“I will recount the steadfast love of the LORD, the praises of the LORD, according to all that the LORD has granted us, and the great goodness to the house of Israel that He has granted them according to His compassion, according to the abundance of His steadfast love. For He said, ‘Surely they are My people, children who will not deal falsely.’ And He became their Saviour” (Isaiah 63:7-8).
Truly, God’s love is unfathomable. As wretched as I can be, why would God choose to love me? It cannot be fathomed. Cyril of Jerusalem (ca 315-386) delineates this love of God for us quite beautifully:
Would you like proof of God’s love for the human race? Even though the whole people (of Israel) sinned as one, God’s loving-kindness is not overthrown. The people made a calf, but God cast away not his love for them. They denied their God, but God did not deny his own nature [2 Timothy 2:13]. Though they cried, “These are thy gods, O Israel,” as was his wont, “the God of Israel became their Savior” (Isaiah 63:8) yet once more. Now it was not only the people that sinned, but Aaron the high priest also sinned. For we have that from Moses, when he says, “And upon Aaron came the wrath of the Lord, and I entreated for him,” and (says Moses) the Lord pardoned him. Well, then, if Moses importuned the Lord, begging pardon for a high priest that had sinned, will Jesus, God’s only-begotten Son, shrink from importuning God by begging pardon for you? Now God did not forbid Aaron from continuing in the high priest’s office on account of his lapse, and has he stopped you from coming to salvation … ? After that, do you repent in like manner, and grace will not be denied. Henceforward present your way of life unblamable [sic.], for God is truly loving unto us; and all one’s life would not suffice to tell out his loving-kindness as it should be told, nor if all human tongues uttered it with one consent would they, even so, be able to express more than a tiny part of that divine generosity.
quoted in Schumacher, 395
See what kind of love God has that even when we are faithless, He remains faithful (2 Timothy 2:13). When a wife commits sexual immorality, her husband has the right to divorce her (Matthew 5:31-32), and vice versa. Most husbands would. Consider, then, God’s unfathomable love and faithfulness that although we have constantly committed spiritual infidelity against Him, He chose not to divorce Himself from the human race but to become human in Jesus Christ to marry His Bride, the Church, with the promise of the marriage feast of the Lamb (Revelation 19:6-10).
Bibliography
Schumacher, Frederick J., and Dorothy A. Zelenko. For All the Saints: A Prayer Book For and By the Church. Vol. I, Year 1: Advent to the Day of Pentecost (Delhi, NY: The American Lutheran Publicity Bureau, 2003).
The Lutheran Column 