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The Promises of God — The Promise of Everlasting Love

The Promises of God — The Promise of Everlasting Love 

The Eternal Motive and Consummating Grace

In The Promises of God Series so far we have traced God’s promises as the unfolding expressions of one eternal purpose: conceived before the foundation of the world, revealed through covenant, fulfilled in Christ, applied by the Spirit, and consummated in glory. The Eternal Covenant is the governing framework (God’s Eternal Purpose Enacted: The Promised Eternal Covenant); the Promised Holy Spirit is the indwelling life that applies it (The Promises of God — The Promised Holy Spirit); salvation, forgiveness, justification, sanctification, adoption, and eternal life are the successive stages (The Promises of God — The Promise of Eternal Life). Yet beneath, within, and above them all stands the promise that makes every other promise breathe — the promise of God’s everlasting love.

The Declaration from Eternity

Before time began, the Father chose us “in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love” (Ephesians 1:4). The Greek phrase en agapē (ἐν ἀγάπῃ) — "in love" — is not an afterthought or a circumstantial clause; it is the atmosphere in which the entire redemptive decree was formed. The eternal purpose was conceived, carried out, and will be completed in love.

The Ancient Promise Spoken in Time

Centuries later, to a people who had broken every covenant, the Lord appeared from afar and declared through the prophet:

“The LORD appeared to him from far away. With an everlasting love I have loved you; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.” (Jeremiah 31:3)

Interlinear Hebrew: בְּאַהֲבַת עוֹלָם (bə’ahăbat ʿôlām) — "with love of eternity / age-during love"
אֲהַבְתִּיךְ (’ăhabtîk) — "I have loved you" (perfect tense, completed action with ongoing effect).

Here God does not merely explain His motive; He declares a promise: with everlasting love He has loved — and will always love — His people. This is love presented as promise, the foundation for every subsequent covenant word.

This is not romantic sentiment. This is the covenant God pledging His own heart to a faithless people in the very chapter that immediately introduces the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-34). The promise of everlasting love is the foundation on which the promise of the new heart, the indwelling Spirit, and the forgiveness of sins rests.

The Demonstration in the Beloved Son

The eternal love became visible time in the giving of the Son:

“For God so loved (houtōs gar ēgapēsen — οὕτως γὰρ ἠγάπησεν) the world, that He gave His only Son…” (John 3:16)

And again:

“But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

The cross is not the origin of God’s love; it is the fullest expression of the love that always was and always will be.

The Outpouring through the Promised Spirit

The love that was planned in eternity, promised in the prophets, and demonstrated at Calvary is now poured out into the hearts of believers:

“…and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:5)

The Greek verb ekkechytai (ἐκκέχυται) is perfect passive — "has been poured out" — and the effects remain. The love here is God’s own agapē ἀγάπη, unique in word and divine in nature, a love originating in Him. This is the direct fulfillment of the Promised Holy Spirit in the series, God who exists love is a part of us, flooding the believer with the very love that motivated his promises.

The New Covenant as the Enactment of Eternal Love in Time

Building directly on God’s Eternal Purpose Enacted: The Promised Eternal Covenant, this everlasting love, planned before the ages, is not left in the realm of divine intention but is dramatically enacted in history through the establishment of the New Covenant. The New Covenant is the temporal bridge between eternity's purpose and redeemed humanity's experience: it is where God's agapē love, sovereign and unchanging, becomes visible, sacrificial, and transformative.

The writer to the Hebrews makes this explicit:

“But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.” (Hebrews 8:6)

And again:

“Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will…” (Hebrews 13:20–21)

Here the New Covenant is called the "eternal covenant" because it is the in-time realization of the eternal purpose. Christ’s blood does not inaugurate something novel in reaction to sin—it enacts the covenant love that predestined us "in love" (Ephesians 1:4–5).

Love as the Motive

“We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)

This enactment flows from love. The cross is love's supreme demonstration:

“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John 4:10)

The Greek here (agapōmen hoti autos prōtos ēgapēsen hēmas) underscores initiative: God's agapē precedes and provokes ours. The New Covenant is established precisely because God loved us with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3)—a love so committed that it would give the Beloved Son.

This is the greatest expression of love:

“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)

Christ embodies this: “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). The establishment of the New Covenant through His death does not minimize or overshadow what He accomplished; rather, it magnifies the motive. The sacrifice is love's necessary outworking—the means by which eternal love enters time, breaks the power of sin, and writes the law on hearts (Jeremiah 31:33; Hebrews 8:10). And what sums up his laws but to love him and his family.

Interlinear insight into Jeremiah 31:31–34 reinforces this:

  • Verse 31: "Behold, days [are] coming, declares YHWH, and I will cut/make (וְכָרַתִּי — wəḵāratî, future perfective) a new covenant…"
  • Verse 33: "I will put my law in their inward parts, and on their heart I will write it (אֶכְתְּבֶנָּה — ’eḵtəḇennâ)."

The covenant is unilateral—God acts ("I will")—rooted in the prior declaration of everlasting love (verse 3: בְּאַהֲבַת עוֹלָם — bə’ahăbat ʿôlām — "with everlasting love I have loved you").

Enactment Through the Cross

Hebrews contrasts the old and new to highlight love's enactment: the old was shadow (Hebrews 10:1); the new is substance. The old required repeated sacrifices; Christ's one offering perfects forever (Hebrews 10:14). The mediator is better because the promises are better (Hebrews 8:6)—promises of definitive forgiveness ("their sins and lawless deeds I will remember no more," Hebrews 8:12 // Jeremiah 31:34), inward transformation, and direct knowledge of God.

All because of love. The blood of the eternal covenant (Hebrews 13:20) is love poured out: "This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood" (Luke 22:20). The enactment is sacrificial love making good on the eternal promise.

The Unbreakable Assurance

Because this love is eternal, covenantal, demonstrated, enacted, and now indwelling, the apostle can write with absolute confidence:

“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)

Nothing can separate us because agape love itself is the unbreakable bond. God is love and we are a new creation, partakers of his divine nature, thus a family who loves him.

Love Fulfilled in the Believer

The promise does not stop with God loving us; it reaches its goal when that same agapē love is perfected in us. As emphasized in related writings such as The Effect of Surpassing Love and Beloved Children, and in the fruit-bearing theme where “when we bear fruit… the love of God is fulfilled,” we are:

  • rooted and grounded in love (Ephesians 3:17)
  • strengthened to comprehend the breadth, length, height, and depth of Christ’s love (Ephesians 3:18)
  • filled to all the fullness of God precisely by knowing this love that surpasses knowledge (Ephesians 3:19)

We see this active love in Romans 8:28: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” The Greek phrase τοῖς ἀγαπῶσι τὸν θεόν (tois agapōsin ton theon — ἀγαπῶσι — "to the ones who love God") uses an active present participle, describing believers by their ongoing love for God, not a passive state of being loved by Him. This love is the human outworking of the divine love first poured out (Romans 5:5), fulfilling the eternal purpose.

When we abide in His love and walk in it toward one another, the eternal purpose is realized: agapē love is fulfilled.

Closing Reflection

The promise of everlasting love is the golden thread that runs through every promise, the heartbeat of the Eternal Covenant, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the ground of our adoption, and the joy of our inheritance. God has not only promised to do things for us; He has promised to love us with a love that will never end, never fail, and never be taken away.

Thus love is not merely the reason God makes promises; it is itself the greatest promise He has ever spoken — everlasting, enacted in Christ, poured out by the Spirit, and fulfilled in His people. This is the love in which we were chosen, for which Christ died, by which the Spirit now fills us, into which the New Covenant enacts us, and into which we will be welcomed forever.

“With an everlasting love I have loved you.” That single sentence, spoken from eternity and sealed in time at the cross, is the promise that makes every other promise sure.

May the God who is love fill you to overflowing with the very love He has promised — until love is fulfilled in you, and through you, to the praise of His glory.

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