What is love?

A naturally kind-hearted man may give freely, but what we are considering just now is divine love. This is not natural to man. Believers are said to be "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4), and that nature is love, "God is love" (1 John 4:16). We may say it with reverence, God cannot help loving. Fire cannot help burning. Light cannot help illuminating. The divine nature cannot help loving.

Divine love is not to be mistaken for natural amiability, or sentimental gush. Divine love is begotten of the knowledge of God. It partakes of His nature, for "God is love" (1 John 4:8)… There is no abatement of holiness and truth with God. These are upheld in all their integrity. The knowledge and power of this will preserve us from mistaking human sentiment for divine love.

"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 that His death might become an accomplished fact. Grace reigns "through righteousness." God is showing grace, and the death of Christ at Calvary proclaims Him "a just God and a Saviour."

"In this is love… that He (God) loved us." The active expression of that love was the sending of His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. This emphasizes the sovereignty of the love of God, for we did not love Him. The cause of the loving was in Himself; the expression of it was the work of His Son at Calvary. Thus verse 9 involved Bethlehem — the Incarnation, whilst verse 10 involved Calvary — the Crucifixion! The Cradle and the Cross — infinite love!

It is a false view of God's love that would speak of the holy and beautiful life of the Lord Jesus in self-sacrificing service to mankind, while ignoring His willing death on Calvary as the great propitiatory sacrifice necessary for the purging away of sins. Love is not found in man's heart toward God, but in God's heart toward man: this is its living fountain. And the sending of His Son to bear the dreadful burden of our guilt — the guilt of rebels — in His anguish and death on Calvary, is proof of love infinitely higher than anything that man naturally calls "love."

There is again the dark side. "He that loveth not knoweth not God." It does not matter what may be a man's gift, or what may be his activity, or what reputation and influence he may possess, if he does not love he does not know God. The word is unsparing of self-deceit… Where no love is, there is no knowledge of God. The reason is as plain as it is decisive; "for God is love."

Divine love, that which has brought us into immeasurable joy, is more than an objective truth, blessed indeed as that is as we see its glory and fullness shown in God Himself, for "God is love." It is more than a doctrine; it is something known and experienced inwardly, for "God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." Thus we have the capacity — not only to know and enjoy divine love, but in the power of the Holy Spirit, love can be the controlling power of all our movements — including that of response to God, for "we love because He first loved us."