The need of agape love to protect the soul in personal love; John 15:17.

Title: The need of agape love to protect the soul in personal love; John 15:17.

John 15:17 "This I command you, that you love one another.

 

As we have defined agapan love: A mental attitude impersonal, unconditional love from mature virtue that recognizes the value of an object, producing a self-sacrificial preference and regard for its benefit even if hated. It is without sin and is not motivated by any affection or attraction.

 

This is the very love that Jesus Christ brought into the world, operated under, and He has graciously given the potential of it to us.

 

EPH 5:2

and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you, and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

 

2 Thess 3:5

And may the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the steadfastness of Christ.

 

2 Tim 1:13

Retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.

 

1 John 4:7

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

 

We are to live in His love until the Source of it returns to receive us, Jude 21

keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.

 

This love has its counterpart in personal love.

 

Personal love, though potentially wonderful, is a problem generator and needs agape love as a problem solver.

 

With that in mind I want to briefly look at the two areas of human personal love so that you can see how agape love must exist. There is nothing wrong with personal love. We have a desire to love and to be loved. However, as is often the case with any desire, it can be perverted into a desire for happiness. Personal love cannot give lasting happiness.

 

Category 1 love: love for God.

Category 2 love: love in right man right woman.

Category 3 love: love in friendship.

 

Principles of category #2 love

 

Though it is useful for principles of romance, Song of Solomon has a deeper meaning in the relationship of Christ to Israel and Christ to the Church. I quote:

 

As Ecclesiastes sets forth the vanity of love of the creature, Canticles sets forth the fullness of the love which joins believers and the Savior. The entire economy of salvation, says Harris, aims at restoring to the world the lost spirit of love. God is love, and Christ is the embodiment of the love of God.

(from Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary)

 

ISA 54:5 "For your husband is your Maker,

Whose name is the Lord of hosts;

And your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel,

Who is called the God of all the earth.

 

ISA 54:6 "For the Lord has called you,

Like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit,

Even like a wife of one's youth when she is rejected,"

Says your God.

 

ISA 54:7 "For a brief moment I forsook you,

But with great compassion I will gather you.

 

ISA 54:8 "In an outburst of anger I hid My face from you for a moment; But with everlasting lovingkindness I will have compassion on you," Says the Lord your Redeemer.

 

It is only to the church that the individual believer is called the bride.

 

EPH 5:32

This mystery is great [Christian marriage]; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.

 

2 Cor 11:2

For I betrothed you to one husband, that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin.

 

In the Church-age Christian marriage is called to be a representation of the relationship between Christ and the Church. Because of its limitless capacity it is the restoration of the first marriage in the Garden.

 

Now before you run off and want to get married or you want to get divorced and remarried or you think there is something wrong with your current marriage because it sure as heck is not the Garden of Eden, remember that there was always trouble in the Garden. The serpent was there.

 

 

 

1 Cor 7:28

But if you should marry, you have not sinned; and if a virgin should marry, she has not sinned. Yet such will have trouble in this life, and I am trying to spare you.

 

Only in this age does agape love exist to be fully realized in the heart of the individual believer, and therefore he/she can overcome the trouble with ease.

 

Never forget that in Christian marriage you are to be a pair that represents Christ and the Church. So then Christian marriage plays a role in the AC.

 

1 Cor 11:10

Therefore the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.

 

EPH 5:22 Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord.

 

EPH 5:23 For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body.

 

EPH 5:24 But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.

 

EPH 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her;

 

EPH 5:26 that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,

 

EPH 5:27 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she should be holy and blameless.

 

EPH 5:28 So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself;

 

EPH 5:29 for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church,

 

EPH 5:30 because we are members of His body.

 

EPH 5:31 For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh.

 

EPH 5:32 This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.

 

EPH 5:33 Nevertheless let each individual among you also love his own wife even as himself; and let the wife see to it that she respect her husband.

 

Category #2 love involves one person in your soul whom you can never forget and never erase. It is unique and special, SOS 1:7.

 

Song 1:7 "Tell me, O you whom my soul loves,

Where do you pasture your flock,

Where do you make it lie down at noon?

For why should I be like one who veils herself

Beside the flocks of your companions?"

 

The one who pastures the flock is the shepherd. Solomon is the shepherd of the people of Jerusalem and so he becomes a type of the ultimate shepherd, TLJC.

 

As a husband, our Lord shepherds His sheep. The husband with the love of Christ shepherds his wife and this shows her how special and unique she is.

 

Not veiling herself shows that she either doesn’t want to look like a harlot or that she is mourning. Both could apply. She is not saddened because her lover loves her fully and she is set aside just for him and will not play the harlot.

 

The Church-age believer should always know that he is loved by the Father and the Son forever and he does not have to go play in the cosmic system.

 

Category #2 love is protective. It is important to realize that once you have the right man in your soul you are protected from a lot of things.

 

When present:

Song 2:4 "He has brought me to his banquet hall,

And his banner over me is love.

 

The Shulamite woman would have been uncomfortable in Solomon’s banquet hall, but the comfort is his love.

 

Christ has asked us to believe things that seem impossible. What we see the impossible as a place where we don’t belong. The love of Christ comforts us and reminds that we indeed belong.

 

The husband is to love his wife with this love.

 

And when absent:

Song 1:13 "My beloved is to me a pouch of myrrh

Which lies all night between my breasts.

 

Myrrh was exotic to Palestine and tough to come by. The pouch of myrrh speaks of her memory and that she constantly thinks of him, even when absent.

 

Christ is always protecting us and our thoughts should often turn to Him. The right woman should orbit her husband and be ready to respond to Him. I emphasize the word “respond.”

 

The problem is that you must be careful of reaction.

 

Reaction instead of the response of the woman destroys the protection of the right man’s love.

 

I liken reaction to post traumatic stress disorder, but usually in a milder way. Trauma that is psychological results from our envisioning that something is dangerous. The woman who thinks responding to her right man will be dangerous will develop PTSD. This results in stress in the soul and over time will cause her to resent him since he is associated with pain. Certainly, he may be painful if he has no virtue at all. To that I would ask, why did you marry him and since you did, trust God. And there in comes the solution.

 

EPH 5:22

Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord.

 

Whether you think your husband deserves it or not is not given as a part of the command. You are to do so and trust the Lord for the result, which will be wonderful.

 

But some wives never give this a chance. They fail to trust. Sure they’ll trust Jesus for their salvation and maybe some other spiritual things but if it comes down to trusting Him for this, if they never give it a go then they develop disorder because they view it as dangerous, even though it may not be at all.

 

The second reason that this becomes a source of mental pain and disorder for the wife is that her responding nature is a part of her curse, just like the man has a curse to be a provider.

 

GEN 3:16 To the woman He said,

"I will greatly multiply

Your pain in childbirth,

In pain you shall bring forth children;

Yet your desire shall be for your husband,

And he shall rule over you."

 

It is imperative that the husband understand this. If the husband doesn’t give her some virtue to respond to and he seeks to rule with an iron fist, or he refuses to rule and acts like a wimp then he has helped her to react. If she feels she has to take over because the husband is a wimp or a tyrant then she is outside of her role as a responder and she will be harder to rule. This hurts the husband just as much and makes things very difficult for her. Her tendency to rebel and emote will increase and the man has helped this rather than helping her towards Christ.

 

GEN 3:17 Then to Adam He said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat from it';

Cursed is the ground because of you;

In toil you shall eat of it

All the days of your life.

 

GEN 3:18 "Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;

And you shall eat the plants of the field;

 

GEN 3:19 By the sweat of your face

You shall eat bread,

Till you return to the ground,

Because from it you were taken;

For you are dust,

And to dust you shall return."

 

It is imperative that the wife understand this. A husband feels the pressure of being a provider. If the wife starts bossing him around and telling him how to do it, then he is emasculated and tends to think he cannot overcome his curse. By doing this you have hurt him and not helped him. He has a tendency to bitterness and you have helped him in that direction instead of towards Christ. This in turn makes him more difficult to respond to, so you have in essence made the command of God harder for yourself.

 

The woman is a natural responder, but she has a tendency to rebel and attempt to initiate. This doesn’t mean she can’t make decisions. It means that she cannot take the authority away from the man and put him under it. This will eventually cause her stress and mental attitude sins.