Unconditionally loved by God? Part 3.

It seems sad that I might have to prove to myself the absolute love of God for all of creation.  But having been schooled by very admirable, and from all reports, godly, theologians and preachers within the Calvinist stream, they left a huge question mark in my mind over the extent of the love of God.  This is no surprise as the sources of their thinking, John Calvin and before him, Augustine of Hippo, by their doctrines of predestination put into question the wideness of God’s mercy.  However, over time I have been attempting to critically evaluate some of their doctrines that attempted to dissuade me from the Biblically based belief - which if I'm honest I think I instinctively knew - that God really loves all that He has created.

Although I am neither Orthodox or Catholic (who include the following in their Bible) as a member of the Church of England (which views the Apocrypha as edificatory reading) I was grateful to be introduced to the following excerpt from the Book of Wisdom:

22 Before you, the whole world is nothing but dust on the scale or but a drop of dew that falls to earth in the night. 23 Yet precisely because you can do all things, you show mercy to everyone. You overlook their sins, giving them a chance to change their hearts and minds. 24 You love everything that exists. You despise nothing that you have made. If you hated it, you wouldn't have created it. 25 Nothing could survive unless you had willed it. Nothing could remain unless you continued to call it into being. 26 You spare all things because all things are yours, ruler and lover of life. (Wisdom 11:22-26)

There is so much in these verses that correlate with both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament - it is a helpful picture of the love and grace of God in bringing transformation to humans.  I also see some interesting echoes in the visions of Julian of Norwich, with her emphasis on the love of God for all that He has made, and how the world is so small and yet kept in being because God loves it:

“And in this he showed me a little thing, the quantity of a hazel nut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed. And it was as round as any ball. I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding, and thought, ‘What may this be?’ And it was answered generally thus, ‘It is all that is made.’ I marveled how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly have fallen to nothing for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it. And so have all things their beginning by the love of God.

In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it. The second that God loves it. And the third, that God keeps it.” (Julian of Norwich - Revelations of Divine Love)

I am of the opinion, that it is the realisation of this truth that can affect us profoundly; that can lead us to repentance - to a change of mind (The Greek word translated repentance in the New Testament is metanoia, which literally means 'change of mind') which leads to a change of action.  Maybe this is why John would write, 'We love because He first loved us.'  (1 John 4:19) It was the realisation of the love of God, specifically revealed in Jesus's self sacrificial life and death, that illuminated those first disciples and drew out of them a response of love in their dealings with others.  According to Paul it is the kindness or goodness of God that leads us to repentance. (Romans 2:4)

If we discover this mind boggling truth that we are beloved of God.  It should change us; just as the love of another, if we allow it into our lives, can change us.  I think in this regard of an elderly gentleman I know who was quite harsh and cold when I first knew him and yet over the years I have seen that intimidating persona dissolve away and I suspect it was the love of his wife a gentle, joyful, loving and loyal soul who was devoted to him, that was a major factor in that transformation.

This unveiling of the love of God is attributed to the work of the Spirit of God.  It is the Spirit who sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts (Romans 5:5).  It is the Spirit that shows us what God has freely given to us (1 Corinthians 2:12).  Therefore, I think it is only right that we ask God that He might help us to 'see' the love that God has for us.  Maybe we can make the prayer that Paul prayed for the Ephesian Church our own:

'For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— 19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

20 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, 21 to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. '(Ephesians 3:14-21)

I'd also personally recommend 'meditating' (As in thinking deeply) on the cross, recognising that it was out of love for you that he endured that, it was out of love for you that he suffered what he did.  Again, I am reminded of Paul's realisation that 'the life I live in the body I live by the faithfulness of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.' (Galatians 2:20) I have no doubt that Paul spent much time contemplating the scandal of the cross (maybe that was the primary thing that occupied his thoughts in Arabia for 3 years <Galatians 1:17-18>; it required such an uprooting of his previous way of thinking.  For to him, and many other Jews, a crucified messiah was a blasphemous concept - he (Paul) was, prior to his encounter with the Lord on the road to Damascus, determined to extinguish this ‘heretical’ idea). The revelation of the 'crucified messiah' impacted his life and his message in such a way that you cannot understand his thought apart from appreciating the place the cross had in his thinking.

Maybe the more we appreciate God’s love, the more we are enabled to respond in kind.  The more we take in the love of God the more we want to give of ourselves to this God who is love.  Maybe Isaac Watts was on to something:

When I survey the wondrous cross

On which the Prince of glory died,

My richest gain I count but loss,

And pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,

Save in the death of Christ my God!

All the vain things that charm me most,

I sacrifice them to His blood.

See from His head, His hands, His feet,

Sorrow and love flow mingled down!

Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,

Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature mine,

That were a present far too small;

Love so amazing, so divine,

Demands my soul, my life, my all.

“put together all the tenderest love you know of, multiply it by infinity and you will begin to see glimpses of the love and grace of God.” 
― Hannah Whitall Smith, The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life