The Love Of God
                                Romans 8:39
In Romans 8 the Apostle Paul is laying the foundation for the believer's
confidence and assurance of faith. The basis of our assurance, as it is set
forth in this chapter is the purpose of God, the providence of God, and the
propitiatory sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Resting the weight of his
immortal soul upon these solid pillars of faith, Paul declares, "I am
persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor
powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor
any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God,
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Whenever we think about the love of God we must begin here. The love of God
is in Christ. We rejoice to know that "God is love." Love is in God. Love
comes from God. Apart from God there is no love. But the love of God is
revealed, expressed, known, manifest, and found only in Christ. The Bible
never speaks of the love of God outside of, or apart from Christ. Those who
talk of the love of God toward sinners apart from Christ, the Mediator
between God and men, speak in direct opposition to the Scriptures.
"The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works"
(Psa. 145:9). Because of his goodness and tender mercy, God feeds the
raven, clothes the lily, and sustains the beasts of the field. He is kind
even to the thankless reprobate in this world (Lk. 6:35). His providence
extends to all his creatures. And he sends both sunshine and rain to the
just and the unjust (Matt. 5:45). But the love of God is in Christ. It is
reserved for and given to his elect in Christ.
Those who declare that God loves all people alike, that he loves those who
perish under his wrath in hell just as he loves those who are the heirs of
eternal life, reduce the love of God to a fickle, helpless, frustrated
passion. But that cannot be. God's love is like himself, from everlasting
to everlasting, immutable and unchanging. "Nothing is more absurd than to
imagine that anyone beloved of God can eternally perish or shall ever
experience his everlasting vengeance" (A. W. Pink).
When Paul says, nothing "shall be able to separate us from the love of God,
which is in Christ," the word "us" refers to God's elect, those sinners who
are actually saved by his grace. When false prophets declare that God loves
everyone in the world, they speak contrary to the Scriptures and give
sinners a false hope, crying "peace, peace," when there is no peace. The
Word of God plainly declares that God does not love all people (Psa. 5:5;
11:6-7; John 3:36; Rom. 9:13). Noah's generation, the inhabitants of Sodom,
Pharaoh and the Egyptian army, and the sons of Korah all stand as monuments
to the fact that some in this world are not loved of God. If the Lord's
treatment of those people is an evidence of love, we might well pray to be
saved from such love! The fact is, God's love is specifically and
distinctively toward his elect alone. Is that not what he asserts in Isaiah
43:3-4? To tell sinners that God loves them regardless of their
relationship to Christ is either an assurance of salvation without Christ,
or a declaration that God is weak, mutable, helpless, and frustrated.
We cannot understand or appreciate the love of God unless we begin here.
The love of God is in Christ. As all the grace, all the promises, and all
the blessings of God are in Christ, so the love of God is in Christ. As we
were chosen of God in Christ (Eph. 1:4), as we are accepted of God in
Christ (Eph. 1:6), as our life is hid with God in Christ (Col. 3:3), so we
are loved of God in Christ. Because the love of God toward us is "the love
of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord," our Head, our Husband, our
Mediator, nothing can separate us from that love; for nothing can separate
us from Christ. Nothing can be more profitable to our souls than for us to
meditate upon and spiritually contemplate "the love of God which is in
Christ." If we are enabled to do so by the Spirit of God, as we are lifted
outside of ourselves and lifted above this world of care, our souls will be
filled with satisfaction in the love of God. To know and to believe the
love which God has toward us is both an earnest and a foretaste of heaven.
In this study I want to lead your heart in meditating upon the love of God.
In doing so, I will just give you an outline for direction, and leave it to
you to fill in the spaces as you are taught by God the Holy Spirit.
First, we should be aware of some of THE CHARACTERISTICS OF GOD'S LOVE, as
it is revealed to us in the Scriptures. Much more needs to be said than can
be said in this study; but here are three things revealed in the Bible
about "the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." The love of God
is free and unconditional. (Hos. 14:4) God's love toward us is an
unconditional, unqualified, unmerited, uncaused love. God does not love his
elect because of anything amiable and attractive in us. He says, "Jacob
have I loved and Esau have I hated," and that before either had done
anything good or bad, "that the purpose of God according to election might
stand, not of works, but of him that calleth" (Rom. 9:13, 11). Our love to
God is not the cause of his love to us, but the response of our hearts to
his love revealed in us (I John 4:10, 19). God loved us when we were lost
and ruined in sin, destitute of all grace, without the least particle of
love toward him or faith in him. While we were yet his enemies and
alienated from him, God loved us freely (Rom. 5:8, 10). Not even the death
of Christ is the cause of God's love for us. Christ's death is the cause of
our pardon and justification. Christ's death is the cause of our redemption
and salvation. But our Lord's death on our behalf is not the cause of God's
love for us - It was the result of God's love (John 3:16). God so loved us
that he gave his Son to die for us!
The love of God is eternal. As God's love is without a cause, so it is
without beginning. "The love of God which is in Christ" is not of
yesterday. It did not begin I time. It bears the date of eternity upon it.
He declares, "I have loved thee with an everlasting love" (Jer. 31). Try to
realize this, if you can - As God the Father loved his Son from eternity,
so he loved us from eternity. And as God's love is in Christ, his love for
Christ and his love for us are the same! (Read John 17:23). As he beholds
his people in his dear Son, he loves us as he loves his Son, delights in us
as he delights in his Son, and is pleased with us as he is pleased with his
Son.
And the love of God is immutable, irrevocable, and indestructible. God's
love is not like man's love. God's love does not change, ever, under any
conditions. Having loved us, he will never call his love back. And there is
nothing we can do to destroy or even lessen "the love of God which is in
Christ" (John 13:1). We did nothing to attract God's love in the beginning.
And we can do nothing to repel his love. God's love is not dependent upon
or regulated by our faithfulness. God's love is immutable (Mal. 3:6).
Second, we should always hold in reverent, grateful memory THE OPERATIONS
OF GOD'S LOVE. All the acts of God for his people in time are expressions
of his love for us from everlasting. His acts of grace are the shedding
abroad of his love in our hearts. The very first act of God's love, as it
is revealed in the Bible, is election and predestination (Eph. 1:3-6; 2
Thess. 2:13; Deut. 7:7-9). No one believes in the love of God who does not
believe in election. No one can talk about the love of God in Bible terms
who does not talk about predestination.
The love of God is revealed in the redemption of our souls by the death of
our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:8; I John 4:10; 3:16). We read the love of
God in the precious blood of Christ. We see the love of God revealed not in
the incarnation of Christ, not in the life of Christ, not in the example of
Christ, not in the doctrine of Christ, not even in the prayers of Christ,
but only in the blood of Christ. Had he done everything else and left this
undone, had he not poured out his life's blood unto death for the atonement
of our sins and the redemption of our souls, we could never have known the
love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. When God would show his
power, he made the world. When he would display his wisdom, he set his
creation in the frame of the vast universe which he had made. When he would
manifest his greatness, he made the heavens above and put angels,
principalities, and powers there to surround his throne. But when God would
reveal his love he gave his Son to suffer, bleed , and die to put away the
sins of his people and bring in everlasting righteousness. No wonder that
Paul, when realizing this, cried, "God forbid that I should glory, save in
the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me,
and I unto the world" (Gal. 6:14). No wonder he made this the constant
theme of his preaching, saying, "I determined not to know anything among
you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified" (I Cor. 2:2).
>>> Continued to next message
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 * SLMR 2.1a * It is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth
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