Understanding God’s Love for Man
God’s love for man is a fundamental thing to discuss and understand clearly. It’s important that I set a stage by mentioning that everyone believes something. Not everyone is at all times consciously in touch with what they believe. And not everyone wraps language around it. But the bottom line is that we all believe something. These belief systems are referred to as worldviews and they dictate how we see God.
Everyone views the world around them with a set of premises. For instance, if something happens to you, good or bad you enter into an interpretation mode. If something unpleasant happens, you get cancer or an accident, you will tend to interpret that with whatever worldview you might be holding.
We believe in one of five things. Some might believe in a combination of the five without really being conscious about it. There are thousands of philosophies and religions but all of them sum up to either of this five-set of beliefs.
1. Materialism (Naturalism)
This is the view that all facts are causally dependent upon physical processes, or even reducible to them.1 This is the belief that all reality is composed of matter. All things including your state of mind and consciousness, are a result of material interaction. Everything is explained by the Big Bang theory. 13.9 billion years ago there was a loud explosion that resulted in a series of cosmological events that dictates what happens to us every day including what you had for breakfast today.
In this worldview, there is no moral dimension to reality. There is no right or wrong, no good or evil, there is no accountability. We are just living every day trying our level best to survive. If something bad happens, someone who holds this worldview will say, ‘first of all there’s nothing bad, there’s nothing moral to it.’ It’s just a cause and effect to relationships. Be it murder, child molestation, or even rape there are no moral ties to it. It just happened, get over it.
2. Pantheism
This is the doctrine that the universe conceived of as a whole is God and, conversely, that there is no God but the combined substance, forces, and laws that are manifested in the existing universe.2 Pantheists accept all gods into worship because they view God as everything and everyone. There is no accountability to the third-person deity. Pantheists believe that they are the center of their own universe and responsible for it. They are themselves, gods.
3. Deterministic Theism
This is the view that God determines every event that occurs in the history of the world.3 God’s primary attribute is power and sovereignty. He determines every event that occurs around us. Nothing happened but God willed it. He controls even the time you woke up today.
For example, we find John Calvin from the protestant reformation came up with the theory of predestination. He said,
by predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which He determined with Himself whatever He wished to happen with regard to every man.
John Calvin
God determines who is saved and who is lost and He micromanages the universe. So someone who gets abused is told that it’s God’s will for their lives for reasons we cannot understand. Cancer, the accident, and even the devil are just doing God’s will.
4. Appeasement theism
This is a merit worldview.4 We need to do something to God for us to earn His favor. God’s primary attribute is wrath. We have to work our way to God’s favor. This is practiced by pagans and involves things like human sacrifice.
5. Benevolent theism
This is a love and liberty worldview.5 God’s fundamental attribute is goodness and love. God is good all the time and all the time God is good and that is His nature. This is the worldview that the Bible teaches and that I believe in. But if God is good why is there so much suffering around us? Well, with pure Love there is Freedom and with Freedom, there is a risk. God created us and because of His perfect love, He gave us the choice to love Him or not. This freedom or free will leads to the origin of evil and explains the suffering and even the good things happening to us or around us.
Why do worldviews matter?
What a person believes in will be the primary factor that shapes their character and belief patterns.
Ellen G White writes
The whole spiritual life is molded by our conception of God; and if we cherish erroneous views of His character, our souls will sustain injury
Review and Heralds, Jan 14, 1890
Understanding the Love of God
The phrase love of God has been used in various places in the Bible and it is important for us to understand what it means.
It can either mean “God’s Love for man” as used in Romans 5:5: Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
Or it can mean “Man’s Love for God” as used in 1 John 5:3 by the apostle Paul: For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.
Mr. W.E Vine, in The Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, Vol III, p.21, observes that agape (the fatherly love of God for humans) as used of God “expresses the deep and constant ‘love’ and interest of a perfect Being towards entirely unworthy objects, producing and fostering a reverential ‘love’ in them towards the Giver, and a practical ‘love’ towards those who are partakers of the same, and a desire to help others to seek the Giver.” Essentially, we are only able to Love because He first Loved us (1 John 4:19)
Man, who is the beneficiary, has done nothing worthy of God’s love. Mr. Vine continues to point out that; Christian Love, whether exercised towards a brethren, or towards men generally, is not an impulse from the feeling, it does not run with the natural inclination, nor does it spend itself only upon those whom some affinity is discovered. Love seeks the welfare of all, Romans 15:2, and works no ill to any, Romans 13:8-10, love seeks to do good to all men, and especially towards them that are of the household of faith, Galatians 6:10
God is Love (1 John 4:8 – He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.) This Love has been made manifest all around us. Nature and revelation alike testify of God’s Love. Our Father who is in heaven is the source of wisdom and joy and is the sustainer of the universe.
Since creation, the invisible attributes are clearly seen by everyone. Believers and unbelievers alike. All nature around us, the budding of flowers, the lakes, and the forests speak to us of the creator’s Love.
He is the sustainer of all as the Psalmist says
The eyes of all look expectantly to You, And You give them their food in due season. You open Your hand And satisfy the desire of every living thing.
Psalms 145:15-16
God made man perfectly holy and happy. He made all necessary provisions for his sustenance. He placed him in a perfect environment and would always visit him. But when man sinned (Genesis 3) a rift was created between Him and us.
This, however, did not stop God from seeking us.
Even amid the suffering that results from sin, God’s love is revealed. It is written that God cursed the ground for man’s sake. Genesis 3:17. The thorn and the thistle—the difficulties and trials that make his life one of toil and care—were appointed for his good as a part of the training needful in God’s plan for his uplifting from the ruin and degradation that sin has wrought.
Steps to Christ
God has always sought to reveal Himself to us. He has connected our hearts to Him through the things of nature and the deepest and tenderest earthly ties the heart can know. Though all the evidence of God’s love is all around us, the enemy has blinded our minds such that we see God as a tyrant, one who is just looking upon us to see our mistakes and punish us. We look at Him with fear and dread. Some of us don’t even believe in Him and others have vague perceptions of Him without considering the greater Love that He has for us. He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16)
It is to reconcile us with the Father that Jesus come and dwelt among us, taught us the ways of the Father, and died for our sins. Greater love has no one than this than to lay down one’s life for his friends. (John 15:13)
While on earth Jesus showed the love of God and in all men, He saw fallen souls whom it was His mission to save. Nothing less than the infinite sacrifice made by Christ on behalf of fallen man could express the Father’s love for lost humanity.
The more we study the divine character in the light of the cross, the more we see mercy, tenderness and forgiveness blended with equity and justice, and the more clearly we discern innumerable evidence of a love that is infinite and a tender pity surpassing a mother’s yearning sympathy for her wayward child
Steps to Christ
Even amidst the challenges of life and you feel distance from God, know that nothing can separate us from the Love of God; Romans 8:31-39
May you be blessed as you seek this Love.6
