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Scripture Reading: 1 John 4:7-15
First John 4:1-6 is a parenthetical section in which the believers are warned to discern the spirits. This means that 4:7 is the direct continuation of 1 John 3:24. 1 John 4:7-21 is an extension of the section from 1 John 2:28-29; 3:1-24, stressing further the brotherly love, already covered in 1 John 3:10-24, as a higher condition of the life that abides in the Lord.
In 4:7 John says, “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is out of God, and everyone who loves has been begotten of God and knows God.” Here John says that love is out of God. This indicates that when we love others, our love must be something that comes out of God. Our love for the brothers should not be something out of ourselves; it should be the love that is out of God. The believers, who have been begotten of God and know God, love one another habitually with the love which is out of God as the expression of God.
In verse 7 John says that everyone who loves has been begotten of God. The apostle’s emphasis here is still the divine birth, through which the divine life has been imparted into the believers, the life that affords them the life-ability to know God. This divine birth is the basic factor of brotherly love as a higher condition of the life that abides in the Lord. We have seen that John’s writings emphasize the divine birth (1 John 3:9; 4:7; 5:1, 4, 18; John 1:12-13), which is our regeneration (John 3:3, 5). Through the divine birth we have received the divine life, which is the eternal life (1 John 1:2), as the divine seed sown into our being (3:9). Out of this seed all the riches of the divine life grow from within us. It is by this that we abide in the Triune God and live the divine life in our human living. The divine birth, therefore, is the basis of our Christian life.
According to John’s word in 4:7, everyone who loves not only has been begotten of God, but also knows God. This knowing is by the divine life (John 17:3) received from the divine birth. The word “knows” here also implies experience and enjoyment. We cannot know God without experiencing and enjoying Him. This indicates that this knowing is an experiential knowing, not an objective knowledge of God. We know God because we have experienced Him and are enjoying Him.
In verse 8 John goes on to say, “He who does not love has not known God, because God is love.” Not to know God means not to experience Him or enjoy Him. If you have experienced and enjoyed God, who is love, surely love will come forth from you.
He who has not known God does not have the knowing ability of the divine life received from the divine birth. Such a one, who has not been begotten of God and does not have God as his life, does not love with God as his love, since he does not know God as love.
In this book John twice tells us that God is love (4:8,16). This Epistle first says that God is light (1:5), and then that God is love. Love as the nature of God’s essence is the source of grace, and light as the nature of God’s expression is the source of truth. When the divine love appears to us it becomes grace, and when the divine light shines upon us it becomes truth. Both of these were manifested in this way in John’s Gospel. We received both grace and truth there through the manifestation of the Son (John 1:14, 16-17). Now in his Epistle we come in the Son to the Father and touch the sources of both grace and truth. These sources, love and light, are God the Father Himself for our deeper and finer enjoyment in the fellowship of the divine life with the Father in the Son (1:3-7) by our abiding in Him (2:5, 27-28; 3:6, 24).
The expression “God is love,” like “God is light” (1:5) and “God is Spirit” (John 4:24), is used in a predicative sense, not in a metaphoric sense. In His nature God is Spirit, love, and light. Spirit denotes the nature of God’s Person; love, the nature of God’s essence; and light, the nature of God’s expression. Both love and light are related to God as life, which life is of the Spirit (Rom. 8:2). God, Spirit, and life are actually one. God is Spirit, and Spirit is life. Within this life are love and light. We have seen that when the divine love appears to us, it becomes grace, and when the divine light shines upon us, it becomes truth. The Gospel of John reveals that the Lord Jesus has brought grace and truth to us so that we may have the divine life (John 3:14-16). The Epistle of 1 John reveals that the fellowship of the divine life brings us to the sources of grace and truth, which are the divine love and the divine light. In John’s Gospel it was God in the Son coming to us as grace and truth that we may become His children (John 1:12-13); in his Epistle it is we the children, in the fellowship of the Father’s life, coming to the Father to participate in His love and light. This is further and deeper in the experience of the divine life. After receiving the divine life in John’s Gospel by believing in the Son, we should go on to enjoy this life in his Epistle through the fellowship of this life.
In 4:9 John goes on to say, “In this the love of God was manifested to us, that God has sent His Son, the only begotten, into the world that we might live through Him.” In his verse we see God’s intention and goal in sending the Son: God sent the Son so that we might live through Him. Living through the Son implies having the divine life. If we did not have life through Him, we could not live through Him. Therefore, living through the Son implies that we have received Him as our life. God sent His Son, and we have received Him as life. Now we live through Him.
In verse 9 John says that in this the love of God was manifested to us. Literally, the Greek words rendered “to us” are “in us,” that is, in our case, or, in regard to us. In that God has sent His Son into the world that we might live through Him, the higher and nobler love of God was manifested to us.
In 4:9 John says that God sent His Son, the only begotten, into the world. As in 1 Timothy 1:15, the “world” here refers to fallen mankind, whom God so loved that, by making them alive through His Son with His own life (John 3:16), they may become His children (John 1:12-13).
We have seen that in verse 9 John tells us that God sent His Son into the world that we might live through Him. We, the fallen people, are not only sinful in nature and conduct (Rom. 7:17-18; 1:28-32), but also dead in our spirit (Eph. 2:1, 5; Col. 2:13). God sent His Son into the world not only to be a propitiation concerning our sins that we might be forgiven (1 John 4:10), but also to be life to us that we may live through Him. In the love of God, the Son of God saves us not only from our sins by His blood (Eph. 1:7; Rev. 1:5), but also from our death by His life (1 John 3:14-15; John 5:24). He is not only the Lamb of God who takes away our sins (John 1:29); He is also the Son of God who gives us eternal life (John 3:36). He died for our sins (1 Cor. 15:3) that we might have eternal life in Him (John 3:14-16) and live through Him (John 6:57; 14:19). In this the love of God, which is His essence, has been manifested.
In 4:10 John says, “In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son a propitiation concerning our sins.” The word “this” refers to the following fact: not that we have loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son a propitiation concerning our sins. In this fact is the higher and nobler love of God.
The word “propitiation” indicates that the Lord Jesus Christ offered Himself to God as a sacrifice for our sins (Heb. 9:28), not only for our redemption but also for God’s satisfaction. Through His vicarious death and in Him as our Substitute, God is satisfied and appeased. Hence, He is the propitiation between God and us.
In 4:9 we see that God sent His Son in order that we might live through Him. In 4:10 we see that God sent His Son a propitiation concerning our sins. If we consider these verses together, we shall see that God’s sending His Son a propitiation concerning our sins is not the goal. Rather, this is a procedure for arriving at the goal, and the goal is that we may have life and live through the Son. Therefore, God sent His Son a propitiation for us with the intention that through His Son we may have life and live.
In 4:11 John continues, “Beloved, if God has so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” This is to love with the love of God as He loved us.
First John 4:12 says, “No one has ever beheld God; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.” The word “beheld” indicates that if we love one another with the love of God as He loved us, we express Him in His essence, so that others may behold Him in us in what He essentially is.
No one has ever beheld God, that is, seen God. But if we love one another with God as love, we shall manifest God. Because God is manifested in our love for one another, others will be able to see God in this love.
In verse 12 John says that if we love one another, God abides in us. To love one another is a condition of our abiding in God (4:13), and our abiding in God is a condition of His abiding in us (John 15:4). Hence, when we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfectly manifested in us.
“The love of God” in 2:5 is God’s love within us toward Him, with which we love Him. “His love” in 4:12 is God’s love within us toward one another, with which we love one another. This indicates that we should take God’s love as our love to love Him and to love one another.
In verse 12 John also speaks of God’s love being perfected in us. The love of God is perfected already in God Himself, but now this love needs to be perfected in us. This requires that the love of God become our experience. If the love of God remains in God, it will be perfected in God Himself. But when this love becomes our experience and enjoyment, it will be perfected in us. The love that is already perfected in God needs to be perfected in us through our enjoyment of this love.
The Greek word translated “perfected” in 4:12 is teleioo, which means to complete, to accomplish, to finish. The love of God is perfect and complete in Him. However, in us it needs to be perfected and completed in its manifestation. It has been manifested to us in God’s sending His Son to be both a propitiation and life to us (4:9-10). Yet, if we do not love one another with this love as it was manifested to us, that is, if we do not express it by loving one another with it as God did to us, it is not perfectly and completely manifested. The love of God is perfected and completed in its manifestation when we express it in our living by habitually loving one another with it. Our living in the love of God toward one another is its perfection and completion in its manifestation in us. Thus, others can behold God manifested in His love-essence in our living in His love.
In 4:13 John says, “In this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, that He has given us of His Spirit.” The words “in this” mean in the fact that God has given us of His Spirit we know that we abide in Him and He in us. The Spirit whom God has given to dwell in us (James 4:5; Rom. 8:9, 11) is the witness in our spirit (Rom. 8:16) that we dwell in God and He in us. The abiding Spirit, that is, the indwelling Spirit, is the element and sphere of the mutual abiding, the mutual indwelling, of us and God. By Him we are assured that we and God are one, abiding in one another, indwelling each other mutually. This is evidenced by our living, a living that habitually expresses His love.
In verse 13 John indicates that we may know that we abide in God. To abide in God is to dwell in Him, remaining in our fellowship with Him, that we may experience and enjoy His abiding in us. This is to practice our oneness with God according to the divine anointing (2:27) by a living that practices His righteousness and His love. It is all by the operation of the all-inclusive compound Spirit, who dwells in our spirit and who is the basic element of the divine anointing.
In verse 13 John also says that God “has given us of His Spirit.” In Greek of literally means “out of.” God has given us out of His Spirit. This closely resembles and repeats the word in 3:24, which proves that this does not mean that God has given us something, such as the various gifts in 1 Corinthians 12:4, of His Spirit, but that His Spirit Himself is the all-inclusive gift (Acts 2:38). “Out of His Spirit” is an expression which implies that the Spirit of God, whom He has given to us, is bountiful and without measure (Phil. 1:19; John 3:34). By such a bountiful immeasurable Spirit we know with full assurance that we are one with God and that we abide in Him and He in us.
As we consider 4:11-13, we see that we should never teach the saints to love with their own natural love, with the love that is something apart from God Himself. On the contrary, we all need to see that God abides in us, and we abide in Him. This is a matter of coinherence, of mingling, of organic union. God is not only in us; He abides in us, dwells in us. Through this mingling, this organic union, He becomes us, and we become Him. Therefore, since God is love, this love becomes our constitution. Because we become what He is, our love for others will actually be God Himself. We love others with God as love. Because God abides in us and we abide in Him, we love with God Himself as love.
In 4:14 John continues, “And we have beheld and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world.” As in 4:9 and John 3:16, “world” here denotes fallen mankind.
The Father’s sending of the Son to be our Savior is an external act, that through our confessing of the Son He may abide in us and we in Him (4:15). The apostles have beheld and testify this. This is the outward testimony. In addition to this, God’s internal act toward us is the sending of His Spirit to dwell in us as inward evidence that we abide in Him and He in us (4:13).
In 4:9, 10, and 14 the apostle John says three times that God has sent His Son. God sent the Son that we might live through Him; He sent the Son a propitiation concerning our sins; and He sent the Son as Savior of the world.
In 4:15 John says, “Whoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.” God the Father sent His Son to be the Savior of the world with the purpose that men may believe in Him by confessing that Jesus is the Son of God, so that God may abide in them and they in God. But the heretical Corinthians did not confess this. Hence, they did not have God abiding in them, nor did they abide in God. But whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God. He becomes one with God in the divine life and nature.
We may have expected John to say that whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God has the forgiveness of sins, or has eternal life. However, here John says that whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God. We should use this verse in preaching the gospel. We should tell people that if they believe in the Lord and confess that Jesus is the Son of God, they will be forgiven of their sins and will be saved. We should also tell them that if they confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God will come into them and abide in them, and they will be able to abide in God. This is the highest preaching of the gospel. Have you ever preached the gospel in this way? In our preaching of the gospel let us tell people that if they believe in the Lord Jesus, confessing that He is the Son of God, God will come into them to abide in them, and they will abide in God.
