What does God love in us?

[Stargazer65]

The phrases "toward us" and "for us" are the very phrases that puzzle me. Who's the US, if in fact the stuff that is loved is completely outside us?

I don't know Dennis. But this is one of those topics where I have trouble comprehending the nuances, and I'm sure if I say too much...something stupid will come out.

 

[py3ak]

Or rather that he IS love. but then again, he does not love without distinction and exactly the same ways all the time with every being. I also wouldn't say that it's pure will that causes him to love. Surely in the Godhead, there are genuine attributes that motivates love for one another. Scripture says that the Father loves the Son because he lays down his life. That is one line of evidence that will is not the only motivation.

We are speaking of God's love to man. This is ad extra and is not necessary. Love is a function of the volition: there is nothing else to attribute it to.

Love has been distinguished into benevolence, beneficence, and complacency. In speaking of election and the mission of Christ on our behalf, we are speaking of benevolence. In speaking of the Lord taking pleasure in His people, or the Father loving the Son in His capacity as Mediator because of His work, we are speaking of complacency.

Dr. Strange, I am sure you are using "choose" appropriately in the sense of "will freely". But to prevent a possible misimpression that therefore God's existence is unrelated to His will, I should point out that Reformed theology does speak of God willing Himself necessarily.

Jason, I think you are confusing two separate issues. No one is saying that we are attractive to God (at least, I hope no one is saying that); but why did Christ redeem an elect people? Was it because God hated them? Surely that answers itself; God's love is antecedent to the mission of Christ. In that way, all glory is given to God because the absolute foundation of redemption is His mere good pleasure.
Of course if you are thinking in terms of complacency, it is true that the work of Christ was necessary for God to be pleased with us. But the determination to make us pleasing is itself benevolence.

 

[moral necessity]

"Jacob I have loved, Esau I have hated." We have to remember that love is a descriptive term of God's favor, or lack thereof, towards his creation. When he blesses them, he is said to have "loved" them. When he removes his favor from them, he is said to "hate" them. The origin of his action is himself. The description of his action towards his creatures is "love" or "hate".

Blessings!

 

[py3ak]

Geerhardus Vos, speaking on Ephesians 2, has some pertinent comments:

This love was the foundation of everything and was before everything. It is useless to ask after its origin. It came from the inscrutable being of God and embraced the objects of its free choice even before they had existence. It determined to make them in such a way as to reflect that love.

Moreover, a distinction has to be made between divine and human love. The latter loves because it beholds and admires something beautiful and loveable in its object. Not so with God. He loved his own before the mountains came to be, before the earth and the world were brought forth. it was not at all that he knew, by virtue of his eternal foreknowledge, that they would be loveable. Oh no! All that they would be in this respect, he himself had decided to make them. He saw them dead in their sins and crimes, without form or glory, covered with their own blood. This is the great mystery that no man can solve -- how God could love sinners, without there being anything in them worthy of his love. Mysterious, eternal love of God, you are beyond comprehension!

 

[CharlieJ]

Dennis, great question. I'm not sure I have answers, but I do have musings.

God loves every person and every part of the material creation. I think that follows easily from the Scripture, from the nature of God as love, and from the choice to create itself. That does not mean that God's love is the same toward every person and creature, or that he is obligated to act in a certain way toward them. However, God cannot not love, for that would compromise his nature: God is love.

I think how you framed the question is important. You did not ask about what caused loved, but what is loved. Or, toward what is God's love? My answer would be that God's love for people is toward two things: first, the metaphysical good that we are by virtue of our creation; and second, the moral virtue that God himself provides through salvation. The first is the anchor-point for God's love toward all people, the second for his love for the elect.

 

[seajayrice]

Dennis, great question. I'm not sure I have answers, but I do have musings.

God loves every person and every part of the material creation. I think that follows easily from the Scripture, from the nature of God as love, and from the choice to create itself. That does not mean that God's love is the same toward every person and creature, or that he is obligated to act in a certain way toward them. However, God cannot not love, for that would compromise his nature: God is love.

I think how you framed the question is important. You did not ask about what caused loved, but what is loved. Or, toward what is God's love? My answer would be that God's love for people is toward two things: first, the metaphysical good that we are by virtue of our creation; and second, the moral virtue that God himself provides through salvation. The first is the anchor-point for God's love toward all people, the second for his love for the elect.

So the hell-bound are experiencing God's love? I don't understand?

 

[InSlaveryToChrist]

Dennis, great question. I'm not sure I have answers, but I do have musings.

God loves every person and every part of the material creation. I think that follows easily from the Scripture, from the nature of God as love, and from the choice to create itself. That does not mean that God's love is the same toward every person and creature, or that he is obligated to act in a certain way toward them. However, God cannot not love, for that would compromise his nature: God is love.

I think how you framed the question is important. You did not ask about what caused loved, but what is loved. Or, toward what is God's love? My answer would be that God's love for people is toward two things: first, the metaphysical good that we are by virtue of our creation; and second, the moral virtue that God himself provides through salvation. The first is the anchor-point for God's love toward all people, the second for his love for the elect.

So the hell-bound are experiencing God's love? I don't understand?

In a measure, yes. From God's goodness flows His love by which He communicates Himself to the creature and does good to it, but in diverse ways and degrees. The hell-bound don't receive the covenantal love of God that promises eternal life, but they still get to eat of the crumbs of the children of God that fall from the table of God's providence.

 

[py3ak]

When God sets his love on us, does he love something in us or merely a reflection of himself?

I just realized what I should have said from the beginning. Why is there an opposition between something in us (or better) who we are and a reflection of himself? Our definition is that we are made in the image of God.

 

[steadfast7]

Dennis, great question. I'm not sure I have answers, but I do have musings.

God loves every person and every part of the material creation. I think that follows easily from the Scripture, from the nature of God as love, and from the choice to create itself. That does not mean that God's love is the same toward every person and creature, or that he is obligated to act in a certain way toward them. However, God cannot not love, for that would compromise his nature: God is love.

I think how you framed the question is important. You did not ask about what caused loved, but what is loved. Or, toward what is God's love? My answer would be that God's love for people is toward two things: first, the metaphysical good that we are by virtue of our creation; and second, the moral virtue that God himself provides through salvation. The first is the anchor-point for God's love toward all people, the second for his love for the elect.

So the hell-bound are experiencing God's love? I don't understand?

In a measure, yes. From God's goodness flows His love by which He communicates Himself to the creature and does good to it, but in diverse ways and degrees. The hell-bound don't receive the covenantal love of God that promises eternal life, but they still get to eat of the crumbs of the children of God that fall from the table of God's providence.

I think while they were on earth, they received the general beneficience of God that lets rain fall on the wicked and the righteous alike. In hell, they are receiving the fury and vengence of God.

 

[steadfast7]

When God sets his love on us, does he love something in us or merely a reflection of himself?

I just realized what I should have said from the beginning. Why is there an opposition between something in us (or better) who we are and a reflection of himself? Our definition is that we are made in the image of God.

so does that mean now God's love is drawn toward the object rather than being guided by the force of his will alone?

 

[MarieP]

Ezekiel 16

1 Again the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 2 “Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations, 3 and say, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD to Jerusalem: “Your birth and your nativity are from the land of Canaan; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. 4 As for your nativity, on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed in water to cleanse you; you were not rubbed with salt nor wrapped in swaddling cloths. 5 No eye pitied you, to do any of these things for you, to have compassion on you; but you were thrown out into the open field, when you yourself were loathed on the day you were born.

6 “And when I passed by you and saw you struggling in your own blood, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ Yes, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ 7 I made you thrive like a plant in the field; and you grew, matured, and became very beautiful. Your breasts were formed, your hair grew, but you were naked and bare.

8 “When I passed by you again and looked upon you, indeed your time was the time of love; so I spread My wing over you and covered your nakedness. Yes, I swore an oath to you and entered into a covenant with you, and you became Mine,” says the Lord GOD.

9 “Then I washed you in water; yes, I thoroughly washed off your blood, and I anointed you with oil. 10 I clothed you in embroidered cloth and gave you sandals of badger skin; I clothed you with fine linen and covered you with silk. 11 I adorned you with ornaments, put bracelets on your wrists, and a chain on your neck. 12 And I put a jewel in your nose, earrings in your ears, and a beautiful crown on your head. 13 Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your clothing was of fine linen, silk, and embroidered cloth. You ate pastry of fine flour, honey, and oil. You were exceedingly beautiful, and succeeded to royalty. 14 Your fame went out among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through My splendor which I had bestowed on you,” says the Lord GOD.

 

[py3ak]

When God sets his love on us, does he love something in us or merely a reflection of himself?

I just realized what I should have said from the beginning. Why is there an opposition between something in us (or better) who we are and a reflection of himself? Our definition is that we are made in the image of God.

so does that mean now God's love is drawn toward the object rather than being guided by the force of his will alone?

No, of course not. It just means that the way your original question was expressed set up a false opposition, either as though we were something independently of God, or as though being a reflection of God was not what makes us human.

 

[Alan D. Strange]

I understand all the proper qualifications to this question, many of which Ruben has helpfully offered.

But, if I may, this is too important a question--even if not put in the best of ways--to be answered in an unsatisfying fashion. This is not, in other words, a question that we should answer only, or even primarily, in an abstract sort of way, though recognizing that we must make all the appropriate theological and philosophical points.

Since our knowledge of God is analogical, perhaps this is a helpful, and more concrete way to get at it: God loves us perfectly and completely, choosing us in Christ simply because He did love us. I loved and chose my wife. Why her? Well, I could mention many wonderful qualities having to do with character, looks, personality, skills, etc. But it is not the case that my wife possesses these in some objective way more than any other woman in the world. We play little games--and that's fine as we understand what we are doing--and say "No one cooks better than you, no one is lovelier than you, etc." but we do not really mean that in some objective way. In fact, no woman with any sense would be satisfied even in summing up all her husband's greatest singing of her praises.

Why? Think of it this way: My wife asks me "Why do you love me?" After enumerating all her wonderful qualities, however, she remains unsatisfied...until, perhaps in desparation at realizing that all that I've said is not enough, I blurt out "I love you because I love you." Ah, that's what she was waiting for. Many of those qualities that I mentioned may fade (with disease) or disappear altogether (due to a horrible accident). But I still love her. Why? Because I love her, not her qualities.

Love in this sense always has a mysterious quality to it. It does for a husband and wife. I love my wife because I love my wife. And there's something irreducible about that. God loves us, Dennis, because He loves us. We are sinners through and through. Yet He eternally loved me and eternally chose me. He always will love me. Even as we do for better or worse, in sickness and in health, though quite imperfectly and sometimes not at all. Yet His love will never fail.

It's also like one friend saying to another:"you know you have may wonderful qualities, but I love you for you." I say that to my wife. That's because I am in the image of God and reflect something of his way of loving. Again, very poorly and sadly. Yet, if I can love my wife because I love her and love a friend for himself (and not just because he can do me some good), surely we mirror our great God who loves us incomparably in spite of who we are, indeed, but who loves us nonetheless and who does so simply because He does.
May this love of God sustain you all and take you with joy unspeakable and full of glory into the Lord's Day.

Peace,
Alan

 

[py3ak]

Excellent words, Professor Strange, and a valuable exposition.

 

[steadfast7]

Excellent exposition, Dr. Strange. This thread has been a tremendous blessing to me.

On a personal note, I had the incredible opportunity to sit with two sisters from my church this weekend and expound the doctrines of grace to them through the scriptures. It was a two hour ordeal exposing their Arminianism by the light of God's word, but it was the love of God in his electing grace that I wanted to emphasize. Praise to be God, they were won over by Ephesians 1 and flooded with tears. One sister remarked, most perceptively, "For all these years, I've been obeying the Great Commandments in the wrong order."

 

[py3ak]

That's great to hear, Dennis. Paul wrote about the comfort of the Scriptures (Romans 15:4), and so it is one effect of the truth properly apprehended to minister to our comfort.

 

[Alan D. Strange]

I rejoice in your encouraging report, Dennis.

Ephesians 1:3-14 is perhaps the most magnificent sentence in Scripture. Pure gold.

Peace,
Alan