Word of Salvation – Vol. 18 No.03 – January 1972
Not: We Loved God; But: God Loved Us!
Sermon by Rev. Wm. F. Van Brussel, B.D. on 1John 4:10-11
Scripture Reading: 1John 4:7-21
Psalter Hymnal: No. 184:1,2; 94:2,3 (Confession)
John 3:36 The two ways
169:1,2 (Praise); 149:1,2,3; 447; 438:1,4
Do you ever think of your baptism? Does the fact that you were baptized play a part in your life? These are the sort of questions which we are going to consider in this present sermon. For baptism tends to become one of those things that are being taken for granted among Christian people only too frequently.
It is such an amazingly beautiful experience to live as baptized children of God in this world today. But how often do we think about it? How often do we enjoy its comfort, and praise God for its encouragement?
Yes, what does it mean that we find ourselves among the people who have received the sacrament of Holy Baptism? And in particular, what does it mean to us that God had us baptized long before we seemed to be ready for it, while we were tiny, little babies?
The text for this sermon does not seem to speak of baptism at all. The subject is not even mentioned in the text or the context. Yet, let us listen to the message of this text and this passage of John’s letter while keeping in mind that we may do that as people who have received baptism, perhaps many, many years ago. This text can help us greatly to understand a most important aspect of baptism, namely that God is ALWAYS FIRST with His love. God’s love is unbelievably spontaneous!
Our text tells us about
THE CORRECT ORDER IN THE WORKS OF GOD’S LOVE:
1. God’s love CAME FIRST;
2. God’s love SETTLED THE SIN-QUESTION;
3. God’s love CALLS FORTH MUTUAL LOVE AMONG HIS PEOPLE.
1. What makes it so attractive to listen to the message of this text, and to think of baptism at the same time, is that this text does not need long explanations. These statements are so wonderfully plain and clear. A child can understand them: “In THIS is love, NOT that WE loved GOD, but that HE loved US and sent His Son to be the expiation for our sins”. The only word that may sound a bit difficult is the word, “Expiation”. But what if we replace that word by “atonement” or “compensation” or “satisfaction”?
On the other hand, despite all this clarity, we must be well aware that LOVE is a notion which is misunderstood by numerous people. When people ask for instance, as is being done so frequently, “How can God be Love, if He does not make the war in Vietnam to stop?”, they make it abundantly clear that they have no idea of what the love of GOD really is, do they not? As if it were His fault that there is a war on over there!
Many people talk a lot of nonsense, even rubbish, about the love of God. They think of love in purely human terms. The kind of love that is nothing but an UTTERLY WEAK REFLECTION of the love of God.
Let us be well aware that the love of God is incomparable. It is our duty to follow God in His love, but let us thank God for ever and ever that it is not the other way around. God does not have to follow OUR love-example! If the latter would be correct we might feel urged to say: “You should forget about believing in God; it is no use and it doesn’t make sense.”
No, this love of God does not in any way depend on OUR poor, sick, weak, inconsistent, and often half-hearted, love. Who will ever be able to describe or define satisfactorily and adequately the LOVE OF GOD? This love of God is dominating everything. And this is because, as verse 8 states, He HIMSELF is love. God loves because He IS love!
He does not love you or me because He found something in us which pleased Him tremendously, and which aroused His love. No, His love is SOVEREIGN love, as we call it. It finds its motive in no one but in GOD HIMSELF. He loves us for His own sake. His love for us has everything to do with His compassion and mercy.
That is why we cannot really live without this love of God. God created us all and gave us a place in His creation, because He wanted us to share in His love. If we are separated from this love of God we become utterly miserable.
Further teachings of the Bible concerning God help us remember that apart from the LOVE of God there is also the ANGER of God; an anger that BURNS against sin. God wants sin to be punished. His love does most certainly NOT mean that He overlooks sin, or that He wants to forget about it without any further comments. Far from that! Many people misinterpret God’s love in that fatal sense. God is love, they say. So, no worries!
Still, God’s anger never neutralizes, or cancels His love. We read for instance in Isaiah 59:1, 2, “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or His ear dull that it cannot hear; but YOUR iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you so that He does not hear”. God can certainly heal wounded hearts that seek healing with Him, and He does listen to us in our anguish.
What we wanted to emphasize by means of this sermon today is that God’s love CAME FIRST. It was NOT WE who loved God; no, it was GOD Who loved us!
This is the amazing thing about baptism and in particular of Infant (or rather, COVENANT) Baptism. We received baptism long before we had any idea of what was going on. A baby does not know anything about its lost condition. Nor about the love of God.
YET GOD GAVE HOLY BAPTISM, not merely for adults who can think intelligently about their sin and the redemption which God offers to us in Jesus Christ; He gave it also for the children among God’s people. For His love for them is just as marvellous as it is for their believing parents. In Covenant-Baptism it is stressed even more than in Believers-Baptism THAT GOD’S LOVE COMES FIRST. This also holds for Adult Baptism, of course, but in Infant Baptism it comes to us more strikingly, because a baby receives Holy Baptism without even being able to ask for it. Such a little one has not got a chance of thinking about God’s love first. Yet, it receives the sign and seal of God’s Covenant, of His love for His people, in Baptism all the same!
This is what happened also to you, younger and older members alike of this church. God wanted you to receive Holy Baptism long before you were aware of what you were up to. And now, as you are able to think about what God has done on the occasion of your baptism, He wants you to respond to His surprising love.
This is what everyone of us in this congregation should say: O God, how wonderful is Your love. You knew me long before I knew You. You were aware of my need long before I knew anything at all. And You made this beautiful provision for me that I received the sign and seal of cleansing and renewal by the blood and the Spirit of Christ, right at the outset of my life. O God, I thank You wholeheartedly for this totally undeserved token and guarantee of Your love for me, unworthy sinner. Help me to think about this. Teach me how to be thankful for it. I am sure it was not I who loved You, but it was You who loved me!
Thy love to me, O Christ, Thy love to me,
Not mine to Thee, I plead, not mine to Thee.
This is my comfort strong, This is my joyful song:
Thy love to me, THY LOVE TO ME. (438:1)
2. In Baptism God’s love stands out most splendidly. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son… for the expiation of our sins….!”
Today’s English Version renders verse 10 as follows: “This is what love is: It is not that WE loved God, but that HE loved us and sent His Son to be the means by which our sins are forgiven.”
Yes, God’s love settled the sin-question, for us, first thing. God made His love concrete, and historically proven, by sending His Son.
This pictures God’s love as Self-Sacrifice more than as anything else. This is what is so beautiful and surprising about God’s love that the HOLY and PERFECT God Who was entitled to PUNISH every man, woman, and child, without any further ado, decided to seek the positive good for fallen people, AT HIS OWN HEAVY EXPENSE. Could God ever have given more convincing proof of His love than by giving Himself in the Person of His only beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ? This was the limit of what God COULD give, was it not? No greater gift than this one was possible. Paul called it, “God’s unspeakable gift”. And how right the apostle was!
God’s love became flesh and blood already in the Christmas-night. But He did not stop there. He went as far as to give His Son TO DIE FOR US on a cross. Jesus came for the expiation of our sins, for our total redemption! He came to make full atonement for us, no less than that. God sent His own, unique, Son to rescue us, not because we were in any sense lovable, but because He Himself IS love. God made this costly Self-Sacrifice for the totally undeserving, such as you and me. He indeed “sent His Son to be the means by which our sins are forgiven”.
And what does baptism mean but THIS, that the sins of all who belong to this Son of God and who receive this holy sacrament believingly, or think about it believingly, ARE forgiven. That all these people are cleansed by the precious blood of Christ and given new life by the Spirit of Christ?
All of us were conceived and born in sin. Yet, GOD gave us this privilege that we were born to live together with our parents and friends of the church in a Covenant-relationship with Himself. And as a sign and seal of this we were baptized. Our parents were asked whether they believed that we, ALTHOUGH we were born in sin, were SANCTIFIED in Christ, and that we OUGHT TO be baptized. And they admitted that they believed exactly that!
God made it clear at the very beginning of our lives that He wanted to be our God and Father, that He was after us with His seeking LOVE. He said to us at the Baptismal Font: I know that you are part and parcel of this sin-sick world, this guilty world; YET, I want you to be sure that you ALSO belong to ME and to MY people. I love you, Jim, Jake, Anne, Christine, or whatever your name is. God wants us to remember this throughout the years of our lives. We may belong to Him Who is utterly faithful.
Our baptism reminds us of it – how faithful GOD is. For baptism is an act of GOD. It is not simply an act of our parents, or of a church, or of a minister. God said to our parents, and to the whole congregation, on the day when we were baptized: This child that was born within your circle belongs to Me. I am your God and the God of your children.
So, whatever happens in our lives, however much we may have wandered and strayed away from the flock of the Good Shepherd, however much we may have sinned and messed around, NOTHING can EVER make undone what happened on the day of our baptism. And God is still speaking through our baptism to us. Speaking of His love for us. Speaking of Jesus Who gave Himself into death on a cross, even for us, for the expiation of our sins.
3. God’s love calls forth mutual love among His people. Phillips translated verse 11 as follows: “If God loved us as much as that, surely WE, in our turn, should love EACH OTHER.” Phillips put this beautifully, didn’t he? But we must understand that the “IF” must be taken in the sense of “SINCE”: Since God loved us as much as that….! For there is no doubt about God’s love, is there? That became obvious from our previous point.
After all, this love of God as shown to us, we are DUTY BOUND (yes, that is what it actually says in the original text), to love one another!
Our Form for Baptism reminds us of the fact that the best and first way of expressing our gratitude and love is, “new obedience”. That is, obedience in the lives of those who have been given grace. The Form states that as there are two parties in a covenant-relationship, WE are admonished of, and obliged unto, new obedience! Christian obedience means that we start living the way Christ used to do it while He was among us. He loved to do the will of His Father. That was “his meat” that kept Him going!
It strikes us, does it not, that John didn’t say in verse 11 that we should first of all love GOD in return? Apparently this was obvious enough to him after all that he had written up to this point. He now only wanted to stress the point that, once we believe the love of God and enjoy its blessings in our personal experience, we are obligated to show love to our fellow-believers.
Our mutual love must develop fully. Verse 12 even says that God’s love is PERFECTED IN US. So, this means that our love for the brethren should not remain poor and tiny; it should not hang on to the early stages of its beginning. It must grow and mature.
Once God has given us so much of His love – although He did NOT have to do that, for we did not deserve that at all – once He has done that, out of mere grace, for Jesus’ sake, we must become His imitators, and show love to all other believers, whether we personally like them or not.
Remember that God’s love was absolutely spontaneous. We did not give Him one single reason to love us. Yet, He did it! And He did it surprisingly wonderful, too!
That shows what is expected from us as members by baptism of the body of Christ. God loved us WHILE WE were His enemies and even hated Him passionately. He loved us in spite of our bitter hostility.
Well, since God so showered His love upon us who were born sinners and enemies of God, and who are now, by grace, members of His church, we are also obliged to love all others who with us belong to God’s family. Paul said the same thing in Eph.5:2, “And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
We must learn to love simply because GOD loved US so much. We should never do it for our personal advantage. It is easy to be nice to people in order to gain from them.
We must keep remembering that our Christian lives can so easily get mixed with all kinds of selfish feelings. The battle is not over as long as we are in this life’s battlefield.
We know that we cannot love the way we ought to. But the more we concentrate on the love of GOD as shown to us in Christ, the more shall we understand that there is no other way for a person who claims to be a Christian. We must become fascinated, as John himself was, by this love of God to such an extent that we don’t want anything than to pass on this love which we received ourselves by God’s grace in Christ. We are UNDER OBLIGATION to love one another.
And this is POSSIBLE since God was the First One Who loved us, as was expressed and underlined as early as when we were baptized as tiny little children.
Since God loved us first we are in for surprising experiences as long as we do not get used to this love of God to such an extent that we no longer feel amazed about it. Let us never forget this: “In this is love, that GOD loved us…!”
Amen.