God’s Love in Christ Never Fails

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.  (13)  So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. – 1 Corinthians 13:12-13 (ESV)

One of the greatest lessons the true Gospel of Free and Sovereign Grace teaches God’s elect is the many-sided truth of love. It was in love that God predestined His people for adoption (Ephesians 1:4–5). It was love for His people—love beyond any human measure—that held our Savior to the cross (John 3:16; Galatians 2:20). It is love that calls Christians to do the good works God “prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10). It is Christ’s love for His church that motivates us to pursue the high and holy and to turn from the base and unholy. Beloved, “the love of Christ controls us.” (2 Corinthians 5:14)

Motivated by His great love, God has saved us in Christ—the greatest expression of love the universe will ever know. Drawn by that same love, God’s people respond: the Spirit works faith in us, and that faith “works by love” (Galatians 5:6). Our love for God as well the acceptable works we offer in response to His grace and mercy flow from a love that is received, not from a love we must first manufacture.

But what is love? In our fallen age the word has been contaminated by many influences. Sappy romanticism and an “anything goes” Hollywood ethic have reduced love to a mere feeling—something to be worn lightly on the sleeve. Today love is often measured merely by how someone makes us feel. Butterflies, moonbeams, and heart-fluttering sensations are treated as the proof of love’s presence. When those feelings fade, people say, “I’ve fallen out of love,” revealing the shallow, subjective measure this world applies.

If love is defined by shifting feelings, then it is not love in any enduring, moral, or covenantal sense. The result is a restless search for new feelings, a pursuit that grows ever harder as the law of diminishing returns takes hold. What a poor, unsatisfying substitute for the steadfast love of God.

Imagine, for a moment, that popular culture’s definition of love were applied to God. Consider the horror: God’s love would be conditioned on how warm and fuzzy we make Him feel. His mercy would come only when our performance met His standard of emotional appeal. Given Scripture’s clear teaching about our sin and law-breaking guilt, such a conception would mean that no one—left to their own devices—could ever meet the condition. God’s love would be precarious, variable, and ultimately untrustworthy.

This error is mirrored in the Wesleyan/Arminian position, which claims that God loves all humanity in some measure but then suggests a conditional fullness of divine love dependent on human response. In that view, only those who appropriate saving grace by an exercise of their own faith will experience the “full measure” of God’s love in the life to come. In effect, God’s love is made to depend on human achievement: for those who refuse to accept salvation, the sovereign King of Heaven is said to suffer unrequited love. Such a picture is tragic and inconsistent with the Scriptures’ witness to God’s electing, steadfast love.

The Apostle Paul, in 1 Corinthians 13, gives us three of the most essential words in the New Testament about love: “Love never ends” (1 Corinthians 13:8). From this single line the vast difference between God’s immutable love in Christ and the shifting sands of earthly infatuation becomes plain. God’s love is unchanging; it abides. It is not conditioned on anything performed by those He has redeemed. His love in Christ prepared a place for His own; it is the steadfast commitment that secures His elect and leads them to life everlasting.

Beloved, think deeply on the finished work of Christ—God’s labor of undying love in the person and work of our Lord. This is the love that cannot fail to accomplish what God has purposed. Christ’s perfect offering secures our redemption; our salvation rests wholly on His work, not ours. May God teach our hearts anew the great lessons of love that flow from Christ’s accomplished redemption. May we be strengthened in faith and hope as we grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord. Amen.

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Jason K. Boothe is a Pastor at Redeemer Church of Piketon, Ohio.