God is Love
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Love, it has been said, has many faces. People see it in all sorts of shapes and sizes. I think it is interesting to note that sometimes we see it more clearly, not through the eyes of adults, but through the eyes of children.
A group of children were posed the following question: “What does love mean?” The answers that were giving were broader and deeper than anyone could imagine.
“Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.” Chrissy—age 6
“Love is what makes you smile when you’re tired.” Terri—age 4
“Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK.” Danny—age 7
“Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.” Bobby—age 5
“Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it every day.” Noelle—age 7
“Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day.” May Ann—age 4
“When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.” Karen—age 7
“You really shouldn’t say ‘I love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.” Jessica—age 7
“When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That’s love.” Rebecca—age 8 (Sollee, “Love”)
Well, it is one thing to get a child’s perspective on love, but it is even better to get God’s perspective.
Several times in the Bible God gives us His thoughts on love. We find it in Song of Songs 8:5–14, 1 Corinthians 13, and here in 1 John 4:7–21.
John has addressed the subject of love already in 2:7–11.
As he calls us aside to talk about this subject that some say “makes the world go round,” John will take us to the very origin and source of love: God Himself.
In fact, love is His very nature, and acting in love is His essential character. How do we know?
The cross! The cross of Golgotha is an everlasting monument to the truth that our God is love.
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
The word love (Gk agape) dominates 1 John 4:7–5:3. It appears over 30 times. Some have even said John is the expert on the subject. Paul is the apostle of faith. Peter is the apostle of hope. James is the apostle of good works. And John is the apostle of love.
There is little doubt we need an expert on love. In our culture love is too often understood in selfish and sexual terms. The Word of God paints a completely different picture.
Here the words “sacrificial” and “supernatural” jump out at us. Ultimately love comes from God and is seen most clearly in the death of Jesus on the cross as He takes on Himself the sins of the world.
Now we need to be clear. We are not saying lost people, non-Christians, cannot love.
Sadly, they sometimes love better than some Christians do. This should not surprise us. Never forget that all persons are made in the image of God.
All persons, in spite of their depravity and sinfulness, will give reflections of the One whose image they bear. Further, God’s grace and goodness is shared, in some measure, with the whole of His Creation.
Howard Marshall is correct when he says, “Human love, however noble and however highly motivated, falls short if it refuses to include the Father and Son as the supreme objects of its affections” (The Epistles of John, 212).
Such love unfortunately fails to honor the greatest love command of all, the command to love God with all that you are (Matt 22:36–38).
When a person is truly in Christ. That is abiding in Him. The nature of Christ is that person working out God’s attribute of pure and holy love. This is why John says in v. 7 “everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.”
If your life is not characterized by a God-like love, a love that even cares for its enemies, then you don’t know God. And, by logical extension, you have not been born of God. Why? “Because God is love.”
John will say this twice (vv. 8, 16). It is the very character, essence, and nature of God to love.
And, as we will see in verse 10, this means He seeks the best for others even at great cost and expense to Himself.
It is God’s nature to love (to give and sacrifice). The truth that “God is love” complements other beautiful statements made about God’s nature in the Bible.
God is Spirit (John 4:24).
God is a consuming fire (Heb 12:29).
God is light (1 John 1:5).
God is true (1 John 5:20)
“God is love” does not equal “love is God” (a form of pantheistic thinking), any more than “grass is green” means “green is grass.” Love does not define God, but God does define love. This is John’s beautiful logic:
(1) God is love.
(2) Those who have been born of God and know God are God’s children.
(3) God’s children have God’s nature.
(4) God’s children therefore will love.
Love’s source is in God, and as we love like God loves, we give evidence we are connected to the source. We demonstrate by a life of love that we know God.
9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.
10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
It is one thing to talk about love. It is something else to show love. The Christian God is not just a talking God. He is an acting God, a doing God.
The phrase “God’s love was revealed [made clear, put on display] among us in this way” looks forward to what follows. And this love of God was put on public display “among us.” We did not just hear about it, John says; we saw it. We were eyewitnesses. Here is what we know: “God sent His One and Only Son into the world,” and He did so for this purpose: “so that we might live through Him.”
God sent His only Son. “Only”
It means unique, one of a kind. There was and is no one else like this Son. You should hear the words of John 3:16 ringing in your ears.
God sent His Son from heaven because that is where He was, in eternal existence with His Father and in loving communion through the Holy Spirit. Our God was not lonely in need of company. The triune God has existed forever in perfect, loving community and communion. No, our God was not lonely; He was loving. He sent His Son into enemy territory, into a world of sinners on a search and rescue mission. He came looking for us even when we were not looking for Him.
10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
This is one of the most wonderful and important verses in the Bible. It notes the initiative God took in loving us, and it addresses the magnitude of that love in the gift of His Son. God did not send an angel; He sent His Son. God did not send His Son to live; He sent His Son to die. And this was not an ordinary death. Nor was it simply the death of a martyr. It was the death of a Savior dying in our place and bearing our punishment.
Paul said something very similar in Romans 5:8
8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
John uses the word, “Propitiation” in verse 10.
The word “propitiation” is a rich theological term and one of the most important in the Bible. It is used three other times in the New Testament in the context of Jesus’ death on the cross and His work of atonement: (Rom 3:25) (Heb 2:17) (1 John 2:2)
The word means to turn away the wrath of God by means of an offering.
In Christ, God Himself made the satisfaction, the atonement, as He offered Himself in His Son. As 2 Corinthians 5:19 says,
19 that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
Propitiation teaches us that God personally hates sin.
Propitiation teaches us that sin is serious.
Propitiation teaches us the greatness of God’s love in which He provided the offering to turn His wrath away.
Propitiation teaches us the truth that Christ’s death satisfied the Father and was a substitution for sinners.
Propitiation teaches us that God’s holiness required satisfaction and that God’s love provided satisfaction.
Now of course Christ did die, but then on the third day, HE ROSE AGAIN. Victorious of death and the grave. And it is because of His sacrifice on the cross and His resurrection from the dead that we too can have life everlasting. Trust in who Jesus is and what He did, place your full faith in Him, repent of your sins and be made new through Christ Jesus our Lord.
We come to the table of Christ on this Resurrection Sunday. In remembrance of His great sacrificial love toward us, who was once enemies of God.
Paul shared with us the manner by which we are to come to the table.
23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread;
24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”
25 In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.
27 Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.
28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
29 For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.
30 For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep.
Let us take time now to prepare ourselves before a Holy God. Confess your sins, repent of your sins and cry out to the only one who can give you mercy and forgiveness.