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Book Review: The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God
D.A. Carson is a Christian scholar, a professor, a frequent lecturer, and the author of over 45 books. He has written a book about how it is difficult to comprehend the love of the Creator of the Universe.Our cultural biases combined with the deep complexities of our Lord make the concept of the love of God a very difficult idea to understand, let alone embrace. We cannot even fully understand love in each other. What makes us think we can understand the love of a God who is omnipotent, omniscient, sovereign and transcendent?
Carson tells us that the Bible describes the love of God in five ways; intra-Trinitarian love, providential love, yearning love that pleads with sinners, election love, and conditional love.
God’s love can not be separated from God’s infinite knowledge, boundless power or inescapable will. If God does love it is only because He chooses to love. His love exists not because we have earned it or deserved it. His love does not exist because He was needy or lonely. God loves us because God is love.
Unlike man, God holds no passion or emotion that makes his love vulnerable to exterior pressures or outside influences. God’s passions do not burn out of control. God’s will is never divided from his love, just as it is never estranged from his justice, holiness, and omniscience. God does not “fall in love” with His elect saints. He sets His affection on us by design. In love He predestines us to be adopted as his sons.
Posted on April 15, 2007