One day during my freshman year of high school, my gym class was combined with another gym class; our teachers were out, and the substitutes decided to turn us loose in the gym with a bunch of basketballs and other sports equipment. I was standing around, not sure what to do, and I saw a girl shooting hoops by herself. I was a lot more outgoing back then, so I walked over and asked to join her, hoping to make a new friend; she said yes, but at the first opportunity, she walked away and left me standing on my own.

I was insulted by this, and decided she must not be a very nice person. From that point on, I was excessively antagonistic in all of our interactions, and she gave as good as she got; quite some time passed before I learned that she had been badly bullied in school and thought I had come over as part of some scheme to torment her. We had badly misjudged each other’s character.

There are people who have badly misjudged God’s character as well. There are all these ideas about who God is that, simply put, don’t match what the Bible tells us. I won’t attempt to counter each and every single one of them in this post, but I hope to at least make a start.

The Bible says that God is love. But what exactly does that mean? To start with, it means that love is part of who God is, the core of His being. In my experience, people tend to look towards the New Testament to support this idea, but there’s actually a very interesting verse in the Old Testament that is relevant to this endeavor.

“Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in faithfulness and truth;’” (Exodus 34:6, NASB).

Before we can discuss this text, we must understand what is going on here. Back in Exodus 33, the Lord and Moses had a conversation. Moses asked to see His glory, and the Lord replied “‘I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the Lord before you’” (verse 19). Fast forward to Chapter 34, and Moses is up on Mt. Sinai; the Lord passes before him and proclaims His name starting in verse 6.

What we are reading in this passage is the start of God proclaiming His name, His identity, who He is. At first glance, it is relatively simple: God identifies Himself first and foremost as compassionate and merciful, and second as “slow to anger.” He is not the harsh, angry type of God so many people see Him as. He is also “abounding in faithfulness and truth;” He is reliable, committed, trustworthy, always keeping His promises. We learn a lot about God just by reading this passage, but there is yet still more to learn.

There are two words related to love in this passage; the first is hesed. As previously noted, hesed is a term with a lot of nuance, and different versions translate it in different ways. The NASB translates this term as “faithfulness,” the ESV as “steadfast love,” the KJV as “goodness,” and so on and so forth. Hesed encompasses all of these ideas and more. I personally prefer the term “lovingkindness,” as it includes the concept of kindness, which implies action, alongside the concept of love. The use of hesed means God is saying that His love is more than just affection; it is never-ending, faithful, compassionate, involving action on our behalf.

Something interesting to note is that hesed does not stand on its own; it is part of the phrase וְרַב-חֶסֶד (v’rav hesed). The word רַב (rav) means “great, many,” and it has a וְ, which is a vav conjunctive, in front of it, adding the word “and” to the phrase. Furthermore, rav is in construct form, which indicates origin or belonging, or being “of” somewhere or someone. A literal translation of the phrase v’rav hesed would be “and great of lovingkindness;” God does not have just a little lovingkindness, He has a lot.

A rchm root word is also present in this verse: the adjective רַחוּם (rachoom), which translates as “compassionate” and is always used to describe God. As a rchm root word, it implies family feeling, a parental love, not just compassion on its own (there is a Hebrew word that specifically means “compassionate,” and it is not used in this passage). God is emphasizing that He sees us as His children and loves us as such, as well as His compassion for us.

As previously noted, in Exodus 34:6, the Lord is revealing not just a name, but who He is and, because of the words used, how He relates to us. God is love: a steadfast, never-changing, compassionate love. He views us as His children; He cares for us, and takes care of us, helps us to learn and grow and become who we’re meant to be.

Some people have the view that God loving us means He will give us whatever we want and keep us from all disappointment and harm; they are usually upset when that proves not to be the case and some even lose their faith. But a good parent does not give in to their child’s every demand; they ensure their child has what they need, and sometimes give them what they want, but their top priority is their child’s best interest, their health and well-being. Sometimes that means saying no, or letting them make their own mistakes so they can learn from them. A good parent knows that adversity can bring about great good for a person.

That’s not to say that every bad or challenging thing that happens to us is God trying to teach us a lesson; the question of suffering is actually a complex one to answer, and a topic for a future post. For now, suffice it to say that God is not the only being operating in this universe, and not everything comes from Him. But because God loves us, He is always with us in whatever challenges we face, and makes everything turn out for our ultimate good.

God is love. Specifically, God is a never-ending, never-changing, parental love that has our best interests at heart. There is nothing we can do that can lose us God’s love. He loves each and every single one of us. We will explore this more in an upcoming post.