Thy Nature and Thy Name is Love
Some thoughts I’ve been ruminating on, and that were further developed with some conversations with my wife while driving down some backroads in Ireland. I had the time to write down while flying home.
When I was in seminary at Memphis Theological (which is sadly closing, but that’s a post for another day), I fell in love with several theological and spiritual disciplines. I grew to deeply love the writings and spiritual life of the Benedictine monastics. I still read from the Rule of Benedict each day. I also grew in my love of CS Lewis. But the greatest thing I really came to grow deep in was Wesleyan theology.
Let me first say a word about John Wesley. That word is this - imperfect. John Wesley was imperfect. I don’t read his work or study his theology because he was a perfect man. He was far from it. He was no spiritual guru. He had a troubled marriage. He quarreled with his brother. He battled with emotions. And he also really liked electricity and carried in his saddle a small electric dynamo that he would use to shock people suffering from various maladies.
The reason I love Wesley is that I think the theology he put forth is the best path of Christianity I’ve ever found. Not that it’s the only path of Christianity, but I truly believe that John Wesley’s theology is the best theology I’ve found for making disciples of Jesus.
Not that it’s the most consistent.
Nor the most perfect.
Nor the most intellectual.
But it is the theology that I have found that shows us what the path of Christianity simply looks like: grace, holiness, and love.
When I was at MTS, I took a class taught by Dr. Barry Bryant titled “The Development of Wesleyan Theology.” It traced the theological development of the Wesleyans (Methodists) from John Wesley to the modern United Methodist Church. Every day when we began class, Dr. Bryant would have us sing one of Charles Wesley’s hymns. It was here I found my favorite Wesleyan hymns, “Come, O Thou Traveler Unknown.” This hymn has some of the best lyrics of any hymn that I know, but the tune is unusual, so it’s pretty hard to sing, especially for seminary students who aren’t musical.
The lyrics tell the story of Jacob wrestling with God in Genesis 32: 22-32, and in this story, Jacob keeps asking God for His name. Eventually, Jacob grabs hold and won’t let go until God tells Jacob His name, and that’s when Charles writes these words:
’Tis Love! ’tis Love! Thou diedst for me,
I hear Thy whisper in my heart;
The morning breaks, the shadows flee:
Pure, universal Love Thou art;
To me, to all Thy mercies move;
Thy nature and Thy name is Love.
That’s it, y’all. That’s who God is. From a biblical, theological perspective, your name is who you “are.” It isn’t just what people call you; it is who you are. When God changes someone, He changes their name:
Abram becomes Abraham and Sarai becomes Sarah.
Simon becomes Peter.
Saul becomes Paul.
And even in the story mentioned above, Jacob becomes Israel.
For Wesley, when he says that God’s name and nature is love, he is saying that is who God is. God is love. Not that God loves, but that God IS love. Of course, scripture backs that up too.
From a Wesleyan perspective, the purpose of our salvation is to become a new creation, or to recover the image of God that was destroyed in the fall. Strap in, we are going to do Wesleyan Theology 101 in 2 minutes. We are all made in the image of God. When Adam and Eve fell, they took all of creation (including humanity) with them. That image of God that all have has been corrupted. Not destroyed, but corrupted. From there, God desires to save us or “restore” us through covenants (Abraham, Moses, David, to name a few), with the ultimate covenant being the New Covenant of Grace through Jesus Christ.
God “reaches out” to us (prevenient grace), “saves” us (justifying grace), and “restores” us (sanctifying grace). God is restoring His image on us. He is restoring us into who He made us to be, which is like Him, or in His image. In His nature and name.
Well, who is He? His nature and His name is Love.
God is love.
God is love.
God is love.
Start there. We must always start there. Any theology or path that does not start with that is missing the point.
Now, we know that God is holy. But even His holiness is understood as perfect love. When God calls us to be holy, that is what He is calling us to: perfect love.
Why is it that when we seek to better understand God, we are tempted to ignore His love first? We will focus on His justice. Or His righteousness and holiness. Or things such as that, and we will make His love lesser than those parts of who God is. If we have to choose what “goes first” in God’s nature, so often is it something other than love.
But friends, that simply isn’t right. First and foremost, God is love. The very nature of the Trinity is the love the Father has for the Son and has for the Spirit. The very nature of a Truinue God is that of love.
GOD. IS. LOVE.
With this fundamental fact established, it leads to the question I think we each, as Christians, must ask ourselves. Does our theology call us to perfect love? Does what we believe push us to perfectly love God, neighbor, and even enemy?
That is the mark for our theology. Does it push us to the restoration of God’s nature and name, which is love? And, friends, if it does not, then it is not the path God calls us to.
If our theology sows hatred of others based on race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or politics, or anything else then it is not the path that God calls us to.
If our theology pushes us to hate those who disagree with us, then it is not the path that God calls us to.
If our theology pushes us to disregard those who agree with us but are not “pure” enough, then it is not the path that God calls us to.
If our theology and understanding of scripture does not call us to love the folks like us and the folks not like us; the folks who are agree with us and the folks who do not agree with us; the folks who vote like us and folks who do not vote like us; the folks who share our views on all of the hot button issues of the day and the folks who do not share our views on the hot button of issues of the day; if our theology does not cause to love all of these people, then it is not the path that God calls us to.
God’s nature and name is love. That is who He is. That is what He calls us to.
Is that what we are doing? Is that what our theology and belief are calling us? Love?
Don’t disregard it. Don’t ignore it. Don’t start somewhere else. God is love. If we are called to have His image restored through our salvation, then God’s nature is our calling.
We are to love.