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Glory · God the Father
Human love is often conditional, fickle, and spent on what is already lovable. God's love is the opposite: it chose us when we were unlovely, it never fails, and it disciplines for our good. John's whole point is that God does not merely love in the way we do; He is the source of love, and our loving is a faint reflection of His.
https://glorystudy.com/questions/how-does-gods-love-differ-from-human-love · Scripture quoted from the World English Bible
Hosea 11:1-11
As you read: God's love for Israel that will not give up: 'How can I give you up, Ephraim?'
1“When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.
2They called to them, so they went from them. They sacrificed to the Baals, and burned incense to engraved images.
3Yet I taught Ephraim to walk. I took them by his arms; but they didn’t know that I healed them.
4I drew them with cords of a man, with ties of love; and I was to them like those who lift up the yoke on their necks; and I bent down to him and I fed him.
5“They won’t return into the land of Egypt; but the Assyrian will be their king, because they refused to repent.
6The sword will fall on their cities, and will destroy the bars of their gates, and will put an end to their plans.
7My people are determined to turn from me. Though they call to the Most High, he certainly won’t exalt them.
8“How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned within me, my compassion is aroused.
9I will not execute the fierceness of my anger. I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man; the Holy One in your midst; and I will not come in wrath.
10They will walk after Yahweh, who will roar like a lion; for he will roar, and the children will come trembling from the west.
11They will come trembling like a bird out of Egypt, and like a dove out of the land of Assyria; and I will settle them in their houses,” says Yahweh.
1 John 4:7-21
As you read: John's great chapter on love's origin: we love because He first loved us.
7Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves has been born of God, and knows God.
8He who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, for God is love.
9By this God’s love was revealed in us, that God has sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
10In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
11Beloved, if God loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another.
12No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God remains in us, and his love has been perfected in us.
13By this we know that we remain in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.
14We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as the Savior of the world.
15Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him, and he in God.
16We know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and he who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.
17In this love has been made perfect among us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as he is, even so are we in this world.
18There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has punishment. He who fears is not made perfect in love.
19We love him, because he first loved us.
20If a man says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who doesn’t love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?
21This commandment we have from him, that he who loves God should also love his brother.
Romans 5:1-11
As you read: The demonstration of love: Christ died for the ungodly, while we were still sinners.
1Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ;
2through whom we also have our access by faith into this grace in which we stand. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
3Not only this, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering works perseverance;
4and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope:
5and hope doesn’t disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
6For while we were yet weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
7For one will hardly die for a righteous man. Yet perhaps for a righteous person someone would even dare to die.
8But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
9Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we will be saved from God’s wrath through him.
10For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we will be saved by his life.
11Not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.
Luke 15:11-32
As you read: The father who runs to his son: the very picture of God's love for the undeserving.
11He said, “A certain man had two sons.
12The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of your property.’ He divided his livelihood between them.
13Not many days after, the younger son gathered all of this together and traveled into a far country. There he wasted his property with riotous living.
14When he had spent all of it, there arose a severe famine in that country, and he began to be in need.
15He went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed pigs.
16He wanted to fill his belly with the husks that the pigs ate, but no one gave him any.
17But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough to spare, and I’m dying with hunger!
18I will get up and go to my father, and will tell him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight.
19I am no more worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired servants.”’
20“He arose, and came to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
21The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
22“But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe, and put it on him. Put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet.
23Bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let us eat, and celebrate;
24for this, my son, was dead, and is alive again. He was lost, and is found.’ They began to celebrate.
25“Now his elder son was in the field. As he came near to the house, he heard music and dancing.
26He called one of the servants to him, and asked what was going on.
27He said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and healthy.’
28But he was angry, and would not go in. Therefore his father came out, and begged him.
29But he answered his father, ‘Behold, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed a commandment of yours, but you never gave me a goat, that I might celebrate with my friends.
30But when this, your son, came, who has devoured your living with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him.’
31“He said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.
32But it was appropriate to celebrate and be glad, for this, your brother, was dead, and is alive again. He was lost, and is found.’”
Moses told Israel that God did not choose them because they were great, 'but because Yahweh loves you.' Jeremiah heard the same heart: 'I have loved you with an everlasting love.' In the parable, the father loves the younger son before the son has said a word of repentance; he saw him 'while he was still far off' and ran to meet him. God's love is not a reward; it is a choice He made in Himself.
“Yahweh didn’t set his love on you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people; for you were the fewest of all peoples: but because Yahweh loves you, and because he desires to keep the oath which he swore to your fathers, Yahweh has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”Deuteronomy 7:7-8
“Yahweh appeared of old to me, saying, Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love: therefore with loving kindness have I drawn you.”Jeremiah 31:3
““He arose, and came to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.”Luke 15:20
““But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe, and put it on him. Put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet.”Luke 15:22
Paul writes that Christ died for the ungodly, and 'God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.' John says, 'In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins,' and that we were dead through our trespasses when He made us alive. Human love is usually a response to something attractive; God's love is the cause, not the effect, of our being loved.
“For while we were yet weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man. Yet perhaps for a righteous person someone would even dare to die. But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”Romans 5:6-8
“In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.”1 John 4:10
“But God, being rich in mercy, for his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),”Ephesians 2:4-5
“We love him, because he first loved us.”1 John 4:19
Lamentations says, 'It is because of Yahweh's loving kindnesses that we are not consumed... They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.' Paul is persuaded that nothing, neither death nor life nor anything in all creation, 'will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.' Hosea's God cannot give up Ephraim: 'How can I give you up? ... my compassion is aroused.' Human love can grow cold or run out; God's love is the one thing that never will.
“It is because of Yahweh’s loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his compassion doesn’t fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”Lamentations 3:22-23
“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”Romans 8:38-39
““How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned within me, my compassion is aroused. I will not execute the fierceness of my anger. I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man; the Holy One in your midst; and I will not come in wrath.”Hosea 11:8-9
“Like a father has compassion on his children, so Yahweh has compassion on those who fear him.”Psalm 103:13
Hebrews quotes the Father's words: 'My son, don't take lightly the chastening of the Lord... For whom the Lord loves, he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives,' and it warns that to be without discipline is to be treated as an intruder, not as a child. Human love that never corrects is indulgence, not love; God's love cares enough about who we become to train us in holiness. The same hand that holds us is the hand that shapes us.
“and you have forgotten the exhortation which reasons with you as with children, “My son, don’t take lightly the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him; For whom the Lord loves, he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives.””Hebrews 12:5-6
“But if you are without discipline, of which all have been made partakers, then are you illegitimate, and not children.”Hebrews 12:8
“My son, don’t despise Yahweh’s discipline, neither be weary of his reproof: for whom Yahweh loves, he reproves; even as a father reproves the son in whom he delights.”Proverbs 3:11-12
John's logic runs one way: 'God is love,' and everyone who loves 'has been born of God, and knows God,' while 'we love him, because he first loved us.' The Father's love is the very ground of our identity: 'See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!' We do not climb up to a god who barely tolerated us; we are welcomed into a family whose Father runs to meet us, and whose love gave His one and only Son so that whoever believes 'should not perish, but have eternal life.'
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves has been born of God, and knows God. He who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, for God is love.”1 John 4:7-8
“We love him, because he first loved us.”1 John 4:19
“See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! For this cause the world doesn’t know us, because it didn’t know him.”1 John 3:1
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.”John 3:16