The Christian spirituality of the love of God: Conceptual and experiential perspectives emanating from the Gospel of John

Abstract

Christians will never be able to fully grasp the identity and character of God. The Bible, despite acknowledging its divine inspiration, cannot fully communicate and explain the attributes or qualities of a God nobody has ever seen (Jn 1:18; 1 Jn 4:12, cf. 4:20). Christians do believe in the love, forgiveness and grace/mercy of God, but will never comprehend it completely; although, we still need to continuously investigate it. The objective of this study, from the perspective of the Gospel of John, was to investigate the concept of God’s transcendent love and how God can immanently be experienced as a God of love. Firstly, the article constructs a Johannine picture (concept) of love between the Father and the Son. Secondly, it points out how the love of God is foundationally linked to and ‘experienced’ of the familia Dei.

Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The article explores one of the qualities (attributes) of God, namely, the love of God as referred to in the Gospel of John. The exploration is carried out from two perspectives: God’s love within the divine being and love of creation. It relates to biblical, systematic and practical theology and also has some implications for missiology.