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Title: Why Agape?
Intro:
We spend a great deal of time last week explaining the difference between Agape love and the other three common words for “Love” (eros, phileo, storge). We explained that while those three are driven by feelings, Agape is a decision, a self-reducing, sacrificial decision to serve and give one’s self up for another.
Today we will see why Paul HAD to use the Greek word “Agape”. Namely, because of what he says next…Agape is the only love that makes sense.
(read/pray)
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, 26 so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 that He might present to Himself the church [q]in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.
So Why Must This Love Be Agape?
Countless times you guys have heard me explain that, with only one word for “love” in English, the catch all generic “love” can lead us to some very strange conclusions indeed.
As I have stated many times before, all of these statements are true in English:
I love Dippin’ Dots
I love The Cleveland Browns
I love Mary
I love Jesus
Now, if we assume “Agape” is the word for all four of these, it gets weird quickly:
“I decide to reduce myself, and sacrificially serve dippin’ dots every moment of my existence.”
There are obviously some huge errors with this statement:
- My love of Dippin’ Dots is not a concsious decision. I eat them and like the way they taste. It’s easy to keep eating them. (But not too fast; brain freeze.)
- My love of Dippin’ Dots is not about reducing myself. (If anything my love of Dippin’ Dots leads to a GAIN of myself…just ask my pants size.)
- Finally, I do not sacrificially serve Dippin’ Dots. In fact, They serve me: I interact with them on my terms, for my pleasure, always.
But, if we assume Agape is the right word for the the last two options, Mary (which is the exact commandment of Paul) and Jesus, which is the example that Paul gives here to explain the type of love we are to love our wives with, it makes a lot more sense.
(Now, I’m fully aware that several of you are thinking…Ben, I noticed you did not address which love you love the Browns with…could you elaborate? No. But let me just say this. When I think and act like my love for the Browns should be Agape, I sin.)
If and when my life becomes a series of sacrifices and I find myself serving at the altar of the Browns, then the Browns have become a what to my life?
(Idol.)
Henry:
The apostle, having mentioned Christ’s love to the church, enlarges upon it, assigning the reason why he gave himself for it, namely, that he might sanctify it in this world, and glorify it in the next:
That he might sanctify and cleanse it, with the washing of water by the word (v. 26)-that he might endue all his members with a principle of holiness, and deliver them from the guilt, the pollution, and the dominion of sin.
Conclusions:
The reason it is must be Agape is because it’s about sanctification, becoming more holy, and thusly demonstrating that our love for our wives ought to be a mirror of what Christ did for his church.
- It must be sacrificial
- It must be saturated with the “Word” (Jesus and the Scriptures)
- It must demonstrate a principle of Holiness, both within the family and observably to others who observe the marriage
- This holiness must actively strive to keep sin away from the family and marriage (it’s an active love, not a passive love.)
- The ultimate goal of the husband’s love to his wife is this: that SHE may be holy and blameless.
(According to Paul; can we agree that Men bear a HUGE responsibility in Biblical Marriage?)
Pray/QA