Have you ever tried to find the right word to describe an amazing sunset, or an experience that left you speechless? The Bible has that problem when it attempts to describe God. El Shaddai, Adonai, Elohim, Jehovah, Yahweh are all names of God used by the various Biblical authors to paint a picture of God’s nature and interaction with humanity.

The problem is that the infinite God cannot be reduced to a single word, so we use a wide range of names to more fully develop a picture of God’s nature and character. The meanings of these names include Creator, Self-existing One, Provider, Healer, Peace, My Shepherd, My Righteousness, My Sanctifier, the One who is Near, the One who Sees.

Reviewing the meanings of the names of God used throughout the Bible shows us that they focus on either God’s sovereignty or our wellbeing, healing, provision, and protection, to name a few. These are all aspects of love being extended to us. I believe that everything God does is based on the core of who God is, which I am convinced is love, so to the degree that it is possible, the name of God could be reduced to the one word ‘LOVE’.

The English language fails us by reducing the nuances of this powerful word, so for this book, I will be applying the meaning of the Greek word ‘agape’, which is the self-abandoning love that defines the Trinity. Agape love depicts the perichoretic[1] nature of love within the Godhead. It also shows us the depth of kenotic[2] self-sacrificial love shown by Jesus’ incarnation and subsequent death on the cross.

Love holds the Trinity together. Love is the motivating force behind God’s relationship with Israel, love is displayed as Jesus coming as a human being, and love is being willing to die on a cross to repair the damage of sin and death. (continues below…)

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We often view God in different lights, drawing the conclusion that God responds differently from one situation to another, but is this an accurate understanding of God’s character?

 

 

“Profoundly accessible, insightful, and practically grounded exploration of the transformative power of placing God’s love” – Greg Boyd

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Blog continued…

What is God like?

What if we replaced every name of God in the Bible with the word LOVE? How would the text read, and what might it reveal about God’s character? Let’s try a few and see how it fits…

• “In the beginning LOVE created the heavens and the earth… and it was good.” (Genesis 1:1)
• “And LOVE said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image’… and it was very good.” (Genesis 1:26)
• “And LOVE blessed them” (Genesis 1:28)
• “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with LOVE and the Word was LOVE” (John 1:1)

While many verses harmonize beautifully with the idea of LOVE, others confront us with dissonance, challenging our understanding of God’s character. What happens when we substitute LOVE into more challenging passages?

• “LOVE said to Noah, ‘I am surely going to destroy all the people and the earth” (Genesis 6:13)
• “LOVE said to Moses ‘Leave me alone and I will destroy them.” (Exodus 32:9-10)
• “When LOVE has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally.” (Deuteronomy 7:1-2)
• They fought against Midian, as LOVE commanded Moses, and killed every man… “Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man.” (Numbers 31:7-8,17)
• “LOVE said to Saul, ‘Now go and strike Amalek. Do not spare them, but kill both men and women, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.‘ ” (1 Samuel 15:3)

As we have seen, some verses are at odds with the compassion and mercy we associate with LOVE, forcing us to wrestle with difficult questions about interpretation.

While many passages easily align with the idea that God is LOVE, there are others that clash with this view. In these more difficult texts, LOVE appears to act in ways that jar with our understanding of compassion and mercy.

These difficult texts raise a critical question: Does God’s character change depending on circumstances, or are we misunderstanding these passages? The Bible says that God is unchanging[3], so if God is love, then God is always love. If God is vengeful, then God is always vengeful.

In Colossians 1:15 Paul says, “Jesus is the (visible) image of the invisible God“, which grounds our understanding of God’s character in the life and teaching of Jesus. This means that if we want to understand God’s character, we need only look at Jesus—his compassion, humility, and unwavering commitment to love and accept those who society rejected. Anything we see in the Bible that doesn’t look like Jesus, is a misrepresentation of God, or a misunderstanding by us.

As you read the Bible, trying using the word ‘LOVE’ wherever the word ‘God’ appears, and see how it fits with God’s character. If it fits well, then you will know you are seeing the essence of God, but if it clashes with the verse, then there is something in the text that needs to be revisited, reinterpreted and revised so that we aren’t attributing characteristics to God which don’t fit with the image of Jesus.

This practice helps us discern which scriptures reflect God’s essence and which might reveal human misunderstanding or cultural bias.

Reconciling LOVE with Justice

At this point, I would like to review the common belief that God is also holy and just, and that God’s love cannot be fully extended to us until God’s justice and holiness are fully satisfied.

The Bible affirms that God is both holy and just, however I suggest that it isn’t an ‘either/or’ situation. Holiness and justice are not competing forces that restrain God’s loving kindness. Instead, they flow from it. God’s holiness is not an intolerance of sin or imperfection but is God’s untainted purity which motivates a relentless commitment to restore creation to its intended goodness. It is not a barrier that separates God from humanity. Likewise, God’s justice seeks healing not punishment, restoration instead of retribution. It is justice motivated by love whose goal is to set everything right, not punish everything that is wrong.

God’s character is perfectly in balance where eternal love energises eternal holiness and justice into our fallen world, but the commonly held view that justice is punitive is rooted in medieval feudal analogies, casts God as a wrathful monarch demanding reparation. I believe scripture shows us a God revealed in Jesus who seeks restoration, not punishment —healing the brokenness of sin through LOVE.

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the beliefs about God’s holiness (intolerance of sin) and justice (punishment for sin) have long and deep roots in Christendom, dating back to St. Augustine when feudal law existed in Western civilization. God’s holiness and justice were compared to the feudal king, who demanded fielty and harshly punished rebellion. (This will be elaborated on more fully as the book progresses.)

Sin was seen as rebellion against the most supreme eternal King, therefore deserving of the most supreme eternal punishment. This way of thinking puts God at the top of the world’s pattern of justice, but God does not work by the ways of our world and is not aligned with the world’s thinking and practices.

Jesus primary messages were “I have come to show you the Father”[4], and “My kingdom is not of this world.”[5] What clearer message could there be that we need to see God’s love, holiness and justice through a different lens than what we have learned from our world?

Many argue that God’s love is tempered by holiness and justice. I suggest that it’s not about balancing love with justice, but seeing how love defines justice. The Bible teaches that God’s justice is restorative[6] not retributive, seeking to heal and make whole. Sin is not rebellion demanding punishment; it is brokenness that only LOVE can repair. It is not a crime to be avenged but a sickness to be healed through God’s restorative justice.

As Sophi Lee[7] aptly summarizes, “The entire narrative of the Bible points to God’s restorative justice at work in the world — restoring our relationship with Him and one another, directing us to see each other as image-bearers of God and to treat everyone with equality, fairness, and justice. We are tasked to create, restore, and sustain dignity in relationships with the same grace and love that God gave us.”

Restorative justice emanates from LOVE—repairing relationships, healing brokenness, and calls us to reflect that same LOVE in our lives and into our world. God is on a mission to restore the Garden of Eden, a place of true relationship with God, other people and our environment. A place where Sin does not taint everything, and Gods’ love is supreme. The final two chapters of Revelation close the story of God’s plan, showing that all will be well, and that LOVE will restore all things.

LOVE gives us hope, the confident expectation of something good.

[1] Perichoresis is the relationship of the three persons of the triune God to one another. The term was first used in Christian theology by the Church Fathers. It is a doctrine of the reciprocal inherence of the human and divine natures of Christ in each other (Wikipedia)

[2] The term kenosis refers to the doctrine of Christ’s “self-emptying” in His incarnation. The word comes from the Greek of Philippians 2:7, which says that Jesus “emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (ESV) – (Got Questions)

[3] Hebrews 13:8, James 1:17

[4] John 14:8-9

[5] John 18:36

[6] Numbers 5:6-7, Leviticus 6:1-7, Ezekiel 33:11, Isaiah 42 1-7, Isaiah 53:5, Jeremiah 30:17, Joel 2:25, Micah 7:18, Matthew 5:23-24, Luke 19:8, 2 Corinthians 2:6-8, 10-11, Galatians 6:1, 1 Peter 5:10

[7] https://sola.network/article/christ-models-restorative-justice/

 

 

This post has been expanded and developed into a new book titled “LOVE Theology: Seeing God Through the Lens of Love”. It explores the nature of God and discusses the importance of seeing God and ourselves in the light of God’s love.

Click on the link or the front cover image to see details about the book.