Taken From a Paper I Wrote for School

I've been going through papers that I wrote for my Master's Degree lately. This bit here, the conclusion to my last term paper, seems important even for now. I have seen and heard many people focusing entirely on "God is love" to dismiss sins. They argue that a loving God wants them to be happy or does not really see certain things as sinful; that's how unloving people interpret Scripture, or things have changed and those verses don't mean anything now, or it's just the writings of man. They cannot deal with God telling them "no" to their desires because they think it makes Him unloving somehow. Here I try to explain that yes, God is love, but He is more than just that, and His love is so much greater than we sometimes make it.

The paper was written based on a popular book that I am not willing to name (although you may be able to guess if you have any familiarity with popular "Christian" books). I also removed the author's name from my essay. I refuse to give any sort of publicity, good or bad, to authors and books I would never endorse.

Finally, does love win? Yes it does, but not the sort of love ------ describes in his book. His love is too small and too man focused; ------ shows God acting only because his love for man is great, not because God Himself is great, and when he loses focus of God’s overall greatness, he diminishes the greatness of God’s love. ------ also ignores the other characteristic of God. God is love, but God is also just (2 Thess 1:6), holy (Is 6:3), righteous (Ps 7:11), sovereign (Jude 4), wise (1 Cor 3:9), and true (Jn 14:6), to name a few of His character traits. All of these characteristics work together to make up God, and all are equally important. Most problematic, ------- tries to divorce God’s love from His justice and in that he makes a serious mistake and gives a one-sided view of who God really is and what His love is. God’s infinite justice shows the depths of His love as He forgives sins that deserve death and is “the just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom 3:26). Yes, love wins, but so does justice. In the end, God wins in all His fullness and glory.