How deep is God’s love, really? When I started this post, I was ready to dive into every place the Bible compares God’s love to the depths of the ocean. I was today years old when I realized the Bible never actually says God’s love is as deep as the ocean, even though half the worship songs we sing act like it does. I’m always a little thrown off when I realize things I assume are in the Bible aren’t really there. It also is a good reminder that just because it’s mentioned in a church, doesn’t mean it’s in the Bible.
So if you’ve been walking with Jesus for years and just found out you had something to unlearn, welcome to the club. One of the things we do here is continually go back to the Bible to find what it says and correct what we assume the Bible says. So know this: no matter how long you’ve been walking with Jesus, you still have things to learn and unlearn.
What the Bible Actually Says
Now let’s look at what Scripture actually says about the depth of God’s love, and why the ocean is still the perfect picture of it.
The Bible does compare God’s justice to the depth of the ocean in Psalms 36:6
Your righteousness is like the highest mountains; Your judgments are like the deepest sea. O LORD, You preserve man and beast.
But as far as his love specifically, it doesn’t draw a direct metaphor to the ocean. It simply talks about the depth of God’s love in Ephesians 3:16-19
I ask that out of the riches of His glory He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Then you, being rooted and grounded in love, will have power, together with all the saints, to comprehend the length and width and height and depth of the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
And it’s this verse, I believe, that causes so much comparison between God’s love and the ocean. It makes sense. God’s love is deeper than we can fathom, and the ocean is the deepest most mysterious thing we know of. The ocean is constantly the ocean, while we may find new things we never knew about, those discoveries were always there. Little tide pools after a storm, caves that haven’t been noticed before, and a knowledge that there are still so many parts that have yet to be seen or experienced by humans.
And it’s the same with God’s love. It may always seem new and different to us, but really it’s just that we found that part of God, or we changed so we could understand or appreciate that part of God better.
God doesn’t change, we just know him better as we continue to sit with him. Malachi 3:6a
“Because I, the Lord, do not change”
What it means to us
I think similar to the ocean, the quote about Aslan stands: “no one said he was safe, but he is good.” And like anyone who has seen ocean storms can say, you have to respect the ocean for what it is and can do.
God wiped out all but 8 humans off the world in the largest ocean storm of all time for how far humans had fallen from relationship with him. And the older I get the more I realize the gift of grace God gave us in not letting Adam and Eve eat from the tree of eternal life.
Living 70-100 years on this earth seems like a lot for me, considering how broken the earth is and the turmoil you live through in a broken sinful world. People were living for centuries in Noah’s time. It’s no wonder sin was running amok. The damage sin can cause in our short lives is only compounded by centuries, I don’t want to imagine how terrible it was. It was bad enough for God to regret making us.
And yet, God knew when he first went to make the earth and humans, that it was going to get to this point. And for all the grief we would cause him, he still wanted relationship with us, because his love is deeper than the chasm of sin.
So he sent redemption through those 8 humans and a promise. Genesis 9:12-13
And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between Me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set My rainbow in the clouds, and it will be a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth.
And then he sent his Son to fulfill all the promises, because of the depth of his love.
I wouldn’t have blamed God if he had just given up wholly on humans, for all the good we can do, we can also do many terrible things as well.
But still he loves us, his children. And he calls us home to him, every day, every moment, like the ocean calling the tide back. He wants his children, and gives us the choice to say yes or no.
Take one step
Take one step this week to make your faith deeper. Think about the things you assume the Bible says, and research to see if it’s really there.
Stay Weird,
