First Christian Church

By Bruce Humes

Pastor

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:7-8 NKJV).

The apostle John writes God’s love for us in his Gospel and three letters. God’s love is heavily influenced in verses 1 John 4:9-11.

“In this the love of God was manifest toward us, that God has sent his only begotten son into the world, that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be a propitiation (atonement) for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”

The Greek language has four different words to describe the word “love:” storge, an empathy bond; philia, a friendship, brotherly bond; eros, a romantic or sexual bond; and agape, an unconditional bond.

In these verses, John uses the Greek word “agape,” which describes God’s unconditional love for each one of us, manifested by him sending his only begotten son to be an atonement for our sins. That is the ultimate expression of agape, God’s unconditional love.

John also wrote about the son as a judge, which we see in John 5:22: “For the father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the son.”

The apostle Paul spoke of this when speaking to those gathered on Mars Hill in Athens in Acts 17:30-31, “Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because he (God) has appointed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he ordained, (Jesus) he has given assurance of this to all by raising him from the dead.

Again in Acts 10:42, the apostle Peter, speaking to Cornelius, said, “And he commanded us to preach to the people, and to testify that it is he (Jesus) who was ordained by God to be judge of the living and the dead.”

We know God is love (agape), but we often overlook the fact that he ordained his son, Jesus, as a judge.

In 2 Corinthians 5:10, Paul writes, “For we (believers) must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”

This has nothing to do with the salvation of the believers; Christ paid that debt on the cross. Think of it as rewards after completing the race.

In Matthew 25:31-46, we see that all inhabitants of earth will be judged. Let’s look at verses 31-32: “When the son of man comes in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.”

Verses 33-45 takes us through the judgment of the sheep and goats, and verse 46 gives the sentence, “And these (goats) will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

In Revelation 19:11-15, we see the judgment of the unbelieving: “Then I saw a great white throne and him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and heavens fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and having books opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.”

God is indeed love, but he is also the supreme judge.