God Loves… Himself

We will start this post with more quotes from The Religious Affections (RA) of Jonathan Edwards:

“From what has been said, therefore, we come necessarily to this conclusion, concerning that wherein spiritual understanding consists; viz, that it consists in a sense of the heart, of the supreme beauty and sweetness of the holiness or moral perfection of divine things, together with all that discerning and knowledge of things of religion, that depends upon, and flows from such a sense. Spiritual understanding consists primarily in a sense of heart of that spiritual beauty… When the mind is sensible of the sweet beauty and amiableness of a thing, that implies a sensibleness of sweetness and delight in the presence of the idea of it: and this sensibleness of the amiableness or delightfulness of beauty, carries in the very nature of it, the sense of the heart… the sense of the heart, wherein the mind don’t only speculate and behold, but relishes and feels” (RA 272-273).

Here we see a direct and frontal attack on many forms of theology as taught today. A person could (hypothetically) have a perfect grasp of all the teachings of Reformed theology and even the major theologians and preachers of theology throughout history and still miss the most important issue of it all. God has such a beauty that is so far over and beyond what a historian or theologian can teach that truly the greatest of them all can teach nothing but the barest rudiments of the understanding. There is a beauty and sweetness that God alone can teach in the heart that makes all other knowledge either beautiful or perhaps simply pale in contrast. Mortal man can only point toward spiritual things of beauty and direct others toward them, but no mortal man can give another the sense of these things in the depths of the soul. In other words, the depths of true theology and true Reformed theology cannot be gained from the Puritans and the older Reformed theologians. While much can be gained by reading them, the truest knowledge of spiritual understanding can only be given by God Himself.

We can teach the creeds until they are perfectly known in one sense and even memorized backwards, but God alone can give a true spiritual taste of His glory that those things teach. We can teach men and women those things in terms of the word, but only the Spirit can give them a true sense of the beauty and glory of them. We must never let people rest in an outward understanding no matter how great that outward understanding is, but instead we must tell them about and point them to what true beauty is which God alone can give a relish for. A person in a local church is not truly taught unless the Holy Spirit gives that person a true spiritual taste of God in the teaching. A person in a seminary is not truly taught unless the Holy Spirit teaches that person what a true spiritual taste of God is and then gives that person a taste of it. The people in the pews that are truly converted are starving in their souls because we are giving them dry bread in the form of dusty dry orthodoxy and not pointing them to the true beauty of His glory. Many others are lost and yet assured of their salvation because they have an intellectual understanding of things only and so do not see the true glory of God. If they were given a sight of the true glory of God they would hate Him because He does not stand for their self-interests as they think He does now.

“Spiritual understanding primarily consists in this sense, or taste of the moral beauty of divine things; so that no knowledge can be called spiritual, any further than it arises from this, and has this in it. When the true beauty and amiableness of the holiness or true moral good that is in divine things, is discovered to the soul, it as it were opens a new world to its view. This shows the glory of all the perfections of God, and of everything appertaining to the divine being: for, as was observed before, the beauty of all arises from God’s moral perfections.” (RA 272-273).

As we see from this quote from Edwards, no knowledge can be called spiritual knowledge apart from this sense or taste of the moral beauty of divine things. We must also remember that eternal life is said to consist in knowing God and the Son (John 17:3). Surely, then, we can see that to know God must be a spiritual knowing rather than in knowing data given to us by some means. It is in knowing God by seeing His moral beauty which is His love for Himself which is His holiness that we can see how all things shine forth the love of God for Himself which is the display of His beauty and glory. This opens up an entirely new world to those with this spiritual view or to those with eternal life. These people see the true glory of God and how everything manifests this glory. Instead of seeing the beauty of things as they relate to self, they now see the true beauty of things as how they relate to God’s love for Himself which is His moral perfection.

How lovely the Gospel is when it is seen as the very display of God’s love which is truly only seen in His love for Himself as triune. A Gospel that thinks of the love of God as focused on man at the center is a gospel that makes God out to be an idolater. That is repugnant to the soul that loves God in the beauty of His love for Himself and sees God’s love for Himself as true holiness. Until the modern professing Church repents of teaching a man-centered god and its man-centered gospels, it will never see the true glory of God in its majestic glory with its majestic and delightful gushing forth of God’s love for Himself shared with sinners. It will never know that true repentance is being turned from man-centeredness to being focused on God’s God-centeredness. It will never know the Gospel of the glory of God in the outshining of it in Christ as discovered in the face of Christ. It will continue on its spiritual barrenness and ugliness of a man-centered though orthodox gospel that kills souls. Oh that God would give us a taste of the springs of living water as it flows from His infinite love for Himself!

Today we will look at two more quotes from Jonathan Edwards:

“If persons have a great sense of the natural perfections of God, and are greatly affected with them, or have any other sight or sense of God, than that which consists in, or implies a sense of the beauty of his moral perfections, it is no certain sign of grace: as particularly men’s having a great sense of the awful greatness, and terrible majesty of God; for this is only God’s natural perfection, and what men may see, and yet be entirely blind to the beauty of his moral perfections” (RA 263)

Here we have an indictment of a massive percentage of the practices of the modern professing Church. We have people running around telling others that God’s greatness and glory is seen in that He wants all to be wealthy and lavishes riches upon them. So people will repent of something and seek after religion because wealth has a certain luster and glory to it. God is glorious to the degree that He is thought to give people money. In other circles God is thought to be glorious because He delivers people from hell. Hell is set out to be awful and terrible, and so it is. But if hell is only terrible because of human comforts, then hell has not been set out for what it is. If the Gospel is there only to deliver human beings from those things which take away from human comforts then the Gospel is essentially centered upon human beings and God is human centered as well. If that is all that people hear, then they will never repent of their self-centeredness and see the glory of the God-centeredness of God. In other words, they are entirely blind to the true beauty of God and of how that beauty shines in all of His perfections and of how that glory shines in the Gospel of the glory of God. The Gospel is all about the true glory of God and how that shines in Christ. If we only set the glory of the Gospel out in human centered ways, we are being used of the devil to hide the Gospel of the glory of Christ from people (II Corinthians 4:3-6). So when people have a sense of the greatness and majesty of God, but they do not see His glory other than what is possible from a man-centered view, that is no sign of grace at all. If we are moved by a sight or sense of the greatness of God as set forth in the universe, again that is no certain sign of grace. We must be taught in our soul by the Holy Spirit and have the love of God for Himself poured out in our soul by the Holy Spirit to see His true glory and majesty in all things.

“Wicked men and devils will see, and have a great sense of everything that appertains to the glory of God, but only the beauty of his moral perfection. They will see his infinite greatness and majesty, his infinite power, and will be fully convinced of his omniscience, and his eternity and immutability; and they will see and know everything appertaining to his moral attributes themselves, but only the beauty and amiableness of them: they will see and know that he is perfectly just and righteous and true; and that he is a holy God…and they will see the wonderful manifestations of his infinite goodness and free grace to the saints; and there is nothing will be hid from their eyes but only the beauty of these moral attributes, and that beauty of other attributes, which arises from it. And so natural men in this world are capable of having a very affecting sense of everything else that appertains to God, but this only” (RA 264).

This paragraph from Edwards is simply shocking when applied to the modern professing Church. Wicked men and devils see much of the greatness and glory of God but simply do not see the beauty of His moral perfections. They see His infinity and are awed. They see something of the beauty of that and they also see how He is just and righteous. They may see what they think is His holiness and be melted by what they think is free grace. They see all of these attributes as beautiful in the sense that they see them as working for their eternal good, but they do not see the true beauty of His character. Men in academia may know more facts about God than a thousand other men, but they can still miss the true beauty of God. We have preachers who preach something of the wonders of Jesus Christ and set Him forth as beautiful and lovely for all that He has done for human beings, but all they are doing is preaching Christ as centered upon human beings and are not preaching the Gospel of the true glory of God. A man can preaching nothing but truth about Christ in one sense and dwell long and loud upon the cross and resurrection of Christ and preach nothing that will move a soul from being dead in its self-centeredness to being alive to the true glory and beauty of God.

Much has been written and preached on the assurance of salvation. In those books and sermons people are taught to look to Christ and all that He has done for them, but only in a self-centered way. Are they taught to look for true assurance in a way where God is truly holy and where His true love flows? Are they taught to look to the true beauty and majesty of God or are they taught to look to those things in a way that the devils can see and understand? Is there anything taught from the majority of the modern pulpit that the devil and an unbeliever cannot understand and at least the unbeliever have a sense of some greatness of God based on the unbeliever’s self-interest alone? Is this true within Reformed circles as well? It most certainly is. Within Reformed circles we have the intellectual truths of the Reformed faith taught and people agree that it is biblical. Some if not most see something beautiful about it, but do they see the true beauty of it? Do they see the true glory of God as God-centered in it? It matters not how much intellectual truth a person has of God if a person does not see the true beauty of the glory of God in it. After all, that person is seeing nothing more than a wicked person and the devil himself can see. Edwards is teaching us something very important here. We need to listen.

The section that immediately follows is taken from The Religious Affections by Jonathan Edwards:

“So the holiness of God in the more extensive sense of the word… is the same with the moral excellency of the divine nature, or his purity and beauty as a moral agent, comprehending all his moral perfections, his righteousness, faithfulness and goodness… From what has been said, it may easily be understood what I intend, when I say that a love to divine things for the beauty of their moral excellency, is the beginning and spring of all holy affections… Holy persons, in the exercise of holy affections, do love divine things primarily for their holiness: they love God, in the first place, for the beauty of his holiness or moral perfection, as being supremely amiable in itself… The true beauty & loveliness of all intelligent beings does primarily & most essentially consist in their moral excellency or holiness. Herein consists the loveliness of the angels, without which with all their natural perfections, their strength, and their knowledge, they would have no more loveliness than devils…But though the devils are very strong, and of great natural understanding, they be not the more lovely: they are more terrible indeed, but not the more amiable; but on the contrary, more hateful. The holiness of an intelligent creature, is the beauty of all his natural perfections. And so it is in God, according to our way of conceiving of the divine Being: holiness is in a peculiar manner the beauty of the divine nature. Hence we often read of the beauty of holiness (Ps 29:2; 96:9, and 110:3). This renders all his other attributes glorious and lovely. Tis the glory of God’s wisdom, that tis a holy wisdom, and not a wicked subtlety and craftiness. This makes his majesty lovely, and not merely dreadful and horrible, that it is a holy majesty. Tis the glory of God’s immutability, that it is a holy immutability, and not an inflexible obstinacy in wickedness. And therefore it must needs be, that a sight of God’s loveliness must begin here. A true love to God must begin with a delight in his holiness, and not with a delight in any other attribute; for no other attribute is truly lovely without this, and no otherwise than as (according to our way of conceiving God) it derives its loveliness from this; and therefore it is impossible that other attributes should appear lovely, in their true loveliness, till this is seen; and it is impossible that any perfection of the divine nature should be loved with true love, till this is loved. If the true loveliness of all God’s perfections, arises from the loveliness of his holiness, then the true love of all his perfections, arises from the love of his holiness. They that don’t see the glory of God’s holiness, can’t see anything of the true glory of his mercy and grace; they see nothing of the glory of those attributes, as any excellency of God’s nature, as it is in itself; though they may be affected with them, and love them, as they concern their interest: for those attributes are no part of the excellency of God’s nature, as that excellent in itself, any otherwise than as they are included in his holiness…. As the beauty of the divine nature does primarily consist in God’s holiness, so does the beauty of all divine things. Herein consists the beauty of the saints, that they are saints, or holy ones: tis the moral image of God in them, which is their beauty; & that is their holiness” (RA 255-258).

As noted in earlier posts, Jonathan Edwards, speaking of God, said that “His infinite beauty is his infinite mutual love of himself.” In fact, without going into great detail at this moment, Edwards would say that God’s holiness consists in love for Himself. In other words, when God swears by His holiness He is swearing by His love for Himself as triune. That which gives all the attributes of God their beauty is His holiness, which is His love for Himself. As Edwards says in the above quote, “If the true loveliness of all God’s perfections, arises from the loveliness of his holiness, then the true love of all his perfections, arises from the love of his holiness. They that don’t see the glory of God’s holiness, can’t see anything of the true glory of his mercy & grace; they see nothing of the glory of those attributes.” If Edwards is correct in saying this, then it is of the utmost importance that we see this love of God for Himself, which shows what His true holiness is because in that alone will we see the true beauty and glory of God in all of His attributes.

Edwards says in the quote above that people can see beauty in God in the sense that they are affected by them and love them but only “as they concern their interest.” In other words, people see God as beautiful and have something called love for Him only because they think He provides them with some benefit. But the true beauty of God is that in which His love for Himself or His holiness shines. This shows us that studying God of and for self-interest will never give us a sight of the true glory of God and teaching and preaching self-interest is at odds with true holiness. True holiness in humans, as Edwards sets out, is the reflection of God’s own holiness and in it alone will we see the true beauty and glory of God in all of His attributes. We can study and know about the attributes of God until the cows come home (to use an old phrase) and we will never see the true beauty of God until we see God’s love for Himself as triune. We can be affected and have great feelings with a lot of weeping but those would be for nothing but self unless we see the true beauty of God which is His love for Himself. We can teach people to fear hell and to love the God who delivers them and we have done nothing but teach them according to self-interest. While it is true that we should preach the biblical doctrine of hell, until we teach people the true holiness of God which is His love for Himself we have not taught them how they should be holy and we have not taught them to love what heaven will be like. In other words, we have not taught them what it means to love God which is what heaven will primarily consist of. Certainly it is what God will do for all eternity.

As we have been making an effort to think of God as centered upon God, I would like to ask a provocative question. Can we understand any attribute of God apart from understanding how this displays God’s love for God? Can we understand the character of God apart from understanding His love for Himself as displayed in Christ? We say of the secular scientist that s/he has no way of understanding the real nature of anything apart from God. We quote Proverbs 1:7 with enthusiasm to the secularists: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge.” Then we go on our own self-centered ways in theology and morality. But again, can we understand any attribute of God (and therefore God Himself) apart from understanding how this displays God’s love for God?

The glory of God is a word that refers to the whole character of God as summed up. The glory of God refers to the expression of the attributes of God and to God as beautiful and lovely. The beauty of God refers to the symmetry with and within Himself and even His inward delight when the loveliness of His glory is seen. As noted several posts previously, Jonathan Edwards wrote that “His infinite beauty is his infinite mutual love of himself.” Man sees something beautiful and desirable in God in terms of what man sees as good for self. But God sees Himself as beautiful in relation to Himself and this is seen in terms of His glory shining forth in perfect beauty from within the Trinity. Now if an attribute of God is only beautiful to God as it flows within the Trinity, then for us to understand an attribute of God as truly beautiful we must understood it as it flows within the Trinity. If we want to see the true beauty of God in the fullness of its glory, we must see it as it shines in the Trinity which is how God sees it.

The joy of God is His happiness or affection of love (pleasure) that flows toward the object of true love. God’s joy has to have a perfect object and so all of His joy must be in Himself as triune because there is no other perfect object. This is seen when He speaks from heaven and says “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased” (Mat 17:5). God has perfect pleasure and delight in His own true beauty and glory which is God manifested in the Son. When God does all for His own pleasure and glory He does all He does through the Son and to see Himself displayed in the Son. God’s pleasure is the manifestation of His glory and can only be in Himself. Psalm 115:3 says that “our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases.” Sovereignty is really God doing all that pleases Him, and no human being can stand in His way of obtaining His own pleasure. For God to do all that pleases Him also tells us that Christ who is the shining forth of His glory is the object of all that He does.

God’s glory is seen as His perfections shine forth in that beauty which He has joy and pleasure in (Christ). God created all things to manifest His beauty (love for Himself) and His love for Himself as triune. All that He does is a shining forth of His glory (Christ), which is doing all for His own glory and pleasure. God is pleased to see Himself manifested in the world through Christ. The unregenerate look like the devil and their best works the looks like the devil because the source is not God. For Him to be pleased He must see Christ in us, which is God looking upon us and seeing Himself (His pleasure). When it is Christ and the Spirit in us and what we do flows from grace, then what we do is a manifestation of the glory of God and He is pleased to see Himself. We must learn to live by grace and be a manifestation of His glory and in that be pleased and find joy in Him which is His joy in Himself.

The beauty of God is His love for Himself within the Trinity. It is only when we see God’s love for Himself as triune that we see perfect love in glory & beauty. We can only see the beauty of the cross when we see it as the love God has for Himself and His own glory. If we think that the glory of the cross is what He did for me, we have missed it and will never see its true beauty. We will have looked upon the cross as if it was all about me rather than a manifestation of God Himself as triune. When we do anything (religious or not) for our own honor (glory) and/or in our own strength or to please ourselves, we seek our own pleasure, beauty, and glory rather than His. That is wickedness in the form of idolatry. Even if our joy and pleasure has Him as its object, He is not glorified apart from His own glory being manifested through us and only then is it His pleasure to see Himself in us. To have joy in God as beautiful because of what I think He does for me is nothing short of idolatry. We must have joy in God in the same way that He has joy in Himself and that is to see His glory manifested in Christ and to share in His joy and pleasure in Himself. In other words, it is only when we understand and have joy in the character and glory of God as displayed within Himself as triune that we can really understand His glory and have true worship. Only then is our worship sharing in the joy and pleasure He has in Himself. In Edwardsean language, only then is our joy and pleasure in God really His joy and pleasure in Himself shared with us and in reality an instance of His own.

It is simply an awesome and yet wonderful and utterly glorious thing to meditate on God’s love for Himself. In one sense it is taking a spiritual stroll into the very glories of the Godhead. If it is true that by definition and biblical revelation the one God is triune, then we need to understand how He operates within the Trinity as far as revelation will take us. Holy Scripture is the revelation of the mind and love of God and yet it is also the revelation of all of the character of God. When we read John 14:6 and are told that we cannot go to the Father but through the Son, we usually nod our heads and go on with life. But we must deal with Scripture with prayer and spiritual understanding. A text cannot be understood by looking at the Greek and a few commentaries. We must seek the Lord to give us understanding. After all, Christ is still our Prophet and the Holy Spirit is still the One that gives illumination.

Can we understand any aspect of the Holy God who exists as triune except how He says He reveals Himself? He tells us that He has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. John 1:17-18 has some very clear teachings in this matter: “For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” The text itself tells us that grace and truth came into our reality (realized = reality) in Jesus Christ. In other words, as we look back at John 1:14 the body of Christ was the very dwelling place of the glory of God’s grace and truth. The glory of God’s grace and truth are recognized in their reality in Jesus Christ. The grace of God was shown in concept in the Old Testament as it looked to the New Testament reality, but in Christ the very grace of God came and dwelt among men. In fact, the grace of God dwells in the hearts of men as the life of God who is Jesus Christ. In other words, if we want to know the grace of God we must see the glory of that grace shining in Jesus Christ.

With that in mind, let us look at John 14:6: “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.'” In light of the fact that Christ is spoken of as the very outshining of the glory of God (radiance of in Hebrews 1:3) we know we cannot understand God Himself without beholding Him in the shining forth of His glory. We must look at this in terms of the Trinity. The Son is the very Word of God and is God Himself. A word is what we use to express ourselves or our thoughts with. Christ is the expression of the glory of God. Therefore, if we want to see God we must go to Him through the Son. The Gospel consists of the glory of God in Christ: “in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (II Corinthians 4:4). The Gospel is termed in this verse as the gospel of the glory of Christ. But what is that glory? “For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (II Corinthians 4:6). The Gospel is the glory of Christ because the knowledge of the glory of God shines in the face of Christ and is only seen in Christ.

There is no Gospel apart from seeing the glory of God in the face of Christ. There is no Gospel apart from seeing the Gospel as the Gospel of the glory of Christ. The glory of the Gospel is not about how great man is or about what God has done for man, but the glory of the Gospel is all about the glory of God as within the Godhead. It is in light of this that we see John 14:6 as something far more than a mere proposition. This text tells us that the way to the Father is through the Son and there is no other way to see and love the Father but through the Son. This text tells us that there is no other place that we can discover the truth about God but in Christ where the glory of His truth shines. Jesus Christ is not just something about the truth, but He is truth itself. He did not only come to give us propositions about the truth, but He came as the shining forth of the glory of God who is truth. This text also tells us that Christ is the life. It is not just that there is life and Jesus tells us about life, but He is eternal life itself. The person who has Christ has the life and the person who does not have Christ does not have the life.

I John 1:1-3 is clear that Christ is the Word of life and that life was manifested and it is that life that is eternal life. In some way, then, we have no way of understanding God except through the Truth Himself and receiving life Himself. Christ is the very truth of God and is eternal life Himself. If God loves, then His love is displayed in Christ. But since God is love His love is never apart from His love for Himself. All that God does in displaying Himself is His love for the Son. God loves to display His grace and truth in salvation but that is because Christ is His grace and truth in reality and on display. There is no Gospel apart from God’s love for Himself which is to say apart from His love for the Son and shining His glory through the Son and putting the Son on display. The Gospel is not primarily about human beings, it is about the love of God for Himself and that love displayed in Christ.

Being able to see how it is that God loves Himself within the Trinity as His only true love and all that He loves comes from Himself teaches us what grace really is. This is the teaching that should give us confidence before God. This allows us to seek His face for Himself because it is God in us giving us a love for Himself and that is true grace. Let me give some quotes from Jonathan Edwards that make this point so powerfully and beautifully:

“Our love to God is given to us by God, and is the fruit of His love to us; but God’s love to us is originally from Himself. If God had not first loved us and, as a fruit of His love had not inserted a principle of love unto us, we never would have loved Him. Our love to God is a great gift, and a fruit of infinite kindness; but God needed not to have love inserted into His heart for those whom he loves; it was there from eternity, and was of Himself.”

“Our love to God is for His worthiness and is infinitely less than His worthiness; but God loves us without worthiness. He loves you with your infinite unworthiness. Our love is not only attracted and drawn by God’s worthiness of our love, but after all it is infinitely short of any equality to the loveliness of the being beloved. But God’s love is not only not attracted by any loveliness in us to attract it; but it overcame infinite repulsion.”

“We love God because He has won us by His love and kindness to us, whereas His love has no motive out of Himself. God’s love is not only the cause that gave our love to God, but ’tis the good or motive of it. We don’t love God without an expectation of infinite benefit by Him, whereas God loves us without expectation or possibility of any benefit by us. When a godly man sets his love on God it is as all his happiness and as his Chief Good, because he sees Him to be the Fountain of happiness, the only happiness fit for him. But God’s happiness doesn’t consist in man, but in Himself, which shows how infinitely more disinterested God’s love to man is than is man’s love to God.”

What we see from these quotes of Edwards is in one sense the real comfort of all who love God in and through Christ. God does not love us based on our love for Him or our works for Him, but He loves us based on His love for Himself or His love for Christ. God beholds His glory in Christ and works love for Himself in us so that He may behold Himself and the shining forth of His glory in Christ in His people. God looks upon His people with infinite pleasure because He beholds His own glory in them. Our love for Him is really His love for Himself that He has worked in the hearts of His people.

As we reflect on this, we get the real idea of what perseverance of the saints looks like. It is not that I am to trust in myself and work harder in order to keep myself saved, but it is God in Christ giving me faith in Himself and love for Himself. It removes our sight from self to Christ. This is all a gift of God and is His grace because all of His motives are from Himself. He does not love a human being because of anything in the human other than Himself. This is of unspeakable comfort to the true believer who trusts in Christ alone. This should help us to understand grace as the love of God which is shown to human beings based on God rather than based on human beings. It shows us how God can show grace and why He shows it. As Ephesians 1:6 puts it, “to the praise of the glory of His grace.”

This also instructs us in the way of evangelism. We must always teach people that they must be broken of their pride and of their self-sufficiency in order to trust Christ. A person must learn to trust in Christ by grace alone which teaches us and them that salvation is totally apart from anything they have done or have merited. A so-called “gospel” teaching us that Christ died for men because they had value is another gospel in all ways. It is not a Gospel of grace alone and it is not the Gospel of the glory of God in the face of Christ. The teaching that all God does is from a love for Himself as triune is the only teaching that sustains the biblical and Reformed Gospel of grace alone and of “to God alone be the glory.” The love of God for Himself, therefore, is the real foundation for all true grace, which is the foundation of the Gospel of the glory of God in the face of Christ. It is in Christ that we see the glory of God and it is Christ in us who manifests that glory through us by grace. True and pure grace can alone give true and pure assurance. It is this teaching that removes all hope from ourselves and from that emptiness of self one is enabled to trust in God alone because He saves based on Himself alone as triune with nothing from us.

Some enormous claims have been made in the last two posts. First, we have seen that there is no love apart from being born of God and knowing God (I John 4:7-8). Second, the love that a believer has from God is really the love of God for Himself and He gives that to the believer by dwelling in the believer and sharing His love for Himself with the believer. In this post I would like to develop that thought some more.

Last time (The Love of God in the Believer) the effort was to show that love is really God Himself as triune. We saw this from I John 4:12 where it is God Himself who abides in the believer and so perfects His love in the believer. I John 4:13 then goes on with the same thought: “By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.” Jonathan Edwards wrestled with this text and came to the conclusion that God abiding in us and perfecting His love in us (v. 12) can only be understood if we understand the Holy Spirit as the love of God. This has caused some people to stumble in some way, but the alternative position is far worse. It is said that if we believe that the Spirit is the love of God, then we have denied that the Spirit is a divine person by implication. On the other hand, if we deny that love is the Spirit of God we have asserted that love is something greater than God Himself and that God gives things other than Himself as the greatest good. It is not necessary to deny that the Holy Spirit is a divine Person to assert that He is the love of God. All that is necessary is to understand that God is love and that He is love as triune. We know from Scripture that it is through the Spirit that He pours out His love in the heart (Romans 5:5) and it is only by the Spirit that the fruit of love is worked in us (Galatians 5:22). We can simply say that the Spirit in some way is the very outflow of the love of God for Himself and it is the Spirit who works the very love of God for Himself into the souls of human beings.

I John 4:15 tells us of a true confession of Christ: “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.” A true confession of Christ is in the context of love here. God abides in the person that confesses (confess means to speak the same as) and we know from v. 12 and v. 16 that when God abides in a person the love of God abides in that person. To speak the same of Christ as the Father speaks of Christ is to speak of Christ as the beloved Son of God that is loved above all by the Father. It is far more than just saying some words about an intellectual agreement one has with some historical facts. Verse 16 then goes on to say: “We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”

I John 4:16 is an enormous verse with an enormous meaning for the text. The problem is that there is a better way to translate the verse. In the first part of the verse it tells us that “we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us.” The word “for” in that verse is really the preposition for “in.” That word is translated as “in” many, many times. It is not that the word cannot be translated as “for,” but it is a theological translation rather than just a grammatical one. In other words, if we read the verse like this we see how it fits the context much better: “we have come to know and have believed the love which God has in us.” In other words, we know the love of God by what it is doing in us, and even more than that we know the love of God in us because it is God in us. We see that in the next part of the verse: “God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” The second part of the verse only makes sense if we change the translation from the first part or the verse from “for” to “in.” We know we are believers because the love of God dwells in us and that shows us that God Himself dwells in us. In light of 4:7-8, then, it tells us that we are true believers because only true believers are born of God and know God and therefore have the love of God in them.

This is one of the major teachings of I John. It tells us that the believer is truly a believer and that a believer does certain things and does not do certain things because of the nature of true love. The nature of true love is not just that God gives something to people, but that God gives Himself to people and true love behaves in certain ways with certain motives because true love is God Himself in the soul of the true believer and the life of the believer is Christ in the soul, which is nothing else but eternal life Himself. Christ Himself is the Word of life (I John 1:1) and is the life of God manifested in the soul of human beings who confess Him as Lord. Christ is the life of God shining out His glory in the world and in the souls of true believers. Christ has purchased the Spirit for believers and they have the love of God in their souls. Believers have God as triune dwelling in their souls and so have the life and love of God in them. This explains I John 4:19 better: “We love, because He first loved us.” Indeed we love because He set His love on us and now He as love abides in us and shares His love with us.

In the last post (A God-Centered View of God’s Love Changes Everything) we started an analysis of II Corinthians 5:14 in light of the fact that God loves Himself: “For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; 15 and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.” One question about the text that remained unanswered had to do with what the love is that controls a human being. In one sense the question can be seen as derived from other points, but we will try to deal with that question in this post. The core issue has to do with God loving Himself and all that He loves must be for His own sake. The love that controls a human being is really the love of God for Himself dwelling in the human soul since the only true source of true love is God Himself. For a human being to have true love s/he must have received that love from God. But what is love itself?

To answer this question we must go straight back into the biblical teaching of God Himself who is love. We have seen that Scripture teaches that “God is love” (I John 4:8) and that the only person who truly loves is the believer who is born of God and knows God. So we know that God is love, but can it be true that love is God? At this point we must tread very carefully. Of course God is not what many people call love in our day and so at times it would be blasphemous to teach that God is love if we mean what many people mean by that phrase. However, we must also tread carefully if we deny that true love is God since Scripture does teach that God is love. We have seen that true love is triune by nature and God is the only source for true love. This is not to deny that there is much pseudo-love in the world that passes by the name of love, but the devil is always out to deceive. If love for God is true love, then we know that the devil will try to convince those who believe the lie (that they will be like God as in Genesis 3:5) that their love for themselves is true love. The devil will also try to convince people that they are the source and power of love themselves and if they will but make the proper choices they love. But Scripture teaches us that God is love and that only those who are born of God and know Him can truly love (I John 4:7-8).

We know that God loves Himself as triune and so all true love flows within the Trinity. We know that true love does what is best for another person and what is truly best is for a person to love God in accordance with the Greatest Commandment. So we must ask a few questions of God. What can God give to a person that is the very best for them? Can God give a person something other than Himself that is not the very best? Can God give a person something out of love if that something is not Himself? We can begin to get the picture, but let us look even deeper. Scripture teaches us that the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father. What is it that the Father gives or does that shows He loves the Son? What is it that the Son gives or does that shows He loves the Father? Surely love between the Father and the Son is something more than just having a feeling for each other. If a man can have no greater love for a friend than to lay down his life, then that teaches us that true love is giving of our very selves. How can we even think that the love of the Father and of the Son for each other is something less than giving themselves to each other because they alone are what is best?

In some way, then, we must understand the Holy Spirit as the one that the love of the Father and the Son flows through. But even more, in some way the Father gives Himself through the Spirit and the Son gives Himself through the Spirit. We can now understand Romans 5:5 better: “and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” In some way the Holy Spirit as the love of God gives us a love for God because that is God’s best gift and that is giving sinners a love for Himself or bringing them to where they share in His love for Himself. It is the fruit of the Spirit to work love in the hearts of His people (Galatians 5:22). We can do nothing apart from Christ (John 5:4-5), which teaches us that the believer as the branch can do nothing but what comes from the vine. The believer has no love and is controlled by no spiritual love but what is received from Christ as indeed the branch receives from the vine.

The claims that have just been made are enormous. The claim is that when God sets His love on a human being His love must be understood as giving Himself and not just something of Himself because He gives what is best. We see this in I John 4:12: “12 No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.” The believer is told that if s/he loves other believers it is God who abides in us. It is not just that the love of God dwells in us, but God abides in us and it is His love that is perfected in us. Thus we see that only believers love. That is because only believers have God Himself who is love dwelling in us.

It is hard for our minds and hearts to wrap around the thought that God loves Himself within the Trinity and that is His only true love. All other love must flow from God’s love for Himself. This is quite a different way of looking at things than is done in the modern day. We can look at a familiar passage and see the difference this view makes. II Corinthians 5:14: “For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; 15 and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.” Now we normally think of the love of Christ as being the love that Christ has for a person and the person recognizes that and that is what controls him or her. We think of it as Christ having such a depth of feeling for us that we are controlled by His depth of feeling and so return certain feelings in such a way that it controls our behavior. Still others might say that His love at the cross was such that He died for all and we should be governed by His love He had for human beings at the cross.

Now, let us examine the thought of this text a little more. As we read and think through this text, we can see how we have just supposed certain things and so end up with a man-centered interpretation of Christ in the passage. We have supposed that the love of Christ was primarily for me. We have supposed certain things about what love is. Did love for man control Christ when He was in human form or did love for the Father control Him? We know that Christ had to have loved the Father perfectly in all things in accordance with the Greatest Commandment or He would not have been without sin and there would be no perfect sacrifice. What love of Christ is it, then, that controls a person? Indeed it is true that man is to do all he does being controlled by the love of Christ, but that does not answer what the focus of Christ’s love is. It also does not answer what the very essence of love is either.

It is easy from a man-centered perspective to sit back and think of the love of Christ being the feelings of Christ toward me and then living based on that. After all, since man thinks he is so wonderful and loves himself it is not a huge leap for him to think that God thinks man is wonderful and loves him in the same way that man loves man. But does the Bible speak of love that way? In Romans 5:5 we read this: “and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” What is the only reason that a man has true love? It is because the Holy Spirit is in that person’s heart. This sounds like a shocking statement, but nevertheless it is biblical. The only people who truly love are believers. Only believers truly love anyone. I John 4:7-8 is very clear on this: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” This text tells us why we should love one another. The first reason given is that love is from God. The second reason which is built on the first reason is that all those who love are born of God and know God. The third reason is that the one who does not love does not know God. The fourth reason is that God is love.

As we behold these verses in I John 4:7-8, it would be very easy to run from the obvious meaning. People throw out many illustrations to show that unbelievers do love in some way. Only true believers truly love because only true believers know God who is love. Only true believers have access to the only source of true love and that source is the God who is love. Yet those who are born of God and know God are those who love because they have the love of God poured out in their hearts. Okay, one might say, I can see that it is impossible to get around the obvious meaning of this text that John stated in the positive and in the negative. But how does that demonstrate that God loves Himself? All it shows is that God is the only source of true love and only those who are born of Him and know Him have true love.

But what we must remember is that God is triune. It is not just that He is a single and solitary individual living in the outer edges of the universe in love for Himself in a singular way, but He is triune. In other words, the God who is love is triune and so He lives in perfect love within the Trinity. To say that God is love is to say that as triune He lives in love for Himself. To say that God is self-sufficient is to say that God is sufficient within Himself to love Himself for all eternity without another being or anything else. Once we begin to focus the thoughts of the soul on what it means for God as triune to be love, it will change everything in terms of our worldview. It shows us that God does not need us to live in perfect love. It shows us that God is perfect in love when His love is for Himself and that the Greatest Commandment must in fact be a command to us to love Him as He loves Himself. It teaches us that we are only loved if in some way we are loved for His own sake. We must keep in mind that man is made in His image and believing man is renewed and/or regenerated when “the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth” (Eph 4:24). In other words, when God looks upon human beings He sees Himself in some way. When He looks upon unbelievers who have fallen and who have the devil as their father He seems Himself abused and misused as the devil did. When He looks upon believers who are united to Christ He sees Himself because believers are one with Christ (Col 3:4). In other words, believers are loved for the sake of Christ.

At this point we can see the tremendous change this would make for the Gospel and sanctification. The Gospel is not primarily about God’s love for human beings, it is the love of the Father for the Son and of the love of the Son for the Father. All love for a person, therefore, is entirely of grace because there is no cause found in man whatsoever but all causes for it are found in God alone (Romans 3:23-25; Eph 1:6; 2:1-10). The Gospel is all about the glory of God in Christ (II Corinthians 4:4-6) rather than about the glory and wonder of man. I don’t have to wonder why God loved me, I can understand that all of His love is truly within Himself and all that He shows is for Himself and His own glory. It is enough to make people fall on their faces in utter adoration of Him who lives in perfect love as triune and shares His love for Himself with people in Christ. This is a person that is controlled by the love of Christ because it is the love of God shared by the triune God in a person that loves Christ. This is the life of God in the soul of man as Henry Scougal wrote.

“Nothing is more common, and certainly nothing more fatal than self-deception. The number who are ruined by false views of religion is doubtless great even when compared with those who perish in avowed infidelity or careless indifference. And it is an act of kindness not less than an imperious duty to expose the delusions into which our fellow-men are liable to fall”

– Self-Deception by Jacob Helffenstein, reprinted by International Outreach.

This is a monumental statement made by a man written when things were better concerning biblical truth than they are now. We live in a day when it seems as if God has utterly abandoned us. We live in a day where much about religion still goes on but there is little of the true Christianity that is centered upon a God-centered God and therefore resides in the hearts and loves of a people in which the God of love lives and manifests Himself.

One sign that demonstrates our shallowness of theology and true views of God is how we practice evangelism. If we are doing evangelism with a God that is man-centered rather than a God that is God-centered, it will be man-centered and give a false view of God. We must remember that men must be turned from their sin of self-centeredness to one that is God-centered. If they only hear of a God that is man-centered, then they will never turn from themselves in reality. They will go from being self-centered in their outward sin to being self-centered in their religious practice. This is not a change of heart, it is just a change in practice while the heart remains in its enmity to God. The practice of evangelism in the modern day is focused on human beings and a man-centered view of God, which is for God to be man-centered. Evangelism, even among the professing Reformed, is done from a man-centered view. The biblical God is not in the heavens begging and pleading with men to make a choice for Him. We must go to the biblical God and ask Him to change our hearts.

In modern evangelism we think that by going to a human being and presenting some facts to the person and then asking the person to pray or make a choice is enough. Even people who profess to be Reformed have that as a basis for evangelism. It is abominable at best. It matters not the form of theology that is set out before people if they do not understand something of the true God. These people must know that they are opposed to God and are at enmity with Him and they need to have their hearts changed from being self-centered to loving God. They need to know that the only hope they have of having the love of God in them is if God puts it in them.

I am not asserting that we must teach each and every person that God loves Himself as His primary love. I am asserting that the truth of that must be behind the evangelism we do or we will practice a false evangelism. The goal of evangelism must be primarily out of love for God and the display of His glory and not the salvation of souls. This sounds terribly heretical to some, but if we do not love the glory of God more than people, we do not love the people in truth either. We are not going to human beings and trying to make God acceptable to wicked haters of God, we are going to tell them that they are dead in sin and that God alone can give them a new heart and save them. Even if we do not tell them that God is more concerned with His glory from His triune love for Himself than the whole world, we must operate on that basis. God does not need them and they are totally in need of Him.

Without the basis of the truth of God loving Himself within the Trinity we will not tell men what they need in order to be delivered from self-deception. If men continue to think that God’s love is all about them, they will never understand that they must have a new heart in order to love God and that He does this totally from grace. As long as men think that God loved them and sent His Son to die for them from a human-centered perspective they will not understand that God saves to the glory of His name and out of love for His Son. The man-centered teaching about the cross has led to a man-centered way of evangelism that leaves men in their self-centeredness and pride rather than seeing how opposed to God they really are and how badly they need grace for a new heart.

Modern evangelism teaches men that God so loved them that He gave His Son who made a great sacrifice and came to die for them. The Gospel is said and thought to be all about them. Some are moved by this because they think they have a great benefit by it and so they think they love God when in fact all their love is really for themselves. But until man repents from himself (self-love, pride, self-focus, self-motivation) and is turned to a true love for God man is not saved from the bondage of sin, the dominion of the devil, and the rule of his own heart. If God is so focused on man rather than Himself, then why can’t man be focused on Himself? Without a God-centered God we have no true Gospel and many are deceived. Many are ruined by a false gospel based on a false view of God who is focused on them rather than on Himself. This is true in Reformed circles as well.