The Good Samaritan Revisited
O LORD God of heaven, the great and awesome God
who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those
who love him and keep his commandments.
(Neh 1:5)
By Stephen W. Hiemstra
The fourth characteristic of God in Exodus 34:6 is love. The word, hesed (חֶ֥סֶד), translated as steadfast love (ESV), long-suffering (KJV), or lovingkindness (NAS) means: “obligation to the community in relation to relatives, friends, guests, master and servants; unity, solidarity, loyalty” (HOLL). Alternatively, it can be translated as “goodness, kindness.” (BDAG 3279) The meaning of the Greek word used to translate hesed in the Septuagint, πολυέλεος, is unknown.
The Greek word for love (ἀγαπάω) in the New Testament is the same in John and Matthew’s Gospels, and means: “to have a warm regard for and interest in another, cherish, have affection for, love” (BDAG 38.1). The Hebrew word for agape love is: אָהַ֙בְתָּ (ahabet Gen 22:2), not hesed. Agape love is clearly distinguished from romantic (eros) and brotherly (philos) love, because the Greek language has separate words for each, but agape love and philos love both serve an erotic usage in the Song of Solomon (Sol 1:2-1:3), which adds to the confusion over love’s definitions.
Covenantal Love
The covenantal context of Exodus 34:6 makes it clear that the hesed love in view here is not a generic agape love, but a more specific covenantal love focused on keeping one’s promises (Hafemann 2007, 33). We honor God and our neighbor by treating them with respect and keeping our word, especially when it hurts. Just like when we get married we assume a heart-felt relationship, but we depend on our spouse to keep their promises.
The ethical image of God is a hot-button issue today because of the proclivity of many pastors and Christians to view God exclusively through the lens of love, as we read repeatedly through the writings of the Apostle John: “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1 John 4:8). Matthew’s double love command is likewise frequently cited:
Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law? And he said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. (Matt 22:36-40)
Agape love is less helpful in understanding God’s character because of the wild definitions of love floating around in postmodern culture (e.g. Rogers 2009, 52-65) and the wide scope in Hebrew and Greek usage. Confusion over the meaning of love was already present in the first century, which we know because the Apostle Paul devoted an entire chapter to its definition in his letter to the church at Corinth (1 Cor 13), a city infamous for prostitution.
In the Old Testament, God interacts with his people primarily through the giving of covenants. Hafemann (2007, 21) writes:
God’s relationship with the world and his people is not a theoretical abstraction, not is fundamentally a subjective experience. Rather, with salvation history as its framework, this relationship is expressed in and defined by the interrelated covenant that exist through the history of redemption.
Among the many allusions to covenant making in the Bible, none is more detailed than covenant with Moses.
God’s Mercy Precedes His Love
Bonhoeffer (1976, 50) offers an important insight here: “No one knows God unless God reveals Himself to him. And so none knows what love is except in the self-revelation of God. Love, then, is the revelation of God.” The fact that mercy, not love, is the first characteristic of God reinforces the idea that love requires an interpretation beyond the agape love that so many cherish. When we say that Jesus died for our sins, we experience his love by means of (or through the instrument of) his mercy. The point that mercy is more primal in the biblical context than love is also reinforced in Jesus’ Beatitudes: mercy is listed; love is not (Matt 5:3-11). When we experience God’s love through his mercy, covenant-keeping love, not agape love, is in focus.
The Good Samaritan
Jesus introduces the Parable of the Good Samaritan in response to a question posed by an attorney over how to inherit eternal life (Luke 10:25). Jesus asks the attorney to answer his own question and the attorney cites the double-love command: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” (Luke 10:27) Jesus accepts this answer, but the attorney wants to know more, picking nits and asking: “Who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29)
This context is important because it specifically addresses the problem with interpreting God’s love. When the Samaritan stops to attend to the wounds of the man beaten by robbers, it is an example presumably of offering love to an enemy, because the man beaten is presumed to have been a Jew and Jews hated Samaritans (Matt 5:43-46). Because the Samaritan is still likely at risk of suffering the same fate and there is no presumption that the Samaritan would serve as a first-century emergency medical technician, the parable has an eschatological tinge to it—it is like the clouds part and we briefly glimpse heaven itself.
The parable is more than a simple metaphor or simile because whole groups of people are symbolized—robbers, Samaritans, priests, Levites, innkeepers—making the parable more of a brief morality play. In the core story there is also an echo of the story of Cain and Abel (Gen 4) because Samaritans and Jews can be thought of as estranged brothers who have been reunited in love (1 Kgs 12).
The Good Samaritan Revisited
Also see:
The Face of God in the Parables
The Who Question
Preface to a Life in Tension
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Author site: http://www.StephenWHiemstra.net
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