GOD IS LOVE
1 John 3:11-4:12
“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
After making that bombshell theological statement, “God is love”, John takes pains to tell us that “love” is not defined in the way we love God, but in the way God loved us. I used the past tense “loved” because clearly John tells us that what God did through Jesus defines and reveals the love that is encapsulated in that statement, “God is love”. I think that every year (at least) we should meditate on the Gospel to remind, renew and refresh our sense of who our God is.
It is not that we cannot tell God that we love him; after all, the first command is that we are to love God with our all. But interestingly, Jesus quickly adds the second, that we should love our neighbour and to me it sends a message: to express our love for God we should love our neighbour (rather than use words, sacrifice, self-discipline, etc). We must not think that his love for us is like our love for him. We must appreciate that we (and the way we love or even understand love) are not on the same level as God. We must not presume that our expressions of love for him are adequate and acceptable to him. God is the one to tell us what he will accept: that we love our neighbour as ourselves.
John reveals to us that more than a means to express our love for God, loving others around us (neighbour, brother and sister) is also the means by which we grow as Christians in being sanctified (God lives in us) and in being glorified (his love is made complete in us). Love is the path that all Christians must embark upon if they are to grow and mature and that is why we are called to “love one another” (that is, among our brothers and sisters in the Lord). This is the training ground for us to grow and mature, without restricting us from the larger command to love our neighbour as ourselves.
“God is love” is not about us; we must not understand it in terms of how much he loves us. It is a theological statement of who he is, and thus, what he infuses into his whole creation. It explains why sin is so intolerable. It also tells us that wherever love (as God expressed through his Son’s sacrifice) is expressed, God is pleased and his goodness flows. Love therefore must be the primary blessing we bring wherever we are sent.
This is not about big statements of love but, as Jesus pointed out, even in simple acts of kindness like sharing a cup of cold water, bringing warmth and comfort to the cold, the sick and to the prisoner: “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”
“Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”