John looked at the love of God expressed freely in Jesus and said, “God IS Love”. So we cannot describe the Being of God in any other way than simply the one who loves freely. This is the true God and no other.

When I say that God loves freely I simply mean that His love moves entirely from himself as love. He is the loving God who is what he is in the free expression of his love moving from himself alone. God IS the one who loves freely. That’s what we see in Jesus, the one who makes God known.

But is this where we usually begin when considering who God is? I think too many of us begin with philosophical ideas about the divine being. God is infinite, eternal, unchanging and so on. He is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. He is the perfect “Omni-being”. This is the actual “stuff” of divinity. So when we talk about God this is where we begin. And where some may actually stay. We have in our heads this general idea of the most perfect being.

But is this the way God has made himself known? Has God opened up his own Being to us in these abstract philosophical ways? John tells us he has made himself known in the one who is close to the Father’s heart ( John 1:18 NRSV). He has made himself known as the one who loves freely seeking fellowship with us. This is God as He is in Himself.