i originally was going to post on how i recently struggled to define the simple yet complex phrase "love wins" to a friend after church one day. but instead i want to ask a question.
my wife got into a discussion with family about christians disagreeing on political issues and the love of God. during the discussion a family member said things that amounted to "God doesn't love everyone, because then who would go to hell?" and basically that love just doesn't win. these statements are just so mind-numbingly frustrating for me to the point where i just become angry. for God SO LOVED THE WORLD; God IS love, and i could go on and on and on, because the bible is filled with verses about God's infinite love. what this person is doing is painting God in his/her own image, which we all do to a certain extent, but here's my question: how much can we underestimate the love of God to the point where we're worshipping a false God? to the point of blaspheme? to the point of heresy? i'm serious. usually heresy is reserved for denying the virgin birth, or the trinity or some other theological factoid. we don't usually charge people with heresy who deny God's love despite the fact that love is the very core nature of God.
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Fundy's don't believe that love is the core nature of God. They believe holiness is the core nature. And by holiness, they usually mean seperate from people. With that starting point, it is no wonder why there is such a divide in the church on the issue of God's love.
you didn't answer my question, but that's ok. oh, and i'm working on a response to your question from my other blog.
so how does God's holiness relate to his love? what really IS God's holiness, because paul clearly defines love in scripture, yet, to me, holiness is an obscure theological idea. if i were forced to define it i'm not sure i could, nor could i point to verses defining it. and, once again, scripture clearly says that God is love- not loving- but the noun, love.
I guess I may be a fundy because my first thought was along the lines of Love is not THE core nature of God. It is a part of God's core nature but I would push back pretty hard with the idea that it is THE core essense of His being. I would agree that Holiness is also a core essence of his nature.
Holiness isn't something that the church made up. God himself said, "be holy as I am holy."
Can you turn on RSS feed for comments. I'll forget to come back otherwise....
i'm not saying that the church just made up holiness. i'm aware that it's all through the bible. i guess i'm trying to understand holiness beyond the pat answer of "set apart." God isn't being very "set apart" when he comes in the form of a human and dines with those that would be considered the most unholy of that day. so, once again, what is it really? how does it relate to his love? i'm willing to agree that it's a big component of who God is, but so is love. how do the two relate? how do we see God's holiness manifested in the person of Christ? is being holy what christians typically think it means?
man, i should just write a post about this.
and joe, i don't know how to turn on the rss thingy. if you know, i'm all ears.
Ya, but I would agree with Chris that while holiness is always a descriptor of God, love is used as a synonym for God. "God is love," where love is a noun, is much diffrent for me than "God is holy," where holy is an adjective.
I was in this same discussion a few months back on a fundy's site that Joe sent me to, and they "contended" that God's love is tempered by his holiness (otherness) while I argued that His holiness was tempered by love. Perhaps it is a silly argument and doesn't amount for much, but often our starting point in theology can lead us on entirely diffrent paths, so I do think it is an important distinction.
If I were to have to describe the core nature of God, I would say "parent." But in that description, I think love is the deciding factor as to what type of parent. And since there are so many who have had rotten parents, saying "God is love" is perhaps a better way of communicating just who God is in His essence.
God is Holy
God is Love
both words have equal weight and we are have a problem when we try to make one more important than another. I would argue that Christ/God was extremely "other" when he came to earth and dined/lived with the worst of sinners. He didn't sin. That made him so other that his death/burial/resurrection was adequate payment for sin.
We cannot separate one or the other from Him. They are both him and both exist in tension.
I'm not saying God is not holy. I am just saying that if I were to try and sum up God in one word, Holy is not the word I would choose.
This is why I avoid the "name the gospel in 26 words" and "Describe God in one word" contests. It is one of the words that God uses to describe Himself and if we prefer or pick another word over it we are as guilty as those that only want to use it.
I imagine we're all not that far off from each other.
okay. i think that it's an important point that God is love is different than God is holy in that, like heath said, holy is a descriptor as where love is a synonym. so leads me to think they are not just two separate attributes that must be held in tension. i'm also not sure about the idea of one balancing the other out. God needs holiness so he won't be too loving??
so here's another question. could it be that God is holy --set apart-- because he is love? i'm sure that's not a novel idea, so i'd be interested in hearing what critics would say.
Ok, to make a point earlier, I used a definition of holy that I am not exactly comfortable with. God is still holy even when He interacts with us, so I am not sure I like "set apart" for a definition of God's holiness.
so heath, then what definition would you use. another thought i had is it seem things that are called holy e.g. the sabbath, the israelites are used for a specific purpose. the sabbath as a day of rest. the israelites as Gods people partnering with him in his redemptive work. were people created holy because they were to image God? is anything being set aside to be used by God holy? i'm just thinking out loud.
also, the more i think about God being hold because he is love, the more i think that makes sense because of that "otherness" nature about love. it sometimes goes against everything in our being to love someone.
i'll go with that, I suppose. For me, holy can only be understood in the context of love. (Love exceeds holiness, though, in my understanding. So I wouldn't say that love can only be understood in the context of holy...)
So holiness is God's love expressed in purity, not in otherness.... We are called to be holy, not to be drawn away from the secular, but to affect the secular with the love of God.
well, i just went to biblegateway and looked up the word holy and attempted to read every verse where it shows up. i gave up in deuteronomy. one thing i noticed is where it's used in the context of relationship. it was something to the effect of "i am your holy God" and "you are to be holy to me." it came up a few times in leviticus. something else i've thought of is that the law was to separate israel from it's pagan neighbors right? or that was at least one of it's functions. jesus, of course, sums up the entire law in two commands about love.
so i'm curious if joe has any more thoughts on this...
Told you I"d forget to come back.
I disagree foundationaly with you two on the Love being synonymous and Holy being a descriptor. When God said, "I am Holy" you can flip words 1 and 3, which means they are synonymous as well.
Whether or not we like "set apart" is irrelevant. It's what the word means.
Both words have equal weight. The two words aren't competing against each other. One isn't more of God than the other is. They are both who God is.
Yes, the Bible says God is love. It also says God is Holy. It's not an abstract idea, it is the very essence of God's nature.
i would agree with you if it was God is holiness or God is loving, but it's not. i guess i'm thinking about it like this:
dog is fluffy
dog is poodle
fluffy describes the dog, but poodle is synonymous with the dog and describes it. also the dog is fluffy because it is a poodle.
Yeah, but you're looking at this in English settings. Look at it from a Hebrew point of view. I am or I is. God couldn't say I is holy because it's bad grammar. He can and did say, I am Holy.
The issue isn't what verb is used, but what the verb is modifying. When John writes that "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love," and later that "God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him," (1 John 4:8, 16) he is using a noun, agape, as a synonym for God.
In contrast, when the psalmist writes, "Exalt the LORD our God and worship at his holy mountain, for the LORD our God is holy," (Psalm 99:9) the word translated "holy" is a Hebrew adjective.
Chris and I are not arguing that God is not holy, or that holiness is not a very defineable quality of God. What we are arguing, if I may speak for you, Chris, is that love is the modifier for all of God's other qualities because it is the essence of His nature.
It is not that holiness and love can be held in competition against one another. It is that love is what modifies holiness, grace, mercy, wrath, faithfulness, patience, and all other qualities which we use to describe God.
Also, to follow up on an earlier point you made, God could have said, "I am holiness." (noun). John could also have written. "God is loving." (adjective).
But they didn't. So we only have the words that are there to use to understand this issue.
Right but Holiness has been stated to be an "obscure theological idea" and the essense of the comments seem to hold them in competition.
All I am saying is that Love is a part of God's core being, yes. But so is Holiness. This is where blogs can become mind numbingly frustrating to me. We are probably all very close and if we were discussign this over a cold beverage we'd be good.
well, it is kind of obscure. "set apart" really doesn't tell you much...
OK, let me try this another way. Is God the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit?
those are the three persons who are God.
love and holy are two words that serve two different functions.
and even if they served the same function, i don't see how God being "set apart" would "temper" his love.
I agree they don't compete. I am saying they are equal. God is love. God is Holy. He has always been both of these things, yet there are many things in the Bible that God has done that seem terrible and unloving to us. Sometimes, because He is Holy, He has done these things. My point with the Trinity is that we cannot hold one higher than the other. They both (holy and love) work together to show us the essence of who God is.
If you believe in Hell, then God allowing someone to go there must be His love being tempered by His Holiness.
God allowing His Son to endure the terrible reality that was the cross must be His love being tempered by His Holiness. God commanding the Israelites to wipe out entire countries must be His holiness being tempered by His love.
To answer your original question, I think that anytime we diminish any characteristic of God, we run the risk of being a heretic, little H. I think there is a difference between little H and big H.
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