Saturday Sermon: God Is Love

Romans 3:25-26 / 1 John 4:7-11

People say all sorts of things about love today, and there are all sorts of notions about what love really is. But how does God define it? What does God say it is, and where does it come from, how can we see and know it, in truth? People quote this verse, 1 John 4:8, and then try and make it say whatever they want it to, and use it as an excuse to do or believe just about anything, but that isn’t what the Bible is teaching here. Only what God means is what counts. So what does the Bible teach? God is love, yes, but God further defines that in the following verses, as we see propitiation declared here once again (1 John 4:10). We have gone into detail about that already.

You cannot change it around here; John does not say that love is God, but that God is love. In the Greek, the two terms are not interchangeable. This same book declares God is light (1 John 1:5), and John writes in his gospel that Jesus said God is Spirit (John 4:24). Yes we want to declare His love, but it is even better understood in its proper perspective, it is an unfailing love because it is grounded in His unfailing character, not in everyone else’s ideas.

Now we can see that God defines His love here through Christ on the cross, and we can relate that back to many passages, including our main text, Romans 3:25-26. God’s righteousness flows from His holiness, His love flows from His holiness; it isn’t that God’s holiness is greater than His love, His mercy and His justice, but that holiness is the character that encompasses all the other attributes of God. His love is defined by His holiness. His justice, His mercy, His grace, they are all defined by His holiness. Perhaps we can make it clearer by saying that holiness is godliness, or God-likeness.

His justice is equal to His love and so He had to do it this way to satisfy both. God’s mercy did not nullify His justice; He had to be propitiated as our text plainly declares. If you redefine the atonement to remove the idea that Christ suffered the judgment for sin in our place, you destroy the heart of the gospel (1 John 4:10 / Romans 1:17 / 1 John 1:9). If that payment had not been made, there would never have been any forgiveness whatsoever (Hebrews 9:22).

One of the truths of the gospel is that God saved us in a way that upheld His justice. Justice was neither compromised nor set aside; it was completely satisfied. One of the great mysteries not revealed in the Old Testament but fully revealed in the gospel is how forgiveness is possible without compromising the justice of God. The bloody mercy seat showed the truth that sins must be paid for because of the holiness of God. His love requires justice to be done, but animal blood cannot pay for human sin, and human blood alone cannot pay for offense against God. Only Jesus was worthy enough to pay. Christ offered a full atonement that included payment in full for all the sins of every sinner who would ever believe (2 Corinthians 5:21 / Romans 3:25 / 1 John 2:2). Our salvation is therefore grounded in the justice of God as well as His mercy, which is in perfect proportion because of His holiness. In other words, the gospel is not only a message about the love of God. It is that; but it is more. The true gospel magnifies His justice as much as it magnifies His love, because in doing that it magnifies His holiness.

Why do we need to understand this, why do we need to discover and develop our thinking this way? In order to become better grounded in Christ (Colossians 2:7 / Ephesians 3:16-19); this is greater than simple understanding but not simply a feeling. Rooted and grounded in love, which we see more clearly as we have been discovering in 1 John 4:7-10 and Romans 3:25-26, etc. The breadth and length and height and depth, in other words, the encompassing nature of His love, which is most clearly understood through His holiness.

You want a faith that is getting richer, deeper, and stronger, and we find this in the Bible, it is not merely an intellectual pursuit, as this passage says, it is a knowledge but it goes beyond knowledge, it is sight beyond sight (Ephesians 1:16-20). We cannot naturally envision holiness, but when we endeavor to rightly understand God, He grants us the power to do just that. This is why you can receive a word, and want it for your life and love it, but if you don’t dig deep enough, there is no root and it will wither away. The seed gets planted but you must be working on your soil. What I am trying to do is to get you to understand the love of Christ more fully.

Convince yourself and deepen your faith, Coach others and develop their faith, Contend for and defend the faith. 2 Peter 12:1-2, 3:18 – This is what knowing and understanding Jesus is, becoming more and more familiar with just how righteous He is and beautiful and holy and that is worship and looking at Him and that is how we are changed (2 Corinthians 3:18).

When it says God is love that includes all aspects of His love including justice. Love without justice isn’t love it is favoritism. Simple pardon is simply preference. God’s love is much deeper than that, His love satisfies justice and upholds His character. His own holy being demands that payment be made, or justice would not be served, and He would not be a holy God. He is a holy God, and He Himself makes the payment to satisfy justice. He doesn’t just find a way to get you out of it; He makes a way that can never be taken back (Romans 8:33).

The power of God is to be able to take something broken and make it better than before, a new thing, a redeemed thing, bought with a price, infused with the Spirit of God, made lovely, given grace, given value, given God. Made holy. From the holiness of God springs our justification, but it also leads us to a moral change from darkness to light. "To sinners God says, "Ye must be born again," to the saved, "Be ye holy, for I am holy" (1 Peter 1:16).

We think love is His most beautiful thing, but it is holiness; the Bible says we are to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness (1 Chronicles 16:29 / Psalm 29:2, 96:9), to praise the beauty of holiness (2 Chronicles 20:21), we are to give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness (Psalm 30:4), walk on the highway of holiness (Isaiah 35:8), and be working to bring our holiness to a more complete place (2 Corinthians 7:1). God’s all-encompassing attribute, the one from which all others flow, and flow perfectly, is His holiness (Isaiah 6 / Revelation 4:8). It is what makes everything else in perfect proportion. That is why we can trust His justice, His goodness, His mercy, His love, and so on, because He is holy.

The New Testament is centered on Christ, and its exhortations on the holiness of believers. This is not a simple call to obedience, but to holiness. Holiness is not righteousness, righteousness flows from holiness. Holiness isn’t simply obedience; it is being set apart for God and depending on God by drawing your boundaries as God would have them. Obedience flows from holiness, and holiness is cultivated by a right understanding of God and what He has done for us in Christ. To understand Christ more fully is to be made more holy in practice. That is why we are studying this as intensely as we are. This is the highest privilege that we can experience this side of heaven, and it should be the center of our preaching and goal of living. If you understand what we have been teaching for several weeks now about God, His own righteousness, the gospel, and justification by faith, then you will come to understand this. We are already made holy (Hebrews 10:10), we do not work for it; we work from it.

This is the difference between being God entranced and self-entranced. The self-entranced person says I want God to help me, so I will be more obedient. He tries to make it happen. He tries to be righteous. The God entranced person says I want to be more like Christ, and therefore he is more obedient. God makes it happen. Don’t put God on your agenda, get on God’s agenda and you will see the results He wants for you. Listen, He paid the ultimate price for you to be redeemed, to place value in you, the value of Himself. No, you weren’t worth it, He was, but He incorporates us into Him. Now don’t you think He wants great things for you (Romans 8:32)? Romans 8:29 – all things are from Him, and you can trust Him, because He is holy.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©