Finally, brethren, rejoice, be made complete, be comforted, be like-minded, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. (2 Corinthians 13:11)

While the exact phrase, “the God of love,” only occurs here in the NT (NASB), His character as loving saturates the NT. According to Jesus, love summarizes the entire Law of Moses, namely, loving God and loving your neighbor (Luke 10:27). Who of us cannot quote John 3:16? Who has not come across John’s assessment: “The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:8)? Or, “God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 John 4:16)?

Yes, God is the God of love. Did you notice how much of the NT talk about God’s love is connected with our love for each other? The apostle John reflects, “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11).

What is poignant about the phrase “the God of love” in our passage today is that it comes at the end of Paul’s writings to a selfish, divisive bunch of believers who could be described in many ways, except loving! They even used the Lord’s Supper, communion, for their own selfish purposes. Paul thoroughly rebukes them for this: “Therefore when you meet together, it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper, for in your eating each one takes his own supper first; and one is hungry and another is drunk” (1 Cor 11:20–21). Hard to believe the level of self-interest that existed there in that worldly church!

The great irony is this: If the Corinthians had truly understood that He is the God of love, then they would have been the disciples of love. Remember what Jesus taught His closest followers in the Upper Room: “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). Love begets love. That will be the evidence of our faith, of our connection with Christ. Love for others will be the substantiation of our testimony that God loves the whole world (John 3:16).

This is how we know God is love: One, the Bible says so. Two, Christ in love died for us (Rom 5:8). Three, God loves us through the loving actions of other Christians toward us. Four, God loves others through our loving acts toward them. All because He is the “God of love.”

This concept is not a club to use against other Christians when they mistreat us. Rather it is a clarion call for each of us to reflect God’s image, showing others so that they can know Him as the God of love, working through us toward them.

Lord, use me to love others, the way You love me.