Herein is Love

“Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” (1 John 3:16)

The love of God is glorious. It is indescribable and incomprehensible to our finite, sin-infested hearts, but how thankful I am that God’s love is not imperceptible.

The story of the Bible is the story of God’s love made manifest: perceptible, or tangible.

When Adam and Eve made that first choice to disobey God’s command, plunging the human race into sin, God could have given up on us. He could have simply started over, or just decided He didn’t care about these rebellious humans any more.

But that’s not God.

As God Himself declared to Moses, He is,

“The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon their children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.” (Exodus 34:7)

God is just, certainly, and a just God must punish sin, but He is also merciful, gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.

Because of who God is, the human race was not abandoned, was not left to its own futile attempts to be “good enough.” Instead, God Himself took on humanity, and lived the sinless life we are all incapable of, so that He Himself could be the perfect sacrifice our sin required in order to satisfy God’s justice.

That’s love, made tangible.

John 3:16 is perhaps the most widely familiar Bible verse, but it contains a glimpse at the infinite love of God for us.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

This is love: not just that God made a way for our salvation, but that God Himself became the way for our salvation. Romans 5:8 tells us,

“But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

Christ’s love for us was demonstrated by His willing death for our sins, to purchase our salvation even before we had ever sought to be reconciled to Him.

God’s love made tangible, demonstrated by the willing sacrifice of himself for others, is not just something beautiful and amazing for us to wonder at: it is our example, the standard of what our love should be.  Jesus Himself said,

“This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:12-13)

The measure of our love is its Christlikeness: its willingness to sacrifice from the heart, not just because we have to, or because it is right, but because we love others the way God first loved us.