Without pausing to reflect, one might think, what an easy question to answer! But a little reflection soon makes apparent its complexities. It can be likened to a precious stone, cut with many facets, each giving a reflection different from that of its fellows, according to the angle from which it is viewed.
There are five words in the question, and emphasizing each word spearately in turn gives a different angle to the question. An answer, to be complete, must have in it elements applicable to all the angles. Hence the complexity. I do not propose to give a complete analysis of the question, but rather set out a few illustrations so that possibly some interested reader might, with profit, give a little time and thought to this subject.
Firstly, then, we note in the question the word “we”. As I feel that this becomes a personal question (for no person can answer for the love shown toward God by another person), the question rather should be, Why do I love God? Straightway, the quality of the professed love comes into focus. Is it such as would be acceptable to God? If not, the question cannot be sustained; it becomes invalid. Man, because of natural bias, is not competent to judge anything of self interest, but the professed love will come up for judgment, when we stand before the judgment seat of Christ, for he has been appointed to judge the world. He shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears, but will judge with righteousness and reprove with equity. This, then, is a most important facet of the question: do we love God sufficiently?
How do we love — presupposes the capacity to love, so we get the angle, Why can we love God? Whence do we derive the ability? This thought takes us back to creation, where it is recorded, “God made man in his own image; in the the image of God created he him, male and female created He them”. The image was created very good, but was by no means perfect, else it could not have fallen from grace. But when we bear in mind that it was the image of God, and God is love, we realize that the capacity to love comes from God, in whom we live, move and have our being. God blessed that image and endowed it with reasoning powers above the rest of creation, that it might have dominion over them; so man could develop attributes by means of that reasoning power and an acceptable love developed accordingly.
Though that image became marred through his own fault, yet God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that the world might be reconciled to him again, through the son, for it is written: “God commendeth his own love toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”, and, ‘.God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself”. This, then, is an answer to the facet how can we love God.
But always it seems that quality of love is forced upon our minds. God provided the sacrifice for man’s sins and Jesus, the son, made it, willingly. -No man”, said he, “taketh my life from me; I give it of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again.” Here again is shown the quality of the love of him who is the pattern we must follow, for “greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends”. That brings back to mind the created image, and of Christ it is written, “Who, being the brightness of glory, the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power. . . sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high”. And here is depicted the ultimate to be attained by all those whose quality of love for God will enable them to pass the judgment seat of Christ. Then their body of humiliation will be fashioned like unto his glorous body, and the created mage will be brought to perfection. That was the ultimate of God’s reason for creating the image in the first place—that the earth should be filled with his glory.
This is the ultimate angle. The apostle John said, “We love God, because he first loved us”. That seems to be the basis for love, but not altogether answering the question. The apostle Paul wrote, “The love of God hath been shed abroad in our hearts, through the Holy Spirit which was given unto us”. Not applicable in the same sense to us who have not the gift of the Spirit as they had in Paul’s day, but we can attain to it, by patient continuance in well-doing. striving unto the knowledge of the Son of God and the stature of the fullness of Christ. One suggestion was made that an answer lay along the parallel of the love which a small child has for its parents. That love develops with the powers of perception in the child as it grows, and by living with its parents and getting to know them increasingly it places confidence in them, and so learns to love them. There is much merit in this view, without it being a complete answer. Living with, and learning to know, will certainly be part of the answer, for it is only by living with God through a study of his word that we grow to know him and are enabled to develop a love that might commend us to him, for, “This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent”.
But do we love God only because he offers us something that we cannot possibly get anywhere else? This, too, may be part of the answer, but surely not all—a selfish love would hardly be acceptable. The apostle Paul in 1 Cor. 13 leaves no doubt about the quality of acceptable love, and any hope we might have of God’s favour must be based thereon, coupled with faith. Without faith there can be no hope, for without faith it is not possible to please God. Our love, then, must have a basis of faith. Quality of love is shown again in that which Jesus termed the greatest commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy soul and all thy mind, and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”
We could well ask ourselves, “Does the love which we profess measure up to that standard?” If not, we invalidate the question; and we remember that our Lord has said, “Not all who say Lord, Lord, shall inherit the kingdom of God”. Again; do we love the Lord because we have been commanded so to do, and for that reason only? The answer lies partly in that aspect, but must comprehend other facets also. Though our Lord lay down his life in the demonstration of his love, we are not of necessity expected to do so, but occasion could demand it. Yet we are “beseeched” to make our lives a living sacrifice, to the extent of the reasoning powers with which we are endowed. When we realise (as all who claim to love God must have realised) the boundless love of God to usward, by providing the sacrifice for man’s own sin, then the love which we develop must indeed be not forced because of commandment, nor selfish because of promised life, but born of the power to reason; and be all consuming, knowing that had not God first loved us boundlessly, we would have no basis for a hope in the future, no cause for an exercise of faith. Love would have no meaning, and we would be like the beasts that perish. A strong reason indeed for loving God.
Summing up, then, the few angles of the question dealt with herein, one seems forced to the conclusion that, as the quality of love is so predominant, man’s answers can only be given with sure finality when we stand before the judgment seat. Then, if our love has been such that the qualified judge can say to us, “I was hungered, and ye fed me; thirsty, and ye gave me drink; a stranger, and ye took me in; naked, and ye clothed me; sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison and ye came unto me. . . . For even as ye did it unto the least of these my brethren, ye did it unto me”, and when he says, “Come, ye blessed of my father, enter into the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world”, then shall we know the answer.
But, what if he should say, “Depart from me, I never knew you?” It is a solemn thought, and so, before we put the question, it would be true wisdom—that wisdom of which the fear of God is the beginning—to make as sure as we are able that the question itself cannot be called in question.
All the angles of the question have not been reflected upon here: the reader may spend profitable hours doing just that.
Reflections on the Potter and the Clay