"He Who is coming out of heaven
is over all."
John 3:31
God has always loved us: "For thus God loves the world."
The love of God didn't start at the birth of Jesus, it has always been, from before the disruption of the earth, it is eternal.
We on the other hand have a hard time loving God.
"We love Him because He loves us first." (1 John 4:19). You could insert (only) between "Him" and "because." We love Him (only) because He loves us first.
Nothing we do causes God to love us.
The writer of Hebrews tells us this: "By many portions and many modes, of old, God, speaking to the fathers in the prophets, in the last of these days speaks to us in a Son." God has always been the initiator when being made known to humankind. He is the One Who always sends someone to tell us He loves, and is conciliated toward humankind. He does this because we are the ones that need to be conciliated toward God. That is the reason Christ was sent; to make reconciliation, so God's love will be impossible for anyone to deny.
The believer realizes this now:
"And you, being once estranged and enemies in comprehension, by wicked acts, yet now He reconciles by His body of flesh, through His death, to present you holy and flawless and unimpeachable in His sight." (Colossians 1:21-22).
The rest of humanity will be reconciled to God because God was in Christ, conciliating the world to Himself (2 Corinthians 5:19).
Jesus was sent to reconcile us to God, and reveal God's love for us.
"In this is love, not that we love God, but that He loves us, and dispatches His son, a propitiatory shelter concerned with our sins." (1 John 4:10).
He was sent not to warn us if we don't reciprocate His love, He will stop loving us. Nothing will stop God's love for us because God "is" love (1 John 4:9). And God will have all Who He loves.
As was said, God didn't send Jesus so "He" could be conciliated to us. He has always been conciliated to His creation, He loves His creation. We are the wayward, not God, the estrangement is on our side toward Him, not Him toward us. It is us who need to be conciliated to God; this is the message of those who believe:
"For Christ, then, are we ambassadors, as of God entreating through us. We are beseeching for Christ's sake, "Be conciliated to God!" (2 Corinthians 5:20).
At present we believe through faith (Ephesians 2:8).
The definition of faith according to the Key Word Concordance is: an assumption of what is being expected, a conviction concerning matters which are not being observed.
So faith is something in which we assume to be true and are convinced will happen. An example would be Christ' return. By faith we believe it to be true.
However we cannot love by faith. We don't say "By faith I love God."
We cannot love something, or someone we have not had a personal experience with. We cannot love the unknown, or the nothing, we have to be touched in some way in order to love. We can't say we love someone and not know a thing about them, or not know if they even exist. We need something that touches our hearts.
All through the scriptures we read of God revealing Himself to every person He wanted to have a relationship with Him. He spoke to them through someone or at times something. As the writer of the verses in Hebrews (above) wrote, God sent Prophets to whom he gave visions to, or messengers, revealing Who God is, or what God was doing, or about to do.
Even when the nations were ignorant of God:
"He leaves Himself not without the testimony of good acts, giving showers from heaven and fruitbearing seasons, filling our hearts with nourishment and gladness."
He is a God Who although Invisible (1 Timothy 1:17) will send something, or someone who will reveal Him to His creation. Many don't see the hand of God in their lives at present, He is invisible to them, yet He cares for them all the same, by filling their hearts with nourishment and gladness.
"Yet we are observing Jesus" Hebrews 2:9
In this era Jesus is the One that the Father sent, Who will touch the heart of all humankind. He will be the One that reveals and will lead all toward the Father.
The CLNT transliterates John 1:1, 2; "In the beginning was the word, and the word was toward God, and God was the word, This was in the beginning toward God."
Everything the Word (Jesus) did pointed toward and revealed the Father.
He is the true light -- which is enlightening every man -- coming into the world (John 1:8).
God sent Jesus so we would have a visual representative we can identify with, because He identified with us (Hebrews 4:15), and demonstrated to us God's love for us.
Jesus is the image of the Invisible God (Colossians 1:15). This is why He was sent, so we would have a visible image.
We need the visible, because the Invisible is impossible for us humans to believe.
He was sent because: "The world knew You (God) not." (John 17:25).
Not until the visible reveals Him to us; "I came that you might know Him (God)." (John 17:2-3) can we know Him.
Jesus was sent to reveal God's eternal love for us.
John tells us in 1 John 4:7 "Love is of God."
Or in other words; Love originated from God. Love has always been.
In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul tells us of the only trinity in the scriptures; Faith, Expectation, and Love. He also says the greatest of these is Love. Although faith and expectation (some versions have "hope") are of God, they will be discarded at Christ's appearing, that is why Paul tells us to pursue; "Love"; it only will remain.
Jesus was sent to reveal the heart of God, so we could truly experience the heart of God.
So we also might understand His motives, Christ unfolds Him.
"God no one has ever seen. The only-begotten God, Who is in the bosom (heart) of the Father, He unfolds (reveals) Him." (John 1:18)
He was sent to the cross because the barrier Sin stood in the way of a perfect relationship between us and God.
"For the One not knowing sin, He makes to be a sin offering for our sakes that we may be becoming God's righteousness in Him." (2 Corinthians 5:21)
He was sent to lay down His life for us, because there is no greater display of love anyone can do for another.
"Greater love than this has no one, that anyone may be laying down his soul for his friends." (John 15:13).
He went to the tomb only to rise three days later, abolishing the one thing that would prevent us from forever being with the Lord; death.
"Christ Jesus, Who, indeed abolishes death." (2 Timothy 1:10)
He is the One Who is the Light of the world that will shine in the hearts of all.
"For the God Who says that, out of darkness light shall be shining, is He Who shines in our hearts, with a view to the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." (2 Corinthians 4:6)
He was sent because we need saving:
"Faithful is the saying, and worthy of all welcome, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, foremost of whom am I." (1 Timothy 1:15)
The reason He was sent; to save us, not from an angry God, not from the fabled hell, but to reveal the will of God (1 Timothy 2:4). He was sent to save us from ourselves, from our inability to believe in God. He was sent to reveal the heart of God, so we will realize that God loves us and has made the Way for His creation to believe in Him, to reconcile us to Him, so we will all be with Him, always.
Because all of us are His.
"For the Lord's is the earth and all that which fills it." (1 Corinthians 10:26)
Rick
www.godisgod.ca
