The theme of God’s love is one of the most prominent and beautiful in all of scripture. There is not an event, a person, a book, or a page in which we cannot see His love revealed and chronicled. Countless sermons have been preached on God’s love, hundreds of books have been written about Gods love, and dozens of hymns have been written about God’s love. It is a love that has no comparison among human relationships, even those of the highest purity. It is a love that is tied to all of God’s attributes, so that His love is holy, it is eternal, it is compassionate, it is gracious, it is wise, it is powerful, it is patient, it is kind, it is merciful … it is all of these and vastly more.
A concordance will take us to a seemingly unending list of verses that speak of God’s love. It is a theme often prominent in the ministries of the greatest evangelists in history, men like Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, Charles Spurgeon, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, John Stott, and Billy Graham. It is a subject often given major treatment by theologians such as J. I. Packer, John Piper, R.C. Sproul, and Al Mohler. Entire sermon series and conferences have been published and promoted, dealing with the many-faceted dimensions of the love of God.
The love of God is not infrequently misrepresented and cheapened by describing it in shallow sentimental terms that convey the idea of a god who is just like a nice old grandfather at the beginning stages of dementia, who really doesn’t know much about what’s going on around him, but is just always smiling and nice to everyone and perpetually in a good mood. Such a god is not the biblical God! 1 John 4:7 tells us that “God is love,” at the same time that Hebrews 12:29 tells us that “God is a consuming fire!”