The Love of God

Many people today speak about the love of God while remaining strangers to the God of love.

Divine love is often treated as a kind of gentle weakness, a good-natured indulgence, or a sentimental feeling shaped by human emotion. But our thoughts about this, as with everything else, must be formed and governed by what God has revealed in Holy Scripture.

The need for this is urgent, not only because of the widespread ignorance that exists, but also because of the low spiritual condition so sadly evident among many professing Christians.

How little real love for God there often is. One major reason for this is that our hearts are so little occupied with His wondrous love for His people. The more deeply we come to know His love—its character, fullness, and blessedness—the more our hearts will be drawn out in love to Him.

Scripture tells us three things about the nature of God.

First, “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24). In the Greek, there is no indefinite article, so to say “God is a spirit” is misleading, because it would place him in a category alongside others.

God is spirit in the highest and fullest sense. Because He is spirit, He is incorporeal; He has no visible or physical substance. If God had a tangible body, He could not be omnipresent, for He would be limited to one place. But because He is spirit, He fills heaven and earth.

Second, “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). In Scripture, darkness often represents sin, evil, and death, while light speaks of holiness, goodness, and life. To say that God is light is to say that He is the fullness of all excellence, purity, and perfection.

Third, “God is love” (1 John 4:8). This does not merely mean that God loves, though He certainly does. It means that He is love itself. Love is not simply one attribute among many; it belongs to His very nature.

The love of God is uninfluenced. By this we mean that there is nothing in the objects of God’s love that causes Him to love them. There is nothing in the creature that attracts, persuades, or prompts His love. When one person loves another, it is often because of something admirable or appealing in that person. But God’s love is free, spontaneous, and uncaused. The only reason God loves anyone is found in His own sovereign will: “It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples” (Deut. 7:7). “but it is because the Lord loves you” (Deut. 7:8).

God has loved His people from everlasting, and therefore nothing in the creature can be the cause of what has been in God from eternity. He loves from Himself, “because of his own purpose and grace” (2 Tim. 1:9).

“We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

God did not love us because we loved Him; He loved us before there was even the smallest trace of love for Him in our hearts. If God’s love had been a response to ours, then it would not have been spontaneous on His part. But because He loved us when we were loveless, it is clear that His love was uninfluenced.

This precious truth is of the highest importance, both for the honour of God and for the settled assurance of His children. God’s love for me, and for each one of “his own”, was not moved by anything in us.

What was there in me to attract the heart of God? Absolutely nothing. On the contrary, there was everything to repel Him—everything that, in itself, would make me hateful to Him: sinful, depraved, full of corruption, with “nothing good” dwells in me (Rom. 7:18).

What was there in me that could deserve His esteem, or give the Creator delight?

Yet still, Father, I must always sing:

it was because it seemed good in Your sight.

The love of God is eternal. This must be so. God Himself is eternal, and God is love. Therefore, as God Himself had no beginning, His love had no beginning. Such a thought reaches far beyond the grasp of our weak minds; yet where we cannot fully understand, we can bow in adoring worship.

How clear is the testimony of Jeremiah: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you” (Jer. 31:3).

How blessed it is to know that the great and holy God loved His people before heaven and earth were called into existence, and that He had set His heart upon them from all eternity. This is clear proof that His love is spontaneous, for He loved them countless ages before they had any being.

The same precious truth is set before us in Ephesians: “even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love” He predestined us (Eph. 1:4–5).

What praise this should awaken in each of His children! And how deeply it settles the heart: since God’s love towards me had no beginning, it can have no ending. Since it is true that “from everlasting to everlasting” He is God, and since God is love, then it is equally true that from everlasting to everlasting He loves His people (Ps. 90:2; 1 John 4:8).

The love of God is sovereign. This, too, is self-evident. God Himself is sovereign. He is under obligation to no one, a law unto Himself, and always acts according to His own royal pleasure. Yet His will is never arbitrary, for it always expresses His holy, wise, and unchanging nature. Since God is sovereign, and since God is love, it necessarily follows that His love is sovereign. Because God is God, He does as He pleases; because God is love, He loves whom He pleases.

This is His own clear declaration: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated” (Rom. 9:13). There was no more reason in Jacob himself why he should be the object of divine love than there was in Esau. They had the same parents and were born at the same time, being twins; yet God loved the one and hated the other. Why? Because it pleased Him to do so.

The sovereignty of God’s love necessarily follows from the fact that it is not influenced by anything in the creature. Therefore, to say that the cause of His love lies in God Himself is simply another way of saying that He loves whom He pleases.

Consider the opposite for a moment. Suppose God’s love were governed by something other than His own will. In that case, He would love according to a rule; and if He loved according to a rule, He would be under a law of love. Then, far from being free, God Himself would be ruled by law.

But Scripture says that God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, “In love” having predestined us for adoption to Himself through Jesus Christ. According to what? Some excellence He foresaw in us? No. According to “the purpose of his will” (Eph. 1:4–5).

The love of God is infinite. Everything about God is infinite. His being fills heaven and earth. His wisdom is limitless, for He knows everything—past, present, and future. His power is unbounded, for nothing is too hard for Him. So also, His love is without limit. There is a depth to it that none can fathom; a height that none can scale; a length and breadth that no creaturely standard can measure.

This is beautifully suggested in Ephesians: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us” (Eph. 2:4).

The word “great” here stands alongside the “God so loved” of John 3:16. It tells us that the love of God is so vast, so transcendent, that it cannot be fully estimated.

No tongue can fully express the infinitude of God’s love, and no mind can comprehend it, for it “surpasses knowledge” (Eph. 3:19).

The largest thoughts a finite mind can form about divine love still fall infinitely short of its true nature. Heaven is not so far above the earth as the goodness of God is beyond the highest thoughts we are able to form of it. His love is an ocean rising higher than every mountain of opposition found in those who are its objects. It is a fountain from which every necessary good flows to all who have an interest in it.

The love of God is unchanging. As with God Himself there is “no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17), so His love knows no change or decrease. Jacob gives us a powerful example of this. “Jacob I loved,” the Lord declared; and despite all Jacob’s unbelief and waywardness, God never ceased to love him (Rom. 9:13).

John 13:1 gives us another beautiful illustration. That very night, one of the apostles would say, “Lord, show us the Father” (John 14:8); another would deny Him; and all of them would fall away and forsake Him. Nevertheless, “having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (John 13:1).

Divine love is not subject to change. It is “strong as death”; “many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it” (Song 8:6–7). Nothing can separate God’s people from it (Rom. 8:35–39).

His love no end nor measure knows,

no change can turn its course;

eternally the same it flows

from one eternal source.

The love of God is holy. God’s love is not governed by mood, passion, or sentiment, but by holy principle. Just as His grace does not reign at the expense of righteousness, but “through righteousness” (Rom. 5:21), so His love never conflicts with His holiness. Scripture says, “God is light” before it says, “God is love” (1 John 1:5; 4:8).

God’s love is not a mere gentle weakness or indulgent softness. Scripture declares, “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives” (Heb. 12:6). God does not overlook sin, even in His own people. His love is pure, unmixed with sentimental weakness.

The love of God is gracious. The love and favour of God are inseparable. This is clearly shown in Rom. 8:32–39. The love from which there can be no separation is the goodwill and grace of God that moved Him to give His Son for sinners. That love was the impulse behind Christ’s incarnation: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16).

Christ did not die in order to make God love us; He died because God already loved His people. Calvary is the supreme demonstration of divine love. Whenever you are tempted to doubt the love of God, Christian reader, go back to Calvary.

Here, then, is abundant reason for trust and patience under divine affliction. Christ was beloved of the Father, yet He was not exempt from poverty, disgrace, or persecution. He hungered and thirsted. It was not inconsistent with God’s love for Christ that He permitted men to spit upon Him and strike Him. Therefore, let no Christian question God’s love when brought under painful afflictions and trials.

God did not enrich Christ on earth with temporal prosperity, for He had “nowhere to lay his head” (Matt. 8:20). But He did give Him the Spirit “without measure” (John 3:34).

Learn, then, that spiritual blessings are the principal gifts of divine love. How blessed it is to know that when the world hates us, God loves us.

Chapter Summary

God’s love is eternal, sovereign, infinite, unchanging, holy, and gracious. It does not arise from anything worthy in us, but from God’s own nature and purpose. Before the foundation of the world, He set His love upon His people and purposed their salvation in Christ. Most clearly displayed in the gift of His Son, this love cannot be diminished by weakness, failure, or circumstance.

Reflection Questions

1. How does God’s love differ from the way love is often understood and portrayed in human relationships and modern culture?
2. Why is it important to understand that God’s love is uninfluenced, eternal, and sovereign rather than based on anything found in us?
3. How does the cross of Christ provide the clearest evidence of God’s love for His people?
4. In what ways can the unchanging nature of God’s love strengthen your faith and encourage you during seasons of trial, failure, or uncertainty?