The theme “God is love” is the
essence of the whole Bible, but it is frequently referenced in the book 1 John.
“God is love” is the perfect example of how Christians should love. Love is
found in the Bible all the way starting from Genesis until Revelation. It is a
theme that is prevalent in Creation, in the Israelites, in the Birth of Jesus,
in the Crucifixion, in the Resurrection, in the life of Paul, and in the
Epistles. 1 John explains how the rest of Bible shows the theme of “God is
love”. 1 John 3 starts with a command from God to love others and continues
with God showing love in action. 1 John 4 continues the theme of love and
explains how to know God through love. 1 John makes it explicitly simple that
God is love. God is love because He commands us to love our brothers, He sent
His Son to die for mankind, and He remains in us and we remain in Him through
love.
1
John 3:10-15 reads a command like sentence from God for us to love our
brothers. “Whoever does not do what is right is not of God, especially the one
who does not love his brother. For this is the message you have heard from the
beginning: We should love one another” (3:10b-11). John continues and brings up
the story of Cain and Abel. Verse 12 recounts the story of when Cain killed
Abel mentioning that it was out of murderous evil and the opposite of love.
John is comparing the lack of love to murder. “He shakes us with the
realization that absence of love for people may be contributing to their
emotional and spiritual demise.”[1]
Man was made by love and through love is how man survives. Cain killed Abel
because he was jealous of Abel’s blessing being accepted by God and his was not
accepted. Cain did not have love in his heart. John makes it clear in verse 13
that the murderous evil of Cain is in the hearts of those who oppose
Christians. “Do not be surprised, brothers, if the world hates you” (3:13).
John makes it clear that there is hate in the world and even Christians can
have hate in their hearts. He is stressing the importance of love because love
is what separates Christians from the rest of the world. Verses 14-15 say, “We
know that we have passed through from death to life because we love our
brothers. The one who does not love remains in death. Everyone who hates his
brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing
in him.” John shifts his emphasis on love and hate to the point that love means
life and hate means death. He cannot stress enough that loving one another
means passing from death to life. This does not mean loving one another gives
eternal life, but rather “those who exhibit love for Christ’s family
demonstrate that already they are enjoying the eternal life promised them… He
is simply underscoring that because such love is already going on, we have a
tangible sign of Christ’s salvific work in progress.”[2]
John is explaining what love means in the life of a Christian: to love one
another.
John
shifts his focus of loving one another towards the example of love. 1 John
3:16, which mirrors John 3:16, gives the outright definition of how God is
love. “This is how we have come to know love: He laid down His life for us. We
should also lay down our lives for our brothers” (3:16). Other verses such as
John 3:16[3]
and 1 John 4:19[4]
reiterate God’s love for mankind because He sent His Son Jesus to lay down His
life for mankind. Jesus is the example of God’s love. “Christian love can be
recognized by its conformity to the supreme model found in Christ’s death for
us.”[5]
God’s love shows no bounds or limitations. Jesus is God and He left His throne
in heaven in order to be born on this Earth. Jesus was born of a virgin and
lived over 30 years on this Earth as a perfect man. He went through trials and
temptations in order to be the perfect example of how not to sin. After living
a perfect life He was tried, convicted, beaten, and hung on a cross to die.
Jesus died on the cross, not because of His own sin, but because He was willing
to bare the sin of the entire mankind to repair the relationship between God
and man. God is love because of this sacrifice. He sent Jesus to be humiliated
and tortured to death because He wanted to restore the relationship between God
and man. “He laid down His life for us” (3:16).
John
uses the example of Jesus as another reason to love one another. “We should
also lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has this world’s goods and
sees his brother in need but closes his eyes to his need – how can God’s love
reside in him?” (3:16b-17). Christians who want to love like Jesus are to love
in the way Jesus loved. “We should recognize that hatred of our brother makes
us like Cain, while love for our brother makes us like Christ.”[6]
John gives the example of love in Christ and shows that Christ’s love for man
was not through His words or speech, but with action. Verse 18 explains that
love is through action and truth. Christians, in order to be like Christ, must
love like Christ. Christ sacrificed His life for the Creation He loved and
Christians need to be able to sacrifice for their brothers and sisters. The
message John was trying to get across seemed simple and the church members
should have understood the sacrifice of Jesus, but they did not understand how
it really applied to their lives. “The believer is called to express his love
for others in small matters as in great.”[7]
God’s love is mostly known and exemplified through major parts of the Bible
such as Creation, the Exodus, David, and Jesus to name a few. However, God’s
love can be found in every aspect of the Bible, especially the smaller parts. John
is showing his readers that even though Christians can show Christ’s love by
sacrifice they also can show God’s love by smaller sacrifices. A Christian
laying down his or her life does not have to mean literally dying, but can also
mean sacrificing his or her time, money, help, care, etc. Jesus gave up
everything to show His love and Christians need to be willing to give up
everything as well.
Christ’s
death on the cross and resurrection is the major theme of the New Testament. It
is what Paul mentions as the most important factor for salvation. Salvation is
the result of God’s love for mankind. God allows man to be saved through faith
in Jesus Christ. When Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose again three days
later He defeated sin and made it possible for man to have a restored relationship
with God. “Salvation is the most widely used term in Christian theology to
express the provision of God for our human plight… It can be used of any kind
of situation in which a person is delivered from some danger, real or
potential.”[8]
Jesus saved man from certain death by dying in man’s place. God accepted Jesus’
sacrifice and John 3:16 states that whoever believes shall have everlasting
life. The ultimate love of God has been exemplified.
John
moves into chapter 4 of 1 John to show how Christians can know God through
love. 1 John 4:7-8 says, “Dear friends, let us love one another, because love
is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one
who does not know love does not know God, because God is love.” God is love.
“It
is a principle, which is inherent in the new-born mind; every one born of God
is possessed of it; they, having
been regenerated by the Holy Ghost, are guided, influenced, and governed by it: so that there is nothing
can be more evident to our spiritual senses and
perceptions, than this must be, to all the regenerated, and called people of
God, that every one that loveth
his brother in Christ, is born of God.”[9]
God’s love has been revealed to man
in order for Christians to be born again in Christ and of God. John continues
to show God’s revelatory love for mankind in verses 9 and 10, “God’s love was
revealed among us in this way: God sent His One and Only Son into the world so
that we might live through Him. Love consists in this: not that we loved God,
but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
John is repeating himself time and time again so that the early church can understand
the true nature of love. Why is it important that John stress God’s love? The
word “propitiation” that John uses here means sacrifice. “From one point of
view Christ by his sacrifice of himself put away the wrath of God from sinners.
Paul and John speak of him as a ‘propitiation’”…“Propitiation is a personal
word; we propitiate a person. And the problem in bringing about our salvation
is that by our sin we have put ourselves in the wrong with the living God.”[10]
God recognized the sin of mankind and through His love He sent a way for man to
be saved. John does not want his readers to miss the fact that God loved man so
much that He sent Jesus to save and now, when men become saved, they need to
exemplify the kind of love Christ showed on the cross with others.
The
kind of love John is talking about in 1 John is known as Agape love. The New
Dictionary of Theology defines love in many ways, but notes God’s love as a
unique and distinctive love.
“Agape,
as Godlike love, stands in total contrast to all pagan ideas of love in a
fallen world… Agape is completely
unselfish. It is based neither on a felt need in the loving person nor on a desire called forth by some
attractive feature(s) in the on loved; it is not afraid to make itself vulnerable, and it does not seek to get its
own way by covert ruses and psychological
‘games’. It rather proceeds from a heart of love and is directed to the other person to bless him or her and to seek
that person’s highest good. Its source is God, and
its pattern and inspiration are Jesus Christ… By such love, the most essential
and abiding quality in human life,
Christians are to be recognized.”[11]
Christians are to be recognized
through agape love. Agape love is unconditional. God sacrificed His Son, His
perfect Son, for a fallen humanity. Loving unconditional loves in a way that no
matter what the other person has done they are shown love anyways. God knows
how dark and sinful humanity is and His unconditional love made a way through
the darkness towards the light. The New Testament writers found this agape love
and once they accepted this love God remained in them and they remained in God
and they spread this love to everyone around them. John is trying to get his
readers to spread this agape love because God shows His agape love to them. “Dear
friends, if God loved us in this way, we must also love one another. No one has
ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and His love is
perfected in us” (4:11-12).
John
shifts his focus from Christians love another towards God remaining in the
believer in 1 John 4:13-16. John says, “This is how we know that we remain in
Him and He in us: He has given assurance to us from His Spirit. And we have
seen and we testify that the Father has sent His Son as the world’s Savior”
(4:13-14). God’s love remains in the heart of the believer. Christians are able
to remain in God and because of this God’s love is able to remain in them. John
does not mention God’s love as an example that cannot be followed, but rather
that it is the example Christians must follow. God allows Christians to love in
a way that is worthy of God. He allows Christians to show agape love towards
one another, but it is the duty of the Christian to show this kind of love. How
does a person remain in God in the first place? John says, “Whoever confesses
that Jesus is the Son of God – God remains in him and he in God” (4:15). It
comes to the basis of John 3:16 as well, “Whoever believes in Him shall not
perish…” A person must become a believer by accepting Jesus Christ as their
Savior. They must accept God’s love into their lives by accepting that God sent
His Son to die on the cross for them. Once they accept their brokenness and
God’s perfectness they are able to remain in God and God will remain in them.
The ability to accept Christ’s sacrifice into the life of the believer is
another example of God’s love. God allowed Jesus to be the sacrifice needed in
order to restore the relationship between man and God. Christians, now that God
remains in them and them in God, must show love towards others. God commands
Christians to love one another. God wants the whole world to know that He loves
them and the best way to show the world is by Christians showing love towards
the lost and the broken. Christians may appear scared or experience hardship
when trying to show love towards other people, but John reaffirms them of God’s
promise and love. “In this, love is perfected with us so that we may have
confidence in the Day of Judgment, for we are as He is in this world. There is
no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves
punishment. So the one who fears has not reached perfection in love. We love
because He first loved us” (4:17-19). John is talking about the perfectness of
love in the Christian from God. This love is without fear and is the complete
form of love. John is giving the reason to pursue love. “John introduces a
purpose clause that explains why the pursuit of perfect love is desirable: ‘so that
we will have confidence on the day of judgment.’”[12]
Christians who pursue love have kept God’s commands. God commands Christians to
love one another. John ends 1 John 4 with the command from God. “If anyone
says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For the person who
does not love his brother he has seen cannot love the God he has not seen. And
we have this command from Him: The one who loves God must also love his
brother” (4:20-21). Ultimately, God commands Christians to love Him, but He
also mentions that Christians cannot love God without loving one another. God
has shown His love by loving everyone; Christians must show their love by doing
the same.
The
Bible is full of examples of God’s perfect love for humanity. Every book in the
Bible exemplifies God’s love in a different way. The overall theme of the love
of God is agape, meaning unconditional. John writes 1 John with a type of
doctrinal teaching about God’s love and how it plays a role in a Christian’s
life. Christians need to understand how God’s love has brought them from death
to life by Jesus Christ. A Christian can understand that God’s ultimate love
was sending Jesus to die on the cross, but he or she also has to understand
that they must love others in the same way. Christians must love
unconditionally and sacrifice themselves for others. God’s love needs to shine
through the believer in a way that the whole world can see it. Love is a gift
from God and it is only by God that humanity is able to love. “We love because
He first loved us” (4:19).
Bibliography
Burge, Gary M., The NIV Application Commentary: Letters Of
John, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan
Publishing House, 1996.
Ferguson, Sinclair B., Wright,
David F., New Dictionary of Theology,
Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity
Press, 1988.
Hodges, Zane C., The Epistles of John, Irving, Texas:
Grace Evangelical Society, 1999.
Longman III, Tremper, Garland,
David E., The Expositor’s Bible
Commentary 13, Grand Rapids, Michigan:
Zondervan Publishing, 2006.
Ogilvie, Lloyd J., When God First Thought of You, Waco,
Texas: Word Books Publisher, 1978.
Pierce, Samuel E., Newport Commentary Series: 1 John,
Springfield, Missouri: Particular Baptist
Press, 2004.
Smalley, Stephen S., Word Biblical Commentary Volume 51: 1,2,3 John, Waco, Texas: Word
Books,
Publisher, 1984.
New
American Standard Bible, La Habra, California: The Lockman Foundation,
1995.
[1]
Lloyd John Ogilvie, When God First
Thought of You, (Waco, Texas: Word Books Publisher, 1978), 99.
[2]
Gary M. Burge, The NIV Application
Commentary: Letters Of John, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing
House, 1996), 161.
[3]
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that whoever
believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life.”
[4]
“We love because He first loved us.”
[5]
Zane C. Hodges, The Epistles of John,
(Irving, Texas: Grace Evangelical Society, 1999), 160.
[6]
Ibid.
[7]
Stephen S. Smalley, Word Biblical
Commentary Volume 51: 1,2,3 John, (Waco, Texas: Word Books, Publisher,
1984), 196.
[8]
Sinclair B. Ferguson, David F. Wright, New
Dictionary of Theology, (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press,
1988), 610.
[9]
Samuel E. Pierce, Newport Commentary
Series: 1 John, (Springfield, Missouri: Particular Baptist Press, 2004),
Volume II, 55.
[10]
Ferguson, 609.
[11]
Ibid., 399.
[12]
Tremper Longman III, David E. Garland, The
Expositor’s Bible Commentary 13, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan
Publishing, 2006), 483.
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