Three Levels of God’s Love

 

 

I came across the following

Just about four days ago

And even though I knew the concept

These terms I did not know.

 

Benevolence easily fitted in

And beneficence too

But the term complacence

Did not fit in with my view.

 

But that was only at first

As moments later, I understood,

And if you are now like I was then

I am sure you also would.

 

No doubt, like me, you have read

In the pages of Holy Writ

Of the divine salvation decree:

That enunciated divine edict.

 

For even before time had begun

In effect the Lamb was slain

That what the first Adam had lost

Jesus would eternally regain.

 

It was God’s plan to save us

From before all time

And the best way to explain it is:

We were always on God’s mind.

 

This first level of God’s love:

His love of benevolence

Conceptualized before all time

Manifested in His beneficence.

 

Unlike the many plans of man

God’s plan became a reality

So that a born-again individual

Can be saved for all eternity.

 

 

It’s His love of beneficence

The actual unfolding of His plan

First seen in the book of Genesis

In the original fall of man.

 

By faith in the Old Testament

Righteousness was imputed to man

And the first biblical reference

Was the patriarch, Abraham.

 

Father of Isaac, then Jacob

Who was given the name Israel,

Abraham the patriarch was called

To be father of God’s people.

 

Through this Abrahamic lineage

Came the Lord, Jesus Christ

Who manifested God’s benevolence

In his life-giving sacrifice.

 

The working out of the plan

Of God’s wonderful redemption

Whereby through His Son the Christ

We are recipients of salvation.

 

 

What love!  What supreme love!

Benevolent and beneficent

That even up to this day

There are millions of recipients!

 

But God commends His love

That he sent His Son, the Lord Jesus

In that while we were yet sinners

Jesus Christ died for us.

 

Christ came to call sinners

Not the righteous ones!

For they that are alive and well

Would not need to be born.

 

Poor old Nicodemus

Had truly missed the mark!

Poor old Nicodemus

Was certainly in the dark!

 

Complacence in man is folly

But in the Creator God, it is His glory

And it is all together evident

That herein is salvation's story.

  

For scarce for a righteous man

Would one die:

Yet peradventure for a good man

Would some even dare to die.

 

 

But God commendeth his love:

The mark of God’s complacence,

Unconditional and unmeasurable

And by man, uninfluenced.

 

Sounds like reckless love

Only that God cannot be reckless,

His is a love of complacence

That no other love can best.

 

For God’s glory and our good

Jesus left heaven above

To die for His premiere creation:

O what grace and love!

 

Stewart Russell © May 13, 2021