God Is Love
If God needs nothing, why did He create the world?
People often act because something is missing. They seek friendship, provision and happiness. It is easy to imagine God creating for similar reasons, as though He needed someone to love or someone to love Him.
Scripture gives a different starting point. God possesses life and fullness in Himself, giving everything without depending upon His creatures for anything (Acts 17:24-25). He made the world out of love, not out of need. His purposes unfold from the love He eternally bears His people in Christ.
The Character of Love
Paul describes love as patient and kind, without envy or pride, and not self-seeking. It keeps no resentful account of wrongs, rejoices in truth and endures (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).
Love gives. It seeks the good of the beloved without making its affection depend upon what they give in return. Paul's description also helps His people recognise God's character: His generous kindness, enduring patience and unfailing faithfulness. His love rejoices in truth and is inseparable from His holiness.
These qualities are eternal. The Father loved the Son before the foundation of the world (John 17:24). Creation reveals the love that already belongs to God.
Even time can be understood in this light: God created a world in which His eternal patience could be displayed. This is a theological inference, rather than an explicit explanation of time's creation, but Romans 9:22-23 connects His longsuffering in history with the revelation of His glory to the objects of His mercy.
All Things for His People
Someone who loves another unconditionally desires to give them everything and do anything for their good. In God, this generosity is joined to unlimited power. His sovereignty accomplishes what His love purposes.
"All things are yours," Paul tells believers (1 Corinthians 3:21). Addressing divisions over their teachers, he explains that those teachers serve them, then extends the promise to the world, life, death, the present and the future. All belong to them because they belong to Christ (verses 22-23).
All things were created for Christ (Colossians 1:16), and in Him they serve His people. Romans 8:28-30 connects their good with His predestination of them to conformity with His Son and final glory. Their everlasting good belongs to the purpose for which history exists.
God's elect, those He chose in Christ, were loved before creation. Ephesians 1:4-5 places their election and appointed adoption before the world's foundation; 2 Timothy 1:9 speaks of grace given them in Christ before time began.
Together with His sovereignty over all things, these passages show that His love for His people is fundamental to His purpose in creation. Even the fall and subsequent suffering belong within what He ordained to reveal His grace. Their salvation was always His intention, and history unfolds towards its fulfilment.
Love That Gives Everything
Jesus expressed the greatest demonstration of love: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). At the cross, He fulfilled that love for His people, giving Himself completely.
His death was appointed by God's counsel, though those who crucified Him acted wickedly (Acts 2:23). Their evil served His holy, saving purpose. Here God's eternal love became visible: He sent His Son as the sacrifice for His people's sins, so that they might live through Him (1 John 4:8-10).
God loved them knowing every sin they would commit. His eternal purpose already included their complete forgiveness through Christ. He reserved no offence as a reason for their final rejection; their whole debt was answered at the cross. Hebrews 10:14-17 joins Christ's finished offering to God's promise to remember their sins no more.
His people receive forgiveness through the faith He gives them, and repentance is itself His gift. His holy love provides both pardon and deliverance from the evil He hates, bringing them into fellowship with Himself.
Having given His own Son, God will freely give His people all things with Him (Romans 8:32). Creation, redemption and their eternal inheritance express one love. The One who rules all things loved them before all things, and has appointed all things to serve their everlasting good in Christ.
