Worship: God is Love

Worship: God is Love


God is love. The Bible is very clear on this. 1 John 4:7-8, Romans 5:8, Ephesians 2 and John 3:16 state, along with innumerable other passages, the great love of God. “God is Love,” says 1 John 4:8. The entire book of Romans gives testimony to this truth in its portrayal of God’s death for utterly sinful man. The Psalms are satiated with testimonies of God’s great love. In Romans 5:8 Paul sums up every scriptural teaching on God’s love when he says, “God demonstrates His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” From the very beginning of the book of Genesis to the very end of the book of Revelation, The Bible is soaked with testimony to God’s great love. The fact that God is Love is inseparable from His character. A.W. Pink proclaims the depth of God’s love in his book “The Attributes of God,” where he states, “‘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” (44). The vastness of such a statement is incomprehensible. The Hymnist Frederick Lehman penned my exact feelings toward God’s love when he said, “The Love of God is greater far than pen or tongue could ever tell; it goes beyond the highest star and reaches to the lowest Hell.” Though its depths are unfathomable and there are none worthy enough to proclaim its greatness, it cannot be emphasized enough. It is the very fabric of this essay. But how can we better understand God’s love? How can we grasp the “great love with which He loved us” (Ephesians 2:5)? This essay will attempt to show you that knowledge of God’s attributes and Man’s nature are prerequisites for an understanding of God’s love and worshiping Him because of it.
21st century Theologians spend tremendous amounts of time thinking about God’s love; however, many of these theologians fall very short in their understanding of love. Most of these men have a Graeco-Roman understanding of what love is. This mythological love is portrayed as a mere emotion, subject to change, not bound to the Human will, but rather to emotional interference. This emotional love is not what we see in scripture. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 is possibly the best definition of love that Scripture gives us. It states, “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” The Dictionary defines an emotion as “A mental state that arises spontaneously rather than through conscious effort and is often accompanied by physiological changes; a feeling.” An emotion, such as joy, may arise spontaneously, unprecedented by the situation, and vanish just as quickly as it appeared. The words Paul uses to define love are not emotions. Patience and kindness do not spontaneously flow from a person’s being. You have to make a conscious effort to be patient or kind. In order to avoid envying, you must compel your mind to be focused on contentment. It is safe to say that all of the adjectives used to describe love require conscious effort, thus we can conclude that love requires conscious effort and is, therefore, not an emotion that arises spontaneously, but an action that is, at times, a struggle. When our science of love is based on Scripture, we are unable to believe that love is an emotion. In light of everything we have read, we must conclude that love is an action, not an emotion. Voddie Baucham, in his book “Family Driven Faith: Doing What it Takes to Raise Sons and Daughters Who Walk With God,” stated, “One of the biggest problems with the Greco-Roman myth is that it does me absolutely no good in non-romantic relationships. The Biblical model fits my relationship with my wife, my daughter, my son, my mother, my neighbor, and my God. In each of these situations I can love as an act of the will accompanied by emotion that leads to action on behalf of its object.” Pastor Baucham’s definition of Love is phenomenal: an act of the will accompanied by emotion that leads to action on behalf of its object. The Theologians who believe that God is a God of romantic love are people who believe in a limited view of God’s love. God’s powerful love is not a limited chemical reaction, but a volitional action accompanied by emotion that leads to action on behalf of its affection. The Graeco-Roman myth of love is merely emotional, and chemical. It’s not a love that lasts. It is not true love.
“Emotional love” many times does not leave room for hate. It gives the idea that love and hate cannot coexist. This assumption has no logical basis whatsoever. The Bible does teach us that hate can exist in isolation, but it also teaches that love always coexists with hatred. John MacArthur, in a sermon entitled “The Love God Hates,” stated, “There can be no love unless there is the antithesis of love, which is hate. Those two emotions are inseparable. For example, if you love someone, you hate whatever it is that would harm that person. If you're a parent, you hate anything that would harm your children. If you're married, you hate anything that would defile or injure your spouse. If you love what is good, then you hate evil. If you love God, you hate Satan. If you love unity, you hate discord.” If MacArthur is correct, and I believe he is, then we must accept that the action of love is always accompanied by the action of hatred. Based on this conclusion we must assume that if God is love, He must hate. This does not at all mean that He is hatred; however, it does mean that God has the ability, even the requirement to hate, and He does exercise His ability.
God is also Righteousness. Everything about Him is perfect. He “is “light (i.e. Righteousness) and in Him there is no darkness (unrighteousness) at all”(1 John 1:5). Not only that, but He cannot even be around Sin. “Our God,” according to Hebrews 12:29, “is a consuming fire.” If He were around sin, or something sinful, He would consume it with His Holiness. His righteousness is so great that He cannot justly be around Sin. He is unfathomably righteous. God’s righteousness is one of the main reasons for His love. However, since He is a consuming fire, He is unable to be around Sin. He cannot treat sin in a loving manner, lest He be unjust. God, because He is righteousness, can have only one attitude towards sin, and that is an attitude of Hatred. If Hatred always accompanies Love, and God is Love, God must hate, and He must, and does hate sin.
The fact that God hates is not a popular subject. The contemporary scholars of our day want us to believe that God does not hate sin. “They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.”(Jeremiah 6:14) The attitude of God towards evil doers is clear. The Bible constantly describes the relationship between God and a sinner as enmity. Romans 8:7 states, “the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law.” David gives us a glimpse of it in Psalm 5:5, which reads, “The boastful shall not stand before Your eyes; You hate all who do iniquity.” God loves a human person. God created Man and He said that His creation was good. But God Hates all who do iniquity. God’s attitude to the sinful men of this world is clear in Genesis 6:6, which states, “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.” God hates Sin, and he is grieved with Humanity. God hates sin. God is love, God must hate, God hates sin, but more specifically, God hates you. As long as you continue in your sin you are an enemy of God. As long as you are not a child of God, you are hated by Him.
What are we to do with a God that hates us? “I am a man of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth” (Job 40:4). We cannot respond to it. Man’s naturally hedonistic nature cannot accept the fact that God hates him, and Man’s “small account” prevents him from making a plea on his own behalf. Romans 3:10-18 proves this true when it states, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.” What would be our plea? What can you say on behalf of yourself? Has a lie ever proceeded from your mouth? If you have lied, you are a member of the iniquitous party. Have you ever looked at a person with lust? If so, you qualify as an adulterer according to the Sermon on the Mount, and thus you are iniquitous. Have you ever hated in your heart? Has there ever been a grudge you held against a fellow Human being? Christ says that that action makes you worthy of the same fate of a murderer. You say you have obeyed the whole law, but failed in only one point? “Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it” (James 2). You have broken all of God’s law. You are an Evil-doer. God hates you! Because God loves a righteous person, He must hate all, for all do iniquity, and because God is unwaveringly righteous, His hatred is right, and is a necessary response from a Righteous God. Based on this we can conclude not only that God hates us, for we are unrighteous, but that His hatred is justified, for we are unrighteous.
The book “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” by John Bunyan, tells the story of a man by the name of Christian who journeys from the City of Destruction, where he lives, to the Celestial City, a beautiful place where men never die. At the beginning of the book Bunyan tells of a dream that he has in which he sees a man reading in a book, and being very troubled by what he read. Bunyan states, “As he read, he wept and trembled; and not being able longer to contain, he brake out with a lamentable cry, saying, ‘What shall I do?’” (1). Christian refers to his fear of judgment throughout the book. Each time an enemy tries to divert him from the path he tells them of the judgment of God that he fears and his surety that it will fall on the city of destruction and its inhabitants. He spoke frequently of God’s wrath against his own sin. It would be impossible to articulate Christian’s fear of God’s wrath; However, it is evident that he feared God’s judgment -- and rightly so. Proverbs 1:7 states that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” At first glance, it seems difficult to fear a God who is love. But if we accept the proper definition of Love, and the proper definition of God, fear is a natural response to God, especially because of His judgment. The Bible is very clear on the fact that God judges sinners. We have established that His attitude toward them is disgust, anger, and even as far as hatred. But we have also established that God is love. We know that at the time He created the earth He called his creation good, but after he created man He “saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 3)
Paul was an apostle with an almost supernatural grasp on the justice of God. The first section of Romans describes God’s justice, who it falls on, and why it falls on them. The first five chapters of Romans are a sort of diagnosis of man. They describe his utterly helpless estate and the hardness of his heart. They go into detail about his righteousness – according to Paul we have none apart from Christ – and God’s response to what the prophet Isaiah calls “filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). Paul also tells us how widespread this condition of sinfulness is when he states “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Paul’s grasp of God’s judgment and his detailed description of God’s actions as a result of that justice become tattooed on the minds of all who read it. But Paul did not preach justice just to preach justice. Paul’s detailed explanation of God’s justice was only to show us what power His love has on us. In Romans 8:35 He asks, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” In Romans 5:8 Paul shows us the power of God’s love when He states, “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Paul so loved the Doctrine of God’s love that he referenced it in each of his 13 epistles. Many of those times Paul used God’s love as a model for human behavior. In Ephesians 5:25 Paul says “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” At the beginning of that chapter Paul exhorts his readers to “Walk in love as Christ has also loved us” (Ephesians 5:1). The great lengths that have been taken to show you God’s justice are not just to drop your jaw; they are to show you God's love.
God is Love? God is Justice? God hates? How can these things all be true at the same time? How can God act in ways that seem so opposite? How can God be a God of Justice, yet still save men and women? This essay attempted to show you the implications of a God who is love. So far, the implications in comparison to the truth of salvation seem very incongruent. How can they all be true? “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:23-26) We all deserve justice, according to verse twenty-three, and this means that we all need redemption. Paul tells us that Jesus became a “propitiation by His blood.” This word propitiation is the word that all of Scripture hangs on. The Love of God, the Justice of God, and the Wrath of God against sin are all found in this word. The wrath of God against Him who knew no sin displays the hatred that God had for sin, the righteousness that made Him uncapable of forgiving and forgetting, the justice of God against sin, and the love that he had for man are all found in this little word propitiation. It is that word that is the starter fluid to flaming words like 2 Corinthians 5:21, which state, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Christ’s blood – His death – is the reason for our life. His death is our “propitiation.” His death served as a shock absorber for the wrath of God. Because Jesus was fully God, He was perfect, and because He was fully man he was able to be made the sacrifice on our behalf. He is our hope, and He is love. The weight of your sin was upon His shoulders and God’s hate – that which you rightly deserved – and God’s justice – that which was reserved for you, which you were “storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath” (Romans 2:6) – has been poured out on Christ. He has drunk the poison of your sin. He has inhaled the toxic fumes of your so-called-righteousness. He has become sin, who knew no sin, that you might become His righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21). While you were still sinning against Him, God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that you may believe in him, and by that belief receive eternal life (Romans 5:8; John 3:16). God loves you. God is love!

Soli Deo Gloria,
Michael Gill