Is God's love reckless?
The word "reckless" has become a popular way to describe God's love — a love that seems to throw caution aside to chase down the undeserving. The writers in this collection would agree that His love goes to any length and stops at nothing, yet they insist just as firmly that it never acts carelessly, never overlooks evil, and never surprises God Himself.
Love That Counts No Cost
If "reckless" means love that refuses to weigh the price, the picture of the shepherd leaving ninety-nine sheep to find one comes close. One writer lists what that search cost the Seeker, and notes that He knew the list in advance:
J. N. DarbyHaving lost one sheep, He leaves the ninety-nine in the desert and goes after the lost one — whatever it costs Him: shame, reproach, scorn, toil, labour, self-denial and loneliness, counted hopeless or badly judged, He has His known object at heart — until He finds it: the perfect perseverance of love which could not rest without its object.
Distance Is No Obstacle
That search had no boundary line where love decided the sinner was too far gone. Writing of God's promise to search for His scattered sheep, one commentator sets the Shepherd's journey against our own reluctance:
Hamilton SmithHe left His home of glory to seek His sheep, and can we not leave our poor homes to seek them? He went to the uttermost distance of the cross to find His sheep, but we can hardly go into the next street to seek them.
Not Weak, Not Indulgent
But love that costs everything is not the same as love that ignores everything. The commentators are careful to separate God's love from the soft, permissive affection people often imagine:
J T MawsonThe love of God is not like that; it is not the love of a weak and indulgent parent; it is a holy love, there is a force and energy and vigour about it that can only be found in God. His love goes far beyond our highest thoughts, no illustration can capture it, but it reaches out to all men, and the lowest and least intelligent may receive it, and the blessing of it. It is a love that hates sin, and yet has set itself to rescue men from its power and its penalty, and to do this righteously, in the only way in which it can be done, and at its own cost.
Carelessness Is Not Love
Here is the sharpest objection to the word "reckless." A God who took no notice of wrong would not be loving us more; He would be loving us less. One writer tests the idea with an everyday example:
J. N. DarbyIf I have ten children, and they go wrong, and I say, "Well, I am to show love to them," and I take no account of their evil ways; or if some of them go wrong and I treat them as if there were no difference in my mind between their doing well and their doing evil — this is not love but carelessness about evil. This is the kind of love that unconverted people look for, namely, God being as careless about evil as they are; but this is not divine love, which hates the evil.
Love Is His Nature, Righteousness His Character
So how can love reach the guilty without becoming indifferent to guilt? By never buying mercy at righteousness' expense. One writer puts the balance in a single turn of phrase:
J Wilson SmithAll true; but while "God is love," let us never forget that He who is love is God! And that while love is His nature, righteousness, holiness, and truth are (speaking reverently) His character. No act of mercy, no intervention of compassion is carried out at the expense of righteousness, for on this "His throne is established," and necessarily so.
Planned, Not Impulsive
Reckless love would be love caught off guard, improvising a rescue. Scripture traces it instead to a settled purpose formed before anything existed:
The Bible TreasuryThese are the plans of God's love, and they are pictured from the beginning. This infinite love shines bright in the eternal counsels of God before the beginning, when the Eternal Son said, "Behold, I have come to do your will, O God." And since sin came in, God in all His dealings and ways of old declares how great is His love, and how it could be righteously shown to sinners.
Where the Love Is Measured
If you want to know the size of God's love, the commentators point away from our feelings and to one historical place:
An Outline of Sound WordsThe more our souls feed on the death of Christ, the greater our knowledge will be of God and His love; but whatever our grasp of it, the cross is the measure of divine love.
Summary
- Planned — His love was not a sudden impulse; it was settled in eternal counsel before the world began, and every dealing since has declared it.
- Costly — that plan sent the Shepherd after one lost sheep whatever it cost Him: shame, scorn, toil, loneliness, and death.
- Far-reaching — He went "to the uttermost distance of the cross," so no sinner stands beyond the reach of that search.
- Holy — He is no weak, indulgent parent; treating good and evil alike is not love but carelessness about evil.
- Measured — the cross, not our emotion, is the measure of divine love; there love and righteousness meet, and neither is sacrificed to the other.