Austin Bible Church
God is infinite. Therefore, all members of the Trinity are without limitation in their perfect absolute attributes. Each member of the Trinity is coequal, coeternal, co-infinite in their attributes that includes divine love.
God loved every member of the human race unconditionally in eternity past before He ever created us. There never was a time when He did not know everything about us and He still loved us with an infinite and perfect love. He knew all of the sins we would commit and loved us unconditionally anyway.
To deal with sin, God in His infinite love gave the greatest gift possible – His Son, Jesus Christ who would come to this earth, take on the form of a man and go to the Cross and pay the judgment price for all our sins. John 3:16; Rom. 5:8.
“"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16, NASB)
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8, NASB)
Therefore, salvation was provided as an option for every member of the human race. Every member of the human race has equal opportunity to believe in Christ. All things do work together for good for only those who love God. Rom 8:28; Titus 3:4-7.
“And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28, NASB)
“But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” (Titus 3:4-7, NASB)
To love God means you are fulfilling His plan for your life. To fulfill His plan, you must learn what God's plan is through consistent intake and application of Bible doctrine – the Word of God. When you grow spiritually, you learn what God has done, what He does daily, and what He will do in eternity. You develop a personal love for God and His grace provision.
God’s Love Related to His Other Attributes
God's love is part of His essence or attributes. Therefore, the love of God must be compatible with all the other divine attributes. All three members of the Trinity have coequal and coeternal attributes. They are; Sovereignty, Righteousness, Justice, Eternal Life, Love, Omniscience, Omnipotence, Omnipresence, Immutability, and Veracity.
The love of God has always existed. There never was a time when it did not exist. 2 Thess. 3:5; Jude 1:21.
“May the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the steadfastness of Christ.” (2 Thessalonians 3:5, NASB)
“keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.” (Jude 1:21, NASB)
It is very difficult for finite mankind to really begin to understand God's infinite unchanging love for us. No matter how much human beings change their behavior, God remains consistent with His own perfect and immutable character. When we reject God’s eternal love, His love for us does not change. Because God is perfect and absolute, His divine love cannot be prejudiced, unfair, or in any way discriminatory.
God is perfect absolute sovereignty. Therefore, His love is perfect self-motivation. God’s love motivates His sovereignty. God's love is compatible with all of His decisions. God never makes a decision apart from love.
God is perfect righteousness. Therefore, God's love cannot be compromised by sins, human good, or evil. God's love cannot be corrupted by any failures of His creatures. His love is totally devoid of sin. It is totally devoid of any human good, altruism, or any source of evil reaction. God's perfect righteousness means God’s love is totally moral and is always absolutely fair.
God is perfect justice. Since God is eternal, He is eternally perfect in His justice. Therefore, since God cannot be anything less than perfectly fair in all that He does, the function of His love is always fair.
God is eternal life. Therefore, God’s love has always existed from eternity past. God does have to sustain His love. God's love does not increase or decrease. God has always been perfect absolute love.
God is omniscient. He has known all the knowable since eternity past. God knew billions of years ago about every one of our sins and failures, but His love always existed for us. God’s perfect absolute love never changes, regardless of what we do or have done. God's love is not based on emotions nor does He function in an emotional manner – ever.
God is omnipotent. Therefore, God has infinite energy and power with which to love. God’s love exists eternally and unsustained by Himself or by any other source.
God is perfect absolute truth and veracity. In God's veracity, it is impossible for Him to lie. God can only reveal Himself in terms of absolute truth. Bible doctrine is absolute truth. God's love is rooted in every doctrine and in every form of knowledge which resides in God’s absolute being. Divine love is never involved in any form of hatred. Divine love never reacts. There is no reference to divine love apart from what is taught in the Word of God. Therefore, God's love is revealed in every category of Bible doctrine, the very thinking of Christ. 1 Cor 2:16.
“For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, THAT HE WILL INSTRUCT HIM? But we have the mind of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 2:16, NASB)
The love of God cannot tempt, cannot solicit to sin, cannot sponsor evil or human good or any form of self-righteousness. God’s love cannot be complicated with ignorance or absurdities, such as relating emotion to the spiritual life.
God is immutable. His love cannot ever change. God's love is unchangeable, stable, compatible with His perfect character, and cannot be corrupted by anything. God’s love cannot increase or decrease. God’s love cannot expand or diminish. God’s love cannot begin or end. God’s love cannot be change because of any human failure, moral or immoral.
God’s perfect righteousness and immutability indicates that divine love is eternally consistent and revealed in the content of the Scriptures. Doctrinal principles of the Canon of Scripture are beneficial to the believer without compromising the essence of God. The greatest example of this is the salvation work of Jesus Christ on the Cross.
God’s love has always been perfect and eternal in its capacity. The capacity of God’s love is infinite and eternal. In human love, man’s capacity for love is constantly changing. God's love never changes, regardless of the circumstances.
Even when the justice of God is administering divine discipline toward any believer, it is always accomplished in love. When mankind punishes, it is often not done in love and certainly never done in perfect divine love. Mankind’s punishment of others is often destructive. People are almost never fair to other people, even when they think they are being fair.
God’s perfect love for His creatures existed even before He created them.
God’s infinite and eternal love does not conform to human standards. God's love is unchangeable. God’s love exists with or without us. God has always has from eternity past, a perfect unconditional love for sinful mankind.
God’s love is not sustained by attraction, rapport, or any category of human merit, works, or worthiness. Neither human good, morality, self-righteousness, nor any system of human merit is the basis for God extending His love to mankind.
God’s love has none of the unstable characteristics found in human love. God’s love does not get hurt and is not hypersensitive like human love can be. Because mankind is often subjective, human love is instable and often hypersensitive.
You cannot begin to understand God’s love by understanding people. The believer must never attempt to superimpose on the character of God their own personal views and values. This is commonly done by the human race without Bible doctrine in their souls. They need to be born again in Jesus Christ as their Savior before they can receive the spiritual resources to enable them to understand spiritual things – the things of God, Bible doctrine.
God's Love For His Own Absolute Righteousness
The first category of God's love is called divine self-esteem and is directed toward His own righteousness. God the Father loves His own righteousness, God the Son loves His own righteousness, and God the Holy Spirit loves His own righteousness. Both God's personal love and His divine self‑esteem are always directed toward perfect righteousness.
God has love for the other members of the Trinity. This is God’s love for God. Each person of the Trinity has love directed toward His own perfect righteousness and each person of the Trinity has perfect love directed toward the perfect righteousness of the other two members of the Trinity. From God’s divine self-esteem comes His unconditional love for His creatures.
God’s Unconditional Love
The second category of God's love is called unconditional love toward God’s creatures. Unconditional love is defined as love based on the integrity of the one expressing the love toward another. In this case, God’s absolute and perfect justice and righteousness are the basis for His love toward His creatures. God’s creatures do not have perfect justice and righteousness, yet God expresses unfailing unconditional love toward each and every one of His creatures. God's unconditional love is expressed in John 3:16 and Romans 5:8. These verses express God’s absolute unconditional love toward all of mankind who are born with a sin nature and spiritually dead.
“"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16, NASB)
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8, NASB)
God has unconditional love toward unsaved, spiritually dead mankind. Being spiritually dead, man’s righteousness is relative and not compatible with God’s perfect righteousness. For the believer in Christ, God the Father has imputed His perfect righteousness to that person at salvation. Therefore, God can personally love all believers who are imperfect without compromising His perfect essence. This is because all believers possess God's very own absolute righteousness. That perfect righteousness is the object of God's love for the believer. God’s unconditional love always depends on who and what God is, never on who and what mankind is. God’s love eternally existed and is unchangeable.
Divine unconditional love places all merit on the subject, the one expressing that love. God is the One expressing the unconditional love, so He can love spiritually dead mankind solely on the basis of His own perfect character. The object of unconditional love can be attractive or unattractive, worthy or unworthy.
The Expression of God's Unconditional Love
God's unconditional love is expressed in His plan for salvation through the work of Jesus Christ on the Cross. Eph. 3:11; Eph. 2:8-9.
“This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord,” (Ephesians 3:11, NASB)
“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9, NASB)
God's unconditional love is expressed in sending His Son into the world to the Cross. 1 John 4:9-10.
“By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John 4:9-10, NASB)
God's unconditional love is expressed by giving His Son and by not sparing Him while judging Him on the Cross. The only thing that can satisfy God’s justice regarding our sins is the fact that each one was judged in Jesus Christ on the Cross. Therefore, no human works can ever be substituted for the work of Jesus Christ on the Cross. John 3:16; Rom. 8:32.
“"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16, NASB)
“He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32, NASB)
God's unconditional love is expressed when mankind was dead in sin. Eph. 2:4-5; Rom. 5:8-11.
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),” (Ephesians 2:4-5, NASB)
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.” (Romans 5:8-11, NASB)
Jesus Christ’s Unconditional Love for Mankind
Our Lord Jesus Christ’s unconditional love for mankind was expressed by His motivation to go to the Cross. Our Lord’s motivation was based on His perfect personal love for God the Father. He obeyed the Father’s will by going to the Cross and receiving the judgment for our sins. He did not feel threatened in His humanity because He had impersonal love toward all who mistreated, maligned, hated, and despised Him, and toward all of us for whom He was judged.
God the Father’s Reaction to the Son’s Love for Mankind
God the Father’s reaction to the Son’s love for mankind can be found in Matthew 17:5, Mark 9:7, Luke 9:35, and 2 Peter 1:17.
“While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, "This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!"” (Matthew 17:5, NASB)
“Then a cloud formed, overshadowing them, and a voice came out of the cloud, "This is My beloved Son, listen to Him!"” (Mark 9:7, NASB)
“Then a voice came out of the cloud, saying, "This is My Son, My Chosen One; listen to Him!"” (Luke 9:35, NASB)
“For when He received honor and glory from God the Father, such an utterance as this was made to Him by the Majestic Glory, "This is My beloved Son with whom I am well-pleased"—” (2 Peter 1:17, NASB)
Since we are born spiritually dead and totally helpless to have a relationship with God, there is no way God could love us because we are attractive to Him. Furthermore, there is nothing we can ever do that would make us attractive. Therefore, God's unconditional love is always directed toward the world of unbelievers.
The Believer’s Expression of Unconditional Love
God’s unconditional love depends on who and what God is, never on who and what mankind is.
Divine unconditional love is the pattern for the unconditional love of the believer that can be used to deal with all interaction problems among people.
God has mandated that all believers love other believers and to love mankind in general. This is impossible to accomplish with personal love, so this must be unconditional love based on the filling of the Holy Spirit and application of Bible doctrine in our soul. It is God's power that enables this unconditional love toward people that may be obnoxious, treating you unfairly, repulsive in behavior or appearance, or those that are persecuting you.
Every believer has the capability of loving others unconditionally because God first loved us and provided everything for us. 1 John 4:19; 1 John 4:11; 1 John 4:16.
“We love, because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19, NASB)
“Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (1 John 4:11, NASB)
“We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” (1 John 4:16, NASB)
When you mature spiritually, you gain in your unconditional love toward others. They can be obnoxious, they can be evil, they can be fantastic believers, or they can be intimate friends. How they behave toward you matters not. The epignosis Bible doctrine in your soul expressed toward them is what matters. In this manner, you begin to emulate the Lord Jesus Christ.
God’s Personal Love
The third category of God’s love is His personal love. Personal love is defined as love based on the attractive attributes possesses by the object. Because God is perfect, God's personal love can only find attractive equally perfect righteousness.
God's Personal Love for Other Members of the Trinity
God’s personal love is directed toward the perfect righteousness of the other members of the Trinity. All three members of the Trinity are co-equal and co-eternal and have exactly the same attributes and are equally perfect in every way. Each person of the Trinity possesses perfect personal love. Each person of the Trinity directs His personal love toward the other persons in the Godhead who possess co-equal and co-eternal righteousness.
Remember that the three members of the Trinity each have identical essence, including the same divine righteousness, justice, and love. God is perfect, and therefore, His personal love can only be directed toward the perfect righteousness in the other members of the Trinity. The object of God's infinite, eternal, unchangeable personal love must always be absolute divine righteousness. God's personal love cannot be directed toward anything less than perfect eternal righteousness.
God the Father loves the divine righteousness of God the Son and the divine righteousness of God the Holy Spirit. Personal love from a member of the Trinity demands that the object of that love be perfect. John 3:35; John 5:20.
“"The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand.” (John 3:35, NASB)
“"For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; and the Father will show Him greater works than these, so that you will marvel.” (John 5:20, NASB)
God's Personal Love for the Believer
When we believe in Christ, God the Father imputes to us His very own perfect absolute righteousness. This means that all three members of the Trinity can personally love all who believe in Christ because they have received the imputation of God's absolute righteousness. God found a way in grace to love us personally by giving us His own divine righteousness. Eph. 1:5; Eph. 2:4; Eph. 2:7.
“He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,” (Ephesians 1:5, NASB)
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,” (Ephesians 2:4, NASB)
“so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:7, NASB)
God’s personal love never contradicts His justice and righteousness and is inseparably united with and compatible with His righteousness and justice. The believer’s permanent possession of God's very own absolute righteousness means they are justified at the moment of salvation by faith in Christ, they are the object of God’s personal love, and they are the recipient of God's grace resources necessary to live the spiritual life.
God's personal love is always the source of God’s grace provision and blessings toward believers. This means that human works, worthiness, merit, or good is not the basis of God’s love for us. No matter what happens to the believer in time, there is no greater security than the personal love of God for each and every believer, whether the believer is spiritual or carnal. The personal love of God guarantees an eternal relationship with God forever, even to the most sinful and carnal believers.
God's Discipline of the Believer
God's righteousness demands that His justice punish the carnal believer through personal love and grace. God's discipline of the believer is a family matter. All Church Age believers are “sons of God” through faith in Christ Jesus. We are in the family of God. Gal. 3:26-27.
“For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” (Galatians 3:26-27, NASB)
In the Church Age, believers are either in a state of spirituality and filled with the Holy Spirit or they are carnal and their soul is controlled by the old sin nature. Both spirituality and carnality are absolute. You are either 100% spiritual or 100% carnal. There is no such thing as partial spirituality. Heb. 12:5-8.
“and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, "MY SON, DO NOT REGARD LIGHTLY THE DISCIPLINE OF THE LORD, NOR FAINT WHEN YOU ARE REPROVED BY HIM; FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES, AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES." It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.” (Hebrews 12:5-8, NASB)
Divine discipline comes to all carnal believers from God's love because God wants you to confess your sins and thereby return to fellowship with Him just as a human father would discipline his son or daughter in love so they will correct their behavior. Heb. 12:10.
“For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness.” (Hebrews 12:10, NASB)
In Hebrews 12:10, “holiness” refers to the believer responding to God's correction in personal love so that we may continue in our spiritual growth. In doing so, God can bless the believer resulting in sharing God's happiness.