God’s Love
(Genesis 1: 26-27) “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and overall the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”
“God is Love”.If we want to know what is God’s love or how God loves. We found here more than 100 Bible verses about love, and if you want to know God’s love – read them all here. We have to start from the beginning when God created the world in seven days. God created all living things by his words. But when it comes to human beings, we can see His love for us that He created in His own image. God created humans differently from any other living being.
(Genesis 2:7) And the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.
And we see God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed His own breath of life in his nostrils. So that he can live. We don’t see God doing like this with any of the other living beings except us humans to show how much God loves us. We need to know that God’s love is on another level as compared to human love. There is still more to know about God’s love.
Order of Love in Old Testament vs New Testament
In the Old Testament, God created humans to worship Him and God wanted humans to love Him. When Moses brought the children of Israel out of Egypt, on their way to the promised land. God gave them laws and restrictions to make them live without sin, but humans never understood the love and care of God behind those laws. And instead of loving God, they began to fear God. Because in the Old Testament, people were punished by God instantly after violating the laws of God.
However, God doesn’t want anyone to die, so God told them to offer penances to be forgiven for their sins instead of being punished for going against the commandments. So, when somebody sinned, they offered penance for what they had done. And it became normal for them to sin and offer penances. They took undue advantage of God’s love.
Humans in the Old Testament couldn’t understand God’s true love for human beings because they didn’t have the Holy Spirit, which helps us to truly love God with every breath of our life.
The entire Old Testament proves that obeying God’s commandments is not possible without the Holy Spirit through love. The Old Testament gives us the law of sin. Jesus gives us the law of life and spirit.
We see that God wanted humans to love God but flesh weakened them to truly love God. That’s why in the New Testament God sent His only son, our Lord Jesus Christ to save us from sins and bring us life through the Holy Spirit and love.
(Romans 8:3-4) “For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”
The laws given through Moses were weakened by the flesh, however, Jesus Christ gave us the two most important and major commandments by summing up the entire Old Testament.
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'” Matthew 22:37-39
Jesus didn’t change any of God’s previous commandments, He just expressed them by adding love and the Holy Spirit. And He showed us the best example of love that no one can do. He gave His life and was counted among criminals just because He loved us and to give us new life in God’s love. Now we see God is still the same in the New Testament who loves us and will do anything for us.
Only thing was that, in the Old Testament, God wanted humans to learn how to love but they did not know what love was. Then in the New Testament, God Himself came among humans to teach us how to love and to show us how to love God. Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit that guides us and helps us to love God and obey His commandments without any fear but by our own will.
New Order of Love
Hence, the new order of love taught us by Jesus Christ is to love God with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind and all our strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
When we look at the life of Jesus, He taught in every moment of His life to love everyone around us no matter who they are because in the new order of love now God does not want sacrifices or showing off our religion to others that we are Christians and that we love God.
He wants us to love our brothers and sisters in Christ. This is what Jesus taught us during His life on Earth and when He rose from the dead and ascended into heaven.
He did not leave us alone but gave us the Holy Spirit, which is the spirit of God and is with us. The Holy Spirit knows us well and is able to give us power, truth, and strength, among other great qualities and gifts of the spirit that enable us to live our lives as we ought — as committed followers of Christ and true lovers of God by loving God first and then loving each other. That is what the new order of love in Christianity is.
