1 John 4:7-10-Eight Reasons Why the Child of God Must Obey the Command to Love One Another

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 and also eight reasons why the child of God must obey the command to love one another.

1 John 4:7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. (NIV)

“Love” is the noun agapē (ἀγάπη) and means “divine-love” since it does not refer to the function of human love but rather, it pertains to the exercise of divine-love that is produced by the Holy Spirit through the child of God.

Here it is used of the Trinity’s attribute of love, which is manifested in the life of child of God who exercises faith in God’s love for them and which faith manifests itself in obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ’s Spirit inspired to love one another.

In the upper room Jesus referred to the Father’s love for the Son (John 15:9; 17:23–24, 26), the Father’s love for those who love Jesus (14:21; 16:27), the Father’s love for those who keep Jesus’ word (14:23), and the Father’s love for those who believe Jesus came from the Father (16:27; 17:23).

The love of the Father for the Son is reciprocated by the Son’s love for the Father (15:19; 17:23).

John also wrote that the Father’s love for believers is seen in His sending His Son to take away sins (4:7–10, 14–16).

Jesus often spoke of His love for His disciples (John 13:1, 23, 34; 15:9, 12), His love for all believers (14:21), and His love for the Father (v. 31).

When John wrote of Jesus’ love, he focused on His laying down His life for believers, whereby His love serves as the model for mutual love between believers (1 John 3:16; 4:10) which originates from Jesus’ own emphasis on this theme in John 13:34–35 and 15:12–13.

The command to love one another as modeled perfectly by the Lord Jesus Christ appears in John 13:34; 15:12–13, 17, and this love reveals to others that His followers belong to Christ (13:35).

The Lord exhorted His disciples to abide in His love by keeping His commandments (14:15, 21, 23; 15:9–10) and those who love Jesus will be loved by the Father (14:21).

The themes of love and obedience are combined several times in John’s first epistle (1 John 2:5; 3:23; 5:2–3) and these verses in First John are clear allusions to Jesus’ words in the Upper Room Discourse.

This command to love one another, which is mentioned explicitly in 1 John 3:11, 23 and 4:7 and implicitly in 1 John 2:7, is recorded in John 13:34 and 15:12.

John 13:34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (NIV)

John 15:12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. (NIV)

In John 13:34, the Lord Jesus Christ took the command of Leviticus 19:18, which is quoted in Matthew 22:39 and Mark 12:31, and elevated it.

He gave it a new meaning in the sense that He commanded His disciples to love one another “as He loved them” since He fulfilled the command perfectly during His First Advent as the Lamb without spot or blemish.

When our Lord says I give you a “new” commandment, He does not mean “new in time” since Old Testament saints were told to love their neighbor in Leviticus 19:18.

Rather, the Lord is saying that the commandment to love one another is new in “quality, character” and “example” since love would take on a new meaning when our Lord would self-sacrificially offer Himself up to the Father as our Substitute for the propitiation for our sins.

Under the old commandment in Leviticus 19:18, which is quoted in Mark 12:28-31 and Matthew 22:34-40 the test of love for one’s neighbor was love for oneself but the test under the new commandment was to love as Christ had loved them.

The fact that the believer is an object of God’s love provides him with the capacity to love others and execute the command to love his fellow believer as Christ loved.

1 John 4:19 We love because he first loved us. (NIV)

God’s love for the believer serves as the power and motivation to obey the command to love one another as Christ loved all men.

The believer must experience God’s love for him before he can obey the command to love as Christ has loved all men.

The Holy Spirit enables the believer to experience the love of God in his own life and the Spirit accomplishes this through prayer and the Word of God.

The Holy Spirit in the pages of Scripture enlightens the believer as to the love that God the Father has exercised towards him as manifested in the person and work of Christ at the cross.

Romans 5:5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. 6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (NIV)

The Holy Spirit reproduces the love of God in the believer who is obedient to the command to love one another (Galatians 5:22).

Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. (NIV)

Obedience to the command to love one another as Christ loved is the positive response in faith by the believer to the Spirit’s revelation in the Word of God to the Father and the Son’s love that has been directed toward them through the death of Christ.

Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (NIV)

The love that loves like Christ is the sign of true discipleship.

As conformity to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ must be the chief mark of the believer’s Christian walk, so love must be the chief mark of that conformity.

Ephesians 5:1 Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. (NIV)

As we noted, 1 John 4:7-10 presents eight reasons why the child of God must obey the command to love one another.

The first appears in verse 7 and asserts that this love originates from God the Father’s character and nature or in other words, obedience to this command is consistent with the character of their heavenly Father.

The second also appears in verse 7 and asserts that obedience to the command to love one another demonstrates that a person is a child of God.

The third reason is that by obeying this command they will know the Father experientially or in other words, they will experience fellowship with Him.

The fourth reason appears in verse 8 and asserts that if they don’t obey this command, they won’t know the Father experientially or won’t experience fellowship with Him.

The fifth reason also appears in verse 8 and asserts that God as to His nature, is this love and thus, if they want to reflect the fact that they are children of God, they must obey this command to love.

The sixth reason is found in verse 9 and teaches that the child of God must obey the command to love one another because this fulfills the Father’s eternal purpose for sending His one and only Son into the human race and which eternal purpose is that they would conduct their lives through His Son.

The seventh reason also is found in verse 9 in that it teaches that obedience to the command to love one another will enable them to reflect God’s attribute of love.

This command originates with the character and nature of God since He as to His nature is love.

Thus, obedience to this command reflects the Father’s love which was first demonstrated to the human race through the incarnation, hypostatic union, death and resurrection of the Father’s one and only Son, Jesus Christ.

Lastly, the eighth reason appears in verse 10.

The believer is obligated to love their fellow-believer because God exercised His love when they were His enemy by 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.

1 John 3:16 teaches this exact same thing.

1 John 3:16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. (NIV)

Therefore, 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.