Written by Samuel D. James |
Saturday, September 24, 2022
The Internet age is one in which God’s providence is questioned at an emotional level every second. Every time we log on, we are seeking in some ways to escape the embodied realties that our Creator has placed us in. Owing much to this, ours is a culture in which people feel that they and everyone else is disposable. What an opportunity for the gospel! Forget what you’ve heard about militant secularism winning the day. What good is a sexual revolution if everyone is too depressed and anxious to have sex? The culture of disposability is doing a number on us. For Christians, do we know our gospel well enough to engage it? Or we are too swept up in our own digital demolitions to see the pain and emptiness and meaningless on the faces of people around us?

One of the most disorienting things about being a sports fan is how often, in order to continue being a fan, you have to adopt a pretty ruthless outlook about your fellow human beings. If you came up to me and said, “There’s a guy I know who really needs a job to feed his family; he’s better at this job than 99% of other humans but sometimes makes the occasional mistake,” I would immediately feel almost total solidarity with this unnamed, family-providing, exceptional worker. But if you clarified that this unnamed person was actually the guy who fumbled the ball twice in the playoffs or dropped a touchdown in the fourth quarter, I would probably say it’s a tough business but we gotta get somebody who can make those plays. Sports has a way of slithering beneath even a rock-solid worldview of altruism and imago dei, and making people feel disposable.
When I think about my contemporary culture, the disposability of people stands out as one of the chief values of the day. What Alan Jacobs so artfully called “the trade-in society” is a very real thing. And it has taken control of so much of our conversation, decision making, even relationships. In the last few years, for example, I’ve seen my corner of evangelicalism throb with the ethos of disposability, as friendships forged over gospel ministry are rent asunder due to political or even social media strife. If you made me, I could name probably a half-dozen people with whom I at one point felt a great solidarity and partnership with in life and work, whom I would have to admit now (again, if you made me) I hope I don’t run into at any point in the future.
I’ve never had many “enemies” in my life. But I used to not have many “opponents” either, and it seems like that latter category has expanded. Based on conversation with others and observation about the general malaise we find ourselves in these days, I think this is true for many people. I’ve written before about Facebook, and how the Facebook of my freshman year of college seems almost like a dream that I had one time. The idea of a website whose only ethic was friendship and only currency was neighborliness seems too ridiculous now to say out loud. But that was really how it was back then. Today, places like Facebook and Twitter are so often the places you go to combat other people, not know them. And as so much of our life takes on the values and structure of the Internet, it seems to me that we are far more likely to dispose of another person—relationally, or at least in our private imagination—than we used to be.
One thing I’ve noticed is how, according to the language of “justice” or “orthodoxy” (the word depends on whether your membership is in a progressive tribe or a conservative one), you have a moral obligation to be willing to turn on your friends and colleagues at a moment’s notice if they are found to possess unacceptable views or a sinful past. The latter situation is a little more tricky and I won’t say much about it, except to note that many of us have testimonies of grace that wouldn’t exist except that someone in our lives took a risk to their own comfort or reputation in reaching out for us.
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In all discussions of love, we must begin with God, not man. And more, we must come to understand the manifold nature of his love, so that as Paul says, we would “be imitators of God, as beloved children” (Eph. 5:1)…we must keep our eyes on the Lord and his Word, and we must imitate God’s love in the way he has revealed. 

God’s Love Is the Measure of Human Love
Because the Creator fashioned us after his likeness, God gives us his qualities, including his moral attributes, but all with creaturely limitations, now corrupted by sin. All these qualities and attributes God gives us are analogical to his, not identical. The Creator’s character and ours do not differ in mere quantity. Rather, there is a qualitative difference in God’s character and our own. God is holy. God is good. God is love. God is righteous. God is just. We would be wrong to say that God is simply more holy, good, loving, than we are in each of these attributes. God is qualitatively different from us. These qualities belonging to God are what Christian theologians describe as “communicable attributes,” transmittable to us, his image-bearers, to reflect the attributes of our Creator (cf. Col. 3:8–10; Gen. 1:26–31). Every quality and every moral attribute that constitutes us creatures “after God’s likeness” is, by definition, analogical, not identical to his moral attributes.
God’s redeeming work is restoring the full array of God’s likeness in us. This God-likeness is what we properly call godliness. So, when we consider love, whether a human or divine attribute, we must always do so in correlation with God’s full character, especially his holiness and goodness, never isolated from these attributes. Also, we must first ponder God’s love as integral to his moral perfections and then consider the exercise of his love in deeds and actions.
In his classic, Knowing God, J. I. Packer correctly argues that while Scripture twice affirms, “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16), this affirmation is regularly misunderstood and distorted.[1] Distortions occur primarily because people isolate God’s love from his other attributes, especially his holiness, justice, and self-sufficiency. Sin-corrupted reasoning also has a proclivity to project onto God creaturely qualities, limitations, and emotions. Thus, many conceive of God only as a more perfect human.
Thus, Christians must rigorously avoid distortions when we speak of God’s love and our love, which must imitate his. To help us in that endeavor, we turn to D. A. Carson’s little book, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God.[2] Published in 2000, Carson’s slim volume punches above its weight class as it guides believers to represent accurately God’s love and, thus ours. As Carson shows, the Scriptures portray God’s love in diverse yet complementary ways. True, God is love, but to grasp the breadth and depth of this statement, Scripture portrays God’s love with varying forms concerning how he relates to his creation. This should not be a difficult concept to apprehend because our creaturely love consists of different facets also.[3]
Varied Forms of God’s Love
Carson proposes that God’s Word depicts God’s love as having five discernible forms. I offer a short summary here, followed by a further development below.

The unique love the Father has for the Son and the love the Son has for the Father (John 3:35; 5:20; 14:31).
God exercises a providential love for his whole creation. This love is often called God’s common grace. God, who is pleased with what he created (Genesis 1:31), bestows kind provisions and care over all creation (e.g., animals [Job 39; Matt 10:29]) and humans (Matt. 10:30–31; Acts 14:14–18; 17:24–29).
God manifests his love in his redeeming posture toward his fallen world corrupted by sin and now dwelling under his curse (Ezek. 33:11; John 3:16).[4]
God’s love obligates reciprocation. Thus, his redeeming love for us is conditioned on obedience.[5]
When Scripture affirms, “God first loved us,” it means that God set his love upon not every human without exception but only upon those whom he calls his “elect ones” (e.g., Israel, church, individuals (Deut. 7:7–8; 10:14–15; Mal. 1:2-3; Eph. 1:4–6; 5:25; 1 John 4:8–10). That God “first loved us” obligates a response in kind—just as Scripture affirms, “We love because God first loved us” (1 John 4:19). God’s unconditional, electing love establishes his covenantal relationship with us, which stipulates conditions concerning how his people are to come to him. God requires our belief, our obedience, and our steadfast faithfulness.

Carson rightly insists that Scripture refuses to allow us to treat any of these aspects as absolute. Instead, Scripture presents them as complementary, holding them together in proper proportion. This obligates us to apply these truths thoughtfully and carefully to ourselves and our relationships. For example, God’s perfect intra-trinitarian love is distinctive; it differs from how the Trinity relates lovingly toward the whole of creation, including toward humans.[6] Our focus in what follows will be on the latter four forms of God’s love that Carson identifies.
God’s Loving Care for Creation
When we consider God’s loving care toward his creation, called divine providence, we must account for the universal presence of God’s curse. God’s providence does not nullify God’s imposed frustration upon his created order, nor does his curse invalidate his loving care for his creation. “Frustration” and the “bondage of decay” characterize God’s created order in this “present evil age.” Their presence accounts for God’s new creative activity through Jesus Christ progressing inexorably toward creation’s liberation from its bondage and decay which is tied inextricably to the glorious redemption of God’s children, descendants of Adam who rebelled (Rom. 8:18–21).
Thus, temporary though they are, alive today but devoured by animals or flames tomorrow, God adorns the lilies and grasses of the fields with glorious vestments. Likewise, God feeds the animals that roam the forests and meadows and he cares even for the raven’s hatchlings (Ps. 147:9; Job 38:41; Matt. 6:26; Luke 12:24). Lions roar as they stalk their prey, devouring the flesh of other creatures that the Lord God gives to them (Ps. 104:21). All this comes from God’s loving providence so that even when animals, including a sparrow, fall to the ground to become food for other creatures and insects, they do so only by God ordaining it (Matt. 10:29–31).
God’s Loving Care for Humans: Three Forms
If God’s providential love for his animals tends to the minutest of details, how much grander is his providential care for humans he made after his own likeness? Yet, when we ponder Scripture’s portrayal of God’s love toward us who bear his image, we must acknowledge that God’s love toward humans entails three different but wholly integrated forms, forms of affection reflected in our love for God and for others.
First—God holds a loving posture toward fallen humanity.
John 3:16 succinctly expresses this: “God so loved the world that he gave his Son.” Here, “the world” entails the entirety of morally corrupted humanity. Regularly, many who quote the verse, including Bible translators, mistakenly presume that “God so loved” portrays the magnitude of God’s love. It’s true that other portions of Scripture do portray the vastness of God’s love, but the adverb “so” (houtōs) in John 3:16 does not speak of magnitude (“so much”) but of manner (“how”).[7] Thus, the verse does not say, “God loved the people of this world so much that he gave his only Son” (CEV). Instead, the verse announces, “God loved the world in this way, [namely,] that he gave his only Son.” What is the way God shows his love toward the world of sinful humans? The verse explains—“he gave his only Son.”
God’s love displayed in the crucifixion of his Son beckons and stipulates a reciprocal response of love expressed this way—“that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” God’s love for sinful humans does not reduce to a love that is formless and permissive. Indeed, the thrice-holy God stands in judgment over sinful humanity, but he also stands ready to remit the sins of everyone who repents. God sent his Son into a world hostile against him so that wicked humans would indict his righteous Son, condemn him to death, and execute him. They did not realize that they were carrying out God’s purpose and design by which he would redeem everyone who heeds his gospel’s command to acknowledge his risen Son as the only savior of the world (John 4:42). To the rebellious world, God’s message is clear: “As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?” (Ezek. 33:11).
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If relevance is based on cultural trends rather than congregational engagement—it’s easy to see how the organ can get pushed out the back door. However, if relevance is based on congregational engagement—the organ will beat out all other instrumental choices hands down.

Recently, my children and I watched the Atlanta Braves take on the Houston Astros in the 2021 World Series. As committed Braves fans, we’ve waited a very long time (predating my children’s birth) for the Braves to make it back to the fall Classic.
As we’ve watched the games each evening, one thing that I’ve noticed is something that transcends baseball. It has to do with music. Specifically, it has to do with the use of the organ as a ballpark staple. The Braves, along with a number of other MLB teams, have a staff organist who sits in a room high above the field and plays an organ during the game. And the organ is used for far more than “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”
The instrument was first introduced into professional baseball back on April 26, 1941. A pipe organ was installed behind the grandstand at Wrigley Field, and during the game organ music echoed out across a baseball stadium for the first time. Soon the trend of a ballpark organist was one of the game’s most recognized players.
Matthew Kaminski (@BravesOrganist) who plays the organ for the Atlanta Braves selects pieces of music intentionally designed to keep the fans engaged in what’s happening on the field. During the fourth game of the 2021 World Series, Kaminski began playing “Rock-a-Bye Baby” as Luis Garcia came to the plate.
What’s the reason? It’s connected to the fact that the Astros’ starting pitcher has a very unique windup in his approach to the plate as a pitcher. It looks like he’s rocking a baby in a cradle-like position with his hands. So, this prompted Kaminski to call attention to that reality by using music which caught the attention of many fans—in person and on television.
Beyond the noticeable eclectic style of some organists who play for MLB teams, the real question is why does Major League Baseball view the organ as relevant while many local churches continue to view the organ as irrelevant? After nearly 80 years, more than 50% of MLB teams have a live organist at the ballpark and a good percentage of the other teams pipe in organ music through prerecorded musical pieces. Why has the organ fallen on hard times within the church?
The Organ Is Better Than the Band
In recent months, we have purchased and installed a new organ in our local church’s worship auditorium. In fact, I would urge you (if you’re a pastor) and your local church to do the same. You ask, what’s the big deal about an organ? The fact is, the organ as a single instrument is far superior than the modern praise band.
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