In the Love of Christ
Jesus is not mere evidence of God’s love. Jesus is both how we know God loves us and how we experience God’s love daily.
“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” (1 John 4:9).
We cannot read this simply as God showed his love for us by sending Jesus. That is wonderfully true, and scripture makes that clear elsewhere. But John is trying to communicate something more full and profound. We know this because the verse says “In this the love of God was made manifest.”
So Jesus is not just a symbol of God’s love.
He is not just a messenger for God’s love.
He does not merely share God’s love with us.
He is the embodiment of God’s love. The incarnation is, as Thomas Goodwin put it, “love covered over in flesh”.
That’s what it looks like for God’s’ love to be made manifest among us, as the verse says. Jesus put on flesh and “took the form of a servant.” (Phil. 2:7) He was not a mere concept of love, or “best wishes” from afar. Rather he was a friend of sinners, a welcomer of little children, and compassionate to the least among us. He was a living sacrifice.
Jesus is not mere evidence of God’s love. Jesus is both how we know God loves us and how we experience God’s love daily. If you are in Christ, then you are in the love of God. We celebrate Christmas in December, but we rejoice in the incarnation of Jesus every day because by it we receive the love of God and live in it.