The Attributes of God: Love

This is the attribute most often quoted and most often bent out of shape.
Scripture famously says God is love. But that statement does not identify God as some abstract force, and we have to keep that in mind. In the sentence "God is love", the two halves are not equally exchangeable. Compare a sentence where they are: "the blue whale is the largest mammal" can be turned around, because both halves point at the same thing. "God is love" cannot. God is love; love is not God.
That matters because the reversed version is everywhere, and it quietly replaces a person with a feeling. Once love is God, whatever feels loving becomes authoritative - and God has been edited out of his own attribute.
The word used is agape, one of several Greek words for love, and it is especially oriented to self-sacrifice. Not primarily an emotion. A disposition to give yourself up for someone. Which is why the ultimate expression of God's love is not a statement at all, but the work of Christ.
Scripture links:
- 1 John 4:8 - God is love.
- John 3:16 - for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.
- Romans 5:8 - while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Not a feeling God has. A self-giving he is.