“So Christ is too the love of God (1 John 4:16) where God is said to be love, not in respect of what He is in Himself, but in what He is to us in giving His Son.

‘God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son.’ (John 3:16) And not only so, but He who Himself was God ‘laid down His life for us’ (1 John 3:16), sinners, enemies, which all commend that love (Rom. 5).

And thus is the love of God made manifest to the utmost (1 John 4:9) that whereas none could see the infinite love of God as it is in Himself— nor can, nor could anyone ever have come to have fathomed the infinite sweetnesses of love and kindnesses that lie at the bottom of God’s heart.

Therefore God, to express the utmost of it, gave Christ, that in the love of Christ we might comprehend the height, the breadth, the depth of that love that yet passeth knowledge (Eph. 3:19).”

–Thomas Goodwin, “A Discourse on the Glory of the Gospel,” The Works of Thomas Goodwin, Volume 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage, 1862/2006), 4: 268.