The love of God is a wonderful thing, especially when we see it set on a lost, ruined, guilty world. What was there in the world that God should love it? There was nothing lovable in it. No fragrant flower grew in that arid desert. Enmity to him, hatred to his truth, disregard of his law, rebellion against his commandments—those were the thorns and briars that covered the wasteland, but no desirable thing blossomed there. Where did this love come from? Not from anything outside of God himself. God’s love springs from himself. He loves because it is his nature to do so. “God is love” (1Jn 4:8). Nothing on the face of the earth could have merited his love, though there was much to merit his displeasure. This stream of love flows from its own secret source in the eternal deity, and it owes nothing to any earthborn rain or stream; it springs from beneath the everlasting throne and fills itself full from the springs of the infinite. In the gift of his one and only Son, God commended his love to us, in that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rm 5:8). The black background of sin makes the bright line of love shine out the more clearly. When the lightning writes the name of the Lord with flaming finger across the black brow of the tempest, we are compelled to see it; so also when love inscribes the cross on the tablet of our sin, even blind eyes must see that “love consists in this” (1Jn 4:10).
