The Love of God
How great the Father's Love for us, how vast beyond all measure. That He should give His only Son, to make a wretch His treasure.
Yesterday, I paid a visit to the elders of our church. I wanted to discover their views on biblical prophecy, its fulfillment, and interpretation. We have only attended for about six months, but I believed it was time to ask these men about things like Israel, Ezekiel 38, and the Rapture. My visit was precipitated by something I heard from the teaching elder the previous Sunday morning.
These three men talked with me for over an hour and shared their perspectives on the roles to which God had called them and how they should be engaged. There was some back-and-forth regarding eschatology, but not to the level of getting lost in the weeds and missing the primary reason for our conversation: To ensure unity within the body of Christ through our mutual understanding of our roles therein.
As our time concluded, I was convinced that, doctrinally, we were on the same page. Any minor (non-essential) concerns remaining were not such that unity would be negatively impacted. One of the elders asked if he could pray for me before we concluded our time together. It was something he said in prayer that caught my attention more than anything else we had discussed in the previous 75 minutes:
“. . . and help Ron let God Love him like He wants to.”
The whole counsel of God
God is Love! So, of course, He wants to Love us! What a simple concept for Believers to grasp. Yet, how many ways do we bend and break it through wrong-think and unbelief? Or, we plaster our concept of “father” (or mother) on top of biblical teaching about the Love of God. In so doing, our version becomes the “love of man masquerading as the Love of God.”
First things first
The Bible tells us that we love Him because He first loved us. It’s important to remember that Godly Love begins and ends with God. Before humanity—or the universe and all there is—existed, the eternal triune God was complete in Love, without need of anything. This truth sets Christianity apart from all other “religions.” For Biblical Love (Agape: Love focused on the well-being of the beloved) to exist, there must always have been “an Other” upon whom the Love of God focused.
Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
God is Love. And, God changes not. Other-focused Love is an eternal, immutable attribute of the God of the Bible. This is a distinction between YHWH (God’s name) and every other “deity.” For an entity to be “deity,” that “god” must predate the existence of humanity. Pre-creation deific singularity—by definition—cannot manifest “other-focused Love.” Because a truly sovereign, eternally existent “God” cannot change, all other “gods1” lack the Divine capacity for other-focused Love.
How’s that for a one-world ecumenical buzz-kill?
Summing up
In the time before the Creation of everything, the existence of other-focused Love required a compound Unity (Father, Son, Spirit).
Back to basics
We’ve resolved how other-focused Love is an attribute of the one true God. But, we need to focus on more than the phrase “God is Love.” Here’s the complete relevant verse in context:
“He who does not love does not know God, for God is Love.” —1 John 4:8
Christianity 101
Love is the thing.
Over and over in the New Testament, believers are commanded to love one another, and this would be the distinguishing attribute noticed by others—particularly unbelievers. In a darkened world spinning off the rails and into a train wreck of ongoing hatred and conflict, the Love of God is the only thing that makes a difference. Personally and globally.
But, we have to have it to give it.
Drilling down: John 3:16
This is where it starts for every human being:
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but shall have eternal life.”
But wait—there’s more!
“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
“How now shall we live?”
You might recognize the title of a book written by former White House special counsel Charles Colson. After his fall from grace and incarceration for his part in the Watergate scandal, Colson became a Christian. Recognizing all that Christ had done for him, Colson began Prison Fellowship ministry to help others facing incarceration around the world. The title of his book is instructive.
Knowing the extravagance of God’s plan to solve our sin problem, “How now shall we live?” becomes very relevant. The short answer is that we “work out our own salvation with fear and trembling.” We examine ourselves in an ongoing fashion to test the genuineness of our faith. We walk it out minute by minute.
Back to the prayer
I keep thinking of the church elder’s closing prayer yesterday. It’s important to “let” God Love2 us like He wants to Love us. It’s a mistake (sin, in fact), to attribute to God some obscure and unholy foible of a parent or primary caregiver. God is not like us, first giving Love and then withholding it based on “performance” or some other grotesque human criterion.
I’ve spoken to some who do not have this problem—misattribution of human brokenness to God’s character. What a wonderful thing to bask in God’s Love without reservation. The Apostle John was like this: He reveled in the fact that Jesus Loved him! It wasn’t a point of pride for John. He bathed in the glow of God’s Love and then distributed that Love to others.
How much better Life to bask in the glow of God’s Love, pass it on to others, and to leave the hand-wringing and fretting and fuming out of the mix?
Biblically, the triune Godhead is the only eternal, sovereign Deity. All other “gods” are a product of human delusion or demonic deception.
Since “God is Love,” He Loves always at all times. His Love always has in mind what’s best for us. God’s Love never wanes, never varies, never lapses, never fails.