The Greatness Of God’s Love Gave And Made - 1john 3:1-3 Series

THE GREATNESS OF GOD’S LOVE GAVE AND MADE - 1John 3:1-3

1John 3 v 1 See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called children of God, and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us because it did not know Him. 1John 3:2 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that when He appears, we shall be like Him because we shall see Him just as He is. 1John 3:3 Everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.

THE ABSOLUTE GREATNESS OF GOD’S LOVE

Verse 1 begins with an invitation. John asks us to see. This word means all the following – “see, look upon, experience, perceive, discern, to be beware of. It means "to see with the mind" (i.e. spiritually see), i.e. perceive (with inward spiritual perception and understanding)”. I believe that places before us a responsibility to come to grips with the intensity of God’s love.

There is a position that men and women can be elevated to, a position almost inconceivable to the human mind, the uneducated human mind. On the other hand in heathen cultures, the gods are so high above men, and so obscure, that people can not even think of any form of connection with them. The best they can do is to live their lives appeasing the gods through offerings, sacrifices, and self-mutilation and pain. Thus is the hopelessness of paganism.

In Christianity, almost the opposite is true. It is not man reaching out to God. It is God reaching down to man. It is not God requiring of man, anything. It is God who has provided a perfect way of approach to Him. The first verse in this 3rd chapter defines the position between God, and His creation of man and woman, very clearly. Paganism might consider an acceptance of man through the offerings and efforts he makes, but it is only the God of creation who has established relationship. That relationship is so profound that it is almost inconceivable that any higher power would do that, but there is one word in the verse that cements that relationship. Do you know what that word is? It is not a difficult question – the word is “love”.

Now John could have written, “See what love the Father has bestowed upon us,” but the Holy Spirit did not allow him to do so. The verse qualifies that love, so that John wrote – “See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us.” That is going way beyond just love, to give us the measure of that love. The NASB uses that term, “how great a love”. The KJV uses “what manner of love” and the NIV uses “what great love”. The ESV says “what kind of love” and the excellent Holman says, “Look at how great a love”. John uses ???p?, that deep word for love that signifies a moral preference, or if you like, the preferential love of God. God has preferred you and me and demonstrated that love through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, dying for your sins, so that the entrance to His glorious presence might be opened without any penalty or wall of prohibition. The word to describe that love is p?tap?? (potapos), which always implies astonishment and admiration. We are just astounded, just speechless, just amazed, just shocked that God could love what He created in His image, in such a way. That is what John pens, and our bumbling English language struggles to understand the depth of the original Greek.

God gave. It was His greatness of the deepest love that GAVE. But that deep love then MADE. Yes, He made us as new creations in Christ.

I am going to read out the words of a hymn, a wonderful hymn that is becoming lost in this shallowness of singing in churches today. It was written by Frederick Martin Lehman who was born in August 1868 in Mecklenburg, Schwerin, Germany, and died in 1953 in Pasadena, California. He came to Christ at age 11. While walking down a country lane, a “cornucopia of glory” descended all around him. The weight of conviction was gone and joy and praise was upon his lips.

The poem has 3 stanzas. The first two stanzas of this song, and the chorus, were written by Frederick after he had to return to manual labour in 1917 in order to make a living. His daughter helped him compose the music. The last stanza was found etched on a wall by a patient in an insane asylum who had passed away, but it was traced back to Rabbi Hertz in his “Book of Jewish Thought”. Hertz borrowed the words from a poem written in 1050 by Meir Ben Isaac Nehorai for the synagogue Pentecost celebrations.