away. The heart becomes less impressible, and lapses into a perilous unconsciousness of the shortness of time, and of the great eternity beyond.{7BC 966.9}
The Heavenly Guest is standing at your door, while you are piling up obstructions to bar His entrance. Jesus is knocking through the prosperity He gives you. He loads you with blessings to test your fidelity, that they may flow out from you to others. Will you permit your selfishness to triumph? Will you squander God’s talents, and lose your soul through idolatrous love of the blessings He has given? {7BC 967.1}
Jesus is always near to us whether we realize it or not. (Heb 13:5)
LORD, you have tested me, so you know all about me. You know when I sit down and when I get up. You know my thoughts from far away. You know where I go and where I lie down. You know everything I do. LORD, you know what I want to say, even before the words leave my mouth. You are all around me—in front of me and behind me. I feel your hand on my shoulder. (Psalms 139:1-5)
Your Spirit is everywhere I go. I cannot escape your presence. If I go up to heaven, you will be there. If I go down to the place of death, you will be there. If I go east where the sun rises or go to live in the west beyond the sea, even there you will take my hand and lead me. Your strong right hand will protect me. Suppose I wanted to hide from you and said, “Surely the darkness will hide me. The day will change to night and cover me.” Even the darkness is not dark to you. The night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are the same. You formed the way I think and feel. You put me together in my mother’s womb. (Psalms 139:7-13)
Eros is a love that is totally dependent upon the perceived value of it’s object/focus. Unlike Agape’ this Eros perception always changes. We will naturally treat the mayor or our boss in a nicer appearing way than we would say the garbage man, a criminal, or any number of other “less desirable” people set in our path. We sometimes treat the wealthy far better than the poor. We get out our best China or silver for the Queen or King, but not usually for some bum down the street or a cripple from the neighborhood. Agape’ is the complete opposite. Rather than being dependent on the perceived value or focus of it’s object, Agape’ always loves the “worthless” ones as easily as the “good” ones. Agape’ will create value in all of it’s objects:
“I will make a person more precious than fine gold;” (Isa 13:12)
God can and does take any kind of person and create value in them. As one Christian writer put it:
The cross stands alone, a great center in the world. It does not find friends, but it makes them. It creates its own agencies. Christ proposes that people shall become laborers together with God. He makes humanity His instrumentalities for drawing all people unto Himself. A divine agency is sufficient only through its operation on human hearts with its transforming power, making us co-laborers with God. {5BC 1138.1}
“If the cross does not find an influence in it’s favor, it creates an influence.” (MS 56, 1899)
God wants to do this with you. “If anyone is afar off they are made near by the blood of Christ.” (Eph 2:13)
But God commends His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. (Rom 5:8-10)
Eros is a love that seeks to ascend, to climb up higher. Eros feeds on promotion, compliments, flattery, or praise. We see Eros everywhere. Schools. Politics. Business. Even in churches.. But with whom did this self-seeking Eros love have it’s beginning?
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. (Isa 14:12-14)
Note in this passage of Isa 14 there are five examples with the word I in them. Lucifer, unlike Agape’ had I trouble.
Agape in contrast to Eros challenges the majority’s preference by coming down lower, that is by descending
Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every person on their own things, but every person also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. (Phil 2:3-8)
if you look carefully in this passage of Phil 2 you will see seven distinct, downward steps that Jesus took in order to show us Agape.’ Though Jesus was in the form of God, Jesus did not count equality with God as something to acquire or to be grasped for. Hung onto desperately. At all costs. The Son of God gave up His crown and His divine position. Voluntarily. Jesus was motivated by Agape’ Jesus took the form of a servant. (slave) Angels are sometimes called servants. Ministering spirits. Sent to serve us:
But to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool? Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation? (Heb 1:13-14)
If Jesus had just become like one of them that would have been a huge compromise, or stepping down for Him. Because Jesus was/is their commander. The Bible tells us that Jesus stepped even lower than them.
Jesus was born in the likeness of human beings. No person has ever fallen so low but that the Son of God has come far enough to reach them. Once a person lets that Agape’ into their heart, all lingering traces of any “holier than thou” spirit melts away before Agape’ love. It is only with Agape’ that hearts can be effectively reached for Christ.
Being found in human form, Jesus humbled Himself. His Mother had Him in an old cattle shed. Was forced to wrap her little One, the baby Jesus, in rags, and then to lie Jesus down in a Donkey’s feed box. The life of Jesus amounted to that of a toiling peasant. But this was not yet enough. Jesus came down lower. Jesus “became obedient” unto death, even the death of the cross. The kind of death that Jesus was obedient to was not a mere escape from His responsibility. Jesus’ death consisted of actually going to hell. A living, conscious condemnation of every living cell and thought of His being. All under the assumed or understood frown of God. The seventh step that Jesus took made things very clear:
“Even the death of a cross.” In Jesus’ day, death on a cross was the most humiliating, hopeless, painful death anyone could ever imagine. Not only was it the cruelest death ever invented. Not only was it the most shameful. Being strung up on the cross naked in front of a jeering crowd who watched His agony with laughter and revelling. Death on a cross carried a built in horror, even deeper than any of this. Death on a cross then meant that Heaven had totally and forever cursed you. Turned their backs on you.
“And if a person has committed a crime punishable by death and they are put to death, and you hang them on a tree, their body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury them the same day, for a hanged person is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance. (Deut 21:22-23,Joshua 10:26-27,Gal 3:13)
This means that the kind of death that Christ died for us was of the lost souls who must at last perished in hopeless despair at the second coming. Jesus tasted the “second death:”
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcomes shall not be hurt of the second death. (Rev 2:11)
Blessed and holy are they that have part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. (Rev 20:6)
And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. (Rev 20:14)
But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.(Rev 21:8)
This second death was the one that Jesus became “obedient” to. (Phil 2:8) While hanging upon the cross, Jesus cried out: “My God. My God. Why have you forsaken me?” (Mat 27:46)
Friend. Won’t you just now quiet your soul and reverently think about this? You and I are the ones who would have had to go through that horrible “second death” , the frightful eternal separation from God, if Jesus had not taken our place and died that death on the cross for us.
The extent of Jesus’ agony on the cross is barely understandable by us today. Those sufferings of Jesus were incomparably greater than any possible physical endurance of physical pain. Of the torture of any of the martyrs. There was no exaggeration or make believe about the burden that Jesus bore for us:
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. (Isa 53:4-5)
In the eyes of the Jews, Christ had no beauty that they should desire Him. They looked for a Messiah who would come with outward display and worldly glory, one who would do great things for the Jewish nation, exalting it above every other nation on the earth. But Christ came with His divinity hidden by the garb of humanity, unobtrusive, humble, poor. They compared this man with the proud boasts they had made, and they could see no beauty in Him. They did not discern the holiness and purity of His character. The grace and virtue revealed in His life did not appeal to them.
The Book of Heaven also says:
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isa 53:6)
What Is Iniquity?
Behold, the LORD’S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear. (Isa 59:1-2)
Iniquity is anything that separates one from God. Iniquity separates people from god. Iniquity separates people from God, leaving the soul desperately distressed and alone. Destroying all sense of security or well being. Without a doubt, God has laid upon Jesus “the iniquity of us all.” (Isa 53:6). God has laid upon His own divine Son all of the same feelings of guilt, loneliness, insecurity, despair, and separation that we all know so well, even today.
The “laying on” of this “iniquity” is what is meant by the separation from His Father that Jesus suffered on the cross. Before one learns the Bible truth of Christ’s death on the cross, they fall into the Eros line of thinking and assume that “one such as Jesus could not possibly have felt forsaken!”
But the Book of heaven tells us that Jesus cried out in dramatic tones:
“My God! My God! Why have you forsaken Me?”
Was Jesus just playing the part like a dramatic actor, putting on a religious show for us on the stage? Or was this an honest, heart-felt cry from a heart tortured with bitter anguish?
Its important to note that Jesus did not bear this burden in the same way a person might carry a heavy load on their shoulders. Jesus had to carry this burden (separation) deep within His very own heart and soul. Peter says it this way:
“Who His own self bear our sins IN His body, on the cross.” (1 Pet 2:24) Therefore it was more in His nervous system, in His mind and soul, in the very core of His being that Jesus bore the killing load of sin for you.
Paul is even more explicit:
Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. (2 Cor 5:20-21)
Jesus was not a sinner. The Bible says that Jesus was sinless. We are told in Scripture that Jesus was “made a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. (cross) [see Gal 3:13] The words “sin” and “curse” mean the same thing. In Gal 3:13 and 2 Cor 5:21 that is separation from God. Paul’s statements show that our Savior’s identity with sin as He bore His cross, was something horribly real. It was complete, permanent severance from The father, for The Book of Heaven tells us:
“the wages of sin IS death.” (Rom 6:23)
THAT death is the second death!
Since Jesus was “made to be sin” or “made a curse for us” then it is quite clear that Jesus was like wise made to suffer the “wages of sin” for us on the cross. (the second death) Our Lord Jesus is very closely attached to us:
For both he that sanctifies and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, (Heb 2:11)
What is it that “death” or “the wages of sin” that our Lord has suffered for us? The Bible tells us about two kinds of death:
1/ sometimes in scripture, death is just called ‘sleep” (John 11:11,13) which is the death that people commonly speak of, that is appointed once for everyone. (Heb 9:27)
2/ The real thing. The second death. This death is permanent. (Rev 2:11, Rev 20:6, Rev 21:8) This second death is an eternal separation from God. No more life, light, or joy forever. It was this second death that Jesus tasted:
But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. (Heb 2:9) Since Jesus tasted this second death for us all, then the “sleep” that we commonly refer to for everyone as death cannot possibly be what Jesus tasted, because as the Bible says, everyone of us are appointed to suffer that death, the first death, once. For themselves. (Heb 9:27) After the first death comes the judgment. (and the second death). Whatever it was that Jesus tasted, it was so that we would not have to taste it ourselves that Jesus hung on that terrible cross.
And as it is appointed unto people once to die, but after this the judgment: So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. (Heb 9:27-28)