Just like what I said about last week’s lesson, these attributes are by no means unfamiliar. But the fact that there were only two attributes (as opposed to five last week) meant that we could go at a slower pace and there was more space for the lecturer to explain or elaborate on various points. Also, most Christians should be familiar with the idea that God is holy and God is love, and no weird jargon was involved, so the lesson was more digestible for me 😂
The lecturer said these attributes are considered “communicable” because they are qualities that God shares with His creation, although humans can only possess these attributes in a limited and imperfect way. To me, using the word “share” was a bit odd, because it’s not like I share a slice of cake with you and then you have some cake and I also have some cake. Like, God is holy and then He says, “Here, have some holiness”?
Hmmm… but now that I think about it, He does actually do that. I mean, when we look at what Christ’s sacrifice did for us on the cross, that’s precisely what the Father did, isn’t it? We are only able to be holy because He makes us holy by cleansing us of all unrighteousness (1 Jn 1:9). And we are only able to love because He first loved us (I Jn 4:19). So… shared attributes. Hmmm.
The lecturer said that these shared attributes “are the very qualities that allow us to reflect God’s image”. I think that’s interesting, especially in relation to love, since Jesus did say that people will recognise us as His disciples by our love for one another (Jn 13:34-35). And because we humans are able to possess these attributes (even though in an imperfect way), we can kind of understand what God is like and relate to Him – we know what it is to love, so we can somewhat understand what it means when Scripture says, “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8).
Of course, we interpret ‘love’ through the lens of our own experiences, upbringing, and cultural background, as I mentioned in last week’s reflection. So maybe our understanding of God’s love will also always be imperfect, just as we will not be able to love Him (or anyone else) perfectly. Speaking of understanding God’s love, this is something that I shared during the week 3 class when we went into breakout groups and talked about an experience that helped us understand our Christian faith: I always knew that God loves us unconditionally; I was taught this from the time I was a child. But I didn’t truly understand it until my little nephew was born. I remember holding this tiny baby in my arms and being just totally in love with him... despite the fact that he had done nothing to make me love him. But I still loved him so much even when I had to change his stinky poopy diapers and clean his bumbum. This little guy was totally helpless and literally could do nothing to earn my love. He didn’t even know who I was at that point! That was when it hit me that this must be how God loves us. God just looks down on us and is filled with so much love… we don’t have to make ourselves worthy of His love. Coming from a home where I felt I had to meet parental expectations in order to be “good enough”, this was a lightbulb moment for me that I’ll never forget.
Most Christians know that God’s love is known or characterised as “agape love”, which CS Lewis made famous in his book The Four Loves. I never properly read that book but my parents had a copy, so I was aware of the concept, and maybe in my 47 years of life I’ve heard one or two sermons on God’s agape love along the way. ‘Agape’ is a Greek word that is usually translated as a sacrificial, unconditional love. The lecturer referred to the interpretation of agape love based on a book by Anders Nygren, a Swedish theologian: Agape and Eros.
Agape flows from God’s nature, not the worth of the object. Because, like I said earlier, my little nephew could do nothing to make himself worthy to me; likewise, we humans can do nothing to make ourselves worthy to God. So agape is not moved by worthiness or merit, but it creates value in the beloved. Like how I loved my baby nephew, and my love then gave him value, if you see what I mean. Agape is therefore transforming – the example given by the lecturer was like how by loving and accepting Zacchaeus, Jesus called him into a new life (Lk 19:1-10). It also always acts first and does not wait for the other party to initiate (mostly, I think, because we can’t. We can’t even have faith unless the Spirit enables us (1 Cor 12:3)).
The lecturer talked about agape being a motif of Christianity, meaning that it’s a recurring theme in the Bible. He gave a very detailed explanation of ‘motif’, along with ‘nuance’ and ‘metaphor’, but I personally think it is understandable by just saying that motif is an idea or theme that is repeated throughout a narrative. Maybe I’m biased because I have some understanding of literary devices due to my background in linguistics, but I do think that examples of the agape motif throughout Scripture would have been sufficient to help us see how this concept constantly shows up in the Biblical narrative.
Since the lecturer was referring to Nygren’s book, he also included Nygren’s understanding of ‘eros’, a different kind of love. Nygren’s interpretation is different from Lewis’ interpretation – the latter referred to eros as erotic love, which if I am not mistaken is often considered physical sexual love. But Nygren’s view of eros sees it as “arising from need and lack, seeking what it does not have”, a selfish kind of love that wants to acquire and is motivated by the value of the loved one (or the object). Like, you see something beautiful and you want to own it or be like it, maybe even be it.
The idea is that while God is agape, humans are eros? That’s what I understood from the lecture. That humans love God with this selfish kind of love that seeks self-fulfilment and desires beauty & immortality (because we want to hold on to those beautiful things forever)… and therefore eros helps us find our way to God because God is the “Absolute Beauty” and we “strive upward”? I mean, this concept is kinda weird to me and I don’t really see the point in including this in the lesson because at this point we had deviated from God’s communicable attributes, moving instead to a human attribute. But still, okay I agree that humans are inherently selfish but I don’t agree that this selfishness causes us to strive toward God because we know that idolatry exists. If this concept of eros were true, the Israelites wouldn’t have ended up worshipping the golden calf… just sayin’. I know the lecturer was only able to give us a very brief summary of the concept and maybe I didn’t understand it properly, but this is what I got from the class, so… 🤷🏻♀️
Moving on! The other communicable attribute of God is holiness, which was highly emphasised in the Old Testament. I think it is interesting that holiness is not as emphasised in the New Testament. It is certainly mentioned, but in my opinion the focus of the NT seems to be more of what Christ has done for us and how we should respond in return. God’s holiness seems to take a back seat as we no longer have to “fear” Him in the way that the Israelites did (we no longer have to face consequences like the guy who got zapped dead just because he dared to touch the Ark of the Covenant to prevent it from falling off the cart drawn by oxen, in 2 Sam 6:6-7). We also no longer have to follow the long list of rituals and offerings for sins which are listed in Leviticus. Those served to remind the Israelites that God was holy and that they had to take sin seriously, because His holiness would not allow Him to dwell among them if sin was present.
Something new that I learnt from the class is that “sin pollutes not only individuals, but the community and the sanctuary itself”. Our lecturer spoke at length about the Jews’ annual “Day of Atonement”, or “Yom Kippur”, where the high priest would make atonement for himself and his family first by sacrificing a bull, then make atonement for the Israelites by sacrificing a goat. This was for unintentional sins that he and the community had committed over the period of the past year. Because, even if we don’t deliberately sin, due to our sinful nature (and the Fall) all of humanity is already inherently impure – this is my understanding – and also, don’t forget that there are also sins of omission, which we often do not take into account or do not realise. We would also have had fleeting sinful thoughts and/or perhaps less fleeting sinful attitudes (including stubbornness and rebellion!) which we also may not have noticed or err, have been in denial about 🙈
So on Yom Kippur, the high priest was to take the blood of the sacrificed bull and goat and enter the Most Holy Place in the Tabernacle, where he would sprinkle the blood over and in front of atonement lid, or mercy seat, to “make atonement for the Most Holy Place because of the uncleanness and rebellion of the Israelites, whatever their sins have been” (Lev 16:16, NIV), then go out to the altar of incense in the Holy Place to place the blood on all the horns of the altar and sprinkle the blood on the altar seven times, using his finger. After completing all this, he would have made atonement “for the Most Holy Place, the Tent of Meeting and the altar” (Lev 16:20, NIV).
To be honest, my eyes have always glazed over while reading Leviticus, so I did not realise that even the Tabernacle itself had required cleansing. The lecturer told us that sin defiles not only people, but also places and items. As stated in Num 35:33 (NET): “You must not pollute the land where you live, for blood defiles the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed there, except by the blood of the person who shed it.” Whoa. Now I am thinking of Sudan and Ukraine and Gaza, and other lands where war and bloodshed have occurred. Oooh boy. That is a lot of defiled land.
The “scapegoat” part of Yom Kippur, that one I knew. The high priest is to place his hands on a second goat, confess all the sins and transgressions of the people over it, “put them on the goat’s head” (Lev 16:21) and then the goat is sent far away into the desert. Our lecturer said this served as a visual demonstration of how sin must be expelled in order for God’s presence to remain – because He is holy and cannot dwell among a sinful people. But I believe it was also a foreshadowing of how one day Christ, the Lamb of God (erm, okay, not goat 😅) would remove our sins “as far as the east is from the west” (Ps 103:12).
Actually, in the course outline, this week's class was also supposed to cover grace, mercy, longsuffering, truth, and lovingkindness (plus righteousness and goodness, but I guess those kinda overlap somewhat with holiness and a few of the others). I guess the lecturer tweaked his content, maybe after the experience of teaching last week’s class where it was so difficult to fully explain so many concepts all at once.
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