For many Christians, the effort to love the way the Bible commands is tiresome—like driving a car with square wheels. How do we keep from holding grudges? How do we love our enemy? How do we rejoice when our co-worker gets the promotion we deserve?
I don’t think we’ll know how to really love until we understand a verse like John 1:14:
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we saw his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
You may not recognize the Old Testament allusion of God dwelling or “tabernacling” with his people, but for a Jew in John’s day, this text would bring tears to your eyes. And I’ll tell you why.
You see, the word “tabernacle” goes back in the history of Israel to the Exodus, where God’s presence would reside in a tabernacle or a tent. This is how God would “tabernacle,” pitch his tent with his people in the desert and he’d do the same in the temple of the Promise Land.
But as Israel began to abandon the Lord, going after false gods and breaking God’s commands, their disobedience would threatened God’s favor and soon, their rebellion would be complete and God’s presence would no longer dwell with his people.
Gone.
So when the apostle John writes that “The Word (God himself) became flesh and dwelt, tabernacled, among us,” for Jews and for all of us, it’s the best news in the world, that even if you didn’t believe it, you’d hope it was true.
But there’s more.
Later in his gospel, the apostle John will show how personal God’s love is. John 15:12-14, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends.” You begin to see that the love of God was a costly love.
For some, today, it’s tempting to believe that God is only loving, not wrathful against sin; only forgiving, not demanding a payment for our trespasses. But I wonder, did that love cost your god anything? Did he have to give up anything to love you in that way? You see, the Bible displays a God, a holy and just God, who will punish sin, but he made his way from heaven to earth in order to be punished on our behalf.
The love that doesn’t cost God anything, doesn’t cause us to sing. But the costly love of God makes music and causes Christians to sing that they have received what they don’t deserve. That God has come to earth and has exchanged his perfect and spotless standing for our cursed and sinful life. And he was crushed for it.
It’s only when you believe in this love, that you won’t hold your spouses’ sin against them, since God doesn’t hold your sin against you.
It’s only when this love makes you sing, that you’ll love your enemies, because Christ was crucified for us, his enemies.
It’s only when this love makes you weep for joy, that you can rejoice when your co-worker gets the promotion you deserve, since Christ, deserving the highest praise, made himself low, that we might be promoted to glory.
It’s only when this love is so precious, like the food we eat and water we drink, that we will stop looking down on others, because, as someone once puts it, we are all just beggars showing other beggars where bread is. Praise be to God for mercy.
BibleMesh aims to help people understand the big picture as well as important facts of the Bible. The first BibleMesh resource is “The Biblical Story,” a course that presents Scripture as a cohesive narrative of God’s work in the world from Genesis to Revelation. It utilizes an interactive quizzing tool that helps people remember what they have learned. And finally, it includes a social networking platform which will allow pastors and church leaders to host their own online Bible studies and contribute their own resources. Forthcoming content will include courses in Biblical Greek and Hebrew.