Imitating God’s Love
The apostle Paul, in writing to the church in Ephesus, explained some of the deepest truths found in Scripture. He also gave practical guidance on how to apply these truths in daily life. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God (Ephesians 5:1-2).
Paul begins this section of behaviour instructions by highlighting the believer’s privilege of being called to imitate God. It’s humbling to think that Yahweh’s love for His children desires for us to manifest His likeness while here on earth. This desire of God is motivated by His special and fatherly love for His children. By our human way of thinking, it may have been good enough if He had invited us to sort of try to be a bit like Himself. But no, His love is so definitive and expressive of His goodness and holiness, that He desires us to imitate Him.
The apostle John gives a similar exhortation in 1 John 4:16. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. God’s self-sacrificing love is intrinsic to His nature and is unable to be detached from His character. Both apostles are making the same application, since we are born again in Christ and have the Holy Spirit within, self-sacrificing love is evidence of God operating in our lives.
However, Paul adds another dimension which is not expressed well in our English language. In the original language of Ephesians 5:2, Paul explicitly says we are to “walk in love” (agapē love), which is God’s self-sacrificing affection. Likewise, he then says, just as “Christ loved us” (agapaō love), which is Christ’s morally relational affection. This is a fine point that carries large implications for God’s desire for how we are to express His love. This two-sided love changes our heart attitudes and intentions when loving God and others. These two expressions of the same God-centred love are not theoretical, but very practical. He builds through us, relationships into which His perfect self-sacrificing and morally pure love is expressed.
This is seen when Christians are growing in Christlike character. Both Paul and John wanted their readers to understand the inescapable implication. If you truly have a relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ, there will be a deep desire to live God’s two-sided love in such an obvious way that others will relationally see and feel God’s love.
In fact, Paul continues in verse 2, by saying Christ loved (agapaō, relationally loved) us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. It was Christ’s relational love that gave the fullest expression of His sacrificial love by dying on the cross to take our judgement for our sin. It was this expression of love that God considered to be sweet and acceptable. The thing is, when Christ gave His life on the cross, He was both sacrificially and relationally expressing love to His heavenly Father and to us His saved sinners.
Paul makes a strong point here. God desires for believers to imitate His profound love which is expressed fully through His Son Jesus Christ. Just as God, through Christ, showed self-sacrificing love that is morally perfect and relationally applied, making us His “beloved children,” so we are to be and to do the same for others. May we imitate God by our love for others as our worship for Christ.