What is God? (Part 1 – His love)

(Please read this slowly.)

The question, “What is God?” is an unfathomable and mysterious question for humans to ask. But can we use the Bible, which is the word of God, to tease out the major characteristics of what his substance is. What is God composed of?

God is the sum total of all the positive things. The expressed nature of God consists of these positive things. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, against such things there is no law.” (Gal. 5:22-23) The fruit of the Spirit is the expressed nature of God, so his expressed nature comprises of all these positive things. “For you were formerly darkness, now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light (for the fruit of the Light consists of all goodness and righteousness and truth).” (Eph. 5:8-9) The fruit of the Light consists of all goodness and righteousness and truth (reality). The Father’s nature is in all goodness (Mat. 19:17); the Son’s way towards the Father and his living on this earth was in all righteousness (Rom. 5:17-19); and the Spirit imputes all the truth as the Spirit of reality (John 14:16-17) into us. This is the Triune God Himself. The fruit of the Light is the expression of the Triune God Himself. It is all goodness, all righteousness, and all truth. That is why “Christ is all, and in all.” (Col. 3:13) That is why God is the sum total of all positive things.

As children of Light, we are the expressed element of what God is. (Eph. 5:8 – Footnote 1 – Recovery Version) We “are Light in the Lord” (Eph. 5:8) because we express his essence. As creatures on this earth, we were created to express the essence of who God is. That is why we were created in God’s image. As the Spirit of reality that we have all received (John 14:16-17; 1:16), we are to express the divine being, the essence of who God is Himself. That is why, “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.” (John 1:4) When the divine life, as the Spirit of reality, comes into us, it not only shines to illuminate our inner darkness, but it shines out from us for all to see. That is why, “The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” (John 1:5). The world will not understand the children of Light, they may just appreciate the fruits produced by the Spirit in us. This is the Light shining is darkness.

Light is the expressed element of what God is, but what is the essence of who God is? The inner substance of God is love (Eph. 5:8 – Footnote 1 – Recovery Version). In the Old Testament, it says, “Know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness for a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments;” (Deu. 7:9) He has a steadfast love (Exo. 34:6; Num. 14:18; Lam. 3:22; Psa. 86:5,15; Joel 2:13) and an abounding love (Psa. 145:8). His love towards us was so intense that He gave His only begotten Son to us, so that we would not perish, but would live, saving us. (John 3:16) In the New Testament, it says, “We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” (1 John 4:16) God is composed of love. His inner parts are constituted with love. The fabric of His being is love. His inner substance is love. The love that He has for us is so intense, so thorough and complete, that He was willing to sacrifice His Son for us, to give up His own life to save us. He was willing to be led, as “a lamb to the slaughter” (Isa. 53:7), to die on the cross for us – though He was the creator of this universe. This was the depth of His love for us. This is the inner substance of who God is.

This love is so absolute, so ultimate, so divine in nature. This love is incorruptible. It is not a natural love that we feel, it is the expression of God Himself. When we love God, it is with this same self-sacrificial love of God living out of us. “Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptible love.” (Eph. 6:24) The love we have for the Lord is with this same self-sacrificial incorruptible love. That is why Paul implores us, “by the mercies of God, to present [our] bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God” (Rom. 12:1). Our love for him will not be to preserve our natural life in the flesh, but to live the spiritual life that is wholly and absolutely separated to him. This is our “spiritual worship” (Rom. 12:1).

As we do this/as the Spirit expresses God’s incorruptible love through us, realize we have “become one Spirit with him” (1 Cor. 6:17). As the Spirit takes over our thoughts of what is right and wrong, we begin to only know love for the people of this world with God’s incorruptible love. “For God so loved the world” (John 3:16) – so we also love unconditionally with an incorruptible love that is of God. When we “know the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ” (Eph. 3:19 – Recovery Version), we will know what it is to “be filled unto all the fullness of God.” (Eph. 3:19) When we abide in love, we abide in God. “God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” (1 John 4:16) We are fully saturated and mingled in one Spirit with God Himself who is the very substance of love. That is how love is perfected in us. “By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as He is so also are we in this world.” (1 John 4:17) As he is so also are we. Realize this, “as he is so also are we…in this world,” we are to treat our brothers, in fact, all the images of God, like Christ did, with the same self-sacrificial incorruptible love of God. That in why we are “one Spirit with him” (1 Cor. 6:17).

When we love God with his incorruptible love, becoming one Spirit with him, we will love our brothers. That is why, “If anyone says, ’I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” (1 John 4:20) To love God means the inner substance of God, his incorruptible love, is shining forth from us. Who he is, emanates from us. The expressed element, his light, of the inner divine substance of God, his love, emanates from us. The light of his life shines forth from us as love in this world. That is how the church is built. That is how we “are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit” (Eph. 2:22) That is why Christ is “head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.” (Eph. 1:22-23)

What is God?…God is love…and we are to be the expressed part of who he is…