Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” John 17:24-26
In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. – Ephesians 1:4-6
Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. – Romans 5:3-5
It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. – Romans 3:26
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts. – Isaiah 55:8-9For you, O Lord, are most high over all the earth;
you are exalted far above all gods. – Psalm 97:9“Am I a God at hand, declares the Lord, and not a God far away? 24 Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord. – Jeremiah 23:23-24
And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. – Colossians 1:17
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. – 1 John 4:7-16
Only the Christian Trinitarian God is eternally loving, both just and the justifier of sinners, both transcendent and imminent and is an eternal community in himself. It is important to our worship and our apologetics to know who our God is.
Only the Christian God is eternally loving.
It is simple to say, as the Scriptures do, that God is love. But, since God is eternal, that means that he eternally is love. Before there was any creation, God was love. Love, to be real love, has to have an object of its affections. Thus, the only God who can truly be eternally loving is the Trinitarian God of Christianity. The Father loves the Son; the Son loves the Father, the Spirit is known as the Spirit of the Son and the Father and pours the love of God into our hearts. Any God that is not the Trinity cannot be eternally loving.
Only the Christian God is both just and the justifier of we sinners.
Only the Trinitarian Christian God is both just, that is, requires justice for sin, and is himself the justifier of sinners. Due to God’s holiness, he is separate from we sinners. He, however, came himself, as the Son of God, to pay the price for our sin and so became himself both just and the justifier. This is totally an act of grace. This cannot be accomplished by any Arian god, that is a god that separates the Father from the Son as being separate gods.
Only the Christian God is both transcendent and immanent.
Only the Trinitarian Christian God is both the ultimate creator of all things and therefore separate from us and far above us and, by sending his Son to die for us, enters into our world and becomes so close as to live in our hearts. He is high and exalted and lowly and intimate.
Only the Christian God is an eternal community in himself, the three-in-one.
Some gods are one among many, polytheistic. Some gods are unitarian, no internal fellowship within himself. To have a unitarian god claim to be loving is to make him not really god because that means he need us as the object of his love in order to love. Only the Christian Trinity is eternally a loving community that allows God to be eternally loving, eternally joyful, eternally overflowing with life. He does not need us in order to be who he is. We are called into this eternal fellowship of the Trinity in Christ.
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— 2 the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— 3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4 And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. – 1 John 1:1-4
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