God Loves… Himself

The true Gospel of God makes men new creations (II Corinthians 5:17). These new creations are new creatures in Christ and have new desires and goals in life. These are creatures with new loves, comforts, and hopes. These are not like the old creatures that lived for themselves and loved only that which loved them, but their old hearts have been crushed and broken and now they have the very love of God in their souls. Now these souls love God for who He is and love His glory and honor rather than their own. Now these souls have pleasure in Him rather than in the pleasures of the world. These are souls that have had their hearts of pride and self crushed and broken and now there is room for Christ to make His home in them. Now Christ is Lord rather than self. Now that new soul is emptied of self and is humble and so Christ is truly at home there. All of these glorious teachings are based on a God who loves Himself within the Trinity rather than from a teaching that focuses on the love of man for self.

A soul that is content with being saved from hell and not being saved from self-love and pride does not understand the glory of God who loves Himself which is displayed and manifested in the face of Christ, and to those who have Christ they become instruments through which that glory is manifested. The soul that wants to retain its position of self-love and pride is one that believes that God loves him or her and will save him or her without changing his or her heart. That is a false gospel. The true Gospel is that there is hope that God will save based on grace which has its cause within the God who loves Himself. The true Gospel is that there is hope that this God will have mercy and will change the heart of the sinner so that it now loves Him rather than itself. This is the Gospel that looks upon the sinner as one that by nature is a child of wrath and dead in sins and trespasses. It looks upon the sinner and sees nothing but a mass of sin and idolatry. The Gospel of God and of the glory of God in the face of Christ is glorious in grace because it starts with nothing but sinners and God Himself. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:4-7)

Verse 4 is a very intriguing verse. The wording of the verse is a little different, but it shines with His glory. The text tells us that God is rich in mercy and all who know they need even a little mercy are happy to see that. But the verse goes on to say why God has mercy. It is “because of His great love.” This fits with our modern thinking that for some reason God loves human beings and has mercy on them. But so far we don’t have the answer as to why God loves man. When we add the words as the text adds the words (“with which He loved us”), something different is going on. God does not just love a human being and thus it fits the modern perspective of God being love and therefore loving man, but it tells us of this great love with which He loved us. This points to a love within the Trinity and then from that love God gives a love to man. This love is such that it takes dead sinners and makes them alive together with Christ. The purpose of all of this is so that “He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

We can see in the Ephesians 2:4-7 text that God is love and from that love He loves human beings. But a human being is not loved and cannot know that s/he is loved until s/he is raised from the spiritual dead. That is because all of God’s saving love is in Jesus Christ. We must remember that in the Trinity the Father loves the Son. When this text tells us that God’s grace, kindness, and love are in Christ Jesus, we must not discount what that means. It means that human beings are loved in truth only when the love of God is set upon them and they are in Christ. In other words, the love of the Father is still in Christ and is still primarily for Christ. The text tells us the reason that He saves sinners and that is to manifest the riches of His grace in Christ. God’s primary motive in saving sinners is for the sake of Christ and to display the glory of His grace. In other words, His motives in salvation have to do with His own glory. His love in salvation is based on Himself in His triune being.

The Gospel of God, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Gospel of the kingdom, and the Gospel of grace are all the same Gospel and all teach us to trust in Christ alone. We are told many things about what it means to be justified by faith alone, but do we trust in the love of God in Christ alone in order to be saved by grace alone? Can God save sinners to the glory of His grace alone if His love for sinners is based on anyone or anything other than Himself? Can the sinner trust in Christ alone if the sinner believes that God’s love for him or her is based on anything but Christ? If all of God’s saving love is in Christ, and surely no one who believes the Gospel will argue anything different, then a person must be in Christ to be loved in a saving manner. Can this mean anything other than that God loves the Son and all that are united to the Son by faith? Does the Father love sinners and save them in a way where His saving love is not in Christ alone? You see, the Gospel is glorious and gives sinners hope in God only to the degree that it is based on and flows from God’s love for Himself. If it is based on sinners, there is not hope.

This entry was posted on June 7, 2008 at 6:52 am and is filed under Historical Reformed Theology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.