Which is more important for understanding God's Good News...God's love or God's wrath? Well...this is like asking which is more important for flying, the right or left wing of a jet aircraft? Or...which is most important for seeing, your right eye or your left eye? The answer, of course, is that God's love and God's wrath are equally important in understanding the Good News. First, God's wrath against the sin of sinners is the necessary context for a revelation of God's love in rescuing sinners. A gospel presentation that begins with God's love begins in the wrong place. This is why the Apostle Paul begins the gospel in Romans with nearly 3 chapters of detailed argument that ALL men are sinners facing the wrath of God with no hope of changing the situation by their own attempts at obedience. The gospel can only "fly" when both the wing of God's wrath against sinners and God's love for sinners is clearly set forth.
Both wings are seen in John 3:16: God LOVED the world and gave His Son that whoever believes in Him shall not PERISH, but have eternal life.
But here I want to begin to look at several characteristics of God's love for sinners.
God's love is His NATURE. 1John 4:8: "...God is love." God is not ONLY love, but all that He does and all that He is, is loving. God is holy and loving and therefore He exercises a HOLY LOVE. God is true and loving and therefore His is a TRUE LOVE or a FAITHFUL LOVE. God is just and loving therefore He acts in JUST LOVE. God is patient and loving and therefore He always responds to us with a PATIENT LOVE. We should not think of God's attributes or characteristics as segmented and sometimes one motivating God and sometimes another motivating Him. All that He is He is at all times and at all times He is moving and motivated by LOVE.
Since love is God's very nature, His love for us flows from WHO HE IS. God's love towards us is NOT a response to something LOVELY in us! Love flows to us from God's nature and therefore God's initiative. It is based on who HE is and not on who WE are. That is good news indeed. Because if God loved us for who we are we would be under eternal pressure to be worthy of His love at all times or to face rejection. But because love flows to us from God's nature it CANNOT change because HE cannot change.
Of course, God's love CAN move and initiate towards us because in unfathomable love He sent Christ to die in our place. With our sin removed by the redemption in Christ's blood, LOVE can flow to us, unhindered by who and what we are.
Hallelujah! What a love and what a LOVER!
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