To the delight of every grandparent is the grandchild who stretches out his arms to the fullest length of his little stature and says, “I love you this much.” And, we don’t mind our children telling they love us also – ours do all the time.
That much? So, if we were to try to measure how much God loves us in the childish way our grandchildren measure, the arm span would reach throughout the universe. How much? John says, “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren,” (1 John 3:16). And again, “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loves us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sin,” (4:9-10). Redundant? Sure! John says the same thing but in different ways but how could he stress too much God’s love? But for what purpose does he repeat himself?
The giving of his son measures the extent of God’s sacrificial love. His pleonasm is not only designed to get us to fathom how much he loved us but to impress, “If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another,” (4:11). From the affirmations about God’s love that gives and acts, he concludes that our love for our brethren should be the same kind – that kind of love prohibits shutting up compassion for a brother’s needs so that we love not only in what we say but in deed and truth (3:17-18).
I wallow in the love of my grandchildren. I covet the love of my brethren. May we always love each other as we understand the measure of God’s love for us. – Jim R. Everett
To the delight of every grandparent is the grandchild who stretches out his arms to the fullest length of his little stature and says, “I love you this much.” And, we don’t mind our children telling they love us also – ours do all the time.
That much? So, if we were to try to measure how much God loves us in the childish way our grandchildren measure, the arm span would reach throughout the universe. How much? John says, “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren,” (1 John 3:16). And again, “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loves us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sin,” (4:9-10). Redundant? Sure! John says the same thing but in different ways but how could he stress too much God’s love? But for what purpose does he repeat himself?
