What does it mean that God is love?

Observe, it does not say merely that God is loving, but that He is love. It is not only that love is an attribute of His character, but it is the very activity of His nature. We do not read that God is justice, or holiness; He is just and He is holy; but it would not express the full and blessed truth to say that God is loving; He is much more, He is love itself. Hence, when the sinner — "whosoever" he be, it matters not — is brought to see his own total and absolute ruin, his hopeless wretchedness, his guilt and misery, the utter vanity and worthlessness of all within and around him, (and there is nothing in the whole world that can satisfy his heart, and nothing in his heart that can satisfy God, or satisfy even his own conscience) when these things are opened in any measure to his view, then is he met by this grand substantial truth that "God is love," and that He so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son.

"God is light;" and "God is love." These two are His essential qualities — His very being. We know that power, dominion and authority, wisdom and riches belong to Him. But it is nowhere said in scripture, that "God is power," or that "God is wisdom," etc. We know that God is holy, righteous, and just, and that He is good, gracious, and merciful. But these divine qualities are only the manifest results of what God is in Himself, i.e., "Light," and "Love."

Coming now to the passage I have read, you will see that three words in verse 8 are the foundation of all that follows. All the rest clusters around the statement — the blessed statement — that GOD is LOVE. This is the setting forth of what God is in His own nature; He is also light, it is true, but this is said relatively to darkness — "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." (1 John 1:5) We also say that God is righteous, that is righteous in His actings and ways, but when the word of God speaks of what He is absolutely in His nature, one word describes it, and that word is LOVE. If we enter into this, we shall have no difficulty in understanding that "love is of God," for in truth it could not be found elsewhere in the universe. I do not deny, in any wise, that much natural affection may be seen in fallen man, that, husbands and wives, parents and children may be knit together very closely by it; but we are now speaking of divine love, what only, in fact, is really love; and this we say proceeds alone from the heart of God because it is nowhere else found. Love, then, is of God, and consequently the love that fills our hearts tonight has come down into them, through the Lord Jesus Christ, from that blessed and sovereign source. We had therefore never known love otherwise; and this indeed is what the apostle says, "Every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love." It is thus an absolute necessity to be born of God before we can love, and know God.

We have known love, the love that God has for us, and we have believed it. Precious knowledge! by possessing it we know God; for it is thus that He has manifested Himself. Therefore can we say, "God is love." There is none beside. Himself is love. He is love in all its fulness. He is not holiness, He is holy; but He is love. He is not righteousness; He is righteous.

It is not true that "the one absolute definition of the Almighty, self-existent, supreme Being is, that he is Love." The apostle John, who beyond all treats of this, is careful in 1 John 1. to report to us that He is Light. It is only in chap. 4. of the same Epistle that he tells us He is Love. Light is the essential purity of His nature, which makes every thing and one manifest; Love is rather the energy of His nature, which goes out in active goodness. To leave out Light is to conceive a false god who can let off sin and sinners easily, not the True Self-existent One, Who is Love also. Christ is His image in both respects, as He was and is very God, no less than the Father and the Holy Spirit.

First 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. It is equally true that "He is light." His essential nature is light, therefore cannot possibly fail to make every hidden thing manifest; but it is also blessedly true that the activities of His nature are loving; for He is love. We know, too, that God is righteous in all His ways, and holy in all His works; and, as the cross of Christ most thoroughly sets forth, that He does not sacrifice His holiness to love, or His love to holiness, but His nature is love. "God is love." This faith receives and enjoys, because it is God's revelation of Himself. But here the fact is turned to practical account; for if God's nature is love, and we are born of God, it is clear that the moral qualities of a child must be according to those of the Father. The apostle therefore says, "Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love." The exhortation that we should "love one another" is founded, then, on the fact that we are born of God, and therefore have a nature that loves; for God is love. The fact is also stated that the person who loves according to God must be born of God. It is impossible therefore that one who is born of God can be one who loves not. He may be in a bad state of soul, and the divine work in him much obscured by carnal ways and associations, but it is as natural for the new nature which we have, as a new creation in Christ, to love, as for the old Adam-nature to be selfish and to hate. Hence you find the apostle Paul, in writing to the Thessalonian saints, declaring that they are taught of God to love one another. And how many souls, before they were established in Christ, have found comfort from this text, which assured them they were God's children — "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren!" They know this to be true of them. They know well that the poorest man by the roadside, who shows plainly that he is the Lord's, engages His affections and interests more than all the princes of this world who are enemies of the Lord of glory. Every one therefore that is born of God loves, and loves the brethren they are objects of his tenderest regard, because they are God's; and he knows also that the matters of one of His feeblest children are of more importance to God than the political movements of the whole of Europe. Oh the blessedness of having passed from death unto life, of being born of God, and of knowing God; for God is love!

Charity, because it is God's presence, and that we feel His presence, and look to Him in it, is intolerant of evil. In mere brotherly kindness, the brother being the object before my mind (and, if God's presence be not felt, we do not realise it, nature coming in so easily and here in its most unsuspected and kindly shapes), I put man before God, smother up evil, keep kindness going, at any rate so far exclude and shut out God. Charity is His active presence though it will be in love to man; but it gives to God all His rights. He it is that is love, but He is never inconsistent with Himself. His love to us was shewn in what was the most solemn proof of His intolerance of evil, the cross. There is no true love apart from righteousness. If God is indifferent to evil, is not righteous, then there is no love in grace to the sinner. If He abhors evil, cannot suffer it in His presence, then His dealings with us as sinners shew the most perfect love. If I have ten children, and they go wrong, and I say, 'Well, I am to shew love to them,' and I take no account of their evil ways; or if some of them go wrong and I treat them as if there was no difference to my mind in their well doing or evil doing; this is not love but carelessness as to evil. This is the kind of love looked for by unconverted man, namely, God's being as careless as to evil as they are; but this is not divine charity which abhors the evil, but rises over it, dealing with it either in putting it away or in needed chastenings. Now if God were indifferent to evil there is no holy being to be the object of my love - nothing sanctifying. God does not own as love what admits of sin.

But it is not sufficient, however, to say that God is love and that He loved us; it is important that the holiness of the love of God be safeguarded. It must not be thought that because God is love, sins are of small account in His eyes. If we say, God loves men, it must not be understood as implying that He overlooks their sins. That would be falsifying His character. Sin is abhorrent to Him. He cannot behold iniquity. His eyes are too pure for that (Hab. 1:13). As antagonistic to His nature, an infringement on His sovereign rights, He cannot possibly tolerate sin. But how can God's love to men and His hatred of sin be harmonized? How can He maintain the holiness of His love? If He loves us, does He not violate holiness and righteousness? Such questions show the need of a fuller statement. The character of God in His love to us must be expressed: hence in saying, "Not that we loved God but that He loved us," the apostle adds, "And sent His Son [to make] propitiation for our sins."

Love being essential to the Godhead, because "God is love," love has neither beginning nor ending. Because God is eternal (Deut. 33:27; Rom. 16:26), love is eternal. Before there was a creature to be loved, "God is love." But that love in the past eternity required an object. A love that is inert, dormant, a mere abstraction, has no affinity with the love of God (1 John 3:17; 1 John 4:20-21). Love must love, and love another.

This love is that alone which is eternally active; it proceeded from God and could only have an end if He had. It was there in full activity as the motive, spring, and life of the Holy Trinity, before the power that created was called into action. It neither began to be nor commenced to be active, nor shall it cease to exist and be active. It is inherent in and native to Godhead; it flows from Each to Each within the Holy Trinity, and spreads itself over all that God is and does. "Love is of God." "God is Love." Love is behind all that God does, whether in creation, providence, or government, and is seen in fullest lustre in its own sphere, namely Redemption. Righteousness and holiness were called into action by their opposites; love cannot be dormant. Hence the beautiful moral suitability, as all thoughtful minds have felt, of plurality within the blessed Godhead. The activity and reciprocity of love within the Godhead is instinctively felt, as we learn that love is the nature of God, but we have the truth itself stated by the Son: "Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world" (John 17:24).