“Because He Loves Us!”

In the final sentence of His prayer in John 17, Jesus declares that He made known God’s name to His disciples and “will continue to make it known.” Then He explains why: “that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” In his final sermon in the series The High Priestly Prayer, Alistair Begg considers where this love comes from and how it is expressed:

Remember, in John 13, John tells us that Jesus, “having loved his own who were [with him] in the world, he loved them to the end.” Here he is, loving them all the way to the end. And the love to which he refers here in the twenty-sixth verse is not our love to God. Notice: It is God’s love to us. “That the love with which you have loved me,” he says to the Father, might “be in them, and I in them.” That is dramatic, and it’s vitally important. I’m glad it doesn’t say that “their love for you” might be the key. Because if we’re honest, our love towards God and towards one another, actually, ebbs and flows on all kinds of bases. That is not the ground of our security. That is not the basis of our understanding of things. If that was the case, we could never have sung, “I Am His, and He Is Mine”: “Loved with everlasting love.” 

What love? The love that the Father had for the Son has been manifested in Jesus so that we might know that love—that God is love and that the greatest assurance of his love has been in sending Jesus. That’s why we read, again, Psalm 118. “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.” God’s love is such that he doesn’t give up on us. Why has he kept us? Because he loves us! Why is he sanctifying us? Because he loves us! Why does he want us to be united? Because he loves us! Why would he want us to share his glory? Because he loves us! It’s so obvious. His love is unchangeable. His love is irreversible. “How deep the Father’s love for us”!

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