The reader who knows God well will probably laugh at any attempt to describe God’s love in mere words especially on an internet blog. I know it is futile, but I feel I need to try.
Maybe it would be good to attempt a description of the sort of Being God is. Two of the foundational aspects of His nature is that He is spirit and He is love.
He is greater, more powerful, than the universe itself since He created it and exists within and without it. What level of power do you suppose God has to simply speak and all else that exists comes into being, yet He is mindful of you?
Philosophy’s definition of God would is “That of which there can be nothing greater.” In other words, if you can imagine some being greater than God, then that being would be God.
This solves a lot of issues in philosophy and theology as well: for God to be God, He would have to exist since a being is greater if it exists than if it doesn’t. If God exists, then, He must be personal since a personal God is much greater than an impersonal god. God must be powerful since a powerful God is much greater than a powerless one, and an infinitely powerful God is better still, and so on. This is a form of what is called the ontological argument for the existence of God: God exists because a god who does not exist is unthinkable.
To continue this line and apply it to the subject at hand, a God who is loving is greater than one which is not. An infinitely loving God is even greater, and a God who by nature is love itself is greater still: the greatest in fact. The God of the Bible is that God:
1 John 4:16 (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.
How much does God love us, then? I don’t think a human mind can comprehend how much God loves us. He loves those who spit on His Son and wants them beside Him forever. He loves those who torture His children and wants them to join Him in heaven fully forgiven and cleansed.
For, sin is like a mirror. If we chip a mirror or shatter it it makes no difference. We’ve still broken the mirror. Sin is not something a holy God can dwell with, so He paid the price Himself. He emptied Himself of His glory and came to earth to make that payment.
I’m not sure we can comprehend even that act. To step from the throne of heaven and away from His godly glory and take lowly human form cannot be understood by man’s finite mind. Love is for the Son to be separated from the Father, to have the face of the Father turn away from Him on the cross, and to break fellowship with Him for the first time in eternity in order to make it possible for us to dwell with Him forever.
God could have just gone on with time eternal, given up on us as sinful man, destroyed us as we deserved, and created a race of beings who would not turn away, but He didn’t. He made a path for us all, we only need step onto it and follow it to everlasting life.
God’s love made it possible for Him to give us the ability to love Him freely. Love isn’t love if it is forced, if it is part of our makeup. Unlike God, our nature is hardly love, so God made allowances. He didn’t destroy us and start over. He offered us redemption because of His boundless love.
Why is this important?
John tells us he wrote down all that we needed to understand about God’s gift, that God had set forth a just plan to allow us to be received into His kingdom:
John 20:30-31 (ESV) Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
God’s love made salvation available to us all in the most universal way: we need only believe. This means we’re not required to know great truths or understand secret mysteries, we don’t need to obey the Law to the letter or strive to clean up our acts. God’s love says “come as you are.” Young children as well as college professors, educationally handicapped or geniuses come equally to heaven’s gates. We need only believe for God to give us life.
The best description of God’s love that I’ve ever seen was in a poem written on the wall of a cell in an insane asylum, though I’m sure the writer was hardly ill:
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.
Believers Armed and Dangerous 