Eternally Loved in Christ

The point to be discussed is the eternity of God’s love to Christ, and, in Christ, to us. The love of parents to children is but a shadow of the eternity of God’s love to Christ (as God) as His Son. We are finite; so are our affections. [God loved Christ as] His image: “Who is the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person” (Heb 1:3). Likeness is the ground of love. God loves Christ, not only as like Himself, but as being of the same essence with Himself: “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one” (1Jo 5:7). There is no created instance to answer it: all that we love are [external to] us, but Christ is of the same essence with God. Then He loveth Him as Mediator³⁰ and Head of the Church. He doth not only love us in Christ; but in a sort, He loveth Christ in us because of the complacency³¹ that He took in Christ’s obedience: “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again” (Joh 10:17). God did therefore eternally love Him and glorify His manhood for His love to us.

In God’s loving Christ, He loved us. We are elected in Him before the foundation of the world: “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world” (Eph 1:4).³² When God chose Christ to be Mediator, He chose us in Christ. This is the method of the divine decrees.³³ God from all eternity resolved to create man pure and innocent, but with a changeable will, to permit him to fall; and He resolved on the remedy—Christ—and in Christ to receive them to grace and accept them to life again. First, He loveth Christ, and then us in Him. As a king doth not only love a subject that hath done him service, but all his friends and kindred, they are brought to court and preferred for his sake.

This love to us was also eternal: “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began” (2Ti 1:9). So, “In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began” (Ti 1:2). But how then are we children of wrath by nature, the elect as well as others? “And were by nature children of wrath, even as others” (Eph 2:3). Answer: That showeth the merit of the natural state, not the purpose and decree of God. There are “vessels of wrath,” viz.,³⁴ the reprobate;³⁵ “children of wrath,” that is, the unregenerate elect; and “children under wrath,” that is, children of God under desertion.³⁶ It notes not what God hath determined in His everlasting counsel, but what we deserve by nature and in the course of His justice.

Use: God’s eternal love is a ground of hope why we may look for everlasting life. So it is urged here. There are two grounds of hope: the eternity of His love and His love to Christ.

(1) The eternity of His love: From eternity it began and to eternity it continueth, before the world was and when the world shall be no more. “The mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children’s children” (Psa 103:17). It is the weakness of man to change purposes; God’s love is not fickle and inconstant. We have good purposes, but they are speedily blasted; God’s eternal purpose shall certainly stand. So the great foundation of our hope is the immutable love of God the Father. He that seeth all things at once cannot be deceived; we are ignorant of futurity and, therefore, change our minds upon new events. Whatever falleth out, God repenteth not: “For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance” (Rom 11:29). His ancient love continues still. We have many backsliding thoughts: we think to love God, but new temptations carry us away. So, we are fickle and changeable, but God changeth not. He cannot deny Himself (2Ti 2:13).

(2) His love to Christ, which is the ground of His love to us: It is the wisdom of God that the reasons why man should be loved should be outside of man himself, in and among the persons of the Godhead. The Son loveth us because the Father requireth it, and the Father loveth us because the Son merited it. The Holy Ghost, that proceedeth from the Father and the Son, loveth us because of the Father’s purpose and the Son’s purchase. And then the Holy Ghost’s work is a new ground of love. As long as the Son is faithful to the Father, and God regardeth the obedience of Christ and the work of the Spirit, we are sure to be loved.

But will not such an absolute certainty make way for looseness? It is possible it may with a carnal heart, for the very gospel is to some the savor of death unto death; but to the elect, it cannot be. The great gift of God’s eternal love is holiness: “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love” (Eph 1:4). And so for Christ’s love: “Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word” (Eph 5:25-26). The Holy Ghost worketh us to this very thing “through sanctification of the Spirit” (2Th 2:13). If we turn a wheel around, the wheel of necessity must run around. If God loveth us eternally, we must be holy. There is not only a necessity of precept, but of consequence. He hath not only commanded it, but it must be so.

Use: It commendeth God’s love that you may admire it. Remember: it is eternal, of an old standing. All that is done to us in time are but the issues and fruits of eternal love.

1. It is eternal, as ancient as God Himself. There was no time when God did not think of us and love us. We are [accustomed] to prize an ancient friend: the oldest friend that we have is God! He loved us, not only before we were lovely, but before we were at all. He thought of us before we could have a thought of Him. In our infancy, we could not so much as know that He loved us; and when we came to years of discretion, we knew how to offend Him before we knew how to love Him and serve Him. Many times, God is not in all our thoughts, when He is thinking how to bless us and do us good. Let us measure the short scantling³⁷ of our lives with eternity, wherein God showeth love to us. We began but as yesterday and are sinners from the womb. The more liberal we find God to be, the more obstinate we are. Yet He repenteth not of His ancient love. Certainly, if God should stay until He found cause of love in us, we should never be loved.

2. Look to the effects of His love in time. We receive new effects of His love every day, but all cometh out of His ancient and eternal love in Christ. Though the effects be new, the love is ancient. It is good sometimes to trace God in the paths of His love: by what strange providences our parents came together that we might have a being; how wonderfully were we preserved that we might not be cut off in our natural estate! How we were converted, many times when we did not think of such matters! Everlasting love sets itself to work: “Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee” (Jer 31:3). What could move God when Paul was in the heat of his persecution? How wonderfully did God…send afflictions to stop the course and career of sin! For, “When we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world” (1Co 11:32). How many disappointments did we meet with in a carnal course!³⁸ As David said to Abigail, “Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me: And blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou, which hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself with mine own hand” (1Sa 25:32-33). Oh, how sweet it is to see eternal love in all that befalleth us!...

Use: It teacheth us to disclaim merit. God’s love was before our being and acting. Paul, out of a less circumstance, concludeth election not to be of works: “(For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger” (Rom 9:11-12). God’s election is before all acts of ours; therefore, we deserve nothing, but all is from God. It is not a thing of yesterday: our love is not the cause of God’s, neither is it a fit reward and satisfaction…

Use: It presseth us to get an interest in³⁹ this eternal love. How shall we discern it? By the scope and aim of your lives and actions. Do you labor for another world? “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2Co 4:18). What is your heart set upon, and what do you make your scope and aim? A child of God prayeth, professeth, in order to⁴⁰ eternity. A man shall know his general scope by what satisfieth him. Are you contented with the world, to have your names written in earth, to have your whole portion in this life?…Grace [in the heart] must have eternity, for it would [eagerly] answer God’s love; it would live forever—forever to praise God and serve God. All the world will not satisfy it without this eternal enjoyment of God.

Have you an eternal principle [within you]? Is there a life begun that cannot be quenched? Is the immortal seed⁴¹ conveyed into your hearts? “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (1Pe 1:23). Then certainly, thou art loved from eternity; for thou hast a pledge of it…there is a work wrought in [our] souls that can never be undone and disannulled,⁴² something that is of an everlasting nature. Therefore, what seeds of eternity hath God planted in your hearts?