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1 John 4:8
“Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
If we were to ask people to identify one of God’s attributes, the most popular answer would almost certainly be “love.” Even those who have very few thoughts about God have said things such as “My God is a God of love.” Moreover, many individuals know the statement from the Bible that “God is love,” found in today’s passage, though not everyone who knows these words could tell you that they are from 1 John 4:8.
The love of God is by and large assumed and taken for granted, at least in the West, and yet it is greatly misunderstood. Too many people think that God expresses His love in exactly the same way toward all men and women or that His love somehow means that He will not punish the impenitent. As we look at the divine attribute of love over the next few days, we will see that Scripture affirms the harmony of God’s love, holiness, and justice as well as the Lord’s freedom to show love as He sees fit.
Before we get into those topics, however, we need to first have a conception of what divine love actually is. We should note that theologians typically identify love as an expression of divine omnibenevolence, God’s all-goodness. That is, God is good by nature, and one of the ways that His essential goodness shows itself is by loving others. Petrus van Mastricht writes that “love . . . is nothing except goodness as it is communicative of itself.”
Van Mastricht’s definition helps us understand that inherent to love is giving. Love seeks to do good to another and to communicate goodness to another subject. We understand that on a human level, for when we love other people, we seek to do them good and not harm. But this is true also of God. Our Creator loves His people, and the supreme exhibit of His love is His giving His only begotten Son as a sacrifice to save us from His wrath. Thus, Paul can refer to this coming of Christ for our salvation as the appearance of the goodness of God (Rom. 5:8; Titus 3:4).
Additionally, van Mastricht states that “the propensity to good generally considered is designated love.” Love is the inclination to be good and to do good, especially to do good to others. Thus, we may say that love is good in action, the show of benevolence to others in both word and deed. To love is not merely to have a feeling of affection but to channel that affection into the doing of good for another person.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
Love is not really present when there is no movement to do good for the one whom we love. In imitation of God, who is perfect love and whom we are called to follow in our thoughts, words, and deeds (Eph. 5:1), let us not be content merely to have love as a feeling but to show true love by doing good to others.
For further study
- Isaiah 63:7
- Lamentations 3:22–23
- Joel 2:12–14
- Ephesians 2:1–7
The bible in a year
- 2 Samuel 10–12
- Luke 19:28–48