THE FATHER LOVES NOTHING AT ALL BUT THE SON
A.W. Tozer
To the question, "How can a holy God love an unholy sinner?" there is a full and satisfactory answer. The answer, of course, is found in the teachings of the Scripture. It has been stated for us by the German theologian Eckhart: "The Father loves nothing at all but the Son and such things as He finds in the Son." This is a fair summation of the doctrine of the love of God as presented on the pages of Holy Writ. "The Father loves nothing at all but the Son." All the love of God is gathered up in Christ. The Father loves the Son with all the love there is, which is to say with all of Himself, and He loves directly nothing but the Son. In the Son and through the Son all things came into being, including man. God loves men not for themselves but for the sake of the Son. His love for them is reflected from the face of Jesus Christ and falls upon them only as they are related to the Son. Man was made in God's image and Christ is said to be "the image of the invisible God." In some mysterious way is the race of mankind related to the Son, and for His sake God can lavish His love upon sinful men and still be just and holy in doing so.
A marginal problem, of no practical importance, is whether or not God continues to love sinners after they have forfeited their rights under the patient forbearance of God and have been consigned to their final place in hell. To believe that He does would be to conceive of Him as being eternally frustrated. Were He to continue forever to pour upon lost men an unrequited love, He could never be at rest. His wasted love would torture Him without end forever. The truth is that God loves only the Son "and such things as He finds in the Son." When impenitent men have made their final decision against the Son and have walked out of His light for good they will no longer be objects of the love of God. God's love is, like Himself, unchanging and eternal, but it touches only those who touch the Son. The soul that rejects the Son by a final irrevocable act forfeits forever the love of the Father.