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Chapter 114

God’s Everlasting Love for his Elect

 

“Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.” (John 17:24)

 

God’s everlasting love for his elect is the fountain of all grace and salvation, and the reason for all that he does. In verse 23 our Savior declares — “I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.” — “Thou hast loved them, as thou hast loved me!” What a pillow upon which to rest our heads! What a comfort for our poor, aching hearts! What a glorious theme for daily meditation! What a cause for adoration, praise, and worship! We may be despised, misunderstood, abused, and hated of men, but we are loved of God! God our Father loves us even as he loves his darling Son.

 

            In verse 24 the Son of God declare that God the Father has loved us as he loves his Son from eternity! — “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me; for thou lovest me before the foundation of the world.” With those words, our dear Savior declares that God’s love for his elect is an everlasting love. And, as John Gill observed…

 

“God’s everlasting, unchangeable, and invariable love to his elect, through every state and condition into which they come, is written as with a sun-beam in the sacred writings.”

 

            When we dive into the ocean of God’s everlasting love for his elect, there is no possibility of us sounding its depths. So when I have said all that I know about it, there will be plenty of room for meditation and study. I can do nothing more than bring up a few nuggets of gold from this deep mine of infinity. Let me show you five things about God’s everlasting love for us in Christ.

 

The Eternality of It

 

God’s love for us did not begin yesterday. It is not something born in time. His love for us does not begin with our love for him. — “We love him because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). God’s love for us springs up from eternity, and is the ground of divine predestination, of our election and redemption by Christ, and our calling by God the Holy Spirit (Jeremiah 31:3; Ephesians 1:4-6; Ezekiel 16:8).

 

“The Father loved us ere we fell,

And will forever love;

Nor shall the powers of earth or hell

His love from Zion move.

 

‘Twas love that moved Him to ordain

A Surety just and good;

And on His heart inscribe the names

Of all for whom He stood.

 

Nor is the Surety short of love;

He loves beyond degree;

No less than love Divine could move

The Lord to die for me!

 

And O what love the Spirit shows!

When Jesus He reveals

To men oppressed with sin and woes,

And all their sorrows heals.

 

The Three-in-One, the One-in-Three,

In love forever rest;

The chosen shall in glory be

In His love ever blessed.”

                                                                        —William Gadsby

 

            All God’s acts and works of grace performed for us before the world began arise from and are demonstrations of his everlasting love for us. Election was an act of God’s eternal love (Ephesians 1:4). The covenant of grace was established by the triune God in eternity because of his great, everlasting love for us (2 Samuel 23:5; Romans 8:28-29; 2 Timothy 1:9; Hebrews 13:20). And trusting our souls into the hands of Christ as our Surety was a work of God’s eternal love (John 6:39; Ephesians 1:12).

 

The Immutability of It

 

There is no possibility of change in our God (Malachi 3:6; James 1:17). God’s love does not change. It cannot be taken from us; and it cannot be destroyed, neither by us nor by hell itself (Romans 8:35-39). As I stated in our previous study, the famous Arminian preacher, founder of the Christian Missionary Alliance denomination, A.W. Tozer, made the following horrible statements about the love of God.

 

“God must love and will love man until hell has erased the last trace of the remaining image (of God in him). Men are lost now. But they are still loved of God...I believe that God now loves all lost men...(But) the day will come when lost men will no longer be loved by God Almighty...I believe the time will come when God will no longer love lost human beings.”[1]

 

            Such fickle, useless love may be worthy of fickle, useless man, but not of the great and glorious Lord God. Our God does not love today and hate tomorrow! His love is unchangeable! Nothing could be more dishonoring to God than failure (Numbers 14:11-16); but “He shall not fail!” God’s love, like all his gifts bestowed upon men, is without repentance. He will never cease his own to cherish. Those who are loved of God have been loved of God from everlasting, and shall be loved of God to everlasting. His love is eternal both ways. He will not depart from the objects of his love nor cease to do them good, for he cannot change (Jeremiah 32:40; Malachi 3:6; James 1:17).

 

            The salvation of God’s elect does not stand upon a precarious foundation of time, but upon the immutable foundation of God’s everlasting love. We change often; but there are no changes in his love. Our love is sometimes hot and sometimes cold; but his love is invariably the same. God graciously and wisely changes the dispensations of his providence toward his people, hiding his face and chastening us because of our sin; but his love never changes (Isaiah 54:10; Hebrews 12:5-11). His chastisements are evidences of his love. Even when we sin against him, as we often do, God’s love does not change. Understand this, and rejoice. —God’s love toward his elect is from everlasting, and never changes to any degree or for any reason (Psalm 89:19-37; John 13:1).

 

The Gifts of It

 

Love gives. The gifts of God’s free and everlasting love are too many for us to calculate. Let me just show you three things that are clearly revealed as the gifts of God’s everlasting love to his elect. In comparison with these three, all others, great as they are, must be considered to be far, far less.

1.    The Lord God has given us himself because of his great, everlasting love for us (Ezekiel 37:27). He says, “I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

2.    The gift of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to suffer and die as our Substitute was and is the great commendation of his love to us (John 3:16; Romans 5:6-10; 1 John 3:16; 4:10). — “Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:15).

3.    The gift of his Spirit to regenerate, call, and seal us in his grace in “the time of love” is the gift of God’s everlasting love to us (Ezekiel 16:8; Titus 3:3-6).

 

“Indeed, all that God does in time, or will do to all eternity, is only telling his people how much he loved them from everlasting.” (John Gill)

 

“‘Twas not to make Jehovah’s love

Towards the sinner flame,

That Jesus, from His throne above

A suffering man became.

 

‘Twas not the death which He endured,

Nor all the pangs He bore,

That God’s eternal love procured,

For God was love before.

 

He loved the world of His elect

With love surpassing thought;

Nor will His mercy e’er neglect

The souls so dearly bought.”

                                                                                                             — John Kent

 

The Distinctiveness of It

 

God’s love is distinct and distinguishing love. It is utter nonsense to talk about God loving all men. I sometimes hear preachers try to soft peddle God’s sovereignty by assuring people that there is a sense in which God loves all men with a love of benevolence though not with a love of complacency and delight. They say God loves all men as his creatures, just as he loves trees and toads. If you can get any comfort from the idea that God loves you like he loves a frog, I guess I shouldn’t take that away from you, but it simply is not the teaching of Scripture.

 

            God loves his elect distinctively. — God does not love all men. I would not emphasize that fact, were it not for the fact that those who teach that God’s love is universal are guilty of three horrible crimes.

1.    They make the love of God changeable.

2.    They make the love of God meaningless.

3.    They destroy the greatest motive there is for godliness and devotion. Try telling you wife that you love all women alike. See if that inspires her devotion to you!

 

            The Word of God tells us in the plainest terms possible that God’s love for his elect is a special, sovereign, distinctive, and distinguishing love (Isaiah 43:1-5; Romans 8:29; Romans 9:11-24).

 

            God loves his people delightfully. — I mean by that that God delights, takes pleasure in, and is complacent with his elect because of his love for them. God so loves us that he smiles on us perpetually, even when he appears to be frowning upon us!

 

            It is high time that all attempts to divide the love of God into categories, stages, and degrees be laid aside. They do nothing to help men and only obscure the glory and grandeur of our God. If God loves me, he delights in me. If he does not delight in me, he does not love me. Again I say, try telling your wife, “Honey, I really do love you. I wish you well. I want nothing but the very best for you, and am willing to do anything I can for you. But you do not please me. You are offensive to me. I do not enjoy your company. In fact, I really do not want to look at you.” If you still have a wife tomorrow, let me know.

 

            Our God loves us as he loves his darling Son. That means he is well-pleased with us (Matthew 17:5). The Father and the Son are one; and the Son of God tells us that his “delights” were with us from eternity (Proverbs 8:31). He could not have used a stronger word than this to express his love for us. The word “delights” expresses the most intimate, sweet, ravishing pleasure. Can you get hold of this? Our God so delights in us that he says, “Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse: thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes” (Song of Solomon 4:9).

 

The Efficacy of It

 

God’s love is more than a wish or desire in his heart to save sinners. God’s love for us is an effectual love. That simply means that those who are the objects of God’s love shall be saved, precisely because they are the objects of his love. Otherwise, the love of God is an utterly useless thing. God’s love is sovereign (Romans 9:16-18). God’s love is sacrificial (1 John 3:16). God’s love is saving (Ezekiel 37:27). And God’s love is steadfast (John 13:1). Let us rejoice it it!

 

“I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.”

 

            What an amazing, stupendous revelation of God’s love for us! Men tell me that such teaching as this promotes licentiousness and antinomianism, that it discourages godliness and good works; but that is absurd.

 

            When I think of the things we have been meditating upon in this message, that God loved me when I hated him, that he loved me before the world began, that he loves me as he loves my Savior, that his love for me will never cease, never change, and never vary, these thoughts compel me to love him, and lay me under the greatest obligations possible to reverence him, worship him, devote myself to his glory and his will, and serve his interests while I live in this world (1 John 4:19; 2 Corinthians 5:14; Titus 3:5-8). Does it not do the same for you?

 

 

Don Fortner

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[1] The Tozer Pulpit, Volume 8, pp 23-25