The Love of God for Mankind
The Love of God for Mankind
Tonight I would like to speak to you about the love of God for mankind. God, the long-suffering, abundant in mercy, rich in compassion, who said that His delight is in the sons of men. What then are the manifestations of this love?
The Love of God for Mankind
God loved mankind before they existed, and for this reason He brought them into existence. Out of His love for them, He created them in His likeness, according to His image and resemblance.
He granted man a mind, and granted him a spirit and an immortal soul. He gave him spiritual gifts, and granted him to be a dwelling place for God and a temple for the Holy Spirit.
He granted him tremendous energies that are difficult to limit.
Among these energies is the mighty mind, which was able to reach the moon and invent inventions that are close to imagination.
And among these energies is the mighty spirit that can “search all things, even the depths of God.”
Until now, we have not realized the depths of human nature. God has provided us with very marvelous powers that we have not yet discovered.
Man continually discovers something new about his energies that he did not previously know. The human mind is a vast ocean whose depths we have not yet tested. The same is true of his spirit. Look, for example, at yoga, or the ascetics of India and China in their training of the spirit—you will see wonders, things stranger than imagination. Yet it is the human spirit when it becomes pure and departs from the control of the body.
All these are natural gifts within the limits of human nature. How much more, then, are the supernatural gifts that God grants out of His love?
Believe me, even the senses, which are neither mind nor spirit, also have marvelous capacities. A person may perceive them when he loses one sense and another compensates for it, revealing astonishing ability.
People may use their energies for good and perhaps for evil; yet God, despite this, has not withdrawn from the wicked their energies. However much an intelligent person may err, his intelligence is not taken from him.
Also from God’s love for man is that He made all nature in his service and created it first for him and for his comfort.
This matter is explained fully in the Gregorian Liturgy: “For my sake You restrained the sea. For my sake You subdued the nature of the animals. You established the earth for me that I might walk upon it.” Everything God created was for man: the air, the heat, the plants, the animals. Sometimes we find that a plant gives fruit in the season when man needs it. How wondrous is the love of God! Look at the vine, or the poinciana tree. In summer it is clothed with leaves because you need its shade. In winter it sheds its leaves because you need the warmth of the sun while sitting beneath it. How wondrous is God’s care!
If you realized the love of God, you would thank Him for everything:
If you enjoy the warmth of the sun, you thank the love of God. If you enjoy the light of the moon, you thank the love of God. You thank Him for the beauty of the flowers, for the singing of the birds, for the sweetness of the water, and for the shade of the trees. How wonderful that God created man on the sixth day—He created everything for his sake, and finally, after all that, He created him.
God prepares everything for us: the earth and the heaven.
He says, “I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” He prepares for us the heavenly dwellings—“what eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man.” How wondrous is His love.
From God’s love for man also is that He has provided him with divine grace.
Grace is an outpouring of God’s love; without it we would all have perished. See how God said to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you.” When we bless the people, we say, “The love of God the Father and the grace of His Only-Begotten Son…”
This grace guides a person, strengthens him, and lifts him from every fall. Grace visits everyone, but some feel it and use it, while others do not feel it or do not use it.
From God’s love for mankind is that He gave them His Holy Spirit to dwell in them, to remain with them forever, and to partake in the work with them.
Therefore we receive the blessing of “the communion of the Holy Spirit.” Feel, then, the love of God. Do not resist the Spirit, do not grieve Him, and do not quench His fervor.
From His love for us is His saying, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age,” and “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
And His saying, “Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.” Indeed, He said of the heavenly Jerusalem that it is “the dwelling of God with men.” He dwells in our midst, and we shall be His people.
From His love for us is that He sent His angels for our sake to serve us:
“Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation?” His angels “encamp around those who fear Him and deliver them.” An angel delivered Peter from prison. An angel shut the mouths of the lions so that they did not harm Daniel. How many angels work together. We are surrounded on earth by choirs of angels. Even in our death the Scripture says, “Lazarus died, and he was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom.”
God’s angels fill the church, so that we call it “the house of angels.” Angels intercede for us, pray for us, and rejoice over our repentance.
As God in His love sent us His angels, so also He sent us the prophets, the shepherds, the priests, and the divine revelation in His Book.
All these strive as ambassadors for Christ, calling out, “Be reconciled to God.”
From God’s love for people is that He granted us the holy sacraments.
He granted us His most holy Body and Blood that we may be nourished by them, as well as the rest of the Church’s sacraments with all they carry of graces and blessings.
From His love also, He granted us repentance and the forgiveness of sins.
Through this repentance we are purified and washed, “and we become whiter than snow.” God blots out our sins and remembers them no more; He forgets them as though they had not happened.
From His love for us, He granted us immortality and eternal life.
Our life does not end with death but has an امتداد in the other world, in eternal bliss, in the fellowship of God, the angels, and the saints.
From His love for us, in this immortality He will grant us a new nature, a luminous spiritual body, and we shall be “like the angels of God in heaven.”
From the love of God are His divine consolations from His comforting Spirit,
and His mercy that is renewed for us every day, and His goodness in which He opens the windows of heaven until we say, “It is enough, it is enough.” He goes about among us doing good, so that we call Him “the Doer of good.”
From God’s love for us is that He “leads us in triumph.”
He gives us the strength by which we overcome, then rewards us for this victory. He fights in us for our sake, and “the battle is the Lord’s.” “The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.” He gives us victory “with the whole armor of God” and gives us “a new heart and a new spirit,” so we become mighty by His power, new creations, not as yesterday nor the day before.
From His love for us are divine visions, divine revelations, divine dreams, divine apparitions, supernatural gifts, and miracles that He grants to some of His chosen ones out of His love for mankind—visible benevolences and hidden benevolences, what we perceive and what we do not perceive.
The love of God should be met with love from man, that it may not be one-sided. Therefore God asks nothing from man except this love: “My son, give Me your heart.”
It is enough that God made love His Name: “God is love.” “He who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.” For this love He asked from us mutual abiding: “Abide in Me, and I in you,” like the vine and the branches.
From God’s love for us is that He considered us as Himself: He is the Head and we are the body; He is the Bridegroom and we are the bride; we are His flesh and His bones.
For this love, God placed in His Book a book about love, which is the Song of Songs, and said to man, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength.”
Among the signs of God’s love is what the Scripture says about Him:
“Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.”
From His love for us is that He called us His children and His beloved:
“Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God.”
He also said to us, “I no longer call you servants, but friends.”
He called us “His own”: to His own He came; having loved His own who were in the world. He considered us as His person: “He who honors you honors Me.”
He loved us even in our fall, even in our periods of weakness. If His love had departed from us in our fall, none of us would have risen.
O Lord, we do not deserve all this love from You. Even while we are coming from a far country, with our garments torn and bearing the smell of swine, You receive us, place a ring on our fingers, clothe us with the first robe, slaughter for us the fatted calf, and say, “Let us eat and be merry.” For us, You rejoice and are glad? How wondrous You are!
Yes, I rejoice in you, and all heaven rejoices with Me “over one sinner who repents.”
Would that we could gladden the heart of God by our repentance.
He who desires joy for us has made joy and peace among the chief fruits of the Holy Spirit. He always said to us, “My peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you.”
I have not seen a father’s love for his children like this love.
An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – Al-Keraza Magazine – Year Seven (Issue Twenty-Three) 4-6-1976
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