'God's love is incomprehensible and unchangeable. For it was not after we were reconciled to him through the blood of his Son that he began to love us...Rather, he has loved us before the world was created...The fact that we were reconciled through Christ's death must not be understood as if his Son reconciled us to [The Father] so that he might now begin to love those whom he had hated. Rather, we have already been reconciled to him who loves us, with whom we were enemies on account of sin. The apostle will testify whether I am speaking the truth: "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us" [Romans 5:8]. Therefore he loved us even when we practiced enmity toward him and committed wickedness. Thus in a marvellous and divine way he loved us even when he hated us. For he hated us for what were that he had not made; yet because our wickedness had not entirely consumed his handiwork, he knew how, at the same time, to hate in each one of us what we had made and to love what he had made.'
Augustine of Hippo in Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, p.487.
