“Love loves the unlovable … For sinners are lovely because they are loved; they are not loved because they are lovely.”
Anders Nygren: “What, then, has the Cross of Christ to tell us about the nature and content of Agape-love? It testifies that it is a love that gives itself away, that sacrifices itself, even to the uttermost … Indeed as Paul sees it, Agape can go so far in requiring a man to sacrifice his own spiritual advantages for the advantage of his neighbour, that he even declares himself willing to be accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of his kinsmen according to the flesh, if thereby they might be saved,” (Rom. Ix. 3), (ibid. 118, 132)
“What, then, has the Cross of Christ to tell us about the nature and content of Agape-love? It testifies that it is a love that gives itself away, that sacrifices itself, even to the uttermost … Indeed as Paul sees it, Agape can go so far in requiring a man to sacrifice his own spiritual advantages for the advantage of his neighbour, that he even declares himself willing to be accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of his kinsmen according to the flesh, if thereby they might be saved.”
“God’s love allows no limits to be set for it by the character or conduct of man. The differences between the worthy and the unworthy, the righteous and sinner, sets no bounds to His love.”
“Love towards God does not seek to gain anything. It most certainly does not seek to gain anything other than God. But neither does it seek to gain even God Himself or His love. The very thought of gaining anything, even of gaining God’s love, is fundamentally alien to it. It is a free—and in that sense spontaneous—surrender of the heart to God.”
“Fellowship with God is not governed by law but by love…”