God Who Loves Mankind
God Who Loves Mankind… 1
We were speaking in previous lectures about the beautiful attributes of God through which we form a relationship with Him, and we spoke about many of these attributes, and tonight we would like to speak about a beloved attribute of God, which is that God is loving to mankind.
In truth, God’s love for mankind is a very wide matter that begins with creation… God, out of His love for us, created us, for it was possible that the human race would not exist at all, and therefore in the Gregorian Liturgy we remember this gift and say: “You created me when I did not exist”… God, out of His love for you, brought you into being, and the very existence of man is proof of our Lord’s love.
And God, out of His love, did not suffice with creating mankind, but created them in His image and likeness in the best possible state. He endowed man with many gifts… mind, will, soul, spirit, and body, and out of His love He called us His children, and John the Apostle says: “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God…”
And from His wondrous love also is redemption… He died for us… “For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son…”
And out of His love for mankind He gave man authority over the whole world… When God created Adam and Eve He said to them: subdue the earth and have dominion over it. He gave them authority over all the beasts of the earth and the birds of the sky and the fish of the sea, and even over plants and nature.
Look at man’s authority over nature, how he deals with materials and minerals, traverses horizons, ascends above the clouds, and reaches planets… This is the authority that God gave mankind, and as long as man was in the image of God and in the love of God, he enjoyed this authority. Adam had awe and authority over all beasts, and likewise Noah had this awe and authority over all the beasts in the ark. Indeed, man is considered God’s steward on earth over all creatures and has authority over all.
God created everything in the service of man, and for this He did not create man until after creating and preparing everything to be in his service. And when you ask yourself: Why did God create the land and the sea? The answer is: He created them for your service, O man, in the form of hills and plains… He created forests and fruit-bearing trees… And what could love be more than this?… He gave you authority.
And from God’s love for mankind… the blessing with which God blessed mankind… He blessed man in general when He blessed Adam and Eve, and the blessing with which He blessed groups of people. This blessing has many aspects that need many articles and writings.
And from God’s love for mankind… the care and shepherding with which He takes charge of man, and from God’s blessing for man also are the graces and gifts… From God’s love for man is the many words He said about love… “My delight is with the sons of men”… We love Him because He loved us before we existed and for this He created us.
I remember that I wrote in my notes this phrase: “I have a relationship with God that began from eternity and will continue to eternity… It began from eternity when I was in His mind as a thought and in His heart as delight.” We were in His thought, in the mind of God from eternity… it was in His thought from eternity to create us, and in His heart was love for us from eternity.
Let us see the aspects of God’s love for mankind…
From God’s love for mankind is His shepherding of man and His care for him in every place, like His love for him in the Garden of Eden where He granted him everything. He placed all happiness within his reach.
We see God’s love for man in the wilderness… the cloud overshadowing him by day and the pillar of light guiding him by night, and He split the rock for him so water flowed, and He sent down manna and quail.
It is wondrous love. His clothes did not wear out, and his feet did not swell from walking… Truly it is wondrous care for man. He cared for Daniel in the lions’ den, and for the three young men in the fiery furnace, and for Jonah in the belly of the fish… When he was cast into the sea, He prepared this fish to carry him unharmed, and He cared for him while in the fish’s belly… he entered unharmed and came out unharmed.
It is wondrous care… God’s care for man in famines when He commands a raven to bring food to Elijah, and for the raven to deliver half a loaf of bread to Saint Paul the hermit, and likewise the blessing of oil and flour in the widow’s house… And when He brought forth water for the child Ishmael in his escape with his mother Hagar.
It is wondrous care for man in every time and every period of distress, and it is enough that man’s needs are given to him without asking… “Your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things”… The people who followed the Lord Jesus in the wilderness He did not send away hungry lest they faint on the way.
God commands the rain to fall for us, and the earth to yield its minerals for us, and He stored in nature amazing properties for our care. It is enough that we place a date seed in the soil and it grows into a tall palm tree that yields dates for us, and from a grain of wheat many ears filled with wheat appear.
He harnessed all the forces of nature to bring forth man’s needs… And amazingly this care is not limited to necessities like food and drink, but nature also offers gold and silver to provide comfort and luxury for man!
God also offers, beyond food and drink, flowers and blossoms… His care is not limited to material matters but also aesthetic and recreational aspects, for He created mountains covered with greenery and flowers, and He created the beauty of nature in the heavens and the earth… Truly He is the greatest Artist.
The flowers and blossoms… and the beauty of earth and sky indicate that God’s care does not stop at necessities. He says: “Consider the lilies of the field… even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these…”
God is amazing in His love and care for mankind. It is enough that out of His care He gave mankind the intellect by which man can invent and explore. Man reached the planets by the mind that is a grant and gift from God Who loves mankind, and without this gift he could not have reached the planets or invented anything.
He gave us a mind that we may be in His image and likeness. And out of His care He revealed to us the mysteries of the universe and the properties and nature of matter so that we may know its benefits.
And out of His care He intervenes in everything in our lives… He finds Peter and Andrew fishing and shows them how to fish and how to cast the nets into the deep.
God did not leave anything, even matters of asceticism and abstinence, and He made man walk in asceticism by his will; He gives everything and does not compel him to asceticism.
And from God’s care for man is that He gave Adam the woman saying: “It is not good that Adam should be alone; let us make a helper comparable to him.” Thus He created for him a being to assist him in life and support him… It is a form of God’s love for mankind.
And from God’s love for mankind is that He established friendship between Him and mankind. There was friendship between Adam and God, and He appeared to him in the garden and spoke with him. And between Him and Enoch there was friendship; Scripture says: “And Enoch walked with God”… And likewise with Noah; God speaks to him and says: Come, I will save you from the corrupt world… I will arrange the ark for you… then He gives him its specifications… etc.
And Abraham the Patriarch God befriends him until Abraham is called the friend of God… And Jacob, as he fled from Esau, God says to him: “I will be with you and bring you back to this land”… He walks with him, encourages him with dreams and visions like a friend… He gives him consoling visions, comforts him in his distress, gives him promises, blesses his flocks, brings him to his uncle’s house, grants him many children… He makes him happy in various ways and He says: “I have loved Jacob before he was born.”
God befriends people and lives with them as a friend and beloved… He remained with Moses forty days on the mountain… and spoke with him from the door of the tabernacle of meeting in the wilderness and at His appearance in the bush, and Moses says He is like my friend… “I speak to Him mouth to mouth as a man speaks to his friend,” and He consults him in what he does.
God has spoken to the prophets and to many people, even children… He spoke to Isaac, Abraham, Jacob, and Moses, and they were elders… But Samuel was a child… God spoke to him many times until he said: “Speak, O Lord, for Your servant hears.”
We before God are children… and what are we in comparison to His eternity?
And from God’s love for mankind is that He appears to people… And if He appeared to Moses and Abraham and Solomon, what then of the Incarnation in which He appeared to all humanity?
Surely it is love that made Him appear to all mankind in the Incarnation. In the Old Testament, for example, He finds the three young men in the fire and He appears to them and speaks with them… And likewise with Peter and John He takes them and speaks with them on the Mount of Transfiguration and shows them something of His glory and reveals Himself to them, and He appears to John in a long vision… speaks to him, lays His hand upon him, and reveals His secrets to mankind in prophecies about the future.
God raises the level of people and their morale and gives them more honor and blessing than they deserve.
And when He speaks to us He says: My brothers… and He calls us His own, His disciples, and His children.
And in God’s friendship with people we notice something else: that we be with Him… You often hear the word “with Him”… He says: Do not fear, for I am with you… And He says to the Apostle Paul: Do not fear, for I am with you… And He says to Jeremiah the same words: They will fight against you but will not prevail over you… I will be with you… And David says: “I have set the Lord always before me”… And God also says: “Behold, I am with you all the days, until the end of the age”… And He says: “I go to prepare a place for you, and where I am, there you may be also.”
Even the heavenly Jerusalem He calls “the dwelling of God with men”… God wants us to be with Him always and loves to be with us, so much so that He says He is standing at the door waiting to enter.
Wondrous love God shows us so that we may be moved and return it to Him… that we be with Him here and with Him there… And the Apostle Paul says: “I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.”
We find the Lord Christ in the midst of the heavenly Jerusalem, and it needs no lamp or sun, for He is its light.
What does it mean for God to be with us and dwell in us?… What does it mean that He is with us all the days until the end of the age?… Not only this… but in God’s love, beyond care and friendship and being with Him, we find a wondrous love relationship that God likens to marriage: “As a man loves his wife, so the Lord loves the Church.”
The Apostle Paul likens our unity with God to marriage, and therefore he says: This is a great mystery… The great mystery is: how have we become one with Christ?… What is this mystery?
It is not only the analogy of the love relationship to marriage, but also to one body… We are the Body of Christ and Christ is the Head of the Church, and we and Christ are one… He is the Head and we are the body.
And this unity between the Head and the body God likens to the vine and its branches, which are one thing… It is a wondrous unity spoken of by the Lord Christ in His love for mankind… And for this He says: “Abide in Me and I in you”… that we may reach this unity… And afterward when He speaks to the Father He says: “You in Me and I in You, that they may be perfected in one.”
It is not merely a matter of God dwelling in us… it is more than that… He says: “Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to Me.”
And from the love of Christ for us He says that we are “partakers of the divine nature”… He says we are temples of the Holy Spirit… He places for us many means for cleansing and purification and sanctification and forgiveness… He purifies us and cleanses us and sanctifies us so that we may be His.
Among the aspects of God’s love for mankind are the many phrases of love He said… He says: “I have engraved you on the palms of My hands… He who touches you touches the apple of My eye; the hairs of your heads are all numbered”… Not a hair shall fall without your Father’s will… You are in My hand… The Lord Christ holds the seven stars in His hand… You are in My Father’s hand and no one can snatch anything…
They are wondrous sayings… We are on His mind and in His heart and engraved on His palm. After that He says: “I will wash you, and you shall be whiter than snow”… How is this…?
And from God’s love for mankind are the many gifts He has given mankind… Take from these the new natural graces He gave us… a new heart and a new spirit… among the aspects of renewal, the new heart and the new spirit.
Of the many gifts is the work of the Holy Spirit in us and His work for us… make this a separate subject for God’s love for mankind. Take for example the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit in man. In the First Epistle to the Corinthians about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, I find myself amazed and astonished… The Lord Christ says to His disciples: “The works that I do you will do, and greater works than these you will do.” How is this…?
Is there love greater than this…?
You will do them and you will do greater ones?… How rich are the gifts of God which He pours out on us without measure or count?
They are wondrous gifts God gives to man to the extent that, out of His love, He said: I give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven… You, O Lord, who open and no one shuts… and You who shut and no one opens, and You give us the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven?
But if You have given us Yourself, is it much that You give us the Kingdom of Heaven?
And it is enough that among the most beautiful gifts He has given us… is immortality… God loves us forever… Heaven and earth will pass away, but you — O man — will not pass away… You will be immortal.
And not only will we be immortal, but He will give us spiritual bodies and a spiritual nature freed from corruption… a body that needs no food or drink and is not subject to sickness, fatigue, or death.
And when Paul was perplexed about this matter he said: “It will be conformed to the body of His glory”… and he says: “We shall be like Him”… God in His gifts gives without account… without measure…
And if the Incarnation and the Redemption are among the greatest proofs of God’s love for mankind, then the glories of eternity are from His love… and there are things no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered the heart of man.
And if we have spoken about God’s love for mankind, then the love of God ought to be mutual between us and Him.
An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III published in Watani Newspaper on 23-9-1973.
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