God's love was like a river with a dam in it. God's love was pent up, so to say. Then Christ came and on His cross removed the barrier and let out the love. That is what the cross was from God's side. Sin was the barrier, and God's Son came and broke down the barrier so God's love can flow out.
For four thousand years God had been testing man to see if he were a recoverable sinner. But every trial proved he was the more hopelessly irrecoverable. Then Christ entered the place of judgment and sin-bearing—bore it—and God raised Him from the dead. When God made the world, it was not said of creation that it was the "exceeding greatness of His power." It was merely the fiat of God as Creator. God spoke, and it was done. But the resurrection of Christ from the dead was "according to the working of His mighty power," or "power of His might," by which He set Him at His own right hand. (Eph. 1:19, 2019And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, 20Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, (Ephesians 1:19‑20).) Here it is the energy of the force of God's might put forth to raise Christ from the dead. Christ is looked upon as man here. He is God too, but as man God raised Him. Now why is this? Because Christ went down under judgment and bore the wrath of God on account of sin—because Christ was clearing the whole scene from God's side, that the unhindered heart of God could come out in all its living fullness and take a sinner dead in trespasses and sins and carry him up to the highest place in Christ in the glory. God's love is thus set free; Christ rises from the dead, having accomplished redemption.