Chapter 15 The Love of God There are three things told us in scripture concerning the nature of God. First, God is spirit. John 4.24 In the Greek there is no indefinite article, and to say God is a spirit is most objectionable, for it places Him in a class with others. God is spirit in the highest sense. Because He is spirit, He is incorporeal, having no visible substance. Had God a tangible body, He would not be omnipresent. He would not be limited to one place. Because He is Spirit, He fills heaven and earth. Secondly, God is light, 1 John 1 verse 5, which is the opposite of darkness. In scripture, darkness stands for sin, evil, death, and the light for holiness, goodness, and life. God is light means that He is the sum of all excellency. Thirdly, God is love. 1 John 4, 8. It is not simply that God loves, but that He is love itself. Love is not merely one of His attributes, but His very nature. There are many today who talk about the love of God, who are total strangers to the love of God. The divine love is commonly regarded as a species of amiable weakness, a sort of good-natured indulgence. It is reduced to a mere sickly sentiment, patterned after human emotion. Now the truth is that on this, as in on everything else, our thoughts need to be formed and regulated by what is revealed thereon in Holy Scripture. That there is an urgent need for this is apparent not only from the ignorance which so generally prevails, but also the low state of spirituality which is now so sadly evident everywhere among professing Christians. How little real love there is for God. One chief reason for this is because our hearts are so little occupied with His wondrous love for His people. The better we are acquainted with His love, its character, fullness, blessedness, the more will our hearts be drawn out in love to Him. 1. The love of God is uninfluenced. By this we mean there was nothing whatever in the objects of His love to call it into exercise. nothing in the creature to attract or prompt it. The love which one creature has for another is because of something in the object, but the love of God is free, spontaneous, and uncaused. The only reason why God loves any is found in His own sovereign will. The Lord did not set His love upon you, nor choose you because you were more in number than any people, for you were the fewest of all people, but because the Lord loved thee." Deuteronomy 7, 7 and 8. God has loved his people from everlasting, and therefore nothing about the creature can be the cause of what is found in God from eternity. He loves from himself according to his own purpose. 2 Timothy 1.9 We love him because he first loved us. 1 John 4.19 God did not love us because we loved him, but he loved us before we had a particle of love for him. Had God loved us in return for ours, then it would not be spontaneous on His part. But because He loved us when we were loved less, it is clear that His love was uninfluenced. It is highly important, if God is to be honored and the heart of His child established, that we should be quite clear upon this precious truth. God's love for me and for each of His own was entirely unmoved by anything in us. What was there in me to attract the heart of God? Absolutely nothing. But, to the contrary, there was everything to repel him, everything calculated to make him loathe me, sinful, depraved, a mass of corruption with no good in me. 2. It is eternal, this of necessity. God himself is eternal, and God is love. Therefore, as God himself has no beginning, his love had none. Granted that such a concept far transcends the grasp of our feeble minds, Nevertheless, where we cannot comprehend, we can bow in adoring worship. How clear is the testimony of Jeremiah 31.3, I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee. How blessed to know that the great and holy God loved his people before heaven and earth were called into existence, that he has set his heart upon them from all eternity. Clear proof of this is that His love is spontaneous, for He loved them endless ages before they had any being. The same precious truth is set forth in Ephesians 1 verses 4 and 5. According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him, in love having predestinated us what praise should this evoke from each of his own children how tranquilizing for the heart since God's love towards me had no beginning it can have no ending since it is true that from everlasting since it is true that from everlasting to everlasting he is God and since God is love then it is equally true that from everlasting to everlasting he loves his people three It is sovereign. This also is self-evident. God himself is sovereign, under obligations to none, a law unto himself, acting always according to his own imperial pleasure. Since God is sovereign, and since he is love, it necessarily follows that his love is sovereign. Because God is God, He does as He pleases. Because God is love, He loves whom He pleases. Such is His own express affirmation. Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. Romans 9.13 There was no more reason in Jacob why he should be the object of divine love than there was in Esau. They both had the same parents and were born at the same time, being twins. Yet God loved the one and hated the other. Why? Because it pleased Him to do so. The sovereignty of God's love necessarily follows from the fact that it is uninfluenced by anything in the creature. Thus, to affirm that the cause of His own love lies in God Himself is only another way of saying He loves whom He pleases. For a moment, assume the opposite. Suppose God's love were regulated by anything else than His will. In such a case, he would love by rule, and loving by rule, he would be under a law of love. And then, so far from being free, God would himself be ruled by law, in love having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to what? Some excellency which he foresaw in them? No. What then? According to the good pleasure of his will." Ephesians 1, 4, and 5. 4. It is infinite. Everything about God is infinite. His essence fills heaven and earth. His wisdom is illimitable. For He knows everything of the past, present, and future. His power is unbounded, for there is nothing too hard for Him. So His love is without limit. There is a depth to it which none can fathom. There is a height to it which none can scale. there is a length and a breadth to it which defies measurement by any creature standard beautifully is this intimated in Ephesians 2.4 but God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us the word great there is parallel with the God so loved of John 3.16 it tells us that the love of God is so transcendent it cannot be estimated quoting John Brine, 1743, quote, No tongue can fully express the infinitude of God's love or any mind comprehend it. It passes knowledge, Ephesians 3.19. The most extensive ideas that a finite mind can frame about divine love are infinitely below its true nature. The heaven is not so far above the earth as the goodness of God is beyond the most raised conceptions which we are able to form of it. It is an ocean which swells higher than all the mountains of opposition and such as are the objects of it. It is a fountain from which flows all necessary good to all those who are interested in it." End quote. It is immutable. As with God himself, there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. James 117. So is love, knows neither change nor diminution. The worm Jacob supplies a forceful example of this. Jacob have I loved, declared Jehovah, and despite all his unbelief and waywardness, he never ceased to love him. John 13.1 furnishes another beautiful illustration. That very night one of the apostles would say, Show us the Father. Another would deny him with cursings. All of them would be scandalized by and forsake him. Nevertheless, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. The divine love is subject to no vicissitudes. Divine love is strong as death. Many waters cannot quench it. Song of Solomon 8 verses 6 and 7. Nothing can separate from it. Romans 8, 35 to 39. It is holy. God's love is not regulated by caprice, passion, or sentiment, but by principle. Just as His grace reigns not at the expense of it, but through righteousness, Romans 5 21, so His love never conflicts with His holiness. God is light, 1 John 1 5, is mentioned before God is love, 1 John 4 8. God's love is no mere amiable weakness or effeminate softness. Scripture declares that whom the Lord loves he chastens and scourges every son whom he receives. Hebrews 12.6 God will not wink at sin, even in his own people. His love is pure, unmixed with any maudlin mentality. It is gracious. The love and favor of God are inseparable. This is clearly brought out in Romans 8, 32-39. What that love is, from which there can be no separation, is easily perceived from the design and scope of the immediate context. It is that goodwill and grace of God which determined him to give his son for sinners. That love was the impulse of power of Christ's incarnation. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, John 3.16. Christ died not in order to make God love us, but because he did love his people. Calvary is the supreme demonstration of divine love. Whenever you are tempted to doubt the love of God, Christian, go back to Calvary. Here then is abundant cause for trust and patience, under divine affliction. Christ was beloved of the Father, yet He was not exempted from poverty, disgrace, and persecution. He hungered and thirsted. Thus it was not incompatible with God's love for Christ when He permitted men to spit upon and smite Him. Then let no Christian call into question God's love when He is brought under painful afflictions and trials, God did not enrich Christ on earth with temporal prosperity, for he had not where to lay his head. But he did give him the Spirit without measure. John 3.34 Learn then that spiritual blessings are the principal gifts of divine love. How blessed to know that when the world hates us, God loves us. Still Waters Revival Books is now located at PuritanDownloads. com. It's your worldwide online Reformation home for the very best in free and discounted classic and contemporary Puritan and Reformed books, mp3s, and videos. For much more information on the Puritans and Reformers, including the best free and discounted classic and contemporary books, mp3s, digital downloads and videos, please visit Still Waters Revival Books at PuritanDownloads.com Stillwater's Revival Books also publishes The Puritan Hard Drive, the most powerful and practical Christian study tool ever produced. All thanks and glory be to the mercy, grace, and love of the Lord Jesus Christ for this remarkable and wonderful new Christian study tool. The Puritan hard drive contains over 12,500 of the best Reformation books, MP3s, and videos ever gathered onto one portable Christian study tool. An extraordinary collection of Puritan, Protestant, Calvinistic, Presbyterian, Covenanter, and Reformed Baptist resources, it's fully upgradable and it's small enough to fit in your pocket. The Puritan hard drive combines an embedded database containing many millions of records with the most amazing and extraordinary custom Christian search and research software ever created. The Puritan Hard Drive has been produced to assist you in the fascinating and exhilarating spiritual, intellectual, familial, ecclesiastical, and societal adventure that is living the Christian life. It has been specifically designed so that you might more faithfully know, serve, and love the Lord Jesus Christ, as well as to help you to do all you can to bring glory to His great name. If you want to love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, then the Puritan Hard Drive is for you. Visit PuritanDownloads.com today for much more information on the Puritan Hard Drive and to take advantage of all the free and discounted Reformation and Puritan books, mp3s and videos that we offer at Still Waters Revival Books.