What Does it Mean that "God is Love"?

The Meaning of “God Is Love”

1 John 4 16 says God is love. Isn't that beautiful? God is love. He's not just loving. God is love. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us because God is love. So if God is love, what does that make you?

Well, you are evil. Genesis 8 21, the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Jeremiah 17 9, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it? Romans 3 12, no one does good, not even one person.

Human Evil and the Need for a Loving God

What an unloving thing to say, right? Well, Jesus said it in the Sermon on the Mount. You are evil. No, he was talking to the Pharisees. No, it says at the beginning of the sermon he was talking to his disciples.

Was it wrong for Jesus to say we're evil? Well, Hebrews 4 15 says he was without sin, so clearly not. 1 John 5 20 says he is the true God. Jesus said no one is good but God, and we just read that God is love.

God’s Love, Wrath, and the Cross

So if Jesus is going to call us evil, it must be a loving thing to say. In fact, you cannot know that God is love unless you know that you are evil. If you don't know that you are evil, deserving of God's wrath, then the version of God that you have in mind is not the loving God, but a sissy God who doesn't go anywhere.

He's not invited and doesn't do anything without your permission, and that's not the maker of the universe. It's a God of your own making. God is love, but that's not all that he is. The Bible also says he is a righteous judge who feels indignation every day, but he shows his love for us and that while we were sinners, Christ died for us.

Knowing the Love of God Through the Truth

All who follow him are not under his wrath, but in his love, and we come to know that God is love when we understand the text.