Agape is Personal

 

By this, the love [agape] of God was manifested in us [in our case], that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.      1 John 4:9 

According to C.S Lewis, agape is “a selfless love that is passionately committed to the well-being of others.” When Jesus told Nicodemus that God so loved the world (John 3:16), He was introducing a new concept that took a Jew’s understanding of love to a deeper level: that God’s love is personal to each believer. Agape love starts with God. In 1 John 4:19, We love because He first loved us. To know God is to know Him by His love. Everything that we learn about God is to bring us to His love. In 1 Timothy 1:5, But the goal [objective] of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere [literally, non-hypocritical] faith. 

James refers to this love as the royal (regal) Law (James 2:8) and says that it should be applied without partiality, or one transgresses the Law of Moses. In Leviticus 19:34, The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God. The neighbor is anyone near you, no matter what culture, background, outward appearance, or belief system he may have. To love the stranger this way is not natural but requires a supernatural love to fulfill. The new covenant is the environment where God's love has been unshackled to operate without restriction.

Solomon & the Shulamite 

The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s. “May he kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine. “Your oils have a pleasing fragrance, Your name is like purified oil; therefore, the maidens love you. “Draw me after you, and let us run together! The king has brought me into his chambers.”           Song 1:1-4

Solomon wrote 1,005 songs, but the Song of Songs is the most excellent one. Although written as a chronicle of Solomon’s relationship to a Shulamite maiden, it is intended to speak to the dynamics of man’s relationship to God as the bride (i.e., church) and the bridegroom (Jesus Christ). God’s love for the believer is better than wine, representing the covenant relationship the believer has with God and the blood of Christ. In verse 4, God brings the believer into his chambers, a secret place where he realizes true intimacy. The bride is introduced to a personal love that is difficult to fathom. 

Consciousness of Sins

For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins? But in those sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins year by year.     Hebrews 10:1-3 

The old covenant addresses the issue of sin through animal sacrifices, but sacrifices cannot solve the problem of conscience and the consciousness of sins. Only the blood of Christ can cleanse the conscience (Hebrews 9:14). In the Song of Songs, the bride is progressively coached and enticed into the personal love of God. We see thirteen verses that confirm this process. In Song 1:15 and 4:1, “How beautiful you are, my darling, how beautiful you are! Your eyes are like doves.” And in Song 1:8 and 5:9, she is referred to as most beautiful among women. In Song 4:7, “You are altogether beautiful, my darling, and there is no blemish in you.”  This Hebrew word translated beautiful, yophia means lovely or beautiful as an outward appearance. When the believer begins to believe that God sees him as beautiful, both inside and outside, he is transformed by God’s personal love. Meditation on the Word of God has the same effect.  

A Garden Locked 

“A garden locked is my sister, my bride, a rock garden locked, a spring sealed up. “Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates [vitality of life] with choice fruits [fruitfulness], henna with nard plants, Nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all the trees of frankincense, myrrh and aloes, along with all the finest spices. “You are a garden spring, a well of fresh water, and streams flowing from Lebanon.” “Awake [arise], O north wind, and come the wind of the south; make my garden breathe out fragrance, let its spices be wafted [flowing] abroad. May my beloved come into his garden and eat its choice fruits!”       Song 4:12-16

In her progression as the bride, she is now seen by the bridegroom as a garden. The Hebrew expression naal refers to a virgin whose love and attention are locked up or enclosed in her for her future husband. She has become single-focused on her lover, the lover of her soul who has given her a vitality of life and fruitfulness. And the Lord will continually guide you, and satisfy your desire in scorched places, and give strength to your bones, and you will be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail (Isaiah 58:11). The lush mountain streams flowing from the mountains of Lebanon represent a purity of life and doctrine. In Jeremiah 18:14, Will a man leave the snow water of Lebanon, which comes from the rock of the field? Will the cold flowing waters be forsaken for strange waters?

The north and south winds are the two prevailing winds in Palestine and Egypt. They speak of the natural occurrences of life. In Song 7:12-13, the bride refers to the fragrances of the spiritual life she now shares with the bridegroom; His love has now completed her life: “Let us rise early and go to the vineyards; let us see whether the vine has budded, and its blossoms have opened and whether the pomegranates have bloomed. There, I will give you my love. "The mandrakes have given forth fragrance, and over our doors are all choice fruits, both new and old, which I have saved up for you, my beloved. They are sharing the fruits of the love that is manifested in and through their companionship. 

Overcomers

Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come into him and will dine with him, and he with Me. He who overcomes [nikaoe – to be victorious, to prevail], I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.         Revelation 3:20-21

The believer’s intimate connection to the love of Jesus produces a sweet fellowship represented by dining. Supper with the ancients was the principal social meal. In this meal, intimacy is available only to those who hear His voice and open the door. To those who respond, Christ promises to give the right as an overcomer to sit with Him on His throne and share His victory.

Do Away with Childish Things

When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now, we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.1 Corinthians 13:11-13

The refining process of receiving the love of God on a personal level is defined by the Apostle Paul as growing up as a child and deciding to do away with childish things. The simplicity and innocence of a child’s relationship with God is eventually replaced with a maturity in the relationship that can be boiled down to faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love. Faith says that I can trust Him because He has always been faithful, even when I have not been faithful (2 Timothy 2:13). Hope produces perseverance and an ability to wait eagerly for it (Romans 8:25). The overlying principle that guides faith and hope is agape love, His love, an unconditional commitment to the relationship with each believer and to His promises. Ezekiel 36:33-36 is a picture of the relationship each has with the bridegroom, the Messiah in the Kingdom Age, likened to the garden of Eden: 

‘Thus says the Lord God, “On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause the cities to be inhabited, and the waste places will be rebuilt. “The desolate land will be cultivated instead of being a desolation in the sight of everyone who passes by. “They will say, ‘This desolate land has become like the garden of Eden; and the waste, desolate and ruined cities are fortified and inhabited.’ “Then the nations that are left round about you will know that I, the Lord, have rebuilt the ruined places and planted that which was desolate; I, the Lord, have spoken and will do it.”        Ezekiel 36:33-36

Keeping His Commandments

By this, we know that we have come to know Him if we keep His commandments. The one who says, "I have come to know Him," and does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this, we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.        1 John 2:3-6

Agape love makes following the leading of Christ and His Spirit a joy and not a duty or burden. Walking in the will of God is no longer a chore but the clearest evidence that the believer is receiving the empowerment of the Holy Spirit to honor God with his life and impact the world with that agape love. 

The Maturity of Agape

Early in their relationship, the bride characterizes their shared love in Song 2:16: “My beloved is mine, and I am his; He pastures his flock among the lilies.”  She is insecure in the relationship, requiring His commitment to her before she gives herself to him. Later, in Song 6:3, she matures and sees her commitment to that love as primary: “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine, He who pastures his flock among the lilies.” The ultimate fulfillment of that love is summarized in Song 7:10, when she says, “I am my beloved’s, and his desire is for me.” She is now fully satisfied in that love and is ready to go anywhere with her lover and do anything He asks, without questioning.

An Illustration 

There were once two brothers who lived in two villages and shared the land between them. Every year, they would divide the harvest. During one abundant year, the older brother, who was married and had many children, was worried about his younger brother, who didn’t have a family. Who would support him in his old age? In the middle of the night, the older brother secretly brought several sheaves of grain to his brother’s storehouse, but when he woke up in the morning, he still had exactly the same amount of grain that he had the night before.

The younger brother was also worried: How will my brother support so many children? So, the younger brother decided to secretly travel to his brother’s storehouse and place several sheaves of his own inside, but in the morning, he discovered that he still had exactly the same amount of grain as he had before he gave any away. 

This went on for two nights until, on the third night, the two brothers met as each one was on the way to the other’s storehouse carrying several sheaves of grain. At once, they both understood what had happened, and they embraced in brotherly love. At that moment, God decided that the mountain where the two brothers met, Mount Moriah, would be the site of His future home. The love that the brothers had for each other drew God to live among them at that place.