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CHAPTER 16

THE WONDERS OF THE BIBLE, THE GOSPEL,
THE LOVE AND MERCY AND PEACE OF GOD

DIVINE PRINCIPLES AND PROCEDURE
CONTRASTED WITH CERTAIN OPTIONS MAN PRESENTS

THE KING AND THE CONTRASTS

If all that the Islamic conception of Allah, standing for God, comes from his own will, supervening all, then how is evil to be explained except by his own will!; and thus who but such a god is the source of evil ? Now if freedom were indeed granted to man in that scenario, freedom in some aspects to resist and deny, even defy the way, work and will of Allah, then man is responsible for the evil, God for the liberty; but if freedom be so granted, how is everything according to the will of Allah ? But if it be said that Allah wills that man have freedom, then how is all under his inscrutable will, so that things are done just because it is his fiat! or simply his desire, nothing restraining him ? OR HOW COULD HE BE UNLIKE MAN IN EVERY WAY IF HE CHOSE TO BEAR REJECTION, DISMISSAL AND SCORN, AS MAN DOES, BY GIVING MAN LIBERTY! thus by unlinking from comparison, causing a vital logical exclusion.

If man be not free, such a god is not good. If man be free, such a god willingly subjects himself in much to the world of woes because of the will of man, and yet provides no solution for man, but waiting on his will and hoping; except some valorous act be performed, or notable impact be achieved which his will approves; and who can determine the pass mark on such a basis ?

Certainly, to subdue others seems constant refrain, and indeed, instead of being like man for any comparison, he is found in Surah 42:11, to be such that he is unlike all, "for nothing can be compared with him," He gives abundantly, it is stated, to whom he will and sparingly to whom he will. Incomparable, he is thus incapable of being allied in kind or experience (for that would be like some) or logic (for that is not only a kind of experience, but a mode of distilling, arguing and achieving mental results).

This is that vital logical exclusion from participation in the emotions, constraints and confrontations, obloquy and dismissal, thus severing him from results, if man were given freedom. It is in vain to assert, But Allah would not suffer! That is not the point, for if freedom for man is not a false claim, then Allah MUST receive what he does not desire, be able to be baulked in what he does, selectively, by what is then by definition beyond his control, in the whole domain of travail in which he then participates, so being linked to man in no uncertain terms, with a whole field of similarity. Greatness does not remove what is affirmed! If any, being granted freedom, so acted, and he did not at once remove them - which the Koran shows not at all to be the case, then that is the very considerable likeness to man. MUCH could then be compared to him. Liberty for man is therefore excluded by the asserted nature of Allah.

Then, as in Communism, man cannot logically be blamed for what is alleged not to contain liberty to do otherwise, nor can his duties include what is excluded. Yet blame and condemnation and subjugation and subordination are all to be the habitat under Allah's orders repeatedly, of what does not believe in Him^*1 or follow the sometimes inconsistent^*1 things affirmed.

What then ? Argument without logic is like an ocean without water, words without meaning, conditions without application, a mere bypass of what is affirmed, and hence an antilogy. Inconsistency then appears if man is to be given freedom, and when someone or some position contradicts itself, there is no need for others to do so.

THE HOLY CONSISTENCY

On the contrary, in the Bible, which is very consistent^*2 the position is different, for man is indeed made free relative to his relationship to God, SO free that he is at the first made in the very image of God. He is not simply ordered by the inscrutable or in totalitarian fashion. Rather as director of any operations whatsoever, at his order, we find this religious figure or being in vast difference from God, who is found saying, Come, let us reason together! (Isaiah 1:18), and "How often would I have gathered your children together, as a hen gathers her chickens, but you were not willing," Matthew 23:37. God is neither a source or the source of evil, either by imputation or declaration; but He is the One who delivers from it, yet without mere violence, faith being a channel with grace, of His deliverances, both in spirit and in destiny, as the case requires. Man is responsible, being so made, in Him is the guilt for resistance to the divine and blessed will of God, for evil, and there is nothing at all inscrutable about that (Romans 5:1-12, Isaiah 1).

Unlike God, who in all their affliction, was afflicted (Isaiah 63:9), indeed to the uttermost and ultimate, of whom it is said of those freely redeemed, "On Him was laid the iniquity of us all," as in Isaiah 53:6, and who appeals in love, "O that you had heeded My commandments," as in Isaiah 48, and "How often would I have gathered you..." found in Matthew 23:37, a participating God of glory and self-sacrifice, earnest entreaty for spiritual victory, not mere self-aggrandisement, things that are right, not merely a matter of fiat as at creation, there is a singular gap in the construction of the false prophet, Muhammad. Let us reason together, says the Lord (Isaiah 1), and with what entreaties and care does He stretch out new expressions of love, results according with sustained and chronic rebelliousness.

Sovereign from first to last, He in that kind of sovereign, and man that kind of invoker of reproof, not in mere power of thrust, but in a personal and reasoned fashion, so that there is not only a full responsibility for the result in man, through his sustained disjunction from his God and Maker, but a measured one as in Amos 4, as in II Chronicles 36.

"You do always resist the Holy Spirit," said Stephen, as he condemned a whole history of adverse action and resistance, mordant obstruction and remarkable follies (Acts 7:53). The entire operational director who appoints as he will, and secures what he will, but who yet provides no freedom, is of necessity responsible for the evil. They tried that ascription as a tailor made assault on Jesus, but He answered, If He by the finger of God cast out devils, how could the evil one continue, since that would make his house divided, Satan fighting Satan!

But with man free, even in response to God, to negate Him, His will, to confront, to conflict, to achieve the opposite of desire, then as specified, this is the logical case, the place of breach, the cutting of the cord, the production of discord, yes, this whether it be in man only, or in angels or any other willing beings. The evil comes in the human race, and it is not dismissed as the causative basis of man's condition, for which the divine Lord has provided a salvation, for He is not only not evil, but productively good to the uttermost part, and so far from mystery about the foundations of HIS blessed will, there is incarnation to enable man to be restored, not a system of terrestrial achievements leading to heaven.

A whole history can thereby be changed, which might have been as in Isaiah 48:15ff., both beautiful and peaceful; and both the quenched orders and the destructive results can quash the hope of the commander, as in example of the case of Israel, this leading to what was abhorred by God, for its Jerusalem, namely its total destruction (Ezekiel 20:7-44 cf. Matthew 23-24).

It is not that God is overturned, or in the end, subverted or controlled or prevented from doing precisely what He has said. It is rather that in the interim, man is given opportunity for trial, for showing the results of his futile false prophets, false ideologies, all history is given specific meaning, suffering its underlying cause, and the grain (as distinct from chaff), a product to be desired, even those who freely loving, freely found, freely redeemed, live in the love of God, without which there lies mere unprofitable conflict and arrogant rule of many over others, amid war and morally contemptible conduct. War is not a way of life in the peace of God (except as the burden from sin which invites it), for this is found in the horrors of judgment in Revelation 6.

Sin may occasion it, but only inwardly and in self-control, love of enemies, love of God and man, in redemption of heart, is the necessary victory to be found. The actualities are NOT AT ALL a matter of securing control in this world, which God in judgment keeps to Himself; man is far otherwise in His direction as James so clearly enunciates (James 4). There are not inscrutable horrors of IMPOSING the will of God, salvation itself FROM sin, but endless wonders in the provision through Him who declared this, "My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews, but now My kingdom is not from here."

To be sure, there is a complication, the norm in all cases of disease, where design is violated, and free use of promiscuous religious desire may hasten collision with the very nature of man as made. But this is a practical matter and has a practical answer. Made for initial operation in time, man is yet foreknown from eternity; indeed, he has the scope to become a participant in that wonder in the days to come through grace, as John so emphatically records in I John 1, even as an adopted entrant (Ephesians 1:5,14).

It is in the Bible and life alike, this, that God made man upright, but he has sought out many inventions (imaginations, deals of his own, alternative routes which like jumping over a cliff when rushed by a bull, are solutions in mind but not in fact). Such is Ecclesiastes 7:29. Indeed, SO far as that has man gone in the use of the wonder of liberty as granted by God - not autonomy, since there is only one God, but liberty since He being sovereign, is yet not a totalitarian sovereign, but One who desires to reason, exposes principles of His own operation, and acts on a stated love so great that John 3:16 with 8:58 applies to His very own personal self!

Consider now the NATURE of the sovereignty of God, lest the term be used as He does not use it.

He exists autonomously, for there is no barrier, no ground, no basis, nothing to which in anything He is made subject, or able to be; and being good, He does not vary, for if good, then any variation would be less than good! Hence in James 1:17 as in Malachi 3:6 and Deuteronomy 32:4 we see, as in John 1, that there is in Him no darkness or iniquity or injustice at all.

In God, the kind of autonomy is good autonomy, and far from a matter of mere affirmation, it involves a reasoned presentation and practical demonstration in the cross of Christ as in Romans 5:1-12. God PROTESTS, INSISTS and DIVULGES that He is not only sovereign but to the uttermost aspects of His very being, a loving sovereign, and of love He declares this: Love does not seek its own (I Corinthians 13). It is a giving thing, a gracious thing and a thoughtful thing, theme, principle and procedure, passion and power. So far from being the inscrutable source of good and evil, God, the true and living God, is the source of the love which pays for the evil where the heart receives Him, and secures the endless life of those who receive His gift, gained by imponderable suffering, anguish and a mercy which stops at nothing but truth in its profundity and reality (cf. The Original and Eventual Magnificence, Epilogue).

God has thus so defined, defended, declared and exhibited Himself as to the uttermost a loving God to the point He can even have it said in His authorised declaration concerning Himself, that God is love (I John 4:7-10), and to the uttermost the aspect for man, is NOT that man loves God but that God loved mankind and gave Himself for us.

This is an entirely different God from anything invented by man: such as may be called up without confirmation, through man's own ideas. Such a god of man's mind, may be made simply sovereign by himself, one dealing with his own will towards man, as he will, without basis for belief, ground for testing or discourse, giving man only ways to weigh in, if by any means he might achieve the desired end, ways depending on man in his own clenched efforts, or aspiring hope.

It is true that beyond all this sort of spiritual adventurism^*3, all this kind of false prophetic work as predicted by Jeremiah and by Christ (Matthew 24:24), the true God of times immemorial continues unaltered, in the unbroken biblical testimony. It is He whose ways with fallen man are covered over ages by the Bible, both before the fall of and after it, both before the flood and after it, both through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, through to the remedial provision of the crucifixion of Christ, and after this. It is likewise the case that in His own way, He is the sole determinant in the end, through many ways achieving what is desired, being alpha and omega, the first and the last, the God of all creation and restoration, communication and resolution.

But this is not without counsel, restraint and due consideration of the ways of what He has created, tender calls and appeals, necessary judgments, protestations, mercies and mighty provisions of grace. It is a God who is KNOWN, revealed and shown in principle, in nature and in procedure who is revealed, who tells us to test all things (I Thessalonians 5), and man has been able to act in terms of this knowledge, using his mind and means of access, whether to rebel or receive, to be restored or to face the ruins of his own chosen, pseudo-autonomous, wilful ways.

God has not suffered, from the first as in Genesis 3, sin to be unmet by remedy, for His name is involved in the creation called man with his liberty to laugh or weep, rebel or reform, find peace or break it. He has spoken to condemn sin and evil, and to commend mercy in His own ways from the outset, being never a participant in an affair where sin comes and is not condemned, arrives and the case not covered; for in Himself and in HIS name, there is simply no place for evil, so that when it comes, remedy is at once announced; and His message has been amplified in entire consistency through many prophets, till the full features of focus of the Saviour, Jesus Christ, have been both exposed in many specific predictions including the date of His death^*⁴from centuries beforehand, as also the reason for it (as in Isaiah 49-55); and the ways He would be and will be treated when coming personally to this earth, have been foretold likewise.

To the contrary of this, on the basis often made by man, mankind is readily thrust into the midst of a sovereign power where what counts is not the love of God and His provision in stark wonder for mankind, a systematic remedy of divine grace to mirror that of the divine provision of creation itself, where one as all is a source of consideration, concern and divine deliverance, but instead, in the remorseless fighting towards take or take-over of this world through man. It is precisely this which was offered to Christ (Matthew 4) by the devil, in return for worship of him, and which He witheringly rejected, citing Deuteronomy 6:13 (Matthew 4:10).

In whatever name; evidence is not found for this, but rather for ascent into the saddle of rule. Subjugation, not elevation of man, and that in this world, recurs repeatedly in the Islamic case^*1. That is another god. In that case, if the Allah is not accountable for evil, it is not only for reasons unknown; for evils come for reasons far beyond assessment in type, except for things which offend him. They then have no other source but he, whom supposedly nothing can withstand and we are left with him as source of evil.

THE SPLENDID UNITY OF PURPOSE AND PURITY

In the Bible, God has one way, that type of ultimacy, but with it, His own declared personality and this is communicable to the uttermost (cf. Hebrews 1:1-3, 2:1-3), providing a solution for aspiration, a pardon for concern, an assurance for grace to grant and action both to demonstrate the reality of such divine affirmation and cover His own stated principles of justice, mercy and love. I John 2:2 even declares that "He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world." The "for" in Greek has the sense of "on behalf of", so that on the one hand the referent is the entire world in its liberty of spirit (you don't have to obey, even if death be the penalty of man), and on the other is the one God who declares Himself to man, who tells what His thought is (Amos 4:13), what are His desires, His reasons, His remedies, and His giant grace in the culmination of all remedy in the much predicted Christ; and He gives such liberty to man that He can even divulge from His heart such a lament as this, concerning Israel at one point (Isaiah 48:18).

"Oh that you had harkened to My commandments:
then your peace would have been like a river,
and your righteousness like the waves of the sea!"

This is given by God in exquisite lament for what He did not simply COMMAND. Yes it comes after His exposure of the then coming incarnation of the Messiah, from the Trinity in 48:16. Instead, His people had bypassed this. This He suffered, allowing man to contravene His most ardent desire, because liberty is like that. You have it or you don't. God affirms that man is in His image, so that where it is not a matter of the eternal Being Himself, man is gifted with scope for his own decisions even when these counter cherished wishes of God, who BEING love, does not simply command His own desire.

History has preserved precisely what God has said in such matters, whether concerning a chronic lapse over the times of many kings in ancient Israel (II Chronicles 36, where a cyclotron of evil mounted over centuries), or Babylon, which God WOULD have healed (Jeremiah 51:9), or a parallel in Nineveh which, because of His practical pity and love, He spared even when justice seemed certain to act (Jonah 4). He even made it clear that sparing in mercy is His principle prior to judgment, that loving is His way, concern and acute personal consideration is before Him not as a mere option, but a vast drawing of the heart (cf. Psalm 89:14).

It is not just affirmed, amidst no explanation, but in the midst of explanation, affirmation and application of the most patent and practical kind, not once but often (cf. SMR Appendix B). It is the known and revealed, the God of light and love, singularity of power and purity, and manifold in His creation, it is to Him that man is to come, as one comes to a fountain, knowing well its refreshing wonder, and not at all to a mere source of command.

He even showed His nature in parables such as those of Matthew 18:21ff., where pardon is a major principle between God and man and man and man, by divine prescription; so that non-pardon of man by man is, in application, a way of exclusion from the kingdom of heaven, which works in such love (Matthew 6:5-15). Thus non-acceptance of divine pardon BY THE METHOD CHOSEN (salvation through grace by faith as in Ephesians 2) is in itself sufficient to exclude a man from heaven, even if by some device, he had entered. He would be thrown out peremptorily, not covered by grace, with its garments - standing, principles and basis - clearly demarcated ON him!

In Matthew 22:1-14, it is put in literal format, so that the parable exposes the point with a severe simplicity. He IS sovereign in many ways, but underlying is STATED, reliable, absolute and eternal grace, without addition, compromise, qualification or distortion of any kind or by any implication, and the necessity of faith, the kind on which one acts and not some vague religious feeling or drawing to hope from the God who is not known, as in many religions.

He sovereignly:

	1) made the universe and time with it, and
	2) created space, and laws and right and wrong for it and its inhabitants, and conditions for its use, and
	3) had prepared already remedies for such a marvel of liberty as in involved in making man in His image (Ephesians 1:4, Romans 8:29ff.).
	4) made the remedy match His love of mercy, and His movement by grace, so that as in creation, so in salvation, it is BY GRACE without addition, and this as He
	5) declared it, in kind, condition and detail.
	6) loved mankind, but not his persistent corruption to the point of refusing Gospel grace and its loving provision in kind and content (John 3:19,36), and
	7) insisted that those who were is in this Gospel committed to Him by this very faith through this very grace, are not to be condemned, but have already passed from death to life (John 5:24), His own salvation secured for ever (cf. John 4:14, Ephesians 1:11).
	8) in such ways has bound Himself, as He was bound when made a prisoner, but this by His own will and in the working of His own heart, to act reliably, faithfully, with gratuitous grace and in a personal power that achieves such results that nothing can or will ever overthrow (cf. Romans 5:1-12, 8:29ff.).
	9) refuses to even consider negotiations or bargains or qualifications or conditions from man, or to secure man in this situation, when love, justice and truth being inseparable, for such are jointly operative principles to say no more (Galatians 1:1-10), are treated as if variable. Indeed He
	scorns the concept of man as one who proposes the way of salvation, as if eliciting like some salesman or negotiator, a different pack of conditions, this a laughable folly, an inane misconception. Such is His designation (cf. Jeremiah 23).
	10) assigns eternal blessings based on HIS OWN WORK of righteousness, sin cancellation as in Ephesians 2 and Matthew 20:28 with Hebrews 9, so that as it has pleased Him, He first acted to create man as he is, then to its uttermost culmination in payment and provision, demonstrated the grant of a salvation in the all-prevailing Saviour, as broad as the race in offer and scope, and as narrow as His own death and resurrection in application, presented with long preludes and immovable content. (cf. Genesis 3:15, Isaiah 59:9-20).
	11) is emphatic in Romans 8, that neither past, present or future can overcome, sidetrack, annul this His love and its sure attainments, so that He is KNOWN for WHO He is and HOW He is and WHAT are His principles and for even in His own select way, REASONING with man in terms of that love, like a father, concerning His desire for His children.
	12) has acted to destroy the works of the devil (I John 3:8), and all spiritual assassins of man, and while faith is the means of travel in the meantime, in due time (cf. the case of the Amorites in Genesis 15:16, and II Thessalonians 1, Revelation 19), will exterminate all such entirely when the day of test and inquest is done (Revelation 19-21).
	13) as Creator forbids killing of man as a mode of securing faith, or extending His religion or personal comfort, and insists on rigorous justice that is far from dwelling on offensiveness concerning Himself as a ground for slaying others; (Matthew 26:30,52-56.27:27-34, John 18:36, Matthew 12:32), for His eye as Saviour was on salvation and neither on the condemnation (cf. John 3:16-18) for this world, nor its subjugation by force. Nor does He fail to preserve due judgment in due course, for in the end, He
	14) acts where His means of mercy are ignored (John 3:36, Nahum 1): since they involved His own personal gift of His own life, which is of infinite value as a gift, and in its results.

THE SPIRITUAL EXTRAVAGANCE OF GRACE AND MERCY

Just as the atomic bomb had its own parameters in this universe, so the awesome grace of God has its own specialised character in the Gospel, and not another. If you are not willing to be humble enough to pick it up, then you do not belong in the kingdom where spiritual wonder and truth work. There is no other way, and the exponents of force in this domain understand neither God nor man, nor the way God made man.

With all this, then, He ALSO graciously granted liberty of spirit to man, and even where SIN (as it does) divorces understanding from man, God lives and acts to impart truth where no way exists, for God creates a way as He will, and as in Hebrews 6, can alert and arrest people concerning His Gospel by an intrusive divine power (God makes all the difference!), that yet stops short of commandeering man, violating the conditions of his creation or fouling the humility of love, which suffers contempt and rejection, and does not change into force in frustration.

In the end, judgment comes and justice sits and acts (cf. Daniel 7:26-27, Revelation 19-20); and even the base in this world itself is removed for a new world in which righteousness dwells (II Peter 3, Matthew 24:35); but all its paths are covered where the blood, not of millions slain by contemptibly arrogant man, but of Christ, His life given as a ransom and redemption for man, is applied. Secured is the heart that waits on God in these terms, for HE who died is the advocate, and when the plea for a believer in Him is Himself, He prevails in all righteousness, mercy, peace and justice (cf. I John 1:7, where God is faithful and JUST to forgive those who receive the Gospel and its truth).

There is in man often found a desire to amplify the sovereignty of God in ways not authorised by His word. Such can ignite confusion as in a bush fire, and need to be avoided. Thus there are those who declare in God's name that the love of God does not reach so far, and that while He has love toward all, it is not the kind or quality or degree which brings a soul to heaven. For that something deeper is required. Indeed, such a declaration in kind was personally addressed to this writer by one of the noted Calvinist theologians, though he was among the more moderate in general.

The Bible however in John 3 affirms of the love of God which brought salvation through the crucifixion of the Son, the only begotten Son of God, that in so showing it, it was not His desire to condemn, but on the contrary to save the world, so that it was not a token or symbolic love, but His own persona love itself so deep that it went to His heart, came from His heart through the One who expressed His heart, in all its infinite glory, as nothing else did or could, God being triune and Jesus Christ sent in His own name and nature (Hebrews 1, Isaiah 48:15ff.). The extent of the love and its depth is shown in the measure of the SO loved (John 3:16) as provided then in this Son. It COULD NOT be greater, than so to send such a being on such a task for such a world.

THE STATE OF GRACE AND ITS PLACE

Thus this God who calls to man as One to be known and shown in heart already in precept and performance in history, acts towards man (cf. Titus 2-3), the responsible human agent, not through the manipulation of force and murder, not towards him as a manipulable enemy, for He Himself suffered force rather than thrust it, and acted for healing of mind, body and spirit, rather than mutilation, not its casting an underclass into relationships of fines and crushing contempt or burdensome oppression

Again, in Colossians 1:19ff., it is declared of this desire on the part of God for reconciliation amid man towards Himself, that it is for all.

Further it is emphatic in that it is repeated, and again, in this, that it is affirmed to apply to things whether in heaven or on earth. Yet again, it is affirmed in terms of the ultimate investment, quality and condition of love, in that it is true of Him as HAVING MADE PEACE THROUGH THE BLOOD OF THE CROSS. If God is not believed, this has its place in biblical results; but when His word is the criterion in the Bible, there is room here neither for negotiation nor negation. It is as stated, total in scope and in quality, this desire that ALL whether in heaven or on earth, be reconciled, in view of the blood of Christ, to Himself. The point was made in Class at Westminster Seminary, and has never been answered since there is no answer to the categories and categorical nature of the word and love of God as here shown, and divinely given. THAT is the nature of the gift, its ground and scope and quality.

Some like to think of mystery in this work, so that there is a certain irresolution concerning the actual choices of God. But the Bible makes it clear that resolution of principle and practice is MOST clear to God, and that He greatly desires to show it, and that man should know it. It is no part of sovereignty to refuse to tell its terms, or to hide in inscrutability outside available truth, for such deity is not known, so that the alleged dicta from such being, rest only on a declared ignorance, with no systematic basis in principle, but that of alleged qualities with unknown application in the last analysis.

It is true that since God foreknew who were His own before the foundation of the world (Romans 8:29ff., Ephesians 1:4), it is not a matter of some psychological tilt at some point, but that the matter has a divine and sublime guarantee, so that none to whom He in His free love comes, can possibly be missed (a bad day at the office). Nevertheless, such is His knowledge, wisdom and power, that any who in this world categorically reject His offer of the Gospel, and use sham with shame or other device, have no hope of invading heaven thereafter, except of course they repent before summoned. Luke 9:26 speaks clearly to this. Eternity knows its own; history does not bypass those who are confronted by His Gospel, but is testimony. The two work in synthesis and harmony. If however some do not HEAR or SEE the point at issue, the work of God in the Gospel as in John 15:22ff., then judgment is in this not yet confirmed. It is known in principle, but its outcome though known before this world was, is sure. There are however measures of mercy which in the love of God may be seen to be operative before a life is done.

In that biblical case (John 15), those who heard and saw what Christ had done were responsible for their unbelief, but if they had not heard, had not seen, then they would not have been guilty past all mercy (would have no sin, to the point at issue there). All things involve test in the end, in the realms of divine knowledge, foreknowledge, thought and action, and none, not one is missed. Those are His principles, this is His love, and this is how He works, in light, His own light, His transmitted and declared light, summoning us to test all things and to hold fast to what is good.

It is not then the case that predestination limits the love of God, but delimits its results in cosmic application, and secures them. The fact that what rejects the divine offer of salvation by grace through faith becomes irremediable rubbish (in divine terms as in Mark 9, Matthew 13), and odious, does not limit the love of God, but rather shows precisely what a tall precipice it had to overcome, evidencing that man IS odious without salvation (Ephesians 2, 4:17-19), that in his innermost and uttermost being, without repentance and redemption, he is far from heaven, far from at peace with his God.

It attests that the result of ignoring this, is remaining in that state, giving it the result of no remedy, and exposing it to all for which it had a negative inheritance. Hence, speaking in terms of the ultimates, results, as foreknown, God may speak in perfect consistency of having hated such and such a person (as in Romans 9) just as He may speak of providing a propitiation not only for the sins of the believer, but what is sufficient, ready on behalf of all the world. Payment is sufficient for all, offered to all, paid to the receivers.

Nor is it a matter of God saying, If I take you, you are fortunate; if I do not, what have you got to complain about, for you had no call or ground of application in and of yourself. The gift is mine and I have given it as and to whom I will! You did not qualify for My saving love. NOT THIS. It is true, there is no ground or application in and of yourself, and if He discarded a person as a non-believer, it would breach no asset affirmation for you; but it is also true that GOD HAS SAID (the evil one always needs to be reminded of this, as was the way of Christ in His own temptation as in Matthew 4). He has formally declared the nature and scope and quality of His love toward mankind, as re-affirmed so beautifully in Titus 2-3, What He has said provides the basis, on confidence in His word, given according to His true and reliable heart and depth of awesome faithfulness; and it is this, not justice, which is a given, a datum, a reliable basis for application. Here is a reserve not earned; a love not induced; a solution made ready freely before the first of the dawns ever shone, or the institution of sin darkened its glory.

Is it that man has become so far removed from the wonder of his initial creation, that simply believing has passed away for many! If God says it, proceed from there, and do not as a believer or noter of the Christian faith, mix your systems, and use your own ideas while ostensibly declaring what God says in the Bible. SIMPLY believing involves actually repenting and in no small action, being begotten all over again in heart, your mind refreshed, your eyes opened, your loyalty singular, your God your defence and glory.

Thus it is not a matter of some veiled, inscrutable, concept mysteriously displaced from view, something obscure that relates to the divine selection of His own people, one by one, whether from this nation or that (cf. Galatians 3). HE has stated otherwise. The scope of the love and desire is not detached but declared. The ground of rejection despite such love is also stated, and that even where the outthrust of seeking love is affirmed. GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT HE GAVE, of His most precious, signifying the height and depth of the divine desire.

As in Colossians 1:19ff., you see the scope of it, and since God IS love, this stated divine desire for reconciliation of ALL, whether in heaven or on earth, is a loving one. It is not mysterious how some fail to enter. It is declared in this context of John 3 and its associates, that there is a ground for condemnation. This is operative, applicable, generically as true as Christ's coming. That this exists, this condemnation is made clear from cover to cover of the Bible and not a little in life; but why in view of such love, payment in sacrifice and divine desire it is so, is SHOWN to be in the one adversative element, that some PREFER darkness, even there where the light is, to that light..

That is the biblical answer to the question as in John 3: WHY NOT ALL, since the scope of THAT VERY LOVE so defined is all. Why ? It is because, says the same scripture, Bible, word of God, of this: that this light has come into the world, but there is another element which is fatal to its achievement of souls. What is this ? It is that some in the very midst of such light, still PREFER DARKNESS. The reason for the exception is not that God had a lesser scope of love than that just affirmed, but that man had a lesser scope of acceptance, than was presented in that love of God. It is emphatically NOT the divine responsibility for a limited love, as if this were a drain on an emptied or unavailable tank of mercy, since the opposite is affirmed; and there is a party held responsible for what happens despite this: it is the PREFERENCE of those who are going to be condemned after all of this, despite it. As to the Lord, He DELIGHTS in mercy (cf. Micah 7:19ff. cf. Sinners Only).

The diversion, then, comes from man; and while the conversion comes from God (as in John 6:65), who remains sovereign, such a sovereign as He reveals and exposes Himself to be, it is not based on what is beyond the scope of vision and understanding. Its simplicity is like that of a pit of vipers, into which a person chooses to find company. Far from it, infinitely far. It is not wrought in isolation from God, but in terms of His all-knowing penetration of the heart of every man, making predestination a friend; and indeed, if anyone long for the Lord, and so takes Him, He is shown to have been predestinated, for there is an unbreakable circuit shown in Romans 8:29, so that to be in this, is to find its end in the Lord. IN that in which God delights, there is no adversity to dispel, but rather mercy to propel. The Lord came to seek and to save what was lost, and the payment made, the mission continues.

Indeed, it is as simple as one son going into a field to work, though saying he would not, and one not doing it, though he said he would. It is not appearance but reality, not hypocrisy but authenticity, not man's brilliance in his sin, but God's divine knowledge in terms of HIS LOVE in scope and quality, that works the results. Man may play about (as in Hebrews 6), and by divine action find knowledge of the nature of the supernatural and heavenly things (no natural thing can baulk the will of God, in any field), and yet fail. He may fail all the more vaingloriously for that. God WOULD HAVE ALL, but not such that His love becomes a receiver of fraud, or a misapplication of the term force! He with His love, this glorious God of eternity whose word from the first man has moved to the earth, and before it to make it: He does not change, and certainly may be rejected.

Yet before Him, all known and foreknown, but it is not as if a chess game were in action, but His love proceeded personally to the point of blood in incarnation, where God became man, wiling to suffer and die, to become vicariously a victor for believers over guilt, the disrupter of death so that they might live for ever, with that very eternal life which is His (as in I John 1). Thus in profound majesty, in the grandeur of grace, through suffering murder as planned (cf. I Corinthians 2:7ff.), not imparting it! He deliberately provided mercy, even for murderers should they repent and come to faith in Him, a sacrifice profound, proficient and available to all living.

God insists on your actual liberty to decline His love and its practical procedure of gift, and if you insist, though He may long persist, as He did with Israel before the destruction of 586 B.C. and traced in II Chronicles 36 and Psalm 78 for example, He does not overwhelm you, declines to shanghai you, despotically to add you as if to a spiritual harem or any other disgusting violation of love transmuted into His own will in isolation of His own principles and procedures.

He does not have some X-factor of selection, as He surveys the human race, so that some are more attractive to or desirable for deity, and are hence selected outside the criterion of love for all and desire in terms of the blood of Christ, for all. It is neither restricted to quality inherent in any man, nor greatness assigned; it is not this which secures man's salvation (I Corinthians 1:26-27), but rather are the many found in the category which is the very opposite! Indeed, to salvation nothing can contribute except as a result of what is already given (Ephesians 2, Romans 3:23ff.). There is no question of something other than grace, something personal and unstated, for even the deep things are revealed (I Corinthians 2:9ff.). What He has said, applies, without addition or subtraction. Efforts to expand or restrict grace only limit it, since what it is cannot be surpassed. When there is an omission it is for a DIVINELY STATED CAUSE, the preference of man DESPITE the stated desire of God.

It is, then, that grace has its epitome, for the love of God is so vast, that it led to the infinite gift and practical performance of God to make free the entry to His kingdom, through personal cost that could not be more, amounting not only to incarnation and death, but to mockery and violation and hideous lowering of brutality and superficial folly. Hence when His love holds back from simple SEIZURE, mere taking of what is so loved, what grace is shown there! It is like a lovelorn admirer who is turned aside since the lady does not love being so loved, but prefers ... other things.

God is willing to be weak in appearance, to be strong in reality, to be baulked in desire, to be fulfilled in purity, to have man as He states him to be, responsible and held responsible, and yet safeguarded as in John 15:22ff., in His own self-restraint and coverage, if merely ignorant. Such is but one application of grace, of a desire which seeks to gain man, and not as if simply autocratic in temper, to condemn. It is He who has known all things before the creation, and applies them at its end. It is God who restrains Himself, who works with His own counsel in all things, and who declares His principles precisely, and keeps them in majestic purity. Thus in the human field, the way a man is to treat his wife is strikingly brought out as a comparison to Christ and His Church. While the man has authority in the household, he has also obligation to love his wife to the point that he willingly makes sacrifice for her, loves her as himself. It is that sort of authority which is a delight, and not suppression, ungainly and impersonal authority. That application is found in Ephesians 5. God's relationship to man in His own love, provides an example for man with his wife, for the thing is no mere authority, but one of heartfelt concern, benevolent rule and personal conviction in gracious love.

It is likewise here that sovereignty has its epitome, for God even controls HIMSELF, and indeed self-control as in II Peter 1, is one of the eminent spiritual qualities which every Christian must have, must seek as better than gold. What a sovereign is this, who has stated, declared principles and keeps them, whether at cost or not, has love and keeps it, whether amid hate or not, does not abuse power to obtain desire, but loves as love is, not seeking its own, not a bushranger, a highwayman, but One who cherishes, but not to destroy by power, not seizing as death may do by seizure, as if to change the very thing in view in the process. He loves enough to leave it, if need be because of His own gracious disposition. Certainly He will get those who are His, but this in accord with the principles stated. Thank the Lord He is not possessive as those who ravish women by loathsome force, their 'love' apparently a form of inhuman bestiality or at times of devilry, most undivine.

There is none like our Lord, who in addition to all this, gives evidence and attestation matched by nothing^*2.

NOTES

*1.

See for example Tender Times ... Ch. 8, *1 , Red Alert Ch. 16, Divine Agenda Ch. 6, More Marvels ... Ch. 4, and see Moslem in Indexes.

A merciful being shows this quality not just to some favoured, but by nature looks beyond this. If liberty be given, then failure to receive what is offered does not violate mercy, but truth, with the due results of confrontation with reality, despite grace, for those with their own agenda, carved out of air.

See the following on this.

SMR, TMR,

LIGHT DWELLS WITH THE LORD'S CHRIST

WHO ANSWERS RIDDLES

AND WHERE HE IS, DARKNESS DEPARTS

Bible or Blight, Christ or Confusion:
The Comprehensive Resolution of Man's Intractable Problems
is Found Only in the Bible, the Word of God)

See also Department of Bib le and Spiritual Affairs Volume 4, Ch. 2.

This is typified in the divine condemnation of false prophets as a type, one to become very popular towards the end of the Age (Jeremiah 23:20), which is now (as in Luke 21;24). It is epitomised in Jeremiah 23:21-22, where God declares this.

"I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran.
I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.

"But if they had stood in My counsel,
And had caused My people to hear My words,
Then they would have turned them from their evil way
And from the evil of their doings."

Failure to have the message of truth, the elements of remedy, the provision of acceptance with God, the the loving and merciful knowledge of His will, while false and uncalled for ideas are scattered like poisoned wheat, this becomes a tragedy, one more attestation of the rebellion which is in the heart of man, many seeking their desires through religious means, and not finding the will or power of God, so that their gods do not prevail, though through this or that nation or religion they may try to do so, and even appallingly, go yet further than this.

Thus such false prophets may presume to act and speak in God's own name, and this is to be found in numerous sects, and in the case of Islam, in the daring reconfiguration of Jesus Christ, making Him anew, and keeping His name! This is not a cartoon but a caricature, not even expressed as one! (cf. Jeremiah 23:36-40).

For this prophetic date, see sites such as:

Highway of Holiness Ch. 4, Christ the Citadel Ch. 2)