God is Love

"We must realize that love alone is not the end of the matter. It rests upon the character of God and God is the God who is Holy and the God who is Love. We would not choose between love and holiness, for to forget either is equally vicious. But we do have to realize that the talk of love we are so surrounded by today is often a love without tracks. Therefore, when we begin to deal in practice with God's holiness, we must always remember that simultaneously there must be the reality of love. And when we begin to deal in practice with God's love, we must remember that simultaneously there must be the reality of his holiness. It is not thtat we do one and then the other, like keeping a ball in the air with two ping-pong paddles. Both God's holiness and his love must be exhibited simultaneously or we have fallen off one cliff or the other."

Francis Schaeffer, The Church Before the Watching World, Inter-Varsity Press, 1971.


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