For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from God’s love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
“God is love,” says the First Letter of John (1 John 4:8). But Scripture rarely describes God’s love in the abstract. It tells stories and uses images — a parent teaching a child to walk, a father running to a returning son, a covenant partner who will not walk away.
Steadfast love in the Old Testament
The Hebrew word hesed is translated in different Bibles as steadfast love, loving kindness, mercy or faithfulness. It is love bound to a promise. Psalm 136 repeats it in every one of its verses as a refrain.
Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good,
for His loving kindness endures forever.
The prophet Hosea pictures God as a parent whose child keeps turning away:
“When Israel was a child, then I loved him,
and called My son out of Egypt.
They called to them, so they went from them.
They sacrificed to the Baals,
and burned incense to engraved images.
Yet I taught Ephraim to walk.
I took them by their arms,
but they didn’t know that I healed them.
I drew them with cords of a man, with ties of love;
and I was to them like those who lift up the yoke on their necks;
and I bent down to him and I fed him.
Teaching Ephraim to walk, drawing him with ties of love, bending down to feed him — some of the tenderest language in the prophets.
And Zephaniah imagines God singing over His people:
The Lord, your God, is among you, a mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with joy. He will calm you in His love. He will rejoice over you with singing.
The Book of Wisdom, included in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles, extends that love to everything God has made:
For You love all things that are,
and abhor none of the things which You made;
For You never would have formed anything if You hated it.
How would anything have endured unless You had willed it?
Or that which was not called by You, how would it have been preserved?
But You spare all things, because they are Yours,
O Sovereign Lord, You who love the living.
Love that comes first
The New Testament places the decisive evidence of God’s love at the cross. Paul’s point in Romans 5 is about timing: God did not wait for people to become lovable.
But God commends His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
By this God’s love was revealed in us, that God has sent His only born Son into the world that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Love defined not by our love for God, but by God’s love for us.
Love that pursues
In the parable usually called the Prodigal Son, the father sees his son “still far off,” runs to him and embraces him before the son can finish his prepared apology.
“He arose and came to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was moved with compassion, and ran, fell on his neck, and kissed him.
Love that holds
Paul’s great list in Romans 8 names everything that might seem able to cut a person off from God — death, life, powers, the future — and denies each one.
For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from God’s love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
How traditions speak of it
All Christian traditions affirm that God’s love is freely given. They describe the human response differently: Catholic and Orthodox Christians speak of cooperating with grace, received especially through the sacraments; many Protestant traditions stress that God’s love is received by faith alone. The shared conviction is the one Paul states: nothing can separate believers from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
For love between people, see the Love topic and the explanation of 1 Corinthians 13:4–7.