Aramaic Word Study – First – Qadamir   קדמית Qop Daleth Mem Yod Taw 

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I John 4:19: “We love him, because he first loved us.”

This is really a curious verse, at least in our culture.  In our culture, we love because…  We need a reason to love someone.  They do things for us, they make us feel good, they take care of us, they are always there for us, etc.  When it comes down to it if someone were to ask us why we love someone, we can usually come up with a reason. 

The danger in this is when it comes to our relationship with God. If we love Him because of what He does for us, then it would naturally follow that he must love us for some reason.  We may love God because He saved us from Hell, He forgave our sins, He restores us, He prosperous us.  But if that is the reason we love God then our love is out of obligation. 

I recently watched an old TV program from the sixties and this one episode involved a very beautiful but ditzy woman married to a man who was a librarian. He wasn’t rich, he wasn’t charismatic, he wasn’t really a strong man. We would call him a nerd today. Yet, she was worried and fearful when her husband disappeared.  The detective interviewing her, seeing the contrast between the two asked her why she married the guy.  His answer was: “He loves me.”  That answer satisfied the detective.  She didn’t care about wealth, looks, a hero-type man, just someone who would love her. What is our motivation for loving God?  Is it simply because he loves us? 

It is interesting that the word used for love in I John 4:19 is chav and not racham. Chav is an imperfect love, it has many different levels.  Chav is used for loving a parent, mate or sibling but it is also used for the love of a Big Mac or its first-century equivalent.  The first time chav is used in this verse it is “We love Him.”  Here the word is in a causative form, we are caused to love Him.  What has caused us to love Him?  The cause is not that He gives us eternal life or that he saves us from Hell and our sins or that His Son died on the cross for us. It is because He loved us first. 

God has put within the human creature the longing and desire to be loved.  But not just to be loved, but to give love. This is the reason he created the institution of marriage. In the true intent of marriage, the love between a man and woman is a picture of the love that God desires between us and Himself.  Picture a mother holding her newborn baby.  She loves that baby.  Every fiber of her being cries out in love for that baby.  Yet, that baby has given her nothing in return. In fact, it was a difficult experience carrying that baby for nine months. It did nothing but make her sick, make her look fat, make her uncomfortable.  All that for what? To give birth to a human being who is going to keep her awake at night, demand attention, demand feeding, demand to be carried, demand to change dirty diapers and yet, she loves that little thing.   You wonder why God loves us, then first explain to me why that mother loves that little helpless piece of humanity that gives her nothing but work and stress.  Oh yes, there is one other thing, it gives her a chance to love nonconditionally.  

This is the perfect example of loving for the sake of just loving and being loved. But wait, that is not the perfect picture of racham.  It is the closest we humans will come to understand the love of God but even that falls short.  “Isaiah 49:15-16: “Can a woman forget her suckling child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?  Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.  Behold, I have engraven thee upon the palm of my hand, thy walls are continually before me.” 

Yes, there are mothers who will forget their newborn, they are few but they do exist.  Yet, God says that His love is even more than that because he will never forget or abandon us. Imagine God loving us more than a mother loves her newborn baby.  Can’t imagine it?  That is why He had to give use an earthly natural picture which is not even a perfect picture of racham. 

I Corinthians 2:9: “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.”  We do not know what it is God has prepared for us, but after 15 years of searching for God’s heart, I have a pretty good idea of what He has prepared for those who love Him.  The word for love here is racham.  If you grow your ‘ahav love into racham love God has prepared to let you experience what you cannot experience with just ‘ahav love. You will get to experience His racham, that perfect love that exceeds that of a mother holding her newborn baby. 

Racham covers all dimensions all senses. We will not only feel His love, we will smell His love, touch His love, taste His love, hear his love and actually see His love. Such a thing has not even entered into the heart of man, we just can’t comprehend it. Yet, one day after years of growing in our ‘ahav love for God, we will enter His presence and we will experience something truly beyond what we could ever know here on earth, the fulness of God’s racham.

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