© 2011 Michel Hubaut
© 2011 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
“Love believes all things.” We must cultivate trust rather than mistrust, as God is more attentive to our future than to our past.
“Love hopes all things.” Paul is convinced that there are few fundamentally perverse men, but that there are many unhappy, wounded men who need to be loved in order to believe in themselves again, to progress and reveal unsuspected possibilities of themselves.
“Love endures all things.” It refuses to be defeated by the forces of evil and desires to “triumph over evil with good” (Rm 12:21).
It is clear that the “love” that Paul describes goes beyond simple human feeling, but that it is what the Christian tradition calls “theological love” (agape), that is to say love purified and animated by the Energies of the Spirit.
Paul does not hesitate to put this one on the same level, and even above faith and hope, the two other “theological virtues”. This “agape love” goes beyond simple solidarity or natural compassion, but it is the one that springs from the very heart of the Triune God in whom grace makes us participate. The foundation of this evangelical love is God himself, his Spirit acting in the heart of man. Jesus is the most perfect model.
Do not grieve the Holy Spirit, with whom God has sealed you for the day of redemption. Bitterness, irritation, anger, shouting, blasphemy, and all malice must be put away from you. Be kind to one another and forgive one another, just as God in Christ has forgiven you.
Yes, seek to imitate God, since you are children whom he loves; live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself to God for us (Eph 4, 30-32 to 5,1-2).
Christ remains for Paul the living reference, the one who embodied and brought to perfection the love that Christians are called to live in turn.
All interpersonal relationships, in the life of the couple, of communities, are illuminated by the feelings and gestures of Christ.
Therefore I implore you by all the pressing call in Christ, the persuasion in Love, the communion in the Spirit, the compassionate tenderness, fill my joy with the agreement of your feelings: have the same love, the same heart, seek unity; do nothing out of rivalry, nothing out of vain glory, but with humility consider others as superior to yourselves. Let each one not seek only his own interest, but also that of others. Have among yourselves the same feelings which are in Christ Jesus: he, who is in the form of God, did not jealously retain the rank which made him equal with God. But he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, becoming in the likeness of men (Phil 2,1-8).
Let each one not seek his own pleasure, but seek to please his neighbor for his own good to edify. For Christ did not seek his own pleasure (Rm 15,13).
Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her (Eph 5,25-26).
Paul only extends and applies the teaching of Christ which summarized the “charter of the Christian life” of the Sermon on the Mount, by saying: “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect (Mt 5,48) or even As I have loved you, you also love one another (John 13, 31-34).”
Moreover, for Paul, since our love for others is a reflection of the love of God and Christ for us, he does not hesitate to use the same words to describe the characteristics of the love of Christ and that of Christians (kindness, selflessness, mercy, compassion, fidelity). In fact, the Christian does not imitate the attitudes or feelings of Christ as one imitates a neighbor outwardly, but he lets himself be inhabited, shaped by the Spirit who makes him inwardly conform to Christ. Baptized in Christ, we are no longer one with Him (Ga 3,27-28).
It is this intimate osmosis between the Christian and Christ, which allows us to enter into a relationship with God and to say to him like Christ himself: “Abba-Father”. The Father loves us in the Spirit with the same love that he loves his Son Jesus. And Christ, in the Spirit, loves us with the same love that he loves his Father.
And it is with this same love in the Spirit that we love all men, our brothers, as the Father loves them. According to Paul’s beautiful formula, henceforth there is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free man; there is no longer male and female, for you are all one living in Jesus Christ (Ga 3,28).
This theological love makes all social, biological and racial boundaries disappear. We are here, in the logic of the revelation of Christ, at the center of Pauline theology which founds the dignity of every human being and all “Christian morality”.
We understand why, according to Paul, the “agape love” experienced by Christians is the best “spiritual worship” they can give to God. There is no opposition between the love of God and the love of men. Everything we accomplish for the good of man, to allow him to realize his true destiny as a son of God, gives glory to God.
According to “In the footsteps of Saint Paul”, Historical and spiritual guide, Desclée De Brouwer
Michel Hubaut