27 “… for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came forth from the Father.”
An interpretive issue arises in this verse that must not be left unaddressed. Is God’s love for us contingent upon our love for Him, as first reading of this verse seems to indicate? What about 1 John 4:19 “We love, because He first loved us?” And did God not “[demonstrate] His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8)? Some worry over the skeptic’s charge that Christians resort to interpretive slight of hand in order to “explain away” such apparent contradictions. However, there is no need to worry.
First, we believe in the existence of God and that all of Scripture is inspired by Him. Therefore, believing in the non-contradictory nature of God, we believe that what He inspires cannot be contradictory (Heb 6:18, Rom 3:4, 1 Tim 3:16). Does this faith trump “obvious” logical contradictions in the Bible? No, that is not the case. In fact, one can say that the non-believer’s faith in the non-existence of God, or the possibility that God can contradict Himself can trump the clear resolutions of those “contradictions.” So both believers and unbelievers begin with faith. We Christians have settled this issue already.
Second, a careful study of John 16:27 shows no contradiction with 1 John 4:19 or Romans 5:8, when we consider the original language in which these passages were written. The English word “love” translates various words in the original Greek. In 1 John 4:19, it is written that, “We love (Greek: agape) because God first loved (agape) us.” The same word is used in Romans 5:8. The word “agape” refers to a sacrificial, unilateral love that is based not in any worthiness of the recipient, but solely in the giver of the love. It is this love that originates with God, and which breeds a responsive love in us.
But, in our verse today, John 16:28, the word translated love is the Greek word “phileo.” This is a brotherly kind of love, a reciprocal sort of fellowship. It is this kind of love that God is looking for us to initiate, and to which He then responds. Jesus in the Upper Room means that when a person responds with “phileo” love to the “agape” love of Christ, God then responds with a “phileo” kind of love to us. And that is the enjoyment of the fellowship in community that the Father and Son enjoy together, and which we can now enjoy.
Yes, we do contribute to the relationship with God, in a reciprocal way. He loves us, we love Him, we love each other. What a fellowship.
Lord, thank You for inviting me into the love relationship with You and Your Son. I want to do my part in loving and having fellowship with You.
I am glad you pointed out the difference in the type of loves (agape/phileo) as this is extremely important. In the book “A Man of High Character”, the author actually makes a case that the word agape should not be translated as love. Agape should be translated as ‘a desire to have a relationship with someone and only doing so when you trust them.’ This actually makes the bible make a whole lot more sense when we look at the idea of having agape for everyone. For example, agape is the exact mindset God has towards each of us and that teaching is very important and we learn that mindset from him. The idea that we should always have a consistent action is not right. We should not always love. But we should always have a consistent mindset that is willing to befriend anyone we trust. The book provides the example that in a game of chess, we do not make the same move every time (action). But we do always have the mindset to win and that should never change. In the same way, agape should be considered a mindset that never changes, not a virtue for we are never to follow virtues absolutely. There is a season for all things… including love and hate; peace and war (Ecclesiastes).