God's Love by R. C. Sproul

This book was originally titled Loved by God, published in 2001 (Word Publishing). The book provides vignettes of God's love and how it relates to his other attributes.

Sproul notes that if we do not get God's love right, we will fail to have a sound understanding of Him. Scripture tells us, “God is love.” All genuine love proceeds from God and is rooted in Him. In people, this love is found only in the regenerated.

Sproul is quick to acknowledge that anything we say about God will be said anthropomorphically. Whatever God's love is, it transcends our best efforts to describe it.

Sproul writes about what it means that God's love is holy. He investigates God's love as seen in the Old Testament and as shown through His Son. He explains the loyal love of God, God's faithful love, God's hatred, and God's unconditional love (not universalism).

He explains the relationship of God's love to His electing grace, as well as God's sovereignty. (He critiques the prescient view.) He discusses the order of salvation, and the Augustinian and semi-Pelagian views of election. He covers the threefold love of God: benevolence, beneficence, complacency.

He lastly discusses agape as is it to be shown by the believer, concentrating on 1 Corinthians 13.

This is pure R. C. Sproul. He writes with theological clarity and conviction. It is also pure Calvinism.

There is lots of theology in this book that some might find a little difficult. Nonetheless, this is a great explanation of God's love and how it relates to election. With Calvinism on the rise, this a good book for a new generation of believers.

R. C. Sproul is the founder and chairman of Ligonier Ministries, an international Christian education ministry based near Orlando, Florida. He also serves as senior minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew's, a reformed congregation in Sanford, Florida, and as the president of Reformation Bible College. He is the author of more than eighty books. Dr. Sproul and his wife make their home in Longwood, Florida.

David C. Cook, 256 pages.  Publisher's product page. 

I received a complimentary egalley of this book from the publisher for the purpose of this review.