Eternal Love

God is love (1Jo 4:8)! Sweet truth! O my soul, rejoice daily in this blessed revelation, “God is love.” Before all worlds, before any being was formed, “God is love”—love eternal and unchangeable. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is love. How inconceivably great is the love of God! All worlds rolling in the infinite expanse, all beings inhabiting those innumerable spheres, which extend far beyond the boundaries of the most excursive imagination, all the myriads of angelic spirits which dwell forever in the bright effulgence of uncreated light, are only the overflowings of that love, which is inexhaustible. The immense fountain loses not one drop, though countless millions are filled by its streams. It is ever flowing, ever full. “Lord, Thou art love. Oh, fill my soul with Thy love! Thou canst not be diminished, and I shall be made everlastingly blessed.”

When the Almighty created the angels in heaven and man in Paradise, He endued both with powers suited to their distinctive degrees of excellence. Both were formed holy and, consequently, happy. All nature proclaims the benevolence of the Deity, the unbounded goodness of Jehovah. The Moral Law emanated from the love of God. This law was stamped upon the heart of Adam when he was in a state of innocence. It is a transcript of the divine mind as holy, just, and good.

When man sinned, he broke the law of God. He fell under its curse. To redeem him from this wretched state, Jesus, the Son of God, assumed our mortal nature, expiated⁴³ our guilt, and brought in an everlasting righteousness. He burst the bars of death. He ascended on high and reigns as the sovereign Lord of angels and of men.

When the royal law of love was broken in Paradise, how soon did Adam’s first-born imbrue⁴⁴ his hand in a brother’s blood! Violence overspread the earth with awful rapidity until God, in righteous judgment, swept the guilty rebels from the earth by a tremendous flood of waters. Every succeeding age has been marked by miseries of every name, all flowing from one common source—an evil heart of unbelief. Sin is the cause of all misery, and sin originates with man.

If it be asked, what is the true cause of man’s inability to love and serve God, may we not answer, a criminal indisposition⁴⁵ of heart so to do? It is not that man cannot love God from a natural incapacity, arising from a total destitution⁴⁶ of understanding, will, and affections; but rather that he will not, owing to a deep-rooted enmity against the holy character and commands of God.

This aversion⁴⁷ of the heart from God constitutes the chief guilt of man. Man is a responsible being and must render an account to God, from Whom he receives all his powers, for the abuse of those talents committed to his trust. He has a heart that can love the world: he can love sensual delights, he can love riches and honors—yes, he can love everything that tends to gratify his passions and to exalt him in his own eyes or in the estimation of others. He has a will to choose what is pleasing to his animal appetites and to refuse what is painful or distasteful to him. He has an understanding to judge upon worldly matters and a quick eye to discover the path to temporal advancement. He finds his hopes and fears, his joys and griefs, his loves and hatreds, brought into continual exercise with the ever-varying events of life.

Hence, man does not labor under a natural incapacity. His inability is altogether of a moral kind. Sin has darkened and corrupted all the higher faculties of the soul, so that “the world by wisdom knew not God” (1Co 1:21). “Men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (Joh 3:19), for “the carnal mind is enmity against God” (Rom 8:7).

This wrong state of the heart, this evil bias of the soul, this radical corruption of our nature is universal. It spreads itself through the whole human race, without exception—for all are born in sin, all are by nature the children of wrath and the heirs of hell. So powerful is this innate evil, this natural indisposition of the heart towards God, that neither reason, conscience, nor philosophy can remove it. God alone can turn the heart of the sinner to Himself. The language of divine revelation is, “Thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help” (Hos 13:9).

While, therefore, in deepest self-abasement, we bear the burden of our guilt and acknowledge that we have destroyed ourselves, we must ascribe all the glory of our salvation to omnipotent Love, in Whom our help is found, and say with the grateful psalmist, “Not unto us, O LORD, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy, and for thy truth’s sake” (Psa 115:1).

The whole human race must soon stand before the judgment seat of Christ.⁴⁸ No plea will then be accepted in arrest of judgment. In that awful day, every mouth shall be stopped, and all the world will become guilty before God, “for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Gal 6:7). From this view of our fallen state, we may scripturally conclude that sinners, if left to themselves, would never turn to God. Hence, we see the blessedness and necessity of that grace that turns us from darkness unto light and from the power of Satan unto God (Act 26:18).

It is a true saying of Augustine⁴⁹ that without free will there could be no condemnation, and without free grace there could be no salvation. But the voice of sovereign love declares to the great Melchizedek, “Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power” (Psa 110:3). Here is set forth the power of God, the persons on whom that power is exerted, and the blessed effects of it upon their souls. This power is the power of God unto salvation. When He works, who can resist it? It is convincing power, converting power, sustaining power. O that this divine power, this energy of love, may be felt in every soul! Lord, may I feel it in mine!

But on whom is this power exerted? When we view the whole human race sunk in sin and misery, in a state of open rebellion against the majesty of heaven, where shall we find His people? The very words they shall be willing imply that they were not always so. Prior to this great change, they were enemies in their minds by wicked works (Col 1:21). They are His people in purpose and grace, “chosen...in him before the foundation of the world, that [they] should be holy and without blame before him in love” (Eph 1:4), predestinated “to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom 8:29).

When Paul was at Corinth, the Lord appeared to His persecuted servant and said, “Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace: For I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee: for I have much people in this city” (Act 18:9-10). O that my proud heart could submit to receive salvation as the free gift of unmerited mercy! Lord, make me willing in the day of Thy power to yield myself unto Thee as a living sacrifice, as my most reasonable service (Rom 12:1).

We see what is the effect produced by this power on the minds of “his people”: “They shall be willing”—willing to receive Christ, willing to suffer for Christ, willing to give up all for Christ. This change in their will is not effected by any natural effort of their own or by the moral persuasion of others, but solely by the power of God through the instrumentality of the gospel.

“I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ,” wrote the apostle to the Romans, “for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth” (Rom 1:16). Those favored souls who are thus made willing in the day of God’s power are not compelled by an unwelcome force to embrace salvation, but are sweetly and lovingly inclined through the soft influences of heavenly grace to choose, delight in, and appreciate the work and service of Emmanuel. They are made willing. Their whole heart goes forth towards the Savior, as when Jesus said to Levi at the receipt of custom, “Follow me” (Luk 5:27). They love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. They embrace Him as their only Savior and His precepts as their only rule, His promises as their only support, His cross as their only glory, His righteousness as their only boast, His people as their only friends, His heaven as their only home. O what a change! “Lord, may I long and pant and labor after this blessedness. Stir up my soul to seek it more and more.”

I have here an evidence to judge of my own character: “Thy people shall be willing.” If, then, I belong to this happy number, I must be willing to be saved on God’s terms, to delight in His salvation, to choose His ways. Do I feel my will subdued and cheerfully inclined to embrace in humble faith the whole revelation of mercy, as made known to me through a crucified Jesus? “Lord, put forth Thy mighty grace. Let this very day be the day of Thy power. Tomorrow may find me in the eternal world. O, may I now be willing to be wholly Thine, that every succeeding hour may only increase my willingness to do and suffer Thy whole righteous will.”

How different is earth to heaven! Here on earth, an awful disinclination⁵⁰ of heart to love God is discoverable in all the fallen children of Adam. Even the regenerate feel with grief this hated deadness of soul to God. “My soul cleaveth unto the dust” was the lamentation, and “quicken thou me according to thy word” (Psa 119:25) was the fervent prayer of David.

In heaven, all is governed by the sweet constraining principle of pure, undivided love. Were a soul to leave this earth under the influence of alienated affections, how could such a soul be either fit for or happy in that blessed place where every note is harmony and every heart is love?

Reason, even in its present beclouded⁵¹ state, must see the unfitness of such a soul for glory when that glory consists in loving God with a supreme affection and being made like Him in all His communicable⁵² perfections.

How great, then, is the happiness of loving and serving God while journeying through this valley of tears! This is the sweet peculiarity of the religion of Jesus. It diffuses joy and gladness wherever it is received in the simplicity of faith. “God is love” (1Jo 4:8), and “every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God” (4:7). Loving God and being the object of His love constitute the bliss of angels. The opposite of this is hell.⁵³