Unconditional Love

[admin]

Unconditional Love

Deuteronomy 7:7

"The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the Lord loves you." Deuteronomy 7:7-8

To speak of God's unconditional love is to utter a wonderful fact about God's nature. He loves because He chooses to love and for no other reason. His love is not dependent upon finding something in us that merits His love. His love is without conditions—it is unconditional. It is this kind of love that is expressed to Israel in the above verses. In other words, God loves because He chooses to love, not because of a reason found outside of Himself.

God's unconditional love is revealed throughout the Old and New Testaments, but the most detailed description of His love is found in the book of Hosea. When we touch this book that unveils the nature of God's love, we are treading ground that we have never trod before. We see God's unconditional love coming to the least likely object of love.

Gomer, the name of the woman Hosea was to take as a wife, reveals the depths of the nature of God's unconditional love. Gomer is derived from a Hebrew word (gamar) that means "cease, come to an end, and fail." In other words, God was telling Hosea, "Go take failure to be your wife," or "Go take that which has come to an end to be your wife." This illustrates the nature of God's love to us. He loves us when we have no potential, no victory, when we have come to an end—when we are nothing but failure. Gomer not only means failure, but it also has the meaning of "completion" or "perfection." So this woman was complete or perfected in her failure. She was a harlot. She filled up the measure of harlotry to the uttermost. She committed not merely one transgression but a thousand transgressions. She reached a state of completion and is ironically spoken of as being perfected in harlotry. She was that low, that base. She was perfected in her harlotry because she was fully experienced in sinning and in rebellion. She was fully developed, perfected, and completed in the realm of failure. She was not partially a failure, but she was a total failure. Yet God tells Hosea to take this "wife of harlotry" to be his wife (Hosea 1:2). Later, God tells him to love her. This demonstrates the Lord's love toward us. He takes us and then lavishes His love on us, despite our failed condition.

- Bill Freeman