God is Love

Calvin C. Toy

“Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” I John 4:7-10.

As we study God’s Word we find our God to be many things. Heb. 12:29 tells us that God is a consuming fire. Jn. 4:29 - God is a Spirit, they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” I Pet. 1:15-16 and Lev. 11:45, As He which has called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation…Be ye holy for I am holy.” A few of the many Scriptures along this line.

That “God is love is stated in both verses 8 and 16 of I Jn. 4. I don’t believe we will ever be able to fathom the full depth of this statement, at least not in these bodies in which we now live. As we seek to give definition of such love, we realize that we come far short. Webster says it is a strong affection for another, arising out of kinship or personal ties, but God loved us when we were sinners and enemies. Read Rom. 5:8-11.

Webster also gives this definition, “The Fatherly love of God toward men.” This tells me of God’s love reaching out to man, but it doesn’t give me understanding of that love. We know that God’s love is a great force, filled with strength, loaded with energy. It will bring forth action. When we permit the Lord to fill us with His love, we find ourselves doing those things that nothing else could bring us to do, and do them cheerfully. I Jn. Makes us know that we must have in us that life that has ability to love and permit it to rule, in order to love another. We must be born again. God is the source of love. Just as he is the fountain of life, so is he the fountain of love. We speak of love that goes beyond the love of a mother for her child. David said, “When my father and mother forsake me, then will the Lord take me up” Ps. 27:10. God’s love never quits, never forsakes His children. Nothing can come between us and His love for us, Rom. 8:35-39.

Considering John 4:9-10, God’s Word gives us some wonderful manifestations of His love. Herein we find some knowledge of it’s energy and power. It works in tenderness, mercy, pity, chastisement, in trials and tests. These are designed to bring us to the spiritual maturity that God desires for us. His love was manifested down through the ages, and was so greatly shown forth to the children of Israel.  They for the most part have shunned His love, but yet He will draw them. His love will draw a remnant to Christ during the great tribulation. Consider Jer. 30:24-31:6.

“Thy mercy, O LORD, is in the heavens; and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds. Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; thy judgments are a great deep: O LORD, thou preservest man and beast. How excellent is thy lovingkindness, O  God! Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings. They shall be abundantly satisfied…and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures. For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light” Ps. 36:5-9. David speaks of God’s lovingkindness, wherein is love and grace.

We talk of the love of God going out to the whole world. In John 3:16 the Holy Spirit seeks to bring home to us a knowledge in some degree of God’s great love for us. His love for mankind moved Him to drastic and severe steps. God so love that He gave not just anything nor anyone, but His own Son. On occasion he spoke of His Son as one “beloved,” one very dear to Him.

In my feeble way I have attempted to search out such love. I picture in my mind having a son in my home, there with me enjoying the comforts, blessings, glory, the fellowship, doing things together, enjoying each other, but somehow I have love for an enemy in another land. Those with no loveable qualities but in desperate need of my help, so I send my Son. I watch as he goes, leaving all that he has there with me. There in that foreign land I watch as he is despised and rejected, becoming a man of sorrow and grief. I see him there in the garden pleading with me, Oh Father, if it be possible deliver me from all this terrible agony. Now I cannot step in and deliver him for I am held at bay by love for the unlovable.

My Son knows what is ahead for Him. He knows why he came. He knows He must bear the sin of the world. There He must die the horrible death of the cross. His life blood must be poured out for the world that His Father loves. The  suffering for the sin of the world bears down more intensely until I began to notice as it were great drops coming from the pores of His skin and splattering on the ground. Yet love binds the Father’s hand from delivering the Son. Love for those who had no respect for the Son. Yet they so greatly need the deliverance that only he can bring to them.

So I think as a Father continues to watch as they come to lead him away. Now this Son has the power to resist, but He is the obedient Son who desires to fulfill His Father’s will. He also loves as the Father loves. The Father watches as those close to Him and followed Him forsake Him as fear grips them. He is led as a lamb to the slaughter and the Father watches as they mock, and smote him, spitting upon Him, lashing Him with a whip that cuts long gashes in His back. Then they shove a crown of thorns on His head in mockery. They make a wooden cross, and nail him to it with spikes through his hands and feet. The cross is lifted and dropped into a hole in the ground, so that He hung there suspended between heaven and earth, His weight rested on those spikes.

The Son there crucified who had no sin of His own. He was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. God the Father had to turn away as the Son bore all our horrible sin. Consider Heb. 2:9-10. He tasted more than physical death, and now we don’t have to go through the second death, separation from the presence of God and all His blessings. After Jesus had hung on the cross for hours, He cried out “My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me” but he stayed on the cross until He could say it is finished. He then dismissed His spirit. What was finished? Redemption for the human race, for you and I. Eternal life to all that believe, abundant life in time, in peace, joy in glory. The abundant wealth of abiding in that great love of the Father and Son forever. Such is the love wherewith God so loved.

We find as we go on with Him that there is so much more. He doesn’t tell us of it to gain our sympathy, but to draw us to Himself and fill us with his love. He has made it so we can manifest it in a world that is more and more filled with rebellion and hate. What a wonderful Lord is ours, all our praise goes to Him. May His love compel us to love Him and others.