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The theme of two of the Books for Little Ones is God’s love for me and for all people. But this theme is not as simple as it might at first seem.
Although the Bible is clear that God loves all of mankind, it is also very frank in declaring that he is angry with and will punish sinners (which is all of us).
But we ought not see this as a contradiction. With God, love and punishment are not inconsistent. Love is one of his eternal characteristics (1 Jn 4:8) along with holiness and righteousness (Is 5:16); and his wrath can be seen as an outworking of his character in response to human rebellion. God’s inclination is to bless, not to punish (Ez 18:32); indeed it is his “strange” and “alien” work to punish (Is 28:21).
So in teaching God’s love, we must not downplay God’s righteousness and justice. His character of love does not mean that he will accept sinners—at least not outside of the atoning work of Jesus Christ on the cross. That is the marvelous news of the Bible: that by faith we can receive forgiveness and acceptance by God, in spite of our sin and rebellion against him.
In Christ there is no barrier to God’s overflowing desire to bless us.
So in teaching children of God’s love for them, we need to take care not to leave them with the impression that they, or anybody else for that matter, are on safe ground if they are not right with God through faith in Jesus.
Having said that, we need to also be conscious that children in this age range (1-4) are still developing their thinking ability, and in particular the abstract thinking ability involved in understanding sin and the work of Christ. There are significant limits to how well they can understand the relative complexity of this topic. Their faith needs to grow as they grow, but it needs to start quite simply.
That is the purpose of this series of books: to provide age-appropriate input about God and his character and what it means for us. Children need to be encouraged to respond in faith to the concepts of God that they can understand at each stage of their development. Then we progressively build on those foundations.
So, for example, in the ‘God loves me’ and ‘God loves’ books we introduce the idea that one of the key ways that God loves us is by sending Jesus. This is the focus of both books’ Bible verses.
This opens up the opportunity for you to explain to the child—in ways that you think he or she is ready for—some of the ideas about sin, punishment, forgiveness and the cross of Jesus. Obviously, if they are in the upper end of the age range, what you can explain will be more than what you can do in the lower end.
For older children, you may find some help with the language and concepts you can use to explain these tricky theological ideas from a gospel outline written with children in mind. “Who will be king?” is ideal for this purpose, although do bear in mind that it was written for older children. It is available online or you can purchase printed copies from Matthias Media. The gospel fable “Gumtree Gully” is another useful resource for exploring the gospel once children are ready for it.
But we want to emphasize that the key is to work with the child to help them respond appropriately to God now, even before they fully comprehend all that he has done for them in Jesus.
It’s also worth noting that the love of God in saving us through Jesus is by no means the only expression of God’s love. Don Carson in fact identifies at least “five distinguishable ways the Bible speaks of the love of God” [The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God, D.A. Carson, IVP, 2000, page 17]. One of those ways, of course, relates to salvation in Jesus, but another is “Gods providential love over all that he has made”. It is this love that means, for example, that God’s perfection is also expressed in his love for all of mankind, even his enemies:
“But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of [i.e. like] your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust… You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 6:43-48)
So even those who are not saved are recipients, in one sense, of God’s providential love—including the good things of his creation like the sun and the rain.
That’s why in this first series of Books for Little Ones, in response to learning that ‘God made’, ‘God loves’ and ‘God knows’, one of the first responses we encourage every child to make is to say “Thank you God”.
But hopefully their thankfulness doesn’t end with recognising the source of the benefits of this creation we have all received. May it in fact flow on into a lifetime of faith in Jesus and being thankful that nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39, cf. Ephesians 3:18).