Sabbath School TodayWith the 1888 Message Dynamic
Background Characters in the Old TestamentLesson 4: "Jonathan: Born for Greatness"
Most folks understand that friendships and marriages come with the good times and bad, but they also believe there is a limit to how much bad a person is required to tolerate. Today, few think friendships require us to give up our personal rights to time, happiness, wealth, and convenience. Certainly no one believes maintaining friendships should require sacrifice or suffering.
In the English language, we have a single word to describe the many facets of love. Sometimes we use the word to mean brotherly love. The Greeks used the word "phileo," which gave Philadelphia its name, the city of "brotherly love." Sometimes the word "love" means the sensual physical love which the Greeks called "eros," from which the word erotic is derived.
Jonathan and David's relationship is described in 1 Samuel 18:1: "… Jonathan had given his heart to David and had grown to love him as himself" (REB). To love someone as you love yourself cannot mean either phileo or eros. Both words carry the concept that the relationship is dependent on the kindness or attractiveness of each person. For either word, if the emotion fades, or the payback of the relationship diminishes, the friendship is ended.
The two men received and accepted a kind of love for each other that only God can give. The Greeks called this love agape. There is no expectation of reward in this kind of love. It is not dependent on the worth or attractiveness of its object. Often, as attractiveness fades, so does the love. Not so with God, who is agape. He demonstrated this love by giving His Son to die for the people who had rebelled against Him. There was no attractiveness, worth, or even reciprocal love that induced God to rescue the human race. We demonstrate a misunderstanding of God's love if we think our behavior will change God's love for us. He already loves us as much as is possible, even from before we were born.
Jonathan is a perfect example of how the Holy Spirit can change a heart to be willing to relinquish what are thought of as rights to personal happiness in a relationship. He was born heir to the throne of Israel, but he learned to respect that God still considered the nation a theocracy, and it was God who established and anointed kings. God had chosen David to succeed Jonathan's father as king. Jonathan could have chosen to disregard God's anointed and followed his father's command to find and kill David, but he accepted God's choice.
Instead, Jonathan became a protector of both his father and David. He risked the wrath of the king by trying to persuade him not to kill David. He defended his father to David, trying to convince him that his father had changed. He risked his life by making David's excuse from attending the king's banquet and warning him of Saul's murderous intentions. God moved on Jonathan's heart and was able to use him as a peacemaker between his father and the next heir to the throne chosen by God.
In the ultimate demonstration of affection, Jonathan gives us a glimpse of Christ in transferring his royal robes to David (1 Sam. 18:4). Christ loved the world enough to voluntarily divest Himself of every divine prerogative (Phil. 2:6-8) that He might not only obtain our verdict of acquittal, but that He might give the character of His righteousness to those willing to receive it.
To the world, this kind of self-sacrificing love is incomprehensible. "What's in it for me" is not a phenomenon of the most recent generation, it is endemic to all sons and daughters of Adam. To love another in the face of personal risk and suffering without hope of earthly reward is not something fallen humans can genuinely cultivate in their characters even if they might want it.
Does God merely (a) offer us His friendship, or has He (b) given it? The Bible gives the answer: (a) is what the Bible calls the "old covenant" (which Galatians 4:24 says leads to "bondage"). The new covenant (b) is the truth that "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son" (not offered to do so), "that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish" (John 3:16). The Samaritans got the point: Jesus was not merely offering to be "the Saviour of the world;" they said He is (John 4:42). Paul got the point, for he said that "the living God ... is the Saviour of all men," not merely offering to be (1 Tim. 4:10), and Isaiah saw the reason why this is true: "The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all" (Isa. 53:6). He has already died the second death "for every man" (Heb. 2:9). So, now it's time to humble your heart and believe, appreciate, what He has already done for you. That kind of faith will change your life! (Condensed from "Dial Daily Bread.")
Such self-sacrificing love can only be achieved by accepting it as a gift from the Lord. "In Jonathan, the son of Saul, the Lord saw a man of pure integrity,--one to whom He could draw nigh, and upon whose heart He could move" (The Youth's Instructor, Nov. 24, 1898).
--Arlene Hill
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