How to See God's Love
Can we know that God loves us? How? The apostle John says in 1 John 4 that we cannot see God (4:12). So is there anything we could point at to prove his love for us? Can we see the love of an unseen God?
Just a few verses earlier in 1 John 4, the apostle John tells us how we can see God’s love. In verse 9, he writes, “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him” (4:9). The next verse continues the same idea: “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
Note there is a very specific way the love of the invisible God was made visible: God sent his Son. Verses 9 and 10 both use that same, simple, wonderful phrase.
Don’t look for God to send a cloud that looks kind of like a heart to confirm his love for you; don’t look for him to send a pleasant bluebird to land on your shoulder to show his love; don’t hope for him to send an unexplainable warmth in your chest. God’s love for his people is not some vague sentiment that we’re supposed to feel in the ambiance of our surroundings somehow. To prove his love, don’t wait for him to send you a promotion, or send some unexpected income, or send some relief from pain, or send a new and improved version of your spouse who’s a bit more agreeable. Don’t look for him to send you the ability to live your best life now as the demonstration of his love. No! If you will prove his love, look at how he sent his Son.
If you want to know that God loves you, look in faith to the words of the Bible, and see there the only-begotten Son of God hanging dead on a cross, crushed by God his Father who loved him, out of love for us. Note carefully that Christ did not die so that God would love us; He died because God did. We lose our grip on God’s love whenever we lose sight of the cross.
This is love: He sent his Son so we might live (v. 9), and so we might have propitiation for sins (v. 10). Can you look at this bloody tree and question that God is love? When you consider the work of Christ, do you think to yourself with delight and amazement: “Oh my soul, what astonishing love God has shown!” If not, why? Why do we not hear about the work of Christ and conclude: “Wow, this is love!” as in verse 10? Why do we not see the cross and think with irrepressible gladness: “I see the love of God manifest there!” as in verse 9?
God sent his Son! Even though we know this, our hearts can still be hard and hesitant to see that God loves us. We can struggle to be convinced of the love of God, even in the face of the cross. Why might that be?
It isn’t only losing sight of the cross that can cause us to question God’s love. I fear it also happens because we so grossly devalue the cross, as if the Son of God dying on a cross for our sins just isn’t enough to move the needle to make us certain of the love God has for us. God gave us his only Son, but we often struggle to believe God loves us because he hasn’t given us other things.
He has given his Son as my savior! Yes, some will say, “That’s nice; but I still struggle to know he loves me because he hasn’t also given me a spouse who is good to me during this temporary earthly life.”
He has given his Son so I might live! “True, but I still struggle to know he loves me because he hasn’t given me a more enjoyable or satisfying job.”
He willed to crush his only Son for my iniquities! “Yes, and I do appreciate that very much, I really do, but, at the same time, look at what he hasn’t done for me: I’m not as attractive, or smart, or rich, or talented, or privileged, or healthy, or happy as some other people are, and I’d really like to be some of those things. I just can’t be sure that he loves me in the absence of those.”
“If only I didn’t have to live paycheck to paycheck, or had more discretionary income, or had an easier lot in life, or had less stress, or more comfort, or more friends, or more respect, or…”
“Being saved from sin and God’s wrath and eternal hell, that’s very nice and all, but I guess it just isn’t really my love language. That’s not what God or others need to do to make me know I’m loved. Of all beings, God should know that, right?”
We doubt the love of God when we view the accomplishment of the cross as a small thing, in comparison to other things that we might be wanting and caring about more. Thus, the thing that clouds our vision of God’s love can often be idolatry.
Now, I’m not trying to be harsh or trite. I know there are things that we go through in this sin-cursed, fallen world that are not as petty as many of the things I listed above.
Perhaps one doubts the love of God because he took their child away, or took their spouse away, or because he does not take some great physical suffering away, or does not take great loneliness away, or does not take persecution or abuse away, etc. I don’t intend to minimize these sufferings; I only intend to maximize the cross of Jesus Christ, and maximize in our eyes the real love that God has for us, which he displayed at Calvary.
There is no hard or evil thing that should ever make us wonder, “Is God really loving?” because we see the cross! No trial or failing should make us question whether or not God delights to give us himself and to give us every good thing. We need not doubt that he is happily committed with all his heart to secure for all his people all blessings for all of eternity. We don’t need to question these things because the love of God has been manifested among us in this way: he sent his Son as the propitiation for our sins, that we might live through him. Furthermore, if we will fix our eyes on the cross, that will help us to trust that God has loving purposes for allowing us to experience pain, or loss, or disappointment, or stumbling.
God could not have shown any greater love than he has! Let me say that again: what God did in sending his Son was the greatest possible love that God could have shown us. The Father’s only-begotten Son is his eternal delight, and the very radiance of his glory. This is the one God sent for us. Sending Christ is a greater gift than if God had given us all other things except Christ combined (cf. Romans 8:32). Because of who Christ is, we know that God could not have shown us any greater love than he did when he sent his Son for us.
When we see the greatness of God’s love on the cross—love so amazing, so divine—perhaps we can understand how John Owen drew this conclusion for Christians: “The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay on the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to him, is not to believe that he loves you.”¹
We need to repent for all the times we’ve looked at what we have in the cross, and come away unsatisfied with God’s love, and unconvinced of God’s love, because of some other thing we don’t have. And then after we mourn over our grievous, idolatrous devaluing of God’s inexpressible gift, we need to look again at the cross, and behold the love of God for us afresh. We see at the cross God’s love even for sinners like us, who doubt his love and devalue his Son, who take the great grace and salvation he offers too lightly, too often.
This is how you can teach you soul to sing, “What wondrous love is this, O my soul!” This is how you see God’s love.
1. John Owen, Communion with God, abridged by R.J.K. Law (Banner of Truth, 1991), p.13.