“Thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me.”
Don
Fortner - Danville, Kentucky
“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” John 17:23
Our Savior says, “Thou
hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.” Thus, he tells us that God our
Father loves his elect in Christ as he loves Christ himself! That is such an
amazing, stupendous thing that were it not written in Holy Scripture, I would
not dare to think it, much less speak it. But there it stands. And, oh, how my
soul rejoices in it. It is our Savior’s desire and purpose that the whole world
shall know that God loves us as he loves him; and so it shall be!
“When God’s elect have all been gathered
together in one (John 11:52), when the glory which Christ received from the
Father has been imparted to them, when they shall have been made perfect in
one, then shall the world have such a clear demonstration of God’s power, grace
and love toward His people, that they shall know
that the One who died to make this glorious union possible was the sent One
of the Father, and that they had been loved by the Father as had the Son, for
‘When Christ, who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory’ (Col. 3:4); then ‘he shall
come to be glorified in his saints and admired in all them that believe...in
that day’ (II Thess. 1:10).”(A.W. Pink).
When our Lord says, “Thou hast loved them, as thou hast loved
me,” that little word “as”
implies three things.
A SIMILARITY OF CAUSE
First, there is a similarity of cause between God’s love for
Christ and his love for us. God loves us
in Christ. God’s love is not a universal sentiment for all men. God’s love
is in Christ. Apart from Christ, God is a consuming fire. This needs to be
understood. These days, men everywhere are taught and universally presume that
God loves them. Nothing could be further from the truth. Until you are united
to Christ by faith, you have no reason to imagine that God loves you. Our faith
in Christ does not cause God to love us. Our faith is the fruit and result of
God’s eternal love for us. But, until a sinner trusts Christ, only the wrath of
God is revealed and known to him; and the wrath of God is upon him (John 3:36;
Eph. 2:3).
God
loves us for Christ’s sake. Thomas
Manton wrote, “The elect are made lovely, and fit to be accepted by God, only
by Jesus Christ...The ground of all that love God beareth to us is in Christ.”
We are “accepted in the beloved.” God
accepts our faith, our worship, our works, and our persons only because of
Christ, because we are in Christ and because of what Christ has done for us.
And
God the Father loves us for the same reason that he loves his Son as our
Mediator. Be sure you get this.
It will help you. God the Father does not love us for the same reason that he
loves his Son as his Son. He loves his Son as his Son necessarily because his
Son is one with him in perfection and praise. He cannot but love Christ as God.
Else he would cease to love himself. But God’s love for Christ as our Mediator
is based upon his perfect obedience unto God as our Mediator (John 10:14-17).
Do you understand what our Lord is teaching us here? God’s love for us is free
and, at the same, time fully deserved! He said, “I will love them freely” (Hos. 14:4). Yet, his love, mercy, grace,
and salvation flow to us upon the grounds of Christ’s obedience as our
Substitute (Eph. 4:32-5:2). God the Father looked upon his Son from eternity as
our perfect, obedient Mediator, and for the sake of his Son loved us with an
everlasting love.
Let me quote the puritan Thomas
Manton again. “God could not love us with honor to himself, if his wisdom had
not found out this way of loving us in Christ...God was resolved to manifest an
infinite love to man, but he would still manifest an infinite hatred against
sin; which could not be more fully manifested than by making Christ the ground
of our reconciliation...How could the holy God, the just God...love such vile
and unworthy creatures as we are? The question is answered - He loveth us in
Christ, and for Christ’s sake.”
A SIMILARITY OF CHARACTER
Second, this word “as”
suggests a likeness of love. This
means that the Lord God loves his people in the same way as he loves his Son.
Again, let me stress the fact that our Lord is comparing God’s love for him as
our Mediator to his love for his elect. Christ, as our Mediator, is the first
object of God’s love. He loved Christ as the Head of his mystical body, the
church, and us as members. He loved Christ for his own sake. He loves us for
Christ’s sake. God the Father loved Christ the God-man as “the express image of his person” (Heb. 1:3). So he loves his
people who in Christ have been (and those who yet must be) renewed “after the image of him” (Col. 3:10; II
et. 1:4). He loves Christ as his only begotten Son; and he loves us in Christ
as his adopted sons (I John 3:1). Because the Savior says, “Thou hast loved them, as thou hast loved me,” we are assured
that...
God
loves his elect freely. As we have
already seen, the Lord Jesus Christ earned his Father’s love as a man by his
mediatoral obedience. Yet, when our Savior came into the world, the Lord God
loved the child freely, delighting in him even before he had fulfilled his will
(Isa. 42:1). Even so, he loves us freely (Deut. 7:7-8; Hos. 14:4).
God
loves us tenderly and affectionately.
As the Father’s love for his Son is a tender, indescribably affectionate love,
so is his love for us (Isa. 62:5; Zech. 2:8).
God’s
love for his elect is immutable.
The Lord willing, I will say more about this later. For now, let me simply
remind you that there is no possibility of change in our God (Mal. 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 (Rom. 8:35-39).
A.W. Tozer, made these 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 man will no longer be loved by God Almighty...I
believe the time will come when God will no longer love lost human beings.”
Such fickle, useless love may be worthy of fickle, useless man, but not of the
great and glorious Lord God. unchangeable!
A SIMILARITY OF CONSEQUENCE
Thirdly, our Lord intends for us to understand that the effects and
fruits of God’s love to him and his elect are alike. Love that has no effect
and bears no fruit is a useless love. Love that is never known by the one loved
is a frustrated passion that destroys one’s own peace and happiness. Love that
never sees benefit and blessing upon its object, but only misery and woe, is a
tormenting love. But that does not describe the love of God. Oh, no, a thousand
times no! God’s love toward us, like his love toward his Son as our Mediator,
is an effectual, fruitful, beneficial love. Here are five things mutually
enjoyed by Christ and his people as the fruit and effect of God’s love.
1.
The Revelation of Secrets
All things are open, common knowledge between people who
love one another. As all things are manifest and made known to the Son as our
Mediator by the Father (John 1:18; 5:20), so all things are manifest and made
known to God’s elect by the Son (John 14:21; 15:15).
2.
The Bestowment of Spiritual Gifts
God’s love is a bounteous love. He
has given all things to the Son (John 3:34-35; 17:2; Eph. 4:8); and he has
given all his people all spiritual, heavenly gifts in his Son (Eph. 1:3).
3.
Strength and Protection in Life
As the Lord Jesus was upheld, strengthened, and protected
throughout the days of his obedience to do his Father’s will (Isa. 53:1), so
the Lord God upholds, strengthens, and protects us, the objects of his love,
throughout our days of obedience in this world (I Cor. 12:9).
4.
Acceptance of All We Do for Him
Everything that Christ did for God
was accepted and well-pleasing to him because he loved him (Eph. 5:2). And
everything we do for God is accepted and well-pleasing to God through the
merits of Christ because he loves us as he loved him (I Pet. 2:5).
5.
Honor and Exaltation
The Lord Jesus was honored and
highly exalted by God the Father as the object of his love. He was given
preeminence in, possession of, and power over all things (Ps. 2:7-8; Heb. 1:8).
The Lord God, our heavenly Father, will do the same for us (John 12:26; Rev.
3:21).
Hear the Son of God, my brothers and
sisters in this world, and rejoice! “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; and he has so loved
us from eternity! "I beseech you
therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a
living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable
service. And be not conformed to this
world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove
what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." (Rom.
12:1-2).
What would you give, what would you
do to have the enjoyment and assurance of such love from God? Perhaps, you are
thinking, “Pastor, I would do anything to know the love of God like that.” Let
me ask you this - Would you do nothing to have it? That is what you must do,
nothing. If you would rest in his love, simply trust the Son of God. Amen.
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