1 John 4:7-13 - The Light of Love

John calls us in verse 7 to love one another, and again in verse 11. He tells us the source of love, tells us how to understand love, tells us why we ought to love one another, and calls us to think about love the way God does, and imitate His love by the power of the Spirit.

Look how John addresses his readers in verse 7 and verse 11. <<READ vv7 and 11>>

“Beloved” sets off 7-10 as a section, and 11-12 as another, with verse 13 serving as a transition to the rest of the chapter.

Verses 13-21 bring together themes we’ve seen already in 1 John - the mission that the Father sent the Son; the common faith that all Christians have in Jesus Christ, the Son of God and savior of the world; the love that God has for us and that He perfects in us; and the distinction between Christians and pretenders.

But look at verses 7-10 again with me. This is one of the most poetic sections of the New Testament. Like the prologue to John’s Gospel, there’s a beauty and simplicity here that’s hard to ignore.

John doesn’t use SAT words, he uses simple vocabulary in genius ways. Listen to verses 7-10 again and hear how John uses the word “love.” It’s a title, a verb, a noun. <<READ 7-10>

See how John shapes our understanding of love by pointing back to God’s saving mission in Jesus. It reminds me of the earth orbiting the sun and rotating on its axis. Each day, the sun rises and sets, but as the seasons change, it traverses a different path in the sky. John calls us to love, and gives us a reason in verses 7-8, and then elaborates on the reason in verse 9, and then elaborates again in verse 10.

In our day, the word “love” is used so frequently, and so flippantly, that John’s words pull us back into the right orbit, looking in the right direction, to help us see love for what it really is.

The problem in John’s day was a little different. The ancients didn’t see unconditional love, or magnanimous love, or sacrificial love, as an obvious virtue. In the centuries before Christ was born, the Jews translated the Old Testament into Greek, and they chose a word for love that Bible scholar C.H. Dodd says was rarely used in non-biblical Greek and had a sort of blandness to it. You’ve probably heard of that word - it’s “agape.” Outside the Bible, it was about as meaningful as saying “I love hamburgers.”

But this is the word that the ancient translators chose for verses like

Leviticus 19:18 ESV

18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

and

Deuteronomy 6:5 ESV

5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

and when God’s people had turned away from Him, and sent the prophets, this is the word used in

Hosea 11:1 ESV

1 When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.

Through the Greek translation of the Old Testament, and throughout the New Testament, God’s people took this colorless word and filled it up with what God had to say about love. This is the word in John 3:16 <<For God so loved the world…>>, and in 1 John 3:16. Two weeks ago, I said that for the rest of the letter, 1 John 3:16 would help us identify what John means when he says “love.” It says:

1 John 3:16 ESV

16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.

And here, John elaborates on that definition of love. That’s how we know love.

The world has a hundred useless definitions of love, and they’re all as cool and colorless as a gas station turkey sandwich on white bread with mayo compared with this.

Import any other definition of love and you’ll see that it can’t bear the weight of John’s language. Nothing but the glory of God’s saving love in Christ can do it.

Look at how God has given His love, demonstrated His love, and exemplified love in salvation.

John says that love - this kind of love demonstrated in Jesus - is from God. It is poured out as a gift upon us, and it is given as a gift to us, it is nurtured by His Spirit in us, and it is poured out as a product of His work through us.

Yet again, John draws a hard line between those who have been born of God and those who haven’t. The false Christians claimed fellowship with God, but they abandoned Jesus, His people, and His Word. Their failure to love the brothers and sisters proved that they didn’t know love.

Verses 7-8 give us two kinds of people - those who love because they’re born of God and know him, and those who don’t love - they don’t know God, no matter what they say.

In verse 8, we have that famous half of a verse: “God is love.”

Maybe you’ve heard someone pull that out-of-context. Here in 1 John 4:8, it’s part of John telling us how God has defined love in a way that cannot be matched by all the world’s white bread sandwich imitations. But when people pull it out-of-context, it’s usually so we can substitute our own definition and try to pass it off as the real deal.

ILLUST: I’ll never forget the day that I took some drawing paper back to my room and laid it on top of a book with a beautiful picture of a horse, and I carefully traced it, and took it to my mom and said, “Look what I drew. I think it’s pretty good. Should I enter it into the art contest at school?” My mom looked at it and said, “Hmm, look at that. It’s really nice. You did well. But you shouldn’t enter it in the contest, because you traced it.”

She could tell just by looking. It wasn’t the real deal.

So what is the real deal? We must define love by looking at the Cross with John.

Verses 9-10 answer the question together.

God’s own love was made manifest, unveiled, revealed, in this: verse 9 - God sent his only Son into the world; verse 10 - This is love: God loved us and sent his Son not just into the world, but into the world to be the propitiation for our sins. The atoning sacrifice.

Love is defined by God, because He is love. And it is defined by the mission of salvation. Notice that John repeats the word sent. Love sent for His beloved. Love does not sit idle. Love acts.

Notice how verse 10 also demands that we set aside all our silly playing like “God is love” means we get to say whatever we want is love, and therefore sacred. He says, “In this is love: Not that we loved God, but that he loved us.”

Not only is His love a sending, missionary love; it precedes any response from His beloved, and it is gravely, gloriously, Gospel-shaped.

Romans 5:8 ESV

8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

There is no real love, in the Biblical sense, that is not shaped by God’s love for His people, demonstrated in His mission to save through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

This is love defined by God - not a vague thought, an emotion, an infatuation, a chemical process in the brain, an illusion or a mild form of insanity. Love is an attribute of God, and therefore found in all of His works.

Ephesians 1:3–6 ESV

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

and

Ephesians 2:4–5 ESV

4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—

God’s missionary love begins in eternity past - He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. Throughout all the ages, He remained steadfast in His love for His beloved ones. When He proclaimed His Name to Moses, He said, “The LORD, the LORD, a God gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”

When Israel abandoned the LORD, He sent the prophets to call them back to Himself. When the mass refused, He nevertheless preserved the remnant again and again.

And as

Galatians 4:4–5 ESV

4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

Friends, consider the love that God has demonstrated for you in the saving mission of Jesus Christ. This is no abstract idea, no generic philosophical notion. This is love in the flesh, God in action in time in Jesus Christ for you.

But if love so-defined is an attribute of God, what does that tell us?

Dwell with me for a moment on this thought:

Earlier in John’s letter, he said

1 John 1:5 ESV

5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

Set “God is love” up next to “God is light” in your mind for a moment.

There in chapter 1, “God is light” points to God’s absolute moral perfection, His holiness. In chapter 1, we’re told that anyone claiming to have fellowship with God and walking in darkness is a liar. To be born again is to be born into a new way of living, no longer a slave to sin, no longer a prisoner chained in the darkness to the world’s destructive false loves. Now freed by the One who loved us and called into the light, He shines on us, gladdens our hearts, and having so loved us, for the first time, you can love in truth.

Remember our key verse for this series,

1 John 2:8 ESV

8 At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.

The commandment that lies at the heart of verse 7 - to love one another - is old because it goes back to the very beginning. But it is new because Jesus Himself demonstrated it - it is true in Him. And it is new because it is true in you. Jesus, the true light, now shows us true love.

APPLY

Take your definitions or thoughts about love and set them aside. Put this in its place.

God is love - not an impersonal force or principle - God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - have eternally been one God in three Persons, eternally existing in relationship, love-in-action, and God made love manifest in Christ’s incarnation, perfect life, substitutionary death and resurrection so that spiritually dead sinners could live through Him.

Is that what you think about when I say the word “love”?

This means that true love, seen in Jesus Christ, is active, giving, and glories in God’s mission. God’s love defines love.

And with God’s demonstration of love on our hearts, let’s look at the exhortation that begins in verse 7 and comes up again in verses 11-13:

III. Demonstrate love that reflects Christ (11-13)

EXPLAIN

No one but a Christian would ever define love this way. Verses 7-8 makes it clear - this kind of love comes from God, and can only be known by those who have come to know God.

But notice how the sending nature of God’s love comes back into focus in verses 10-13. <<READ vv10-13>>

If God loved us this way, how could we refuse to love one another?

In chapter 1 of the Gospel of John,

John 1:14 ESV

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

and

John 1:18 ESV

18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

Jesus, the only Son from the Father, made the invisible God known. And now, the invisible God abides in His beloved children, who love like He has loved us.

And yet again, John directs us back to the moment when Jesus first issued His commandment to love one another:

John 13:34–35 ESV

34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Verse 12 ends by saying “if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” And if that rings a bell, it’s because John used a similar phrase in chapter 2. And there, as here, John is making a confident decree that God's perfect love will not fail to finish what He has started in those who have been redeemed.

The Christian’s Christ-shaped, Holy Spirit-given, not-yet-perfected love for his or her brothers and sisters in Christ is the proof that God is at work to bring to perfection what He has started in them. No one even defines love like this unless they know God, unless they submit to Christ as LORD and cherish His commandments.

Even when Christians are lampooned and judged and hated by the world, even where they are persecuted, even in places where Christians have faced violence and death for their faith, even where they’ve been called judgmental and worse,

when God begins to call someone out of darkness and into the light of Christ, it’s often because they encounter God’s love at work through His people.

In North Korea today, despite tremendous persecution even up to death, despite all the hatred that the government can produce against Christianity through relentless propaganda, when someone turns to Christ for salvation, it’s almost always because they encountered someone whose love could not be explained, whose heart beat for the sake of the mission. Often, we hear that when they found out their friend was a Christian, their initial response was hatred or fear. But

1 John 4:4 ESV

4 Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

And the love of Christ is powerful enough to overcome propaganda.

Right here in Northern Colorado, despite the cultural miasma that makes often makes Christians afraid to talk about their faith, for fear that they will face rejection or worse, people are coming to know the love of God in Christ despite all that the enemy can throw our way. And usually, they come to know Christ because, despite the fact that they’ve been taught that Christians are judgmental or out-of-step or whatever, when they see the love of God at work in ways they cannot explain, a kind of love that’s rooted so much deeper than the person showing it, a giving, sending, acting, Gospel-shaped love that points to the One who so loved them that He gave His only Son as the propitiation for sins -

That kind of love cannot be defeated or destroyed by modern American post-Christian secularism or apathy.

Conclusion

So how can we fulfill this exhortation: To love one another in this way?

This kind of love is a God-given, Spirit-borne response to what God has already done. It’s the fruit of salvation, and that means that you cannot love like this in order to be saved.

This kind of love creates a distinction between those who know God and those who don’t. God’s love is always present among those who have come to know Him. And those who reject or refuse to love one another don’t know Him.

Instead, hear the exhortation and long for your love to look like Christ’s love. Defined by the Gospel, enlightened by His Word.

Think of your closest relationships. Your family, close friends.

God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. And you are there, in those relationships, to be known by your Christ-shaped love.

And you look at me and say, “Well, I’m way far away from that.” Hear the exhortation and instead say, “God’s Spirit has been given to me for this task.”

Consider the sending nature of God’s love. Even now, He’s sending people to every nation, and throughout our nation, with the love of Christ and the Gospel. Perhaps He’s preparing to send you somewhere new. It doesn’t have to be as a missionary. Even college is a mission field. Even a new job or a new city is a mission field.

Wherever you are going, call upon the LORD to help you demonstrate His love.

AND THE LORD’S SUPPER as a demonstration & proclamation of love

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