The Profound Dimensions of God's Love

"Before there was any creature to love, God was still perfect love, and perfectly loved the members of the Trinity mutually. Open your Bible for a moment to the fourteenth chapter of John. We'll look at a couple of passages in John just as a starting point because, obviously, we can't get too far into these things, or we'll not be able to cover the breadth of what we want to say." [00:05:04]

"Jesus said, 'Let's progress toward the inevitability of the cross that the world may know that I love the Father, and I show that love in perfect and sacrificial obedience.' In the fifteenth chapter, still in this wonderful Upper Room Discourse, the night of the Passover with His apostles, Jesus says, verse 9, chapter 15, 'Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you. Abide in My love.'" [00:06:09]

"God has the power to raise the dead, so does the Son. God has the right to judge, verse 22, but He's given all judgment to the Son. God is worthy of all honor, but He's given equal honor to the Son. God is the one to be believed, but He gives His Word to His Son who also is to be believed. The Father gives life, the Son gives life." [00:11:15]

"The Father loves the Son so much that He gives to the Son a redeemed humanity. You understand, don't you, that God loving sinners is secondary, and God loving His Son is primary? He loves sinners insofar as by loving them, He can express His love to His Son. We are nothing but an elect bride, the Father's love gift to the Son." [00:13:18]

"It is true, God does love men and women. God does love the world. There is a love of God which is unconditional, you hear that? Used so many times that adjective, 'unconditional,' you would think that's the demanded adjective to describe God's love finally, ultimately but it is not. But there is, however, an unconditional kind of love, an unlimited kind of love, an indiscriminate kind of love, a love extended to all people." [00:16:19]

"God loves His enemies. God's love is not restricted to the redeemed. This is an unqualified, unconditional love. Another illustration of this is found in the tenth chapter of Mark which, I think, is sort of tucked into that tenth chapter and perhaps overlooked unless you're reading thoughtfully. Verse 17, 'As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up to Him,' Mark 10:17, 'knelt before Him, and began asking Him, 'Good teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?''" [00:18:25]

"God loves those who don't love Him, and that love is manifest, listen, in an earthly, physical, temporal fashion. By rain and good. And you understand that, of course, because you know that the soul that sins, it shall die. The wages of sin is death. And yet, the world is constantly, from the very start, populated by people who sin and sin continuously in an unbroken pattern and go on living." [00:22:10]

"God's love for mankind is revealed in His incessant warnings. All through the Scripture, we won't take the time to recite them. I always think of a text that I first heard from R.C. many years ago, when I listened to his series on 'The Holiness of God,' I think it's in that series, taken out of Luke 13 where they came and asked Jesus about the tower that fell on the people, and then people who were in worshiping, and the soldiers came in and sliced them up." [00:28:25]

"God's love for mankind, in the broadest sense, is revealed in His incessant and extensive offer of the gospel. 'Go into all the world and preach the gospel' to? 'Everyone,' everyone. The path to salvation has been made known to all. 'That which may be known of God,' Romans 1, 'is in them.' It is that logical process built into the mind, that cause-and-effect pattern in human thinking that is the operation of logic." [00:30:41]

"God's love for His own. Listen carefully, though God genuinely loves the world, He loves them enough to give them common grace, He loves them enough to feel compassion and extend it to them. He loves them enough to warn them. He loves them enough to give them gospel opportunity. That love has no limit in extent, listen, but it has a limit in degree. This is always challenging for us but, nonetheless, true." [00:36:07]

"Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. 'Having loved,' past tense with ongoing force. Having always loved His own who were in the world, He loves the world, but there's another kind of love. We know He loves the world, but He has another love for His own who are in the world, and what is it? He loved them to the end." [00:38:11]

"To those whom He chooses to love in a covenant way, His love is perfect, complete, saving, and eternal. Listen to what Jeremiah 31:3 says, 'I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore, I have drawn you with loving-kindness.' Before the foundation of the world, God set His love upon His own, is that not true? And He loves them with an everlasting love." [00:57:11]