We believe in love

One of my favourite passages in the Bible is 1 John 4:13–16.

By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Saviour of the world. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us.

The whole is wonderful; but it’s the last sentence that really grabs me: we have known and believe the love God has for us. What moves me is the idea that the object of our faith is God’s love. It is God’s love for us that arrests our attention, compels our conviction, and evokes our trust. God’s love is what calls out belief. It is the ground of our faith.

Of course, John hasn’t forgotten about everything else: he has “seen” what God has done. He understands the gospel. And yet he goes further than this. Our confession that Jesus is the Son of God, whom the Father has sent to be the world’s Saviour leads to communion with God in the Spirit, and in this communion we realise the true ground of faith. At the deepest level, it is the love of God that we respond to in faith: we believe in the love of God.