Colors of Love
I want to speak to you in this lecture about the many kinds of love… What is love? What are its types? What are its degrees? And which of them is acceptable?
Colors of Love¹
God and the Divine Love:
† Love is God. God is love. And as the Scripture says: “God is love. He who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.” In the beginning was love; God existed from eternity, before the universe. And with this love, God created the universe. He created the angels and loved them, and He created human beings and loved them. And just as God loved His creation, His creation loved Him also…
Man loved God, and he had no other love besides this. This is the divine love. Adam, before the creation of Eve, had his love focused on God alone.
Spiritual Love:
Then God created Eve as a helper for Adam, and Adam, in his relationship with her before the Fall, came to know another type of love, which is spiritual love. The body had not yet begun its role, and Adam’s love for Eve was a spiritual love similar to the love of a brother for his sister, a father for his son, a friend for his friend, and like the love of angels for humans.
And with the spiritual love that existed between Adam and Eve before the Fall, humanity began to love one another alongside its love for God, without conflict, and without one love diminishing anything from the other.
Three Other Types of Love:
† Then humanity fell, and with its fall it fell into three other types of love, which could distance it from the love of God—three types of love that are neither divine nor spiritual. What were they?
1– Love of self, for he desired for himself to grow great “and become like God.”
2– Love of material things, for he desired the fruit of the tree and found it “pleasant to the eyes.”
3– Love of the body, for his eyes were opened, he lost his innocence, and he submitted to the lust of the flesh and of sexuality.
Thus humanity fell into love of the world with all its depths, as the Apostle said: “It is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” He had none of these things before. He was not previously fought by love of self in pride of life; he did not desire to become great. Nor was he fought by love of material things; he looked at all the trees in simplicity without finding any of them “pleasant to the sight, good for food, or delightful to the eyes.” He also did not know bodily lust. He was naked and looked at his naked companion without shame or desire.
And from that time on, humanity has been torn between these five types of love: divine love, spiritual love, love of self, love of the body, and love of material things.
And the spiritual life of a person is nothing but continual striving in which he is purified from the wrong types of love, so that he may abide in divine love…
Limits of Pure Human Love:
Even pure human love, with all its forms, the Lord set boundaries for it, saying: “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me, and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me” (Matthew 10:37).
Divine love is the first and most important, and it encompasses the whole heart.
Thus the Scripture said: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength” (Deut. 6:5). After that comes pure human love—love of neighbor: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
But on the condition that this love does not exceed love for God, nor conflict with the love of God.
Every pure love we have for people must be inside the love of God—not separate from it, not beside it, but within it…
As for the people of the world, Satan used to fight them with the body, or with material things, or with the self—just as he fought the world before the Flood when “the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful” (Gen. 6:2), and as with all the countless wars of the flesh. Likewise the wars of material things, like love of money and love of possessions…
But as for the children of God, when God wants to test them, He tests them in pure spiritual love, as God tested Abraham in his love for his son…
God wanted to see whether a father’s love for his son—this pure, natural love, and not only for a son, but for the only son, the son of promise, the son of old age, whom the father waited for many long years—whether this love could surpass his love for God, and whether he might disobey God because of it, if God asked him to lift his knife over this son and offer him as a burnt offering…! Abraham, the father of fathers, proved that the love of God in his heart surpassed every other love, no matter how pure, spiritual, or natural…
In this manner, and to a much lesser degree, Hannah brought her son Samuel—her only son, whom she bore after barrenness, the son of prayers and tears—and offered him, still a child, to the Lord to serve Him all his days, proving that her love for God was greater.
Our love for people in ministry is divine love. We love God, and we want them to love Him as we love Him and even more. We want to bring God into their hearts because we love God and love His kingdom…
Let Us Test Our Love:
Many times a mother may think she truly loves her son! But she must know: Is this a spiritual love as part of her love for God? Or merely natural love? Or is it love of her own self…?
She loves her son: she feeds him, clothes him, fattens him, raises him, educates him, and marries him… But in all this she has not shown spiritual love for him, nor her love for God in him, nor cared for his soul and eternity… It is love of blood for blood, natural love, but it has not yet reached the spiritual level!
Her love may even be tested when he asks to dedicate himself to the Lord as a priest or monk… If she refuses to give him to the Lord and stands in the way of his spiritual path, what shall we call her love then? Would it not be mere self-love—the self that does not want to give up its possession, even if this giving up is to the Lord Himself…!!
One of the greatest examples of a mother’s love is what the mother of Moses did for her son…
In the few years of his childhood she established the love of God in his heart, and taught him the knowledge of God in a way that enabled him to withstand the ancient Egyptian worships in Pharaoh’s palace for forty years…!!
It is the love of the mother who is a godmother to her son, not merely a caretaker who pampers him to win his affection—even at the expense of God’s love…
How many mothers ruin their children in the name of love, compassion, and pampering! They may even help their children in this ruin through money, and may hide from the father the truth about the child and his recklessness, even lying—all in the name of love… Rebekah nearly lost her son Jacob because of her excessive love for him, and through her love caused him to fall into many sins…
Therefore we must examine our love—what kind is it? With honesty and precision…
If you truly love God, ask yourself:
Do you love sitting with Him, speaking to Him, contemplating Him…?
Do you long for Him as the thirsty land longs for water?
Do you prefer Him above every other love and every other pleasure?
Thus the people deepest in their love for God are those who have sought His love and found satisfaction in it, preferring it above all…
Those who, for the sake of God, left family and loved ones, abandoned everything, and did not love the world or the things in the world, because of the greatness of their love for the King Christ. Examples of these are the monks, hermits, and anchorites who placed in their hearts and thoughts nothing but God alone—He who became for them all in all.
Similar to the hermits and anchorites in their love for God—or even surpassing them—are the martyrs, for they not only left everything for God, but also left life itself for His sake, with all that it contains…
Among those whose hearts are also possessed by divine love are the pastors and servants who give themselves for the building of the kingdom of God, sacrificing all their comfort, all their time, and all their effort so that they may bring the love of God into the hearts of people…
Divine love, in its depth, is the love of those who have emptied themselves for God—in heart and time—and the love of God has become their full occupation.
They think about God, speak to God, enjoy God, isolate themselves with God, and are occupied with God; they have no work except God alone, and no desire except God alone… Are you like this, or do you have other desires and distractions, whether bad or not bad…?!
When a person enters into the spiritual life, he no longer has any desire or request except God alone—God dwelling in his heart and in the hearts of people…
And the work of such a person is to sift all the loves in his heart, keeping only God—and within God he finds every other love.
We need to re-evaluate matters. He who loves God gives all value to the love of God, and all other things lose their value.
He says with the Apostle Paul: “I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.” And like Moses the prophet who “esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt.”
We also need to rid ourselves of self-love, for it often distracts us from the love of God. And if we think of it, let us care how our self may become an image of God and a temple of God…
Truly we have strayed from the true goal of life and chosen for ourselves other worldly goals. We have begun to care about what we will leave behind, and not what we will encounter. We will leave the whole world—so why should we be distracted by it?!
Let us review the love that is in our hearts. Let us purify it, empty it for God, and grow in it day after day. And let us care for divine love more than all…
Article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – Al-Keraza Magazine – Year Six (Issue 28), 11-7-1975.
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