Tavern Talk #90 - A Love Too Great to Measure

Some things are so vast that the human mind struggles to comprehend them. This month's Tavern Talk looked at a few examples...the deepest part of the ocean is nearly seven miles deep...the moon is almost 240,000 miles away...more than a million Earths could fit inside the sun...our galaxy contains hundreds of billions of stars, and beyond it are billions of galaxies more. Every time scientists learn something new about the universe, they discover that it is even larger than they imagined.

Human beings have always responded to such immensity the same way: we reach for comparisons. We try to describe what is too large to fully understand.

The writers of Scripture did the same thing when they spoke about the love of God.

The Psalmist wrote, “As high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him.” When those words were written, the heavens seemed unimaginably vast. Today we know they are far larger than the Psalmist could have imagined. Yet the metaphor still works. In fact, it has only grown stronger. While our understanding of the universe expands, so does our appreciation for the magnitude of God’s love.

The prophets described God’s love as everlasting. Paul prayed that believers might comprehend the breadth, length, height, and depth of Christ’s love even while admitting that it surpasses knowledge. John reduced the mystery to its simplest expression: “God is love.”

The challenge for us is that we tend to measure divine love by human standards. Human love often has limits. It can be conditional, transactional, and fragile. It sometimes says, “I love you if,” or “I love you until.”

God’s love is different.

Scripture tells us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Love came first. Before repentance. Before understanding. Before we earned anything.

That is why Jesus so often described God’s love through stories of extravagant grace - a shepherd searching for one lost sheep, a father running to embrace a wayward son, a master forgiving an impossible debt. Again and again, Jesus revealed a love that exceeds our expectations and defies our calculations.

Ultimately, Christianity does not claim that God merely explained His love with words. He demonstrated it through the cross.

The cross reveals the length God was willing to go, the depth He was willing to descend, and the price He was willing to pay. It stands as history’s greatest declaration that the love of God cannot be measured, exhausted, or contained.

Perhaps that is the point. We were never meant to fully define God’s love - even though this Tavern Talk tries! We were meant to stand before it as we stand before the ocean, the mountains, or the stars: humbled, grateful, and filled with wonder.

Some things are simply too great to measure. God's love is one of them.

Further Readings:

Psalm 36:5

Psalm 103:11

Isaiah 49:15

Jeremiah 31:3

Ephesians 3:18–19

1 John 4:8

John 3:16

Romans 5:8

Parables and Illustrations Referenced

Luke 15:3–7 (The Lost Sheep)

Luke 15:11–32 (The Prodigal Son)

Matthew 20:1–16 (The Workers in the Vineyard)

Matthew 18:21–35 (The Unforgiving Servant)