A few weeks ago I used the word “truncated” in an online comment. A college classmate responded to say that that was a geology term. He should know, that’s his profession. I said that I had only been in the geology building a couple of times in four years and that I had learned the term in solid geometry. If you take a cone- or pyramid-shaped solid and lop off the pointy end, you can say that it is truncated solid. It is shortened.
As I was reading today’s portion of John’s letter, it occurred to me that we could think of God’s love in terms solid geometry. God’s love is three-dimensional. We are so used to thinking of love in abstract terms, as if it were some sort of calculus, that perhaps simple Euclidian geometry can help us.
So, just to refresh, two dimensions deal with area, length times width, such as how many square feet are in a room that 40 feet by 45 feet. Three dimensions deal with solids. Volume is length times width times height. How many cubic feet are in a room 40 feet by 45 feet by 11 feet high.
Sometimes we think of love in two-dimensional terms: I love you and you love me. The relationship may sound simple, but we both know that it is more complex. If you think our relationship is complex, let your mind be boggled by how complex our love relationship with God is.
Paul prays for the Ephesian believers in chapter 3:
I ask that he will strengthen you in your inner selves from the riches of his glory through the Spirit. I ask that Christ will live in your hearts through faith. As a result of having strong roots in love, I ask that you’ll have the power to grasp love’s width and length, height and depth, together with all believers. I ask that you’ll know the love of Christ that is beyond knowledge so that you will be filled entirely with the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:16-19)That certainly seems like solid geometry to me.
Paul uses the word “grasp” in its military definition, that is to capture, wrestle, overpower, take command of. Paul is really praying that the Ephesian believers will work hard at meditating and pondering the gospel until the point that they break through into the true meaning of it. This is the work of the Spirit. Paul is proposing this three-dimensional approach to wrestling with God’s love as a way of finally breaking through into its core.
God’s love is foundational. John tells us that:
[L]ove is from God, and everyone who loves is born from God and knows God. The person who doesn’t love does not know God, because God is love. This is how the love of God is revealed to us: God has sent his only Son into the world so that we can live through him. This is love: it is not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as the sacrifice that deals with our sins.How wide is God’s love? Consider the words of Isaiah: “Though your sins are like scarlet, they will be white as snow. If they are red as crimson, they will become like wool” (Isaiah 1:18). Scarlet and crimson are the color of blood. In our human propensity to rank order things, murder – taking another person’s life, shedding blood – is usually considered the worst thing a person can do. Isaiah presents God’s take on this: Even if you have killed somebody on purpose or in a fit of anger, even if you are responsible for the death of someone else through negligence, God’s love is wide enough to enfold you and embrace you. God says, “The width of my love is seen on the cross. Jesus died for your sins, no matter how heinous they might be.” Since Jesus died on the cross so that each of us can be saved by grace alone, then God’s love is infinitely wide. It is more than wide enough for each of us. Any sin of ours, even all our sins laid end to end, are outdistanced by the breadth of God’s love. That’s the first dimension of God’s love.
How long is God’s love? In John Jesus says, “My sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life. They will never die, and no one will snatch them from my hand” (John 10:27-28) Paul wrote the Philippians, “I’m sure about this: the one who started a good work in you will stay with you to complete the job by the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6). Note that the operative verb is “will stay.” There is certainty there. It isn’t “may” or maybe.” God’s love is infinitely long. That’s what John is addressing when he says, “This is how we know we remain in him and he remains in us, because he has given us a measure of his Spirit.” The Spirit seals this in us. As Jesus told his hearers, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, then you will produce much fruit. Without me, you can’t do anything” (John 15:5).
The visionary John who wrote the Book of Revelation notes that the first beast was allowed to make war on the saints and gain victory over them. All who worshiped the beast “from the time the earth was made” didn’t have their names written “in the scroll of life of the Lamb who was slain” (Revelation 13:8). What this tells us is that God has put the divine love on us in the very depths of time. The vine has been pruned and the branches that have been kept will remain because the God – Father, Son, and Spirit – will remain in the very life juices that keep the vine flourishing to produce good fruit. God will not remove his love. Salvation is by grace, not works. God’s grace to us has nothing to do with what we do. It can’t be earned, it can’t be manufactured. It is a gift which began in the depths of time and will last into eternity, from forever ago to forever from now.
The reason that the love of God in Christ is infinitely wide and infinitely long is because it is infinitely deep. Jesus is the proof the depth of God’s love. Without Christ, any talk about the depth of God’s love would be simply abstraction. A picture is supposedly worth a thousand words. Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection is worth a billion words, a million volumes. Jesus felt the distance between heaven and hell. “My God, my God, why have you left me?” (Mark 15:34). Jesus was thrown into the deepest pit anyone could ever find themselves. And he went voluntarily. God’s love is infinitely deep to match its infinite wideness and length.
If God’s love is deep, it is also high. In his priestly prayer in John 17, Jesus prays, “Father, I want those you gave me to be with me where I am. Then they can see my glory, which you gave because you loved me before the creation of the world” (John 17:24). The letter-writing John wrote, “Now we are God’s children, and it hasn’t yet appeared what we shall be, We know that when he appears we will be like him because we’ll see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). That is the height of God’s love. God is going to give to us the same thing that fills his heart with unfailing joy from all eternity. He is going to show us his glory. And more than that, he is going to give that glory to us. God’s love is infinitely high.
There we have the geometry of God’s love: infinitely wide and infinitely long, infinitely deep and infinitely high. Infinite in any direction, from forever ago to forever from now. The psalmist understands:
You surround me—front and back.
You put your hand on me.
That kind of knowledge is too much for me;
it’s so high above me that I can’t fathom it.
Where could I go to get away from your spirit?
Where could I go to escape your presence?
If I went up to heaven, you would be there.
If I went down to the grave, you would be there too!
If I could fly on the wings of dawn,
stopping to rest only on the far side of the ocean—
even there your hand would guide me;
even there your strong hand would hold me tight!
If I said, “The darkness will definitely hide me;
the light will become night around me,”
even then the darkness isn’t too dark for you!
Nighttime would shine bright as day,
because darkness is the same as light to you! (Psalm 139: 5-12)
The geometry of God’s love: Infinite in every direction, infinite in every aspect. What a gift! What joy! Thanks be to God.
General Resource: Timothy Keller, Prayer (New York: Dutton, 2014), 173-175.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2015 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
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