When we think of God’s love, some of us may be drawn to John
3:16 for example “For God so loved the world…” Or perhaps it’s Romans 5:8 (my
personal favourite verse)” But God proves His own love for us
in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us!” But have you ever
considered this, that God’s attributes are inseparable to one another? When we
read through Joshua in the Old Testament, are we quick to say “God is so loving
to have ordered the promise land to be taken by force?” It’s not usually
something you usually hear around the common bible study. And though we may
read of how God ordered Joshua and his men to take the promise land by force,
leaving no survivors, God is still loving to have done that!
Some Christians may argue that they only
focus on the New Testament to argue that God is ‘more’ loving when Jesus comes
into the picture, as if the Old Testament does not still apply. But this is a
wrong way to look at scripture. In fact I would say with much confidence that
we are quick to draw our truth of love from television shows, commercials,
billboards and various advertisements. If our understanding of love is not
biblical, than we’ve missed the point of the gospel entirely. We cannot use the
worldly philosophies of love to understand biblical love, that’s not how anyone
should read scripture.
This morning I was listening to a sermon by
Voddie Baucham, he was speaking on Romans 12:2. “Do not be conformed to this
age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern
what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.” He gave some wonderful
examples of what it means when someone
is conformed to this age. One example would be watching particular movies that
may appear harmless but instead they are in sighting adultery, theft, violence
etc. Don’t hear me say that “you can’t watch movies!” that’s not my point. My
point is simply this, our understanding of truth and love must come from
scripture. If we get it from the movies we watch or the television programs,
than we have a temptation to read the Hollywood version of love into the
scriptures. And that’s essentially how you get Christians who don’t read the
Old Testament because they presuppose God is different, unloving and
judgmental.
So how do we overcome this hurdle? It’s
easy to say “read the scriptures” but harder to take up a right hermeneutic. But
the only way we can be transformed by the renewing of our minds is that we have
a biblical understanding of all things, including the movies we watch. So how
is God loving by ordering Joshua to take the promise land by force? Much like
He was loving when Christ took up that cross. His love displayed justice over
sin, the Father’s wrath poured out and it was done for His people. Consider the
promise land now; justice over sin, the Father’s wrath poured out and He did it
for His people. This is a biblical understanding of love! The promise land
taken by force has to point to what Christ did on the cross to make any sense
of this at all. This is how we understand the nature of God’s love and how it’s
inseparable to the rest of His attributes.
