"Love means never having to say you're sorry" is a catchphrase based on a line from the Erich Segal’s novel Love Story and was popularized by its 1970 film adaptation starring Ali MacGraw and Ryan O'Neal.[1] I respectfully beg to differ. I believe that genuine love means that you may or have to say that you are sorry to another person, if, hurt or wrong, has been caused by you to the other, perceived or otherwise. In so doing, there is an acknowledgement and clarity on your part as to the import of the ‘thing’ that you have done, or, not done, and its affect and effect to love and loving union and communion with another. Saying sorry, in love, is all about nurturing and growing in love and loving. Life is all about loving living. Without love, even if I know all the languages of men and spiritual beings, I am just empty noise of resounding gongs and clanging cymbals. Even if I can foretell the future, understand and fathom all mysteries and knowledge, have the ability to perform the miraculous, yet, have not love, my life remains one of emptiness, without lasting value, purpose, meaning and significance.[2] Love gives meaning, significance, purpose, substance and authenticity to and for our existence: for God is love. God chose us to belong to Christ before the world was created. He chose us to be holy and without blame in his eyes.[3] In love, He predestined and lovingly planned for us to be adopted as His own children through Jesus Christ, in accordance with the kind intention and good pleasure of His will.[4] Triune God freely gave us this Triune grace because of and through the Only Begotten Son, Who is loved[5], and is love. I perceive that: 1. Creation essentially and fundamentally came into being out of love for Eternal Son to become a human being, not that Eternal Son had to become human because one human sinned or all humans have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. 2. Whether or not humanity sinned, the desire and will of Triune God[6], conceived in eternity, was for Eternal Son to become a human, a created being, made in the image of God. All things were created through Son and for Son. This was Father’s will, pleasure and desire in eternity.[7] Therefore, Paul could say to the Athenians: “In Him we live and move and have our being,”[8] so that we, as Peter wrote, may, “participate in the divine nature.”[9] 3. As such, Son is the only Way, Truth and Life whereby we can participate in and experience the Triune Divine Nature of love and loving.[10] Only in and through the Incarnate Son are we able to know God as Eternal Father, even as only the Father knows the Son and must reveal Him.[11] Concerning this, I find the following words attributed to Jesus in his prayer, recorded in John 17, to be descriptively instructive: “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one — I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.[12] [1] Wikipedia - Love means never having to say you're sorry [2] 1 Corinthians 13. My paraphrase with help from [3] Ephesians 1:4 NIRV [4] Ephesians 1:4(c), 5 Amplified Version. [5] Ephesians 1:6 NIRV See also John17:24 [6] Colossians 1:16 “For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.” [7] Revelations 4:11 [8] Acts 17:28 [9] 2 Peter 1:4 NIV. Read with 2 Corinthians 1:20 “for it is he who is the “Yes” to all of God's promises. This is why through Jesus Christ our “Amen” is said to the glory of God.” Good News Translation. [10] 2 Peter 1:4 [11] Matthew 11:2 “No one knows the Son except the Father and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” NIV See also John 6:44(a) ““No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them,” [12] John 17:22-24 NIV in particular 23(b) and 24(b) italics mine. Out of Eternal love and loving, humanity and creation came into being.
For Son to be incarnate that we might be one with Triune God in love and loving, humanity and creation were given their being, meaning and purpose in time and eternity. Eternity is but the continuum of all past, present and future. Time is but bite size moments of eternity, perceptions in distinctions of what was, is, and is to come, in a specific continuum moment within eternity. As a finite and created being, it is impossible for me to comprehend and grasp the whole of eternity. However, because I am an authentic human, it is possible for me to grasp and live, move and have my being, however fleetingly, within bite size pieces of eternity, moments of time. For what was, is and is to come is always there in each moment, existing in time and eternity. Eternity is in the moment even as the moment is in eternity. As such, all my moments of experiencing love and loving in the here and now of time, is also authentically in the here and now of eternity. Living and loving in time is actually living and loving in eternity. For all of us exist, move and have our being in Eternal God.[1] The choice given to us has always been for us to decide whether to continue to live in love with one another and Father, Son and Spirit in the continuum moments within Divine eternity. For me, everlasting life is not mere sole existence in the continuum moments of eternity. Nor is it, I believe, a life of eternal euphoric bliss, which could be easily obtained through a drug high. It is also not a life devoid of all pain, suffering, emotions or feelings whatsoever. This would be, in my opinion, total and absolute nonexistence - death. Rather, to me, eternal life is all about this union and communion in love and loving, with one another and in the continuum moments of eternity with and in Triune God, Who was, is and is to come, eternally Triune love. This I believe is the meaning of Scripture in John 17:3: “Now[2] this is eternal life: that they know[3] you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” Eternal life never was, is or will be life everlasting in isolation, even as Eternal God is ever Triune, and in Christ Jesus, we are now and ever will be embraced in Triune love and loving. This, I believe, is the import of the Apostle Paul’s prayer: “For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together[4] with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”[5] I believe that this grasping to know the breadth, length, height and depth of the love of Christ that we may “be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God”, is and will be a moment by moment growing experience throughout eternity, where there will never be a dull moment for adventure, exploration, discovery, enjoyment and fulfilment. Whether pain, suffering, tensions, situations and risks will continue to exist to challenge and confront me, I don’t really know, but I believe so, or life everlasting to me would eventually become an eternal total bore. I believe that these and similar others will continue to exist, or else, how would I be able to know, prove and experience the limitless eternal extent of the breadth, length, height and depth of Christ’s love, in all things and all situations. I believe, that as I continue to grow into being rooted and grounded in love, with nothing in all of creation being able to separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus, I will continue to have the privilege to choose to continue to grow in love, with Christ, Father and Spirit and others, with these[6]before me. I believe that this is life abundance in eternity, in the continuum moments, together[7] with God’s people, in love and loving, living as, and growing in experience of who we are[8]and God is, in Christ, and, through Christ, to be in oneness, in love and loving with each other and Triune God, as divinely and humanly possible.[9] Triune God is Love. But love and loving includes saying sorry when wrong is done and forgiving when wronged. When confronting situations of unkindness and acts when one’s patience is tested, love expresses itself in patience and kindness. Love is not jealous when another is preferred or acclaimed; not boastful or proud of status or achievement; does not delight in unrighteousness but in truth. It definitely applies with regards to God’s love towards me. But does this apply also to and in Triune God’s love and loving, One to the Other? I muse. In tension and disagreement, when accommodation and reconciliation prevails, there is love. When pride rears its head and humility is shown, that is love. Where the seeds of jealousy sprout, yet, one refuses to be provoked and seek one’s own desires above all, nor acts unbecomingly, that is love. Do these situations also exist eternally within the Triune love and loving of God, Father, Son and Spirit? What does God is love, Triune God being love, truly mean, not only in relation to us and creation as a whole, but also in the divine Triune synergistic union and communion of Father, Son and Spirit? I continue in my musings. [1] Acts 17:28 [2] See Strong’s G1161” δέ dé, deh; a primary particle (adversative or continuative); but, and, etc.—also, and, but, moreover, now (often unexpressed in English). [3] “γινώσκωσιν” See Strong’s G1097 which I believe includes union and communion where two become one. [4] Stromg’s G4862 σύν sýn a primary preposition denoting union; with or together (but much closer than G3326 or G3844) – I am of the opinion that the word jointly conveys this union and togetherness. [5] Ephesians 3:14-19 NIV [6] pain, suffering, tensions, situations, risks etc….. [7] Jointly and severally [8] as individuals and jointly as a community, humanity [9] John 17:20-26
3 Comments
Chris Kang
3/3/2020 20:46:10
Stories. How addicted we are to them. To give meaning and purpose to existence.
Reply
Chris Kang
4/3/2020 12:58:22
[1] On Perception:
Reply
Chris Kang
4/3/2020 13:02:33
Continuing from previous comment, which was cut off at Point [5] for some unknown reason.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
WILFRED YEO
Categories
All
|
Proudly powered by Weebly