Unrequited Love

Willam Shakespeare's Sonnet 68 starts with "Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing." That Sonnet is about unrequited love.

"Unrequited love" is love not reciprocated. Dr. David Jeremiah said something akin to, "God loves us but expects nothing in return." Not loving God in return is "unrequited love." Not only does God expect love, he commands it:

Mark 12:30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. John 15:10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. 

How much clearer can it get? God demands reciprocity in love! If we don't love back, God's attitude is "Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing" because God "so loved the world" (John 3:16) that he commanded that in gratitude we love him back!

Mark 12:30 says that reciprocated love is "the first commandment."  Mat 22:36-37 says loving God is "the greatest commandment". Indeed, it is the first and greatest. I know, you're thinking: The First Commandment is "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." (Exod 20:3). Think about that! It's saying the same thing in different words. We are to place God first because he is greatest.

However, Exod 20:3 was not the first chronological commandment. 

Gen 2:15 And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

There were two trees in the midst of the Garden. One was the forbidden tree, but the other was the Tree of Life. Whether those were real trees or not does not matter but we know that the Tree of Life is symbolic if not really in reference to Jesus Christ!

Rev 2:7 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.22:2 n the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.22:14 Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. 

Jesus is the healer. The Tree of Life is "for the healing of the nations"! Those who "do his commandments" "have a right to the tree of life," and may enter into Heaven's gates. This is requited or reciprocated love! (Dr. Jeremiah missed the point on that one!):  God does expect His love to be reciprocated!

Referring again to Gen 2:15, mankind was to "dress and keep the garden", and then God commanded "thou shalt not eat of it," referring to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They could eat of the Tree of Life, and freely. God's command was essentially love me first and most! Thus, the first commandment was the first one written in stone many years later.

The key verse for today is:

Rev 2:4 Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.

What God has against the Church at Ephesus is that although they once loved Him, they no longer did! God's love was unrequited. Sure, they loved Him at one time, but no longer did. Imagine, if you will, that you so loved another person (male to female, or female to male) that you would die for them, but after a spell, they no longer loved you back! That would be devastating. Likewise, unrequited love is devastating to God as well, because for Him, that is the first and greatest desire that He has! In scripture, the Israelites were his bride, and he was their groom:

Isa 62:5 For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee: and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee. 

Isaiah was prophesying about the Church. We know from the parable of the ten virgins that they are the Church and Jesus the bridegroom. Imagine, if you will, the bride leaving the groom after knowing each other so intimately on the wedding night. The love of which I am speaking is Godly (agape) love, and it is much more profound than erotic love!  

One who leaves their "first love" is an adulterer. That's fornicating as the marriage vows are severed. Leaving your first love is fornicating against the Church's marriage to the Groom. The Church at Ephesus was once faithful to Jesus, and had fidelity only to him. They had eaten of the forbidden tree, and had failed to "keep and tend the Garden". The Tree of Life stood in the midst of the Garden. God kept and tended all the other trees. All Adam and Eve, and us, had to do was tend to that One Tree in the midst of the Garden, and they, and we, can't even do that! The Church at Ephesus were guilty of violating the first and greatest commandment!

Just as the groom who loves his bride, Jesus so loves the Church. That groom, because of his love, would take his contrite bride back in a heartbeat if she was sincerely sorry. It's no different with Jesus:

Rev 2:5 Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent. 6 But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate. 7 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.

If the bride fails to repent, that is apostasy - the abandonment of the Groom. The reward for restitution is "to eat of the tree of life" just as they were blessed to do back in the Garden! That is to partake of Jesus Christ, and since Jesus stands in Paradise on the River of God, that is Heaven! However, the flipside of that is without repentance, the Church cannot partake of Jesus's reward. To be blunt, unrequited love is blasphemy against the Holy Ghost because with Jesus no longer there in body, they rejected "His Ghost" who remained there to Comfort them!

His "Ghost"? That's what the King James translators called Jesus's Spirit after he ascended:

John 7:39 But this spake he (Jesus) of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.

While Jesus was in the world in the flesh, they had been faithful. The marriage was a beautiful thing! Once Jesus ascended, they were faithful for awhile but lust drew them away until they forgot their first love. Jesus was still there in Spirit but they neglected him for another. The Nicolaitanes were those who committed the sins of Balaam. The Church at Ephesus had sexual sins, and the love of money, which we know is the "root of all evil" (1 Tim 6:10). (I have written on the Nicolaitanes before. See http://kentuckyherrin.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-church-of-sin-of-choice.html.)

We must be careful what we bring into the church. At Ephesus, it was sexual sin. Surely not everyone but it was likely condoned as some or many ignored God, and did their own thing! In effect, they loved themselves more than Jesus. That was the way in the beginning, in Ephesus, now, and in the end. This infidelity is ontology and eschatology. There indeed, is "nothing new under the sun" (Ecc 1:9).