Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 John 4:7
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
7 21. Love is the Mark of the Children of the God who is Love
7. Beloved, let us love one another ] See on 1Jn 3:2. The transition seems abrupt, as if the Apostle had summarily dismissed an unwelcome subject. But the connexions of thought in S. John’s writings are often so subtle, that it is rash to assert anywhere that two consecutive verses or sections are entirely without connecting links. Two such links may be found here. 1. The power to love one another, no less than the power to confess the Incarnation, is the gift of the Spirit ( 1Jn 4:2 ; 1Jn 4:12-13). And faith and love mutually aid one another. This is the case even between man and man. Faith and trust soon pass into love. 2. The antichristian spirit is a selfish one; it makes self, i.e. one’s own intellect and one’s own interest, the measure of all things. Just as it severs the Divine from the human in Christ, so it severs Divine love from human conduct in man. ‘Beloved, let us do far otherwise. Let us love one another’.
For the third and last time in this Epistle the Apostle introduces the subject of brotherly love. First it was introduced as a consequence and sign of walking in the light (1Jn 2:7-11). Next it was introduced as a special form of righteousness and mark of God’s children (1Jn 3:10-18). Here it appears as a gift of the Spirit of God, a contrast to the antichristian spirit, and above all as an effluence from the very Being of God.
‘Love one another’ here, as in 1Jn 3:11, applies primarily to the mutual love of Christians. The love of Christians to unbelievers is not expressly excluded, but it is not definitely before the Apostle’s mind.
love is of God ] And ‘we are of God’ ( 1Jn 4:6), and ‘ye are of God’ ( 1Jn 4:4); therefore there should be the family bond of love between us.
every one that loveth is born of God ] This follows from the preceding statement. If God is the source of all love, then whatever love a man has in him comes from God; and this part of his moral nature is of Divine origin. Of ‘ every one that loveth’ is this true, whether he be heathen or Christian: there is no limitation. If a Socrates or a Marcus Aurelius loves his fellow-men, it is by the grace of God that he does so. See concluding note on 1Jn 3:4.
knoweth God ] He comes by experience to know Him by thus sharing the Divine nature.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Beloved, let us love one another – This verse introduces a new topic, the consideration of which occupies the remainder of the chapter. See the Analysis. The subject is one on which John dwells more than on any other – that of love. His own character especially inclined him to the exercise of love; and the remarkable affection which the Lord Jesus had shown for him, seems to have had the effect to give this grace a special prominence in his views of what constituted true religion. Compare Joh 13:23. On the duty here enjoined, see the Joh 13:34-35 notes, and 1Jo 3:11, 1Jo 3:23 notes.
For love is of God –
- All true love has its origin in God.
(2)Real love shows that we have his Spirit, and that we belong to him.
(3)It assimilates us to God, or makes us more and more like him.
What is here said by the apostle is based on the truth of what he elsewhere affirms, 1Jo 4:8, that God is love. Hatred, envy, wrath, malice, all have their source in something else than God. He neither originates them, commends them, nor approves them.
And everyone that loveth, is born of God – Is a regenerated man. That is, everyone who has true love to Christians as such, or true brotherly love, is a true Christian. This cannot mean that everyone that loves his wife and children, his classmate, his partner in business, or his friend – his house, or his farms, or his horses, or his hounds, is a child of God; it must be understood as referring to the point under discussion. A man may have a great deal of natural affection toward his kindred; a great deal of benevolence in his character toward the poor and needy, and still he may have none of the love to which John refers. He may have no real love to God, to the Saviour, or to the children of God as such; and it would be absurd for such a one to argue because he loves his wife and children that therefore he loves God, or is born again.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
1Jn 4:7-10
Beloved, let us love one another
A triune philosophy
I.
The philosophy of the new birth. Everyone that loveth is born of God. To begin to love deeply, truely, purely–that is to be born again, for he that loveth is born of God.
II. The philosophy of the true knowledge of God. Everyone that loveth, knoweth God. Not in creeds but through love shall come true knowledge of God.
III. The philosophy of the atonement. Herein is love, etc. (B. J. Snell, M. A.)
Love is of God–God is love
I. Love is of God. This does not mean merely that love comes from God, and has its source in God; that He is the author or creator of it. All created things are of God, for by Him all things were made, and on Him they all depend. But love is not a created thing. It is a Divine property, a Divine affection. And it is of its essence to be communicative and begetting; to communicate itself, and, as it were, beget its own likeness. Love is of God. It is not merely of God, as every good gift is of God. It is of God, as being His own property, His own affection, His own love. It is, wherever it is found, the very love wherewith God loveth. If it is found in me, it is my loving with the very love with which God loves; it is my loving with a Divine love, a love that is thus emphatically of God. Everyone that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
1. None but one born of God can thus love with the love which, in this sense, is of God; therefore, one who so loves must needs be one who is born of God.
2. Being born of God implies knowing God. How it is the manner of God to love; what sort of love His is; love going out of self; love sacrificing self; love imparting and communicating self; love unsought and unbought; unconditional and unreserved; what kind of being, in respect of love, God is; you who are born of God know, even as the only begotten Son knows.
II. The opposite statement follows as a matter of course–He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. To love with the love which is of God, is to know God; not to love thus, is not to know God; for God is love. In this view, the proposition, God is love, really applies to both of the alternative ways of putting the case; the positive and the negative alike. It assigns the reason why it may be said on the one hand, Everyone that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God; and why it may also be said on the other hand, He that loveth not, knoweth not God. God is love. It is a necessity of His nature, it is His very nature to love. He cannot exist without loving. God is love before all creation; love in exercise; love not possible merely but actual; love forthgoing and communicative of itself; from the Father, the fountain of deity, to the Son; from the Father and the Son to the Holy Ghost. In creation, this love is seen forthgoing and communicative in a new way towards new objects. Sin enters, and death by sin; all sin, and all are doomed. Still God is love; the same love as ever. And in this now is manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent, etc. This is its crowning glory; the saving mission from God of His only begotten Son. It is consummated in our living through Him, through His being the propitiation for our sins. For now, effectual atonement being made for our guilt, our redemption and reconciliation being righteously and, therefore, surely effected by His being the propitiation for our sins; we, living through Him, are His brethren indeed. The love wherewith God loves Him dwells in us. God loves us even as He loves Him. And so at last the love which, from all eternity, it is of the very nature of Gods essential being to feel and exercise, finds its full fruition in the mighty multitude of all kindreds, and peoples, and nations, and tongues, who stand before the throne and give glory to Him who sitteth thereon, and to the Lamb forever and ever. (R. S. Candlish, D. D.)
Gods existence and love
There must of necessity be in some quarters today a denial that brotherly love rests upon love to God, because there is not a little denial of the being of God altogether. It is not merely the proposition God is love which is contested, but the previous and simpler proposition God is. I do not, of course, mean that this is quite a new thing; anyhow it is as old as the fourteenth Psalm; but certain occurrences, political and social, and the attitude assumed by some of our scientific men, and the tone of much of our current literature, have tended to give a prominence and practical importance to the denial that God is, which it had not half a century ago. But there is another tendency of our times which ought to be noted, and it is the tendency to deny that God is love. The first part of the proposition, we are sometimes told, may be accepted if you think it worth asserting: if you like to explain the order of the physical universe by the hypothesis of what you, call God, there is no harm in it, any more than making the hypothesis of an elastic medium pervading space, or of an electric fluid, or anything else which is hypothetical: but the moment you attribute purpose, and will, and love, and the exercise of moral government to this hypothetical God, then you are told that you fly in the face of modern observation and discovery. You are told, in fact, that the God whom science has revealed is an unbending, invariable, relentless, pitiless law, as different from love as the strokes of a steam engine are from the throbbings of a mothers heart. Now I have no desire to under rate or misrepresent scientific discovery; I do not deny, moreover, that there is much that happens in the world which it is difficult to reconcile with the conception of the overruling providence of a loving Father; anyone who chooses to hold a brief for those who deny that God is love will have no difficulty in finding arguments. But I believe the truth that God is love to be too genuine to be overthrown by any one of them: I believe it to rest upon grounds deeper, more philosophical, and more scientific, than any of the denials or objections which can be opposed to it. I believe that there is something in the human heart, in the universal nature of man, to which it appeals and to which it cannot appeal in vain. In the New Testament the proposition God is love is not an abstract theorem to be proved by the help of axioms and postulates, but it is the condensation in three words of the life of Jesus Christ, our Lord. When I see that weary, wandering Son of man going about doing good, when I see Him feeding the hungry, healing the sick, when I listen to Him preaching the gospel to the poor, and still more when I see Him nailed to the cross of shame, then I bow my head in humble adoration, and I say, In very deed and truth, God is love. This demonstration of the love of God has changed the face of the world: many of its most crying evils have ceased; a bright principle of light and love, which was all but unknown in previous ages, has shined upon the earth; men have gone about doing good, so as they never did before: hospitals are common things: we have seen so great a light in Jesus Christ that no other light is able to dazzle us. In the warmth and brightness of this Sun of our souls, we know and are persuaded that directly or indirectly all love comes from Him. (Bp. Harvey Goodwin.)
The lessons of love
If I mistake not, our first instinct is to suppose that to know God must be some result of hard thinking, something to be got by books, or something which is granted to intellectual power. Whatever truth there may be in this, there is no allusion to it all through Scripture which does not lead us to connect the thought of knowing God with the study, or the library, or the laboratory. It carries us into another region; it speaks of a knowledge which is open to the poor, the uneducated, the young. It speaks of a state of mind rather than of a degree of attainment; something which leads you to say and to feel as you see it in others, not how wonderful! but how beautiful!–not how did he amass all those stores of learning? but, how did he become so noble and so like Christ? He that loveth not, knoweth not God. Is that a hard saying to any of us? What, we ask, the mightiest intellect of modem times, rich with the spoils of time, does not that intellect know God? No, is the Divine answer, not if the man be selfish. It is one thing to know about God, to know what has been said of Him and written and thought of Him, and what science has revealed to us as to the modes of the operations of His hands. This is one thing; but to know God is another. To know God in any true sense is to be unselfish, to be loving, to have towards others the heart of a brother. He who gave us the intellect wishes us to use the intellect according to our age, our strength, our opportunities. Still all this knowledge is at the best knowledge about God not knowledge of God. Let us dare to look on yet further, and lift the wings of the soul. Are we speaking only of that which is, or of that also which shall be hereafter? Of what kind do you suppose will be that higher knowledge? Will it differ in kind from that which was learned often so painfully on earth? Will there be one measurement for the pure in heart who on earth have seen God, and another for those who wake up after His likeness and see His face in heaven? Will the higher knowledge be more of the illumined intellect, and less of the adoring heart? If so, it would not be a higher knowledge in the spiritual order; it would be a lower, with more of earth in it and less of heaven. Everyone that loveth will still know God, and he that loveth not will still not know God. Or, if we pass beyond the region of glowing words, and think calmly of what we have seen and felt in our short passage through life, what report have we to bring on this high matter? When have we seemed to ourselves to be least ignorant of our God, or, may I dare say, understand Him best? Has it been when we were trying to spell out some hard passages in the Bible, or the Creed, or when we caught the echo of some far off thunder of controversy; or has it not rather been when our hearts were touched by something lovely or of good report; when we mourned unselfishly some common loss; when something so moved us at the very centre of our being that all distinctions of age, of ability, of position were merged and lost in one full tide of brotherly affection, and we seemed for a time almost surprised at the nearness and clearness of heaven? There are times, for example, in early childhood, when we have committed some fault. Conscience acts with sternness, and makes her terrors known, but soon love casts out fear; we cannot bear to have done wrong to a mother, or a sister; confession is a necessity; we must have human forgiveness, because, though as yet we know it not, it is to us the image and the representative of the Divine. Then in that weakness and majesty of childish love which resists sin and insists on pardon, we have the knowledge of God. Young as we are, we look on life with the eyes of love and hope. We long to succour, to reform, to purify, to save. But these eyes of love and hope are in truth the eyes of God. Or once more, that which has touched us has been the closing scene of life. We have gathered round some good mans grave. Who shall measure the teaching power of the great? What pulpit, what creed, what treatise on theology, can match for one moment with the open tomb in teaching the knowledge of God? And why? Because we then have ears to hear; because the heart is not closed, but open; because, if I may dare to say so, the spirit of Christian love is in the air. Our hearts recall the gifts and the graces of the Christian dead which made him the loved and honoured. Such lives, such characters, such memories are, indeed, teachers in the knowledge of God. Yes, if it be, indeed, the sober truth, if it be the real state of the case in the external world, that everyone that loveth knoweth God, then our best, perhaps our only teachers in this high knowledge are those who have loving, unselfish hearts, and draw us, whether by the loving voice of an inexorable silence, to think of Him who in the language of heaven is love. (H. M. Butler, D. D.)
The love of God
I. The title beloved. It comes most naturally from John. He was old, and yet the ardent affection of youth still animated his soul. It is a noble triumph of grace to see this spirit maintained and manifested to the last. John had seen and felt much to disappoint and distress him. How he must have been exercised when he wrote 3Jn 1:9-10. All this, and much of the same kind, did not cool his warm heart. Its love still came gushing forth as it had done in the days of his Divine Master.
II. The duty of cherishing brotherly love implied in the exhortation, Let us love one another. While love is natural to the gracious soul, and cannot be suppressed, it is yet very susceptible of culture, and may be much strengthened by the exercise of the duty. Love may be increased by contemplating its object. In the present case that object is the believer. Suppose, then, that we consider him thoughtfully, what will be the effect? We think of his position and what is peculiar to it. His advantages and temptations, and duties and responsibilities present themselves to us. As we think of these we cannot help sympathising with him, and praying for him, and helping him as we have the opportunity. Again, as we are in the presence of a loved object, so is our affection increased. Hence arises the duty of cultivating the society of the godly. Acquaintance will secure many common advantages, and prevent many evils. How often have we cherished a prejudice against some one until it was dissipated by one friendly interview! We may add, the more we serve the object we love, the greater will be our attachment to it. It is not merely that habit confirms and increases the grace; but while this is true, every act of kindness we render draws out the heart in greater kindliness.
III. Many cogent reasons are assigned by the apostle for the exercise of this duty, which we proceed to consider.
1. Love is of God. It has its origin in Him. The more we possess it, the more we resemble Him. To have loved, therefore, is to be Godlike.
2. Everyone that loveth is born of God. Such love as He cherishes is not natural to man. It is contrary to the spirit and habit of a sinner. It exists only in the renewed heart. It is inspired by the Holy Ghost. In all its exercises, its gracious nature and source are conspicuous. It is directed mainly to the people of God.
3. Everyone that loveth knoweth God.
4. He that loveth not knoweth not God. This is said in the way of warning and confirmation. Let no man deceive himself. If there be not love there cannot be the knowledge of God.
5. But the weightiest reason of all yet remains, God is love. The essence of God is love. Power is a perfection. Wisdom is a perfection. Truth is a perfection. But it would not be sufficient to say love is a perfection. It lies as the substratum of the Divine character beneath all the perfections of God. It stimulates and employs them all. (J. Morgan, D. D.)
Christian love
Nothing can be more explicit. The whole nature of religion, as it is interpreted to us in Christianity, is comprised in that one word–love. The Divine nature is love; and piety in us is to be love. When a great structure is arising, there are multitudes of labourers; there are artisans in wood, in stone, in clay, in iron and metals; and each in his own department is in lawful authority. But higher than all of them is the artist and architect. His controlling authority brings all these various workers together, limits and directs their tasks, gives to their cooperative skill a central unity toward which they all are unconsciously tending. Does he, then, abate or limit the power of the heads of departments underneath him? Is not his influence necessary to their greatest development and the highest triumphs of their several skills? So in that temple of the human soul, which each one of us is building by the industries of many noble and potent faculties, Love is the architect, and gives the lines for a foundation, and forms the proportions, and teaches all these diverse faculties, not how to work in their kind and nature, but how, working in their kind and nature, to subserve higher purposes by a Divine unity, and purity, and moral excellence. Love unites their agencies.
I. Let us employ this truth as a criterion of human character. The law of God is the only thing by which we can measure a character. That law, set forth for mans obedience, is Thou shalt love the Lord thy God supremely, and thy fellow man as thyself. Now let us apply this test. Does any man live that does not violate this command of God, Thou shalt love? Let us look inward for one single moment. Did you ever know a man who could say, I have never, from the hour of conscious intelligence, carried my intellect so that in its operations I have violated the law of love? Let a man summon to the bar of his own conscience, pride. What a man would be physically without a backbone, that he would be mentally without the element of pride. And yet, has this element been so controlled in any man that it can rise up and say, I have never disregarded, either negatively or positively, the supreme law of love? Summon that most lithe and nimble feeling–the love of praise–and what man can say, I have so carried my vanity, my approbativeness, that it has always been in subordination to the law of love? Can any man say, My imagination has so acted as never to infract the law of love? Or, can any man say, My moral sentiments have so acted as never to overstep the law of love? What, then, shall we say of the lower feelings? What of the business, executive powers? What of the passions and appetites? Go through the soul, and look at every one of the faculties, and is there one that has not violated this law? I go still further. The action of each element in the soul has been such that its obedience to the law of love has been occasional, has been rare. There are spots where almost everybody, first or last, has felt some glow and warming of love; but to the greatest number of men that ever dwelt on earth, love has been just what Northern days are, when the sun stands above the horizon only one short hour, is sunk below it for the other twenty-three, and is growing worse and worse toward the six-months night. Is not the whole of our outer life, is not our daily conduct, are not our ambitions, are not our secular ends, is not our treatment of men, organised and solidly constructed upon a selfish motive? Thus the inward life and the outward conduct of men both come to one and the same testimony. They are both of them built up not only outside of Gods law, but right over against it, and in antagonism with it. These being the facts: Gods command of love being neglected, and your character and whole history turning on the infraction of it, ought I not to lay this terrible truth before you, and roll it again and again upon you? In my own case, the belief of this doctrine, instead of being an injury, has been a benefit. My charity for men has been augmented in the proportion in which my opinion of their goodness has been lowered. When I deal with men on the supposition that they are good, I am roused with impatience at the manifestations of their wickedness; and when I deal with them on the supposition that they are altogether sinful, I expect nothing from them, and I find myself prepared beforehand to treat them with charity and forbearance.
II. This truth affords, also, a criterion of conversion. There are such loose notions of what religion is, that we cannot too urgently hold attention to the fact that in Christs kingdom love is a characteristic element of piety; and that when a man is converted genuinely, he must be converted to the spirit of love. There may be other things with this spirit, but it is this that makes piety in Christs kingdom. Let us make some discriminations. A man may come to a certain state of great and sudden joy, and of relish for religious exercises, and yet not be a Christian. Religious inspirations and great fertility of feeling, of fancy, fervour of emotion, and elegant utterance, are not evidences, in themselves, of piety. They are blessed concomitants of it often; but they may exist separately from and independently of piety. Your piety is to be tested by its consistency with Gods law of love. The power of right ideas, the clearness with which you take hold of them, the aptness with which you are able to state them, your zeal for them–all these, while they are desirable in piety, are not characteristic of it; and a man may have them and not be a Christian. Gods orthodoxy is of the heart always. That will make the head correct. A man, also, may have great faith and not be a Christian. I go further, and say that a man may be a very generous, good fellow, a very agreeable, companionable man, and yet not be a Christian. A man, likewise, may have an unflinching zeal in religion, and constancy in its service, even to martyrdom, and yet not be a Christian. How many there are that are wardens and doorkeepers of Gods house, who have no love, no benevolence, no conscience, no fidelity. Zeal they may have, but summer in the soul they have not. I go still further, and say that religiousness is not piety. Far be it from me to say a word to discourage reverence, devoutness, awe, in the presence of God. But that alone, that without love, is not enough. With love, it makes piety broader and deeper, and life more massive and noble; but unless there be, first, intermediate, and last, the spirit and the law of love, there is no piety. When a man is converted, therefore, it is very important that he should be converted to the right thing. No man is a Christian till he is converted to the law of love. Since you made a profession of religion, are you kinder in the various relations of life? Is your life more full of the fruits of love? Have you a more comprehensive benevolence toward all mankind? Every year do you less and less accept the service of loving men as a task, and do you more and more accept it with cheerfulness? Do you find that the currents of your thought and feeling are setting outward instead of inward? Are you more full of the sweetness of true Christians love? In this direction you must measure to know whether you are growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. (H. W. Beecher.)
Christian love
If a writer upon the vegetable kingdom should say, The tree is of God, he would not be supposed to state any such commonplace fact that all the trees of the orchard and grove are His handiwork, but would be thought to mean some special genus or species of tree, so far exalted in form, uses, or beauty above other trees as to entitle it to this great distinction. It is the tree by eminence–the tree of God. So when John says love is of God, he indicates a special kind of love–a peculiar form or expression of love, so different from every other, so far above and beyond every other as to merit the distinction that it is from God.
I. Such is Christian love, and that we may understand and appreciate it, we must contrast it with other forms and degrees of that affection of the soul which we call love.
1. It is not the love of the parent for the child, nor of the child for the parent. This is, doubtless, God emplanted.
2. Christian love is not the love of friend for friend, nor what is called sexual love. This often springs from the most trivial causes–caprices of fancy.
3. It is not the love of complacency, which in its first and highest sense belongs to God, or His love for all men, which bears with sin, defiance, rebellion, and suspends penalty.
4. It is not to be confounded with even the finest intellectual apprehensions of the perfect and glorious attributes of God.
5. Nor is it identical with profound admiration for the work of God, with that easy and prevalent sentimentalism which is the creature of sublimity, magnitude, and natural beauty.
II. Let us reach it by degrees–positively–
1. With respect to God as its object, it is an affection largely independent of extensive and accurate knowledge. A man may be a sage or philosopher, and know it not. The savage or boor may know its meaning, feel its power.
2. It flows out toward man in the proportion that he is like God.
3. It is elective–knows by a singular instinct the true and the false.
4. It is unselfish and disinterested.
5. Christian love is charitable.
6. It is operative and practical.
7. It is progressive. (J. C. French.)
Love of relations and friends
There have been men who have supposed Christian love was so diffusive as not to admit of concentration upon individuals, so that we ought to love all men equally. And many, without bringing forward any theory, yet consider practically that the love of many is something superior to the love of one or two, and neglect the charities of private life, while busy in the schemes of an expansive benevolence, or of effecting a general union and conciliation among Christians. I shall here maintain, in opposition to such notions, that the best preparation for loving the world at large, and loving it duly and wisely, is to cultivate an intimate friendship and affection towards those who are immediately about us. It has been the plan of Divine Providence to ground what is good and true in religion and morals on the basis of our good natural feelings. What we are towards our earthly friends in the instincts and wishes of our infancy, such we are to become at length towards God and man in the extended field of our duties as accountable beings. To honour our parents is the first step towards honoring God; to love our brethren according to the flesh, the first step towards considering all men our brethren. The love of God is not the same thing as the love of our parents, though parallel to it; but the love of mankind in general should be in the main the same habit as the love of our friends, only exercised towards different objects. The great difficulty in our religious duties is their extent. This frightens and perplexes men, naturally; those especially who have neglected religion for a while, and on whom its obligations disclose themselves all at once. This, for example, is the great misery of leaving repentance till a man is in weakness or sickness; he does not know how to set about it. Now Gods merciful providence has in the natural course of things narrowed for us at first this large field of duty; He has given us a clue. We are to begin with loving our friends about us, and gradually to enlarge the circle of our affections, till it reaches all Christians, and then all men. By trying to love our relations and friends, by submitting to their wishes, though contrary to our own, by bearing with their infirmities, by overcoming their occasional waywardness by kindness, by dwelling on their excellences and trying to copy them, thus it is that we form in our hearts that root of charity which, though small at first, may, like the mustard seed, at last even overshadow the earth. Further, that love of friends and relations, which nature prescribes, is also of use to the Christian, in giving form and direction to his love of mankind at large, and making it intelligent and discriminating. A man who would fain begin by a general love of all men, necessarily puts them all on a level, and, instead of being cautious, prudent, and sympathising in his benevolence, is hasty and rude, does harm perhaps when he means to do good, discourages the virtuous and well-meaning, and wounds the feelings of the gentle. Men of ambitious and ardent minds, for example, desirous of doing good on a large scale, are especially exposed to the temptation of sacrificing individual to general good in their plans of charity. We can easily afford to be liberal on a large scale, when we have no affections to stand in the way. Those who have not accustomed themselves to love their neighbours whom they have seen, will have nothing to lose or gain, nothing to grieve at or rejoice in, in their larger plans of benevolence. They will take no interest in them for their own sake; rather, they will engage in them because expedience demands, or credit is gained, or an excuse found for being busy. Hence too we discern how it is that private virtue is the only sure foundation of public virtue; and that no national good is to be expected (though it may now and then accrue) from men who have not the fear of God before their eyes. I have hitherto considered the cultivation of domestic affections as the source of more extended Christian love. Did time permit, I might now go on to show besides that they involve a real and difficult exercise of it. Nothing is more likely to engender selfish habits (which is the direct opposite and negation of charity) than independence in our worldly circumstances. And this is one among the many providential benefits (to those who will receive them) arising out of the holy estate of matrimony, which not only calls out the tenderest and gentlest feelings of our nature, but, where persons do their duty, must be in various ways more or less a state of self-denial. Or, again, I might go on to consider the private charities, which have been my subject, not only as the sources and as the discipline of Christian love, but further, as the perfection of it; which they are in some cases. The Ancients thought so much of friendship that they made it a virtue. In a Christian view, it is not quite this; but it is often accidentally a special test of our virtue. For consider–let us say that this man, and that, not bound by any very necessary tie, find their greatest pleasure in living together; say that this continues for years, and that they love each others society the more the longer they enjoy it. Now observe what is implied in this. Young people, indeed, readily love each other, for they are cheerful and innocent, more easily yield to each other, and are full of hope–types, as Christ says, of His true converts. But this happiness does not last; their tastes change. Again, grown persons go on for years as friends; but these do not live together; and, if any accident throws them into familiarity for a while, they find it difficult to restrain their tempers and keep on terms, and discover that they are best friends at a distance. But what is it that can bind two friends together in intimate converse for a course of years but the participation in something that is unchangeable and essentially good, and what is this but religion? (J. H. Newman, D. D.)
Brotherly love
A famous writer has said that religion is morality touched with emotion. That is a very inadequate and unsatisfactory definition of Christianity; the only word that can adequately define the religion of Christ is love.
I. A very tender appeal: Beloved.
1. The cold, stoical nature is a power, but it is a power that repels from it, it never draws, it has not the least attractive force in it. If we would win men and persuade them to act as brethren, let us use tenderness. We need not use it to the exclusion of the light, purity, and truth of religion.
2. The sweet reasonableness of the appeal would have great force with those to whom the apostle wrote. Did they not owe everything in a religious sense to love, for had they not been told over and over again that God so loved the world? etc. The hardest and most solid ice will yield to the genial influences of the sun, and the most hardened and stubborn hearts will yield to the gracious power or love when every other force will fail to influence them.
3. It was a consistent appeal. Johns tender words came from a large and loving heart; it was because his heart felt that his lips spake the soft and gentle word.
II. An argument. For love is of God. Fire is found in many objects very dissimilar one from the other. It is found in coal in considerable quantity, it abounds in wood, it is contained in iron, and it is locked up in the flint; and it appears that there is some little measure of it in water even. It would seem that the sun cannot touch any object without imparting to some degree its own nature to that object; for, as you are aware, the sun is the inexhaustible source of fire wherever it is found, whether in the coal, or flint, or water. And wherever we meet with love, whether in the husband to the wife, or the wife to the husband, the brother to the sister, or the sister to the brother, the friend to the friend, or in one Christian to another; wherever we meet with it, God is the source of it, for God is love. In this argument John appeals to one of the most powerful instincts in man–the desire to be like the great. To imitate the great is a universal passion in men. To paint like the great masters is the one all-consuming passion of artists. If we carefully considered the thought in our calmer moments that to love is to be like God, the very sublimity of the idea would be enough to inspire us to love one another, even if every other motive failed. Where there is brotherly love, there is sure to be generous help if it be needed.
III. Two important signs of love.
1. Divine sonship–And everyone that loveth is begotten of God. These are very encouraging words. Almost all Christian people are sorely tried with dark and crushing doubts at one time or other in their history. In such moments of spiritual experience one of the most effectual ways of removing the wretched doubt is to ask ourselves the question, Do I love God and my brethren? If the answer be Yes, then we may console ourselves that we possess one of the most unmistakable signs of sonship.
2. A power to recognise God. And everyone that loveth knoweth God. The great intellect may recognise Him in His works and dealings with men, but much, if not everything, in regard to our knowledge of God depends upon the state of the heart. It is not of a mere superficial acquaintance with God that the apostle is speaking, such as we obtain of an object or a person by just seeing him a few times; he is speaking of that knowledge which is the grand result of apprehending God as the Father of our spirits and the Author of salvation–it is the knowledge that ripens into a firm faith and a calm trust in God as our unfailing Friend, who is reconciling the world to Himself in Jesus Christ. (D. Rhys Jenkins.)
The voice of God through human love
The true love, of which I would speak, may be thus defined–desire for the well-being of another. Whenever a person acts in the sole interest of another, and on his behalf alone, he is showing his love for him.
1. That love is an instinct or property of human nature needs little or no illustration.
2. There is a word to say also about the difference between love and the conscience. There is no conflict of claims here. Love and conscience both alike demand that we shall do our duty. But love will often discern what that duty is before the reason has a chance to be heard or the conscience has uttered its call. Love leaps up to enjoy doing what the colder and more sluggish conscience only says we ought to do.
3. That we depend largely on knowledge for a right indulgence of our love. Just as conscience requires us to do our best and to take pains to discover what is right, so true love demands still more anxiety. A mother bending over the sick bed of her son is racked with feverish anxiety to know what will do him good. With no less anxiety does a truly loving heart long to know and try to discover what is best to be done for the dear ones benefit. Love is an active, not a passive principle. It is self-sacrifice, not self-will or the worship of crotchets. True love begins at home, and if she is allowed her due rights there, she will not be wanting when we go abroad, nor fail us in our dealings with strangers or with the lower creation.
4. Love is the parent of many virtues. In the first place, love begets justice. Not only justice of deed but justice of thought, of which we all stand even more in need. You cannot be just to anyone whom you dislike or hate, you cannot be just and true to anyone for whom your love is not pure and true. True love then adds to justice the quality of mercy, not sparing in the condemnation of the sin, but tender, merciful, and forgiving to the sinner. Then we find love the faithful parent of patience, forbearance, humility, and meekness, all elements of the highest humanity and sources of unspeakable blessing and peace. When we truly love, we show all these virtues in their lustre. But I pass over them to lay emphasis on the healing and purifying effects of love upon our own sinful hearts. Nothing but love can make us truly repent. Just as we all have some unkindness to repent of, so we all have something to forgive. And love alone can teach us how to forgive right nobly and generously. We know also how love is the parent of the commonest virtues, diligence in business, honesty, trustworthiness–all such virtues are a thousand times over begotten and preserved by the love we bear to those dependent on us. For them we toil and work and keep our hands clean from dishonesty. For them we strive to preserve our character and the confidence of the world. And love is the mother of truthfulness. We all know and feel that the most cruel act we can do is to deceive one who trusts us. Never can we deceive or cheat one whom we truly love. And lastly, love begets courage and heroism. Time would fail me to recount the long and glorious catalogue of those who have given their lives for others–aye, for the undeserving. (C. Voysey.)
For love is of God—
Love is of God
The point which I wish to illustrate is that all the love in the universe is the gift of God. This proposition involves consequences of the most responsible character. Let us first unfold the principle, and then ascertain some of its resulting consequences. When the apostle tells us that God is love he wishes to convey to us the idea that love is the great motive power of the Divine Being. Love is that which shapes and guides all His attributes, so that each is manifested under the working of love, and each directed to the securing of love. But when the apostle says Love is of God he looks at love from another standpoint. He marks it in its human manifestations; and beholding it not so much as a great and original attribute of the Most High, but as seen in daily life, ramifying through all the grades and conditions of society, he traces the affection to its source, and says, Love is of God.
1. Take the first love which one human being ever felt for another–conjugal love–and mark how that is of God. In making the woman out of the rib of man–in uniting them, by the act of God Himself, in holy wedlock; in inspiring prophets and apostles to urge men to love their wives as their own bodies; and in likening the union of husband and wife to the mystical union which exists between Christ and the Church–God has indicated, by the most direct and authoritative way, that He was the author and giver of conjugal affection.
2. Take the second love which grew up on earth–parental love–and see how this is of God. We say, in common parlance, that it is natural for a man to love his child. But what constitutes the naturalness of this love, other than the fact that God implanted it in parents hearts, as a part of their moral constitution?
3. Take the third kind of affection, which, in the order of time, rises in the human breast–the love of children for parents–and we shall find the same truth holds here also. What would a household be, devoid of childrens love? What would a parents heart be if its outgoings of affection found no response in prattling boys and gentle girls? And how much of the sunlight of home would become darkness if filial love were blotted out from mind and memory and heart? Filial love constitutes a large part of human happiness, and pervades every class and condition of our race, and as it could never, by its very nature, create itself, because it is begotten before reason and judgment begin their workings, it must be Divine.
4. The same line of remark applies also to that love of kindred which Constitutes a part of mans moral being. He it is who setteth the solitary in families, who groups men into social circles, and, bestowing upon His creatures affections, calls out these affections in the various forms of social and domestic life.
5. Once more, look at love in the form of philanthropy. Here we behold it breaking over the dikes and channels of conjugal, family, or social affection, and spreading away like the Nile in its overflow, until it covers the entire lowlands of our race. This earth-encompassing and man-elevating love is of God. It is because the Bible tells us that we have one common Father, one common Saviour, one common Comforter, one common salvation, and one common earthly destiny. Now, what would earth be without these various kinds of love? What without philanthropy? It would be a mass of conglomerate selfishness, a world of war, of social discord, and of domestic misery. What would earth be without this love of kindred? The interlacing bonds of family with family would be sundered; society would be disintegrated, save only when force or interest made a union of what was else repulsive and undesired. What would the world be without filial or parental love? A family where there was parental authority without parental love, and where filial obedience was required without filial affection rendered, would not be a home but a prison. And above all, what would earth be without conjugal love–if there was no heart union between man and wife; no love to cheer, soften, and irradiate the lot of woman; no responsive affection to nerve and lift up and make happy the soul of man; if the marriage tie was only a bond of interest or of lust–a bond galling as the manacle of the convict? It would be as if some angel of the pit should pass through this world and turn its green fields into sand wastes, its forest-crowned and picturesque hills into bald rock, its floral kingdom into bramble land, its dancing, leaping, silvery waters into asphaltic streams, its exquisitely tinged clouds and its brilliant sunsets into Cimmerian gloom, its thousand bird melodies into discordant screams. Seeing, then, that with all mans sins and ill-doings, with all Gods punishments and curses, He has continued to us this love, the question arises, Have you ever seriously thought how much you ought to love God, who has given you the inestimable boon of human affection? Can you sum up your debt to Him for this one gift? Yet, when man rebelled against God, and cast off His sway, and virtually said to Him, We desire not a knowledge of Thy ways, God might most justly have stripped him of love and left him to the curse of the loveless and the unloved. It was His love to us which caused Him to continue love in us, There is no love in hell. There is one other aspect of the subject which I must touch upon. Wondrous as is the fact that, notwithstanding our sins, God still continued to us human love, and highly exalting as that fact is of His grace and mercy, it is not so great a display of His love as that manifested in providing for mans redemption. (Bp. Stevens.)
Everyone that loveth is born of God—
Love and religion
The phrase begotten of God is not a large, but it is a very great one. Whither can our genealogy be traced?
I. The Bible answers this immense question by the doctrine that God and man stand to each other in the relation of Father and child, This fact gives to human sin its crimson dye, and to human sorrow its peculiar pathos. Human sin is the sin of Absalom–of a son against his father. Here is a fall from heaven!
II. But the phrase begotten of God means much more than this. It answers the question, What is religion? Religion is orthodox belief, say some; a cult, say others; morality fired with emotion, say others. But the New Testament says that Except a man be born again from above he cannot see the kingdom of God. So far as man is a son by nature only, he may grow up to be dissatisfied with his fathers mode of life, and with the law of his fathers house. He may also adopt a course of action so widely divergent from his fathers that the natural bond between them shall serve only to reveal the widening gulf of character that separates them. To become truly a son he must be born again–must of his own choice accept as his father the parent Providence gave him, and must by his own love and conduct make the house in which Providence placed him a home. To be then fully born of God is for the soul, being filled with the Holy Spirit, to accept the salvation that is in Christ by faith in His blood, to acknowledge Gods fatherly authority, accept Gods law, live His life, do His work; or, in one word, to love God–he that loveth is born of God.
III. Religion, then, is love. Love is not something elementary, something for little children and babes in Christ. Love is final, infinite. It is both Alpha and Omega in religion. But what, you ask, of life and conduct? Well, a holy life is the natural outcome of love to God. If a man love God, he will avoid all sin and do all the good he can. It is related of an eminent singer that his teacher kept him day after day, and even month after month, practising the scales, in spite of the pupils entreaties for something more advanced. At last the master told him to go forth as the best singer in Europe, having mastered the scales. Not otherwise did our Lord teach His first disciples. For three years He taught them to love by miracle and parable, by prayer and sermon. He grounded them in love. When seated with them at the last supper He said: A new commandment I give unto you, and behold it was the old one, That ye love one another. After His resurrection He met the disciples on the beach, and He took the repentant Peter and put him through the scales: Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me? Having learnt to love, their education was complete, their training ended. They could go everywhere and do all things. So, if we truly love God, and love all men in God, we are truly religious. (J. M. Gibbon.)
And knoweth God—
Love and knowledge
The desire for knowledge, like the thirst of riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it. Knowledge is like fire: it must first be kindled from without; but once set burning, it propagates itself. Mans power is in his mind, not his arm. By his knowledge he is the true king of nature, saying to one element Go, and it goeth; to another Come, and it dare not disobey.
I. Yes, heaven has secrets. The soul, by the necessity of its constitution, must look for God; and its prayer is, Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Now the text meets this desire of the soul to know God by the emphatic declaration that everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. Love knows God, serves God, possesses God.
II. Well, everyone that loveth knoweth the men that have been, understandeth that which history saith of them. Love is very old. Love came in with Adam and Eve. Here is an old picture of love: The soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. He that loveth knoweth. He that loveth knoweth the love that Jonathan had for David, and his own heart is his best commentary on the verse.
III. Move one step further: He that loveth knoweth God. Love is the clue to human love. Love is the clue to the love of God. Wouldst thou know God? Have love in thine heart, and when thine heart is full of love, look into it, and the image thou shalt see will be a likeness of the face of God. Wouldst thou know Gods feeling for thy sin? Look how sensitive a thing is love–how easily wounded! Wouldst thou know the joy of love? Then look at thine own joy at the recovery of a loved one, or the reclamation of an erring one. All faults are forgotten. And wouldst thou know something of the life beyond the veil, of the things that are to be? Go to your own home. See how, out of your love, you provide all things good for those you love most. See how love works, and watches, and prays–how tenderly it cares for the sick and the weak I Oh! what would not human love do had it the power? Well, God is love with wealth, love with knowledge, love with power. (J. M. Gibbon.)
Knowing God by love
To know is mans highest ambition. Knowledge of God–what is it and how can we secure it?
I. I remark that knowledge is very various, and in every department must be secured by its own methods, in its own direction, by its own appliances, and for its own uses. If I wish to know an object that is near, I must use my eyes; an object that is remote, I call for a field glass or a telescope; an object that is minute, a microscope. If I would test the texture of an object, I touch it with my hands; the solidity, I strike it with a hammer. If I want to know the chemical or medicinal properties, I have my chemical tests, my medicinal tests. The most valuable knowledge is the knowledge of things with reference to their uses; with reference to what we can do with them by combining them with other things; with reference to how we can make them serve us. This is the dominion which God intended for man. If with reference to things immaterial, to things not seen and eternal, scientific men have sometimes said they are unknowable, it is because they have tried to test them by material appliances, with microscopes and telescopes and hammers, which cannot be done. Men have proposed a prayer gauge on the principle of the rain gauge.
II. Our knowledge of God may Be just as various as our knowledge of material things, for He has put Himself variously into material things; but, like all other scientific knowledge, it must always be recognised by its own appropriate tests. The knowledge can come only in its own correspondent way. There is an intellectual knowledge of God–that is, if God is a thinker, an architect, a builder, man, who is made in Gods image, may think Gods thoughts over after Him, may trace his achievements to His plans and make inferences as to His wisdom and power–that is, may thus know Him. God is thus revealed in what we call nature. This is natural theology. If we want to know God as a thinker, we must use our thinking powers, employ our thinking processes. As a thinker, God reveals Himself to our thinking. Geology reveals to us God as an architect and builder; so does astronomy. One of the methods of intellectual culture is to think over the thoughts of other thinkers. When you say, That man knows Shakespeare, is a good Shakespearean scholar, I understand this, that he has thought over Shakespeares thought in all of his great dramas, knows Shakespeare through these thoughts. In one passage, for example, he has felt the power of Shakespeares imagination has felt it in his own imagination, by yielding his Imagination up to the control of Shakespeares imagination, as a sparrow might try the same flight as an eagle. Thus only can he feel it. There is an ethical knowledge of God–a knowledge of God as He has revealed Himself to the human conscience. When Coleridge says that the Bible finds him in deeper depths of his nature than any other book, he refers to this revelation of God which He has there made of Himself to mans moral sense. It is not the book, but the Author, who finds him there. It is this ethical revelation of God in the Bible which gives its grip upon mans nature. The conscience is mans deepest part, the essential man. There is an ethical knowledge of Shakespeare which is quite as real as our intellectual knowledge. To his treatment of our moral sense we respond with perfect unanimity. Hamlets uncle and Lady Macbeth feel just as you and I should feel had we the conscience of a murderer. They both break down in their three-fold nature under the burden of their guilt; go utterly to pieces in body, soul, and spirit. This ethical character of the Bible and of Shakespeare is revealed only to our moral sense. That this ethical character of the Bible appears to us so marked and prominent is partly owing to our own moral attitude toward its Author, to the moral hurt of our own nature. We feel as though a surgeon were dressing a wound which we dread to have disturbed. A creature of sinless nature would be very differently affected, would not find this ethical character at all offensive, even if he consciously recognised it.
III. The knowledge of God spoken of in the text is neither intellectual nor ethical, although it requires both the intellect and the conscience in order to reach it, to prepare the way for it. Those who do not go beyond the Sermon on the Mount stop with the intellectual and ethical in Christianity. They know God only so far as that. There is a higher mountain than that on which this sermon was delivered–namely, Mount Calvary. There is something beyond them that is distinctively Christian. God is the Creator; He is the moral Sovereign; but He is more, and Christianity shows it. The text reads, Everyone that loveth is born of God, for God is love. It is a charmed circle, to be entered only thus. It is very evident that the knowledge of God here spoken is not intellectual. Nor is it ethical knowledge. It does not imply any disrespect to the law of conscience to say this. They are both preparatory to something higher and better. If the views already presented are correct, if knowledge must come through methods correspondent to that knowledge, this other knowledge of God cannot come through the intellect or through the conscience. It is impossible. God is. Is what? He is a Creator. Yes. He is a Sovereign. Yes. These are what He does. God is. Is what? Is love! How can I know Him? By loving Him. There is no other way. He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love. It is just like saying, He that will not think Gods thoughts shall not know God intellectually; he who will not observe the working of God in his conscience shall not know God morally. So, here, he who will not love shall not know God essentially, for God is love. Love understands love. Nothing else does. This is the solution, and God has adopted it. If you begin by asking how the Son of God knows God, He Himself has told us: by loving Him. I and My Father are one. The teachings of the Saviour are thrown into the simplest intellectual form. Indeed it would be a strong epithet to apply to them to call them intellectual at all. Intellect is not prominent in them, does not preponderate there; truth is there; life is there. It is just so as to the conscience. Ethics are not prominent in them. He Himself has said, For I came not into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Me might be saved. Humanity already carries its great burden of condemnation. How can the burden be relieved? Lifted? By showing humanity that God is love. The love which reveals to us God, is love which we are taught by experiencing it and trying to imitate it. We learn to know God by loving as God loves; loving Him, loving man, and entering into Gods purposes to save him. We find Gods love in the Bible. The Bible is the record of Gods patience with men and nations. How are we to know God, who is love? Only by loving Him and walking in the footsteps of the Being who says, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father. God, who is love, has taken this pains to show us Himself. By studying this life for the sake of making our lives like it, for the sake of putting into our lives the mind and spirit of it, we may come to know God. True knowledge of God can come only as we are like Him. You can come to an intellectual knowledge of the love of God as you see its exercise in the man Christ Jesus. Many a student of the Bible does that. You can bring yourself to know God in the sense of the text only as you try to do as Christ did, and from the motives that actuated Him. There is a proper emphasis to be put upon what are called good works. They have their place in the Christian system; but it is not in the light of present merit or of future reward that we are chiefly to regard them. They will have their suitable recognition when He shall come whose reward is with Him. But in good works–and that is of more practical importance–in imitation of the Son of Man in our lives, are we to find the sphere where we are to know God, since only thus do we become like Him. A great deal is said, and rightly said, about the necessity of being practical Christians in order to keep our Christianity alive; but it is the only way also in which we can keep vivid our knowledge of God, which is the basis of all our Christianity. Every such effort brings one into closer sympathy with that God who is love. The reformed man is urged to try to save other men who need the same change. It is his only safety. (J. E. Rankin, D. D.)
Only love can know love
Blindness cannot understand what light is; it has not the power to experience it. The degraded savage cannot appreciate the noble man. He has not in himself the moral qualities by which the higher nature can be understood. A coward cannot have just and adequate ideas of courage; it is a thing foreign to him. So, to understand the love of God, there must be something within us akin to it, to which it appeals. He who loves most understands God best; he who does not love does not know God in the slightest degree. (Geo. Thompson.)
Love the organ of the highest knowledge
The question is as to God revealing Himself, making Himself known to us as a loving Father. How can it be done? God is love, and love cannot be seen or handled or anatomised. It is even beyond the reach of the subtlest chemical tests. A spiritual test is needed to discover its presence. What is that test? It is love in our own hearts. Suppose some philosopher had been brought up from his birth by himself, apart, on the most rigid system of intellectual training, as, e.g., John Stuart Mill, only still more apart than he or anyone else could be, so that his heart could be utterly destitute of natural affection, so that he has plenty of logic but not a particle of love. Suppose that he is fully trained in scientific method, so that everything of the nature of an emotion has been rigidly suppressed. He can therefore approach every subject with the utmost impartiality. Well, one day he goes out to the world to spy its learning. He sees a mother fondling her babe. What can it mean? It is quite familiar to you; it is new and strange to our scientific critic. He proceeds by the true inductive method. And after he has noted all carefully down he goes home to discover what it all means. A plain, simple woman who never heard of induction has also witnessed the performance. She has taken no notes, made no calculations, and yet she knows a great deal more about it than a scientific man does after spending a year about it. What is her advantage? There is something in her heart which answers to the mother love in the heart of the other woman, and there is nothing in the mans heart. He may apply every test and every method of inquiry that science knows without getting nearer. There are some cases in which an ounce of heart is worth more than a ton of intellect for the purposes of investigation. It is as true as ever that only love can understand love. It cannot possibly be discovered by any process of induction. It is the function, not of the critical faculty, but of the heart. It is a loving, longing heart that recognises the presence of Him whose name is Love. (Christian Weekly.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 7. Beloved, let us love one another] And ever be ready to promote each other’s welfare, both spiritual and temporal.
For love is of God] And ever acts like him; he loves man, and daily loads him with his benefits. He that loveth most has most of God in him; and he that loveth God and his neighbour, as before described and commanded, is born of God, , is begotten of God-is a true child of his heavenly Father, for he is made a partaker of the Divine nature; and this his love to God and man proves.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Beloved, let us love one another: in opposition to the malice and cruelty of these enemies to true and pure Christianity, he exhorteth to mutual love, not limited to themselves, as undoubtedly he did not intend, see note on 1Jo 3:14; but that they should do their part towards all others, letting it lie upon them, if it were not reciprocated and mutual.
For love is of God; this he presses as a further discrimination; nothing being more evidential of relation and alliance to God, than a duly regulated love, which is of him.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
7. Resumption of the main theme(1Jo 2:29). Love, thesum of righteousness, is the test of our being born of God.Love flows from a sense of God’s love to us: compare 1Jn 4:9;1Jn 3:16, which 1Jo4:9 resumes; and 1Jn 4:13;1Jn 3:24, which similarly 1Jo4:13 resumes. At the same time, 1Jo4:7-21 is connected with the immediately preceding context, 1Jo4:2 setting forth Christ’s incarnation, the great proof ofGod’s love (1Jo 4:10).
Belovedan addressappropriate to his subject, “love.”
loveAll love isfrom God as its fountain: especially that embodiment of love,God manifest in the flesh. The Father also is love (1Jo4:8). The Holy Ghost sheds love as its first fruitabroad in the heart.
knoweth Godspiritually,experimentally, and habitually.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Beloved, let its love one another,…. The apostle having finished what he proposed to say concerning the trying of spirits, returns to his former exhortation to brotherly love, and which comes with fresh force and strength; for since worldly men follow, hear, embrace, and cleave to the false teachers; such as are of God, and on the side of truth, should love one another, and their faithful ministers, and stand fast in one spirit by the truths of the Gospel, in opposition to every error:
for love is of God: to love one another is the command of God, it is his revealed will, and is well pleasing in his sight; it comes from him, is a gift of his grace, and a fruit of his Spirit, and which he teaches regenerate ones to exercise:
and everyone that loveth God, as the Alexandrian copy reads, or Christ, and the saints, who seem to be particularly meant:
is born of God; for love to the brethren is an evidence of regeneration; [See comments on 1Jo 3:14];
and knoweth God; he knows God in Christ, and therefore loves those who have the grace of God in them, and the image of Christ upon them; he knows the mind and will of God, being taught of God to love the brethren; and he knows the love of God, and has had an experience of the grace of God, which influences him to love the saints.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| Brotherly Love. | A. D. 80. |
7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. 8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. 9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. 10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. 12 No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. 13 Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.
As the Spirit of truth is known by doctrine (thus spirits are to be tried), it is known by love likewise; and so here follows a strong fervent exhortation to holy Christian love: Beloved, let us love one another, v. 7. The apostle would unite them in his love, that he might unite them in love to each other: “Beloved, I beseech you, by the love I bear to you, that you put on unfeigned mutual love.” This exhortation is pressed and urged with variety of argument: as,
I. From the high and heavenly descent of love: For love is of God. He is the fountain, author, parent, and commander of love; it is the sum of his law and gospel: And every one that loveth (whose spirit is framed to judicious holy love) is born of God, v. 7. The Spirit of God is the Spirit of love. The new nature in the children of God is the offspring of his love: and the temper and complexion of it is love. The fruit of the Spirit is love, Gal. v. 22. Love comes down from heaven.
II. Love argues a true and just apprehension of the divine nature: He that loveth knoweth God, v. 7. He that loveth not knoweth not God, v. 8. What attribute of the divine Majesty so clearly shines in all the world as his communicative goodness, which is love. The wisdom, the greatness, the harmony, and usefulness of the vast creation, which so fully demonstrate his being, do at the same time show and prove his love; and natural reason, inferring and collecting the nature and excellence of the most absolute perfect being, must collect and find that he is most highly good: and he that loveth not (is not quickened by the knowledge he hath of God to the affection and practice of love) knoweth not God; it is a convictive evidence that the sound and due knowledge of God dwells not in such a soul; his love must needs shine among his primary brightest perfections; for God is love (v. 8), his nature and essence are love, his will and works are primarily love. Not that this is the only conception we ought to have of him; we have found that he is light as well as love (ch. i. 5), and God is principally love to himself, and he has such perfections as arise from the necessary love he must bear to his necessary existence, excellence, and glory; but love is natural and essential to the divine Majesty: God is love. This is argued from the display and demonstration that he hath given of it; as, 1. That he hath loved us, such as we are: In this was manifest the love of God towards us (v. 9), towards us mortals, us ungrateful rebels. God commandeth his love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, Rom. v. 8. Strange that God should love impure, vain, vile, dust and ashes! 2. That he has loved us at such a rate, at such an incomparable value as he has given for us; he has given his own, only-beloved, blessed Son for us: Because that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him, v. 9. This person is in some peculiar distinguishing way the Son of God; he is the only-begotten. Should we suppose him begotten as a creature or created being, he is not the only-begotten. Should we suppose him a natural necessary eradication from the Father’s glory or glorious essence, or substance, he must be the only-begotten: and then it will be a mystery and miracle of divine love that such a Son should be sent into our world for us! It may well be said, So (wonderfully, so amazingly, so incredibly) God loved the world. 3. That God loved us first, and in the circumstances in which we lay: Herein is love (unusual unprecedented love), not that we loved God, but that he loved us, v. 10. He loved us, when we had no love for him, when we lay in our guilt, misery, and blood, when we were undeserving, ill-deserving, polluted, and unclean, and wanted to be washed from our sins in sacred blood. 4. That he gave us his Son for such service and such an end. (1.) For such service, to be the propitiation for our sins; consequently to die for us, to die under the law and curse of God, to bear our sins in his own body, to be crucified, to be wounded in his soul, and pierced in his side, to be dead and buried for us (v. 10); and then, (2.) For such an end, for such a good and beneficial end to us–that we might live through him (v. 9), might live for ever through him, might live in heaven, live with God, and live in eternal glory and blessedness with him and through him: O what love is here! Then,
III. Divine love to the brethren should constrain ours: Beloved (I would adjure you by your interest in my love to remember), if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another, v. 11. This should be an invincible argument. The example of God should press us. We should be followers (or imitators) of him, as his dear children. The objects of the divine love should be the objects of ours. Shall we refuse to love those whom the eternal God hath loved? We should be admirers of his love, and lovers of his love (of the benevolence and complacency that are in him), and consequently lovers of those whom he loves. The general love of God to the world should induce a universal love among mankind. That you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven; for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth his rain on the just and on the unjust, Matt. v. 45. The peculiar love of God to the church and to the saints should be productive of a peculiar love there: If God so loved us, we ought surely (in some measure suitably thereto) to love one another.
IV. The Christian love is an assurance of the divine inhabitation: If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, v. 12. Now God dwelleth in us, not by any visible presence, or immediate appearance to the eye (no man hath seen God at any time, v. 12), but by his Spirit (v. 13); or, “No man hath seen God at any time; he does not here present himself to our eye or to our immediate intuition, and so he does not in this way demand and exact our love; but he demands and expects it in that way in which he has thought meet to deserve and claim it, and that is in the illustration that he has given of himself and of his love (and thereupon of his loveliness too) in the catholic church, and particularly in the brethren, the members of that church. In them, and in his appearance for them and with them, is God to be loved; and thus, if we love one another, God dwelleth in us. The sacred lovers of the brethren are the temples of God; the divine Majesty has a peculiar residence there.”
V. Herein the divine love attains a considerable end and accomplishment in us: “And his love is perfected in us, v. 12. It has obtained its completion in and upon us. God’s love is not perfected in him, but in and with us. His love could not be designed to be ineffectual and fruitless upon us; when its proper genuine end and issue are attained and produced thereby, it may be said to be perfected; so faith is perfected by its works, and love perfected by its operations. When the divine love has wrought us to the same image, to the love of God, and thereupon to the love of the brethren, the children of God, for his sake, it is therein and so far perfected and completed, though this love of ours is not at present perfect, nor the ultimate end of the divine love to us.” How ambitious should we be of this fraternal Christian love, when God reckons his own love to us perfected thereby! To this the apostle, having mentioned the high favour of God’s dwelling in us, subjoins the note and character thereof: Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit, v. 13. Certainly this mutual inhabitation is something more noble and great than we are well acquainted with or can declare. One would think that to speak of God dwelling in us, and we in him, were to use words too high for mortals, had not God gone before us therein. What this indwelling imports has been briefly explained on ch. iii. 24. What it fully is must be left to the revelation of the blessed world. But this mutual inhabitation we know, says the apostle, because he hath given us of his spirit; he has lodged the image and fruit of his Spirit in our hearts (v. 13), and the Spirit that he hath given us appears to be his, or of him, since it is the Spirit of power, of zeal and magnanimity for God, of love to God and man, and of a sound mind, of an understanding well instructed in the affairs of God and religion, and his kingdom among men, 2 Tim. i. 7.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Of God ( ). Even human love comes from God, “a reflection of something in the Divine nature itself” (Brooke). John repeats the old commandment of 2:7f. Persistence in loving (present tense indicative and participle) is proof that one “has been begotten of God” ( as in 2:29) and is acquainted with God. Otherwise mere claim to loving God accompanied by hating one’s brother is a lie (2:9-11).
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Of God [ ] . Flows from God.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God;” John appeals to all children of God to show, manifest their love, for one another because love originates in and emanates from God – it should emanate from each of His children, Mat 5:14-16.
2) “And everyone that loveth is born of God.” Progressive love manifest toward God, His church, His Word, and one another, says to the world, “These are born of God.” Joh 13:34-35; Heb 13:1.
3) “And knoweth God.” To know God is to be an holder or possessor of eternal life, Joh 17:3. One may have or hold an experimental, and personal knowledge of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Joh 14:7; 2Ti 1:12. Let it be remembered “everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God,” 1Th 4:9.
POEM:
“How do I know that Christ is mine turn to Romans ten and nine
Confessing Him, trusting Him, Savior Divine,
Divine, I know He is mine.”
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
7 Beloved He returns to that exhortation which he enforces almost throughout the Epistle. We have, indeed, said, that it is filled with the doctrine of faith and exhortation to love. On these two points he so dwells, that he continually passes from the one to the other.
When he commands mutual love, he does not mean that we discharge this duty when we love our friends, because they love us; but as he addresses in common the faithful, he could not have spoken otherwise than that they were to exercise mutual love. He confirms this sentence by a reason often adduced before, even because no one can prove himself to be the son of God, except he loves his neighbors, and because the true knowledge of God necessarily produces love in us.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
1Jn. 4:7.The previous verses are in some sense an aside. The apostle now resumes his proper theme. His main truth is thisLove is the mark of the children of God, who is love. Love to God is a delusion if it does not find expression in love toward one another as brethren. And love of the brethren is a sure test of our having the Spirit of God, for the spirit of antichrist is a self-seeking and self-serving spirit. Just as it severs the Divine from the human in Christ, so it severs Divine love from human conduct in man. Love to one another may be recognised as a gift of the Spirit of God, an effluence from the very being of God. Born.Better, begotten. Knoweth God.As one only can know by sharing the same nature.
1Jn. 4:8. Knoweth not.Better, can never have known; hath never known. God is love.1Jn. 1:5. Not God loves, which is true, but far short of the truth that John expresses. The very essence of God is His going outside Himself, and living in others, in the service of others.
1Jn. 4:9. Manifested.Jesus manifests what God is, and what God does. St. John here speaks of what God does. R.V. renders, Herein was the love of God manifested in us, or in our case. Manifested is one of St. Johns favourite words. It means, became such that it could be known or apprehended by man. We see the love in a gift which the love has made. Only begotten.Though we too are begotten of God, there must be a sense in which Christs relationship is unique, and this is expressed by the term only begotten. as applied to Christ is St. Johns peculiar term. Live through Him.Enjoy a blessed fellowship with God, being delivered from that state of estrangement and alienation which is virtually death. Live applies to the life of the soul, which is the man.
1Jn. 4:10. Propitiation. (1Jn. 2:2, and not elsewhere in the New Testament). For the idea St. John had, see the notes on the previous passage.
1Jn. 4:12. Seen God.We cannot contemplate the incomprehensible essence of the Deity by a direct gaze. God can be seen only in Christ (Joh. 1:18). His love is perfected,I.e. attains just what it wants to attain. Let that love of God which we apprehend in Christ work its full work, and it will be sure to make us love the brethren.
1Jn. 4:13. Of His Spirit.Contrasted with those mentioned in the early verses, who professed to have the Spirit, but whose self-seeking tone, and self-glorifying teachings, plainly showed that it was not the Spirit of God.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.1Jn. 4:7-14
The Fatherly Love carries with it Brotherly Love.What may possibly have been in St. Johns mind is the error of assuming a difference between the love that we have for God and the love that we have one for another. And that is an error which is often secretly cherished, though it gains no open expression, and would indeed be ashamed to show itself to the light. How often our feeling is thisWe cannot be expected to love other people just as we love God. But it may properly be maintained that there can be no varieties in love. There can be differences in quality and degree, but not in kind. There must be relation to its object, but love can never be anything but just itself. Whether it go out to God, or go out to our brother, it is just the same thinglove. Even as in family life, there can be nothing but just the family love. It goes out to the father and mother, or to the brothers and sisters, using a variety of signs and expressions, but it can never be anything but itself; and it is not itself if it is limited to the parents, or limited to the brothers. And St. John affirms that love is not love when it is set only upon God the Father, and restrained from our fellow-men, our brothers. He that loveth not knoweth not God. The point of connection in St. Johns mind between this and the preceding section may be found in the fact that false doctrine is always self-centred, self-serving, and consequently tends to separate men from their fellows. You cannot love your fellows, if you only want to make a gain of them. False teachers boasted much about love to God, but they wholly failed under the test of love to men. Dr. Plummer says: The antichristian spirit is a selfish one; it makes self, i.e. ones own intellect and ones own interest, the measure of all things. Just as it severs the Divine from the human in Christ, so it severs Divine love from human conduct in man. Beloved, let us do far otherwise. Let us love one another. For the third and last time in this epistle the apostle introduces the subject of brotherly love.
1. It was introduced as a consequence and sign of walking in the light (1Jn. 2:7-11). Next, 2, it was introduced as a special form of righteousness and mark of Gods children (1Jn. 3:10-18).
3. Here it appears as a gift of the Spirit of God, a contrast to the antichristian spirit, and above all as an effluence from the very being of God. From a careful examination of the verses we gather, that St. John is endeavouring to impress the truth that profession of love can be of no avail, it must find fitting and adequate expression in the relations of every-day life. Even Gods love must be manifested, in order to be in any sense an effective power on men.
I. Abstract love in God is ineffective.God is love. There the truth stands. It is full and clear to view. It is sublime, but it is unattainable. If that be all, if we only know some absolute and abstract fact concerning the intimate nature of God, then it is really nothing to us. It is high; we cannot attain unto it. If the philosophers can do something with it, we commonplace, every-day men and women cannot.
II. Manifested love is persuasion and power (1Jn. 4:9-10).Gods love has found expression in the most persuasive of all waysby a gift, and a gift which involved an extreme self-sacrifice; and moreover by a gift which so precisely meets our needs that it carries the persuasion of His love right into our hearts. (Propitiation for our sins.) We feel the love through the manifestation and expression, and we can feel it in no other way.
III. Sentimental love in man is worthless, and even mischievous.This is really the point which St. John is enforcing. (Compare Jas. 2:14-16.) Characteristic of uninspired teaching is fine sentiment about society and brotherhood; and men can be easily carried away by exaggerated and helpless sentiment. They can think themselves good because they have uttered good-sounding phrases.
IV. Practical love towards man alone honours God, and does Gods work.To express this in the line of St. Johns thoughts. The love must be manifested: it must find its gift; and its gift must carry its self-sacrifice unto the uttermost.
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
1Jn. 4:7. To love is the Sign of the New Birth.And every one that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God. There is physical or natural life; there is moral life; and there is spiritual or Divine life. The sign of physical life is movement. There is a sign indicating the existence of a moral being, a being who can come into relations with other beings. There is a sign of moral life. It is the power to love, to go outside oneself and take on our own heart the concern of another. And there is a sign of the yet higher, spiritual life; and since that life is kin with the moral life the sign is the same for it. It is love; but it is the going outside ourselves to lose ourselves in God. You may know that a man is begotten to the higher, spiritual, Divine life, if you can see that the supreme, the master principle and persuasion of his life is love to God. And it may further be said that the love gauges the life. The fuller the life, the intenser the love, the more ennobling and sanctifying the power of the love.
Love implies Insight of the Highest Spiritual Things.And knoweth God. Knowing depends on two thingson the thing known, and on the person knowing. We know different things in different ways. Things are different to different persons. There is a particular way in which God alone can be known, and in which alone high, spiritual things can be known. They cannot be known by any effort of the intellect alone. And the intellect by itself is not the man. They can be known only through the affections, and their use of the intellectual powers. God, and everything kin with Him, is spiritually discerned. And it is not everybody who can know God; only the man whose affections, being spiritually quickened, in a natural way turn to God, and are fully open and receptive to the manifestations and evidences of Himself that God may be pleased to give.
Born of God.Theologians and others have, I think, assumed that the doctrine of the birth from above is more inscrutably mysterious than it is, and have therefore unwarrantably obscured Christs truth. It is, I admit, under any view of it, a great mystery of godliness; yet it is not altogether without its parallel in every-day life. Every good son is born again. A child is first, by no choice of his own, born into the family of a good man. So far he is a son by nature only; he may grow up to be dissatisfied with his fathers mode of life, and with the law of his fathers house. He may also adopt a course of action so widely divergent from the fathers, that the natural bond between them shall serve only to reveal the vast and widening gulf of character that separates them, and similarity of feature shall only serve to give painful emphasis to the utter dissimilarity of disposition. The son is now a son in form onlyin all things else a foreigner. To become truly a son he must be born againmust of his own choice accept as his father the parent Nature gave him, and must by his own love and conduct make the house in which Providence placed him a home. No parent is truly and fully a father till he is adopted by his own child. To be fully born of God is for the soul, being filled with the Holy Spirit, to acknowledge Gods fatherly authority, accept Gods law, live His life, do His work; or, in one word, to love GodHe that loveth is born of God. God is not fully our Father till we love Him as He loves us; and when a heart is won to love, there is joy in the presence of the angels for another holy child born into the great family of God.J. Morgan Gibbon.
1Jn. 4:8. The Truth of Truths.No two persons ever see the same picture; the image is modified by the personality of him who sees it. No two persons have the same idea of God. He reveals Himself with a separate revelation to each individual soul. There have been two great and dominant ideas of Godone moral and the other physical.
1. The moral. The first great revelation of God was the revelation of Him as the moral governor. The Hebrew prophets lifted Him out of mere locality into a larger sphere; they preached Him as God of the whole earth, the God of righteousness.
2. The physical. This conception came from the Greeks. To them God was the underlying ground and cause of all things; He was power, being; He was infinite and eternal, without passion and without change.
I. Each of these conceptions of God is profoundly true; and each must have its place in our thoughts.He controls this vast sphere of physical action by laws which cannot be broken, and which are perfectly good. Of Him are all things, and in Him are all things. The conception of God as a moral governor has on the one hand been pressed as though it exhausted all that we know about Him; on the other hand, it has been darkened by analogies from human laws, until this supreme conception of a God of righteousness has been transmuted into a conception of One who curses where even men would bless, and who punishes where even men would pardon.
II. The loftier, more Christian idea of God.The simplest conceptions are always the deepest. In three short words we are told that in the awful Maker of all things seen and unseen, the Infinite, the Absolute, the Eternal, there is something like that which draws the mother to the son and the sister to the brother. This is one of the most practical truths, and one of the most necessary. It is not a formless and impassive spirit that is close to us, but the infinitely holy, infinitely true, infinitely kind. This gives the thought of God a place in practical life.
III. Here is the most practical of truths, and the most necessary.It is a special truth for our time. It contains the gospel we need; it comes to our sadness as a gospel of consolation; it comes to our restlessness as a gospel of repose. For material want there is material alleviation. Something beyond material relief. I speak of social unrest. To you who feel most of all the strain and stir of life, this revelation of God as love comes with a singular power, for it is the gospel of repose. When tired with noises and stir and strife, tired of the factiousness of political party feeling, with the meanness of social ambition, the chicanery of commerce, just for a moment or two rise, as the spirit can, and rest in the eternal Father who loves you.
IV The supreme manifestation of the love of God in sending His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him.Let our thoughts rest on this one of the innumerable ways in which Gods love has shown itself. To the truth of truths the text calls us. About other truths we may differ; in this, at least, we agree. Into some other truths there may enter elements of doubt which weaken their force as motives of conduct; but here is a sublime revelation. Let it be a sublime inspiration, a constraining motive. Let it be for us the supreme repose to know that the Father Himself loveth us, for God is love.Edwin Hatch, D.D.
Love to God.Love is the highest, purest, holiest motive from which we can act. Faith makes us strong by keeping before us the great truths and realities of the world unseen. Hope helps us on our way by filling our souls with the longing expectation of the blessedness in store for us. But faith is cold, and hope is selfish, without love. Love is the going forth of the soul towards another, tender and glowing, generous and unselfish. Love will do all things, it will bear all things, for one it loves. And so we read that Love is the fulfilling of the law. For, if we love God, we shall fulfil all our duty to God; and if we love man, we shall fulfil all our duty to man. And so to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and our neighbour as ourselves, takes in all we have to do. There would be no need for any other law, if we all obeyed perfectly the law of love. But think specially of love to God. As love is the best motive for our actions, so love to God is the best sort of love. For, when we love God, we are loving that which is perfect, loving Him who is alone perfectly worthy to be loved. And if we love God truly, we are quite sure to love His creatures also. So that the love of God is the fountain of all goodness. Now there are different ways in which we may love God. First, we may love Him for our own sakes, or because we love ourselves; that is, because of all His goodness to us. Another word for this sort of love is gratitude. And it is a right and good thingonly not the best. In this way we may love God for all the blessings we enjoy in this life, and this is the easiest sort of love to gain; or, better still, we may love Him for His spiritual mercies, for the gift of a blessed Redeemer, for the aid of His Holy Spirit, and for the hope of eternal happiness. But a higher and purer way of loving God is to love Him for His own sake, to love Him because He is so lovablebecause our hearts are drawn to His infinite perfectionsbecause He is so good in Himself, so fit to win His creatures love. This is to love Him as the angels love Him. Perhaps man, while in this world, may never be able to love God entirely with this sort of love. Perhaps none can love quite in this way, except those who see face to face. When that time comes, oh, may we be filled with this pure, childlike, unselfish, angelic love! But, meanwhile, it is very hard to love One so exalted, so far above us in His nature, and so different from us, as God is. And God knew this. How thankful then should we be that, in pity to our weakness, God was pleased to take upon Himself the form and nature of man, so that we have One like ourselves to loveOne who can, and does, feel for us and with us, and yet who is God. Those who might find it hard to love an infinite, almighty God, of whom they could form to themselves no image or likeness, will not find it so hard to love the meek, and gentle, and lowly, and loving Man Jesus Christ. How shall we gain more love? Like other Christian graces, it grows by degrees; and, like them, it is the gift of God. So, first of all, we must pray God for this gift of love. It is His Holy Spirit which must make us love Him better; we can, indeed, only love Him by Himself, who is love, dwelling within us. We must ask Him to give us of Himself, to come and fill our hearts, that they may be filled with love.
1. We must try to deepen our feeling of love by deepening our feeling of Gods goodness.
2. We must seek to gain more love through faith in Jesus Christ. By looking steadfastly to Him, by realising (that is, making real to us) all He is to us, and all He has done for us, we shall best learn to love Him as He should be loved.W. Walsham How, D.D.
Gnostic Ideas of God.The Gnostics knew a good deal about God, but they did not know Him; for instead of loving those brethren who did not share their intellectual attainments, they had an arrogant contempt for them.
1Jn. 4:9. Gods Love-gift.There are two ways of treating the records of Christs birth into the world:
(1) we may dwell on the incidents; or
(2) we may ponder over the meanings, as Mary, the mother of Jesus, did. We may askWho sent Him? Why did He come? And what did He come to do? The apostle John is the person above all others who can worthily answer our questions.
I. The secret of Christs coming is Gods love to us.The Babe is a sent one, and this is the message He carries. The absolute truth about God is this, God is love. And that is the primary truth of the Christian revelation. By itself, however, as something only to think, it would be of little interest to us. We could never find any help in elaborate arguments to prove concerning our mother that she is love. Love always wants to find expressionto make the loved one happy, to satisfy itself in what it can do for those on whom its love is set.
II. The further secret of Christs coming is thisGod wanted to show His love to us.Love finds expression in gifts. Two things about gifts:
1. Love finds what will best express itself. It really gives itself in the gift. God loved the world, and wanted to give it something that would really be giving it Himself. Would any mere thing do? Nay, He would give His Son, who was Himself in the sphere of our human life, Himself in our humanity.
2. Love finds what will best satisfy those it loves. We ask what the loved one most needs. We find that, and we try to meet that. God asks what His creatures most need. There was something they needed which they hardly knew they neededa Saviour from sin. God gave that. And God gave that as a babe, because He would save men from sin through love. Just what a babe can do is win love, constrain hearts, deliver from self, and so ennoble. What the infant Jesus did for Mary is the type of what Jesus does for us all. We have salvation in having the Saviour. Take Gods love-gift into the heart, and let Him do His work there, and we are saved.
The Only Begotten Son.His Son, His only begottton (). The term is peculiar to St. John, and it means only born, distinguishing between Him who was born a son, a son in such a way as can only be figured by a human generation, and those who are made sons, constituted such by an act of creation, which decided the being they should have, and the relations in which they should stand. Matthew Henry says: This person is in some peculiar distinguishing way the Son of God; He is the only begotten. Should we suppose Him begotten as a creature or created being, He is not the only begotten. Should we suppose Him a natural necessary irradiation from the Fathers glory, or glorious essence, or substance, He must be the only begotten; and then it will be a mystery and miracle of Divine love that such a Son should be sent into our world for us. In Heb. 1:6 the expression appears as first-begotten. What has to be discovered, and what is so difficult to discover, is the precise reason St. John had for speaking of Christ in this particular way. The term is indeed exclusively used by St. John, and the associations of the similar terms, first-begotten, and first-begotten from the dead, and first-born, are altogether different. On four occasions in his gospel St. John mentions the only begotten: once it is only begotten of the Father; three times it is only begotten Son (Joh. 1:14; Joh. 1:18; Joh. 3:16; Joh. 3:18). In 1Jn. 5:1 we have, Him that is begotten of Him. In 1Jn. 5:18, He that is begotten of God. But this last verse is somewhat confusing, because it applies the word begotten to believers, and we think it must be kept exclusively for Christ. In Rev. 1:5 Christ is spoken of as the first-begotten of the dead. It cannot therefore be said that by St. John the idea of a relation to God which can only be represented by human generation is exclusively kept. But he certainly did conceive of a unity between God and Christ differing from the relation subsisting between God and Christs people.
1Jn. 4:9-10. Loves Highest Manifestation.The text is one of the loveliest gems of gospel truth, and the context forms an appropriately beautiful setting. Love is of God, yea, is of the very essence of His being; to be loveless is to be godless, while to love is to be a partaker of the Divine nature.
I. The feeling manifested.Not mere goodness or benevolence, but love. I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Like as a father. Thy Maker is thine husband (Isa. 49:15-16). It is love that passeth knowledge, for it is an attribute of the infinite Being.
II. Toward whom manifested.Consider:
1. Our insignificance. What is man, that Thou shouldst magnify him, and that Thou shouldst set Thine heart upon him?
2. Our depravity and guilt. God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Tit. 3:3-6).
3. Our indifference and hostility. Herein is love, not that we loved God, etc. When we were enemies, we were reconciled unto God by the death of His Son.
III. How manifested.
1. Sent His only begotten Son. Consieler:
(1) The greatness of Christ. God over all, blessed for ever. Same in substance with Father, equal in power and glory.
(2) His nearness and dearness to the Father. Only begotten, well beloved; His dear Son. Our children are endeared to us because they are our own flesh and blood, resemble us, have been long associated with us, and have shown fidelity and affection. Christ and the Father are one; He is the brightness of the Fathers glory, and the express image of His person; was in the beginning with God; and is ever faithful and loving. I delight to do Thy will; yea, Thy law is within My heart. (See 2Pe. 1:17.)
2. Sent into the worlda world alienated from God, averse to holiness, and hostile toward holy characters. Parable of the wicked husband-men (Mat. 21:34-38). Incarnate Virtue appeared on earth, and instead of worshipping Him the people crucified Him between two thieves. God sent Him with full knowledge of His future sufferings and shamesaw Him recoiling from loathsome touch of tempter, agonising in Gethsemane with piteous appeal to His Father, and heard Him cry in desertion of soul upon the cross, My God, My God! And not only with foreknowledge, but predetermination. The very conditions of the Incarnation necessitated the Crucifixion; the path from Bethlehem to Calvary was a straight one marked out by God Himself. God sent forth His Son, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law. But Christ could only redeem us from the curse of the law by being made a curse for us. The Father therefore deliberately laid on Him the iniquity of us all, and delivered Him over to punitive justice (Act. 2:23; Rom. 8:32).
IV. For what purpose manifested.
1. To be the propitiation for our sins (Rom. 3:23-26; Col. 1:20-22).
2. That we might live through Him (Joh. 3:16; Joh. 10:10).Agape.
1Jn. 4:10. The Propitiation.The greater anything is, the more sides and aspects it will present to view; the less will it be revealed to any one view, the more necessary it becomes to observe it from every possible standpoint. A dwelling-house can be comprehended after a few minutes examination; but a cathedral discloses ever new parts, new relations, new proportions, and new adornments to the man who can be patient, can look at it from every angle, and under every variety of circumstance,when the sunshine, streaming in through the coloured windows, makes a glory round every pillar and floods the pavement with tints; or when the shadowy twilight makes a saintly gloom hang over the arches; or when the full cold moonlight seems to people aisle and choir with ghostly shapes; or when sounds of holy music rise from the worshippers and circle round, and swell high, going up to God; or when all is still, no human voice is heard, the buried saints alone seem to fill the place, and in the stillness the soul can almost catch the echoes of the heavenly song. And Gods truth is a great whole that is, for us, many-sided, and can never be perfectly known by any one of us. And that particular part of truth which concerns the recovery and salvation of men is one of these great and many-sided things. We may all get our own best positions for examining the great cathedral of the redemption truth, and be thankful for the fitnesses and beauties which we can for ourselves discover. St. Paul helps us to understand the meaning of this expression in the text, the propitiation for sins, when he writes in this way of the Lord Jesus Christ, Whom God hath set forth a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God (Rom. 3:25). By making propitiation for the sin of the world, let us then understand this little part or piece of the great whole of redeeming truththe righteousness of God is seen in His justifying freely, as an act of infinite grace, all who, having sinned, believe the message of forgiveness brought to them by Jesus Christ, and sealed to them in His blood. But how does Christ, set forth, declare the righteousness of God in the forgiveness of sin?
I. Christ is the Ambassador of the act of grace.As Ambassador His credentials were abundant, and in every way satisfactory. His life itself is the great proof that He was the Son of God. His words were Divine words; His miracles were exhibitions of Divine power. Who has ever doubted the righteousness of those messages which Moses and the prophets delivered for God, and concerning Him? Because we are sure that they were men sent from God, we are sure that their message was a righteous message. Then if Jesus Christ was the very highest of all ambassadors, the message He brought was a righteous message, a faithful expression of that eternal righteousness which belongs to Him who is light, and in whom is no darkness at all. What then did Jesus tell us concerning God? He preached, on Gods behalf, the forgiveness of sins. He Himself forgave sin. We never can think of Jesus as acting unrighteously when He said to the paralytic, Thy sins are forgiven thee; or to the woman whom everybody knew as a sinner, Thy sins, which are many, are all forgiven thee. But in those cases Jesus was only showing us God, and telling His message to men. Jesus commanded men to forgive one another freely, so that they might be children of their heavenly Father, who forgave freely. He sent out His disciples into the world to preach everywhere His message for the remission of sins. And on His very cross He prayed for His murderers, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. His very presence here among men was an act of grace. It seemed to sayGod has not forsaken even His sinful world. He pities His lost creatures. He will even sacrifice His best if He may save the lost. And the character of JesusHis perfect righteousnessseems to guarantee the righteousness of His work. He was, all through His life, showing us God; and none ever dwelt among men who showed, as He has shown, the infinite holiness, the spotless righteousness, of God. None of us can think that the gospel which the righteous Jesus brought in any sense limits the perfections of God. Let Christ then preach us His God-honouring gospel. It is the free forgiveness of sins. It is the announcement of Gods gracious act of pardon. Christ came to bring that message to earth, and in order to make us believe it, He sealed it with His own blood. God is not merely willing to forgive; He has once for all forgiven every one who will believe His word. He pardoneth and absolveth all them that truly repent, and unfeignedly believe His holy gospel of full and free forgiveness.
II. Christ demands and works such a moral change in men as declares His righteousness in granting forgiveness.The apostle Paul explains to us that propitiation is through faith in His blood. But his language is very careful. He does not say, a propitiation through His blood; or, a propitiation by His blood; but he distinctly and precisely says, a propitiation through faith, the object of the faith being the blood. Faith is the thing set so prominently before usour justification by faith, our forgiveness upon faith, our acceptance on the ground of faith. Evidently this faith is something belonging to men, and it implies some great moral change wrought in men. When the king announces to his rebellious subjects his free pardon of all their offences, and sends that pardon by the hands of his messenger, who is it that needs to be propitiated? Plainly enough, it is not the king. He is propitiated, or he would not send that message of pardon. There is no enmity in him. It is that rebel nation that needs to be appeased. They have taken up an ill-will against their king. It is the work of the kings messenger to appease mens anger, and sooth down their ill-feeling toward their king, and so induce them to lay down their arms, and accept his sovereign mercy. What hinders rebels from receiving the forgiveness offered them? Surely nothing but their rebellion. As long as that spirit of rebellion lasts, they cannot have the pardon, though it is proclaimed. How can a man have the kings pardon while he grasps his weapons? By that continued act he really refuses the pardon. But let his mind be changed, let him throw down those weapons; and then the proclaimed forgiveness covers even him beneath its shadow; then there has been propitiation between the king and his rebellious subjects; then the kings messenger has become the propitiator, or propitiatory, the mercy-seat where the separated ones have met in reconciliation. This is the truth to which our attention should be most anxiously givenMan needs to be propitiated; mans enmity against God needs to be appeased. We need that Jesus Christ should be a propitiator to us, and change our hearts towards God. That is the very work entrusted to the Messenger and Ambassador, Jesus Christ. He is sent into the world, that by His life, by His teachings, by His deeds, by His moral influence, by the holy persuasions of His sacrifice, He might get a redeeming power on the hearts of menbreaking down middle walls of partition, changing pride for humility, replacing hard-heartedness with repentance, and hatred of God for love to Him. The great aim of our Lords work is, so to bear persuasions on the hearts of men, that they should be willing to accept salvation by grace. How Christ works that change in mens hearts can only be briefly suggested. It is done partly by that most attractive view of God which Jesus brings: partly, as Jesus shows us what a real son of God is, and so what we should be; partly, by a most extraordinary proof of love; Gods own Son is willing to sacrifice Himself, even in a most painful and shameful death, in order to convince us that God does love us with an everlasting love, and does want to save us. Whosoever believes becomes another man by believing.
1Jn. 4:13. Of His Spirit.It would be precisely in accordance with St. Johns teaching here if we read spirit, or disposition. What God gives to those who are in vital relations with Him is, the spirit of His own love, which inspires them also to self-sacrifice.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 4
1Jn. 4:8. The Love of God.God is love. This single announcement of the beloved disciple, contradicted by so many appearances, yet carrying its own evidencein the world around us met by many a No and many a murmur, and from the caverns of despair fetching up a fiendish laughter, and yet countersigned by Jehovahs handwriting on the ruined tablets of the heart, and in trumpet tones reverberated from the hills of immortalitythis shortest of sentences, and most summary of gospels, which a breath can utter, and which a signet ring can containis the truth which, shining bright at the Advent, will overspread the world in the millenniums mild lustre. It is a truth on which no man has mused too much, even although he has pondered it all his days, and to which no anthem can do justice, except that in which golden harps mingle, and in which the redeemed from among men are helped by the seraphim.Dr. James Hamilton.
The Heart of God.Historys noblest deed and record of love is in the self-devotion of the generous heathen Pylades, who forfeited his life to save his friend; but God commendeth His love to us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. You have not seen, says a great writer and profound thinker, the greatest gift of allthe heart of God, the love of His heart, the heart of His love. And will He in very deed show us that? Yes, unveil that cross, and see. It was His only mode of showing us His heart. It is infinite love labouring to reveal itselfagonising to utter the fulness of infinite love. Apart from that act, a boundless ocean of love would have remained for ever shut up and concealed in the heart of God; but now it has found an ocean-channel. Beyond this He cannot go. Once and for ever the proof has been given, God is love.
Our Love comes from God.As the rays come from the sun, and yet are not the sun, even so our love and pity, though they are not God, but merely a poor, weak image and reflection of Him, yet from Him alone they come. If there is mercy in our hearts, it comes from the fountain of mercy. If there is the light of love in us, it is a ray from the full sun of. His love.Rev. C. Kingsley.
The Ocean of Divine Love.In that great ocean of the Divine love we live, and move, and have our being, floating in it like some sea-flower which spreads its filmy beauty, and waves its long tresses, in the depths of mid-ocean. The sound of its waters is ever in our ears, and above, beneath, around us its mighty currents run evermore.A. Maclaren, D.D.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
HEREBY WE KNOW
PART IV
1Jn. 4:7-21; 1Jn. 5:1-21
God Is Love
Divine Sonship Tested By The Inter-Relationship Of:
1.
Love
2.
Faith
3.
Righteousness
CHAPTER XII
THE SOURCE OF LOVE
1Jn. 4:7-12
A.
The Text
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God. (8) He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. (9) Herein was the love of God manifested in us, that God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him. (10) Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (11) Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. (12) No man hath beheld God at any time: if we love one another, God abideth in us, and his love is perfected in us.
B.
Try to Discover
1.
How can John say everyone loving has been begotten of God, and then refer to Jesus as the Son, the only begotten One?
2.
How is the practice of loving evidence of knowing God?
3.
How can John say God is light (1Jn. 1:5) and then say God is love in this passage?
4.
How is Gods love for us related to our loving one another?
5.
What is the end perfection of Gods love?
C.
Paraphrase
Beloved! let us be loving one another; Because love is of God, And whosoever loveth Of God hath been born And is getting to understand God: He that doth not love Doth not understand God, Because God is love. (9) Herein hath the love of God in us been made manifest, That His only begotten son God sent into the world, In order that we might live through him. (10) Herein is love: Not that we have loved God, But that He loved us And sent forth His son as a propitiation concerning our sins. (11) Beloved! if in this way God loved us We also ought to love one another. (12) Upon God hath no one at any time gazed: If we love one another God in us abideth, And his love hath been perfected within us.
D.
Comment
1.
Preliminary Remarks
In Part II, John presents the three tests of eternal life in the abstract. He deals with them in terms of attitude toward personal guilt, toward our brothers in Christ, and toward Jesus.
In Part III, John shows us the practical application of these tests, as righteousness, love and belief become the active demonstration of the attitude.
As attitudes, these tests are considered evidences of walking in the light. Practically applied, they are considered proofs of Divine Sonship.
In this last section of I John, which we shall cover in Part IV, these same tests are shown to be inter-related. Eternal life, manifested as righteousness, love and belief, is one grand whole.
2.
Translation and comments
a.
Love is imperative because God is love . . . 1Jn. 4:7-8
(7) Beloved, continue loving one another, because love is from God, and everyone loving has been begotten from God and is knowing God. (8) The one who goes on not loving never did get to know God, because God is love.
God came to know experimentally, through the incarnation, what it is like to be a human being. (Heb. 2:14-18) We get to know Him experimentally through the experience of loving. Loving is the only experience totally common to both God and man. The person who does not love does not know God because no other experience which is possible to man is identical to anything else God does.
Man has tried to share in the experience of God by doing his own will. This is a privilege which God has reserved for Himself, and when man does it, it is sin and lawlessness. God does not allow us to do our own will, but demands that we do His will.
Man has tried to share Gods intellectual experience, and in so doing has succeeded only in making a fool of himself. (Cf. Rom. 1:22) Man at his best is pitifully ignorant as compared to God. The foolishness of God is indeed wiser than the wisdom of man!
Knowing God is eternal life. (Joh. 17:3) Gods desire for man is that we shall get to know Him by loving as He loves. In giving ourselves for the purpose of providing life to others we may come to know whats its like to be God without harming ourselves in the process.
Love takes its source in God, and only those whose lives originate in Him through the divine begetting can love as He loves. Consequently, when we do love in this way, we give evidence that our life finds its source in Him.
Our loving proves that we are His children and that we know Him. It is not our love which produces kinship to God; it is kinship to God which produces love in us.
Perhaps some special attention should be given to the statement that God is love. John does not say love is God. In 1Jn. 1:5, he informs us that God is also light, but he does not say that light is God.
The ancients often did worship light as god, and we call it idolatry. The modern American practice of falling in love with love is the same idolatry in new garb.
b.
God sent His Son to demonstrate love . . . 1Jn. 4:9-10
(1Jn. 4:9) In this was openly demonstrated the love of God in us, because His Son the Only Begotten One, God sent into the world in order that we might live through Him. (1Jn. 4:10) In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as a covering on account of our sins.
John is aware of the virgin birth. Jesus is not merely a son, but the Only Begotten One. What we may become through adoption, He is by right of eternal identity. What we may be by right of re-birth, He is by right of birth.
We are begotten of God by grace through obedient trust. He is the only one actually begotten in the customary sense of the word. He alone is Son of God by right. All others who are Gods children are so by grace through adoption. (Cf. Gal. 4:4-6)
In the fourth Gospel, John refers to Jesus, the Incarnate Word, in a phrase unique and definitive. Joh. 1:18 calls Him as God, only-begotten.
Our English versions read the only begotten Son, in Joh. 1:18. However, the footnote of the American Standard Version (1901) refers to certain very ancient authorities as reading God only begotten. Wescott points out that these are two readings of equal antiquity and that there is no ancient Greek authority for the reading, the only begotten Son in Joh. 1:8.
It is not within the scope of this present writing to present manuscript evidence sufficient to support one manuscript reading over against the other. However, many trusted scholars have done so and have concluded that God only-begotten is the correct reading of Joh. 1:18.
Such a claim to deity for Jesus by John is not surprising. Both the fourth Gospel and the first epistle of John are written to reaffirm, in the face of philosophic denial, that He is indeed God as man.
Joh. 1:1 makes the claim, the word was God. In the original language of the New Testament, the meaning was clear. The claim is not that Jesus and the Father are the same person, but that they are of the same nature. That which is the real nature of God is also the real nature of the Word. The true constitution of both is Deity.
That two persons have the same nature as Deity ought not give us any more trouble in acceptance than that two people can have the same nature as humans. This does not violate the fundamental faith of Israel expressed in . . . Jehovah, He is God, there is none other than He alone. (Cf. Deu. 4:35) There is but one Deity, as opposed to humanity, just as there is one humanity as opposed to animal. The Father and the Son share this divine essence.
The term Son of God, as used multitudinous times in the New Testament in reference to Jesus does not deny that He is God. On the contrary, it rather describes the limits placed on His revelation of Deity. It is true that . . . in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. It could not be otherwise if He is indeed God only-begotten. But we ought never assume that, as a man, Jesus revealed the entire infinite essence of Deity.
That such is not the case is evident from such statements as that made by Paul that He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant . . . (Php. 2:7) As J. B. Phillips so patly puts it, deity was focused in the man Jesus. This is perhaps the most powerfully significant fact with which the human mind can be confronted. The Creator of the universe, the Source of life itself actually stooped to take the form of one of His creatures.
This is precisely the truth denied by the gnostics, and is the focal point of everything John wrote in the fourth Gospel and I John.
The supreme function of this Incarnate Deity was to give life. The most quoted (and perhaps least understood) verse in the Bible is Joh. 3:16. It is restated in 1Jn. 4:9. The extreme to which love will go to bring life to its object is only seen in the crucifixion of Incarnate Deity, God only-begotten, the Son of the Father.
To deny the Deity of Jesus is to set aside the only adequate demonstration of love, and consequently to short circuit the only source of life.
This is, as well, the meaning of the virgin birth. There is no other way in which Deity can become human and still be God. The unique birth of Jesus, seen in this light, is not a miracle but a scientific necessity. To bring life to man, God must love to the fullest. The martyr death of one who is only human is not equal to the requirements of such love. Deity must die if humanity is to live.
Here is the heart of the Christian Gospel. The philosophies of men, past and present, advocate a reverence for God as they understand Him, which amounts to love as they understand love. Real love is not demonstrated in this way but in the death of the Incarnate Word as a covering for human guilt. We cannot but cry out, as indeed John did, look what sort of love the Father has given in our behalf . . . ! (1Jn. 3:1)
c.
The obligation to love . . . 1Jn. 4:11
(11) Beloved, if God so loved us, we also are morally obligated to keep on loving one another.
Failure to love our Christian brothers is as immoral as adultery or murder or the infraction of any other commandment of God. It is for this reason that enmities, strife, jealousies, wraths, factions, divisions, parties, and envyings which show the absence of love are listed in the same inspired sentence as fornications, uncleanness, lasciviousness . . . drunkeness, revelings and such like. (Gal. 3:19ff)
No person can claim to have eternal life who does not love others having the same life by virtue of the same divine blood. No matter how correct the doctrine, no matter how pious the demeanor, no matter how stained-glass the personality, one who does not love has no life in Christ.
It is Jesus own sacrifice which carries the moral obligation to so love our brothers. We cannot claim to have that mind in us which was also in Christ Jesus, (Php. 2:5) until we have emptied ourselves of ourselves and given ourselves for the sake of bringing and sustaining life in the children of God.
The readiness of many church members to cut and slash and assassinate the character of a fallen brother is a far cry from the love which demands that he bear a cross in his brothers behalf, not in spite of his brothers weakness, but because of it. True spiritual life is demonstrated when love acts to restore such a one in the spirit of gentleness . . . (Gal. 6:1)
d.
The perfection of divine love . . . 1Jn. 4:12
(1Jn. 4:12) No one has ever seen God at any time; if we go on loving one another, God is remaining in us and His love is having been perfected in us.
The love of God reaches its intended end when God lives in us. His presence is demonstrated by our love for one another. Where this love is absent, God is absent, and therefore, experientially unknown.
The boldest claim of the gnostic was that he knew God. While making this claim he denied that Jesus was really God as man. In making the denial, he removed the only demonstration, in the comprehensible human experience of love, of what God is like. He thus put the lie to his own claim.
The proof of this is that no one has ever seen God as God. In the Old Testament, God was seen in various manifestations called theophonies. In Jesus, men saw God as man.
No one can, therefore, claim to know God from having seen Him fully as He is, in all the splendor of His glory. We can only know God experimentally as He lives in us and thus brings us to experience what He is like by empowering us to love as He loves. This cannot happen outside of Christ. No one cometh unto the Father but by Him. (Joh. 14:6)
This is the purpose for which the Word became flesh. The love of God reaches its end perfection, the accomplishment of His self-revelation to us, when He lives in us and teaches us to love one another as He loves us.
Pauls prayer for the church was . . . that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, that you may be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inward man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled to the fulness of God. (Eph. 3:16-19) Paul too was aware that love is the demonstration of Gods perfected purpose in man. It was he who wrote, If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging symbol. (1Co. 13:1)
Small wonder that Jesus said that on this hangeth all the law and the prophets. (Mat. 22:40)
E.
Questions for Review
1.
Why does John say we are to love one another?
2.
What is the source of Christian love?
3.
God got to know what it is like to be human through ___________.
4.
The experience by which we get to know what it is like to be God is the experience of ________________.
5.
___________ is the only experience common to both God and man.
6.
Loving your brothers proves that we are ________________.
7.
Does John say that love is God? Explain.
8.
What evidence is there in 1Jn. 4:9-10 that John is familiar with the virgin birth of Jesus?
9.
Jesus is Gods Son by _____________ while we may become Gods sons through ___________.
10.
How do you reconcile the claim that Jesus is God as man with the statement, Jehovah, He is God, there is none other than He alone?
11.
The term Son of God applied to Jesus describes ________________.
12.
The supreme function of the Incarnate Deity was to ___________.
13.
What is the only way in which God can become a man and still be God?
14.
Our acceptance of Gods love for us carries with it the moral obligation to ______________.
15.
One who does not love has no _________________.
16.
The love of God reaches its intended end when God ___________.
17.
Evidence of God in us is that we ________________.
18.
The ultimate knowledge that man can have of God comes from the experience of _________________. When this happens, the love of God has reached its intended end in a persons life.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(7) THE PERFECT LOVE THE SUREST TEST (1Jn. 4:7-21).
(a)
Fraternal love the necessary product of the true knowledge of God, because God is love (1Jn. 4:7-8).
(b)
The grand recent historical exhibition of Gods love (1Jn. 4:9-10).
(c)
Our consequent duty (1Jn. 4:11).
(d)
Gods abode in us, the perfecting of His love in us, and the proof of His presence through the Spirit, are the equivalent for seeing Him (1Jn. 4:12-13).
(e)
All this is grounded on the strong, undeniable truth of the Apostolic witness to Christ (1Jn. 4:14-16).
(f)
The fearlessness which is the result of perfect love (1Jn. 4:17-18).
(g)
The cause of our love to God, and the necessary connection of that love with love to our fellows (1Jn. 4:19-21).
This may be considered the central portion of the second half of the Epistle. Nothing could be more significant of St. Johns teaching. Here many trains of thought which have occurred before are gathered together in one grand treatise on love, divine and humanthe complement of the thirteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians. The thought of (a) was suggested, though not in so complete and concise a form, in 1Jn. 3:10-11; 1Jn. 3:23; 1Jn. 2:4; 1Jn. 3:6; that of (b) in 1Jn. 3:16; 1Jn. 2:2; that of (c) also in 1Jn. 3:16; that of (d) in 1Jn. 2:5; 1Jn. 3:24; that of (e) in 1Jn. 1:1-2; that of (f) in 1Jn. 2:28; that of (g) in 1Jn. 2:4; 1Jn. 3:17. The connection with the paragraph on the trial of the spirits is very obvious: every one that loveth is born of God; so that the quality and quantity of our affection will be the best gauge whether we have the spirit of truth or of error. The absence of love is ignorance of God, for real knowledge of Him imparts His nature. And if any ask how we know of His love, the answer is that it was seen in His Son. In sending Him, He loved us without any love on our part. Our relation to God reminds us that we must have the same love to each other. The fact that God cannot be seen is an additional reason for mutual affection among us; for brotherly love is the demonstrable proof of His presence, and of the growing completeness of the work wrought by His love in us. The Spirit Himself, through whom our love would come, confirms the reality of Gods indwelling. And these spiritual emotions and developments are not illusory, for they are guaranteed by the ocular and oral evidence of the Apostles to the historical Person of Christ. So the result of all this will be perfect and fearless confidence. To sum up (1Jn. 4:19): our love to God springs from His to us; hatred of our brother (or the absence of love for him) is the denial of all love for God; and for this duty we rest not on our own deductions only, however true, but on His plain command.
(7 a.) (7) One another.As God loved the world, so we are to love mankind, not merely Christians. (Comp. 1Jn. 3:13.)
For love is of God.He who is truly alive shares the life of God, which is love. All true love is part of His being.
(8) Knoweth not.Rather, never knew. Real knowledge of God has a convincing practical effect; without such an effect it is not knowledge, but a mere mental deception.
God is love.In the early part of the Epistle St. John had defined God as light, and the thoughts had been grouped round and in relation to that central idea. It would of course be impossible ever to exhaust all the definitions of God; but just as our nature may be roughly classified as intellectual and moral, mind and heart, thought and emotion, so, when we have thought of God as Light (embracing all such attributes as truth, knowledge, purity, health, power, and justice), we shall not have traversed in outline all that we can know of His nature, or all that concerns us to know, until we have also thought of Him as Love, the author and source of all true affection, kindness, pity, friendliness, rejoicing in the creation of infinite life for the sake of its infinite happiness, and offering eternal bliss to all His human family, that He may be for ever surrounded by inexhaustible illustrations of the joy and glory of perfection.
(7 b.) (9) In this was manifested.St. John echoes his beloved Lord (from Joh. 3:16).
In us.(Comp. Joh. 9:3.) In our case.
Only begotten.In contrast to us, His adopted sons.
That we might live.Human life is regarded as no true living, but a mere existence, until Christ be formed in the heart and we become partakers of the divine nature.
(10) Herein is love.What love is this, that, distasteful, uncongenial, unloving, unlovely as we must have been in His sight, He did this great thing for us! (Comp. Joh. 15:16; Rom. 5:8; Rom. 5:10; Tit. 3:4.) On Propitiation, see 1Jn. 2:2; 1Jn. 3:16.
(7 c,) (11) Beloved.An impulse moves St. Johns mind corresponding to that in 1Jn. 4:7.
We ought.As God has bestowed his affection so gratuitously on us, and we benefit by it in such an inconceivable degree, and can make Him no return, we can only pay the debt by bestowing our poor equivalent on our fellow men. Although our happiness depends strictly on God, still He has allowed us to be stewards for Him in some small degree for the happiness of those about us.
(7 d.) (12) No man . . .St. John quotes his Gospel (Joh. 1:18). This is simply the general proposition, God is invisible, and has no reference to spiritual sight. (Comp. Exo. 33:20; Joh. 6:46; 1Ti. 6:16.) The appearances of God to Abraham or Moses would be like the Shechinah in the Temple, but no material glimpse of Him who is a Spirit. St. John mentions the fact as an admission of the limits of human nature and the condition of faith, but only in order to state the richness of the substitute, which is the presence of God within the soul, verified and substantiated by the historical Person of Christ.
His love is perfected in us.Its operation in us has full scope and sway.
(13) Hereby know we.Comp. 1Jn. 3:24.
(7 e.) A second antithesis to the opening words of 1Jn. 4:12. The Apostolic witness to the person of Christ is again and again insisted on as the foundation of Christian theology. (Comp. 1Jn. 1:1-3; Joh. 1:14; Act. 4:20; Act. 22:15; Act. 26:16.)
(14) Saviour of the world.Comp. 1Jn. 2:2.
(15) Whosoever shall confessi.e., receives the Apostolic witness as beyond dispute. (Comp. 1Jn. 2:23, and 1Jn. 4:6; Rom. 10:9.) The noble width of this declaration is most remarkable, in opposition to human inventions of narrow and sectarian communions.
Son of God, in the sense of only begotten, as in 1Jn. 4:9.
(16) And we have known and believed.This has the effect of a reflective repetition of 1Jn. 4:14, Yes. we have known and believed. This time, however, the we includes those who have heard and accepted the testimony of the eye-witnesses.
God is love.In this meditative recapitulation St. John cannot help summing up everything again in the boundless formula of 1Jn. 4:8. Knowledge is here the process that leads to conviction; belief, the result of conviction.
He that dwelleth in love.St. Johns whole purpose is none other than to raise man to his highest possible development by demonstrating the reality and nature of fellowship with the Divine. Here he arrives at the very central position of all: that as God is Love itself, so he that allows nothing to trouble that atmosphere of pure love (here neither specially towards God or man) which God would enable him to breathe, if his own wilfulness did not turn him away from it, will be bathed in the light of God, animated with His life, and one with Him. It is a combination of 1Jn. 4:8; 1Jn. 4:15.
Us has the same width as 1Jn. 4:15.
(7 f.) (17) Herein is our love made perfect.Rather, In this love is perfected with us. Love, as in 1Jn. 4:16, is the disposition to be attracted towards what is worthy of sympathy, whether it be God or man.
That we may have boldness.The day of judgment, whether near or remote, is regarded as so certain that it is a present fact influencing our conduct. Love will be more or less perfect in us in proportion as it gives us more or less just and reasonable grounds for confidence were we suddenly placed before the great white throne. (Comp. 1Jn. 2:28.)
Because as he is, so are we in this world.If we live in this serene atmosphere of pure sympathy with God and man, Christ is in us and we in Him, because God is Love itself. Sharing His nature, therefore, we must be like Him, and the more completely we allow this Divine love towards our Father and our brothers to transform our whole being, the more we shall be like our Judge, and the less cause we shall have for dread.
In this world merely indicates our present place of habitation.
(18) There is no fear.The more perfect this disposition of serene sympathy becomes, the less share can any form of anxiety have in it. Even if regarded as directed to an earthly object, if it be pure and divine in its character, not even want of reciprocity can disturb its equanimity. Where it is a well-grounded sympathy with a perfect being, its serenity is all the more complete in proportion to its sincerity. When love is perfect, fear dwindles to nothing, is absolutely expelled. Love, seeking to be perfect, and finding fear alongside of it, will diligently seek out the cause of the fear, perfect itself by getting rid of the cause, and so get rid of the fear. Fear in such a connection implies some ground for alarm, and suffers punishment (not torment) by anticipation. The presence of such a ground for alarm would imply a proportionate imperfection of love. (Comp. 1Jn. 3:19-21.)
(7 g.) The cause of our love to God, and the necessary connection of that love with love to our fellows (1Jn. 4:19-21).
(19) We love him, because he first loved us.Gods loving us made it possible for us to love Him: otherwise we should not have known Him, or had the faculty of loving Him even had we known Him. To suppose that St. John is putting a mere case of gratitude is to rob him of the dignity and depth of his meaning.
(20) These last three verses are a recapitulation in a vivid form, of the truth and the duty contained in 1Jn. 4:10-11. God made it possible for us to love Him, and the very first result of our feeling this power within us, and allowing it to put itself into force will be seen in pure and devout sympathy for all whom we can help. As usual, hating, and not loving, are put as interchangeable members of the class of malevolence. St. John argues on the ground that it is much easier for human nature to be interested by what comes before its eyes than by that about which it has to think. Gregory the Great says, In love the eyes are guides; and cumenius, Sight leads on to love. (Comp. 1Jn. 2:4; 1Jn. 3:17; and 1Jn. 4:12.)
(21) However this may be, there is a still stronger position: the simple command of God in Christ. (Comp. Luk. 10:27; Joh. 13:34-35; Joh. 14:21; Joh. 15:9-10; Joh. 15:12.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
2. The one confirmatory test love. The threefold love between God, the believer, and the brethren, 1Jn 4:7-21.
The one test is love; centered in God, 8; and manifested to us in Christ, 9-11; into which love we come by union through faith with Christ and God, 12-16; which love may be perfected in us, 17-19; and this divine love is love to our fellow-man, 20, 21.
Our apostle does not argue and reason out this statement; he affirms it, aphoristically and positively, by successive assertions, as one who knows, having full original acquaintance with Christ himself. His words are dicta; the dicta of an authorized, original expounder, as being derived from the incarnate Original.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
7. Love one another Namely, with that elevated love which desires and seeks to do everything for the happiness of the object loved, both temporal and eternal. Our apostle here begins with this spirit of love in our hearts, and traces it to its fountain, God.
Knoweth God Philosophers may prove by various arguments the being and attributes of God; but it is to divine experience we must resort to know God as love. Much of goodness appears in nature, but the fulness of love in God is learned by grace alone.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
God Is Essentially Light and Love, Holy Love, And Therefore Those who Are His and Know Him and Abide in Him Will Reveal That Love To All Who Are His ( 1Jn 4:7 to 1Jn 5:3 ).
‘Beloved, let us love one another. For love is of God, and every one who loves is begotten of God, and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.’
This statement, beloved of all, especially the world which interprets it totally incorrectly, is not at all quite so simple to understand, and certainly does not mean what the world thinks that it means. It rather seeks to make the believer consider the heart of things. It seeks to settle him down and look at what is most important.
The first question we must ask is, what is meant by love? It is certainly not romantic love. That is represented by a totally different Greek word. Love which is simply the result of sexual arousal and sexual passion has no appeal to Him at all. Indeed He is angry at its misuse by men. Its purpose was to bind man and wife together. Any other use of it He sees as an abomination (Rom 1:24-28). Loving one another has nothing at all to do with this kind of love. God is not involved in emotional tangles.
Nor is it general affection, for the love spoken of is within the Christian community. It is a special kind of love, as exemplified in 1 Corinthians 13. It is a noble love. It is an attitude that intends well to its brother, even when the brother is totally undeserving or is totally the opposite of what appeals to us. It is a mutual oneness based on being in the light and in fellowship with God. It is a holy love. We may not like our fellow-brethren, they may even annoy us sometimes, but we still love them, we still direct our thoughts to their good, we still bear with them (1 Corinthians 13). Because they are in the light as we are, we still seek their sanctification. They are our fellow-travellers on the way to perfect righteousness, our fellow-workers in the purposes of God, our fellow-citizens of Heaven (Php 3:20) with whom we will spend eternity. It is the same kind of love as that described in the commandment, ‘you shall love your neighbour as yourself’, and yet goes deeper because it is between brothers. But it is not necessarily suggesting deep affection, but a right attitude of heart and mind. Although in the case of loving one’s neighbour the love reaches out beyond the brotherhood.
It gains its meaning from the fact that ‘God is love’. But that also does not mean that God looks on all people with general affection. ‘The wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold down the truth by unrighteousness’ (Rom 1:18). There is no affection there.
Rather God’s love, coming from the One Who is light, is revealed by what He has done. He has sent His only Son into the world in order that we might have life. He has sent Him to a cross that He might become the propitiation for our sins. It is thus great benevolence acting towards those who were totally unworthy. His love comes from what He is, not from what we are. He has little affection for what we are in ourselves. His love comes in spite of what we are. He purposes good towards all (it is thus a true love), but without response His love is individually ineffective. It requires response.
It is specifically a love in the light. There is no love for what is in darkness, except in order to reach out and bring it into the light. His love is offered to all in darkness, to those at whom His wrath, His aversion to sin, is levelled, that He might bring them to His light. But He does not love them as they are. He loves them in spite of what they are. He so loved the world that He gave His only Son (Joh 3:16). But it is only to those who respond and believe, or to those that He knows will respond and believe because of His own working, that His love as described here becomes personal.
Thus when the Christian’s love for one another is compared with love as it is in God, it is thinking of love within the Kingship of light, within the sphere of God’s light. It is pure love, holy love. Its concern is for the true wellbeing of others, for their holiness, for their being made pure. It rejoices in righteousness, it strives to achieve righteousness for those within the sphere of that love. That is the love being described here. It is far from being a love that is indulgent towards men, however they behave.
That is not to deny a general benevolence of God in that He still allows provision for His rebellious creatures (Mat 5:45; Act 14:17), but it is not because of His love for them in the way described here, but because of what He is, Someone of general compassion. There it is a different kind of ‘love’. It is general benevolence. That is how we too should behave towards all mankind. But it is not love in the light.
‘Beloved, let us love one another. For love is of God, and every one who loves is begotten of God, and knows God.’ This makes instantly clear the unique nature of this love. It is a love that only those begotten of God know and experience. It is love within God’s pure light. It is a love that delights in righteousness and holiness. It is a love that is of God, and is directed at what God loves. It is a love that wants to bring about God’s will, a totally unselfish love. It is a love that the knowing of God produces. It is a love shared with those who love God and are loved by God.
‘He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.’ The one who does not have this kind of love for his fellow-believers does not know God. For if he did God’s love would possess his heart and he would love those whom God loves. For that is what God is like. He loves all that is within the sphere of holiness and righteousness. He loves in the light, and if we are in the light His love must affect us and love through us.
Thus His love surrounds all who have been accounted as holy and righteous in Christ, and in whose life He has planted His seed whereby they will grow into righteousness and true holiness. His love is effective in all who, because they are in Him, seek to walk without sinning, and who repent of sin when known, and receive His forgiveness and cleansing, all who walk in the light (1Jn 1:7).
Note on ‘God is love.’
John reveals God in three ways, God is Spirit (Joh 4:24), God is Light (1Jn 1:5), God is Love. He uses the most incorporeal things that he knows in order to describe God. To him none had physical form. God as He is in Himself is without body or physical attributes, He is totally separated from all that is evil and in darkness, He is pure light, and He is pure, righteous love. Thus all that He is seeks to produce what is holy, righteous and good, untainted by the effects of sin and of the world. That is what His love seeks to achieve, and will achieve. That is what His love offers. And we are to seek to be like Him. But it is not the physical world itself that is tainted, it is the spirit of the world (1Jn 2:15-16). God does not love that. His general benevolence is towards His creation, for it is His workmanship. But he does not love the spirit of the world. The spirit of the world is what man has produced without God, with the aid of the Evil One, and love of it is thus condemned. It is self-seeking. It is thus in direct contrast with the ‘love of the brethren’, which seeks not wealth, nor physical satisfaction, nor honour and fame, but the good of others, and especially of those who are God’s.
As such God is totally distinct from His creation. He sees His creation as good. What is not good is what man and the Evil One have done with it, and the spirit that they have introduced into it. Both God’s light and God’s love abhor the spirit of the world. His light reveals it for what it is, and His love seeks to remove it and to call men out of it. It is the ‘power of darkness’, in contrast with ‘the kingly rule of His beloved Son’ where He gives to those who respond to Him ‘the inheritance of those who are separated to God in light’ (Col 1:12-15).
It is under that kingly rule, and to those who are under it, or who will be under it, that His love fully shines forth. To those who are ‘in the world’ He shows a general benevolence, but His love as the God Who is love is only fully shown to those who walk in His light, and have turned from sin in their hearts, for only they are receptive to it. His benevolence in general is open to all, His general benevolence reaches out to all, but His full love as the God Who is love can only become experienced and personal to those who respond to Christ and receive the life that He offers, eternal life, although the same love is active in seeking to bring men to this point. It is His love that draws men to respond to Christ (Joh 6:44). It is His love that has given to Jesus Christ those whom He has chosen (Joh 6:37; Joh 6:39).
God does not love all men as they are. His wrath is revealed at what they are (Rom 1:18). But His love reaches through with the aim of making some respond to Him so that they may enjoy His love. It is a love revealed to such from the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4) which will be fulfilled within His final purposes. It is holy love.
But the message that John is emphasising stresses that God in His ‘otherness’ from His creation Himself became true man in Jesus Christ, so that He might be the representative of man in His death on the cross and in His physical resurrection. It was as God-made-man that He died on the cross for our sins, and as glorified God-made-man that He took His seat at the right hand of God, a distinction necessary because while in His Godhood He was One with the Father on His throne, in His glorified manhood He received His own throne to which He calls His own (Rev 3:21).
The physical creation is therefore not in itself evil. It is what man has made of it that is evil. And the creation itself will therefore be ‘redeemed’ by itself also being totally transformed, so that it will result in a new Heaven and a new earth in which dwells righteousness (2Pe 3:13; Rev 21:1; Rom 8:19-21). In this will His love for His creation be revealed, and all sin, all that is not light, will be done away.
End of note.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Witness of Loving the Brethren The second way that we can distinguish between the true believer and false Christian is by the love walk. Those who believe and acknowledge the true will endeavour to walk in love with the brethren. This is a second thing that the false Christian is unable to do. This pericope opens and closes with a command for the brethren to love one another.
1Jn 4:7 Comments – Being born of God and knowing God are two different things. Once we are born of God, we can get to know Him by having fellowship with Him.
1Jn 4:8 Comments – 1Jn 4:8 is referring to Christians and not unbelievers. Those who are born of God and do not have fellowship with Him are not able to know Him. When a believer does come to know God, he is not able to walk in love. When we have fellowship with God, we get to know Him, and we understand the love walk, because God is love.
1Jn 4:9 “In this was manifested the love of God toward us” Scripture Reference – Note:
1Jn 3:16, “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”
1Jn 4:9 “that we might live through him” Comments – Kenneth Copeland explained the phrase “live through Him” by giving the illustration of an orphan who has been abandoned by his parents. The child is placed in an orphanage. One day, a couple comes along and falls in love with this orphan. They adopt him and sign the adoption papers. From that day forward, the orphan is no longer an orphan, but is now a child of those parents. His life now is lived through them. They become the source of his life and sustenance. They provide all of his needs and all they want is for that child to love them back and to have fellowship with them. [33]
[33] Kenneth Copeland, Believer’s Voice of Victory (Kenneth Copeland Ministries, Fort Worth, Texas), on Trinity Broadcasting Network (Santa Ana, California), television program.
1Jn 4:10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
1Jn 4:10
1Jn 4:12 Comments – Although we cannot see God, we can see acts of love that testify of who God is.
1Jn 4:16 Comments In order to believe that God dearly loves us, we must first understand that God is love; that is, love is the primary constitution of His divine nature. One self-evident truth to God’s divine nature is that man is in fellowship with God when he is walking in love with his brother. Because God is love, and He abides in us, then His love abides in us. Therefore, when we walk in love with one another, we are expressing the divine nature of God that dwells within every child of God.
1Jn 4:17 Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.
1Jn 4:17
“because as he is, so are we in this world” Comments Although we are not like Jesus in our physical bodies and minds, we are like Him in our spirit-man, which has been created anew (2Co 5:17) and made perfect (Heb 10:14).
2Co 5:17, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”
Heb 10:14, “For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.”
1Jn 4:17 Comments As an expression of the divine truth that God is love, we are to walk in love with one another because His love dwells within us. Therefore, we can walk like Jesus because we can walk in love towards other. This love walk is a testimony of our divine fellowship with God who dwells in us. This love walk gives us confidence in our relationship with the Father so that we have no fear of the Day of Judgment, knowing that we will receive His praise and affection when we go to Heaven.
1Jn 4:18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
1Jn 4:18
We find another example in Heb 10:32-34, where the author describes the persecutions endured by these believers because of their faith in Christ. Their goods were plundered by those who were persecuting them. Despite such persecutions, these Hebrew saints were not ashamed of Paul’s bonds.
We find another excellent example in the Gospel of Matthew of how perfect, or mature, love casts our fear. Mat 1:20 reads, “But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.” Joseph had just found out that his spouse was pregnant, so he was troubled and wondering what to do. It is interesting to note that the angel addressed Joseph’s worries with the statement, “Fear not.” This reveals that the source of our concerns is fear. We know that fear is the opposite of faith. When the angel revealed to Joseph God’s divine plan at work in his life, he stopped worrying and trusted God with this difficult situation he was facing; because Joseph, a just man, loved God. It was this love that removed his fears.
Bob Larson uses this acrostic to define fear: “False Evidence Appearing Real.” [34] Kenneth Copeland says the phrase “because fear hath torment” means that as faith opens the door for the anointing to work, so does fear open up the door and allow torment to come in. [35] It took genuine faith in God for Joseph to believe what the angel said about a virgin birth and to act in obedience to these words. A virgin had never conceived before. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Joseph had no reference point in his life to compare such an event. He had to utterly trust and fear God in this situation.
[34] Bob Larson, Bob Larson in Action, on Trinity Broadcasting Network (Santa Ana, California), television program.
[35] Kenneth Copeland, Believer’s Voice of Victory (Kenneth Copeland Ministries, Fort Worth, Texas), on Trinity Broadcasting Network (Santa Ana, California), television program.
This would explain why Rev 21:8 tells us that the fearful will have their part with other unbelievers and abominable people in the lake of fire, since their love for God was not genuine.
Rev 21:8, “But the fearful , and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.”
Illustration When a man and a woman unite in holy matrimony, they begin building an intimate relationship, becoming increasingly confident of the steadfast love from the other partner. When this fellowship is broken through strife, fear enters the heart because the love of the partner becomes uncertain. God’s love for us is unfailing. Our understanding of His love, and our willingness to walk in this love with others builds a strong confidence in our hearts of God’s love towards us, casting our any fear of divine judgment against us.
1Jn 4:19 We love him, because he first loved us.
1Jn 4:19
Rom 5:5, “And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”
1Jn 4:8, “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.”
1Jn 4:18-19 Comments Maturing From the Fear of God to Love for God – King Solomon wrote three books that have been forever recorded in the Sacred Scriptures: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon. The themes of the books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes emphasize our duties to fear of the Lord, while the theme of the Song of Solomon places emphasize upon our need to love God with all of our hearts. It is with the fear of the Lord that we depart from evil and began to serve the Lord and obey His Word. As we mature in the Lord we get to know Him and begin to love Him. This is why John the apostle, who was the beloved disciple, could say that perfect love, or mature love, casts out fear. As John grew to know the Lord he grew in his love for Him also.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The greatness of God’s love:
v. 7. Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God.
v. 8. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is Love.
v. 9. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him.
v. 10. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. This paragraph is one of the most beautiful and, at the same time, one of the most powerful passages in the entire New Testament. It opens with an affectionate appeal: Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God, and every one that loves is born of God and knows God. For the third time in this letter St. John is constrained to speak of brotherly love, to plead with all Christians to show that love which was given into their hearts by faith. Such love is a creature of God, it is a reflection of the love of God in the hearts of those that have learned to know His love. It is a part of the new divine disposition and conduct which characterizes the believers. It is a proof of the new birth by the power of God through the Gospel; it is an outgrowth, a fruit, of faith, of the saving knowledge of God. On the other hand: He that does not love does not know God. Where there is no love toward the brethren in the conduct and life of a person, this is a sure and certain sign that he has not yet come to know God as he should, that there is no saving knowledge, no faith toward God in his heart.
That this is true St. John brings out in an uncontrollable burst of ecstasy: For God is Love: herein was manifested the love of God in us, that His only-begotten Son God sent into the world that we might live through Him. The test which St. John suggests is so definite, because it is impossible to know God, to be united with Him in true faith, and yet not to have love in the heart. For God is Himself Love: He is the personification, the embodiment, the source of love. How can anyone be born out of this love, receive a new spiritual nature from this love, be fully acquainted with its divine power, and yet not be inspired with love toward the brethren? For the love of God was manifested, was revealed, appeared to us and in us in such a wonderful way that the very angels were moved to the depths of their being. His only-begotten Son, than whom there was no being in heaven and earth in whom He felt greater pleasure, with whom He was united in a more intimate union, this beloved Son God sent down from heaven, from the abode of everlasting bliss, into this world, this vale of sin and corruption and death, in order that we, lost and condemned sinners that we are in ourselves, might have life, true, spiritual, eternal life, through Him and in Him. There is no message in all the universe more comforting, there is no passage in all literature more powerful than this simple statement of God’s love in Jesus Christ, His Son.
And it is a gift of God’s free love and mercy that John is speaking of: In this lies love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as propitiation for our sins. Here all merit, all boasting on the part of man is excluded, for this singular example of love is not to be found on the part of men, as though we, of our reason and strength, might have felt love for Him and longed to be united with Him. The very opposite is true. While we were yet sinners, while we were enemies of God, Rom 5:8, God loved us, and it was His love alone which prompted Him to send His only Son into the world to be a propitiation for all our sins, to offer up Himself in vicarious satisfaction for the transgression of all mankind. A perfect atonement has been made, a perfect redemption has been gained for all, and all the blessings of this salvation are ready to be received by faith, we, the believers, having become partakers of them all through the power of God in the Word.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
1Jn 4:7. Beloved, let us love one another: St. Jerome tells us, that when this blessed evangelist had continued at Ephesus to extreme old age, and was with difficulty carried to the church between the arms of some of the disciples, being unable to pronounce more words, he was wont, every time they assembled, to say nothing but this, “Little children, love one another.” In the verse before us, the apostle assigns a strong reason why we should love one another;for love is of God. He who planted the principle of attraction in the material world, plants the principle of benevolence in intelligent creatures; and has in particular enjoined Christians to love one another. He therefore who, through grace, possesses and cultivates this disposition, manifests that he is a Christian, born into the family of God; and that he continues to be a true child of God, resembling his heavenly Father; and that he knows the nature and will of God, so as to comply therewith. Others may pretend to great knowledge and sound faith, or just sentiments in religion; but he who does not love his Christian brethren, has not that disposition, and does not thoseactions, which are agreeable to the nature and command of God, and pleasing and acceptable in his sight. See the next note.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
1Jn 4:7-8 . Exhortation to mutual love, and the establishing of this.
The address emphatically introduces the command: .
The object shows that here also it is not human love in general, but Christian brotherly love that is the subject. Mutual love is the holiest calling of Christians who are , for , [261] i.e. love proceeds from God; Calovius: originem habet a Deo. Unsatisfactory is the explanation of Grotius: Deo maxime placet bonitas. is used without a determining object, because it is love in its full extent that is meant.
. . .] Inference from what immediately precedes. If love is of God, then he who lives in love must also be born of God and know Him. The relation of and is not to be defined thus, that the former is the condition of the latter (de Wette), but thus, that the former is to be regarded as the criterion of the latter; to be born of God does not follow from love, but love follows from being born of God. The same relationship exists also between and ; [262] what sort of a knowledge of God is meant, however, is seen from the close connection of with . 1Jn 4:8 . From the foregoing it follows further: ; , i.e. “ has not known. ” The reason is: .
By this thought the preceding receives its full comprehension.
is without the article, because it is considered as a general definition of the nature of God; so 1Jn 4:16 , comp. 1Jn 1:5 : . “Love is not so much a quality which God has , as rather the all-embracing total of what He is ” (Besser). Luther: Deus nihil est quam mera caritas; Grotius tamely: plenus est dilectione.
[261] Neander: “The apostle does not here lay down a commandment of love; he does not want to impress on believers new motives for love, but to convince them that as sure as they are God’s children, this fact must he manifested by mutual love. As proof he adduces that love is of God, and therefore every one who loves is born of God.”
[262] It was previously stated in this commentary: “John does not here say that love flows from the knowledge of God, but that love, because it is of divine nature, necessarily brings with it the knowledge of God.” This is incorrect, since stands in the same relationship to as does, even though it is in itself true also that only he who himself loves can really know God, who is love. For the correct explanation, see Lcke, Braune, Weiss. It has already been observed, however, that the last-named does not correctly state the connection between being born of God and the knowledge of God, as he makes the latter the condition of the former.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
1Jn 4:7-21 . After the apostle, induced by the appearance of the antichristian nature, has characterized the spirit of truth and the spirit of error, he passes on directly to a detailed account of the elements of faith and love alluded to in chap. 1Jn 3:23 .
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
7. Brotherly Love and Divine Love as Related to Each Other on the Ground of Christs Advent
1Jn 4:7-21
7Beloved, let us love one another: for8 love is of God; and every one that loveth9 is born of God, and knoweth God. 8He that loveth not, knoweth10 not God;11 for God is love. 9In this was manifested the love of God toward12 us, because13 that God sent his 10only begotten Son14 into the world, that we might live through him. Herein15 Isaiah 16 love, not that we loved God, but that he17 loved us, and sent18 his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.19 11Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. 12No man hath seen God at any time.20 If we love one another, God dwelleth21 in us, 13and his love is perfected in us.22 Hereby23 know we that we dwell24 in him, and he in us, because16 he hath given us of his Spirit. 14And we have seen and do testify that 15the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.25 Whosoever26 shall confess27 that Jesus28 is the Son of God, God dwelleth13 in him, and he in God. 16And we have known and believed the love that God hath to29 us. God is love; and he that dwelleth13 17in love dwelleth13 in God, and God in him.30 Herein31 is our love32 made perfect,33 that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so34 are we in this world. 18There is no fear in love;35 but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment.36 He that feareth is not made perfect in love.37 19We love him,38 because he first loved us. 20If a man say,39 love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how40 can he love God whom he hath not seen? 21And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.41
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Connection. The whole section 1Jn 4:7-21 insists upon the exhibition of brotherly love, because love is the very Essence of God (1Jn 4:8; 1Jn 4:16), as is evident from the sending and revelation of His Son (1Jn 4:8; 1Jn 4:10-11; 1Jn 4:14-15), from our past and present experience of the love of God (1Jn 4:10-11; 1Jn 4:16), from the experience of our confidence towards Him without fear (1Jn 4:17-18), and because as the children of God, we ought in grateful obedience prove our enjoyment of such love by the love of our brethren, His children (1Jn 4:19-21). Based on the (1Jn 4:7), this exhortation belongs under the great leading thought 1Jn 2:29, and connects with the warning against the false teachers, because faith in Jesus, in whom the love of the Father has been manifested and brought near to us, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit (1Jn 4:13), the Spirit of truth, and the Witness of Gods love in us, must evidence and manifest their truth and vitality in brotherly love.
Exhortation to brotherly love founded on the Being of God. 1Jn 4:7-8.
1Jn 4:7. Beloved, let us love one another., , a very emphatic expression; being loved we must love; being in the enjoyment of love we are and dare not be without love; the exhortation, as shows, must be restricted to brotherly [ChristianM.] love and not be extended to general love of man. [But the ground, on which this exortation is based, viz. that God is Love (1Jn 4:8) and that He sent His Son (1Jn 4:9), shows that the love of man in general is not excluded here. Cf. 1Jn 3:13; so Ebrard.M.].
Because the love is of God, and every one, that loveth, is born of God and knoweth God. indicates the ground on which the preceding exhortation is made to rest. The demonstration is conducted on a general axiom of truth: Omnis amor ex Deo est (Bengel), originem habet a Deo (Calov). This thought especially strengthened by , must not be weakened into caritas res divina maxime laudabilis (Socinus, Episcopius), Deo maxime placet (Grotius), love is Divine as to its nature (de Wette), Deus caritatis auctor est, quatenus nobis mutu caritatis causas abunde suppeditat (Schlichting). Neither must we add with A. , nor supply the brother with S. Schmidt, Lcke and al.[Didymus singularly understood here of Christ, , , :and Augustine fitting together Dilectio est ex Deo, and Dilectio est Deus infers that Dilectio est Deus ex Deo, which comparing with Rom. 1Jn 4:5, he infers that love is the Holy Spirit (Tract. 7:6). AlfordM.].Now since love and life are and spring from God, a man that is born of God proves that he is born of God by loving; for he must have part of that which is in God and comes from Him. The Perfect also alongside the Present shows that here again being born of God is regarded as the antecedent fact, as the cause of love, and love as a consequence warrants and necessitates the back-inference of the truth and reality of being born of God. Cf. 1Jn 2:29. Every one that is born of God knows also in his belonging to God, in his fellowship with God, God as the Source of love, and love as the Essence of God, and hence he must insist upon love and practise love, so that thereby he may prove his knowledge of and familiarity with God; to love and to know God are correlates, because love is of God. Hence Grotius (ostendit se Deum nosse sicut oportet) errs less than Calvin (vera Dei cognitio amorem Dei necessario in nobis generat).
1Jn 4:8. He that loveth not hath never known God.Consequently: he that lacks love in general, has not known God, has never learnt to know Him at all (Lcke), has never made even the beginning of the knowledge of God (Dsterdieck); this rendering is required by the Aorist joined to . The reason of this is given in the following:
Because God is love.A proposition which in the negative formula, according to the well-known manner of the Apostle, still further defines the former assertion that love is of God. This relation of the two propositions and of their contents requires us to give to a causal construction; hence it indicates the reason and not the contents of (Tirinus: non novit, Deum esse caritatem); in that case also ought to be wanting and it would be: , . Cf. Act 14:13. Winer, p. 469. =Deus nihil est quam mera caritas (Luther), Dei natura nihil aliud est, quam caritas, quam bonitas, quam summum bonum, sui ipsius communicativum (Hunnius). The Being of God is Love; therefore love springs from God. The word is to be taken essentialiter with most Catholic [AnglicanM.] and Lutheran Commentators, and not with Calvin and Beza: Dei natura est homines diligere; for this construction makes Gods Love-Essence give place to Gods manifestation of love and adds the limitation of its application to men, whereas angels and even the Trinitarian God are objects of the love of God. Still farther removed from the depth of this saying, even to shallowness, are the expositions of Socinus (caritas est Dei ipsiusque voluntas effectus et is quidem maxime proprius), Grotius (Deus est plenus caritate), Rosenmller (benignissimus). In this, that God is love as to His essential Being, lies the reason, why he that is born of God, must also have love and live in love and why the love of God must be allied with the love of the brethren who are also born of God. [Equally shallow are the explanations of Benson: God is the most benevolent of all beings; full of love to all His creatures, Whitby: The Apostle intends not to express what God is in His Essence but what He is demonstrative, , showing great philanthropy to men, and Hammond God is made up of love and kindness to mankind.Alford reviewing these quotations says that in them the whole force of the axiom as it stands in the Apostles argument is lost; unless he is speaking of the Essential Being of God, quorsum pertineat, to say that he that loveth not never knew God, because God is love? Put for these last words, God is loving, and we get at once a fallacy of an undistributed middle: He that loveth not never knew what love is: God is loving: but what would follow? that in as far as God is loving, he never knew Him: but he may have known Him as far as He is just or powerful. But take of Gods essential Being,as a strict definition of God, and the argumentation will be strict: He that loveth not never knew love: God is love [the terms are co-essential and co-extensive]: therefore he who loveth not never knew God.M.].
Revelation of the love of God through Christ. 1Jn 4:9-10.
1Jn 4:9. In this was manifested the love of God in (on) us.We hear the lovely, the living echo of Christ, Joh 3:16. (Heubner). points to the sequel. as contrasted with the hidden Being of the invisible God, annexes the objective, actual appearing and manifestation of the , of the love which is Gods, in God, as in 1Jn 1:2; 1Jn 3:5; 1Ti 3:16; there is no reference whatever to subjective knowledge. [Huther: The Apostle does not want to say that the love of God has been known by us through the sending of His Son; cf. 1Jn 4:16, but that therein it stepped forth from its concealment, and did in reality manifest itself.M.]. defines either the sphere in which, or the object at which [with regard to whichM.] the manifestation took place; it should be connected with the verb and rendered, either among us, with us, or at [in, with regard to] us. But the context does not introduce us merely as spectators but as receivers of the Divine love ( ); and this love is not only to us an object of contemplation, which would be expressed by the Dative without the preposition; but we ourselves are objects of this love, every one of us believers has experienced it; hence we ought not to leave the matter undecided (Lcke), but must decide for the rendering at [in, with regard toM.] us (Dsterdieck), according to the manifest analogy of Joh 9:3, where must be thus construed and explained; hence we may not connect it with (Huther and al.); for it was not the love of God in believers which was manifested, as if the believers existed before the manifestation of Gods love in Christ, but the love of God appeared in Christ and was manifested not to, but at [in] the believers. On this account Bengels explanation: Amor Dei, qui nunc in nobis est, is equally untenable. Still less admissible is it to make = , as is done by Luther, Spener and al. Cf. Winer, pp. 231, 436. is explained by what follows:
That God hath sent His son, the only-begotten, into the world.
This is the fact of the manifestation. The designation the only child (Luk 7:12; Luk 8:42; Luk 9:38; Heb 11:17; Joh 1:14; Joh 1:18; Joh 3:18), ad auxesin valet (Calvin); what love, that He sent His only son (Huther)! It is therefore not=, omnium creaturarum longe carissimus, sibi dilectissimus (S. G. Lange, Socinus, Grotius). John thus marks the exaltation of the Son, just as the term denotes His pre-existence (Joh 3:17; Joh 10:36): to be sent, to be sent into the world can only be true of one already born, not of one who is only born in the world, but one existing above and before the world, 1Jn 1:1.
That we might live through Him.Thus is explained. This indication of the purpose, , points as much to the life-fulness in Christ as to our poverty. Cf. 1Jn 3:16-17. [Baumgarten-Crusius: and are the two emphatic words: The most exalted Onefor our salvation!M.].
1Jn 4:10. In this exists love.[German like Greek the love, i.e. love in the abstract.M.]. is to be taken quite general, as at 1Jn 3:16 (Neander, Dsterdieck, Huther), without the supplement of (Spener, Lcke, Sander, de Wette, Brckner and al.), as at Rom 5:5.
Not that we loved God, but that He loved us.The simplest construction is to supply to and . Thus preparation is made for the comprehensive term 1Jn 4:19; the initiation of loving is with God; the beginning and origin of love is in God ( ); and are here emphatically contrasted like ; amari dignissimum, and , indignissimos (Bengel), the self-existence, independence, of the Divine love are intimated by the prevenience of that love absolutely unconditioned by any merit on the part of men; the former is what is really said here (Huther), the other, as we may justly infer from what follows, () and from what precedes ( ), is implied (Dsterdieck). Hence there is no reason whatsoever for rendering once because and then that (Baumgarten-Crusius), or for translating both times because but only as protases, thus: not because we loved Him but because He loved us, did He send His Son (Lachmann), or for a transposition of the words as if we did read: (Grotius), or for taking the first proposition as a dependent clause= (Meyer: that although we have not loved God before, yet did He love us). a Lapide erroneously assigns to the implication the first place saying: Hic caritatem Dei ponderat et exaggerat ex eo, quod Deus nulla dilectione, nullo obsequio nostro provocatus, imo multis injuriis et sceleribus nostris offensus, prior dilexit nos.
And sent His Son (as) a propitiation for our sins.This is the proof in fact of . The Aorist , like , , simply narrates, while the Perfect 1Jn 4:9 absolutely presentiates Christs having been sent (Lcke). stands emphatically in ante-position in order to set the act of God in relief; has an explanatory and substantiating reference to 1Jn 4:9. Cf. 1Jn 2:2; 1Jn 3:16. Insufficient: testatum fecit, se velle condonare (Rosenmller).
Brotherly love inferred. 1Jn 4:11. [from, 1Jn 4:9-10, and substantiating the exhortation 1Jn 4:7.M.]
1Jn 4:11. Beloved has a peculiar emphasis and distinct meaning, i.e. it designates those who stand in the enjoyment of the experience of the love of God.
If God so loved us.Because with the Indicative introduces the aforesaid fact, it is described as an indubitable ground for an inference to be built upon it. [Alford calls attention to the difficulty of rendering this with an Indicative in English, which is neither any expression of uncertainty, nor=since, or seeing that; he describes it as a certainty put in the shape of a doubt, that the hearers mind may grasp the certainty for itself, not take it from the speaker. If (it be true that).is perhaps the nearest filling up of the sense.M.]. denotes the preceding description of love; it is here=hac ratione, prevenient without any merit on our part, in the sending of His Son for the propitiation of our sins; but it is not=tanta caritate, as in Joh 3:16 (where requires such a construction, as Dsterdieck rightly observes). There is no warrant for the interpretation; nullo hominum discrimine (Grotius).
We also ought to love one another.In the first place we have to take notice of : we, first the object of the glorious love of God () must, now also regard and treat every Christian as an object of Divine love and consequently become the subjects of such experienced Divine love; to this necessitates us the brother whom God loves, and to this compels us the love with which we ourselves are loved. Hence the Apostle uses the word not only because there is extant for it an objectively given commandment and example, but also a subjective preparation for it; as Gods children, born out of Him who is Love, born out of His Love-Being, we must love one another.
There is no fellowship with God without brotherly love. 1Jn 4:12-13.
1Jn 4:12. No one hath ever beheld God.. Cf. Joh 1:18 : . The Perfects there, like here are on account of to be emphatically referred to the past with respect to its separate course and periods, and must not be construed according to a Hebraism, as carrying present force (Estius), or as comprehending the past and the present (Lcke). The word denotes calm, continued looking at and contemplation of a thing, but it is real seeing [in the literal sense of the word as distinguished from spiritual beholding, inward visionM.]; this is the view of the Greek Commentators, (Augustine, Spener, Lcke and al.), as in 1Jn 4:14 and= also 1Jn 4:20. The sense is: God is invisible (1Ti 6:16). Passages like Exo 33:20, and Gen 12:7; Gen 17:1 etc., are not contradictory, since where God did appear, it was not His face, but some assumed form that became visible. Consequently the passage must not be interpreted in a spiritual sense, as if it imported spiritual seeing and that God cannot be known and apprehended by mans own, natural powers (Piscator), or immediately (Rickli), or as He is (Estius), that He is consequently inscrutable (Neander). The explanation of this axiom follows from,
If we love one another, God abideth in us and His love is perfected in us.The proposition: , obviously refers not to the proposition which contains a presupposition and a condition, but to the leading thought: . The Apostle is wholly concerned with the inward life-fellowship, with the inward relation between God and man which is to be carried on to perfection and which manifests itself in brotherly love; hence brotherly love is only the presupposition and condition of the assertion and assumption of such life-fellowship with God, but not of that relation itself (contrary to Frommann). So especially Dsterdieck, Huther. The invisibility of God surely does not exclude our love to God (1Jn 4:20. cf. 1Pe 1:8); nor is the invisibility of God used here to direct us to brotherly love, as if we should show to the brethren what we cannot show to Him (Lcke and al.); in that case and not would have been introduced with . denotes His love, the love of God, even the love peculiar to and inhering in Him, which is in us, if He . In this life-fellowship with Him we participate in His love, which is , has become perfected [i.e. has reached its full completion and maturity.M.]. This love has its history of growth and completion in us and corresponds pari passu with brotherly love: where the one is, there is also the other; they mutually conditionate each other; it is loving with God, (out) of God, in God, which with Him is in us as His Being; dutiful loving ( 1Jn 4:11) is natural in believers. Hence the reference is not to Gods love to us (Hunnius, Calov, Spener, Beza, Sander and al.), for the predicate would not suit such a construction; nor to our love to God (Luther, Calvin, Grotius, Lcke, Neander, Dsterdieck and others), nor to ea dilectio quam Deus prscripsit (Socinus), nor to the mutual relation of love between God and us (Ebrard).
1Jn 4:13. In this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, that He hath given us of His Spirit.The mark of recognition of the life-fellowship of God with us, and among ourselves with God, agrees exactly with the description at 1Jn 3:24, as does also the reference to the gift of the Spirit ( ): . Neither 1Jn 3:24, nor the preposition here, has partitive force; it rather answers to , Act 2:17; Joe 3:1 (LXX.), while the Vulgate in conformity to the original text renders spiritum meum effundam, and denotes the origin and source of the Spirit in us, although we, as distinguished from Jesus who has the Spirit (Joh 3:34), have only part in Him; the coarse notion of a divisibility or dismemberment of the Spirit must be strenuously excluded. The Spirit Himself is given to us; nothing is said here of His gifts; there is no reference to the , 1Co 12:4; 1Co 12:11(in opposition to Estius). His Spirit ( , the Love-Spirit of God) answers to and confirms the explanation of 1Jn 4:12, as given above, and supplements the fact that His Spirit mediates in us His love and its perfections.
Evidence of this inward life-fellowship as a certain fact. 1Jn 4:14-16.
1Jn 4:14. And we have beheld and testify.Antithesis to 1Jn 4:12 : No one has ever beheld God, but we have seen the Son of the Father. designates the Apostles and their associates, and this reference is confirmed by , which verbs point to an immediate, personal beholding as contrasted with the knowledge mediated by others (1Jn 1:1-2; Joh 1:14), to their eye-and ear-witness (Joh 1:34). What they have beheld, that they testify also; both verbs have the same object:
That the Father hath sent the Son as Saviour of the world.In Jesus, the Sent One from God, they have beheld , , (Joh 1:14), and therefore they beheld Him as the Sent One of God. (cf. 1Jn 2:2; Joh 3:16; Joh 4:42), implies that He is sent for every man, not only for the electi in omnibus populis (Piscator); the universality of salvation is also confirmed by the sequel:
1Jn 4:15. Whosoever confesseth that Jesus is the Son of God.This is the consequence of the reception of the of the Apostles. Cf. 1Jn 2:2; 1Jn 2:23. The reference here is neither to the confession in the fact of brotherly love (Bede), nor to the testimony of a holy life accompanying the confession with the mouth (Augustine, Grotius); but the faith of the heart, which receives the Apostolical is taken for granted. Cf. 1Jn 4:16.
God abideth in Him and He in God.The confession, therefore, is to be taken as connected with the life-fellowship with God, and an ungodly conversation surely will not belie the confession; God in Christ Jesus will have appropriated salvation to the believer.
1Jn 4:16. And we have known and believed.The beginning exactly as in 1Jn 4:14. But and is matter of the disciples of Jesus without any exception whatsoever (Estius, Calov, Spener, Lcke, de Wette, Dsterdieck, Ebrard, Huther), not of the Apostles only, as in (in opposition to Episcopius, Rickli and al.). Cf. Joh 6:69 : ; cf. Lange in this Commentary, Vol. 4., p. 166, German edition. True faith is, according to John, a faith of knowledge and experience: true knowledge of faith (Lcke); both are in one another; each conditions and promotes the other. Hence it is really immaterial which of the two is put first; the moral act of faith and the intellectual act of knowing are ultimately not without the working of God in His Spirit on our spirit. For the reception of the word of truth in faith is a receiving from the Lord of the word, just as the shining of this bright word into the heart and the luminous rise of the truth of the word in the heart, come also from Him. The two constitute the foundation of mans confession. Hence the Perfects which continue to operate in the present confession. The object follows, viz.:
The love which God hath in us.Cf. Joh 13:35 : . The Present is emphatically placed first after the preceding Perfects; is used here as in 1Jn 4:9. It is, as in Joh 6:69 ( ), something objective, Gods love on us, namely in Christ Jesus, wherefore Bede says: Quia videlicet cum haberet filium unicum, noluit illum esse unum, sed ut fratres haberet, adoptavit illi, qui cum illo possiderent vitam ternam. Hence neither the subjective love of God erga nos (Estius, Luther, Socinus, Grotius, Rickli and al.), nor the love of God indwelling in us (Wilke, Hermeneutik des Neuen Testaments, 11, 64,), nor our love, kindled in us by Gods love (Ebrard).Now follows the concluding summary,
God is love and he that abideth in love, abideth in God and God abideth in him.A combination of 1Jn 4:8; 1Jn 4:15. denotes Love absolute, as the element of those who are born of God, and neither brotherly love (Lcke and al.), nor Gods love to us (Ebrard); it occurs here without any qualifying addition. , however, denotes the love of man in which he abides and which dwells in him.
Perfecting of love in fearlessness. 1Jn 4:17-18.
Ver 17. In this, love is perfected with us. is again absolute as in 1Jn 4:16; 1Jn 4:18, and must neither be construed as Gods love , nor as our love (Socinus), nor to God (Lange), but simultaneously as the disposition and activity of love (Huther), as at 1Jn 3:18; and must receive its full force of among, between, with us; see Winer, p. 336 sq.Were it not parallel with 1Jn 4:12 we might think of fellowship, ecclesiastical fellowship, the Christian Church, within which love has been perfected; the context also points to the individual life and perfection of Christians and not to the life and perfection of the Christian Church as such. Its most natural construction is with the verb (Lcke, de Wette, Dsterdieck and al.), not with , of which it cannot be the object, since it is not= , as supposed by Luther, Calvin, Spener, Bengel, Sander, Besser and al. The position of the words is not more decisive for the connection with here than at 1Jn 4:9 (in opposition to Huther); denotes the place where love was perfected. Hence must not be resolved into God and we (Rickli) and construed as the mutual love of God and Christians, which would be wholly inadmissible and repugnant to the spirit of the Gospel. should be construed like , 1Jn 4:12, and and in 1Jn 4:18, this in and on us is something to be perfected, and this perfection itself is not ready and accomplished at once; it has its stages and degrees. This is inconceivable and unpredicable of the love of God. But wherein is it primarily perfected? :
That we have confidence in the day of judgment.On see Notes, on 1Jn 2:28 in Exegetical and Critical. , which follows , 1Jn 3:11; 1Jn 3:23; Joh 17:3 and also , Joh 15:8, gives the purpose of God in the perfecting of love with us; we shall have confidence. therefore must neither be referred to what goes before 1Jn 4:16 (Spener), nor, with the assumption of a trajecta anticipatio, connected with (Grotius, Beza and al.), nor must be construed in the sense of (Episcopius, Bengel and al.). The is 1Jn 2:28. Of course has its usual sense and must not be explained=; for the reference here is not to the confidence of expectation, the desire of its drawing near (Augustine, Calvin), where men are liable to deceive themselves. Of course, he that may and will have confidence in the judgment, will also have confidence before it takes place; however, it is to be borne in mind that even believers, notwithstanding their activity of love, will be surprised in the judgment (Mat 25:31 sqq.); the reference is solely to confidence in the judgment, not to confidence beforehand. It is incorrect to combine the two with Rickli, Huther and al.; nor must be taken as a futurum exactum. [It is doubtful whether Braunes exegesis will carry conviction to the mind of the reader. It seems to be rather contradictory, for while he condemns the interpretation of Rickli and Huther, he seems to adopt it when he says that of course he that may and will have confidence in the judgment, will also have confidence before it takes place. On the whole, Huthers explanation, which is substantially that of Alford, seems to be the most natural. He says: The difficulty that something future (our attitude in the day of judgment), is to be valid as a mark of perfect love in the present, vanishes by the assumption that involves both the of believers in the day of judgment, and their present in anticipation of that day; this combination was natural to the Apostle who thought of the day of judgment not as very remote but as already dawning (1Jn 2:18). In his love this future is to him already present.M.].
Because as He is, we also are in this world. annexes the reason of our confidence in the day of judgment. is Jesus and not God (Augustine, Calvin and al.). The Present must not be construed= (a Lapide, Grotius, Rickli and al.), nor must the words be referred to Christ. The comparison must be gathered from the context: it is very strict, . The point in hand is the , which perfects love even unto filial confidence in the day of judgment (so Huther who cites Lorinus, reddit nos caritas Christo similes et conformes imagini filii Dei). Hence not likeness in suffering (Luther) or temptability (Rickli), not likeness in that, though we are in the world, we are not of the world (Sander); for nothing is said on these points; neither is here any reference to the adoption (Lcke), nor to (Dsterdieck). Love is the eternal Being of Christ, cf. 1Jn 3:7 (Huther). [The last named author lays stress on and compares in the passage cited the words: .Alford adopts the explanation of Dsterdieck, who thus develops his view: St. John does not say that Love is perfected in confidence in us, because we resemble Christ in Love; but he refers to the fundamental truth on which our Love itself rests and says: because we are absolutely like Christ, because we are in Christ Himself, because He lives in us, for without this there cannot be likeness to Him; in a word, because we are, in that communion with Christ which we are assured of by our likeness to Him in righteousness, children of God, therefore our love brings with it also full confidence. Essentially, the reason here rendered for our confidence in the day of judgment is the same as that given, 1Jn 3:21 sq., for another kind of confidence, viz., that we keep His commandments. This also betokens the , of which Christ is the essential exemplar and which is a necessary attribute of those who through Christ are children of God.M.]. applied to , denotes the place of abode, the earthly sphere of life, whereas Christ is in heaven, and is not an ethical idea, though we should supply with Bengel: amoris experte judicium timente.
1Jn 4:18. Fear is not in love.Antithesis of . Quite general: In love is not fear; fear is not a part of love, it is something wholly foreign to it, which is only outside of it (Huther). According to the well known phrase: oderint, dum metuant, hatred and fear are congruous, but love and fear are wholly incongruous. There is nothing said of the fear of God which is the beginning of wisdom (Psa 111:10), nor of love; hence neither our love to God, nor brotherly love (Lcke), and still less Gods love to us (Calvin, Calov, Spener).
But perfect love casteth out fear. is more than sincera, opposita simulationi (Beza), and is not out of itself (Lcke), as if it were in it, but out of the heart. Love not only does not contain fear, but it also does not suffer it alongside of itself; the love which wholly drives away fear is not love in its first beginning, love as yet weak, but love in its perfection. (Huther). [Alford says of that it is not here the mere adversative after a negative clause, in which case it would refer to something in which fear is, e.g. , () : but it is the stronger adversative, implying, nay, far otherwise: tantum abest ut. ut; and renders: Fear existeth not in love, nay, perfect love casteth out fear, etc.M.].Where such love fills the heart, there is no room for fear,
Because fear hath punishment.This is the reason why love does not suffer fear alongside itself. often used in the LXX., [Eze 14:3-4; Eze 14:7; Eze 18:30; Eze 44:12, cf. Wis 11:14; Wis 16:2; Wis 16:24; Wis 19:4.M.], as in Mat 25:46 in the sense of punishment, pain of punishment (Besser) under the menace of the . Bengel: tormentum habet; nam diffidit, omnia inimica et adversa sibi fingit ac proponit, fugit, odit. Hence it is not consciousness of punishment (Lcke), for the punishment has not yet set in; nor condemnation pronounced in the final judgment on him who does not stand in the fellowship of love (Dsterdieck). is neither pro concreto: he that fears (de Wette, Dsterdieck), nor is =receives; and least of all: fear holds fast to, tenet, thinks of punishment, knows nothing of clemency and love (Baumgarten-Crusius).[The pain felt in expectation of the punishment of Him who is feared (Huther); Fear by anticipating punishment has it even now (Alford).M.].
But he that feareth is not perfected in love.Negative connected with the main proposition: , and application to the beginning: . Hence is by all means to be retained, and neither to be cancelled, nor to be construed= or [ is strictly adversative.M.]. It is accordingly both owing to a want of perfection in the individual and to a want of perfection of love ( ), if fear is present, fear, as in Rom 8:15 : . Unnecessary [and dilutingM.]. are the conjectures of Grotius, who proposes to read (mutilationem) instead of (metus amorem mutilat atque infringit, aut prohibet, ne se exserat), and instead of (qui mutilatur aut impeditur in dilectione), and of Lamb. Bos who reads instead of . [Oecumenius says that there are two kinds of godly fear, , which afflicts men with a sense of their evil deeds and dread of Gods anger, and which is not abiding; and , of which it is said, The fear of the Lord is clean and endureth forever, Psalms 19, and which .M.].
The love of God is necessarily united with brotherly love. 1Jn 4:19-21.
1Jn 4:19. We love God. is contrasted with , without an address, like , 1Jn 4:7. There is nothing here to indicate the Conjunctive or an exhortation. s,emphatically placed first, who are born of God, His children,rather notes the fact, the Indicative (Calvin, Beza, Aretius, Socinus, Spener, S. Schmidt, Bengel, Rickli, Neander, Ebrard, Erdmann, Huther, Hofmann, Schriftbeweis II. 2, 338); it corresponds, like the whole 1Jn 4:19, with . Neither the comparison with 1Jn 4:7, nor the ground and the further development in 1Jn 4:20-21, can warrant the interpretation that we must assume here an imperative Conjunctive (as Dsterdieck does). For the majority of authorities favour the addition of the object, even the of A. implies as much. [Alford, who is on the same side, fixes the connection thus: He that feareth is not perfect in love. Our love (abstract, not specified whether to God or our brother) is brought about by, conditioned by, depends upon His love to us first; it is only a sense of that which can bring about our love: and if so, then from the very nature of things it is void of terror, and full of confidence, as springing out of a sense of His love to us. Nor only so: our being new begotten in love is not only the effect of a sense of His past love, but is the effect of that love itself.M.]. In the ground
Because He first loved us, is emphatic, and this seems to suggest a primary reference to our love to God, cf. 1Jn 4:9-10. From our most natural love to God, grounded on our experience of the love of God, the Apostle now passes on to brotherly love.
1Jn 4:20. If any say, I love God, and hate his brother, he is a liar. , cf. 1Jn 1:6; before frequently introduces direct speech. This progress confirms the assumption of the Indicative in 1Jn 4:19. Here the Apostle resolves the communicate form of speech into the singular form as a conclusion and proof. answers to the next following . Cf. 1Jn 3:14-15. To hate is the positive form of not to love. (Huther). Cf. Luk 14:26. Col. Mat 10:37. Every defect of love makes room to hatred. Hence , as in 1Jn 1:6. The reason:
For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God (or cannot love God) whom he hath not seen?The main stress lies in the antithesis and . The Perfect denotes sight continuing in its effect (de Wette, Dsterdieck, Huther); Lcke: =to have before ones eyes; a Lapide: vidit et assidue videt. Socinus goes too far in emphasizing the Perfect so as to make it also intimate that it is enough to have seen and become acquainted with one, and that it is not necessary to have him still before ones eyes. The saying of Gregory: oculi sunt in amore duces, and the remark of Oecumenius: , supply what is understood in the inference. Love to God, the Invisible, is difficult; also 1Pe 1:8 : express both joy and amazement. He therefore who performs the more difficult task of loving God whom he does not see, must also perform the easier work of loving his brother whom he does see. The Apostles object, consequently, is not to lead us from the love to our brother to the love of God, but only to verify the latter by the former; love to God ever remains the first, the deepest and highest work, which must, however, evidence itself in brotherly love. The interrogative form is as strong and authentic as the simple negation; but the anteposition of the object greatly intensifies the thought. or presupposes and denotes the supposition of the assertion of loving God [under the circumstances.M.] to be impossible, and the assertion itself a lie. The Apostles argumentum ad hominem applies only to the liar (Dsterdieck). Bengel: Sermo modalis; impossibile est, ut talis sit amans Dei, in prsenti. Hence the reference to the imago Dei, which Augustine [apostolus hic pro confesso sumit, Deus se nobis in hominibus offerre, qui inscriptam gerunt ejus imaginem; Johannes nil aliud voluit, quam fallacem esse jactantiam, si quis Deum se amare dicat, et ejus imaginem, qu ante oculos est, negligat), Sander, Ebrard (who suggests that it is not easier to love one who is visible before us, but has hurt us) and al., find here is by no means warranted, nor that of Grotius who calls man opus Dei pulcherrimum. De Wette also erroneously maintains that God, the ideal, invisible object could only be loved in reality in our brother, the visible, empirical object of love.
1Jn 4:21. And this commandment we have from Him. simply adds a new reason: the reference is to a specific commandment. This is a firmius argumentum (Calvin): for quomodo diligis eum, cujus odisti prceptum? (Augustine). refers to God (Lcke, de Wette, Dsterdieck and al.), not to Christ (Calvin), Sander, Huther and al.). The fact that is used afterwards does not militate against the application of to , since Jesus in His intercessory prayer Joh 17:3 mentions His own name instead of saying . The analogy of 1Jn 1:5; 1Jn 2:25 can not upset the context and 1Jn 3:23-24, and only indicate that also may designate Christ, and that not only does designate Him. The is and remains a commandment, and not=, doctrine (Carpzov).
That he who loveth God, love his brother also.But this commandment is nowhere found; not even at Mat 22:39. But the Apostle justly puts in the form of a definite Divine command the essential principle of Christian Ethics, which really and fundamentally carries everything which here (1Jn 4:7 sqq. 1Jn 3:10; 1Jn 3:19. cf. Joh 13:34, etc.) is told of the inviolable duty of brotherly love to those who are born of God and in filial love united to their Father (Dsterdieck); denotes also here the end and aim and not only the substance of the command, as Huther supposes.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. God is Lovea sentence, which is the summary and most simple expression of what the Scripture, the whole Scripture teaches throughout (Hofmann, Schriftbeweis I. p. 71), and has an important bearing retrospectively and prospectively. Retrospectively it bears even on the Being of God and on the history of Gods revelation in Christ Jesus. If the Being of God is Love it must also be personal and cannot be substance only in the pantheistic sense. Yea, it points to the Trinity or Gods vitality and fulness of life; Him that loves, who is yet not without Him that is loved, and reciprocal Love, as Augustine tried also this purely ethical construction of the Trinity alongside the psychological analogy (memoria, intelligentia, voluntas) in De Trinitate (VI. 1 John 5 : and therefore there are not more than three: One who loves Him who is of Him, and One who loves Him of whom He is, and Love Itself. If this is nothing, how is God Love? If it is not Substance, how is God Substance? XI. 1 John 2 : If I love something there are three,I, what I love, and Love itself. For I do not love Love, if I do not love Him that loveth, for love is not where nothing is loved); hence he could, according to Rom 5:5, understand in our passage (1Jn 4:7) by the Holy Ghost, while Didymus explained of Christ. In the middle ages Augustine was particularly followed by Richard of St. Victor, the mystic scholastic, or the scholastic mystic (cf. Liebner, Hugo von St. Victor p. 82 sqq.), in his work De Trinitate, especially III. 14and in modern times, first of all, by Sartorius: Die heilige Liebe, Part I. p. 1 sqq., and Liebner: Christologie I (in many places). See also Nitzsch on the Essential Trinity of God in the Studien und Kritiken, 1841, pp. 295345, especially p. 337 sqq.
2. Retrospectively, traces of this truth may be found in the History of the Revelation of God in Exo 34:6; Psa 103:8-13; Psa 86:5; Psa 86:15; Deu 32:6; Is. 73:16; Jer 31:9. But. John treats in the most comprehensive manner, with perfect ease and certainty this most profound thought which would never have occurred to any thinker out of his own strength and reason! The heavens declare the glory and majesty of God only, (Psalms 19.) His word alone declares His grace. In nature we meet His handiwork, His Power and Wisdom, in His word alone do we encounter His Love and Mercy. The axioms God is a Spirit (Joh 4:24), and God is Love set forth the most vital truths concerning the Nature and Being of God.Spirit is His Nature, Love His Life (Schberlein), or Spirit is the Substance and Nature, Love the character of God and not only in His attitude.
3. Prospectively this Johannean saying points to the life of knowledge and of demeanour. Sartorius in his Heilige Liebe has based on this saying the whole of his Ethics. Cf. also Khler, Gott der allein Gute (God the Only Good One) in Studien und Kritiken 1856, p, 426 sqq. Practicam definitionem Dei proponit 1Jn 4:8 : Deus caritas est. Ex caritate omnia Dei opera procedunt, et Spiritus Sanctus a Patre et Filio ab terno procedens est substantialis amor Patris et Filii. In tempore Deus ex caritate omnia creavit, ex caritate misit Filium ad opus redemtionis: prstandum, ex caritate dat Spiritum Sanctum, qui similes motus in cordibus credentium accendit, ex caritate in vita terna a facie ad faciem beatis sese intuendum prstabit.Omnia in caritate et ex caritate agit (Joh. Gerhard Exeg. 2. p. 71). But we must guard against straightway identifying Love, which is the Nature of God, with the Personality of God which is the logical presupposition of the former (against Liebner, i. 1, 111), and to take care not to combine Love with Truth and Righteousness (as does Nitzsch, System 63. 1), for communication of self is implied in the nature of Love, but not in the nature of truth and holiness, and what becomes of the difference between and , of the anti-scriptural conception of and the wrathless God in Origen and Schleiermacher? Cf. Thomasius, Christi Werk und Person, i. p. 127 sqq.; Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 2. p. 79 sqq.
4. The love of God was revealed in the sending of His only begotten Son. 1Jn 4:2; 1Jn 4:9-10; 1Jn 4:12; 1Jn 4:14. Hence He is called = (Joh 1:14; Joh 1:18; Joh 3:16; Joh 3:18), and not (Rom 8:29; Col 1:15; Col 1:18; Heb 1:6; Rev 1:5). The greatness of the Sent One and the object of His Mission are designed to mark the love of Him that sent Him. The reference to the first-born would mark the success of the Mission and the work of the Sent One. There is no other proof of the love of the Father, equal to this: Christ, the Son of God by His appearing and message compensates us for the want of seeing the Invisible God (1Jn 4:12. Joh 14:9). Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, 1:71.
5. To see, know, believe on, confess and testify of Jesus the Son of God on the part of the Apostles, to hear, know, believe and confess on the part of the Church, is indispensable to the life-fellowship of God with us, and of us with God, since, through and through ethical, it can only be acquired and preserved by an ethical process. With the new birth out of God, spiritual regeneration, begins the life-process of sanctification. To remain untouched, unmoved in the presence of Jesus, or only to be turned to Him outwardly, or even to turn away from Him, to deny Him in doubt or decided unbelief, is immorality.
6. The nature of this life-fellowship, begun with our regeneration, is mutuality in continuous reciprocity of action; He to and in us, we in Him, believingly knowing and confessing Him, living and loving, we full of confidence, He in His ever prevenient grace and work of grace to and in us.
7. The degrees of development are given by Bengel thus: Sine timore et amore, cum timore sine amore, cum timore et amore, sine timore cum amore. And Augustine: Timor quasi locum prparat caritati. Si autem nullus timor, non est, qua intret caritas. Timor Dei sic vulnerat, quo medici ferramentum. Timor medicamentum, caritas sanitas. Timor servus est caritatis. Timor est custos et pdagogus legis, donec veniat caritas. Though man in his sin begin with servile fear before God, in the presence of Gods Nature of Love and attitude of Love he will progress in filial fear even unto fearlessness and confidence in all humility.
8. Brotherly love is and remains the measure of our life from God, from whom comes all love; he that abides in God, cannot be without love, and he that is without love cannot be in God, nor can God abide in him. He, who is Love, has thus ordained it Himself; it is His Will, His explicit commandment, even as it is in conformity with His Nature.
9. [Wordsworth on 1Jn 4:10 : A statement of the doctrine of the Atonement, and a statement the more remarkable, because it anticipates the objections that have been made to it in later times.These objections have taken the following form. God, it is said, is Love (1Jn 4:8). He loves us, and He loves His only-begotten Son. We are sinners; and as long as we are sinners, and without pardon from God, we have no hope of heaven. As sinners we owe an infinite debt to God, which we can never pay. But God is infinite in Love; He willeth not that any should perish (2Pe 3:9), but that all should be saved (1Ti 2:4). He can forgive us the debt. He can do this freely. To suppose that He cannot do so, is to set limits to His Omnipotence. To imagine that He will not do so, is to disparage His Love. To allege, that He will require an equivalent for the debt, is to represent the God of mercy as a rigorous exactor, and to believe that He required such a price for our pardon, as the blood of His own beloved Son, and that He exposed Him who is perfectly innocent, to the death of the cross for our sakes, at the hands of wicked men, is to charge God with cruelty, injustice and weakness; and to suppose Him to be angry with us, at the same time that we say that He loved us, and gave His only Son to die for us (1Jn 3:16; 1Jn 4:10), is, it is alleged, to involve ourselves in inconsistency, and to misrepresent God, as if He were affected by human passions. And lastly, to say that Christ shed His blood as a ransom to deliver us from the captivity of Satan, is, it is argued, to make the Son of God tributary to the Evil One. Such are the objections made by Socinians and others, to the doctrine of the Atonement.These objections rest on fallacious grounds. They proceed on the supposition that as sinners we are only debtors to God. But in His relation to us, God is not only a Creditor, but He is our Lawgiver and Judge, our King and Lord; and He is perfectly just and holy.
Besides, as St. John teaches (1Jn 3:4), the, essence of sin is, that it is a violation of Gods Law, and all are sinners (1Jn 1:10). And God represents Himself in Scripture as a Moral Governor, infinite in justice, and when we contemplate Him as He is represented by Himself in His own Word, and when we regard sin as it is in His sight, and as it is described in the Holy Scriptures, we must conclude that He is grievously offended by sin; and He has declared in His word that He is angry with it and will punish it. The wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness (Rom 1:18). The wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23).But this proposition is not at variance, as has been alleged, with St. Johns declaration, that God loved us, and sent His own Son, the only begotten, that we might live through Him; and that herein consists Love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son a propitiation for our sins.
That which God loved in us was not our sin, but our nature. It was that nature which God Himself had made in His own likeness, and which we had marred, and which He desired to repair. And because He hates sin, and knows its consequences, even death eternal, and because He loved our nature which was exposed by it to everlasting perdition; and because being infinitely just, He must punish sin, which He, who is infinitely pure, must hate, and which He who is infinitely true, has declared that He will punish; and because the sins of the whole world are so heinous, and because they demand a satisfaction infinite in value, and because without shedding of blood there is no remission (Heb 9:22); therefore, in His immense love for our nature, which He had made and which we had marred by sin, He sent His own Son, God of God, to take that Nature, the Nature of us all, in order to be the substitute of all, and Saviour of all, and to become our Emmanuel, God with us (Mat 1:23), God manifest in the flesh (1Ti 3:16), partaking of our flesh and blood and to be the Lord our Righteousness (Jer 23:6; Jer 33:16), and to suffer death, the wages of sin, in our nature, as our Proxy and Representative, and to appease Gods wrath by an adequate propitiation, and to take away our guilt, and to redeem us from bondage and death by the priceless ransom of His own blood, and to deliver us by His death from him who had the power of it, even the devil, and to reconcile us to God, and to restore us to His favour, and to effect our atonement with Him, and to purchase for us the heavenly inheritance of everlasting life. See Heb 2:14; Heb 2:17.As Origen says (in Matthew 16.): Homo quidem non potest dare aliquam commutationem pro anima sua (Psa 49:9; Mat 16:26); Deus autem pro animabus omnium dedit commutationem, pretiosum sanguinem Filii sui (1Pe 1:18). Si non fuisset peccatum, non necesse fuerat Filium Dei Agnum fieri; nec opus fuerat Eum in carne positum jugulari; sed mansisset hoc, quod in principio erat, Deus Verbum. Verum, quoniam introiit peccatum in hunc mundum, peccatiautem necessitas propitiationem requirit, et propitiatio non fit nisi per hostiam, necessarium fuit pro-videri hostiam pro peccato. (ibid. hom. 4 in Num.) If it be said that according to this statement the just suffer for the unjust, and that the beloved Son of God was delivered to death for the offences of those who did hot love Him, but were at enmity with Him, this is perfectly true; it is the assertion of God Himself in Holy Scripture, see 1Pe 3:18; 2Co 5:21; 1Pe 1:19.The Just suffered for the unjust. Yes, suffered for a time. But this is not at variance with daily experience. Parents suffer for children; brethren for brethren; friends for friends; subjects for sovereigns, and sovereigns for subjects. And if we are to reject the doctrine of the Atonement on the plea that vicarious sufferings are not reconcilable with justice, we cannot stop short of Deism or even of Atheism. Cf. Bp. Butlers Analogy of Religion. Part II. 1 John 5.
If any victim was to take away sin, that victim must be innocent. In order to take away infinite guilt, it must be infinitely innocent. The price paid for Infinite Justice must be infinite in value. In order to suffer for men the victim must be human; and in order to satisfy God, it must be Divine. Be it remembered also that the Son of God suffered willingly. He gave Himself a ransom for all (1Ti 2:6). The Good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep (Joh 10:11). Cf. Mat 20:28; Gal 1:4; Gal 2:20; Eph 5:2; Tit 2:14; Heb 9:14.They also for whom He gave Himself are His own flesh and blood. He is their Head, they His members. They are one with Him.Still further.By His meritorious sufferings in that human nature, which He has taken, and joined forever in His own Person to the Nature of God, He has delivered that nature from sin and death, and has exalted it to the right hand of God. Therefore He suffered joyfully. To do evil is indeed evil; and to suffer evil in eternity, is dreadful; but to suffer evil in time, in order that others by our means may be happy in eternity, is not evil, but glorious. Earthly conquerors die with joy in the hour of victory. Much more Christ. He knew that suffering was His path to glory. He knew that because he was obedient to death, even to the death of the cross, therefore God would highly exalt Him, and give Him a Name above every name (Php 2:8-9). He saw of the travail of His soul and was satisfied (Isa 53:11). Doubtless, in His human flesh He shrank from the cup of agony and from the anguish of the cross. But even in the glorious hour of His transfiguration He had talked with Moses and Elias of His death (Luk 9:31). His Divine eye pierced through the clouds of suffering, and saw the visions of glory to which it would lead, a victory over Satan, a world rescued from his grasp, Gods justice satisfied, His wrath appeased, His love glorified; and so the cross became a triumphal chariot, in which the Conqueror rode in victory (Col 2:14), and mounted to heaven, and bore mankind with Him through the gates of the heavenly palace of the everlasting capital and was greeted by the song of the angels; Lift up your heads, etc. Psa 24:7.
It has been alleged that if by sin we were prisoners to Satan, therefore the price of Christs blood which He paid upon the cross for our liberation from Satan was paid to Satan. But this we deny. See Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. 45, p. 862, ed. Paris, 1778. It might as well be said that the ransom paid for the delivery of prisoners from a kings prison, is paid to the gaoler in whose custody they are. We, by our sins, had made ourselves slaves of Satan: and as a just punishment for our sins, we were made prisoners of Satan. Satan was Gods executioner against us. He was our gaoler. Tophet is ordained of old (Isa 30:33), as one of Gods instruments of death (Psa 7:14). But Christ, by dying for us, delivered us from death. He rescued us from the hands of Satan, and paid the price of our ransom, not to Satan, but to God. He delivered us from Satan by offering Himself to God. (Cf. Rom 3:23-26).
They who contravene the doctrine of the Atonement often claim the credit of exercising their Reason, and deny that unbelief of the doctrine of the Atonement rests on the foundation of reason. But a right use of reason leads to a firm belief in the doctrine of the Atonement; and a denial of it proceeds from an abuse of reason.
The doctrine of the Atonement cannot be discovered by reason. No; but we can prove by reason that the Holy Scriptures are from God, and that the doctrine of the Atonement is clearly revealed in the Holy Scriptures. And thus this doctrine rests on the foundation of reason. Being a portion of supernatural truth revealed by God in Scripture to the world, it is not to be discovered by reason, or fully comprehended by reason, but it is to be heartily embraced and surely held fast by faith, which implies a right use of reason. And reason teaches us, that it would be very unreasonable to expect, that what is contained in a revelation from such a Being as God to so frail a creature as man, in his present state on earth, should be fully comprehended by reason; and that, if reason could understand everything, there would be no use in revelation, and no place for faith. Right reason itself teaches us that to deny the Lord who bought us (2Pe 2:1), because we cannot understand, why God allowed sin to prevail, which required the sacrifice of the death of His own ever-blessed Son, would be to renew the indignities of the crucifixion, and to smite our Redeemer with a reed, the reed of our unregenerate reason, when we ought to fall down and worship in faith. Reason itself teaches us that it is very reasonable to expect mysteries in revelation; and that they are our moral discipline, and exercise our humility, patience, faith and hope, and teach us to look forward to that blessed time, when we, who now see through a glass darkly (1Co 13:12), shall behold the clouds removed, etc. Thus reason leads us to the door of the Holy of Holies; and then we pass within the veil by faith; and there we stand, and with the eye of faith, we behold God enthroned upon the Mercy Seat, sprinkled by the blood of Christ. Further, as reasonable men, looking at the cross of Christ, we see there the most cogent reasons for presenting ourselves, our souls and bodies a living Sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is our reasonable service (Rom 12:1).
This doctrine of the Atonement is the root of Christian practice, and they, who impugn that doctrine, are not only undermining the foundations of Christian faith, but also of Christian morality. This was clearly evinced even in the Apostolic age, by the licentiousness and profligacy, engendered by heretical doctrines, against which St. John contends in his Epistles, concerning the Incarnation and Death of Christ.
We cannot adequately estimate the moral heinousness of sin, without considering the sacrifice which it cost to redeem us from its power and guilt. We cannot duly understand the obligations of love and obedience, under which we lie to Christ, and the motives which constrain us to holiness, without remembering that we are not our own, but have been bought with a pricethe blood of Christand are therefore bound to glorify Him in our bodies which are His. See 1Co 6:20.
Accordingly, St. John, having stated the doctrine of the Atonement, proceeds and continues to the end of the Epistle, to enforce the moral duties consequent on this doctrine. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. He teaches us to contend earnestly for the doctrine of the Atonement, as the groundwork of Christian duty to God and man. Cf. Pearson on the Creed, art. 10. pp. 670688.M.].
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
In love, even in Gods glorious Love thou livestwell, let love live also in thee!the primal fount of the Love in God streams round thee, and onward to thee, also through thy heart; wilt thou enjoy it without having part thereof?Out of thee must shine forth that which has been manifested to thee, even the love and kindness of God thy Saviour, which seeks that which is lost. Brotherly love must grow warm in filial love which has been kindled at the Fathers heart.In thy child people recognize a member of thy family, thy race; and ought not our heavenly Father to be recognized in thee? Therefore exercise thyself in love of the brethren!Dost thou boast of thy knowledge of God, of understanding the Holy Scripture? prove it in thy brotherly love!In nature thou seest His handiwork, the traces of His Omnipotence, in Christ the love-purpose of His heart, His peace-thoughts respecting thee (cf. Doctrinal and Ethical No. 2). He takes care that thy sins be atoned for, that thou become not estranged from Him, or keep remote from His life; do not build anew at the wall of partition between Him and thee; such building destroys thy life and thy salvation.The anticipating offices of friendship are gratifying and humiliating; realize and receive the prevenient grace of God.As He took the initiative in creation, so He had to take it also in redemption, which is also a creation; and how Has He done it! Though without thee He could create thee, yet Ho neither can nor will save thee without thee.Above thee rules thy Father, for thee the Son is sent, in thee works His Spirit; do not hinder the work of God for and in thee; do not in unkindness to thyself and thy brethren arrest the perfecting of His work of love.Do not reject the testimony of eye-and ear-witnesses; surrender to it, receive it in faith, hold it fast in confession; exercise thyself in the love which thou believest and knowest. For to be unloving is to be ungodly, and to be ungodly is to be unloving. If thou art disposed to disparage confession, recollect that like love it radiates from faith; confession is the love of the mouth, love is the confession of the deed, and both come from the heart.Behind the judgments in the worlds history and in the history of thy life, there is a judgment, to stand in which is salvation and bliss.The unloving must be undone in the judgment of Him who is Love, before the Judge who desired to become the Saviour.That cannot be our desire in life which does not give us confidence in the last judgment.Fear, which does not strengthen but expels love, is worthless; so is also that love, which is unable to overcome fear (cf. Doctrinal and Ethical, NO. 7).Brotherly love, in comparison with the love of God, is as inferior as is rendering unto Csar the things that are Csars, in comparison with rendering unto God, the things that are Gods; but on that account both must not be undervalued, for both are enjoined upon us. Still it is certain that when the less is wanting, the greater has no room and cannot find the ability to practise it.Behold of brotherly love: 1. The origin. 2. The measure. 3. The power. 4. The growth. 5. The prize and victory.Only in obedience to the will of God thou growest in the nature of God and art changing from a creature into a child, from a servant into an heir of God.The glory of love: 1. Whence is it? 2. Where was it manifested? 3. What does it effect? 4. whither; does it lead?The power of love 1. on earth with reference to the brethren, even to hostile ones; 2. in heaven, in the judgment, before God and Jesus Christ, the Holy One.The perfecting of love to the brethren Isaiah 1. difficult, 2. appointed, 3. sure, 4. glorious.
Bernard:God is Love: what then is more precious than love? And he that abides in love, abides in God; what then is more sure than love?
Augustine:Thou beholdest the Trinity, when thou beholdest Love, for there are three, he that loveth, he that is loved, and reciprocal love.
Luther:For what shall one say much of it? If one says in a lengthy way, that it is a lofty, noble qualitas in the soul and the most precious and perfect of virtues, as the philosophers and work-teachers discourse of it; all this is nothing in comparison with this word which he pours forth in overflowing eloquence that God is Love, and that His Being and Nature is wholly Love. If any tine would paint and produce a likeness of God, he must produce a picture which is wholly love; as if the Divine Nature were nothing else than an oven and fire of love, filling heaven and earth. And again, if Love could be painted and portrayed, it ought to be a picture that is neither real and human, nor angelic and heavenly, but God Himself. See thus the Apostle understands to paint here, that he represents God and Love as identical, in order that by such a noble, precious and lovely picture He may draw and attract us more to Himself and to make us strive to have love among ourselves and to beware of envy, hatred and discord. For as Love is a picture of God, neither a dead picture nor painted on paper, but a living Being of Divine Nature, burning and overflowing with whatever is good, so hatred and envy are a veritable picture of the devil, not human or devilish only, but the devil himself, who is nothing in his nature but an eternal burning of hatred and envy of God and all His works, both man and all creatures; so that that would be the best picture of the devil which would represent all hatred and envy.As there are also among us still many who hear and teach the Gospel with us, use the same sacraments and affect the manners of genuine Christians; but they are among us like chaff among the wheat; if the battle approaches it becomes manifest whose they are and whither they belong. For there is nothing but pride, vanity, envy, contempt and the devil himself.It is not a great art to begin a Christian life and love; but it is an art and a task to abide therein and perseveringly to continue therein especially in the presence of temptation and opposition. Although there still are many rough, coarse people that fall off spontaneously like rotten worm-eaten apples or pears, and proceed drowned in their avarice, pride, envy, etc., they are spoiled, useless fruit, wholly unprofitable, that shall and can not remain. But we refer to those who are blown off or struck down by wind and weather, that is, those who suffer themselves to be changed by temptations and thoughts like these: Why should I abide by the doctrine? I well perceive, that it yields no other returns than those of being burdened with the disfavour, contempt, enmity, rage and fury of all the world, that I must risk my body and life, and must ever take the lead against the devil, the world and the flesh, etc. Who can come up to this and persevere, if that is all he is to get?But it is not to be so; the true course is rather to tear through all opposition, to proceed without heeding obstacles, whether we meet with the sour or the sweet, however it fare with us, be it friend or enemy, or the devil himself and ever to think: I have not entered upon this work in order that the people should give, love or reward me; and therefore no desisting from it though I receive the reward of ingratitude, envy and hatred. It (the world) shall not be so ill to me, as to overcome me with its ill: I will the rather, in opposition to it, continue to do good, regardless of thee or any one else, but for the sake of my Lord Christ, even as He did and still doeth.
Starke:Have we become partakers of the Divine Nature, if we are heavenly-minded and lead a heavenly life? It is infallible. As much true love, so much resemblance to God. He is a wise teacher who grounds his exhortations more on the Gospel than on the Law. The power and efficacy of encouragements are in proportion to their friendliness and lovingness.You say much concerning God, but lack the best thing. You know Him in words, but deny Him in works. You do not know Him at all and will not be known of Him.In order that one, provoked to anger, may not be overcome by the temptation and succumb, he should forthwith remember that God is Love. That will be a good medicine to him and preserve him.None can attain the life of glory without having first experienced here on earth the life of grace in Christ.Holy Scripture does not expatiate in multiplied phrases which mean the same thing; but what it does repeat, is peculiarly emphatic, and intended to be carefully remembered.Nothing can be more sweet, agreeable and delightful to us poor men in the vale of misery of this world, than to hear and to receive the assurance that God loves us. The love of God is the cause and rule of our love.Love is not the cause of our union with God, but it assures, cements, confirms, and preserves it.Beloved, though sometimes you do not feel any thing of the grace of the union of God and your heart, if you love cordially and abide in love, you have sufficient evidence that you are nevertheless united with God.None is able to commend love to others with a good conscience, joyfulness and success, who does not himself walk in love. Preachers, more especially, ought to remember that when they exhort others to love, they themselves should copy the example of Christ and practise love.God is willing, if we do not hinder Him, to make His love more full and to increase its efficacy; and then all the powers of the inner man do also grow in us, and among their number, the love of our neighbour.Of what avail are the best testimonials if conscience contradicts them? A heart, full of love, is the best witness of friendship with God that endures also in the fire of temptation.Thou art pleased when a loved friend comes to see thee, and is thy guest for a few days. Rejoice! God, thy best friend, dwells in thee, abides with thee, and possesses thee altogether, but thou art His property and possession. With God thou hast all things.The love of God manifested in Jesus Christ, is the most excellent object of our faith and knowledge. The more we study it, the greater is our taste of its sweetness.A glorious mark of the Christian religion as the only Divine religion, viz.: it effects so great a union between man and God, that God is in man and man in God.O, wicked man, how canst thou be joyful in anticipation of the judgment-day? Beware that thou do deceive thyself with a false security instead of joyfulness!Good Christian, whenever thou art about to do or to omit a thing, ask thyself: did my Saviour also do or omit this? It will be of great benefit to thee and happily further thee in thy Christian course.Be not afraid if thou art summoned before an earthly court of justice; if thou lookest joyfully forward to the great judgment of the world, why shouldest thou not be equally joyful in respect of a little human judgment day? Wherever a Christian may be, he should always suffer himself to be seen without fear or dismay. [Verse of old German hymn.M.].
A. H. Francke:One droplet of faith is more glorious than a whole ocean of science, even though it be the historical science of the Divine word.
Heubner:Love has illuminating power, while hatred darkens the soul. The more you love, the greater the brightness of your knowledge; the more you love, the less it is possible for you to be deceived.Want of love is a token of want of real knowledge of God. All knowledge, all theology must be rooted in love. Theology without the love of God is deception and show. What dry metaphysics have often been called religion and philosophy of religion, without containing a breath of love!God who is Love can only be known e praxi, ex usu; as long as I have not made personal experience of the infinite Love of God, I can at the most only repeat what others say of God. Lauding the love of God from what is seen of Him in nature, is not the shadow of the love of God in Christ.Proud philosophy could assert virtue and morality without the love of God and even go as far as to maintain that virtue without religion is even stronger and purer [than virtue with religionM.].Want of love to God is the most telling proof of the fall. For in the statu integro our first sign of life ought to be love to God, even as a babe is naturally drawn to its mothers breast. It is true that our love to God proceeds from a sense of shame, from conviction [of sin and ingratitudeM.]; but that cannot now be altered: and he that would deny it ought first to turn the whole world round. And who will most readily own it? They who have begun to love God: they are painfully aware how little they love God!If there had been no apostasy, no breach, what necessity would there be for reconciliation? If reconciliation could have been effected without the Son, by our own efforts, by our own improvement and amending, what purpose would have been served by the sending of the Son?This is the miracle of love in God, that He kept immovable in His Love and continued to love His creature now as ever, sought the creature although the creature had rebelled in enmity against Him. The love of God, therefore is eternal, unchangeable and having its cause in Himself, without having ever been greater or less than it is. This miracle of love no man can know before he has become aware of his misery, has had his eyes opened and seen with tearful eyes how loving the Lord is.God has loved us; He has also deemed my neighbour worthy of His love; if God loves him, am I to refuse loving him? A knowledge of the love of God that has remained unfruitful, is not yet perfected.There is sympathy or antipathy between the plants of Gods planting and of those of his enemys planting. The children of God are sensible of the spirit of affinity or antipathy in others. So it is said of Coccejus, who beyond all other things strove after a pure heart, that he frequently knew men at the first encounter.He that underrates historical evidence, overthrows the whole foundation of Christianity and opens the gate and the door to all deception and delusion. Historical knowledge and personal spiritual life-experience together constitute true Christianity. God is through and through Love, His whole Essence, His real Nature is Love, i.e. is essentially His property to communicate Himself, to impart Himself, to cause His glory and felicity to stream forth on others [i.e. His creaturesM.], as it is the essential property of the sun to shine. It is true that the love of God, like the heat of the sun, manifests itself to men only by way of gradation. God is Love to all who stand in love and turn to His Love, but He is a consuming fire to those who stand outside of love. Love spurned brings torment: evil men, because of their own guilt, experience a sense of wrath. Every thing depends upon the attitude of men towards God.The Bible is, as it were, the trumpet of the love of God, not nature, by a long way; it is only to believing Christians that nature becomes the trumpet of the love of God. The first tones of the love of God may be heard in Genesis 1, 3.; but they sound loudest in the New Testament.Man is not lost as long as he believes in love; but he is lost, when he loses that belief. Chrysostom says that the devil would be saved if he could believe in the love of God.Love changes God the Judge into God the Father.He that cannot confide in love, is unable to endure the look of the Most Loving. Who but those who have pure and indefatigable love are in this world like God and representatives of God?Where we experience fear, a secret dread, aversion to and distrust of God, love is not yet perfected; fear is the first discipline of boys.1Jn 4:19. The whole wonderful structure of the Christian system; the one half is morality: to love God with every thing implied therein; the other half the doctrine of faith, the conditioning ground: the love of God to us sinners in Christ. The ground must be before the superstructure.Love is most touching where it prevents the unworthy.We can only exhibit our love to God the Unseen in His children that are seen.Christianity indissolubly unites the love of God and the love of the brethren; its characteristic is that in it religion and virtue commingle in the Spirit of love.
Gerok (1Jn 4:7-12): Love the fundamental law of the world: 1. As written in heaven: for God is Love. 2. As written on the cross: for Christ is Love. 3. As written in our hearts: for Christianity is Love.
Leonhardi (1Jn 4:9): The manifestation of the love of God to us in holy Christmas. It shines forth: 1. from the Divine Christmas-gift, and 2. from its blessed destination for us. It was manifested 1. in God sending His only-begotten Son into the world, 2. in that we should live through Him.
Clauss:The sending of Christ is the greatest proof of Divine Love. 1. Christ is the Only Begotten. 2. He brings life to the world.
The same (on 1Jn 4:12-16):The mystery of the Divine Essence. 1. In which sense does It always remain concealed? 2. In what form has It been revealed? 3. With what eye only are we able to recognize It?
Wilhelm:The Church of the Lord. 1. The good it has; 2. The confession it makes: the signs whereby it is known.
Leonhardi:Whereon is based our Trinity-rejoicing? 1. We know that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world (1Jn 4:14-15); We have learned in the Son the love which the Father has in regard to us (1Jn 4:15-16); we know from our love to one another, that He has given us of His Spirit.
Luthardt (1Jn 4:9, Advent-Sermon):The love of God in Christ is our life. I. The love of God; 2. The sending of his Song of Solomon 3. Our life.
Spurgeon (1Jn 4:19):Real love viewed 1. as to its origin, 2. as to its maintenance, 3. as to its progress.
Ahlfeld (Marriage address on 1Jn 4:19, and Sermon on 1Jn 4:9-16):With threefold bonds are we tied to the Triune God. 1. In the love among one another God abides in us; 2. In the Holy Ghost we abide in God and God in us; 3. In the confession of the Son of God, God abides in us and we in God.
On the Epistle for the first Sunday after Trinity, 1Jn 4:16-21.
Heubner:The belief, that God is Love, our only consolation in evil times. 1. Why is it thus? 2. How do we become capable of this consolation? The Divine nature of love. 1. Proof (1Jn 4:16-18); 2. Inferences (1Jn 4:19-21).God is Love.1. Explanation. 2. Proof (also Defence); 3. Duties, arising therefrom, incumbent upon us.Belief in the love of God. 1. Description of what it is, and whereon it is founded; 2. The power of this belief; 3. Inferences (resistance to attacks on that belief; its animation by the imitation of Christ).
C. J. Nitzsch (1813 during the siege of Wittenberg, inaugural Sermon on the Epistle for 1st Sunday after Trinity, 1Jn 4:16-21):The value of true love under the fear of exciting prospects of the future. Love exalts us above the whole of our earthly future. Her pains are deep, her complainings sincere; yes, she looks so much the more sadly out into the future, because she can never suffer for herself alone, but true love can nevermore cease to confide or despair of deliverance. To all true love is accorded the privilege of overcoming the world and to soar beyond time in the strength of true faith. She casts the brightest looks into the shadow of the future. She is not blind through fear, and knows that every time will have its own salvation, its own footprints of Divine Love, from the ruins of the old there will spring up the new and the better, in the school of distress there will mature and prosper a nobler liberty and wisdom of the nations, our children and the grandchildren of our race in a rejuvenated world will think with emotion and edification of their fathers, and we ourselves shall never fall short of the assistance and comfort which we need in our weakness. And bright-eyed love has also an indefatigable arm; it makes the best provision for whatever may be in store.
Schleiermacher:Perfection of love. 1. The token, indicated by the Apostle, of the perfection of love. 2. That that, whereof he treats, can only be achieved by the perfection of love.
Kapff:God is Love, and love only makes us one with God.
Gerok:Another love sermon. 1. The eternal fountain of love. 2. The holy duty of love. 3. The true test of love. 4. The blissful happiness of love.
Ranke:Life in love is the noblest life! let that be our conviction; we will abide in this love! let that be our resolve; then God will abide with us, let that be our blessing.
J. Mller:Love, the Essence of the Christian life. 1. The Christian life begins with love to God through Christ; 2. it develops into love to our neighbour; 3. it perfects itself in the perfection of this twofold love.
Harless:Who knows and loves the living God who is Love? 1. He who instead of deifying his own love, knows and loves God in His love-manifestation in Christ; 2. he who, instead of loving God without fear, in his love fears God without torment; 3. he who, instead of calling in such love all the world his brethren, loves every one, but after the manner of God in Christ.
Spitta:The word of the Holy Apostle John concerning love. 1. A word of doctrine, wherein he teaches us love; 2. A word of exhortation, wherein he exhorts us to practice love.
Claus Harms:Let us love God! Consider 1. The ground of the love of God, 2. its power and manifestation inwardly, 3. its power and manifestation outwardly.
Bobe:God is love! 1. A confession of gratitude (1Jn 4:8); 2. a voice of comfort (1Jn 4:17-18); 3. a rule of life (1Jn 4:19-20).
Florey:The hallowing power of love on the heart of man. 1. It unites the heart of man separated from God (1Jn 4:16); 2. it calmsthe anxious heat (1Jn 4:17-18); 3. it warmsthe cold heart (1Jn 4:19); 4. it purifiesthe impure and sinful heart (1Jn 4:20); it animates and fructifiesthe dead heart (1Jn 4:21).
Genzken (Confession-address):What do I yet lack of true Christianity? 1. Its beginning is that we know the love which God has to us. 2. Its progress, that we abide in this love; 3. Its full measure, that the experience of its hallowing power expels the fear of death and the judgment; 4. The test of all this is brotherly love.
[Pearson:1Jn 4:9. Our belief in Christ, as the eternal Son of God, is necessary to raise us unto a thankful acknowledgment of the infinite love of God, appearing in the sending of His only-begotten Son into the world to die for sinners. This love of God is frequently extolled and admired by the Apostles. See Joh 3:16; Rom 8:5; Rom 8:32. If we look upon all this as nothing else but that God should cause a man to be born after another manner than other men, and when he was so born after a peculiar manner, yet a mortal man, should deliver him to die for the sins of the world; I see no such great expression of His love in this way of redemption more than would have appeared, if He had redeemed us in any other way. It is true indeed, that the reparation of lapsed man is no act of absolute necessity in respect of God, but that he hath as freely designed our redemption as our creation: considering the misery from which we are redeemed, and the happiness to which we are invited, we cannot but acknowledge the singular love of God, even in the act of redemption itself; but yet the Apostles have raised that consideration higher, and placed the choicest mark of the love of God in choosing such means, and performing in that manner our reparation, by sending His Only-begotten into the world; by not sparing His own Son, by giving and delivering Him up to be scourged and crucified for us, and the estimation of this act of Gods love must necessarily increase proportionably to the dignity of the Son thus sent into the world; because the more worthy the Person of Christ before He suffered, the greater His condescension unto such a suffering condition; and the nearer His relation to the Father, the greater His love to us, for whose sakes He sent Him to suffer. Wherefore to derogate any way from the Person and Nature of our Saviour before He suffered, is so far to undervalue the love of God, and consequently to come short of that acknowledgment and thanksgiving which is due unto Him for it. If then the sending of Christ into the world were the highest act of the love of God which could be expressed; if we be obliged to a return of thankfulness some way correspondent to such infinite love; if such a return can never be made without a true sense of that infinity, and a sense of that infinity of love cannot consist without an apprehension of an infinite dignity of nature in the Person sent; then it is absolutely necessary to believe, that Christ is so the Only-begotten Son of the Father, as to be of the same substance with Him, of glory equal, of majesty coternal.M.].
[Barrow: (on 1Jn 4:9).How indeed possibly could God have demonstrated a greater excess of kindness to us, than by thus, for our sake and good, sending His dearest Son out of His bosom into this sordid and servile state, subjecting Him to all the infirmities of our frail nature, exposing Him to the worst inconveniences of our low condition? What expressions can signify, what comparisons can set out, the stupendous vastness of this kindness? If we should imagine that a great prince should put his only son (a son most lovely, and worthily most beloved) into rags, should dismiss him from his court, should yield him up to the hardest slavery, merely to the intent that he hereby might redeem from captivity the meanest and basest of his subjects, how faint a resemblance would this be of that immense goodness, of that incomparable mercy, which in this instance the King of all the world hath declared toward us His poor vassals, His indeed unworthy rebels?And what greater reason of joy can there be, than such an assurance of His love, on whose love all our good dependeth, in whose love all our felicity consisteth? What can be more delightful than to view the face of our Almighty Lord so graciously smiling upon us?M.].
[Bernard, de Nativ. Serm. 1. Apparuerat ante potentia in rerum creatione, apparebat Sapientia in earum gubernatione; sed benignitas misericordi nunc maxime apparuit in humanitate.
P. Leo M., de Nativ. Serm. 1. Semper quidem diversis modis, multisque mensuris humano generi bonitas divina consuluit, et plurima providenti su munera omnibus retro seculis clementer impertt; sed in novissimis temporibus omnem abundantiam solit benignitatis excessit; quando in Christ. ipsa ad peccatores misericordia, ipsa ad errantes veritas, ipsa ad mortuos vita descendit, etc.M.].
[Secker: (on 1Jn 4:18).For want of cultivating the love of
God, the thoughts of Him are dreadful to the generality of men. Too many are tempted to wish in their hearts, if they durst, that He were not, or had no regard to human conduct; and if any of them can but persuade themselves for a while on the strength of some poor cavil, to hope what they wish, they triumph in the imagined discovery, that sets them so much at ease. From the same default, humbler and righter minds consider Him very often in no better light, than as a rigid lawgiver arbitrarily exacting a number of almost impracticable duties, and enforcing them with the dread of insupportable punishments: whence they are ready to sink under the terrors of religion, even while they are conscientiously fulfilling its precepts. Looking on God as the object of love would rectify these mistaken conceptions entirely. We should all see and feel, that a Being of infinite goodness, directed by infinite wisdom, is the highest blessing: and the want of such an one would be the greatest calamity that is possible: we should be satisfied that the strictest of His laws, and the severest of their sanctions, are means which He knows to be needful for our good; that His mercy will forgive on repentance our past transgressions of them; that His grace will strengthen us to keep them better; and that He will never reject a soul affectionately devoted to Him. In proportion then as we are so, all terrifying apprehensions will vanish from us. There is no fear in love saith the Apostle; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment.M.].
[Jortin:The love of God differs so much from the love of sensible objects, and from our other passions, that it can hardly be called a passion in the same sense in which they are so called. It differs in this, that it is at first raised, and afterwards kept up, by reason. It is therefore a religious habit and virtue, which no other passion is, unless it hath God and morality and religion for its objects. In this also it differs from them, that being both produced and preserved by reason, it is a sober and moderate affection, accompanied with no blind impetuosity, no restless uneasiness, no violent commotion of mind, like other passions; and as it riseth not to the same height with them, so neither does it sink as low at other times, but shews itself in an uniform and sedate love of righteousness, of every thing that God approves. Some persons, not duly considering this, sincerely desire to please God, and carefully endeavour to lead a good life; and yet sometimes are afraid that they have no love for God, because they experience not in themselves that warmth of affection, to which others pretend, and which is expressed and required in some books of devotion. They may learn from the Scriptures, that where there is obedience there is always love; and that whoever delights in holiness, and justice, and goodness, and mercy, and truth, may reasonably conclude that his heart is right towards God. Others looking upon the love of God as upon a mere passion, a disposition of mind producing devotion and ending there, have excited in themselves a high zeal and affection for God, and a firm persuasion, that they were His favourites: and, having done this, have thought themselves arrived at Christian perfection; whilst at the same time they have perhaps been under the dominion of evil habits, and addicted to wrath, malice, covetousness, censoriousness, injustice, pride, ambition, sensuality. This strange mixture of hypocrisy, vice and enthusiasm, hath been common in all ages, and ever will be so. There are always those, whose religion and devotion is, to use the words of St. Paul, sounding brass, or clamour and confidence; whilst true goodness is modest and unaffected, and teaches men to make less noise, to live more honestly. To preserve us from such delusions, Christ hath told us, that we should either keep His commandments, or not pretend to love Him; and that it signifies nothing to say to Him, Lord, Lord, and not to do what He requires.Other love towards God than this the Scriptures know not: they never recommend that spiritual fever, those warm transports, and that bold familiarity, which some zealots affect; nor that cold, refined, mysterious, and disinterested devotion, which another sort of fanatics require: for, first, the love of God is sober reason, and not blind passion; reverence, and not presumption: secondly, it is gratitude; and we love Him, because He first loved us.M.].
[Horne: (on 1Jn 4:21).Observe the firm basis on which is forever fixed the morality of the Gospel. How clear in its principles! how powerful in its motives! We love God, because He first loved us; and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. For he who loveth Him that begat, loveth Him also that is begotten of Him. The head of the most unlearned cannot but comprehend the meaning of these few words: and the heart of the most learned must feel the force of them. Such is the ground of that charity, which performeth every duty of social life, and fulfilleth the law. To inculcate and produce in us this heavenly disposition, is the end of the Gospel and all its doctrines. It is deduced in Scripture even from those that may seem to be of the most mysterious and speculative nature: the unity of the Divine Persons; the Divinity and the satisfaction of Christ; doctrines, which cannot therefore be denied or degraded, without removing or proportionably lessening the most endearing and affecting incitements to the Christian life. Indeed the happy temper of a Christian is the natural and kindly effect of the great evangelical truths, when treasured up in the mind, and made the subjects of frequent meditation. The ideas of a reconciled God; a Saviour and Intercessor on high; a gracious Spirit, informing our ignorance, purifying our hearts, relieving our necessities, alleviating our cares, and comforting our sorrows: such ideas as these enable us to bridle the appetites of the body, and to calm the emotions of the mind; to bear with patience and cheerfulness the calamities of life: they sweeten the tempers, and harmonize the affections, resolving them all into one, diversified according to the different situation of its proper object; of which grief laments the absence, and fear apprehends the loss; desire pursues it; hope has it in view; anger rises against obstruction, and joy triumphs in possession. Thus religion fixes the heart on its treasure, in faith without wavering, and resignation without reserve: it draws the affections upwards towards heaven, as the sun does the exhalations of the earth, to return in fruitful showers, and bless the world. M.].
[Sermons and Sermon Themes.
1Jn 4:8. Leland, John, The goodness of God. 4. Serm. Disc. I. p. 225.
Dwight, T., Benevolence of God is proved by the works of creation and providence.Benevolence of God, as exhibited by revelation.Theology I. pp. 119, 139.
Scott, T., God is Love. Works, 4, 69.
1Jn 4:9. Tillotson, Abp., The love of God to men in the incarnation of Christ. Serm. 6, 3.
1Jn 4:9-10. Simeon, C., The love of God in giving His Son for us. Works 20, 479.
1Jn 4:10. Henry, Phil., Christ is our Propitiation. M. Henrys Works. Appendix, 40.
1Jn 4:10-11. The unpurchased love of God in the redemption of the world by Jesus Christ, a great argument for Christian benevolence.
1Jn 4:11. Horne, Bp., Charity recommended on its true motive. Disc. 5, 441.
1Jn 4:18. Saurin, La tranquillit qui nait de la parfaite charit Serm. 6. 483.
1Jn 4:18-21. MCheyne, R. M., The perfect love of God to us. Remains, 368.
1Jn 4:19. Erskine, R., Preventing love; or Gods love the cause of our love to Him. Works, 2, 1.
Wardlaw, R., On the question how far disinterestedness is an essential quality in legitimate love to God. Christian Ethics, 278.
Chalmers, T., Gratitude, not a sordid affection. Works, 8, 222.
1Jn 4:20. Howe, John, The love of God and our brother, considered in Seventeen Sermons. Works, 6, 1.
Williams, Isaac, Love the mark of Gods children. Serm. 2, 51.
1Jn 4:21. Smalridge, Bp., The necessary connection between the love of God and our brother. Sermons 310.
Wilberforce, S., The love of the brethren. Sermons on several occasions. 78.M.].
Footnotes:
[8]1Jn 4:7. [German: The love.M.]
[9]1Jn 4:7. without , B. C. Sin. al.A. adds .
[10]1Jn 4:8. [German: Knew not God; Alford: hath never known God; Lcke hath never learned to know Him at all. The force of the Aorist that he hath not once known God should be brought out.M.]
[11]1Jn 4:8. is wanting in Cod. Sin., but adds instead of (from 1Jn 5:7). A.
[12]1Jn 4:9. [ =German: in us (an uns) in regard to us. Alford.M.]
[13]1Jn 4:9. [, not because but that; so German, Alford, Lillie.M.]
[14]1Jn 4:9. [German: His Son, the only begotten.M.]
[15]1Jn 4:10. ; render In this as in 1Jn 4:9. instead of the unnecessary variation herein of E. V.M.]
[16]1Jn 4:10. [German: exists Wordsworth consists.M.]
[17]1Jn 4:10. , the most authentic reading; A has .
[18]1Jn 4:10. Instead of , Cod. Sin. reads as in 1Jn 4:9; 1Jn 4:14.
[19]1Jn 4:10. [German: And sent His Son as propitiation for our sins. More correctly: And sent His Son a propitiation for our sins. No need for the supplement to be in E. V.M.]
[20]1Jn 4:12 [German: God hath no one ever seen. Alford: God hath no one ever beheld. But render more idiomatically: No one has ever beheld God.M.
[21]1Jn 4:12 [, , etc., had better be rendered uniformly abide.M.]
[22]1Jn 4:12 There is a great variation in the readings of the final words: before A. Vulg; after G. K. and many versions; between . and Cod. Sin. B. [Alford: The love of Him is perfected in us.M.]
[23]1Jn 4:13. [ =In this. See note 7 above.M.]
[24]1Jn 4:13. [German: that.M.]
[25]1Jn 4:14. [German: As Saviour of the world. So Alford, Lillie. No need for the supplement to be in E. V.M.]
[26]1Jn 4:15. Instead of , B. reads .
[27]1Jn 4:15. [German: confesseth; so Alford who justly objects to all Futures shall confess, and Futuri exacti shall have confessed and recommends the English Present with an exegesis,viz., that this Present betokens not a repeated act and habit, but a great act once for all introducing the man into a state of .M.]
[28]1Jn 4:15. B. adds after .
[29]1Jn 4:16. [. German: an uns literally at or on us to which concerning us or in regard to us come nearest.M.]
[30]1Jn 4:16. B. G. K. Cod. Sin. add , which owing to the same conclusion of the preceding verse was more likely to be omitted than added.
[31]1Jn 4:17. [In this. See note 7 above.M.]
[32]1Jn 4:17. Cod. Sin. adds after , probably an error (with reference to 1Jn 4:12) as is plainly a slip of the pen.
[33]1Jn 4:17. [German: In this love with us is perfected; Alford: In this is love perfected with us. The rendering our of E. V. is almost solitary and should be changed. See below in Exeget. and Critical.M.]
[34]1Jn 4:17. [German: Because as He is, we also are in this world. So Alford and Lillie, who transpose, however: Are we also, etc.M.]
[35]1Jn 4:18. [German: Fear is not in love. Alford: Fear existeth not, etc.M.]
[36]1Jn 4:18. [German: Punishment; so Lillie, see note in Exeget. and Critical.M.]
[37]1Jn 4:18. [German: Is not perfected in love. Alford: Hath not been perfected in [His] love.M.]
[38]
1Jn 4:19. Cod. Sin. reads after ; G. K. [A. B. omit either.M.] A inserts after .
[German: We love God.M.]
[39]1Jn 4:20. [German: If one says hateth Translate: If any say hate M.]
[40]
1Jn 4:20. , A. [K. L. al. Tischend. AlfordM.]; , B. Cod. Sin. [Lach. Buttm. al.M.] The true reading cannot be determined by the analogy with 1Jn 3:17 (Dsterdieck), or by the consideration that the interrogative is more expressive than the negative (Huther).
[German: How can he love God (or: cannot love God) whom he hath not seen?M.]
[41]1Jn 4:21. [German: Also love his brother. DoddridgeLove also his brother Alford, Lillie.M.]
8. The power of faith (1Jn 5:1-5), its testimony (1Jn 5:6-10), and substance (1Jn 5:11-12)
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and everyone that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. (8) He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. (9) In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. (10) Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (11) Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. (12) No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. (13) Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. (14) And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. (15) Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. (16) And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. (17) Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. (18) There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. (19) We love him, because he first loved us. (20) If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? (21) And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.
I include all these under one reading, that in a Poor Man’s Commentary I may not trespass. The two great points here dwelt upon are, first, the love of God to his people. And, secondly, our love to him, and to each other, the members of Christ’s body the Church, as flowing from it God’s love the cause. Our love the effect. A word or two I would beg to offer upon each.
And, first. God’s love to the Church in Christ. In which is included the love of the whole Persons of the Godhead. Put as the source is in God, and wholly resulting from himself; it is impossible to trace it but in the effects. What the Apostle here saith, of our ignorance of God, is very highly in proof. No man hath seen God at any time. And how then shall he describe the source of God’s love? Indeed, it is never attempted to be shewn, but by effects. In this was manifested the love of God. In what? He gave his only begotten Son. Herein is love. Not that we loved him; but that he loved us. So that the first thing laid down for our contemplation, is the love of God. God is love. And, from all eternity, he hath been giving out demonstrations of that love, in the streams and effects of it Christ is the first edition of that love: and all the subsequent works are with him, and in him, and through him, and by him. Our Adam – fall gave occasion for the greater display of that love. But Christ and his Church were one in the womb of God’s love, before the Adam – fall, or even the foundation of the earth was laid.
There are two verses in scripture, one in the Old Testament, and the other in the New, which, if read together, will shew more of this love of God in its antiquity and eternity, and in all its bearings through time and eternity, than all the wisdom of men in all ages of the world can come up to in description, if they were to unite together, to furnish volumes for this purpose. The first is Jer 31:3 . The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, Saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee: or as the margin renders it therefore have I extended loving kindness unto thee. Here, we have God himself declaring, that his love to the Church hath been from everlasting; that is as God himself. For his love, as is himself, is everlasting. No space could have been before either; for in that case it could not be said to have been from everlasting. So that God himself, and his love to the Church, are expressed by the same words, from everlasting. The second verse is in Eph 2:7 . That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace, in his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus. Here we have declared, the ultimate object of that love; and which proves, that as it began from everlasting, so it hath ran through, and still continues to run through, the whole time-state of the church, to everlasting; like rivers, arising out of the ocean, and running back into it again, everlastingly connected, and forever flowing. By uniting these glorious scriptures in one view, they for a complete circle, to shew, that God’s love to the Church in Christ from everlasting, hath been one and the same; and his first design, and last execution, is to shew forth that love, or, as it is here called, the exceeding riches of his grace, in that glory resulting from that love, into which the Church is to be brought, and continue in everlastingly. Well might the Apostle say: Herein is love! for all other, in comparison, is nothing!
Secondly. Our love to God in Christ, and to the Church on Christ’s account. It is scarcely necessary to observe, that all that we can call love or affection in us, either to God or his people, are but the mere effects from him, and his love to us as the cause. We love him, (saith the Apostle in this very scripture,) because he first loved us. Yea, it is not simply because he loved us, that we love him; for this alone would never have made our stoney hearts susceptible of love; but the Lord accomplished it by his quickening grace, shedding abroad that love in our hearts, in taking away the heart of stone, and giving us a heart of flesh; Eze 36:26 . It is by His warming our frozen affections, subduing, and absolutely conquering our natural enmity against him, and winning us over with the cords of love, and the bands of a man, that we are brought over to love him who hath first loved us; or we should have remained enemies, to God, by wicked works, to all eternity. Reader! pause over the wonderful mercy and grace, yea, the exceeding riches of his grace; and mark in the whole, in the Father’s everlasting purpose, counsel, will, and pleasure, the Son’s love, in betrothing and redeeming mercy; and the Holy Ghost’s regenerating, renewing favor; how infinitely great must be the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of that love of God, which passeth knowledge!
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
Ver. 7. Beloved, let us love one another ] This beloved disciple breathes nothing but love; as if he had been born with love in his mouth, as they say.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
7 21 .] The Apostle again takes up his exhortations to brotherly love, but this time in nearer and deeper connexion with our birth from God, and knowledge of Him who is Himself Love, 1Jn 4:7-8 . This last fact he proves by what God has done for us in and by His Son, 1Jn 4:9-16 ; and establishes the necessary connexion between love to God and love to man, 1Jn 4:17-21 .
The passage is in connexion with what went before, but by links at first sight not very apparent. The great theme of the whole was enounced ch. 1Jn 2:29 . The consideration of that has passed into the consideration of that in its highest and purest form of love, which has been recommended, and grounded on His love to us, in ch. 1Jn 3:11-18 , where the testimony of our hearts came in, and was explained the great test of His presence in us being the gift of His Spirit, ch. 3 ult. Then from the necessity of distinguishing and being sure of that His Spirit, have been inserted the foregoing tests and cautions respecting truth and error. And now he returns to the main subject. The , and , the taking up again of God’s love to us in Christ at 1Jn 4:9 from ch. 1Jn 3:16 , the reiteration of the testimony of the Spirit in 1Jn 4:13 , all serve to shew that we are reading no collection of spiritual apophthegms, but a close and connected argument, though not in an ordinary style.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
7, 8 .] Beloved (as before, marks the fervency and affection of the Apostle turning to his readers with another solemn exhortation. Here the word is especially appropriate, seeing that his own heart is full of that love which he is enjoining), let us love one another: because (he at once rests the exhortation on the deepest ground) love ( , abstract, in the widest sense, as the following words shew) is from God (has its origin and source in God: He is the wellspring and centre of all love. No such weakening as “Deo maxime placet” (Grot.) must be thought of. It is remarkable that Didymus understood here of Christ, , , : and Augustine, fitting together “Dilectio est ex Deo,” and “Dilectio est Deus,” infers that “Dilectio est Deus ex Deo,” which comparing with Rom 5:5 , he infers that love is the Holy Spirit: Tract, vii. 6, vol. iii. p. 2032): and every one that loveth (there is no need to supply an object after , as in A, “his brother” as some latt., and Lcke: indeed to do so would be to narrow the general sense of the Apostle’s saying: all love is from God: every one that loveth, taking the word of course in its pure ideal sense in which the assertion follows from the former), hath been begotten of God (has truly received within him that new spiritual life which is of God: see note on ch. 1Jn 2:29 ), and knoweth (pres.: in his daily walk and habit, recognizes and is acquainted with God: by virtue of that his divine birth and life) God:
1Jn 4:7-21 . The Blessedness of Love. “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God, and every one that loveth of God hath been begotten and is getting to know God. He that loveth not did not get to know God, because God is love. Herein was manifested the love of God in us, because His Son, His only-begotten, hath God commissioned into the world, that we may get life through Him. Herein is the love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and commissioned His Son as a propitiation for our sins.
“Beloved, if it was thus that God loved us, we also are bound to love one another. God no one hath ever yet beheld Him: if we love one another, God abideth in us and His love is perfected in us. Herein we get to know that we abide in Him and He in us, because of His Spirit He hath given us. And we have beheld and testify that the Father hath commissioned the Son as Saviour of the world. Whosoever confesseth that Jesus is the Son of God, God in him abideth and he in God. And we have got to know and have believed the love which God hath in us.
“God is love, and he that abideth in love in God abideth, and God in him abideth. Herein hath love been perfected with us so that we may have boldness in the Day of Judgment because, even as He is, we also are in this world. Fear there is not in love, but the perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath punishment; and he that feareth hath not been perfected in love. We love because He first loved us . If one say, ‘I love God,’ and hate his brother, he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, God whom he hath not seen, he cannot love. And this commandment have we from Him, that he that loveth God love also his brother.”
1Jn 4:7 . St. John reiterates the “old commandment” (1Jn 2:7-11 ). It is so all-important that he cares not though his readers be tired of hearing it. Cf. the anecdote which St. Jerome relates on Gal 6:10 : “Beatus Joannes Evangelista cum Ephesi moraretur usque ad ultimam senectutem, et vix inter discipulorum manus ad Ecclesiam deferretur, nec posset in plura vocem verba contexere, nihil aliud per singulas solebat proferre collectas nisi hoc: Filioli, diligite alterutrum. Tandem discipuli et fratres qui aderant, tdio affecti quod eadem semper audi-rent, dixerunt: Magister, quare semper hoc loqueris? Qui respondit dignam Joanne sententiam: Quia prceptum Domini est, et si solum fiat, sufficit.” Love is the divine nature, and those who love have been made partakers of the divine nature (2Pe 1:4 ); and by the practice of love they “get to know God” more and more.
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: 1Jn 4:7-14
7Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. 10In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. 13By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. 14We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.
1Jn 4:7 “let us love one another” This is a present active subjunctive. Lifestyle, daily love is the one common characteristic of all believers (cf. 1 Corinthians 13; Gal 5:22). This is a recurrent theme in John’s writings and the essence of the ethical test (cf. Joh 13:34; Joh 15:12; Joh 15:17; 1Jn 2:7-11; 1Jn 3:11; 1Jn 3:23; 2Jn 1:5, see Contextual Insights, C). The subjunctive mood states a contingency.
“for love is from God” God, not human philanthropy, pity, or emotion, is the source of love (cf. 1Jn 4:16). It is not primarily emotional but purposeful action (i.e., the Father sending the Son to die on our behalf, cf. 1Jn 4:10; Joh 3:16).
“everyone who loves is born of God and knows God” The verbs are perfect passive and present active indicatives. John’s favorite terms for becoming a believer are related to physical birth (cf. 1Jn 2:29; 1Jn 3:9; 1Jn 4:7; 1Jn 5:1; 1Jn 5:4; 1Jn 5:18; Joh 3:3; Joh 3:7).
The term “know” reflects the Hebrew sense of ongoing, intimate fellowship (cf. Gen 4:1; Jer 1:5). It is the recurrent theme of 1 John, used over seventy-seven times. See Special Topic at Joh 1:10.
1Jn 4:8 “The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love” Lifestyle love is the true test of knowing God.
This is one of John’s profoundly simple statements; “God is love” matches “God is light” (cf. 1Jn 1:5) and “God is spirit” (cf. Joh 4:24). One of the best ways to contrast God’s love and God’s wrath is to compare Deu 5:9 with Deu 5:10 and Deu 7:9.
1Jn 4:9 “By this the love of God was manifested in us” This is an aorist passive indicative (cf. Joh 3:16; 2Co 9:15; Rom 8:32). God has clearly shown that He loves us by sending His only Son to die in our place. Love is an action, not just a feeling. Believers must emulate it in their daily lives (cf. 1Jn 3:16). To know God is to love as He loves.
“God has sent His only begotten Son into the world” This is a perfect active indicative; the incarnation and its results remain! All of God’s benefits come through Christ.
The term “only begotten” is monogens, which implies “unique,” “one of a kind,” not begotten as in sexual generation. The virgin birth was not a sexual experience for God or Mary. John uses this term several times referring to Jesus (cf. Joh 1:14; Joh 1:18; Joh 3:16; Joh 3:18; 1Jn 4:9). See further note at Joh 3:16. Jesus is God’s Son in a unique (ontological) sense. Believers are God’s children only in a derived sense.
“so that we might live through Him” This is an aorist active subjunctive which implies a contingency, a faith response is necessary. The purpose of the incarnation was eternal life and abundant life (cf. Joh 10:10).
1Jn 4:10 “In this is love” God’s love is clearly demonstrated in the life and death of Jesus (cf. Rom 5:6; Rom 5:8). To know Jesus is to know God. To know God is to love!
“not that we loved God” The NT is unique among the world religions. Typically religion is mankind seeking God, but Christianity is God seeking fallen mankind! The wonderful truth is not our love for God, but His love for us. He has sought us through our sin and self, our rebellion and pride. The glorious truth of Christianity is that God loves fallen mankind and has initiated and maintained a life-changing contact.
There is a variant related to the form of the verb.
1. have and continue to love, perfect – MS B
2. loved, aorist – MS
The UBS4 gives the perfect tense a “B” rating (almost certain).
“sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” See note at 1Jn 2:2.
1Jn 4:11 “if” This is a first class conditional sentence which is assumed to be true from the author’s perspective or for his literary purposes. God does love us (cf. Rom 8:31)!
“God so loved us” “So” should be understood as “in such a manner,” as in Joh 3:16.
“we also ought to love one another” Because He has loved us we must love one another (cf. 1Jn 2:10; 1Jn 3:16; 1Jn 4:7). This statement of necessity reflects the disruptive actions and attitudes of the false teachers.
1Jn 4:12 “No one has seen God at any time” This is a perfect middle (deponent) indicative. This word implies “to gaze intensely at someone or something” (cf. Exo 33:20-23; Joh 1:18; Joh 5:37; Joh 6:46; 1Ti 6:16). It is possible that the Gnostic teachers, somewhat influenced by eastern mystery religions, claimed some type of vision from God or of God. Jesus came to fully reveal the Father. By gazing at Him we know God!
“if” This is a third class conditional which means potential action.
“God abides in us” See Special Topic on Abiding at 1Jn 2:10.
“His love is perfected in us” This is a periphrastic perfect passive participle. Loving Christians are an evidence of the abiding, perfected love of God (cf. 1Jn 2:5; 1Jn 4:17).
1Jn 4:13 “He has given us of His Spirit” This is a Perfect active indicative. The indwelling Holy Spirit (cf. 1Jn 3:24; Rom 8:9) and His transforming influence are evidence of our true salvation (cf. Rom 8:16). It seems that 1Jn 4:13 is the subjective witness of the Spirit, while 1Jn 4:14 is the objective witness of Apostolic testimony. The three persons of the Trinity appear clearly in 1Jn 4:13-14. See Special Topic: The Trinity at Joh 14:26.
1Jn 4:14 “We have seen and testify” The verbs are perfect middle (deponent) indicative joined with present active indicative. It speaks of John’s eyewitness testimony concerning the person of Christ, just like 1Jn 1:1-3.
The term “seen” is the same Greek word as in 1Jn 4:12 which means “to gaze intently at.” See SPECIAL TOPIC: WITNESSES TO JESUS at Joh 1:8.
“that the Father has sent the Son” This is a perfect active indicative. The fact that God the Father sent God the Son into the world (cf. Joh 3:16) refutes the Gnostic false teaching about the supposed dualism between spirit (good) and matter (evil). Jesus was truly divine and He was sent into an evil world of sin to redeem it and us (cf. Rom 8:18-25) from the curse of Genesis 3 (cf. Gal 3:13).
“to be the Savior of the world” The fact that the Father chose to use Jesus as the means of salvation refutes the Gnostic false teaching that salvation is obtained through special, secret knowledge related to the angelic levels. They called these angelic levels eons or realms of angelic authority between the high God and the lesser god who formed the world out of preexisting matter.
The phrase “Savior of the world” was (1) a title for the gods (i.e., Zeus) and (2) a common title for the Roman Caesar. For the Christian only Jesus could bear this title (cf. Joh 4:42; 1Ti 2:4; 1Ti 4:10). This is exactly what caused the persecution by local caesar-cults in Asia Minor.
Notice it is all inclusive. He is the savior of all (not some) if they will only respond (cf. Joh 1:12; Joh 3:16; Rom 5:18; Rom 10:9-13).
love. App-135.
love. App-135.
born = begotten.
7-21.] The Apostle again takes up his exhortations to brotherly love, but this time in nearer and deeper connexion with our birth from God, and knowledge of Him who is Himself Love, 1Jn 4:7-8. This last fact he proves by what God has done for us in and by His Son, 1Jn 4:9-16; and establishes the necessary connexion between love to God and love to man, 1Jn 4:17-21.
The passage is in connexion with what went before, but by links at first sight not very apparent. The great theme of the whole was enounced ch. 1Jn 2:29. The consideration of that has passed into the consideration of that in its highest and purest form of love, which has been recommended, and grounded on His love to us, in ch. 1Jn 3:11-18, where the testimony of our hearts came in, and was explained-the great test of His presence in us being the gift of His Spirit, ch. 3 ult. Then from the necessity of distinguishing and being sure of that His Spirit, have been inserted the foregoing tests and cautions respecting truth and error. And now he returns to the main subject. The , and , the taking up again of Gods love to us in Christ at 1Jn 4:9 from ch. 1Jn 3:16, the reiteration of the testimony of the Spirit in 1Jn 4:13, all serve to shew that we are reading no collection of spiritual apophthegms, but a close and connected argument, though not in an ordinary style.
1Jn 4:7. , let us love) From that very doctrine, which he has just defended, he now derives an exhortation to love. See 1Jn 4:9. The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit: 1Jn 4:2; Rom 5:5.- , love) All love is from God.
1Jn 4:7-21
BROTHERLY LOVE COMMANDED
(1 Johm 4:7-21)
7 Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God– Again, the writer exhibits tenderness and genuine love in ad-dressing his readers as “Beloved.” He was the “apostle of love,” and the frequency with which he enjoins love reveals the impor-tance he attached to this characteristic of true saints. The regularity with which he taught it is not surprising; he often heard it from the lips of the Lord during the public ministry. (Cf. Joh 13:34-35; Joh 15:9-23.) Inasmuch as love is the foundation stone of all the commandments (Mar 12:29-30), it was imperative that each saint should be impressed with its essentiality. John was later to write, “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, cannot love God whom he hath not seen.” (4:20.) It is very possible that there were those in the early church, as among us today, who, despite the fact that they claimed to be Christians, yet exhibited hatred for their brethren, and thus the great emphasis which John gives to the theme in all his Epistles.
“Love is of God,” i.e., it finds its origin in him and proceeds from him; and one who loves God must, as a necessary conse-quence, love his brother. “He that saith he is in the light and hateth his brother, is in the darkness even until now.” (1Jn 2:9.)
Everyone that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God. — Love for others is so peculiarly Christian in its origin that where it exists there is evidence of the new birth. Only one who has received the spiritual life which comes through the birth from above exhibits such a disposition. Love, in this passage, is a sign and proof of the new birth, and not a condition precedent to it. The writer is here showing how the claim to the new birth may be tested. Does genuine love fill the heart of the one affirming it, and does such a one really know God? If the answer is Yes, the birth from above may be assumed; if No, whatever the claim, it is weighed in the balance and found wanting. Love is the one characteristic of the Christian religion which it is impossible to counterfeit! While deploring the phraseology, the following quo-tation from the theologian Augustine, made many hundreds of years ago, is a marvelous statement of truth: “A wicked man may have baptism. He may have prophecy. He may receive the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ. (1Co 11:29.) All of these things a wicked man may have. But no wicked man can have love.” How wonderfully true this conclusion is! How important it is that every child of God strive to exhibit this charac-teristic of the genuinely converted one!
8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. –The verb here–loveth–is translated from the present active par-ticiple of agapao, “He who does not continue to love does not know (is without an acquaintance) God. “Knoweth not” is aorist active indicative (ouk egno ton theon), has not once known, hence, has never known, God. The meaning is that one who claims to be a child of God, but does not, and has not, felt the love which exists between true children of God, demonstrates the fact that he not only does not know God, he has never known him–was thus never genuinely converted. (See the comments on 1Jn 3:6.) Love is an indispensable requisite of Christian character. Where it does not exist, there is no Christian love. God is love, and love thus becomes the infallible test of the birth from above. God is love because love originates with him; he is the very essence of love; and only those who truly love are born of him. (Verse 7.) This definition was not designed to be exhaustive; from John we learn that God is also light (1Jn 1:5) and spirit (Joh 4:24). He is also a great many other things, such as power, and wisdom, and goodness; it is impossible for man to apprehend the divine nature. Inasmuch as love is a characteristic of his nature, it fol-lows that all who partake of his nature acquire the characteristic of love; in its absence, sonship itself is wanting.
9 Herein was the love of God manifested in us, that God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him.–From this we learn, (1) God’s love for man exists; (2) it has been manifested, i.e., revealed, made known ; (3) it was revealed in the gift of God’s Son; (4) the purpose of this gift was that we might live through him. Here is, (a) evi-dence of the falsity of the theory of the creeds that God was angry with man and that Jesus came to appease the wrath of a vengeful God; (b) proof that we did not first receive God’s love in conse-quence of the death of Christ, but that the sending of the Son resulted from love already existing: “But God commendeth his own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8); (c) it is absurd to assume that the love of God was evoked by the prior love of man for him. God loved us ; loved us before we loved him; loved us while we were yet sinners, and gave his Son for us. The passage is reminiscent of that affirmed in Joh 3:16 : “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life.”
Of vital significance here is the phrase (also occurring in Joh 3:16), “his only begotten Son” (ton huion autou ton monogene), literally, “His Son, the only-begotten.” Monogene, the word translated “only begotten,” signifies the-only-one-of-its-kind, and was so used to distinguish Jesus from all other sons of God. All who are members of God’s family are sons of God, and often so styled in the sacred writings; Jesus, alone, is the only begotten Son. He is a Son in a sense characteristic of no other being in the universe; and to assign to him a position inferior to this, as modernists do, is infidelity. Attention is directed to the unique position of Christ to sharpen and enhance our concept of the vast-ness of God’s love–it being so great that he was willing to send such a Son into the world that we might “live through him.” The life thus provided is spiritual life; and it is through him, be-cause in him only is life. “He that hath the Son hath the life; he that hath not the Son hath not the life.” (1Jn 5:12.)
10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.–“Herein,” i.e., in the gift of the Son is love–a demonstration of its vastness, its comprehensiveness, its quality. And, as already indicated in the verse preceding, it was manifested, not because we loved God and thus provoked God to love us, but because prior love existed on his part toward us. “For we also once were foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another, but when the kindness of God our Saviour, and his love toward man ap-peared, . . . he saved us.” (Tit 3:4-5.) The gift of God’s Son was the highest possible manifestation of love, and in the nature of things could have issued only from a benevolent father.
The contactual force of the apostle’s reasoning should not be ignored. God is love. (Verse 8.) The love which God possesses has been revealed to us in the gift of his Son, the only-begotten (Verse 9.) This love was the result of no act on our part, but was antecedent to the love we now have for him. (Verse 10.) A consequence of this love was that Christ came as a “propitiation for our sins.” The word translated “propitiation” (hilasmos) occurs only here, and in 1Jn 2:2, in the Greek New Testament, though often in the Septuagint Version (Greek translation of the Old Testament), where it signifies a sacrifice of atonement. (Lev 6:6-7; Num 5:8-9; Eze 44:27.) In referring to the death of Christ as a propitiation, John had reference to the sacrifice for sins which the Lord made in suffering himself to die upon the cross for our sins. (1Pe 2:24; Mat 26:28.) The essentials of a sacrifice are two: (1) a priest to offer, and (2) a victim to be offered. Christ was both, in that he offered up himself for our sins. (Heb 9:14.) The propitiation makes it possible for all men to be saved (Heb 2:8-9); and salvation becomes a reality to all who allow themselves to be reconciled to God (2Co 5:19-21). See the – comments on 1Jn 2:2.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.–The particle “if” here raises no doubt, but directs attention to the inference based on that which had just been written. Inasmuch as, i.e., in view of the fact that, God loved us to the extent of giving his Son to die in our behalf, we also ought to love one another. The passage affirms not only that God loved us, but that he so loved us, i.e., in such measure as to give the priceless treasure of heaven as a sacrifice to die in our stead. The adverb not only indicates the immeasurable extent of the love, it also designates the quality of it. (Cf. Rom 8:32.) The word “also” establishes a basis of comparison: since God loved us to such an extent, and with such a selfless quality of love we, on our side, ought to love (agapain, keep on loving) one another.
12 No man hath beheld God at any time:–(Joh 1:18.) The noun God (theos) is without the article here, and thus refer-ence is made to the divine nature, and not to the first person of the Godhead, exclusively. The word God is properly applied to each of the divine persons of the Godhead, since it is the name of the nature which each possesses in common. By an ordinary figure of speech in which the whole is put for a part, each of the divine persons is so designated in the scriptures. E.g., 1Jn 4:9, where the reference is to the first person; Joh 1:1-3, to the second; Act 5:3-4, to the Holy Spirit, the third. The meaning is, no man has seen the divine nature, the real essence of the God-head, inasmuch as it is invisible to the physical eye. Deity (God) can be seen only through its manifestations, and the revelation which it has made of itself in the incarnation. “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him,” i.e., revealed him. (Joh 1:18.) Since the advent of the Son into the world, it can be no longer pleaded that God is unknowable; Jesus has revealed him, made him known. Though God, deity, the divine nature, is not seen with the eye, this does not mean that he is not near us on the contrary, he is so near he abides in us, providing we love one another and his love is perfected in us.
Since there is but one divine nature, there is but one God. Each of the persons of the Godhead possesses the divine nature, and thus each is properly referred to as God. It is, hence, entirely in order to say, “God, the Father,” “God, the Son,” and “God, the Holy Spirit,” since each is possessed of the one divine nature, and is styled God in the sacred writings. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit do not constitute three separate Gods; there is but one God. (Deu 6:4.) These three divine personalities are of but one essence, one nature; and this one nature is God (theos). There are, therefore, three persons in one God.
If we love one another, God abideth in us, and his love is perfected in us:–On condition that we love one another, two things result: (1) God abides in us; (2) his love is perfected in us. How does God abide in us? Not literally, physically, or bodily, but through that inward relationship which establishes fellowship with him. “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: yea, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.
“If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in the darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.” (1Jn 1:3; 1Jn 1:5.) God thus abides in us as we conform to his will and walk in harmony with his precepts. And thus, though God, in his essence and divine nature is invisible to our eye, we may enjoy the blessed privilege of his abiding presence if we love one another!
When we love one another, not only does God abide in us, his love is perfected in us. That which is perfected has been brought to maturity. We thus develop and make mature our love for God as we love one another more and more. Love for others is a token of the love which we have for God. “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, cannot love God whom he hath not seen. And this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also.” (1Jn 4:20-21.)
13 Hereby we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.–As a token by which we may know that we abide in him and he in us, he has given us “his Spirit”–the Holy Spirit. But how does the presence of the Spirit in us supply evidence of such an abiding presence? The first fruit of the Spirit is love: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meek-ness, self-control. . . .” (Gal 5:22-23.) How may we know that the Spirit dwells in our heart? Because we love God and one another! Why does this love dwell in us? “And hope putteth not to shame; because the love of God hath been shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit which was given unto us.” (Rom 5:5.) For the manner in which the Spirit dwells in the Christian, see the comments on verse 14.
14 And we have beheld and bear witness that the Father hath sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.–Though no one had seen the divine nature, John and the other apostles had beheld (tetheametha, perfect middle of theaomai, to behold with adoring wonder), the Lord in the flesh (1Jn 1:1-3), and were thus qualified to bear testimony to the fact that the Father had indeed sent the Son into the world. The perfect tense designates an act that is past the results of which continue to exist; John had, during the public ministry of the Lord, minutely scrutinized him, obtained clear and distinct impressions regarding him and these remained to convince him forevermore of the identity of Jesus as Lord. Such was, in part, the mission of the apostles; and to equip them for this, the Holy Spirit was given them. “But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall bear witness of me: and ye also bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.” (Joh 15:26-27.)
Indicated also in this verse is the mission which prompted the Lord’s advent into the world. He was sent; he was sent from the Father he was sent to be the Saviour he was sent by the Father to be the Saviour of the world. The world, which he came to save, embraces all accountable and responsible beings. And so here, again, is emphasized what is often taught in the scriptures the blessings of the atonement are available to all who will appro-priate them to themselves on the conditions on which they are offered. The sacrifice of Christ was neither partial nor limited in its scope. “And he is the propitiation of our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world.” (1Jn 2:2.)
We thus learn that the Spirit has been given; that through this divine person love has been shed abroad in our hearts. But how is the Spirit given to us? Paul inquired of the Galatians: “This only would I learn from you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” (Gal 3:2.) This is a rhetorical question, put in this manner for emphasis. The meaning is, “You did not receive the Spirit by the work of the law. You received the Spirit by the hearing (marginal reading, message) of faith. How does faith come? “So then belief (faith) cometh of hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” (Rom 10:17.) Paul’s affirmation is, therefore, that the Galatians received the Spirit through hearing the word or message of faith–that is, the gospel. The word of truth–the gospel–is the instrument by which the Spirit exercises his influence on both saint and sinner. Thus, as one receives the truth into his heart and allows it to motivate his life he is, to this extent, motivated and influenced by the Spirit, and enjoys his abiding presence. This is, of course, not to be interpreted as meaning that the Holy Spirit is the word of truth; the Holy Spirit uses the word of truth as the medium by which he influences; and his influence is limited to this medium. The Spirit prompts love for others through the instruction which he has given in the scriptures.
The Epistles of John are filled with instruction touching the duty of the children of God to love one another, as indeed, much of the New Testament. If it is the Spirit, independent of the word of truth which produces such love, why was such instruction given? Why, indeed, is there teaching on any theme if all faithful children of God, then and now, possess a measure of the Spirit from which they derive (independently) such instruction? The question is not, Do children of God possess the Spirit? this, the verse before us and numerous others (e.g., Rom 8:9; Gal 4:16), affirm. Neither is it, Are children of God influenced by the Spirit today? This, too, the scriptures abundantly assert. The question is the manner or mode of such indwelling, and not the fact of it, which we raise. This Paul settles in the rhetorical question alluded to above. The only impact of the Spirit on the heart of either alien or Christian is by means of the Word of truth. Unfortunately, some brethren, while denying the direct operation of the Holy Spirit on the alien sinner, contend for just such an immediate and direct operation on the Christian following his baptism. The only difference between the positions is the time when the operation occurs. The denominational world contends for a direct operation on the sinner in order to his conversion. Those who hold to the view of a personal and immediate indwelling of the Spirit in the Christian, maintain that the operation of the Spirit is immediately following conversion. The one is as unten-able as the other, and both wrong. The Spirit dwells in the heart of the Christian; the Father and the Son, likewise; with reference to the latter, it would be absurd to contend that this indwelling is literal, actual, in their own persons. But, because the denomi-national idea of a mysterious, incomprehensible, intangible being as the Holy Spirit is alleged to be has been adopted in some cir-cles, brethren have allowed themselves to fall into such an error respecting the Holy Spirit.
15 Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abideth in him, and he in God.–Obviously, the apostle is not to be understood here as affirming that deity, actually, liter-ally, and bodily takes up his abode in a human being. One who confesses that Jesus is the Son of God confesses the truth. The truth thus abides in him. Since God is of the essence of truth, God abides in such a one. In similar manner does the Spirit abide. This verse, with many other similar ones in the first Epistle (e.g., 2:23; 3:10; 4:7; 5:18), must be interpreted in the light of conditions then prevailing. Certainly it was not the apostle’s intention to teach that one who merely gives lip service to the deity of Jesus abides in God, and God in him. Supercilious believers and indifferent professors concede this without hesita-tion; and even the demons acknowledged Jesus as the Son of God. (Mar 1:24.) Moreover, the Lord said, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by thy name, and by thy name cast out demons, and by thy name do many mighty works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” (Mat 7:21-23.)
The Ebonites declared that Jesus was a mere man; the Cerenthians maintained that his body was, for a time, occupied by an aeon (or demon) called Christ; the Docetae argued that he only appeared to possess a body, but was, in reality, only a shadowy phantom. The confession, “Jesus is the Son of God,” was a repu-diation of each of these heretical positions, and those who thus acknowledged him confessed (a) his humanity, (b) his deity, (c) his reality. Such a confession, therefore, established the fact that the one making it had not imbibed the poison of these positions, but did indeed accept him for what he is: the divine Son of God.
Implied in the confession is, of course, the complete surrender of the will to the Lord, such surrender expressing itself in willing obedience to his commands. This confession evidences the dispo-sition of mind and heart which prompts to obedience. Jesus said, “If a man love me, he will keep my word: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” (Joh 14:23.)
Moreover, the aorist tense (homologesei, confesseth), the exact force of which is difficult to render into English, reveals that the confession is a once-for-all act by which the one making it is committed to this concept of Christ with all the faculties of mind and body. God abides in us as we allow his teaching to fill us and motivate our lives; we abide in him as we practice the precepts of the gospel and find fellowship with him and his children in life.
16 And we know and have believed the love which God hath in us.–“We know” (egnokamen, perfect, active), “We have arrived at this knowledge, and continue to possess it, and have believed (and continue to do so) the love which God has in us.” How was this knowledge arrived it? Jesus had taught it during his ministry: “O righteous Father, the world knew thee not, but I knew thee; and these knew that thou didst send me and I made known unto them thy name, and will make it known; that the love wherewith thou lovedst me may be in them, and I in them.” (Joh 17:25-26.) Note the three steps indicated: (1) God’s name was made known; (2) the purpose for which the name was made known was to reveal that the love which the Father had for the Son was available to the saints; and (3) the indwelling of the life of the Son in them by which they were brought to the Father.
God is love; and he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him.–The clause, “God is love,” is a repetition of that which occurs in verse 8. See the comments there. The second clause, “And he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him,” is similar to the latter portion of verse 15. This verse thus combines the ideas advanced in verses 8 and 15. The meaning is, One who abides in love abides in God, and God in him, because God is love.
17 Herein is love made perfect with us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as he is, even so are we in this world.–Herein is love made perfect in us, i.e., in the fact that he who abides in love, abides in God, and God abides in him. (Verse 16.) All of whom such may be affirmed may indeed have boldness (confidence, assurance), because in loving God and their brethren they may be sure that they will not be condemned by the judge of all at the last day. The more we in-crease in love and perfect it, the less we have to fear that in that day we shall be found wanting. Love expresses itself in service to others (Jas 2:1-6); and by this standard men are to be judged in the great day of accounts. “Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, come, ye blessed of my Father, in-herit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry, and ye gave me to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and ye took me in; naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, say-ing, Lord, when saw we thee hungry, and fed thee? or athirst, and gave thee drink? And when saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? And when saw we thee sick, and in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren, even these least, ye did it unto me.” (Mat 25:34-40.)
The occasion or ground of the confidence those who love feel is that they resemble Christ in this respect. In loving all men they imitate Christ; and in following his example they do that which will obtain his approbation, and not his condemnation, in the day of judgment. Certainly, he will not condemn those who strive to make themselves like him. He is the embodiment of perfect love those who follow him as their pattern and guide may be sure of his approval and acceptance in the day when all shall stand before him as their judge.
18 There is no fear in love: but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath puishment; and he that feareth is not made perfect in love.–Confidence excludes fear and since those who love have confidence, they have no fear. “Fear,” as here contemplated, is not that which the Psalmist declares is “the beginning of wisdom” (Psa 111:10), a reverential, godly fear, which shrinks from any action which would displease God, the fear which an obedient child has for a loving father, en phoboi, 1Pe 1:17); but terror, dread, slavish fear, such as is characteristic of a slave in the presence of a cruel and heartless master. We are taught to perfect holiness “in the fear of God” (2Co 7:1); to submit ourselves to one another “in the fear of God” (Eph 5:21); and to work out our salvation with “fear and trembling” (Php 2:12). This is the true fear of God; an attitude of respect, or reverence, of holy awe. The fear that is absent from genuine love is the fear of the whip in the hands of the master; the dread of the chastisement which comes to the disobedient. Perfect (mature) love casts out such fear, because it cannot exist where genuine love is. “Fear bath punishment,” because in the anticipation of the punishment expected in the future there is torment in the present. In the realization that it is impending, there is a fore-taste of it before it actually begins. The child, aware that punish-ment is deserved and is pending, suffers before the lash is felt.
When, therefore, one entertains fear of the judgment, such evidences imperfect love; it indicates that there is not the development of Christian character which would have purged itself of such slavish fear, and eliminated all anxiety regarding the possi-bility of punishment. There are at least two kinds of fear re-ferred to in the sacred writings: that which possesses men as a result of their evil deeds and from the dread of God’s anger; and that of which the Psalmist wrote, “The fear of Jehovah is clean, enduring forever.” (Psa 19:9.) Perfect (mature) love casts out (literally, throws out, exo balled) fear, a strong figure indicat-ing the vigor with which it is excluded.
19 We love, because he first loved us.–Love obtains in the regenerate heart. This love finds its object in both God and man. But why do we love? In order that we may induce God to love us? On the contrary, he loved us before we loved him. Our love for him is thus evoked by a prior love on his part for us. “First” is in emphatic position in the original text, and is a thorough refutation of the creedal statement that Jesus came into the world to appease the wrath of an angry God. Joh 3:16 and Rom 5:8 constitute effective proof, along with this statement, that such a position is at variance with the teaching of the scrip-tures, and is a base slander on the character of God himself! As Christians we love. In this, we do not obligate God. He loved us before we loved him, and expressed his love by giving his Son to die in our behalf. Only an ingrate would refuse to love him in return.
20 If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, cannot love God whom he hath not seen.–Taught here is a principle often emphasized in the sacred writings that it is im-possible to separate love for God and man. He who affirms that he loves God, and at the same time hates his brother, is a liar! Though John was the “Apostle of Love,” the very thought of one claiming to love God who, at the same time, hated his brother, led the apostle indignantly to reject his claim, and to style such a one a liar. It is a characteristic of love to fix its attention on that which is visible and near; if, therefore, one does not love his brother whom he has seen, it is impossible to love God whom one has not seen. Ordinarily it is easier to love that which is seen and near; if, therefore, one fails in the easier task of loving that which is seen–his brother–he will obviously fail in the more dif-ficult task of loving God. The love which we feel for our brethren is produced by the qualities in them which they have acquired from God. It follows, therefore, that if one is repelled by the qualities of goodness in his brother which are derived from God, he will feel the same aversion toward these same qualities in God himself! It is thus literally true that one who does not love his brother cannot love God. The one may be verified by the other. If genuine love for man exists, there is a corresponding love for God. Conversely, where one does not love his brother, it is proof that he does not love God. If he says he does, he is a liar.
21 And this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also.–In support of the argument of the verse which precedes this, an argument supported by analogy, by common sense, by the inspiration of the writer him-self, there is added here the testimony of Christ. He had given commandment that he who loves God is to love his brother also. When and where was this commandment given? In principle, Jesus stated it often, viz., Joh 13:34-35; Joh 15:13; and in essence it is set out in the great summary of the law in the Lord’s reply to the lawyer who said to him, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? And he said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second like unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy-self. On these two commandments the whole law hangeth, and the prophets.” (Mat 22:35-40.) Though it may be difficult to love men as men, we are to love them because they are in the image of God, and to love this image as it is reflected in them, though often obscured by sin and impaired by depravity. And, we are to love them, not only because of our kinship to them, but also because of our relationship to God who is our common Father and federal head.
Commentary on 1Jn 4:7-21 by E.M. Zerr
1Jn 4:7. The apostle again comes to the subject of love which seems to have been very near to him. He has a sound reason for such interest in that subject, namely, love and God are inseparable. For that reason if a man is born (begotten) of God he is sure to exhibit love also since it is the family trait of God’s children.
1Jn 4:8. On the basis of the affirmative as shown in the preceding verse, if a man does not have love as a predominant factor in his life, it is proof that he has not yet become acquainted with God.
1Jn 4:9. This verse corresponds with Joh 3:16.
1Jn 4:10. The example of love was set by the Father and not by man. That is why we have the brief but comprehensive statement in verse 19.
1Jn 4:11. If God was willing to love us first even when we were in sin, we ought to love each other since no one of us is any more worthy than another.
1Jn 4:12. No man hath seen God literally, but we may exhibit evidences of spiritual knowledge of Him by having love for the brethren. If we do so it will cause God to dwell in us or in our midst spiritually. His love is perfected or made complete in us when we follow His example of loving the children of God,
1Jn 4:13. This is the same in thought as chapter 3:24; see the comments there.
1Jn 4:14. John and the other apostles could testify, because they had seen the evidences that the Father has sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.
1Jn 4:15. See the comments at verses 1-3.
1Jn 4:16. Known and believed. There is no conflict between these words as might be concluded because of the difference technically between them. The things that were known were the evidences, and what they believed was based on those evidences, namely, that God had a great love for man. The latter part of the verse has been explained in a number of the preceding verses.
1Jn 4:17. Love made perfect means it is complete, and God made it Possible for man to have that perfect (or complete) love, to give them boldness in view of the judgment day. As he is. so arc we. To be confident with reference to the judgment, we must be on good terms with God in this world. That can be accomplished only by manifesting that unselfish love that was first shown by the Lord for us.
1Jn 4:18. The Bible does not contradict itself, and when it appears that it does there is always an explanation for it. We know we are commanded to fear God (1Pe 2:17), but our present verse says that perfect love will cast out fear. The explanation is very simple which depends on the meanings of the original Greek word phobos. Thayer gives us two definitions of the word as follows: “1. fear, dread, terror,” and “2. reverence, respect.” As we have seen frequently before, the particular meaning of any word must be determined by the connection in which it is used. The connection here shows John is using it in its had sense which would made it read, “There is no dread or terror in love.” If we love God and manifest it by loving our brother, we will not have any dread at the thought of meeting God in the judgment.
1Jn 4:19. This is commented on at verse 10.
1Jn 4:20. John has previously made this same charge, but he adds a logical reason for it here. It certainly is as easy to love a brother who is with us and whose fellowship we can enjoy, as it is to love God whom we cannot see now and must love on the basis of faith.
1Jn 4:21. On the basis of the reasoning in the preceding verse, John commands the disciples not to attempt loving God it they will not love the brethren also, for their profession of love will be rejected.
Commentary on 1Jn 4:7-21 by N.T. Caton
1Jn 4:7-Beloved, let us love one another.
We must not in any manner imitate the false teachers, for they would lead us astray, but be governed by the example and spirit of our Master. We show, as he did, by doing the will of God, our love of God. His command, repeated over and over again, is that we love one another, and we are assured that it is a certain evidence that we are begotten of God and that we know him, when we exhibit love, for love comes from God. Its source is in the Infinite One.
1Jn 4:8-He that loveth not, knoweth not God.
We may pretend what we please, and yet if we do not love our brother, we do not know God aright, for
1Jn 4:8-God is love.
God is essentially love. Here there is no mixture of malevolence whatever. As he is infinite in his other attributes, so in this-God is infinite in love.
1Jn 4:9-In this was manifested the love of God.
The highest and grandest possible demonstration God could give to the world of his love is the sending of his Son-his only begotten Son-that through him the world might be saved-might have life. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (Joh 3:16).
1Jn 4:10-Herein is love.
The highest and grandest exhibition of love ever known, or that can be known in the universe, God manifested to man. While man loved not-while man was an enemy to God-God sent his Son into the world to die for man, that thereby a way might be opened up by which man-the enemy of God-might attain eternal life. Poets’ loftiest strains afford but feeble conceptions of the divine love. The voice of description is hushed into eternal silence. Mortals can only hear, learn and adore.
1Jn 4:11-Beloved, if God so loved us.
Now, if God so loved us while we were sinners, we at least ought to show our gratitude for his matchless mercy by imitating his example in loving one another.
1Jn 4:12-No man bath seen God at any time.
By our mortal eyes we can not see God. He has not been so seen by any one at any time. He is invisible. We, however, may have a sense of his presence in us, and this we know when we are assured that we love the brethren, for this is of God. His nature abides in us. We partake of his nature as we follow his will, and become more and more like him as we carry out the virtues enjoined upon us to perfection.
1Jn 4:13-Hereby know we that we dwell in him.
The term “we,” it would appear, more particularly applies to the apostles than to believers generally. I so conclude from the statement “he hath given to us of his Spirit.” It is true, all believers have the Spirit, but when the next verse is consulted you discover the same “we” had special need for the gift of the Spirit in a different degree. Yet it is true that we know that God dwells in us, by the Spirit which is given to us, one of the fruits of this Spirit being that of love. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law” (Gal 5:22-23).
1Jn 4:14-And we have seen and do testify.
This is certainly personal. By the “we” John means himself and fellow apostles. They saw the Son when he was here on earth-saw his miracles; heard his teaching; saw him die. Saw him, and heard him, and handled him after his resurrection. Received from him power from on high, enabling them to testify with infallible accuracy, and “we do testify to all these things”; and they were further authorized to say, that there is “none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.”
1Jn 4:15-Whosoever shall confess,
This is largely a repetition of verse 2; the only difference being that in verse 2, one coming and confessing that Jesus Christ had come in the flesh would be proof that the one so confessing did not possess the spirit of a false prophet; whereas, in the verse before us, the confession that Jesus is the Son of God is evidence to us that the one so confessing has God dwelling in him and he in God. God dwelling in us and our abiding in him is, I take it, practically the same thing.
1Jn 4:16 –And we have known and believed.
Whether we love God or not is a matter of knowledge. That God loved us we believed when we heard the message of love his inspired apostles brought to us. And keeping the divine model before, and observing all God’s requirements, increase our confidence to such an extent that it is exalted in us to the height of personal knowledge. God being love, and loving God, that love binds us to God. So of a truth we dwell in God and he in us.
1Jn 4:17-Herein is our love made perfect.
By the operation of God’s love in our hearts we are enabled to love our brethren and our neighbor, exhibiting the fruits of our love all around us, and so perfecting our love that when the great day of judgment shall come, we shall stand before him in all confidence.
1Jn 4:17-Boldness.
Want of fear; having observed his will by obeying his command to love, we shall have no fears in his presence, because as he is, so we are; for so we conducted ourselves while in the world.
1Jn 4:18-There is no fear in love.
The word fear is here used in the sense of terror. Now, this kind of fear is banished when love appears. There may be, and there is, and there ought to be the fear of reverence.
1Jn 4:18 –Perfect love casteth out fear.
Where one truly loves God and his fellow-man all fear is expelled. Where that sort of love exists, no fear of the judgment is present. Fear only exists where there is peril or danger of punishment. This is the torment mentioned herein. Now, where this fear exists, it is proof conclusive that love is not perfect; that is, that he does not truly love God and his fellow-man.
1Jn 4:19-We love him, because he first loved us.
Love begets love. God’s wonderful love, exhibited through Christ, fills every redeemed soul with love, and we show our love and gratitude to God by loving our brethren.
1Jn 4:20-If a man say, I love God.
How can any one say he loves the unseen One, and yet hates his brother, whom he sees and knows. Such a claim is mere pretense. The one so claiming, the apostle says, is a liar. Here, then, we need not be deceived. Should one claiming to be a teacher, claim that he loved God and hated his brother, that teacher is a deceiver, an antichrist; should he be a private person, he is simply a hypocrite. The brother we see, and know by our natural senses all his excellencies of character; he is God’s image; him we hate. Now, how can it be said, while we hate him, we love the unseen God, whom we know only by the manifestations of himself that he has seen fit to give?
1Jn 4:21-And this commandment have we from him.
Besides, we all have God’s will, expressed in a command given by him, that every one who loves God must love his brother also. This is the end of the matter. No command can be obeyed in part. A rejection of a part is the rejection of the whole, and is at the same time a rejection of the authority of the law-giver, and subjects the offender to his displeasure.
Commentary on 1Jn 4:7-21 by Burton Coffman
1Jn 4:7 –Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and everyone that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God.
Here, of course, is another test, the love of “one another,” such love being of God himself. One stands in amazement at a comment on this like the following:
“Everyone” here includes all the human beings in whose nature love is or ever has been, whether they ever heard of God or Christ or not.[24]
Such a comment is typical of much of the nonsense that has been written on this section of John’s letter. “Love one another” is neither sexual love ([@eros]) nor animal affection ([@fileo]), but Christian love ([@agape]). This is a love known only “in Christ,” being the gift of God himself, having no connection whatever with mere humanism. John’s repeated stress of such Christian love in this epistle might have been due to the fact, as supposed by Macknight, that “some of the Jewish converts, retaining their ancient prejudices, still considered it their duty to hate the heathen,”[25] even those who had accepted Christianity.
[24] James William Russell, Compact Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1963), p. 603.
[25] James Macknight, op. cit., p. 90.
1Jn 4:8 –He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
God is love … This profoundly beautiful and encouraging statement about the Father must rank, along with others, as one of the grandest in all Scripture. Wesley said, “Love is God’s reigning attribute that sheds an amiable glory upon all of his other perfections.”[26] Barclay called this, “probably the single greatest statement about God in the whole Bible … It is amazing how many doors that single statement unlocks and how many questions it answers.”[27]
However, Wilder cautioned that, “God’s nature is not exhausted by the quality of love.”[28] God is light (1Jn 1:5), and spirit (Joh 4:24), and (considering the oneness of the Father with the Son) he is life, and truth (Joh 14:6). Moreover, “Our God is a consuming fire” (Heb 12:29).
It is a failure to recognize that no single word is capable of describing the ineffable God which leads to a gross perversion of this marvelous text in the popular mind. Some hail this verse, as if it said, “Love is God; and here is a God we can all handle; bring on the love!” Many who read these precious words of John do not seem to be aware of the holy and self-sacrificing love about which John wrote. God’s love for mankind and his glorious attribute of love do not in any manner alter or negate the revelation that “the wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men” (Rom 1:18), nor the revelation concerning God that he “will judge the world in righteousness” (Act 17:31). Furthermore, there is no conflict between John and Paul on this point. John’s description of the final judgment in Rev 6:15-17 is as soul-shaking a view of the wrath of God in judgment as any in the whole Bible. The proper view of God’s love must be big enough to understand that his final judgment and overthrow of wickedness will be, in itself, a mark of eternal love.
And yet such thoughts should not detract from the unique glory of this text. No one in the whole world ever knew that God is love until it was revealed from heaven and written in the New Testament. “It is here, and nowhere else; it is not found in all the literature of mankind.”[29]
[26] John Wesley, op. cit., p. 914.
[27] William Barclay, op. cit., p. 98.
[28] Amos N. Wilder, op. cit., p. 280.
[29] H. A. Ironside, Addresses on the Epistles of John (New York: Loizeaux Brothers, Inc., 1931), p. 138.
1Jn 4:9 –Herein was the love of God manifested in us, that God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him.
The marginal reading “in our case” instead of “in us” appears as the true meaning, since it is God’s sending his Son to die for the sins of the whole world, which is the manifestation spoken of, that not being something “in us” but “in our case,” or on our behalf.
His only begotten Son … This is a better rendition than that of making it read merely “only Son,” because it is admitted by all scholars that “uniqueness” is an essential quality of meaning in this word.[30] “Only Son” would therefore mean that God has no other sons; yet all Christians are “sons of God.” “Only begotten” conveys that essential meaning of “uniqueness,” exactly in the sense of the word ([@monogenes]) as translated in Heb 11:17 where Isaac is called Abraham’s “only begotten son,” there being a uniqueness in Isaac’s sonship not found in Abraham’s many other sons. It is therefore a most happy and appropriate translation which reads “only begotten Son.”
While mentioning Buechsel in Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, who defended this translation (only begotten), as “practically the only modern scholar” to do so,[31] Roberts went on to reject it. But the old rendition may not be disposed of so easily.
W. E. Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, Marshall’s rendition of the Nestle Greek Text, the translation in the Emphatic Diaglott, Frances E. Siewert in The Amplified New Testament, the New Catholic Bible, to say nothing of that great galaxy of New Testament scholars who produced the American Standard Version (still referred to by F. F. Bruce as the most accurate of modern versions), and also Kenneth S. Wuest – all translate the word as meaning “only begotten.” The present day meaning of “only begotten” exactly fits the legitimate meaning. “Only begotten” carries the meaning of “uniqueness” without denying the sonship of Christians, making it superior to the RSV, etc.
The same word ([@monogenes]) was used of a man’s son (Luk 9:38), of Jairus’ daughter (Luk 8:42), and of the son of the widow of Nain (Luk 7:12). Roberts said, “It could hardly mean only begotten in that case (Luk 7:12), since begetting is a function of the male rather khan the female,”[32] apparently overlooking the fact that nothing is said about the widow’s having done the begetting! Her son was the “only begotten” of whoever begot him, just as Jesus was Mary’s son, despite his having been the “only begotten of the Father.”
Admittedly, this is a disputed translation; and the purpose here is to affirm appreciation and preference for the one that has come down through the ages. We simply do not believe that the modern scholars have any more information regarding this than did the translators of KJV and ASV, nor that the recent ones are any more competent.
That we might live through him … The great purpose of that visitation from the Dayspring from on High was that, through obedience to the Son of God, people might have the blessing of eternal life.
[30] J. W. Roberts, op. cit., p. 115.
[31] Ibid., p. 113.
[32] Ibid.
1Jn 4:10 –Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation, for our sins.
Herein is love … This carries the thought, “notice just what love actually is.” John defined it, even in God’s love, as being not merely a sentimental fondness for the human race, but a gracious, unselfish and unmerited act of divine giving of his “only begotten Son” to save people from eternal death. As Smith said:
The love which proves us children of God is not native to our hearts. It is inspired by the amazing love of God manifested in the Incarnation, the infinite Sacrifice of His Son’s life and death.[33]
To be the propitiation … For a discussion of this phrase, see under 1Jn 2:2. The objection that “propitiation” leaves out of view the love of God is not well taken. As Denney observed:
So far from finding any kind of contrast between love and propitiation, the apostle can convey no idea of love to anyone, except by pointing to the propitiation.[34]
[33] David Smith, op. cit., p. 191.
[34] James Denney, The Death of Christ (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1894), p. 152.
1Jn 4:11 –Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
In this chapter, John repeated over and over again many of the closely related topics he had already mentioned, each time going a little further, giving a slightly different antithesis, stressing a little different aspect, or urging a closer attention, – all in such a marvelous way that, at last, his meaning becomes incontrovertible. In this verse, Christians’ loving each other is motivated by the overwhelming majesty of the love of God himself.
One another … is incapable of meaning “everybody on earth,” although of course, the love of every Christian reaches out to the ends of the world, but not in the intensity commanded here.
1Jn 4:12 –No man hath beheld God at any time: if we love one another, God abideth in us, and his love is perfected in us:
No man hath seen God at any time … Blaney was probably correct in seeing this as a warning to Christians against “trying to know God in any other way than the one he is describing.”[35] Some have sought, outside of Christianity, to know more about God, hoping for a clearer perception; but this apostolic warning declares all such attempts to be futile. However, “John is not here discounting the visions of God reported in the Old Testament, but meaning that those visions were partial and incomplete. It is in Christ that we see God (Joh 14:9).”[36]
If we love one another … Love of the brethren is the primary meaning of this. The humanistic philosophy that reads this “love of all mankind” is an inadequate conception. “Our love toward God is perfected and brought to maturity by the exercise of love towards our brethren in him (Christ).”[37]
The warning in this verse to the effect that the revelation of God is available to people only in Christ is widely needed. All such things as astrology, spiritism, witchcraft and Satanism are basically ways of finding a so-called “reality” apart from Biblical revelation. This apostolic injunction states unequivocally that there is nothing out there which might enlighten or bless people. The true revelation has already been given through people who is “the way, the truth, and the life.” Despite this basic truth, the spectacle of a high ranking ecclesiastic losing his life in a desert while trying to communicate with spirits, only recently, was spread on the pages of the newspapers.
God abideth in us … Why make excursions into deserts or dark rooms, or explore the mysteries of esoteric cults, or plunge into the abyss through drugs or alcohol? when all the while God himself will take up residence in the very soul of one who will through loving open up room for Him who is love.
[35] Harvey J. S. Blaney, op. cit., p. 391.
[36] Leon Morris, op. cit., p. 1268.
[37] A. Plummer, op. cit., p. 104.
1Jn 4:13 –hereby we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.
In this paragraph (1Jn 4:12-16), the indwelling God is mentioned three times, and the reciprocal nature of it (he in us, we in him) is stressed twice. The evidence of God’s indwelling is differently stated as follows:
1Jn 4:13, He hath given us his Spirit.
1Jn 4:15, Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God.
1Jn 4:16, He that dwelleth in love.
Because he hath given us of his Spirit … It should be carefully noted that the Christian’s possession of the Spirit of God is an “evidence of,” not an “antecedent cause” of God’s indwelling our hearts. Furthermore, it is a mistake to suppose that there is even any microscopic difference between God’s indwelling and the Spirit’s indwelling. There are no less than eight different New Testament designations of that inner presence which differentiates Christians from the world (See my Commentary on Galatians, pp. 97-99), as set forth in Paul’s writings; and John in this letter added to that list the fact that God’s love abides in Christians, and Christians abide in God’s love. This verse (1Jn 4:13) is virtually a repetition of 1Jn 3:24.
With regard to the question of prior conditions to be fulfilled by the believer before the indwelling of God, the reception of the Spirit, the indwelling Christ, etc., Peter’s summary of this on the Day of Pentecost stands as the eternal answer, binding both on earth and in heaven. To believers who desire the forgiveness of their sins and the indwelling Spirit, the commandment of God is: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Act 2:38 f).
In the introduction to this letter, it was pointed out that John follows no classical outline. Roberts has another beautiful word regarding 1John, which, in a little wider sense, is applicable to all the New Testament books. He wrote:
John’s thought pattern continues to retrace ideas and to pick them up like an orchestra does the strains of a melody in order to develop them more fully.[38]
ENDNOTE:
[38] J. W. Roberts, op. cit., p. 118.
1Jn 4:14 –And we have beheld and bear witness that the Father hath sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.
And we … This might be an epistolary, or editorial “we,” for the apostle John, or, as Smith thought, “a reference to John and the rest of the apostles who were eyewitnesses.”[39] The words “bear witness” indicate that the latter meaning is the true one. As Plummer said, “The language of this verse would be strained and unreal in one who had not seen Christ in the flesh.”[40]
A tremendous weight of Christian truth is concentrated in this verse.
The Father sent the Son … The entire story of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation is here reduced to one line.
To be the Saviour of the world … The world’s being lost in sin is implied; otherwise no Saviour would have been required. Many do not seem to realize that they are lost without Christ. It is wrong to think of being saved, as if it meant, merely, to go to heaven when one dies. People are lost now; they need redemption now; We (all people) need salvation from ourselves, from our habits, our temptations, anxieties, fears, frustrations and uncertainties. One does not have to wait until he dies to be lost; every man without Christ is already lost. Only in the world’s Saviour can human life be endowed with that purpose, significance and vitality, without which, human life tends to wretchedness and misery. In Christ all is changed. Life in him is so exceedingly rich that John called it “eternal life,” thus naming it after the ultimate reward which is the central hope of that life, and the great motivator of it here and now.
[39] David Smith, op. cit., p. 192.
[40] A. Plummer, op. cit., p. 104.
1Jn 4:15 –Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abideth in him, and he in God.
Confess that Jesus is the Son of God … There is a form of metonymy (synecdoche) in a statement of this kind. The primary pre-requirements of salvation, the so-called “plan of salvation” is meant by this. The New Testament reveals that “obeying the gospel” as the New Testament writers called it, meant believing in Christ, repenting of one’s sins, confessing the Son of God, and being baptized “into Christ.” As a consequence of such primary obedience, and subsequently to it, the Holy Spirit was given, not to make men sons of God, but because upon such initial faith and obedience they became sons of God (Gal 4:6). There are two possible meanings of John’s words here, and both of them may be correct.
(1) He refers to the Christian’s obedience of the gospel at the time he became a Christian, the confession of faith in Christ, of course, being a prominent part of conversion. If this is what was in the apostle’s mind, the meaning of it is almost identical with Peter’s words on Pentecost (Act 2:38 f), Peter’s “gift of the Holy Spirit” meaning exactly the same thing in that passage that John meant by “God abideth in him” here. There can be no difference in these.
(2) If, as Roberts thought, John was speaking of a time in the lives of Christians long after their conversion, then he may be “saying that if this confession can be sincerely repeated by the believer, that God abides in him, and he in God.”[41]
In either view, it is conversion itself, and primary obedience of the gospel to which this verse undoubtedly refers. This somewhat sudden mention of initial Christian obedience, after all John had been saying, and continued to say about “love,” reminds us that:
With John, love always includes obedience to all God’s commandments; and where obedience is not manifested, love is not. Even with God, love was not mere sympathy, but sending his Son to be the propitiation.[42]
[41] J. W. Roberts, op. cit., p. 119.
[42] William Hurte, Restoration of New Testament Christianity (Rosemead, California: Old Paths Publishing Company, 1964), p. 489.
1Jn 4:16 –And we know and have believed the love which God hath in us. God is love; and he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him.
Know and have believed the love which God hath in us … As Morris declared, “Believing and knowing the love is certainly a very unusual expression.”[43] It is perhaps John’s way of referring to one’s knowing and believing the whole thesis and system of Christianity, which might be summed up, really, as “knowing and believing the love of God.” What a beautiful way to express it!
Abideth in love … is in this verse equated to “abideth in God,” making the expressions synonymous. It is an exercise in futility to attempt to make some kind of distinction between those and a dozen other similar expressions in the word of God. Note: It is undeniable that the New Testament teaches that Christians are in God, in Christ, in the Holy Spirit, and in love (in the sense of abiding in love); and at the same time the New Testament reveals that each of these: God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, and love all abide, indwell, or reside in Christians. There are other significant additions to this list, such as “the mind of Christ” (Php 2:5), and “the word of Christ” (Col 3:16), both of which are flatly represented as dwelling “in Christians.” It is the conviction repeated several times in this series of commentaries, that it is absolutely impossible to distinguish such expressions as indicating different states or conditions of the soul; on the other hand, they are clearly multiple designations of a single condition, that is, the saved condition, that which belongs to every Christian.
ENDNOTE:
[43] Leon Morris, op. cit., p. 1268.
1Jn 4:17 –Herein is love made perfect with us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as he is, even so are we in this world.
Have boldness … One grand dividend received from a love-oriented and love-motivated life is a dramatic diminution of fear, both with reference to earthly fears and those regarding the ultimate summons of all people to the judgment of God.
In the day of judgment … John, like the Lord Jesus, did not speak of many judgments, but only one. There are literally dozens of places in which the New Testament makes reference to the event of final judgment; and in all of them, the reference is invariably in the singular: the day … the day …. etc.
Even as he is … so are we … It is Christ whom the Christians resemble, and therefore he is the one referred to here. Since all Christians are in the business of being like Christ, to the extent of denying themselves and seeking total identity with him “in Christ” and “as Christ,” to the extent that this is achieved, through having love like him, it becomes also a pledge of our likeness to him in glory, the same being the firm ground of overcoming fear.
1Jn 4:18 –There is no fear in love: but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath punishment; and he that feareth is not made perfect in love.
The apostle John here presents one after another “all but impossible levels of Christian attainment”;[44] (1) the love of all people with a self-sacrificing love like that of Christ; (2) the living of a life free from every sin; (3) confidence in the hour of the final judgment when people are pleading for the rocks and the mountains to fall upon them; and (4) the banishment of all fear; and notice that last phrase made perfect in love. Is this anything less than the total God-like perfection enjoined by Jesus Christ in Mat 5:48? Indeed, it is the same thing, exhibited, even as it was by the author of James, as God’s basic requirement of all who would be saved! Impossible for people? Certainly, except in the manner revealed in Christ. To those who are “in Christ” and who abide in him, loving him, following him, obeying him to the fullest extent of human ability – to all such persons shall be given and certified the very blessings in view here; and thus “in Christ” they may attain the unattainable!
ENDNOTE:
[44] Amos N. Wilder, op. cit., p. 286.
1Jn 4:19 –We love, because he first loved us.
Inherent in this epic declaration is the fact that Christ was not crucified in order to persuade God to love people, but because God already loved mankind, the divine love preceding the entire program of redemption, and even more, existing in the heart of God even before the world was. One great purpose of the cross was that of persuading people to receive the salvation God was so willing to give. Another truth evident in this is that, “Our love (whether of God or man) is a plain duty to us, since God first loved us.”[45] It should be considered by all that the very fact of God’s loving sinful and fallen humanity provides a powerful incentive for all perceptive souls to do likewise. Why did God love fallen and sinful men? Even their being sinful did not change the fact that they had been designed and created in the image of the Father; and through God’s provident mercy, all of the moral and eternal consequences of their sins were potentially removable, through the means God revealed. Moreover, the disaster which had fallen upon humanity in the events of the Fall, had actually been brought upon them by the seduction and skillful cunning of their inveterate enemy, Satan. God pitied those human creatures who were so heartlessly betrayed and ruined by the sadistic moral rape of their innocence in Eden; and pity is never very far from love. And should not similar considerations today lead every Christian in the direction of loving all people, every man, who like himself is a victim of sin, and yet is potentially an heir of eternal glory as a beneficiary of the blood of Christ? “Such love flows from the nature of the lover, and not from the worthiness of the one loved.”[46] The great redemptive purpose of God in Christ is that of making his children like himself, and, therefore, not to love is to negate our own redemption. “After God’s love in giving his Son for us, it would be monstrous not to love .”[47]
[45] J. W. Roberts, op. cit., p. 123.
[46] Leon Morris, op. cit., p. 1268.
[47] A. Plummer, op. cit., p. 105.
1Jn 4:20 –If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, cannot love God whom he hath not seen.
If people have any proper knowledge at all of God, they cannot fail, at the same time, to be aware of God-like qualities manifested in all human life, even in the unregenerated; for all people were made in God’s image, irrespective of the eroding and defacing influence of sin. Failure to see this, with its consequent inclination to love people, is proof that the one so blind knows nothing of God and therefore does not love God. Loving God in some abstract sense is not the kind of love the apostle enjoined; and such a truth has many corollaries. In all times, people have found it easier to love mankind “away over there” in some foreign situation, than to love neighbors close to home. This truth reveals that if we do not love the man on our doorstep, we do not love any man who is unknown to us in any personal sense; and the same thing is true with loving God. The true test is found in the way we respond to people whom we know and with whom we associate, and whom, in many cases, we see every day.
In this verse, it is clear why John so boldly introduced the proposition in 1Jn 4:12 that, “No man hath seen God at any time.” He was leading up to the argument here.
In struggling to understand and walk in the light of a verse like this, many will encounter problems. One wrote to F. F. Bruce the following question:
I have a difficulty; it is not easy to love some of our brothers and sisters … their inconsistencies which we cannot help seeing … It seems much easier to love God, knowing how much He has done for us.[48]
Who has not encountered the same difficulty? Bruce’s answer pointed out: (1) that love in the sense intended here is not sentimentality, or feeling, but a conscious recognition of our necessity to do all that is consistent with the true welfare of others, also (2) this attitude does not come automatically, but that it is developed and grows in hearts attuned to God’s will. (3) It is also aided by the Christian’s realization that he himself has “inconsistencies” and much worse; and that he has been forgiven; and that we who have lost such an intolerable burden of guilt in the love of Christ can best show our appreciation of so great a boon by forgiving and loving others.
If what one is contradicts what one says, he is a liar.
One who claims to know God and walks in darkness is a liar.
One who “knows God” but denies the Son of God is a liar.
One who pretends to love God and hates his brother is a liar.MONO>
The last three of the above statements are really phases of the first proposition stated; and Stott called these “the three black lies of 1John, in the aggregate contradicting the (1) moral; (2) doctrinal; and (3) social basics of Christianity.”[49]
[48] F. F. Bruce, Answers to Questions (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1972), p. 133.
[49] John R. W. Stott, op. cit., p. 170.
1Jn 4:21 –And this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also.
This verse almost certainly relates to the great summary of all the law and the prophets as given by Jesus Christ in these words:
The first (and great commandment) is, Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God, the Lord is one; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all they soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. The second is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these (Mar 12:29-31).
That almighty God desires that his human creation should love him is one of the most revealing statements in Scripture. That purposeful desire of God lies back of all that God ever revealed, all that he ever did, to redeem mankind. How universally do people tend to fall short of this basic love! Much of the love that passes for such is merely bigotry. “The bigot loves those who embrace his opinions,”[50] and receive his peculiar bias or prejudice; and he loves them for that, not for Christ.
Concerning Jesus’ joining in this verse and in the Gospels these twin commandments to love God and love one’s neighbor, Stott remarked, “What Christ has joined, let no man sever.”[51] Plummer’s summation of John’s thoughts here is as follows:
Here is the Divine command to love, not only the invisible God, but the visible brother in whom the invisible God dwells. Sight may hinder as well as help; it is hard to love what is squalid and hideous. In such cases, let us remember the Divine command; let us remember the Divinity which even the most debased humanity contains.[52]
May our attitude toward this holy commandment be that of freely confessing that the total fulfillment of it lies utterly beyond our unaided human strength to accomplish it; but may we also preempt unto that holy purpose the blessed promise of the apostle: “I can do all things in him that strengtheneth me” (Php 4:13). “In him?” Yes, “in Christ,” in whom we shall at last be presented before the Father in perfection!
What a wonderful world this would be, and what an incredible sweetness would pervade it, if even any appreciable percentage of its population would live by the principles laid down in this chapter of the word of God!
[50] John Wesley, op. cit., p. 916.
[51] John R. W. Stott, op. cit., p. 171.
[52] A. Plummer, op. cit., p. 105.
The Bond of Brotherhood
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God.1Jn 4:7.
1. The religion of the New Testament differs from all others in this: it affects and appeals to and governs the heart. Other systems have laid hold upon other powers of our nature, but the Gospel is distinctive in constraining the affections, in seizing the motive and controlling forces of the soul, and in bringing them into subjection to its loving claims. It is true, indeed, that the Divine revelation is not neglectful of any part of our being. Though it appeals to reason, enlightened and instructed by truth, it often addresses the imagination, bringing up before it the most lively images of good and evil, of blessing and cursing for time and eternity. Not infrequently it addresses itself to the sentiment of fear on the one hand, and of hope on the other, portraying the hour of death with its solemn realities, depicting judgment with its dread scenes, and unveiling heaven and hell with the objects which should awaken desire and aversion in every human soul. But all this is done only as a means to an end; it is to move the heart, to draw the soul away from things of sense and sin, to introduce it into the love and fellowship of God, and to produce in it that holy sympathy with the Divine nature which shall cause it to dwell in love as it dwells in God.
2. Of this love there could be no more illustrious example than was St. John himself. It was undoubtedly the loving nature of St. John that drew towards him the sympathetic affection of Jesus Christ. Between the two there existed a harmony of character, which bound them necessarily to each other. In both there was the humility and calmness of that highest kind of love which is as far removed from the vehemence of passion as it is elevated above the changes inherent in passionate affection.
These is a tradition that, when St. John was too old to walk, he used to be carried by his friends to the Christian Assembly in Ephesus. Then followed a hush among those who were present. The Apostle who had leaned on the breast of Jesus, the Apostle who had been with Him through His ministry, who knew more of His mind than others, was about to speak to them, and when he did speak it seemed that time after time the only word which he uttered to them was, Beloved, let us love one another: Little children, love one another.1 [Note: Archbishop W. Alexander.]
I
Love in its Origin
Henry Drummond has described love as the greatest thing in the world. But in that definition he has set forth only half the truth, because love is the greatest power in the heavens above as well as in the earth beneath, Almighty God Himself being Love perfect, infinite and eternal. Heaven is the fulness of joy unspeakable, not on account of streets of gold, and gates of pearl, and walls of sapphire, but because it is the presence and home of Divine love. Angels are angels because therein they have absorbed and radiate everlastingly the rays of this Divine light of love. Men and women are angelic so far as they have received and reflect this sublime grace. The earth is like to heaven in proportion to the love that is in it.
1. God is love.This is the first fact in the universefirst in time, and first in significance. Man cannot be the only or the highest thing that loves in this vast universe. There isthere must bein it some great, deep heart of sympathy, the infinite counterpart of our faint and feeble human love; for we could not be so moved and awed by unreality and deadness; and till we feel thistill we feel that the holy tenderness which comes over us at the sight of boundless oceans or setting suns or starry skies, that the strong sympathies which seize us when we think of human sufferings and wrongs, and will not let us rest till we have done our utmost to relieve and redress them, cannot be explained by any curious network of nerves and fibres, by any laws of chemistry or mechanics, but is a living breath from the Omnipresent Love, working unseen but ever active beneath the material veil of thingswe do not truly believe; the cold inference of reason is not yet quickened into a living faith; God is still a name rather than a power, a force than an agent, an operation than a person.
There is a gem which is called the flystone gem. To the naked eye there is no peculiarity to differentiate it from other like gems; but place it under a microscope and you will see in the midst of its luminous brilliancy a tiny insect, perfect in all its proportions, even to the minute framework of its gauze-like wings and the network of facets on its tiny eyes. Diamond-enclosed, diamond-protected, it is a riddle in the book of Nature. How it came there no one knows, and no human skill could remove it. Whoso would touch that fly must first crush the wall of adamant around it. It is hid in the bosom of the gem, and the natural eye perceiveth it not, for it is microscopically discerned. The analogy fails, for it is dead, and we speak of life. But there is in man that which can call God Father, and which can never cease to be Divine, for it is similarly buried in the heart of the Omnipotent.1 [Note: B. Wilberforce, Feeling after Him, 130.]
Love is the mightiest power in the heavens above or in the earth beneath, pure and overflowing at the heart of the universe. How marvellously it is akin to another most attractive force in Naturegravitation. Remove this single binding influence, and worlds with all they contain instantly dissolve into chaos. Remove the single bond of spiritual love, and society melts into a social chaos. And just as the sun is the principal seat of gravitation, and the planets are the inferior seats of gravity, so God is the central source of love, and His angels and children are subordinate sources of love. Then, again, as gravitation is extended equally everywhere, so also the love of God. No matter to what depths of sin the heart of man has sunk, be it steeped in degradation and vice, or paralysed by carelessness and indifference, Gods love is ever-present, able and ready to save. No man is beyond its reach and secret influence. Its force never fails or decreases. Love can never die: it is infinite and eternal as God Himself. And because He reigns and directs, and lovingly takes measures unceasingly for the betterment of His children, this world of His is daily and hourly progressing and improving. To-day the world is better than yesterday. To-morrow it will be better than to-day. Let then our fixed resolve and maxim ever be: God, Thou art love. I take my stand on that. Loves faith in love is the surest anchor amid the waves of this troublesome world.1 [Note: D. S. Govett, in The Church Family Newspaper, Oct. 13, 1911, p. 764.]
When I found Him in my bosom,
Then I found Him everywhere,
In the bud and in the blossom,
In the earth and in the air.
And He spake to me with clearness
From the quiet stars that say,
As ye find Him in His nearness
Ye shall find Him far away.
2. Love had its supreme manifestation in Christ.What sort of deity is Cupid, the pagan God of love? A mischievous boy, a winged and beautiful shape, a troubler of mens hearts, a fugitive and irresponsible visitor, who sets the nerves tingling with passion, but does not touch, and cannot touch, the moral nature. The God of love in Christianity is Christ, who went about doing good, and pleased not Himself, but gave His life a ransom for many. Compare these two visions, if comparison be possible, and mark how vast the difference. What wonder is it that love, as described by the ancients, is always a bitter heritage, a golden apple of passionate contention, and that its records are all of the ardour, the distress, and the unavailing sorrow of the individual? But the love which Christianity presents to us is something that forgets itself and is lost in a renunciation which is beatitude. It is not limited, personal, or egotistic; it overleaps all common human relationships, and finds higher relationships with all loving hearts. It comes with no purple wings, beating a delicate and perfumed air, and stirring the mere nerves of a man with passionate delight; it comes as a Divine power, which enters his heart and transforms it; it creates a brother in every man and a sister in every woman. It binds a golden girdle round the globe, and claims all those within it in the name of the love of God. It enters every avenue of human life, and sanctifies it. It is mercy when it meets the criminal, sympathy when it meets the fallen, compassion when it meets the suffering, labour when it meets the lost, renunciation when it meets the poor, sacrifice when it meets the sinful, and it is in all a Divine power which men cannot help recognizing to be Divine. Jesus Christ is the incarnation of the love of Godlove itself incarnated and embodied in the fleshand those who would learn what love is must learn of Him.
I see, he said to me, the revelation of God to man in the history of the world, and in the individual experience of each of us, in the progressive triumph of God, and the working of the law by which wrong works out its own destruction. I cannot resist the conviction that there is something more in the world than Nature. Nature is blind. Her law works without regard to individuals. She cares only for the type. To her, life and death are the same. Ceaselessly she works, pressing ever for the improvement of the type. If man should fail her, she will create some other being; but that she has failed with man I am loathe to admit, nor do I see any evidence of it. It would be good for us, he added thoughtfully, if we were to take a lesson from Nature in this respect, and cease to be so wrapped up in individuals, to allow our interests to go out to the race. We should all attain more happiness, especially if we ceased to care so exclusively for the individual I. Happiness is usually a negative thing. Happiness is the absence of unhappiness.1 [Note: W. T. Stead, article on Meredith in Review of Reviews, March 1904.]
If love is not worth loving, then life is not worth living,
Nor aught is worth remembering but well forgot;
For store is not worth storing and gifts are not worth giving,
If love is not:
And idly cold is death-cold, and life-heat idly hot,
And vain is any offering and vainer our receiving,
And vanity of vanities is all our lot.
Better than lifes heaving heart is deaths heart unheaving,
Better than the opening leaves are the leaves that rot,
For there is nothing left worth achieving or retrieving,
If love is not.2 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti, Poems, 127.]
3. The love of God in Christ to us is the motive of our love to one another.We have known and believed the love that God hath to us. We have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. That is the assurance, that is the ground Jesus Christ has disclosed for the love of God. Those who believe in the evidence of Divine love are tuned to the sufficient pitch, and the motive in them works sufficiently. If God so loved us. we ought also to love one another; we ought because we can; for God Himself in us, through that act of the loving Christ, enables us to do so. By trying to love one another we find ourselves putting out the energies lodged in us by God Himself; we are bringing into fuller use the force wherewith God has loved us. If we love one another God dwells in us, and we discover that it is His love that is perfected in us. Robert Browning has found in this theme the indisputable proof of the reality of the Gospel story. Our recognition of God as love, and of love as the final principle of life, which now seems to us so habitual, so familiar, has been created in us so easily solely by the force of Christs recorded passion; that historic manifestation of God has endowed us with our present capacity for love and for belief in love.
Gods love is reflected in His children. The veriest beam of light passing through the vault of heaven and smiling in through your windows is exactly the same as the great surging ocean of light in the distant sun. Catch that slender beam, split it open on your prism, and it will tell you what the sun is made of. The difference between the beam and the sun is only one of degree. One drop of water on the palm of your hand has in it all the tides and motions of the sea; it is smaller, but the same.1 [Note: J. M. Gibbon, The Gospel of Fatherhood, 30.]
There is an Eastern legend of a rose so sweet that even the earth which lies around its roots becomes permeated with fragrance and little bits of it are sold as amulets and worn by princes. You and I are but common clay, but if we will lie close to Jesus Christ, His sweetness will flow through our very lives and make them fragrant and precious for ever.2 [Note: H. van Dyke, The Open Door, 121.]
Faces, loving faces,
Lifting up their light,
With a thousand graces,
Shining in the night;
Lighting up with glory
All this darkened earth,
Telling us the story
Of our heavenly birth.
For, in holy faces,
Faces full of love,
We may find the traces
Of our God above.
So to all the races,
So to us and all,
By these loving faces
God to us doth call.1 [Note: R. H. Story, in The Sunday Magazine, 1881, p. 788.]
4. Love can be readily learned in Christs school.The dullest scholar may be a very master of this art, and the most unlettered may read aright the signs and mysteries of love.
It is related of an eminent singer that his teacher kept him day after day, and even month after month, practising the scales, in spite of the pupils entreaties for something more advanced. At last the master told him to go forth as the best singer in Europe, having mastered the scales. Not otherwise did our Lord teach His first disciples. For three years He taught them to love by miracle and parable, by prayer and sermon. He grounded them in love. When seated with them at the last supper He said: A new commandment I give unto you, and behold it was the old one: That ye love one another. After His resurrection, He met the disciples on the beach, and He took the repentant Peter and put him through the scales: Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? And then, having perfected them in love, He said: Go ye into the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. Having learned to love, their education was complete, their training ended. They could go everywhere and do all things.2 [Note: J. M. Gibbon, The Gospel of Fatherhood, 20.]
Some one showed me the other day one of the advertisements of a professional athlete, in which it was stated that the average man keeps himself in inferior health because he uses only a small proportion of his lung capacity; there is an infinity of good air around him, but he is not breathing it. Moreover, he does not know how greatly he could enlarge the capacity he already possesses; the more air he can use the more fully he lives. I dare say this is quite true of our physical organization, and it is true of our spiritual organization too. The more fully we breathe the more fully we live. Inhale as deeply as you can of the infinitude of Divine love that is everywhere around and within you, inexhaustible, potent, free. Breathe it forth again in blessing upon the world. You cannot retain it for yourself; you must breathe it forth in order to live; everybody must; there is not a being on the face of Gods earth who does not exhale something of eternal love in his relations with his fellows; the great difference between one person and another is the difference in spiritual lung capacity, so to speak.1 [Note: R. J. Campbell, in The Christian Commonwealth, xxx. 533.]
II
Love in its Issues
1. Love is the chief of the Christian graces.It is the keystone of the arch which gives beauty and symmetry and permanency to the others. It is the crowning glory of the Christian character, the essential element of Christian perfectness, the highest exhibition of Christian excellence. It is opposed to envy, to jealousy, to pride, to haughtiness, to injustice, to evil thoughts, to wrong desires, to unkind and ungenerous words, to sharp and offensive acts. It thinks no evil. It wishes no harm. It does no wrong. It is not given to falsehood, to fault-finding, to suspicion. It is not apt to mark the infirmities of others; to dwell with pleasure upon their weaknesses, foibles, and sins; to give currency to statements which will be damaging to the good name or peace of its neighbours. It is not concerned to stir up strife, to intermeddle with other peoples affairs, to disseminate injurious rumours, to promote dissension, to alienate friendship, or to create trouble. It is neither hasty nor vindictive; lustful nor grasping; litigious nor severe; but is kind, gentle, and peaceable; considerate of the good of others, forbearing to their faults, forgiving their injuries, casting the mantle of charity over their infirmities; it promotes their welfare, and does them all the good which it is in its power to render. Love heals divisions, softens asperities, removes alienations, promotes friendships, binds human hearts together in sweet and pleasant union, cherishes amiability and gentleness of temper, puts far away unholy feelings, and brings Christians to associate together as members of a common brotherhoodas a holy band, living and labouring for the glory of God.
Far above all other motives was his love to Christ. That was the root of his life, and the life of all his effort. It was a conscious, personal, realized devotion. It was too hallowed a feeling for him to speak much of. It coloured and pervaded every thought; was an unceasing presence with him; lay at the foundation of every endeavour, and was brought to bear on every action in life, on every book he read, and almost on every word he spoke.1 [Note: S. A. Brooke, Life and Letters of the Rev. F. W. Robertson, 164.]
Nature had done much for Coxe, but grace did more. The personal Religion of the man it was,the lingering of the dew of the morning,which kept him so fresh and green. Such a character would else have been spoiled by popularity. The humour would have degenerated into caustic wit, the courtesy, into mere worldliness, the sense of beauty, into sthetic selfishness. The one only safeguard of a disposition exposed to so many and such various temptations was clearly the love of God. It was this which harmonized his character; preserved him from running into extremes; saved him from secularity; kept his faculties fresh and youthful. He really loved all Gods works, because he loved their Author.2 [Note: J. W. Burgon, Lives of Twelve Good Men, ii. 143.]
2. Love is the parent of many virtues.In the first place, love begets justice. Not only justice of deed but justice of thoughtof which we all stand even more in need. When we love anyone we are sure to judge him more fairly, to make more sound and proper excuses for him and to give all the credit due to his better motives. And even when he has deserved just condemnation, true love will not shut its eyes to his fault or close the lips of just reproach. You cannot be just to anyone whom you dislike or hate, you cannot be just and true to anyone for whom your love is not pure and true, for it is not true love that is ever blind to real faults. True love then adds to justice the quality of mercy, not sparing in the condemnation of the sin, but tender, merciful, and forgiving to the sinner. Then we find love the faithful parent of patience, forbearance, humility, and meekness, all elements of the highest humanity and sources of unspeakable blessing and peace. When we truly love, we show all these virtues in their lustre.
How can one man, how can all men,
How can we be like St. Paul,
Like St. John, or like St. Peter,
Like the least of all
Blessed Saints? for we are small.
Love can make us like St. Peter,
Love can make us like St. Paul,
Love can make us like the blessed
Bosom friend of all,
Great St. John, though we are small.
Love which clings, and trusts, and worships,
Love which rises from a fall,
Love which, prompting glad obedience,
Labours most of all,
Love makes great, the great and small.
3. It is love that gives value and charm to all our actions.For the love spoken of here is not merely a sentiment. It is a pure and holy affection, a controlling principle of action, a consuming, abiding life. It would be a great mistake to regard Christian love as a passion, as a state or quality of heart unconnected with activity, as a mere negation of enmity or dislike. A large part of its force consists in its positive aspects, of the exhibition of active energy in outward conduct. Its full measure is realized only when, besides restraining us from its opposite vices, it impels and directs us into that course of conduct which is consistent with its high and imperious claims.
It seems to me, remarked Isabel, that love is the leaven that leavens the whole lump. It is only when people begin to care for each other that the fineness of human nature is seen. I was horribly selfish myself till I really cared for somebody, and then I gradually became quite nice.
As long as you dont love anybody much your character is like a garden in winter; one virtue is under a glass shade, and another is covered over with straw, and all of them are dreadfully pinched and sickly. Then love comes by, and it is summer; and your garden rejoices and blossoms like the rose, without your bothering about it at all.1 [Note: Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler, Isabel Carnaby, ch. xxiv.]
It is hard now to represent adequately the extraordinary personal charm which so many of his contemporaries felt in John Henry Newman. The letters convey much of it, but not all. Yet the tradition of this charm is a fact which must be set down in his biography. It was a charm felt by intellectual minds and even sceptical minds, and by simple and practical men. Blanco White, Mark Pattison, Henry Wilberforce, Frederick Rogers, R. W. Church, and Ambrose St. John were all among his most intimate friends. The almost unique combination of tenderness, brilliancy, refinement, wide sympathy, and holiness doubtless went for much. He had none of the repellent qualities which sometimes make asceticism forbidding. He had an ample allowance of those human sympathies which are popularly contrasted with asceticism. Again, he seemed able to love each friend with a peculiarly close sympathy for his mind and character and thoughtfulness for the circumstances of his life. The present writers fathernever one of the most intimate of the circle which surrounded Newman at Oxfordused to say that his heart would beat as he heard Newmans step on the staircase. His keen humour, his winning sweetness, his occasional wilfulness, his resentments and angers, all showed him intensely alive, and his friends loved his very faults as one may love those of a fascinating woman; at the same time many of them revered him almost as a prophet. Only a year before his death, after nearly twenty years of misunderstandings and estrangement, W. G. Ward told the present biographer of a dream he had hadhow he found himself at a dinner party next to a veiled lady, who charmed him more and more as they talked. At last he exclaimed, I have never felt such charm in any conversation since I used to talk with John Henry Newman, at Oxford. I am John Henry Newman, the lady replied, and raising her veil showed the well-known face.1 [Note: W. Ward, The Life of Cardinal Newman, ii. 348.]
III
Love in its Insight
Is God knowable? No, answers the agnostic; God may exist, but we cannot know Him, for we cannot see Him, and knowledge is of the senses. Yes, answers the Apostle John; for the deepest knowledge is not of the senses, but of the heart; the deepest knowledge is through the operation of the affections, the choices, the will. We may choose, be affectioned toward, will, what is utterly impalpable to sense; and these things are more real than anything that can be perceived by the senses. By this organ, then, by the organ of love, a man may know God, whom the organs of sense can never find. The man with the retort and the microscope knows not God; but the man with a right heart, a loving heart, knows Him: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God.
Love is the clue to the knowledge of God. Men grub and toil in dust and mud, they explore the depths of the ocean, and sweep the breadths of heaven: they analyse all things, and, baffled at last, they say: Here is law; where is God? There is no God in the world. Now, is this wise? Is it thus we come to know men? God is not among the gases! Why seek ye the living among the dead? You cannot by searching find out God. God is not any one of these things, nor the sum of all, nor the mere maker of allGod is love, and he that loveth, to the extent that he loveth, knoweth God.
The sun can mirror his glorious face
In the dew-drop on the sod;
And the humblest human heart reflect
The light and love of God.1 [Note: J. M. Gibbon, The Gospel of Fatherhood, 27.]
Standing the other day on the topmost ridge of Leith Hill, and looking where I had been told to look, through a small gap in the South Downs, more than thirty miles away, I could dimly perceive the shining sea. It was little more than a bright speck on the horizon, but I knew that if I made towards it that gap would open and let me through, and I could sail round the whole world upon the bosom of the deep represented by that shimmering patch of silver. It is not a perfect figure, but it does something to illustrate the mode or approach to perfect knowledge of God. Where love is, God stands revealed, small and restricted though our capacity for Him may be. But that shining spot is not a cloud, not a delusion; it is the real thing; follow it up and you shall see.2 [Note: R. J. Campbell, in The Christian Commonwealth, xxx. 533.]
A child has very few notions in regard to his mother, expressible or inexpressible,not nearly as many as he will have later on. The faculties whose business it is to manufacture ideas are not yet fairly at work in him. But he knows his mother a great deal better than any psychological expert from the university knows her or can know her unless he gets into some other relation toward her than that of an expert. Thinking goes round and never gets there; love makes a cross cut and arrives.3 [Note: C. H. Parkhurst, The Sunny Side of Christianity, 116.]
The Bond of Brotherhood
Literature
Benson (E.), Fishers of Men, 33.
Binney (T.), Sermons in Kings Weigh-House Chapel, 1st Ser., 191.
Buckland (A. R.), Text Studies for a Year, 162.
Calthrop (G.), in Sermons for the People, v. 47.
Carter (T. T.), The Spirit of Watchfulness, 206.
Chadwick (W. E.), Social Relationships, 173.
Deshon (G.), Sermons for the Ecclesiastical Year, 254.
Dyke (H. van), The Open Door, 109.
Gibbon (J. M.), The Gospel of Fatherhood, 14, 22.
Keble (J.), Sermons for the Christian Year: Sundays after Trinity, i. 223.
Moberly (R. C.), Sorrow, Sin, and Beauty, 179.
Newman (J. H.), Parochial Sermons, ii. 51.
Scott (M.), Harmony of the Collects, Epistles and Gospels, 148.
Stevens (W. B.), Sermons (1879), 1.
Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), ii. (1870), No. 92.
Voysey (C.), Sermons, iv. (1881), No. 42.
Christian Commonwealth, April 20, 1910, p. 533 (Campbell).
Christian World Pulpit, xxii. 72 (Butler); xxxii. 178 (Beach); liv. 20 (Alexander); lvi. 107 (Holland).
Churchmans Pulpit: First Sunday after Trinity, 450 (Farquhar), 454 (Lawrence), 456 (Taylor).
Contemporary Pulpit, 2nd Ser., vii. 358 (Candlish).
Homiletic Review, xxxii. 315 (Mcllwaine).
let: 1Jo 4:20, 1Jo 4:21, 1Jo 2:10, 1Jo 3:10-23, 1Jo 5:1
love is: 1Jo 4:8, Deu 30:6, Gal 5:22, 1Th 4:9, 1Th 4:10, 2Ti 1:7, 1Pe 1:22
every: 1Jo 4:12, 1Jo 2:29, 1Jo 3:14, 1Jo 5:1
and knoweth: Joh 17:3, 2Co 4:6, Gal 4:9
Reciprocal: Gen 13:8 – brethren Psa 26:3 – For Psa 34:8 – Lord Psa 52:1 – goodness Mat 22:40 – General Mat 25:40 – Inasmuch Mar 12:31 – Thou Luk 6:35 – and ye Joh 1:13 – were Joh 13:34 – That ye love Joh 15:13 – General 1Co 5:10 – of this 1Co 13:13 – charity 1Co 16:14 – General Phi 2:1 – if any comfort Col 3:14 – the 1Th 3:12 – love 1Ti 1:5 – the end Heb 13:1 – General 1Pe 1:3 – hath 1Jo 3:9 – born 1Jo 3:11 – that we 1Jo 3:24 – dwelleth 2Jo 1:5 – that we
LOVE IS OF GOD
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God.
1Jn 4:7 (R.V.)
This section of the Epistle, 1Jn 4:7-21, contains one of those profound truths which are so often expressible in simple words, but which are inexhaustible in their fulness of meaning, God is love.
I. This is the foundationa foundation great and wideand therefore we may expect that the edifice to be built up on it will be great and wide also. The foundation is wide as the world. God, Who is love, so loved the world that He gave His Son. We need not, therefore, be surprised if the edifice built up on such a foundation is world-embracing also.
II. St. John expresses his deduction from this foundation fact in a fourfold form.
(a) First, in our text it comes to us in the form of an invitation, Beloved, let us love one another.
(b) In 1Jn 4:11 it is expressed as a binding obligation. It is a debt we ought to pay. We Englishmen pride ourselves on paying our debts. Here is a debt which needs a great deal to clear it. Beloved, if God so loved usif, that is, we have received so much lovewe also ought, we owe it as a debt, to love one another. It is an invitation, it is a binding duty; but St. John has not done yet. In sweeter, more alluring tones he puts it before us in another form. He, as it were, turns the prism once again to show us a yet more beautiful ray of coloured light.
(c) In 1Jn 4:12 he shows us the indescribably blessed result which follows from loving one another; it is nothing else than this, the abiding of God within us.
(d) But St. John knew mans heart; he knew its dulness; he knew how slow we are to respond to an invitation, to regard it even when coming from the King of kings as something to be accepted or refused as we will. The late Dr. Macleod was once invited to preach before Queen Victoria, and in view of some previous engagement he had written a letter to decline Her Majestys invitation, when it was pointed out to him that a royal invitation was equivalent to a command. St. John knew we might make a like mistake, perhaps from our all too slight acquaintance with our heavenly Sovereign; he knew, too, that some of us might underestimate the binding duty of paying our dues, that some would find it difficult to rise to the sublime height of appreciating the blessedness of Gods abiding Presence, and therefore, when he reiterates his deduction for the fourth time, he puts it in a form about which there can be no manner of doubt. This commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also.
III. On no point was the closest friend of Jesus Christ more insistent than on this supreme duty of love.It is as wide as its foundation. It is wide with the width of Gods heaven, for it is as wide as the love of God. Beloved, one another includes all the souls whom God the Father created in love, whom God the Son redeemed in love, whom God the Holy Ghost is waiting to sanctify in love.
Rev. J. A. Wood.
Illustrations
(1) On the east wall of the Church of the Ascension, in the Bayswater Road, London, the artist, Mr. F. Shields, who is decorating that old mortuary chapel with a most wonderful series of pictures of our Lords life, has painted a panel embodying his conception of what love means. Love is a beautiful female figure, with a face strong as well as tender, a face which bears witness to suffering endured. On Loves lap is a little European child, by Loves side stands a little African child, one little foot still fettered, the other freed by Love. At Loves feet a little Chinese and a little Indian child are playing together. Both the little hands of the white babe on Loves lap are outstretched to draw to itself the little black boys face and impress upon it a kiss. To the artist the embodiment of love knows no distinction of race or language or colour. He interprets the one another of our text with a world-wide meaning.
(2) A short while ago there went to Burma from a Leicestershire vicarage a young missionary. A year of work, and then to that stricken home went the sad news of his death from fever. But to Bishop Montgomery flashed back from the bereaved parents this inspiring answer: We have another son to send. Love counts no gift too great to give to the God who is Love.
God’s Wonderful Love Story
Joh 3:16; 1Jn 4:7-19
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
We wish to give our whole attention today to one verse of Scripture. It stands before us as an unfathomable river of blessing. Some one has called Joh 3:16 “the Gospel in a nutshell.”
Let us notice for our first statement The Great Lover.
Who is it that so loves the world? It is God. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, the Divine Trinity loves us, and yet Joh 3:16 is speaking particularly of the love of the Father because the verse says “God so loved * * that He gave His * * SON.” Let us then think of God, the Lover, for a few moments.
1. The common conception of God. To the carnal mind, God is often a tyrant who is driving men to hell. The heathen spend much of their time trying to propitiate an angry God. The medicine men and the dancers of wild tribes all imagine that God is a God of terror. We have read of as many as thirty-six thousand babes who have been ruthlessly murdered in order to appease the imaginary wrath of the Almighty.
In India the babes are thrown into the Ganges with the same argument. Even in a so-called Christian country, and sometimes in pulpits, God is described as a God of wrath, while His Son, Christ, is pictured as seeking to placate His anger, and to induce Him to love sinful men. Not for one moment would we overlook the fact of “the wrath of God” being “revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.” However, by the side of this we would place the God of love, who was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.
Even in Joh 3:16 there is a vision of the wrath of God in the word, perish. However, the verse, as a whole, is love superabounding over wrath. It is love finding the way out, and showing how God can be just and yet the Justifier of those who believe.
2. God’s part in redemption. God knew that man would sin, and therefore before He created him, He gave Jesus Christ to die for sin. The Bible says that Christ was “delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.” He was “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” God the Father is the great Lover of men. While He is a holy God, and cannot receive into His presence the unclean; while He is a just God, and cannot justify the guilty, yet He planned redemption in such a way that He could satisfy the righteous demands of the Law, uphold the honor of His justice, and save the lost. In all of this, one thing is seen, and that is our next point.
3. God, the Lover of men. As we think of the Almighty, the Creator, the Provider of the human race, we think of Him with a love that absolutely surpasses knowledge. It is in the Book of Titus that we find these words, “But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared * * according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour.” In this Scripture the Father and the Son are spoken of as our Saviour. We think of Jesus loving us, and He did, but God loved us supremely.
I. “GOD SO LOVED,” OR THE DEPTH OF HIS LOVE (Joh 3:16)
“So” is the biggest little word in the Bible. Included in the word “so” are all of the agonies of the Cross, and all of the riches of God’s grace; in the gift of His Son, are all the depths, the heights, the breadths, and lengths of grace.
In Eph 3:18-19 Paul is praying for the saints that they may “comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge.” Did you ever try to fathom an unfathomable depth? Did you ever try to know the unknowable? That is just what Paul prayed we might do. After his prayer he said, “Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto Him be glory.”
How the little word “so” remains with us. We revel in its beauty. The love of God is a love that knows no end. It is a love that never fails. It is a love that loves unto the end. Many waters cannot quench His love. Neither can the floods drown it. This should all be true of our love to Him. It is certainly true of His love to us. “Having loved His own * * He loved them unto the end.” To know Him is to love Him, because our love is born of His love. We love Him because He first loved us. Because of His love, we ought also to love one another.
O what love now enraptures my soul,
O what grace doth my spirit control;
For the Saviour is mine, and His love-light doth shine;
And the billows of joy o’er me roll.
O My Saviour is more than a friend,
And His love knows no change to the end;
‘Neath the smile of His face, and the wealth of His grace,
All the beauties of Heaven do blend.
II. THE WORLD-THE OBJECT OF HIS LOVE
It is easy for us who are saved to want to monopolize God’s love. That God loved us, we know. That we love Him, we know. However, the love of Joh 3:16 is His own all-inclusive love. It is His love to all of the world.
1. God’s love to Israel set forth. In the Old Testament we read concerning Israel these words: “[He] did not set His love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; * * but because the Lord loved you.” Here is a gripping statement, God did not love Israel because of what Israel was numerically, nor in any other way. He loved them because He loved them. There is something about the love of God that is indescribable and incomprehensible. When God tried to tell His people why He loved them He simply said because He loved them. Call “because” a woman’s reason, if you want to, but here it is God’s reason.
2. God’s love to the Church set forth. Christ loved the Church, and bought it with His Blood. “For we know the love which God hath toward us.” In our Scripture for today there is much of the love of God toward His own. God loves, because God is love. God manifested His love toward us.
3. God’s love to the world set forth. In Rom 5:8 is this statement. “God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” In Rev 1:5 is a verse that is, perhaps, still more striking: “Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His Own Blood.” That is, God loved us before He washed us.
He loved me when, a sinner,
I trampled on His love,
He loved me still, though straying,
I spurned His Home above;
And still He loved; and loving,
For me He bled and died,
Then loving on and wooing,
He drew me to His side.
III. HE GAVE HIS SON-THE GIFT OF HIS LOVE
When we speak of the supreme Lover, we delight in speaking of the manifestations of His love, of the gift of His love, and of how He proves His love to us.
1. He loved us and gave all things richly to enjoy. When God created the Heavens and the earth, He commanded the earth to bring forth fruit. When God filled the earth with beasts and birds, fish and creeping things, in all of this He was working for man. He was storing the earth, and even the air with everything which man would need, and He saw that it was good.
2. He loved and gave us the Word. What a marvelous gift it is, God’s love letter is God’s revelation of things to come, God’s expression of His heart toward men.
3. He loved and gave us the Holy Ghost. In Luk 11:1-54 we read, “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?” What a gift is the Paraclete!
4. He loved and gave us His Son. He gave Him as a teacher. He gave Him as a healer. Jesus went about doing good. All of this was the gift of God. The supreme gift of the Son, however, was that He gave the Son to be our Sin-bearer. “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
IV. “WHOSOEVER”-THE EXTENT OF HIS LOVE
There is one great joy, and that is that the love of God is all-inclusive. Rich and poor, peer and pauper, good and bad-all come under the word, “whosoever.”
An old blacksmith was trying to read Joh 3:16. When he came to the word, “whosoever,” his knowledge of letters was too circumscribed. He could not make the word out. He read, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that * *,” and then he desired so much to know the next word. He laid his book aside awaiting the return of his daughter from school. He put his finger on the word, when she came in, and said, “What is this, daughter?” She said, “It is ‘whosoever,’ and it means me, or you, or anybody else.” He clapped his finger down on the word as though it might get away, and said, “Thank God, that means me!”
1. Whosoever signifies that Christ tasted death for every man. No man is lost because there was no provision for his being found. No man is lost because his sins knew no atonement, Christ died for all.
2. Whosoever means that God sent His messengers to every man. The command was, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.” None are excluded.
“None are excluded thence
But those who do themselves exclude;
Welcome the learned, the polite,
The ignorant, the rude.”
3. Whosoever includes every son of Adam. It is an all-embracing word. It is not a question of whether you are invited, it is a question of whether you want to believe. Sin and shame, in Him will find a Saviour who can save to the uttermost.
V. BELIEVING IN HIM, OR THE RECEPTION OF HIS LOVE
1. There are some who spurn God’s love as manifested in Christ. Isa 53:1-12 must stand before us as an exponent, not alone of God’s saving grace, but of man’s sinfulness of heart. Isa 53:3 says, “We hid as it were our faces from Him; * * we esteemed Him not. * * We did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. * * We have turned every one to his own way.” Oh, how vile is the heart that rejects the Son of God! If men in their sin were rejecting an enemy, it would be different.
In the second chapter of Romans there is a statement like this: “Not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance.” The man who despiseth God, despises the riches of His goodness, of His forbearance, and of His long-suffering.
2. Those who accept His love. Not all spurn it. In Acts it is told how “some believed the things which were spoken, and some believed not.” To believe in Him, is to turn to Him. We believe it was Robert L. Stevenson who wrote, “Oh, my friend, teach me to be thine.”
The story is told how when Caesar saw Brutus, his own familiar friend, come to him with a dagger, it quite vanquished him. How can we help but love Christ? How can we refrain from believing Him? “We love Him, because He first loved us.”
VI. “SHOULD NOT PERISH”-THE ASSURANCE OF HIS LOVE
1. Men are under Satan’s power. Jesus Christ came to open the prison bars, and to set the captive free. This was God’s gift, and He does not want men to remain trapped by the devil.
2. Men are sin-driven. There are not only dangers from without, which engulf sinners, but there is the power of the flesh within, the sinful self that holds men captive. God loved us, and gave Christ to deliver us so that we should not perish under the reign of self.
3. Men are hell-bound. The wicked shall be cast into hell, and all nations that forget God. God loved us and gave Jesus Christ, His Son, that we might not perish, and become engulfed in the powers and darkness of the pit.
We delight in that wonderful story of the Good Shepherd who went out after the sheep which was lost. He stayed out until he found it, and when he found it he put it upon his shoulders, and brought it home rejoicing. When we think of the love of God in Christ, we think of a love that will not let us perish, that will not let us go.
“O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in Thee;
I give Thee back the life I owe,
That in Thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.”
Let us close with that wonderful statement which was written by the Holy Ghost, “I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” This is the love of God which assures us that we will never perish.
VII. “EVERLASTING LIFE,” OR THE CLIMAX OF HIS LOVE
How unfathomable is the word, “everlasting.” Some one has suggested that eternity might be described by a bird which carried the grains from every seashore to some distant planet, and this one grain each year until all was gone, and then eternity would just have begun. This life is everlasting.
1. There is included the city of gold, the new Jerusalem, the new heavens, and the new earth. These will be the abode of the saints forevermore. We shall dwell where sin and sorrow, sighing and sickness, penury and pain, can never enter. We shall dwell in the city of light. We shall walk in the Garden of God, and eat of the fruit of the tree of life, of the tree which bears twelve manner of fruit. We shall pass down by the river of the water of life, clear as crystal.
2. There is included the reunion of the saints. This is for all those who are in Christ, they shall live forever together, knowing as they are known forevermore. From the east, and from the west; from the north and from the south, they will come, and sit down together in the Kingdom of God with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and with the redeemed.
3. There is included God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. No more of separation; no more of isolation, but eternal fellowship.
AN ILLUSTRATION
Love is Heaven’s great gift. God’s love in its endurance is well illustrated by a mother’s love.
The end came happily to Mrs. Ellen Brown because the son for whom she had waited and watched for ten years was at her side. Today he followed her to the grave.
Everybody in Newburgh knew the sad-faced little woman who had haunted railroad stations and boat landings for a decade. Often she went across to Fishkill to watch the arrival of the New York Central trains.
“I am waiting for my son,” she told those who questioned her. “He will come back to me some day,”
Richard Brown was only seventeen when he left his home. His mother never heard from him.
A month ago Mrs. Brown became grievously ill and was taken to St. Luke’s Hospital. The doctors knew that she would not leave it alive. Each morning she asked whether there was news from her son. They knew that it was the longing to see him that kept her alive.
A week ago Richard Brown returned to Newburgh. He went to the hospital. There was no surprise in the little mother’s face, but only a great joy.
From that time she failed rapidly. She died with her boy’s hand in hers, with peace and happiness in her heart.
-J. W. C.
1Jn 4:7. The apostle again comes to the subject of love which seems to have been very near to him. He has a sound reason for such interest in that subject, namely, love and God are inseparable. For that reason if a man is born (begotten) of God he is sure to exhibit love also since it is the family trait of God’s children.
The love which this Faith embraces and knows: in its origin; its supreme manifestation; its perfect reflection in us; the whole section being begun, continued, and ended in this.
1Jn 4:7-8. Two sentences which exhibit the commandment of brotherly love in a stronger light than hitherto shed upon it. The former is positive. Love is of God: love absolutely and in itself, in its own nature and apart from any object, is from the very being of God. This out of is said of nothing but love and regeneration: here the loving in the present is evidence of a birth in the past that still continues; and the present knoweth God is the same love discerning and delighting in its source. The latter is negative, and, as usual, still strengthens the thought. All love in man, all love everywhere, is from God; but, more than that, God is love: a word that had never before been spoken since revelation began. It closes and consummates the Biblical testimony concerning God as knowable to man: it must be remembered that it is connected with he that loveth not knoweth notliterally, never has come to the knowledge ofGod. Observe that it is not said love is God, any more than it was said light is God. God is light in His revealing and diffusive holiness; God is love in His diffusive self-impartation: both, however, in His relation to His creatures. His eternal essence is unfathomable and behind both. Love is the bond of His perfections as revealed to the created universe. It is also the bond of the intercommunion of the Three Persons in the adorable Trinity; and in this sense His absolute nature; but this goes beyond our exposition here.
GOD IS LOVE
What is the third characteristic of God which John reveals (1Jn 4:7-8)? If, then, God is love, How is fellowship to be maintained with Him (same verses)? In the working out of the thought that fellowship with God is maintained by experiencing and exercising love, notice:
1. how His love was particularly manifested toward us (1Jn 4:9-10); 2. how our love toward Him should be manifested (1Jn 4:11-12); 3. how such love implies fellowship (1Jn 4:13-16); 4. how it effects our spiritual life, begetting assurance (1Jn 4:17-18); 5. how its absence destroys fellowship (1Jn 4:19-21); 6. how the experience and exercise of love is only another aspect of walking in the light and doing righteousness (1Jn 5:1-4); 7. that the basis and source of this love, is faith in Christ (1Jn 5:5-12). In conclusion, note how many things we may thus know (1Jn 5:13; 1Jn 5:15; 1Jn 5:18-20). A simpler outline of this last division which some might prefer is: (1) the reason for love, Gods love toward us (1Jn 4:9-11); (2) the source of love, Gods dwelling in us (1Jn 4:12-16); (3) the rest or confidence of love, boldness in the day of judgment (1Jn 4:17-19); and (4) the fruit of love, loving the brethren (1Jn 4:20 to 1Jn 5:12).
The conclusion of the epistle (1Jn 5:13-21) is easily to be interpreted in the light of what has preceded it.
QUESTIONS
1. can you name the seven divisions of the first treatment of this lesson?
2. Can you name the four divisions of the second treatment?
3. Have you considered all the things which the Christian may know?
4. Do you appreciate why John is called the apostle of love?
Our apostle here resumes his exhortation to brotherly love, and urges and reinforces it with fresh arguments.
1. He assures us, that love is God; that is, the fruit of his good spirit in us; common love is his common gift, and holy love is his special grace: Love is of God.
2. It is an evidence that we have a right knowledge of God, both of his nature and will, and that we understand both what he is, and what he requires; he that has not the grace of love in his heart, has not the right knowledge of God in his head, whatever he may think of himself, or pretend to others.
3. The apostle assures us, That love is not only commanded, but exemplified by God himself: God is love. He had said before, Love is of God, as a quality; here he says, God is love;not as a mere quality, but his essence. God is love.
1. Essentially; love in the creature is an accidental quality, in God an essential property.
2. God is love, casually, the efficient cause of whatever is loving or lovely in us: All our love to him, and one another, is but a reflection of his love to us.
3. God is love, objectively; he is, or ought to be, the supreme object of our love; and we must love him above all, or he accounts we love him not at all.
4. God is love, declaratively; all his works, as well as his word, are a declaration of his love to us, and ought to engage us to stedfastness in our love to him. Let us, therefore, says the beloved disciple, love one another, for love is of God is love.
God’s Children Are Known By Their Love
God’s love for lost mankind was shown in the sending of His only one of a kind Son, or only begotten ( Heb 11:17 ). God does have other sons ( Rom 8:14-17 ) but Christ partakes of the nature of God in a way none other does ( Joh 1:1-5 ; Joh 1:14 ; Php 2:5-11 ). He came to earth for the specific purpose of dying for the sins of lost humanity, that they might have the opportunity to live ( Joh 3:16-17 ; Rom 5:6-10 ). God showed the meaning of true love when He loved sinful man, who seemed unlovable ( Tit 3:3-5 ). The love of His followers for God did not come first but is an outpouring of thanks to the Almighty for the great sacrificial gift he gave for sin on Calvary ( 1Jn 4:9-10 ; 2Co 9:15 ).
God’s great love for all those in Christ compels them to love one another ( 1Pe 1:18-19 ). The word translated “if” in 1Jn 4:11 would be better translated “since”, as it is a clear conclusion based upon what John has already written. The love John calls upon Christians to have for the brethren is continuous, or ongoing.
1Jn 4:7-8. Let us love one another From the doctrine he has just been defending, he draws this exhortation: as if he had said, Think it not enough speculatively to admit the Christian doctrine, but let it be your great care to acknowledge it practically, and especially with respect to that most important article, brotherly love. The frequency and earnestness with which the apostle, in the present epistle, inculcates this love, is very remarkable. The greatest part of this chapter, and of chapter 3., is employed in pressing this duty. See also 1Jn 2:8-11. For love is of God Is from him as its source, and particularly enjoined by him as a duty of the greatest importance, and of absolute necessity, in order to our pleasing and imitating him. And every one that loveth is born of God Every one, in whose heart this divine principle reigns, and conquers the selfish and contrary passions, shows by it that he is regenerated and transformed into the divine image; and that he knoweth God By the teaching of his Holy Spirit, as the God of love, infinitely amiable in himself, and infinitely loving to his people. On the other hand, he that loveth not, whatever he may pretend, knoweth not God Has no experimental and saving knowledge of him; for God is love Its great fountain and exemplar. He enjoins it by his law, and produces and cherishes it by the influences of his Spirit; and the due contemplation of him will naturally inflame our hearts with love to his divine majesty, and to our fellow-creatures for his sake, whose creatures they are, and especially to his children, who love him, bear his image, and are peculiarly dear to him. This little sentence, God is love, brought St. John more sweetness, even in the time he was writing it, says Bengelius, than the whole world can bring. God is often styled holy, righteous, wise; but not holiness, righteousness, or wisdom, in the abstract, as he is said to be love: intimating that this is his darling, his reigning attribute; the attribute that sheds an amiable glory on all his other perfections.
ARGUMENT 10
GOD IS LOVE
7-9. The attributes of God are omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience, but the essence of the divine nature is love, i.e., the heavenly agapee, which is utterly alien from human love, so positively heterogeneous as in no way to be comparable with it. This same agapee, divine love, constitutes the sum and substance of the Christian religion. As this love is only native in the heart of God, none but God, i.e., the Holy Ghost, can confer it. Holiness is simply another name for Holy Ghost religion. Hence all antiholiness religion is essentially diabolism from beginning to end, and can lead only to hell. The agapee, divine love, is imparted in regeneration (Rom 6:5) and made perfect when all of its antagonisms are removed in entire sanctification. It is like the wheat in the stock, intrinsically clean and pure, but extrinsically encumbered with chaff, straw, dirt and other impurities, till the steam thresher sweeps them all away. So the regenerated man needs the baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire to consume all the trash Satan put in him at the fall, and leave the heavenly agapee to reign without a rival.
10. This indefinable agapee came all the way from heaven to die for a lost world.
1Jn 4:7-21. John returns to the theme of 1Jn 3:14 ff., be cause if the Church is the home of truth, still more is it the home of love. The evidence for our Divine sonship is that the love manifested by God in sending His Son for our redemptiona fact to which the Church bears witnessissues in love on our part to God and to our brethren; love, when mature, casts out fear. Moreover the proof that we love the unseen God is that we love our brother, as Christ commanded us.
1Jn 4:7. love is of God: i.e. is so peculiarly His product, answering to the deepest thing in His nature, that the lack of love proves that we have no real knowledge of God or kinship to Him.
1Jn 4:9. that we might live through Him: cf. 1Jn 3:14, 1Jn 5:11, Joh 3:16.
1Jn 4:12. Though we have no direct proof of Gods existence and indwelling, we can know of His presence within us by the brotherly love which it creates (cf. 1Jn 4:16; 1Jn 3:24, Gal 5:22). This is the inward, as Jesus was the outward (Joh 1:18), manifestation of the invisible God.his love: probably the love which He seeks to create within us. That love attains full development.
1Jn 4:14-16. With love to the brethren John links belief in the reality of the Incarnation as evidence of Gods indwelling in the soul.
1Jn 4:16 a. in us: i.e. towards us (cf. 1Jn 4:9). We in 1Jn 4:14; 1Jn 4:16 refers primarily to the apostle and his circle of witnesses. They are convinced of the reality of Gods love, because they are convinced of the reality of the Incarnation.
1Jn 4:17. Herein: i.e. by the mutual indwelling of God and the believer.made perfect: reaches perfect expression.that . . . judgement: judgment was always associated with the return of Christ (Mat 25:31). Hence the thought here is parallel to that in 1Jn 2:28.
1Jn 4:17 b. Christ is with the Father, whilst we are in this world. With that difference love makes Him and us akin.
1Jn 4:18. fear hath punishment: the idea that fear itself is a form of punishment may be present, but the context (day of judgement) requires the interpretation that fear implies a consciousness of shortcoming and a consequent expectation of punishment. Where love is perfected, no such expectation can exist.
1Jn 4:20. hateth his brother: love to God and hatred of our fellow-Christians cannot coexist. The latter disproves the former.
1Jn 4:21. this commandment: cf. 1Jn 3:23.
Verse 7
Is born of God; is formed anew by the power of God, and become his child.
4:7 {6} Beloved, let us love one another: {7} for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
(6) He returns to the commending of brotherly love and charity.
(7) The first reason: because it is a very divine thing, and therefore very fitting for the sons of God: so that whoever is missing it cannot be said to know God correctly.
3. God’s Indwelling Recognized 4:7-16
John now left behind his warning about false spirits that his readers might mistake as the Holy Spirit, spirits that lure believers onto worldly paths. He returned to one of his central themes, namely, love for the brethren. As 1 Corinthians 13 contains Paul’s great statement on God’s love, so 1Jn 4:7-16 contains John’s.
". . . the present section spells out precisely the nature of the love which is demanded from every believer, and may thus be viewed as an extension of the teaching contained in 1Jn 2:3-11 and 1Jn 3:10-24. Earlier, John has related the love command to the ’real light’ which is already shining (1Jn 2:8; 1Jn 2:10), and to the ’eternal life’ of which love is the evidence (1Jn 3:14-15). Now he relates the requirement of Christian love to the very nature of God himself. We are to love as a response to God’s own love, and to his loving activity in Christ and in the Church." [Note: Smalley, p. 235.]
This pericope contains a comprehensive treatment of the nature of true love.
"There is considerable pastoral wisdom in John’s summons to mutual love immediately after a warning to be on the alert against deceiving spirits. He knows he must anticipate possibly deleterious effects of his own counsel as readers take it to heart." [Note: Yarbrough, p. 234.]
The source of love 4:7-10
Love, as well as faith (i.e., acknowledging the true doctrine of Christ, 1Jn 4:1-6), is a product of God’s Spirit. The believer (one "born of God") who also "knows" God (i.e., has intimate fellowship with Him) loves (cf. 1Jn 2:3-5).
"The love which the New Testament enjoins involves a consuming passion for the well-being of others, and this love has its wellspring in God." [Note: Bruce, p. 107.]
This verse is a concise summary of the argument of this whole epistle.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
Fuente: Neighbour’s Wells of Living Water
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Fuente: James Gray’s Concise Bible Commentary
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)