1 John 4:7-16, The Fruit of the Spirit: Love (3)

Again, the God who is love is also righteous.  Mankind is without exception unrighteous.  Man is not the judge of God.  Instead, we know that …

·       Ps. 94:1-3: Rise up, O Judge of the earth; pay back to the proud what they deserve … how long will the wicked be jubilant?

·       John 3:36: He that has not the son of God does not have eternal life and the wrath of God abides on him.

·       Rev. 6:16-17: Here is the picture in the last days.  They called to the mountains and the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!  For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?’

Let us answer that last question: who can stand against God’s wrath?  If you think you can, here is a lesson from Scripture about the way it really is.  These three passages are in the context of Israel after 70 of captivity in Babylon.  They are acutely aware of God’s wrath because they recently experienced it.

·       Daniel 9:14: The LORD did not hesitate to bring the disaster upon us; for the LORD our God is righteous in everything He does; yet we have not obeyed Him.

·       Ezra 9:15: The LORD God of Israel, you are righteous!  We are left this day as a remnant.  Here we are before you in our guilt, though because of it not one of us can stand in your presence.

·       Nehemiah 9:33: In all that has happened to us, you have been just; you have acted faithfully while we did wrong.

If you think, on your own, without Christ, that you will have some standing when you appear before your creator, and we all will, then the Bible is saying you will be crushed under the weight of your own guilt.  The Judge will judge man who is sinful. 

But wait a minute.  We have two truths about God: righteousness AND LOVE!  Where’s the love?  Let me give you the “theological” answer to that question.

When Adam violated the covenant of works, God with perfect justice could have executed the full penalty immediately.  No obligation rested upon Him to talk to Adam again.  Not did Adam seek God and beg for a visit.  On the contrary, Adam tried to avoid the meeting.  ‘There is none that seeketh after God … no not one’.  THE INITIATIVE IS GODS ALONE.  The initiative is love. (Bakers Dictionary of Theology, p242)

We have taken time on this subject for a reason.  We love because God first loved us.  If we do not dwell seriously on the issue of God’s righteousness and our unrighteousness we will not truly understand God’s love.  In our next post we will consider a third attribute of God: He is love, righteous and …