THE CORNERSTONE SEMINARY

GOD'S MULTIFACETED LOVE

by

Matthew Hauck

ST 502 Theology Proper

Frank Griffith
March 10, 2009

Vallejo, California
 There are many startling teachings about God in the Scriptures, which catch us off guard

and challenge our understanding of who God is and what he is really like. We learn that God is

sovereign, that nothing is outside his control and he acts completely without restraint doing all

that he pleases, and that this does not preclude our responsibility for our personal actions. We

learn that God seeks the exaltation of his own glory as the chief end of all that he does. We learn

that God exists in Trinity—that God is three in person, yet only one in essence, that the Three are

distinct such that they are not confused with each other, and yet they are united such that they do

not divide the essence, and yet each fully possesses the entire Divine essence. We learn many

things about God in the Bible which confront our pride, stretch our minds and reveal our limited

understanding of who God is and what he is like.

The love of God is probably not immediately considered to be in this category of

teachings about God which confront our pride and stretch our minds. It is often taken for granted

as the one thing easy to understand about God. The particular difficulty about the doctrine of the

love of God which this paper intends to address is the apparent tension between the love of God

and the holiness of God. The tension comes into play when one realizes that this holy God has

chosen to love sinners. How can God love a rebel? How can God feel disposed affectionately

toward those who are sinners and deserving of wrath?

The Tension

How can a holy God love unholy sinners? It is easy for us to see how God can love a

weak, helpless, hurting people, but how can he love a wicked people? The tension might not be

immediately apparent to all. We find it easy to see how a father can love his rebellious child who

sins against him, yet I think we would not find it so easy to see how someone can continue to

love someone like Hitler or Stalin, or a repeated sex offender or a rapist. Our failure to grasp the
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significance of this fact that God loves sinners is an indication of our lack in understanding of

God's holiness. The truth is, both the rebellious sinful child is an offender of the same kind

(though different in degree) as the Hitlers and the Stalins. God is opposed to all sorts of evil and

can bear with none of it.

The Bible presents God as one who despises evil and hates wickedness, and such things

are not abstract, but personal. Sins can only be committed by sinners. It is a false dichotomy to

say, “God hates the sin but loves the sinner.” There is clear evidence that God hates the sinner

along with his sin. “The boastful shall not stand before Your eyes; You hate all who do iniquity.”

(Psalm 5:5) “The LORD tests the righteous and the wicked, And the one who loves violence His

soul hates.” (Psalm 11:5) Such statements must not be tempered to say something less than they

do indeed say. There is a true and real sense in which God hates sinners. “He who does not obey

the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” (John 3:36) “God is a just judge,

And God is angry with the wicked every day.” (Psalm 7:11; NKJV)1

The tension is here: this holy God who is angry every day at the wicked also says of

himself, “I have spread out My hands all day long to a rebellious people, who walk in the way

which is not good.” (Isaiah 65:2) The God who is angry all the day at a rebellious people is the

same God who stretches out his hands all the day toward the very same rebellious people.

The Doctrine of God's Love

The resolution to this tension is to be found in a clearer definition of the love of God. We

will first examine the roles affection and action have in God's love, and second examine the

oversimplification of God's love the tension represents.

1
The words “with the wicked” though added by the translators are justified by the surrounding context
which makes it clear that it is evil of wicked men (v. 9) in mind, and their continued disobedience without
repentance is what kindles this “indignation.”
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God's Love is Affection in Action

In stating the tension above, the question was asked: How can God feel disposed

affectionately toward those who are sinners and deserving of wrath? This presupposes a

definition of love to mean “to be disposed affectionately.” Is love a disposition or an act? Many

today overreact to the sentimentalizing of God's love by claiming that love is not a feeling or

emotion; it is an action, it is a matter of the will expressed in acts of love. Any claim that love is

only a feeling or only a willing, is incomplete. Where does the “feeling” of love stop and the

“willing” of love begin? How are we to understand the nature of God's love?

A quick check of some standard definitions of love by theologians reveals a slant toward

defining love as action. Packer defines God's love as an “exercise of his goodness” which leads

ultimately to the objects of his love being able “to know and enjoy him in a covenant relation.”2

Culver says that “the distinctive element in the love of God is self-communication.”3 Grudem

defines it as follows, “God's love means that God eternally gives of himself to others”, which he

further explains as meaning, “it is part of his nature to give of himself in order to bring about

blessing or good for others.”4

Love does indeed belong to the emotional life of God, yet love is not without

demonstration. While love must be a disposition of God, it always lead towards acts of love. A

powerful verse in this regard is Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in

that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” The key word in this verse is demonstrates.

There are other places which say that the work of Christ was the ultimate act of God's love (John

2
J. I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 123.
3
Robert Duncan Culver, Systematic Theology: Biblical and Historical (Christian Focus, 2005), 102.
4
Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids, MI:
Zondervan, 1994), 198.
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3:16, 1 John 4:10), but this passage says that the act is a manifestation or a demonstration of the

love of God, meaning that the disposition in some way preceded the act. God's love is a

disposition of affection for the object of his love, and also the exercise of that disposition; it is

affection in action.

An emotional feeling of God's love, in itself, is little comfort to the person who is lost,

condemned, doomed for hell. But a cold, sober, historical interpretation that indeed God “loved

the world” on the cross is of little benefit to a person until that love is experienced, is received, by

faith in Christ. It is when these are properly experienced as two aspects of one great love,

ultimately indivisible, that our assurance that “hope will not put us to shame” (v. 5a) will be

strong and unshakable.5

Oversimplification of God's Love

But how does this apply to rebels and sinners? How can God be said to have a disposition

of affection for them? What kind of pleasure does God take in them? This has been answered in

part by the fact that God's love is not only affection but also action. Thus we can see his love for

rebels in the action of sending Christ to save all who would believe. However, we have also seen

that God's love is not only action, but does include a genuine type of affection. 1 Corinthians 13

teaches us this, that the greatest acts which seem to demonstrate love can exist without love!

The second answer to this question has to do with the multifaceted character of God's

love. The affection / disposition aspect of God's love is not always equal. God the Father's love

for his Son is not the same as his love for humanity. D. A. Carson insightfully points out five

different ways the Bible talks about God's love: (1) God's “intra-Trinitarian” love, (2) God's love

5
Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1996), 309.
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of general providential care, (3) God's “salvific stance toward his fallen world”, (4) God's

particular love for the elect, (5) God's conditional love of relationship / covenant.6

He also warns us that whenever one of these facets of God's love is made to be the

entirety of God's love, there will result error and confusion. One mustn't confuse God's intra-

Trinitarian love with his love for the birds of the air and grass of the field. The Father delights in

the Son due to his inherent loveliness. But God's love for rebels need not be seen the exact same

way. To force it as such would be to condense all the biblical data onto one line, throwing away

evidence that there are multiple facets, multiple dimensions to this love.

Conclusions

The love of God is not at odds with his holiness. To suppose such represents a

misunderstanding of the nature of God's love, and a lack of appreciation for multifaceted

character of God's love. The multifaceted nature of God's love helps us to see how God's love for

the wicked does not compromise his holiness, how the attribute of love manifests itself in

differing ways dependent on the object of that love. Thus to say that God genuinely loves the

non-elect does not require us mean the same thing as when we say God loves the elect.

God's love as action is seen in the sending of Christ and the universal offer of salvation,

along with God's patience and longsuffering, providing the sinner with opportunities to hear the

gospel, wherein we find perfect union of God's love and justice. (Rom 3:21-26) God's love as

disposition, his affection for and delight in the object of his love does not mean he takes pleasure

in the rebel sinner for who he is or in his wickedness. Rather, God's affection is demonstrated in

his “salvific stance” towards that individual. With respect to their demerit, God hates them. With

6
D.A. Carson, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God (Inter-Varsity Press, 2000), 17-22.
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respect to their need of salvation, God is affectionately disposed to them, to offer them a way out,

and is posed in salvific stance with arms wide open.