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Love flows from goodness, by which God is said to be inclined toward His created thing, and He desires to do good to it and to join Himself with it, as if with it. Since there are various degrees of love in humans, different degrees are also ascribed to God, not as if there were more or less love in God, but because the effects of that love vary in their significance. Three commonly recognized degrees of the love of God are distinguished. The love of benevolence, which is that love by which God is moved to will some good for His creature, without taking into account any virtue that might exist in the creature. This love does not differ from the goodness of God, and through this love, God has eternally wished well for the creature; indeed, by this love of benevolence, He sometimes wishes good for unworthy and deserving-of-hatred creatures. The love of beneficence is that love by which He does good in time; it is important to note the word 'in time' in order to distinguish it from the love of benevolence, by which God eternally wishes well for the creature. Finally, the love of complacency or friendship is that by which He is inclined toward a holy and just creature. By the first love, God chooses us; by the second, He redeems and sanctifies us; by the third, He rewards us as saints. Christ speaks of this last love in John 14:21. 'Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me, and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him.' However, two things commend God's love toward us. First, our unworthiness compared with the majesty of the one who loves. Second, the infinite effects of that love: the gift of Christ, the gift of the Spirit, the gift of eternal life.