Chapter 1: What is the main misconception about God's love?
Our problem is not so much that we tend to think of God as a God who has no love. But rather the problem that we find in the culture of our day is a view of God that carries with it a cheap view of love and a sense of love by which all the other attributes of God are removed or stripped from His character and swallowed up by one attribute, which is the attribute of love.
The idea of love has been so distorted today that not only is it often overly romanticized and sentimentalized, but it has also been perverted to condone and justify sin. And when it comes to theology, as you just heard from R.C. Sproul, many use the love of God to try and eclipse his other attributes.
So this week on Renewing Your Mind, we'll be taking the time to consider the love of God from a biblical perspective. And as this is a new week, we have a new resource offer for you as well.
Chapter 2: How has the definition of love been distorted in modern culture?
Build your Bible study library when you request Dr. Sproul's complete 11-part series on the love of God when you give a donation at renewingyourmind.org. We'll send you the DVD and give you lifetime digital access to the messages and the study guide. Well, when you think of the love of God, what Bible verses come to mind?
Chapter 3: What Bible verses highlight that God is love?
John 3, 16? What about 1 John 4, 8, where we're told God is love? As this is a text that is foundational and is often misunderstood, that's where we'll begin this week's study. Here's Dr. Sproul.
I wonder how many of you ever saw the Hollywood movie entitled Elmer Gantry. Or perhaps you read the book upon which it was based, which is an American classic written by Sinclair Lewis. And if you've ever seen that film, you know that the stars in the movie were Burt Lancaster and Shirley Jones. And the movie was a parody about two famous evangelists.
Burt Lancaster was really, as Elmer Gantry was parodying, the evangelist Billy Sunday.
Chapter 4: What does it mean when the Bible says 'God is love'?
And Shirley Jones, as Sister Sharon Falconer, was a parody of Amy Semple McPherson. And, of course, Sinclair Lewis was poking fun at these evangelists. And one of the regular scenes in the movie was when Burt Lancaster, being Elmer Gantry, would come out on the stage.
He would run out on the stage and slide like a baseball player, sliding into second base, because that's what Billy Sunday was known for. He had been a Major League Baseball player and a base stealer. So Gantry slides into second base, and he says, safe. in the arms of Jesus.
And then, if you remember Burt Lancaster, he would flash that inimitable grin of his, and his eyes would get that gleam, and then he would start off his sermon by saying, love. What is love? Love is the morning and the evening star.
Chapter 5: How does God's love relate to His other attributes?
Love is the inspiration of the artist, the substance of the philosopher. And he would go on and on with this syrupy, saccharine definition of love. And of course, the spoof that was behind this was the idea that an evangelist can always get a crowd if he continually speaks in meaningless terms about the love of God.
I don't think there's any word in the English language that's been stripped of the depth of meaning such as that word love. I remember as a child having those toys that were kaleidoscopes where you would peer in the end of it and you would see these beautiful patterns that were made by the colored stones at the end.
And as you turned on the section of the kaleidoscope, then all of the little pieces of stone would tumble into a different pattern with a rapid change, a rapid pace. That's what happens with this word love, which has come to have almost a mystical, magical meaning to it in the secular culture.
Again, if I can date myself and go back to the 50s to a famous popular song of the time, it was called Love. is a many-splendored thing, and it's been celebrated ever since music began as perhaps the strongest emotion that can be experienced by human beings, as the goal and the desire of every human heart to experience a dimension of love that is transcendent.
Chapter 6: What is the significance of God's love in the context of redemption?
Well, again, when we come to the biblical concept of the love of God, We have to be very careful because our tendency is to come to the text with ideas of love that have been drawn from the romanticism of our secular culture, from the popular music and art and literature.
Whereas what we want to do when we're talking about the love of God is to glean from Scripture the biblical concept of this magnificent attribute of God. So in this series, what we're going to be doing is trying to take a close look at how the Bible speaks of the love of God. How God exercises that love in His work of redemption. Who are the objects of His love?
In what sense can it be said of God that He not only loves, but also that He hates, which is one of the most difficult concepts that we have to wrestle with. And so let's begin our study by looking at the first epistle of John. in the fourth chapter where we have the classic statement with respect to the love of God.
In chapter 4 of 1 John, beginning at verse 7, we read this admonition, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God,
Chapter 7: How can we differentiate between secular and biblical love?
and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. And in this the love of God was manifested toward us that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us. and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
So here, when the Apostle is enjoining Christian people to demonstrate love one for another, he grounds this admonition in the very character of God. So let's look a little bit more closely at what he says when he says, let us love one another, for the first thing he says is, for love is of God. Love is of God.
Chapter 8: What are the implications of God's love being holy?
What he's saying here is that the love that he's describing, agape love, Christian love is a love that comes from God Himself. This is not a natural love. This is not a love that is found in the flesh of mankind. This is a love that has its origin in God Himself. It is a divine gift.
It's one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit that is awakened in our souls when we are transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. We are given a capacity for love that is not natural. It is a love that comes from God, that belongs to God. And in this kind of love, God is seen as the foundation, the fountain, the source of all true love.
Now, the next portion here could be very misleading if we don't be careful, where he says, everyone who loves is born of God. and knows God. Now that does not mean that every human being who experiences human natural love is therefore born of God.
Rather, what John is saying is that the kind of love of which he is speaking is a kind of love that only comes from regeneration, from those who have been changed inwardly by the power of the Holy Ghost. And, in a very real sense, it's the indispensable sign of regeneration. Let me put it this way. Without the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, No person has this capacity for love.
That's the one side. The other side of it is if a person does have that ability to love, that is a clear indication that they have been born of the Holy Ghost. So no one who is unreborn or unregenerate has this kind of love, and no one who has been regenerate lacks this kind of love. All who have been born of God have this love, and all who have this love at the same time have been born of God.
And then he goes on to say, he who does not love, that is in this manner, does not know God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. Now this is one of the most powerful statements about the love of God that we find in the Bible. In the first place we hear that love is of God. Now John goes beyond that and makes the statement, God is love.
Now what does he mean when he says that? How is he using the verb to be in this passage? We've had some discussions in America about the meaning of is. We say it depends on what the meaning of is is. Well, that's because the verb to be, of which one part is the word is, can be used in more than one way. Sometimes we use the verb is as a linking verb, and it doesn't take a direct object.
In that case, it takes a predicate nominative where there is an identity between the subject and the predicate. And so is can be used in some cases in the English language as an equal sign. And if we would say that God is love in that sense, then that would mean that we could reverse the predicate and the subject and say love is God. And that would be to distort what John is saying here.
John is not making a crass identification between love and and God so that anybody who has a romantic feeling in their heart or any sense of affection for another person thereby has encountered God. That's not the point. When he says that God is love, he's using a form of literary expression that is a bit hyperbolical. That is to say,
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