This passage is quoted by all kinds of people in order to justify all kinds of attitudes and behaviors. Which attitudes and behaviors? That depends on how one understands those three simple words, "God is love."
Should I take my experience and definition of love and then assume that to be, in some way, what God is? For example: The people who really love me just accept me for who I am and don't demand that I change. That's the kind of God I believe in!
Or should I take an abstract, doctrinaire concept of God and then use that to put limits on what love is? For example: The God of the Bible disapproves of homosexuality, greed, and Islam, so preaching against homosexuals, "the 1%," and Muslims is actually the loving thing to do! It will get those people to repent and turn to Jesus!
These are perhaps crude characterizations, but I think they do reflect a very natural human tendency. Love is active and risky. As C. S. Lewis once wrote, "To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken." To combat this disturbing insight, in our relationships with others we may tend to act out of self-protection and self- justification: to be defensive, to wear masks, to avoid authenticity...because that is the way of safety.
Biblical love--God's love--is not self-protection or self-justification, and it requires risks that many of us wish not to make. However, to love truly as the bible defines it, we must look at God and then love as He loves.
Much could be said here, but from Genesis through Revelation I definitely see three characteristics of God's love:
1. God's love is shown in specific, tangible acts. God's people are always asked to recall specific acts in history in which God acted decisively to love them: the Exodus from Egypt, the giving of the Law, the sending of Jesus, the Cross and Resurrection. While some theologians argue that the love between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the true essence of God's love, I think the overwhelming testimony of Scripture reveals God's love in His intentional, loving acts towards His people and, indeed, towards all creation.
2. God's love is shown in merciful understanding. Like the Good Samaritan, God enters into the midst of our brokenness. He sees us not as He expects us to be, but as we are, in all our humanity, and yet He chooses to react (to quote a friend of mine) with compassion instead of contempt. When Jesus interacted with "the sinners," he referred to them as "sick, in need of a doctor," not "damned with a one-way ticket to hell."
3. God's love is shown in the willingness to reconcile. God is a Person, and therefore a relational Being. Though His heart is deeply hurt and offended by our sin and rebellion, it is God's constant will to reconcile us to Himself...never to write us off or reject us. Ultimately reconciliation only happens when we respond in love and repent of our sin, but the point is that our sin does not stop God from taking the risk and reaching out first.
If we claim to know God, and to love how God loves, our love ought in some way to reflect these characteristics. This is necessary in our love of God, others (in our immediate sphere of influence but also beyond), and even ourselves.
My next several blog posts will take these very general thoughts and put some shape on them. For now, my challenge to myself, and to you as well, is to meditate deeply on the Bible's portrait of God. Ponder the concrete images of God's love in passages like Isaiah 40, Psalm 23, Luke 15, or Romans 8. Drink deeply from the well of the Gospel, and receive that love. Only then will you be able to live it out.
Much could be said here, but from Genesis through Revelation I definitely see three characteristics of God's love:
1. God's love is shown in specific, tangible acts. God's people are always asked to recall specific acts in history in which God acted decisively to love them: the Exodus from Egypt, the giving of the Law, the sending of Jesus, the Cross and Resurrection. While some theologians argue that the love between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the true essence of God's love, I think the overwhelming testimony of Scripture reveals God's love in His intentional, loving acts towards His people and, indeed, towards all creation.
2. God's love is shown in merciful understanding. Like the Good Samaritan, God enters into the midst of our brokenness. He sees us not as He expects us to be, but as we are, in all our humanity, and yet He chooses to react (to quote a friend of mine) with compassion instead of contempt. When Jesus interacted with "the sinners," he referred to them as "sick, in need of a doctor," not "damned with a one-way ticket to hell."
3. God's love is shown in the willingness to reconcile. God is a Person, and therefore a relational Being. Though His heart is deeply hurt and offended by our sin and rebellion, it is God's constant will to reconcile us to Himself...never to write us off or reject us. Ultimately reconciliation only happens when we respond in love and repent of our sin, but the point is that our sin does not stop God from taking the risk and reaching out first.
If we claim to know God, and to love how God loves, our love ought in some way to reflect these characteristics. This is necessary in our love of God, others (in our immediate sphere of influence but also beyond), and even ourselves.
My next several blog posts will take these very general thoughts and put some shape on them. For now, my challenge to myself, and to you as well, is to meditate deeply on the Bible's portrait of God. Ponder the concrete images of God's love in passages like Isaiah 40, Psalm 23, Luke 15, or Romans 8. Drink deeply from the well of the Gospel, and receive that love. Only then will you be able to live it out.
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