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God is the embodiment of love. He created love. His character and His actions are defined by love. In Loved by God, acclaimed theologian R.C. Sproul explores the unrelenting love of God-a love demonstrated most fully through the Son. Sproul also delves into the perplexing aspects of God's divine nature, such as how divine Love coexists with God's holiness and sovereignty, and what the Bible means when it speaks of God's hatred. A compelling book for all who seek to fulfill their calling as Christians-to love as God loves.
- Sales Rank: #1967004 in Books
- Brand: Brand: Thomas Nelson
- Published on: 2001-05-28
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: .92" h x 6.40" w x 9.44" l,
- Binding: Hardcover
- 240 pages
Features
- Used Book in Good Condition
About the Author
Dr. R.C. Sproul is the founder and chairman of Ligonier Ministries, an international Christian education ministry located near Orlando, Florida. His teaching can be heard on the program Renewing Your Mind. He is the author of more than 70 books. Dr. Sproul also serves as president of Ligonier Academy of Biblical and Theological Studies, and Reformation Bible College in Sanford, Florida.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
CHAPTER ONE:
God Is Love
Love. This simple four-letter word reeks of the power of magic. Its very utterance conjures up a host of images that are as diverse as the tiny, colored pieces of glass that are configured into dazzling patterns by a kaleidoscope. By a mere turn of the tube, the glass pieces tumble into new and equally dazzling patterns. But magic depends upon illusion for its potency, no less with words than with pulling a rabbit out of a hat. The aroma of magic does not signal real power. The empty word "love" can never evoke its reality. Indeed the word staggers before its task of even describing the reality.
What is love? Is it the mystical essence exploited by the likes of Elmer Gantry when he called it the inspiration of philosophers and the bright and morning star? Is it a warm feeling in the pit of the stomach associated with the sight of a cute puppy? Is it an attitude of acceptance that makes saying you are sorry an unnecessary exercise? Is it a chemical response to the presence of an alluring member of the opposite sex?
If philosophers argue that the word "God" has suffered the death of a thousand qualifications, how much more must that be said of the word "love"? The elusive character of love has prompted far more than a thousand definitions. It has been used to describe so many things that its ability to describe a single thing has been sapped. A word that means everything obviously cannot mean anything. So then, because the term "love" has been layered with so many diverse and maudlin accretions, do we assume that it has lost all potency for communication and must be discarded to the scrap heap of useful vocabulary? By no means. The term is too rich and its usage so rooted in the entire history of human discourse that it would be catastrophic to abandon all hope of its reconstruction.
What is called for is the philosophy of the second glance, by which we look closely and carefully at what the word "love" does signify so we can separate the dross from the fine gold of its meaning. We need to distinguish between what "love" does mean and what it emphatically does not mean. This requires discerning the authentic from the counterfeit, the true from the false.
The problem we face is exacerbated when we realize that our interest is not limited to defining "love" in the abstract but defining it specifically as an attribute of God Himself. If we confess that love is an attribute of God, then our understanding of the nature of God is only as accurate as our understanding of the love we are attributing to Him. Nor may we retreat into a cavern of safety by declaring that although love is an attribute of God, it isn't that important an attribute and therefore its distortion would do no serious harm to our full understanding of God. Though it is a dangerous error to construct a hierarchy of attributes of God, the attribute of love is so important that if we don't get it right, we fail to have a sound understanding of God. Of course that could also be said of the other attributes of God, such as His omniscience, immutability, infinity, etc. In a word, all of the attributes of God are important. To say that His attribute of love is no more important than the others is not to say that it is less important or that it is unimportant. The Scriptures so clearly declare the importance of the love of God that to neglect it, negate it, or minimize it in any way would do violence to the sacred text.
To see how seriously the Bible takes the attribute of God's love, we need only to look at John's statement in his first epistle:
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. (4:7-11)
In this text John makes the remarkable assertion that "God is love." We notice immediately that he does not say simply that God is loving or that God loves. Rather he says that God is love. What are we to make of this? "Is" is a form of the verb "to be" and sometimes serves as a copula or forms a tautology. A tautology is the unnecessary repetition of an idea wherein there is nothing in the predicate that is not already present in the subject. For example, we could say that a bachelor is an unmarried man. (This may presuppose also that the bachelor has never been married in order to distinguish him from a divorced man or from a widower.)
Is John stating the link between his subject God and his predicate love as being an equation or an identification? I think not. If he meant to declare an identity or equation, then we would have something like this: God = love. Let us think for a moment about how an equal sign (=) functions in simple arithmetic. If we say that 4+3=7, we see an equal identity on both sides of the equation. Nothing would be distorted if we reversed the order of the equation so that it read 7=4+3. Essentially there is no difference between 7 and 4+3. They are identical in numerical value and content.
What would happen if we treated John's declaration in this manner? We could then reverse the subject and the predicate so that we could say either that God is love or that love is God. This is dangerous business indeed. If we can reverse the two sides of the equation, then we can conclude that love is God. This could legitimize every conceivable heresy, including my own deification. If I have love, then I must have God or actually be God. How easily we could move to exalting human eroticism to a divine plane, as indeed has happened with countless religions that have confused sexual pleasure with sacred devotion to God. The phenomenon of sacred prostitution flourished in ancient religions and is still practiced in modern cults. If one can do something in "love," it is blanketed with a divine sanction.
It is clear that we don't want to infer from this text that any act of love is therefore a divine act or that anything associated with our understanding of love must therefore be of God. At the same time, however, we don't want to dismiss lightly the dramatic statement John makes in the text. He obviously had something important in mind when, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he penned the words "God is love." At the very least we conclude that what is being communicated here is that God, in His divine being and character, is so loving that we can say He is love. This would merely indicate emphasis, not necessarily identity. Or we could conclude that John is saying God is the fountain or source of all true love.
This approach would be similar to how we would handle Jesus' statement that He is the way, the truth, and the life. Obviously Jesus meant far more than that He spoke the truth when He declared that He was the truth or, more properly speaking, is the truth. Again we would face the question of identity or equation with Jesus' juxtaposition of the verb "to be" with the predicate "truth." If we reversed these, then we would conclude that any truth is Jesus. This would mean the word "truth" means the same thing as the word "Jesus." Rather than heading into such a linguistic morass, it would be more appropriate to conclude that Jesus is the ultimate source, standard, or fountainhead of truth. This is how the Scriptures frequently speak of the relationship of God to things like wisdom, beauty, knowledge, and goodness. God is not only wise, He is the ground of wisdom. He is not only beautiful, He is the source and standard of all beauty. He is not merely good, He is the norm of all goodness.
When we apply this manner of speaking to John's declaration that God is love, we see a literary device that points to God's being the source, the ground, the norm, and fountainhead of all love. We recall that the Biblical context in which John says that God is love is an exhortation or commandment regarding how we are to behave toward one another. John wrote, "Beloved, let us love one another." This is the imperative before us. When John sought to provide a rationale for this commandment, he added, "for love is of God."
To say that love is of God means that love belongs to or is the possession of God. He possesses it as a property of His divine being, as an attribute. It also means that love is ultimately from God. Wherever love is manifested, it points back to its ground, its owner, and its source, Who is God Himself. Again this does not mean that all love is God, but it does mean that all genuine love proceeds from God and is rooted in Him.
The love John is describing obviously is not just a generic love. The love he describes is a particular kind of love. He speaks of it in restrictive terms. It is restricted to those who are born of God and who know God. He goes on to say that the person who does not love in this restrictive sense does not know God and presumably is not born of God.
The restrictive type of love that characterizes God is the kind of love that is awakened in those who have been born of God. It is a supernatural gift with a supernatural origin. It is found only in the regenerate, for all who exercise it and only those who exercise it are born of God.
Divine Attributes
When we consider love as an attribute of God, we recognize that it is defined in relation to all the other attributes of God. This is true not only of love but also of every other attribute of God. It is important to remember that when we speak of the attributes of God, we are speaking of properties that cannot be reduced to composite parts. One of the first affirmations we make about the nature of God is that He is not a composite being. Rather we confess that God is a simple being. This does not mean that God is "easy" in the sense that a simple task is not a difficult task. Here simplicity is not contrasted with difficulty but with composition. A being who is composite is made up of definite parts. As a human creature, I am composed of many parts, such as arms, legs, eyes, ears, lungs, etc.
As a simple being, God is not made up of parts as we are. This is crucial to any proper understanding of the nature of God. This means that God is not partly immutable, partly omniscient, partly omnipotent, or partly infinite. He is not constructed of a section or segment of being that is then added to other sections or segments to comprise the whole of God. It is not so much that God has attributes but rather that He is His attributes. In simple terms (as distinct from difficult terms) this means that all of God's attributes help define all of His other attributes. For example, when we say God is immutable, we are also saying that His immutability is an eternal immutability, an omnipotent immutability, a holy immutability, a loving immutability, etc. By the same token His love is an immutable love, an eternal love, an omnipotent love, a holy love, etc.
By remembering that God is a simple being and that He is His attributes, we can resist the temptation and avoid the error of pitting one of God's attributes against another. God does not come to us like a chef who operates a smorgasbord restaurant. We cannot take our plates and help ourselves to only those attributes of God we find tasteful and pass by those attributes we find unpalatable. In practice this is done every day. It is the basis of idolatry in which we first deconstruct God by stripping Him of some of His attributes and then refashion Him into a different God more to our liking. An idol is a false god that serves as a substitute for the real God.
In antiquity and in contemporary primitive societies we see idola-try practiced in crude and crass forms. The idol maker who fashions a deity out of a block of stone or wood and then addresses it as if it were alive or had the power to do anything may be seen as somewhat foolish or stupid. We recall how the prophets of Israel ridiculed the idol makers of their day.
We live in more sophisticated times and are not quite as prone to worship the works of our own hands in such a crass manner. But we have not yet escaped the propensity to worship an idol created by our own minds. We must guard against a facile dismissal of the threat of idolatry. We must remember that the proclivity for idolatry is one of the strongest inclinations of our fallen natures.
The apostle Paul describes the universal human need for salvation and spells out the basis for the universality of human sin, summarizing it in his letter to the Romans:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man-and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.
Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. (1:18-25)
Here Paul speaks of the twin sins that are fundamental to fallen human nature: idolatry and ingratitude. By refusing to honor God as God, we substitute an idol for the true God. This is what is meant by exchanging the truth of God for a lie that results in serving the creature rather than the Creator.
The need to be vigilant with respect to our natural instincts toward idolatry is especially acute when we are considering the love of God. I doubt there is another attribute of God more fraught with the peril of idolatry than this one. It is the attribute most often selected at our theological smorgasbord.
When lecturing on the holiness of God, the sovereignty of God, the justice of God, or the wrath of God, many times I am interrupted by someone who comments, "But my God is a God of love." I hasten to assure the person that I also believe in a God of love. But I often note in the protest a thinly veiled suggestion that the love of God is somehow incompatible with His holiness, justice, sovereignty, or wrath. Here the attribute of love has been isolated from God's other attributes so that it is the only attribute by which God is known or it subsumes or swallows up all of His other attributes.
This is precisely what happens when we conceive of God as a composite being rather than a simple one. We have a structure that allows us to pick and choose our attributes and gives us a license to construct a god who is an idol. If the Bible is our primary source for God's revelation of His nature and character and it declares that God is holy, just, sovereign, and wrathful, as well as loving, then we need to understand the love of God in such a way that it does not negate or swallow up these other attributes.
If we are to avoid a god who is an idol, then it is imperative that we not only listen to what Scripture says about all of God's attributes, but we also must seek to understand each of those attributes in Biblical terms. At this point we encounter perhaps our greatest difficulty concerning the love of God. If we are to accurately understand God's love, then we must listen carefully to how God Himself defines love.
At the beginning of this chapter I pointed out that our cultural definition of love is colored by a myriad of human feelings, passions, and concerns, which may not have anything to do with how the Bible describes love. Though the secular culture uses the same word "love," as the Bible does, this by no means indicates that the secular meaning of the term is identical to the Biblical meaning. On the contrary, the two meanings are not only often different, but they are often antithetical and incompatible.
Though the Bible uses the word "love" as a noun, its primary function is described in terms of verbs. That is, the Bible seems to be more concerned about what love does than what love is. In our secu-lar culture the opposite is commonly the case. We tend to think of love more as a noun than as a verb. It is more often related to a feeling than an action. Of course a feeling of affection is integral to the Biblical concept of love, but that is not where the New Testament places the accent.
In secular usage love is also more passive than active. Love is something that happens to us over which we have no control. We speak about "falling in love." It is one thing to fall in love; it is quite another to jump in love. We equate falling with an accidental action, not with a decision. We fall when we slip or are pushed or otherwise knocked over. The old ballad declared, "I didn't slip, I wasn't pushed, I fell . . . in love." Another old standard celebrated the passive power of love with the words "Zing went the strings of my heart." Having our heart strings go "zing" is hardly caused by a conscious decision of the mind to engage in a certain action. This view of love portrays it as a romantic episode that "comes over us" like the flu. It has a magical romantic power that creates flutters in the heart, trembling in the knees, and flip-flops in the stomach.
On the other hand, the Biblical view of love stresses the active side of love. For example, we are commanded to love not only our neighbor but even our enemy. How does one fall in love with an enemy? To love one's enemy presupposes that enmity itself is real. We really do have enemies, and we usually don't like them very much. But the command is not to like our enemies; it is to love them. But how can I love someone that I don't like?
Sometimes lovers declare that they not only love each other but they like each other as well. This cultural view of love suggests that it is possible to love without liking. That may be true if love is used as a synonym for a sexual or chemical attraction. But it makes no sense if love is defined in terms of personal affection. In that sense love goes beyond and builds upon like.
To love our enemies means primarily that we should behave in a loving way toward them. We should treat them with the same kindness and integrity that we would treat our friends. Herein is the active aspect of love. It is an action that is commanded by God, not a feeling.
Our actions reflect the kind of people we are. Activity flows out of being. What we are determines what we do. This is true not only for us but for God as well. In theology we distinguish between God's internal righteousness and His external righteousness. His internal righteousness is what He is in Himself. It is His being or nature. His external righteousness describes what God does. He always does what is right because, in one sense, that is all He is able to do. He can only do what is right because in His being He is altogether righteous. Because God is love, He is loving in His nature, and all of His actions reflect that love. As we will see later, there is a definite manner in which God is loving to His enemies even when they come under His judgment. When God commands us to love our enemies, He is not commanding us to do something that He refuses to do.
Just as God acts according to His nature, so do we. Indeed, that is our most critical problem. We are not sinners because we sin. Rather we sin because we are sinners. In our fallen humanity we are in such a state of corruption that to do what comes naturally is to sin. Jesus describes this condition:
"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them." (Matt. 7:15-20)
Here Jesus declares that you can't get good fruit from a bad tree or bad fruit from a good tree. The state of the fruit reveals the state of the tree. It is this connection that is in view in the progress of our sanctification. When we are born from above and are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, we are at that moment conscripted by God for warfare. The instant we are reborn we are cast into a lifelong battle between the flesh and the spirit. Paul describes that conflict:
I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. (Gal. 5:16-26)
In this passage Paul speaks of a contrast between the flesh and the spirit. The word here for "flesh" may be used to distinguish the physical body from the soul, mind, or spirit of a person. However, especially when it is used in contrast with spirit, this word primarily refers not to our physical bodies but to our fallen sinful natures. It is the word Jesus used when He told Nicodemus that it was necessary for a person to be born anew in order to see or to enter the kingdom of God. He explained that in our first birth, our biological birth, we are born of and in the flesh. He said, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." In contrast, the birth of the Spirit gives us a spiritual nature that we lacked before regeneration. Likewise Jesus said, "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit" (John 3:6).
Only after we are born in the Spirit do we find ourselves locked in the struggle of which Paul writes in Galatians. The combatants in this war are the flesh and the spirit. Again, this is not a battle between the body and the soul but between the old fallen nature of corruption and the new nature that has been wrought by the Holy Spirit's work of regeneration. Paul sometimes describes this warfare as a battle between the "old man" and the "new man."
The Spirit's work of regeneration changes us radically. It liberates us from the bondage of sin. But regeneration does not instantly purify us. That occurs in our glorification when our sanctification is completed. As Christians we still sin. The old man is not annihilated at our rebirth. Our lifelong progress of sanctification involves putting to death the old man and nurturing and strengthening the new man.
Augustine used the comparison of a horse and its rider. He likened the unconverted person to a horse ridden by a single rider, the devil. The converted person, however, is not ridden by a single rider. Rather he is like a horse whose reins God and the devil fight over.
This struggle between virtue and vice that is so common to us is utterly foreign to God. God is like a horse with only one rider. There is no conflict between flesh and spirit in Him. There is no gap between His internal righteousness and His external righteousness. The love by which He acts is altogether pure and untainted by any weakness, blemish, or hint of evil. If we learn nothing else about the love of God, it is imperative that we learn this. His love may be like our love in some respects, but in other respects it is unlike ours. Most significantly, our love is a marred love, a flawed and blemished love. Our love is always and everywhere tarnished by sin. That is why it is fatal to think of the love of God as a mere extension of human love.
We have seen that the attribute of love in God must be understood along with all of His other attributes. In this regard we must stress that whatever else the love of God may be, first it is holy.
The Holy Love of God
The word "holy" as it is used in Scripture has two chief meanings. The primary meaning of "holy" refers to that which is transcendentally different from, or "other" than, creaturely things. That which is holy in this world has been set apart by or touched by the transcendentally holy. When God called Moses out of the burning bush in the wilderness, He commanded Moses to take off his shoes because he was standing on holy ground. What made the ground holy? It certainly was not the presence of Moses. What sanctified the ground was its intersection with the presence of God. The touch of God made it holy. The collision of the transcendent with the immanent, the sacred with the profane transformed the ordinary into the extraordinary and the common into the uncommon. Palestine is called the Holy Land not because of the presence of the church but because it was the arena of God's redemptive activity in history.
In this sense of the word, "holy" refers to something that is "extra." It involves a certain plus that is added to the natural order. Holy space and holy time are so designated because something has been added to them. That which is added is the presence of God.
The second most frequent usage of the word "holy" in the Bible refers to purity. That which is holy has been cleansed from all impurity. This was expressed in the ritualistic cleansing rites of the Old Testament. For example, we see this established when God summoned Moses to Mount Sinai to receive the Law in Exodus 19:
Then the Lord said to Moses, "Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their clothes. And let them be ready for the third day. For on the third day the Lord will come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. You shall set bounds for the people all around, saying, 'Take heed to yourselves that you do not go up to the mountain or touch its base. Whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death. Not a hand shall touch him, but he shall surely be stoned or shot with an arrow; whether man or beast, he shall not live.' When the trumpet sounds long, they shall come near the mountain." (vv. 10-13)
God's command to consecrate the people by washing was based upon His purpose expressed earlier when He told Moses that He had borne the children of Israel on eagles' wings and in the Exodus had brought them to Himself. He said:
"'Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel." (vv. 5-6)
The cleansing rite was commanded because God was calling Israel to be a holy nation. The status of holy nationhood was to be expressed by purity. When God calls His people to be holy because He is Holy, it means that they are to mirror His purity. We are not able to mirror His transcendence, but we are called to reflect His purity.
When we say that God's love is holy, we mean that it is both a transcendent love, an "other" kind of love, and a love that is absolutely pure.
Transcendent Love
When we say God's love is holy in the transcendent sense, we mean that His love is different from ours. It has something extra, a "plus" that creaturely love lacks. This otherness is not total but is real and significant. The influence of continental neo-orthodox theology on the modern church has made it fashionable in some circles to speak of God as being wholly other. This phrase was concocted to fight the influence of nineteenth-century liberal theology that was moving toward pantheism to the degree that the transcendence of God was being obscured and threatened. To overcome this threat and to reassert the importance of distinguishing God from the universe or from anything creaturely, it was insisted that God is not only "other" from the creation but that He is "wholly" other.
This effort to escape pantheism created a crisis in the language we use about God. One of the points that drove the death of God theology was the argument that human language is inadequate to speak meaningfully about God. Indeed if God were absolutely different from us, utterly and completely "wholly other," then human words could not possibly express anything meaningful about God. God could not reveal Himself to us, and we could only spout gibberish about Him. If two distinct beings have absolutely no point of commonality or similarity, they can have no meaningful communication. While we applaud the efforts of theologians to rescue the transcendence of God from the jaws of pantheism, we at the same time sound a sober warning against overreacting to the extent that we make it impossible to say anything meaningful about God, which would be the case if God were indeed wholly other. We must insist that God is other but not wholly other.
When we speak about God, we recognize that to a certain extent our speech is anthropomorphic and analogical. Anthropomorphic speech describes God in human forms. We see anthropomorphic language in the Bible when God is described as a sort of gigantic man or superman. He has a strong right arm. He has eyes, ears, nostrils, and legs that use the earth as His footstool. Yet as helpful as these images may be in revealing certain things about God, we are warned not to take them too far, as if they were univocal descriptions of Him. We are also told that He is not a man but a spirit who cannot be contained in time and space the way a physical being with real arms, legs, and eyes can be.
When our language about God moves beyond graphic and concrete images (such as arms and legs) to more abstract language, we tend to think we have escaped the limits of anthropomorphic language. In fact we never can. All of our language about God is always anthropomorphic because that is the only language at our disposal. It is the only language we have because we are anthropoi. God does not address us in His language. We couldn't understand it. Rather He condescends to speak to us in our language. He reveals Himself to us in terms we can understand. As Calvin once said, it is akin to the communication we use with infants. We coo and lisp to them in what we call baby talk.
We labor this point that it may be clear that the only way we can speak of the love of God is anthropomorphically. However accurately we may speak about the love of God our speech is limited by our human perspective. Whatever God's love is, it is not exhausted by our concept of it. It transcends our best efforts to describe it. It is higher than our loftiest notions of it.
When we say that our language about God is analogical, we mean that there is an analogy between who and what God is and who and what we are. Certainly there are important differences between the Creator and the creature. God is transcendent. He is other but, again, not wholly other. Yet a point of contact remains between God and man, a point of similarity between the Creator and the creature.
In classic theology this point of similarity has been described as the analogy of being (analogia entis) between God and man. This analogy of being is rooted and grounded in creation itself. We see it in the creation narrative:
Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the e arth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth." (Gen. 1:26-28)
Genesis declares that we are created in the image and likeness of God. It is precisely because we are made in God's image that some point of similarity exists between us. It is the image that makes meaningful discourse and meaningful communication between God and us possible.
Though God remains transcendent and our human language cannot exhaustively comprehend His love, nevertheless we can learn meaningful truth about His love from His revelation to us concerning it. That is what we will explore in the pages to come. We will approach the matter from two angles. On the one hand, we will look at what Scripture expressly says about the love of God. On the other hand, we will also look at what the Bible says about our human love since in it we have an analogy of God's love.
Most helpful customer reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
In Depth Exploration into God's Love
By D. Keating
First, I must admit that this book is the first R.C. Sproul book that I have ever read. In it, he gives a detailed analysis of God's love. He attempts to answer some very tough questions about God's love, that are worthy or exploration, such as does God really love everyone? Does God really hate certain people mentioned in specific passages of the Bible? and how does a God of love require the sacrifice of His own Son for the redemption of mankind?
Overall, R.C. Sproul does an excellent job "digging deeper" into the notion of the love of God. He uses numerous Bible passages, and takes a rather academic approach when presenting his points. By that I mean, that this book is not a "feel good" Christian book about how much God loves everyone. No, it goes much more in depth than that - which makes for a challenging and engaging read.
My favorite part of the book is Sproul's exposition about the love chapter found in 1 Corinthians 13. The purchase of this book is worth it for this section alone - it is very well done. I did have one complaint about the book, but it is more about Sproul's theology than anything. R.C. Sproul is a big believer in the concept of election and predestination. He spends a large amount of this book getting into this theory which I found distracting at times, and not totally believable.
Having said all that, I do recommend this book for any Christian searching for a deeper understanding about God's love. This book will challenge, and hopefully expand your comprehension about this topic.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful.
God's Eternal Love
By Blake
"Just as He is from everlasting to everlasting, so His love is also from everlasting to everlasting. His is not a fickle love that waxes hot and cold over time. His love has a constancy about it that transcends all human forms of love. Just as human beings often fall in love, they also often fall out of love. This is not the case with the love of God." - pg 24
The above quote taken from _Loved by God_ aptly summarizes the theme of Sproul's latest book. This book is not another pithy look at love in some whimsical sentimental sense. Rather, a deep look into scripture at the facets of God's love in all circumstances.
How can we say God is loving when Jesus says he was forsaken on the cross? How can we say God is loving when he clearly shows hatred to the wicked throughout the scriptures? How can we say God is loving when he says that "it pleased God to bruise Him (Christ)?"
RC addresses all of these issues and more. I highly rec'd this book to Christians of all stages in their spiritual pilgrimage. RC has a gift for making theology understandable, practical, and comforting.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
A good intro to Theology Proper
By Jacob Aitken
I must be honest: I bought this book for the CD that came with it (which is a decent 17 minute intro to the book). Sproul appraoches the task of exploring God's love with humility and hopes that this book will "be a springboard for a lifelong pursuit of this love."
The overall rating is A-. The first three chapters were loaded with deep, heavy thought concerning the nature of God, and interacts with differing modern views that examine this concept. I respectfully differ with one reviewer concerning the chapter on election--I basically agree with Sproul. He delivers the basic Calvinist challenge on Romans 9. However, he does leave several questions that need to be answered. The next two or three chapters were ok; they were not the best that Sproul is capable of, thus the 4 star rating. His chapters on our love for one another are pretty good and worth a read.
Final Analysis.
THis book is a good, solid "intro" to the love of God. It is not the most exhaustive treatise on divine love, nor was it intended to be. This is a book from which the beginning and advanced student can profit from. It is overall well-written with only a few chapters that leave some to be desired. Also, the CD is an added bonus to the book
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