"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" (Jn. 3: 16).

Sir Robert Anderson writes: "Just as an infant's hand 'can grasp the acorn which holds the giant oak' within it, so the youngest child who can lisp 'the Nicodemus sermon' may with truth be said to know the gospel, and yet in every word of it there is a depth and mystery of meaning which God alone can fathom. Tell me what it means to perish, and enable me to grasp the thought of a life that is eternal. Measure for me the abyss of man's wickedness and guilt during all the ages of his black and hateful history, that I may realise in some degree what that world is which God has loved; and then, pausing for a moment in wonder at the thought that such a world could be loved at all, hasten on to speak of love that gave the Son. And when you have enabled me to know this love, which cannot be known, for it passes knowledge, press on still and tell me of the sacrifice by which it has measured and proved itself - His Son, His Only-begotten Son" (Anderson, The Gospel And Its Ministry, Kregel Publications, 1978, pp. 1-2).

The love of the Lord toward mankind is unconditional in that He sent His Son to die for us even while we were His enemies: "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us...For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son" (Ro. 5: 8, 10).

The Apostle Peter writes, "...for God is love. 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 loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 Jn. 4: 8-10).

The Lord God defines love because He is love. However, the Scriptures also reveal an Expression of His love:

"But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear" (Isa. 59: 2).

There is another aspect regarding the love of God, and that is His love in its relation to certain qualities in the loved one. Andrew Jukes says that "As to His being, God is love...but in the expression of love we may see that love is righteous also...A father's and still more a mother's unchanging love illustrates the first, a love which cannot change, spite of faults and failings in a love one. This is love in its Being. But the Expression of this love varies in virtue of certain qualities in the beloved. If therefore a child rebels, or a friend deceives, or if a wife becomes unfaithful, there will be a breach of love. You must, much as it must pain you, part from them, and judge the evil; for if you do not, you countenance their evil doings" (Jukes, The Names of God, Kregel Publications, 1967, pp. 36-37).

Sin, which is the opposite of righteousness and love, not only wounds the creature but also the Creator because He "loves righteousness and hates iniquity" (Ps. 45: 7). The Lord finds in all iniquity something adverse to His very nature and therefore it must be opposed and judged.

The words "justified" and "righteousness" are translations of similiar Greek words and they convey the idea of being "right" with God. Sir Robert Anderson writes that "righteousness is a complex word. It expresses either a personal moral quality or a judicial state. If any one be personally righteous, he is, of course, and by virtue of it, judicially righteous also. On the other hand, to declare a person to be judicially righteous who personally is not righteous, is, according to human judgment, unrighteous and immoral...But the great marvel of the gospel, the great triumph of redemption, is that God can declare those to be righteous who personally are not righteous; that He can justify the sinner, not by deeming him a law-keeper, but even while He judges him as a law-breaker" (Ibid. , pp. 109-110).

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