God is Love
1 John 4:7-10
To say that something is something else is to make an “identity statement.” There are actually very few “identity statements” make in the Bible regarding God. We know that God is spirit (John 4:24) for example, and that God is holy (1 Peter 5:15-16). According to John, however, God is also love.
We don’t often reflect on how astonishing this is, to say not that God loves, but that God is love. Love is the act of giving up of oneself for the sake of another. But we also believe that God was before the universe came into existence. How then can God be love when there was a time when there was no one to love?
If the divine essence was one person, as in most monotheistic (one God) faiths, then it would be impossible to say God is love without also making God the ultimate narcissist. But in Christ Jesus we have a fuller revelation of the godhead, that God is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, three separate persons. The three persons of the divinity exist in perfect, eternal love with one another. Which is why Augustine could call God the One who loves, the One being loved, and the Love itself.
Christians are bound to the One being loved by the Spirit, Love itself. We are therefore bound to the One who loves, the Father, for all eternity.
Loving Father, keep us ever in the love of the Spirit who binds us to your beloved Son, Jesus. Amen.