On the Love of God

Loving the Giver of Every Good

2. Those who accept the truth of what I have said surely know why we are bound to love God. But if unbelievers refuse to accept it, their ingratitude is immediately exposed by His countless benefits, poured out on our race and plainly evident to the senses. Who gives food to all flesh (Ps 136:25), light to every eye, and air to all that breathe? It would be foolish to begin a list, since I have just called these benefits countless. Still, I name food, sunlight, and air as notable examples, not because they are God’s best gifts, but because they are essential to bodily life.

We must look within our own higher nature for the highest gifts: dignity, wisdom, and virtue. By dignity I mean free will, through which human beings not only surpass all other earthly creatures but also have dominion over them. Wisdom is the power by which we recognize this dignity and understand that we did not acquire it for ourselves. Virtue urges us to seek eagerly the One who is our Source, and to hold fast to Him once we have found Him.

3. Each of these three best gifts has a twofold character. Dignity appears both as a privilege of human nature and as the cause of the fear and dread of humanity that rests on every beast of the earth (Gen 9:2). Wisdom recognizes this distinction but acknowledges that, though it is in us, it is not from us, any more than other good qualities are. Finally, virtue moves us to search eagerly for our Maker and, once we have found Him, teaches us to cling to Him still more eagerly.

Consider also that dignity without wisdom is worthless, and wisdom without virtue is harmful, as the following argument shows. There is no glory in having a gift without knowing it. But knowing only that you have it, without knowing that it did not come from yourself, means glorying in yourself rather than truly glorying in God. So the Apostle says to people in this condition, “What hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now, if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?” (1 Cor 4:7). He asks, “Why dost thou glory?” but continues, “as if thou hadst not received it.” This shows that the guilt lies not in glorying in a possession, but in glorying as though it had not been received.

Such glorying is rightly called vainglory, because it lacks the solid foundation of truth. The Apostle shows how to distinguish true glory from false when he says, “He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord” (1 Cor 1:31). That is, let him glory in the Truth, since our Lord is Truth (John 14:6).

4. We must therefore know what we are, and know that we are not what we are through our own power. Unless we understand this thoroughly, we will either not glory at all or glory in vain. Finally, it is written: “If thou know not, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock” (Song 1:8). And this is right. A person who holds an honored place but does not recognize that honor can rightly be compared, because of such ignorance, to the beasts that perish (Ps 49:12).

If someone does not know himself as a creature distinguished from irrational animals by the possession of reason, he begins to become indistinguishable from them. Ignorant of his own true glory, which is within, he is taken captive by curiosity and concerns himself with outward things perceived by the senses. Thus he comes to resemble the lower creatures by not knowing that he has received greater gifts than they have.

We must guard against this ignorance. We must not rank ourselves too low, and we must take still greater care not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought (Rom 12:3). That happens when we foolishly credit ourselves with whatever good may be in us. But far more than either kind of ignorance, we must hate and avoid the presumption that leads us to glory in goods that are not our own. We know they come not from ourselves but from God, yet we do not fear to rob God of the honor due to Him.

In the first case, mere ignorance does not glory at all. In the second, mere wisdom has a kind of glory, yet does not glory in the Lord (2 Cor 10:17). In the third, evil case, however, a person sins deliberately rather than ignorantly, claiming the glory that belongs to God. This arrogance is a more serious and deadly fault than the ignorance of the second case, because it despises God, while the other does not know Him. Ignorance is like that of a brute animal; arrogance is devilish (Jas 3:15). Only pride, the chief of all sins, can make us treat gifts as though they belonged to our nature by right and, while receiving benefits, rob our Benefactor of His rightful glory.

5. So we must add virtue to dignity and wisdom, as the proper fruit of both. Virtue seeks and finds the One who is the Maker and Giver of all good and who must be glorified in everything. Otherwise, someone who knows what is right but fails to do it will be beaten with many stripes (Luke 12:47). Why, you may ask? Because he has failed to put his knowledge to good use, but instead has “imagined mischief upon his bed” (Ps 36:4). Like a wicked servant, he has turned aside to seize the glory that his own knowledge assured him belonged only to his good Lord and Master.

It is therefore clear that dignity without wisdom is useless, and wisdom without virtue is accursed. But when someone possesses virtue, wisdom and dignity are blessings rather than dangers. Such a person calls on God and praises Him, confessing from a full heart, “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy Name give the praise” (Ps 115:1). This means, “O Lord, we claim no knowledge or distinction for ourselves. Everything is Yours, because everything comes from You!”

6. But we have wandered too far from our subject in trying to prove that even those who do not know Christ are sufficiently instructed by natural law and their own gifts of soul and body to love God for God’s own sake (Rom 2:14-15). To sum up: what unbeliever does not know that he has received light, air, food, and everything necessary for his body’s life from Him alone Who giveth food to all flesh (Ps 136:25), Who maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust (Matt 5:45)?

Who is so impious as to attribute humanity’s distinctive superiority to anyone other than the One who says in Genesis, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness” (Gen 1:26)? Who else could be the Giver of Wisdom but He That teacheth man knowledge (Ps 94:10)? Who else could bestow virtue except the Lord of virtue?

So even the unbeliever who does not know Christ, but at least knows himself, is bound to love God for God’s own sake. He cannot be pardoned if he does not love the Lord his God with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his mind (Matt 22:37). His own innate sense of justice and common sense cry out from within that he is bound to love God completely, since he has received everything from Him.

But it is hard, indeed impossible, for anyone by his own strength or the power of free will to return everything to the God from whom it came, rather than diverting these gifts to his own advantage. As it is written, “For all seek their own” (Phil 2:21); and again, “The imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Gen 8:21).

The Christian’s Greater Reasons to Love God

7. The faithful know how much they need Jesus and Him crucified (1 Cor 2:2). They marvel and rejoice at the love beyond words revealed in Him. Yet they are not discouraged because they have only their own poor selves to offer in return for such great love that stoops to meet them. They love all the more because they know they are loved so greatly; but “to whom little is given, the same loveth little” (Luke 7:47). Neither Jew nor pagan feels love’s anguish as the Church does when she says, “Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples; for I am sick of love” (Song 2:5).

She beholds King Solomon with the crown his mother placed on him on his wedding day (Song 3:11). She sees the Only-Begotten of the Father (John 1:14) bearing the heavy burden of His Cross. She sees the Lord of all power and might bruised and spat upon, the Author of life and glory pierced with nails, struck by the lance, overwhelmed with mockery, and finally laying down His precious life for His friends (John 15:13). As she contemplates this, the sword of love pierces her own soul too (Luke 2:35), and she cries aloud, “Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples; for I am sick of love” (Song 2:5).

The fruits the Bride gathers from the Tree of Life in the middle of her Beloved’s garden (Gen 2:9) are pomegranates (Song 4:13). They take their taste from the Bread of Heaven (Ps 105:40) and their color from the Blood of Christ. She sees death dying and its author overthrown. She beholds captivity led captive from hell to earth, from earth to heaven (Ps 68:18; Eph 4:8), so “that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth” (Phil 2:10).

Under the ancient curse, the earth brought forth thorns and thistles (Gen 3:18). Now the Church sees it laughing with flowers, restored by the grace of a new blessing. Remembering the verse, “My heart danceth for joy, and in my song will I praise Him” (Ps 28:7), she refreshes herself with the fruits of His Passion, gathered from the Tree of the Cross, and with the flowers of His Resurrection (Song 7:13). Their fragrance invites her Bridegroom to visit often.

8. Then she exclaims, “Behold, thou art fair, My beloved, yea, pleasant: also, our bed is green” (Song 1:16). She shows her desire for His coming and what gives her hope of receiving Him. Her hope rests on the flowers of the field God has blessed, rather than on her own merits (Gen 27:27). Christ, who chose to be conceived and brought up in Nazareth, that is, the Town of Branches, delights in such blossoms (Matt 2:23). Pleased by this heavenly fragrance, the Bridegroom gladly revisits the heart’s chamber when He finds it adorned with fruits and flowers: when the heart meditates on the mystery of His Passion or the glory of His Resurrection.

We recognize the signs of the Passion as the fruit of past ages, appearing in the fullness of time during the reign of sin and death (Gal 4:4). But the fresh flowers of the later age emerge in the glory of the Resurrection, in the new springtime of grace that brings new life. Their fruit will be given without measure at the general Resurrection, when time will be no more (Rev 10:6). And so it is written, “The winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth” (Song 2:11, 12). This signifies that summer has returned with Him who melts icy death into the spring of a new life and says, “Behold, I make all things new” (Rev 21:5). His Body, sown in the grave, has blossomed in the Resurrection (1 Cor 15:42). In the same way, our valleys and fields, once barren or frozen as though dead, glow with returning life and warmth.

9. The Father of Christ, who makes all things new, delights in the freshness of these flowers and fruits, and in the beauty of the field that breathes out such heavenly fragrance. He blesses it, saying, “See, the smell of My Son is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed” (Gen 27:27). Blessed to overflowing indeed, since “of His fullness have all we received” (John 1:16). The Bride may come whenever she pleases to gather flowers and fruits and adorn the deepest recesses of her conscience. Then, when the Bridegroom comes, He may find the chamber of her heart fragrant with perfume.

If we want Christ to be a frequent Guest, we too must fill our hearts with faithful meditation on the mercy He showed by dying for us and the mighty power He showed by rising from the dead. David testified to this when he sang, “God spake once, and twice I have also heard the same; that power belongeth unto God; and that Thou, Lord, art merciful” (Ps 62:11, 12).

Surely there is more than enough proof in these acts: Christ died for our sins and rose again for our justification (Rom 4:25); He ascended into heaven to protect us from above; and He sent the Holy Spirit to comfort us (John 15:26). Hereafter He will come again to bring our joy to its fullness. In His death He displayed His mercy; in His Resurrection, His power. Mercy and power together manifest His glory in His other acts.

10. The Bride desires to be sustained with flagons and comforted with apples because she knows how easily the warmth of love can fade and grow cold. But she needs these helps only until she enters the bridal chamber. There she will receive His long-desired caresses, as she sighs, “His left hand is under my head, and His right hand doth embrace me” (Song 2:6). Then she will perceive how far the embrace of His right hand surpasses every sweetness. The left hand with which He first caressed her cannot compare with it.

She will understand what she has heard: “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing” (John 6:63). She will experience the truth of what she has read: “My memorial is sweeter than honey, and mine inheritance than the honeycomb” (Sir 24:20). What is written elsewhere, “The memorial of Thine abundant kindness shall be showed” (Ps 145:7), surely refers to those of whom the Psalmist had just said, “One generation shall praise Thy works unto another, and declare Thy power” (Ps 145:4).

Here on earth we have the remembrance of Him; in the Kingdom of Heaven we have His very Presence. That Presence is the joy of those who have already attained blessedness (Rev 21:3). The remembrance comforts us who are still travelers on the way to our homeland.

Finding Comfort in the Thought of God

11. But we should note what kind of people find comfort in the thought of God. Surely not that perverse and crooked generation to whom it was said, “Woe unto you that are rich; for ye have received your consolation” (Luke 6:24). Rather, they are those who can truthfully say, “My soul refused comfort” (Ps 77:2). It is fitting that those who find no satisfaction in the present should be sustained by the thought of the future. Contemplating eternal happiness should comfort those who scorn to drink from the river of passing joys. This is the generation of those who seek the Lord, who seek not their own interests but the face of the God of Jacob.

For those who long for the presence of the living God, the thought of Him is sweetness itself (Ps 42:2). Yet it brings no satiety, but an ever-growing appetite, as Scripture testifies: “They that eat me shall yet be hungry” (Sir 24:21). And as though one of these hungry souls were speaking, “When I awake up after Thy likeness, I shall be satisfied with it” (Ps 17:16). Yes, even now those who hunger and thirst after righteousness are blessed, for they, and they alone, shall be filled (Matt 5:6).

Woe to you, wicked and perverse generation! Woe to you, foolish and depraved people, who hate the remembrance of Christ and dread His Second Coming! You have good reason to fear, since you will not now seek deliverance from the hunter’s snare (Ps 91:3). For “they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts” (1 Tim 6:9). On that day you will not escape the dreadful sentence of condemnation: “Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire” (Matt 25:41).

What a dreadful sentence indeed! What a hard saying! How much harder to bear than that other saying we repeat daily in church in remembrance of the Passion: “Whoso eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, hath eternal life” (John 6:54)! Its meaning is this: whoever honors My death and follows My example by putting to death his earthly members shall have eternal life (Col 3:5). As the Apostle says, “If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him” (2 Tim 2:12). Yet even today many recoil from these words and turn away, saying by their actions, if not with their lips, “This is a hard saying; who can hear it?” (John 6:60).

“A generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit cleaveth not steadfastly unto God” (Ps 78:8) chooses instead to trust in uncertain riches (1 Tim 6:17). It is troubled by the very name of the Cross and finds the remembrance of the Passion intolerable. How can such people bear the weight of that fearful sentence, “Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt 25:41)? “On whomsoever that stone shall fall, it will grind him to powder” (Luke 20:18). But “the generation of the faithful shall be blessed” (Ps 112:2), since, like the Apostle, they strive to be accepted by the Lord, whether present or absent (2 Cor 5:9). On the last day they too will hear the Judge pronounce their reward: “Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt 25:34).

On that day, those who did not set their hearts right will feel, too late, how easy Christ’s yoke is, though they would not bend their necks to it. They will feel how light His burden is compared with the pains they must then endure (Matt 11:30). Wretched slaves of Mammon, while you trust in treasures stored on earth (Matt 6:19, 24), you cannot glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (Gal 6:14). While you hunger for gold, you cannot taste and see how gracious the Lord is (Ps 34:8). If you have not rejoiced at the thought of His coming, that day will indeed be a day of wrath for you (Rom 2:5).

12. But the believing soul longs and faints for God (Ps 63:1); she rests sweetly in contemplating Him. She glories in the disgrace of the Cross until the glory of His face is revealed. Like the Bride, Christ’s dove, whose silver wings are white with innocence and purity, she rests in the thought of Your abundant kindness, Lord Jesus. Above all, she longs for that day when, amid the joyful splendor of Your saints, gleaming with the radiance of the Beatific Vision, her feathers will be like gold, shining with the joy of Your face (Ps 68:13).

Rightly, then, she may exult, “His left hand is under my head, and His right hand doth embrace me” (Song 2:6). The left hand signifies the remembrance of that matchless love which moved Him to lay down His life for His friends (John 15:13). The right hand is the Beatific Vision He has promised His own, and their delight in His presence. The Psalmist sings with rapture, “At Thy right hand there is pleasure for evermore” (Ps 16:12). We are therefore justified in understanding the right hand as that divine joy in His presence which makes us godlike.

13. Rightly, too, that wonderful and ever-memorable love is symbolized by His left hand, on which the Bride rests her head until iniquity is done away with. He sustains her mind’s purpose so that it will not turn aside to earthly, fleshly desires. For the flesh wars against the spirit: “The corruptible body presseth down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth upon many things” (Wis 9:15).

What could come from contemplating compassion so marvelous and so undeserved, favor so freely given and so well attested, kindness so unexpected, mercy so unconquerable, grace so amazing? What else could follow but that the soul withdraws from every sinful attachment, rejects everything inconsistent with God’s love, and gives herself wholly to heavenly things? No wonder the Bride, moved by the fragrance of these anointings, runs swiftly, all on fire with love (Song 1:3, 4). Yet she thinks she loves far too little in return for the Bridegroom’s wonderful love. And she is right. It is no great thing for a little dust to be entirely consumed with love for that Majesty which loved her first and revealed itself as wholly intent on saving her.

For “God so loved the world that He gave His Only-Begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). This expresses the Father’s love. But “He hath poured out His soul unto death” was written of the Son (Isa 53:12). And of the Holy Spirit it is said, “The Comforter, Which is the Holy Ghost, Whom the Father will send in My Name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you” (John 14:26). It is clear, then, that God loves us, and loves us with all His heart. For the whole Holy Trinity loves us, if we may venture to speak this way of the infinite and incomprehensible Godhead, who is essentially One.