How sure are you that God loves you?

Does his holiness cancel out his love? Does that persistent sin mean the end of your hope? Is the best we can do in church is talk about God’s love, but never to celebrate it?

In our Cristo Rey Hispanic/Anglo church you learn to think across cultures. When is Jesus coming back? Pronto! What is the book of Ruth about? Immigrant single women!

Try this one: what does si mean? Well, when it’s Sí it means YES. But when it’s Si it means IF. (The accent mark makes the difference, but they sound the same).

Now see how that works with promises. Mom, will you take me to see the Cards? Why YES, IF you keep your room picked up and clean for a month.

Honey, will you love me always? YES of course, IF you don’t put on any more weight and keep on admiring me.

What is God saying when he promises? I will be your God forever and you will always be my people, but then adds the big IF; if you keep my commandments and walk in my way. Does God take back all he gives he gives by bundling it with an impossible condition?

I have some sympathy for our dispensationalist friends, who are sure we don’t really want to pray the Lord’s Prayer, because it says, “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” If that means, forgive us to the extent we forgive others, it isn’t worth much, is it?

How sure are you that God loves you? Does his holiness cancel out his love? Does that persistent sin mean the end of your hope? Is the best we can do in church is talk about God’s love, but never to celebrate it?

In our Calvinist TULIP story, the U is worth a look: unconditional election. (You can read “love” for “election.”) When it comes to love, God wins, always and amazingly. He brought his people out of Egypt, and they worshipped the golden calf. Then he said, I’ll stick with you Moses, but I’m through with the rest of them. But Moses pleaded, and God heard him. In the land they worshipped idols, and God sent them into exile. But he moved them to repentance and brought them back. They did it again, and definitely had no more claim on God. But God said, “How can I give you up?” He welcomed back the prodigal. “His mercy endures forever.”

I know, on the Last Day Jesus will say to some who are cocksure about their relationship with God: “I never knew you.” That is indeed sobering, and you need to hear it. You need to be sure you’re not a Pharisee, trusting in your own righteousness. A student of mine leads Children’s Ministry in a church here. He asked the kids, why do your father and mother want you to come to church? They all say, so we can learn to be good children. Now where did that come from? That Unconditional never means, you will endure forever. It always means, his mercy will.

So be sure to remember, remember, remember that. The gospel of God is Mercy and Grace. That’s how we understand his promises, too. “Covenant” is the Bible word for promise, isn’t it? When God says IF in a covenant, then we start thinking, what is the Condition of the Covenant? What is the IF of the YES? Is it about God cutting us some slack?

Or, is it about Jesus fulfilling the Condition for us? I think so. Be amazed at his forty days in the wilderness, of Satan’s escalating temptations to turn him back from obeying his Father. Again and again he said: get out of here Satan, I will do God’s will. Then came the booming voice of the Father from heaven: This is my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. You say it now, aloud: “Jesus is the Father’s Beloved Son. He is well pleased with him, and he is well pleased with me.”

Look at 2 Cor. 1:20. Paul has stood them up, and says he doesn’t want to do that again. He wants his promises not to be yes OR no, but always Yes. Why? Because in Jesus Christ all of God’s promises are Yes! No missing accent mark, ever. No If. When Jesus is about to go back to the Father, he tells his disciples about prayer. You haven’t seen anything yet, he says. From now on, ask anything and you’ll get it. “You have not because you ask not; ask and you will receive.”

Why is your heart cold? You don’t know? Ask and you will receive: Lord, show me my sin. You never share your faith, and you don’t know how? Ask and you will receive. America is losing the gospel, our church is aging, and there’s so little hope. Ask. The Father is indeed well pleased with Jesus!

I keep thinking about Jay Adams and what the Lord showed him. (Is all that nostalgia a sign of something?) Jay taught us about God’s way of change. He said, “There’s hope for you. You can change.” We answered, “You don’t understand. We’re Calvinists and we believe in Total Depravity, and we know we can’t change.” But we learned.

We learned that our Father kept and keeps all those enormous promises to us. Jesus conquered Satan and death and Hell, and our unbelief. He gave us the Holy Spirit, and all we need for life and godliness. All of God’s promises are Yes in Jesus. Just ask.

Bryan Chapell has taught us to say, In Jesus’ name, at the beginning of our prayers. That helps me. It becomes an afterthought, the other way around. Read Paul Miller’s Praying Life, too. To underline: either you pray about it, or you trust in yourself.

What about you? Do you trust in the missing accent mark, the IF? Or in the Beloved Son?
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D. Clair Davis is a PCA Teaching Elder. He is a former professor of church history at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia and is now teaching at Redeemer Seminary in Dallas, Texas.