Herein is love

Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. 1 John 4:10, 11

I suppose that all these stars which we see at night, all the countless worlds within our range of vision, are but as a little dust in a lone corner of God’s great house. The whole solar system, and all the systems of worlds we have ever thought of, are but as a drop in a bucket compared with the boundless sea of creation. And even that is as nothing compared to the infinite God. And yet, “He loved us”—the insignificant creatures of an hour. What is more, He loved us though in our insignificance we dared to rebel against Him. We boasted against Him. We cried, “Who is Jehovah?” We lifted up our hand to fight with Him. Ridiculous rebellion! Absurd warfare! Had He but glanced at us and annihilated us, it would have been as much as we could merit at His hands. But to think that He should love us—love us; mark you, when we were in rebellion against Him. This is marvelous.

Observe that the previous verse speaks of us as being dead in sin. “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.” Then we were dead, dead to all goodness, or thought or power of goodness, criminals shut up in the condemned cell, and yet God loved us with a great love even when we were dead in trespasses and sins. Child of God, God’s love to you today is wonderful. But think of His love to you when you were far gone in rebellion against Him. When not a throb of holy, spiritual life could be found in your entire being, yet He loved you and sent His Son that you might live through Him. Moreover, He loved us when we were steeped in sin. Does not our text tell us so? For He sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins, and this implies that we needed to be reconciled. Our righteous Judge was angry with us. His righteous wrath smoked against our evil, and yet even then “He loved us.” He was angry with us as a Judge, but yet He loved us. He was determined to punish and yet resolved to save.

This is a world of wonders! I am utterly beaten by my text. I confess myself mastered by my theme. But who among us can measure the unfathomable? “Herein is love,” that God freely, out of the spontaneous motion of His own heart, should love us. This is the argument for love. This is the inexhaustible fountain out of which all love must come. If we desire love, may we come and fill our vessels here and bear it out to others. Love springing from our own bosoms is flat, feeble and scant, but the love of God is a great deep, forever fresh, and full and flowing. Here are those springs of the sea of which we spoke, “Herein is love!”

Herein Is Love, Sermon 1707 - Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Photo credit: By NASA, ESA, R. O'Connell (University of Virginia), F. Paresce (National Institute for Astrophysics, Bologna, Italy), E. Young (Universities Space Research Association/Ames Research Center), the WFC3 Science Oversight Committee, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA). (HubbleSite: Gallery, NewsCenter.) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons