The Love of God

1 John 4:7-10

All those who believe in God agree on one thing, and that is that God is love. The love of God is a biblical truth (1 John 4:8), and can be defined as “an exercise of His goodness towards individual sinners whereby, having identified Himself with their welfare, He has given His Son to be their Saviour, and now brings them to know and enjoy Him in a covenant relation.” Unfortunately, many of those who talk about the love of God are total strangers to the God of love. The love of God is commonly regarded as a species of amiable weakness, a sort of good-natured indulgence; it is reduced to a mere sickly sentiment, patterned after human emotion. This is why our thoughts need to be formed and regulated by what is revealed in Scripture. The better we are acquainted with God’s love—its character, fullness, blessedness—the more our hearts will be drawn out in love to Him.

What, then, are the characteristics of divine love? There are quite a few of them.

One, God’s love is infinite, limitless, and unfathomable [Psalm 103:11, “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, So great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him;” Isaiah 63:7; Ephesians 3:18-19; see also 2:4]. For all of eternity we shall ponder the love of God, and never will we fully be able to comprehend it, for His love is infinite.

Two, God’s love is eternal. The value of an article is due largely to how long it endures. Gold and precious stones, for example, are more precious than wood or paper, which do not last. God’s love, or lovingkindness, as the term hesed is rendered in Psalm 136, is everlasting. It is eternal [1 Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; For His lovingkindness is everlasting. 2 Give thanks to the God of gods, For His lovingkindness is everlasting (Psalm 136:1-2, so also verses 3-26). (Jeremiah 31:3)].

Three, God’s love is immutable or changeless. How quickly human “love” can turn to hate in the divorce court. God’s love is not like this. His love is unchanging. As God is immutable, so is His love [Song of Solomon 8:7, “7 Many waters cannot quench love, Nor will rivers overflow it; If a man were to give all the riches of his house for love, It would be utterly despised;” see Micah 7:18, 20; James 1:17)].

Four, God’s love is holy. Like God, God’s love is holy. It is communicated to us through the Holy Spirit [Romans 5:5, “5 And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”] God’s love is always an expression of God’s holiness. It is also directed toward producing holiness in us. God’s love seeks to make us holy [Ephesians 1:4, “Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love;” Ephesians 5:25-26; Hebrews 12:5-10]. Many people think God’s love is such that He “accepts me just as I am.” This is not true. We come to Him in the words of the hymn writer, “Just as I am, without one plea.” But He cannot accept us this way. He accepts us “in Christ,” just as Christ is. God cannot and will not accept our sin. And so, in love, God disciplines us, moving us in love toward holiness. The love of God is not a guarantee that we will not suffer; it is the assurance that whatever suffering we endure is directed toward making us holy by a God who loves us. If it was necessary for Christ to suffer in order to demonstrate God’s love toward us, why would we think our suffering is incompatible with God’s love toward us?

Five, God’s love is sacrificial. God’s love is not self-serving but sacrificial. Love comes at a high cost, and the one who loves is the one who willingly pays the price. From eternity past, God set His love on us and purposed to save us through the sacrificial death of His Son. [John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life;” John 15:13; Romans 5:8; Galatians 2:20; Ephesians 5:25; 1 John 4:9-10].

Six, God’s love is sovereignly bestowed by grace. God’s love is selective. When a man wants to marry, he chooses the woman he wants to be his wife. He chooses her apart from, and above, all others. He makes a selection. God’s love is likewise selective. He chooses some and not others [Deut. 10:15, “Yet on your fathers did the Lord set His affection to love them, and He chose their descendants after them, even you above all peoples, as it is this day;” Romans 9:13; Malachi 1:2-3; John 15:16]. God’s love is not given to men because they are lovely. He has chosen to love us in spite of our miserable condition [Deuteronomy 7:7-8, “The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but because the LORD loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers, the LORD brought you out by a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt;” Romans 5:8]. We must conclude then that love is a choice—God’s choice. God chose to love us above others, not because of anything which we have done, or will do, but simply as a choice of His sovereign grace (Romans 9:6-16). There is nothing whatever in the objects of His love to call it forth; nothing in man could attract or prompt it. Love among men is awakened by something in the beloved, but the love of God is free, spontaneous, unevoked, uncaused. God loves men because He has chosen to love them—and no reason for His love can be given save His own sovereign good pleasure. The Greek and Roman world of New Testament times had never dreamed of such love; its gods were often credited with lusting after women, but never with loving sinners; and the New Testament writers had to introduce what was virtually a new Greek word agape to express the love of God as they knew it.

Seven, the love of God is personal and individual. God’s love is an exercise of His goodness towards individual sinners. It is not a vague, diffused good-will towards everyone in general and nobody in particular; rather, as a function of omniscient almightiness, its nature is to particularize both its objects and its effects. God’s purpose of love, formed before creation (cf. Eph. 1:4), involved, first, the choice and selection of those whom He would bless and, second, the appointment of the benefits to be given them and the means whereby these benefits would be procured and enjoyed. All this was made sure from the start. So, Paul writes to the Thessalonian Christians, ‘we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren, beloved by the Lord, because God chose you (selection) from the beginning (before creation) to be saved (the appointed end) through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth (the appointed means)’ (2 Thess. 2:12, RSV).

Eight, God’s love is one attribute among many. The love of God is one attribute of God, one of many. God’s love is not the complete truth about God as far as the Bible is concerned; it is one attribute among many. God’s love is related to His other attributes. It is a summing up of what the whole revelation set forth in Scripture tells us about its Author. The statement “God is love” presupposes all the rest of the biblical witness to God. The God of whom John is speaking is the God who made the world, who judged it by the Flood, who called Abraham and made of him a nation, who chastened His Old Testament people by conquest, captivity, and exile, who sent His Son to save the world, who cast off unbelieving Israel and shortly before John wrote had destroyed Jerusalem, and who would one day judge the world in righteousness. It is this God, says John, who is love. It is not possible to argue that a God who is love cannot also be a God who condemns and punishes the disobedient; for it is precisely of the God who does these very things that John is speaking. Here is precisely where many go wrong. Men often reason like this: (1) God is a God of love; (2) God is all-powerful; (3) God therefore cannot allow suffering and pain if He is both loving and powerful. The logic fails because it omits other critical elements of the equation. God is also holy. He hates sin. Men are sinful, hostile to God, to His Word, and to the way of righteousness. Human suffering tells us as much about men as it does about God. In love, God allows sickness and suffering to notify us that something is wrong. But what is wrong is not God; it is sinful man and the world man has corrupted by sin.

Nine, God’s love is the source of human love [1 John 4:7-11, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another”]. We love, because He first loved us (1 John 4:19).

Ten, God’s love is expressed and experienced in Christ. In love, God provided a cure, a salvation not only for fallen men but for a fallen creation as well. In love, God sent His Son to die on the cross of Calvary, bearing man’s sins and offering to fallen men the righteousness of God. Those who receive the gift of salvation in Christ become the special objects of divine love, and then they begin to manifest this love toward others, who live in a sick, pain-filled, fallen world (1 John 4:9-10). God’s love to sinners was expressed by the gift of His Son to be their Saviour. The measure of love is how much it gives, and the measure of the love of God is the gift of His only Son to be made man, and to die for sins, and so to become the one mediator who can bring us to God. No wonder Paul speaks of God’s love as ‘great,’ and passing knowledge! (Eph. 2:4, 3:19).

Eleven, God’s love is evidenced in the forgiveness of sins, but not incompatible with punishing sinners. Some wrongly think of love as antithetical to punishment. They believe they love their children by not punishing them. They expect God to bless them and make them happy, and then they become angry and frustrated when God allows suffering or pain. This evidences an inadequate definition of love (Exodus 34:6-7). In Exodus 34:6-7, the lovingkindness, compassion, and grace of God are evident in the forgiveness of sins, which He brought about through the punishment of our sins. Full and final forgiveness of our sins was accomplished by our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. But how was this forgiveness brought about? It was accomplished when God punished us for our sins in Christ (Isaiah 53:4-6). (Romans 3:21-26). (1 Peter 2:24-25). “How,” some ask, “can a loving God send anyone to hell?” The truth is that our loving God sent His Son to hell for our sins, so that we might have our sins forgiven and enjoy the blessings of heaven rather than endure our just punishment in hell. Those who reject God’s punishment of His Son in our place must endure the punishment themselves. That men go to hell is not so much a reflection on God’s love as a reflection of our animosity toward the God of love who provided a way of escape, a way which some reject.

In the light of the characteristics of divine love, the first and foremost question that each of us must answer is this: “Have you accepted God’s gift of love in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ?” To accept the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary as God’s gift of salvation to you is to enter into His love. To reject Jesus Christ and attempt to stand before God in your own righteousness is to shun the love of God and to deservedly await eternal punishment. Only those who trust in Jesus Christ can experience and express the love of God.

Those who reject the gift of His love in Christ have no claim on His love. The fact is that none of us have any claim on His love, but those who are saved gratefully receive it, and give glory and praise to Him for His grace. In our witness to a sinful, lost, and dying world, we dare not distort the love of God. God is the One who defines love, not men. We must accept God’s love as God has defined and expressed it. We dare not rely on God conforming to the distorted perceptions of love to which fallen men ignorantly cling.

We must be careful not to compartmentalize God’s love and separate it from His other attributes, or try to evangelize men by appealing only to the love of God. Our Lord did not indicate that we should depend upon the “attraction” of His love, as much as He has indicated that lost men should be compelled by a sense of His righteousness, our sin, and the judgment which awaits sinners (John 16:7-11). The sinner ought not to be comforted by assurances of the love of God (apart from Christ), but should be reminded that God hates sinners: The boastful shall not stand before Thine eyes; Thou dost hate all who do iniquity (Psalm 5:5). The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked, And the one who loves violence His soul hates (Psalm 11:5). I hate the assembly of evildoers, And I will not sit with the wicked (Psalm 26:5). If we are to enjoy the benefits of God’s love, we not only need to embrace it through faith in Jesus Christ, we need to actively enter into it in an ongoing way as a lifestyle: “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. 10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments, and abide in His love” (John 15:9-10). May God grant that we may enter more and more into His love, and that we may therefore become instruments of His love to a lost and loveless world.