How does man grow into the position of being God’s bride? How does love mature? What is at the heart of discipleship?
It seems to me that the crux of it all is choice. Love requires choice. Genuine love requires genuine choice. The partners in a genuine love relationship need to have the genuine ability to choose whether to be in that relationship or not, and to choose how to conduct that relationship.
Maturity comes by consistently choosing to love and to live according to Love. A big part of discipleship is about learning to choose to live according to the essence of who God is, to live according to Love.
For choice to be genuine however, there have to be different outcomes. If the outcomes of the choices made are the same, there was no real choice. If there is no real choice, there is no real love!
Because God created man for a genuine relationship, God has to give man genuine choice.
At the dawn of time in Eden, God established two trees in centre of garden (Gen 2:9b): the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God said (Gen 2:16): “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but don’t eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, because if you eat from it, you will die”. It wasn’t much to ask, but by establishing the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil he was giving man the choice whether to act out of love or not.
Putting the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the garden was not about putting a deliberate temptation into Adam and Eve’s way, a temptation which they had no way of resisting. It was not even about testing Adam and Eve’s love, though it certainly did that. That was not what it was about. There had to be somewhere where man had a genuine choice with regards to relationship with God – and this tree was that somewhere.
It was not a case of: ‘prove to me you love me’. It was not a case of ‘do it my way, or else!’ It was a case of: ‘Because I am Love, because that means I will not force you to be in relationship with me, I have to give you the choice to opt out’.
If they chose to leave the fruit well alone, they would in effect not only be saying that out of love they would submit to his request. In Love there is always a degree of mutual submission! They would also be saying that they believed God’s warning with regards to what would happen if they ate of it and they would in this way affirm that they believed his character.
If they chose to take the fruit and eat it, they would in effect be saying that they didn’t believe God, believed that he was short-changing them in some way and did not really have their best interest at heart. Choosing to eat of the fruit basically amounted to opting out of relationship with God and going solo.
That choice was entirely and genuinely theirs to make. It is a choice they had to make day by day. It is still a choice we have to make today, day by day.
Excellent explanation Ulrike - thank you!
ReplyDeleteAnthea x
Hi Ulrike, I agree with you that sometimes we have to choose to love and to do the loving thing, but I'm not sure that love requires choice. I'm not sure of this because I don't believe that I chose to love Liz, I fell in love with her. I couldn't choose not to love her now. I have no choice over whether I love Liz or not. This is even more the case with our children. Could you choose not to love your kids? Does your lack of freedom in that mean that your love for them is in some way not real love?
ReplyDeleteThanks Tim. Perhaps your comments illustrate just how passionate God feels about us. I agree with you that in certain cases e.g. with our children it seems impossible not to love. Does that eliminate our choice to do so? The fact that you couldn't not love, to me is more a reflection of the strength of your love, rather than eliminating your freedom to do so.
ReplyDeleteI suppose the way I see it, the choice rests more in terms of allowing those you love the freedom to respond to your love, or not. What, for argument's sake, would you do if your children (for some inconceivable reason) decided (maybe only for a time) to reject you, to turn their back on you, to cut off all ties with you? Given the strength of your love for them, would you allow them that choice, even if it tears you apart? Or would you force them, persuade them, make them love you? Presumably you would do everything in your power to make sure they knew that even though they reject you, you have not rejected them and that any time they choose to respond to your love again, you are there with open arms. Would that be the same as forcing them to respond to your love or would it simply an expression of your continuing love?