1/22/15

Oh How he loves

. . . The Son of God was not created but took part in creation and has lived throughout all eternity "in the bosom of the Father" (John 1:18)--that is, in a relationship of absolute intimacy and love. But at the end of his life he was cut off from the Father.
     There may be no greater inner agony than the loss of a relationship we desperately want. If a mild acquaintance turns on you, condemns and criticizes you, and says she never wants to see you again, it is painful. If someone you're dating does the same thing, it is qualitatively more painful. But if your spouse does this to you, or if one of your parents does this to you when you're still a child, the psychological damage is infinitely worse.
     We cannot fathom, however, what it would be like to lose not just spousal love or parental love that has lasted several years, but the infinite love of the Father that Jesus had from all eternity. Jesus' sufferings would have been eternally unbearable. Christian theology has always recognized that Jesus bore, as the substitute in our place, the endless exclusion from God that the human race has merited. In the Garden of Gethsemane, even the beginning and foretaste of this experience began to put Jesus into a state of shock. . . On the cross, Jesus's cry of dereliction--"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"--is a deeply relational statement. [New Testament scholar Bill] Lane writes: "The cry has a ruthless authenticity. . . Jesus did not die renouncing God. Even in the inferno of abandonment he did not surrender his faith in God but expressed his anguished prayer in a cry of affirmation, 'My God, my God,'" Jesus still uses the language of intimacy--"my God"--even as he experiences infinite separation from the Father.

The Reason for God by Timothy Keller, pp. 29-30

And we are His portion and He is our prize
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes
If His grace is an ocean, we're all sinking

And heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest
I don't have time to maintain these regrets
When I think about the way

Oh, how He loves us, oh
Oh, how He loves us, how He loves all
How He loves


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