January 18, 2026

Part two.
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

Last week our focus was on how utterly different God is from us. He is not simply a better or stronger version of humanity. God is not a greater man. God is God, and we are not.

Though we are created in His image, the distinction remains absolute. The image does not erase the difference between Creator and creature. What makes God God is wholly other than what makes us who we are. His being is uncreated, eternal, and self-existent. Ours is given, finite, and dependent. To confess God rightly is to acknowledge this difference, not as a threat, but as the foundation of reverence, humility, and faith.

What is true of His being is also true of His love. Our love is reactive. God’s love is creative. God does not search for something lovable in us; He creates what He loves.

But if God’s love is so different from ours, how can we know what His love is like? The answer is found in Scripture, and most clearly in the cross of Christ. There God reveals His love, though not in the way we might expect.

Consider Moses in Exodus 33. He begs to see God’s glory. God grants the request, yet hides Moses in the cleft of the rock. Moses sees God truly, but not fully. God reveals Himself while remaining hidden. This is God’s way. And it is precisely His way at the cross.

For at the cross, God hides Himself in suffering, weakness, and death. Here human reason stumbles. What do we see? Condemnation. Failure. The apparent end of hope. By all appearances, this cannot be God at work.

Remember the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13–35). They were “looking sad” as they spoke about the death of Jesus. They said, “we were hoping He was going to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21). Their reasoning saw only loss, and their hope seemed buried with Him.

Yet here, precisely here, God was accomplishing everything. Hidden beneath the opposite of what we expect, God was revealing His deepest love for sinners like us. At the cross, He was keeping His promises, reconciling sinners to Himself, remaining perfectly just while making the ungodly righteous.

This work is not ours. It is God’s work alone. Our part is nothing but to believe His promise. God’s love does not wait for holiness; it creates holiness. He does not wait for us to make ourselves pleasing to Him; He makes us what He Himself desires.

In Christ, God makes sinners righteous, raises the dead to life, and gives hope where none existed. What appears to human reason as the end is, in truth, the beginning. And this gift is received in one way only: by faith.