God’s Love is Holy and Righteous
God’s love is not a weakness of God’s nature. God’s love is not a soft spot we exploit for a sinful benefit. The fact that “God is love”, does not mean God winks at sin. God never sweeps sin under the rug. God cannot stand sin; this is true because God is completely righteous. This righteous nature requires that ALL sin must be justly punished. His Holiness demands no less.
But it is essential to know and understand that God’s love
and His holiness, or righteousness, are two sides of the same coin. They
do not contradict one another; they are not in conflict with each other.
In fact, God’s love and God’s righteousness work together in our
salvation. This truth is revealed in two passages that come to us in the
Letter to the Romans. Read the following two passages from the Book of
Romans with the thought that God’s love and God’s righteousness are both at
work in your salvation.
Romans 3:21-26, “But
now the righteousness of God apart from the law is
revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even
the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and
on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned
and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His
grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set
forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith,
to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had
passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate
at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the
justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”
Romans 5:6-11, “For when we were still without
strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely
for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even
dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in
that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then,
having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath
through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to
God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall
be saved by His life. And not only that, but we
also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have
now received the reconciliation.
We praise the Lord because every sin of every child of God
was justly punished upon the person of Jesus Christ on Calvary’s Cross. The sin
of the child of God was transferred to Jesus as He hung on that cross.
Jesus took our place; He died our death for sin. And it is God’s love that
created this plan of salvation. It is God’s love that accomplished this
plan of salvation when Christ cried out, “It is finished.” It is God’s
love that applies the accomplished blood bought salvation through the
regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. God’s love works with, in, and
through God’s holy and righteous nature to save us from our sins.
God is Love.
The glorious fact that God is love is the reason that we
have the joy of loving Him, “We love him, because he first loved us.” The
foundation of our salvation, of our Christian life, is wondrously laid by the
Biblical fact that God’s love is: Unmerited, Eternal, Infinite, Immutable, and
Holy and Righteous.