Breadth-love refers to the outward reach of God’s intimate holy-love. It happens when love is accepted and reflected. Had humanity never sinned, breadth-love would simply have extended Eden to the furthest reaches of the earth and beyond. Also, when people repent they regain this kind of love as they grow in sanctification and intimacy with God.
Depth-love refers to God’s commitment to love even when rejected. Humanity sinned so God manifested something He could not give in Eden: a love that loves even the unlovely. Depth-love is Jesus’ redeeming love that plunges from Heaven to Golgotha, from the throne to the cross. It is God’s commitment to love the sinner, to increase grace as sin increases, to never abandon His creation but constantly call people to repent and rejoin communion with Him.
No matter what people do, God manifests His love. God did not will the Fall nor is He ever evil—He is HOLY. He does not even tempt. But no matter what humanity does, God fully, absolutely, powerfully does what He created to do: He offers Himself as holy-love.
Until his dying breath Hitler could have repented. No matter his extreme evil, his monstrous and destructive ways that greatly grieved God, depth-love was always there prompting repentance. Even though the offer was rejected, even though no human saw it, it was absolutely glorious. Humans cannot fathom God’s glory—God’s love was right there, and only God was the audience, and that in itself only serves to make it that much more glorious. Seeking self-glory diminishes glory. God does not need humanity for an audience—He is glorious all by Himself.
Glory is not something God needs from creation—it is something He radiates (Shekinah) and shares with creation. He had glory before the world began, and He gives His glory by making humanity in His image. The image of God is the ability to be holy. This is why we grow in sanctification (being made holy) and why we are called saints (holy ones). We can say we do all for His glory, if by that we mean we love Him, but glory primarily flows from Him to us.
We are like mirrors meant to reflect God’s holy-love. When reflected holy-love intensifies. When absorbed the light becomes heat (sin) and burns and blackens the mirror. Sin first burns the one absorbing love, then also tries to burn others.
God never compels or coerces—He only invites. To compel is to destroy the ability to love. Love requires free choice. Even to strongly encourage may remove from someone an opportunity to choose love. Christians are to show breadth-love in fellowship and worship, and depth-love in evangelism and ministry to the lost and hurting. Most of all they are to show holy-love by constantly inviting others to choose love.
When my children were young, they wanted to give me gifts, but they had no money. So they drew pictures. Sometimes they were little more than crayon scribbles, but I treasured them. Not because the paper was valuable, but because the love behind the gift was freely given. As a father, that love mattered more than anything they could have bought.
In the same way God treasures and protects human free will so that we can reflect His love. We have nothing of intrinsic value to offer Him. Love is the only gift worthy of God precisely because it cannot be forced. It must be chosen. That is why freedom matters so deeply to Him. God does not want obedience without affection or service without relationship. He desires sons and daughters who love Him freely and so who reflect His holy-love.
In the end, LUMEN proposes this: The universe exists because God had so much holy-love He wanted to share. Freedom is vital because without it we cannot reflect God’s love. God does not want control, mere obedience (the law without love), or predetermined outcomes. God is forming His holy family who will forever dwell in Him, and in His love.
LUMEN: The Basics
Why God Created, Why Freedom Matters, and Why Love Is the Point
By Dr. Peter A. Kerr
LUMEN is an attempt to express what Christianity was meant to be. It is not a recovery of an idealized past age, nor an overly-spiritualized version of the Good News, but rather it is a synthesis of what we have learned after 2000 years of reflection. It is fully grounded in the Bible, fully in accord with the best of the early Church Fathers, and fully centered on Jesus and His salvation that only comes by grace through faith.
At the heart of LUMEN is a simple truth: God is holy. Before creation existed, before angels or humans or created time itself, God was already complete—not in isolation, but in trinitarian communion.
God’s one simple essence of holiness expresses itself by radiating beautiful goodness (Father), the light of truth (Son), and unifying love (Spirit). Because God is already complete in Himself sharing holy-love (agape), creation was not necessary...but it was fitting as love naturally reaches for more to love. God did not create in order to gain glory, attention, or obedience. He created to share what He already is. Creation is God’s self-gift: it is the outward diffusion of divine holy-love, and so an invitation into communion. You were made to be loved.
LUMEN describes this invitation using the language of breadth and depth. Human and divine will are not in conflict because what God desires is to manifest His love. No matter what we do, He gets to love us.
John 15:8 “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.”
James 1:14–15 “But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it has run its course, brings forth death.”
Matthew 23:37 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who have been sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.”
Deuteronomy 30:19 “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have placed before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants,”
2 Corinthians 9:7 “Each one must do just as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”
Acts 2:42 “They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”
Matthew 28:19 “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,”
Luke 10:33–34 “But a Samaritan who was on a journey came upon him; and when he saw him, he felt compassion, and came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them; and he put him on his own animal, and brought him to an inn and took care of him.”
Colossians 4:6 “Your speech must always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person.”
Mark 12:43–44 “Calling His disciples to Him, He said to them, ‘Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury; for they all put in out of their surplus, but she, out of her poverty, put in all she owned, all she had to live on.’”
Galatians 5:13 “For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.”
Psalm 50:12 “If I were hungry I would not tell you, For the world is Mine, and everything it contains.”
Song of Songs 8:6–7 “Put me like a seal over your heart, Like a seal on your arm. For love is as strong as death, Jealousy is as severe as Sheol; Its flames are flames of fire, The flame of the Lord. Many waters cannot quench love, Nor will rivers flood over it; If a man were to give all the riches of his house for love, It would be utterly despised.”
2 Corinthians 3:17 “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”
Hosea 6:6 “For I desire loyalty rather than sacrifice, And the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”
Romans 8:15 “For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons and daughters by which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’”
Ephesians 1:4–5 “just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,”
Matthew 22:37 “And He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’”
Revelation 21:3 “And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is among the people, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them,’”
Ephesians 2:8–9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
Isaiah 6:3 “And one called out to another and said, ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.’”
John 17:5 “Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.”
John 1:14 “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
1 John 4:8 “The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”
Acts 17:24–25 “The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things.”
Jeremiah 31:3 “The Lord appeared to him from afar, saying, ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness.’”
1 Timothy 2:4 “Who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
Romans 8:38–39 “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
2 Corinthians 3:18 “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.”
Genesis 1:28 “God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”
1 Thessalonians 4:3 “For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality.”
Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
Luke 15:20 “So he got up and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.”
Philippians 2:6–8 “Who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
Romans 5:20 “The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.”
2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
1 John 1:5 “This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.”
1 Peter 1:16 “because it is written: ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’”
James 1:13 “No one is to say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.”
Revelation 3:20 “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.”
Ezekiel 18:23 “Do I take any pleasure at all in the death of the wicked,” declares the Lord God, “rather than that he would turn from his ways and live?”
Genesis 6:6 “So the Lord was sorry that He had made mankind on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.”
Romans 2:4 “Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and restraint and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?”
Isaiah 55:8–9 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.”
John 5:41 “I do not receive glory from people;”
Matthew 6:1 “Take care not to practice your righteousness in front of people to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.”
Proverbs 25:27 “It is not good to eat much honey, Nor is it glory to search out one’s own glory.”
Exodus 34:29 “And it came about, when Moses was coming down from Mount Sinai (and the two tablets of the testimony were in Moses’ hand as he was coming down from the mountain), that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because of his speaking with Him.”
John 17:5 “And now You, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world existed.”
Genesis 1:27 “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”
Ephesians 4:24 “and to put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.”
1 Thessalonians 5:23 “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
1 Corinthians 1:2 “To the church of God which is in Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours:”
1 Corinthians 10:31 “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all things for the glory of God.”
2 Corinthians 4:6 “For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”
Matthew 5:16 “Your light must shine before people in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”