THE LOVE OF GOD
D Andrew Burr
I wonder if we might spend a few moments thinking about the subject of this section, the love of God. We have often done so in gospel preachings; no doubt those here who have preached have often made it their subject. I expect it has been spoken of every time the gospel has been preached, the love of God. We have read from John and we may notice as we go on that another writer, the apostle Paul, says that “God commends his love to us”, Rom 5: 8. That is worth thinking about: God would like us all to have some deeper understanding of what that love is and what it tells us about Him; and especially what it tells us about His attitude, His disposition towards us. I trust that nobody here has any wrong ideas about the love of God, but if there are any mistaken understandings about it, speaking of it simply might clear them up. It is one of those subjects that any believer who already knows about it would like to hear of again, and would like to know more about it than they already do.
The scripture here tells us that “God is love”, it is His nature, it colours everything He does, and everything He says. There is an interesting expression in this first section which the writer has used more than once: he says that “God has so loved us”. There is another place where he uses that expression that God has “so loved”, John 3: 16. Therefore, this writer is trying to give an impression of the greatness and the depth of the love of God, what it is that has moved God, how it has moved Him and what it has led Him to do. This passage that I have read speaks of “perfect love”. That is a very interesting idea and we might wonder what that means. How can love be thought of in that way, “perfect love”? I think it is that there is no greater way in which love can be described. There is a fulness about it; there is nothing missing. There is nothing that I might wish to find with the love of God that we will not find. In His love and what His love has done, the mighty God Himself has made His very nature known to us. He has not simply given us a glimpse of it. He has shown it in a way that is capable of filling the hearts of everyone who opens their heart to it and to Him.
I might say something to begin about the way that God has made us. The account given in the beginning of the Bible presents mankind as a creature of God. It presents God as the Creator, and then man as His creature. I know that is not a widely-received idea in society now. There are other ideas about how the human race in its present form came to be. I am not going into the science of them; all I would say about those ideas now is that if they were true then I cannot see where God fits into the picture at all. I certainly cannot see how the revelation of God fits into that picture, or how the knowledge of His love can really be acquired if the evolutionary process by which man is said to have come into being were true.
What we actually read in the Scriptures (which are God’s account of what happened) is that mankind is a creature of God, and a very special creature. We know that the account describes how the rest of the creation was brought into being by a word, but how, when it came to the human race, the Bible tells us that man was formed in the hand of God (Gen 2: 7), and made into what I might call a vessel into which things could be put. How God did that; how long it took, we are not told. We would not understand how God could make us as He has if we were told. We may look at ourselves and look at each other and see what remarkable creations we are. It is not simply that we have a physical capacity. We can walk and run and all such things. We can also think in a way that sets us apart from everything else in the creation. Our minds work in much more sophisticated ways. We also have deep affections and other emotions that we all know about, that stir within us. God did not simply create us in that way to go off and make our own history. The final thing that is said about the creation of man is that God breathed into him and, having breathed into him, man became by that means “a living soul”. Again, that sets us apart from animals who do not live on that principle.
What did God have in mind in doing that? To impart His breath to man in that way meant that the human race was formed in a special way, and set upon the earth with an already established relationship with God, which God Himself had made. God Himself had done that. He had not left man to go off and do his own thing. Man, as he moved out into his life here, had that connection with God Himself. When I speak about a connection I do not simply mean that that is where it originated, but it was a means of communication so that man could have and develop over time the knowledge of God. God could speak to him; and He could show him that He loved him. That is something worth thinking about that God has used means of His own creation to provide the way, the channel, by which He could tell us all that He loves us. He can do this through the spirit that He has given to us. That is a very blessed thing and it shows what the heart of God is like, that He wanted to express Himself; and He found a way entirely of His own design by which that expression of Himself could be done successfully.
We know the next chapter in the history of man, that man and woman began to sin, and in sinning, they interfered with that relationship that they had with God. I am not going now to try and prove that that was so because everyone knows it has happened. The reason why everyone knows it has happened is that they are very aware of its consequences. One of the saddest consequences is that the intended knowledge of God’s love was lost. In its place we have what we have in this section I have read: we have fear. That is a tragedy, that a God full of love and ready to make that love known to us and to fill our hearts with it and to look for an answer to that love in us, takes account of man wandering away from Him in self-will and sin; and he has gone so far that when someone speaks to him about God, he is afraid. Adam and Eve found that even in the garden of Eden, but we find it today if you speak to someone about their conduct, about things scripture calls sin, if you ask them where they stand with God and whether they are ready to meet Him. God never intended that questions like that should make people afraid. He never intended that but that is what happens even for people who have been brought up in a Christian environment, who may have come to this very hall all their lives; we all know that none of us is perfect.
I remember a long time ago coming to the gospel preaching when I was a child. I would not have said I knew the preachers very well, and I cannot say that I understood what they said very much, but I can remember often thinking that the preacher seemed to know about me better than I believed he could. If I had been naughty during the week, when the preacher spoke about sin and what God required, that awakened my conscience. The awakening of a conscience makes people afraid. God has given us that capacity and sometimes it is for our protection, obviously. But to be afraid of God is not what God intended. It says here that “fear has torment”. It brings torment and trouble. God intends that people should be at peace. Paul speaks of that in Romans 5, “peace towards God”, v 1. It is a wonderful thing to prove that, but the soul who has wandered from God is afraid. He or she makes that clear by seeking not to have God in his or her knowledge. Paul speaks about that: “they did not think good to have God in their knowledge”, Rom 1: 28. Why did they think that? I suppose man thought he was self-sufficient. It seemed to be a solution to the fear, to shut God out altogether, even to come up with some alternative explanation for mankind’s presence here on earth which does not need a God at all. That is a very sad situation.
Another thing I want to speak about is that in those early days God created a relationship between man and his wife, and then other relationships have flowed out of that. He has underpinned those relationships with what Scripture calls “natural affection”, Rom 1: 31. It is distinguished from the love that God has shown to us, not because it is quite different, but it operates at a different level. It is a horizontal thing that serves as the foundation of a relationship one with another. It is crucial to the harmonious and happy development of society and especially the family. God’s idea is that society should have its foundation in the family. Relationships in the family should be governed by natural affection. That is a very wonderful thing. You will find that love in a family, parental love for example for the children, is or should be unconditional. That is, if I may say to the young people here, your parents love you because you are their children. It is not that they love you because you are good or because you are developing in certain ways that suit their ideas for you or their ambitions for you. They do not love you because of what you know and the way you can discuss and that kind of thing. They love you for what you are. That is of God, and it is a very wonderful thing. It is a strong bond in society. We might also think of new relationships that are formed - maybe they form in a slightly different way if you are attracted to someone else. That is not unconditional because we are attracted to things we like about somebody else. That is natural affection as well. It works in a very interesting way. Where it is working there is a longing to possess the object of my affections and a readiness to trust myself and give myself to that person. It breaks down barriers in a way that otherwise you might say are unwise, and safeguard my own personal security. The way that love works is not very easy to explain, but it establishes a new basis for confidence and trust, very deep trust, very deep personal trust, and becomes the foundation of a new relationship. That also is of God. One of the consequences of sin which we read of in Romans is that we have Godless people “without natural affection”. That is a terrible thing, “without natural affection”.
One of the saddest things in the world today are all the children who are, for all practical purposes, abandoned by those who brought them into the world. Some of them are abandoned to the extent that they live in the care of the authorities or they may nominally live at home, but without security. There is no manifestation of affection. People are taken up with themselves in a selfish kind of way, the children feel unwanted. They get into gangs where they have some respect and all kinds of other mischief. That is not of God. What a terrible thing it must be for God that He has offered a heart of love, and put into the heart of His creature the capacity to love those for whom they are responsible, and He looks and finds that essential ingredient missing. I do not want to be negative about these things. I wanted to keep to what God had in His mind. One of the consequences of this fall - because that is how we would speak of it - is that it has produced a lost condition. When we speak about a lost condition, what we mean is that it is not possible for those who are lost to recover themselves. It is like falling into the sea or falling down a big hole: you cannot get out. Sometimes we feel like that. We get into a situation which gets rather complicated and difficult, or we may find someone has let us down or something like that. We get into a situation which makes us feel rather foolish or depressed, but we cannot think how we are to get out of the situation. The sinner’s position is like that. The sinner is lost. God has not changed but people have turned away from God; they are His enemies. He has not treated us as enemies, but we have made God an enemy. The reason for that is that His will is different from ours. What have we lost in doing that? We have lost the great governing power of His love. Paul says in one of the epistles that we have become “alienated and enemies in mind by wicked works”, Col 1: 21. That is that the wicked works have created hatred and enmity between ourselves and God. And above all things, fear.
God has not changed at all. I love the verse we sometimes sing -
There is rest in the Saviour’s heart,
Who would never turn grief away:
But has found, in what sin once had made our part,
The domain of His love’s display. (Hymn 85)
What a triumph God has sought! God has taken the very thing that had created distance, the very things that have chilled the heart of man and spoiled his relationship with God, that appear to represent a challenge to the great majesty of God Himself; He has used those things to make them the scene, the stage, on which the fulness of His love is going to be displayed. We sang about that in our hymn:
Love told out at Calvary (Hymn 212).
Love told out at the cross is a wonderful thing. That is what John says in this passage. “Herein as to us has been manifested the love of God, that God has sent his only begotten Son into the world”, 1 John 4: 9. Why did He come? Did He come to do some kind of audit of humanity, to find out how far away we were? No, He came to save the world. That is what John says in his gospel: “God has not sent his Son into the world that he may judge the world, but that the world may be saved through him”, John 3: 17. How is it going to be saved? It is going to be saved by God’s love. That is what John says, just before that verse I quoted; “God so loved the world”, it says, “that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes on him may not perish, but have life eternal”. John follows that through here, writing that God has so loved that we “might live through him”. It is very striking; the great principles of the gospel are brought together. Jesus died that I might live. That is the way God has chosen to express Himself.
I spoke about natural affection, and there are many things natural affection will do. It is distinct from the love of God; so you cannot learn about the love of God by looking at natural affection but you might learn about God from it because the relationship is from God. If you want to learn about the love of God, you learn it from God Himself. You do not learn it from what is in your own heart; you do not learn it from what you experience from others or from what you observe in others: you learn it from God Himself. We know the love of God because God Himself has shown that love to us. You can know the love of God because God has shown that love to you. What a precious thing that is. It says here that “God has sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him”. He says, “not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son a propitiation for our sins”. That is a rather difficult word, propitiation. It is a word that John uses more than once, and a very simple meaning of it is that, if someone is propitiated, it means their favour has been won. God must abhor the very idea of sin and we can see that in just a moment when we come to the cross. God is holy and has an absolute abhorrence of sin and it must attract his judgment, His eternal judgment. Where the sinner might be exposed to that judgment, now God looks upon him with favour. It is not that we have done anything to earn that favour; no, Someone else has earned that favour on our account. How has He done that? By bearing the judgment that our sins deserved. He is the propitiation for our sins. God has acted in perfect righteousness. A glorious Person, the Lord Jesus, has stepped forward to take the sinner’s place and to make a provision that anyone could have who is led to believe. It was there upon that cross, that awful cross. He bore the wrath and judgment of God, wrath and judgment He knew, a judgment of sin He shared, wrath and judgment He exhausted,
When in darkness on the tree. (Hymn 212)
You think of those three hours, when God withheld His favour, withheld His communion, from His beloved Son. He did what no one else could do and He expressed His love in a way no one else could ever think of expressing it. You could not imagine that you could offer a member of your family, for example, as a way of demonstrating your love. You could not do that; it is not appropriate. God commends His love to us in that He took His only-begotten Son and gave Him for sinners. “God commends his love to us, in that, we being still sinners, Christ has died for us”, Rom 5: 8. While some contexts of natural affection are unconditional, nothing compares with the love of God. It is commended to those who were still sinners. It is commended to us. We may have embraced the gospel, but we must remember that it was whilst we were yet sinners that God showed His love to us. It was not because there was lovability in us; it was not because there was anything that commended us to God. No. God has commended Himself to us. What a wonderful thing that is. How hard the heart of man must be that the commendation of such love should ever be refused, that someone could listen simply and maybe for a few minutes to someone speaking about love so great that has done so much for them, and turn away and say this is not for them or that they would rather go on without it; that they would rather face the God whose judgment must come when they could have embraced the sacrifice that He made in His love. We sometimes sing that -
Though His gracious call ye have oft refused,
And He’s sought your trust in vain,
Yet with love unchanged by cold neglect
He is seeking you again. (Hymn 439)
How wonderful it is to think of the persistence of God’s love; how deep it must be. You, the sinner, are its object. The greatest Person in the universe, a supreme Being who presides over everything, in whose hand our breath is, pursues you in the gospel in love: the Father sent the Son for your blessing and your salvation.
It says here, “that we may have boldness in the day of judgment”. The day of judgment is coming. There will be a day of judgment; there will be a reckoning. The believer does not have to worry about the day of reckoning. If I tell you what it is going to be like, you will see what I mean. At the day of judgment, according to the Scripture, the throne will be set, and the Person sitting on that throne is the Lord Jesus. When I appear there, I will be standing before the very One who died for my sins. I will stand in the presence of One whose love for me I know. I know He loves me so much that He has given Himself for me. I know this, that He is raised: His being there at all is the proof that the work He did was accepted by God. God was glorified in the work that He did. He has appointed a day “to judge the habitable earth in righteousness by the man whom he has appointed, giving the proof of it to all in having raised him from among the dead”, Acts 17: 31. That is the proof of God’s pleasure in this glorious Person. He did not remain in death, in which millions of people lie, including some who may have been given a much greater place in secular history than He has ever been afforded. God passed them all over, and He raised one Man from among the dead: that One is the Man who died on the cross for my sins. His being raised and set at God’s right hand means that they no longer rest in any way upon Him. He took them and bore them, and God’s judgment of them is exhausted; and He rises into the presence of God without a trace of them left. He will sit on God’s judgment seat and I, the forgiven sinner, will appear before Him: a wonderful thing. “Therefore having been justified”, Paul says, “we have peace towards God through our Lord Jesus Christ”, Rom 5: 1. How wonderful that is, to appear at the throne knowing that we have peace with God through the very Man who sits there - glorious triumph! It brings assurance, it brings peace, it brings security into the soul; and that is perfect love. It casts out fear.
I spoke about the place that fear has in the heart of man when he comes to think about God. It can be cast out. It does not just drain away gradually. It does not just come and go and come back again and again. No, it is cast out; it is gone because I have put my faith in the One whom God has raised from among the dead. No longer am I tormented by the guilt of my conscience. Maybe there are things that touch my conscience, yes, I trust there are; but I can be free of their guilt knowing they have been borne, and I bear them no more.
It says here, “he that fears has not been made perfect in love”. That means he has not got the point, to put it simply. God has manifested His love for you in a way that caters for your need altogether and His need altogether, so that a precious relationship which was founded in His love can now be fully enjoyed. It is not just restored, because there is something else: “the love of God”, it says, “is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us”, Rom 5: 5. Now I spoke about the spirit which God breathed into man and that is spelt with a small ‘s’ - we are spirit, soul and body. The spirit we have is a gift from God. There is another gift that is spelt with a capital ‘S’. God has given His Spirit to believers, and that giving of the Holy Spirit to us is a manifestation of His love. The imparting of the Holy Spirit is something even greater than the breathing into man that we read of in Genesis, because now we have been made to know the things of God. Now we may begin to understand the greatness of the love of God manifested to us, not just in our circumstances, but in the communication of His own spiritual purpose and grace for us, wonderful blessings which were always in God’s mind. The ultimate end in the glad tidings would not simply be our relief - although He is anxious to secure that - but that we should receive His Holy Spirit so that we may know and enjoy a relationship with Him which was ever in His purpose for us.
I go over these things simply, beloved, because God presents His love to attract us. He looks for an answer; He looks for something that fits the way He has come out to us. It is not that He makes us feel inadequate or anything of that sort, but the implantation of the Spirit creates a longing to answer to Him. Paul says, “God has sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father”, Gal 4: 6. That is, it stirs your affections towards the One who has acted in such love towards you. My desire in preaching the gospel to all here is simply that there might be that response and that God might be glorified.
May He bless the word.
Buckhurst Hill
18th May 2025