God is Love

What exactly do "God is love" mean? In a podcast episode, my guest and I got a little tangled up trying to put a pin in this concept. Hopefully this provides more clarity.

In Season 1, Episode 1: Defining God (featuring Walt), a guest and I got into a conversation about the conceptual metaphor "God is Love." In the discussion, he was convinced that I didn't mean God is literally love and I was convinced I was. As I prepped the episode for release, I thought about this concept and I wanted to present a clearer view of this concept (especially since the next topic we're going to tackle is love!).

Love is wholly defined within the definition of God

If you look at the image to the right, you'll see that the concept of love is within God. In a sense, he was right that they aren't exactly the same. If they were exactly the same, they could be used interchangeably. Where it gets interesting is the fact that from a Biblical standpoint (re: the way I see it), love is wholly confined within God. There are no aspects in which love is something that God is not. Which is the route the conversation went.

We touched on the fact that people have different views of love, and I was hesitant to say with absolute certainty that absolutely nothing is true about love and false about God. However, I can now say that with absolute certainty. So I wanted to share that. The reason he thought it was possible to say something about love that isn't true about God is because we have different views of love. The thing is, the reason we have different views of love is because we have different ideas about God. The closer we become to God, and the more we understand Him, the closer our definition of love falls inline with what He created it to be and what it actually is. We cannot fully understand love without knowing God.

He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.1 John 4:8 KJV