Jeremiah 31:3 The LORD has appeared of old to me, saying, Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love… According to the Catechism of the Westminster Assembly, "God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth" A very comprehensive and noble definition, no doubt I yet did it never strike you as strange that there is no mention of love here? This appears a very remarkable omission, as remarkable as if an orator, who undertook to describe the firmament, left out the sun, or an artist in painting the human face, made it sightless, and gave no place on the canvas to those beaming eyes which impart to the countenance its life and expression. Why did an assembly, for piety, learning, and talents, the greatest perhaps that ever met in England, or anywhere else, in that catalogue of Divine attributes, assign no place to love? Unless we are to understand the term "goodness" as comprehending love, the omission may be thus explained and illustrated. Take a globe, and observing their natural order, lay upon its surface the different hues of the rainbow; give it a rapid motion around its axis, and now the colours vanish. As if by magic the whirling sphere instantly changes into purest white, presenting to our eyes a visible and to our understanding a palpable proof that the sunbeam is not a simple but a compound body, thread spun of various rays which, when blended into one form light; so all the attributes acting together make love, and that because God is just, powerful, holy, good, and true, of necessity, therefore, "God is love." ( T. Guthrie, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee. |
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