Glory Be to Our Great God | Day 18 - God is Love

Give Thanks to the Compassionate, Merciful, and Gracious God

Christ Crucified by Diego Velázquez

We believe that God—who is perfectly merciful and also very just—sent the Son to assume the nature in which the disobedience had been committed, in order to bear in it the punishment of sin by his most bitter passion and death. So God made known his justice toward his Son, who was charged with our sin, and he poured out his goodness and mercy on us, who are guilty and worthy of damnation, giving to us his Son to die, by a most perfect love, and raising him to life for our justification, in order that by him we might have immortality and eternal life. - The Belgic Confession

The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” - Exodus 34:5-7

Praise the LORD! Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! - Psalm 106:1

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. - Romans 5:6-8

Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. - 1 John 4:8-10

Jesus loves me, this I know,
for the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to him belong;
they are weak, but he is strong.

Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me! The Bible tells me so.
- Anna Bartlett Warner, “Jesus Loves Me, This I Know”

Maybe you're not finding [love] cause you're not defining it right?
- Beautiful Eulogy, “Take It Easy”

My song is love unknown–
my Savior’s love to me;
love to the loveless shown,
that they might lovely be.
Oh, who am I, that for my sake
my Lord should take frail flesh and die?
- Samuel Crossman, “My Song is Love Unknown”

What’s Love Got to Do with God?

Do you like pop music? Well, whether you like it or not, what is the most common theme that most pop songs are about? The answer: love. Love is everywhere in pop music to the point that a study in 2018 demonstrated that around 60 to 70 percent of pop music dealt with this theme.¹ Love has been explored in many facets in pop music but often we hear songs that deal with primarily romantic love. And it is not exclusive to our generation. Whether it’s “Fly Me to the Moon” sung by Frank Sinatra in 1964, “How Will I Know” sung by Whitney Houston in 1985, or “Magnetic” by ILLIT in 2024, love has always been pumping in the airwaves throughout the generations whether through an old record player or your Bluetooth speaker.

But is love merely warm, fuzzy feelings inside us when we see someone we are attracted to? No, love can take many different forms depending on the relationship and context. However, so often, love is defined by this kind of surface-level attraction that we forget its essence. Sadly, human love is not perfect. We have experienced heartbreak from those we thought had our best interests. We have seen the abuse of love which is lust by seeing others as objects for our self-gratification. Also, with the over-romanticization of love, love becomes merely a feeling that seems to run out, leading many to adultery and divorce. This leaves people to settle for what Tina Turner famously sang:

What's love got to do, got to do with it?
What's love, but a second-hand emotion?
What's love got to do, got to do with it?
Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?
- Tina Turner, “What’s Love Got to Do with It”

But what does it mean that God is love? When the Bible presents statements like, “For God so loved the world” (John 3:16), or, “But God shows his love for us” (Rom. 5:8), does that mean he has a crush on us? Is God’s love only a momentary vibe that starts amazing but then runs out? If God is who he says he is in the Bible, how does he define what love is in himself which then colors how we ought to express our love? What is the measure, length, and longevity of God’s love? Are there any conditions to his love?

In short, the question we are asking about God is as Whitney Houston sang, “How will I know if he really loves me?”

The Love of God is Greater Far

You might be thinking, “Joseph, it’s obvious that God is love. Enough said. Can we move on? We know that God loves us.” Well, “Love” is one of many words we assume to understand, but how does the Bible define love? As we will see, many definitions exist, but to rightly understand God’s love, we must see it in context regarding who he is in himself (ad intra) and how he loves everything outside of him (ad extra).

The Bible clearly states that God not only possesses love but also is love (1 John 4:8, 16). Remember, the doctrines of his simplicity (God’s nature is one/singular and without any divisions) and his aseity (God’s nature is all-sufficient in and of himself) are vital to defining not only love but all of his attributes because we cannot say that God’s love is dependant on something or someone outside of him. But if God’s love is something that he is in and of himself, how does that make sense when the definition of love necessitates an object to show love to? Observe the various definitions and explanations about love from the following:

Susanne Calhoun: “God’s love is the divine attribute that indicates God’s disposition to be self-giving and for the good of the other.”²

Louis Berhkof: “In distinction from the goodness of God in general, it may be defined as that perfection of God by which He is eternally moved to self-communication.”³

Herman Bavinck: In his second volume of Reformed Dogmatics, he explains God’s love under his section of God’s goodness, but he states that “the goodness of God appears as love when it not only conveys certain benefits but God himself. . . . Indeed, God not only loves but is himself love (1 John 4:8), and his love is the foundation, source, and model of our love (1 John 4:10-11).”⁴

Wayne Grudem: “God’s love means that God eternally gives of himself to others.”⁵

Millard Erickson: “In general God’s love may be thought of as his eternal giving or sharing of himself.”⁶

David Lanier: “Unselfish, loyal, and benevolent intention and commitment toward another.”⁷

How can God’s nature be love if he is but one God? Isn’t love dependent on needing to express it to another person? Ah! Yes, to another person indeed. But God is not like Allah in Islam who according to Islamic theology is only one person. The God of the Bible is Triune meaning that God is one in nature/essence in three persons or modes of subsistence. More will be covered in the posts on the Trinity but for now, Christians don’t believe in three separate gods of love nor one god needing to create something to love. Instead, they confess the one God of love in three persons—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—who communicate the same divine love to one another. As Stephen Wellum writes, “God is triune, and from eternity, he has experienced a fullness of holy love between Father, Son, and Spirit that lacks nothing . . . Within God, there is a perfection of life and love; God is a se and thus in need of nothing outside himself to satisfy himself.”⁸

Let’s pause and reflect on the nature of God’s love. Because God is simple, his love is not compiled as if he has to obtain amounts of it. Because he is infinite, his love knows no bounds. Because he is immutable and impassible, his love never changes and cannot be manipulated by outside influences. Because he is eternal, his love has always been communicated through the eternal Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Because he is omnipotent, his love will accomplish his purposes when he directs it toward whom he chooses to love. Much more can be expounded, but J. I. Packer summarizes the “Godness” of God’s love by writing this:

So the love of God who is spirit is no fitful, fluctuating thing, as human love is, nor is it a mere impotent longing for things that may never be; it is, rather, a spontaneous determination of God’s whole being in an attitude of benevolence and benefaction, an attitude feely chosen and firmly fixed. There are no inconstancies or vicissitudes in the love of the almighty God who is spirit.⁹

If that is the nature of God’s love in himself as Trinity, how is his love expressed outside of himself towards all of creation? Answer: Multifaceted.¹⁰ The intra-trinitarian love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit pours out according to God’s eternal purposes in various ways. We see it in him creating and caring for creation through his providence called common grace (Gen. 1:31).¹¹ We see it in his desire to save a fallen world racked by sin, death, and brokenness by sending the Son of God to save (John 3:16-18). We see it displayed in his specific purpose of election: “even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:4-6). In all of these ways, we see how God is the covenant-keeping God because “The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The LORD is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made” (Ps. 145:8-9).

Speaking of God being gracious and merciful, let’s linger longer on these two expressions of his love. Grace is God exercising his love towards those who don’t deserve it.¹² As previously mentioned, God has shown his grace to all creatures by creating them and sustaining them, and he even restrains the full effects of sin’s corruption in the universe. However, God’s saving grace, as Bavinck writes, “is the voluntary, unrestrained, and unmerited favor that he shows to sinners and that, instead of the verdict of death, brings them righteousness and life.”¹³ If grace is God giving us what we don’t deserve, then his mercy is God not giving us what we deserve. James P. Boyce writes, “It consists, not only in the desire not to inflict the punishment due to sin, and the neglect and refusal to do so, but in the actual pardon of the offender.”¹⁴ God’s love is what drives the doctrine of salvation because it is not by what we can do or offer that he saves us but according to his mercy and grace (Romans 5:1-8; 5:15-21; Ephesians 1:3-14; 2:1-10; Titus 2:11-14; 3:4-7).

Lover of My Soul, I Want to Live For You

In the fall of 2012 during my first semester in college, I was introduced to the Christian rap group, Beautiful Eulogy, and in their first album, Satellites and Kites, they had a song entitled “Take it Easy.” In this song, Odd Thomas and Braille rap about how people tend to have a surface, sensual definition of love that is primarily physical attraction. As mentioned above, so often we boil down love to just a romantic affection towards someone that we think can satisfy us and make us feel truly loved. Sadly, because the definition is merely sensual and emotional, this kind of love leaves us empty. As Braille raps:

Ain’t it funny?
We love each other like we love money
Love each other like we love a sunny day
Puppy love, was it really love?
What was that feeling?
Whatever it was I think it went away

Everyone wants to be loved, yet the love we settle for will not truly satisfy our deepest longings. What’s worse, sin has made all humanity infinitely unlovable before the holiness and righteousness of God. How often do we try to impress others by “cleaning ourselves up” and think that will work on the Almighty Judge and Lord of all things? It is humanly impossible for us to free ourselves from our unlovable status of being dead in our trespasses and sin before the LORD God.

But the gospel of Jesus scandalizes our minds because “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:6-8). In our moral judgment, it makes sense that we would sacrifice ourselves for someone who is seems good in our eyes, but according to God’s love demonstrated in sovereign grace “he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Tit. 3:5-7).

My friends, the true love that we all are longing for is not found within us, another human, or anything of creation. Only God’s love will truly save and satisfy us, and through Jesus, he invites us to come and place our faith in him alone. We can have this God’s love “poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rom. 5:5). No longer will you be called “unlovable” or “rejected.” Instead, you will be called sons and daughters of God through the redemption that Christ accomplished. “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God” (Gal. 4:6-7). Therefore, because the infinite God infinitely loves us, we desire to live lives demonstrating his love in all we are and do. This gospel of grace that saved us is now “training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age” (Tit. 2:12).

So what are you waiting for? Let him love you! Then, worship him by singing this:

Lover my soul, I want to live for you.
- Pat Sczebel, “Jesus, Thank You”

Father, thank you so much for being the God of love. You, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are love eternal, and, according to your purpose of grace, you chose to create all things to display your love. You created humanity to be recipients of your love, yet, in our sinfulness, we rejected your love for us and chose to find love in the wrong places. But you demonstrated your love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Thank you so much for love us in this way so that those who believe in Jesus will not perish but have everlasting life by the indwelling of your Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, remind us again that you have poured your love into our hearts through faith in Christ. Renew us when we are weary to rejoice that we are beloved by the Triune God. In Jesus name, I pray. Amen.

1. Julia J. Hynek, "Why Is There So Much Love in Music?" The Harvard Crimson, April 23, 2024, https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/4/23/why-is-there-so-much-love-in-music-thinkpiece/#:~:text=A%202018%20study%20found%20that,to%20sex%20and%20sexual%20desire.

2. Susanne Calhoun, “God’s Love,” in Lexham Survey of Theology, ed. Mark Ward et al. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018).

3. L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans publishing co., 1938), 71.

4. Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend, 4 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003-2008), 2:215.

5. Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2020), 237. A similar definition is found in Gregg R. Allison, 50 Core Truths of the Christian Faith: A Guide to Understanding and Teaching Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2018), 83.

6. Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013), 262.

7. David Lanier, “Love,” in Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary, ed. Chad Brand et al. (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2003), 1054.

8. Stephen J. Wellum, Systematic Theology, Volume 1: From Canon to Concept (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2024), 659.

9. J. I. Packer, Knowing God (Brentwood, TN: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 121.

10. Wellum, Systematic Theology, 661.

11. John M. Frame, The Doctrine of God (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2002), 417-420.

12. Wellum, Systematic Theology, 662.

13. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 2:214.

14. James Petigru Boyce, Abstract of Systematic Theology (Louisville, KY: SBTS Press, 2013), 86.