When we read that “God is love” (1 John 4:8), we encounter a revelation of the very essence of the divine nature. It is not a marginal note about divine behavior. This declaration stands as one of Scripture’s most profound theological statements. Yet, it is often misunderstood as mere divine sentiment rather than as the ontological reality–the reality of God’s being.

Love does not arise in God as a reaction to the world, nor does it depend on the worthiness of its recipients. The Greek construction ho theos agape estin presents love as God’s being. God’s love flows from his infinite plenitude as Father, Son, and Spirit dwelling in eternal communion. The perfection of this intra-trinitarian love serves as the eternal fountain from which God’s covenant love for his people springs. The critical question has always been whether God’s love originates from within his own being or responds to external conditions. Scripture consistently testifies to the former: God’s love is self-originating, everlasting, and grounded in his own infinite perfection.

In this way, God’s love toward his redeemed represents nothing less than the overflow of his infinite, self-sufficient life. The same love that eternally flows between Father and Son through the Spirit becomes the foundation of redemption itself. This truth transforms how we understand both the security of salvation and the nature of divine grace.Love as God’s Own Nature

John’s simple but profound declaration—“God is love”—does not reduce God to a single attribute, but it places love at the center of his being. God is the “fullness of life” (Acts 17:25), not dependent on anything outside himself. Augustine saw this clearly when he argued that God must be triune, for love requires a lover, a beloved, and the bond of love (De Trinitate VIII.10). Without plurality of persons in the divine essence, the claim that God is love would collapse into abstraction.

Jonathan Edwards presses this point in his Discourse on the Trinity. For Edwards, the eternal relationship of the Father and the Son is an act of perfect delight. This delight is in his own infinite image. The Spirit is the personal love proceeding from the Father and the Son. In God’s triune life, there is infinite delight, fullness, and perfect communion. Thus, when God sets his love upon creatures, it is not to complete himself. Instead, it is to communicate that which he already possesses in infinite plenitude.

God’s Love as Grace (Deut 7:7–8; Jer 31:3)

God’s infinite covenant love for his people is portrayed in the Old Testament as pure grace. It is rooted not in Israel’s worth but in God. Deuteronomy 7:7–8 makes this explicit: “It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you… but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers.” Here, divine love is portrayed as self-originating. God does not explain his love by reference to Israel’s qualities, but by reference to himself. He loves because he loves.

Jeremiah 31:3 deepens this picture with the language of eternity: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.” The prophet locates God’s saving actions in time within the context of eternal, unchanging love. This everlasting love reflects not a shifting emotion but the stability of God’s own nature. It is because God is infinite in his own being that his love toward his people is steadfast and unending. Our love may be pass, grow, or diminish. God’s love, on the other hand, is beyond measure, without beginning, and without end.

God’s Love Manifest in Christ (John 3:16)

The climactic revelation of God’s love is in the giving of the Son. John 3:16 grounds the gift of Christ in God’s own love: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” The measure of divine love is not the greatness of the world but the greatness of the gift. This giving is not reluctant but the One who is the Word and Image of the Father (Jn 1; Heb 1). The gift is the expression of God’s nature and his bringing us to share in His family. Edwards comments that the love of God in the gospel is the “overflow of the infinite fountain of love that God is in himself” (Charity and Its Fruits). What God eternally is within himself—Father, Son, and Spirit in perfect communion—breaks into history in the mission of the Son. The cross is therefore not simply an event of human reconciliation, but the historical manifestation of the eternal love of God.

God’s Love Displayed in Salvation (Eph 2:4–7)

Paul anchors the believer’s salvation in the rich mercy and great love of God: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us… made us alive together with Christ” (Eph 2:4–5). The phrase “because of the great love” directs us not to human merit but to the depths of God’s own nature. Paul emphasizes the superabundance of divine love by linking it to God’s desire to display “the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (2:7). God’s saving purpose is to communicate the inexhaustible abundance of his own being to his people.

This passage makes clear that God’s love is not a momentary act, but an eternal purpose. The “immeasurable riches” of his grace will unfold through the ages, testifying forever to the infinite source from which they come.

God’s Infinite Love Set Eternally Upon His People

When Scripture declares that God loved his people with an everlasting love, it reveals that the divine will of love precedes creation and redemption. The eternal counsel of God to set his love upon a people in Christ is grounded in the plenitude of his own being. As Edwards argues, God’s end in creation and redemption is “the communication of his own infinite fullness” (The End for Which God Created the World). The love of God, then, is not arbitrary will but the eternal expression of who God is in himself.

Therefore, the love with which God loves his people is the overflow of and gracious sharing of the love eternally is within God. Out of God’s Triune fullness, God has freely and eternally chosen to set his love on a people who will be brought into the fellowship of this love (John 17:24–26).

Conclusion

The doctrine of God’s infinite love stands inseparable from his perfection and Triune nature. Love does not represent some attribute added to God’s being. Rather, it constitutes his very essence as Father, Son, and Spirit dwelling in eternal fullness. This truth has profound implications for how we understand salvation and assurance.

God’s love flows from his own infinite being rather than from any external cause. When Moses declares in Deuteronomy 7:7-8 that the Lord set his love upon Israel “not because you were more in number than any people…but because the Lord loved you,” he establishes love’s self-originating character. The Hebrew ahab here points to an electing love that finds its source solely within God himself. Jeremiah reinforces this truth when he proclaims, “I have loved you with an everlasting love” (ahavat olam, Jer. 31:3). The prophet reveals love’s eternal duration, rooted not in Israel’s faithfulness but in God’s unchanging nature. This same theme resonates through the New Testament. John’s declaration that “God is love” (ho theos agape estin, 1 John 4:8) uses the present tense to indicate love as God’s continuous, essential being. Paul echoes this in Romans 8:38-39, where he grounds the believer’s security in the love of God that is “in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Jonathan Edwards provides crucial insight into how this divine love operates. In The End for Which God Created the World, he demonstrates that God’s love toward his elect represents nothing less than the communication of the infinite delight God has in himself. The Father’s eternal pleasure in the Son, flowing through the Spirit, becomes the fountain from which redemptive love springs. This is not God seeking something he lacks, but God sharing the abundance he eternally possesses. Edwards writes, “The disposition to communicate himself, or diffuse his own fullness, was what moved him to create the world.” Divine love thus flows from fullness, not emptiness. God loves his people with the very love that constitutes his triune being.

This understanding transforms how we understand the love God has for his people. The church’s confidence rests not on the shifting ground of human response but on the infinite stability of God’s triune love. Because God’s people are loved with the very love that God is, their security cannot depend on their performance. “Nothing can prevent God from loving us, because his love flows from himself” (Calvin)