The Love of God: Mary Magdalene (John 20) – Part 1

Have you ever read Romans 3? They all together become unprofitable. They’ve all turned aside. There’s none that seeks after God. No, not one. None. They have all together become corrupted. They have all together become sinful. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

This was man. God drew history out in front of Him, and He watched from the beginning of time to the end; somehow, in this initiation of time, God could stand there in eternity and watch every creature being born and living before they were ever born or lived. Before He even laid the foundation of the world, He saw the world; before He laid the foundation of the earth, He saw you. Now I want you to know I cannot understand this. This was even before the fall. Maybe the Lord didn’t even see the fall. Gee, I’ve never been God. I don’t know what God has seen. All I can tell you is that, in a way only God can understand, before He ever made the human race, He fell madly in love with a select few. That love was the love of the Spirit because God is Spirit.

There’s not one of you in this room, but who has very low self-esteem. Is that not true? Most of the time, except when you’re with brothers and sisters, when you’re in the kingdom and know it. How many of you have a boss? You work for a living, you’re paid a salary, you have a boss right over you. Would you raise your hand? Put your hand down. I want to ask you another question. Do you feel like he likes you? How many of you would say, you really don’t think he likes you so well, and would put your hand back up? Okay, alright. How many of you feel your employer is less than satisfied with you? Would you raise your hand? Okay. Thank you very much. And you live under that all the time, don’t you? Don’t you? I know that feeling. Sister and brother, there just comes with that a sense of unworthiness that I’m at the bottom of the pile.

I’d like you to consider the millions and millions of people God passed over, stopped, and fell in love with you. Now, that’s touching, and if it ended there, that would be great, but that’s not near the end of where that love drove Him. For one thing, it drove Him to become a creature. It drove Him to become a creature. That was no small thing.

Then He stepped into time and into this fallen human race—this insect-like creature. I don’t want to put him down too badly, but I want you to see, from God’s view, how far man had fallen from his original state. Then God took on the form of that fallen state, with its passions, its problems, and its temptations. He identified Himself with you so much that He knows exactly what it’s like. That is insignificant compared to the driving force of the love behind Him.

He came almost with a sword. He was after those He had fallen in love with before the foundation of the earth. He was after…He was there to get you. He was there to have you. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. My wife pointed out to me the other day that it probably does not mean He gave Him to the cross, but rather that He literally gave Him as a gift to the whole world. He presented Jesus Christ to the world He fell in love with. Jesus Christ came to this earth to get you, and it was just…He had a lover, and there was a big problem, and He meant to solve it.

Now then, He saw all these things that stood between Himself and His counterpart, the woman who He had fallen in love with before He ever created the universe, capriciously fell in love, and you happened to be… You happened to be what? That person. I’m not going to say part of that person.

Okay, you tell me what stood between Him and His counterpart. Name them. Wait, wait, wait. I’d better take them one at a time. Let’s get one. Satan. World. Powers and principalities. Sin. Sins. Death. Flesh. The world system. The whole human race. Inside the world system, the religious system. Okay, the whole fallen creation. The whole fallen creation. There is one other thing. What was that? His own personal state. Which was a state of what? Oneness. A state of oneness. He was not like His creation.

His whole creation was created in twos. Two what? Two lions. Two elephants. Two giraffes. Two flies. Two fleas. Two cows. Two horses. What didn’t have two? God. What else didn’t have two? The angels…and man started out not having two.

Alright, here’s the fallen race. He steps into time; He grows up. On the day He’s baptized, He becomes fully God, and He is also fully man. A Jewish man is considered fully arrived at total, complete maturity at age 30. God rested upon Jesus Christ at the age of 30. He is now totally God, totally man. He steps forth; I can almost see Him with a sword. He looks around. It’s complete. He has entered time after all of eternity and all time with the passion of love for a counterpart in Him; He’s alive.

And here is another species, not of His own. What is that species? Tell me what it is. Fallen man. Now He walks the earth. Does He have anyone like His own species? No one else on the whole planet is like His species. And He counts…I’ve got to get my own species out of this species. This is where it must come from. A lot of sin to be forgiven. A lot of corruption to be put away. Just a lot of things, and I must be divided.

Oh, we went through a lot of things the other night. Do you recall? Do you recall them? We went through many stories. The temptation. We told the story about the little girl, the young maiden, who had seven demons cast out of her, and she also had one other thing happen to her. She had her sins forgiven. We talked about the things the Lord marked throughout His three-and-a-half years of ministry.