God spared the life of Isaac when
Abraham was about to plunge the knife into his body, but did not spare the life
of His own Son when He was crucified.
Had He done so, man would be hopelessly lost for there is no other adequate
sacrifice to atone for the sins of man (Heb. 10:1-4). The death of Jesus on Calvary’s tree reveals
different dimensions of God’s love.
God’s love is indescribable. How can you
describe a Beethoven symphony to one who is deaf? How can you describe a Rembrandt portrait to
one who is blind? Even so, human
language is incapable of adequately describing the love of God. F.M. Lehman once wrote:
Could we with ink the ocean fill, and
were the skies of parchment made; were every stalk on earth a quill, and every
man a scribe by trade; to write the love of God above would drain the ocean
dry; nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky.
When love flowed forth it was so deep,
so wide, so strong, that even inspiration did not compute its measure, but gave
us that great little word “SO” (Jn. 3:16) and left us to
attempt the measurement.
God’s love is unquenchable. You can’t run
beyond the limits of God’s love because you can’t outrun God. “But
God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). Good
people don’t go to heaven because they are good, but because God loves
them. All of us are sinners, deserving
eternal condemnation, but God sent His Son to be “…the propitiation for our sins…” (1 Jn. 2:2).
God’s love is unearned. Paul declared,
“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, that no one should boast” (Eph. 2:8-9). Salvation is God’s gift to obedient man (Heb.
5:9). If salvation cost money, then some
would not be able to afford it, for they are poor. If one had to produce a certain number of
good works in order to be saved, then some would have unfair advantage over
others, for they have greater ability. But salvation is offered to man by God
through Jesus, the sacrificial Lamb, provided man accepts and obeys the gospel
(2 Thess. 1:7-9).
God’s love is inexhaustible. There is
enough love in the very nature of God to take care of the sins of the
world. No one is beyond the reach of
God’s love, no matter the immense depths that sin may drag him. God “…desires
all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim.
2:4).
God’s love is inevitable. His immense
love does not come from anything outside of Himself. He loves because it is His nature to do so (1
Jn. 4:8).
Because of His love salvation is offered
through Christ, provided man accepts and obeys the gospel.
