For those of you that have been
listening to me over the past few months or so, I've been in
a series of messages, and this is the sixth in that series,
and I think there's going to be one more. If the Lord leads
me that way, that'll end this particular series. And you can
see today, I've subtitled every message, and today's subtitle
there is God's Particular Love, because we're Even though we're
talking about the righteousness of God, we're always talking
about something specific concerning that righteousness. Let me make
the statement here, the righteousness of God is the most important
single piece of information we need to know and understand,
because only by that righteousness is the true, the particular love
of God revealed. You can only find it. and the
knowledge of that righteousness. That's the only place you'll
see the love of God. We all start out thinking in
this world, in our religious activity, we all start out thinking
we know the love of God. I mean, we think God loves everybody. We think Christ died for everybody.
But God's love for sinners is something we don't know by nature.
God's love for sinners is something that has to be revealed to us
only under the gospel. Where the righteousness of God
is revealed, will we find the explanation, the understanding
of God's particular love. Today, I want us to see four
reasons why God's love is particular. First, because of its objects. I'll go on and read these reasons.
Second, because of its provision. Third, because of its results.
And fourth, because of its effects. First, we'll look at God's love
is particular because of its particular objects. Who does
God love? Well, if He doesn't love everybody,
we need to know who He loves, don't we? We're going to study
these first 13 verses of 1 John chapter 4, but I want us to start
out in verse 7. Look at 1 John 4 and verse 7. John writes here, Beloved, let
us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone that
loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth
not God, for God is love. Beloved, let us love one another. John is writing here about particular
love. It's love for particular sinners. He's exhorting sinners to love
particular sinners with a particular love. He's exhorting sinners
to love the beloved. He's exhorting those to love
those whom God loves. Love those whom God loves with
a particular love. He says pretty plainly here that
those who do love the sinners whom God loves are born of God. They know God. Those who do not
love the sinners whom God loves don't know God. But how can we know who to love?
Who are the beloved? Well, they're the brethren. The beloved are those that have
the same spiritual father, born of God. They're those who in
time and each generation come to know God as a just God and
Savior. In this context, they are those
who test the spirits to determine whether they're of God or whether
they're not of God. Look at 1 John 4 and verse 1.
Go back to the start of this passage here. uses that same
word to start this passage. Beloved, believe not every spirit,
but try the spirits, whether they are of God, because many
false prophets are gone out into the world. The beloved are those
who try the spirits. They test them. They test them
against God's word. How do they do that? They prove
the spirits by their testimony of Christ. What do they say about
Christ? Who he is? What he did? Look on at 1 John
4 verses 2 and 3. Hereby know you the spirit of
God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is coming to
flesh is of God. And every spirit that confesses
not that Jesus Christ is coming to flesh is not of God. And this
is that spirit of Antichrist whereof you have heard that it
should come and even now already is it in the world. To confess
that Jesus Christ is coming to the flesh is to know God, he
says. But that's more than just stating the facts that Christ
lived and died and was buried and rose again. Those are all
true facts contained in the scriptures. But confessing that Jesus Christ
is coming to the flesh is much more than that. The scriptures
from beginning to end are about a unique person and about his
work, his specific work. He accomplished a work. for every
sinner he was given, every object of God's love. To confess that
Jesus Christ is coming to flesh is to preach the person of Christ
and the work of Christ according to the scriptures. And to confess
not is to do otherwise. It's not to preach the person.
and work of Christ according to the Scriptures. You see, the
Christ of the Scriptures is not God absolutely considered, nor
is He mere man absolutely considered. He's God and man in one person. And He must be both in order
to do, to finish the work that He was given. He must be both
in order to fulfill the prophecies concerning Him. He must be both
in order to save His people from their sins. He must be man in
order to die. Blood had to be shed, so He must
be man. He must be God in order for His
sacrifice, His death, to have infinite value. To say that Jesus
Christ is coming into the flesh is to preach His true person.
He's the God-man. And it's to preach His finished
work. is to preach his accomplished salvation. The Christ of the
Scriptures didn't come to make salvation a possibility. No,
he came to accomplish the salvation of every sinner he was given
before the world began. His work provided a complete
salvation for every sinner he was given by his doing and dying
of Christ alone. Now, the beloved are those who
test the spirits. They try. They test them by the
Word of God according to what the preacher or the person you're
talking to says about the person and work of Christ. And having
tested the spirits, they believe the spirit of truth and reject
the spirit of error. Look on in 1 John 4, verses 4
through 6. He says, You are of God, little
children, and have overcome them. Now, I started out writing to
the beloved here, remember. You're of God, little children,
and have overcome them. Them would be the spirit of Antichrist,
because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the
world. They, that's the spirit of Antichrist,
they are of the world. Therefore speak they of the world,
and the world hears them. We are of God. He that knoweth
God, heareth us. He that is not of God, heareth
not us. Hereby know we the spirit of
truth and the spirit of error. Every sinner born into this world,
even the beloved of God, start out our spiritual journeys in
this world under the Spirit of Antichrist. It's kind of what
Bill was talking about in Jeremiah this morning. See, we can all
see ourselves here if you look at it right. We're in league,
let me just remind you of some scriptures we've looked at in
detail numerous times, just a statement from them. We are all in league
with the spirit that now still works in the children of disobedience,
Ephesians 2 and verse 2. There's none that seek after
God, Romans 3 and verse 10. All who are ignorant of God's
righteousness are automatically going about to establish a righteousness
of our own. Romans 10, 1 through 3. That's
all of us by nature. We're all doing that. None seeking
God. All seeking a God of our imagination. All such sinners are under the
spirit of Antichrist. To not know who God loves is
to not know God's particular love. It's to be under that spirit
of Antichrist. And that spirit of Antichrist
needs to be overcome. It needs to be overcome in all
without exception. But it will be overcome in God's
people. He'll deliver his people from
the spirit of Antichrist. We'll see later in the lesson
more how the beloved of God are those who are led by the Spirit
of God in opposition to that Spirit of Antichrist. They're
delivered from Him and led by the Spirit of God. God's love
is manifested. That means it's made known for
particular sinners. It's made known for the beloved.
It's made known for the particular objects of God's love. And it's
made known by its particular provision for them. To know God's
particular love is to know who He loves. And to know who God
loves is to know what he has provided for those that he loves. God's love is particular, first
of all, because of its objects. Next, God's love is particular
because of its particular provision for those objects. Who are the
beloved of God? Who are we to love as brethren?
We're to love those for whom God has made a particular provision. Look at 1 John 4 and verse 9.
And 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. God's love for sinners is revealed
in His provision of everything that His holiness and justice
demand of those He loves. In other words, God's love has
provided for every one of its objects all that is required
for Him to be just and justifier of those sinners. What do God's
holiness and justice demand of sinners? Well, God's justice
demands the just punishment, the eternal death of every soul
that sins. The wages of sin is death. And God's justice demands the
death of every soul that sins. Secondly, God's holiness demands
perfect righteousness if sinners are ever going to be allowed
to stand in the presence of God. Eternal death and perfect righteousness. That's what God's holiness and
justice demand. God's love is made known to us. It's made known to the beloved,
the brethren, by the sending of Christ for us. Remember how
John starts out this passage? Beloved. That's who he's writing
to. God sent Christ that we might
live through him. You see that might there? In
our vernacular, might carries a maybe with it. You know, it
might happen, it might not happen. But in this context and in the
Scriptures, usually might means it's going to happen. There's
no maybe in this context. Because God sent His Son and
because Christ came, And because He lived and died, because He
established righteousness, somebody is going to live, that we might
live through Him. Somebody is going to be saved.
Somebody is not going to suffer the punishment they deserve.
Somebody is going to live through Christ. Because Christ has come,
somebody is going to be finally glorified. And that somebody
is every sinner God loved with an everlasting love, every one
of them. It's every sinner whom God chose
in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and without
blame. It's every sinner whom God in
love predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son. It's
every sinner Christ was sent for, every sinner he died for. Christ is not the representative
of all without exception. He is the representative of those
beloved of God. God sent Christ that these particular
sinners should live eternally through Him, based on His work
alone. them meeting no conditions. And they will live because of
God's particular provision for them. The love of God is not
manifested toward a sinner who perishes. The world says God
loves sinners equally, those who are saved and those who perish.
Oh, no. God's love is manifested on those
who are saved, those who would be finally glorified, not on
any sinner who perishes. Look at 1 John 4 and verse 10.
Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and
sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. In this verse,
we see the essence of God's particular love for those who are its objects. God didn't send his son to make
sinners savable in general. He didn't send his son to make
salvation possible. Rather, he sent his son to save
us. the particular objects of His
particular love. He sent Christ to do everything
required by His holiness and justice to deliver us from the
wrath we deserve. and to provide us the righteousness
required for us to stand unchangeably, eternally righteous in his sight.
He sent Christ to be, you see there, the propitiation for our
sins. In other words, he sent Christ
to be the penalty-bearing sacrifice that satisfied God fully and
completely. Nothing left for God to declare
sinners righteous but the imputed righteousness of Christ. Look at John 13 and verse 1. This is before Christ went to
the cross. It said, Now before the feast of the Passover, when
Jesus knew that His hour was come, that He should depart out
of this world unto the Father, having loved His own which were
in the world, He loved them unto the end. You see that phrase,
having loved His own, He loved them unto the end? Now that means
He loved them as long as He lived, but it means a lot more than
that. That word end is completion. It means to the finishing. It's
the same word Christ used in John 19, 30, when he said on
the cross, it is finished. It means Christ loved his own
until he finished the work that he was given to do. He loved
his own until he had done everything necessary for his own to be free
from sin's guilt and righteous in God's sight. He loved them
to the finishing of his work and the justification of his
people. God's love is particular because
of its particular objects, and it's particular because of its
particular provision. It's also particular because
of its particular results. First, for the results that it
has for the sinners, for whom God loves. Christ's death was
not an attempt to save. Christ's death was the accomplishment
of salvation for every sinner he was given. God's provision
has already done something for sinners, the sinners that he
loves. It's already resulted in something for those sinners.
Christ's death has done that. Look at Romans 4, verses 23 through
25. We're talking here about the
result of God's love for the sinners that he loves. It says
here, that was not written for his, that's Abraham's sake alone,
that it or righteousness was imputed to him, but for us also
to whom it shall be imputed if we believe on him that raised
up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offenses
and was raised again for our justification. Christ's death
was effectual. It had certain results for every
sinner he died for. The sins of those sinners he
died for are put away. They're never to be brought up
again in the court of God's justice. These sinners are separated from
their sins as far as the East is from the West. That's the
language of the Scripture. These sinners are not condemned,
Romans 8 and verse 1. Instead of their being condemned
as they deserve, They are eternally, unchangeably justified in God's
sight. God declares them forever righteous
based on nothing but Christ's righteousness imputed alone.
If Christ was delivered for your offenses, if Christ bore your
sins in his body on the tree, you're not facing the eternal
wrath of God. You're not facing any punishment
from God. All God's wrath and all God's
punishment for those that he represented, for those whose
offenses he bore, all God's wrath was poured out on Christ. We're
not facing any of that punishment or any of God's wrath. And if Christ was delivered for
your offenses according to this verse 25 right here, then he
was raised again for or because of your justification. He's done
everything required for God to be just and declare those sinners
in Christ forever righteous in his sight. It's the same names and the same
number. You see, if he bore your offenses and you're raised, he
was raised because of your justification. If he bore your sins in his body,
your righteousness is imputed to him and you're justified before
God based on that righteousness alone. Same name, same number.
You can't have Christ bearing the offense of one and them not
be justified before God. That's contrary to the testimony
of God. If He bore your sins, you're
justified by His righteousness. That's God's testimony in the
resurrection of Christ. That's what God declared when
He raised Christ from the dead. He bore away the sins of His
people. He brought in everlasting righteousness. And God is just
to declare those sinners righteous based on that righteousness alone.
There's no such thing in the Scriptures as Christ bearing
your sins and you ending up under the eternal wrath of God anyway.
No such thing. That's unscriptural. It's even
blasphemous. As long as you think that God
loves everybody and Christ died for everybody, you don't know
the love of God. As long as you think that God
loves everybody and Christ died for everybody, you're denying
the effectual nature of Christ's death. You're denying what Christ's
death actually accomplished for those he represented. You're
denying the propitiation Christ made for those God gave him.
He's the penalty-bearing sacrifice that satisfied God. He's the
propitiation. You're denying that His sacrifice
satisfied the law and justice of God, and denying that God
is just to declare sinners righteous based on His righteousness imputed
alone. If you believe that God loves
everybody and Christ died for everybody, you're denying God's
clear testimony of Christ from the Scriptures. God's love is
particular love for particular sinners with a particular provision
and particular results for its objects. It's love for those
who were chosen in Christ before the world began. Love for those
that Christ redeemed by his death on the cross. It's love for those
who stand not guilty, not even chargeable with sin, but who
are unchangeably righteous in God's sight, based on Christ's
righteousness imputed alone. And then there's the last thing
I'll say about this particular love. It's particular because
of its effect on the objects of God's love. God's particular
love has a certain effect on every one of its objects. It's
not... Benign. It works. It has an effect. We love God. We know we love
God because we love those whom God loves. Look at 1 John 4 and
verse 20. If a man say, I love God and
hates his neighbor. Now his brother, excuse me, not
his neighbor. That would be a different context.
If a man say I love God and hateth his neighbor, he's a liar. For
he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he
love God whom he hath not seen? Our love for God is determined
or manifested, made known, evidenced by our love for the brethren.
Do we take sides with the brethren? Do we gather where the gospels
preach? Do we rest our whole salvation
in Christ and Christ alone? Our love for this God and this
Savior and these brethren is one of the main evidences that
we are saved. Our love here, this particular
love for the brethren is one of the main evidences that we
are truly objects of God's love. Now we started out our lesson
with 1 John 4 and verse 7. Beloved, let us love one another
for love is of God and everyone that loves is born of God and
knows God. Now look at 1 John 4 11. Beloved,
if God so loved us with all that I've said, providing with the
result of justification rather than condemnation, if God so
loved us, we ought also to love one another. Those sinners who
learn of God's particular love for its particular objects and
that particular provision and the particular results of that
love for those objects, those sinners respond to that love. We embrace that love. And this is a unique response. It's a particular response. We
love those whom God loves. We share the same faith. We take
sides with the brethren in the gospel. We obey God with an obedience
that we never had before God brought us to an understanding
of his love before regeneration. Look at John 13, 34. Speaking
to his disciples here, he said, A new commandment I give unto
you, that you love one another as I have loved you, that you
also love one another. Now the love Christ commands
here is particular love. This is not the general love. We love a lot of things in this
world. Our families, we love our wives,
our husbands, our jobs. We love many things in this world.
That's not what he's talking about here. He's commanding a
particular love. This love is new to every born-again
believer. He said, a new commandment I
give unto you. This is a commandment you didn't
obey in any degree before God, the Holy Spirit, regenerated
you under the gospel. This command is only obeyed by
those born of God and taught of God, because they're the only
ones that know of God's particular love. This particular love is
one of the main evidences that we're born of God. Look at 1
John 4, 12 through 13 here. No man has seen God at any time. If we love one another, that
love of the brethren, love for the beloved, if we love one another,
God dwells in us and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know
that we dwell in him and he in us because he has given us of
his spirit. Without the spirit in regeneration,
there's no knowledge, therefore no perfecting, or that word is
completing, no completing of God's love. But where the spirit
dwells, where he's taken up residence, there is the knowledge of God's
love toward its objects. There is the perfecting or completing
of God's love in its objects. The scriptures are all about
the love of God for the objects of that love. Jacob have I loved. The Scriptures are all about
God's love for the Jacobs. How is God's love perfected or
made complete in us? It's not made complete in all
without exception, but how is it made complete in us, the beloved
of God? It's perfected through His Spirit
who will guide us into all truth. Look at John 16 and verse 13,
and let me, before I read that verse, If you go back in John
16 in the context here, Christ is about to go to the cross.
And He said it's expedient. He's talking to His disciples.
He said it's expedient or necessary for you that I go. Because if
I don't go, the Spirit won't come. But if I go, He's talking
about going and doing His work on the cross. If I go, I will
send Him to you. And when He's come, He'll convince
the world of sin and righteousness and judgment. He's going to come
to every one of God's elect in time under the gospel. And he's
going to do a work of grace in the heart. He's going to give
them life. He's going to regenerate them. He's going to give them
faith and repentance. And then let's read verse 13 here of John
16. Howbeit, when he the Spirit of
truth is come, he will guide you into all truth. For he shall
not speak of himself, but whatever he shall hear, that shall he
speak, and he will show you things to come." He won't speak of himself,
but he will speak of Christ. He'll guide sinners into all
truth. Romans 8.14 says, For as many
as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. The
Spirit of God will guide us. He will guide the objects of
God's love. He will guide the beloved of
God. He will guide us unto a just God and a Savior. He will guide
us unto Christ's finished work, His perfect satisfaction to law
and justice. He will guide us toward Christ's
complete salvation for those God loves. He will guide us toward
the righteousness Christ worked out. And He will guide us away
from any righteousness So-called righteousness of our own making.
How will He do that? Look on in John 16 verses 14
and 15. It says, He shall glorify me.
This is Christ talking. He'll glorify me, Christ said.
For He shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you. All
things that the Father hath are mine, therefore said I, that
he shall take of mine and shall show it unto you. The Spirit
of truth will take the things of Christ, his person, God-man,
mediator, substitute, surety of his people. He will take his
sacrifice, his righteousness. He will take that complete salvation
that he's worked out, and he will show those things unto us,
the objects of God's love. We know that God does not love
all sinners without exception, but more importantly, we know
those whom God does love. We know them. We recognize them
by their doctrine. We recognize them by their gospel,
by their particular testimony of Christ. You see, anybody who's
come to this gospel, who's come to this God, a just God and Savior,
who's come to this Christ, who's been born of this Spirit, we
can't worship anywhere where this message is not delivered.
We can't be comfortable there. We can't go there. We have to
go where this message is delivered. Look at John 6, 45. It is written
in the prophets, and they shall be all taught of God. Every man
therefore that hath heard and have learned of the Father cometh
to me. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will no wise cast
out. The whole point here is that
without the love of God manifested, toward every object of that love
in His provision of a Savior who put away sin and established
everlasting righteousness for those He loves. Without that,
without that knowledge, there is no knowledge of God's love.
We're all ignorant of God's love until He brings us to that knowledge,
and we're void of any love for God until then. Look at 1 John
4.19, a confirmation of what I just said. We love God because
He first loved us. Now this love for God, from us. It's not automatic. God's love
for His people is everlasting. It goes all the way back to eternity.
It reaches all the way forward to eternity. It's everlasting.
Like Jim said last week, it can't fail. God won't love you one
day and not love you another. God's love is everlasting. If
He ever loved you, He'll always love you. And His love is in
Christ. But our love for God has a beginning. We don't love
God until we know that He first loved us. And we don't know that
He first loved us until we see Him providing a true Savior. Not a potential Savior, but a
true Savior who accomplished everything that His holiness
and justice demanded of us in the way of punishment for our
sins. And a Savior who provided the
righteousness which demands our eternal blessedness even to our
final glory in heaven. In 1 Corinthians 13, we read
this statement, and I'm paraphrasing 1 Corinthians 13. It's quite
a few verses, but I'm going to make two statements here. It
says, love suffers long. Love never fails. Paul, of course,
is writing here about God's particular and perfect love. God's love
suffers long. God's love never fails. God's
particular and perfect love did not fail to set Christ forth
a propitiation, and thereby deliver the objects of his love from
the eternal wrath we deserve, and give us an unchangeable standing
of righteousness before God. That's his provision for us.
And that same love has not failed, nor can it fail, to deliver in
time in each generation Those same objects from the spirit
of Antichrist, the spirit of general love unto God's particular
love. That same love cannot fail to
deliver every object of God's love from the self-righteousness
and bondage that necessarily accompanies the ignorance of
God's righteousness. That's the effect it has on every
object of His love. Look at Hebrews 2 and verse 14. For as much then, as the children
are partakers of flesh and blood, Christ also himself likewise
took part of the same, that through death he might destroy him that
had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them
who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to
bondage. Christ became incarnate in order
to deliver his people. That word destroy there, in this
context, it doesn't mean just to annihilate. It means to render
powerless. Satan doesn't have the power
to put anyone to death, but he does have power over sinners.
His power is to hold sinners, even the elect, under the fear
of death, the threat of punishment. He can do that until God delivers
His people from that. By the cross, Christ rendered
Satan powerless to hold the objects of God's love in condemnation. And by the knowledge of Christ
in the gospel, the beloved are delivered from our bondage, from
our fear. We don't fear God. We don't fear
punishment. Why? Because we know Christ has
already suffered our punishment. And we have to attribute our
deliverance, both of these deliverances, from the wrath we deserve and
from our own legalism of fear and death. We have to contribute
both deliverances there to God's love. It's God's particular and
perfect love that delivers us from the eternal wrath we deserve.
And it's God's particular and perfect love that delivers us
from our fear of death, the fear of punishment. And we can see
this in 1 John 4 and verses 17 and 18. Herein is our love made
perfect. brought to completion, brought
along to completion. It'll never be perfect in the
sense of being perfect in us. But herein is our love made perfect,
that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because
as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but
perfect love. Remember, that's God's love.
God's love casts out fear, because fear has torment. He's at fear
is not made perfect in love. Perfect love casts out fear. When God's particular and perfect
love is perfected or completed in us, it delivers us from the
fear and punishment that holds us in bondage until then. That's
the true love of God toward every one of its objects. It's particular
love for particular sinners because of a particular provision and
particular results for those sinners, and because of its particular
effect in and on those sinners. The righteousness of God is the
most important single piece of information sinners need to know
and understand, because only by that righteousness is the
true love of God revealed. And it's only by our interest
in and value for that righteousness, God's provision for those He
loved, and our love for them, the beloved, that we know the
love of God or demonstrate any true love for God. God's love
is particular because of its objects, because of its provision,
because of its results for its objects, and because of its effect
on its objects. May the Lord call sinners, bring
them, draw them with the cords of his particular love.