Does God love me?

God's love led the Saviour to Calvary. God's love finds its delight in blessing the worst and cleansing the vilest. God's love has filled millions with joy and it will be their theme for ever. God's love lingers over you, it yearns for you, yes, even for you. "And there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repents."

Love was the spring of this marvellous act. Sin had come in. This, God must judge, in maintenance of His own character. But sin brought death, and, viewed in this light, "ALL were dead." Further, "ALL must appear before the judgment-seat of Christ." To appear there with a single sin is certain and everlasting condemnation. What is to be done? He who knows the extent of man's offence alone can meet or atone for it. After the offence, but before the day when He will judge it, Christ (who will be the judge) enters the scene, and becomes a man that, as a man, He might die and bear the judgment resting on man. This indeed is love! What was man's condition in God's sight because of sin? "Then were all dead." But oh! what news! "One died for ALL." Magnificent grace! Unparalleled love! Uncalled, unasked by one, He "DIED FOR ALL." This is a new kind of love. "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). Mark the words "no man." Here, however, dear reader, is love which exceeds that. The love of Jesus, the God-man, far exceeds this limit, for He died for all — for His enemies certainly, not the less for His friends, if He had any. Blessed Jesus! It is this love manifested in death — love stronger than death, and which many waters could not quench — which wins the heart to Him. Does He love me? Yes. Does He love you? Yes, without a doubt. Are you sure? Positive. Why? Because He died. For whom? "FOR ALL." Now get out of that number if you can.

Do any inquire, Can God love sin? All answer, No. Can He love the sinner? Many hesitate to answer fearlessly. But what does the word say? God commendeth His love in not sparing His own Son. He thus commends, proves, makes manifest His love by Christ dying for sinners, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. So that, speaking as a believer, I have the positive certainty of how much God loves me, and what He is to me, in spite of all that I am, or have been, It was after He knew all the evil that is in me, and of which I am guilty, that He gave His Son to die for me. This is the expression of His love to me, in so far as that love can be expressed. Thus the death of the Lord Jesus is the fullest proof of my sin, and of God's love to me. But all my evil is judged and gone — gone for ever — His love alone remains. What a resting-place for the conscience, as well as the heart? "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." God being righteous and holy, as truly as love, could not introduce me into His presence in my sins, therefore He laid them all on Jesus, who put them away on the cross. There I must look to see them all put away, not within; God has never said He would put them away from my heart while I am here. He looks to the cross, and sees the work finished, and so does faith: unbelief looks within, and judges by experience.

We begin with God's love — love, that is for sinners, sent His Son to make propitiation for sin, to give life, to be the Saviour of the world. Thus God puts home upon us that we are sinners — loved as such in all our sins, but atoned for, life provided for, a Saviour found for us.

So long as I was unconverted the very name of God was always obnoxious to me. I knew He was holy, and I was unholy; I knew He had claims upon me and I could not meet them. And the natural mind is enmity against God. Sin has put us at a distance from God. It has broken the link between man and God. There is guilt on the conscience, sins and defilement on the soul, and the sense that we are not fit for God. There is a drawing back from God, and then there is an interpreting of the heart of God by the thoughts of our own hearts. People in sin think God does not love them. It is an immense mistake. He loves the sinner, while He hates his sins. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3: 16). And what is the world? It is made up of people who do not love God. What, then, is the real Church made up of? People who love God.

It is to such the gospel is preached, and preached by the same Jesus. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16.) Here the mere worldling is represented as perishing, but not yet perished. Glorious gospel! It perfectly meets the case; only listen to its voice, and believe its message of love, to thee, O, perishing sinner. God loves the sinner; Christ died for the sinner — whosoever believes it, shall not perish, but have everlasting life. "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Rom. 5:8) Thus saith the word of the Lord!

That compassion, observe, was spontaneous. There was nought in the prodigal to call it forth. It originated, it had its source in the father’s heart. It was not kindled or brought into existence, by anything in the prodigal. Its secret is found in the three precious words, “God is love.” That being so, the effect is natural. Love takes its own course. And so, when we turn from illustration to doctrine, we find that “God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins” He loved us. Do any ask why? How can this be? How can a holy God love those who are “dead in sins”? Can He love sin? Can He tolerate its faintest breath? Is He not pledged by that very holiness—by the fact that “God is light,” to judge it?—to express His eternal abhorrence of it in the persons—whether men or angels who have thus offended against Him? Yes, all perfectly true. But the reason of His love for the sinner is simply and only found in the fact that “God is love.” It explains all His tender dealings with us. It reminds us that He “so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Oh! when the poor guilty soul discovers for the first time that, spite of all demerit, he is an object of God’s love, he fears no more, he confides, he rests, and is satisfied!

“Their heat undiminished.” “God so LOVED the world.” God’s love is just the same. “God” still “commends His LOVE toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for US” (Rom. 5:8). The love illustrated by the father welcoming his prodigal son in Luke 15 is just the love that would welcome you today. Just like the sun in the heavens, of which it can be said, “There is nothing hid from the heat thereof” (Ps. 19:6), is God’s love. The sun alike warms the king and the beggar, the rich and the poor, the old and the young, the white and the black. So God’s love is for all. The gospel is for “whosoever will”. Will you not receive this love?

But mark the contrast between the love of God and man's love. Man loves that, or those, whom he thinks deserving of his love. Not so God. For whilst nothing can shew more distinctly God's abhorrence of sin than the cross of Christ, yet it is even there that the love of God to the sinner shone out in all its glory. "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." "God commends his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Rom. 5:6, 8.)

Why should God give His Son for the world? There is but one reason, "God is Love." Does God love us? Us, sinners, haters of Him? "God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Rom. 5:8.) It is not because there is anything loveable in the sinner that he is invited to come near to God, but because God has given His Son to die; a meeting place in the propitiatory has been divinely made. Has your heart been broken by a sight of the spotless Son of God dying for his enemies? Have you, by the sacrifice, learned that God is light and love?