God's Love & Our Love: Let Us Love One Another

1 John 4:7–12 NKJV

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 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. 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. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us.

Prayer

Since we have started this letter from John, there have been three main tests that John has continued to stress.

The Moral Test: The difference between righteousness and unrighteousness.

The Social Test: The difference between love and hatred

The Doctrinal Test: The difference between believing the right things and the wrong things.

At this point, a person may wonder, which of these three tests are most important?

To take away one of these tests actually undermines and destroys all the others.

But we’re going to look at a passage of Scripture today that I would argue is John’s real thrust of the letter.

Margaret feels like she was failing in the relationships that mattered most.

She tried to move closer to her friends and family, but either they didn’t respond to her efforts at deepening intimacy, or worse, they moved in the opposite direction.

After several seemingly close friendships had faded away, it seemed to her that nothing would ever change.

She seemed to sabotage her own efforts because something was not quite right in the way that she moved toward people.

Her past track record of loss predicted her future failure and she didn’t know how to fix it.

Since God is love, those who are born of Him will love Him and others.

By loving one another, we make known the God who is only seen in the person of Christ and bring about His purposes.

1 John 4:7–8 NKJV

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

What God Is

“God is Love”

1 John 4:7 (NKJV)

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God

Now for John to say, “let us” it is essentially a command.

He is saying that all of us and himself included, we should love one another.

John now turns for a third time to discuss the topic of love in the life of the believer.

The first time he talked about love, it was the true light which was already shining and continues to shine...

The second time, love had to do with abiding in eternal life...

But this third time, he is grounds our love for one another in the nature of God.

It is this third time that he talks about love where he leaves us standing in amazement of the wonder of God’s love.

Reason #1: God is Love

The first reason that John gives for why we should love one another is BECAUSE love comes from God.

Love finds itself as the overflow of the nature of God.

This first section expresses that we should love one another because LOVE stems forth from God’s character.

But to say something like this is going to give some implications for the life of the believer...

Notice what John says about the person who loves...

1 John 4:7 NKJV

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

Born of God

This birth is not something the person themselves brought about, but something that God has brought about in their lives.

John doesn’t say that a person who loves has become born again.

He says that a person who loves is born of God.

So the birth from above proceeds the love that comes from the person.

The person DOES NOT love to be born of God.

They love because they have been born.

The same thing goes for the next two statements as well…

Knows God

Now again, the Gnostics have been trying to convince these believers that they don’t really know God.

But John says that the person who loves is the one who actually knows God.

Notice something about these two qualities, the love is the result of the birth and the knowledge.

Not the other way around.

We don’t love to become born again.

We don’t love in order to know God.

We LOVE because we have been born again and already know God!

John also gives the inverse of what’s just been said....

1 John 4:7–8 NKJV

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

No Knowledge = No Love

John now makes the opposite point as well...

If a person does not love his brother or sister, then he does not really know God.

The Letters of John: An Introduction and Commentary a. A Further Elaboration of the Social Test: Love (4:7–12)

For the loveless Christian to profess to know God and to have been born of God is like claiming to be intimate with a foreigner whose language we cannot speak, or to have been born of parents whom we do not in any way resemble. It is to fail to manifest the nature of him whom we claim as our Father (born of God) and our Friend (knows God). Love is as much a sign of Christian authenticity as is righteousness (2:29).

What about the unbeliever who loves other people?

To understand that humanity has been made in the image of God means that though God’s image has been deface by the fall.

Though the image has been defaced, all people still have an ability to care for one another.

But for our question, it depends on how you define love.

If you define love according to worldly standards, then yes.

But if you define love in step with God’s standard, then no.

Unbelievers can be kind and loving but there are always some kind of selfish motive.

The difference of believers love and unbelievers is the believer loves from the heart.

The believer loves with a self-sacrificial love that is properly motivated.

The Epistles of John God’s Love and Our Love (4:7–12)

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 affection. It falls short of the divine pattern, and by itself it cannot save a man; it cannot be put into the balance to compensate for the sin of rejecting God. Love alone, therefore, is not a sign of being born of God.

So it sounds like what you’re saying is a person who is not a believer can’t love. I’ve seen plenty of people love who are not Christians!

We can all think about the couple who loves one another, or the family who express their love for one another.

Here’s the thing: we all have a standard of love.

If we listen to what people say, we can find out very quickly their standard of love.

We have all heard it said, “I love _______.”

This situation was “loving” or “unloving”

By the problem is when you begin to define love in a way that is contrary to God.

So for people to say, “It is unloving of God to send people to hell.”

They are making a theological statement.

They are essentially saying, “Love is God” rather than “God is Love”

They are allowing their conception of love to drive what they believe God can or cannot do.

The second reason John gives for why the believer should love one another is BECAUSE “God is love”

1 John 4:8 NKJV

He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

We need to ask the question, what does it mean that “God is love”?

John has made three different statements about what God is like.

“God is Spirit” (John 4:24)

“God is Light” (1 John 1:5)

Which we saw that God was holy and pure in all of His ways.

But now we see “God is Love” (1 John 4:8)

How does all of this square together?

God’s Love and Simplicity

I want us to wade into the deep end of the pool for a moment.

When we talk about the attributes of God, we need to recognize how they hold together.

Apple Pie and the Simplicity of God

When we talk about an apple pie, we must recognize that an apple pie is made up of parts.

You have the apples, cinnamon, flour, dough, sugar, and all sorts of other goodies.

Now if you were to remove any of those elements, the pie no longer is able to be called an apple pie.

This is easy to understand, but what begins to get complicated in our small brains is that is NOT true of God.

We CANNOT say that God is made up of parts.

When we say that God is SIMPLE, we don’t mean that he is not complicated.

What we mean is that God is NOT made up of any parts.

God is NOT compound, composite, or made of different parts.

When we talk about God’s attributes, we must understand that God is identical with all that He is in and of Himself.

So take what we have been talking about....

We say God is HOLY and He IS.

And we say God is LOVE and He IS.

But what we can’t hear in this is that God is just all of these parts placed into a blender and then put together.

We fundamentally misunderstand God if we think that LOVE is ONLY a part of God.

What I’m asserting is that everything that God does is love, because it is in His nature to love.

His justice is loving

His judgement is love

His wrath is love

Every part of God is love.

How does God’s wrath and love go together?

How could God be both wrathful and loving?

Well, first off we need to see that it is not impossible for love and wrath to go together.

God in His perfections must be wrathful toward rebellious image-bearers because they have offended a HOLY GOD.

But at the same time, God can be merciful to rebellious image-bearers because HE is LOVING.

God the Peacemaker: How Atonement Brings Shalom Is Divine Love in Conflict with Divine Wrath?

‘There is no right love without wrath.’ Why? Because ‘God cannot love moral evil, he can only hate it. Of its very nature, it stands in complete opposition to God’s essence.’

God in HIS very nature is LOVING, and in HIS nature is HOLY.

And when this Holy Love is met with human sinfulness, wrath or mercy come forth.

And the resounding question of the Old Testament is, how will this happen?

How can God be loving and holy at the same time?

How can HE uphold His justice and give mercy?

Exodus 34:6–7 (NKJV)

“The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth,

keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.”

John gives us the answer in this next section...

1 John 4:9–10 NKJV

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. 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.

What God Did

“Christ Died for Sinners”

The reason John gives now for understanding the love of God amongst us is the Son sent from the Father.

We see love expressed in the way that the Father has sent the Son.

The love of God was revealed in this community by sending the Son.

The sending of the Son from the Father is the very revelation of God to humanity.

Reason #2: God’s Gift for Us

Since God is love, those who are born of Him will love Him and others.

This time, John further clarifies love beyond an abstraction of love.

He gives us a concrete person to look at and see LOVE.

God’s Gift Among Us

1 John 4:9 NKJV

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.

God has sent His Son that we who were once alienated and far off actually may be able to live through Him.

Galatians 2:20 NKJV

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

God’s Gift From Heaven

1 John 4:10 NKJV

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 critically important for our understanding of love because if love depends on our definition it will be very weak.

If we believe that our love for God determines our relationship with Him, it will not be good.

It will be a humanistic, man-centered love which will look more earthly than heavenly.

But John defines love not as our love for God but as His love for us.

God’s Gift Through Propitiation

1 John 4:10 NKJV

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.

The completeness of His love and the completeness of His sending the Son are found in the cross.

God loves for us can be simply defined as “Love Through Propitiation”.

It is the Son of God laying down His life for us which reveals God’s love for us.

His bearing of the wrath of God for sinners is the very definition of love.

The cross is where God’s justice and mercy meet.

It is in this wrath bearing cross that sinners are made whole.

It is in the Son of God dying on behalf of people who are undeserving and unworthy that true love is shown.

A couple years back, the hymn In Christ Alone was requested to be changed to be included in a denominational hymn book.

The committee requested permission from the song’s writers, to print an altered version of the hymn’s lyrics.

The song goes...

“Till on that cross as Jesus died/the wrath of God was satisfied”

They requested it to be changed to.....

“Till on that cross as Jesus died/the love of God was magnified.”

And you may think that is just a small change, but notice that the change they wanted pitted God’s love over and against God’s wrath against sin.

And in John’s mind, this is not the case.

We do NOT know God’s love in the abstract.

We know His love in the concrete expression of His Son dying on the cross in our place.

Since God is love, those who are born of Him will love Him and others.

By loving one another, we make known the God who is only seen in the person of Christ and bring about His purposes.

1 John 4:11–12 NKJV

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us.

What God is Doing

“Perfecting Us Through Love”

The command here for John is very clear “Love your brothers and sisters because you have been loved with an unfathomable love.”

1 John 4:11 NKJV

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

Reason #3: God’s Present Activity

1 John 4:12 NKJV

No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us.

Nobody Can See God

Now the question is, what is John getting at here?

No one can see God in His essence, but Jesus has come to make God known to us.

Colossians 1:15 ESV

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

Christ is indeed the image of the invisible God, but Christ is currently on the throne in heaven.

The words he uses here in 1 John 4:12 are very similar and likely represent what John is picking up here.

John 1:18 ESV

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

John has said that the Lord Jesus was the only God in human flesh.

He was the ONE from the Father full of grace and truth.

So for John to pick up on these words, he would be remembering what has been said before.

Before he was talking about Jesus being the only God who is at the Father’s side

But here he is saying that when we love our brothers and sisters, God’s abides in us.

The question is, How then is God going to continue to reveal Himself to the world?

But he seems to be changing the angle of approach here.

Not only does He abide in us, but His love has been perfected in us.

1 John 4:12 NKJV

No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us.

God’s Love Perfected

To say that God’s love has been perfected does not mean that it was in any way deficient.

It does not mean that His love is somehow incomplete.

The word for perfected means “bring to an end, bring to its goal/accomplishment” (BDAG)

A better way to understand it would be to say that God’s love was already perfect in quality, but not in quantity.

Hebrews–Revelation Comment

“God’s already pristine love find[s] its fullest possible earthly expression as people respond to the message of Christ and reach out to one another as a result.”

Likely what John is picking up here is not that nobody has ever seen God, but that when we love one another, God’s plan and purposes reach there final fulfillment.

1 Corinthians 13:13 ESV

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

The greatest of these is love because it will never pass away.

Hope will pass away because we will see our hope face to face.

Faith will pass away because we will one day no longer live by faith.

But love will remain forever because God is Love.