24.04.08
Shorter Catechism on God (11) - God is Love
Read: Hosea 11:1-11
Could there be a more horrific world than the idea of a wicked God wielding every possible power in order to ruin us? Unfortunately, many primitive religions believe in a God or God’s like that. They live in fear of everything – from thunder in the sky, to monsters of the deep – everything is a sign and symbol of the displeasure and hatred of their gods towards them. How amazing it is then to think that we don’t live in a world like that – that whereas we worship a God of infinite power, that God is also full of infinite love. It is the love of God, and particularly the love of God in Christ Jesus, more than anything else, which causes us to fall on our knees in worship, praise and adoration.
Before we study the love of God together, I want to break ranks with the framers of the Shorter Catechism when in their Q&A4 they ask and answer, “What is God? God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable, in his being wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.” By using the word – goodness – they were covering God’s attributes of benevolence, love, mercy and grace. However, the Bible makes it clear that the love of God is not merely to be considered as one sub-division of His character – rather, it is the driving force behind everything He does. 1 John 4:16 tells us that “God is love”. The 18th Century Scottish Preacher Ebenezer Erskine wrote, “Love is the imperial or commanding attribute of the divine nature … it is the first wheel that sets all the other wheels going.” It would seem to me, therefore, that the Westminster Fathers did not explicitly mention the love of God, because it is, after all, the pre-eminent attribute of God.
[B] God is Love
I want to look at two features of the love of God – first, elements in the Bible’s Teaching on the Love of God, and then secondly, applications of the Bible’s Teaching on the Love of God.
1. Elements in the Bible’s Teaching on the Love of God – the Love of God is the most forcefully emphasised attribute of God in the Bible. If there is one thing God wants us to know, it is that He loves us. Although we could spend all year talking about it, I want to see three aspects of the Bible’s teaching on the Love of God:
(i) The Love of God in the Bible – in this section, I want to look at the terminology used to describe the love of God in the Bible. Although there are other minor words used for love, the two words most frequently used are the Hebrew Word bha, and the Greek word agaph. Both words essentially mean the same thing. They take their meaning from the world of human relationships, particularly the relationship between a husband and a wife. In the marriage, there is commitment, passion and emotion, as one Old Testament Commentator writes, “(God’s love) is the overwhelming passion between men and women.” That love contains different elements, but chief among them are commitment and passion. God is passionately complacent, in the sense of completely satisfied and delighted, with His people. He loves His people more than He loves the angels, and yes, He loves His people as much as He loves Himself, and since His love for Himself is infinite in passion and commitment, His love for us is the same.
(ii) The Ultimate Demonstration of the Love of God – although in the Bible there are many demonstrations of the love of God – for example the story of Hosea – the ultimate demonstration of God’s love is to be found on the cross. If there one message which comes out of the cross it is that God loves sinners. Christ came as a voluntary substitute in our place, bearing the damnation of the cross, lovingly for us. And that cross is applied to us by God’s Holy Spirit to the full extent of His love for us – its results being gifted to us one by one – made right with God, given new hearts, adopted as Sons and Daughters of the Living God, given the promise of eternal life. The love of God doesn’t rest until He has bestowed all the highest benefits of the cross upon His people. That is why Christ Jesus still intercedes for us in heaven. That giving of the Son by His Father highlights that there was no barrier, however great, which the love of God was not willing and able to overcome – even the obstacle of our sin.
(iii) The Recipients of the Love of God – Because God is three in one, three persons, one God, He is able to love Himself in that the Father loves the Son and the Spirit and vice versa. The love He has for us is an overflow of inner love of God for Himself. In the Bible, God is said to love two groups of people: first, He loves the world. John 3:16 tells us that “God so loved the world that He gave” – not a nice world, but a world full of rebellion and sin. The Jesus who said, “love your enemies” is a Jesus who died for a rebellious, sin-sick world. This love for the world is synonymous with the aspect of the benevolence of God we looked at last time, where God offers all men salvation through Jesus Christ, even though many will reject it. But that doesn’t stop Jesus saying over unrepentant Jerusalem, “how often I would have gathered your children together as a hen gathers its chicks, but you would not, you were not willing!” Secondly, He loves His people. He does so in two ways: first, His love for His people has a purpose in that He wants to conform them to the image of His Son Jesus – the Jesus He loves. But secondly, His love for His people is extravagant, in that His love leads to us being given every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus. There is nothing we need, or could want if we were in our right minds, which God has not given us in Christ. Such is the love of God for us, He even longs that we may be where He is so that we may see His glory!
Ebenezer Erskine writes, “Never were the perfections of God so gloriously manifested as they are in (His Love) in Christ”. His love is passionate and committed and demonstrated ultimately in the death of His own Son for us.
2. Applications of the Bible’s Teaching on the Love of God – the love of God, I believe, is His central attribute, and everything else flows out of His love – it sets every wheel in motion. There are literally thousands of possible applications of His love, but I want to mention just three:
(i) Meditate on the Love of God – God has made us rational beings, and as such, we are to use our minds to explore the wonders of our salvation. Ebenezer Erskine suggests that we ‘eat God’s love’. He explains – ‘the way to eat it is to apply and bring it home to your own souls’. Feed on the love of God – let it be your spiritual nourishment from day to day. In particular, let it change two things about you: first, let it change your view of God. So often, we have legalistic views of God – especially God the Father, whom we see as a stern and immovable judge, just waiting to hammer us for the slightest indiscretion. But the Bible says that it was primarily the love of God the Father which was demonstrated on the cross for us. Let the love of God change your view of who God is. Secondly, let it change your view of how God sees you. God loved us though there was nothing in us to merit His love; but now in Christ, He loves us because we are in Christ – and in us He sees His Son. He loves us complacently, in that He is totally satisfied with us and finds complete pleasure in us. Just as a couple in love may find a whole night’s entertainment in staring into each other’s eyes, so God finds the pleasure of eternity in staring at who you are in Christ Jesus. See then the dignity which is yours in Christ! Let that love of God remove your insecurity and worthlessness!
(ii) Love God in Return – what is more reasonable that if God should love us, we should love Him in return? Remember that God loved us when there was nothing in us to attract Him to us, but now that we are His, there is in Him an infinity of perfections to love. And the amazing thing is that God has so made us as human beings that we are ultimately satisfied and happy when we find our ultimate satisfaction in God. Our efforts to love God lead, finally, to our own happiness. But just as God’s love wasn’t and isn’t passive and inert, so our love should be active – we must express our love for God in loving our neighbour as ourselves – by loving our brothers and sisters in Christ, by loving mankind lost, by loving even our enemies.
(iii) Offer Salvation to All – God’s love means that salvation is offered to all men. Shall our offer of God’s salvation restrict the conditions more than God has? Shall we assume that our workmates aren’t suitable candidates for salvation and therefore we won’t offer them Christ? Shall we assume that our Muslim neighbours are too hardened to be saved and therefore we won’t offer them Christ? Shall we assume that the alcoholic or the drug addict is too far gone to be saved and therefore we won’t offer them Christ? Shall we think that God is too generous with the offer, so we’ll restrict it more than He? No, just like Him, our love for the Him on one hand, and the world, on the other, must dictate our offering salvation to all men and women indiscriminately.
The love of God is stupendously extravagant, the subject of an eternity’s fascination. Will we begin today to truly appreciate that love, and to bear His love in our minds and hearts? His love is worth more than life, so let us praise Him with our lips and lives. AMEN