The love of God is poured out in our hearts, (Romans 5:5).
Peace, grace, hope, and now love. All these are benefits that come with the gift of justification through faith in Jesus. All are packed into these few verses in Romans, chapter five. The verse goes on to say that the source of the love of God is the Holy Spirit, who is given to us when we receive Christ.
There are two ways in which this verse can be understood. The first way would see God as the lover and us as the object of his love. God loves us. But, when we live in a relationship of hostility or indifference toward him, we cannot experience his love. But when we open our lives to Jesus, and receive his salvation, we become sensitized to God’s love and can begin to experience what has been there all along. His love gets “poured out in our hearts.”
The other way in which this verse can be understood is that we are the subject and God is the object. In other words, when the Holy Spirit comes to indwell our hearts, he makes it possible for us to love God. Considering that Jesus said that loving God is the greatest commandment, and apart from the Holy Spirit we don’t have the ability to love with the kind of love Jesus was speaking about, having the ability to now love God is a really big deal! In the following chapters of Romans Paul is going to go into greater detail about how we love God.
If I were a rigid academic, I would have to choose which of these two meanings is the accurate way of understanding the text. But since I’m just a normal guy trying to get things right, I have come to the conclusion that this is one of those times where God speaks in a way that can mean more than one thing. In this case, when the Holy Spirit comes into my life, I can begin to experience the love God has for me, and I can begin to reciprocate by seeking to love God. As we move toward our celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus, lets remember that to experience the love of God and to love him in return is the essence of what authentic faith is all about. Much love to you today! From God and me!
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