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There is a manner of Divinity in such a saying as this! It prepossesses the mind in favour of its supernal origin. And happy is it for us if such a statement as this — the very identification of the Godhead — fully agrees with our most fixed sentiments and easily coalesces with our most intimate feelings. For it is averse from all that man, left to his mere reason and arguing upon his naked information, ever entertained. Enter the Pagan temple, olden or extant. How merciless, how vindictive, how greedy of victims, how defiled with blood stains, are the idols of all! These are but the speculations we have formed of the Almighty Being who has made us. Our mind hates its own creations, but cannot paint them in any fairer hues. In opposition to these conjectures of an unconscious negligence and of a sanguinary malignity, God is love. And do you not feel the tender distinctiveness of this designation? It is not an appellative, it is not an epithet, it is not a quality. It is not only His name and His memorial. It is His nature! It is His being! It is Himself!

I. Love MAY BE CONSIDERED TO SUBSIST IN THE DIVINE NATURE UNDER THE FOLLOWING MODIFICATIONS.

1. Goodness. This is the disposition to communicate happiness. It displays its earliest effect in creating objects for itself. It calls into existence all whom it wills to bless. It adapts them to the means of enjoyment provided for them.

2. Complacency. This is the disposition which dwells in the mind of the Framer of all things to delight in whatever He has done. His works are great, and reflect back upon Him, in proportion to their kind and purpose, all His different perfections.

3. This Love not only includes goodness and complacency, but, as it now exists, and is now revealed, it takes the form of "the kindness and philanthropy of God our Saviour." This supposes certain dispositions of favour towards sinful men.

(1) Forbearance. This is not security from punishment — it still is imminent and due — but such delay that, if it be improved, the punishment may be wholly averted.

(2) Grace. This opposes every idea of claim or worth in them to whom it is extended, regarding only their total demerit.

(3) Mercy. This contemplates simply moral obnoxiousness and liability, or guilt, meeting it with acts which may remove it, as also by influences that may subdue the depravity from which that exposure to punishment or that guilt could alone arise.

(4) Compassion. This concerns itself with the misery and ruin which sin entails, and furnishes, in the room of these evil consequences, peace and joy and hope, everlasting consolation and eternal life.

II. IN DWELLING UPON DIVINE LOVE IN THIS ORDER OF ITS PARTICULAR AFFECTIONS AND OPERATIONS, SOME IMPORTANT DOCTRINES OF SCRIPTURE MUST BE MAINTAINED.

1. God is love, contemplated in Trinity. "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us!" "Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ." "The love of the Spirit." "He that sitteth on the throne." "The Lamb in the midst of the throne." "The seven-fold Spirit before the throne."

2. God is love, regarded in Covenant. A purpose is revealed as reigning in the Uncreated Mind which supposes engagements and stipulations. The Father seals the Mediator. Jesus is sent. The Holy Ghost is given. There is inauguration into office. There is subordination of trust.

3. God is love, engaged in special redeeming acts. To save the sinner He has not only to will. An immense arrangement must be contrived and established to give that will efficiency. The redemption of the soul is most precious and most difficult. It can be saved, but merely because with God all things are possible. He only can save it by means absolutely infinite.

III. A NECESSARY CONCEPTION OF DIVINE LOVE IS, THAT IT IS THE LOVE OF GOD PRIMARILY TO HIMSELF.

1. The original law illustrates this truth by presuming that He is love. For if this be "the first and great commandment, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart," then those qualities are to be found in Him which should be thus esteemed.

2. All the Divine perfections resolve themselves into love. If God were not faithful, righteous, holy, He could not be love: for that cannot be love which must only provoke whatever is contrary to itself. We, therefore, knowing that God is love because tie is most holy, cry to Him, "How excellent is Thy loving kindness!" "How great is His goodness, and how great is His beauty!"

3. If God be love, He cannot introduce, nor act upon, any opposite principle. He is love in being the adversary of all that interrupts its exercise and diffusion.

4. The love of God cannot, therefore, be justly disputed if He leave unremitted the consequences of sin. To carry out a benevolent plan must be as benevolent as the plan itself. Any act of mercy, being extra-judicial, being of a different order from the case supposed, cannot enter into our present vindication of essential love.

IV. LET US NOW ATTEMPT TO REFUTE CERTAIN OBJECTIONS WHICH ARE COMMONLY RAISED AGAINST THE THEME OF THE TEXT.

1. God was pleased to create man an intelligent and reasonable being.

2. God could not endow a creature with such mental gifts without including in them natural liberty.

3. God must, in the event of such a creation, hold the subject of it responsible for the exercise of his liberty.

4. God must, in rendering the creature accountable, promulgate a law.

5. God has so constituted us that we must always feel that we are free.

6. God can only treat the individual creature in agreement with the general welfare.

7. God has intimated to us that our planet dwelling does not include all His intelligent family, and that His system towards us is very imperfectly developed.

8. God may not be blamed for the consequences which He has forewarned, which are wilfully incurred, and which He has given His creatures the fullest liberty, and urged them by the strongest remonstrance, to avoid.

V. LET US NOW EXHIBIT THE MONUMENTS AND DEMONSTRATIONS OF THIS LOVE. The love of God in the gift, the humanity, and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, stands not apart from efficient results. There is no scheme of good but it avails to uphold and operates to secure.

(R. W. Hamilton, D. D.)

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KJV: And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

WEB: We know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and he who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.