The scriptures are full of examples of miraculous excessive love which often beggared the understanding of the people of the time (and ours), but none of these actions belied the other attributes of God. Indeed, in some cases the Apostle Paul and even Jesus were both seemingly harsh in their actions toward, and descriptions of others – God’s love is not wishy-washy or without power, and His love toward us can be at times hard to understand when we are going through times of testing and trial. But like a parent He has an end purpose in mind that we often cannot or do not see – our priorities are often different to His.

So while I strongly support the basis premise of this book, my point is that God’s love is never separate from His holiness, His justice and His truth, and I believe that if we minimise these things in the name of love then we are missing God’s way of doing things and trying to make a way based on our understanding. We have to do things His way according to the scripture even if it doesn’t seem right to us.

As such, my contention with books such as this book is stronger than Bill’s. I feel that in minimising the other attributes of God, we water down the message of the Scriptures and in doing so run periliously close to liberalism, and end up overlooking or negating the central work of the Cross, being redemption from sin, and causes more damage instead of leading people to a true personal experience with our loving but holy and righteous God.

Garth Penglase