God’s Love As Father Is Particular
1 John 4:10Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
2 Timothy 1:8 Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God; 9Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,
Colossians 1:12Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us qualified to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: 13Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: 14In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:
Of course you will note the particularity that just sings through these passages. God, revealing His Fatherly character, loved “us” — His particular people. The love of God, as Father, is unique to His people. This particular “love” is to be distinguished from The love of God, as a general benefactor, who gives generic providential gifts to the just and the unjust.
Whenever God loves in a familial sense His love his particular, and it is this love in this salvific familial sense that we agree with the Scripture when they teach that God hates the wicked.
Now before we move on to a bit of application allow us to suggest one implication that we can draw from this reality that God’s love as a Father is particular … and that is
As God’s love as a Father is particular for His children so the children’s love for God as their Father must be particular as well.
As God’s dearly beloved children we are jealous for God’s reputation and His name. Understanding the great love of our Father wherein we have been loved, we in turn return that great love by intensely hating all other false gods and false representations of the true god. In a similar vein we likewise love our Brethren in a way that is unique and distinct to the love that we have for those who are the children of other false gods … for those who have fashioned and taken for themselves false gods.
Application
As God, our heavenly Father has a particular love for His own people, so any given Father has a particular love that reveals itself in the responsibility he has to his own children first and foremost. Because this is true, a Biblical Father acts in such a way as to uniquely protect his children from harm and danger. A Biblical Father seeks to uniquely regulate his own family life in prudent and wise ways — in ways that he does not do for families that are not his own. It is not selfish for a Father to take care of his own children ahead of the children of other families, though it would be selfish for a Biblical Father to only consider his own family. The argument here isn’t that heads of covenant homes and families should have no concern for anybody else except their own. The argument here is that charity starts at home. Just as God the Father’s love begins w/ His own children and then from there extends itself more generically to others so a Father’s love begins w/ His own children and then extends itself generically to others.
Illustration — Concentric circles of love.
If a Father so loved those who were not his own more than his own it would be tantamount to a disowning of those who are his own.
On a even larger scale Nations — which by historic definition have always been considered a family of related families — do the same type of thing. Nations, for example, set immigration policy in accord with the needs of the citizens. A nation has a responsibility to its own citizen’s first and foremost and so a nation sets an immigration policy that fits the needs of the citizenry before it fits the needs of potential emigres. If a nation so loved those who were not its own more than its own it would be tantamount to a disowning of those who were its own.
God’s Love As Father Is Unconditional In A Very Specific Sense
Often times the truth of unconditional election (which is the love of the Father for His particular people) is understood inadequately. Often, the unconditional love of the Father for His children is explained in ways that forgets that God’s love for His children was conditioned upon Christ’s work for them.
So the condition of God the Father’s love is that His particular people be pure and without fault. As we know, this was not a condition that any of God’s people could meet but, nonetheless, it was a condition. And so God setting this condition for His love and determining and knowing that His people could not meet this condition God Himself, in the person of Jesus Christ, met this condition for His particular people.
The condition is one that God set and God met for His particular children.
So, God’s love, for us, as a Father, is unconditional in the sense that we aren’t involved in any per-formative acts that curry God’s love but God’s love for us, as a Father, is conditional in the sense that certain conditions had to be met before we could be accepted by the Father. These requirements God fulfilled in the birth, life, and work of the beloved Christ on behalf of love to the Father and love to the Father’s particular people.
All of this is communicated in Romans 3:21f
Romans 3:21 “But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; 22Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: 23For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; 24Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 25Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; 26To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.”
Now I spend some time stating the obvious because I fear that in some quarters the idea of God’s love as unconditional is being inappropriately twisted beyond all recognition. At least in some quarters the love of the Father as unconditional is being made to mean that as long as we invoke the magic talisman of some alien Jesus’ name, therefore, w/ God’s unconditional love in our pocket, we can autonomously create our own standards as to what the Christian life looks like. We seem to reason that “As long as I have God’s unconditional love we can go call good … evil, and evil …. good and we can go on sinning that grace may abound. We can turn
God’s standards upside down and we can make words like “compassion,” “social justice,” and “fairness,” to mean whatever we ruddy well like them to mean.
And so while God’s “unconditional love” is supposed to mean in Historic Christian theology that God Himself met all the conditions that He required so we might have a living vital covenant relationship with Him — as set by His terms — so that we might be equipped to live for His glory and be His servants, what God’s “unconditional love” has come to mean in post-modern “Christian” theology is that God Himself met all the conditions that He required so we might have a living vital covenant w/ Him — as set by our terms — so that we might be equipped to live for our glory and so that He might be our servant.
This changing of the definition of God’s “unconditional love” reminds me of Lewis Carrol’s famous “Alice in Wonderland.”
‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory”,’ Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t – till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”’
‘But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument”,’ Alice objected.
‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master – that’s all.’
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything; so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. ‘They’ve a temper, some of them – particularly verbs: they’re the proudest – adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs – however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!’
‘Would you tell me please,’ said Alice, ‘what that means?’
‘Now you talk like a reasonable child,’ said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. ‘I meant by “impenetrability” that we’ve had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you’d mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don’t mean to stop here all the rest of your life.’
‘That’s a great deal to make one word mean,’ Alice said in a thoughtful tone.
‘When I make a word do a lot of work like that,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘I always pay it extra.’
‘Oh!’ said Alice.
(Carroll 1893, 113–15)
So, on this Father’s day, I am Alice insisting that the “unconditional love” of the Father means something while much of what I am seeing and hearing going on around me passing itself off as the “unconditional love” of the Father seems to mean whatever the speaker wants it to mean.
Unconditional love made to mean that God Himself met all the conditions that He required so we might have a living vital covenant w/ Him — as set by our terms — so that we might be equipped to live for our glory and so that He might be our servant is more of a revolutionary concept than any other doctrine of revolution. Unconditional love, defined this way, means the end of discrimination between god and not god, his standards and our standards, his definitions of morality and our definitions of morality, who our brethren are and who our enemies are, and all things else. Whenever anyone insists that God loves unconditionally, in the sense defined above they are telling you that they intend to make God in their own image.
Application
Now, after going a long way around I would say that as we apply this to earthly fathers I would likewise say as earthly Fathers our love for our children is likewise unconditional. This is true for adopted or biological children. No matter what might happen in a parent-child relationship a parent never quits loving their child.
Dads we need to tell our children this frequently. We need to keep reminding them that as our children they are loved unconditionally. We must be careful that we don’t place upon them, implicitly or explicitly, the idea that our love for them is based upon some kind of performative act or accomplishment on their part.
Just as we as Christians operate from the security that we can never increase God’s love for us because of God’s unconditional love for us, so our children need to realize that they operate from the security that they can never increase our love for them because of our unconditional love for them.
Many are the children who live their lives trying to meet the expectations of some demanding parent who has, implicitly or explicitly, communicated that their love was dependent upon the performance of the child. This ought not to be named among God’s people and when it is named among us it is a violation of Ephesians 6
“And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
Dad’s throughout the lives of your children, regardless whether your children are 5 or 65 you need to communicate consistently to your children that you love them. A Dad’s influence on a childs life is monumental, and one of the best gifts you can give to your children is the stability, certainty, and confidence that comes from knowing that you love them unconditionally.