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I can't put my finger on why, but a more than noticeable number of Christians really don't like it when I emphasize God's love. Maybe it's because, as much as we don't want to admit it, some Christians view God's holiness and our misconception of justice as superseding God's love.

Some Christians believe that focusing too much on God's love can overshadow God's holiness and justice. They assert that God's nature is multifaceted and that God's actions are directed by righteousness and moral purity. In this view, emphasizing love might lead to neglect of the consequences of sin and the seriousness of divine justice.

Though I'm afraid I must disagree with this viewpoint, I understand it. For years, I bought into this line of thinking without question. On the surface, it makes complete sense. God says God is holy and separate from us, so that attribute needs to be considered. Furthermore, God being a God of justice means that even if not in this life, those who got away with atrocious acts of evil in this life will ultimately get their due punishment.

As someone who tends toward justice, I was drawn to the idea of no one getting away with their sin. God's justice was an ideal way to deal with the problem of evil. When folks who question the existence of God ask, "Why would a loving God allow a Hitler to exist?" I could lean on the trusty, "Because God is perfectly just, we can rest assured the Hitlers of history will get theirs in the end, and it'll be for eternity!"

Here's the problem: My response and others like it are not rooted in God's justice but in our passionate desire for vengeance. Our emotions, such as anger, resentment, rage, and retribution, lead us to mistake vengeance for justice. Vengeance is sacrificing the long-term for a short-term sense of satisfaction. It is an immediate reaction that seeks only to satisfy a desire for payback.

Conversely, justice focuses on long-term renewal that comes through distributive, restorative, and retributive forms of justice working in tandem. Our concept of justice, which is actually vengeance, does not fit into any of the three forms of Biblical justice. The nearest is retributive justice, but even here, the similarities are miniscule. Apart from both agreeing on some level of punishment, they differ in every other conceivable way.

Ultimately, our desire for bad people to be punished may come from a good place, but it is misplaced in seeking vengeance, not justice. The more I look at Jesus's life, the more I see God's attribute of love emphasized far more than God's holiness and justice.

Proactively, before the questions about hell flood the comments or my inbox, here are articles in which I have gone into detail on my view of hell.

The more I understand God's magnitude (I get that's a bit of an oxymoron) and how incomprehensible God is, the more I know that God's love is nothing like the best expression I can experience with my senses. Here are a few reasons that have convinced me God is far and away more loving than any human can ever fathom.

Throughout the Hebrew Bible (often referred to as the Old Testament to Christians), we see various expressions of divine love on display. To start, there is ahavah, which is the broadest Hebrew phrase that describes love. When God shows an ahavah kind of love, it is both an emotion and an action reflecting a choice. The choice is God's choosing to love and care for humanity.

Then there is chesed, God's lovingkindness, steadfast love, and mercy. This love is experienced through God's faithfulness despite our unfaithfulness. Finally, racham, or God's compassion and mercy, is working together. This is God's nurturing care on display. It demonstrates God's compassion and tenderness.

The New Testament, especially Jesus' teachings, emphasizes love as the greatest commandment. In Matthew 22:37-40, Jesus summarizes the Law and the Prophets with love for God and neighbor.

The Apostle Paul reinforces this in 1 Corinthians 13, highlighting that love is the greatest virtue, even above faith and hope. Have you ever considered why love is more significant than faith and hope? It's because love is the only one of the three virtues that's eternal.

Whatever comes after this life, we will no longer need faith and hope because we will be in the presence of God. To Paul, the idea is that in the presence of God, we will experience God's perfect love for all eternity. How can we convince ourselves that being in the presence of God's eternal love while friends, family, and other people throughout history are being eternally tormented is beyond comprehension? The centrality of love in the Hebrew and Christian Bible teaches a love that should permeate all understandings of God’s nature, including God's justice and holiness.

Emphasizing God's love does not negate holiness and justice. Instead, it shows us the transformative framework for understanding them. God's love inspires believers to live justly and pursue holiness out of a desire to love others the same way God loves us rather than fearing punishment. Love is the only motivating force strong enough to bring about genuine transformation. It is infinitely more effective than fear of God's holiness or justice alone.

At the heart of the Christian tradition is believing in a relational God who desires a loving relationship with humanity. Not with some of humanity, or redeemed humanity, or the elect humanity, humanity. All of us. This relationally driven, love-powered view posits that understanding God primarily as loving fosters deeper, more authentic relationships with God, ourselves, and others. It is a love grounded in empathy, compassion, and kindness. The fruit of holiness and justice are rooted in God's love, not the other way around.

If you haven't already, I strongly recommend picking up a copy of God Can't: How to Believe in God And Love After Tragedy, Abuse, and Other Evilsby Thomas Jay Oord.

The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know. In my experience, one of the greatest fallacies today is when Christians (or any theistic religion, for that matter) convince themselves they have God figured out. We feel comforted by the idea that God is in control and is like a great puppet master in the sky orchestrating everything good and evil that happens in our lives.

What if, instead of trying to fit every decision and result (good or bad) under an umbrella of God's sovereignty, we were willing to take the narrow path of wrestling with complex issues that don't have easy answers? Rather than taking complex topics that are even harder to make sense of and changing God to make the problem more palatable, let's start with what we know about God and build from there.

If you walk away from this article with nothing else, please understand that God is love and always loves. This truth can help us make sense of suffering, tragedy, abuse, and evil without needing to justify them by claiming God allowed them.

As you read that last paragraph, I sincerely hope you don't try to comfort yourself by saying, "God's ways are not our ways." Professor Thomas Jay Oord explains the problem with this rationale,

If we can't comprehend what God means when God says they love us, then we have no idea what the love of God is. Furthermore, if God's love allows evil, abuse, suffering, or tragedy to befall us, that is not a love worth our pursuit. Never would we say someone who commits horrific acts of evil is somehow loving because some unknown future good could possiblycome out of the evil they've committed or enabled.

From my experience, people who get upset about my emphasis on the radical love of God do so because it removes an obstacle they use to justify a lack of love and compassion in their lives. When the holiness and justice of God are prioritized, we feel as if we have the justification to treat people like 'others,' to create in-groups and out-groups. Worst of all, it cultivates within us a superiority complex that permits us to neglect to show compassion, kindness, and justice for those different than us. Ultimately, holiness and justice are used as barriers to keep us from loving God and others as we love ourselves.

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