(a) God’s Love Is Fundamentally God’s Self-Communication (see esp. Carson, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God, chap. 2).
As is the case with all the divine attributes, God not only is loving, but is also himself love. Love is the sharing of what he is with others.
John 5:19–26—Whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.…. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself.
John 3:16—God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son.
(b)God’s Love Is Self-Sacrificial
God not only gives himself to his creatures; he has also given himself up for his creatures—Substitution.
Ephesians 5:2—Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Ephesians 5:25—Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
Galatians 2:20—I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
(c)God’s Love Is Selfless
Love does not operate on the basis of what its object can give; rather, love operates on the basis of what it can give its object.
Deuteronomy 7:7–8—The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the LORD loved you.
Romans 5:6–8—When we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
(d)God’s Love is Self-Induced
God’s love is wholly voluntary. It is under no compulsion, and does not operate on the basis of merit or reciprocation in its object.
1 John 4:10—This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Hosea 14:4—I will love them freely.
Ephesians 1:3–5—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
(e)God’s Love Is Self-Referencing
God’s love always operates according to the ethical standard of God’s own holiness: his is always a righteous love. It cannot overlook or condone sin and cannot do wrong for the sake of its object.
John 3:16—God so loved the world (i.e., in a specific way), that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Stand Firm! 