The Love of God (Part 2) – The Greatest Love Story Ever Told

Now He created a creature in His image. That creature was the only creature in His image, and that creature was…corporate. Put him…them…all together. They were quite large; this creature called man.

I want to tell you one or two other things. God put in that man an innate desire – not need – a desire for God. When God made man, God breathed His breath into man, and in so doing, God left Himself with an innate love, longing, and need…for man. Now there is a relationship here that could be really awesome. Glorious. In this man, in the garden, is the hope. In him is God’s hope for a counterpart. God has gambled His hope for a counterpart upon this creature called man. He wishes to elevate him to a higher status.

Let me see if I can put it this way. It is to elevate man to a higher status and move God from one status to another status. Can you comprehend what I’ve just said? In order for God to have what He wants, man will have to be lifted higher than angels and take upon himself a new status, so new, you would say that man would change from being “man”. God, who is spirit, would also have to not lower Himself, but to change His status and become something other than God. There, in these two changes, would be God’s hope for a counterpart. Now, what are those two changes that would have to take place? God would have to become a man. Alright, and man would have to become…blended…with God. He would have to take upon himself God’s nature.

Now then, would man be man? Would he be only man? Would God be God? Not just God, but God plus…and man would be man plus God. Consider that. Now, will you take a look at both of them very carefully in such a state? I don’t think I’ll say any more. Just consider that; would you?  Consider that. This was God’s desire.

Now, brothers and sisters, I want you to know that he was an anxious God. I told you a few nights ago that when the Lord considered the passion within His own being and began to consider within Himself what would have to transpire for him to truly have a counterpart, I mean, really, honest to goodness, complete, and exactly what he wanted, someone with a feeling, a sense, and love, and desire, and love for Him, and appreciation of him, and a passion for Him, and a knowledge, and an understanding, and a discernment, and whatever else a counterpart would need…I don’t know, but I have a strong feeling that when God considered what must take place for Him to have a counterpart, I believe He saw the whole creation: the creation of man, the fall, redemption, and everything else that was necessary to ultimately arrive at that counterpart. I cannot give you all the reasons, but I have a strong intuition within me that it was all necessary. Yet, there was always the possibility that it might work out better.

Have you ever had to come to a place where you had to make a decision, and you knew that if you made that decision, there was a possibility it wasn’t going to work out too well, and a possibility it would work out wonderfully? But you considered it, and you closed your eyes, and you did it…and it didn’t work out the way you hoped for the high. And that terrible moment of realization that you had gambled, and it was going to go the poorer way. P-O-O-R-E-R.

I remember something a professor once told me. I’ll pass it on to you. Probably it’s about the only thing I can remember in all of my seminary days. Have you ever heard me refer to anything I learned in the seminary before tonight? I remember this story. After four and a half years there, I’m bound to remember something. I believe, if I remember correctly, he was telling a story about something that happened in a class maybe 30 or 40 years earlier, when the man who founded that institution was president and teaching that particular class. He asked everyone in the class to read a passage of scripture, which I read tonight: Genesis 3. He asked everyone to read it, and each one got up and read it. Virtually every man got up and read it this way.

“Adam, where are you? Adam, where are you?”

But one brother got up. My impression was that, as he read it, he choked up, and a great pathos swelled out of it. And speaking for God, he said, “Oh, Adam, where are you?” And Adam said, “Because I had no clothing on, I hid from you.” And God said, “Oh, Adam, who told you that you were not clothed?” A weeping, a dreadful sorrow, hurt, disappointed, crushed beyond words.

Adam, if you have ever felt sorry because there was a fall, think of the weeping that brought God. God saw it all. He felt it all. He knew it all. He knew what would happen. He knew what he was in for. He knew what man was in for when he came to the garden, and Adam was not there innocently, standing there waiting for the Lord to come in the wind. What had happened? What had happened? That day, what happened? God lost the chance to have His counterpart. Man lost his chance to take on the nature of God. Man did far worse than that. He not only didn’t get to go up, but he went down.

Now God…God…has lost His bride, and He is going to have to go after her at a terrible price. I’ll tell you, brothers, there is the greatest love story of all time and all eternity. There is no love story like this love story. Wow. I’m just getting excited standing here. What a love story. There is no other love story like it, and it’s got an end, and it hasn’t been written yet. Praise the Lord.