Chicago, Illinois, where I live, is known for its cold and windy winters. But it also has beautiful springs and hot summers. To focus on one without the other is not so much wrong as horribly incomplete. In fact, the cold brings the heat into clearer focus. Jonathan Edwards is known for 'Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,' but he also has beautiful sermons on the love of God. To focus on one without the other is not so much wrong as horribly incomplete. And God's wrath brings his love into clearer focus.
Today I discovered the most beautiful description of God's love I've yet read in Edwards, on Rom 5:8 - 'But God shows his love for us in this . . . .' One of many quotable portions explains that loving Christ does not add to our existence; it is our existence.
Christ loved us when he could receive no addition by us if we are added to him. He is not the greater or the better, for he is infinite and all-sufficient and can't be added to, though he is graciously pleased, having set his love upon us not to look upon himself complete. But if we love Jesus Christ, it will be on the contrary exceedingly. If we love him and he be ours, we shall not only be added to, but we shall be made. We shall come out of nothing into being. It will be a far greater exaltation than if we were from beggars turned to potent monarchs.
--"The Dying Love of Christ," in The Blessing of God: Previously Unpublished Sermons of Jonathan Edwards (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2003), 291
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