Gorman: "Cruciform Love"

This will be the last post of notes from Gorman's "Cruciformity": I had about fifteen more pages of notes to transcribe on the blog, but my own inability to be observant has cost me my leather journal I've been using for the past two years, in which I kept all my notes. It really is a tragic loss. 

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Love is primary in Paul’s experience of God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit. In Philippians 3.12 he says that on the Damascus Road he was “taken over” by Christ’s love, and he says similar things in Galatians 2.20, Romans 8.35-37, and 2 Corinthians 5.14. Paul’s understanding of the human condition—that people are in the grip of disordered relations with God and others—finds its solution in “faith expressing itself [or working] through love.” (Galatians 5.6) This encompasses both dimensions of the appropriate human response to the gospel, both the vertical dimension (“faith”) and the horizontal dimension (“love”).

The Fundamental Meaning of Love. 1 Corinthians 13 is an encomium, or ancient text in praise of a virtue. Here Paul proclaims the necessity of love (vv.1-3), the character of love (4-7) and the endurance of love (8-13). Wedged between 1 Cor 12 (on the diversity of spiritual gifts) and 1 Cor 14 (proper use of spiritual gifts in church), love is set forth as the modus operandi of ALL spiritual gifts. In the wider context of 1 Corinthians—in which Paul addresses issues of division, pride, selfishness, etc.—love is held up as the appropriate way for Christians to live. Love is at the core of Paul’s understanding of individual and corporate life. It is “what counts” (Gal 5.6), as it puts faith—one’s fundamental posture before God—into action toward others.

Love isn’t something to have in small measure but great; and though focused on members of the Christian community, this love isn’t limited to them. Love is the only debt Christians are to owe one another (Rom 13.8). Love is the point of the Law (Gal 5.14), and as such Christians should, through love, become slaves to one another. Cruciform love doesn’t come naturally; it is the work of God, and first on the “list” of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5. This cruciform kind of love has such power that Christians are “controlled” by the love of Christ. Love is the “litmus test” of the presence of Christ by his Spirit in a person or community. This love is a very specific kind of love, and Paul’s understanding of it is linked to his understanding of the cross as the expression of God’s love in Christ.

In 1 Corinthians 13.4-7, we find a chain of texts, including seven affirmations and eight negations. Each affirmation and negation is a “rule” by which the Corinthians (and us) can measure their use of spiritual gifts and personal and corporate behaviors. Key to this text is verse 5: “[Love] does not seek its own.” This phrase is a Greek idiom, and can be translated, “[Love] does not seek its own proper or improper interests and welfare.” Love doesn’t seek its own interest or welfare but (implicitly) seeks the interests and welfare of others. In 1 Corinthians 10 (the chapter where Paul addresses the question of eating meat sacrificed to idols), the “Strong” are those who understand eating such meat isn’t a sin, and the “Weak” are those who think it’s a sin. The Strong, Paul says, should exercise love NOT by being puffed up by knowledge (“I know this isn’t a sin!”) but by NOT insisting on the right they have to eat the meat, since this is unloving towards the weaker brethren. Love builds up, Paul insists, and as such the Strong should build up the Weak and show them concern.

Love has a 2-dimensional character: negatively, it doesn’t seek its own advantage or edification. It’s characterized by status- and rights-renunciation. Positively, it seeks the good, the advantage, the welfare and edification of others, and is characterized by regard for them. “Love… is the dynamic, creative endeavor of finding ways to pursue the welfare of others rather than one’s own interests.” (160) Love is others-oriented, not self-oriented. Love is characterized by self-giving for the good of others; in Phil 2.1-3, Paul makes it clear that love looks out not for the self but for the other. In Gal 5.13, Paul says that we are to become slaves to one another. It sounds harsh, so it’s often translated as “servants” in English bibles. Nevertheless, Paul sees true freedom consisting in the freedom to become slaves to one another, to serve one another rather than indulging the self.

This understanding of love isn’t pulled out of thin air but drawn from the cross of Christ (Galatians 2.19-21; Romans 8.34-37, 2 Corinthians 5.14-15). In Galatians 1.4, Paul says that Christ gave himself for our sins to set us free from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father. This statement was probably an early Christian “self-surrender” formula. “For sins” becomes “for me” in Galatians 2.20, so that “The cross is Christ’s loving gift of himself for ‘me’, for us, for all. His death for sins was not anything other than an act of love, a voluntary gift of the self.” (163) The love of God is the love of Christ, embodied on the cross. From the Father’s perspective, it is the selfless giving expressed in sacrificing one’s own dear Son; from the Son’s perspective, it is the self-giving of oneself. The love of Christ, expressed on the cross, isn’t limited to a one-time historical event but is an ongoing reality. Even now Christ is interceding for us, a natural continuation of the love displayed on the cross (Rom 8.34). Christ in love sought, and continues to seek, the edification of others.