Is there a specific reason for this? Of course. Just as God does not reveal Himself in His written Word by His love but by virtue of Him as creator, so these men start there. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth"(Ge 1:1). God's self- revelation begins with Him as Creator. The self sufficient, self existing God without beginning and without end, the all sovereign God that is not accountable to anyone decided to create. He created this world we live in and we humans.
The point being that God is God. We are not. Or as He declares, "O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the LORD. Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel"(Je 18:6) and, "you turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, “He did not make me”; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding?"(Is 29:16), "But now, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand" (Is 64:8).
God is the creator and we the creatures. Our theology must begin with the understanding that God will do what He pleases, when He pleases, how He pleases, with His creatures, for His own pleasure and for His own glory; what ever He pleases to do is perfectly right and good no matter how difficult it may be for us to comprehend.
This is how the Psalmist proclaims it:
What does all this have to do with His love? It makes it all the more meaningful and precious. That it would please God to love all redeemed sinners in Christ. Not with just any sappy humanistic love, either. That we are loved by Christ the same way that the Father loves Him (Jn. 15:9) is really what is so amazing about grace. Some today have taken the amazing out of grace for many reasons but one is that they have perverted the love of God into the love of man.Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness! Why should the nations say,“Where is their God?” Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases"(Ps 115:1–3).
Those of us in Christ ought to bow in worship, fear, praise, adoration and thanksgiving that we are the objects of His love, mercy, grace, care and faithfulness.That we get to call Him Father and come before His presence for all of eternity in eternal bliss. But we also ought to be thankful that we are not the objects of His hatred. That is correct. God hates sinners. And if you don't like nor understand this then you will not begin to fully delight in the love of God for all in Christ:
The LORD tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence (Ps 11:5).
The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers (Ps 5:5).
And you shall not walk in the customs of the nation that I am driving out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I detested them (Le 20:23).
As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated" (Ro 9:13).Yes indeed God hates sinners. As foreign as that may sound to us today it is God's revelation of Himself and it was the common understanding of the Church (because it is biblical) before the love of God was wrenched from it's proper place and flooded with humanism and placed at the forefront of theology.
We should be absolutely flabbergasted that, we who are in Christ, are the objects of His love and not His hatred as we justly deserve to be hated by the thrice holy God. But that He would clothe Himself with humanity and suffer the wrath of the Father in our place and grant us His righteousness is precisely how we know how much God loves those in Christ. All this was planned before we were even existed, "In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved" (Eph 1:4–6).
A.W. Pink was a man involved in the occult (Theosophy) before the Lord, in love, acted upon him and granted him repentance from sin and faith in Christ. He certainly knew about the love of God. He writes:
There are many today who talk about the love of God, who are total strangers to the God of love. The Divine love is commonly regarded as a species of amiable weakness, a sort of good-natured indulgence; it is reduced to a mere sickly sentiment, patterned after human emotion. Now the truth is that on this, as on everything else, our thoughts need to be formed and regulated by what is revealed thereon in Holy Scripture. That there is urgent need for this is apparent not only from the ignorance which so generally prevails, but also from the low state of spirituality which is now so sadly evident everywhere among professing Christians. How little real love there is for God. One chief reason for this is because our hearts are so little occupied with His wondrous love for His people. The better we are acquainted with His love—its character, fullness, blessedness—the more will our hearts be drawn out in love to Him. 1. The love of God is uninfluenced . By this we mean, there was nothing whatever in the objects of His love to call it into exercise, nothing in the creature to attract or prompt it. The love which one creature has for another is because of something in them; but the love of God is free, spontaneous, uncaused.
The only reason why God loves any is found in His own sovereign will: “The Lord did not set His love upon you, nor choose you because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: but because the Lord loved thee” ( Deuteronomy 7:7,8). God has loved His people from everlasting, and therefore nothing of the creature can be the cause of what is found in God from eternity. He loves from Himself: “according to His own purpose” ( 2 Timothy 1:9). “We love Him, because He first loved us” ( 1 John 4:19). God did not love us because we loved Him, but He loved us before we had a particle of love for Him. Had God loved us in return for ours, then it would not be spontaneous on His part; but because He loved us when we were loveless, it is clear that His love was uninfluenced. It is highly important if God is to be honored and the heart of His child established, that we should be quite clear upon this precious truth. God’s love for me, and for each of “His own,” was entirely unmoved by anything in them.*It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt" (Dt 7:7–8).
Soli Deo Gloria!
For His Glory,
Fernando
*Pink, Arthur W. (2010-04-05). The Attributes of God (pp. 77-78). Unknown. Kindle Edition.
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