You can see what love is to understand it. Like a husband’s devotion to His wife. And a Father’s affection for his child. So we see God reveal Himself as the Father of His children and the Husband of His Church.

When we study one of the Lord’s attributes we focus on a characteristic that is attributed to His essence or being to tell us what He is like and Who He is.  Some attributes are exclusive to God and so referred to as incommunicable.^[1]  But God shares other of His characteristics with His redeemed people—these we call His communicable attributes—and when we study them we also learn about how we are to be more like Him.

In 1 John 4:8, 16, John emphasizes by repetition that God is love.  He teaches us that the essence of God is love.

In our reformed zeal to highlight God’s sovereignty, holiness, and justice, we must take care not to gloss over that God also is love.^[2]

You can see what love is to understand it.  Like a husband’s devotion to His wife.  And a Father’s affection for his child.  So we see God reveal Himself as the Father of His children and the Husband of His Church.  And we see that God loves Himself in each person of the Trinity from and to all eternity as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.^[3]  God also loves His Church from before the foundation of the world^[4] with an everlasting love^[5].  For God sent His Son to give us everlasting life by virtue of His love for us.^[6]

Love is an affection, a sincere appreciation and high regard for someone else.  It is devotedness to another.  And especially, love is communal.  As God is love perfected and Thrice Personified, so He is the source of all loving in and for His people (1 John 4:7).

Christian, be sure that you adore God as love along with His other attributes.  It is true that God is not JUST love.  But it is also true that God IS love as well as just.^[7]

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