God our Father is everlasting, inexhaustible love (1 Jn 4:16). We also, according to our strength, will show a certain fullness of love if we always walk in love.
Chrysostom says: "And here is the foundation of everything: walk in love. If there is love, there will be neither fury, nor anger, nor shouting, nor reviling. All this will be destroyed. Therefore he places the chief thing at the end."
Works of love, especially in the sense required by the Lord, demand sacrifices without fail. This is particularly true when one must show love toward enemies.
Since this can undermine our energy, always weak as it is, the Apostle sets before us the sacrifice which Christ offered for us, in order to inspire us.
It is as though he says: understand the power of Christ's sacrifice, enter into sympathy with it, and you will not stop before any sacrifices in your walking according to the spirit of love.
Christ's loving sacrifice for us is a second model of love for us. It is nearer to us and more tangible. The love of God is invisible and all-embracing. The love of Christ is visible and touches everyone.
Having tasted its fruits, one naturally becomes inflamed by it. Christ loved us and gave Himself for us. For the sake of this loving self-surrender for us, you also have received mercy and have been accepted into God's love.
You have not only been forgiven, but have also been counted worthy of sonship with Him. Therefore love this very love, which gives itself up to every sacrifice, and walk precisely in it.
Chrysostom dwells especially on this point: "Tell me, if someone helped you with some medicine when you had a fever and were struggling with death, would you not exalt that person above all? Would you not even prize the very name of the medicine?
For if we are attached as to our own soul to the times and places in which we received benefit, how much more to the actions themselves. Be attached to love, because through it you were saved.
Through it you became a son of God. If you are able to save others, use the same remedy and exhort all: 'Forgive, and you will be forgiven' (Lk 6:37). To act thus belongs to grateful, free, and noble souls."
That one must love even enemies to the point of self-sacrifice is evident from the example of Christ the Lord's love for us. For He offered Himself for us when we were His enemies and God's enemies.
If the duty lies on you to imitate His love, then love your enemies. "Otherwise how will the word 'as' keep its meaning? Is it not clear that it does so only if we do good to our enemies?" says Chrysostom.
Here the Apostle does not reason about the meaning and power of Christ's sacrifice. He takes this cause as known. He does so especially to heighten zeal for imitating the love of Christ the Lord.
He points to its fruit: that the sacrifice, offered to God according to its power, was to God a fragrant aroma.
It is as though he says: do not be afraid and do not stop before sacrifices. According to the power of the love shown in them, they will be to God a fragrant aroma.
Who, having taken this to heart, would not be ready for every labor and sacrifice out of love for his brethren?
The expression "a fragrant aroma," meaning a most pleasing sacrifice, acceptable to God and precious before Him, is first met in the evaluation of Noah's sacrifice.
There it is said: "And the Lord smelled a fragrant aroma, and the Lord God said: I will no longer curse the earth for man's deeds" (Gen 8:21).
The smelling of the sacrificial aroma is attributed to God to signify that the sacrifice reached God, was favorably received by Him, and gained God's good pleasure.
The sacrifice of Christ the Savior, who offered Himself, was most pleasing. Another such sacrifice is impossible and is not required, for it alone replaced all sacrifices.
Christ Himself, not as man only, but as the God-man, was both priest and sacrifice. He offered not as man only, but as the God-man. He offered Himself not as a man only, but as the God-man.
Hence the infinite value of His sacrifice. Yet the fragrant aroma from this sacrifice came not only because of its boundless value. It came also because it was the fruit of willing love: He loved and gave Himself.
In this respect it is an object of imitation for us. Put sincere love into deeds of self-sacrifice for others, and from them a fragrant aroma will ascend before God.
The Lord gave Himself for us, not for saints and friends, but for sinners and enemies. He did this to win full forgiveness for our sins.
Speaking in human terms, He did this to drive away from God's sense of smell the stench of our sins by the most pleasing fragrance of His sacrifice.
He did this to propitiate God, so that He might pronounce full forgiveness and full mercy upon us. He pronounces that the curse lying upon us has come to an end.
From this sacrifice of Christ, offered for us while we were still enemies, let us learn to love enemies. Let us be ready to sacrifice everything for them, even to laying down our life, so as always to be well-pleasing before God.
Until now Saint Paul taught how to correct the irascible part of the soul. At the summit of its purification he placed self-denying love.
Now he points to the purification of another part of the old man, the desiring part. At this point one may mark a turn in the Apostle's general instructions concerning the Christian life.
THEOSIS