GOD IS LOVE
By A. Gene Veal

“He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love."
1John 4:8

When asked, “Who is God?” most people respond with, “God is Love”.  In previous articles we have attempted to show that there are many things about God that need to be realized BEFORE taking hold of this precious Christian comfort.  (God is Righteous, Light, Holy, and The Only Good are only a few of His many attributes.) 

It is interesting to me that the ONLY place this statement appears in the Bible is in the First Epistle of John, near the end of the New Testament.  As a matter of fact, this statement doesn’t even appear in the Epistle until the fourth of five chapters.

In his epistle, John says many things to Christians BEFORE he declares “God is Love.”  He identifies the Christian and non-Christian by various characteristics.  He states that the absence of these Christian characteristics in a person would mean that person is NOT a Christian.  Of the non-Christian he says things like:

* “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.”

* “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” 

* “He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” 

* “He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now.” 

* “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” 

* “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.” 

After these and many more disclosures of non-Christian characteristics, John finally comes to “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.”  The first time John says “God is Love” is when he makes a negative statement as to who is NOT a Christian.

Now, do not misunderstand, John stated the reason he wrote his epistle by saying, “These things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.”  Knowing that Christians are ever growing in the “grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ,” he made his purpose for writing very clear when he said, “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.”  No Christian can read and re-read this epistle without a profound impact on his or her life.

We are not to read the New Testament like we would read an invoice or a bill which has to be paid.  No!  We are to read the New Testament more like a bank statement that tells us what we have “in Christ” or who we are “in Christ.” 

Right now your past and recent experience as a Christian may not appear to be all that the Word declares of you, but we know that we are not what we were before coming to Christ and we are not what we will be since “we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”  For God’s Word declares His work in us, that “He also did predestinate us to be conformed to the image of his Son” “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”  We know that our salvation is of God and not of ourselves, for “Salvation is of the LORD.”  This is great assurance “to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

As Christians, the fact that “God is Love” is very encouraging as we realize we have a long way to go in being fully “conformed to the image of his Son”.  Knowing that God “with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (He doesn’t change) set His love upon us even “before the foundation of the world.”  For the Scripture tells us,  “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.” 

As Christians we know God will not change His mind.  He has loved us from before time and He will love us forever.  Jesus made that fantastic evaluation of Father’s love for us when He said to Father, “Thou hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.”  That is AMAZING LOVE.  Because of this love “ye are a elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that ye may show forth the Excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.”

It is not about us.  It is not about our love.  It is about HIM.  It is about HIS LOVE in us  “because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”  After all, “The fruit of the Spirit is love.”  He doesn’t love us because of any quality in us, but because that is WHO HE IS: “GOD IS LOVE.”

In the chapter where John says, “God is Love” he also says, “If we love one another (Christians loving other Christians), God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.”  “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” 

Jesus gave this last command to us, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.”  Christians loving other Christians is the identification to the world that we are of God.  Jesus said, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”

John makes clear that this evidence of being a Christian is very practically demonstrated when he says, “whoso hath the world's goods, and beholdeth his brother in need, and shutteth up his compassion from him, how doth the love of God abide in him?”  Again, the evidence of our Christianity is a Christian loving another Christian.

John’s admonition to us as Christians is “Keep yourselves in the love of God.”  Paul’s prayer for Christians was the same thing: “The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God.”  Jude said the same thing: “Keep yourselves in the love of God.” The correct understanding is that the love we love with is the “love of God” which the Holy Spirit produces in us.

If you as a Christian base your confidence and your assurance upon the unconditional love that God has for you through our Lord Jesus Christ, then the result will be that you will stay “in the love of God.”  “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.  Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.”

When we remain in constant awareness of the great love God has shown to us and of all the gross sins that we have been forgiven, then there is no problem for us to forgive our brother for ANYTHING he may have done against us. 

Remaining “in the love of God“ means we are constantly aware that we are SO forgiven that we can always forgive any brother or sister anything done against us.  For what is there that they can do to us compared to the atrocious crimes we have committed against the Throne of a Holy God.  What LOVE!!!  What wondrous LOVE that God should love a sinner such as I! 

“Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.”

Click here to read WHO IS GOD?

Click here to read SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY: GOD

Click here to read LOVE - SCRIPTURAL COUNSEL