Why does God love us?

What, it may be asked, is the motive of such love as has been made known to us? There can be but one answer to the question—Love! It found its motive in itself. He loved because He loved. This is indicated in the words of Deuteronomy 7:7, “The Lord did not set His love upon you nor choose you” for any merit or greatness beyond others, “but because the Lord loved you.” God is love, and His love has been set upon us in Christ Jesus, and nothing can separate us from it. Not only was there no merit or worthiness in us to call out His love, but we were lost sinners. Yet He loved us because He loved us. His love found its motive in itself, and when He has us around Him in the home prepared, then His love shall be satisfied.

It is the love that is in God, not any loveliness in the sinner, that accounts for the extravagant liberality of his reception in Christ.

Romans 5:7-8. "For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." If the character and quality of love is to be determined by the character and condition of its object, how far divine love must transcend every illustration of human love! God only can love without a motive, save that which is within His own heart. Man must have a motive without, and his feelings and affections are thereby governed. He may be moved to esteem, to approval, by righteousness, and to affection by benevolence: but it is scarcely to be expected that any one would think of dying for a merely just or righteous man; though for a good man, a benefactor, such self-devotion might be found; but such love could not be surpassed among the children of men; this would be its strongest expression. "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

What characterises God's love is His sending His own Son to die, not for the righteous, or even for the good, but for sinners, for those who were deserving His wrath, not His love. Yes, here we may pause for a moment, and wonder and adore. Man required a strong motive to draw forth his love; God had none. Fresh and full, pure and perfect, from His own heart — its native fountain — it flowed forth, and overflowed all the boundaries of human sin. "Where sin abounded grace did much more abound." There was nothing in man to call forth, but everything to hinder, the expression of His love; but the spring and the power were within, and no object without was needed to induce or draw it forth. God is love, and God only can thus love.

"But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Ver. 8.) This is characteristically divine and sovereign. We were powerless, unjust, evil, nothing but sinners, on the one hand; and God, on the other, had no motive for His love other than itself. It is emphatically His own love. As another apostle puts it, God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Only God can love thus. Man, the saint even, must have a motive without; God has none. He, and He only, is love. The spring is within, and He needs no object without to call it forth. Those whom His grace makes objects of His love are wholly and absolutely unlovable as to themselves, yet He loves them spite of all they are. While they were yet sinners, Christ died for them — the fullest proof of their sin and of God's love. Nothing less could avail; nothing more blessed could be done even by Him; nothing different would suit Himself. Thus He commends His own love. What a resting-place for both heart and conscience! He forgets nothing, judges all, yet loves us with a love that is perfect and altogether peculiar.

But God is sovereign in His love to guilty man. Far from aught congenial, there is every thing in him suited to repel God. Fallen man is corrupt or violent, proud or vain, self-seeking or independent, the sad contrast of Him Who is not more light than love. Yet "God commendeth his love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Such love is peculiar to Him. He loves from His own nature with no motive in the object. He loves notwithstanding the utmost unworthiness. He loves where no goodness is, nor yet rectitude, where men are sinners and nothing else, where there is only misery and guilt; yea, He commends His own love to such as were still far from Him and opposed to Him, giving the highest and most solid proof of it, in that Christ died for us who were in that evil case.

It should be remembered that this activity of love in God was manifested toward us "while we were yet sinners" (Rom. 5:8). We shall fail to apprehend the true character of God's love if we forget this. His motive for loving was entirely in Himself, not in those towards whom He has shown His love. In loving, God is but acting Himself out, acting according to His own nature — manifesting Himself, manifesting what His motive is, showing the object or end He has in view. As desiring to take us out of death into life, He sent His only-begotten Son into the world in order to accomplish His desire: He has thus revealed His nature as active in love.

There is nothing that our hearts are so slow to believe as the wonderful place we have in the love of the Father. Hence it is not to be wondered at that there is so little enjoyment of the reality of it amongst the beloved children of God; the love is so infinite in itself, and our hearts are so dull and insensible. It is all so unaccountable too if we look at ourselves. But then it is just as He said to Israel of old (they never had such a place as we have): "The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people; but because the Lord loved you." (Deut. 7:7-8) This was the only reason for it; the only account He could give of such love. If it was thus with His love for Israel, is it not infinitely more so with the love He has for us, and that has given us such a place before Him?

Moses said to Israel, “The Lord did not set His love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people; but because the Lord loved you” (Deut. 7:7-8). He could furnish no reason save what God was in Himself. This is a great comfort, for it puts the love of God on a basis that can never break down.

In John 16:27 the Lord Jesus makes known to His own, "The Father Himself has affection for you, because ye have had affection for me." How precious it is, beloved, to know that there has been wrought in our hearts an affection for this blessed Person, Who has come to make the Father known; telling out the depths of His heart of love, giving us to know the secrets of His counsels, and manifesting His wondrous grace. The One Who lay in His bosom could alone unfold these precious things. Is it any wonder that we have affection for Him? And our affection for the Son has given the Father a reason for loving us. Another reason for the Father's affection for us is that we have believed that He came out from God. The Father finds delight in those who have faith in His Son; in those who believe that He came forth from eternity, from God's own presence, to accomplish His will.

God loved you when there was nothing lovable about you. He loved you because of what was in Himself. But the Father loves you because of what is in you. He has found something in you in which His heart has unbounded delight. What is it? Nothing but the little spark of love to His Son, which He has kindled there for Himself. Here, where His Son has suffered every ignominy that the profligate heart of man could invent, you are found on His side, lifting up a feeble testimony in His favour, and the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Him, and have believed that He came out from God.