What is God Like ?- Part 7

“There are three things told us in Scripture concerning the nature of God. First, ‘God is spirit’ (John 4:24). In the Greek there is no indefinite article, and to say ‘God is a spirit’ is most objectionable, for it places Him in a class with others. God is ‘spirit’ in the highest sense. Because He is ‘spirit’ He is incorporeal, having no visible substance. Had God a tangible body, He would not be omni-present, He would be limited to one place; because He is ‘spirit’ He fills heaven and earth. Secondly, ‘God is light’ (1 John 1:5), which is the opposite of darkness. In Scripture ‘darkness’ stands for sin, evil, death, and ‘light’ for holiness, goodness, life. ‘God is light’ means that He is the sum of all excellency. Thirdly, ‘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.” (Arthur Pink)

That God ‘is’ love, not merely that it is ‘in’ His nature to love, defies human comprehension. Our attempts to define God’s love are framed by our own conceptions of what ‘love’ means, and what it should look like. Sadly, the tendency to define God’s love in human terms has also invaded His Bride, the church, to the extent that characteristics and attributes of God clearly set forth in scripture that contradict our definitions, are rarely mentioned from the pulpit, are explained away, or are simply tossed out. Our ‘Christian’ minds have been so well-conditioned by man-centered humanistic psychology, that we can no longer conceive of a God who ‘is’ love displaying wrath and judgment. So what does scripture tells us about God’s love?

1. The love of God is not influenced by anything we do or don’t do. “The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples.  But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.” (Deut 7:7-8). The reason any of us loves God is because He first loved us. (1 John 4:19).

2. God’s love is eternal. Since God is eternal, and because He ‘is’ love, His love is also eternal. In Jeremiah 31:3, God declared His everlasting love for His people even though they were in exile, while promised deliverance from bondage. “The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.” While the prophet Jeremiah spoke directly to God’s Old Testament covenant people, the Apostle Paul expressed the same eternal truth to believers in Ephesus, whether they were Jews or Gentiles: “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—” (Ephesians 1:4-5). 

3. God’s live is sovereign. Since God is sovereign, and since He is love, His love is sovereign. This truth also follows from the eternal nature of God’s love. Our Ephesians passage (Ephesians 1:4-5) tells us that God, because in His love it pleased Him to do so, predetermined to have a people unto Himself that He would present as a love gift to His Son (John 6:37-40). Once again, the Apostle Paul, drawing upon God’s  words to Moses, reminded New testament believers of the sovereign nature of God’s love:  “Just as it is written: ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’ It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.” (Romans 9:13-16).

4. God’s love is infinite and unchangeable. For God SO loved. . .(John 3:16). “Everything about God is infinite. His essence fills heaven and earth. His wisdom is illimitable, for He knows everything of the past, present, and future. His power is unbounded, for there is nothing too hard for Him. So His love is without limit. There is a depth to it which none can fathom; there is a height to it which none can scale; there is a length and breadth to it which defies measurement, by any creature standard.” (Arthur Pink). 

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” (James 1:17). All of God’s attributes are forever, as is the character of His beloved Son: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8).

5. God’s love is infinitely gracious. For God SO LOVED that He gave His Son to die for OUR sin! Because the wages of sin is death, by His own unchangeable decree, and because since the Fall of man every human being has been born spiritually dead and separated from God for eternity, God sentenced His own beloved Son to die so that all who would come to believe in the Son would be reconciled to Himself and find eternal life.

“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:1-9)

Not only did God send His own Son to die on our behalf, when we would not even seek Him on our own (Romans 3:10-18), God Himself draws us to the Cross of Calvary (John 6:44). Without a supernatural work of God in the human heart, no one would choose Christ! Can a dead man see? Can a dead man hear? Can a dead man choose? When God exposes a man to the true nature of his sin and lost condition, and presents to that man His Son and Savior, that man will run to the Cross!   That, dear friends, is the irresistible grace of God who ‘is’ Love!  

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Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6