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Old post from old blog. But you knew that already.
In the post on God’s goodness, I mentioned that God’s love and God’s goodness are closely related. God is both loving and good because he is by nature a giver. While the term love is sometimes used in scripture in relation to God’s general providence (the work of God in sustaining his creation), it is most often used in relation to redemption (the rescuing or saving work of God). In fact, throughout the New Testament, the redemptive work of Christ on the cross is revealed to be the way it is that God loves:
….God is love….. In this is love:…. that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. (1 John 4:8-10)
And again:
For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son….(John 3:16 NET)
Redemption is the supreme example of God’s love. God is love, so he saves even at great cost; costly redemption is the way he loves.
Examining the cost of redemption proves to us the infinite depth of God’s love. He saves sacrificially, giving up his own Son, and his sacrificial giving is done, not for those who are in some way giving back to him, or even neutral toward him, but for those who are rejecting him. The kind of love God has is the kind of love that gives sacrificially to those who hate him.
But God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us….while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son (Romans 5:8,10 NET).
God’s love is a love that rescues the unlovely and unworthy by giving up something precious in order to do it. That’s mind-boggling love. God’s love is immeasurable in the same way that all the other aspects of his character are, for scripture tells us that his “love is great to the heavens.”
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