Thursday, January 01, 2004
What does braking for animals have to do with love? Nothing or everything, depending on how your flatter yourself.
2 Corinthians 11:2 For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
There is an old song, "Falling in love with love." The modern man is very much in love with love. in fact, love drips from his mouth upon every opportunity. He loves everybody and everything. He wallows in his own sensibilities and sees himself as a very caring person. He loves to love and only hates what is contrary to love.
The problem is in the definition. The problem with loving everything is that very universalism. Biblical love is not universal; it is particular, not general.
General love is not love at all, because it makes no difference between things. It is no comfort for a wife to know that her husband loves everything. That makes her no better than a toad or a gila monster. "Caution," the bumper sticker says. "I brake for animals." The sticker fun indicates that the driver is a very loving person. After all, he brakes for animals. As opposed to what? Assuming that only a human will read read the sticker, the driver is warning the people that he holds the lives of the animals in greater regard than the human who is reading the sticker, and will endanger them, if necessary, to avoid striking the animal. It gets worse. We all assume that he would brake to avoid a moose, a cow, or a bear or deer, for striking a large animal will endanger the life of the driver and damage his car. Anyone would do that, so why the warning?
He must mean small animals: rabbits, skunks, toads, and lizards and snakes. He will brake to miss those and warns us that he holds their lives more valuable than the lives of us who read the sticker and more valuable than other people in the car with him. If I, who read the sticker, am in danger, I am in danger of what? His car, no doubt, that brakes to miss the toad. Then he endangers himself and his family by braking for the toad.
Does he mean, "beware of me, for I am a danger to those on the road, above other drivers who do not brake for animals?" No. It is not a rational sticker at all, for it means nothing except, "I am a very caring person. I have universal love, even for toads and snakes. I love them as brothers, and do not count humans greater than they. I am a loving person. A gentle soul. A sweet person. Not like the brutes who do not weep when animals die. I am very sensitive, and reflects well on me."
It is not love at all, but an exercise in self-gratification.
God's love is not universal. His love is particular and covenantal, the love that a good man has for his wife. A good man will be jealous of his wife. He will brook no rival. It is right and proper for a man or a woman to trust that the spouse be faithful and true to the vows made at the marriage altar. It is not unreasonable for a man to be upset and a woman to be outraged if those vows are defiled by unfaithfulness in body or in mind. A man is a sentimental idiot if he is content with his wife desiring another man's company more than his.
Modern sentimentalism says, "If you love something, let it go." But God is not a sentimental modern idiot, in spite of the stupidities of much of modern theology. "God loves you, and has a wonderful plan for your life," is true only of some people, those who are engrafted by the Holy Spirit into the eternal covenant secured by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
These are just springes to catch woodcocks, as Polonius put it, and only a fool will be caught. "Let me go, let me go," so I can find someone else. "Release me, and let me love again." I just need to get away, because all this commitment is tying me down and I want to fly like the bird. "So, someone has depended on me and made important decisions based on me. Well, he is the fool then. It is not my fault." [See Isaiah 36:6]
Paul wasn't shooting with dry powder. He labored as a jealous husband to see that the church was truly connnected to Jesus Christ. He opposed idolatry in all its forms, and resisted any one who would draw off men from Christ. How could he do otherwise without denying the truth. "If you love something, let it go," was certainly not his motto. It cannot be the motto of anyone who has the slightest idea of what biblical love is.
Shakespeare put it this way, "Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove."
Thomas Moore said it this way,
"Oh the heart that has truly loved, never forgets,
but as truly loves on to the close.
As the sunflower turns to her god when he sets
The same look that she turned when he rose."
True love never forgets and never lets go. "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. --Romans 8:38,39
God is kind to all that He created and his goodness is over all. But He doesn't love everything. He loves men who are in Christ Jesus our Lord, for that is where you find His love: in Christ. It is no comfort to me that His love for me is no better than the love He has for the toad that is road kill. No my death, no matter how it comes, is precious in the sight of the Lord [Psalm 11615] "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away.... [1Peter 23,24] "The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever." Isaiah 40:608
"God loves everybody. I love everything. That makes me like God. Paul was a fool; there is no such thing as Godly jealously." You think so? Do you think that sentimentality will be a defense at the Day of Judgment [Yes, there will be one]? "Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the desire: this is also vanity and vexation of spirit." Ecc. 6:9 Love your own wife; love your own children; love your own nation; love the true God, which is the only God there is. All else is vanity, vexation of spirit, and someday eternal damnation, for God is jealous even if we are not.
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