The Greatest Love
I had a conversation recently with a couple who were part of the Jehovah Witness faith; the conversation went very quickly to the deity of Christ. Honestly I wanted to start with this issue, because if Christ is changed, then the whole message of the gospel and the awe of what He has done for us is utterly lost. Is Jesus God or something less, that was the issue. I wanted to share something with you from Scripture that I think is so wonderful. In 1 John 4:7-8, we read: “Dear Friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of god and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know god, because God is love.” So how does this verse define God? By love, it makes it very clear that love, while obviously not god’s only characteristic, is definitely one that can’t be ignored and that defines not only Him but those who follow him. Keeping this in mind, look at John 15:12-14 “My command is this: love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.” So Jesus is telling his disciples that for one to show the greatest love, they must lay down their own life for their friends. If Jesus is not God, then this statement doesn’t make any sense. Why make a statement as to what the greatest love is, but yet God isn’t following it himself? If the greatest love is to lay down one’s own life for others, and if God is defined by love, then if Jesus is a prophet, an angel or a good man, then God is not showing the greatest love. Jesus didn’t say the greatest love is to lay down someone else’s life for your friends.
I think when you consider these two verses together and in this context it causes Romans 5:6-8 make a lot more sense. “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But god demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” God demonstrated his own love by sending someone else to die for us? No, by himself becoming a man and taking our punishment, while we were still sinners, still utterly in rebellion against Him. So with these Scriptures we are confronted with something that is, in all our human reasoning or understanding, utterly inconceivable: that the God who created the universe would come down and not only be among us for a time but would suffer and die to take our penalty. Yet this is what is seen in Scripture. This takes away any thought that we could expand or add to or help in any way what Christ did for us. Scripture makes quite clear how hopeless our state is but how miraculous it was what He did on our behalf. My Jehovah witness friends dodged these verses, not willing to really look at what they were saying. I pray God will reveal the truth to them, so they will know who Christ truly is and come to understand why his sacrifice was enough and complete.
- Ashley
