The Love of God

John 3:1-21

The difficult doctrine of the love of God

The love of God today is normally believed to be simple and by many, it is simply assumed.

Does God love all people in the same way?

Ephesians 3:17-19- so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

God is love

It’s irreducibly who He is

It is not the only thing that He is

Holy

Good

Wise

Righteous

Mercy

He is 100% all of these, and He is 100% love

God’s love is not given because of our loveliness or loveability

1 John 4:10- In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Romans 5:8- but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

God’s love originates from eternity past in Himself

God’s love did not begin at the creation of man, but He experienced perfect love and relationship within the Trinity

He did not make us because He was lonely and needed an object to offer love to

There is a strong theme through this Gospel about the love between the Father and the Son

John 3:35- The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand.

John 5:20- For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel.

John 14:31- but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here.

God’s providential love over all that he has made

He fashioned the universe in love

Genesis 1

He gives provincial care over even the grass

Matthew 6:26-30- Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

He sustains the lives of undeserving sinners

Matthew 5:44-45- But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

God’s salvific stance toward his fallen world.

Some try to make the world here (kosmos) refer to the elect, but that is almost an impossible case to make

In John, “world” is primarily used to refer to the whole of sinfully rebellious mankind

He extends a general salvific love to all people

John 3:16- Bible

1 John 2:2- He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

Ezekiel 33:11- Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?

We must tell the lost of this love!

God’s particular, effective, selecting love toward his elect

He calls His people out of the world

John 15:19- If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

His call is effectual

John 10:13-16- He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

New birth must happen in order to be saved, and it only happens if God freely gives it

John 3:8- Bible

His love to the elect is special, specific, and was established in eternity past

Ephesians 5:25- Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,

Ephesians 1:3-5- Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,

In this love, we are commanded to abide

D.A. Carson argues that there is a 5th aspect of God’s love

He says: Finally, God’s love is sometimes said to be directed toward his own people in a provisional or conditional way—conditioned, that is, on obedience. It is part of the relational structure of knowing God; it does not have to do with how we become true followers of the living God, but with our relationship with him once we do know him.

His first supporting text is Jude 21

I believe, rather, that this is the love in which all believers must and will abide

Jude 24- Bible

John 15:9-10- As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. 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.

May you know the love of God and abide in it

Theology matters, and knowing the deep truths of the love of God really matters

Knowing the nature of God, who is love, and the primacy of His love for Himself frees us from trying to make ourselves more lovable to God and delivers us from the sinful distortion that we are the central objects of God’s universe

Knowing God’s love in creating all that He has made helps us to see the beauty of His love on fully display

Knowing the salvific love of God toward all people makes us bold as a lion to go to the lost and share the gospel

Knowing the special, eternal, and effectual love of God for His elect makes us jump with joy and bow in humility that we who are believing have been chosen and are now recipients of this saving and secure love.

Abide in His love

Walk as one who has been transformed and rests in the eternal love of God through Christ

May you become inflamed with a life passion and desire to be used as an instrument to call sinners to faith that they might also abide in the love of Christ as His sheep