God's Love

When asked to choose an attribute of God, I was troubled, because of the many attributes that our mighty God obtains. But after serious thought and reflection, it would have to be God’s love. God’s love is one of the attributes that cause many sinners to begin thinking of how great God must be. The Bible tells us, “But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”1 In this paper we will look at the many aspects of God’s love and prove why it is one of my favorite attributes. Some of those aspects will be the love of God through the Trinity, an agape love, love through His mercy and goodness, and His love as a covenant.

As we look at the attribute of God’s love we can start with the Trinity. God’s love is equal through the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which can be seen in many scriptures. The Fathers love is found in John 3:16 where it states, “God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son”. God loved humanity so much that He was willing to give His son as the atonement of sin. This is amazing that the God of everything would love a human race that was so corrupt and evil that we could spend eternity with Him. The love of the Son is found in Galatians, where Paul cries out saying, “the Son of God, who loved me and gave me himself for me”. Here Paul shares the amazing love of Jesus Christ, in that He gave up His life for us so that we could be found in Him. Jesus loved us enough that even though we would reject Him and chooses the world over Him; He died for our sins anyway to show us the perfect love He had for humanity. The Holy Spirit shows its love for us in Romans when Paul states, “I urge you by the love of the Spirit”. The Holy Spirits love for us is amazing, that it is willing to dwell within us believers even though we are sinful in nature. It’s a miracle that with the actions of mankind, that a Triune God would love us enough that He would still make a way for our salvation, even knowing that we ultimately want to sin against Him. Love lies at the heart of the inter-Trinitarian life of God; thus the Father loves the Son and the Spirit; the Son loves the Spirit and the Father; the Spirit loves the Father and Son (2). Without the Trinity loving each other equally, then God would not be who He says He is.

One of the terms used to describe God’s love for humankind is an agape love. The word agape is a love that is willing to die for the unworthy. We see this love portrayed on the cross when Jesus died for our sins. This is the greatest of all the loves. This is a love that all Christians should strive for, because we should love God the same way that He loves us. A lot of us are willing to say that we love God, but when certain trials in our life pop up we often neglect God or blame Him for the circumstance. This agape love is one that we do not deserve, but God’s love being perfect allowed us to reach salvation through Jesus Christ death and resurrection. Thus sin must