10 Issues We Get Mistaken Concerning the Love of God

1. God’s love will not be one thing God owes us.

Whereas it’s true that God is love (1 John 4:16), this doesn’t imply he’s obligated to precise that like to anybody, a lot much less towards hell-deserving sinners such as you and me. In different phrases, God is sovereign in his choice both to bestow his love or withhold it. Right here is how John Murray put it:

Actually God is love. Love will not be one thing adventitious; it isn’t one thing that God might select to be or select to not be. He’s love, and that essentially, inherently, and eternally. As God is spirit, as he’s gentle, so he’s love. But it belongs to the very essence of electing love to acknowledge that it isn’t inherently essential to that love which God essentially and eternally is that he ought to set such love as points in redemption and adoption upon totally undesirable and hell-deserving objects. It was of the free and sovereign good pleasure of his will, pleasure that emanated from the depths of his personal goodness, that he selected a individuals to be heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. The rationale resides wholly in himself and proceeds from determinations which are peculiarly his because the ‘I’m that I’m.’¹

Thus, to say that love is sovereign is to say it’s distinguishing. It’s, by definition as saving love, bestowed upon and skilled by these solely who’re, in truth, saved (i.e., the elect). Though there’s absolutely a way through which God loves the non-elect, he doesn’t love them redemptively. If he did, they will surely be redeemed. God loves them, however not savingly, or else they will surely be saved. All that is however to say that God’s everlasting, electing love will not be common however explicit.

2. God’s love will not be uniform or monolithic.

God shows his love in numerous methods and levels relying on his good pleasure, objective, and the best approach to carry honor and glory to his title. We see this within the distinction between the love of God as manifest in frequent grace versus his love as seen in saving grace.

The love of God as manifested in frequent grace is his love as creator which consists of providential kindness, mercy, and longsuffering. It’s an indiscriminate and common love that constrains the bestowing of all bodily and non secular advantages wanting salvation itself. It’s acquired and skilled by the elect and non-elect alike (see Matt. 5:43–48; Luke 6:27–38).

The love of God as manifested in particular grace is the love of God as savior, which consists of redemption, the efficacy of regenerating grace, and the irrevocable possession of everlasting life. A discriminate and explicit love leads him to bestow the grace of everlasting life in Christ. It’s acquired and skilled by the elect solely.

Useful on this regard is the best way D. A. Carson identifies 5 distinguishable methods through which the Bible speaks of the love of God.²

First is the peculiar love of the Father for the Son (John 3:35; 5:20) and of the Son for the Father (John 14:31).

Second is God’s providential love over all of his creation. Though the phrase “love” is itself hardly ever used on this means, there isn’t a escaping the truth that the world is the product of a loving Creator (see the declaration of “good” over what God has made in Gen. 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31).

Third is God’s saving love towards the fallen world (John 3:16).

Fourth is God’s explicit, effectual, choosing love for his elect. The elect stands out as the nation of Israel, the church, or particular people (Deut. 7:7–8; 10:14–15; Eph. 5:25).

Fifth is God’s love towards his personal individuals in a provisional or conditional means. Typically the expertise of God’s love is portrayed as one thing that’s conditioned upon obedience and the worry of God. This doesn’t must do with that love by which we’re introduced right into a saving relationship with God however moderately with our capability to really feel and luxuriate in the love of God. See Jude 21; John 15:9–10; Psalm 103:9–18.

3. God’s love doesn’t imply that everybody will ultimately be saved.

As already famous, the saving love of God is poured out solely on the elect. They don’t seem to be deserving of it any greater than are the non-elect who stay of their sinful and fallen situation. God has the sovereign freedom to like some in saving energy however not all. Those that depart this life unsaved aren’t handled unfairly however in accord with excellent justice.

Some have argued that for individuals to languish in everlasting hell demonstrates that God has failed and that his love was ineffective. However that will solely be true if his loving and saving intent was to safe the salvation of all. Clearly, although, it was not. And God would expertise defeat provided that evil and idolatrous unbelievers escaped divine judgment. However they won’t. And when they’re consigned to everlasting damnation, none will increase an objection or protest that they’re undeserving of such remedy and deserving of everlasting life.

4. God’s love was not secured by the dying of Jesus Christ.

Jesus didn’t die for sinners in order that God would love them. God cherished them and due to this fact despatched his Son to die for them.

The love of God, then, is clearly the supply or reason behind the atoning work of Christ. God doesn’t love individuals as a result of Christ died for them; Christ died for them as a result of God cherished them. The dying of the Savior is to not be conceived as restoring in individuals one thing on the premise of which we’d then win God’s love. The sacrifice of Christ doesn’t procure God’s affection, as if it have been crucial, by means of his sufferings, to extract love from an in any other case stern, unwilling, reluctant Deity. Quite the opposite, God’s love constrains to the dying of Christ and is supremely manifested therein. In a phrase, the saving love of God is giving:

For God so cherished the world, that he gave his solely Son, that whoever believes in him shouldn’t perish however have everlasting life (John 3:16; see Gal. 2:20; Eph. 5:1–2; 1 John 4:9–10).

This fantasy is totally exploded by the apostle Paul in Romans 5:6, 8. There, he declares that “whereas we have been nonetheless weak, on the proper time, Christ died for the ungodly. . . . God exhibits his love for us in that whereas we have been nonetheless sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:6, 8).

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5. God’s love was not the results of his foreknowledge of us loving him.

There was nothing in us or what we’d select to do or consider that constrained God to set his saving love upon us. It’s to the saving love of God that we hint the reason for our predestination (see Rom. 8:29).

This similar love of God is the explanation for our adoption as sons. It was “in love” that God “predestined us for adoption to himself as sons by means of Jesus Christ, in accordance with the aim of his will” [not according to our foreseen faith but in accordance] (Eph. 1:4–5). It’s as a result of God cherished that he predestinated. “See what sort of love the Father has given to us, that we needs to be known as youngsters of God” (1 John 3:1)!

6. God’s love didn’t come up in his coronary heart solely after and upon observing the free will religion of women and men.

The saving love of God is everlasting. It was “earlier than the muse of the world” (Eph. 1:4–5) that he selected us in Christ and predestined us unto adoption as sons (cf. 2 Thess. 2:13). Charles Spurgeon describes this everlasting love:

Within the very starting, when this nice universe lay within the thoughts of God, like unborn forests within the acorn cup; lengthy ere the echoes awoke the solitudes; earlier than the mountains have been introduced forth; and lengthy ere the sunshine flashed by means of the sky, God cherished His chosen creatures. Earlier than there was any created being; when the ether was not fanned by an angel’s wing, when area itself had not an existence, the place there was nothing save God alone — even then, in that loneliness of Deity, and in that deep quiet and profundity, His bowels moved with love for His chosen. Their names have been written on His coronary heart, after which have been they pricey to His soul. Jesus cherished His individuals earlier than the muse of the world—even from eternity! and when He known as me by His grace, He stated to me, ‘I’ve cherished thee with an eternal love: due to this fact with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.’³

7. God’s love won’t ever be revoked or overturned.

His love will not be solely everlasting in its conception but additionally irrevocable in its objective. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or misery, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or hazard, or sword? hassle or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or hazard or sword?” (Rom. 8:35). Nothing, Paul insists and assures, shall be capable to separate us from the love of Christ.

Once more, in Romans 5, Paul can communicate of a assured hope on no different floor than that God has cherished us in Christ. It’s as a result of he cherished us once we have been but his enemies, a love demonstrated by the sending of his Son, that his love for us now that we’re his buddies is unshakeable. This “way more” argument of Romans 5:8–11 is encouragement certainly. Paul says, in impact, that if, once we have been alienated from God, he, however, reconciled us to himself by means of his Son, how way more, now that we have now been graciously instated in his favor and the alienation eliminated, shall the exalted and eternal lifetime of Christ guarantee our being saved to the uttermost! Murray feedback: “It could be a violation of the knowledge, goodness, and faithfulness of God to suppose that he would have completed the larger [love his enemies] and fail within the lesser [love his friends].”⁴

God doesn’t love individuals as a result of Christ died for them; Christ died for them as a result of God cherished them.

8. God’s love doesn’t imply he’ll at all times spare us from struggling and by no means impose painful self-discipline once we sin.

Scripture is evident that self-discipline, at least life, is a product of divine love: “My son, don’t regard calmly the self-discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises each son he receives” (Heb. 12:5–6).

The Hebrew Christians to whom these phrases have been addressed had mistakenly come to suppose that the absence of affliction was an indication of God’s particular favor and, due to this fact, that struggling and oppression have been a sign of his displeasure. Quite the opposite, so removed from being a proof of God’s anger or rejection of us, afflictions are proof of his fatherly love. Self-discipline, writes Philip Hughes, “is the mark not of a harsh and heartless father however of a father who’s deeply and lovingly involved for the well-being of his son.”⁵

9. God’s love will not be restricted to the saving of sinners.

The everlasting and irrevocable love which God has for his individuals additionally secures way over merely the reconciliation of estranged sinners. This manifold design of God’s saving love is very evident in John’s first epistle. For instance, the love that God has for us is claimed to make doable our love for each other. Following his dialogue of God’s love as witnessed within the atoning sacrifice of his Son (1 John 4:7–11), John writes: “Nobody has ever seen God; if we love one different, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:12).

In line with John Stott, the apostle John needs to say that “the unseen God, who as soon as revealed himself in his Son, now reveals himself in his individuals if and once they love each other. God’s love is seen of their love as a result of their love is his love imparted to them by his Spirit.”⁶ The purpose is that though God can’t be seen in himself, he could be seen in these in whom he abides once they love others with that very love wherewith they have been cherished! The fullness of God’s redemptive love for us in Christ thus attains its meant objective in our love for each other.

This notion that God’s love has for its final design greater than the salvation of these on whom it’s showered is seen but once more in 1 John 2:5. Right here we learn that “whoever retains his phrase, in him actually the love of God is perfected.” That’s to say, the love of God achieves its ordained objective once we, because the recipients of it, in flip obey him from whom it has come forth.

Contemplate 1 John 4:17. “By that is love perfected with us, in order that we might trust for the day of judgment, as a result of as he’s so are also we on the planet.” As soon as extra, God’s love secures its finish to the diploma that we who’re its objects stop to worry the day of judgment. The information of God’s fatherly love ought to endlessly dispel any apprehension of standing in his presence. This isn’t presumption, however moderately it’s a Spirit-induced conviction that God’s love has efficaciously and eternally offered for us in Christ that righteousness on the premise of which we’re delivered from all penal legal responsibility. God’s excellent love for us, when rightly perceived, does certainly solid out worry!

10. God’s love for himself is neither egocentric nor inconsistent together with his love for us.

Our glad-hearted ardour for God is exceeded solely by God’s glad-hearted ardour for God. If the chief finish of man is to glorify God by having fun with him endlessly, the chief finish of God is to glorify God and to get pleasure from himself endlessly!

The pre-eminent ardour in God’s coronary heart, his biggest pleasure and that through which he takes supreme delight, is his personal glory. God is on the middle of his personal affections. The supreme love of God’s life is God. God is pre-eminently dedicated to the celebrity of his title. God is himself the top for which God created the world. Higher nonetheless, God’s speedy objective in all he does is his personal glory. God relentlessly and unceasingly creates, guidelines, orders, directs, speaks, judges, saves, destroys, and delivers with the intention to make identified who he’s and to safe from the entire of the universe the reward, honor, and glory of which he and he alone is in the end and infinitely worthy.

But when God loves himself pre-eminently, how can he love me in any respect? How can we are saying that God is for us and that he wishes our happiness if he’s primarily for himself and his personal glory? I wish to argue that it’s exactly as a result of God loves himself that he loves you. Right here’s how.

I assume you’ll agree that your biggest good consists of having fun with probably the most glorious Being within the universe. That Being, in fact, is God. Subsequently, probably the most loving and sort factor that God can do for you is to dedicate all his vitality and energy to elicit out of your coronary heart reward of himself. Why? As a result of reward is the consummation of enjoyment. All enjoyment tends in the direction of reward and adoration as its appointed finish. On this means, God’s looking for his personal glory and God’s looking for your good converge.

Your biggest good is within the enjoyment of God. God’s biggest glory is in being loved. So, for God to hunt his glory in your worship of him (that’s his love for himself) is probably the most loving factor he can do for you. Solely by looking for his glory pre-eminently can God search your good passionately, for God to work to your enjoyment of him (that’s his love for you) and for his glory in being loved (that’s his love for himself) aren’t correctly distinct.

Sam Storms is the writer of The Steadfast Love of the Lord: Experiencing the Life-Altering Energy of God’s Unchanging Affection.

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