The Love of God
The love of God, sadly enough, is the subject of much debate among Christians. Questions about whether God loves everyone (and wants to save everyone) are answered very differently. Nor are these questions unimportant. They involve the whole subject of predestination, the eternal love of God for some and the death of Christ, the great revelation of God’s love.
It is not our purpose here to deal with such passages as John 3:16 and the meaning of the word “world” there. If anyone is interested in an explanation of this passage, we offer the free pamphlet “God So Loved the World” by H. C. Hoeksema. Here we want to show that an answer to these questions can also be found by understanding what the love of God is.
What is it? God’s love is first of all His love for Himself, His own glory and holiness. I John 4:16 indicates this when it tells us that God is love. In Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, He is the epitome of all love. He does not need us to be a God of love, nor is His glory as the God of love incomplete without us. From eternity to eternity He IS love in and of Himself.
In this connection, Scripture defines love as the “bond of perfectness” (Col. 3:14). It is more than mere sentiment or an emotion or feeling. It is the bond that exists between the three perfect persons of the Holy Trinity.
Because God loves His own glory (Isa. 42:8; Eze. 39:25) and because love is the “bond of perfectness” God cannot love men except in and through Jesus Christ. That is the reason why election, the eternal love of God for some, is “in Christ.” That is also the reason John 3:16 and the word “world” cannot refer to every person (cf. John 17:9 and I John 4:7-9 and the word “us” in the latter passage). Psalm 5:4 is further proof that God cannot love us apart from Christ: “Thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee.” There is no “bond of perfectness” possible between God and evil. Those He loves must be chosen and redeemed in Christ to be the objects of God’s love.
The other side of this is that God hates evil and the evildoer (Ps. 5:5-6). That is a hard saying, but the alternative is blasphemy. To say that God loves men without saving them from their wickedness and sin is to say that the holy and righteous God loves evil. Who dares think such a thing!
But let us not forget, either, that this understanding of the love of God is where the delight and joy of believers rests. It means that He will save His people from all their sins and make them perfect. His love is the bond of perfectness. It means that He will take them into His fellowship and make them partakers of the divine nature. His love is the bond of perfectness. “God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.” What blessedness and bliss! Rev. Hanko
Salvation Conditional? (2)
“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land” (II Chron. 7:14).
In discussing this verse, we spent the last article considering the context. We noticed that this verse is God’s answer to the mediatorial prayer of Solomon on the occasion of the dedication of the temple. We noticed too that this promise of God, in response to Solomon’s prayer, is comparable to God’s promise to us that He will forgive our sins when we confess them and come to Him in the name of Christ.
The question we face is the conditional form of the promise: “If my people …” But before we discuss this matter, there are two or three things that need to be noted.
First, there are hundreds of conditional sentences in Scripture. These conditional sentences are grammatical constructions that need not be interpreted as teaching that salvation is conditional. It is quite a jump to move from a grammatical construction to a crucial doctrinal statement.
Second, notice that God is speaking of His people: “If my people …” He is not speaking of everyone in the world. This is because only His people humble themselves, seek God’s face and turn from their wicked ways. It is not a promise to all men on condition of repentance. It is specifically a promise to His people.
Third, the statement as it stands is certainly true, and no one can deny it. It is an obvious falsehood to change the text to read, “Even though my people will not humble themselves and pray, I will forgive them anyway.” God does not forgive us if we do not confess our sins. Just imagine that we could sin and continue in our sin as much as we pleased, but God would still forgive us. That would be antinomianism at its worst. That would be saying, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” (Rom. 6:1). That would be making a mockery of God’s holiness, and would be tempting God’s mercy and grace.
God always gives the blessing of forgiveness of sins in the way of confession of sin and pleas for mercy. And this is the meaning of the “if” in the text. There is no other way to forgiveness and pardon than through sorrow for sin and a plea for mercy, as we make our way to the foot of the cross to cry out for Christ’s blood to wash us. These are the God-ordained means.
Yet it must be understood too that God Himself works the means. When we commit sin, sin that we do (not God), God may allow us to walk in those sins for a while. But if God does not break our hard and stubborn hearts, if God does not humble us and bring a cry of sorrow to our lips, we will never seek forgiveness (II Sam. 12:1-13). We will be like the wicked who scorn forgiveness in their delight in sin.
The relation between confession of sin and forgiveness is put in the form of a conditional sentence with good purpose. From God’s viewpoint, God puts the matter this way because He gives us His salvation in such a way that the full experience of it is ours. He gives us the great blessing of forgiveness through granting us repentance from sin, so that we may experience our need for forgiveness, see our total dependence upon Christ and enjoy fully the blessedness of our need supplied.
From our point of view, God works in this way because we have a responsibility to repent of sin, forsake it and believe in Christ. That responsibility is pressed upon us so that repentance and forgiveness are always inseparably joined.
Two thousand years ago, on the cross of Calvary, all the sins of all God’s elect were, once and for all, taken away.
Let us make that personal. It is a wonder that defies description that two thousand years ago, before I was ever born, my Saviour loved me and shed His precious blood for me so that not one sin I would ever commit is left unpaid for. He paid for every one perfectly and fully.
When we are born and are saved, we receive that blessedness of the cross through the way of repentance and sorrow for sin. If we do not repent, we lose the consciousness of forgiveness and know only God’s wrath.
If we repent of our sins, flee to the cross, cling to Christ and hurl ourselves into the everlasting arms of our God, we always find the peace that passeth understanding. Prof. Hanko
Was Christ Forsaken?
In reference to the verse, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” a reader asks, “Did God forsake His Son?” This is not an easy question to answer.
We must begin by saying that since these words are recorded in Holy Scripture as the words of Christ, they must be taken as truth. They are part of the truth necessary for our salvation and for the glory of God. The answer to the question must be, “Yes, God did forsake His Son!”
Believing that this answer is correct, many also believe that these words explain how Christ “descended into hell.” The horror of hell is to be cast for ever out of the presence of God, to be far from light, life and peace. Christ, then, descended into hell in the sense that He suffered “inexpressible anguish, pain, terrors and hellish agonies.”
What a word to convict us of sin! If ever you think that sin matters little, then consider this: Our sin is so great that it required such suffering on the part of God’s Son. Why was such suffering required for our salvation? Because sin deserves the eternal wrath of God and this is what the wrath of God brought upon Christ for our sakes. “He cried out with a loud voice, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ that we might be accepted of God and never be forsaken of him.” Insofar as these words show us the depth of Christ’s suffering, they also show us the hope of salvation.
The difficulty is in understanding how Christ could be forsaken. Since Christ is God, one of the persons of the Holy Trinity and since God is everywhere-present, it is difficult to understand how He could be forsaken, or even feel that He was forsaken.
To say that this was true according to His human nature is only a partial answer. While it is always true that He suffered all things “according to His human nature,” it is also true that personally He is the only begotten Son, the second person of the Trinity. It is this person who says, “Why hast thou forsaken me?”
We are face to face here with what Scripture calls “the great mystery of godliness, God was manifest in the flesh” (I Tim. 3:16). And though we believe with all our hearts that this is the heart of our salvation, the whole of godliness, yet there is always something in this we cannot fully understand.
That Christ is God and man in one person is a mystery. It is the mystery of the Trinity and of the incarnation all in one. That is why it must be received by faith. It is among those things that are spiritually discerned.
Nor does this mystery confront us only here. We meet it every time we meet Christ. He is, in one person, the one who weeps at the grave of Lazarus, even as He prepares to raise him from the dead. He is the one who could be weary enough to sleep through a fierce storm and yet have power to still the wind and waves with a word.
Yet though we do not fully comprehend the great mystery of godliness, we adore it. What a Saviour we have. How great are the works of God! How marvellous the grace of God in providing such a way of salvation.
What assurance is to be gained from those cross-words. How could any one of those for whom He died ever again have to fear being forsaken of God? He was forsaken that they might be received. And so all for whom He said these words shall be saved with an everlasting salvation in the presence of God and of Christ. Rev. Hanko
