“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 ESV). These well-known words of Jesus have often been a kind of signature tune for Christians, who proclaim that the coming of Christ to suffer and die for our sins was an act of divine love without parallel in history. The Apostle John, who recorded these words for us, was particularly struck by the love of God and made it central to his proclamation of the gospel. On several occasions he refers to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved, not because he was especially favored, but because he felt the power of that love in his own relationship with the Lord (John 13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7). He returned to the same theme in his great epistle, where (after recalling the fact that the Father sent the Son into the world) he says: “We have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 John 4:16).
One way of measuring the impact that love has had on the world is to reflect that it is now the most popular and widespread aspect of the Christian message. The world cries out for love, in which it sees the supreme manifestation of happiness and security. Everybody wants love in their lives—people who love them and whom they can love in return. Countless songs are devoted to this desire, and films have explored every dimension of it, from the “happy ever after” scenario that is supposed to follow on the lucky couple who fall in love, to the heartbreak that ensues when such love is unrequited or betrayed. So attractive is the idea of love that in recent years it has been extended to include so-called same-sex marriage, on the ground that everyone should have the right to marry whomever they love, regardless of other considerations. It takes some reflection to realize that when “love” is conceived this broadly, it loses meaningful boundaries and can easily be used to justify absurd conclusions. For example, I love my mother, but does that mean that I should be able to marry her? Obviously not! Here we have a clear instance of how “love” can be used to justify almost anything, whether it makes sense or not. We live in a society that has distorted the very definition of love. But we must recognize that it is God who defines love, not us.
Love Distorted
In a culture that stretches “love” to such absurd extremes, Christians face a particular challenge in proclaiming the love of God. We cannot deny the importance of God’s love for our faith and practice, yet applying that love to daily life is complex and varies from one relationship to another. Love for parents, children, neighbors, friends and strangers may proceed from a common impulse, but it works itself out very differently in the way we behave towards each of them. Nor is it always easy to decide how love should be applied in any given instance. For example, people who advocate assisted suicide may well consider that those who object to it are lacking in love, because to them opposition to euthanasia sounds like a desire to prolong needless suffering. In their view, if we would not hesitate to put down a dog or a horse who was in incurable pain because that seems to be the most loving thing to do, why would we think differently about a fellow human being in a similar situation?
From another angle, “love” is now often interpreted as so-called “permissiveness” or “acceptance.” There was a time, not so long ago, when conditions like mental illness were not understood, and criminals were judged by their actions alone. The urge to punish offenders was allowed to overrule other considerations, sometimes in ways that now seem unjust. But today we have often gone to the other extreme. Murderers and other criminals are put through psychological tests to determine whether their actions were influenced—perhaps even determined—by psychological conditions that lie hidden beneath the surface and mitigate the degree of their responsibility for what they have done. To many, this comes across as the loving approach, since nobody wants to execute a person whose crimes can be explained, if not entirely excused, by factors beyond their control. Is this what “love” demands of us?
More commonly, the desire to excuse wrongdoing in the name of love is seen in the upbringing of children, who are now often encouraged to develop their potential with minimum interference from parental or societal “discipline.” Self-expression has become so highly regarded that some parents are afraid to put any controls on their children’s behavior, lest they inadvertently maim their innate genius. We may laugh at this sort of thing, especially when it is taken to extremes, but there are several examples of adults who have encouraged their young children to seek a sex change, because the children claim that they are in the wrong physical body. Is it not an act of “love” to try to put that right, these people argue, so that their children can lead fulfilled lives? Once again, those who object to such practices can easily be accused of being “unloving” and Christians who believe that biological sex is a gift of God that is not to be trifled with often find themselves put in an awkward position.
Where is God’s love in all of this? In our secularized world, God often does not come into the picture at all. Many people assume that love is whatever they want and that nothing else matters. Their picture of God, if they have one at all, is of a stern curmudgeon who wants to spoil their wishes by imposing rules that they find inconvenient or even irrational. Not by coincidence, those rules often coincide with principles proclaimed by Christians, who may try to write them into law because they believe that what God decrees is right for everyone, whether they believe in him or not.
God’s Love in the Structure of the World
How far churches or Christian organizations should endeavor to influence public policy in the name of God’s love is a complex question, but for those who believe that God is the Creator of the world we live in and that in his love for his creatures he has provided principles by which it should be governed, it is not unreasonable to campaign for a society in which those principles are upheld. For Christians, it is God who determines what love is, not us. The Psalms often mention the “steadfast love” of the Lord, which is revealed above all in his laws.
In love, God established the created order for our benefit. It is precisely because of the love of God that if we defy the laws of nature we are liable to suffer the consequences (even when these consequences do not appear for a while). Of course, there are complex issues here that defy simple solutions. We should not willingly accept the presence of deadly diseases like malaria on the ground that they are somehow “natural” and ought to be tolerated. Does anyone seriously regret the virtual elimination of scourges like smallpox and polio? How should we apply our principles to genetically modified crops? Do they contain long-term dangers of which we are as yet unaware? What is the loving thing to do? Does God’s love mean that we should prioritize human happiness, or should we sacrifice our own well-being if pursuing it leads to negative consequences for the natural order? There is a balance to be struck here, but the divine command given to Adam to subdue the earth in Genesis 1:28 must surely justify at least some intervention. If it did not, there would be no point in doing anything at all, which is what some philosophies and religions advocate and which helps nobody. Is that what the God of love wants?
What Christians must insist on is that the one who made us has provided for our welfare by giving us minds that can discern the right way forward. This is particularly important when we live in a world that has turned away from God. Everybody agrees that there are problems in human life that need to be addressed, but not everyone sees that these problems are rooted in our inherited sinfulness. As a race and as individuals, we have rebelled against the God who created us and we suffer as a result. In reaching out to us in love, God could have removed every difficulty by a kind of cosmic surgical operation, but he did not. Instead, he respected human freedom by sending his Son to become one of us and to take our sins on himself. The supreme manifestation of God’s love for us is that “for our sake he [the Father] made him [the Son] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him [the Son] we might become the righteousness of God [the Father]” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Love’s True Nature: Transformative, Not Permissive
The God of love does not override his creation but works within it to achieve his purposes for it, and to give us back the quality of life that we lost when we rebelled against him. But far from abandoning us to our well-deserved fate, God the Father sent his Son to us, in order to bring us back to him. Can we ever really understand why the Son of God abandoned his heavenly dwelling in order to become like us? Would it not have been better for him to stay in heaven and write us off as hopeless? If we were in his position, that is what we might well decide to do. But the love of God is something altogether greater than anything we could ever imagine. It is the love of a shepherd who goes in search of his lost sheep, not because he likes them as they are, but because he wants to transform them into the creatures he wants them to be. To us who have rebelled against him, his love may appear to be constraining, and so “unloving” to the modern mind, but in fact it is the deepest love of all—the love that wants us to come in from the cold and darkness of sin and bask in the glorious light of his eternal presence. To quote John again: “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” (John 1:11–12). That is what we experience and proclaim as Christians. It is nothing less than the presence in our lives of the God who is love.
