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God is Love 4


 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
(I Corinthians 13:13)
 
                              Mr. Grudem brings two characteristics together to provide the next balance. God is both infinite and personal. “He is infinite in that he is not subject to any of the limitations of humanity, or of creation in general. He is far greater than everything he has made, far greater than anything that exists. But he is also personal: he interacts with us as a person, and we can relate to him as persons. We can pray to him, worship him, obey him, and love him, and he can speak to us, rejoice in us, and love us.” (Systematic Theology, p. 167)
         He then goes on to compare God to the gods of other religions, beginning with the Romans. I want to mention the Roman gods in a slightly different context. As I’m thinking about it, there were gods of lots of things, but the goddess of love, Venus, was within the major pantheon. There was a god of hate, usually the god in charge of the underworld, sibling or half-sibling of Jupiter (or some such) and part of the old ruling family, but love was included among the heavy hitters of the Romans (and Greeks.)
          Love may be celebrated even more (but perhaps no more wisely) now.
We’re told
Love is love
Love conquers all
Love will keep us together
All we need is love, love, love[1]
Love is a many splendored thing
What the world needs now, is love, sweet love
We hear hate-filled screams of “love trumps hate.”
We think “But I love him/her” defeats any other argument.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is
 love. (I Corinthians 13:13)
          I could quote lyrics, poets, and people for hours. The point is that we recognize that no matter how finite we are, love is not. I conclude that love  is infinite. And yet, it is personal. It involves people, touches people, influences people.[2]
         

[1] And then, they broke up the band.
[2] I’m not saying that animals are incapable of love, but even with animals, it’s “personal” in that it involves relationships. That doesn’t mean that animals are people any more than the fact that an elephant can love makes anything that loves an elephant.

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