1 John 4:7-10

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

The word love occurs in various form 32 times between 4:7-5:3.

Realize that the kind of love that non-believers demonstrate is not the love that John is speaking of here in the text.

This is not the variety of love that John is speaking of. For John is referring to the perfect, Christ-like love that is only found in the life of a believer.

John is emphasizing that it is not the person’s ability to love that causes them to experience “new birth,” but rather a person’s ability to love flows from his regeneration in Christ.

8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

The love of God that is possessed by the believer, It is not an abstract concept but concrete action.

9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.

John states that believers are to love because:

Of the nature of God that indwells them via the Spirit

Of the extraordinary manner in which God displayed his love for us through Christ.

Which of John’s other writings does verse 9 sound like?

“Sent” emphasizes the permanent consequence of what Christ accomplished.

The Word “only” speaks to the nature and uniqueness of Christ.

And “live” implies that that those that Christ was sent for were in a condition of spiritual death and his mission was to give them life.

This life only comes through him since he in the true, unique, mediating agent between God and man.

1 Timothy 2:5

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

John 14:6

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Verse 10 tells us that the purpose of sending the Son was not the incarnation but the atonement. God sent His Son to Die.

The word atonement means “satisfaction or reparation for a wrong or injury;

God’s love is primary, not ours.

Propitiation carries the basic idea of appeasement or satisfaction, specifically toward God. Propitiation is a two-part act that involves appeasing the wrath of an offended person and being reconciled to him.

John being keenly aware “we, us, our” of his own need as well as ours…highlights the propitiatory act of Jesus.

Our act was to sin. God’s was to love and send.