The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God

This past Sunday’s sermon text was John 3:16-21.  It will be again this week.  If you have not had a chance to hear the message I would encourage you to go to Westwood’s website and listen to the sermon before this Sunday.  In last weeks message we looked at the great love of God: “For God so loved the world”.  We also discussed the great gift of God: “He gave is only Son”. 

I spent a lot of time talking about the great love of God.  We saw that God’s love must be seen and understood alongside all His characteristics.  Love is not God’s preeminent characteristic.  It is only one of God’s characteristics, all equally essential and existing together to make God who He is – to reveal Him the way He is revealed in Scripture.   

I referenced D.A. Carson’s helpful book  The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God.  In chapter one of that book Dr. Carson highlights five different ways Scripture speaks of the love of God:

1.  The peculiar love of the Father for the Son and the Son for the Father:  John will say much more about this later in his Gospel.  (ref. John 17:24-26)  This love within the Godhead is the fountain from which all the other manifestations of love flow.  This love is the standard by which all other love is measured.  It is an other-directed love.  The Father has so loved the Son that He has decreed that all the nations will honor & worship Him.  God the Son has so loved the Father that he was obedient to the point of death – even death on the cross for our salvation.  The entire plan of redemption flows from this fountain of love within the Trinity.  We experience God’s love because of his love for the Son.  We experience the love of Christ because of his love for the Father.  

2.  God’s providential love over all that He has made:  “Consider the birds of the air- they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns – yet your heavenly Father feeds them; Are you not of more value than they?”  Matt 6:26   While scripture may not use the word “love’ – the care and concern God has for what He has created is the basis for us trusting him to care for us – this is true for all humanity.  We also refer to this love as God’s common grace. 

3.  God’s saving love for his fallen world:  This is the love we will see in John 3:16.  It describes God’s love for the “world” that John understands to be fallen and in rebellion against God.  It is a world in utter spiritual darkness into which God lovingly sent His Son. (John 1:4-5)

4.  God’s particular, effective, selecting love for the elect:  Carson writes, “whether it's the entire nation of Israel or the church as a body or individuals, in each case God sets his affection on his chosen ones is a way in which he does not set his affection on others.”  (Deuteronomy 10:14-15, John 13:1, Ephesians 5:25)     There is a “discriminating feature to God’s love” that may make us uncomfortable, and it may cause some to want to reject this truth outright, but don't do that until you have carefully and honestly examined all that the scriptures say about this aspect of God’s love.   

5.    The provisional, or conditional love of God that which seems to be in some way conditioned on obedience.  Later in John 15:9-10 we will hear Jesus say, “Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.”

All of these aspects of God’s love must be taken together to have an accurate Biblical understanding of what is means to say “God is love” (I John 4:8&16).  If you focus on only one of these aspects of God’s love you don’t have a full, accurate picture of God.  If you don’t have an accurate understanding of his love you can't have an accurate understanding of the cross.  If you don't understand the meaning of the cross you cannot understand the gospel.

This Sunday will continue our study of John 3: 16-21 by looking at three remaining truths John presents in this passage:

  The great offer of God: “whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life’. 

  The saving mission of Christ:  “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him”. 

  The Condemning Darkness of Man: “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

I encourage you to read through John 3 before church this Sunday, and I look forward to seeing you there.