MUSINGS ON LOVE AND LOVING (1)

Continuing from my last post, what is the quintessential nature and essence of love?

To the apostle John, God is Love.[1] But, what does this mean?
 
For me, this means that in the Being of God, there is a dynamic eternal relationship of love and loving among Father, Son and Spirit. This eternal exchange of giving, receiving and responding in love to One Another is within the true Nature and Essence of Who God is, TRIUNE. God’s ThreeOness, ever in loving relationship, One with Another, is the complete and perfect expression of the nature and essence of love. For me, I believe, this is why God is love.
 
As God, Triune, is love, love also Is, arising from the Triune relationship of God. This means that love exists, because, out of and from the ThreeOne relationship of Father, Son and Spirit.  Love is, only because the Triune relationship is genuinely real. Relationships are real and not illusory imaginings, for, relationships have eternally existed in the eternal Triune Being of God.
 
If God is not Triune but only One, then, only self loving, loving of One’s Self  is eternally with and in God. There is no eternal, real and true love for, with and in Another.  However, if God is more than One and yet also One, TRIUNE, as revealed in, through and by the Incarnate Son and Spirit, then, true, real and eternal loving relationships, not only for one’s self but also another is revealed to be inseparable from, and essentially in, the Nature, Essence and Being of God. For me, this eternal relational happening of union and communion within the Triune, is, presently, the best matrix by which I comprehend and relate to God’s ThreeOneness, in loving nature and being.
 
In union, the Three, Father, Son and Spirit are One. In communion, the ONE GOD, is also Three: Father, Son and Spirit.[2]  Drawing from this, we can perceive that the completeness and perfection of love not only requires love to and for one’s self, but also love towards all others. This arises from the Triune loving relationship, in union and communion, jointly and severally, loving One’s self, loving all the Others as much as loving One’s self and loving and receiving love, simultaneously, in similar manner, from all the Others[3]
 
This Triune completeness and perfection of love and loving is the glory of Triune God in eternity: ““Father, those whom you have given to me—I want that those also may be with me where I am, in order that they may see my glory that you have given me because (in that)[4] you loved me before the foundation of the world(i.e.the universe)[5].”[6]
 
Son’s glory was that of loving union and communion with Father in eternity. Son’s desire was to share this glory with us:  “And I do not ask on behalf of these only, but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their word, that they all may be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I am in you, that they also may be in us, in order that the world may believe that you sent me. And the glory that you have given to me, I have given to them, in order that they may be one, just as we are one— I in them, and you in me, in order that they may be completed in one, so that the world may know that you sent me, and you have loved them just as you have loved me”[7].
 
Son, even in Incarnation, remains ever One with and in Father.[8] To see Incarnate Son is to also see Eternal or Everlasting Father.[9] As Isaiah had prophesied:
“For a child has been born for us;
    a son has been given to us.
And the dominion will be on his shoulder,
    and his name is called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
        Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”[10]
 
Spirit is also, in union and communion, jointly and severally, present with Father and Son, in all. For it is in and through Spirit, in union and communion, with Father and Son, in love, that all, including love and loving, happens.[11] Spirit is the Happening of Triune God, through Whom, Triune God, “I Am that I Am”, lovingly happens.[12]  Spirit expresses God to us and in us.[13]



[1] 1 John 4: 8,16. “Ὁ θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν’”

[2] Please refer to my earlier posts on relationships.  See also the Shema in Deuteronomy 6:4 where "the Lord (YHWH) is ONE and Lord (YHWH) GOD (Elohim-Plural) is more than one.

[3] Loving your neighbor as yourself, an expression of love, seen in this light, reveals  and points us to the completeness of love within the Triune relationship.

[4] For me, should be more accurately translated as ”(in) that” - See Strong’s G3754 ὅτι hóti, hot'-ee; neuter of G3748 as conjunction; demonstrative, that (sometimes redundant); causative, because:—as concerning that, as though, because (that), for (that), how (that), (in) that.

[5] Strong's G2889 – kosmos : 3. the world, i. e. the universe

[6] John 17:24 Lexham English Bible (LEB)

[7] John 17:20-23

[8] John10:30, John17:11

[9] John 14:9-11, Isa 9:6

[10] Isaiah 9:6 LEB

[11] Genesis 1:1-3. John 4:24. 1 Corinthians 12:3-6

[12] Read Luke 1:34-35 in conjunction with John 1:14 and we see Spirit’s role and involvement in making the Incarnation, the Word becoming a human being, a true and genuine reality, lovingly happen.

[13] John 14:17 - Statement in a several context. In Christ Jesus, in the joint, Spirit is not only with us but also in us.

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