some thoughts

Two brief excerpts from a very long email that I didn’t send:

Yes, I do believe that God loves the world as he tells us in John 3:16 (and I do think it means ‘the world,’ and not just ‘the elect’ - common grace further suggests this). But I also believe that he reserves a special, gracious, extraordinary, covenental husband-wife quality of love for his church, “who is his bride.” He does have a measure of general love for his creatures who will, nevertheless, ultimately perish, for he is good. But his love toward them is not the same in kind, or degree, as his particular, extravagant, covenental love for “his beloved, his fair one, his bride” (Eph. 5:25-32). Isn’t that amazing, that he covenants with his people? God, infinite and immense, altogether glorious and majestic, entering into an eternally binding, unconditional, benevolent, irreversible, “marital” covenant with us–finite and fleeting little creatures though we are! But this extraordinary love is not for everyone: covenental, marital love, (itself a picture or shadow of the higher reality of God’s love for his church,) is by its very nature exclusive. “I will love you my whole life; you, and no other.”

[…]

…but when Christ died on the cross, he didn’t purchase some external ‘commodity’ or ‘gift’ that he then offers to me in some state of moral neutrality, as though I may accept it or reject it (or return it!) as I see fit. As a dead, blind, hard-hearted, child of wrath by nature–indeed, as a true enemy of God, I don’t need options; I need a miracle. When Christ died on the cross, he bought me. Some may dare to die for a good man; but God showed his loved for us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us! Isn’t it glorious? Me, a sinner and an enemy, comprehensively unworthy! Yet, he purchased my full redemption on Calvary–full, free, infallible, and irrevocable. The first installment on the redemption plan is, as it were, exactly that miracle I so need: the miracle of the New Birth which begets the condition of salvation: repentance and faith. Oh, thank God that he is so passionate about his glory! (Eph. 2:1-9)

…we’re going to talk instead.