The nature of love.

This second chapter of Jonathan's book The Church and the Surprising Offense of God's Love is superb and definitely challenging intellectually and convicting spiritually. If he wanted, he could just take out this chapter and expand it into a book all on its own. The definition Jonathan provides of biblical love is:

True godly love, I believe, consists of three things: (1) the lover's affirmation of and affection for the beloved and (2) the beloved's good (3) in the Holy.

The first two are things the world understands and even tries to practice, but the third is wholly alien to the depraved mind. Whether Jonathan got the phrase "the Holy" as an allusion to Rudolph Otto is something that I'll need to ask him. ultimately, the issue of love is not a question of desire (eros) as opposed to love as gift (agape), but instead "whether the desire is for the Holy One and the gift is the Holy One" (p. 111). The world is opposed to love as affection for another's good in/through God. Jonathan at this point makes an insightful comment: because the sinner cannot conceive of God as the greatest good, he will "love" his beloved by giving an idol--the idol that has replaced God (i.e. money, status, success, entertainment, etc.).

Another striking issue he raises is the notion of love, not among the secular, but among evangelicals and Christians. It seems that a common conception has arisen of true love being unconditional. God's love is unconditional and thus is true, "agape" love. Actually, God's love for mankind is always conditional (p. 104). In the garden of Eden, it was conditioned on keeping the law and now it is conditioned on Jesus' righteousness. If God were to love unconditionally, without requiring anything, we would logically fall into a doctrine of universalism and God would no longer seek His own glory, but ours.

The chapter is rather dense and gets into difficult, but helpful, theology on the love of God. It would be good to reread D.A. Carson's Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God as a companion to this chapter.

General Updates:

• Helping Kaitlin move today into her new place on the Hill.
• Finally heard back from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission this afternoon, so hopefully I'll begin the process to begin working there soon.