350 SERMON XIL GOD IN CHRIST, A GOD OF LOVE.* God is love.-1 JOHN IV. 16. My friends, the gospel is called good news, and a joyful sound; and I do not know what better news could be brought into a company of sinners of Adam's family, who are lying under the sentence of death, and condemned from heaven, and under the awful apprehensions of the wrath and vengeance of the great God, than to tell you that God is love. And I am sure, that, if this report of a God in Christ were but received and entertained in a way of believing, it would make every one of this assembly join issue with the angels at the birth of Christ, saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, good-will towards men.” God is love. This is not to be understood of God essentially, but manifestatively, in the manifestation that he has made of himself in Christ: he is love, or love is the swaying attribute of his nature. We are this day called to celebrate a love-feast: I have therefore chosen to discourse a little at this time on that attribute and perfection of the divine nature, which is most sig nally and remarkably displayed in this ordinance, which is the very same with that by which God is described in the words of my text, God is love. It is a great question which you have in your Lesser Catechism, What is God? It puts men and angels to an everlasting stand and nonplus, to tell what he is. "Who can by searching find out God? who can find out the Almighty unto perfection?" who is capable to tell the first letter of his glorious and ever blessed name? The highest seraphim in heaven cannot form an adequate conception of him, and, therefore, is not capable to give a full description of him: it is only some of the back parts of his glory that are seen or known by created beings. I remember to have heard of a certain philosopher, who, being asked what God is, desired time to answer it; when that time was come, desired a longer; and when that was come, desired yet a longer; and so on: and * Preached immediately before the celebration of the sacrament of the Lord's supper, at Portmoak, July 17, 1726. being asked the reason why he protracted the time, and deferred his answer, he replied, That the more he thought on God, the more he was swallowed up, and at a loss how to describe him. And so will it be with every finite understanding, that thinks to find him out to perfection: it is only God himself who can resolve the question, and tell what he is. And I remember of a three-fold answer that the Spirit of God gives to this question in scripture, What is God? One you have, John iv. 24: God is a Spirit; a second you have, 1 John i. 5: God is light; a third you have in the words of my text, God is love. The first two tell what God is in himself, but this tells us what God is to us. If the question were asked, What is God, to a guilty sinner, that has violated his law, trampled upon his authority, and lifted up rebellious arms against his Sovereign? one would think that the answer would be, God is a God of fury, God is wrath, God is hatred, God is vengeance: but, to the eternal surprise of men and angels, the very reverse! the answer is, God is love. The text, you see, is short, but, Oh! it is massy, full to a wonder: it is but one simple proposition. Where notice, (1.) The subject of the proposition, God, whose name commands reverence and adoration among men and angels. I conceive that God is not spoken of personally here, but essentially, as having a respect to all the persons of the adorable Trinity, who are one in essence, will, and operation; so that the meaning is, the Father is love, the Son is love, and the Holy Ghost is love. (2.) We have the predicate of the proposition, or the thing asserted concerning him, he is love. There is a height and a depth in this expression, which surpasses our comprehension: and we cannot give a just commentary upon it; for we do but darken counsel by words without knowledge, when we speak of God. All I shall say of it, by way of explication, is only to tell you, that God is one simple and uncompounded Being, and the divine attributes and perfections are all one in him: his wisdom is nothing else but the infinitely wise God; his power is nothing else but the omnipotent or almighty God; his holiness is nothing else but the infinitely holy God; his justice is the just and righteous God; so here love denotes the loving God, or a God of love. I shall only notice farther, that God here, in this description he gives of himself, is presented to our view, not in the law, but in the gospel-revelation of himself. When God is viewed by a guilty sinner in the law revelation, his justice and wrath immediately appear ready to take vengeance on the workers of iniquity; hence, the holiest of the saints of God, when they view him in this glass, cannot miss to fall a trembling: "I remembered God," says the holy man, Psal. lxvii. 3, "and was troubled." But when God is viewed in the gospel revelation, or as he is in Christ, not imputing their trespasses to them, then grace, and love, and good-will present themselves to the sinner's view. And in this view God is to be considered in this description we have of him, God is love. From the words thus briefly opened, the observation I offer is this: DocT. "That God manifesting himself in Christ is a God of love." Now, in prosecuting this doctrine, I shall endeavour, III. Offer you a view of the love of God in Christ. IV. Inquire whence it is that God in Christ should be a God of love. And, V. Apply the whole. I. The first thing is, to premise two or three things for clearing this doctrine. 1. Know, that the goodness, sweetness, and pleasantness of God's nature is the foundation of his love; he has a heroic disposition of communicating of himself to others, and from thence flows his love to mankind. Hence it is, that when God had a mind to make known his love to Moses, he tells him, that he would make all his goodness to pass before him; and, accordingly, he proclaims himself to be, "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth." And with this view, I think our divines, in the 4th question of the Lesser Catechism, speak neither of the love, mercy, nor grace of God, but wrap them up in that general of goodness, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, and truth. 2. I premise, that love is the regnant or prevailing attribute of the divine nature, if I may so speak. So much seems to be pointed at in the expression of the text, God is love. I do not find any other attribute of the divine nature so expressed in the scripture; we do not find it is said, God is mercy, God is justice, God is holiness, God is power, or God is wisdom: no; the expression in this attribute has something peculiar in it, God is love. And I conceive it plainly bears this much, that love is, as it were, the imperial or commanding attribute of the divine nature, insomuch that every other attribute receives a dye and tincture of love from it: there is a strain of love runs through every one of them, and it is as it were the spring that sets all on work. What but love sets wisdom on work to contrive our redemption? what but love actuates infinite power to execute that contrivance? what but love sets the bowels of mercy rolling towards the miserable sinner? Thus, I say, love is the first wheel as it were that sets all the other wheels a going. 3. The gift of Christ to a lost world is the most signal and glorious display of the love of God that ever heaven or earth heard tell of: hence is that of the apostle, in the 10th verse of this chapter where my text lies, "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us," but how was this love manifested?" He sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." To the same purpose is that which you have, John iii. 16: "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life." The love of God to sinners lay hid, as it were, under a veil of wrath and justice, till Christ appeared, undertaking to satisfy justice, and to bear the wrath of his Father in our room; then, indeed, the kindness and love of God to man appeared, venting itself in a most glorious and triumphant manner, insomuch that, in and through Christ, grace and love "reign through righteousness unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord." But this leads to, II. The second thing in the method, which was, to make it a little more evident, that God in Christ is a God of love. This will be abundantly clear, if we consider these few things: 1. God in Christ is a reconciled God, a God of peace, that has received the atonement: 2 Cor. v. 19: "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself." Rom. v. 10: "When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son." He both finds the ransom, and accepts of the ransom that he has found; and having accepted of the ransom, of the Surety, he proclaims himself to be "the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ." Oh, sirs! does not this say that God is love? what greater evidence of it could God give, than to provide a ransom, and to receive it, than to cry, "Deliver them from going down to the pit, for I have found a ransom?" 2. God in Christ is a promising God; and does not this say that he is a God of love? God abstractly considered is a threatening God, a revenging God; but, in Christ, a promising God; and we find, 2 Cor. i. 20, that all the promises of God are in Christ, and in him yea and amen." Whenever you meet with any promise in the Bible, of grace or of glory, of peace or of pardon, or be what it will, you should still take it up as a promise of a God in Christ: Christ having fulfilled the condition of the promise of eternal life, by his obedience and death, the promises are given out to us, through him, as the immediate ground and foundation of our faith, with an intimation and advertisement, "The promise is unto you, and to your seed, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." Sirs, if any man should present to you a bond, bill, or security, for a vast sum of money, which would enrich you for all your days, you would look upon it as a great and indisputable evidence of his love to you. Well, this is the very case between God and you; through Christ, he is a promising God; he comes in a gospel dispensation, saying, "I will put my Spirit within you; I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more," &c. These promises are presented to you as the ground of your faith; and that very moment you take hold of them in a way of believing, you come to be possessed of them, and all the benefits of his purchase, according to that, Is. lv. 3: "Hear, and your soul shall live;" it is the hearing of faith that is intended; "and I will make" or establish "an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David." Oh, sirs! does not this say that God is love? 3. God in Christ is a God sitting upon a throne of grace: and does not this say, that God is love? God has a threefold throne, a throne of glory, a throne of justice, and a throne of grace. The first of these, his throne of glory, is so bright, that it dazzles the eyes of angels, and they cover their faces with their wings when they approach it. The second, namely, his throne of justice, is clothed with red vengeance; and it is so terrible, that the most holy saints tremble when they behold it, "If thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?-In thy sight shall no man living be justified." And because we were not able to stand here, he has erected another throne, namely, a throne of grace, from whence he issues out acts of grace and mercy to guilty sinners; and so soon as he is seen sitting upon his throne, he is taken up as a God of love; and upon this the poor sinner, that was trembling at the thoughts of being cited before the throne of justice, flees for his life to the throne of grace, saying with the apostle, Heb. iv. 16: "Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." 4. God in Christ is a God matching with us, and betrothing us unto himself in loving kindness; and does not this say, that he is a God of love? There is a twofold match that the great and infinite JEHOVAH has made with Adam's family. (1.) He matches with our nature by a personal union in the person of his eternal Son: he marries our nature; and thus he becomes akin to the whole family of Adam, an honour that the angelic |