What Love Does

“Hatred stirreth up strifes: but LOVE COVERETH ALL SINS” (Prov. 10:12). Many (most) believe God loves all men alike. Scripture denies that claim (Ps. 5:5; Rom. 9:11-13). Such a claim shows a lack of understanding of the nature of the love of God. Wonderfully, in Prov. 10:12, we have a clear revelation of the nature of the love of God. His “love covers all sins!” Those God loves, He saves -- really, actually saves them from their sins (Zep. 3:17; Eph. 1:4-7; Rom. 8:32-39; Eph. 5:25; Rev. 1:5; 1 John 4:10)! Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it (Eph. 5:25; Gal. 2:20; John 10:11, 15; John 15:13; 1 John 3:16).  This is the nature of God's love! Christ loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood (Rev. 1:5). God's love covers all of the sins of all whom He loved from everlasting. How? He gave His Son to be the propitiation for their sins (Heb. 1:3; Rev. 1:5; 1 John 1:7; Prov. 10:12; 1 John 4:10). Scripture says much about the love of God. For His great love, God the Father has shed abroad His love in Christ to us in our hearts by His own Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5-11). God loved His elect people before they loved Him (Jer. 31:3). His love is an unbroken chain that stretches from everlasting to everlasting. All whom He loved from everlasting, He draws to Christ in time (Jer. 31:3; John 6:37-39, 44-45). We love Him because He first loved us (1 John 4:19; Luke 7:47). Therefore, if He loved us from everlasting, He gave Christ for us to wash us from our sins and He will draw us to Christ. He will shed abroad His love to us in Christ by His Spirit, and we will love Him. His love for His own never changes (James 1:17; Heb. 13:5, 8; Isa. 54:10; John 13:1). The love of God for His own is in Christ (Rom. 8:39; Eph. 1:4). It is only in Christ. God’s love is not unconditional; it is conditioned on Christ (Eph. 3:17-19). It is conditioned on the will and righteousness and faithfulness and wisdom and power -- even all that Christ is. It is conditioned on the obedience and blood and faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:3-7). It is conditioned on all that God is as God (1 John 4:8, 16). God’s love is distinguishing (Deut. 7:7-8; Isa. 43:1-3; 1 John 4:8, 16; Rom. 9:13). God does not love all men (1 Thess. 5:9). God loves His elect, those He chose in Christ and gave to Christ (Rom. 9:11-13; 2 Thess. 2:13-14; Song 6:3; John 10:29; 17:2, 6, 23-24). Yet His love is sovereign (Deut. 7:8). His love is free -- without cause to be found in the objects of His love (Hosea 14:4). God’s love to us in Christ emboldens us before God. We are bold because this precious gift of faith teaches us that God loves us in His Son, for His Son’s sake and loves us as He loves His Son (1 John 4:16-18; John 17:23-24; Heb. 10:19). But God’s love does not make us presumptuous. It bows us in reverence and godly fear (Hosea 3:5; Ps. 33:8). If the LORD had not chosen us from eternity (Jer. 31:3; Eph. 5:25 with Rev. 13:8 and 1 Pet. 1:18-20), had not redeemed us by Christ's precious blood (1 Pet. 1:18-20; Eph. 1:4-7; Rev. 5:9), had not raised us from death to life in Christ (Eph. 2:4-6), had not proclaimed His Gospel to us with saving power (Ezek. 37:4-14), we would perish, even as others (Lev. 25:10; Isa. 61:1; Luke 4:18; Eph. 2:4; Isa. 1:9; Rom. 9:27-29). But having been forgiven all of our sins for Christ’s sake alone (Eph. 4:32; Col. 2:13), we also cover the sins of our brethren, those loved in Christ and forgiven their sins for Christ’s sake (Gal. 6:2). As we have been forgiven, we forgive (Matt. 6:12). We love one another because our great God and Savior loved us from eternity, gave Christ to die for us to make satisfaction for our sins and wash us from them, and gave His Holy Spirit to us in life-giving power and everlasting life (John 17:2). On the same basis, therefore, we also love one another: for Christ’s sake. We have been forgiven much when we had nothing to pay (Luke 7; 42-47; Rom. 5:6-10). God received Christ’s obedience for us in His own blood to cleanse us from our sins, to cover them. Therefore, we now receive one another on the basis of Christ's blood alone, and God's grace to us (Rom. 15:17). To say that our love for one another is small, is stating the obvious. But though we love one another in small measure, we cry to our all-sufficient God, the God of all grace, to increase our faith and give to us greater grace to walk as His dear children, as we look to our Savior in His great love for us that caused Him to lay aside His glory, take our nature, own our sins, shed His blood and even now, to intercede for us to God on the basis of His blood and righteousness (Rom. 8:34; Heb. 7:25)! May we never minimize the love of God by making the false claim that God’s love is universal and undistinguishing. If we sacrifice the truth to make that claim -- that God loves all men alike, that Christ died to save all men, that the Spirit of God calls all men to life, but nevertheless most remain dead in their sins and ultimately perish in their sins, then we seek by that claim to make God's ways more acceptable to man’s opposition to God’s eternal, sovereign, holy will to love His people in Christ. By such a claim, we pacify men at the expense of the truth of God’s  sovereign, eternal, unchanging, unfailing, saving, love in Christ's own blood! Such a claim is unscriptural. And it reduces God’s love to a powerless, unholy desire, which is why it is blasphemy and idolatry. May we give honor to God's revelation of His great everlasting love for His own in Christ, a love which saves and covers all their sins. For God to do less than actually save those He loves with an everlasting salvation, is to fail in His eternal purpose of love and grace that He promised in His word, accomplished in the death of His Son, for which Christ prayed while on earth, and for which Christ now reigns and intercedes in heaven (2 Thess. 2:13-14; Isa. 45:21-25; John 6:37-40, 44-45; John 13:1; 15:13; 17:1-6, 9, 11, 19-24; John 10:28-29).

Rick Warta