11.05 God as Love
V. GOD AS LOVE
We must also recover the sense that God is Love. “Ah!” some may say, “here we come upon a welcome corrective to all these harsh and gloomy thoughts. A loving God will never allow any of His children to slip away wholly from Him. He Who is allpowerful and loving will surely bring all His children back to Him.” But, in truth, a just sense of the Love of God can only deepen the sense of sin. We dare not find an analogy to the Love of God in the tolerant good nature, which even we know to be an abuse of human love. We cannot ignore the responsibility which He Himself has.entrusted to us. He will give every man every chance which Love can justly give, but, unless our freedom is a delusion, there may be a chance which is the last. Nay, let us go further and deeper. It is when we think of what the Love of God really means that we begin to understand the meaning of our sin. If a child by some act of wilfulness offends a merely indulgent father, then from his easy tolerance the child can learn nothing of the gravity of its offence. But if it offends a father, part of whose love is a high ideal to which he yearns that the child should rise, then in the pain on his face, in the tremor in his voice, the child learns the meaning of its sin. If forgiveness be given, forgiveness which plainly cost so much is one which must leave a deep sense of shame and sorrow, and an eager desire never to offend again. So the Love of God which broods over each of His children is the Love of an awful Holiness a Love which is itself a hatred of sin. If conscience fail to bring this truth home to us, then turn from conscience to the Cross of Christ. In that silent, unapproachable, awful suffering we can see the measure alike of the Love of God and of the guilt of man.
But, thanks be to God, the Cross which tells me the measure of my sin tells me also the news of my forgiveness, and it is only when I have realized the shame of the first message that I can realize the joy and wonder of the second. When I know what my sin costs the Love of God I cannot dismiss it by lightly saying, “Well, then, I will try to do better.” What is there in my poor and ignorant penitence which can avail to overcome the wrath of Divine Love against my sin? What is there in my maimed and feeble will which God can accept as a sacrifice of obedience? It is when I am driven to ask these questions that I understand the wonder of the answer “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world.”
There is mystery here which I cannot fathom; but there is also satisfaction of my need which I could not have invented and which is warranted by centuries of human experience. It means that there is One, not apart from me, but joined to me by theties of a common humanity, One in Whom I find myself, with Whose perfect sacrifice I can unite mine, poor and unworthy as it is.
If my manhood is, by sincere desire and will, merged in His, then under Its shelter I can draw near to God. For He Who is the Son of Man is also Son of God the expression of His Holy Love. Therefore, I know that in the offer which He makes to me of His own atoning sacrifice there is eternal and inviolable security. It is only when I can fall down to make the plea of “God be merciful to me a sinner” that I can rise to claim the possession of a Personal Saviour.
TAGS: [Parables]