1 John 4:8

He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

God is love ... This profoundly beautiful and encouraging statement about the Father must rank, along with others, as one of the grandest in all Scripture. Wesley said, "Love is God's reigning attribute that sheds an amiable glory upon all of his other perfections."[26] Barclay called this, "probably the single greatest statement about God in the whole Bible ... It is amazing how many doors that single statement unlocks and how many questions it answers."[27]

However, Wilder cautioned that, "God's nature is not exhausted by the quality of love."[28] God is light (1 John 1:5), and spirit (John 4:24), and (considering the oneness of the Father with the Son) he is life, and truth (John 14:6). Moreover, "Our God is a consuming fire" (Hebrews 12:29).

It is a failure to recognize that no single word is capable of describing the ineffable God which leads to a gross perversion of this marvelous text in the popular mind. Some hail this verse, as if it said, "Love is God; and here is a God we can all handle; bring on the love!" Many who read these precious words of John do not seem to be aware of the holy and self-sacrificing love about which John wrote. God's love for mankind and his glorious attribute of love do not in any manner alter or negate the revelation that "the wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men" (Romans 1:18), nor the revelation concerning God that he "will judge the world in righteousness" (Acts 17:31). Furthermore, there is no conflict between John and Paul on this point. John's description of the final judgment in Revelation 6:15-17 is as soul-shaking a view of the wrath of God in judgment as any in the whole Bible. The proper view of God's love must be big enough to understand that his final judgment and overthrow of wickedness will be, in itself, a mark of eternal love.

And yet such thoughts should not detract from the unique glory of this text. No one in the whole world ever knew that God is love until it was revealed from heaven and written in the New Testament. "It is here, and nowhere else; it is not found in all the literature of mankind."[29]

[26] John Wesley, op. cit., p. 914.

[27] William Barclay, op. cit., p. 98.

[28] Amos N. Wilder, op. cit., p. 280.

[29] H. A. Ironside, Addresses on the Epistles of John (New York: Loizeaux Brothers, Inc., 1931), p. 138.