The Motivation of Propitiation in 1 John 4:10

1 John 4:10 teaches that God from His attribute of love dispatched His one and only Son to be the propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the church as well as the entire world.

1 John 4:10 Love is defined by means of this: By no means that we are loving God (the Father) but rather that He Himself in contrast to us loved each and every one of us. Specifically, He dispatched with authority His Son to be the propitiatory sacrifice for each and every one of our sins. (Lecturer’s translation)

The apostle John in 1 John 4:10 defines in emphatic terms what love is not and what it is.

In other words, he is emphatically identifying the essential nature of love and what it is absolutely not.

He does this by making three assertions, which are contained in two hoti clauses and an epexegetical clause which advances upon the second hoti clause.

The first assertion contained in the first hoti clause, which is an emphatic negative declaration, asserts that the definition of love is by no means that John and the recipients of First John were loving God the Father.

They would demonstrate this love by their obedience to the Son’s command to love one another since He asserts that obedience to this command demonstrates their love for Him and thus it would demonstrate love for the Father who sent the Son (cf. John 14:15).

The second assertion that is contained in the second hoti clause expresses an emphatic contrast between the believer’s love for the Father and the Father’s love for each and every believer.

It asserts that love, in contrast to the believer’s love for the Father, is defined by the Father’s love for the believer.

The third assertion appears in the epexegetical clause which defines the meaning of the emphatic adversative clause.

It asserts that love is defined by means of the Father dispatching with authority into the human race His Son to be the propitiation for each and every one of the sins committed by the believer during the course of their lifetime.

Therefore, John is teaching in emphatic terms that the definition of love is absolutely not defined by the believer’s love for the Father but rather it is defined by the Father’s love for each and every believer.

In other words, love absolutely never originated with the believer but rather originated with the Father.

So therefore, the apostle John is teaching in 1 John 4:10 that this love, which each and every believer is obligated to practice with their fellow-believer, is defined by the Father sending His Son to the cross to be the propitiatory sacrifice for each and every sin committed by each and every believer during the course of their lifetime.

The apostle John is not writing about how love was manifested.

There are two factors which indicate this quite clearly.

First, the believer can and does manifest this love when they are obedient to the Spirit inspired command of the Lord Jesus Christ to love one another.

Secondly, he emphatically asserts in 1 John 4:10 that the love he is speaking of, is emphatically not the believer’s love for the Father but rather, John is seeking to define the nature or essence of love, which he wants the recipients of First John to continue to practice when interacting with each other.

Love is defined by the act of the Father in sending His one and only Son to the cross to propitiate His holiness which demanded that sinners experience His righteous indignation as a result of committing sins against Him.

The human race would have no knowledge or personal contact with God’s love unless He revealed it to the human race.

Remember, John taught that in his gospel and in First John that no person has ever seen God at any time (cf. John 1:18; 1 John 4:12), but Jesus Christ, His one and only Son explained Him to the human race (John 1:14-18).

Therefore, every word and action of Jesus Christ manifested the character and nature of the invisible God.

Thus, Jesus Christ’s substitutionary spiritual and physical deaths on the cross manifested that which was invisible to the human race, namely God’s love and specifically the depth of this love.

This sacrificial act thus serves to define for the human race the nature and character or essence of God’s love or in other words, this love was manifested by this self-sacrificial act of both the Father and the Son and consequently, the love of God is not defined by the believer loving the Father.

But rather, this love is defined by the Father loving the believer and everyone in the human race through the act of sending His one and only Son to the cross to suffer His wrath in the place of every sinner in history-past, present and future.

The believer loves the Father because the Father first loved the believer as demonstrated by sending His Son to the cross to be the propitiation for each and every one of the sins they committed against Him (cf. 1 John 4:19).

This is not the first time in First John that the apostle John asserts that Jesus Christ is the propitiatory sacrifice for each and every sin committed by each and every believer during the course of their lifetime since he makes this assertion in 1 John 2:2.

1 John 2:1 My dear children, I am presently writing these things for the benefit of each of you in order that each of you would not enter into committing a sin. However, if anyone enters into committing a sin, we possess an advocate with the Father, namely, Jesus, who is the Christ, who is a righteous person. 2 For you see, He Himself is the propitiatory sacrifice for each and every one of our sins. Indeed, by no means for ours only, but in fact also for the entire world. (Lecturer’s translation)

In 1 John 2:2 and 4:10, “the propitiatory sacrifice” for the sins of the believer means that Jesus Christ’s voluntary substitutionary spiritual and physical deaths on the cross “satisfied” or “propitiated” the holy demands of God which required that the sins of every person in human history-past, present and future be judged.

They propitiated the Father in the sense that they paid the penalty for the sins of the entire world.

In 1 John 2:2 and 4:10, “each and every one of our sins” refers to the sins of believers both Jew and Gentile and not merely the sins of Jewish believers as some expositors contend.

They come to this conclusion because they do not believe in the “unlimited atonement” but rather the “limited” atonement.

The “limited” atonement doctrine contends that Christ died for only the elect or in other words, believers whereas “unlimited” atonement contends that Christ died for “all” people, all inclusive, without exception and without distinction.

Therefore, John is teaching in 1 John 4:10 that the substitutionary spiritual and physical deaths of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary, which propitiated the demands of God’s holiness, is the ultimate expression of God’s attribute of love because they manifest this attribute perfectly.

In 1 John 4:19, the apostle John builds on his teaching here in 1 John 4:10 in that he asserts that he and the recipients of First John love God and each other because God loved them first.

1 John 4:19 Each one of us does practice divine-love because He Himself in contrast to us first loved each one of us. (Lecturer’s translation)

Therefore, a comparison of these two verses teaches that the believer has the capacity or ability to love God and each other because the Father first loved each one of them when He sent His Son to the cross to be the propitiation for each and every one of their sins.

Thus, in both verses, John is teaching that love originates with God since He took the initiative to restore sinners to a relationship and fellowship with Himself when He dispatched His Son into the human race in order to resolve the problem of sin which prevented the human race from entering into this relationship and fellowship with Himself.

1 John 2:2, 4:10 and 19 are also teaching that God’s love is superior to human love in that God sacrificed His Son for the human race when they were repulsive to Him and in rebellion against Him whereas believers love God in response to His love for them.

In other words, God’s love is superior because it does not need an attractive object or someone to do something for Himself.

On the other hand, human beings love those who are attractive to them whether a wife, husband, children, parents, or friends or they love in response to what someone has done for them.

John is also teaching in 1 John 2:2, 4:10 and 19 that the Father sending His Son to be the propitiation for the sins of the entire human race, both believers and non-believers, is an expression of the character and nature of God or in other words, it is an expression of this love.

1 John 4:10 echoes John’s teaching in 1 John 4:7-9 and in fact, 1 John 4:7-10 presents a description and definition of love, which the believer is to demonstrate by obeying the command to love one another.

John is teaching in 1 John 4:7-10 that each and every one of God’s children must love each other because they are obligated to do so since God loved them when they were His enemies by sending His Son to the cross to be the propitiation for each and every sin committed by them.

Not only is 1 John 4:10 presenting another reason why the believer must obey the command to love one another but it is also presenting one of the reasons for the incarnation and subsequent hypostatic union of the Father’s one and only Son, Jesus Christ, namely, to propitiate the Father’s holiness.

The Son of God became a human being and suffered a substitutionary spiritual and physical death on the cross in order to propitiate or satisfy the demands of the Father’s holiness which required that each and every human being-past, present and future must be experience His wrath because of the sins committed by them.