Editor’s Note: This is a two-part article on the nature of God’s love and human love. Part one can be found here.
God’s Love Is the Measure of Human Love
Because the Creator fashioned us after his likeness, God gives us his qualities, including his moral attributes, but all with creaturely limitations, now corrupted by sin. All these qualities and attributes God gives us are analogical to his, not identical. The Creator’s character and ours do not differ in mere quantity. Rather, there is a qualitative difference in God’s character and our own. God is holy. God is good. God is love. God is righteous. God is just. We would be wrong to say that God is simply more holy, good, loving, than we are in each of these attributes. God is qualitatively different from us. These qualities belonging to God are what Christian theologians describe as “communicable attributes,” transmittable to us, his image-bearers, to reflect the attributes of our Creator (cf. Col. 3:8–10; Gen. 1:26–31). Every quality and every moral attribute that constitutes us creatures “after God’s likeness” is, by definition, analogical, not identical to his moral attributes.
God’s redeeming work is restoring the full array of God’s likeness in us. This God-likeness is what we properly call godliness. So, when we consider love, whether a human or divine attribute, we must always do so in correlation with God’s full character, especially his holiness and goodness, never isolated from these attributes. Also, we must first ponder God’s love as integral to his moral perfections and then consider the exercise of his love in deeds and actions.
In his classic, Knowing God, J. I. Packer correctly argues that while Scripture twice affirms, “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16), this affirmation is regularly misunderstood and distorted.[1] Distortions occur primarily because people isolate God’s love from his other attributes, especially his holiness, justice, and self-sufficiency. Sin-corrupted reasoning also has a proclivity to project onto God creaturely qualities, limitations, and emotions. Thus, many conceive of God only as a more perfect human.
1. J. I. Packer, Knowing God, 117.
Thus, Christians must rigorously avoid distortions when we speak of God’s love and our love, which must imitate his. To help us in that endeavor, we turn to D. A. Carson’s little book, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God.[2] Published in 2000, Carson’s slim volume punches above its weight class as it guides believers to represent accurately God’s love and, thus ours. As Carson shows, the Scriptures portray God’s love in diverse yet complementary ways. True, God is love, but to grasp the breadth and depth of this statement, Scripture portrays God’s love with varying forms concerning how he relates to his creation. This should not be a difficult concept to apprehend because our creaturely love consists of different facets also.[3]
2. D. A. Carson, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2000).
3. Carson discusses a common exegetical mistake in thinking about God’s love. Some argue that there are different “kinds” of love solely based on specific words for love (e.g., eros, agapaō, phileō). God’s unique love, then, is always agapē love. This is incorrect. For example, agapaō (John 3:35) and phileō (John 5:20) both refer to the Father’s and Son’s love for each other. Words have a range of meanings, but context is determinative concerning how speakers and writers use the word.
Varied Forms of God’s Love
Carson proposes that God’s Word depicts God’s love as having five discernible forms. I offer a short summary here, followed by a further development below.
- The unique love the Father has for the Son and the love the Son has for the Father (John 3:35; 5:20; 14:31).
- God exercises a providential love for his whole creation. This love is often called God’s common grace. God, who is pleased with what he created (Genesis 1:31), bestows kind provisions and care over all creation (e.g., animals [Job 39; Matt 10:29]) and humans (Matt. 10:30–31; Acts 14:14–18; 17:24–29).
- God manifests his love in his redeeming posture toward his fallen world corrupted by sin and now dwelling under his curse (Ezek. 33:11; John 3:16).[4]
- God’s love obligates reciprocation. Thus, his redeeming love for us is conditioned on obedience.[5]
- When Scripture affirms, “God first loved us,” it means that God set his love upon not every human without exception but only upon those whom he calls his “elect ones” (e.g., Israel, church, individuals (Deut. 7:7–8; 10:14–15; Mal. 1:2-3; Eph. 1:4–6; 5:25; 1 John 4:8–10). That God “first loved us” obligates a response in kind—just as Scripture affirms, “We love because God first loved us” (1 John 4:19). God’s unconditional, electing love establishes his covenantal relationship with us, which stipulates conditions concerning how his people are to come to him. God requires our belief, our obedience, and our steadfast faithfulness.
4. Carson argues that in John, “world” (kosmos) refers to the moral order in culpable rebellion against God.
5. Carson’s ordering of #4 and #5 is flipped here for reasons I trust will become evident.
Carson rightly insists that Scripture refuses to allow us to treat any of these aspects as absolute. Instead, Scripture presents them as complementary, holding them together in proper proportion. This obligates us to apply these truths thoughtfully and carefully to ourselves and our relationships. For example, God’s perfect intra-trinitarian love is distinctive; it differs from how the Trinity relates lovingly toward the whole of creation, including toward humans.[6] Our focus in what follows will be on the latter four forms of God’s love that Carson identifies.
6. See David Schrock, “The Doctrine of the Trinity: Three DistinctPersons.”
God’s Loving Care for Creation
When we consider God’s loving care toward his creation, called divine providence, we must account for the universal presence of God’s curse. God’s providence does not nullify God’s imposed frustration upon his created order, nor does his curse invalidate his loving care for his creation. “Frustration” and the “bondage of decay” characterize God’s created order in this “present evil age.” Their presence accounts for God’s new creative activity through Jesus Christ progressing inexorably toward creation’s liberation from its bondage and decay which is tied inextricably to the glorious redemption of God’s children, descendants of Adam who rebelled (Rom. 8:18–21).
Thus, temporary though they are, alive today but devoured by animals or flames tomorrow, God adorns the lilies and grasses of the fields with glorious vestments. Likewise, God feeds the animals that roam the forests and meadows and he cares even for the raven’s hatchlings (Ps. 147:9; Job 38:41; Matt. 6:26; Luke 12:24). Lions roar as they stalk their prey, devouring the flesh of other creatures that the Lord God gives to them (Ps. 104:21). All this comes from God’s loving providence so that even when animals, including a sparrow, fall to the ground to become food for other creatures and insects, they do so only by God ordaining it (Matt. 10:29–31).
God’s Loving Care for Humans: Three Forms
If God’s providential love for his animals tends to the minutest of details, how much grander is his providential care for humans he made after his own likeness? Yet, when we ponder Scripture’s portrayal of God’s love toward us who bear his image, we must acknowledge that God’s love toward humans entails three different but wholly integrated forms, forms of affection reflected in our love for God and for others.
First—God holds a loving posture toward fallen humanity.
John 3:16 succinctly expresses this: “God so loved the world that he gave his Son.” Here, “the world” entails the entirety of morally corrupted humanity. Regularly, many who quote the verse, including Bible translators, mistakenly presume that “God so loved” portrays the magnitude of God’s love. It’s true that other portions of Scripture do portray the vastness of God’s love, but the adverb “so” (houtōs) in John 3:16 does not speak of magnitude (“so much”) but of manner (“how”).[7] Thus, the verse does not say, “God loved the people of this world so much that he gave his only Son” (CEV). Instead, the verse announces, “God loved the world in this way, [namely,] that he gave his only Son.” What is the way God shows his love toward the world of sinful humans? The verse explains—“he gave his only Son.”
7. First John 3:1 depicts the magnitude of God’s love—“See what great lovethe Father has lavished on us” (NIV2011).
God’s love displayed in the crucifixion of his Son beckons and stipulates a reciprocal response of love expressed this way—“that whoever believes in him should notperish but have eternal life.” God’s love for sinful humans does not reduce to a love that is formless and permissive. Indeed, the thrice-holy God stands in judgment over sinful humanity, but he also stands ready to remit the sins of everyone who repents. God sent his Son into a world hostile against him so that wicked humans would indict his righteous Son, condemn him to death, and execute him. They did not realize that they were carrying out God’s purpose and design by which he would redeem everyone who heeds his gospel’s command to acknowledge his risen Son as the only savior of the world (John 4:42). To the rebellious world, God’s message is clear: “As I live, declares the LordGod,I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live;turn back, turn back from your evil ways,for why will you die, O house of Israel?” (Ezek. 33:11).
Second—The display of God’s love by giving his Son calls for the response of belief—“that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
The gospel presents God’s love revealed in Christ Jesus as the only realm within which we can receive God’s saving deliverance from his wrath. How we initially come to Christ Jesus to receive eternal life in him is how we remain in Christ Jesus and the life he offers unto the end. Love for God, for his Son, and for his children is essential to God’s relational covenant structure. Obeying God’s commands is necessary. Thus, the Lord Jesus instructs his disciples: “As the Father has loved me,so have I loved you. Abide in my love.If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just asI have keptmy Father’s commandments and abide in his love” (John 15:9–10).
The gospel requires us to affirm that love for God, for his Son, and for our fellow believers is both how we persevere in Christ Jesus to receive eternal life on the Last Day and evidence that we already have eternal life because we belong to Christ.
Beloved,let us love one another, for love is from God, andwhoever loves has been born of God and knows God.Anyone who does not love does not know God, becauseGod is love.In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, thatGod sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.In this is love,not that we have loved Godbut that he loved us and sent his Son to bethe propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:7-10).
This necessity of love for God prompts Jude to administer his urgent appeal: “Keep yourselves in God’s love” (Jude 21; NIV2011).
God’s love toward us, therefore, takes this second form that God fully integrates with his other two forms of redeeming love. The numerous and frequent appeals for us to love God, his Son, and all God’s children are grounded in God’s loving act of giving his own Son on our behalf to avert his wrath against us (1 John 2:2). Thus, as I’ll show next, without any contradiction, the gospel’s numerous commands and exhortations to believe, to obey, and to keep ourselves in God’s love are grounded in God’s electing love. Unless God loved us first, we would never come to love him, as we’ve already heard in 1 John 4:19: “We love because God first loved us.”
Third—Therefore, the context in which John 3:16 is located makes it clear that God’s love revealed in Christ Jesus is welcomed by some and rejected by others.
Why? All who believe receive eternal life, but everyone who does not heed the gospel’s call to believe in God’s only Son for redemption already stands condemned to eternal perdition (John 3:18). “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life;whoever does not obey the Son shall notsee life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (John 3:36). God’s anger persists on the disobedient. Thus, D. A. Carson correctly observes the cliché, “God hates the sin but loves the sinner,” “is false on the face of it and should be abandoned.”[8]
8. Carson, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God, 69.
Repeatedly, the Scriptures affirm that God hates evildoers and abhors deceivers (Ps. 5:5; 11:5). The gospel announces this verdict: “Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.” Evildoers despise the light and refuse to enter it lest the light expose their deeds as evil (John 3:19–20), so God’s wrath continues on them. On the other hand, “the one who practices the truth comes to the light that it may be obvious that his deeds have been done in God” (3:21). From this, it is evident that what distinguishes us who believe from those who persist in evildoing is outside ourselves. What causes us to believe in God’s Son while others reject him persistently?
John’s Gospel accounts for the difference in several places. John’s Prologue expresses the difference: “He came tohis own,andhis own peopledid not receive him.But to all who did receive him,who believed in his name,he gave the rightto becomechildren of God,whowere born,not of bloodnor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:11–13). This emphatically affirms that being born to be “God’s children” is not the same as being born into a human family. This new birth is not a matter of a bloodline, intercourse, or a husband’s intention. Instead, this birth comes about solely by God, an affirmation that anticipates Jesus’ announcement: “Whatever is born of the fleshis flesh, and whatever is born of the Spiritis spirit” (John 3:6).
Throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus reiterates this several times, expressing it most strongly in chapter 6. Some of Jesus’ disciples take offense when he says, “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my bloodabides in me, and I in him.” Jesus responds, “‘It is the Spirit who gives life;the flesh is no help at all.The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.Butthere are some of you who do not believe.’(For Jesusknew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, andwho it was who would betray him.)And he said,‘This is why I told youthat no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father’” (John 6:63–65; cf. 6:44). Later, when some Jews take offense at Jesus, he tells them, “Whoever is of God hears the words of God.The reason you do not hear them is thatyou are not of God” (8:47). Again, some Jews become annoyed with Jesus and ask, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you arethe Christ,tell us plainly” (10:24).Jesus responds:
I told you, and you do not believe.The works I doin my Father’s name bear witness about me,butyou do not believe because you are not among my sheep.My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.I give them eternal life, andthey will never perish, andno one will snatch them out of my hand.My Father,who has given them to me,is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out ofthe Father’s hand.I and the Father are one. (10:25–31)
Believers in Christ Jesus happily submit to God’s choosing love that John’s Gospel portrays in all these passages and which he succinctly expresses in 1 John 4:19—“We love because God first loved us.” We believe the good news because God’s Spirit has made us alive in Christ. We hear God’s words because God has enabled us to hear. We listen to the voice of the Shepherd because God has made us his sheep. The Apostle John says, “God first loved us.” The Apostle Paul affirms, “God chose us in Christbefore the foundation of the world that we should beholy and blameless before him. In love,he predestined usforadoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ,according to the purpose of his will” (Ephesians 1:4–5).
Thus, Christians joyfully worship the Lord God by singing hymns that affirm God’s electing love, without which they would never repent of their sins and set their affections upon God.
‘Tis not that I did choose Thee,
For that could never be;
This heart would still refuse Thee,
Had Thou not chosen me.
Thou from the sin that stained me
Hast cleansed and set me free;
Of old Thou hast ordained me,
that I should live to Thee.
—John Conder, 1789–1855
Many Christians reverse how Scripture portrays God’s love. They claim that God’s electing love is conditional (conditioned on belief), and that his covenant-relational love is unconditional (no required conduct). Against this, the gospel of Jesus Christ compels us to uphold two compatible affirmations: (1)we receive God’s covenant-relational love conditionally by obeying God’s commandments; and (2) God sets his electing love upon us unconditionally—our believing in Jesus Christ is the effect, not the cause of God’s first loving us. We receive assurance that we are God’s beloved children not by reasoning from his electing love but from our lovingly obeying the gospel.
Thus, “The one who claims, ‘I have come to know him’ and does not keep his commandmentsis a liar, andthe truth is not in this one. But whoever keeps his word, truly in this one love for God is brought to completion. By this, we know that we are in him. The one who claims to persevere in him, he is also obligated to walk in the same way as that One walked” (1 John 2:4–6).[9] Walk, not talk, is how we know we are in Christ Jesus. The knowledge that God chose us in Christ comes to us only by keeping ourselves in God’s love.
9. Author’s own translation.
Our Love, However Imperfect, Imitates God’s Love
“Free love’s” calculated evisceration of morality, public and private, is so rampant that our Lord’s description of the antediluvian society seems to fit our own: “the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and . . . everyintention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5). Nevertheless, because the Creator formed us after his likeness, he imparted attributes constituting us as his image bearers. Our fallenness distorts God’s implanted image, but our inborn knowledge of God is irrepressible (Rom. 1:19–20). Knowledge of God restrains human wickedness. If it were not so, wanton murder would utterly expunge humanity. Thus, sin’s perversion of love does not thoroughly eradicate compassion. Solomon’s shrewdness exposed which of the two prostitutes was the true mother of the disputed infant (1 Kgs. 3:16–28). Though both were immoral, neither could entirely eradicate God’s implanted “sense of divinity” (sensus divinitatis), knowing right from wrong or the capacity for love. Thus, Isaiah 49:15 rebukes us:
Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
and have no compassion on the childshe has borne?
Though she may forget,
I will not forget you! (NIV).
Sexually immoral males and females, who practice “free love,” have an innate penchant to demand “monogamy” from their sexual partners, including those engaged in same-sex relationships. Twisted though it is, this implanted expectation of fidelity, when violated, becomes a provocation for suspicion, jealousy, bitterness, contempt, and in some cases, even murder.
Only the good news as it is in Jesus Christ reorders our beliefs and conduct in harmony with God’s love. God’s Spirit governs our hearts and behavior in keeping with the Holy Scriptures to imitate God’s communicable attributes, including love.
As God unconditionally set his love upon us, we set our love upon one individual of the opposite sex and pledge sacrosanct covenantal fidelity to one another. At the same time, we recognize that love for one another must be nurtured daily with kindness, tender affection, and admonition when necessary. Without this, love withers, threatening the covenant of fidelity.
Similarly, when the marital union gives birth to offspring, parents affirm an innate and inviolable love for their children. This immutable love is properly capable of showing wrath when children are disobedient. It is necessary to remind children that love prompts both punishment and commendation in order to instruct them that parental love, like God’s love, takes on varying forms. God’s sense of right and wrong implanted within children instills an intuitive expectation of obedience and not permissive leniency. Failure to punish disobedience breeds ungodly behavior—delinquency in children and explosive rage in parents.
Indeed, we might take it one step further and say that when a father fails to love and discipline his children, or when a husband betrays his first love by pursuing adultery, he is not simply failing some earthly standard of utilitarian morality. Rather, as David could say to God in Psalm 51:4, “Against you, you only, have I sinned.” Truly, such is the nature of human love. It is oriented towards the holy God of perfect love. And thus, in all discussions of love, we must begin with God, not man. And more, we must come to understand the manifold nature of his love, so that as Paul says, we would “be imitators of God, as beloved children” (Eph. 5:1).
Despite all the “free love” in our world today, we must not look to the rainbow-colored White House or the trite slogans of “love is love” to find true love. Instead, we must keep our eyes on the Lord and his Word, and we must imitate God’s love in the way he has revealed. As Paul goes on to say in Ephesians 5:2: “And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” Only by a right understanding of the cross can we truly love God and love others, and to that end we must labor as long as we are on this earth.
