Love’s Surprising Journey

Have you ever tried to love someone by proxy? Have you ever asked someone to show someone else your affection on your behalf? Both my mom and my MaMa used to say, before getting off the phone, “Kiss those babies for me.” It was a heartwarming sentiment, but I’m not sure I ever actually did it. Despite their best intentions, me kissing my kids for them is still me kissing my kids. Love by proxy doesn’t really work. You would never ask someone else to take your spouse out for your anniversary. Personal presence is an essential ingredient to love. Love requires presence.

John tells us, “God is love” (1 John 4:8). If you’ve ever heard this truth, I want you to try hard to pretend you haven’t so that you can sense the full weight of it. He’s not saying that there’s this concept called love and God sometimes chooses to employ it. He’s not saying that love is one of God’s many attributes. He’s talking about God’s essence. If God is love, then love defines everything God does. His judgments are loving. His righteousness is loving. God defines love. As water is wet and sugar is sweet, God is love.

But it’s here that we make a common mistake. We assume that already we know what love is. Then, when we hear that God is love, we just slide God into our preconceived category. If God is love, we wrongly assume, then he must conform to my understanding of love. This kind of reasoning is how we get statements like, “If God was loving, he would never do that,” or, “As long as two people love one another, we should let them do whatever they want.”

John’s statement that God is love means that if you want to know love, you must get to know God. God defines love. Therefore, we don’t start with love; we start with God. We can’t pick up an understanding from Disney movies and then ask God to conform. God is love. Therefore, what God does is loving. Therefore, if we want to love, we must do what God does.

Here’s where things get difficult for us. Jonathan Leeman points out a few ways our culture gets love wrong. For example, our world tells us that true love has no moral boundaries. Movies present adulterous affairs as happy endings. Songs celebrate sex without commitment. No behavior is off limits if “love wins.” However, if God is love, then anything called love must also be righteous. Again, culture says that love and authority can never co-exist. Authority restrains and love frees. Thus, in the name of love, we invent non-invasive parenting philosophies that encourage our children to follow their hearts. But if God is love, then love must also be authoritative. God, in fact, uses his authority to love and protect his people. Finally, we are told that love follows no rules. We can fall into love and just as easily fall out again. However, God loves through covenant. He shows us that true love entails permanence. Love, defined by God, remains committed to the beloved.

But we’ve still got a problem. It’s great that God is love, but what about love requiring personal presence? What good would it do humans for God to be love if we never personally encounter it? John anticipates this question: “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9). God, who is love, showed us his love through his only Son entering the world and dying on the cross to save us. If God is love and Jesus came to manifest God’s love, then love must be sacrificial in essence. True love costs the lover.

But there’s another problem. Jesus isn’t here anymore. He ascended to the right of the Father after his resurrection once his earthly mission was complete. If someone wanted to encounter the presence of God’s love today, where would he go? John again answers our question: “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:12). God “has given us of his Spirit” (1 John 4:13). Therefore, when the church loves, God’s love is present today.

John Stott summarizes, “The unseen God, who was once revealed in his Son, is now revealed in his people if and when they love one another. God’s love is seen in their love because their love is his love imparted by the Spirit.”

Do you want to know God’s love today? John says you’ll find it most tangibly in the church. Do you want to make God’s love known today? John says, love the church. This is how God, who is love, manifests his love most clearly today. This is how God changes the world.

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