At Look At Love, Part 3

Genesis 1:26-28; 2:18-25 (NKJV):Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.” Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. ²⁰ So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And Adam said: “This is now bone of my bones
And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

Éros (ἔρως érōs) (As Found on Wikipedia.org): means “love, mostly of the sexual passion.” The Modern Greek word “erotas” means “intimate love.”

Plato refined his own definition: Although eros is initially felt for a person, with contemplation it becomes an appreciation of the beauty within that person, or even becomes an appreciation of beauty itself. Plato does not talk of physical attraction as a necessary part of love, hence the use of the word platonic to mean, “without physical attraction.” In the Symposium, the most famous ancient work on the subject, Plato has Socrates argue that eros helps the soul recall knowledge of beauty, and contributes to an understanding of spiritual truth, the ideal “Form” of youthful beauty that leads us humans to feel erotic desire – thus suggesting that even that sensually based love aspires to the non-corporeal, spiritual plane of existence; that is, finding its truth, just like finding any truth, leads to transcendence. Lovers and philosophers are all inspired to seek truth through the means of eros.

This is the word we get the word erotic from. This is the type of Love that God gave us for when we come together as man and wife. He never intended for this to be used outside of marriage of a man and a woman. However, because of sin, It has been abused.

We need to be careful that this is not something that can turn into lust, the word we looked at yesterday. We see people using this type of love to justify unnatural desires (i.e. homosexuality, bestiality, pedophilia, fornication, adultery, etc.) as well as for sleeping around with others outside of His Design of marriage. He will bring judgement on those who use it outside of marriage.

If we allow our fleshly desires to overcome His Design of Love, we will find ourselves separated from God. We cannot say we follow Him, if we are allowing this to overcome us. This is also something that many will use to justify pornography, if they don’t keep themselves in check.

Are we walking inside of His Will when we come across this type of love? If not, we need to repent and ask for Him to Help us in this area.