Tue 19 Oct 2010
I came across this on the website of one of my old profs today and thought I'd share it with you:
Evangelicals [Christians] know that while God is love (1st John 4:8) and can therefore do nothing but love, when God’s love encounters human sin his love “burns hot”, as Luther liked to say. God’s anger or wrath, then, is never the contradiction or denial of his love. (Indifference is always the antithesis of love. After all, the people with whom we are angry we at least take seriously; the people to whom we are indifferent we’ve already dismissed as insignificant.)
God’s anger “heats up” only because He loves us so very much and so very relentlessly that He can’t remain indifferent to us and won’t abandon us. Profoundly He loves sinners more (or at least more truly, more realistically) than we love ourselves, since our self-love, perverted by sin, issues only in self-destruction. And as the cross on which He “did not spare his own Son but gave Him up for us all” (Romans 8:32) makes plain, He longs to spare us torment more than He longs to spare Himself.
Rev Dr Victor Shepherd, "What's an Evangelical?"
God's love is not tame. It's powerful and true!
5 Responses to “God's Love is Not Tame”
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October 22nd, 2010 at 12:55 pm
But his "love" still sends most people to hell to be tortured for eternity..
October 28th, 2010 at 2:09 am
Mark, my reply ended up growing into full-fledged blog post length because it brought many other thoughts and questions to mind, so I posted it here instead of commenting. I don't know if it addresses your statement/question, but it's some additional musings on related topics. Incidentally, I just noticed your website, I remember visiting it a long time ago (maybe years ago?) I'll have to read through some of it tomorrow.
November 1st, 2010 at 1:56 pm
Is there a way to set up e-mail notification when new comments are posted? It makes it hard to track if there are any replies. Thanks.
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