The apostle John makes the declaration in his first letter that “God is love” (1Jn. 4:8). This declaration is an important one, for many have formed opinions about God based upon it. What this declaration is not, contrary to popular opinion, is a definition of God. For a definition by its very nature places precise parameters around that which is finite, and since God is infinite, he cannot be defined. Thus the statement, “God is love,” is a commentary upon the nature of love rather than upon the nature of God. Therefore love, as does everything else, finds its true identity in God alone.

For this reason, one’s notion of God cannot be exhausted the apostle’s declaration alone, but it must extend to the whole of Revelation. Therefore, God’s love must center upon the Gospel–for that is the great end to which Revelation tends–and upon the qualities that comprise the Gospel, e.g. God’s wrath, justice, grace, mercy, etc. All these declared attributes of God must be considered when one attempts to understand the love of God.

What then is God’s love? Our understanding of the nature of God’s love can be rightly formed by seeing how God acts in his Word, and here we shall look upon a few facets of it:

The Love of God is Costly
The apostle Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (v. 5:8). In this statement we see three important truths. First, God is a God who loves his people. Secondly, we see that God’s people were at one point sinners and therefore were in rebellion against God. Thirdly, we see that God died for the sake of those whom he loved. All these paint the picture in which the love of God operates. In this picture there is a law given that God’s people were intended to obey perfectly. However, his people were born children of rebellion and therefore actively transgressed the law the moment they understood it. In spite of this, God continued to love his people, and yet he could not excuse them for their rebellion because he is a just and righteous God. Therefore, God sent his own Son into to the world to fulfill the law on behalf of his people and then to die in their place for the sins that they have committed.

Because of who God is, his love is very costly, for it had to come at the price of his very Son. For God had to send his Son to live and to die for the sake of those he loves, for, if he did not, they would perish for their sins, or he would pardon them unjustly thereby destroying his own character. The death of Christ was the only solution, and he paid the great price because he loved us, even while were sinners.

The Love of God is Particular
Several times throughout the New Testament, the writers through the Holy Spirit call the people of God “beloved.” The name is a simple one, yet it is profound in its implications. On the surface, to be beloved means simply “to be loved.” In the context of the church, the beloved are those who are loved by God. Since the church is comprised of those who are loved by God, it is by inference that those who are not in the church are not loved by God, at least in the same manner.

While the difference between God’s love for his people and the reprobate might be categorized and distinguished as God’s love and his general goodness, the effects of God’s particular love are without question. The apostle Paul writes to the Ephesian church:

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved (vv. 1:1-6).

Though much can be said about this passage and the verses that follow it, the great point is that the love of God is eternal and efficacious. It is eternal in that it existed upon the elect before the foundation of the world, and it is efficacious in that it takes those who were once enemies of God and makes them sons of God, and it takes those who once unholy and guilty and makes them holy and blameless. These are the great things that the love of accomplishes for those whom he loves.

The Love of God is Steadfast and Complete
In the great chain of salvation of which the apostle speaks in Romans 8, the first link in that chain is, “Those whom he foreknew…” (v. 8:29). This foreknowledge about which the apostle speaks is an intimate knowledge of particular persons before the foundation of world. The same language of knowledge is used elsewhere in Scripture to describe the intimacy between a husband and wife and between God and the nation Israel. Concerning Israel, the prophet Amos speaks for God saying, “Israel…you only have I known of all the families of the earth” (v. 3:2). And the prophet speaks this, not because God did not know about the other families of the earth, but because God had chosen Israel as a nation for his own possession and poured himself into her.

These whom he foreknew–whom he loved before the foundation of the world, “He,” the apostle writes, “predestined to conformed to image of his Son in order than he might be the firstborn of many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” (vv. 8:29-30). In other words, God finishes his work in those whom he loves. The certainty of this can be seen in the past-tense reference of the future event of glorification. Because it is God who loves us, and because God is almighty, God can declare our glorification as certain and sealed. For, as the apostle writes in another letter, “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6).

Though there is much more that can be said of the love of God, I hope that this small bit will be enough to give you joy at its remembrance. May we all be those who love the love of God that has been shown to us so that we might love greatly in return. Amen.

As regards the gospel, they are enemies of God for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all (Rm. 11:28-32).

[Warning: Post is at present unedited] This passage of Scripture is perhaps one of the most difficult passages in Romans, perhaps in all of Scripture, to grasp. It is so because of the language that is used in it– language that is complicated by our natural tendency to assign strict definitions to words that do not in themselves demand strict definitions. In this particular passage, the word of which I am speaking is the word that is translated “election” in v. 11:28, which I shall deal with in short order.

First, as always, we must understand the context in which this passage is spoken. As has been so throughout Romans 11, Paul is speaking of two groups of people–the Jews and the Gentiles. And because of God’s good wisdom and pleasure, he has decreed that salvation would only come to Gentiles if the Jews on the whole (less the remnant) would reject the Messiah. This purpose of the Lord is summed up in the apostle’s final statement in Romans 11 concerning the matter, viz. “For God has consigned all [both Jews and Gentiles] to disobedience so that he may have mercy on all.” This is a reiteration of what the apostle has declared earlier in the epistle, viz. “What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin” (Rm. 3:9). For what reason? “So that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God” (v. 3:19). Therefore, just as the law has stopped the mouths of the whole world (for they have no justification in themselves), so too this section is designed to stop our self-righteous mouths and declare what the apostle declares at the conclusion of this treatise: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! etc.” (vv. 11:33-36).

Now, what we must understand as Gentiles in this mystery is this: that the Jews in respect to the Gospel are the enemies of God for our sake, but as regards election they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers (cf. v. 11:28). This passage is somewhat difficult on the surface, because, as said before, we wish to apply definitions that we have given to particular words in other passages to different passages where such definitions do not work. In this particular instance, we take the “election” of Rm. 9:11 which is, in that context, regarding particular persons, and apply that “personalized” definition to the corporate election spoken of in v. 11:28. What we should do however is understand that “election” in its most basic of definitions is the sovereign choice or decree of God, not necessarily the choosing of particular persons from the foundation of the world unto salvation (which is indeed true in several instances). Understanding this, we can attempt to grasp the mystery the apostle is speaking of in this passage.

The reason that we must understand election this way is first because the context demands it and second because we would have a terrible contradiction on our hands if we did not. For in the same breath the apostle declares that the Jews are the enemies of God on the one hand and are beloved for the sake of their forefathers on the other. Now, if this “belovement” was salvific in nature, the Gospel would be void and Paul’s deep concern in Rm. 9:1-5 for his brothers according to the flesh would be empty. However, we must understand as Paul declares earlier in this chapter, that there will be many of the Jews who are not “elect” and will by their unbelief and lawless deeds bend their backs forever (cf. vv. 11:7-10).

Therefore, this election of the Jews for the sake of their forefathers is the same of which the apostle has already spoken in the chapter, which he declares in his self-answered question: “Did [the Jews] stumble in order that they might fall? By no means!” (v. 11:11a). In other words, Israel’s disbelief has not come so that they might be rejected forever corporately but so that “through their trespass salvation [would] come to the Gentiles” (v. 11:11b). Therefore, it can be said that on the one hand that the Jews on a whole are presently the enemies of God with regards to the Gospel and their personal salvation, but with regard to the promise made to their forefathers and God’s sovereign plan, they are corporately beloved. In other words, as the apostle clearly declares throughout the chapter, God is not finished with corporate Israel (i.e. the descendents of Abraham according to the flesh) but has decreed that one day they, by the grace of God, will come to the Jesus Christ for salvation.

What we must gather from this passage as Gentiles is not some eschatological truth (for it is not clear from this passage that this future belief of the Jews is eschatological in nature), but it is that salvation is from the Lord. Romans 9-11 exists chiefly to remind us of this truth and for us to be humbled by it. For if it were not for God’s good pleasure, we as Gentiles would have continued in our disbelief (cf. v. 9:30) and the Jews who are now unbelieving would never come to repentance. But God, being rich in mercy has consigned the whole world to disobedience so that he might have mercy on all, both Jews and Greeks. We who are in Christ are mere vessels of God’s grace and mercy given for his glory and for his glory alone. For “from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” (v. 11:36).

While we as saints can somewhat comprehend that God loves us without merit and that he foreknew us in Christ before the foundation of the world, it is difficult for us to understand that God hates without merit. Our word hate, because of its human application, connotes reckless malice and scornful enmity, and God does not act in this way.

For our right understanding concerning God’s hate, it might be beneficial to draw an analogy: God’s hatred is as much an absence of salvific love as darkness is the absence of light. Upon some, God shines the glory and magnificence of his light thereby loving them, and from others he actively withholds it. The result of this active withholding is the absence of the light of his love which is tantamount to the darkness of his hate. Before the foundation of the world, God has chosen to shine this light upon some, which Scripture calls foreknowledge, and he has chosen not to shine it upon others—both according to his good pleasure.

Both of these—God’s shining his love light and his withholding of his light is done before the foundation of the world—before any has done good or evil. This is done, as is demonstrated in the prenatal case of Jacob and Esau, without respect to human activity, especially the Fall. For what reason? So that, as the Apostle writes, “God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls” (Rom. 9:12).

Yet God’s love and hate are not ignorant of the Fall. God is not simply said to have loved his elect before the foundation of the world, but he has loved his elect in him, viz. in Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:4-6). God’s love for his elect was founded in the Redeemer before the Fall. This means that when God loved or hated before the foundation of the world, his love or hatred were intimately intertwined with the knowledge of a person’s destiny, though it is not dependent upon it. Which is to say when God hates before the foundation of the world, he knows that his hatred of persons will ultimately result in their bearing his wrath.

Of course, there are those who seek to justify God by looking to the Fall of Adam and making God’s love and his hate prelapsarian and making his mercy and his wrath postlapsarian and look at Adam and Eve’s freedom with regards to their wills as utterly unique in history and thereby feel as though they have alleviated God of his responsibility for sin.

And though we can systematically make these clean divisions between God’s foreknowledge and mercy and between his hatred and wrath and do so with respect to the Fall of man, Scripture never looks at a world, either prelapsarian or postlapsarian, where there is not the need for a Redeemer. Since the Redeemer is always in view which by its nature demands the Fall, the supralapsarian and infralapsarian debate is an unnecessary one. If God actively loves his elect in Christ the Redeemer before the foundation of the world, he actively does not love others and thereby seals their destiny in Adam.

Therefore the Apostle writes:

But you will say to me, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? (vv.9:20-24)

At the end of the day, there is no human wisdom that can reconcile to our feeble minds the depths of the ways and wisdom of God. We instead are called to be silent, to humble ourselves, and to meditate on the unmerited mercy of God in Christ on our behalf. We cannot come away from this passage having comprehended it rightly in the power of the Spirit and still boast in our salvation. We must give God all the glory, and he will receive all the glory. And we are to glorify him by meditating on and praising him for the riches of mercy which he has made known to us in Christ and has magnified through the reprobate.

With that said, in the present text we see that God loves one person and he hates another. Before we raise our hands to object, we must understand that God is not like us. He loves perfectly, and he loves differently than we love. We recognize this in Scripture, and we apply it to other actions and attributes of God. God judges perfectly, whereas we do not; God vindicates perfectly, he condemns perfectly, and he gives mercy and grace perfectly. Therefore, when we see in Scripture that God hates, we must recognize that his hate is as comparable to our hate as his love is to our love. He hates perfectly and without unjust malice, whereas we never hate rightly and never apart from perceived injustice or prejudice.

In our present text, we see first that God loves without merit and he hates without merit. The Apostle writes, “Though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls she was told, ‘The older will serve the younger.’ As it is written, ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated’” (vv. 9:11, 12). Second, we must observe that in the present text, God’s hate is spoken of in the context of the Promise. This is not to say that God does not hate outside of the light of the Promise, but that is not our subject today. Therefore before the two children of the son of the Promise (viz. Isaac) were born having done neither good nor evil, God loved one, and he hated the other.

One might object at this point, “But God foresaw that Esau would sell his birthright, and God chose Jacob over Esau because of that” (cf. Heb. 12:16). From the present text, this is clearly not the case. God is said to have loved one and hated the other without respect to their deeds, even before they were born. This predetermination of God to love Jacob and to hate Esau was done first out of his good pleasure and ultimately to demonstrate that it is God who elects, it is God who calls, and no human deed can sway his heart. Therefore, when we look at Esau selling his birthright, we must look at it as resulting from God’s hate not God’s hate resulting from Esau’s selling his birthright. God loves without merit, and he hates without merit.

As we said earlier, God’s hatred of Esau is here with regards to the Promise. In his life on earth, Esau was a rich and materially blessed man, yet with regards to the promise he was desolate. We see this desolation in the Prophet Malachi after the text the Apostle had quoted:

I have laid waste [Esau’s] hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.” If Edom says, “We are shattered but we will rebuild the ruins,” the Lord of hosts says, “They may build, but I will tear down, and they will be called ‘the wicked country,’ and ‘the people with whom the Lord is angry forever.’” Your own eyes shall see this, and you shall say, “Great is the Lord beyond the border of Israel!” (Mal. 1:3-5).

Thus it can be said that as Jacob and his descendants were the prefiguring of the Church, i.e. the elect, so Esau and his descendents were the prefiguring of Edom, i.e. the reprobate.

This hatred of Esau and his descendents, in the book of Romans, is the opposite of God’s foreknowledge of Jacob and his descendents according to the Promise. We see God’s active foreknowing of his people in Romans 8:29 and that this is done before the foundation of the world—before anyone has done either good or evil (cf. Eph.1:5). This love, this foreknowledge of God’s people clearly is tied to salvation and the Promise in Romans 11, where the Apostle writes:

God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? “Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.”But what is God’s reply to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal” (vv. 11:2-5).

Therefore God’s foreknowledge always results in men loving God and not, as it were, bowing the knee to Baal. To be foreknown is to be accepted unmeritoriously and to be regenerated to love God.

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To be continued: III. Jacob I Loved; Esau I Hated, Pt. 2

As I noted in the introduction, when we speak of Particular Redemption or Limited Atonement, we are not placing a value on the death of Christ but intention. In other words, Christ’s death is not limited because of the nature of his sacrifice, but it is limited in its design and its redemptive application. This is to say that when Christ died on the cross that there was a particular people that he was redeeming and buying out of bondage to be the sons of God.

This idea of Christ’s decisive and particular work of redemption is seen throughout Scripture and is tied intimately to the nature of his Coming. It is for this reason the Angel declares before Christ’s birth when he speaks to Joseph, “[Mary] will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). And the Prophet Isaiah declares concerning the work of Christ:

He poured out his soul to death
…and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
…and makes intercession for the transgressors (v. 53:12).

These declarations and numerous others demonstrate that Christ died to save sinners not to possibly save sinners.

Indeed this is main thrust of the doctrine of Particular Redemption, viz. that when Christ died on the cross he accomplished the salvation of his people. Most Christians today do not believe this concerning the death of Christ. They instead believe in a “Christ meets you half-way” doctrine of salvation. No, they will not use these exact words, but they will mean precisely that. Their belief manifests itself in such sayings as, “Christ died for your sins, but you must exercise your faith to receive his gift of salvation for which he has paid.” The emphasis is on the word exercise. Though the above sentence sounds orthodox, it subtly makes faith a work. It says in essence, “Christ has done his part on the cross; you must do your part and believe.”

This is not to say at all that Scripture does not declare to sinners, “Believe and repent,” but it is to say that we have misunderstood the source of our faith. We, in our ignorance, think that our faith is our own doing and then form doctrines on the Gospel and atonement according to our misconceptions rather than go to Scripture and learn from it. For Scripture declares, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8), and elsewhere, “For the righteousness of God has been revealed from faith for faith; [namely], the righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus Christ for those who have faith” (Rom. 1:17; 3:22, translation mine). Furthermore, the Apostle declares in his letter to the Hebrews that Christ is the “Author and Finisher of our faith” (v. 12:2).

Scripture declares elsewhere that our state is so dire and severe that we have no ability to believe in the Gospel on our own accord. We are said to be blind to the glory of God, deaf to the Gospel call, and dead in our trespasses, and there is nothing in us that would cause us to believe in the Gospel on our own accord. The Apostle writes:

If our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. . . . For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2Cor. 4:3, 4, 6).

Here the Apostle declares that our salvation and our faith is as much a work of God as was the calling forth of light by the power of his Word at Creation’s beginning.

This is all to say that faith is a fruit of the Spirit rather than a work by which we receive the benefits of Christ’s work. In actuality the reverse is true, viz. Christ’s work on the cross is what afforded the Spirit the power for regeneration that opened our eyes to the Gospel of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ that caused us to cry out, “I believe!”

Since faith is not the means by which we meet God half-way for our salvation, Christ’s death was not a mere opportunity for all who would simply believe to come and receive the potential saving power of the work of Christ. For faith is not simple, it is impossible without God’s prevenient work. God must be the Initiator and the Accomplisher of our salvation and our faith. Thus the Lord declares to Isaiah concerning his preaching of the Gospel, “Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed” (vv 6:9, 10). For this reason also the Lord declared to Jeremiah that he would preach to an obstinate Israel and to Jonah that he would preach to a repentant Nineveh.

On the other hand, faith is simple in a way. After being born again by the will of the Spirit, the act of faith is as natural and simple to the child of God as crying is to a baby at his birth.

Our misconception of the source of our faith has also manifested itself in our practices. Instead of believing that the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation, we believe that it is a simple decision that anyone can make, just like deciding to make a sandwich for lunch instead of going out to eat. Therefore, instead of finding those who boldly preach the Gospel and its demands, we find those who use their cunning and the wisdom of men to trick people into praying a prayer for salvation. But, I digress.

Coming back to Christ’s work on the cross, we must look at the intentions and goals of his work. Did Christ intend to bear the guilt and eternal consequences of every person who had ever lived, even those to whom he did not grant the gift of faith? If you say that he did, there will be some serious questions come Judgment Day. Scripture clearly declares that all men outside of Christ will be judged and damned according to their deeds, but if Christ died for those deeds, why then are they being condemned? You might say, “They are condemned because they must believe that Christ bore their sins in order for Christ to have born their sins.” But then, are you not making faith a work? Are you not making yourself your savior rather than Jesus Christ?

We are taught in Scripture that imputation does not happen by choice but by headship. In Romans 5 we are taught by the Apostle that humanity has had two heads—Adam and the second Adam, Jesus Christ. Through the first Adam all men, having him as their father, were imputed his deed of disobedience and were thereby condemned (hence the necessity of the virgin birth, but I digress again). Jesus Christ came into the world as a second head, one who imputed to us who are in him his righteousness. The Apostle writes, “For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ” (v. 5:17).

Faith as a gift and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness both point to the doctrine of election, which by its nature demands a particular redemption, for God, having ordained the Fall of Adam before the foundation of the world and the subsequent need of a Redeemer, predestined some for glory and some for condemnation. God’s predestination of those who are vessels for glory and his forbearance of sins is based totally in the work of Christ, for we who are saved were not merely chosen before the foundation of the world, but we were chosen in him before the foundation of the world. The Apostle writes:

He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth (Eph. 1:4-10).

All these are good and glorious things that God grants to his children through the special and particular work of Christ on their behalf.

You might ask, “Even if this is true, what is the practical benefit of this doctrine? For those who are in Christ, this doctrine has great benefit. First, it helps us understand the ways of God and his purposes in Creation. Second, it encourages us to preach the Gospel with great boldness knowing that God will save his people from their sins. Thirdly and most importantly, it will cause us to glorify God more for his particular and unmerited mercy toward us. Through our election and redemption and our witnessing the wicked’s condemnation, God will make known to us, his vessels of mercy, the riches of his glory and grace (cf. Rom. 9:23).

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
For who has known the mind of the Lord,
…or who has been his counselor?”
Or who has given a gift to him
…that he might be repaid?”
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen (Rom. 11:33-36).

Next: Concerning Particular Redemption, Part V. The Work of Christ for the Infantile