Yea, hath God said,…..? Still the Key to Everything. Part 2. Yes, God Is Love…

LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!

A stroll through today’s so called “evangelicalism” will have you bombarded with this word. It is not possible to go 2 minutes in professing Christian spaces online without blogs, social media posts and memes proclaiming to us all things love.

At first glance this would appear to be a good thing. After all, the love of God is a primary biblical declaration from Genesis to Revelation and most especially in the incarnation, sinless life, atoning death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ.

The trouble with this is that what passes for biblical “love” today is far more often than not a reflection of the emotional preferences of the person preaching it. It is simply assumed that whatever speech or behavior is repugnant to the general consensus of the sinful human conscience MUST be unloving.

In other words, rather than taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ and allowing God’s Word to define all things, including love, it is instinctively taken as fact that if something makes people feel bad, or rubs them the wrong way, it is self evidently suspect at best, and most likely unloving, if not outright hateful.

If the one true and living God has declared Himself to BE love, then we better have His definition of love or we may find ourselves worshiping and serving the wrong god.

So what is “love” according to the bible?

One might immediately, and rightly, think of 1st Corinthians 13. The famous love chapter where we find the most comprehensive single exposition of what true godly love looks like in practice in all the Bible. However, that is not the focus of this short piece. What we’re after here is the foundation and wellspring of all the glorious truth we find there.

Let’s start with God’s holy love for Himself.