Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. (1 John 4:8-10)
[NOTE: I lost my original notes. This recreation does not have the many footnotes I usually have. I apologize for all the quotes without a source of attribution.]
When Scripture says God is love, it is not offering a mere description—it is giving us a definition of God’s very nature. God does not have love the way we have attributes. God is love. I increasingly lean toward the idea that every attribute we ascribe to God is an attribute of His love. God’s love is:
· omnipotent
· all-knowing
· holy
· just
· merciful
· gracious
These are not competing qualities such that we would have to say, “God is love -but God is also Justice!” as if somehow God stopped loving when God acted justly. There is no expressions of whom God is or what God does that is not a reflection of divine love.
Right away in Scripture, we learn that a key aspect of God’s love – and the attributes of it - is that it endures. It’s in some of the most ancient confessions of Israel. I’ve introduced you before to The God Creed in Exodus 34:6–7. When God reveals Himself to Moses, He also tells Moses what He is like.
“The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.”
This is Scripture’s own summary of who God is. We see versions of it scattered throughout the Old Testament.
Psalm 103:8 - “The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.”
Psalm 138:8 - “The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever.”
Lamentations 3:22–23 - “The faithful love of the LORD never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.”
Notice what is absent in these texts. There is no expiration date. No asterisk. No sneaky clause that says, “Well, unless you fail Me one too many times!!!” God’s love is not presented as fragile, or easily revoked, or dependent on our consistency. It is presented as durable, stubborn, even relentless.
There are many images the Old Testament gives us to create a picture in our minds of what this loving God is like. These are two that stood out to me this week.
God’s Love Looks Like a Shepherd (Psalm 23)
“The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He takes me to lush pastures, he leads me to refreshing water. He restores my strength. He leads me down the right paths for the sake of his reputation. Even when I must walk through the darkest valley, I fear no danger, for you are with me; your rod and your staff reassure me.
You prepare a feast before me in plain sight of my enemies. You refresh my head with oil; my cup is completely full. Surely your goodness and faithfulness will pursue me all my days, and I will live in the Lord’s house for the rest of my life. (NET)
So what does this shepherd do?
· The shepherd provides
· The shepherd leads
· The shepherd restores
· The shepherd protects
· The shepherd pursues
There is nothing that chases away the shepherd’s presence. And notice how the psalm ends—not with the sheep clinging to God, but with God’s goodness and faithfulness pursuing the sheep. This reminds of something Paul wrote:
“I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor ruling spirits, nothing now, nothing in the future, no powers, nothing above us, nothing below us, nor anything else in the whole world will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)
This next image is going to sound like a stark contrast, but it’s not. It is still an expression of love.
God’s Love Looks Like a Crucible
Proverbs 17:3 - “The refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold, but the Lord tests the hearts.”
Zechariah 13:9 - “And I will bring the third part through the fire, refine them as silver is refined, and test them as gold is tested, they will call on My name, and I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are My people,’ and they will say, ‘The Lord is My God.’”
Malachi 3:3 - “He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the Lord offerings in righteousness.”
Greek scholar Kenneth Wuest provides a beautiful illustration.
“The picture here is of an ancient goldsmith who puts his crude gold ore in a crucible, subjects it to intense heat, and thus liquefies the mass. The impurities rise to the surface and are skimmed off. When the metalworker is able to see the reflection of his face clearly mirrored in the surface of the liquid, he takes it off the fire, for he knows that the contents are pure gold…. This, above all, God the Father desires to see. Christlikeness is God’s ideal for His child.”
God does not refine in order to discard. He refines because He intends to keep. The fire is not a sign of rejection—it is a sign of commitment. He who has begun a good work in us will be faithful to continue it. (Philippians 1:6)
Fast forward to the incarnation, in which the ultimate expression of God’s love has a human face. What God’s people had previously only confessed in word is now revealed as a person: the Word become flesh. This Incarnation of God, Jesus, is what we celebrate at Christmas. And as far as a revelation of God goes, this one could not be better.
· Colossians 1:15, 19 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation… in him all the
fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
· Colossians 2:9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,
· John 10:30 I and the Father are one.”
So we can expect to see in the life of Jesus the full expression of God’s love. If you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus. If you want to know what God’s love looks like in action, look at Jesus. Now we don’t just hear words and envision images about the Shepherd and the Crucible and all the other things, we see them in action.
Let’s take three main events in Jesus’ life, as well as the final vision in John’s Revelation, to see what God’s love is like as expressed through the life, death, resurrection, and return of Jesus.
God’s Love Is Like a Manger
John 1:14 “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Isaiah 9:6 “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
Titus 3:4–7 “But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
I like this summary from Thomas Watson:
“See here [in the Incarnation]… the infinite love of God the Father; that when we had lost ourselves by sin, God, in the riches of his grace, sent forth his Son… to redeem us. And behold the infinite love of Christ, in that he was willing thus to condescend [and] did not disdain to take our flesh. Oh, the love of Christ!”
In Bethlehem, the first statement God makes about Himself in Christ is not aloofness, but proximity. Not distance, but nearness. In the Incarnation, God leads by displaying that God’s love shows up in vulnerability, humility, empathy, and genuine relationship.
God’s Love Looks Like a Cross
Romans 5:8 “But God commended his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
John 3:16 “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”
1 John 4:9-10 “God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him. Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
A scholar named William Barclay wrote,
“The coming of Christ and the death of Christ, is the proof of God’s love. Sometimes the thing is stated as if on the one side there was a gentle, loving Christ, on the other an angry and vengeful God; and as if Christ did something which changed God’s attitude to [people]. Nothing could be further from the truth…. Jesus did not come to change God’s attitude to [people]; he came to show what it is and always was.”
Philip Keller grew up in a missionary family in Africa, and later became a pastor and prolific author who often focused on Jesus as the Good Shepherd. He once wrote this.
“Here we commemorate the greatest and deepest demonstration of true love the world has ever known. For God looked down upon sorrowing, struggling, sinning humanity and was moved with compassion for the contrary, sheep-like creatures He had made. In spite of the tremendous personal cost it would entail to Himself to deliver them from their dilemma He chose deliberately to descend and live amongst them that He might deliver them…
He knew He would be exposed to terrible privation, to ridicule, to false accusations, to rumor, gossip and malicious charges that branded Him as a glutton, drunkard, friend of sinners and even an imposter. It entailed losing His reputation. It would involve physical suffering, mental anguish and spiritual agony.
In short, His coming to earth as the Christ, as Jesus of Nazareth, was a straightforward case of utter self-sacrifice that culminated in the cross of Calvary. The laid-down life, the poured-out blood were the supreme symbols of total selflessness. This was love.”
It's important to remember that the cross did not persuade God to love us (see John 3;16). The cross reveals that God already loved us. If, “while were yet sinners Christ died for us,” and Christ died because He loves us, it follows that God loved us before the cross. And on that cross, we see that God’s love is cruciform. It is selfless, life-giving sacrifice on our behalf, so that those who are far from God will come near to Him.
God’s Love Is Like an Empty Tomb
Raising yourself from the dead is a pretty convincing way of demonstrating that you have the power to do whatever you claim to be able to do. Jesus claimed to be able to love us in all the ways we have already covered. Contained in His death and resurrection is a promise. C.S. Lewis once wrote:
“In the Christian story God descends to re-ascend. He comes down … down to the very roots and sea-bed of the nature he has created. But he goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with him.”
This empty tomb is the culmination of Jesus’ life ministry. It’s another variation on the theme we have been covering. I know some of you enjoy reading A.W. Tozer’s devotionals. He has this to say about the life of Jesus:
“When Jesus died on the cross the mercy of God did not become any greater. It could not become any greater, for it was already infinite. We get the odd notion that God is showing mercy because Jesus died. No--Jesus died because God is showing mercy. It was the mercy of God that gave us Calvary, not Calvary that gave us mercy. If God had not been merciful there would have been no incarnation, no babe in the manger, no man on a cross and no open tomb.”
God’s Love is Like A City Whose Gates Are Never Shut
John writes of a city whose gates are never shut in Revelation 21 and 22.
And in the city, there is no need for the sun to light the day or moon the night because the resplendent glory of the Lord provides the city with warm, beautiful light and the Lamb illumines every corner of the new Jerusalem. And all peoples of all the nations will walk by its unfailing light, and the rulers of the earth will stream into the city bringing with them the symbols of their grandeur and power. During the day, its gates will not be closed; the darkness of night will never settle in.
He’s describing the unending, welcoming, and secure nature of divine love. There is no fear, sin, or sorrow, only perpetual invitation and rest for the redeemed.
(21:3-6) And I heard a great voice, coming from the throne: “See, the home of God is with His people. He will live among them; they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them. The prophecies are fulfilled: He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning no more, crying no more, pain no more, for the first things have gone away.” And the One who sat on the throne announced to His creation, “See, I am making all things new.”
(22:16-21) Then Jesus said, “I, Jesus, have sent My messenger to show you and guide you so that you in turn would share this testimony with the churches. I am the Root and the Descendant of David, the Bright Morning Star. The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let everyone who hears these words say, “Come.” And let those who thirst come. All who desire to drink, let them take and drink freely from the water of life.
* * * * *
So what is God’s love like?
· It is like a Shepherd who pursues us even when we wander.
· It is like a Crucible that refines without rejecting.
· It is like a Manger, choosing nearness over aloofness
· It is like a Cross, laying itself down for the sake of the beloved.
· It is like an Empty Tomb, refusing to let death, sin, or fear have the final word.
· It is like an Eternally Open City, inviting all into the Light of Christ with joyful entry and eternal rest.
When Jesus arrived, it was The Light of the World shining into the darkness. And the darkness did not—and will not—overcome it. This is the love we celebrate this Christmas, and all the year.