Bridge 4 Revisit As We Move to Bridge 5

[HKHaugan]

Bridge 4. Love. Jn.12:25 “Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

What makes this bridge of 'love for life' so different from the identity, saving and lifestyle bridges that precede it? In order to answer that question we have to allow the overall context of John's writings, his Gospel, his three epistles and Revelation, inform us. Of the 72 times love appears in them the bottom line is God's love is John's central concern.

The following is how I envision John's reason for writing. In his Gospel it's as though he has been overtaken, overwhelmed and overcome. In today's slang, blown away. In Jesus the perfect, complete and absolute love of God was revealed, felt and embraced. It was love, defined, detailed and delivered personally by the Holy Spirit from Jesus. This love was lost by Adam, the first man but restored in Jesus, the last Adam, “The first man, Adam, became a living being, the last Adam, a life-giving Spirit.(1Cor.15:45).” This was not love in the world John grew up in. It was different. It was not affection, attraction, nor an emotional lift, nor a feeling of jubilation when you win something, or get praised for an achievement. They last but a moment.

A spiritual tidal wave had swept over John that didn't go away. He had a heart attack but of a different kind. Jesus had entered his whole being, mind, heart and spirit. It was a totally new and filling relational experience and its effect had turned his heart upside down. So he reaches deep within but fails to find a word to describe it and then is led to one word the Spirit gives him, the Greek agape. If faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen then agape love is that substance and that evidence, faith reaching from the heart out, offering the love of Jesus to everyone around. No one was excluded. John saw that every heart was shaped to receive Jesus' heart. Every heart belonged to God and Jesus had come to recover and restore them from fear to faith to love to Heaven.

John saw how the world's idea of love was so torn from its Holy roots that the very word, because of sin, was mis-used, mis-felt, mis-defined, mis-shapen therefore mis-placed, thus lost in its mis-direction, it's missing and ends in a mist.

John gives us a different perspective on eternal life. He equates the life of Jesus with God's love. Life is filled with God's love. He is so overcome by the spiritual origin, depth and uniqueness of God's love that he says we have to hate our life in this world. The world's life is life defined, lived and divorced from God. 'Hate' is from a Hebrew expression that means to 'love less.' The other loves like stergei (family), philios (brotherly) and eros (physical), can't hold a candle to God's agape love. They can't function as they were meant unless God's agape love reunites them and brings them into balance.

John recognizes the desperation of affection attached to the world's ideas of love. Love is the satisfaction we get when we acquire recognition, reputation, status and power through material success and pleasure. This shuts down access to eternal life. This is why he says we must hate (mison---love less), our life in this world. When 'love less' is used it means there will be in most cases a progressive letting go of the things that we formerly felt were ultimately valuable. It won't be easy but as we begin to hate the pursuit of meaningless goals that have no eternal value and replace them with God's agape love then real life emerges.. The love of God will displace our former drivenness to acquire what others expect of us.

Success is not bad, meaningless and evil when seen as gifts from a loving God because He was the One who led you by faith in Him directing their acquisition. The resources they provided not only blessed you but were fruit that helped to supply and multiply; supply help for the needs of others and equip the Body of Christ so it could spread God's love through His multiplied disciples.

It is easy to see why John describes himself in this Gospel in the third person as the disciple whom Jesus loved (20:2, 21:7,21:20). The very fact that He was writing with the non-believer (believers too) in mind (20:31) can answer why many commentators call it the 'love Gospel.' He records seven signs to prove Jesus was the promised Messiah. He has very pointed symbolism as he describes Jesus interaction with believer and non-believer alike.

You can sense the deep affection he has for Jesus thus the emphasis on this new kind of love, agape love, that resonates throughout the Gospel and his epistles. “A new command I give you: Love one another (13:34).” But that's not enough especially if left to man's definition up to that point in history. Jesus is quick to qualify what love really is by pointing to Himself as the sole example of this new kind of love, “As I have loved you so you must love one another (13:34).”

“As I have loved you” is a whole new ballgame. That's what John has not only felt Himself but also watched as Jesus taught, performed miracles, gave His 7 signs of Messiahship, 'agape-loved' on the Cross and rose from the dead to seal the length and breadth of this new 'agape love.' No wonder that was the impress on him when he heard Jesus say, “Anyone who loves (philios---has a brotherly affection for) their life in this world will lose it, but anyone who hates (mison---has less affection for) their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” Is it any wonder why in the next chapter, Chapter 14, starts with Jesus' words about the heart and its need to trust Him when troubled? He is going away to prepare a place for every believer so that they can be where He is going. When asked where and how it will all happen He tells them, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” Love is His way, the Word is His truth and the Holy Spirit, His life.

So Bridge 4 has been found too dangerous to continue on so we make a u-turn called repentance and on the other side of that repentant exchange for forgiveness lies the vision of a new bridge, Bridge 5, the Bridge to Eternity.