Obviously, the theme of these two verses, as well as the theme of the entire context, is “love.” And as I said the other day, poets may be the better than most people at describing love. A case in point is a well-known hymn written by Frederick Lehman. We sang this hymn a few minutes ago, and it was pointed out to me that our hymnals don’t have the original refrain. “The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell; it goes beyond the highest star, and reaches to the lowest hell; the guilty pair, bowed down with care, God gave His Son to win; His erring child He reconciled, and pardoned from his sin.” The chorus is: “O love of God, how rich and pure! How measureless and strong! It shall forevermore endure: the saints’ and angels’ song! When years of time shall pass away and earthly thrones and kingdoms fall, when men who here refuse to pray, on rocks and hills and mountains call, God’s love so pure shall still endure, all measureless and strong; redeeming grace to Adam’s race— the saints’ and angels’ song. Could we with ink the ocean fill and were the skies of parchment made, were ev’ry stalk on earth a quill and ev’ry man a scribe by trade, to write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry; nor could the scroll contain the whole, tho’ stretched from sky to sky.” It is said that the last verse of this hymn was written by another man nearly a thousand years earlier. But it became popular when someone discovered it carved into a wall within an insane asylum.
Truly, “The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell.” And yet that is what my foolish tongue is going to try go that distance this morning. But I have a tool: I have the inspired Word of God to provide an outline for my thinking.
God’s love has been made manifest; I’ll explain that as we go along. The Bible tells us that God loves, and He has proven that He loves. God’s love is given without conditions. And even though it is without end, it has been consummated.
It is my joy to tell you that Jehovah, the God of the Bible, is a God of love.
Just as you love, God loves. Just as you support, care for, and show kindness toward certain people, so does the Lord. But despite the similarities, there is one major difference between your love and His. Human love fluctuates; it comes and goes, and it can even flicker out. Our love is as Noah Webster defined it: is “an affection of the mind exited by beauty and worth… or by the quality of an object which communicates pleasure…” What if beauty, worth and quality change? Human beings, when they aren’t fully committed to remain in love, are prone to change their hearts.
But not so with the love of God, because it is a part of who He is, and He never deviates, transmutates, moderates or metastasises. Malachi 3:6: “I am the Lord, I change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.” Love is an undying part of the Lord God; it is as much a part of Him as His eternality and holiness. And because of that “It shall forevermore endure… When years of time shall pass away and earthly thrones and kingdoms fall, God’s love so pure shall still endure, all measureless and strong.” “God is love” (verse 8).
And just as you might love things that I do not love, God is particular in His love. You might claim to love brussels sprouts, but I don’t, and I question whether or not you really do. You might love kidney pie, like my father, but I do not. You love staying up late. but I go to bed early. And you love going to the gym, but I go out of necessity. You love your relatives, but it is with a love that is different from my love toward them.
God loves differently than either of us. For example, we may or may not personally love ourselves, but even if we do it is a corrupt love. Jehovah loves Himself, and all those attributes which are a part of Him; for example, He loves holiness. God loves righteousness and holiness, and therefore He hates evil and sin. While we love some good things, by nature we love a few sinful things too, and we must fight that love. But God can’t love sin, and has no problem hating it. We love our children, but God the Father’ love for God the Son is entirely different from ours. And they both have a special love for those they have redeemed and adopted into their eternal family. I could go on, but I’d probably only make a fool of myself.
Someone says, “I don’t believe in all that talk about God’s love. If He loved us, He would put a stop to all the violence in the world. His love would still the hurricanes, tornados and volcanos. If God truly loved me, He’d cure my heart disease and my gout. If God was a deity of love He’d feed all the starving babies throughout the world.” But wait a minute, the temporary existence of evil and difficulties does not disprove God’s love. A loving mother knows that sometimes she has to let her angry baby cry herself to sleep. Her love keeps her child from hurting itself, even if that baby throws an ignorant and sinful temper tantrum. She loves her son, even when is resolved to destroy himself with sin, and she has to look away. Just as men sometimes practice tough love in their ignorance, God practices tough love in perfection. And, one of these days God will silence the hurricanes and volcanos. One day the God of love will rid creation of every fatal disease, and He will lubricate every achy joint.
While I am saying that and believing that, I hear the critic say, “Yah, sure. I’ll believe it only when I see it.”
Okay, think about this: God has ALREADY PROVEN His love.
“In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, Herein is love… he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” The Bible says, God has manifested – He has shown and made plain – His love toward us.
At this point, let’s not worry about the pronoun “us.” John was most likely thinking about the Christians to whom he was writing: redeemed people; saints. God’s love has been especially revealed to those whom He has saved. And yet the proof of God’s love has been laid out before the eyes of the atheist and infidel as well, if they’d but look.
What proof are you talking about, John? “God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him… He sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” In itself, this is a simple and sublime statement: “God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world do die on the cross for our sins.” That has been at the root of hundreds of gospel messages preached in this church for forty years. The death of Christ Jesus is the ultimate proof of God’s love. Romans 5:8: “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ die for us.”
Oh, but there is so much more underlaying what John is telling us. For example, “God sent His SON.” Here we have the doctrine of the eternal existence and perfect relationship between the Father and the Son. Christ did not become the Son of God at the time His birth or earlier at His conception. He did not become the approved Son of God at His baptism. The Son of God has been the Son for ever; there has never been a time when He was not the Son. I know that is hard to grasp; I know that it requires a trust in God’s Word, but that is what the Bible says. “God SENT his already existent, only begotten Son into the world.” Romans 8:3: “What the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God SENDING his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh…”
God didn’t send one of His sons. There is only one “only begotten Son.” John never uses the word “monogenes” (mon-og-en-ace) except when speaking of Christ. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” When John speaks of God’s “only begotten,” he is thinking of a very special relationship. And when Luke or others use that term about mothers and their children, it is still very special. Three times Christ performed miracles for people whose only child was sick or already dead. The agony of those parents was almost unbearable because the sufferers were their “only begotten.” And generally speaking, a parent has no greater love than for their only begotten child. That brings the love of God into perspective – something that even blind people can see. God’s love demonstrated an unspeakable sacrifice in the incarnation of Christ. Don’t talk to me about God’s love, if you are rejecting the incarnation and sacrifice of Christ.
Notice that “God sent his only begotten Son into the WORLD…” Remember, John has already told us “Love not the world” (I John 2:15). Why is that John? “For all that is in the world… is not of the Father…” God sent His only begotten Son into the lion’s den, the burning fiery furnace, the courtyard of the enemy. For 4,000 years the world had been shaking its fist in the face of this God, defying His Son. And neither the Father nor the Son were ignorant about what the world was going to do to Christ. He “came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his LIFE a ransom for many.”
Moses was born into a world where there was a death warrant against him, and yet he lived to an old age. But the Son of God was born into a world where not only Satan and the wicked world hated him, but the death warrant against Christ had another, more important, signature on it. With the eternal guarantee of the decree of God, Christ came into this world to die.
Doesn’t all this say something special about the love of God? “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might LIVE through him.” The Bible clearly declares that each and every child of Adam is born spiritually dead. We come into this world “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1; Colossians 2:13). But the love of God sent the divine Son that we, who were dead, might live. Christ is “the way, the truth and the LIFE…” Christ Jesus is “the resurrection and the LIFE…” And the only way that His life could be shared with the spiritually dead was if He gave it up in sacrifice.
So, would you like to see God’s love? “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the PROPITIATION for our sins.” I don’t know if people were smarter four hundred years ago, when the Bible was translated into English. But sadly, most people today don’t understand the word “propitiation.” In a nut shell, it speaks of an “appeasement” or a “satisfaction.” It says that there is a problem, BUT something has been done to correct that problem.
And in this case the problem is SIN. “God… sent his Son to be the propitiation for our SINS.” Isaiah tells us in chapter 59: “Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.” That is what sin does; it kills; it divides; it separates friends, and it puts up a wall between us and God. The Lord often looks toward us, over that wall, and sends tokens of His kindness. But we are unable to breach, climb or even look over that wall to reach Him. We are at His mercy, and we are dependent on His grace, for absolutely every blessing and need. Nevertheless that mercy and grace, driven by love “sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
So don’t tell me that God has no love. Don’t tell me that John 3:16 is untrue or that it is not important: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” God demonstrated His monumental love in the incarnation of His Son. But even THAT demonstration was superceded, when the Son of God willingly permitted Himself to be nailed to the cross to die. The love of God was enunciated in the words, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” Christ “came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his LIFE a ransom for many.”
There it is: there is the way God manifested His love toward us.
And in these things God HASN’T placed any CONDITIONS on His love.
Again, this makes divine love so different from most human versions. He doesn’t say, “If you perform certain things, I will love you.” For instance, He doesn’t say, “If you are willing to be baptized, I will love you.” And He doesn’t say, “If you will make a few token sacrifices, I will share my sacrifice with you.” There are no conditions placed on His love. Because for one reason, we are comparing God’s love to our love; we are comparing the sun to a candle. Even before the introduction of sin, the pinnacle of God’s creation, was little more than a pin head to Him. But with the presence of sin, “all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags,” before Him.
“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us.” You may think that your capacity for love is really large. You may say that you’ve fine tuned your love and affection, so that it is of the highest quality possible. John suggests, “It should embarrass you to even think that your love compares to, or is worthy of, God’s love.” “Your love doesn’t belong in the same sentence as His.” Verse 19: “we love him.” “That we even CAN love him is due to the fact he first loved us.” Ephesians 2:4: “God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace are ye saved). When our ability to love God was as cold and dead as the Arctic in January, He loved us. Titus 3:3: “For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But after that the kindness of love of God our Saviour toward man appeared…” Despite our lack of love toward him, and despite our inability to love Him, God loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
And with I come to the COMPLETION of His love.
John tells us that in the incarnation of Christ, God manifested His love. “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world…” In a few weeks much of the world will foolishly, and sinfully, celebrate the birth of Christ – the incarnation. I say “foolishly” because so many who know the words to a few carols don’t know the Christ behind the words. They may be able to quote a verse or two from Matthew and Luke. They may have ceramic or wooden nativity scenes on the mantle or in their front yards. And they may even speak of the Father’s love in sending His Son into the world. But they have not proceeded much beyond the nativity. There is the ultimate foolishness.
“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” So many people have seen God’s love from a distance, but they haven’t experienced it. They have not been reconciled to God; they haven’t even considered their need of reconciliation. They have never cried out, “What must I do to be saved?” Just because God sent His son to provide propitiation, doesn’t mean the Lord has been made satisfied with us personally.
It is not that we must DO something in order to experience God’s ultimate love. But it might be said that we must NOT DO some things, or we must UNDO some things. For example, we must give up the idea that our love for God is worthy of His love for us. And we can’t expect God’s love to overlook our sinfulness and our worship of things less than the Lord. Jesus said, “Except ye REPENT, ye shall all likewise perish.” As confusing as it sounds, until we acknowledge that we are unworthy of God’s love, we’ll never experience the highest form of that love. Until we are emptied of our pride, our self-righteousness and even our professed love, we will die destitute of God’s love.
In closing notice John’s words in verse 14: “I have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.” And now I testify and implore you to humble yourself before the Lord, and trust Christ for deliverance from your sin. There is a sense in which God manifested His love for this purpose. Only He can provide propitiation – that satisfaction your sins demand before God. Will you, this morning believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, trusting Him to be your personal Lord and Saviour?