God is Love - Fraser Leach
God is Love - 1 John 4. This is a very important statement that John makes in 1Jn4 v8 and 16.
He makes it twice to emphasise its importance and the whole passage is about God’s love. The bible is full of many references to God’s amazing love for us, but this is perhaps the most direct. It’s a statement which has influenced me more than any other and everything I work my life is for is guided by it.
Elsewhere in the bible God is compared to a variety of things, for example God is a fortress, a mountain, a river, a dove, a lion etc, but saying ‘God is love’ takes it to a whole different level. The others are merely comparisons, God is not really a mountain, a river etc but God really is love - it’s not a comparison. Also it’s not that God has love or can be loving, God is love. It’s his nature, there is nothing about him that isn’t love, love is found in every part of him and he does not react to anyone in any other way but love. When God comes to us It’s not to do with judgement or punishment (v18) but love.
All this gives us confidence. In Hebrews 4 v16 it says that we can approach “the throne of grace with confidence to receive mercy”. God’s throne is a throne of grace, not judgement, it’s a place to receive grace and mercy because of God’s love. This means when approaching God we need not fear, v18 tells us that there is no fear in love because fear is to do with punishment and in perfect love there will be no punishment. The perfect love (of God) drives out all fear. In his perfect love he may correct us and guide us into a better path but he will never punish.
It is also important to remember that God is the source of all love and any love we have comes from God (v7). This is because God first loved us which freed us to love one another (v10,11). Firstly we love God back because he first loved us. Then we can love like God loves, that is we love all we come into contact with.
Jesus’ second command, after telling us to love God with all our heart, mind and soul, was to “love your neighbour as yourself”. This is not a command to beat you with when you fail but it is an enabling through God’s love to us first.
This love is so important and so central to God’s nature that John says that we are like God if we love. In v8 he says “if we love we know God” and “God lives in us” (v12,13). This means that being a christian is not about saying a prayer or doing the right thing but it is about showing love. In fact just by showing love we are being godly and have God in us, even if we don’t realise it.
Finally we need to recognize that love itself is an action, not just a feeling. We need to do something. John points out that that is exactly what God has done by sending his son (v9). He expands on this in his gospel, especially in chapter 3. John 3 v16,17 says “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him is no longer lost but will have eternal life. God sent his son into the world not to judge the world but to save the world through him.”
This is God reaching out in love to save the entire world. There is no double edged sword here, reaching out in love on the one hand but responding in condemnation on the other if we don’t react in quite the right way. God’s love is unconditional.
This is God reaching out to us to bring salvation. In the same way we can reach out to others and show them something of God’s unconditional love.