Stingray: a blog for salty Christians

April 11, 2006

God's immeasurable love for us

We cannot understand in this present life how much God loves us. Much of it is due to the fact that our earthly minds are not capable of comprehending God’s holiness and the truly destructive power of sin. Even more, we cannot understand the enormity of God’s love for us that he would take our sins upon himself so that we may be re-united with him.

So what does it mean to say that God is holy? It means that God is separate, not just separate like an ant is to a man, but transcendentally separate in a way that we cannot understand. In fact, he’s separate from the universe and from time. We are created in his image, but our power, understanding, and love are but pale shadows of those same attributes expressed in God. We can love, but we cannot love as God loves. The Bible says that God is “holy, holy, holy” — that was the Hebrew manner of speech in expressing the ultimate superlative.

3 And one called to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!” (Isaiah 6:3)

11 “Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods?
Who is like you, majestic in holiness,
awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders? (Exodus 15:11)

GOD’S LOVE
“However, God has immeasurable love for us. He wanted to show mercy and love to the human race even though we rejected him, even though our sinful nature was literally at war with God’s holy nature.”

It is this holiness of God — this unimaginable purity and power — that has separated us from him through our sin. God cannot tolerate sin because it violates his holiness. When Adam sinned, his sin changed him forever. Adam was literally genetically altered at the moment he sinned.

When Adam was created, he was created to live forever in his earthly body — free of sickness, disease, and of growing old. As a result of his sin, he assumed a new nature — he was no longer what God created him to be. Dogs and cats have different natures from one another and it was if Adam was changed from a dog to a cat. Now, as a result of Adam’s sinful nature, we pass down that sinful nature from generation to generation.

Not only do we have a sinful nature passed down through us from Adam, but we also have sin in our own lives. We cannot help but sin because it is in our nature. These sins separate us from God because of his holiness. How can we have a relationship with God if he is so holy and we are so sinful?

The answer is that God has immeasurable love for us. He wanted to show mercy and love to the human race even though we rejected him, even though our sinful nature was literally at war with God’s holy nature. God had a plan, and that plan was to send Jesus Christ to live as a man — both fully human and fully divine — and take our sins upon himself. Only he could do that — we cannot save ourselves. God’s had the holy grace to send Jesus to suffer for our sins so that those who have faith in him could be re-united with God. But even that faith is not of our own doing, but rather of God’s doing.

“God loves us infinitely more than we will ever know in this life.”

4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:4-10 )

God loves us infinitely more than we will ever know in this life. In heaven, our bodies, our minds, and our spirits will be restored to what God had intended them to be all along. Will we be fully able to understand God’s love for us in heaven? We are still God’s creatures, and even angels have limitations, so I don’t know how much we will be able to comprehend, even in perfect paradise. But I do know that we will be able to see God face to face and to understand his love for us much more than we can now. We can call him “holy, holy, holy” and appreciate what it means to be holy. God will make us holy and we will be joined in his holiness. We can look forward to the joy in heaven of a deeper understanding of God’s love and will, in return, be able to love him more profoundly than we could ever dream of loving him here on earth. Our relationship with God will be restored and our souls will be fully satisfied.

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