October 31, 2002
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JMac - The God Who Loves
This is not my writing, it is by John MacArthur of "Grace to You" and is for my own study. It is a somewhat condensed version of the book "The God Who Loves." Readers may take a peek if they are interested. There is some teaching here on the doctrine of election, but don't be scared of it. I have heard it explained as being like entering a tunnel. On the outside you see a sign over the entrance that says "whosoever will" and upon having entered the tunnel, you look back and see another sign written over the inside of the entrance that says "chosen from the beginning." It is indeed a mystery. We don't know who God has elected or foreknown or whatever, so we are behooved to share the Gospel and invite any and all to "enter the tunnel."
The God Who Loves - Condensed from John MacArthur
Chapter 1 - God So Loved the World
Almost everyone believes in a God of love, but God's love and goodness do not nullify His righteousness, justice, and holy wrath. The opposite extreme is to think of God as stern, demanding, cruel, even abusive. Jonathan Edwards's "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." is a famous sermon preached in 1741. The language was so vivid that many who heard Edwards trembled, some cried out for mercy, and others fainted. Edwards has been caricatured by some as a harsh preacher who delighted in frightening his congregations, but he was actually a warm and sensitive pastor as well as a meticulous theologian, and he believed he was responsible to declare both the positive and the negative aspects.
Charles Finney, (early 1800's) declared that revival could be manufactured if preachers would employ the right means. Finney even denied that the new birth is a sovereign work of the Holy Spirit (Jn. 3:8). He taught instead that regeneration is something accomplished by the sinner as the sinner changes his own heart. He believed that people could be psychologically manipulated into responding to the gospel and intimidated them into responding. Whereas Edwards had looked to the Holy Spirit to use the truth of Scripture to convert sinners, Finney believed it was the preacher's task to evoke the desirable response through artful manipulation. He found that terrorizing people was a very effective, and his sermons were designed to heighten the fears of unbelievers.
This type of preaching had an impact on the popular perception of God. The typical Christian of the mid-1800s would have been scandalized by the suggestion that God loves sinners. Even D. L. Moody, was disturbed the first time he heard another evangelist proclaim God's love for sinners. In 1868, a converted pickpocket Harry Moorhouse offered to preach to Moody's congregation. Moody was uncertain about Moorhouse's preaching ability and arranged for the Englishman to speak to a midweek gathering in the church basement.
One Sunday morning Moody noticed his congregation were all carrying Bibles. He had never told them that persons in pews should bring Bibles. "It was something strange to see the people coming in with Bibles, and listen to the flutter of the leaves." Moorhouse went from Genesis to Revelation giving proof that God loves the sinner. D. L. Moody turned in his ways, to become an apostle of the love of God.
Liberalism was a corruption of Christianity, and denied the authority and inspiration of Scripture. It was a growing trend throughout the nineteenth century. It retained the morals but attacked the historicity of the Bible. It proclaimed the brotherhood of all humanity under the fatherhood of God - and said that God's only attitude toward humanity was pure love. Harry Emerson Fosdick, pastor of the Riverside Church in New York City, contrasted his age with that of Jonathan Edwards, "Jonathan Edwards' Enfield sermon pictured sinners held over the blazing abyss of hell... We swing to the opposite extreme, so in the theology of these recent years we have taught a very mild, benignant sort of deity... " Fosdick saw that liberalism had led to an imbalanced concept of God and that it was taking society into amorality. Despite all that, Fosdick would not acknowledge God's wrath toward impenitent sinners.
Evangelicalism today has also lost the reality of God's wrath. We have forgotten that it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. We do not believe in that kind of God anymore. This works against a sound understanding of God's love. When things go wrong it is seen as evidence that God can't really control everything and makes God into a feeble, victim of evil. No one would fear a deity like that.
Scripture tells us that fear of God is the beginning of true wisdom. People say that fear is awe and reverence, not holy terror. God's wrath does burn against impenitent sinners (Ps. 38:1). That reality is the very thing that makes His love so amazing. It was on the cross that God's love and wrath converged in all their majestic fullness. Only those who see themselves as sinners in the hands of an angry God can fully appreciate the wonder of His love. Our generation has been fed the doctrines of self-esteem for so long that most people don't really view themselves as sinners worthy of divine wrath.
I am troubled on the other hand by the tendency of some who insist that God cannot possibly love those who never repent and believe and that God does not love the non-elect. The fact that some sinners are not elected to salvation is no proof that God's attitude toward them is devoid of love. We know from Scripture that God is compassionate, kind, generous, and good even to the most stubborn sinners, but the Scripture also teaches that God hates the wicked.
Many try to dodge the difficulty this poses by suggesting that God hates the sin, not the sinner. Why, then does God condemn the sinner and consign the person - not merely the sin - to eternal hell? Clearly we cannot sweep the severity of this truth away by denying God's hatred for the wicked. Nor should we imagine that such hatred is any kind of blemish on the character of God. It is a holy hatred. It is perfectly consistent with His spotless, unapproachable, incomprehensible holiness.
Scripture teaches that God's hatred toward the wicked is not undiluted by compassion, mercy, or love. We know from human experience that love and hatred are not mutually exclusive. The fact that God will send to eternal hell all sinners who persist in sin and unbelief proves His hatred toward them. On the other hand, the fact that God promises to forgive and bring into His eternal glory all who trust Christ as Savior - and even pleads with sinners to repent - proves His love toward them. We must understand that it is God's very nature to love. In Matt. 5:45, Jesus clearly characterized His Father as One who loves even those who purposefully set themselves at enmity against Him. While we are all eager to ask why a loving God lets bad things happen to His children, surely we should also ask why a holy God lets good things happen to bad people. The God is merciful even to those who are not His own.
However, God loves believers with a particular love reserved for believers alone. It is an eternal love that guarantees their salvation from sin and its penalty. Limiting this saving, everlasting love to His chosen ones does not render God's compassion, mercy, goodness, and love for the rest of mankind insincere or meaningless. When God invites sinners to repent and receive forgiveness (Isa. 1:18; Matt. 11:28) Clearly God does love even those who spurn His tender mercy, but it is different in quality and degree. A parallel in the human realm would be this: I love my neighbors, but clearly my love for my wife is superior, both in excellence and in degree.
God's love for the elect is an infinite, eternal, saving love. We know from Scripture that this great love was the very cause of our election (Eph. 2:4). Such love clearly is not directed toward all of mankind indiscriminately, but is bestowed uniquely and individually on those whom God chose in eternity past. But it does not follow that God' attitude toward those He did not elect must be unmitigated hatred. He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but tenderly calls sinners to turn from their evil ways and live. He freely offers the water of life to all (Isa. 55:1, Rev. 22:17). Those truths are not at all incompatible with the truth of divine sovereignty.
Reformed theology has historically been the branch of evangelicalism most strongly committed to the sovereignty of God while affirming the love of God for all sinners. John Calvin himself wrote regarding John 3:16 that faith in Christ brings life to all, and that Christ brought life, because the Father loves the human race, and wishes that they should not perish. Calvin went on to add this: "Let us remember, on the other hand, that while life is promised universally to all who believe in Christ, still faith is not common to all, but the elect alone are they whose eyes God opens, that they may seek him by faith." A return to these historic truths is necessary if the church is to survive. Yet there is a danger when overzealous souls misuse a doctrine like divine sovereignty to deny God' sincere offer of mercy to all sinners.
We must maintain a carefully balanced perspective as we pursue our study of God's love, which cannot be isolated from His wrath. Both attributes are constant, perfect, without ebb or flow. God Himself is unchanging, not loving one moment and wrathful the next. His wrath coexists with His love; therefore, the two never contradict. Such are the perfections of God that we can never begin to comprehend these things. Above all, we must not set them against one another, as if there were somehow a discrepancy in God. God is always true to Himself and true to His Word (Rom. 3:4; 2 Tim. 2:13).
Both God's wrath and His love work to the same ultimate end - His glory in the condemnation of the wicked, and in the salvation of His people. The expression of His wrath and the expression of His love are both necessary to display His full glory. Since His glory is the great design of His eternal plan, and since all that He has revealed about Himself is essential to His glory, we must not ignore any aspect of His character. We cannot magnify His love to the exclusion of the other attributes.
Nevertheless, those who truly know God will testify that the deepest spiritual delights are derived from the knowledge of His love. His love is what drew us to Him in the first place: "We love him, because he first loved us." (1 Jn. 4:19). His love is the reason He saved us and bestowed on us such rich spiritual privileges (Eph. 2:4).
The purpose here is to present God's love in such a fashion that the splendor of it will fill your heart. If you are a Christian, my prayer is that the glory and greatness of His love will deepen your love for Him, and that you will grasp the joys and pains of life with a correct understanding of God's love. If you are not a believer, perhaps God is drawing you to Himself. We know from Scripture that He is calling you to repentance and offering you the water of life. My prayer is that as you read these pages, the wonder and privilege of divine love will be unfolded to you and that you will respond to the truth of God's Word with a humble and believing heart. (Matt. 11:28).
But be warned: the knowledge of God's goodness and mercy will only deepen your condemnation if you spurn Him. (Heb. 2:3). God's love is a refuge for repentant sinners only. Those satisfied with their sin should take no comfort from the knowledge that God is full of mercy and compassion. And impenitent sinners inclined to disregard the Savior's offer of mercy should first consider this crucial warning of Scripture: "If we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain terrifying expectation of judgment, and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries."(Heb. 10:26).
Chapter 2 - God Is Love
Our culture trivializes love by sentimentalizing it. Popular songs portray love as a feeling, a longing, and an unfulfilled passion. The craving is never satisfied and the expectations are never met. This kind of love has no ultimate meaning and is a reflection of human lostness. Most love songs also make the feeling involuntary, uncontrollable passion. People fall in love. They get swept off their feet, hooked on a feeling and go out of their heads. This kind of love is selfish and irrational.
According to the Bible, love is not a helpless sensation of desire. It is a purposeful act of self-giving. True love arises from the will, not blind emotion. In I Corinthians 13 we read that all of the attributes of love listed involve the mind and volition. It is a thoughtful, willing commitment. Love does not seek its own. One who truly loves will not seek to fulfill one's own desires, but seeks the best the object of that love. True love is not uncontrolled desire or wild passion. It is a giving of one's self, as modeled by Jesus Christ. (John 15:13)
The Apostle John wrote in I John 4:8 that God is love. First, the expression "God is Love" does not depersonalize God or portray Him as a force, a sensation or cosmic energy. He is a personal being, with all the attributes of personality - volition, feeling and intellect. Second, we cannot identify God with all that our society labels love. Not all emotions called love are from God. Sexual debauchery is not from God. The love of which John speaks is pure, holy and consistent with all the divine attributes. Third, divine love does not minimize or nullify God's other attributes: His omniscience, His omnipotence, His omnipresence, His immutability, His lordship, His righteousness, His wrath against sin, or any of His glorious perfection. Deny any one of them and you have denied the God of Scripture.
There is more to God than love. John 4:24 says that God is a spirit. Deuteronomy 4:24 and Hebrews 12:29 tell us that God is a consuming fire. Psalm 7:11 says that God is a righteous judge. God is more than simply love. He is also holy, righteous and true to His Word. His love does not contradict His holiness; it complements and magnifies it and gives it its deepest meaning.
The Apostle John also tells us that God is light and in Him there is no darkness. This includes several ideas, including holiness, truth and divine splendor. God is love and God is light must always be kept in balance.
This statement, "God is love," is so profound that no less than Augustine saw it as an important evidence for the doctrine of the Trinity. If God is love - that is, if love is intrinsic to His very nature - Then He has always loved, even from eternity past, before there was any created object for His love. Augustine suggested that this love must have existed between the Persons of the Trinity, with the Father loving the Son, and so on. So according to Augustine, the very fact that God is love corroborates the doctrine of the Trinity. Clearly the love this text describes is an eternal reality. It flows from the very nature of God and is not a response to anything outside the person of God. The apostle does not say, "God is loving," as if he were speaking of one of many divine attributes, but "God is love" as if to say that love pervades and influences all His attributes.
For example, we know that God is holy, - undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens," ( Heb. 7:26) As a holy being, He would be perfectly righteous to view all sinners with the utmost contempt. But His is a loving holiness that reaches out to sinners with salvation for them - he antithesis of aloofness or indifference.
Love surely tempers even God's judgments. What a wonder it is that He who is a consuming fire, He who is unapproachable light, is also the personification of love! He postpones His judgments against sin while pleading with sinners to repent. He freely offers mercy to all who will repent. He shows longsuffering and goodness even to many who steel their hearts against Him. Divine love not only keeps divine wrath in check while God appeals to the sinner - but it also proves that God is just when He finally condemns. And even when He condemns, "God is love." Our God therefore shows Himself to be not only glorious but also good; not only spotlessly holy, but also wondrously compassionate; not only righteous, but also a God of matchless love. And that love emanates from His very essence.
From the truth that God is love, the apostle draws this corollary: "Love is from God."(1 Jn. 4:7). God is the source of all true love. Love is therefore the best evidence that a person truly knows God: "Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God." This kind of love does not flow naturally from the human heart. It is not a carnal love, a romantic love, or even a familial love. It is a supernatural love that is peculiar to those who know God. The word used to express this type of love in first-century culture was agape. This is a more refined and elevated kind of love and is unique to God. He is the only source of agape.
Love for family, romantic love, and the love of good friends are "natural affection." (Rom. 1:31, 2 Tim. 3:3<). Although "natural affection" can be marvelously rich, it is merely a pale reflection of the image of God in His creatures. His love is a perfect, pure, holy, godly love which can be known only by those who are born of Him. It is the same unfathomable love that moved God to send His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. (1 Jn. 4:9).
God's love is spontaneous. God freely willed to love us in spite of the fact there was nothing lovable in us to merit His sacrificial love. Agape is not interested in what it can gain, but in what it can give. It does not seek to satisfy itself, but it helps the one being loved, no matter what the cost. It is not mere sentiment or words, but an attitude that moves the will to meet the need of the one loved. Human will cannot produce this kind of love. It is from God Himself.
It is important to understand the context of John' first epistle. He is writing about assurance of salvation and outlining several practical and doctrinal tests that either demonstrate or disprove the genuineness of one' salvation. John is writing to help struggling believers gain assurance. He says so in 1 John 5:13. "These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life." A secondary purpose, is to destroy the false assurance of those who may profess faith in Christ without really knowing Him. Here he makes godly love a kind of litmus test for the true Christian: "The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love."
Sadly, most of us have encountered professing Christians whose hearts seem bereft of any genuine love. We are reminded that a mere pretension of faith in Christ is worthless. Genuine faith will inevitably be shown by love. This sort of God-given love is not easily counterfeited. It involves love for God Himself, love for the brethren, love of truth and righteousness love for the Word of God and even love for one's enemies! Such love is contrary to selfish human nature.
Here are some ways to know if we are abiding in love. Is there a loss of the sense that God is against me? Is there a loss of craven fear of God, and a corresponding increase in godly fear? Do I sense the love of God for me? Do I know that my sins are forgiven? Do I have a sense of gratitude to God? Do I have an increasing hatred for sin? Do I desire to please God and live a holy life? Is there a desire to know God better and draw near to Him? Is there a conscious regret that my love for Him is less than what it ought to be? Is there a sense of delight in hearing about God and the things of God?
The love of God is dynamic, active, vibrant, and powerful. God has "manifested" His love, or displayed it in a particular act that can be examined objectively. To say that God is love while denying the ddoctrinethat underlies and defined the truth is to make that truth mmeaningless Theological liberals are quick to say that God is love, but they deny the importance of Christ's substitutionary death on the cross. Because God is love, they say, Christ did not actually need to die as a sacrifice to turn God's wrath away from sinners. Christ's death becomes little more than a good example or an act of martyrdom. They reject the most important manifestation of God's love while claiming to put divine love at the center of their system. What John the Apostle teaches is that God gave His Son as an offering for sin to satisfy His own wrath and justice in the salvation of sinners. The Gospel does not say that God is willing to overlook sin and forgive sinners. This would compromise His holiness and leave justice unfulfilled. It would not be love, but apathy.
The Gospel does tell us that God took the initiative and paid the price of sin Himself through the sacrifice of His Son. Wrath was what was deserved, not love. God is righteous and must punish sin, but the death of Christ satisfied God's justice, righteousness and holy hatred of sin. In Christ's death on the cross we see the highest possible expression of divine love. It was not fair. We ought to be shocked and astonished at the price God paid to manifest His love. He shows love to sinful, fallen humanity who have no right to His goodness, mercy or love, and pours out His wrath on His beloved Son who had done nothing worthy of punishment.
If you're now awestruck by that, then you don't yet understand it. If you do catch a glimpse of this truth, then your thoughts of God as a loving Father will take on a whole new depth and richness.
Chapter 3 - Behold the Goodness -
A proper concept of God is essential to spiritual life and health. Those with a distorted concept of God cannot have faith. To misunderstand God's character can even be spiritually fatal. Many want a God who is loving and not wrathful. The God of the Bible does not fit their desired image, so they worship a God of their own making, which is idolatry.
Some think that Scripture reveals God to us progressively. The Old Testament portrayed Him as a wrathful, angry deity. Supposedly the New Testament corrected this "faulty" concept, emphasizing the love of God. All the biblical data quite clearly refutes this idea. The Old Testament has as much to say about the love of God as the New. God's love for Israel is revealed over and over, in spite of Israel's rejection.
The depiction of that love in the prophecy of Hosea is unmistakable, and even shocking. Hosea became a living illustration of divine love. His wife Gomer became a prostitute continued downhill until she was totally dissolute and was placed for sale in a slave market. Hosea bought her for his own, took her home, and treated her as if she were a virgin. Hosea's forgiving love for his evil wife, and his willingness to take her back no matter what she had done, are object lessons to illustrate God's love for sinning Israel. Throughout the Old Testament God is portrayed in this manner, as a God of tender mercies, infinite lovingkindness, great compassion, and patient longsuffering.
The New Testament has as much to say about the wrath of God as the Old. It was Jesus Himself who gave the most explicit descriptions of the horrors of hell. The final New Testament description of Christ in His Second-Coming glory says, "From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may smite the nations; and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty." There is no basis for the notion that the New Testament changes the concept of God from wrathful to loving. Both truths are stressed in both Testaments.
When we speak of God's love and God's wrath, we are not talking about anything like human passions. They are fixed and steady dispositions, not moods or passionate emotions. He does not swing wildly from one temperament to the other. He is eternally unchanging. God's wrath and love imply no contradiction in His nature. Because He so completely loves what is true and right, He must hate all that is false and wrong. Because He so perfectly loves His children, He seeks what blesses and edifies them, and hates all that curses and debases them. His wrath against sin is actually an expression of His love for His people. His chastening for their sin is proof that He is a loving Father. And when He exercises vengeance against the enemies of truth, that also reveals His love for His chosen ones. Israel's history is filled with examples of these truths.
One example of this was Nineveh, where both the goodness and the severity of God were dramatically put on display. Genesis 10:8-2 records that Nimrod founded the Babylonian kingdom, of which Nineveh was a part. It became the source of virtually every false religious system. Nineveh opposed everything the true God stood for and vice versa. In the eighth century, Nineveh became the capital of Assyria. The Assyrians were known for their wicked ruthlessness.
At the height of Assyrian power, God commanded a prophet of Israel, Jonah, to go to Nineveh and warn the people of God's impending judgment. Not surprisingly, the prophet rebelled and boarded a ship in the Mediterranean and headed the opposite direction! The Lord hurled a great wind on the sea so that the ship was about to break up. The sailors on the ship discovered that Jonah had angered God, and on Jonah's own instructions they threw him overboard.
God had prepared a great fish to be at precisely the right spot, and the fish swallowed Jonah. After three days and nights in the fish's belly - praying one of the finest prayers of repentance - the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land. Scripture says, "Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, 'rise, go to Nineveh the great city and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you.'". This time, albeit still reluctantly, Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord
Have you ever noticed why Jonah attempted to flee Nineveh? It was not because he feared the city's inhabitants. Jonah was very candid about why he fled his duty. He knew God loves sinners and seeks to save them, Jonah did not want to warn the Gentile Ninevites. His worst fear was that the city would repent, and then God would forestall His judgment.
That is precisely what happened. Jonah had barely been in Nineveh one day when a remarkable spiritual awakening rocked the place. The people of Nineveh believed in God; and the pagan city repented of the evil it had done. The revival went through the entire population (estimated at about 600,000). History has never seen another awakening like what happened in Nineveh.
But Jonah was not pleased. He had hoped to see God's judgment carried out. He camped on the east side of the city to see what would happen, and this reveals the main point of the Book of Jonah. God was giving Jonah a lesson about the glory of divine compassion. Jonah is camped in the desert outside Nineveh, keeping his bitter vigil. God appointed a plant and it grew up over Jonah to shade his head to deliver him from his discomfort. Jonah was happy about the plant. But God appointed a worm the next day, and it attacked the plant and it withered. When the sun came up that God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah's head so that he became faint and begged with all his soul to die.
Then God said to Jonah, "Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant?" And he said, "I have good reason to be angry, even to death." Then the Lord said, "You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work, and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight. And should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?"
That is surely one of the strangest finales in all Scripture. We are not told what became of Jonah, whether his attitude changed, or if he remained the entire forty days, still hoping for the destruction of Nineveh. But the lesson God was teaching was very clear. God is loving, merciful, patient, and compassionate toward sinners.
What happened to the prophecy of destruction? When God saw that they turned from their wicked way, He relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. Does this imply some changeableness in God? This is no contradiction; it is a figure of speech that assigns human thoughts and emotions to God to explain to us truths about God that cannot be expressed in literal human terms.
God did not actually changed His mind. It was the Ninevites who changed. The turning away of God's wrath was consistent with His eternal loving character. Indeed, if He had not stayed His hand against Nineveh, that would have signaled a change in God, for this gracious promise overrides all His threatened judgments. The prophecy of doom against Nineveh was issued against a people who were haughty, violent, God-hating pagans. No such threat is ever uttered against humble penitents clothed in sackcloth and ashes. The revival utterly changed the people of Nineveh, so God stayed His hand of judgment and forgave them out of His love.
What happened was God's design from the beginning. Jonah seemed to understand this. He sensed that the prophetic warning was intended by God to turn the hearts of the Ninevites. That was why he fled toward Tarshish at the outset. Certainly God, far from being surprised, was sovereign over every detail and supremely able to make all things work together for His own perfect ends. In every detail of everything, all His purposes are fulfilled and all His good pleasure is accomplished. Nothing can thwart, frustrate, or improve the perfect plan of God. He providentially controls everything that comes to pass, according to a plan He decreed before the foundation of the world.
Throughout the Book of Jonah we see God at work in divine providence, sovereignly orchestrating all events in accordance with His eternal purposes for His own glory and for the good of those who love Him. Here God was sovereignly directing everything, not only for the Ninevites' good, but for Jonah's good as well. God gave the pouting prophet a series of object lessons to rebuke his lack of love for the people of Nineveh
First, God appointed a plant to grow up over Jonah to shade Him from the desert sun during his vigil. Jonah was happy about the plant, and probably saw the plant as a token of God's favor to Him. A single plant miraculously shooting up in the middle of the desert in just the right place to provide shade for Jonah must signify that God was on his side, not on the side of the Ninevites! Jonah might have even thought it meant God was preparing to destroy Nineveh after all. The prophet's mood changed from anger to delight.
But at dawn of the very next day God appointed a worm, which attacked the plant so that it withered and died. Worse, God appointed a hot wind that sapped all the prophet's strength and suddenly made his circumstances thoroughly uncomfortable. God was still working all things for Jonah's good, but the prophet did not see it that way. His mood changed again. Now he was angrier than ever. He even begged God to let Him die. God rebuked the wayward prophet for his failure to understand divine compassion. He reminded Jonah that Nineveh was filled with young children. All of the people would be destroyed if God poured out His wrath on the city. Jonah was more concerned about his own personal comfort and had more feeling for the plant than for the people of Nineveh.
Jonah - himself a recipient of God's wondrous grace and had no right to resent God - compassion for others or be devoid of compassion himself. From a human perspective, it is understandable that Jonah, would have preferred Nineveh's destruction. But the human perspective is flawed. God is a God of patience, compassion, and grace. Because God was willing to show mercy to a wicked society, Jonah's preaching ushered in one of the most remarkable revivals in the history of mankind, in spite of Jonah himself. God was glorified in such a display of His great love for sinners.
God did not merely overlook the sins of that society and allow them to continue. He changed the hearts of the Ninevites. He turned their hearts and awakened them spiritually so that they mourned for their sins. True repentance from sin is always a gift of God, because if God had not turned their hearts, they never would have turned. It is amazing that an entire city could be instantly turned from evil arrogance to sackcloth and ashes. When the Ninevites believed God, their faith was a gift of God. Sadly, however, within a generation or so Nineveh reverted to her former ways, and God finally had to pour out His wrath on the city.
This shows that God's love and goodness, His grace and privileges are not to be taken lightly. With greater privilege comes greater responsibility, and those who sin against God's goodness only deepen their condemnation. One blessed generation saw the goodness of God when what they deserved was His wrath. Only eternity will reveal how many souls were swept into the kingdom in that glorious revival. But the glory soon departed. Tragically, the offspring of that revived generation of Ninevites returned to their forefathers' extreme wickedness. God was not through with Nineveh. The final page of her history was not yet written. That wretched city, which had tasted so much of divine goodness only to spurn God Himself, was about to learn what a fearful thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God.
Chapter 4 - And the Severity of God
Over a hundred years from the time of Jonah, the prophet Nahum prophesied Nineveh's final doom. Nahum was called specifically to prophecy regarding Nineveh. This time God's purpose was vengeance, not mercy. God was about to glorify Himself again, this time not by showing His love, but His wrath.
The Assyrians stepped up their barbarous treatment of Israel. The rulers boasted of their brutalities. They liked to torture their victims with slow, cruel means of death, and they were known for building monuments to their conquests out of mutilated human remains. The Assyrian ruler Sennacherib was the worst of the lot. Through Nahum, God was in effect saying He would no longer tolerate the sins of such a nation or the persecution of His people. And since Nineveh was the capital city of Assyria, it was against the Ninevites that God pronounced His judgment. Under Jonah, God displayed His love and compassion for the citizens of Nineveh. Now He would pour out His wrath. Either way, He received glory.
Ultimately a holy God must wreak vengeance against sin. God is a righteous Judge. For Him to fail to carry out judgment would be inconsistent with His glory, untrue to His Word, and a contradiction of who He is. His judgment is as essential to His glory as His love. Nahum sets outlines four aspects of God's judgment that show the perfect equilibrium of the divine attributes.
As Creator, He is entitled to rule over all His creatures any way He pleases, with total power to determine how His creation functions. He is righteous, always holding to the highest standard of truth and perfect virtue. Anyone who does not conform to the will of God incurs the inflexible justice of God. He cannot be unjust.
Nahum tells us that God is jealous. He is intolerant of unbelief, rebellion, disloyalty or infidelity. He is insulted when people worship anything or anyone besides Him. He demands to be given His rightful place above all else that we love or worship. This might appear as self-centeredness, but in contrast to all of creation, God is entitled to demand worship and be jealous of His own glory. What would be unacceptable pride in any lesser being is the necessary expression of holy God who refuses to have his holiness compromised. His jealousy is therefore a righteous jealousy.
To disgrace God's honor by worshiping a false God, disobeying the true God or failing to love Him with all the heart , soul, mind and strength is to incite His jealousy and incur His wrath. He tolerates no rivals and permits no rebels. He is a jealous God. He is jealous when those who are the objects of His lovingkindness are drawn away by sin and evil to worship other gods. He is jealous when those who ought to love Him defy Him and set their love on lesser objects. His love would actually be diminished if He relinquished His jealous anger.
Let's return to Nahum's prophecy against Nineveh. We see God's wrath - tempered by His patience and love - must give way to His avenging anger against sin. There are no idle threats. God is about to avenge His name against a wicked city that was once the recipient of His patience and compassion. Now Nineveh will find no mercy.
The concept of vengeance often carries less than noble connotations. Jesus forbade us to have a vengeful spirit. But God has every right to unleash His vengeance against the wicked. In fact, He has the exclusive right to judge evildoers, execute vengeance, and pour out His wrath against sin. Those are prerogatives of God and God alone. We are in fact, commanded not to take our own vengeance.
Sinners often presume on the mercy and goodness of God. He is slow to anger - patient, longsuffering, kind, and gracious. But no sinner should ever take the goodness of God for granted or mistake His patience for weakness. His forbearance is not indifference. No one should assume His kindness is permission to continue in sin and unbelief. No one should think of His love as an antidote to His wrath. His goodness is not given as a comfort for sinners, but to lead them to repentance. Though loving, God has no plan to overlook sin.
Nahum's prophecy shows God's power by using three aspects of nature: God's power in the heavens, over the waters, and on the land. God controls the whirlwinds, the storms, and the clouds, which also are frequently employed as instruments of His judgment. Jesus rebuked the wind and the sea, and the wind died down and it became perfectly calm. The disciples saw the awesome power of God in Christ and trembled. They knew it was the power of a holy, omnipotent, avenging Judge. Perhaps their minds even went back to Nahum, and they remembered the prophecy of divine vengeance.
Nahum next spoke of God's power over the land: "Mountains quake because of Him, And the hills dissolve; Indeed the earth is upheaved by His presence, the world and all the inhabitants in it." Someday God - according to Revelation 6:12, will shake the earth with an earthquake from which the world as we know it will never recover. Haggai 2:6 contains this prophecy. Divine wrath did finally bring about the doom of Nineveh, and all Nahum's prophecies were fulfilled. God's justice is absolutely inflexible. His power is absolutely irresistible. Our God is a consuming fire.
He is also a God of infinite mercy. Nahum reminds the people of Israel that God is a place of refuge to which those who believe and trust in Him can flee to for protection. The same God who threatens judgment against the wicked lovingly, compassionately invites sinful souls in despair to find their refuge in Him. He alone will be their protection from divine judgment. He shelters those who trust Him with His own righteousness, which is theirs by faith.
The doctrine of justification is finally expounded in the New Testament. There we learn that the very righteousness of God in Christ is imputed to believers solely by faith and not owing to any works performed by the believing one (Rom. 4:4). Christ Himself has already fulfilled the righteous requirements of the law on behalf of believers, and died in their place to pay sin's dreadful price. All believers in Christ are freed from their guilt and given Christ's perfect righteousness.
The textbook definition of justification by faith is this: Justification is a judicial act of God, in which He declares, on the basis of the righteousness of Jesus Christ, that all the claims of the law are satisfied with respect to the sinner. In other words, God declares the believing sinner righteous because of Christ, not because of any actual righteousness on the part of the sinner himself. If God did not justify sinners, we would be in a hopeless state.
We see that the love of God and His wrath are inextricably linked. It is impossible to study one without encountering the other. Nahum knew God as both sovereign and good. There was no contradiction. The Lord is good; forty-one times in the Old Testament we are told that His mercy endures forever. All creation speaks of God's essential goodness. No one appreciates the goodness of God like those who seek their refuge in Him. They are the ones who know Him and love Him. They are the ones on whom He has set His eternal love. They have fled to Him as their stronghold, and found mercy. They experience His goodness like no others. They appreciate His love like no one else. He knows those who take refuge in Him.
Does that mean the only people He knows about are the ones who trust Him? The word "know" is often used in Scripture to speak of intimate love, deep, tender and personal. This divine love is unequaled by any earthly love. God does not merely know who His own are, He has an intimate relationship with them. God intimately loves those who trust in Him. The knowledge of that love is the greatest of all delights that can be experienced by the human heart. Micah 7:18-19 "Who is a God like Thee, who pardons iniquity and passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of His possession? He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in unchanging love. He will again have compassion on us; He will tread our iniquities under foot. Yes, Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea."
He is a God of inconceivable righteousness. It is tempting to focus on the goodness of God. But we must note that it is only a one-verse interlude in a chapter that extols the utter righteousness of God in judging the wicked. The Book of Nahum, as we have noted, is a prophecy of doom on a wicked city. Whatever is devised against the Lord, He will make a complete end of it. Hardened sinners should take note and tremble.
Nahum's message foretells the defeat of the Assyrians. The prophecy was fulfilled to the letter. We read in 2 Kings 19 that one night "the angel of the Lord went out, and struck 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians; and when men rose early in the morning, behold, all of them were dead. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned home, and lived at Nineveh. And it came about as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer killed him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son became king in his place. After a series of enemy attacks and natural disasters, Nineveh was overwhelmed by the armies of the Medes, and the city was utterly leveled. When Nineveh fell, the Assyrian Empire toppled along with it.
Paul indicates in Romans 8:31 that if God be for us, no one can successfully be against us. The reverse is true also: if God be against an individual or nation by virtue of sin, then no one can successfully be for that person or nation. When Assyria touched Israel, God inevitably turned against is because of His promise to curse those who had cursed the seed of Abraham. The truth of God's dictum is written in the fate of Nineveh. God's wrath is proof of His love. His judgment is linked to His faithfulness. And He is righteous when He judges.
God has immeasurable love for His own people. The destruction of Nineveh freed Israel from centuries of grief at the hands of marauding Assyrians. It was God's message to a wayward nation that He still loved them. God had chastened Israel severely for her sins. But His purpose in afflicting Israel was only corrective. There is a difference between God's judgment and His discipline. Judgment is severe, final, destructive. Discipline is loving, tender, and corrective.
No one should be lulled into carelessness by the knowledge that God is loving and gracious. God's love is immeasurable, unfathomable, and inexhaustible. It is perfectly correct to say that God's love is infinite. But that does not mean His love negates His righteousness or overrules His holy wrath. Those who spurn God's love and follow their own ways will ultimately suffer the same fate as Nineveh. That city, where the love of God was once poured out in so great abundance, finally perished in the fury of His wrath.
Chapter 5 - Everything I Need to Know About the Love of God I Learned in the Nursery?
Jesus loves me, this I know, For the Bible tells me so.
From childhood most of us have heard that God loves us. This truth is so wonderful that it is among the first things we teach our children about God. But this subject is not child's play, and God's love sometimes raises complex and disturbing questions. If God is the loving Father of humanity, why doesn't He act like a human father who loves his children? Why does He allow His creatures to make choices that result in their destruction, when He could prevent it or overrule it? If God is a loving God, why did He allow sin in the first place, and why death?
There are more questions, and they get even harder: If God is love, why isn't everyone saved? Why would a loving God send people to hell to suffer forever? Why would a loving God devise a plan that has so many people going to hell for all eternity? What kind of love is it that can control the world but allows the world to suffer the way it suffers? What kind of love is it that is sovereign and yet sends poor, suffering people to an eternal flame? How are we to understand that kind of love?
Those questions are reasonable, and they need to be faced honestly. Those who settle for easy answers to these questions often make shipwreck of the faith. Universalism teaches that everyone will be saved because God is love, He cannot eternally condemn anyone. Annihilationism says that God takes believers to heaven and puts the rest out of existence. A doctrine closely related to annihilationism is a theory known as conditional immortality. This view suggests that the human soul is transient until immortality is bestowed upon it. Since eternal life is given only to believers, all others simply pass into oblivion after the final judgment. Those errors give people a false sense of safety. Jesus Himself described hell in graphic terms. Embracing any alternate theory has the effect of making people indifferent to evangelism.
But one can easily err in the other direction as well. There are some Christians who ponder the hard questions about divine love and conclude that God simply does not love people who aren't His own; He hates them. Under this scheme, there is no tension between the love of God and His wrath. They conclude that hatred and genuine love are mutually exclusive. Therefore according to this view, the love of God is limited to the elect alone.
That restricts God's love to a remnant, and pictures Him hating the vast majority of humanity. That is not consistent with the God of Scripture, who is "compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth." (Exod. 34:6).
The Lord is good to all, and His mercies are over all His works. And what about "God so loved the world" (Jn. 3:16)? The whole point is that Christ's incarnation was a rescue mission, not a crusade for judgement. God sent Christ to be born out of love, not out of a desire to condemn. It was to save, not to destroy. The word "world" refers to the human race. We cannot restrict the verse to meaning either "every individual" or "only the elect." So how are we to understand Romans 9:3: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." He hated the evil Esau represented. He hated Esau's unbelief, sin and worldliness. And in a very real sense, God hated Esau himself. It was not a petty, spiteful, childish kind of hatred, but something far more dreadful. It was divine antipathy - holy loathing directed at Esau personally. God abominated him as well as what he stood for. Esau, for his part, hated the things of God. He despised His birthright and sold it for one bowl of lentil stew. He brought nothing but grief to his parents. He plotted to kill his own brother. He married pagan women because he knew it displeased his father. He lived a careless, worldly life of utter disregard and disrespect for the God of his ancestors. Certainly God hated all that, as well as Esau himself.
The passage Paul quotes in Romans 9 is Malachi 1:2. God was speaking of two nations, Israel and Edom, merely calling them by the names of their respective ancestors. The words "i have hated Esau" have a meaning that goes beyond Esau himself and encompasses the whole evil nation of Edom. The hatred this describes is not a petty, spiteful loathing, but a holy abhorrence of people who were thoroughly and absolutely debauched. God's hatred for Esau and the nation of Edom does not prove that He had no love whatsoever to Esau or his descendants. In fact, we know from Scripture that God was kind to this despicable nation. When the Israelites left Egypt on their way to Canaan, they passed through the land of Edom. God firmly instructed Moses, "Do not provoke them, for I will not give you any of their land, even as little as a footstep because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession."
This holy hatred combined with lovingkindness implies no inconsistency on God's part. Both love and wrath are reflections of His nature; He is loving, yet holy. He is compassionate, yet indignant over evil. As I have already noted, hatred and love are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Even in the range of human emotions, such feelings are quite common. Any parent knows that wrath and love do not rule out one another. We know that God is often angry with those who are the objects of His everlasting love.
We simply cannot resolve the difficult questions about divine love by concluding that God actually withholds His lovingkindness, compassion, mercy, and goodwill from all but the elect. So we must reject universalism, annihilationism, and conditional immortality. But we must also refuse the notion that God's hatred for the wicked rules out any love for them. How then shall we answer the hard questions about divine love?
One other solution is often suggested. It is to tell those inclined to ask hard questions, "Shut your mouth. You have no right to ask the question." God will do whatever He wants to do because He is completely sovereign. He is the Potter. He decides what the pot will be like. And the pot has no right to object. We cannot comprehend His ways. Many of the questions we ask have answers we could never comprehend. Certainly we have no right to challenge God's motives. We are not entitled to subject Him to our interrogation, as if He were accountable to us. And sometimes the questions we raise do not even deserve to be answered. In the end, we will be left with many unanswered questions. That will bring us to Romans 9:20 and the inevitable place where we must simply close our mouths and stand in awe. Before we get to that point, there are many things that we do need to understand. Romans 9:20 is a fitting response to a skeptic. It is appropriate for the person who will not be satisfied with knowing what God Himself has revealed. But for the truth-seeker sincerely wanting to understand God and His love, there is much in the Bible to help him come to grips with the hard questions before coming to a stop at Romans 9:20.
That is not to say that we can find all the answers to our hardest questions. We can't. Take, for example, the very difficult question of why a loving God does not redeem everyone. If God is love, why does He send some people to an endless hell? Why doesn't He redeem everyone? We simply do not know. Scripture doesn't say. God Himself does not reveal to us the answers to those questions. Anyone who pretends to know more than God has told us is foolish. Ultimately we reach the place where we must leave our questions to God and trust His essential righteousness, His lovingkindness, His tender mercy, and His justice. We learn to live with the questions in light of what we know to be true about God. At that point, Romans 9:20 becomes a satisfying answer, because we know we can trust the Potter. Meanwhile, as we search God's Word with an open heart, God's own self-revelation gives us a wonderful, marvelous, rich, comprehensible understanding of His love.
In grappling with the hard questions about God's love it is crucial to bear in mind that human tendency to see things from the wrong perspective. We cannot comprehend an infinite God with our finite minds. If we attempt to measure God from a human perspective, all our thinking about Him will be out of whack. And we sin against God when we think things of Him that are unbefitting of His glory.
Remember how the book of Job ends? God rebuked not only Job's counselors, but also Job himself, for entertaining thoughts about God that were not sufficiently high. Both Job and his counselors were attempting to explain God in human terms. They were trying to make sense of what Job was going through, but their failure to see God as far above His creatures had skewed their view of what was happening. The counselors were giving the wrong answers, and Job was asking the wrong questions. God put some questions of His own to Job:
In Job 38 God is recounting His own creative works, and asking if Job is wise enough to tell God how these things are to be done. From this point on, for three or four chapters, God lists the marvels of His creation and challenges Job to tell Him if he knows better than God how the universe ought to be run. Rather than seeking to vindicate Himself in Job's eyes, God simply appealed to His own sovereignty.
Then God asked Job, "Will you really annul My judgment? Will you condemn Me that you may be justified? Or do you have an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like His?" Job 40:8. Job's questions, valid as they may have seemed for someone who had suffered all Job had suffered, actually cast aspersions on God's character. Job was stepping over the line if he thought he could justify himself at God's expense.
Job, by God's own testimony, was a blameless and upright man. There was no one like Job on the face of the earth. Yet he suffered. It was inevitable that Job would struggle with some very difficult questions like those, as people do today. But the moment his questions reflected misgivings about God's wisdom, His love, His goodness, and the equity of His justice, Job and his friends had crossed the line. They were appraising God by human standards. They forgot that He is the Potter and we are merely the clay. So God rebuked them. Job immediately saw his sin: "Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know."(42:3). As we ponder our own hard questions about God's love, we must take great care lest the very questions themselves provoke us to think inadequate or inappropriate thoughts about God or develop sinful attitudes toward His love and wisdom.
We dare not make the error Job's counselors made, thinking we can observe the workings of providence and thereby discern the mind of God. Job's friends thought his sufferings were proof that Job was guilty of some secret sin. In reality, the opposite was true. Since it is clear from many scriptures that we cannot know God's mind, we must not try to read too much into His works of providence.
We cannot assume we know the meaning or purpose of every fortune or disaster that befalls. Often the unrighteous seem to prosper and experience God's goodness. What often seems like divine blessing is no proof of God's favor. Don't think for a moment that prosperity is proof of divine approval. The righteous frequently suffer disaster and persecution, but Romans 8:28 tells us that God causes all things to work together for good for those who love God. The very thing that seems good will end in evil for the impenitent and unbelieving. But for God's own children, even trouble and discipline are intended for good (Gen. 50:20). Therefore the greatest disaster from our perspective may actually be a token of God's lovingkindness.
The area where I live is active with earthquakes. At 4:31 a.m. on January 17, 1994, I was suddenly awakened by the most severe tremor I have ever felt. Everyone seems to see the hand of God in such an event. One of the major networks sent their top news anchor to interview me for a story on the earthquake as a judgment of God. One of the first questions the anchorman asked was whether I thought the earthquake was a divine judgment.
My response surprised him. I said I thought God had shown more mercy than judgment in the earthquake. After all, it occurred at an hour when most people were at home in bed, on a Monday that was a government holiday. Fewer people were on the roads than at any other time during the week. The national media had shown scenes of vehicles trapped on islands of roadway where portions of a bridge had collapsed in front of and behind them. Incredibly, not one vehicle had fallen to the ground below. Freeways collapsed, parking structures crumbled, and high-rise office buildings fell. Many people I know narrowly escaped death or serious injury. But of the millions of people living in the quake area, fewer than sixty were killed! In fact, the most remarkable thing of all about the earthquake was the low death toll.
What most of the world saw as a catastrophe, what most Christians assumed was a severe judgment, was undoubtedly a token of divine mercy. It surely was a warning of greater judgment to come. But like most incidents that we deem tragedies, the quake undoubtedly held a mixture of both the goodness and the severity of God. In my estimation, the blessings far outweighed the calamity. Clearly, however, we cannot know the mind of God. There are, therefore, many pitfalls to avoid in both asking and answering the hard questions about God's love. The subject is not child's play.
Chapter 6 - The Love of God for Humanity
John 3:16 may be familiar, but it is most abused and least understood. "God so loved the world" has become a favorite cheer for many people who presume on God's love and who do not love Him in return. The verse is often quoted as evidence that God loves everyone exactly the same and that He is infinitely merciful, as if the verse negated all the biblical warnings of condemnation for the wicked. That is not the point of John 3:16. One has only to read verse 18 to see the balance of the truth: "He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." Surely this is a truth that needs to be proclaimed to the world at least as urgently as the truth of John 3:16.
Nevertheless, while acknowledging that some people are prone to abuse the notion of God's love, we cannot respond by minimizing what Scripture says about the extent of God's love. Some Christians actually deny that God truly loves the whole world and say that the only correct interpretation of John 3:16 is one that actually limits God's love to the elect. Neither Scripture nor sound logic will support such assertions.
Scripture says that God is love. Christ even commands us to love our enemies, and the reason He gives is this: "In order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." The clear implication is that in some sense God loves His enemies. He loves both "the evil and the good," both "the righteous and the unrighteous" in precisely the same sense we are commanded to love our enemies.
The second greatest commandment, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" is a commandment for us to love everyone . This love commanded here is clearly a universal, indiscriminate love. Jesus perfectly fulfilled the law in every respect ( Matt. 5:17・8 ), including this command for universal love. Would God command us to love in a way that He does not? Would God demand that our love be more far-reaching than His own?
John 3:16 is a declaration of good news to say that Christ came into the world on a mission of salvation, not a mission of condemnation: To turn it around and make it an expression of divine hatred against those whom God does not intervene to save is to turn the passage on its head. Our primary concern as we interpret the word "world" in John 3:16 should not be to limit the extent of God's love, as much as to magnify the rich wonder of it.
Wicked as the world was He nevertheless loved the world of humanity so much "that He gave His only begotten Son," the dearest sacrifice He could make, so "that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." The end result of God's love is the free offer of life and mercy to anyone who believes, an indiscriminate offer of divine mercy to everyone without exception. Unless we mean to ascribe unrighteousness to God, we must affirm that the offer of mercy in the gospel is sincere and well-meant. Surely His pleas for the wicked to turn from their evil ways and live must reflect a sincere desire on God's part.
Scripture clearly proclaims God's absolute and utter sovereignty over all that happens. He declared the end of all things before time even began, so whatever comes to pass is in perfect accord with the divine plan. What God has purposed, He will also do. He is not subject to His creatures' choices. Nothing occurs but that which is in accord with His purposes. Nothing can thwart God's design, and nothing can occur apart from His sovereign decree.
But that does not mean God derives pleasure from every aspect of what He has decreed. God explicitly says that He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He hates all expressions of wickedness and pride. Since none of those things can occur apart from the decree of a sovereign God, we must conclude that there is a sense in which His decrees do not always reflect His desires; His purposes are not necessarily accomplished in accord with His preferences.
That same principle applies when we are grappling with the question of God's expressed desire for the wicked to repent. If God's "desire" remains unfulfilled (and we know that in some cases, it does Lk. 13:34), we cannot conclude that God is somehow less than sovereign. We know He is fully sovereign; we do not know why He does not turn the heart of every sinner to Himself. Nor should we speculate in this area. It remains a mystery the answer to which God has not seen fit to reveal.
Most have no objection to the idea that God's love is universal, but this hard to reconcile with the doctrine of election. The highest expression of divine love to sinful humanity is seen in the fact that God set His love on certain undeserving sinners and chose them for salvation before the foundation of the world. There is a proper sense in which God's love for His own is a unique, special, particular love determined to save them at all costs.
It is also true that when Scripture speaks of divine love, the focus is usually on God's eternal love toward the elect. God's love for mankind reaches fruition in the election of those whom He saves. And not every aspect of divine love is extended to all sinners without exception. Otherwise, all would be elect, and all would ultimately be saved. But Scripture clearly teaches that many will be saved (Matt. 7:22・3). Can God sincerely love those whom He does not intervene to save?
There is no escaping the conclusion that God's love extends even to sinners whom He ultimately will condemn. Biblically, we cannot escape the conclusion that God's benevolent, merciful love is unlimited in extent. He loves the whole world of humanity. This love extends to all people in all times. It is what Titus 3:4 refers to as "the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind." God's singular love for the elect quite simply does not rule out a universal love of sincere compassion and a sincere desire on God's part to see every sinner turn to Christ.
Mark 10 relates a familiar story that illustrates God's love for the lost. It is the account of the rich young ruler who came to Jesus and began asking Him a great question: "Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Scripture tells us: And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments, 'Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.'"
Every aspect of Jesus' reply was designed to confront the young man's sin. Many people misunderstand the point of Jesus' initial question: "Why do you call Me good?" Our Lord was not denying His own sinlessness or deity. Plenty of verses of Scripture affirm that Jesus was indeed sinless. He is therefore also God incarnate. But Jesus' reply to this young man had a twofold purpose: first, to underscore His own deity, confronting the young man with the reality of who He was; and second, to gently chide a brash young man who clearly thought of himself as good.
To stress this second point, Jesus quoted a section of the Decalogue. Had the young man been genuinely honest with himself, he would have had to admit that he had not kept the law perfectly. But instead, he responded confidently, "Teacher, I have kept all these things from my youth up." This was unbelievable impertinence on the young man's part. It shows how little he understood of the demands of the law. He was not willing to admit he had sinned. So Jesus gave him a second test: "One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess, and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me" (Mk. 10:21)
Sadly, the young man declined. Here were two things he refused to do: he would not acknowledge his sin, and he would not bow to Christ's lordship. In other words, he shut himself off from the eternal life he seemed so earnestly to be seeking. As it turned out, there were things more important to him than eternal life, after all. His pride and his personal property took priority in his heart over the claims of Christ on his life. And so he turned away from the only true Source of the life he thought he was seeking. That is the last we ever see of this man in the New Testament. As far as the biblical record is concerned, he remained in unbelief. But notice this significant phrase, tucked away in Mark 10:21: "Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him." Here we are explicitly told that Jesus loved an overt, open, non-repentant, non-submissive Christ-rejector. He loved him.
That's not the only Scripture that speaks of God's love for those who turn away from Him. Isaiah 63 describes God's demeanor toward the nation of Israel: "I shall make mention of the lovingkindnesses of the Lord, the praises of the Lord, according to all that the Lord has granted us, and the great goodness toward the house of Israel, which He has granted them according to His compassion, and according to the multitude of His lovingkindnesses. For He said, "Surely, they are My people, Sons who will not deal falsely." So He became their Savior. In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them; in His love and in His mercy He redeemed them; and He lifted them and carried them all the days of old."
Someone might say, Yes, but that talks about God's redemptive love for His elect alone. No, this speaks of a love that spread over the entire nation of Israel. God "became their Savior" in the sense that He redeemed the entire nation from Egypt. He suffered when they suffered. He sustained them "all the days of old." This speaks not of an eternal salvation, but of a temporal relationship with an earthly nation. How do we know? Look at verse 10: "But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit; therefore, He turned Himself to become their enemy, He fought against them."
That is an amazing statement! Here we see God defined as the Savior, the lover, the redeemer of a people who make themselves His enemies. They rebel against Him. They grieve His Holy Spirit. They choose a life of sin. These are clearly unconverted, unbelieving people. In what sense can God call Himself their Savior?
Here is the sense of it: God revealed Himself as Savior. He manifested His love to the nation. "in all their affliction He was afflicted." He poured out His goodness, and lovingkindness and mercy on the nation. And that divine forbearance and longsuffering should have moved them to repentance. But instead they responded with unbelief, and their hearts were hardened. God turned away from these rebellious people, consigned them to their own idolatry, and chose a people for Himself from among other nations. God judged them with the utmost severity, because their hostility to Him was great, and their rejection of Him was final. Yet these were people on whom God had showered love and goodness! He even called Himself their Savior.
In a similar sense Jesus is called "Savior of the world". The point is not that He actually saves the whole world (for that would be universalism, and Scripture clearly teaches that not all will be saved). The point is that He is the only Savior to whom anyone in the world can turn for forgiveness and eternal life - and therefore, all are urged to embrace Him as Savior. Jesus Christ is proffered to the world as Savior. In setting forth His own Son as Savior of the world, God displays the same kind of love to the whole world that was manifest in the Old Testament to the rebellious Israelites. It is a sincere, tender-hearted, compassionate love that offers mercy and forgiveness.
In what sense is God's love universal? Common grace is a term theologians use to describe the goodness of God to all mankind universally. Common grace restrains sin and the effects of sin on the human race. Common grace is what keeps humanity from descending into the morass of evil that we would see if the full expression of our fallen nature were allowed to have free reign.
Scripture teaches that we are totally depraved - tainted with sin in every aspect of our being (Rom. 3:10・8). People who doubt this doctrine often ask, "How can people who are supposedly totally depraved enjoy beauty, have a sense of right and wrong, know the pangs of a wounded conscience, or produce great works of art and literature? Aren't these accomplishments of humanity proof that the human race is essentially good? Don't these things testify to the basic goodness of human nature?"
And the answer is no. Human nature is utterly corrupt. Common grace is all that restrains the full expression of human sinfulness. God has graciously given us a conscience, which enables us to know the difference between right and wrong, and to some degree places moral constraints on evil behavior (Rom. 2:15). He sovereignly maintains order in human society through government (Rom. 13:1・). He enables us to admire beauty and goodness (Ps. 50:2). He imparts numerous advantages, blessings, and tokens of His kindness indiscriminately on both the evil and the good, the righteous and the unrighteous (Matt. 5:45). All of those things are the result of common grace, God's goodness to mankind in general.
Common grace does not pardon sin or redeem sinners, but it is nevertheless a sincere token of God's goodwill to mankind in general. If you question the love and goodness of God to all, look again at the world in which we live. Someone might say, "There's a lot of sorrow in this world." The only reason the sorrow and tragedy stand out is because there is also much joy and gladness. The only reason we recognize the ugliness is that God has given us so much beauty. The only reason we feel the disappointment is that there is so much that satisfies.
When we understand that all of humanity is fallen and rebellious and unworthy of any blessing from God's hand, it helps give a better perspective. The only reason God ever gives us anything to laugh at, smile at, or enjoy is because He is a good and loving God. If He were not, we would be immediately consumed by His wrath. While allowing sinners to "go their own ways," God nevertheless bestows on them temporal tokens of His goodness and lovingkindness. It is not saving grace. It has no redemptive effect. Nevertheless, it is a genuine and unfeigned manifestation of divine lovingkindness to all people.
God's love to all humanity is a love of compassion or pity. He does not love us because we are lovable. He is not merciful to us because we deserve His mercy. We are despicable, vile sinners who if we are not saved by the grace of God will be thrown on the trash heap of eternity, which is hell. We have no intrinsic value, no intrinsic worth - there's nothing in us to love. God does not love us "for what we are." He loves us in spite of what we are. He does not love us because we are special. Rather, it is only His love and grace that give our lives any significance at all. That may seem like a doleful perspective to those raised in a culture where self-esteem is elevated to the supreme virtue. God loves because He is love; love is essential to who He is. Rather than viewing His love as proof of something worthy in us, we ought to be humbled by it.
God's love for the reprobate is not the love of value; it is the love of pity for that which could have had value and has none. It is a love of compassion. It is a love of sorrow. It is a love of pathos. It is the same deep sense of compassion and pity we have when we see a scab-ridden derelict lying in the gutter. It is not a love that is incompatible with revulsion, but it is a genuine, well-meant, compassionate, sympathetic love nonetheless.
New Testament gives us the picture of Christ, weeping over the city of Jerusalem: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling" (Matt. 23:37, Luke 19:41・4).Those are words of doom, yet they are spoken in great, genuine sorrow.
God's universal love is revealed not only in common grace and His great compassion, but also in His admonition to repent. God is constantly warning the reprobate of their impending fate, and pleading with them to turn away from sin. Nothing demonstrates God's love more than the various warnings throughout the pages of Scripture, urging sinners to flee from the wrath to come. Anyone who knows anything about Scripture knows it is filled with warnings about the judgment to come, warnings about hell, and warnings about the severity of divine punishment. If God really did not love the reprobate, nothing would compel Him to warn them. He would be perfectly just to punish them for their sin and unbelief with no admonition whatsoever. But He does love and He does care and He does warn. This is further proof that God is love.
We see proof that God's love extends to all in the gospel offer. No one is excluded from the gospel invitation. Salvation in Christ is freely and indiscriminately offered to all. Jesus told a parable in Matthew 22:2・4 about a king who was having a marriage celebration for his son. He sent his servants to invite the wedding guests. Scripture says simply, "they were unwilling to come" (v. 3). The king sent his servants again, saying, "Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and my fattened livestock are all butchered and everything is ready; come to the wedding feast" (v. 4). But even after that second invitation, the invited guests remained unwilling to come. In fact, Scripture says, "They paid no attention and went their way, one to his own farm, another to his business, and the rest seized his slaves and mistreated them and killed them" (vv. 5・). This was outrageous, inexcusable behavior! And the king judged them severely for it.
Then Scripture says he told his servants, "The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the main highways, and as many as you find there, invite to the wedding feast" (v. 9). He opened the invitation to all comers. Jesus closes with this: "Many are called, but few are chosen" (v. 14).
The parable represents God's dealing with the nation of Israel. They were the invited guests. But they rejected the Messiah. They spurned Him and mistreated Him and crucified Him. They wouldn't come - as Jesus said to them, "You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that bear witness of Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me, that you may have life" (Jn. 5:39-40). The gospel invites many to come who are unwilling to come. Many are called who are not chosen. The invitation to come is given indiscriminately to all, not to the elect alone.
God's love for mankind does not stop with a warning of the judgment to come. It also invites sinners to partake of divine forgiveness and mercy. The gospel is a free offer of Christ and His salvation to all who hear. Those who deny the free offer therefore alter the nature of the gospel itself. And those who deny that God's love extends to all humanity obscure some of the most blessed truth in all Scripture about God and His lovingkindness. God's love extends to the whole world. It covers all humanity. We see it in common grace. We see it in His compassion. We see it in His admonitions to the lost. And we see it in the free offer of the gospel to all. God is love, and His mercy is over all His works. But there is an even greater aspect of the love of God that is made manifest in His sovereign election and salvation of certain sinners. And it is to this higher kind of love that we now turn our attention.
Chapter 7 - The Love of God for His Elect
No one ought to conclude that because God's love is universally extended to all that God therefore loves everyone equally. The fact that God loves every man and woman does not mean that He loves all alike. God has set His love on certain individuals and predestined them to eternal life. Here, of course, we touch on the biblical doctrine of election. Most people struggle with this doctrine when they first encounter it. Yet as we shall see, the doctrine is clearly taught in Scripture. And it is so crucial to understanding the love of God that we must address it here.
God's love and goodness ought to lead the sinner to repentance, but the sinner stubbornly persists in his sin and unbelief. Therefore, God's compassionate love and goodness ultimately give way to hatred and judgment. Some people would like to believe that God loves everyone so much that ultimately everyone will be saved. They suggest that even those who reject Him here on earth will be given a second chance on the other side of the grave, but Scripture holds forth no such hope. Others say that God hates the sin, but not the sinner. Remember that it is the sinner himself who is judged, condemned and punished. God's hatred of sin is not a malevolent hatred; it is a holy abhorrence for that which is vile, loathsome, and evil. While there is a genuine sense in which God's love is universal in its extent, there is another sense in which it is limited in degree. The love of God for all humanity is not the sort of love that guarantees everyone's salvation. It is not a love that nullifies His holy abhorrence of sin. It is not a saving love.
There is an even greater love of God that does accomplish the salvation of sinners. It is a special love, bestowed from all eternity on those whom He has chosen as His own. God's love for those who believe - is love for the elect - is infinitely greater in degree than His love for humanity in general. Here we are talking about a very, very important doctrine of Scripture. It is crucial that we see that God has a special love for His own, His chosen people, and that He loves them with an eternal, unchanging love.
John 13:1 describes the love of Christ for His disciples: "Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end." Another version translates that same verse this way: "Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love." The phrase "to the end" (Jn. 13:1) in Greek is eis telos. "To the end" is an acceptable translation, but idiomatically this is an expression that carries the meaning "completely, perfectly, fully, or comprehensively - to the uttermost." God loves the world, but He loves "His own" perfectly, unchangingly, completely, fully, comprehensively - eis telos. He loves His own to the complete extent of His capacity to love His creatures. He loves them enough to make them joint-heirs with Christ. He loves them enough to make them into His very image. He lavishes them with all the riches of His grace for all of eternity. He loves them as fully and completely as any human could ever be loved by God - and His love knows no limits.
This is also an unconditional love. Look at the context: Jesus was in the Upper Room with the disciples on the night He was betrayed. At this moment He was very much aware of their failures and weaknesses and their disappointing actions. They seemed to struggle to comprehend the simplest truths. They were a cowardly, disloyal, frightened group who would very soon scatter when He was taken prisoner. Christ knew this. He predicted that Peter would shamefully deny Him three times. He knew that when He hung on the cross the next day, most of the disciples would not even be present.
His love for them had never failed. He had proved it time and again. He even began their final evening together in the Upper Room by washing their feet, as if He were a lowly servant to them. Even after that, however, they interrupted the meal with an argument about which one of them was the greatest (Lk. 22:24)! He had loved them as magnanimously as was reasonable, and this is what He got in return. His love for them was not repaid as it should have been. The disciples had ignored His love, taken it for granted, and abused it. But He loved them to the end. In other words, this was a love that would never die. It would never wane. It was unconditional.
But the expression eis telos also carries the idea of eternality. Here it speaks of a love that lasts forever. Not only did Christ love His own to the end of their lives; not only did He love them to the end of His earthly life; but He would love them eternally. In this same context, He tells them, "I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am, there you may be also" (Jn. 14:2・). His love for His own will be manifest throughout eternity.
This speaks of the particular love of God for the elect. It is not the general love that extends to all humanity. It is not a conditional love that can give way to hatred. This is the love He has for "His own." It is a love that extends from eternity past to eternity future. And it is a love that will stop at nothing to redeem its object.This love of God for His own is not bestowed on people because they show themselves worthy of it.There is nothing worthy in the recipients of this love. (Romans 5:6-8)
Here is where the true greatness of divine love is seen. Christ faces the cross. He will bear their sin. And He will undergo the agonizing wrath of God on their behalf. He will suffer the painful, lonely sense of being forsaken by the Father, not to mention the human pain of execution and murder and public shame. And yet He is totally immersed in His love for His own, and as He faces death, He wants to affirm how much He loves these utterly unworthy men. This is a love that only those who belong to Christ can possibly know. It is a unique and marvelous love. It is a life-giving love. It is a love that pursues its object, no matter what. It is a love that saves forever.
God chose Israel not because they were better than the other nations, not because they were more worthy of His love, not because they were a greater or more impressive nation than any other, but simply because of His grace. Someone might suggest that the words of Deuteronomy 7 are directed to an entire nation, including many who evidently were not numbered among the elect. After all, only a remnant from Israel was saved (Rom. 9:27-29). The apostle Paul, replying to a similar objection, wrote, "But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel; neither are they all children because they are Abraham's descendants" (Rom. 9:6-7). In other words, election is not determined by blood descent. So taken in light of everything Scripture has to say about Israel, we know that the words of Deuteronomy 7 are actually addressed to the elect remnant.
Moreover, national Israel was only representative of all the elect of all time. God in His grace actually chose for Himself a people "from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues" (Rev. 7:9). When God speaks in Deuteronomy 7 of His eternal love for Israel, He is speaking of the spiritual children of Abraham. "Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are [true] sons of Abraham" (Gal. 3:7). The love God described in Deuteronomy 7:6・ is a particular love for the elect, and these verses therefore describe His love for all the elect. It is an eternal love, bestowed on the Israelites not because of anything worthwhile in them, but simply because it was the sovereign will of God to love them.
Why, of all nations, was Israel chosen as God's people? Because they chose God? No, because God chose them. It was a sovereign act of God's own will that He loved Israel. And out of His love, He chose. God Himself, speaking through Ezekiel, explained His unique love for the elect in graphic terms. In Ezekiel 16, He pictures Israel in such loathsome and sordid terms that within Judaism itself this chapter is not permitted to be read in any public meeting. But this passage is not really about Israel's iniquity. It is about the eternality of God's love. God speaks to the city of Jerusalem, representing the Israelite nation. Jerusalem was God's own city, His dwelling place (Ps. 135:21). It was the center of Israel's life and worship. The temple was located there.
But something tragic had happened. Jerusalem was full of abominations. Idolatry was rampant. They were acting like children of pagans rather than children of God. Notice, now, the Lord's description of the nation as a helpless, outcast infant in verses 4-6. This is graphic, disturbing imagery: "As for your birth, on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water for cleansing; you were not rubbed with salt or even wrapped in cloths. No eye looked with pity on you to do any of these things for you, to have compassion on you. Rather you were thrown out into the open field, for you were abhorred on the day you were born. When I passed by you and saw you squirming in your blood, I said to you while you were in your blood, 'Live!'"
God pictured Israel as the unwanted child of a prostitute, thrown out immediately after its birth into an open field, the umbilical cord still attached to the afterbirth. The child was not even washed. Left for the dogs to devour. No chance of survival. That, God said, was how Israel was "when I found her." He was speaking of Israel during captivity in Egypt. They were a despised and helpless people. No one cared about them. They were defenseless, pathetic, loathed, and abhorred by everyone - and doomed to perish. They were unwanted outcasts with no hope in the world, not even a land of their own.
But God decided to set His love on that helpless child. God picked them up and rescued them. He delivered them out of Egypt and gave them life. Why? Because there was something lovable about them? No, as He described the Israelites, they were ugly and bloody and dirty. Nobody wanted them. There was nothing about them to compel God to show compassion on them. But He passed by and saw them squirming in the dirt, and He gave them life.
The Lord depicted Israel as a girl who had reached puberty and was ready for marriage. God was saying to Israel, "I not only picked you up out of the field when you were a bloody, dirty infant - but I carried you until you grew. And then when you became mature enough, I deemed it proper to marry you." All the beauty and magnificence of Israel at her height of glory were only because of the goodness of God.
God had chosen the nation in her helplessness, nurtured and cared for her until she was marriageable - and then wed her and adorned her with royalty. Now all of a sudden she was like a harlot on the street offering to commit adultery with any person who passed by. This is a disgusting, loathsome picture. But these are God's own words to Israel. Israel took the very advantages God had graciously granted her, and turned those blessings into the instruments of her spiritual adulteries. She used God's gifts and His blessings in her own acts of unfaithfulness. She used the riches He gave to buy idols. She used her national stature to make alliances with pagan nations. The Israelites took the abundant goodness they derived from that land that flowed with milk and honey - and they offered it to foreign gods.
They even took their own babies - helpless infants just as Israel was when God found her - and they put them on a fire to appease Moloch, the horrible god of the Ammonites. It was the Ammonites' practice to sacrifice their own children to Moloch by placing the infants on an open fire and roasting them alive (Lev. 20:2・). This was one of the very reasons the Lord had ordered the Israelites to utterly destroy the inhabitants of the land before them (Lev. 18:21, 24・6).
Israel had made her own God a laughingstock among the nations. Try to dream up the grossest, most heinous imaginable kind of idolatry, and it would not outdo what Israel had done. It was as if they had gone out of the way to make their sins as public and as shameful as they could. They then sought more ways to indulge in idolatry: Israel was willing to commit wanton adultery shamelessly, and for nothing in return. They weren't "selling out"; they were being unfaithful to God out of sheer lust for idolatry. Israel was like a woman so lustful, she was paying for illicit lovers. Israel had been haughty in her sinning. She had dishonored God and profaned His name before all the nations. Now God would dishonor her openly as well:
Israel was defeated by the Babylonians. Her cities and towns were plundered and burned. Israel returned herself to a worse state than when the Lord originally found her. But here is the astonishing part - though it may appear to the observer as if God had cast off His own people at this point, His love for Israel still moved Him. It was simply and only because God had set His eternal love on Israel. These were the people whom He had chosen to love and with whom He had made an everlasting covenant. He loved them as fully as He had a capacity to love. Since in the first place His love was not because of anything worthy He found in the Israelites, nothing unworthy in them could destroy His love. His love for them was eternal and unconditional. Therefore it was a love rooted in God Himself. This is the particular love of God for His elect.
God silenced Israel. He reduced her to humiliation. How? By forgiving her. He accomplished it with His love. Why didn't God forgive Sodom? They weren't His elect. Why didn't He forgive Samaria? He never made a covenant with them. God loves whom He chooses to love. He makes a covenant with those people, and that covenant is an everlasting covenant made in eternity past. It guarantees redemption for the objects of God's particular love. Sodom was destroyed and unredeemed. Samaria was likewise condemned. But Israel, whose sins were worse than both, God forgave.
He set His love on her and made Israel His own possession. They were His own in a unique sense - the same sense in which Jesus says of all the elect, "I am the good shepherd; and I know My own, and My own know Me" (Jn. 10:14). His love for His own is a far greater degree of love than the compassionate love He has for the whole world. This love is perfect. This love is comprehensive. This love is complete. This love is redemptive. This love is eternal. It is this love that caused Him to lay down His life for His own (Jn. 10:15).
But the Lord delights in pouring out the riches of His love on undeserving sinners. He is a God of grace. He sets His love on whom He chooses, and draws them to Himself in love. God chooses to love those whom He chooses to love. He chooses in spite of our sin. The fact that He loves us does not mean that we are worthy. But when He chooses to love redemptively and eternally, He forgives and redeems and keeps us in the faith. His love simply will not let us go. It will bless us and chasten us and perfect us through pain - but it will never release us. Furthermore, it is only by His grace that we are not left to reap the bitter consequences of our own sin. It is only by His grace that we are not all consumed by divine wrath (Lam. 3:22・3). People seem to get hung up asking why God did not elect everyone. But the more reasonable question is why He chose anyone at all, much less a great multitude which no man can number (cf. Rev. 7:9).
Someone will say, "How can I know if I'm chosen?" Do you believe? Do you love the Lord Jesus Christ and trust Him alone (not your own good deeds) to save you? Do you believe that He came into the world as God in human flesh? That He died on a cross as an atonement for sins and rose again the third day? Do you believe that He is the only one who can erase your guilt and enable you to be forgiven and clothed in righteousness? Then you were chosen to be loved everlastingly. The particular love of God for His own is overwhelming. It is powerful.
We ought to be in awe, and like Israel, humiliated before such love. We have no right to God's love. He does not owe it to us. Yet He condescends to love us nonetheless. If our hearts aren't stirred with love for God in return, then there is something terribly wrong with us.
Chapter 8 - Finding Security in the Love of God
God's love for His own simply has no parallel in human experience. As we have seen, it is a powerful, immutable love that extends from eternity past to eternity future. It is a love that is not deterred by our race's sinful rebellion against God. Because of this love God pursues and redeems us even when we are morally and spiritually reprehensible and unworthy of His love in every way: "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us"(Rom. 5:8)
Let's begin with the parable of the Prodigal Son, found in Luke 15. The point of this story is ot the son's prodigality, the the father's longing love and ready forgiveness. The father represents God. The younger son is the irreligious, worldly sinner. He represents the sinner who squanders everything he has in a dissolute, irreligious life. He takes everything good his father has ever given him, spurns the father himself, and fritters away his entire legacy in loose living, immorality, and drunkenness. He finally comes to a point in the midst of his debauchery where he realizes he has hit bottom. He's serving pig slop - hardly an acceptable job for a Jewish son - and worse, he is reduced to taking his own meals from the slop he feeds to the hogs.
Suddenly, he realizes that this is no way to live. He decides to come home. He represents the penitent sinner. He is sorrowful over his wasted life, grieving that he has squandered all his father's goodness, and very aware that he has spent his youth fruitlessly on wickedness and dissipation. He is humiliated. He knows precisely where he stands. He has had his fill of iniquity. Perhaps he once felt that facing up to his sin before his father would cost him everything; but now he knows he has nothing left to lose. He decides to go back and make things right with his father - or at least throw himself on his father's mercy.
The father's response illustrates God's love toward a penitent sinner. Even while the profligate boy is still a long way off, the father sees him (which means the father must have been looking for his wayward son). He "ran and embraced him, and kissed him" (v. 20). The verb tense indicates that he kissed him over and over. Here is tender mercy. Here is forgiveness. Here is compassion. Here is a father treating the son as if there were no past, as if his sins had been buried in the depths of the deepest sea, removed as far as the east is from the west, and forgotten. Here is unrestrained affection, unconditional love. There is no diffidence, hesitation, withholding of emotion, no subtle coolness. There is only sympathetic, eager, pure, unbridled love. The father loves his wayward child lavishly. He loves him profusely. He loves him grandly.
The son seems shocked by this. He begins the speech he had rehearsed: "Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son" (v. 21). It's almost as if he can't deal with his father's tender affection. He is consumed by his own sense of unworthiness. He is in the throes of profound humiliation. He is fully aware of the seriousness of his sin. After all, he had been reduced to eating with pigs. Now, being showered with a loving father's kisses must have only increased his sense of utter shame.
The father's grace was, if anything, even more humbling than the prodigal son's awareness of his own sin. The young man knew in his heart that he was completely undeserving. And so he confessed, "I am no longer worthy to be called your son." The father doesn't even respond to the son's hesitancy. He pays no attention whatsoever to the confession of unworthiness. He just orders his servants to start the celebration. He showers the prodigal son with favors. He gives him the best robe. He puts a ring on his hand. He gets sandals for his feet. And he kills the fatted calf.
God's love is like the love of this father. It is not minimal; it is unreserved. It is unrestrained. It is extravagant. It is not bestowed in moderation. There is no holding back - just pure love undiluted, without any resentment or disaffection. The father receives the wayward boy as a privileged son, not as a lowly servant. The love of the father was an unconditional love. It was undiminished by the rebellion of the son. Despite all that this boy had done to deserve his father's wrath, the father responded with unrestrained love. Though the young man may not have realized it while he was languishing in the far country, he could not be estranged from so loving a father. Even his great sins could not ultimately separate him from his father's love.
The apostle Paul taught a similar lesson in one of the great doctrinal sections of Scripture: Romans 8:31・9.That passage makes a fitting climax for our study. The book of Romans is Paul's great treatise on justification by faith. The doctrinal section of this book is a full, systematic, logical exposition of the doctrine of justification. It reaches its pinnacle at the end of Romans 8, where Paul discusses the security of the believer:
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us (Romans 8:31-34).
One of the main themes of Romans 8 is that salvation is entirely God's work. Verses 7・ declare the hopeless state of every unredeemed person: "The mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God." The sinner is therefore trapped in his own insuperable lostness, unless God intervenes to save him.
God Himself orchestrates salvation from eternity past to eternity future: "Whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren; and whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified" (vv. 29-30).
Every stage of the process is God's work. There's a tremendous amount of security in that. If our salvation is God's work, not our own, we can be sure that He will see it to full fruition. "He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus" (Phil. 1:6). Believers are "protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time" (1 Pet. 1:5). God is both the Author and the Finisher of our salvation, and He personally guarantees that we will persevere in faith to the end.
If God is working to save us, nothing will thwart the work. Whatever God undertakes will most certainly be accomplished. And if God is on our side, it doesn't matter who is on the other side. God's side will be victorious. If God is for us, no one can stand against us. God alone makes a majority. If every creature in the material and immaterial universe combined to oppose God together, still He would not be defeated. He is infinitely greater, and holier, and wiser, and more powerful than the aggregate of all His creation. The fact that He is working to save me makes the outcome certain. If my salvation were ultimately up to me, I would have much to fear. If my redemption hinged in any way on my abilities, I would be lost. Like any sinner, I'm prone to disobedience, unbelief, and weakness. If it were up to me alone to keep myself in the love of God, I would surely fail.
If anyone could rob us of our salvation, that person would have to be greater than God Himself. God is for us. He has set His love on us. No human, no angel, not even Satan himself can alter that. So if God is for us, it matters not who is against us. We can no more forfeit the love of God than the prodigal son could destroy his father's love for him. Like the father of the prodigal son, God loves us constantly. He forgives eagerly, loves lavishly, and does not deal with us according to our sins, or reward us according to our iniquities (Ps. 103:10). Moreover, He does something the prodigal son's father could not do: He sovereignly draws us to Himself. His love is like a cord that draws us inexorably to Him (Hos. 11:4). "He chose us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will" (Eph. 1:4-5). And "whom He predestined... these He also glorified" (Rom. 8:30). He sees the process through to the end.
Here's more proof that we are eternally secure: "He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32). God loves us regardless of the cost. Consider what God's love for us has already cost Him: He gave His own beloved Son to die in order to accomplish our salvation. Having already paid so great a price to redeem us, He won't allow the process to stop short of the goal. And if He has already given His best and dearest on our behalf, why would He withhold anything from us now?
God gave Christ to die for us "while we were yet sinners" (Rom. 5:8). Would He turn His back on us now that we are justified? If He didn't spurn us when we were rebellious sinners, would He then cast us aside now that we are His children? "If while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son" (Rom. 5:10, doesn't it seem reasonable that He will do everything necessary to keep us in the fold now that we are reconciled? If He gave us grace to trust Christ in the first place, He will assuredly give grace to keep us from falling away.
God is not stingy with His grace, and the proof of that is seen in the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf. The sacrifice of Christ is eternally bound up in God's love for the elect. Did you know that in eternity past, before God had even begun the work of creation, He promised to redeem the elect? Titus 1:2 says the promise of eternal life was made "before the world began" - literally, before the beginning of time. So this speaks of a divine promise made before anything was created. Who made this promise and with whom was it made? Since it was made before creation commenced, there is only one possible answer: it was a promise made between the triune Members of the Godhead. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit promised among themselves to redeem fallen humanity. The plan of redemption was made not after Adam fell but before the beginning of creation. The names of the elect are written in the Book of Life "from the foundation of the world." This means the plan of redemption is not Plan B. It is no alternative strategy. It isGod's plan, the very purpose for which He created us.
The elect are God's gift of love to His Son. That's why Christ refers to them as "those whom Thou hast given Me"(Jn. 17:9;18:9). The Father has given the elect to Christ as a gift of love, and therefore not one of them will be lost. Both the Father and the Son work together to insure the fulfillment of their eternal plan of redemption. This further assures the salvation of all the elect, for as Jesus said, "All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out... For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him, may have eternal life; and I Myself will raise him up on the last day" (John 6:37, 40).
So Christ Himself promises to see God's plan of redemption through to the end. Having died as a substitute for those whom the Father gave Him, He promises to see the process through to the final consummation in glory. Likewise, the Father, having already given His Son to die on our behalf, will not now withhold anything necessary to complete our redemption.
The theme of Romans is justification by faith. Paul had been teaching the Romans that justification is a forensic event whereby God forgives the sins of those who believe and imputes to them a perfect righteousness. Those who are "in Christ" have their sins completely forgiven; they have all the merit of Christ Himself imputed to their account. God Himself has undertaken to justify them. Christ has accomplished redemption on their behalf. They stand in God's favor solely because He decided to show grace to them, not because of anything they did to earn it.
There's a tremendous amount of security in the doctrine of justification by faith. It is because of this doctrine that we can rest in our salvation as an accomplished fact. As Paul says, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus"(Romans 8:1). It is a done deal, not a goal we work toward. Eternal life is a present possession, not a future hope. And our justification is a declaration that takes place in the court of heaven, so no earthly judge can alter the verdict. When God Himself says "not guilty," who can say otherwise?
The ongoing intercessory work of Christ is yet another reason we cannot fall out of favor with God. Paul writes, "Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us" (v. 34).How does Christ pray on our behalf? Surely what He prays is similar to the great high priestly prayer recorded in John 17. He prays for our security (Jn. 17:11・2). He prays that we might be in the world but not of the world (vv. 14-15). He prays that we might be kept from evil (v. 15). He prays for our sanctification (v. 17). He prays that we will be one with Him, one with the Father, and one with one another (vv. 21-23). In short, He is praying that we will be kept in the faith, that we might "never perish," and that no one would snatch us out of His hand (John 10:28). That prayer will be answered.
Election is the highest expression of God's love to sinful humanity. Some people hate this doctrine. They fight against it, try to explain it away, or claim it's not fair. Some even claim it is a form of tyranny, or that it is fatalistic, or that it violates the human will. But in reality the doctrine of election is all about the eternal, inviolable love of God.
God's sovereignty is not the sovereignty of a tyrant, but the loving providence of a gracious God. As we have seen, He finds no pleasure in the destruction of the wicked, but pleads with them to repent and turn to Him for mercy (Ezek. 33:11). He showers blessings on the wicked and the righteous alike (Matt. 5:45). His very goodness is an appeal to the wicked that they should repent (Rom. 2:4). He weeps over those who refuse His mercies (Lk. 13:34). Why does He not elect everyone for salvation? We are not told, but the answer is certainly not because of any deficiency or lack in God's love.
What about the charge that the doctrine of election is fatalism? The difference between fatalism and the biblical doctrine of divine sovereignty is really quite profound. God "works all things after the counsel of His will" (Eph. 1:11), and that He will accomplish all His good pleasure (Isa. 46:10). He does not govern arbitrarily or whimsically.
Nor does God impose His sovereign will in a way that does violence to the will of the creature. The outworking of His eternal plan in no way restricts the liberty of our choices or diminishes our responsibility when we make wrong choices. Unbelief is forced on no one. Those who go to a Christless eternity make their own choice in accord with their own desires. They are not under any compulsion from God to sin.
What about the charge that the doctrine of election is not fair? In one sense, there's some truth in this. "Fair" would mean that everyone gets precisely what he deserves. But no one really wants that. Even the non-elect would face a more severe punishment if it were not for the restraining grace of God that keeps them from expressing their depravity to its full extent.
Fairness is not the issue; grace is the issue. Election is the highest expression of God痴 loving grace. He didn't have to choose anyone. And He is, after all, God. If He chooses to set His love in a particular way on whomever He chooses, He has every right to do so. But for Christians, the knowledge that we are saved because of God's choice is the supreme source of security. If God loved us from eternity past, and He is unchanging, then we can know that His love for us in eternity future will be undiminished.
The love of God is the basis for all our hopes. It is the object of our deepest longings. It is the source and fulfillment of our faith. It is the very basis for His grace to us. After all, we love Him only because He first loved us (1 Jn. 4:19). And His love is also our guarantee of eternal bliss. Since He loved us enough to send His own Son to die for us while we were yet His enemies - we have no reason to fear losing that love, now that His Spirit has been sent forth into our hearts, enabling us to cry, "Abba, Father!" (Gal. 4:5). His love absolutely permeates and envelops every aspect of our lives in Christ.
As Christians, then, we ought to see that everything we enjoy in life - from our tiniest pleasures to the eternal redemption we have found in Christ - is an expression of the great love wherewith God loved us (Eph. 2:4). The blessing of His love comes to us not because we deserve it, but simply and only because of His sovereign grace. For certainly we do not deserve His blessing, but the very opposite. Yet He pours out His love without measure, and we are invited to partake of its benefits freely.
As recipients of love like that, we can only fall on our faces in wonder. When we contemplate such love, it ought to make us feel unworthy. Yet at the same time it lifts us to unimaginable heights of joy and confidence, because we know that our God, the righteous judge of all the universe, the One to whom we have by faith committed our very souls' well-being - has revealed Himself as a God of immeasurable love. And we are the objects of that love - despite our unworthiness and despite our sin! In light of the glories of divine love, how can we not be utterly lost in wonder, love, and praise?
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