The Motive: God’s Love

KEY VERSE: “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” —I John 4:8

SELECTED SCRIPTURE: Hosea 11:1-4,8; 14:4-7; I John 4:8,9

GOD has revealed something of himself to his people through his Word. And it is in the divine plan of redemption found in that Word that the elements of God’s character—justice, love, wisdom and power, are made manifest. When God created man in the Garden of Eden, he made him in the mental and moral likeness of himself. His objective was to have a race of intelligent human beings with free moral agency who would worship him and be obedient to his laws because it was their choice to do so. God manifested his love toward his creation by giving them every material blessing possible and in addition, of course, Adam had the privilege of communion with God. The scripture states, “God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish [fill] the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. … I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.”—Gen. 1:28,29

All that God asked of his human creation was obedience, which was not unreasonable when we consider that Adam was perfect. (Gen. 2:17) We know the story of how Eve was deceived by Satan and Adam deliberately entered into the transgression. The Apostle Paul said, “Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.” (I Tim. 2:14) And so, because of this willful sin, God’s justice required that they suffer the penalty of death. This was a just sentence inasmuch as Adam and Eve were capable of obedience. And in God’s wisdom he determined that the whole human race was represented in his first creation, because none of them would have been obedient under similar circumstances. They all, including Adam and Eve, needed experience with sin and death in order to understand the importance of obedience.

But God’s love for his fallen creation was almost immediately made manifest. When speaking to Satan, he said, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” (Gen. 3:15) The thought is that the seed of the woman would eventually destroy Satan, but that Satan would inflict pain and suffering upon the seed. The promise of this seed is the golden thread of the Bible. It is a promise which was held out in types and prophecies to the Lord’s people down through the ages, and finally had its fulfillment in Jesus who was the promised seed.

The promise of the seed to come was reiterated to Abraham and is recorded in Genesis 22:17,18: “In blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies. And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.” In Abraham’s time the cities were fortified and it was an axiom that he who possessed the gate of the city controlled the city. Since Adam’s fall, Satan has been permitted by God to have rulership over the earth. (John 14:30; II Cor. 4:4) The promise to Abraham states that the time is coming when the seed will overthrow the powers of evil and bring blessing to all the families of the earth.

This is confirmed by the Apostle Paul in Galatians 3:16, which reads, “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ.” The apostle then continues in verses twenty-six through twenty-nine to state that the footstep followers of Jesus are also counted as part of the promised seed. It is to these that the apostle spoke in Romans 16:20, saying, “The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.”

God’s great love for his creation is manifested by all of these arrangements for their recovery from sin and death. But no greater demonstration of his love could be given than the gift of Hs Son—the promised seed—who made it possible for the world to be delivered. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”—John 3:16

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