Thoughtful Things

God’s love is incomprehensible. No human mind can comprehend God. We cannot define God. We cannot provide a comprehensive account of who he is. He “dwells in unapproachable light” (1 Tim. 6:16). If God is incomprehensible, then so is his love. While we may and must speak truthfully about his love, we can never fathom it, because it is divine love, as different from our love as his being is different from our being.

We cannot define God in the sense of delimiting exhaustively who he is, but we can nonetheless describe him truthfully. We can do so because he has made himself known to us in his Word and he opens our eyes to that Word by his Spirit. How is that possible, given the divine difference? It is possible because God makes himself known to us in creaturely reality. He takes up the things he has made and uses them to describe himself to us. Thus he is a lion, a rock, fire, even moth and dry rot (look it up!).

We are not free to pick up the ball of “God is love” and run with it wherever we will. The statement must remain tethered within its immediate context in 1 John 4, within the broader context of John’s writings, and within the ultimate context of God’s entire self-description in Scripture. The local context immediately reminds us (in verse 10) of the connection between love and propitiation, which requires that we understand God’s love alongside his justice and wrath. The ultimate context of Scripture will bring alongside his love all of the other attributes of God. Together they will form a self-regulating mesh of meaning.

Further, the wider context in John’s writings will repeatedly connect the love of God to his triune life. John delights to write of the Father’s love for the Son and the Son’s love for the Father. He even records the Lord Jesus saying that the Father loves him because he lays down his life (John 10:17). Love is the greatest attribute: Love is perhaps the most obvious attribute that anyone can possess. Love conquerors all and love does not boast. Love they neighbor as thyself. Above all we must love as God loves us.

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