Who Will Be Saved? (continuing our discussion of Will Willimon's book)

Chapter 2 -- "The Eros of God"

Erotic is not the word Christians usually employ to describe the love of God. Erotic speaks of lingerie, candles, soft music, and massage. It's the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition (not that I've ever seen it), or it's an open-shirted Fabio gracing the cover of a romance novel. The word erotic is used in a lot of ways, but until I opened the book Who Will Be Saved?, I don't think I'd ever seen the word "Eros" or any form of it used to describe the passion God has for creation, for humanity.

When you see the word "Eros" or "erotic," what comes to mind? I invariably think along the lines of the steamy stuff suggested above, and I imagine you do, too. Surprisingly, however, my mind wanders away from the swimsuit edition toward C.S. Lewis' wonderful exploration of The Four Loves: storge (fondness of family), philia (love among friends), eros (sexual, romantic love) and agape (unconditional goodwill). If all of these loves are good, and they surely are, then we can safely say all of them originate with God. Of the four it is the word agape that is typically used of God's love. Anders Nygren calls it "the distinctively Christian love," the love (unlike eros) that is not motivated by its object. "[But] we make a mistake to separate agape from eros in speaking of the love that is experienced as the Trinity" (21).

Drawing on generally disfavored traditional interpretations of the Song of Solomon (for whatever that's worth), Willimon suggests the love Song is not simply "the erotic thoughts of two heated adolescents" but is rather "an allegory of the love of Christ for his church. Isn't it scandalous that the closest analogy for the love of God in Christ is the infatuated, sensual ramblings of two adolescents consumed with lust -- I mean love -- for each other (22)?

Consider the shocking suggestion that the church is the "Bride of Christ." The relationship between Christ and the church becomes that of a husband and wife. Seeking each other, wanting each other, their relationship is passionate and unrestrained. "Jesus looks upon the poor old church the way a proper groom looks upon his bride" (22).

"God erotically risks, desires union with humanity. So God comes close enough to be not only God for us, but to be God with us. In what the Biblical writers call 'the fullness of time' god steps up, steps in and steps out in a most amazing overture of love" (22).

Willimon may well overplay the subtext of eroticism in the Bible (maybe), but the notion of intimacy is unmistakably present throughout the NT. God abides with us; he is our shepherd; he is the vine and we the branches. He is the Bread on which we feed, the Living Water that we drink. He dwells in us and we dwell in Him.

God as a passionate lover is a difficult concept for children of the Enlightenment (that's us, by the way). Modern individuals view ourselves as our own sovereigns, separate, single, solitary, solo. We are special because of our individuality, and we are very capable (thank you) of standing alone, "self-sufficient, self reliant, and self made." We are at our best when as rugged individuals we need and rely on no one.

From a Christian point of view, in the Enlightenment the modern self did not grow; it shrank. The thin contemporary self, a creation of the individual's choices of the moment, responsible only for itself, having no greater project than itself was the self shed of the very qualities that previously were thought to be most humane (24).

Yet God presents himself as the one without whom we are lost. The One who wants to have us claims to be the One we must have -- if we have any hope of being saved. Rugged individualists don't like being told that. So we shrug in rebellion when we hear that salvation is being bound to a characteristically relational God that not only desires intimacy with us, but who stops at nothing to have it, to have us.

"Apparently God has got this thing for us almost like lust" (22).