Advertise Your Business or Website at HomewithGod
Advertise Your Business or Website at HomewithGod
|
The
Dynamics of the Everlasting Gospel |
When Satan rebelled against God in heaven (Rev. 12:7-9), he was really rebelling against the God’s agape love the spirit of His law (Mat. 22:36-40; Rom.13:10; Gal. 5:13, 14 ). The idea that “love (agape) seeketh not her own” (i.e., self, 1 Cor. 13:5) was too restrictive to Lucifer. Consequently he objected to it and introduced the principle of self-love or eros (Ezek. 28:15; Isa. 14:12-14). Therefore, ever since his fall, the enemy of God and man (Satan) has hated the concept of agape. When this concept was restored to the human race through the preaching of the gospel, he naturally was ready to attack it with all his might (Rev. 12:10-12). Hence, the very first thing he attacked in the Christian church was not the sabbath or the state of the dead; these truths came later, but he zeroed in first on the concept of God’s agape love.
After the disciples had passed away from the scene, the leadership of the church fell into the hands of the church “Fathers,” who were of Greek origin. Immediately the great battle to substitute eros concepts for agape began.
The Greeks were insulted that the New Testament writers ignored the highest form of love in their language (heavenly eros) and used an obscure word (agape) instead. They felt that the disciples of Christ, who were all Jews (except Luke), did not really understand their language and therefore a correction had to be made. The first to attempt this was Marcion (died in 160 A.D.). He was succeeded by Origen (died in 254 A.D.) who actually changed John’s sublime statement “God is agape” (1 Jn.4:8) to “God is eros.” However, the battle did not stop there; it continued until we come to Augustine, the fourth century bishop of Hippo (N. Africa) and one of the great “fathers” of Roman Catholic theology.
Augustine realized how futile it was to substitute eros for agape. Instead he did a very smart thing. By using Greek logic, he took the concepts of agape as well as eros and married the two together, producing a synthesis which he called caritas (Latin) and from which we get our English word charity, the word that is often used in our KJV for agape. This word caritas was not only accepted by Christendom but became the key word to define divine and Christian love in Roman Catholic theology. Its meaning was a mixture of agape and eros so that the gospel was perverted from “Not I, but Christ” (Gal. 2:20) to “I plus Christ,” a concept of the gospel still prevalent today. The moment the pure meaning of agape was corrupted, the gospel became perverted with self-love, and the Christian church lost its power and was plunged into darkness. It was not until the Reformation (16th Century) that Luther realized the problem and tried to break the synthesis. However, the church today is to a large degree still groping in darkness as to the true meaning of the gospel.
Today three concepts of love exist: the concept of eros or self-love; the concept of God’s agape or self-giving love; and the concept of caritas, a mixture of self-love (eros and agape). Each of these three concepts have produced in human history their own kind of gospel. The pagans who are steeped in eros have produced in their various religions the gospel of works. As Aristotle, the great Greek philosopher, declared: “Salvation is the movement of the creature towards God.” Plato taught a similar idea, and believed that God only saves the lovable. In other words, the eros gospel teaches that man must save himself by pleasing God through sacrifices and good works, to make himself lovable. We call this “legalism” or salvation by works, the basis of all non-Christian religions.
At the heart of Roman Catholic theology is the caritas gospel: man must first give evidence he wants to be saved through his good works, and when God sees this, He will meet him halfway to save him. This gospel teaches that we must do our best to meet God’s ideal and Christ will make up the difference. The Galatian Christians fell into this trap (Gal. 3:1-3) and so have a great number of Christians today the religion of faith plus works, or justification plus sanctification. This is a subtle legalism.
The Bible however subscribes to neither the eros or the caritas gospel. In complete contradiction to the above two gospels, the apostles taught that while we were “helpless,” “ungodly,” “sinners,” and even “enemies,” God demonstrated His agape love towards sinful men through the death of His Son, which fully reconciled us to Him (Rom. 5:6-10). This agape gospel is the clear teaching of the New Testament. John 3:16, Ephesians 2:1-6, 1 Timothy 1:15, Titus 3:3-5, are but a few examples). Both the eros gospel as well as the caritas gospel may be described as conditional good news; but the agape gospel which turned the world upside down in apostolic times (Acts 17:6) is unconditional good news.
 |
One of the effects of the sin problem is that it has produced in many lives a very low sense of self-esteem or self-worth. Unfortunatately this problem has magnified in our present complex world with its high divorce rates and competitive lifestyle. The result is a heyday for those who are in the counseling business. But may I introduce you to the “wonderful counsellor” (Isa. 9:6) who alone has a permanent solution for you.
As we have already seen, in dealing with the sin problem (Unit One), the Bible puts very little value in sinful flesh. To Nicodemas, whose religion put much emphasis on human achievement, Christ said: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh” (Jn. 3:6). By this He meant that there is nothing good in God’s eyes which the flesh is capable of producing (Rom. 7:18). This is because every thing that man does, in and of himself, is polluted with self-love. Hence there is none good and no one righteous (Rom. 3:10,12).
It is for this reason the apostle Paul told the Philippian Christians that we are to have no confidence in the flesh (Phil. 3:3). All this is devastating to our Good News for you God’s agape love for each one of us. The only permanent solution to the problem of a low self-worth is a clear understanding of God’s unconditional love (agape) and His saving truth in Christ. As the prophet Isaiah declared, in spite of our sinfulness, God will make us more precious than the fine gold of Ophir (Isa. 13:12). And this He has done in Christ, as we shall see in our study of the next Unit.
Studies
Pr Jack Sequeira
