God is love is not the complete truth about God so far as the bible is concerned. It is not an abstract definition which stands alone, but a summing up, from the believers standpoint, of what the whole revelation set forth in scripture tells us about its Author. This statement presupposes all the rest of the biblical witness to God. The God of whom John is speaking is the God who made the world, who judged it by the flood, who called Abraham and made of him a nation, who chastened His Old Testament people by conquest, captivity and exile, who sent His Son to save the world, who cast off unbelieving Israel and shorty before John wrote had destroyed Jerusalem, and who would one day judge the world in righteousness. It is this God, says John, who is love. It is perverse to quote Johns statement, as some do, as if it called into question the biblical witness to the severity of Gods justice. It is not possible to argue that a God who is love cannot also be a God who condemns and punishes the disobedient; for it is precisely of the God who does these very things that John is speaking.- J.I. Packer
Posted on: Tue, 01 Apr 2014 11:27:33 +0000
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