Does the Bible teach that God is love?
The Bible says it plainly, and says it twice in the same short letter — not as one description among many, but as a statement of what God is in Himself. That raises two questions the commentators press hard: what does it mean that love is His nature, and what happens when this truth is torn loose from everything else Scripture says about Him?
Not what God does — what God is
The statement is deliberately stronger than saying God loves people. Writers note that it names the source of His actions rather than the actions themselves:
H H SnellFirst of all, let us not fail to notice that we here read that "God is love." This is not merely that God loves, most preciously true as it is, but that His nature is love.
Because it describes His being, love was already at work before there was any creature to receive it:
James BoydThe revelation that we have of God conveys to us the great truth that He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; three persons, yet one God, and God is love. This is what He is in His nature, what He is in His very being. There is nothing but love between those Divine and Eternal Persons. "You loved Me," says Jesus to the Father, "before the foundation of the world" (John 17:24). "God is Love" is the only absolute description used of the supreme Being.
A truth that waited for Christ
God was always love, but that was not what the earlier Scriptures set out to teach. The law told people their duty; it did not disclose God's heart:
J. N. DarbyIt is always well to remember that, in the former dispensation, God hid Himself, but sent certain messengers who were to reveal what was entrusted to them, without making God known. The law did not show Him fully. True, it says, You shall love; but not, I love you; it does not reveal a God of love. It does not show us what God is, except that He is a just God and executes vengeance.
Proved by the gift of the Son
The letter does not leave the claim floating. It points to something God did. Commentators tie the two statements about God — that He is light and that He is love — to the two sides of the cross:
C Knapp"God is light" (1 John 1:5). This is His character, which made the death of His Son a necessity. "God is love" (1 John 4:8). This is His nature, which led Him to give His Son so that His death might become an accomplished fact.
This reverses how people usually imagine sacrifice working. God was never the reluctant party who had to be talked round:
F. B. HoleFirst, that the teaching of the Bible is NOT that God is ill-disposed toward us, a frowning Deity to be continually pacified by propitiatory sacrifices which change His feelings toward us. That is the corrupt heathen idea. The Bible presents the truth like this: "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 4:10). Far from our having to change His heart toward us by a sacrifice, His heart toward man is the very source of all our blessing. Our sins had made propitiation necessary, but He Himself provided the necessary sacrifice.
(Propitiation means the sacrifice that satisfies what God's holiness requires.)
The truth that is easiest to abuse
Writers warn repeatedly that this verse gets used to cancel other things God has said. Love that ignores what righteousness demands is not the God of the Bible but an idea of our own:
J. G. BellettNo thoughts of God's love are to be allowed which would interfere with the demands of His righteousness. The love is without measure. That is true. But it is not a mere emotion. It is that which, at an unutterable cost, provided redemption for the guilty. And if we think of love without believing the provision it made for the claims of righteousness, we are dealing with a mere sentiment of our own mind, and not with the revelation of God.
The same caution applies to how the word is used among people:
A J PollockDivine love is not to be mistaken for natural pleasantness, or sentimental gush. Divine love is born of the knowledge of God. It shares His nature, for "God is love" (1 John 4:8). There is no lessening of holiness and truth with God. These are upheld in all their integrity.
What it does to fear
The letter draws a practical result: perfect love drives out fear. Commentators are careful about whose love does the driving:
William Kelly"Perfect love casts out fear" (1 John 4:18). But it is God's. Whenever we turn to look at our own love, or take any satisfaction from it, it is a poor sign of state or faith. Real love always has a high view of the one who is loved, but never of itself. There is no perfect love except the love of God in our case — not ours to God, but His to us.
Summary
- Nature — Scripture does not merely say God loves; it says love is what He is, eternally, among Father, Son and Holy Spirit before any creature existed.
- Silence — the law told people what they owed God; it never said "I love you." That word waited for the Son.
- Proof — the cross displays both truths at once: light made His Son's death necessary, love supplied the Son.
- Guard — love that overrides righteousness is sentiment we invented, not the God who was revealed.
- Rest — fear is cast out by His perfect love toward us, never by measuring our love toward Him.