When people say the phrase “God is love,” it appears to me they believe that since God is love, then God must love human beings and themselves. Even Reformed people write and speak like that. But what is this but a man-centered view of God? While it is a fact that “God is love,” we must deal with what that this statement means. A man-centered view of God just assumes that because God is love then He must love human beings and, of course, me. We must fight this tendency to view God and His glory from man-centered ways and motives. We make many assumptions based on deeply held presuppositions that if God is love then He must love all human beings and then we assume that we know what love is based on man-centered views. To put it bluntly and perhaps even callously, what can pass as theology in our world today, and in particular the discussion of the love of God, is an abomination to God and is an idol to human beings. Our views of the love of God have not been developed from a study of Scripture and of the character of God, but from and by the depths of darkened hearts that interpret everything by self-love. In our teaching, writing, and preaching on the love of God we have exchanged the glory of God for something made in our own image. Though we have claimed to know God, we have not honored Him and have been given over to futile speculations and so our foolish hearts have been darkened and we have become fools while professing to be wise (Romans 1:18-23). We have suppressed the truth of who God is by distorting His love and so we have exchanged the truth of God for a lie and have ended up in worship of ourselves rather than God (Romans 1:25).
It is utterly preposterous to determine what it means for God to be love by what it means for a fallen human to think he is loved. Even worse, it is a vicious and wicked form of idolatry. It is a wicked thing for a human being to make himself the standard of love for another human being, but when we make ourselves the standard of love for God we have just committed a sin that is beyond human expression or comprehension. We are so blinded by our self-love and our pride that we have made human beings the standard for God’s love and then we try to have as our standard that same god. It is exactly what the Pharisees did in other ways. They saw the standards of God and then moved them to where they were hard to keep but still attainable. We have done the same thing with the love of God. We have changed it to something we can obtain by our own effort and in our own strength. This is simply to say that we have lowered the character of God to make it more like ourselves. It is also to say that when we think of love in a way that is contrary to the character of God, we are vicious in our idolatry.
The only standard for the love of God is His love for Himself. To say that “God is love” according to the Bible is to say that within the triune God there is perfect and infinite love. Was God love from all eternity before He created human beings? Is God love now while untold numbers of people suffer His wrath? Will God be love in eternity while untold numbers suffer His just and perfect wrath for all eternity? If we use the standard of human beings to measure His love, then we will not understand what is really going on and we will not understand love at all. God is love and is perfect in that love for all eternity because He exists in perfect love for Himself as triune and He cannot change from that perfect love because He is life itself and is so immutably.
When we move the focus of God’s love from Himself to human beings, the focus and core of Reformed theology and all of theology has changed as well. The doctrines of God, salvation, of Christ and everything else will have changed. When Christ went to the cross, was His main motive and intent out of love for the Father or out of love for human beings? What is the Greatest Commandment? If Christ went to the cross out of love for human beings then He sinned and no one is saved. Instead of Christ hanging on the cross with a primary love for human beings, He had to have been on the cross out of perfect love for the Father or He was not a perfect sacrifice. This is not to deny that He loved sinners and gave Himself for them, but we must understand that His focus was not primarily on sinners or we end up with an idolatrous Savior, which is no Savior at all.
As we begin to grapple with what the phrase “God is love” really means, we must never back off from insisting that the meaning must be obtained from God’s love for Himself within the Trinity. We must also never back off from the doctrine of human depravity and know that the proud in heart are an abomination to God and that He will not dwell with the proud. All human beings are born in sin and are proud in heart and are at enmity with God. Unless God loves Himself within the Trinity there is no hope for human beings. Unless God loves Himself within the Trinity there could be no possible way for God to have a motive toward sinners other than loathing or disgust. We must get real about the nature of the love of God and of ourselves if we are going to understand the grace of God and of the Gospel. If we don’t, we will look like modern America sliding into the pit, which in fact we are.
God Loves... Himself 
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