God's Love and Impassibility

God is love. Since God is love, God can neither decrease nor increase in love. God’s love–as an

attribute of One who is eternal, who is ever active (always empowering, never empowered by His creatures; always providing, never passively receiving from His creatures), and who is pure being (never becoming)–is perfection rather than passion. This love is immutable, from within the Trinity, and had elect sinners especially in view from before the foundation of the world through the Covenant of Redemption. God’s love is presented as the basis for the incarnation: the means by which the second Person of the Trinity experiences suffering for the salvation of sinners. This passion is experienced according to His human nature, as it is impossible for the ever-blessed divine nature to suffer. The unchangeable love of God, expressed through the passion of the God-Man Jesus Christ, is the basis for our initial salvation and our perseverance in Him.

[My thinking on this matter has been tremendously helped by Samuel Renihan, in his teaching series,

his interview at Confessing Baptist, and the reader he produced: God Without Passions.]