14. The Nature of Moral Being
The Nature of Moral Being
Chapter II The most profound, appealing and faith-inviting news ever announced to the sinning inhabitants of this earth is in the words: “God is love” (1 John 4:16). In these words is bound up God’s ultimate purpose in the creation of man.
Think what these words mean. Love is self-giving. It constrains the one it possesses to give himself to the one he loves, in any and every way which will insure perfect and permanent happiness. Nothing in harmony with that which ought to be which can bring joy is withheld from the loved one, everything being lavished upon him which can bring true and lasting pleasure and satisfaction.
Love, therefore, because it is self-giving, demands those toward whom self-giving can be expressed; for to have the power and the urge to love, and yet to have no one upon whom to satisfy that urge, is torment indeed. The infinite fulness of love, in the Being of God, is first given perfect satisfaction and joy in the limitless expression of that love which forever pours forth from the heart of each divine Person in the Triune Godhead upon the other Two, in the unspeakable delight of self-giving. The three Persons in the Godhead, also, that they might have the infinite joy of perfect fellowship and communion with each other in the united outflow of self-giving, gave to Themselves myriads of angels upon whom to lavish their common love.
Then came the human race, created that God might pour forth the unity of love from the divine Trinity of Persons in ways impossible with angels, who are not a race. For love cannot be satisfied until it reaches the complete fulness of every form of expression. So expressing His love toward the angels in the form of justice, God foresees that with the race of man there will arise a condition that will call for the expression of His love in the form of mercy. Only thus will love reach its full expression, for it takes both justice and mercy, each in unhindered expression in the presence of the other, to reveal the full content and meaning of love.
Love, however, seeks not only fulness of expression, but also of response. That is, God’s love reaches out not only for receivers, but for such receivers as will be capable of responding to His love as freely and fully, up to the limit of their finite capacity, as He gives it with all the fulness of His infinite capacity. For nothing so surely breaks a heart that loves as not to be loved with full response in return.
God therefore endowed both angels and man with the power of choice, which is the capacity to love in response to love. This is easily seen upon a little thought.