The Attributes of God: The Love of God

As I sit here in an attempt to write about or try to explain the Love of God, I am reminded of the words of Frederick M. Lehman's hymn, The Love of God. Most of us are familiar with this song, as we've sung it many times. But, how often do we stop and meditate on those words? Here are some of the lyrics that come to mind from this song.

  "The love of God is greater far

  Than tongue or pen can ever tell."

Our feeble and finite minds can't fully comprehend the love of God. Thinking about His love should bring us to the point of worship. If this doesn't sink in, Frederick goes on to explain just how impossible it would be to try and explain or write about God's Love. 

  "Could we with ink the ocean fill,

  And were the skies of parchment made;

  Were every stalk on earth a quill,

  And every man a scribe by trade;

  To write the love of God above

  Would drain the ocean dry;

  Nor could the scroll contain the whole,

  Though stretched from sky to sky."

That being said, I'm not going to attempt to do the impossible. I'm not going to try and write a comprehensive explanation of God's love. I'm just going to give a glimpse of what that means for us. 

First, we must understand that God is love. It is not simply that God "loves," but that He is love itself. Love is not just one of His attributes, it is His very nature. It is impossible to understand the love of God without personally knowing the God of love. In other words, it is impossible to even begin to understand what the love of God is without the help of the Holy Spirit. The better acquainted we are with His love, the more our hearts will be drawn out in love towards Him. While we can't fully explain God's love, here are some things that we know about it.

1. The love of God is uninfluenced. It was always God's sovereign will and plan to love. Nothing prompted Him to love or called His love into existence. Even in calling His chosen people, Israel, we read in Deuteronomy 7:7-8, "The Lord had His heart set on you and chose you, not because you were more numerous than all peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But because the Lord loved you."  God's love comes from Himself, "according to His own purpose" 2 Timothy 1:9.

"We love Him because He first loved us" 1 John 4:19. It wasn't because we loved Him. We didn't have the slightest hint of love for Him, and we didn't have anything loveable about us. In fact He loved us when we were loveless. There was absolutely nothing in us to attract the heart of God. Nothing influenced Him to love us.

2. God's love is eternal. God Himself is eternal, and God is love; therefore, as God Himself had no beginning, His love had none. As He declared to the nation of Israel in Jeremiah 31:3,  "I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore, I have continued to extend faithful love to you." God's love for Israel is unconditional, enduring, and not based on their merit, but rather on His own character.

3. The love of God is sovereign. This is also self-evident. God Himself is sovereign, under obligation to or influenced by no one. Since God is sovereign, and since He is love, it follows that His love is sovereign. Because God is God, He does as He pleases; because God is love, He loves whom He pleases. Ephesians 1:4-5 "For He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before Him. He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will."

4. God's love is holy. His love is not regulated by emotion or behavior but by principle. His love reigns through righteousness. Therefore, His love is never in conflict with His holiness. His love never ignores sin. It is pure and not mixed or influenced by sentimentality. Scripture declares that "the Lord disciplines the one He loves...He does it for our benefit, so that we can share His holiness. Hebrews 12:6, 10.

We cannot talk about the love of God without looking at the greatest way He demonstrated that love. The love of God which is holy, sovereign, eternal, and which can't be influenced by anything outside of God Himself sent the incarnate Christ to provide a way for fallen sinful creatures to be reconciled to Him. "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son" John 3:16. Calvary is the ultimate demonstration of His Divine love. Whenever we are tempted to doubt or forget about the love of God, we need to reflect back on Calvary.

We are commanded to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind.

We are to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Love is the greatest between faith, hope, and love.

Husbands are to love their wives just as Christ loved the Church.

Ultimately, it is the love of God as our model in order to do all of these.

Pastor Bryan

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