randolphrichards

Reckless Love

First, let me say I love Cory Asbury’s title song on his debut album. You can listen to it here, if you aren’t familiar: 

Reckless Love (Official Lyric Video)YouTube · Bethel MusicJan 19, 2018

Cory sings about the overwhelming, never-ending, love of God. How God’s love chases us down and finds us. Cory notes that while we were still God’s foe (enemy), God fought for us (see Rom. 5:10). I agree with Cory, that we can’t earn God’s love; we don’t deserve it. (It’s a great song.) 

Allow me to quibble on two points. 

First, God’s love is not and has never been reckless. This is actually an English problem—not a theology one. To be “reckless” means that you did not “reckon” the cost or consequences of something before you did it. Scripture is very clear that God is not reckless. He knew the cost of saving mankind before he laid the foundations of the earth. Jesus himself ridicules being reckless: 

For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ (Lk 14:28-30, NASB). 

I think what Cory meant was the lavish love of God. 

My second quibble point is his line: “fights ‘til I’m found, leaves the ninety-nine.” Clearly, Cory is referring to Jesus’ beautiful parable found a few verses later in Lk 15:4-7,

What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. (NASB)

So, the point in Jesus’ parable* about the lost sheep is the primary point made in Cory’s song. God’s love is lavish and he will go to any extreme to find us and then rejoice when we are found. The emphasis is not on abandoning the 99. We are pushing the parable in unintended ways, when we emphasize leaving the 99. Rather, Jesus’ point was that the Good Shepherd doesn’t say, “Well, I still have 99, so that’s good enough.” No, as Peter reminds us, God does not want a single one to perish (2 Pet 3:9).

Enjoy singing Cory’s song (although I wish he would change the lyrics to “lavish love of God.”) 

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• Ever since J. Jeremias’ work on parables, we emphasize that a parable (an earthly story with a heavenly meaning) is a story is designed to illustrate something we may not understand well, such as the Kingdom of God, by using some part of everyday life that people did understand, like farming or shepherding. Thus, while a parable might contain multiple characters or details, the central message remains singular. We do not want to push every detail in a parable—otherwise, we have 99% of people not needing to repent, or we have God praising dishonesty (Lk 16:1-17)  or folks going to heaven or hell without a judgement day (Lk 16:23). In a parable, we look for the main point. 
• The image is AI-generated and so free of copyright, but incorrectly portrays Jesus with long hair, Caucasian features, and some background that clearly isn’t first-century Palestine.