The LORD your God is in your midst, A Warrior who saves. He will rejoice over you with joy; He will be quiet in His love [making no mention of your past sins], He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.
Zeph 3:17 (Amplified Version)
In the previous article (Knowing God as a Loving Father – I), we saw the beautiful truth of God being our Father. This is both taught clearly by the Lord Jesus in the gospels, and is affirmed by the Holy Spirit as a witness with our souls.
God our Father is full of love
We know that human love changes depending on circumstances. What does the Bible say about God’s love?
Normally, God the Father, the first person in the trinity, is seen as full of wrath and anger against sin. We may think that God’s love blows hot and cold depending on our sin.
And we may also think that Jesus came down from heaven to appease God, because the Father was angry with us.
But those thoughts are so far from the truth in the gospel. According to the most well-known verse in the Bible, the reason Jesus came down to earth is because of the love of God the Father. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16
John doesn’t write: ‘For God so hated the world, that the Son had to die to appease Him of his anger.’ The source of our salvation is found in the heart of the Father, which is full of love towards us.
The Apostle Paul explains this beautifully in Titus 3:4-6: “But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior Titus 3:4-6
All three persons in the Trinity are mentioned in these verses, and of God the Father, it says, “But when the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared…”
God the Father appears in kindness and full of love.
When the Bible says “God is love” in 1 John 4:8, it is again talking of God the Father.
In his book, Communion with God, John Owen points out the important truth that the attribute of love is ascribed to the Father in the benediction in 2 Cor 13:14. “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”
Time and again Scripture is telling us clearly – God the Father is love.
In the previous article, we saw God is not just the Father – God is our Father.
We’re now able to see that God is not just a reluctant Father who tolerates us because of the redeeming work of Jesus, but that our Father is full love towards us.
“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.”
1 John 3:1
I remember going to watch our son Nathan’s school football matches when he was in the fifth grade. He was the goalkeeper, and sometimes he would make pretty good saves. I remember one particular save he made against a top team, after which I couldn’t contain myself – I blurted out, ‘What a save!’
If anyone had asked at that time, ‘Whose son is that?’, I would have proudly said, ‘That’s my son.’
Imagine the God of the Universe delightedly calling us his children.
God is at rest in His love towards us
“He will rejoice over you with joy; He will be quiet in His love [making no mention of your past sins], He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.
Zeph 3:17
The King James Version says, “He will rest in his love…”
John Owen says, “When God is said to rest in his love, it means he is satisfied with the object of his love (that is us) and will not seek for a more satisfying object to love.”
Just imagine God the Father sitting face to face with you. He rejoices over you; he sings over you; he is quiet in His love; he rests in his love.
He is not thinking, ‘I wish Mobis was a better son so I could love him more’, or ‘I wish he was more like Jesus who is so easy to love.’
In our human minds we think like that. But God our Father is not like that at all.
As Alistair Begg says, “God didn’t love us because we were attractive. He didn’t love us because it was prompted by anything in us. He didn’t love us because we deserved it. He loved us because he loved us.”
God the father is full of love for us and he absolutely delights in us. We need to let that truth sink in deep into our hearts.
And the display of his love towards us is through the life and death of Jesus.
“This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
1 John 4:9-10
We honour Jesus for His great sacrifice for us on the cross. And we must.
But also think of God our Father. Here is His perfect Son who only did things that pleased Him, and never anything that displeased Him.
Imagine the pain of the Father seeing His Son being crushed for our iniquities. Yet, he went through that pain of searing loss, because of the great value he put on His love for us.
How deep the Father’s love for us,
How vast beyond all measure,
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure.
How great the pain of searing loss –
The Father turns His face away,
As wounds which mar the Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory.