“God is love.”

We find that statement in the Bible, specifically in 1 John 4:8, but what does it mean?

We’ve all heard the question: “If God is love, how could . . . ?” I’ve certainly asked some form of that question at times, and I expect you may have as well.

Our world interprets this concept to mean that God’s children will all be happy and healthy and that “good people” can’t really be going to hell, that God will make everything good and happy in the end.

In my Bible memorization efforts, I have recently been working on learning parts of 1 John. The focus of this book is God’s love for us and our relationship with him.

With this focus on love, it’s easy to find other “feel-good” verses in addition to that statement that God himself is love:

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.

1 John 3:1a ESV

So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us.

1 John 4:16-19 ESV

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.

1 John 5:13-15 ESV

Beautiful, amazing, comforting words. But incomplete in and of themselves.

1 John is not just about God’s love for us and what we get out of it. It’s also about our side of the relationship. We must not latch onto the phrase “God is love” and miss the first part of the verse.

Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

1 John 4:8 ESV

The point here is our response to God’s character, the reflection of his love in our lives.

Too often, our concept of God’s love is self-centered. We buy into the world’s notion of God’s love. We think something like, “God loves me. His very essence is love. Surely he wants me to be happy and to have the things I want.” 

Throughout John’s discussion of God’s love in this letter, he reminds us that we must follow in obedience before we can experience many of the benefits of being loved by God. Yes, he loved us first, so much that Jesus died for us, sacrificed himself to wipe away our sin, but we must then respond.

We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.

1 John 4:19-5:3 ESV

John doesn’t explicitly remind us here that God is just and righteous as well as loving. However, he does remind us that the benefits of God’s love and sacrifice are only for those who do love God and keep his commandments. This must include showing love to other humans as well as to God himself.

We live in a world where hatred for other people is all too common. Even within churches we see battle lines drawn over many things that truly don’t matter. Yet John tells us that if we love God we must love our brothers.

How would our churches, our nation, and our world change if we all worked to obey this commandment and reflect God’s love in our relationship with all of our fellow believers?

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash