By Milton Jamieson
The love of God is the infinite beauty and greatness of God’s manifold (many and varied) perfections. It is the interweaving of all that God is – His attributes and His very nature. It is the spring and source of all His motives, purposes, words and deeds.
The Old Testament mentions the love of God very few times, while the New Testament is filled with references to it – including the love of the Father, the love of the Son and the love of the Holy Spirit. Yet both testaments are complete in their expressions of the great love of God.
Before God made man, God loved him. In fact, it is the very reason why He made man in the first place. Of all God’s creation, nothing else is made with the capacity for love and fellowship like man. God made him in His very own image and after His very own likeness to enjoy, share and display His love.
An expression of God’s love and care is seen in the way God created the earth with everything that man would ever need for food, delight, medicine (even before man sinned) and much more. God placed man as head and ruler over this planet, which is a manifestation of His great love for man.
Even when man sinned, God did not drive him out of the garden naked or abandon him to a life of sin, death and everlasting destruction. Rather, God made coats of skin for Adam and his wife Eve, clothing them. Moreover, the love of God was further demonstrated when God allowed man, having eaten the forbidden fruit, to die instead of living in that sinful state of pain, sickness and suffering forever and ever. In this it was a blessing that God kept man from the tree of life after he sinned. Not only this, but right away God also announced the Savior and Redeemer when He said, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; He shall crush thy head, and thou shalt crush His heel” (Gen. 3:15 JND). This prophecy was fulfilled at Golgotha, where Jesus Christ, our Lord, Savior and Redeemer, in love suffered, bled and died in our place.
John 3:16 tells us, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (KJV). Therefore we understand that the love of God is a universal love. God loves every man, woman and child immensely. Who can reach the towering height, sound the unfathomable depth, or embrace the everlasting expanse of His love? With what words shall it be defined? In what balances can it be weighed? It cannot be numbered for it is infinite.
Who can offend God enough so that His love would lose its power? Where is the flood of water that can quench its flame? All the water of the seas and rivers cannot quench the love of God. “Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love; neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned” (Song 8:6-7).
Such is the love of God, and such is His love for us who believe.