We must not define God’s love by considering human love and saying God is like that, only much better. We must rather focus on God’s love revealed through Jesus and by his Spirit. As Marty Folsom writes,  “We must let the activity and self-giving of Jesus fill out for us what love looks like, especially if  we are to use the term of God”

With our eyes fixed on Jesus, we see that the Love of God revealed through him is totally self-giving. God so loved the world that he gave his Son to us and for us.  The Son loved us and gave himself to us and for us as one of us. Then God’s self-giving goes further as the Father gave his Spirit, through his Son, so that his self-giving love is poured freely into our hearts. Now, through the Spirit, we can respond to God’s love as we live in communion with the self-giving God.

This love, revealed through Jesus and by the Spirit, is also unconditional.  For it does not depend on any qualities we humans possess or any actions we perform. Whatever I may be in myself, wise or foolish, rich or poor, believing or godless, none of these is the reason for being loved. Yes, God does look for a response from us, but our response is not the basis for his self-giving love towards us. 

This self-giving and unconditional love, revealed in Jesus, perfectly corresponds to who God always is. So, we don’t say the real truth about God and his relationship with humanity might be something different. Rather, the love that God displays in Jesus by his Spirit is a true and faithful expression of the God who is Love.