Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":
Benedict XVI’s new encyclical (book of 71 pages) is on the subject of “Eros and Agape,” two opposite ideas of love. It is stirring worldwide interest. The fundamental idea on which his ideas are based is the doctrine of the natural immortality of the human soul.
Out of this belief grows the Roman Catholic teaching of (1) the veneration of the [dead] saints; they’re still alive, in heaven, the teaching says, so you can invoke them to help you. The most venerated is the (still) Virgin Mary—virtually a co-Savior of the world with Christ, to whom we are told we can pray. (2) An eternally burning hell for people who die unbelievers. (3) A “purgatory” for people who die not bad enough for that hell but who will suffer “discipline” to prepare them for later entering heaven; nominal Catholics are expected to go there. (4) An intermediate place of childish bliss for innocent babies that die unsprinkled in “baptism.” (5) A vast system of offerings to assuage the pain of loved ones in purgatory has resulted in great wealth for the church.
We too have authored a book about AGAPE which is based on the opposite teaching—that man is by nature mortal and that immortality is a gift rather than an inherent possession genetically. It is a gift given by Christ to “whosoever believeth” in Him. This is the teaching of John
The Word That Turned the World Upside Down
(Part 1 of 3)
Preface
“I may be able to speak the languages of men and even of angels, but if I have no agape, my speech is no more than a noisy gong or a clanging bell.
“I may have the gift of inspired preaching; I may have all knowledge and understand all secrets; I may have all the faith needed to move mountains—but if I have no agape, I am nothing.
“I may give away everything I have, and even give up my body to be burned—but if I have no agape, this does me no good” (Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:1-3. In the original Greek, the word for love is agape, Good News Bible).
“Dear Friends,.... agape comes from God. Whoever loves [with agape] is a child of God and knows God. Whoever does not love [with agape] does not know God, for God is agape. And God showed His agape for us by sending His only Son into the world, so that we might have life through Him. This is what agape is: it is not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the means by which our sins are forgiven.....
“God is agape, and whoever lives in agape lives in union with God and God lives in union with him. Agape is made perfect in us in order that we may have courage in the Judgment Day..... There is no fear in agape; perfect agape drives out all fear. So then, agape has not been made perfect in anyone who is afraid, because fear has to do with punishment.
“We love [with agape] because God first loved us [with agape] (John, in his First Letter, 4:7-19).
“I pray that you may have your roots and foundation in agape..... Yes, may you come to know His agape—although it can never be fully known—and so be completely filled with the very nature of God” (Paul, Ephesians
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So you think it’s fantastic that one little word could turn the world upside down?
Yes, the world was once powerfully shaken by a little band of men from
The word that performed this mighty feat was one little known in the ancient Greco-Roman world—a Greek term, agape (ä gä´pay). It meant “love,” but it was revolutionary. It came to carry a spiritual wallop that overwhelmed people’s minds, catalyzing humanity into two camps, one for and the other against the heavenly idea.
Those that were for it were transformed overnight into recklessly joyous followers of Jesus, ready to lose property, go to prison, or even to die a tortured death for Him. Those catalyzed against it as quickly became cruel, bloodthirsty persecutors of those who saw light in the new concept of love. None who heard the news could ever sit on the fence.
The mysterious explosive in this spiritual bomb was a radically different idea than had been dreamed of by the world’s philosophers or ethics teachers. It was a new invention that took friend and foe alike by surprise.
It wasn’t that the ancients had no idea of love; they talked about it plenty. In fact, the Greeks had three or four words for love (our modern languages usually have only one). But the kind of love that came to be expressed in agape mercilessly exposed all other ideas of love as either nonlove or antilove.
All of a sudden mankind came to realize that what they’d been calling “love” was actually veneered selfishness. The human psyche was stripped naked by the new revelation. If you welcomed the spiritual revolution, you got clothed with agape yourself; if not, having your robes of supposed goodness ripped off turned you into a raving enemy of the new faith. And no one could turn the clock back, for agape was an idea for which its fullness of time had come.
When John took his pen to write his famous equation “God is love” (1 John 4:8), he had to choose between the several Greek words. The common, everyday one—eros—packed a powerful punch on its own. Something mysterious and powerful, eros was thought to be the source of all life. It swept like a torrent from a broken dam over all obstacles of human will and wisdom, a tide of emotion common to all humanity. If a mother loved her child, her love was eros, thought to be noble and pure. Likewise, the dependent love of children for their parents and the common love of friends for each other. Further, the mutual love of man and woman was a profoundly mysterious drive.
The Word That Turned the World Upside Down
“Is God eros?,” asked the ancient pagans. Yes, answered their philosophers, including the great Plato, because eros is stronger than human will. It produces the miracle of babies. It makes friends and families. And it dwells in everyone by nature. Therefore, said the pagans, it must be the spark of divinity in all humans.
For the ancients, love was pretty much what it is for us today—the “sweet mystery of life,” the elixir that makes an otherwise intolerable existence possible to endure. Plato hoped to transform the world by a kind of love that he considered “heavenly eros.” Words derived from it today have an exclusively sexual meaning, but Plato tried to get the world to climb out of that swamp of sensuality by a spiritually uplifting idea, something noble and inspiring. It was based on climbing higher, getting free of physical lust, being attracted to a greater spiritual good for the soul.
But John could never bring himself to write that God is eros. He astounded the thinkers of his day by saying, “God is agape.” And between those two ideas there stretches a vast gulf wider than the east is from the west.
The apostles’ idea was revolutionary in at least three ways:
1. If one loves with agape, he has “boldness in the day of judgment” (verse 17, KJV). Without it, one cringes in terror when confronted with ultimate judgment; with it, he walks fearlessly into God’s presence past all His holy angels, utterly unashamed and confident. That was anciently unheard of.
2. “There is no fear in love [agape] but perfect love [agape] casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not perfected in love [agape]” (verse 18, RSV). Fear with anxiety is the substratum of human existence in all ages. Fear too deep to recognize can make us sick, gnawing at the vitals of the soul until one’s physical organs weaken in their resistance to disease. Years may go by before we can see or feel it, but at last the weakest organ of the body breaks down, and doctors must try to repair what agape would have prevented by conquering the fear.
3. Every sublime moral and ethical goal of humanity is nothing without agape, says Paul in his famous love chapter of 1 Corinthians 13. One can “speak in the tongues of men and of angels,” “have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge,” have “faith, so as to remove mountains,” “give away all I have, and.... deliver my body to be burned,” and yet not have the all-important ingredient. He ends up “nothing.” And agape has a phenomenal quality of enduring “all things,” for agape “never ends” (RSV).
How did agape differ so much from the common idea of love? How could the apostles’ idea possibly be such a threat to Plato’s noble concept? The answer is found in clear-cut contrasts between the two ideas:
Ordinary human love is dependent on the beauty or goodness of its object. We naturally choose friends who are nice to us, who please us. We fall in love with our sexual opposite who is beautiful, happy, intelligent, and attractive, and turn away from one who is ugly, mean, ignorant, or offensive.
In contrast, agape doesn’t depend on the beauty or goodness in its object. It stands alone, sovereign, free. The ancients had a story that illustrated their most sublime idea of love:
Admetus was a noble, handsome young man with all the personal qualities of excellence. He fell sick with a disease that the oracle of the gods pronounced would be fatal unless someone could be found who would die in his place. His friends went from one to another, inquiring, “Would you be willing to die for Admetus?” All agreed that he was a wonderful young man, but “Sorry,” they said, “we couldn’t die for him.” His parents were asked, and they said, “We love our son, but sorry, we couldn’t die for him.” Finally his friends asked the beautiful girl who loved him, Alcestis. “Yes,” she said, “because he is such a good man and because the world needs him so, I am willing to die for him!”
The philosophers boasted: “This is love—willing to die for a good man!” Imagine their shock when the apostles said that wasn’t it at all. “One will hardly die for a righteous man—though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. But God shows his love [agape] for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us,” yes, “while we were enemies” (Romans 5:7, 8, 10, RSV).
A message like that either captured your soul or turned you into an implacable enemy.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
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