God is love. This is how the Apostle John describes God in 1 John 4. This phrase seems to be misused often in our culture today. People like to focus on this phrase to state that since God is love He will accept and affirm all that they do. However, this is not what John is saying, and this is not the only way John describes God. John gives us 3 different “God is …” statements in his writings:
God is Spirit - John 4:24
God is Light - 1 John 1:5
God is Love - 1 John 4:8
This is no where near an exhaustive list of God’s attributes, but these three statements from John give us a good overall picture of who God is. They help us to understand His essential character.
He is Spirit: God is not a person like you or me. He is Spirit; He is invisible and all present. He created us with a body and soul. God is not bound by these. He is all together different than us.
He is Light: John tells us that God is light and there is no darkness in Him at all. This means that God is holy. There is no sin or darkness in Him. He is just and holy. He will not tolerate or condone sin—He cannot.
He is Love: He showed His love towards us in that He sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. That means that Jesus was the wrath removing sacrifice for our sins. God’s love was not an emotion or feeling; it was shown by action taken for our benefit. The fact that God is love was shown in the fact that He sent His Son to die so that we could have true life.
Why did God send His Son to die for us? This allowed God to be both light and love, to be both just and justifier (Romans 3:24-26). Since Jesus paid the penalty for our sins, God remains holy and lovingly give us the gift of eternal life.
God is love. He loved us so that we could love Him. How do we love God? Loving God is not a matter of words or feelings, it is a matter of actions. John tells us that if we love God we will keep His commandments. John also tells us that, “whoever loves God must also love his brother.” We cannot claim to love God and harbor hatred towards our brothers and sisters. God loved us; and if we love Him, we will love one another. Love does not mean that we condone or approve sin because God does not do this. Love involves sharing the truth with conviction and compassion. Loving others does not mean we need to like what they are doing. However, we need to be careful to not let the actions of others be an excuse to not love them or seek their good.
It can be hard to love other people, and that is why John gives us the foundation of God and His love towards us. God did not love us because we were worthy; He loved us in spite of our sin. We love others not because they are necessarily worthy; we are to love them because God loved us. Our focus needs to be on Him, and when we truly love Him, we will find ourselves loving others.
And this commandment we have from Him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. 1 John 4:21
Comentarios