Thought for Today
12-16
“Lovest Thou Me?”
One major flaw in the English language is that it has but one word for “love”, when in fact there are many different kinds of love: the holy love of God, the love of friends or brothers, romantic love, and perhaps others.
The Greek language did a far better job at providing the speaker with alternatives when it came to referring to “love”. The Greeks had completely different words for completely different kinds of love. The word for God’s holy love, agape, does not even closely resemble the word for romantic love, eros, etc. When translating from the Greek into English, these different words for love are usually translated simply as “love”, and the reader is left to his own devises to determine what kind of love is being talked about. Most of the time, the kind of love intended is easy to determine. Other times, such as in John 21:15-17, knowing that there are different kinds of love being referred to by Jesus is critical to understanding what touched Peter’s heart and made him so heavy with grief.
In John 21:15, the resurrected Lord asked Peter, “Do you love me”, using the word agape. This means that Jesus was asking Peter if he loved him with the pure, unshakable love of God. Now, Peter was not the same man that he was the night before Jesus had died. That night, Peter had boasted before the other disciples of his absolute devotion to Jesus, saying that he would even die for the Master. Not long after that, intimidated by fear of capture and torture, Peter found himself cursing and swearing that he had never even known Jesus. This humiliating event had crushed Peter’s boastful spirit. That same night, when Peter realized what he had done, he rushed out of the high priests’ courtyard, we are told, and “wept bitterly.” He was not now so self-assured.
Therefore, in response to Jesus’ inquiry, Peter could only say, “Lord, you know I love you as a friend.” What the English cannot tell you is that Peter changed the word Jesus used for “love” to the kind of love a brother or a friend holds for another. Peter could no longer boast of his deep devotion to Christ; he had learned that what he thought he was and what he really was might be two different things. Still, he could not deny that he loved Jesus; he knew that in his heart there lived a love for Jesus of some kind. It might not be the kind of love that never fails, the love of God, but he knew he loved the Lord. So, he avoided Jesus’ question by replying with a different word for “love”.
Shortly afterward, Jesus repeated his question: “Simon Peter, do you love me [with the love of God]?” Again, Peter avoided the issue and replied, “Lord, you know I love you [as a friend].”
Finally, Jesus turned to Peter and asked, “Peter, do you love me?”, but this time Jesus changed the word he used for “love” to that which Peter had been using. This time, Jesus was asking Peter, “Do you really love me as a friend?”
We are told that when Jesus questioned Peter’s claim that he loved him as a friend, “Peter was grieved when Jesus said to him the third time, ‘Lovest thou me?’ ”
The reason Peter was so grieved at the question was not that Jesus had asked it three times. Jesus had not asked the same question three times, even though the English makes it seem so. In the original language, at this third time, Jesus had asked Peter an entirely new question! He had asked Peter if he was telling the truth when he claimed to love Jesus as a friend!
After the episode of denying that he knew the Lord, Peter now possessed the humility necessary to admit that he was not wise enough or good enough to even love the Lord as a friend – if that had been the case. He was now a broken, not a boastful man. He was no longer confident in himself. At the same time, Peter felt in the deepest recesses of his heart that he loved Jesus–at the very least as a friend–and he could not deny it.
He humbled himself before Jesus and said, “Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you as a friend.” In other words, Peter was saying, “Lord, I know that you can prove me wrong if I am deceived again about myself and my devotion to you, but with all my heart I believe that I love you as a friend. Have mercy on me.”
Peter was right. He did love Jesus, and I believe that he and the other disciples loved Jesus with all the love that humans can have for God. But they would need a far greater love for Jesus than that if they were to be able to stand for the gospel that would be entrusted to them. Paul would later say, “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the holy Ghost which is given to us” (Rom. 5:5). From that, we can see that until the holy Ghost came on the day of Pentecost, none of Jesus’ disciples loved him with the love of God. They couldn’t have loved him so, for the love of God had not yet been shed into their hearts. That is why on the night of the Lord’s arrest, “They all forsook him and fled.” They loved Jesus as a friend, but they could not yet love him with the love of God. After the Spirit came, those same disciples did have the love of God for Jesus in their hearts, and they proved that love many times over by suffering as they did for his name.
In a sermon at Grandma’s farm in 1981, I pointed out to the saints there that at the Last Supper, when Jesus announced to his disciples that one of them would betray him, we are told that in response to this revelation from Jesus, they all began to ask, “Is it I?” The reason all of his disciples asked, “Is it I?”, is that they all had entertained the idea at one time or another. They all had considered betraying Jesus. At various times and places, Jesus had rebuked them all, either individually or as group. At various times and places Jesus had taught doctrines that shook them to the foundation of their souls. Many times, Jesus had put his disciples’ love for him through fiery tests, and it had almost been overwhelmed more than once. When he told them that one of them would betray him, they all felt shame. They all knew what they, at different times, had felt.
If the disciples who walked with the Lord while he was on earth could not love Jesus with the love of God before they received the holy Ghost, then neither can any one else. You may love Jesus as a friend, and that is a good thing for anyone to do, including Peter, but that will not suffice. No man is able to endure the persecutions that obeying Jesus always brings without having in his heart the kind of love that only the holy Ghost baptism puts in it.
You need the baptism of the holy Ghost because you need the love of God. You will fail if you love Jesus as a friend, or as a brother, just as Peter did when the fiery trial came. But you cannot possibly love Jesus any other way without the holy Ghost baptism that sheds God’s holy love into your heart. What devotion to Jesus that men claim without the holy Ghost baptism is only as dependable as was Peter’s claim of devotion on the night Jesus was arrested. He learned the hard way what we can learn from his example, if we are wise. Having the love of God for the Savior is not ours to claim; it is God’s to give. Ask Him today to help you love Jesus as only He can make you love him.
