From: wross (wross@farmerstel.com)
Date: Fri Jan 01 1999 - 13:38:28 EST
{Joseph}
[snip]In Greek, it becomes clear that HOUTWS is simply the adverb form of
HOUTOS and means "thisly, thus, or in this way." This is the way that God
*chose* to express that love. One could suppose that God might have chosen
another way; but God in
fact loved us in this way.
{Bill}
There is something strikingly similar in John 3:1. I always read "what
manner of love" as "what an exceptional love" or someother superlative, but
it is actually "manner" calling attention to the love's character. He loved
us with a love that is inclined to make us "be called the children of God" -
an idiomatic expression implying that we are so assuming God's character
that we are everywhere identified with Him. "Children of" means "character
of" in this idiomatic usage, as in "sons of thunder" - not at all alluding
to geneaology. (Of course, "manner" is there in the English as well, though
it was not clear to me until I read it in Greek).
In the following verses John is not comforting with the doctrine of adoption
but is challenging and winnowing with the doctrine of a
divine-character-imbuing love. This is his powerful destroyer of "gushy"
human concepts of God's love.
We do, however, have other verses that imply that God soooooo loved us :-)
in that he "spared not" his only Son.
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