Our Holy God

examineit

Within the modern Christian community the statement “God is Love” is everywhere. We see it on bumper stickers, t-shirts, hats, signage, church print media and all over social media graphics. The Christian airwaves, television and radio broadcasts are flooded with sermons and ads informing people of “God’s Love” and because of this many are building their entire belief system upon this one passage of scripture.

Truthfully no matter what happens in our lives God IS Love, His love will always remain, it is us who choose to rebel and turn away.

We are assured of His love because while we were still sinners Christ died for us (Romans 5:8) and though we showed Him no love He still sent Jesus to pay for our sins (1 John 4:10) This display of love is like no other! It is an amazing love, a miraculous love, a merciful love and a forgiving love.

However, although God’s love is an essential message, we need to understand that the entire Word of God is essential, not just what we think is essential. This is why it is important that we never base our Christianity on one passage of scripture for this is how a cults, charlatans and false teachers are born. Remember ALL Scripture is God-Breathed (2 Tim. 3:16).

Having said that, the idea of building our beliefs upon “God is Love” was taken from 1 John 4:7-21 specifically the following passage: “The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (v.8)

But a closer look within the context of the entire book we see that this was not the only primary message regarding who God is. In fact, if you look at the very first chapter of his book John describes God through the Words of Jesus in this way:

“This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5)

This alone gives an entirely different perspective of who God is, for we now see God as Holy and in His holiness there can be absolutely no darkness, evil and sin.

Now here’s something to think about…When writing a letter it is quite common to prioritize the importance of your message. For example Jude initially was thinking of writing about our common salvation but changed his mind to focus on a more important subject at that time which was Defending our Faith against falsehood (see: Jude 1:3-16)

If we look back at John’s book these subjects all came before he wrote God is Love:

In this context we clearly see how “God is Love” was literally plucked out of its original setting and how superficial Christians ignored many other imperative information.

It is no wonder these people have adopted “God is Love” as their trademark and has been delivering it as the more popular message, outside of its context the message is welcoming, it lifts emotions, its soothing to the ear and its lenient to sin and worldliness – within its context its negative and offensive.

The late Martyn Lloyd-Jones saw this teaching as a travesty:

“The great message that has been preached for a hundred years is, “God is love.” That is the thing that has been emphasized, and we have been told that our fathers, and especially the Puritans with their preaching about justice and righteousness and repentance and sin and punishment and death, had been entirely contradicting and denying the gospel of Jesus Christ. We have been told that God is love–that is what we needed, and there He was to meet us. Yet what an utter travesty of the gospel that is!”

Having “God is Love” as the only significant message is definitely a distorted representation of the gospel. Although it is worth being mentioned, equally deserving is the message that God is Holy and Just. We need to remember that if Christ’s description of God was foremost “Holy” our description of Him should be as well.

Think About It.

———————–

Derived from Martyn Lloyd-Jones “The Holiness of God” | Further reading: God is Love, God Loves and Hates…Say What?

Leave a comment