How Deep and Wide is God’s Love?
Genesis 1:1 is not where God's love first began. His love is eternal,
and always existed before creation, and it has always existed in the Trinity. God’s love didn't call for anything
outside of the Godhead. Because Christ first loved us, we love. He loves us
because he first and always loved himself.
In humans, Self-love is not always admirable. Even if accurately loving
oneself is excellent and even required for loving one's neighbor, the Bible
also addresses the negative of people who are lovers of self.
2 Timothy 2:3 - For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money,
boastful, arrogant, slanderers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy
I’m sure we all have
met individuals we would categorize as egotists, those who look at themselves more
highly than they are. But, with God, it is impossible to be egotistical. God alone is deserving of the unconditional
devotion and veneration of everything in creation because of his infinite
worth, which makes him alone worthy of receiving unlimited self-love. It is
impossible for anyone to love God too much, including God.
We can, however, love God's love to an unhealthy degree where it takes
away the true meaning of his love. In other words, sin can make us love an
inaccurate representation of God. A distorted love is the core concept of
idolatry. Ironically, our misguided love for God is one of the most prevalent
forms of idolatry. Even non-Christians display an overemphasis on God's love.
They may know very little of the Bible, yet many know and are quick to quote the truism that “God is love” (1 John 4:8). The statement “My God is a God of love” often has as its subtext the idea that his love precludes him ever acting in wrath or justice, or in any way that does not fit our human conceptions of love.
But God’s love is both holy and infinite, which means that all his actions are
loving, even when we cannot perceive them to be so. Not only are all his
actions loving, but all he withholds or refrains from doing is also loving.
When God acts in Scripture in ways we perceive to be unloving, the problem is
not with his actions but with our limited perspective.
When we endure hardship or loss, we may be tempted to question whether
God loves us. This is why the Bible takes such care to remind us that hardship
and loss are to be expected in this life. Hardship and loss are agents of
separation, but nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ. It is
high and long, wide and deep, and if we fix our eyes on it, perhaps we may be
able to begin to grasp some of that even in this lifetime.
Love without Bounds
Once we recognize that the love God has bestowed upon us is not merely an emotion but an act of the will, we are forced to reconsider how we love others. Specifically, we must reevaluate our categories. No longer can we parse our fellow humans into the categories of “lovable” and “unlovable.”
Therefore, if love is an act of the will and not motivated by need, nor measured by worth, and not requiring love in return, then there is no such category as “unlovable.” This is what Jesus teaches in the parable of the good Samaritan. When the lawyer seeks to qualify the meaning of the Great Commandment by asking, “And who is my neighbor?”
Jesus responds with a story about a man who shows love to the “unlovable.” It is, of course, a story about himself—and a story about every one of us who has received rescue at his hands. As the parable is careful to illustrate, it is a costly and unsought rescue, an unsought rescue, bestowed upon an undeserving recipient.
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