THE
PHENOMENON OF CHRISTOLOGY
The fifth phenomenon of
Christology is emphasis on “God is love”,“Ο θεòς áγáπη ε̛̛στíν”, “ 神 就 是 愛”
(1John4:16). And the feasts of áγáπη (agape) are for those who are poor,
the crippled, the lame, and the blind. “Love”, “áγáπη”, “愛” is
God’s essential divine character to his creation. God so love the world so that
He gave His only begotten son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but
have eternal life. (John3:16). Love is
fundamental element to enlarge the Kingdom of God, “Whoever lives in love lives
in God and God in him, Love is made complete among us so that we will have
confidence on the Day of Judgment. The one who fears is not made perfect in
love, for there is no fear in love, and perfect love casts out fear. (1John4:16,
17, 18). (By Rev. Katherine Liu Bruce, 2015)
The fifth phenomenon of Christology
is emphasis on “God is love”, in Greek says, “Ο θεòς áγáπη
ε̛̛στíν”,
in Chinese says, “神
就 是 愛”. The feasts of áγáπη
(agape) are for those who are poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. For
the love (áγáπη) is God’s divine virtue, expression,
and life. In Kingdom of God, “Love” is God’s essential divine character to his
creation. For God so love the world so that He gave His only begotten son that
whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John3:16). Love is fundamental element to enlarge the
Kingdom of God, “Whoever lives in “love” lives in God and God in him, Love is
made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the Day of Judgment. (1John4:16).
The one who fears is not made perfect in “love”, for “there is no fear in love,
and perfect love casts out fear.” In Chinese literally translates as “愛裡沒有懼怕
(aiˋliˇmei´ youˇjyuˋpwaˋ), 完全的愛將懼怕驅除. (Wanˊqyuanˊdiˋaiˋ jianḡ jyuˋpaˋqyu ̄ chiwu´).”(1John
4:18).
In Green “áγáπη”
(agape) literally interprets as “love”, in Chinese says,“愛” (aiˋ). “It
is the attitude of God toward His Son (Jn17:26) and it is His will to His
children concerning their attitude. Love can be known only from the actions it
prompts as God’s love is seen in the gift of His Son.”[1]
As 1Jhon 4:9-10 states, “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his
one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love;
not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning
sacrifice for our sins.” And “God so love the world so that He
gave His only begotten son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but
have eternal life.” (John3:16). Here the “world” symbolizes the sinful fallen
people, who constitute the world. They have not only sin but also the poisonous
element of the devil, the ancient serpent. When the children of Israel sinned
against God, they were bitten by serpents .God told Moses to lift up a bronze
serpent on their behalf for God’s judgment. (Gen.3; Num.21:4-9). God so love
the world, that He gave them His only begotten Son, that they might obtain His
eternal life through Jesus who die for them in the form of a serpent, yet, without sins. “As Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.
That everyone who believes into Him may have eternal life.”
(John3:14-15). When Jesus was lifted up
in the flesh on the cross, by His death, Satan, the old serpent, was dealt with
(John.12:30-32). Jesus, as the Son of
Man, through His death on the cross in the likeness of the flesh of sin, the
Lord destroyed Satan, who is in man’s flesh. (Heb.2:14) and be judged by God as
their substitute so that they would not perish but would have eternal life. Therefore,
God’s love to His creation is seen in the gift of His Son.
Áγáπη (agape) in the
plural form interprets as “a love feast: love, charity” and is used in Jude 12,
signifying “feasts of charity”. Jesus
used parables to illustrate a love feast in the parallel of narrative to
describe the feasts of charity were for those who were the poor, the crippled,
the lame, and the blind in Luke 14:13, and 14:21. When
the Pharisees and teachers of the law had muttered disapproval of Jesus eating
with sinners (Luke15:2), Jesus controversially instructed, “When you give a
luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or
your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be
repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the
lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you,
you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” (Luke14:12-14).
In Jesus’ day, His social convention was
pretty controversial with Jews’ ritual. To Jesus, those unfortunate and
unworthy sinners were to be honored at the feast and the banquet
is for those who were undesirable, and marginalized people.
In Luke 14:16-24 Jesus applied another parable
to describe kingdom of heaven as a banquet, those guests who had been invited, yet,
they couldn’t come and made excuses that they had bought a piece of land, or just
bought five yoke of oxen, or just gotten married. Therefore, Master became
angry and said to his slave, “go out at once into the streets and lanes of
the town bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame…and
still there is room and the master said to the salve, go out into the roads and
hedges and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled… none of
those who were invited will taste my dinner.” (Luke14:21, 24). This parable
portrays God’s full salvation. God, as the certain man, prepare His full
salvation as a love feast,
in Chinese literally says, “愛筵”(aiˋyianˋ) and he sent the first
apostles as His salves to invite the Jews (vv.16-17). But because they were
occupied by their riches, such as land, cattle, or spouse, they refused the invitation
(vv.18-20). Then God sent the apostles to invite the people on the streets –the
poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame. Because of their poverty and
misery, they accepted God’s invitation easily (vv.21-22). Yet God’s salvation
still had room for more, so He sent His slaves to go out again, to “the Gentile
world, signified by the roads and hedges, to compel the Gentiles to come in and
fill up the house of His salvation.”[2]
(vv.22b-23). In other words, this parable indicates that the kingdom of heaven
as a banquet, where the Gentiles would take their places at the feast with
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. (Matt.8:11).
In Luke15:1, 2 Jesus’ oppressor criticized
him for eating with “tax collectors and sinners” when God later directed Simon
Peter to visit a Gentile home, he was initially reluctant because he considered
all Gentiles “unclean” (Acts10:28). In the early church in Antioch, Peter was
afraid the disapproval of conservative Jews (Galatians2:11-14), so he withdrew
and stopped eating with Gentiles, Apostle Paul noticed his fake behavior and rebuked
him. For Jesus unveiled the vision to him that salvation should reach out to
the Gentiles. As Jesus says, “There will be more joy in heaven over one
sinner who repents than over ninety –nine righteous persons who need no
repentance. And “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over
one sinner who repents.”(Luke15:9,10).
Jesus’ parables unveiled that God’s
love is for the sinners regardless Jews or Gentiles. Apostle Paul indeed, received
the highest vision and was enlightened by Christ Jesus, that God’s Messiah –“Christ”
came to abolish the law and destroyed the wall of hostility between the Jews
and Gentiles. For in Christ, we all are children of God, and we were baptized
into Christ have clothed ourselves with Christ. In Christ, we might be
justified by faith and saved by grace. This is the reason, Apostle Paul emphasized,
“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or
free, and there is no longer male and female. For all of you are one in
Christ Jesus.” (Galatians3:28).
Love, (áγáπη,
愛)
is God’s divine virtues, expression, and life. He, who loves, has expressed the
God’s divine virtues and life. He, who abides in love, abides in God, and God
abides in him. For “no one has ever seen God, if we love one another, God lives
in us, and His love is perfected in us.” (1Jh.4:12). If a person says: “I love
God”, yet, hates his brothers or sisters, he is a liar. If a person says, “I
love God”, yet, he abuses his wife vocally, physically and mistreats wife as
minority, misleads, misuses and takes advantage from her, he is a liar. For he
doesn’t love the spouse, brother, sister whom he has seen, cannot love God whom
he has not seen. (1Jh4:20). Jesus’ lecture and commandment to His disciples is
to love one another. He, who loves God, must love his spouse, brothers and
sisters. If he who speaks in the tongues, or has gift of prophetic powers,
understand all mysteries and all knowledge, yet, does not have love, he is a
noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. (1Cor.13:1-3). Apostle Paul carried on the
God’s Messiah Christ Jesus’ legacy and gave a significant definition of love,
which explicitly states in the 1Cor.13:4-8. It has emerged to the phenomenon of
Christology from the early church age to this generation. What is the
definition of love? There are more than ten divine virtues as follows,
1. Love
is patient, or love suffers long.
2. Love
is kind.
3. Love
isn’t rude.
4. Love
is not jealous, or love is not envious.
5. Love
does not brag and is not puffed up, or Love is not boastful or arrogant or
rude.
6. It
does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful.
7. It
does not rejoice in wrongdoing (or unrighteousness), but rejoices in the truth.
8. Love
doesn’t count up wrong that have been done.
9. It
bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, (or
always protect, always hope, always trust, always preserve )
10. Love
endures forever. Or Love never fails. (1Cor.13:4-8)
“Christian
love has God for its primary object, and expresses itself first of all in
implicit obedience to His commandments. (Jh14:15, 21, 23;1Jh2:5; 5:3; 2Jh 6)”[3].
The Messiah, Christ’s commandment to his disciples was “love one another”, not “kill
one another”, nor “hurt each other”. Those who call themselves are Christians
or disciples must act in obedience to His commandments, even love enemies, who
hate them without reason, or abuse them, and intend to kill them. This divine virtue
compels disciples to embrace sacrificial love, and resulted Apostle Paul’s
experiment, who suffered the loss of all things to run the race without
hesitation. He counted all things to be loss on account of the surpassing value
of knowing Christ Jesus. For Jesus’ sake he has suffered the loss of all things
and regards them as rubbish in order to gain Christ. (Phil.3:8). He pursued
toward the goal for the prize, regardless dangers and circumstances to carry on
Jesus’ ministry. What reason caused Apostle Paul to forsake all things for Christ?
he said, “For Christ’ love compels us, because we are convinced
that one died for all, and therefore all died, and he died for all, that those who
live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was
raised again.”(2Cor.5:14). It clearly indicates that “love of Christ”
compels him. This make Christology phenomenon that God’s divine virtue-
“love” empowers Christians to deny- self and take cross to follow Jesus, to forgive
those who are liars, sinners, prosecutors and Pharisees. And act in sympathies
to those who are poor, and the blind, the
crippled, and the lame. For Christians’
life are all about God’s divine virtues and expression of God Himself which is
“LOVE”,
“áγáπη”,
“愛”. This
divine virtue compels God to love the world so that He gave His
only begotten son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have
eternal life.” (John3:16). And His full salvation as a love feast, the banquet, “愛筵”(aiˋyianˋ) prepare for those
undesirable, and unworthy people.
Bauer, Walter. A
Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian
Literature. 3rd Chicago: The University of Chicago press,2000.
Brown, Robert, Philip
W. Comfort and J.D. Douglas, ed. The New Greek English Interlinear New
Testament. Carol Stream: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.1990.
Friberg, Timothy, Barbara Friberg, and
Neva F. Miller et al., eds. Analytical Lexicon of the Greek New Testament.1st
ed. Victoria BC: Trafford Publishing, 2005.
Lee, Witness. The
New Testament (R.V.) Anaheim, CA: Living Stream Ministry, 1985.
Ryrie,
Charles C. The Ryrie study Bible (NIV). Chicago, IL: The Moody Bible
Institute, 1986.
Strong, James. Strong’s: the expanded
exhaustive concordance of the Bible. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson
Publishers, 2010.
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