What does it mean that God is love?

WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY?

When Scripture says, “God is love,” it is not just describing what God does—it’s describing who He is. However, it does not mean that God overlooks sin or accepts everyone as they are. Instead, God loves despite our sin by providing a way to escape the wrath we have earned by sinning. Therefore, love defines the way He relates to His people, deals with sin, extends mercy, and provides salvation. This love is not soft or sentimental. It is holy, active, and undeserved. God’s love is known as “covenantal” love. That simply means that it flows from His commitment to His people based on His internal promise to extend love to them. It has nothing to do with what He receives (or does not receive) from us. God’s love initiates relationship, continues even when we fail, and transforms us into those who reflect His character. God’s love is most clearly seen in His sending Jesus to die and be punished for sins for which we deserved to die.

FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT

• Though the phrase “God is love” is found in the New Testament, the concept is rooted in the Old Testament. For example, when God reveals Himself to Moses, He declares: “The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth” (Exodus 34:6 [NASB 1995]). The word “lovingkindness” is hesed. Hesed refers to His loyal, covenantal love. It is a love that is not fickle but is grounded in God’s promises to love.
• David affirms this love repeatedly. Psalm 86:15 says, “But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” God’s love is not only faithful, but it is patient toward those He has set His mind on loving. Despite the rebellion of His people, He continues to extend mercy.
• God describes His love as “everlasting.” In Jeremiah 31:3, He said, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.” Here, we see that God’s love is not a response to something someone else has done. Instead, it is initiated by God to draw sinners to Himself.
• God’s love is also shown in His forgiveness (Micah 7:18). Though He is just, and all sin will be punished, He delights to forgive because of His love.
• Hosea gives a picture of God’s love in action. In that book, Israel is likened to an unfaithful spouse. Showing His faithfulness despite Israel’s unfaithfulness, God said, “And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy” (Hosea 2:19). Even after Israel betrayed God by lusting after different gods and nations, God reaffirmed His covenantal love. It is a love that is based on who God is, not who Israel is, and points forward to redemption through Christ.

FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT

• First John 4:8 says, "God is love.” This does not mean that love is equated with God. Some have wrongly asserted that “love is God.” Instead, it means that love is essential to His being. One cannot rightly know God without knowing His love.
• God’s love is defined in the next verse. “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9). God’s love is not the overlooking of sins or accepting people just as they are. Quite the contrary. People are sinners, and God must judge them. But God’s love was shown by sending Jesus to die in the place of sinners—to be punished in their place. God’s love was not demonstrated as a “warm and fuzzy” emotion but as a deliberate and costly action. The Greek word used for “love” in these verses is agape. It is defined by a major Greek lexicon (dictionary) as “a warm regard for and interest in another.” To put it another way, agape is a sacrificial love that voluntarily suffers inconvenience, discomfort, and even death for the benefit of another without expecting anything in return. When John says, “God is love,” he is talking about that kind of other-centered love.
• Jesus was the perfect example of this. Paul said, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:1–2). Jesus expressed agape love by giving Himself up and dying for us. Jesus surely had our wellbeing in mind when He did that (a “warm regard” for us). However, it was a sacrificial love because we were His enemies and hated Him. So, His love was not rooted in our love of Him but in His desire to benefit us despite our hatred toward Him.
• Romans 5:8 echoes this by saying that God’s love is shown in sacrifice—not for the worthy, but for the unworthy.
• This love results in salvation. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
• God’s love provides the one way of escape from judgment (Romans 5:9). Just as when God told Israel He loved them despite their rebellion, so God has loved mankind despite our rebellion.
• Believers are changed by this love. John said, “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). While the world claims to know “love,” it is a self-centered love. It is about what I feel or what I get from a relationship. However, believers are like their Father, sacrificially loving like He first loved us. It is a type of love that asks, “What I can do to help my enemy?”
• Paul called this love “great,” flowing from His rich mercy. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:4–5). We did not deserve His love, nor could we obtain it by ourselves; we were dead in our sin. However, God extended it to us because of His rich mercy.

IMPLICATIONS FOR TODAY

The saying, “God is love,” does not mean that God tolerates sin or accepts people the way they are. God hates sin, and He stands against unrepentant sinners. Instead, by being love, it means that, despite who we are, God reaches out with mercy and compassion, willing to forgive us.

We must, therefore, allow the Bible, not the world, to define God’s love. Love is not affirming everything or avoiding hard truths. God’s love is holy. It deals with sin seriously—so seriously that forgiveness for it required the death of His Son. If we talk about His love while ignoring His justice, we are distorting it!

For unbelievers, there is really only one response to His love: you must repent of your sins and trust in Jesus. God sent Him because death is the only just punishment for your sin. Jesus is God’s demonstration of love because He is offering to punish Him for your sins, instead of you. Therefore, God’s love does not mean that He is ignoring your sin but that He has provided a way of escape from the just punishment for your sin! Please repent before it is too late!

For believers, we are commanded by God to love others in the same way that He loved us. This means that we must be willing to lay down our lives (John 15:13). Giving up what we want to benefit someone else is sacrificial love—it is God’s kind of love! Jesus said that this kind of love is our primary defining mark as His disciples (John 13:35). Let us strive to love as He did so that the world might know that we are His!

UNDERSTAND

• God’s love is His nature, not just His action.
• God’s love is most clearly seen in Jesus’s sacrificial death.
• God’s love transforms how we live and love others.

REFLECT

• How does knowing that God’s love is undeserved and sacrificial shape the way you respond to Him when you sin or fail?
• How are you tempted to define love by the world’s standards instead of by God’s holy, covenantal love?
• Where in your life do you need to show God’s kind of love by sacrificing your comfort or preferences for someone else’s good?

ENGAGE

• How is God’s love different from the kind of love we often see celebrated in culture today?
• What are some examples from Scripture that help us understand the cost and depth of God’s love?
• How can believers grow in showing God’s sacrificial love to people who are difficult to love or who don’t love them back?