The Love of God for His Own
Dr. John Snyder is the pastor of Christ Church New Albany, director of Media Gratiae, host of The Whole Counsel podcast, and author of multiple multimedia Bible studies including the Behold Your God series, Living with the True God: Lessons from Judges, and Behold Your God: Seeking Him Early.
In The Sermons of Behold Your God: The Weight of Majesty, Dr. Snyder explains that, because of the work of Jesus, the triune God can delight in each of His people even as they are presently struggling with sin.
Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you.
John 15:9
The same type of love that the Son receives from the Father, the Christian receives from the Son.
The same type of love that the Son receives from the Father, the Christian receives from the Son. So, what kind of love does the Father have for His Son?
The Son of God was never loved with mercy; mercy is the type of love someone who deserves wrath receives. Instead of the punishment deserved, love is given. The Son of God was never loved with the love of grace; grace is the love you give to someone who doesn’t deserve it. Jesus, of all people, is the One who deserved the love of the heavenly Father. This means that Jesus is not saying to His disciples that after He leaves them, they will still have joy because they will continue to experience His mercy and grace. He could have said that. It would have been a true statement, but Jesus refers to a different kind of love. The love the Father has for His Son is the love of delight, and this is the kind of love His disciples will experience.
Matthew 3:17 tells us that a voice was heard from heaven at Jesus’ baptism saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.” The Father’s affection rests satisfied on the Son as the object of His perfect delight. The old theologians describe this as the love of complacency, but we don’t use the word complacency in that way. We would describe this as a love of satisfaction or contentment. God’s love is contented in Jesus, and He is not looking for anything more in Jesus to earn that love. The Father is satisfied.
God chose in eternity past to love His people with the same delight which He has for His Son. He sent His Son to do everything necessary so that this delight might reach every believer.
As humans, we know something of this kind of love. You walk past your child’s bedroom at night and see them sleeping. Regardless of how your child behaved that day, you look at the sleeping child and love fills your heart. This is the love of delight or contentment. You are not waiting for the child to get out of bed and do something to earn your love. You just feel a sweet delight in them. This is how the Heavenly Father loves His Son. He is content—satisfied. He is not looking for anything more from the Son. The Son is a delight to His Father.
Here’s where the concept becomes difficult to grasp. Jesus says, “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you.” Notice the words “just as” and “also.” They indicate a true similarity. The same type of love that Jesus Christ received from the Father (the love of delight) is what He daily gives to His people. This is a love that all three persons of the triune God express toward the believer. But it is channeled through Jesus’ labors. Doesn’t the Christian need mercy? Yes. Doesn’t the Christian need grace? Yes. But what Jesus is saying in John 15 is that there is something more than mercy and grace. There is the kind of love that He Himself enjoyed every day of His earthly life. He will now give that love to His followers. God chose in eternity past to love His people with the same delight which He has for His Son. He sent His Son to do everything necessary so that this delight might reach every believer.
The delight of God in you is not based on anything you are doing or not doing right now. Jesus presently regards every believer with the same perfect satisfaction and delight with which His Father regarded Him.
Regardless of how difficult it may be to grasp this truth, settle the matter, Christian! The delight of God in you is not based on anything you are doing or not doing right now. Jesus presently regards every believer with the same perfect satisfaction and delight with which His Father regarded Him. That sounds too good to be true. We can believe that God loves us with mercy because we see that displayed on the cross. But we don’t think God could delight in us.
You may think that God is not truly happy to have you in His family. You may think, Maybe He will delight in me when I am sinless and complete in eternity future, but not now. That sounds reasonable, but it is a lie founded on works-based righteousness. It is believing the deception that God loves me because I’m resolving to do better tomorrow than I did yesterday. This view of God’s love feeds your pride and steals the glory due to God in your rescue. Have you considered that God draws all His reasons for loving you from within Himself? You can search the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find any passage in which God describes what it was about you that made Him love you. God’s reason for loving one who once was His enemy is found in Himself, not in you. Once Jesus finished the great work of redemption, the true believer is placed in the Son, united to Him vitally as his or her Mediator, and clothed with the Son’s righteousness. All that God demands for you to be the object of His infinite delight has been provided by Christ.
Think of 2 Corinthians 5:21 in light of this: “He [God] made Him [Christ] who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf.” He becomes the bearer of His people’s sin “so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” So that we might be clothed with the moral perfection and beauty of the Son of God. He has made us lovely with His own loveliness. As the hymn says, “love to the loveless shown that they might lovely be.” God sees each believer, always and only, in the context of Christ’s atoning death and perfect obedience—clean and beautiful beyond description! God’s delight is given an open door, a channel by which it can reach the imperfect believer. Jesus has satisfied God’s justice and made those who are united to Him by faith the object of the Father’s contented love forever. The one Being who delights only in what is perfect is free to delight in the imperfect Christian. It is right and just for God to delight in everyone who is in Christ. Christian, anchor your soul here, no matter how you are doing in this present moment! If you are Christ’s, truly Christ’s, then you are the object of the delight of God. And that reality changes everything!