REFORMED WITNESS
Volume V, August 1997, Number 8
The Love of God
by Rev. Herman Hoeksema
Reprinted from the April 1, 1938 issue of The Standard Bearer
It would, no doubt, be difficult to find a subject more biblical than that which is the topic of this essay: the love of God. Nor would it be easy to speak on a subject more sublime and profound, more worthy of our consideration. By it we are, according to Scripture, directly led to the contemplation of the very Being of God, for God is love, I John 4:8; and especially of love it may be said with unique emphasis, that of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to Him be glory forever, amen! For, herein is love, not that we love Him, but that He loved us, I John 4:10. That is, such is the very nature of all love, that it has its source in God and operates out of Him as its Fountain toward and through us. For, love is of God, that is, it is out of Him as its source, I John 4:7. For that same reason all the course of history finds its chief object, its center, its consummation in an event which is a manifestation of love. For, in this was manifested the love of God toward us, that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him, I John 4:9. For, God so loved the world, that He sent His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life, John 3:16. And because love is so sublime, so uniquely divine, love in us is also the surest evidence that we are of God. He that hateth is in darkness, but he that loveth his brother is in the light, I John 2:9-11. And every one that loveth is born of God. Love is, therefore, the greatest, more sublime even than faith and hope, and all the gift of prophecy, all power and knowledge is not for a moment comparable to love!
Our subject then, may be considered of pre-eminent significance. A discussion of what is by far the greatest in the life of the Christian ought to be of interest to us, not only, but also must be of practical value for our spiritual life. What is that love of God of which Scripture speak so frequently and sublimely? What does it mean, that God is love and that love is always and only out of Him? How is that love of God manifested and who are its objects and participants? And this is emphasized by the fact, that of this greatest of subjects there is also the saddest misunderstanding. The love of God is very generally spoken of, but as little understood as the term is generally used. Let us, therefore, turn to the Word of God in order by it to be instructed in the truth concerning the love of God.
When we turn to the Word of God for instruction with respect to the meaning of the word love, we discover first of all, that in the Old Testament there are especially two words used to express the idea of love, though with different shades of meaning. The first word we have in mind has the root meaning of to join, to fasten. It is also used intransitively so that it means to adhere, to stick together. With respect to love, therefore, it emphasizes the idea of a bond of fellowship. It also expresses the idea of delight. The latter idea is an element in love and is related to the first probably as the cause to the effect. One delights in another and the result is that he longs for the object of his delight, seeks it, and having found it he cleaves to it. According to this word, then, love is that bond of fellowship between two parties that have delight in each other. Thus it is used in Deut. 7:7 of the love of God: The Lord did not set His love upon you (i.e. delight in you, seek you and cleave to you) nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people. And also in Ps. 91:14 the same word is used: Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him. The second word employed in the Old Testament to express the idea of love rather denotes the living action of love than the essence of it as a bond of fellowship. It has the root-meaning: to breathe after, and thus: to long for and strongly to desire. It is the word that is used in Deut. 6:4: "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God [i.e. long for, strongly desire Him] with all thy heart and with all thy mind, and with all thy soul and with all thy strength". God, as the Highest good, therefore, must be the chief and only object of our desire. It is the language of love, when Asaph sings in Ps. 73:25: "Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee." And again it is the profoundest expression of love when David sings in Ps. 42:1,2: "As the hart panteth after the waterbrooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God; for the living God; when shall I come and appear before God?" The word is used also to express the love of God for His people, as in Deut. 4:37: "And because He loved thy fathers, therefore, he chose their seed after them, and brought thee out in his sight, with His mighty power out of Egypt." And in Isa. 63:9: "In His love and in His pity He redeemed them; and He bare them and carried them all the days of old". If we combine the various elements expressed by these terms we may say, that love is a spiritual bond of fellowship, in which two or more parties adhere to one another, a bond which is the result of the delight these parties have in one another, which causes them to desire and to seek one another.
In the New Testament there also occur two words, of which only one needs to be considered here, for it only is used for the love of God. The other word expresses a tender affection, a fondness, which is rather emotional than volitional. It is much weaker than the regular word for love. It is well-known how both words are characteristically employed in John 22:15-17, which narrates the restoration of Peter after he had denied the Lord. The Lord inquires of his sorrowful disciple, whether he loves Him, twice using the stronger word, that expresses love proper, the last time employing the weaker word that denotes a tender affection. The apostle, however, dares not use the stronger word, conscious as he is of his recent manifestation of self-confidence and miserable weakness. If I may translate the weaker word by "to feel for", although this is by no means the exact rendering, we obtain the following result:
"So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I feel for thee."
"He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Yea, Lord, thou knowest, that I feel for thee."
"He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, dost then feel for me? Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I feel for thee!"
However, apart from the fact that this passage only brings out that the one word, that is constantly used for the love of God in Scripture is stronger than the other, it does not teach us anything concerning the proper meaning of the word itself. We shall, therefore, have to consult sundry passages of Holy Writ, in order to ascertain the true denotation of the term and the contents of the concept love.
First of all I would like to call attention to the passage in Col. 3:14: "Above all put on love [charity in our version is old], which is the bond of perfectness." It would probably be over emphasizing the real value of this text if we should say that here we have a biblical definition of love, yet it approaches the nature of a definition very nearly. Love is the bond of perfectness. By "bond of perfectness" I understand a bond or union that is characterized by perfection in the moral ethical sense of the word ethical goodness, such as truth, righteousness, holiness, justice, faithfulness and alike. Love, then, is a bond, that can exist and be maintained only in the sphere of ethical or moral perfection. There is no love in darkness. And they that love darkness do not love one another in the positive sense of the word. If love, as we gathered is the union or bond that is caused by the delight of one party in the other, by the longing of the one for the other, by the seeking of the other by him that loves, then we now learn that the reason and object of this delight is ethical perfection. He that loves, in the true sense of the word, delights in perfection, in moral goodness, in truth and righteousness, in the light. Hence, love requires a perfect subject and a perfect object. Both he that loves and he that is loved must be perfect. Since love is the bond of perfectness, it is the bond that only unites perfect parties only. Love, therefore, is an ethical virtue. It is an attribute and act of the will. It requires a person to love. And it requires a person, or an ethical quality to be the object of love. Hence, we must not use the word, even now and in our English language for animals and things, though the word is used for property when applied to ethical and spiritual virtues. It is true, that the word is employed in Scripture as referring to the very opposite of ethical perfection, as when it is said, that men love darkness rather than light, John 3:19, and that they loved the glory of men more than the glory of God, John 12:43; but this merely emphasizes the very perversion of love in the natural man, even as it is not love but adultery, when a husband is unfaithful to his wedded wife and is said to love another woman. Love is the bond of perfectness, that unites the ethically perfect as such. For that reason it implies a choice of the will and is the very antithesis of hatred. A man cannot serve two masters, or he will love the one and hate the other, Matt. 6:24; God has loved Jacob but Esau hath He hated, Rom. 9:13. Love is also the fulfillment of the law, Rom. 13:10; and the love of God is the first and great commandment, while the love of the neighbor is like unto it. For this same reason the Lord establishes as an unchangeable truth, that he that loves Him does keep His commandments, while he that loveth Him not will not keep His sayings. John 4:23, 24. And the ethically perfect character of love constitutes the basic note in that well-known eulogy of love which we find in I Cor. 13. Love rejoiceth not in iniquity, but it rejoiceth in the truth, I Cor. 13:6.
If we bear this thoroughly ethical character of love in mind, we are not surprised to read in Scripture that God is love, I John 4:8; and that love is always of God, that is, wherever you may find true love, even among men, it is out of God and has its source in Him, I John 4:7; and that God is the God of love, II Cor. 13:11. For, He is pure perfection. His very Being is the bond of perfectness. He is a light and there is no darkness in Him at all. He is righteousness, He is truth, He is knowledge and wisdom, He is purity and Holiness; He is Goodness, the highest Good and the overflowing Fountain of all good. Hence, God loves in Himself, and He loves Himself. All the love and delight of His perfect nature is directed to His own infinite perfections. Also in this respect God is perfectly self-sufficient. He has no need of men's hands to be served; He needs not man's heart to be loved, He is in no need of any creature outside of Himself in order to love. For, God is triune, one in Being and three in persons. He knows Himself as Father through the Son and in the Spirit. Constantly, eternally He beholds His own perfections and delights in them, and the three persons of the Holy Trinity are united in the bond of divinely, infinitely perfect love. Hence, we read that the Father loves the Son, John 3:35; Therefore doth my Father love Me, John 10:17; and He would have the world know that He loves the Father, John 14:31.
We may, then, on the basis of Scripture mention the following elements as essential to love. In the first place, it, is a bond of fellowship, that unites, draws and fastens. In the second place, it is ethical in nature and therefore, requires an ethical subject and an ethical object. Thirdly, love requires an ethically perfect subject and an ethically perfect object; both he that loves and he that is loved must be perfect. If in Scripture we are admonished to love our enemies, them that persecute us, the meaning is not that we are expected to have fellowship with them. The bond of perfectness in such a case cannot exist. The meaning, therefore, is, that we shall bestow acts of love on them, such acts as would tend to draw them unto the sphere of perfection. We shall bless them and pray for them, And finally, love as an act of the perfect subject towards the perfect object is delight in perfection, and therefore, the longing for and the seeking of the object, in order to cling to him when found.
And now we may offer the following definition of love. Love is that spiritual bond of perfect fellowship that subsists between persons that are ethically perfect and dwell in the light, and that, because of their perfection mutually delight in one another, long for one another, seek one another and cling to one another.
As such God is love, the God of love, and all love is of God. ln Him love is absolute and self-sufficient. He is its subject, the One that loves with an infinitely perfect love, from eternity to eternity. And He is its object, the One that is loved. God, being the implication of all ethical perfection, has an infinitely perfect delight in Himself, seeks Himself and eternally finds Himself, has fellowship with Himself, lives the life of perfect love, of the Father, through the Son, and in the Holly Spirit!
But, although God is not in need of any creature to have an object of love, nor to be the object of love, yet, the Word of God does not only speak of this absolute love of God to Himself, but also of a love which He has to us. For, the Scriptures speak of "the beloved according to the election", Rom. 11:28. It teaches us to rejoice that hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God hath been shed abroad in our hearts, something which undoubtedly means that we have been made to possess and experience the love of God to us. Rom. 5:5. The apostle John frequently speaks of this love, particularly in his first general epistle. He calls upon us to admire the wonder of that amazing love when he writes: "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God." I John 3:1. He points to the real nature of love, when he explains: "Herein is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us"; meaning that such is the very character and operation of love, that it proceeds from God alone, not from us to Him, neither mutually from Him to us and from us to Him, but from Him it proceeds to us and our love is but a response to His love, the return of God's own love, through our hearts to Him. I John 4:10. He reminds us that God so loved us that He sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins. I John 4:10,11. It is evident, then, that God does not only love Himself, but that He extended the sphere of His love outside of His own Being and Triune life so as to include also men.
But there is more. Not only do the Scriptures speak of this love of God to us, they also emphatically speak of the love of men to God. Love may be one-sided, purely divine in nature and origin and manner of operation. The effect of this operation and manifestation of the love of God is surely, that we also love God, so that there is a broad of fellowship between Him and His people. For, indeed, He loved us first and all love is out of Him, but we also love Him because: He loved us first, I John 4:19. In fact, that we love God is the heart of the law, that we love Him with all our heart and mind and soul and strength is the first and great commandment. This love of God, both as it is manifested as God's love to us and as it is our response to the love of God, is a love of God in Christ. For that reason the Word of God teaches us to shout with victorious joy, that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, Rom. 8:35; but immediately after reminds us that this love of Christ is the same as the love of God, when the same chapter of the epistle to the Romans concludes that no power in heaven or on earth shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord, Rom. 8:39. And concerning our love to God, the Lord tells His disciples: "If ye love Me, keep my commandments," John 14:15. And again: "If a man love Me he will keep my words"; and the reason is, that the word which He speaks is not His own, but the Father's which sent Him, John 14:23, 24.
And, lastly, Scripture speaks not only of God's love to us and of our love to God, but it also teaches us that by the power of this love of God in our hearts, we also love one another. "He that loveth God loveth his brother also", I John 4:21; and again: "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another", John 13:34. For, "he that loveth his brother dwelleth in the light", I John 2:10. And in this the children of God and the children of the devil are distinctly manifest, that the child of God loves his brother, and he that loveth not his brother is not of God, for this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. By this we even know that we have passed from death into life that we love brethren, for he that loveth not his brother abideth in death, I John 3:10,11,14. Every one, then, that loveth is born of God, I John 4:7. If a man should say that he love God and hate his brother, he is a liar, for this is the commandment which we have from the beginning, that he that loveth God love his brother also, I John 4:21.
If, therefore, we would conceive of the love of God in all its riches and in the entire scope of its operation, we must keep before us:
1. The love of God in God to Himself.
2. The love of God to us.
3. The love of God in us so that we know that He loves us.
4. The love of God in us to God, so that we love Him.
5. The love of God in us to the brethren.For all these are manifestations and operations of the one love of God. Love is always of God, whether it is in God to Himself, in God to us, in us of God, in us to God, in us to the brethren. And the question is: How is this love of God possible as it is directed to us? If love is the bond of perfectness and must have a perfect object, how, then, can God love us, while we are yet sinners? How is this love of God manifested? And how is it realized in us, so that we taste it, so that we respond to it in love to God, and so that we love one another?
And then we must understand first of all, that God loves His people with an everlasting love, from eternity to eternity. For, "The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore, with lovingkindness have I drawn thee", Jer. 31:3. And the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him and His righteousness unto children's children, Ps. 103:17. Jacob hath He loved from eternity, for this was said unto Rebecca, before the children were born, neither had done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to the election might stand, Rom. 9:11-13. And whom He did foreknow, that is with a divine, causal and eternal knowledge of love, He also did predestinate to be conformed according to the image of His Son, He also called, justified and glorified. Rom. 8:29, 30. Besides, He blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ according as He hath chosen us in Him before`the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him, Eph. 1:3, 4. And it is in love, that He predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, Eph. 1:5. This also follows from the fact, that herein is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us, from the fact, that God loved us first, and from the fact, that all love is out of God. Moreover, God is immutable, and so is His love. God does not fall in love. He loves eternally. And this does not merely apply to His divine Self love, but also to His love to His people in Christ Jesus. Now, what does that mean? First of all, that eternally God willed to reveal Himself, in that which we might, humanly speaking, call the very highest of His divine being and life: His love. In the second place, that therefore, from all eternity He divinely and sovereignly knew, that is, conceived and willed a people, that could be the object of His delight and love and that would taste and acknowledge His love and have their delight in Him. In the third place, that, therefore, He conceived of this people in His eternal counsel, as perfect even as He is perfect, for love is the bond of perfectness and God cannot love that which is imperfect, sinful and corrupt. In the fourth place, that He eternally knew His people, not merely as perfect, but as perfected, through the deep way of sin and grace. For, in order that His love might be manifested all the more gloriously and they might taste the blessedness of that love more fully and deeply, God determined in His eternal counsel, that His people should reach the highest perfection in the way of sin and by the power of grace. They are, therefore, eternally before Him, in His divine counsel, not as corrupt, neither merely as perfect but as the perfected, as the redeemed and delivered out of the world, as the adopted children, as washed from their sin, as called and justified and sanctified and glorified. Thus it is in Rom. 8:29, 30. Hence, it is necessarily so, that the object of this love of God are the elect and the elect only. And again, it follows, that God beholds His people eternally in Christ Jesus as their Head, Whom He ordained as such, and to whom He gave His people. Well, then, if we thus conceive of the people of God, of the object of the love of God, we can understand that love is the bond of perfectness, that it requires a perfect subject and a perfect object, and that, nevertheless, God can love His people, though in time they are sinful and in themselves children of wraith as are also the others. "He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath He seen perverseness in Israel; the Lord his God is with him and the shout of a king is among them", Num. 23:21. He knows them, beholds them eternally as perfected in Christ, through the way of sin and death, and as such they are the eternal objects of His immutable love!
Hence, all the history of this present time is centrally an unfolding, a manifestation and realization of that love of God wherewith He eternally loved His people in Christ Jesus. When He created the first man Adam, He created His Church and Adam bears the entire Church in his loins, Christ according to His human nature not excluded. When he falls into sin and death, the Church falls in him, becomes guilty and corrupt according to the flesh in that first man Adam. That in the fulness of time Christ can appear, without guilt and without corruption, though also He according to His human nature is the son of Adam, is not due to the fact, that for once the unclean could bring forth the clean, but through the wonder of grace, whereby the Person of the Son of God united Himself with human nature, so that the guilt of the race could not he imputed to Him: led whereby through the conception of the Holy Spirit the human nature was kept free from defilement. In Paradise the Church fell into sin and death in the loins of Adam. But it was all according to the counsel of God, whose good pleasure it was to manifest His love as sovereign, free, divine, as pure a love that is altogether His own only. Hence, according to His counsel He reaches out in love to its object, His people in sin and death, from the moment of their fall into darkness. He seeks them; He speaks to them; He reveals to them the promise of love, which is the promise of redemption; He separates them; He foreshadows His redeeming love in all the riches of its manifestation in Christ; in sacrifice and altar and priest, in all the shadows and types of the old dispensation. And finally, the fulness of time comes. And that fulness of time is centrally the manifestation of the eternal love of God, which flashes as a beautiful shaft of heavenly light from above. He manifests it in Immanuel, God with us, the Son of God come into the flesh. He reveals it in the bloody tree of Calvary. For, therein is the love of God manifested, that God sent His Son into the world, and sent Him into our death, to be a propitiation for our sin. God reaches out in everlasting love for the object of His love into the lowest part of the earth, yea, into the depth of hell, when His Son in human nature cries out from the darkness of Golgotha: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" By that death of His Son He Himself brings the sacrifice for our sins, which we could never bring, nor even thought of bringing. By that death of His Son He reconciled us, that is, the whole Church of all ages, all the elect, given to Christ by the Father unto Himself, for He justified them in His blood. And, therefore, He further manifests His love, when once more He reaches out into the depth of the death of His Son and raises Him as the first fruits, gives Him glory, eternal life, lifts Him up on high in heaven, and exalts Him at His right hand. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the central and highest manifestation of the love of God, because He died for us while we were yet sinners, and through His death God reconciled us with Himself, while we were yet enemies.
Never may we present the matter in a different light. Never may we present it, as if the love of God to us, to His sinful people, is the result of the death of Christ. God does love us because of the work of Christ; but the work of Christ is the outflow and the manifestation of eternal love. True, by virtue of the work of Christ we are translated into a state of righteousness in which only we can become the proper objects of that love and in which only we may taste the love of God toward us. As long as our sins are not blotted out the guilt of our sin hangs like an impenetrable veil between His eternal love of God and our heart. And in the cross and the resurrection of Jesus that veil is pierced, or rather wholly removed, because it is the blotting out of our sin. But is the love of God that removes the veil and in Christ reaches out for us. Not a wrathful God and a Christ that appeases and reconciles Him. But eternal love, that sends and manifests itself in Christ Jesus our Lord and reconciles us to God. Not God one party, filled with wrath and hatred; and Christ another party, our party, that allays the anger of God; but God His own party, who in everlasting love, for His own name's sake comes Christ to redeem His people from sin and death. It is, therefore, the love of God in Christ, that is manifested on the cross of Calvary!
But even so it is not sufficient. We have been speaking of the love of God as it is in Him and to Himself. We also called your attention to the love of God as it is in Him to His people from before the foundation of the world. We finally considered the love of God to His people, as He manifested it in Christ Jesus our Lord, His incarnation, death and resurrection. But we must still speak of the love of God in us and to us, of the love of God in us to Him, and of the love of God in us and to one another. For, all these are the love of God in us and through us to Him and to one another. How is this all realized? How do we come to taste, to experience to know the love of God to us? And how do we come to love Him? Is it, perhaps, thus, that God merely manifested His love to us, as love to sinners, that He has that love to sinners proclaimed promiscuously to all that hear the gospel, and that by the proclamation of that unfathomable love the sinner is moved and attracted and persuaded to love God? That the matter is thus we would gather from much sentimental preaching about the love of God. God loved you so wonderfully, will you not love Him in return. But such is not the case. This might be the case, if love were as it is most generally presented, a sentimental feeling for sinners as such, a sentiment longing to bring them to heaven instead of to hell. But that is not the case. Love is the bond of perfectness. It requires a perfect subject and a perfect object. God, the eternally perfect Subject, loved His eternally perfect people in Christ Jesus, as He beheld them in His counsel. But this people cannot taste the love of God to them, neither can or will they love God, until they also are made perfect. By nature they are corrupt, that is, with all their mind and will and heart they stand in enmity against God. For, the carnal mind is enmity against God. It is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. Rom 8:5-8. We have no delight in God, as the only Good and Perfect. We hate Him. We do not seek Him. We flee from Him. Yet it is as the ethically perfect God, that He manifested Himself in Christ Jesus. He manifested His love in the cross and the resurrection, to be sure, but it is redeeming and delivering and perfecting love. And by nature we love sin and hate perfection and we do not want to be delivered from the pollution of sin. Hence, we will have none of Him, though He manifest Himself to us in the face of Christ Jesus. He that hateth God, hateth His Christ and will crucify Him anew!
Hence, finally, it is that same power of the love of God, that is manifested in Christ that reaches out into our hearts and draws us with cords of love out of the mire of sin into the fellowship of His perfection. The exalted Christ received the Spirit. And through the Spirit He returned to His Church, dwells in them and operates in them. It is by that Spirit that He regenerates us and makes us partakers of His own perfect life of the resurrection. It is by that Spirit that He opens our eyes that we may see, our ears that we may hear, that He calls and through the Word draws us unto Himself. It is by that Spirit that we, on the one hand, are made to see the misery of our sin and enmity against God and, on the other hand are made to thirst for the living God as He revealed Himself in all the beauty of His perfect love in Christ. It is by the Spirit that we are led to the cross, that we appropriate the love of God, the forgiveness of sin, righteousness and eternal life. It is by that Spirit that the love of God in Christ is shed abroad in our hearts, so that we know and taste that He loved us with an everlasting love. It is by that Spirit too, that the power of the love of God, which is love of perfection, causes us to love Him, to have our delight in Him, to seek Him, to thirst after Him, to desire to be pleasing to Him, and, therefore, to flee from the world and from the corruption of sin and to do His commandments. By the power of that love we walk in the light. And in that light we have fellowship, not only with God, but also with one another. For, even when the love of God in us becomes love of one another, it is still the love of God and still the bond of perfectness, we love one another, not according to the flesh but by the Spirit of Christ, as children of the Most High, reflecting His perfection. Therefore, doth the world not know us, but we know one another. Therefore, does also this love of the brethren as the bond of perfectness only manifest itself as we walk in the light of God and keep His commandments. It is for this same reason, that both the love of God to us and our love of God is still imperfectly experienced, and also that the love of the brethren is not perfect. But when all the darkness of sin shall have disappeared, and we shall be presented without spot and blemish before God and the Father, then we shall know even as we are known, then we all see face to face. Then shall the love of God be perfected in us and through us and we shall have our eternal delight in Him as we shall dwell in His tabernacle forever!
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