A Study of The Knowledge of the Holy - Chapter 20 - The Love of God

Chapter 20 – The Love of God

·        Prayer - Father, we are often troubled in mind, hearing within us both affirmations of faith and accusations of conscience. We are sure that there is in us nothing that could attract the love of One as holy and as just as You are. Yet You have declared Your unchanging love for us in Christ Jesus. Your love is uncaused and undeserved. You are the reason for the love in which we are loved. Help us to believe the intensity, the eternity of the love that has found us. Then love will cast out fear; and our troubled hearts will be at peace, trusting not in what we are but in what You have declared Yourself to be. Amen.

·        God is love (1 John 4:8) – love is an essential attribute of God, not God Himself.  Otherwise, love = God and we would be bound to worship love.  This can lead to potential heresies.

·        From God’s other attributes, we learn much about His love

o       God is self-existent à His love had no beginning

o       God is eternal à His love can have no end

o       God is infinite à His love has no limit

o       God is holy à His love is pure

o       God is immense à His love is an incomprehensibly vast, bottomless, and shoreless sea

·        Love wills the good of a person and not harm or evil.  “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear.” (1 John 4:18).  Fear persists while we are subject to the will of someone who does not desire our well-being.  The moment we come under the protection of one with good will, fear is cast out.  A child lost in a crowded store is full of fear because it sees the strangers as enemies.  In the arms of the mother moments later, all terror subsides.  The known good will of the mother casts out fear.

·        As long as we are in the hands of chance, look to the law of averages, trust in ourselves to outsmart the enemy, we have every good reason to be afraid.

·        To know God’s love and enter into His secret place of refuge, this and only this can cast our fear.  There may still be physical and mental pain, but the deep torment of fear is gone forever.

·        God is love and God is sovereign – His love compels Him to desire our everlasting welfare and His sovereignty enables Him to secure it.  Nothing can hurt one whom God has chosen.

·        God’s love tells us that He is friendly and His Word assures us that He is our friend and wants us to be His friends.  Abraham was called a friend of God (James 2:23) and Jesus said to His disciples, “You are my friends.” (John 15:13-15, Luke 12:4)

·        Love is an emotional identification.  It freely gives to the object of its affection.  Acts of self-sacrifice are common to love. “Greater love has no man that this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)

·        God is self-sufficient and yet He allowed His heart to be emotionally identified with us.  “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John 4:10)

·        Love also takes pleasure in its object. God’s purpose in creation was His own pleasure (Revelation 4:11, Psalm 104).  He takes particular pleasure in His saints (Philippians 2:13). True, God hates sin and never looks at iniquity with pleasure, but where people seek to do God’s will, He responds in genuine affection.

·        Christ’s atonement removed the wall to divine fellowship.  Now in Christ, all believing souls are objects of God’s delight.  “The LORD your God is with you and He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you.  He will quiet you with his love and He will rejoice over you with singing.” (Zephaniah 3:17)

·        According to the book of Job, God’s work of creation was done to musical accompaniment.  “Where were you,” God asks, “when I laid the foundations of the earth, when the morning stars sang together, and all the angels shouted for joy?” (Job 38:7).  Music is an expression of pleasure, and the pleasure that is purest and nearest to God is the pleasure of love.

o       Hell is a place of no pleasure because no love is there.

o       Heaven is full of music because it is the place where pleasures of holy love abound.

o       Earth is the place where the pleasures of love are mixed with pain, for sin is there, and hate, and ill will. In our world, love must sometimes suffer, as Christ suffered in giving Himself for His own.  But we have the promise that the pain will finally end and we will enjoy forever a world of perfect love.

·        Love cannot remain silent.  It is active, creative, and generous.  “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8). “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son.” (John 3:16).

·        The love of God is one of the greatest realities in the universe.  It is personal and intimate.  The Christian experiences this highly satisfying love that is far above even the purest and noblest philosophy.  This love is more than a thing; it is God Himself in the midst of His Church singing over His people. True Christian joy is the heart’s response to the Lord’s song of love.

The hidden love of God, whose height,
Whose depth unfathomed, no man knows,
I see from far Your beautiful light,
And I sigh for Your rest;
My heart is pained, nor can it be at rest

till it finds rest in You.
--Gerhard Tersteegen