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On Loving God Bernard of Clairvaux BE UNITED in CHRIST BOOK SUMMARY

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On Loving God Bernard of Clairvaux BE UNITED in CHRIST BOOK SUMMARY On Loving God Bernard of Clairvaux BE UNITED IN CHRIST BOOK SUMMARY Book Summary: On Loving God Copyright © 2016 by Be United in Christ Outreach Ministry This material is summarized from the public domain version of Bernard of Clairvaux’s On the Love of God. Translated by Marianne Caroline and Coventry Patmore. Second edition. London: Burns and Oates, 1884. This public domain version is hosted by the HathiTrust Digital Library (hathitrust.org). This translation has been altered in places to make it more understandable for modern readers. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked ESV are taken from the ESV ® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ESV Text Edition: 2011. This book summary was developed and distributed by the Be United in Christ Outreach Ministry for use in your personal life and ministry. It is our desire for you to use, reproduce, and distribute this material free of charge. Our only restrictions are that you do not alter the book summary content in any way, that you do not sell the book summary content for profit, and that you attribute the work to the Be United in Christ Outreach Ministry. Please visit BeUnitedinChrist.com for other Bible-based resources. Be United in Christ Book Summary On Loving God Bernard of Clairvaux beunitedinchrist.com On Loving God – Bernard of Clairvaux Author Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) is respected by Protestants and Roman Catholics alike. Martin Luther considered Bernard “the greatest of all the fathers of the church after Augustine,”1 and he was “one of Calvin’s favorite medieval writers.”2 The Roman Catholic Church honors Bernard as both a “Doctor of the Church” and a saint, and the Italian poet Dante used Bernard as his guide in the Divine Comedy to lead him into the very presence of God (Paradiso, Canto 31). Nicknamed “the Honey-tongued Doctor” for his eloquence, he is widely attributed with writing the words to the classic hymn, “O Sacred Head Now Wounded.” Though less familiar today, Bernard clearly deserves to be read. Bernard was born into a noble family in Burgundy, France, but renounced his privileged upbringing to become a monk. Just three years later he established a monastery at Clairvaux, from which he founded sixty-eight other monasteries. Bernard was one of the most influential men of his age. He rallied support for the Second Crusade, wrote the monastic rule for the Knights Templar, intervened in theological controversies, and helped resolve a disputed election for the pope. He was also a prolific and popular author. His more than 3,500 pages of writings include The Steps of Humility and Pride and The Book of Consideration, a collection of pastoral advice offered at the request of the Bishop of Rome, who had been a former student of his. Bernard died at his monastery in Clairvaux on August 20, 1153. Overview Bernard wrote On Loving God sometime between 1125–1141 in response to a request from a cardinal in Rome. “You wish me to explain for what reason and in what measure we should love God. I should say that God Himself is the motive of our love to Him, and that the measure of love due Him is to be without measure.” In other words, why should God be loved, and how much? Bernard answers that God should be loved for Himself and without limits. He explains his response in eleven chapters divided into two parts that correspond to the cardinal’s two questions. Part 1: Why God should be loved (Chapters 1–7) A. God should be loved because no one is more deserving (1–6) B. God should be loved because no one is more rewarding (7) Part 2: How God should be loved (Chapters 8–10) A. Loving self for self’s sake (8) B. Loving God for self’s sake (9) C. Loving God for God’s sake (9) D. Loving self for God’s sake (10) Conclusion: The perfection of love (Chapter 11) 1 Theo M. M. A. C. Bell, “Luther’s Reception of Bernard of Clairvaux,” Concordia Theological Quarterly 59:4 (October 1995), 267. 2 Anthony N. S. Lane, John Calvin Student of the Church Fathers (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999), 115. 4 Be United in Christ Part 1: Why God Should Be Loved (Chapters 1–7) People want reasons to love God, and so Bernard offers two: “Nothing is more reasonable and nothing is more profitable.” In both cases, God Himself is the reason why He should be loved, for no one is more deserving of our love than God, and no one is more rewarding of our love than God. God Should Be Loved Because No One Is More Deserving (1–6) God deserves to be loved because He first loves us (1) Ultimately, God is entitled to our love because He gave us His love. As the apostle John wrote, “We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). The obligation to return God’s love is especially binding given the worth of the Lover, the unworthiness of the loved, and the extravagance of the love. “This gives Him a right to our love in return; above all, considering who He is that loves, what His loved ones are, and in what way He loves them.” When one considers the glory of God, the wretchedness of man, and the sacrifice of the Son to save sinners (Romans 5:8), it becomes undeniable that God is entirely deserving of our love. “These are the claims which God, the holy, the sovereignly great and Almighty, has upon the love of little, weak, and sinful man.” God deserves to be loved even by non-believers (2) Christians must love God because of Christ, but non-believers are also obligated to love God because of the “goods beyond number with which He enriches soul and body.” Of the many physical blessings God provides, Bernard mentions three. “Is it not from Him that man receives the bread which sustains, the light which enlightens him, and the air which he breathes?” These may not be the greatest of God’s material blessings, “but they are the most necessary.” Every bite, every blink, and every breath should remind a person that food, sight, breathing, and every bodily blessing are gifts from a good and gracious God who should be gratefully loved in return. Far greater than the riches God gives the body are the spiritual riches He gives to the soul. Once again Bernard offers three examples. “For our chief goods we must look into the soul, the superior part of our being. Those goods are excellence, intelligence, and virtue.” By “excellence” Bernard means free will, which sets man above the animals. “Intelligence” is reason, by which man recognizes his superiority to the animals and that this did not come from himself. “Virtue” makes men seek the source of these blessings and, once he finds his Creator, cling to Him in love. The dignity God gives to those He made in His image deserves repayment in love. Bernard’s point is to “prove that they who do not know Christ, even they, are sufficiently taught by the natural law, and by the gifts they possess of body and soul, to love God for God’s own sake.” God then deserves to be loved for Himself, even based on the knowledge of the unbeliever who is ignorant of Christ. He who does not love the Lord his God with all his heart and soul and strength is without excuse, for his natural sense of justice and reason cry out from the depth of his soul that he is bound to love Him wholly who gave him everything he has. If non-believers are obligated to love God as their Creator, how much more must believers love God as their Savior! 5 On Loving God – Bernard of Clairvaux God deserves to be loved especially by believers (3–6) Because the church knows Christ, she feels pangs of love for God that non-believers do not. She sees the only-begotten Son of the Father staggering under the weight of the cross; the God of all majesty discolored by blows, covered with spit; the author of life and of glory hung upon nails, pierced with a lance and reviled, giving His dear soul for His friends. Gazing on this she feels the sword of love pierce through her heart. Using language from the Song of Solomon, Bernard encourages Christians to meditate on Christ’s crucifixion as a way to foster intimacy with God. Solomon’s bride prepared her chamber to attract her groom, and the church, the bride of Christ, should do the same. “If we desire that Christ should come to us and abide in us, we must fill our hearts full of the thoughts of His death and resurrection and of the faithful recollection of the mercy and the power of which by them He has given us proof.” Not everyone, though, finds the cross of Christ comforting. “It is impossible … to labor for this world’s riches and also to delight in the cross of our Savior Jesus Christ, at the same time to desire and labor for earthly things and to taste the sweetness of our Lord.” Those who truly value the gospel, however, will long to love better the God who loves them so well.
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