In The Master's Service

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GOD'S LOVE

Elder Wayne Crocker

God's love is evident all around us. Even in nature there are marvelous displays of His abounding love. The beauty we are able to see with our eyes, the melodious sounds we hear with our ears, the aromas we are blessed to smell, and the pleasing taste of good food and drink, etc., all display God's love. The wonderful order of nature seen in His providential care of beings both small and great gives evidence that God is love.

Although I want to emphasize that God is love (I John 4:8), God is also holy and just and has many attributes other than love. The creation, including man, was declared by God to be "very good" (Genesis 1:31). Certainly this perfection of creation was a demonstration of God's love and power. Before sin entered the world, the earth was surely a paradise. But after sin entered by the transgression of Adam, we now have a marred creation. Much suffering, wickedness, death and ugliness is found mixed with the joys and beauties in the earth. "For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now" (Romans 8:22).

The greatest display of God's love is found in His provision for His children who sinned against Him. Due to original sin in Adam and the continual willing sin of all mankind, there is nothing found in man that would in any respect warrant God's love and mercy!

Perhaps no scripture speaks more pointedly to the manner of God's love to His children than John 3:14-17: "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved."

Verse 14 tells us there is a similarity between Moses lifting up the brazen serpent and the lifting up of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross to pay for our sins. Like most types and shadows in the Old Testament, there are similarities, but not the exact image. It was necessary for the children of Israel who were bitten by a serpent (due to their sins) to look upon the brazen serpent to avoid death. A child of God who is still dead in sins has no ability to look to the cross for deliverance. But the death of Jesus on the cross is the basis upon which eternal life is bestowed upon one dead in trespasses and sins. Jesus had just completed His teachings regarding how this new birth of the Spirit comes about by the sovereign work of God (John 3:8). The lesson is that even as the serpent provided a preservation of natural life to Israelites, the death of Jesus while lifted up on the cross provides eternal life to the objects of His love.

The expression "whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life" is in John 3:15 and 3:16. The word "believeth" is not given to denote an action required to have eternal life. Neither is it given here to exclude people from God's grace. It simply identifies those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as possessing eternal life. However, Jesus does identity some of the unbelieving Jews as being "not of my sheep" (John 10:26).

John 3:16 is a beautiful expression of God's love for His elect family throughout the world, in all nations, kindreds, people and tongues (Revelation 7:9). God so loved this great multitude that no man could number (Revelation 7:9), that He gave Jesus that this entire world of His elect would have eternal life!

What is the "so loved" in John 3:16? The verse tells us "that he gave his only begotten Son." In what manner did he give Jesus? Isaiah tells us much about this giving: "He is despised and rejected of men: a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief...he was despised..." (Isaiah 53:3). "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: we did esteem him stricken smitten of God, and afflicted" (Isaiah 53:4). Isaiah goes on to tell much about the suffering and death of our Lord. Jesus had done nothing worthy of death, "he had done no violence, neither was there any deceit in his mouth" (Isaiah 53:9). "Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin..."(Isaiah 53:10).

In His love for you and me, and all the family of God, God bruised His Son to such an extent that Jesus suffered the anguish of hell for our sins. The greatest sorrow and pain ever experienced upon earth took place on the hill of Calvary as Jesus cried out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46).

"In this is manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another" (I John 4:9-11).