FOR THE FIRST TIME Christ reveals his awareness of the depth of God’s feelings

toward humanity. We received through Adam God’s wrath and exclusion from his

presence. But the secret of Christ’s obedience to God his father, enduring the pain of

the cross to the point of shedding his blood and death, is atonement for the sin of man

and the entire world. This is the love of the Son for the Father. Built on the foundation

of the love of the Son for the Father, the affect of this obedience was that it lifted God’s

 

wrath from every human being. So the authentic and original love of God appeared, that

is, that God loves the world.1 What revealed this authentic love which is hidden in the

nature of the Father was the obedience of the Son to the point of death and acceptance of

the will of God his father. On the night he was crucified he said, ‘If you are willing,

take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.’2

We know the Father loved the world, and so his Son was sent to redeem the

world. So then, Christ’s statement ‘The Father himself loves you’ is a truth Christ

reveals for the first time. He gave the reason; ‘because you have loved me and have

believed that I came from God.’ This means those who have loved Christ find that

God’s mission for the Son is a message of love and warmth that has entered their hearts

and filled them with submission and obedience and love for the Father. These were the

first signs of reconciliation, which was completed by the redemption of blood.

Through the coming of the Son of God the filling of the Father and the Son was

revealed to us, a filling of divine love reciprocated between them to the benefit of

man. We through their filling have received love upon love, and we have been

completely captivated in love and in loving. Christ’s statement revealed the mysterious

work of love which was spent for man by the Father, and the Son when he said, ‘I am in

my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.’3 This intervention of unity between the

Father and the Son and believers shows the great wonder of Christian theology that

reveals the meaning of the coming of Christ the Son of God, his crucifixion,

resurrection, the work of the blood in the atonement and the work of the Holy Spirit in

the mysterious and wonderful bond between the Father and the Son and believers.

This divine bond raised the worth of the man who believes in Christ and his cross

from the level of humanity up to the level of God, from the level of the earth and dust to

the level of eternal life with God. It also revealed the mystery of the bond of believers

with Christ based upon love and in love and in the extreme purity of love.

The unity of the Christian faith is based upon God’s intervention in the creation and

renewal of man as a new creation made for living in heaven. The unity of believers is

through the divine and holy love that is through God and in God.

Through his blood on the cross Christ raised the meaning of sacrificial love that leads

to death, so God seated him at his right hand in heaven. Murderous enmity disappeared

from the life of man and was replaced by the divine love that sacrifices that leads to

death. Now man’s love is a redemptive love inspired by the blood of the cross and the

heart of the Father!!

July 25, 2005

1 See John 3:16.

2 Luke 22:42.

3 John 14:20.

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