"God's Love"

Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr. (Boston University)

Date: January 1, 1951 to December 31, 1955?

Location: Boston, Mass.?

Genre: Sermon

Topic: Martin Luther King, Jr. - Career in Ministry

Details

1. God’s love has breath (It is all inclusive) This is what distinguishes the New T from the Old. The God of the O.T. was only a tribal God. Moreover God’s love is spontaneous impartial. He makes his sun to rise on the good and the evil. If God gave us what we deserve all of us would deserve condemnation.
2. God’s love is self giving (ie spontaneous, autonomous) He loves because it is a part of his nature. No external force requires him to do his duty. Man’s love is heteronomous. He loves and does his duty because he is commanded to do it. So God’s gift to man was given not because God was asked to give it but because he wanted to give it. e.g. a gift that a man gives his wife which she doesn’t ask for is more appreciated than one which is given which she ask for. So it is with God.
3. God’s love is redemptive. “Whoever believest … shall live.”¹ God live gives life and new light. It saves us from death.

^1. King may be referring to John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Source: CSKC-INP, Coretta Scott King Collection, In Private Hands.

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