LOVE IS LOVE NOT LUST
Most people say, “I love you,”
vainly or at least with shallowness. Love is operationalized and it does not
exist without some sort of action. The ultimate love is from God, and He
does expect something in return, as it is written:
And God spoke all these words,
saying, “I Am the Lord your God… shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love
Me, and keep My commandments.” (Exod 20:1-2,6)
Somebody else said that much
later, Jesus said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:15). It was
the same Entity who said those words thousands of years apart. That saying is “The
Word” that we call, “Jesus” in English.
“Love” in the Hebrew is ‘ahab
and it means “to have affection for”
Love would be conveyed as the
Image of God, “selem,” in the Hebrew; meaning simply a shadow or phantom
existence (ibid). Love is therefore the shadow of God; and when He manifests
Himself, the action is love. Thus, The Book of Acts is a book of
love.
Again, Paul’s saying demonstrates that:
The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal Power and Godhead. (Rom 1:20)
The “Invisible Thing” is the love
of God and divine love reveals the “Godhead,” or the Holy Trinity. Love is the
Power of The Triune God. It is not just coincidence that Hebrew love is spelled
with three letters because those three represent the three substances of God,
as you shall see?
People think of love as an
emotion, but it is a super-power that God shared with the original man. When Adam
was made in the Image of God, that Image was supreme Power that was meant to be
shared with Adam’s kind.
That was God’s device for multiplication
(Gen 1:20). If that is true, and it is, then God first shared love with the
male of the species, then the male shared it with the female; and it was
totally non-sexual activity. Yes, love is an activity — a dynamic — that in the
time of Jesus was called “virtue.” When Jesus sensed the loss of virtue that
made the woman with the blood issue whole, Jesus shared the love of God with
her (Mark 5:30).
Love constrains us (2 Cor 5:14),
not in the sense of restriction but motivation. If we have love, God provides a
sense of power to those who know His love, and they are also to love in the same
manner as God. The Great Commission stresses love must be shared to be love
(Mat 22:36-40).
It seems that the evidence of Adam’s
“dominion” was that he shared the love of God with his mate. Since the Hebrew
word translated “dominion” (Gen 1:26) means “crumble”
Does the Hebrew word for love —‘ahab
— provide any clues to support that idea? Of course, affection is an
invisible attribute, but it can be measured. Love is measured by the tenets of The
Law, meaning that adherence to The Law is evidence of love; hence they are the
measure of love, just as God said when He issued its metrics with The Ten
Commandments. The Hebrew word ‘ahab, translated “love” is triune,
consisting of three letters: aleph, hey, and bet.
Aleph is the fundamental
Power of God for God is “Aleph” (or El). Albeit El is invisible,
in agreement with Paul (Rom 1:20), El can be seen by the things that God
does. El is the emanation of love, so God is seen by His dynamics, or
works.
People who are in Christ and with
God sense the love of God. Love is there all the time but there is a scotoma —
a dark cloud of sin — that interferes with its reception. The things of the
world get in the way of God’s love, and in a way, the things of the world block
true love from ever being sensed. How can anyone sense divine love if love of
the world and things stand in the way? Hence, the things of the flesh are a barrier
that blocks the enduring love of God from being sensed.
If you want to block out God,
what do you do? Focus on the things of the world. Most people are caught up in
success, homes, cars, friends, and such. Albeit they are not necessarily bad things,
even the love of Christians can fade away; albeit the enduring love of God remains.
Christians do fail to pass along that kind of love. Love must be dynamic
(works) to be true love.
For instance, how would your mate
know love if it is not demonstrated? Saying “I love you,” although reinforcing,
is not true love; whereas demonstrating it is how love is passed along. The
Commandments are ways of demonstrating love although they are misinterpreted as
things you must do to gain favor with God. You have God’s favor regardless — it
is by grace. If He favors you, He expects you to favor Him.
Love begins with dynamics — ways
to reveal the invisible power of it. That is the aleph in ‘ahab. The
letter hey, characterized by a window invokes a sense of a
breeze. The letter hey reveals the Presence of God. The breeze cannot be
seen but it can be felt. The same applies to the power of love. Hence, the
letter hey, following the aleph, transmits the idea of a Spirit flowing.
Love might very well be the flowing of the Spirit from the Power of God, but
the ruler of the Air, Satan, interferes with love a flowing (Ephes 2:2); when
people confuse eroticism with love.
Whereas the love of God is affection,
the love of Satan is indulgence. Oftentimes even Christians indulge their every
whim. “Indulgence” is succumbing to your own desires and that blocks the window
of God. So many people are so distracted by indulgence that the window of love
is closed to them. In other words, self- indulgence blocks the Spirit of God
from flowing. It still flows, but self-indulgent people fail to sense it.
Lastly comes the letter bet
in ‘ahab. The bet represents the “House of God” Jesus. Jesus is
the vessel of love. He referred to Himself as “Bet” in the English “Vessel”
or “Cup” when in agony: “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from
Me: nevertheless not as I will, but as You will” (Mat 26:39).
The idea of hey takes on
new meaning as something is in the “cup” that will pass from Him. That is the “ah”
in ‘ahab — the Power of God that passes through the window of
opportunity; to where? Unto the Cup, or Bet, called “Jesus.”
The letter bet represents
containment. God’s love (Power of El; El Shaday) passed through the
window (hey) into the vessel (Bet), Jesus. And what was Jesus to
do? To pass that cup to all mankind. In
the end, it was finished and Jesus lost virtue enough to cover the sins of the entire
world.
Jesus did not die as we think of
it; His love (virtue) was depleted to the degree that His Power (El) was
gone. His aleph was vacated by Him losing virtue to save the world.
Hence, death is not immobility but the loss of love — depletion, or in the case
of some Christians, defection.
Once defected, always defected
(Heb 6:6). Love is the directional flow in the sense once it is given, it
cannot be given back, and to do so, restricts the flow of love from God to man.
Adam was glorified as the Image
of God is Glory. Glory is full of love. When Jesus was glorified (John 7:39)
what happened? At the Resurrection, He got His flow of love going again, and
the advent of the Holy Ghost (Acts 2) was an act of the love of God. How
so?
Christians in Jerusalem were of “one
accord” (Acts 2:1). They were the Church — the House of God that He built by
His Power. No longer was Jesus alone the Bet but it had been passed
along. Accordance is the evidence of love.
Recalling ‘ahab, “suddenly
there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all
the house where they were sitting” (Acts 2:2). Somebody left the window open in
that house and God passed through as if a gust of fresh air. Then as the Spirit
of God passed through the window, as He had the doors of the exodus, “They (3000)
were all filled with the Holy Ghost” (Acts 2:4). They were each a part of God’s
house. That action (Act of God) was ‘ahab. God was transmitting His love
to others, “whosoever” as John 3:16 points out. Not just whomever,
but those that “believed in Him.”
That belief is the window
open, so the breath of God passes through (the hey in ‘ahab.) For
love to pass the window must be open. The open window on the day of Pentecost
was that they were of one accord in love. If there had been discord, then the
window of opportunity would have been closed to the demise of the Church.
What may have happened on the day
of Pentecost at that time? Ahab — love was passing through the crowd as
if it was one person without discretion on the part of God. It was there for
all, but for those who received the love of God, they had to be open to it.
Three-thousand of all those there
received the love of God without doing anything, and the evidence was that they
spoke the same language. Whereas, when in discord with God, they babbled, when
they were in one accord, God decrypted the babble into something understandable.
Three thousand spoke the language of love. (My personal belief is that they spoke
ancient Hebrew and everyone in love with Jesus, spoke “The Word.” Yes, I
believe primitive Hebrew was The Word of God.)
God (El) was entangled
with Jesus (Bet), and it was done by love (hey). Then at Pentecost
on His Way out, Jesus left behind the divine love that He had been passed
along. Jesus said, “It is finished,” and He bowed His head, and gave up the Ghost”
(John 19:30).
There is much hidden in that
passage. He passed along love, meaning that the passing of ‘ahab was
complete; His virtue had healed the nations (Rev 22:2), not everyone, but those
who had the window of belief still open. Most others had shut the window so
hard that it was stuck closed. God had elected all mankind to partake of His
love, but most had the windows of their minds nailed shut.
When Jesus gave up the Ghost, it
would have been the Spirit (El) in His House (Bet) to flow freely
to anyone who believed.
In science, that action is called
“quantum uncertainty.”
Figure 1: Quantum Entanglement (NASA)
Quantum uncertainty
pertains to the particles that are entangled with some other “particle.” The
uncertainty is a wave function (think cloud by day or a fire by night) that
describes the probability of both their location and momentum (self-movement).
Hence, love can be described by
both quantum entanglement and uncertainty, and its availability without regard
to the place or the passing of time. When they were all of one accord, they
were all in Christ — entangled with Him. God “so loved the world;” that is
uncertainty without regard to individuality. That love was directed at everyone
— the “uncertainty” — but to be open to the love of God, as individuals, they
must believe. That belief directs the love of God to those who trust in Him.
Since God is not a respecter of
persons (Acts 10:34), then His love is open to all who would be open to it. To
be open to God is trusting that His Power is love as John 3:16 proposes.
Those who want love; it is available
to them if they are open to it. So, the process of “election” is subject to whom
is open to His love.
Love is not a condition to be
forced on anyone (irresistible) but a wave that us beings are open for its reception.
In Acts 2 those who loved
each other were open to the love of God. If they were closed to one another,
they would be closed to the love of God.
Hence, the election of a few is
not by either natural or supernatural selection, but love is available to all
by grace if we are open to God’s breathing love unto us.
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