Why is it People Today Find It Easy to Believe in God’s Love?

If there is one thing that our world thinks it knows about God, if our world believes in God at all, it is that he is a loving God.

That has not always been the case in human history. Many people have thought of the gods as pretty arbitrary, mean-spirited, whimsical, or even malicious. That is why you have to appease them.

Sometimes in the history of the church Christians have placed more emphasis on God’s wrath or his sovereignty or his holiness, all themes that are biblical in some degree or another. God’s love did not receive as much attention. But today, if people believe in God at all, by and large they find it easy to believe in God’s love.

Yet being comfortable with the notion of the love of God has been accompanied by some fairly spongy notions as to what love means. Occasionally you will hear somebody saying something like this:

“It’s Christians I don’t like. I mean, God is love, and if everybody were just like Jesus, it would be wonderful. Jesus said, ‘Judge not that you be not judged.’ You know, if we could all just be nonjudgmental and be loving the way Jesus was loving, then the world would be a better place.”

There is an assumption there about the nature of love, you see it. Love is nonjudgmental, it does not condemn anyone. It lets everybody do whatever they want. That is what love means to many today.

It is sadly true that sometimes Christians, God help us, are mean. Certainly it is true that Jesus said, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged” (Matt. 7:1). But when he said this, did he really mean, “Do not make any morally discriminating judgments?” Why then does he give so many commands about telling the truth? Don’t such commands stand as condemnation of lies and liars.

Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors as ourselves: doesn’t that constitute an implicit judgment on those who don’t?

In the text where Jesus says, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged,” he goes on to say just five verses later, “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs” (Matt. 7:6), which means that somebody has to figure out who the swine are.

There is more to God’s love, to Jesus’s love, than avoiding judgmentalism.

That means that when we think of God’s love, we need to think of God’s other attributes too, his holiness, truthfulness, glory (his manifestation of his spectacular being and loveliness), and all the rest—and think through how all of them work together all the time.

Sadly, precisely because our culture finds it relatively easy to believe that God is a God of love, we have developed notions of God’s love that are sentimental and almost always alienated from the full range of the attributes that make God, God.

There are Different Ways the Bible Speaks of the Love of God

The love of God

The Bible explicitly speaks of the love of the Father for his Son and the love of the Son for the Father.

The Bible says the Father loves the Son. It also tells us, equally explicitly, that the Son loves the Father and always does whatever pleases him (John 14:31).
Why Jesus goes to the cross is first of all because he loves his Father and does his Father’s will.

God’s love can refer to his general care over his creation.

God sends his sun and his rain upon the just and the unjust. He sustains both the godly and the ungodly. So there is a sense in which God’s love generously extends to friend and foe alike.

Sometimes the Bible speaks of God’s love in a kind of moral, inviting, commanding, yearning sense.

We find God addressing Israel in the Old Testament when the nation is particularly perverse, saying, in effect, “Turn, turn, why will you die? The Lord has no pleasure in the death of the wicked” (Ezek. 18:23, 32; 33:11). He is that kind of God.

18:23Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked? saith the Lord Jehovah; and not rather that he should return from his way, and live? 24But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and doeth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doeth, shall he live? None of his righteous deeds that he hath done shall be remembered: in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die.

18:32For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dies, saith the Lord Jehovah: wherefore turn yourselves, and live.

33:11Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord Jehovah, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?

Sometimes God’s love is selective.

It chooses one and not another. “I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated” (Mal. 1:2–3). This is very strong language. In remarkable passages in Deuteronomy 7 and 10, God raises the rhetorical question as to why he chose the nation of Israel.

John 6:43–44.

43Jesus answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves. 44No man can come to me, except the Father that sent me draw him: and I will raise him up in the last day. 45It is written in the prophets, And they shall all be taught of God. Every one that hath heard from the Father, and hath learned, cometh unto me.

The grumbling was not only insulting, but dangerous: it presupposed that divine revelation could be sorted out by talking the matter over, and so diverted attention from the grace of God. ‘So long as a man remains, and is content to remain, confident of his own ability, without divine help, to assess experience and the meaning of experience, he cannot “come to” the Lord, he cannot “believe”; only the Father can move him to this step, with its incalculable and final results’

Jesus’ claim that everyone who listens and learns from God will come to him is both a comfort and a challenge. It is comforting because it says no one who is really open to God will be left out.

But it is also a challenge because it is another one of Jesus’ claims to unique, supreme authority.

God has indeed not left himself without a witness. General revelation has made something of the truth about himself known, and certainly the Scriptures have done so more clearly.

But all such knowledge of God is partial and finds its fulfillment and point of reference in Jesus.

All revelation before or outside of Jesus leads one to come to him. When a Jew or Muslim or Buddhist or other religious person who has really learned from God sees Jesus in truth (not as he is too often revealed by Christians’ poor witness) they will recognize in him the fullness of what they have already learned.

The combination of v. 37a and v. 44 prove that this ‘drawing’ activity of the Father cannot be reduced to what theologians sometimes call ‘prevenient grace’ dispensed to every individual, for this ‘drawing’ is selective, or else the negative note in v. 44 is meaningless.

Many attempt to dilute the force of the claim by referring to Mark 12:32, where the same verb for ‘to draw’ occurs: Jesus there claims he will draw ‘all men’ to himself. The context shows rather clearly, that 12:32 refers to ‘all men without distinction’ (not just Jews) rather than to ‘all men without exception’.

John emphasizes the responsibility of people to come to Jesus, and can criticize them for refusing to do so . John 5:40 and ye will not come to me, that ye may have life.

6:45. Jesus explains what kind of ‘drawing’ (v. 44) the Father exercises. When he compels belief, it is not by the savage constraint, but by the wonderful wooing of a lover.

It is by an insight, a teaching, an illumination implanted within the individual, in fulfillment of the Old Testament promise, They will all be taught by God. This is a paraphrase of Isaiah 54:13, addressed to the restored city of Jerusalem that the prophet foresees: ‘All your sons will be taught by the LORD, and great will be your children’s peace.’ The passage is here applied typologically: in the New Testament the messianic community and the dawning of the saving reign of God are the typological fulfillments of the restoration of Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile.

This need for internal illumination is a common place of both Testaments. Jeremiah looks forward to a new covenant when God will put his law in the minds of his people, and write it on their hearts (Je. 31:31–34). In Ezekiel, God promises a new heart and a new spirit (Ezk. 36:24–26). The prophet Joel anticipates the time when God will pour out his Spirit not only on Jews but on all people (2:28ff.). In the Fourth Gospel, the new-birth language of John 3 announces the fulfillment of these prospects. Jesus in the Farewell Discourse promises the coming of the Holy Spirit, with a teaching role (14:26–27; 16:12–15).

Once God is in connection with his own people, usually this means he has entered into a covenant-based relationship with them, then his love is often presented as conditional.

Jude, a half-brother of Jesus, writes, “Keep yourselves in God’s love” (Jude 21), which shows that you might not keep yourself in God’s love. In such passages there is a moral conditionality to being loved by God.

There are a lot of passages in both Testaments where God’s love or Jesus’s love for us is in some sense conditional on our obedience. Even the Ten Commandments are partly shaped by conditionality: God shows his love, he says, “to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments” (Exod. 20:6).

Inevitably one starts asking how these different ways of talking about God’s love fit together.
Christians have been known to advance such clichés as “God loves everybody just the same.” True or false? It depends!

There are contexts in which the Bible casts God’s love as amoral. He sends his sun and his rain upon the righteous and the unrighteous:

In that context he loves everybody just the same. But there are other contexts where God’s love is said to be conditional on our obedience, and still others where it is grounded in God’s own sovereign choice. In such contexts, God does not love everybody just the same.

“You can’t do anything to make God love you any more.”

In some contexts this is gloriously and absolutely true, because at the end of the day you cannot earn God’s love.

John 3:16–21 To provide an explanation of the basis on which people are reconciled to God, Jesus provided an analogy drawn from the Old Testament, Moses lifting up the bronze snake on a pole, showing that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

It Is Simply Astonishing That God Loves Us

By and large this is not the way we think, but the Bible delights to marvel at God’s love.

‘The reason we do not think this way is twofold: not only do we think that God ought to love (it is the one thing widely accepted in our culture) but “he especially ought to love me because I’m nice and neighborly and maybe even cute.

I don’t beat up on people. I’m a pretty decent chap. Of course God will love me. I mean, there’s nothing in me not to love, is there?” But this is already so far removed from the storyline of Scripture that we have to rethink it again.

John 3:16: “God so loved the world.” What is God saying to the world? “World, I love you”?
Is he saying, “World, your scintillating personality, your intelligent conversation, your wit, your gift—and you’re cute! I love you! I can’t imagine heaven without you.” Is that what he’s saying?

When God says, “I love you,” is he declaring the loveable-ness of the world? There are a lot of psychologists who use the love of God in exactly that way. If God says, “I love you,” it must be that “I’m okay, you’re okay; God says we’re okay. He loves us; it must be because we’re lovable.”

Biblically that is a load of nonsense. The word “world” in John’s Gospel typically refers not to a big place with a lot of people in it but to a bad place with a lot of bad people in it. The word “world” in John’s Gospel is this human-centered, created order that God has made and that has rebelled against him in hatefulness and idolatry, resulting in broken relationships, infidelity, and wickedness.

But the text says, “God so loved the world” this broken and fallen world. It is as if God is saying to the world, “Morally speaking, you are the people of the crippled knees. You are the people of the moral bad breath. You are the people of the rampaging Genghis Khan personality. You are hateful and spiteful and murderous. And you know what? I love you anyway, not because you are so lovable but because I am that kind of God.” That is why in the Bible, this side of Genesis 3, God’s love is always marveled at. God’s love is wonderful, surprising, in some ways not the way it ought to be. Why doesn’t he just condemn us instead?

The Measure of God’s Love for Us Is Jesus

The measure of this love is Jesus, this Jesus who, before he became Jesus, as the eternal Son, the eternal Word, was already one with the Father in a perfect circle of love in eternity past.

Now the Father gives his Son for us. That is how much he chooses to love us. God in essence gives himself.

When we say that the measure of God’s love for us is Jesus, we really mean two things:

First, what did giving Jesus cost the Father?

You who are parents, would you gladly give your child so that others might be spared death?

Second, what love does Jesus himself show?

The measure of God’s love for us is Jesus. If you want to see the full measure of God’s love, watch Jesus.

You find him with a heart as big as eternity as he looks out on a crowd that seems leaderless, spiritually empty, and lost. He calls them sheep without a shepherd, and, the text says, he has compassion on them (Matt. 9:36).

You find him playing with little children and even setting up little children as a kind of model for what his own disciples should be: childlike in their approach to Jesus. Little children do not come to someone who is angry. Yet in the Gospels we find them playing with Jesus and jumping all over him, and he says, “Let the little children come to me” (Matt. 19:14).

Even when he is denouncing people for their sins, sometimes in very strong language (he actually says to some people, “You hypocrites! You blind guides! You snakes! You brood of vipers!” in Matt. 23:15–16, 33), at the end of his denunciation you find him weeping over the city.

One of the really wonderful things about the demonstration of Jesus’s love is the way he addresses individuals where they are, without some mere one-size-fits-all formula.

Equally wonderful is the way Jesus comes to those bowed down with the cares of life and says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” Matt. 11:28–30,

The Purpose of God’s Love for Us Is That We Might Have Life

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

The Means by Which We Come to Enjoy This Love and Life Is Faith

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.… 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already [i.e., the verdict has already been passed] because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

The Purpose of God’s Love for Us Is That We Might Have Life

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life

When we see all these expression of God’s love, the first response to it ought to be gratitude, contrition before God, thankfulness for what he has done, and frank faith. But there are loud voices in our world who argue that thankfulness before Jesus shows what an inferior, sappy, emotional, weak religion Christianity is.

C. S. Lewis, before he was a Christian, really disliked the message of the Bible that we should thank and praise God all the time. Then everything changed. What he discovered was not that praising and thanking made people childish, but that it made them large-hearted and healthy. He said, “The humblest, and at the same time most balanced and capacious, minds praised most while the cranks, misfits and malcontents praised least.”

Many notes for this study came from D.A. Carson.