See What Kind of Love the Father has Given to us
As we move into our text for today we are given specific instructions on the way in which we are to approach this text. John begins by telling us to see – to see what kind of love the father has given to us. We are not just told to listen, or to hear, or to read, but to see what kind of love the Father has given to us. A major theme of John’s letter up to this point has been that of testing ourselves. He has given us different tests to examine different areas of our lives and our doctrine so that we can know whether or not we truly know God. We are now told to look beyond ourselves to something that is far greater and far more assuring. We are told to see what kind of love the Father has given to us.
So as we open our text today I want us to do just as John is telling us to do and see what kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God. I don’t want us to simply listen along and nod our heads in agreement, but I want us to truly obey the exhortation to see what kind of love the Father has given to us. You can see many great things in this life whether it’s that great game, or a great movie, or a great play. There are many wonders in this world that are a sight to behold whether it is the large skyscrapers of a tall metropolis, or whether it’s the vast expanse of the ocean, or the majestic beauty of a mountain range, or the awe inspiring grand canyon, or a mighty waterfall. Or maybe you’re looking through a lens and seeing planets and stars in space, or a different kind of lens where you observe tiny cells in plants.
Yet, out of all these sights that God has given humans to behold, there is nothing comparable to seeing the love of God in Christ. There is nothing even in the same league as seeing what kind of love it is the Father has given to us. There is nothing in all of creation that compares to the beauty, the glory, the majesty, nor the vastness of the love that the Father has given to us. So I tell you today, look upon and see the majestic beauty and wonder of the love the Father has given to us. Do not just sit and listen, but look and see what kind of love the Father has given to us.
“But,” you ask, “how am I supposed to see what kind of love the Father has given to us? Love is not something that you can see.” To that I say, “look again.” Open the scriptures to Ephesians 1 and go back to eternity past before the foundation of the world was created, see that it was there that God the Father, in love predestined us for adoption as sons in Jesus Christ. What kind of love is it that before the world was spoken into existence, and before you were even created, before you ever said or did anything, the creator of all the universe determined to give you this love. The Father did not determine to love you, Christian, based upon the fact that he looked down the corridors of time to see that you would accept him or choose him, but rather knowing that you would sin and rebel and despise him, he yet predestined that he would give you his love by adopting you into his family, that he would give you a new heart to love him in return. And it is not as if God simply determined that he would one day love you, it’s not as if God didn’t start loving us until the cross, but from eternity his love was set upon you, if you are his. What kind of love is this!
We need not only go back to eternity past before time began to see the love of God, but we can open to the gospels and see Jesus Christ as he came into this world preaching and teaching and healing the sick and living a life of love. And yet all of his actions of love in his life was leading toward a moment in his life that would be the greatest action of love ever performed. So if you want to see what kind of love the Father has given to us then go to Calvary and see there the Son of Man lifted up to die. See his arms stretched wide, see his body broken and pierced, and blood pouring forth as he breathed his last. Go to Golgotha and look to Jesus Christ and see him there in agony, in pain suffering, not only physically, but under the wrath of God, enduring the punishment in your place where you ought to have been. See him there become sin, become a curse, so that we might become the righteousness of God and blessed of the nations. Greater love has no one than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. See his nail pierced hands and feet, see his pierced side, see his beaten and torn body, see his pierced brown, and know that you are seeing what kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God.
Clearly John is not talking about physical sight. But rather spiritual sight. There were many who physically saw Jesus in his day, walking the earth. There were many who saw Jesus wounded, carrying his cross to Calvary. There were those who saw him physically as he was dying on the cross. And yet some of those very ones, if not many, did not actually see him. They were looking right at the Son of God and yet could not see him. And there has been, since that time, many millions upon millions of people who never saw him physically, but they saw him truly.
What we are talking about here is a seeing with faith. This seeing that John has in mind, though it is not physical sight, it is more than mere intellectual knowledge. It is more than a simple agreement to the right doctrines. To be sure, it is not less than that, but it is certainly something more. It is a seeing with the eyes of faith that looks upon the Savior Christ as your Savior. It is a laying hold of Christ the Redeemer with eyes of faith. It is a moving toward Christ. It is a setting of Christ ever before our focus. It is our hope. It involves much more than just a passing glance, or even a dull stare. It is not just an act of the eyes. But it involves your entire being. It is a seeing that is in such a way that all of who you are is engaged in the object of your faith, the Lord Jesus Christ. It involves the eyes, the mind, the intellect, the will, the affections, the obedience, the tongue, the feet, the hands, the heart, the soul, the faith, the hope, and the entire life.
So I ask you, is your sight of the love of God one that is grasping hold of Christ by faith, that is laying hold of your substitute through the eyes of faith in such a way that your whole life and dependency and eternity is leaning upon the everlasting arms of Jesus Christ. I do love that phrase, “leaning on the everlasting arms.” It implies that we would fall into the pit of hell, were his arms not there to lean upon. And that is what seeing Christ with faith is, it is living your life in such a way that only makes sense with Jesus Christ. It is leaning upon the everlasting arms in such a way that were the arms of Christ not there to lean upon, all our weight by which we lean upon him with would cause you to fall on your face because you have not held back any weight to stand on your own and you have not got anything else propping you up.
What Kind of Love?
So what kind of love is it that the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God? we could go on for years and years talking about what kind of love the love of the Father is, but I want us to see just a few aspects of it that tell us what kind of love it is the Father has given to us that we see within this passage or implied in this text. And it is vitally important that we see, as John says, what kind of love the Father has given to us. We cannot just agree that God is love and think of it in whatever way we want to think of it, but we must see it for the kind of love that it actually is. For it is not just any kind of love, but it is a certain kind of love.
Undeserving
First it is an undeserving love, in that we, the recipients of God’s love, do not deserve his love. We see this because John tells us that this love has been given to us. It has been given to us, not paid to us, or owed to us, or earned by us but it has been given to us as a gift.
Adopting
Second, it is in adopting love. It is a kind of love that calls us children of God. It is not merely a love that calls us friends or acquaintances, but more than that, children of God. “In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the beloved.” We were once enemies of God, who lived in open rebellion and in sin following the prince the power of the air, but out of the depths of his great love towards us, God made us sons and daughters by adopting us through his son the Lord Jesus Christ. As Martyn Lloyd-Jones said, “the son of God became the Son of Man that we, the Sons of Men, might become the children of God.”
We were once fatherless, and homeless, and without a home in the world, but God has made us a home. He has become our Father. He has give us a home in Christ. He is our provision and our security.
There are those who teach that all humans are sons of God and God is the father of all people. While it is true that all people are created in the image of God and with dignity as human beings, not all people are God’s children. But only those who have been adopted in through Jesus Christ. Only those who have come to him in repentance of sin and faith in Christ. Some say that this exclusive way of salvation diminishes the love of God, but I say, with the scriptures, that it intensifies the love of God, and it magnifies the love of God. God’s love is a pointed and direct love toward his children. Just as any good earthly father has a special love reserved for his own children above any other child in the world, so it is with our heavenly Father, who has a specific, special, and intent love on saving his children, those who are his own.
Initiating
We also see that God’s kind of love is an initiating love. For that really is the kind of love that adoption love is – it is an act of initiation. It is not a contractual love that says you do x and I’ll do y, or I’ll meet you halfway, or you do this and I’ll do the rest. It is not a love that waits for the recipients to ask for it, or accept it, or seek after it, but rather it initiates. We love because he first loved us, John writes later on in this letter. Before there was a star in the sky, or grass on the earth, there was the love of God for his people. “I have loved you with an everlasting love,” God says.
Fatherly
We also see that it is a fatherly love. This is the most clear within the text, as it refers to God as the Father and to Christians as his children. And really, all of the different facets of God’s love that we have seen here today could be put under the umbrella of a fatherly love. The love that a father has for his children is not one that is earned or bought, but rather, a good father loves his child simply because it is his child. We obviously see the connection with the adopting nature of God’s love with his fatherly love. And of course we mentioned the special love that a father has for his children above and beyond other children.
We also know that a good father cares about the well-being of his child. He cares about their future, and about their growth and maturity as a person. In other words, a father cares about his child’s life. He wants his children to be good and righteous people.
Transforming Love
When it comes to thinking about God’s love for his children, we ought to understand that if an imperfect earthly father desires righteousness for his children, then certainly our heavenly Father, who is righteous, wants that for his children as well. In verse 2, it says “and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him.” And so we see that God’s fatherly love toward his children is a transforming love. It is a love that changes us. It is a love that if we are Christians, and while we are on this earth, it is in the process of changing us. In other words, we are talking about progressive sanctification. Because of the love the Father has given to us, we are not what we once were, we are God’s children now, but yet there is still sin in us, but yet we certainly are not what we once were, but we are not yet what we will be. Just as a good christian father disciplines, trains, and teaches his children not to sin but to love God and obey him, and be righteous people; even more does our heavenly Father do that for us. If we think that God’s love for his children is not concerned with how they live, then we don’t understand what kind of love the Father has given to us. God’s love is a love that loves his children despite their sin, but it is also a love that loves them enough to cleanse them from their sin. If someone claims to know and have God’s love, yet their life does not show progress or growth in godliness and holiness or a fight against sin in their life, then they do not have God’s love. God loves us too much to let us remain in the sin that is killing and destroying us, he is changing us, purifying us, and cleansing us from all unrighteousness.
Accomplishing Love
Sometimes we go through different seasons in life, in the christian life, where we really struggle with our sanctification and with our sin. We want so badly to be free and cleansed from our sin, and yet we can’t seem to shake it. And so we can begin to wonder will I ever be free from this? Will God ever rescue me from this sin? Am I really God’s child? My friends, God’s love is an initiating love, a transforming love, and it is also an accomplishing love. Verse 1 tells us, “see what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.” God says it and it’s done. God calls us, and so we are. God decrees it, and it’s as good as done. If you are in Christ you are God’s child now. God is not waiting on you to purify yourself before he calls you his child. Verse 2, “beloved, we are God’s children now.”
Will God allow his children to go without being cleansed? the second part of verse 2 tells us, “but we know that when he appears we shall be like him.” These are terms and words of certainty. John leaves no possibility that we will not be made like him if we are his children now. It will happen. God has not only decreed our justification, but he has also decreed our sanctification and our glorification, which is what the end of verse 2 refers to. And John says, as is his theme throughout the letter, that we can know this. The christian life is a life of knowing certain things. We don’t know everything, and we don’t know all the why’s to why things happen, but there are certain things that we can know. This is one reason many people despise Christianity, because it is based on objective truth. And objective truth is an offense to their worldview which is based upon subjective truth and the inability to know things for certain. But we can know.
In what way will we be like Him?
John tells us that we know that when Christ appears we shall be like him. So that raises the question, “in what way will we be like him?” Because to be sure, we will not be made into him. We will not become gods ourselves. But there are certain ways in which we will be like him. Such as our immortality at that point, or our glorified body.
Within the context of this verse, there is one main idea that John is thinking of when he says that we will be made like him. And that is in purity. This is what John has been writing about for the majority of his letter, that we ought to be righteous and pure. And this is what John has been talking about, when we are born of him, we practice righteousness, and if we have received the love of the Father, we are being changed, and then when we see him we will be like him, in purity. We will be free from sin. And John’s very next sentence in verse 3 continues his flow of thought by saying, “and everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.”
Do you struggle with sin? Do you hate your sin? Do you fight against it? Do you strive to live in holiness? Do you long to be free from sin and wholly given over to righteousness? Then as God’s children we can know that we will be made pure, free from sin, just as Christ is.
This is John’s logic when he states this and then moves into verse 3, that if our hope is purity, and being made like Christ, then it’s only logical that we will now begin to purify ourselves. If we desire to be pure and free from sin as Christ is, then we will not sit around and wait until we are with him, but we will begin now to fight for purity. You see a true Christian desires to be pure and holy and righteous and free from sin, and a christian has a hope in a text like this that tells him he will be made like Christ – free from sin one day, and because of that desire and that hope, he will begin now to fight against sin in his life, and to seek to live a Godly life according to God’s word. Someone who says they are a christian but is not concerned with those things, does not deserve anyone to believe them. It’s only logical that Christians who desire and hope in being made pure, will work toward it now.
Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones put it this way, “Whatever I may have felt as I contemplated that second verse, if it does not lead me inevitably to the position which is described in the third verse, then it has been a false view because, according to John this is pure logic.”
Notice how John tells us we will be made like him in verse 2. He says we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.
We Shall See Him as He is
In verse 1 John tells us to see what kind of love the Father has given to us. and here in first 2 he tells us that we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. There is something about seeing Christ that radically changes us. Whether it’s seeing him by faith in this life, and that changing our lives, or whether is on that day when we shall see him as he is, and he made like him. Seeing him changes us. This is the principle that you sometimes hear people say, that we become like what we behold.
Whatever it is that we set before eyes and focus upon, and set our affections upon, that will be what we become like. Either for good or for bad. This is why it is so important for Christians to set their eyes and their minds on the things above if we want to be made more and more like Christ. If we are always setting our eyes and our minds on things in the world, then we will become very carnal people. We will not have strong spiritual sight. You become like what you behold.
As Christians we ought to behold the word of God, behold the scriptures, behold Christ everyday, so much that we might be changed and sanctified, and made Godly. If you want to be made more holy, and you want to be freed from sin, then you must behold the Scriptures, and behold Christ who is holy, who makes us pure, and who will free us from sin. This is how, in a sense, our glorification will take place – by seeing Christ as he is, robed in majesty, absolutely perfect in purity, glorious in all his ways, and beautiful beyond all our imaginations. If you want to be pure, then behold the purity of Christ.
In thinking about becoming like what we behold, I think of Moses. At the end of Exodus chapter 33 is the scene where Moses is on the mountain and the Lord puts him in the cleft of the rock, and the Lord covers Moses with his hand as his glory passes by him; and then he takes away his hand, and Moses sees the back of God. And then as Moses comes down from the mountain in chapter 34 with the ten commandments, it says that his face shone because he been talking with God. And all the people who saw this were afraid to come near him because of his face which shown of the glory of God. So Moses wore a veil when he was around the people to veil his shining skin until it faded. Moses had been with God, he had seen a small degree of his glory. He had beheld the Lord, Yahweh. And it showed. His face had become brilliant with God’s glory. He had become like him in a sense, and in a way. Now think of when we see Christ as he is. Think of how we might be changed in that moment. This is why there is such an emphasis throughout Scripture on looking to Christ. “Look unto me and be ye saved all the ends of the earth” Isaiah 45:22. There is something about looking and beholding the Lord that absolutely changes us. “I once was blind, but now I see.”
When he appears we shall see Christ in all of his purity, and splendor, and majesty. What our eyes see by faith now, we will see physically then. What our spiritual eyes see now, we will see with glorified eyes then. And the more we behold God in his Word now, the more we will long for that day when we see him. We are called to see the Father’s love, as we will one day see love incarnate.
What a precious thing seeing is. Of course John has seeing with the eyes of faith ultimately in mind. For our physical sight is a shadow of spiritual sight. And we must conclude that when he appears, his children will see him with glorified physical eyes and spiritual eyes of faith that will then be consummated, and will lay hold of, in purity, the object of their faith, that they laid hold of in imperfection as sojourners on the earth.
James Montgomery Boice says, “John seems almost to suggest that there’s something in the mere sight of the glorified Christ that will purge his followers of sin and conform them at last to his own perfect image.”
The love of God that we know and see by faith changes us. So how much more will we be changed by seeing Christ in glory. 1 Corinthians 13:12 tells us, “for now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
2 Corinthians 3:18, “and we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the spirit.”
So I asked you today, do you see Christ? Do you see him? Do you see his love and what kind of love it is that he has given to us? Or are you blind? Do you feel the weight of setting your eyes on worthless things, and not on Christ? Then God commands you today, “look unto me and be ye saved all the ends of the earth.” That is his command – to look, to look unto him and be ye saved. Look to Christ, just as the serpent in the wilderness was lifted up so that all who looked upon it could be saved, Christ was lifted up upon the cross that all who look to him might be saved.
If you refuse to look upon Christ and be saved, just know, that you too will see him one day. But you will not see him and be made like him. You will see him in all of his terror, and all of his righteous anger, you will see him as he cast you out into utter darkness and torment for all eternity, and you will be cloaked in the darkness that will not be lifted. Hell will be filled with raging flames of torment but there will be no light to see.
As Matthew Henry puts it, “Indeed, all shall see him, but not as they do, not as he is. The wicked shall see him in his frowns, in the terror of his majesty, and the splendor of his avenging perfections; but these shall see him in the smiles and beauty of his face, in the correspondence and amiableness of his glory, in the harmony and agreeableness of his beautific perfections.”
I pray that Christ with lift all of our eyes to see him by faith, to grasp hold of him, to lay hold of his promises, and to love him. I pray that Christ will give sight to the blind to all of us here. That instead of this dreadful outcome, we may see him as he is and be made like him. I pray that we can say with the psalmist, in Psalm 17:15, “As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness.”
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