A Word in Season: Beholding Love (1 John 3:1)

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It's far too easy for us to lose sight of the wonders of divine love toward us.

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If you think of some of the highest examples of the hymnody of the Church of Jesus Christ, one of their striking features is this sense of awe and gratitude at the love with which we have been loved by God in Christ Jesus.

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It's too easy for us to forget that, too easy for us to become accustomed to that, too easy for that to become familiar to us.

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Now if anybody might have become accustomed to thinking of it, it would be a man sometimes referred to as the

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Apostle of Love, John, the one who was beloved of the Lord Jesus, who was so close to him at the

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Last Supper, whose letters and whose gospel overflows with this reality of divine love toward men and women.

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You might have thought that John would have become used to the idea, that he'd become familiar with the notion, that it would become something that he spoke of easily, not quite tripping off his tongue, but not something that captured his soul the way it once had.

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And if you were to think like that, you'd be badly wrong. In 1 John and chapter 3, the

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Apostle says, Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God.

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You notice that he seems to be as much gripped by the reality of this divine love now as he ever was.

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He calls your attention to it, he says, stop, look, pay attention to this, consider it closely, examine it deeply, give yourself to these things until you see more of the depth of the riches and the wonder of the breadth of what

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God has done. Look at the kind of love that God has bestowed upon us.

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There's something distinctive about this, there's something outstanding about this. Not just that you should look at it, but it's worthy of being considered and studied in this way.

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And it's the kind of love that God has bestowed upon us. It's not simply the fact that though we deserve death and hell for our sins, that God has loved us.

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It's the kind of love with which he has loved us in loving hell deserving sinners.

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It is no minimalistic love. There's no restraint in it in that sense.

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There's no holding back, there's no grudging and cool disposition toward us.

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No, this is abounding love, this is lavish love, this is love on a divine scale.

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We've been loved with a truly God -like love. And as John will show us later, it's a love that's manifested and revealed in the coming of the

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Lord Jesus Christ to die for our sins. But what strikes the apostle here is the effect of that love, and the language that he uses actually drives home the wonder of what he's describing.

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Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that children of God, we should be called.

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That original word order seems to throw the emphasis in the right places.

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Children of God, that we should be identified as part of the family of the

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Most High, and that we, us, sinners by nature and by deed, that we should have this title set upon us.

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That God should identify us as such, that he should bring us to be such, that he should set this status upon us.

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Let us not then lose sight of the wonders of this redeeming love.

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Let us never underestimate the privileges of the adoption as sons.

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Let us never become too casual, too familiar, too easy with the idea that the

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God of heaven, in all his spotless majesty and glory and righteousness, has chosen to set his love upon such sinners as we are, in such a way as to become, by his declaration, children of God.

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And what confidence then that is for us if we are still outside, that it lies not in our merit, not in our virtue, not in our labour, but in the electing love of the

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Most High God, that in that love set upon the ungodly we should be brought into his kingdom, called into his family.