Notes, Chapter 4

  1. Jonathan Edwards, Charity and Its Fruits (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1969, original 1852), p. 164.

  2. This passage in Romans includes the sentence "For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written, `The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me"' (l5:3). Concerning this, see the discussion of Hebrews l2:1-2 under the heading "Love Suffers for Joy" later in this chapter.

  3 . Historically ethicists have tended to distinguish these two forms of love as agape and eros, or benevolence and complacency. But I think that both resolve into one kind of love at the root.

God's agape does not "transcend" his eros, but expresses it. God's redeeming, sacrificial love for his sinful people is described by Hosea in the most erotic terms: "How can I give you up, O Ephraim! How can I hand you over, O Israel ! . . . My heart recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger . . . for I am God and not man" ( 11: 8-9) . Concerning his exiled people who had sinned so grievously, God says later through Jeremiah, "I will rejoice over them to do good to them and I will truly plant them in this land with all my heart and with all my soul" (32:41).
The divine motive of self-satisfying joy is seen also in Jesus' own ministry. When he was called to give an account of why he lowered himself to eat with tax collectors and sinners, his answer was "There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance" (Luke 15:1,2,7). Finally, we are told in Hebrews 12:2 by what power Jesus endured suffering: "For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God." Should we not infer that in the painful work of redeeming love, God is very interested in the satisfaction that comes from his efforts, and that he does demand the pleasure of a great return on his sacrifice?

While there is a sense in which God has no need for creation at all (Acts 17:25) and that he is profoundly fulfilled and happy in the eternal fellowship of the Trinity, yet there is in joy an urge to increase, by expanding itself to others who, if necessary, must first be created and redeemed. This divine urge is God's desire for the compounded joy that comes from having others share the very joy he has in himself.

It becomes evident, therefore, that one should not ask, Does God seek his own happiness as a means to the happiness of his people, or does he seek their happiness as a means to his own? For there is no either-or. They are one. This is what distinguishes a holy, divine eros from a fallen, human one: God's eros longs for and delights in the eternal and holy joy of his people.

  4. I would never use the word earn for the way Christians come to enjoy the rewards of love. Earn implies the exchange of value from one to another that obligates the other to pay because of the value he has received. But in truth, everything Christians "give" to God is simply a rebound of God's gift to them. All our service is done "in the strength which he supplies" ( 1 Peter 4:11), so that it is in fact God who "earns" the reward for us and through us. But this does not diminish the helpfulness of Lewis's comment on the nature of rewards.

  5. C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1965), p. 2.

  6. Phillips Brooks, Lectures on Preaching (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House 1969, original 1907), pp. 53-54, 82-83.

  7. Quoted in Daniel P. Fuller, Hermeneutics (Pasadena: Fuller Theological Seminary, 1969), pp. VII-4,5.