FRIDAY, APRIL 27
1 John 4:7-21
If we have been truly born of God His Spirit will overflow His love through us to others
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
“Let us love” – Literally, ‘beloved, let us love’. John starts off by assuring his readers of his love for them, and then develops his argument of the priority of loving relationships based on God’s nature
8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
“God is love” – Not to be understood as one His activities, but what He is in essence. Everything that God does, including judgment, comes out of love.
For further study – in substance and in nature:
God is love 1 John 4:8, 16;
God is Spirit, John 4:24;
God is light, 1 John 1:5;
God is a consuming fire, Heb. 12:29 from Deut. 4:24
9-11 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. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
9 The essence of God is love, which has to find expression: sending His Son to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins, so we could live through Him
10 If the presence of God in us is that same love, it must find expression in our relationships with one another.
12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us.
12 “No one has ever seen God” – The Gnostics, in the same way as unbalanced ‘super-spiritual’ believers today, claimed visions of God to support their need to demonstrate that they were more spiritual than others. John has already said the God is seen only in the Son, John 1:18 and Paul similarly, Colossians 1:15. The Gnostics talked about God as light and Spirit, but not as love – hence John’s repeated assertion “God is love”.
12 God is recognised where people love with God’s kind of love. John means first and foremost in the fellowship – “if we love one another” – and in generosity of spirit to others. God’s love finds its fulfilment – “is made complete” – in transforming us from selfish to loving.
13 This is how we know that we live in Him and He in us: He has given us of His Spirit.
The abiding or remaining principle was taught by Jesus in John 15:4 and following verses. This explains how it works. It is reciprocal. As we heed the command to “be being filled with the Spirit” as Ephesians 5:18 says literally, He will be in us and we will know we are in Him, and it will look like God’s love, v.12.
14-16 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son to be the Saviour of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
A trinitarian reference, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Following the OT principle that every matter is established by two witnesses, here we have the first apostles, v.14, together with the Holy Spirit, vv. 13 and 15. This double witness is also stated in John 15:26–27 and Acts 5:32.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
God lives in those who are living in love. Living in God, and living in love, are inseparable (also v.12).
17-18 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
There is a confidence, parresia, about living in God and living in love. As Jesus faced the conflict of the world with the confidence of being secure in the Father’s love, so can we. If we know at a deep level that we are loved by God, who is for us and with us and over our circumstances, there is not much room for fear to operate as a driver. Ultimately fear is to do with punishment and judgment. Living in God’s love exposes the lie and replaces it with humble confidence.
19 We love because He first loved us.
God’s people are known by their being secure in God’s love and able to love others beyond their own resources.
20-21 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And He has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
“Claims to love…yet hates” – The love from God that drives out fear, must surely drive out hatred. To claim to be one with God yet living, thinking and acting in any way contrary to who God is, is falsehood – living a lie
The reality of God is love – leaving no room for harsh attitudes – and truth. Jesus said, “I am… the truth”. He said that His way was the way of truth, John 14:6. John described the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Truth, 1 John 4:6. Professing to be of God yet living at variance with God is falsehood, our willing ourselves a divorce from God who is Truth.
Application
John is not just teaching the churches who would have the letter read out to them, but addressing the confusion sown by so-called Gnostics who had a supposed ‘higher knowledge’ that gave them spiritual superiority and exonerated them from failing to walk the walk while they made much of talking the talk.
In addition to this, the Gnostics didn’t believe that God was love, and they didn’t talk about love – or make a priority of practising it.
These problems exist for us today. We might use the description ‘super-spiritual’ rather than Gnostic but the arrogance of the person who considers themselves above the requirements of Christian discipleship are just the same. There are people who present as having prophetic or other giftings and yet are harsh or judgmental of others. It’s a nonsense – the same nonsense the devil has always used to discredit the fellowship of Christian believers in the eyes of an already cynical world, alert for any hypocrisy. The Holy Spirit is a Spirit of truth and love and empowers us for both. Anyone who wants to be considered ‘Spirit-filled’ needs to make sure they are overflowing what looks like Jesus and not something else.
For reflection and discussion
Jesus was secure in who He was and His difficult call – why was that? Talk about how the experience of God’s love makes you feel.