New Again


Dear Eugene,

"Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love."

Such is the most well-known translation of 1 John 4:8.  It's pretty direct and succinct, and I thought who can translate the words any differently?

But this is your take of the text:  "The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can't know him if you don't love."

You've drawn out the implication of a statement, a proposition, that could be quite abstract and thus not energizing.

Still, back to the three words: God is love.  Everything that has ever been spoken about God comes down to these three simple words.

The three words close many doors and open a new one every new moment.

They don't say God loves to love.  They don't say God would rather that we love or love more or love better or love the right things or even love our enemies.  These might be the implications of the three words but the three words are simultaneously more and less than these.

God is love.

I suppose the moment we could start to take these three words in we would be in tears.  I suppose our tears would give witness to everything and nothing about who God really is.  I suppose adjectives like joy and sorrow or images like our heart cut open or our Self dissolves could be helpful but really rather useless to give shape to our witness.

I suppose then the only certainty that cannot be denied of us is that everything old is new again.

Yours, Alex

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