1 João 4
Charles Spurgeon · Citado em PreceptAustin
1 João 4:2
Spurgeon - If the doctrine of the incarnation of God in Christ is denied, as it was by the first heretics, we may conclude that the Spirit of God is not in such teaching. Any doctrine which dishonours Christ,-whether in his person, or his offices, or his atonement, or in any other way,-you may at once conclude is not of God, for that which comes from the Spirit of God glorifies Christ. Did not our Lord himself say, concerning the Holy Spirit, “He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall skew it unto you”? (Spurgeon on 1 John-Pt2)
1 João 4:3
Spurgeon commenting on Ps 2 writes "We shall not greatly err in our summary of this sublime Psalm if we call it THE PSALM OF MESSIAH THE PRINCE; for it sets forth, as in a wondrous vision, the tumult of the people against the Lord's anointed, the determinate purpose of God to exalt his own Son, and the ultimate reign of that Son over all his enemies. Let us read it with the eye of faith, beholding, as in a glass, the final triumph of our Lord Jesus Christ over all his enemies… God's Anointed is appointed, and shall not be disappointed!" (Treasury of David—Psalm 2) In Daniel 9 we read a most incredible prediction of the time of the coming of the Messiah and of His crucifixion ("cut off") - “So you are to know and discern [that] from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah (Hebrew = mashiach/masiah; Lxx = Christos) the Prince [there will be] seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress. 26“Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah (Hebrew = mashiach/masiah; Lxx = Christos) will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end [will come] with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined. (Daniel 9:25-note, Daniel 9:26-note) NIDNTT - Christ is derived via the Latin Christus from the Greek Christos, which in the Septuagint and the NT is the Greek equivalent of the Aramaic mešîha’. This in turn corresponds to the Hebrew mashiach/masiah and denotes someone who has been ceremonially anointed for an office. The Greek transliteration of mešîhā’ is Messias, which like Iēsous is made declinable by the added -s. (New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology) The word Messiah in John 1:41 and John 4:25 is a different Greek word messias but is clearly synonymous with Christos. Jesus' disciple Andrew helps us understand the relationship between Christos and Messiah (messias transliteration of mashiach/masiah) declaring to his brother Simon Peter "We have found the Messiah (messias) (which translated means Christ [Christos])." (John 1:41) Similarly, the Samaritan woman at the well declared to Jesus "I know that Messiah (messias) is coming (He who is called Christ [Christos]); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us." Christos is used 55x in 54v in the Gospels not as Jesus' personal name but as an official designation for the One Whom the Jews were expecting (Mt 2:4, Lk 3:15). Over time as the human Jesus came to be recognized and accepted as the personal Messiah, the definite article ("the") was dropped and the designation Christ came to be used as a personal name. As alluded to above in the discussion of "Anointed One," as Jesus began His ministry in the synagogue, He used the verb chrio (to anoint) explaining "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed (chrio) me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed,." (Lk 4:18) Jesus Himself asked a question of His disciples which in a sense is the question He asks of every person ever born - "Who do you say that I am?" (Mt 16:15, Mk 8:29, Lk 9:20) Peter's answer was "Thou art the Christ (Christos), the Son of the living God (Ed: the last phrase is unique to Matthew)." (Mt 16:16, cp Mk 8:29, Lk 9:20) "Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal [this] to you, but My Father Who is in heaven" (Mt 16:17) It is worth noting that Peter used the definite article ("the" - Greek = ho) which means "the one and only Christ." The Lord Jesus is the one and the only Anointed One, the one and only Son of God, the one and only Savior! Many of the uses of Christos with the definitive article are found in the Gospels (Mt. 1:17; 2:4; 11:2, 16:16, 20, 22:42, 23:10, 24:5, 23, 26:63, Mk 8:29, 12:35; 13:21, 14:61, 15:32; Lk 2:26, 3:15, 4:41; 9:20, 20:41, 22:67, 23:35, 39, 24:26, 46; Jn 1:20, 25, 3:28, 4:29, 7:26, 31, 41, 42, 10:42, 11:27, 12:34, 20:31) Darrell Bock comments on Jesus' question "Who do you say that I am?" in Lk 9:20 - "Although Jesus replies in terms of the Son of Man (Lk 9:22), he is not rejecting the title that Peter uses (Christos). Rather, Christos needs to be defined in terms of the totality of Jesus’ mission, something that Jesus begins to do immediately. (Ed: Luke himself had already focused on this key title of Jesus as - read Lk 2:11, 2:26, 3:15, 4:41) The title (Christos) will not come into view again until the critical events of the last week of Jesus’ life, a climactic period in which it will again occupy a central place (Lk 20:41; 22:67; 23:2, 35, 39; 24:26, 46). Jesus as Christ is the point of scriptural promises, as Lk 24:46 shows. Christos is also a central title in Jesus’ trial (Lk 22:67) and crucifixion (Lk 23:35). This Christological point is also made in Acts 3:18 and Acts 4:26–27… (Bock adds that) "The issue of Jesus' promised regal status is basic to Luke. It is crucial to remember that to call Jesus Messiah (Ed: In the Greek Christos which is usually translated Christ in most versions, but Messiah in others such as HCSB and NLT which interpret it as Messiah depending on the context. See note) is to confess His rule, since the title is a regal one… (In his trial before Pilate, Pilate asked "saying, "Are You the King of the Jews?" And He answered him and said, "It is as you say." to which Bock comments) Jesus declares Himself to be an Anointed One, a King. Basileus, king explains what Christos (Messiah or Christ) means, since Rome would not appreciate the significance of this Jewish title (Christos)." (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the NT: Luke 1:1-9:50) In his first epistle John uses the definite article writing "Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son." (1Jn 2:22) and "Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God; and whoever loves the Father loves the [child] born of Him." (1Jn 5:1, John also uses the definite article with Christos in 2Jn 1:9, Rev 11:15, 12:10, 20:4, 20:6) Herod asked the Jewish religious leaders where "the Messiah," prophesied in the OT, was to be born - "And gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he [began] to inquire of them where the Messiah (Christos) was to be born." (Mt 2:4) The Jews questioned Jesus as to whether He was the Christos, the Messiah? - "The Jews therefore gathered around Him, and were saying to Him, “How long will You keep us in suspense? If You are the Christ (Christos), tell us plainly.” Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe; the works that I do in My Father’s Name, these bear witness of Me." (John 10:24-25) John sums up the purpose of his Gospel writing that "these (What is "these?" - see Jn 20:30) have been written so that (purpose clause) you may believe that Jesus (The Man) is the Christ (The Anointed One - Prophet, Priest and King), the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name." (John 20:31) The angels, good and bad, clearly understood that Jesus was the Christ, the Anointed One, the Messiah… (The angel's announced that) "today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, Who is Christ the Lord." (Lk 2:11) And demons also were coming out of many, crying out and saying, “You are the Son of God!” And rebuking them, He would not allow them to speak, because they knew Him to be the Christ. (Lk 4:41) David speaking as a prophet (Acts 2:30, 2Sa 23:2) understood God's oath to seat one of his descendants on his throne "looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ." (Acts 2:31, cp Ps 16:10; See Davidic covenant or more in depth article = The Davidic Covenant) As an aside every legitimate OT king of Israel was in a sense a "messiah" (1Sa 16:13, 2Ki 11:12), but the OT writers made it very clear that there was a greater coming King Who would be God's Anointed One, His Messiah (cp Isa 9:2-7, Jer 23:5-6, Ezek 34:23-24, et al). After over 3 years with Jesus, His disciples seem to finally have understood His purpose asking Him "Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom (implying that they were speaking to the King of that kingdom) to Israel?." (Acts 1:6+) Paul wrote "we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness. but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." (1Cor 1:23-24) Acts 8:5+ And Philip went down to the city of Samaria and began proclaiming Christ to them. In Acts we repeatedly see the apostles teaching that Jesus and the Christ were one in the same. Keep in mind that at this time Christos was a sacred word among the Jews, but for the most part they repudiated (refused to have anything to do with) the claim that Jesus was the Christos, the Messiah… Acts 2:36+ “Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ–this Jesus whom you crucified.” Acts 3:19-20+ Repent therefore and return, that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; 20 and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, Acts 5:42+ And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they kept right on teaching and preaching Jesus [as] the Christ. Acts 9:22+ But Saul kept increasing in strength and confounding the Jews who lived at Damascus by proving that this [Jesus] is the Christ. Acts 17:3+ explaining and giving evidence that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and [saying,] “This Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ.” Acts 18:5+ But when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul [began] devoting himself completely to the word, solemnly testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ. Acts 18:28+ for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, demonstrating by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ. The Jews of first century "were in a state of expectation" looking for the Christ (christos with definite article = the one and only Messiah - Lk 3:15+, cp John the Baptist's "Are You the Expected One?" ~ Are you the Christos? Lk 7:19-20+; see also Messianic Expectations). And yet, as Dr John Walvoord explains, "Though a number of Jews believed, many others could not accept the idea that the Messiah would die an ignominious death by crucifixion. Most of the Jews who heard Jesus teach had also refused to receive Him as their Messiah and so they rejected Him. He Himself said that He must “be rejected by this generation” (Luke 17:25+), and the apostle John wrote that “his own did not receive him” (John 1:11+). But at His second coming the nation Israel will turn to the Lord and will welcome Jesus as their Messiah. He will reign over the world from Jerusalem as the King of kings and Lord of lords and also as Israel's Messiah. CHRISTOS & BELIEVERS "IN CHRIST" Paul develops an important concept in his writings that every believer is "in Christ." In Christ describes every believer's new position and new sphere of existence. Before we were born again into the Kingdom of God (Jn 3:3,5+), our existence was in Adam (1Co 15:22, Ro 5:12+ = spiritually dead and under the dominion [supreme authority, power, jurisdiction, sway, control, absolute ownership] of the Sin "virus" we inherited from Adam - see Adam in the NT), in the flesh (under the dominion of the flesh - note, believers can "act fleshly" but strictly speaking are no longer "in the flesh" - see Ro 8:9+, 2 Co 10:3+ Gal 2:20+ use "in the flesh" to refer to the human body not the "anti-God" influence), in (under the influence of) the world, and in the kingdom of the Devil (under his dominion - Acts 26:18+, Col 1:13+). In the Upper Room Discourse just prior to His crucifixion Jesus alluded to the idea of in Christ when He declared "In that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you." (Jn 14:20+). THOUGHT - Have you ever considered your present, permanent position "in Christ?" Take a moment and look over the simple studies (there is some duplication): In Christ, In Christ, In Christ Jesus. NIDNTT has an interesting note on the Secular use of Christos - The Gk. word comes from chriein, to rub lightly, spread (over something) and requires, apart from its use in the NT, more precise information about what is used. It can be done with oil, as for example with a human body after bathing (as early as Homer), but also with poison, as in the preparation of arrows for battle (also Homer), paint, whitewash (cf. also however Jer 22:14), or even cosmetics. Basically the word (christos) describes a thoroughly secular, everyday process, and has no sacral undertones at all. Naturally this is true for Greek ears also of the verbal adjective christos derived from it. It characterizes an object or a person as rubbed or smeared with whitewash, cosmetics, paint etc., and in given cases anointed. It is anything but an expression of honor. Where it refers to people, it even tends towards the disrespectful. This is certainly the reason why, on the one hand, in non-Christian circles Christos, in its reference to Jesus, was soon confused with the Gk. name Chrēstos (pronounced Christos with long i), and why, on the other hand, the Jewish translator of the Bible, Aquila, thought it right in his Greek version of the OT to render māšîah or mešîhā’, not by christos but by ēleimmenos from aleiphein which, unlike chriein, always means to anoint. In any case, the meaning of the root is an essential condition for christos, as used of Jesus of Nazareth, to have been able so disproportionately quickly and so completely to acquire the character of a proper name. Nevertheless, one must not overlook in this connection the fact that the Hebrew verb masah, for which chriein is the LXX equivalent, seems to be fundamentally connected with fat or oil in the sense of to grease (with oil). (New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology)
1 João 4:4
Spurgeon comments: May we be happily ignorant of what it is to be vanquished by the powers of evil, and remain like the British drummer boy who did not know how to beat a retreat, for he had never had any use for such a thing. May we not know the dishonor and misery of being overcome of evil, because divine grace continually giveth us the victory. When we are overcome of evil, even for a moment, it discovers the sad weakness of our spiritual life. We must be babes in grace and sadly carnal still, if sin is allowed to master us. If we were stronger in the Lord and in the power of his might we should overcome the world itself by faith: did not John write unto young men (from his sermon Overcome Evil with Good) In the next chapter John explains that overcomer is not some elite subgroup of Christianity but that every believer is an overcomer … For whatever is born (perfect tense = speaks of the permanence of our new birth! Away with doubts about our eternal security) of God overcomes (present tense = continually) the world; and this is the victory that has overcome (aorist tense - speaks of completed action at a point in time -- surely an allusion to the Cross [Jn 16:33] and our faith in Christ's finished work of the Cross) the world -- our faith. And who is the one who overcomes (present tense = continually) the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? (1Jn 5:4-5) Comment: This is a rhetorical question by John. His point is that every believer is an overcomer regardless of whether one feels like it or not! Dear afflicted, storm tossed saint of the Most High God, you can know that no matter how "defeated" you might feel now, when all has been said and done, you will overcome all evil opposition in Christ. And all God's people cry "Glory to the Lord. The Lord reigns forever and ever. Amen!" Listen to this great old song (Only the Overcomers) by Harvest, and as you listen may God's Spirit revive your heart and enable you to not give up but to press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Amen William
1 João 4:7
Spurgeon - From the abundance of love which was in John’s heart, we might almost be startled at the very strong things that he writes against those who are in error, did we not remember that it is only a false charity which winks at error. He is the most loving man who has honesty enough to tell the truth, and to speak out boldly against falsehood. It is very easy to pass through this world believing and saying that everybody is right. That is the way to make a soft path for your own feet, and to show that you only have love to yourself; but sometimes to speak as John the Baptist spoke, or as Martin Luther spoke, is the way to prove that you have true love to others. (Spurgeon's Expositions on 1 John) Jamieson - Love, the sum of righteousness, is the test of our being born of God. Love flows from a sense of God‘s love to us: compare 1 John 4:9 with 1 John 3:16… All love is from God as its fountain: especially that embodiment of love, God manifest in the flesh. The Father also is love (1John 4:8). The Holy Ghost sheds love as its first fruit abroad in the heart (Ro 5:5+). David
1 João 4:8
Spurgeon - Never let it be thought that any sinner is beyond the reach of divine mercy so long as he is in the land of the living. I stand here to preach illimitable love, unbounded grace, to the vilest of the vile, to those who have nothing in them that can deserve consideration from God, men who ought to be swept into the bottomless pit at once if justice meted out to them their deserts. (Sermon Love's Climax) W. Hall Harris III on God is love - a quality of God’s character is what is described here. But this is more than just another way of expressing “God loves” because, as C. H. Dodd has pointed out, all God’s activity is loving activity, so that ‘loving’ is not just one more activity that God carries out like ruling or judging. Because this is so, because all God’s activity is loving activity and involves the expression of love, the author can rightly conclude that the person who does not love must not know God. If they did, they would act in love, because all God’s activity is loving activity. Once more, as so often in 1 John, conduct is the clue to paternity. (Exegetical Commentary on 1 John 4:7-5:4a)(Bolding added) Warren
1 João 4:8
Spurgeon - “He that loveth not knoweth not God.”—1 John 4:8 (Morning and Evening) The distinguishing mark of a Christian is his confidence in the love of Christ, and the yielding of his affections to Christ in return. First, faith sets her seal upon the man by enabling the soul to say with the apostle, “Christ loved me and gave himself for me.” Then love gives the countersign, and stamps upon the heart gratitude and love to Jesus in return. “We love him because he first loved us.” In those grand old ages, which are the heroic period of the Christian religion, this double mark was clearly to be seen in all believers in Jesus; they were men who knew the love of Christ, and rested upon it as a man leaneth upon a staff whose trustiness he has tried. The love which they felt towards the Lord was not a quiet emotion which they hid within themselves in the secret chamber of their souls, and which they only spake of in their private assemblies when they met on the first day of the week, and sang hymns in honour of Christ Jesus the crucified, but it was a passion with them of such a vehement and all-consuming energy, that it was visible in all their actions, spoke in their common talk, and looked out of their eyes even in their commonest glances. Love to Jesus was a flame which fed upon the core and heart of their being; and, therefore, from its own force burned its way into the outer man, and shone there. Zeal for the glory of King Jesus was the seal and mark of all genuine Christians. Because of their dependence upon Christ’s love they dared much, and because of their love to Christ they did much, and it is the same now. The children of God are ruled in their inmost powers by love—the love of Christ constraineth them; they rejoice that divine love is set upon them, they feel it shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto them, and then by force of gratitude they love the Saviour with a pure heart, fervently. My reader, do you love him? Ere you sleep give an honest answer to a weighty question! God Is Love "Weather vanes are changeable, but God's love is constant." One day C. H. Spurgeon was walking through the English countryside with a friend. As they strolled along, the evangelist noticed a barn with a weather vane on its roof. At the top of the vane were these words: GOD IS LOVE. Spurgeon remarked to his companion that he thought this was a rather inappropriate place for such a message. "Weather vanes are changeable," he said, "but God's love is constant." "I don't agree with you about those words, Charles," replied his friend. "You misunderstood the meaning. That sign is indicating a truth: Regardless of which way the wind blows, God is love." Fickle Love A farmer printed on his weather vane the words "God is love." Someone asked him if he meant to imply that the love of God was as fickle as the wind. The farmer answered: "No, I mean that whichever way the wind blows, God is love. If it blows cold from the North, or biting from the East, God is still love just as much as when the warm South or gentle West winds refresh our fields and flocks. God is always love." Love Dies to Self Authors such as Dwight Small can wax eloquent about the application of agape love to marriage: Agape is not born of a lover's need, nor does it have its source in the love object. Agape doesn't exist in order to get what it wants but empties itself to give what the other needs. Its motives rise wholly from within its own nature. Agape lives in order to die to self for the blessedness of caring for another, spending for another, spending itself for the sake of the beloved. God is love, God is God Balancing Complexity and Simplicity in the Bible - John Piper (A Godward Life) One could easily dwell too long on the hard things in the Bible. They are there. Peter tells us so. He says that in Paul's letters "are some things hard to understand" (2 Peter 3:16). Some people are wired to see them. Others are wired to avoid them. The Bible is made for both types. How shall we say this in a balanced way that honors both? Perhaps it would help to do it like this: Consider that "God is love," as it says in 1 John 4:8, and that God is God, as it says in Isaiah 46:9, "I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me." The truth that God is God implies that God is who he is in all his glorious attributes and self-sufficiency. But the truth that God is love implies that all of this glory is moving our way for our everlasting enjoyment. Now, those two truths unleash very different impulses through the Bible. And we will see that a balance is introduced here lest we make of Christianity an elitist affair, which it definitely is not. • That God is love unleashes the impulse of simplicity, and that God is God unleashes the impulse of complexity. • That God is love unleashes the impulse of accessibility, and that God is God unleashes the impulse of profundity. • That God is love encourages a focus on the basics, and that God is God encourages a focus on comprehensiveness. One says, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved" (Acts 16:31). The other says, "I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God" (Acts 20:27, RSV). • That God is love impels us to be sure that the truth gets to all people, and that God is God impels us to be sure that what gets to all people is the truth. • That God is love unleashes the impulse toward fellowship, and that God is God unleashes the impulse toward scholarship. • That God is love tends to create extroverts and evangelists, and that God is God tends to create introverts and mystics. • That God is love helps foster a folk ethos, and that God is God helps foster a fine ethos. One ethos revels in the intimacy of God and sings softly, I love you, Lord And for you I wait: Your promises And your power are great. Make haste, my God, May I taste your ways I will magnify your sweet peace All of my days. (John Piper) And the other ethos reveals in the transcendent majesty of God and sings with profound exultation, Far, far above thy thought His counsel shall appear, When fully He the work hath wrought That caused thy needless fear. Leave to his sovereign will To choose and to command: With wonder filled, thou then shalt own How wise, how strong His hand. ("Give to the Winds Thy Fears," Paul Gerhardt, 1653) If any of you is saying to yourself, "I don't like this separation between God is love and God is God, between folk and fine, evangelists and mystics, fellowship and scholarship, accessibility and profundity, simplicity and complexity"—GOOD! Because, in my mind, every one of these things is precious, and both sides of all these pairs are indispensable in the ministry and mission of Christ in the world. So my prayer is this. For believers, I pray that, seeing these different impulses in Christianity, you will embrace both of them. If you lean toward one side (as we all do), that you will be respectful and affirming to those toward the other side. And that you will cherish the fuller manifestation of God in his church and in the world. And for those who may be reading this without love to Christ in your heart, my prayer is that what you have seen will help remove some caricatures or stereotypes of Christianity and the Bible—and open the way for you to see all that God is for you in Christ, so that you freely believe on him. THE POWER TO LOVE BY THEODORE EPP In Strength for the Journey The apostle did not say, "Try to create and produce love." He said, "Let us love." In other words, we are to release that love. Some may protest and say they cannot love certain people. That is true from the natural standpoint, but we are not dealing with natural love. It is divine love, the love with which God loved us when we were unlovable and our sins had separated us from Him. God, as to His nature, is love. And this love is shared with the believer. It has been shed abroad in the heart of each one (see Rom. 5:5). This love of God will grow within us and flow through us in an unbroken stream if we will let it. The Christian life, which is the power of the Holy Spirit within, is a life of love. This love of God matures the Christian. I have seen many of God's people grow older in the Lord and grow more Christlike as they walked with Him from day to day. They took more time to be with the Lord and had their hearts filled with Him. Through this, their love was perfected toward others. This mature love expressed through God's people demonstrates to others that Christ lives in us. "The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee" (Jer. 31:3). D L Moody - God is Love.—1 John 4:8. IF I could only make men understand the real meaning of the words of the Apostle John—“GOD IS LOVE.”—I would take that single text, and would go up and down the world proclaiming this glorious truth. If you can convince a man that you love him you have won his heart. If we could really make people believe that God loves them, how we should find them crowding into the kingdom of heaven! The trouble is that men think God hates them; and so they are continually turning their backs on Him. Love Hurts! - This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. —John 15:12 “Sometimes love sure hurts!” The mother and father were expressing the difficulties and heartaches of guiding their children through their teen years. “Maybe if we didn’t love them quite so much it wouldn’t be so hard,” the husband added. Even though love brings pain and sorrow, what would life be without it? In his book The Four Loves, C. S. Lewis wrote: “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness… The only place outside heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers … of love is hell.” To love is to take risks, to expose our hearts. Sometimes it hurts! It hurt Christ, but He kept on loving, even at the cost of His life. He commanded us, “Love one another as I have loved you” (Jn. 15:12). Thinking It Over How have you been hurt by those you've tried to love? Have you been tempted to withhold your love? How has someone shown patient love to you? Nothing costs as much as loving except not loving. Hymns Related to 1 John 4:8 Amid the Splendors of Thy State Close to My Door From All Who Dwell in Heav’n Above God Is Kind God Is Love! God Is Love (Woodruff) God, My Father, Hear Me Pray God’s Heart Is Love Holy Jesus! God of Love! Love Is the Theme O God, Our Hearts Were Shattered There Is a Sound in Every Breeze Oswald Chambers - GOD IS LOVE - Reflections on the Character of God - 34 page booklet - excerpt... He who does not love does not know God, for God is love 1 JOHN 4:8 No one but God could have revealed that to the world, for we all see nothing but its contradiction in our own limited experience. From shattered and broken lives, from caverns of despair where fiends rather than men seem to live, comes the apparent contradiction to any such statement. No wonder the carnal mind, the merely intellectually cultured, considers us foolish, mere dreamers talking of love when murder, war, famine, lust, pestilence, and selfish cruelty are abroad in the earth. Paul reminds us that those without the Spirit of God cannot understand the things of God “The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit” (1 CORINTHIANS 2:14) But, oh, the beauty of the Abraham-like faith that dares to place the center of its life, confidence, action, and hope in an unseen and apparently unknown God. Such faith says, “God is love,” in spite of all appearances to the contrary; it says, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (job 13:15). Such faith is counted for righteousness. Look back over your own history, as revealed to you by grace, and you will see one central fact growing large—God is love. No matter how often your faith in such an announcement was clouded, no matter how often the pain and suffering of the moment made you speak carelessly, this statement has carried its own evidence most persistently—God is love. In the future, when trial and difficulties await you, do not be fearful. Whatever and whoever you may lose faith in, do not let this faith slip from you—God is love. Whisper it not only to your heart in its hour of darkness, but here in your corner of God’s earth and man’s great city. Live in the belief of it; preach it by your sweetened, disciplined, happy life; sing it in consecrated moments of peaceful joy; sing until the world around you is wrought to sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not. (percy bysshe shelley) The world does not encourage you to sing, but God does. Song is the sign of an unburdened heart; so sing your songs of love freely, rising ever higher and higher into a fuller understanding of the greatest, grandest fact on the stage of time—God is love Love Revealed 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. 1 John 4:9 Read: 1 John 4:9–16 When a series of pink “I love you” signs mysteriously appeared in the town of Welland, Ontario, local reporter Maryanne Firth decided to investigate. Her sleuthing turned up nothing. Weeks later, new signs appeared featuring the name of a local park along with a date and time. Accompanied by a crowd of curious townspeople, Firth went to the park at the appointed time. There, she met a man wearing a suit who had cleverly concealed his face. Imagine her surprise when he handed her a bouquet and proposed marriage! The mystery man was Ryan St. Denis—her boyfriend. She happily accepted. St. Denis’s expression of love toward his fiancée may seem a bit over-the-top, but God’s expression of love for us is nothing short of extravagant! “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” (1 John 4:9). Dear God, thank You for showing me, in the greatest way possible, that You love me. Help my life to demonstrate my love for You. We know how much God loves us because He sent His Son to save us. Insight - In today’s reading the word for love is the Greek noun agape, which speaks of the highest form of love imaginable, a love that seeks the welfare of the other even at great personal cost. John reminds us that the ultimate evidence of God’s love for us is seen in the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf (1 John 4:9). John then says that our response to God’s love should be our self-sacrificing love for one another as fellow Christ-followers (v. 11). His application of God’s love concludes with a reminder that our ability to love one another is dependent upon His love being revealed and “made complete in us” (v. 12). Our expression of the Father’s love for us in our relationships will be a result of what the Holy Spirit is producing in our hearts. To learn more about the love of God, take a look at the Discovery Series booklet God Is Love: Reflections on the Character of God Puritan Daily Reading - Hard Thoughts of God In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. It is exceeding acceptable unto God, even our Father, that we should hold communion with Him in His love, that He may be received into our souls as one full of love, tenderness, and kindness towards us. Flesh and blood is apt to have very hard thoughts of Him, to think He is always angry, yea, implacable; that it is not for poor creatures to draw nigh to Him; that nothing in the world is more desirable than never to come into His presence, or, as they say where He has any thing to do. “Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?” say the sinners in Zion (Isa. 33:14). And, “I knew thou wast an austere man,” says the evil servant in the gospels (Matt. 25:24). Now, there is not any thing more grievous to the Lord, nor more subservient to the design of Satan upon the soul, than such thoughts as these. Satan claps his hands when he can take up the soul with such thoughts of God: he has enough, all that he desires. This has been his design and way from the beginning. The first blood that murderer shed was by this means. He leads our first parents into hard thoughts of God: “Hath God said so? hath he threatened you with death? He knows well enough it will be better with you”; with this engine did he batter and overthrow all mankind in one; and being mindful of his ancient conquest, he readily uses the same weapons wherewith then he so successfully contended Deuteronomy 10:12-22 |Loved To Love “A heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others.” I saw this quotation, attributed to the Wizard of Oz, on a wall plaque in a gift shop. The Wizard of Oz may be a good story, but it’s not a reliable source of spiritual information. God said something quite different. According to Him, the greatest commandment is to love—to love Him first and then others (Mark 12:29-31). Scripture says nothing about expecting to be loved in return. In fact, Jesus stated the opposite in His most famous sermon: “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven” (Matt. 5:11-12). When it comes to love, the important thing we need to know is this: All love starts with God (1 John 4:19). As Moses told the Israelites, God delighted in them to love them (Deut. 10:15), and because of that they were to love others, even strangers (v.19). God’s intent is that the people who receive His love will become the conduit of His love to others. Apart from God—who Himself is love—none of us could truly love or be loved (1 John 4:7-8). “Love seeketh not her own,” and so He did not stay as God above, But chose a manger and a cross To show that He was Love. —Wilmshurst He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. —1 John 4:8 Know Love The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:8) No Love Romantic love is a big deal in our culture. It’s glamorized in the continual stream of romantic comedies in the theaters and the number of love songs in all genres of music. Unfortunately, an alarming number of men are looking for love in all the wrong places. According to numerous statistics available today, roughly half of Christian men have a problem with pornography. Unlike what we were taught as boys, the opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is lust. Love is selfless, but lust is selfish. Love gives; lust takes. Love honors; lust degrades. By going down a path of pornography, many men are ruining their love lives. The Greatest Love God is serious about love. He wants us to know it, live it, and give it. As 1 John 4:8 says, “The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” That really puts things in perspective. Since God is love, He can’t stand the opposite. We show love when we fight against lust. Lust is a powerful force, but the Bible is clear that love is greater. Instead of following a path of no love, we must know love and follow God. Through the power of God’s love, we can break free of the trap of false love—which is really just sinful lust—and then give and receive the true love we were made to experience. So with God’s help go for the real thing. Bottom Line If you have a problem with pornography, find help. Talk to someone. Do whatever you can to break the habit. Mercy unto you, and peace, and love be multiplied.—Jude 2. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.—1 John 4:8. He rests in God and He in him, Who still abides in love; In love the saints and seraphim Obey and praise above; For God is love; the loveless heart Hath in His life and joy no part. C.F. GELLERT. Divine love is perfect peace and joy, it is a freedom from all disquiet, it is all content and happiness; and makes everything to rejoice in itself, Love is the Christ of God; wherever it comes, it comes as the blessing and happiness of every natural life, a redeemer from all evil, a fulfiller of all righteousness, and a peace of God, which passeth all understanding. Through all the universe of things, nothing is uneasy, unsatisfied, or restless, but because it is not governed by love, or because its nature has not reached or attained the full birth of the spirit of love. For when that is done, every hunger is satisfied, and all complaining, murmuring, accusing, resenting, revenging, and striving, are as totally suppressed and overcome, as the coldness, thickness, and horror of darkness are suppressed and overcome by the breaking forth of the light. WILLIAM LAW. Greg Laurie - GOD’S UNFAILING LOVE (See Because... - Page 146) He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. (1 John 4:8) The Bible not only tells us that God is good; it tells us that God is love. He loves us. It is not merely that God has love or that He is loving. The Bible actually says that God is love. Today we have a Hollywood version of love that is very shallow. It is probably closer to lust than anything else. Basically, the Hollywood version of love is one that says, I love you as long as you are lovable.” Or, “I love you as long as you are beautiful or handsome. But the moment you cease to interest me, I will trade you in on the new model. I will move on to another relationship.” In contrast, God’s love is unchanging. It is consistent. It is inexhaustible. He always loves us. He loves us when we are sitting in church with smiles on our faces and a Bible in our laps, but He also loves us when we are failing and when we are sinning. Though God is displeased by our sin, He still loves us, no matter what we do. So we need to remember that about God. But I want you to know something about sin: sin will cost you. Sin is very expensive. Many advertisements today will urge us to “Buy now, pay later.” We love that, because it almost seems as though we’re getting something free. But payday will come—with interest. In the same way, the devil says, “Play now. You won’t have to pay.” But sin will always cost. Adam’s sin cost him paradise. David’s sin cost him his family and his reputation. Samson’s sin ultimately cost him his life. What is your sin costing you? God Is Love 1 John 4:8 “God is love.” That is the greatest sentence that was ever written.… That sums up the whole contents of the Bible. If I were asked for a sentence to print in letters of gold on the outside of our Bible, a sentence that summed up the whole contents of the book, it would be this one, “God is Love.” That is the subject of the first chapter of Genesis, it is the subject of the last chapter of Revelation, and it is the subject of every chapter that lies between. The Bible is simply God’s love story, the story of the love of a holy God to a sinful world. That is the most amazing thing in the Bible. People tell us the Bible is full of things that it is impossible to believe. I know of nothing else so impossible to believe as that a holy God should love a sinful world, and should love such individuals as you and me, as the Bible says He does. But as impossible as it is to believe, it is true. There is mighty power in that one short sentence, power to break the hardest heart, power to reach individual men and women who are sunk down in sin, and to lift them up until they are fit for a place beside the Lord Jesus Christ upon the Throne.… “God is Love.” (R A Torrey GOD’S UNIQUE LOVE -- Lee Strobel - The Case for Christ Daily Moment of Truth: Devotions to ... - Page 192 God is love.1 JOHN 4:8 IT SEEMS SO SIMPLE: GOD IS LOVE. THIS IS A THEOLOGICAL truth many of us have heard for most of our lives, so we mark it off of our checklist for Christian orthodoxy. “Got it,” we say, and we move on. But did you know that most other worldviews and religions diminish or deny this idea? Atheism, of course, denies that God exists at all, so there is nobody out there to love us. Eastern religions generally hold to a pantheistic view that says everything is part of an impersonal All. But when everything is god, you no longer have a personal God who can relate to us as people and certainly not One who can love us. Even Islam, a religion that believes in one God, downplays the idea that God is love. The Qur’an does describe him a few times as being loving, but this is minimized by the fact that a number of other passages in the Qur’an “qualify Allah’s love significantly,” explains Christian philosopher David Wood. “While Allah is said to love those who do good deeds (2:195), those who are pure (2:222), those who are righteous (9:7), and those who fight in his cause (61:4), the Qur’an is equally clear that Allah has no love for transgressors (2:190), ungrateful sinners (2:276), the unjust (3:57), or the proud (4:36). “Even more significantly,” Wood continues, “the Qur’an states that Allah does not love non-Muslims: ‘Say [O Muhammad]: If you love Allah, then follow me, Allah will love you and forgive you your faults, and Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. Say: Obey Allah and the Apostle; but if they turn back, then surely Allah does not love the unbelievers’ (Qur’an 3:31–32).”1 Muslim apologist Shabir Ally summarized it like this: “The proper response to God is to love Him, and in response God will love us as well.”2 But the apostle Paul said just the opposite: “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Once you see how many ways various belief systems around the world tend to minimize God’s love, Christian truths about the God of Scripture jump out in stark and satisfying contrast. Truth for Today Try to push through the fog of the familiar to realize anew the uniqueness of the God of the Bible. He loves us. We matter so much that he sacrificed his Son to pay for our sins and to pave the way back to him. This is a God to be followed, worshiped, and, yes, loved in return. Jerry Bridges - UNQUESTIONABLE LOVE The LORD is … kind in all his works. PSALM 145:17 The apostle John said, “God is love” (1 John 4:8). This succinct statement, along with its parallel one, “God is light” (1 John 1:5; that is, God is holy), sums up the essential character of God, as revealed to us in the Scriptures. Just as it is impossible in the very nature of God for Him to be anything but perfectly holy, so it is impossible for Him to be anything but perfectly good. Because God is love, an essential part of His nature is to do good and show mercy to His creatures. Psalm 145 speaks of His “abundant goodness,” of His “abounding in steadfast love” and being “good to all,” of how “his mercy is over all that he has made” (verses 7–9). Even in His role of Judge of rebellious men, He declares, “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked” (Ezekiel 33:11, NIV). When calamity after calamity seems to surge in upon us, we’ll be tempted to doubt God’s love. Not only do we struggle with our own doubts, but Satan seizes these occasions to whisper accusations against God: “If He loved you, He wouldn’t have allowed this to happen.” My own experience suggests that Satan attacks us far more in the area of God’s love than either His sovereignty or His wisdom. If we’re to honor God by trusting Him, we must not allow such thoughts to lodge in our minds. As Philip Hughes said, “To question the goodness of God is, in essence, to imply that man is more concerned about goodness than is God.… To suggest that man is kinder than God is to subvert the very nature of God.… It is to deny God; and this is precisely the thrust of the temptation to question the goodness of God.”90 Trusting God - Page 132 H A
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Spurgeon - There is love in our creation; there is love in providence; but most of all there is love in the gift of Christ for our redemption. The apostle here seems to say, “Now that I have found the great secret of God’s love to us; here is the clearest evidence of divine love that ever was or ever can be manifested toward the sons of men.” Indeed, God's supreme example of sacrificial love should serve to motivate us to love in the same way. (Spurgeon's Expositions on 1 John) The true nature of God’s love was manifested in the incarnation (1Jn 4:9) and in the atonement (1Jn 4:10). D Edmond Hiebert - The verb “was manifested” (ephanerōthē), a favorite term with John,14 means “to make visible, make clear, come out into the open,” and implies that, previous to the coming of Christ in incarnation, this love had not been displayed in such a personal, dynamic manner. ....Fallen humanity would never have known such redeeming love apart from the fact that God took the initiative in revealing His love to mankind. Therefore, “all our definitions of what love is and how it behaves must be drawn from Him if they are to accord with reality.” (Jackman) The true nature of God’s love was manifested in the incarnation (1Jn 4:9) and in the atonement (1Jn 4:10). (1 John 4:7-21)(Bolding added) The Son of God is the visible proof of God’s love toward his people. -- Simon Kistemaker Steven Cole on the love (agape) of God was manifested (phaneroo) in us - John’s point here seems to be that we, as God’s born again children, are Exhibit A of His great love that sent His only begotten Son to this wicked world… Why did He come? To display or manifest His great love in us, to His glory (Eph. 1:3-12+)! (1 John 4:7-11 Why We Must Love) William
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Spurgeon - Who among us would think of giving up his son to die for his enemy, for one who never did him a service, but treated him ungratefully, repulsed a thousand overtures of tenderness, and went on perversely hardening his neck? No man could do it. (Spurgeon's Expositions on 1 John) THE GREAT INITIATOR - Couples often debate about who loved whom first, but John makes it clear that when it comes to a person’s relationship with God, there’s no question about who made the first move. God loved first. He initiated. Not in response to our overtures; not because we were lovable or deserving. In fact, the opposite is true. The apostle Paul observed, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). This is the mystery of mercy, the miracle of grace: God chose to love a race of rebels and prodigals. And it is this kind of love that believers are called to share with the world. Imagine the impact that Christians could have by letting God fill us with his unconditional, redemptive love—a love that actually pursues evildoers until they stop running, then blesses them! (See 1, 2, & 3 John - Page 95) Take a moment to praise the King and worship the Name above all names by playing the great hymn sung by Fernando Ortega Here is Love Here is love, vast as the ocean, Loving-kindness as the flood, When the Prince of Life, our Ransom, Shed for us His precious blood. Who His love will not remember? Who can cease to sing His praise? He can never be forgotten, Throughout heav’n’s eternal days. On the mount of crucifixion, Fountains opened deep and wide; Through the floodgates of God’s mercy Flowed a vast and gracious tide. Grace and love, like mighty rivers, Poured incessant from above, And heav’n’s peace and perfect justice Kissed a guilty world in love. Let me, all Thy love accepting, Love Thee, ever all my days; Let me seek Thy kingdom only, And my life be to Thy praise; Thou alone shalt be my glory, Nothing in the world I see; Thou hast cleansed and sanctified me, Thou Thyself hast set me free. Love (26)(agape) is unconditional, sacrificial love and Biblically refers to a love that God is (1Jn 4:8,16), that God shows (Jn 3:16, 1Jn 4:9) and that God enables in His children (fruit of the Spirit - Gal 5:22+). Agape is a self-sacrificing, caring commitment that shows itself in seeking the highest good of the one loved. While agape is not primarily a feeling, it is certainly not without feeling. It might be called "caring commitment." While it is a command to love one another, and it is thus a "duty," it is also and predominantly a delight. Agape is an attitude manifest by actions, caring, committed actions. Agape often involves sacrifice, and is supremely exemplified by Jesus' sacrifice of Himself on the Cross. Agape love impels one to sacrifice one’s self for the benefit of the object loved… (it) speaks of a love which is awakened by a sense of value in the object loved, an apprehension of its preciousness.
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Spurgeon - In us there was no love; there was a hatred of God and goodness. The enmity was not on God’s side toward us; but on our side toward Him. “He loved us and sent His son.” The gift of Christ; the needful propitiation for our sins, was all of love on God’s part. Justice demanded the propitiation, but love applied it. God could not be just if he pardoned sin without atonement; but the greatness of the love is seen in the fact that it moved the Father to give His Son to an ignominious death, that He might pardon sinners and yet be just (Ro 3:26+). (Spurgeon Expositions on 1 John) Love (agapē) is self-sacrifice, the seeking of another’s positive good at one’s own cost, and a greater self-giving than God’s gift of his Son there has never been, nor could be. -- John Stott But (term of contrast) that He loved (agapao - aorist tense) us and sent (apostello - aorist tense) His Son to be the propitiation (hilasmos) for our sins (hamartia) - But (alla = strong adversative) should prompt us to ask what is John contrasting? John makes a negative statement, then a positive statement, making a sharp contrast between man’s love and God’s love. He loved (agapao) us sacrificially (Jn 3:16+) even when we did not love Him (enemies - Ro 5:10+, alienated and hostile - Col 1:21+).
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Spurgeon - “If there was to be reconciliation between God and man, man ought to have sent to God; the offender ought to be the first to apply for forgiveness; the weaker should apply to the greater for help; the poor man should ask of him who distributes alms; but ‘Herein is love’ that God ‘sent.’ He was first to send an embassy of peace.” (Sermon - Herein is Love) David
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Spurgeon - By nature, we had no love to God; we were his enemies (Col 1:21+, Ro 5:10+, Ro 8:7-8+). We loved sin, and we had ruined ourselves by it; but God took out of his own bosom the only Son he had, that he might make reconciliation for us (Col 1:22+, Ro 5:10-11+), and put away our sin. “Herein is love,” says the apostle, as though you could find it nowhere else as it is here. Here is the height and depth of love immeasurable (Eph 3:18+); here is love summed up (cf Eph 1:10+), here is love’s climax: “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (Spurgeon's Expositions on 1 John) Compare Jesus' words in John 6:44-47 "(GREEK WORD FOR "NO" oudeis MEANS ABSOLUTELY) No one can come to Me UNLESS the Father Who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. 45 “It is written in the prophets, ‘AND THEY SHALL ALL BE TAUGHT OF GOD.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me. 46 “Not that anyone has seen the Father, except the One Who is from God; He has seen the Father. 47 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life." In his book The Call (borrow), author Os Guinness writes: We cannot find God without God. We cannot reach God without God. We cannot satisfy God without God—which is another way of saying that our seeking will always fall short unless God’s grace initiates the search and unless God’s call draws us to Him and completes the search. If the chasm is to be bridged, God must bridge it. If we are to desire the highest good, the highest good must come down and draw us so that it may become a reality we desire. From this perspective there is no merit in either seeking or finding. All is grace. The secret of seeking is not in our human ascent to God, but in God’s descent to us. We start our searching, but we end up being discovered. We think we are looking for something; we realize we are found by Someone. As in Francis Thompson’s famous picture, “the hound of heaven” has tracked us down. (The Call borrow) I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter. Excerpt from poem The Hound of Heaven C. S. Lewis in describing how he came to faith in Christ said “God closed in on me....Amiable agnostics will talk cheerfully about ‘man’s search for God.’ To me, as I then was, they might as well have talked about the mouse’s search for the cat.” (borrow Surprised by joy) James Denney comments: Note the resounding paradox of this verse, that God is at once loving and wrathful, and His love provides the propitiation which averts His wrath from us. So far from finding any kind of contrast between love and propitiation, the apostle can convey no idea of love to anyone except by pointing to the propitiation. (Borrow The Death of Christ,) Harry
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Spurgeon - excerpt from full sermon - Love's Climax To find love, you had need send a lover; one whoso soul is full of love is the most likely to discover it. John, with love in his heart, soars aloft, and using his eagle eye, looks over all history, and all space, and at last he poises himself over one spot, for he has found that for which he was looking, and he says, “Herein is love.” There is love in a thousand places, like the scattered drops of spray on the leaves of the forest; but as for the ocean, that is in one place, and when we reach it, we say, “Herein is water.” There is love in many places, like wandering beams of light; but as for the sun, it is in one part of the heavens, and as we look at it, we say, “Herein is light.” So, “Heroin,” said the apostle, as he looked toward the Lord Jehovah himself, “Herein is love.” He did not point to his own heart, and say, “Herein is love,” for that was but a little pool filled from the great sea of love. He did not look at the Church of God, and say of all the myriads who counted not their lives dear unto them, “Herein is love,” for their love was only the reflected brightness of the great sun of love; but he looked to God the Father, in the splendour of his condescension in giving his only Son to die for us, and he said “Herein is love,” as if all love were here, love at its utmost height, love at its climax, love out-doing itself: “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” C H Spurgeon -‘Herein is love’ (Full sermon Herein is Love) ‘Herein 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 ought also to love one another.’ 1 John 4:10–11 Our love to God, even when it does exist, and even when it influences our lives, is not worthy to be mentioned as a fountain of supply for love. The apostle points us away from it to something far more vast, and then he cries, ‘Herein is love’. I am looking for ‘the springs of the sea’, and you point me to a little pool amid the rocks which has been filled by the flowing tide. I am glad to see that pool: how bright! how blue! how like the sea from whence it came! But do not point to this as the source of the great water-floods; for if you do I shall smile at your childish ignorance, and point you to that great rolling ocean which tosses its waves on high. What is your little pool to the vast Atlantic? Do you point me to the love in the believer’s heart, and say, ‘Herein is love’? You make me smile. I know that there is love in that true heart; but who can mention it in the presence of the great rolling ocean of the love of God, without bottom and without shore? The word not is not only upon my lip but in my heart as I think of the two things, ‘not that we loved God, but that he loved us’. What poor love ours is at its very best when compared with the ‘love wherewith he loved us’! Let me use another figure. If we had to enlighten the world, a child might point us to a bright mirror reflecting the sun, and he might cry, ‘Herein is light!’ You and I would say, ‘Poor child, that is but borrowed brightness; the light is not there, but yonder, in the sun.’ The love of saints is nothing more than the reflection of the love of God. We have love, but God is love. Donald Cantrell - “He Loves Me” 1 Jo 4:10—Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son [to be] the propitiation for our sins The greatest illustration of love is this fact; we are saved not because we loved God, but the fact that he loves us. I will never get over that fact, he loves me even though he knows me, and he loves you even though he knows you. He loved me when I deserved to be sentenced to a sinner’s hell; he loved me when I had nothing to offer him in return. I have noticed in life that many people will accept certain people in their life knowing that they could reap benefits from this relationship. This was not the case for God; he loved me knowing that I was going to get all of the benefits of this relationship. I could never earn this love; I could not even adequately express my gratitude for this wonderful love. The thing that separates Christianity from all other religions is the thing called love; its whole foundation is built on love. The God of our faith expressed his love in sending his son, the son expressed his love in dying upon the cross for us, the Spirit expresses his love in drawing each of us to the son. This love is an amazing thing to understand, nothing can separate us from this love, it is utterly impossible for God to stop loving us, why you may ask, God is love!!! He loves us daily, he loves us freely, and he loves us personally. I have noticed that sometimes our love is fleeting, it only last as long as things go good. The very moment someone lets us down, watch out there goes our love. The love of man is a very fickle trait; it can be so high today and so low tomorrow. The same is not true with the love of God, he is the same today as he was yesterday, and he will be the same thousands of years down the road. I am glad that my salvation did not hinge on my goodness, but completely upon his goodness and his awesome, alluring, almighty love. That my dear friend is love, it’s a godly love, it is something man can only consider, and man can only contemplate this great love. The souls of man hinged upon the love of God, many say that they have a willing love, but do they? When it came time to redeem man, God had the option of turning away; he could have withheld his son, who could have condemned him for doing so? As the time for action was near God said so be it, I love them more than they will ever know. he let his precious son hang upon Calvary for every sinner to have the chance for salvation. That is love, unquestionable love, unselfish love, unequalled love, and unapproachable love, a love that is royal and real. 1. The Mystery of This great Love 2. The Mention of This Great Love 3. The Manifestation of This Great Love Daily Light on the Daily Path - I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you. But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.—[God] saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began.—Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Jer. 31:3; 2 Thess. 2:13–14; 2 Tim. 1:9; Ps. 139:16; John 3:16; 1 John 4:10 A W Tozer - GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. —1 John 4:10 God is love, so His loving is not something He may do nor not do at His will. Loving us is not an intermittent act or series of acts which God does in between other acts. His love flows steadily out upon the whole human race in an unbroken and continuous fullness. There is not a time, not a fraction of time, when God’s love is not active toward us. It is as constant as the being of God, for it is the being of God in unforced, normal expression…. We are often tempted to wonder how God could love us, but honest as this feeling is, it is nevertheless the result of a wrong way of looking at things. God does not love us because we are hard or easy to love; He loves us because He is God, not because we are good or bad or more attractive or less so. God’s love is not drawn out of Him by its object; it flows out from God in a steady stream because He is love. “God so loved the world,” not because the world was lovable but because God is love. Christ did not die for us that God might love us; He died for us because God already loved us from everlasting. Love is not the result of redemption; it is the cause of it. (See Tozer on the Almighty God: A 365-Day Devotional - Page 23) Love Unfathomable Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.1 JOHN 4:10 KJV Are there not scenes and circumstances that now and then transpire before us and prompt an exclamation like that of the apostle, “Herein is love"? When we have seen the devotedness of a mother to her children, when we have marked the affection of friend for friend and caught a glimpse in different human relationships of the kindness that exists in human hearts, we have said, “Herein is love!” I shall ask you to look at and consider the wonder that the apostle discovered and that made him, with uplifted hands, exclaim, “Herein is love!” When God loves those who love him, it seems to be according to the law of nature; but when he loves those who do not love him, this must be above even all laws—it is according, certainly, to the extraordinary rule of grace, and grace alone. There was not a man on earth who loved God. There was none who did good—no, not one; and yet the Lord fixed the eye of his electing love upon sinners in whom there was no thought of loving him. No more love to God is there in an unrenewed heart than there is life within a piece of granite. No more love to God is there within the soul who is unsaved than there is fire within the depths of the ocean’s waves; and here forsooth is the wonder, that when we had no love to God, he should have loved us. (See At the Master's Feet: A Daily Devotional) David Jeremiah - 1 JOHN 4:10 There is something in the character of God and the culture of heaven that resulted in Jesus Christ coming to earth to die for the human race. Was it kindness? Compassion? Empathy? Sympathy? As Godlike as those and other traits are, the Bible seems to focus on one trait as the defining characteristic of God: love. First John 4, verses 8 and 16 say that God is love, and the world’s favorite Bible verse, John 3:16, says that it was because God “loved the world” that He sent Jesus to save us. Heaven is, and will be, brimming with love. But the love of God is not for heaven alone; it is freely available for us to experience while on earth. Indeed, the “love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Romans 5:5). Nothing can “separate us from the love of God” (Romans 8:39). And our hearts are continually being directed “into the love of God” (2 Thessalonians 3:5). If you are feeling unloved, you do not have to wait for heaven to experience the reality of God’s love. You can experience it now by believing in the gift of His love, Jesus Christ. (See Journey: Moments of Guidance in the Presence of God - Page 12) No less a person than God is needful to assure us of God’s love. RICHARD SIBBES Horatius Bonar - The Love of God “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”—1 JOHN 4:10 HOW am I to measure the love of God? By the distance between “the throne of the Majesty in the heavens” and the grave in which the Son of God was laid. It was an infinite descent, and it is the measure of an infinite love. How am I to estimate the love of God? By the gift which is so freely sent down to us—the infinite, the unspeakable gift. Nothing can equal that gift in value, and nothing can equal that love in greatness. How am I to understand the love of God? It cannot be understood; it passeth knowledge; it is beyond the stretch of our thought. How am I to deserve this love of God? Deserve it! It is love to the undeserving. This is its essence, its characteristic. It is absolutely free. How am I to obtain this love of God? By receiving Him who is the embodiment, the incarnation of it. In giving credit to the divine record concerning Him, I let this holy love of God pour itself into my soul, as light streams in upon the body the moment I open my eye to the sun. I look, and live; I look, and am healed; I look, and am blest for ever. How am I to keep this love of God? By “holding the beginning of my confidence steadfast unto the end.” (Heb. 3:14.) I am to keep hold of it, just as I first took hold of it. GEORGE MACDONALD. 1 John 4:10 - If I felt my heart as hard as a stone; if I did not love God, or man, or woman, or little child, I would yet say to God in my heart, “O God, see how I trust Thee, because Thou art perfect, and not changeable like me. I do not love Thee. I love nobody. I am not even sorry for it. Thou seest how much I need Thee to come close to me, to put Thy arm round me, to say to me, my child; for the worse my state, the greater my need of my Father who loves me. Come to me, and my day will dawn; my love will come back, and, oh! how I shall love Thee, my God! and know that my love is Thy love, my blessedness Thy being.” A W Tozer - In the Image of God Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. —1 John 4:10 Every person who is born into the world begins to see God in some ways as soon as he or she is old enough to comprehend. If that person does not repent and experience the renewal of regeneration through the working of the Holy Spirit, he or she is lost and will be lost forever. I believe that with all my heart. But I also believe that human beings, made in the image of God, continue to keep upon themselves something of that image of deity. It is that residual image that permits God to incarnate Himself in us without incongruity or inconsistency. So it was that the eternal Son, Himself God, could become flesh in Jesus Christ without inconsistency. “You matter to the living and loving God of all creation. Above everyone else in the whole universe, He cares for you and calls to you and has gracious plans for you!.…” What a message for the sinner! (See Tozer on the Holy Spirit: A 365-Day Devotional - Page 30) That He should leave His place on high And come for sinful man to die, You count it strange? So once did I Before I knew my Saviour. Love Demonstrated He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 1 JOHN 4:10 The word love is used to mean many different things. We say that we “love” the house that we have just bought or that we “love” a particular vacation spot or that we “love” a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. We also “love” a certain television program, and we “love” our husband or wife. Hopefully we don’t love our spouse the same way we love a peanut butter and jelly sandwich! The greatest love of all, however, is God’s love for us—a love that showed itself in action. A friend once observed, “Love talked about is easily ignored, but love demonstrated is irresistible.” The Bible says, “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Now that is real love! How will you respond to His love today? (See Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional - Page 26) PROPITIATION The publican cried out, “God be propitiated toward me, the sinner” (Luke 18:13b, Greek text). Sinful man has no plea but the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ. Paul referred to Christ Jesus, “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God” (Rom. 3:25). “And he [Jesus] is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (I John 2:2). “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (I John 4:10). GOD’S WRATH, GOD’S LOVE - Henry Blackaby 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.1 JOHN 4 : 10 David Brainerd was a missionary to the Indians of North America during the eighteenth century. In his early preaching, he focused on God’s righteous wrath—and the peoples’ response to his message was disappointing. By God’s grace, though, Brainerd discovered that when he spoke of God’s love, the people were overcome with emotion and conviction. Once when he spoke on 1 John 4:10, the entire village was seized with sorrow over their previous indifference to such love. The people feared that they would somehow miss out on the divine compassion God was offering them. Brainerd noted: “It was surprising to see how their hearts seemed to be pierced with the tender and melting invitations of the gospel, when there was not a word of terror spoken to them.” Before you were a believer, which topic did you hear more about—God’s wrath or His love? Why is it important to hear about both? Which of those two topics most touched your heart? What will you do today to respond to share with others God’s amazing love? (See Being Still With God Every Day: Discovering God's Plan for ... - Page 163) Henry Mahan - Here is Love To find love you need to send one whose heart and soul is full of love. John, the beloved, looks over all space, time, history, and men, and finally, his eye comes to rest in one place; and he says, “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 Jn. 4:10). There is water in a thousand places, like the drops of dew on a flower; but, when one discovers the ocean, he says, “Here is water.” There is light here and light there; but, when one looks at the sun, he says, “Here is light.” So the Apostle does not point to his own heart, nor to the church, nor even to a devoted mother and say, “Here is love”: for that love is but a little pool filled from the great sea and reflected light from the sun of love. He looks to our heavenly Father and the unspeakable gift of his affection; and he says, “herein is love.”
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Spurgeon - If such was his great kindness toward us that he denied himself his own Son for our sake, ought we not to be kindly affectioned one toward another? Here we have a fact and an argument. We ought to love. We ought to love after God’s fashion; not because men loved us. Nor because they deserve anything at our hands. We are too apt to look at the worthiness of those whom we help; but our God is gracious to the unthankful and to the evil. He makes his sun to rise and rain to fall for the unjust as well as for the righteous, therefore we ought to love the unlovely and the unloving. But just as God has a special love for his own people, we who believe in him ought to have a peculiar affection for all who are his. (Full Sermon The Secret of Love to God) NET Note - God’s act of love in sending his Son into the world to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins (1Jn 4:10) ought to motivate us as believers to love one another in a similar sacrificial fashion. The author made the same point already in 1 John 3:16. But this failure to show love for fellow believers is just what the opponents are doing: In 1 John 3:17 the author charged them with refusing to love their brothers by withholding needed material assistance. By their failure to love the brothers sacrificially according to the example Jesus set for believers, the opponents have demonstrated again the falsity of their claims to love God and know God (see 1 John 2:9). THE BELIEVER'S OBLIGATION We also ought (opheilo - present tense - habitually) to love (apapao - present tense - habitually, continually) one another (allelon) - John now repeats the call with which he began this section "Beloved, let us love one another" (1Jn 4:7+) Love one another occurs 3 times in this "love" section (1Jn 4:7-21) - 1Jn 4:7+, 1Jn 4:11+, 1Jn 4:12+. It was also used in 1Jn 3:11+ and 1Jn 3:23+. Ought in the present tense signifies this is a believer's continual moral obligation. The implication is since this supernatural love is something we are obligated to show to one another, it is clearly a quality of love God enables in us to accomplish. How? By His Spirit. Are you continually filled with (controlled by) His Spirit (Eph 5:18+), walking in His Spirit (Gal 5:16+), being led by His Spirit (Gal 5:18+, Ro 8:14+)? If you are, then agape love should be a natural outflow (Gal 5:22+)! There is no other way except by the Spirit's power! In our power, IM-possible! In His Spirit's power, HIM-possible! Yield to Him today, that Christ's life and love might flow freely through you beloved child of God! D Edmond Hiebert on we also ought (opheilo - present tense - habitually) - The verb we ought (opheilo) denotes not the “must” of external compulsion but the inner constraint of conscious obligation. (Cf. 1Jn 2:6+; 1Jn 3:16+.) Jackman remarks,'This is not just an extra ingredient that we might add to our discipleship if we feel especially moved to do so. We owe it to the loving Father not to slander His name any further by denying His love in our human relations… If we have appreciated something of the infinite price paid for our redemption, then we shall see at once how vital it is that we do not continue to indulge ourselves in sin.' (Borrow The message of John's letters) God’s love for us is the example as well as the stimulus for our practice of mutual love. The reality of our love for God will be tested, strengthened, and purified by our practice of mutual love as believers. In keeping with the teaching of Jesus (Matt. 22:37–40), John insists that love for God and love for our brother cannot be separated." (1 John 4:7-21) John
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Spurgeon adds "He is not far to seek. If you love one another, God is in you; he dwells in you, he is your nearest and dearest Friend, the Author of all other love. The grace of love comes from the God of love." He reveals Himself through the lives of His children. Men cannot see God, but they can see us. -- Warren Wiersbe David
1 João 4:13
Spurgeon - Morning and Evening - We dwell in him.” —1 John 4:13 Do you want a house for your soul? Do you ask, “What is the purchase?” It is something less than proud human nature will like to give. It is without money and without price. Ah! you would like to pay a respectable rent! You would love to do something to win Christ? Then you cannot have the house, for it is “without price.” Will you take my Master’s house on a lease for all eternity, with nothing to pay for it, nothing but the ground-rent of loving and serving him for ever? Will you take Jesus and “dwell in him?” See, this house is furnished with all you want, it is filled with riches more than you will spend as long as you live. Here you can have intimate communion with Christ and feast on his love; here are tables well-stored with food for you to live on for ever; in it, when weary, you can find rest with Jesus; and from it you can look out and see heaven itself. Will you have the house? Ah! if you are houseless, you will say, “I should like to have the house; but may I have it?” Yes; there is the key—the key is, “Come to Jesus.” “But,” you say, “I am too shabby for such a house.” Never mind; there are garments inside. If you feel guilty and condemned, come; and though the house is too good for you, Christ will make you good enough for the house by-and-by. He will wash you and cleanse you, and you will yet be able to sing, “We dwell in him.” Believer: thrice happy art thou to have such a dwelling-place! Greatly privileged thou art, for thou hast a “strong habitation” in which thou art ever safe. And “dwelling in him,” thou hast not only a perfect and secure house, but an everlasting one. When this world shall have melted like a dream, our house shall live, and stand more imperishable than marble, more solid than granite, self-existent as God, for it is God himself—“We dwell in him.” Being filled with the Spirit is an inside job. If you insist on an outer experience, then you make emotions the king. --Jack R. Taylor Years ago someone stated, "I used to think a few men had a monopoly on the power of the Holy Spirit. I have since learned the Holy Spirit has a monopoly on a few men." As this love is being manifested in our lives, we are knowing that it is the work of the Holy Spirit in generating that love through us and this assures us that we belong to Him. Robert Neighbour - How We May Know We Are Born of God • We Know by Our Faith in Him (I John 5:1). • We Know by Our Righteous Conduct (I John 2:29). • We Know by the Indwelling Spirit (I John 4:13). • We Know by Our Victory over the World (I John 5:4, 5). • We Know by Our Love One toward Another (I John 4:7). • We Know by Our Hearing the Truth (I John 4:6). • We Know by Our Having the Son (I John 5:12). There are many believers who seem to have times of despondency and despair concerning their new birth. They wonder if, after all, they are not deceived as to their salvation. We are living in an age when doubt, concerning the things of God, fills the air. This spirit of doubt seems to be innoculating many saints who are not rooted and grounded in the faith. The Book of I John is written to this very class. The Holy Spirit desires to place the feet of the saved upon the solid rock of perfect assurance. John writes that "ye may know that ye have eternal life" (I John 5:13). We trust that this first study in John's Epistle will be owned of the Spirit in the establishing of believers. We want all true saints to experience that rest of mind, and sense of security, which is so invaluable to all development in Christian life. We Know by the Indwelling Spirit "Hereby know we that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit" (I John 4:13). We have before us something that is quite unique in the experience of the believer. The father, in an earthly family, may instruct his son; he may set a splendid example before him; indeed he may do many things to aid him in a true life; but he cannot "indwell" him. The Heavenly Father goes far beyond the possibilities of an earthly father. He not only tells us how to walk, and how to live; but He places within us His Spirit, that we may be empowered, to walk and to live. He puts the "enabling" in us. Spurgeon - The Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world 1 John 4:14 It is a sweet thought that Jesus Christ did not come forth without His Father’s permission, authority, consent, and assistance. He was sent of the Father that He might be the Saviour of men.… Didst thou ever consider the depth of love in the heart of Jehovah, when God the Father equipped His Son for the great enterprise of mercy? If not, be this thy day’s meditation. The Father sent Him! Contemplate that subject. Think how Jesus works what the Father wills. In the wounds of the dying Saviour see the love of the great I AM. Let every thought of Jesus be also connected with the eternal, ever-blessed God. 1 John 4:13 Many storms come into our Christian lives that make us wonder about our faith in Christ. I know that I have backed off on my faith by not dedicating my life fully to the Lord at times and by being more concerned with what I wanted instead of what God wanted for me. It is hard to come out of a slump like this, but I knew that God was always there for me and that He would guide me to the end. I would just have to listen. Trials will come into our lives to test our faith. We don’t know why things happen the way they do, and we often question God about them. I know I was like this when my parents got divorced. I kept asking God why He’d allow my family to be separated and why He’d let them argue so much. I was reading my Bible one night and came across James 1:12: “A man who endures trials is blessed, because when he passes the test he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him.” God puts trials in our lives to strengthen our faith. All we have to do is listen to what He tells us to do and we will make it through any storm. God will never forsake His children and will never leave any of us in any hard situation. (Teen to Teen) Bill Hybels - The Spirit As a Witness (See Courageous Faith Through the Year - Page 139) We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 1 JOHN 4:13 In today’s culture we thrive on legal documents. When you get married, you get a marriage license. When you buy a home, you get a title. When you buy a car, you get registration papers. In our adoption into God’s family, the evidence God has given us is more important and more binding than any piece of paper—it is the daily and hourly announcement of the Holy Spirit to our own spirits that we belong to God. God does not want us to wonder how we stand with him. I cannot always explain the inner witness of the Spirit or describe it, but I can testify that it is real. When people say to me, “I don’t know if I’m a Christian or not. I hope I am,” I get worried, because the Bible clearly states that when you give your heart to the Lord, he becomes real to you and you know you belong to him. The Holy Spirit lives inside you and repeatedly whispers, “Have confidence—you are part of God’s family.” PRAY: Do you ever wonder whether or not you are a Christian? If you have asked Jesus to be your forgiver and leader, you are! Talk to God about your doubts. Listen for his reassurance. THE MINISTRY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (See Strength for Today: Daily Readings for a Deeper Faith - Page 18) “By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.” 1 JOHN 4:13 Experiencing the ministry of the Holy Spirit is evidence of genuine saving faith. In John 14:26, Jesus described the Holy Spirit as “the Helper.” One of the most important ways He helps us is by assuring us that we belong to God. Several works of the Holy Spirit, if present in our lives, give evidence of the genuineness of our salvation. In 1 Corinthians 12:3 Paul writes, “No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.” Apart from the convicting work of the Holy Spirit, you would not know who Christ was, nor would you confess Him as Savior and Lord. If you have experienced that work of the Holy Spirit, that is evidence you are a true child of God. Another essential ministry of the Spirit is that of illuminating Scripture. First John 2:27 says, “The anointing which you received from Him abides in you … His anointing teaches you about all things.” Do you understand the Bible when you read it? Does it convict you of sin? Does it lead you to rejoice and worship God? If so, that is evidence of the Spirit’s illuminating work in your life. Do you long for intimate fellowship with God? That, too, is the result of the Spirit’s work in your life (Gal. 4:6). Do you feel compelled to praise God? The filling of the Spirit produces praise (Eph. 5:19). Does your life manifest the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22–23)? Are one or more of the gifts of the Spirit operating in your life (1 Cor. 12)? Those, too, are evidences of the Spirit’s work in your life. All of those ministries of the Holy Spirit are the way He “bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Rom. 8:16). If they are manifest in your life, they provide evidence that you abide in God and He in you (1 John 4:13). Let the Holy Spirit’s work in your life dispel the dark shadows of doubt. Suggestions for Prayer: Pray that God would help you examine your life for evidence of the Spirit’s work. For Further Study: Read 1 John 3:24. What is our part in obtaining assurance? ✧ Are there any commandments you are willfully violating? If so, confess them, repent of them, and begin to experience the blessedness of assurance. J C Philpot - ." 1 John 4:13 A right knowledge and living experience of the Person, graces and operations of the Holy Spirit upon the soul, is a very essential thing. Man is so deeply sunk, so utterly fallen, so unable to bring himself back, that he needs this holy Teacher to lead him into a saving, experimental knowledge of the truth of God; for we know nothing but by his teaching, have nothing but by his giving, and are nothing but by his making. The more clearly, then, that we are led to see, and the more deeply we are taught to feel what we are as fallen sons and daughters of Adam, the more shall we feel our need of, and the more shall we value when realized, his blessed operations upon the heart and conscience. Now, in the case of Aaron, (viewed not only as a type of Christ, but as personally ministering at the altar of the tabernacle, and thus consecrated to the office of high priesthood,) it was not sufficient that he was washed, nor that he was clothed; he must be also anointed by the holy anointing oil before he could stand in the sanctuary of God. So it is with a son of the Most High, one of "the kings and priests" that form "the royal priesthood;" it is not sufficient for him to be washed in the blood of the Lamb, and clothed in his justifying righteousness; he must be consecrated to God's service by the holy anointing; in other words, be sanctified, regenerated and renewed in the spirit of his mind, that, by being made a partaker of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4), he may enter into a spiritual experience of the truth of God here, and enjoy the eternal pleasures which are at God's right hand hereafter. From the very nature of the fall, it is impossible for a dead soul to believe in God, know God, or love God; it must be quickened into spiritual life before it can savingly know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. And thus there lies at the very threshold, in the very heart and core of the case, the absolute necessity of the regenerating operations of God the Holy Spirit upon the soul. The very completeness and depth of the fall render the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit as necessary, as indispensable as the redeeming work of the Son of God. The Apostle therefore puts them together. "But you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." If, therefore, the soul is to enter into eternal glory, it must be prepared for glory by being made a partaker of grace. It must, in this present life, this time state, be made fit to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light, be capacitated while here below for the eternal fruition of the Triune God, by receiving a new and heavenly nature begotten of the Holy Spirit, which as a pure spirit (for "that which is born of the Spirit is spirit") is capable of seeing, enjoying, and eternally delighting in the open vision of the Deity as manifested in the glorious Person of the God-man.
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Spurgeon - Yes, there is something that we have seen. John writes for himself and his fellow apostles, and he says, “No man hath seen God at any time,” but —John saw him live, and saw him die, and saw him when he had risen from the dead, and saw him as he ascended. So he speaks to the matter of eyesight, and bears testimony that, though we have not seen God, we have, in the person of the representative apostles, seen the Son of God who lived and labored and died for us. (1 John 4) Steven
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Spurgeon - Let Christ be God to you, and you are saved. If, in every deed, and of a truth. You take him to be the Son of God, and consequently rest your eternal hopes on him, God dwells in you, and you dwell in God. (1 John 4) A T
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Spurgeon asks "Is there anyone here who is full of anger, enmity, malice, and envy? If so, let him know that God dwells not in the heart that harbors such abominations. Until these base passions are expelled, and we feel love to all mankind for Christ’s sake, God is not in us, for “he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.” The old method, according to Jewish tradition, was, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy;” but Christ’s new rule is, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven.” This is the point in which our likeness to God will be seen, for He loved us when we were His enemies, and He expects His children to love their enemies; may He graciously teach us that sacred art!" (1 John 4) God (theos) abides (meno - present tense) in him, and he in God (theos) - This reciprocal relationship is the essence of being in covenant with God, which speaks of oneness and communion with Him. God lives in the one who makes a genuine confession that Jesus is the Son of God. "There could be no closer communion or relationship." (Vine) D Edmond Hiebert adds that meno in the present tense "marks this twofold relationship as a present and progressive reality. In the two previous references to this mutual indwelling (1Jn 3:24 = "abides in Him, and He in him"; 1Jn 4:13 = "we abide in Him and He in us"), the believer’s abiding in God is placed first; the reversal of the order here indicates that there is no set priority; the two aspects are mutually interrelated."(1 John 4:7-21) B F Westcott comments on the two aspects of abiding (God in him and he in God) - The two clauses mark two aspects of the Christian’s life. The believer has a new and invincible power for the fulfilment of his work on earth: “God is in him.” And again he realizes that his life is not on earth, that he belongs essentially to another order: “he is in God.” The divine fellowship is complete and effective in each direction. Because we are “born of God,” we have union with Christ; but it is only as we trust Him and obey His commandments that we have communion with Him. Warren
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Spurgeon - 1 John 4) The more we love God, the more we understand the love of God. And the more we understand His love, the easier it is for us to trust Him. Warren
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Spurgeon - A psalm of remembrance (See full sermon A Psalm of Remembrance) “We have known and believed the love that God hath to us.” 1 John 4:16 “Hast thou considered my servant Job?” “Ah,” says Satan, “he serves thee now, but thou hast set a hedge about him and blessed him, let me but touch him.” Now he has come down to you, and he has afflicted you in your estate, afflicted you in your family, and at last he has afflicted you in your body. Shall Satan be the conqueror? Shall grace give way? O my dear brother, stand up now and say once more, once for all, “I tell thee, Satan, the grace of God is more than a match for thee; he is with me, and in all this I will not utter one word against the Lord my God. He doeth all things well—well, even now, and I do rejoice in him.” The Lord is always pleased with his children when they can stand up for him when circumstances seem to belie him. Here come the witnesses into court. The devil says, “Soul, God has forgotten thee, I will bring in my witness.” First he summons your debts—a long bill of losses. “There,” says he “would God suffer you to fall thus, if he loved you?” Then he brings in your children—either their death, or their disobedience, or something worse, and says, “Would the Lord suffer these things to come upon you, if he loved you?” At last he brings in your poor tottering body, and all your doubts and fears, and the hidings of Jehovah’s face. “Ah,” says the devil, “do you believe that God loves you now?” Oh, it is noble, if you are able to stand forth and say to all these witnesses, “I hear what you have to say, let God be true, and every man and everything be a liar. I believe none of you. You all say, God does not love me; but he does, and if the witnesses against his love were multiplied a hundredfold, yet still would I say, “I know whom I have believed.” J R Miller - When one who has never sailed out upon the ocean stands on its shore and watches the trembling waves as they surge and break upon the sands, how little does he know of the majesty and grandeur of the great deep, of its storms, of its power, of its secrets, of its unfathomable chambers, of its unweighed treasures? He sees only the little silver edge that breaks at his feet. So we stand but where the Spirit of God breaks upon the shore of our world. We see its silver edge. We feel the plash of its waves upon our hearts. But of its infinite reaches and outgoings beyond our shores we know almost nothing. Yet blessed are they who even stand by the shore and lave their hearts in even the shallowest eddies of this divine ocean. HEARTS AGLOW WITH RESPONSIVE LOVE (See NIV, Once-A-Day: Walk with Jesus: 365 Days in the New Testament) And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 1 JOHN 4:16 What does love look like? Augustine pictured love this way: “It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs of men.” Basically, love looks like Jesus! Love talked about is easily turned aside. Love demonstrated is irresistible. And love modeled is the best way to learn how to love in return. “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). That’s why John used the word “love” more than 30 times in his letter—and why this thought from A. B. Simpson is both appropriate and timely. WALK WITH A. B. SIMPSON “The secret of walking closely with Christ, and working successfully for him, is to fully realize that we are his beloved. “Let us but feel that he has his heart set upon us, that he is watching us from those heavens with tender interest, that he is following us day by day as a mother follows her babe in his first attempt to walk alone, that he has set his love upon us, and in spite of ourselves is working out for us his highest will and blessing, as far as we will let him—and then nothing can discourage us. “Our hearts will glow with responsive love. Our faith will spring to meet his mighty promises, and our sacrifices shall become the very luxuries of love for one so dear. “This was the secret of John’s spirit. ‘And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.’ The heart that has fully learned this has found the secret of unbounded faith and enthusiastic service.” WALK CLOSER TO GOD How much does God love you? The evidences are obvious: Calvary’s cross, the empty tomb, the indwelling Comforter. How much do you love God? The evidences should also be obvious. Count them with gratitude for God’s goodness to you. Daily Light for the Daily Path - Keep yourselves in the love of God. “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” The fruit of the Spirit is love.—“By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.”—Whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”—God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.—God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. Jude 21; John 15:4–5; Gal. 5:22; John 15:8–10; 1 John 2:5; John 15:12; Rom. 5:8; 1 John 4:16 Nancy Leigh DeMoss - God Is Love (See The Quiet Place: Daily Devotional Readings - Page 28) So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.—1 John 4:16 A FRIEND in the midst of a long, hard battle with breast cancer once wrote to tell me how she had come through the experience with a deeper comprehension of the love of God, as seen through her husband’s response to her double mastectomy. “As we wept and trembled when he took off my bandages for the first time, I was so ugly, scarred, and bald. I was in intense grief that I could never be a whole wife to him again. But he held me tightly and with tears in his eyes said, ‘Honey, I love you—because that is who I am.’ “I instantly recognized Christ in my husband,” she continued. “As His bride, we are also eaten up with cancer—sin—and are scarred, mutilated, and ugly. But He loves us because that is who He is. No comeliness in us draws Christ’s attention; it is only His essence that draws Him to us.” Yes, God does love us. Whether or not we feel loved, regardless of what we have done or where we have come from, He loves us with an infinite, incomprehensible love—not because we are lovely or lovable but because He is love. If you are His child, trusting in Him for salvation, you are no longer His enemy. In spite of your rebellion and your alienation from Him, He has loved you and sent His Son to die for you. He loved you in eternity past; He will love you for all eternity future. There is nothing you can do to make Him love you less, and nothing you can do to make Him love you more. That’s just who He is. When does His love seem the most distant from you? Knowing that nothing can ever separate you from His love (Rom. 8:38–39), what are some possible reasons for your feelings? Joni Eareckson Tada - God Is Love (See Pearls of Great Price: 366 Daily Devotional Readings - Page 13) And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love.— 1 JOHN 4:16 The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are fellowshiping in a waterfall of love and joy. It is nothing short of amazing that the Trinity is driven to share that joy with us. It was the Savior’s mission: “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you” (John 15:11). What joy the Trinity enjoys! Misery may love company, but joy craves a crowd, and so the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit’s plan to rescue humans is not only for man’s sake. It is for God’s sake. The Father is gathering a crowd — an inheritance, pure and blameless — to worship his Son in the joy of the Holy Spirit. “God is love” and the wish of love is to drench with delight those for whom God has suffered. Soon believers will step into the waterfall of joy and pleasure that is the Trinity. Better yet, we will become part of a Niagara Falls of thunderous delight as “God is all and in all.” In heaven, we will not only know God, we will know him in that deep, personal union, that utter euphoria of experiencing him. There in heaven we will “eat of the tree of life” and be filled to overflowing with more joy and pleasure than we can contain (Revelation 22:2). Amazing grace, how can it be, that God would share his joy for eternity with me ? Remember, God shares his joy on his terms; and those terms call for us to, in some measure, suffer as his beloved Son did while on earth (1 Peter 2:21). If you and I experience hardship, it is paving the way for a deeper joy for all of eternity! Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, thank you for inviting me into the fellowship of your joy. Thank you for preparing me for heaven’s joy as I trust you in the fellowship of your sufferings while on earth. Robert Hawker - WHO hath known and believed in terms equal to the greatness of the mercy itself, the love of God to the poor sinner? God’s love must be an infinite love, and consequently the display of it must be infinite also. God, we are told, commendeth his love to us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Had God loved and delighted in saints that loved him, this would have been love. Had God taken the holy angels into a nearer acquaintance with him, this would have been love. But when he raised beggars from the dunghill, and took rebels from the prison to sit upon his throne; and at a time when his justice would have been magnified in their destruction, to prefer sinners, haters of God, and despisers of his grace; to bring them into the closet and nearest connexion with him, in the Person of his dear Son, and all this by such a wonderful plan of mercy as the incarnation and death of Jesus—who hath ever calculated the extent of such grace? Who hath thoroughly known, or considered, or believed, in any degree proportioned to the unspeakableness of the salvation, the love that God hath to us? Oh! Lord! add one blessing more. Cause my cold heart to grow warm in the contemplation of it: and let it be my happiness to be daily studying the breadth, and length, and depth and height, and to know the love of God, which passeth knowledge, that I may be filled with all the fulness of God. Martyn Lloyd-Jones - MYSTICISM And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. 1 JOHN 4:16 John has gone on repeatedly writing about the love of God, and you notice how he never tires of doing so. “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9). “And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world” (1 John 4:14). Now [verse 16] he repeats it again. This is because he knew that in his own day and age there were all those so-called mystery religions or curious cults that talked about the love of God; and they all tried to teach that you can know the love of God directly. That is always the characteristic of mysticism; what finally condemns mysticism is that it bypasses the Lord Jesus Christ. Anything that bypasses Christ is not Christian. I do not care what it is, however good, however uplifting or noble; it is Christ who is the manifestation of the love of God, says John. I do not hesitate, therefore, to aver and to add strongly as follows: I must distrust any emotion that I may have within me with respect to God unless it is based solidly upon the Lord Jesus Christ. In Him God manifested His love. “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Therefore, I say that I must never attempt by any means or method to get to know God or to try to make myself love God except in and through my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I must avoid every other direct approach to God, every direct dealing with God. Anything that bypasses Christ is not Christian. The Lemon Tree - People who have given up on love probably agree with the words to the song “Lemon Tree” by the folk group Peter, Paul, and Mary: “Don’t put your faith in love, my boy,” my father said to me, “I fear you’ll find that love is like the lovely lemon tree.” Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet but the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat. Loved with everlasting love, Led by grace that love to know— Spirit, breathing from above, Thou hast taught me it is so. —Robinson God's love knows no limits. Horatius Bonar - GOD’S GREAT LOVE TO THE SINNER ‘And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.’—1 JOHN 4:16. THERE are many differences between man and man, but here is one of the most explicit, yet most simple. Some believe the love of God, and some believe it not. All others are subordinate to this. It is this that draws the line, on the one side of which is heaven, on the other hell. Two things let us notice, (1) God’s love; (2) our knowledge of it. I. God’s love.—There are two kinds of love, the love of compassion and the love of complacency or delight. Both may perhaps be included here, but specially the former; for the apostle is referring to that by which he and his brethren became what they were, children of God. God’s free love or grace must go first; it is the foundation, the alphabet of the gospel. It is free love to the sinner, as a sinner,—not as elect, or as penitent, or as converted, but as a sinner. ‘God so loved the world, that He gave His Son.’ ‘God commended His love.’ ‘Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us.’ The object, then, of this free love is simply man, the sinner; and the extent of this love is the widest circle of human unworthiness. The question of more or fewer objects is of no moment. Its range is to the uttermost,—to each sinner on this side of hell. It compasses the wide earth; it goes up to the very gates of the prison. It came down on the crucifiers of the Son of God; and on whom, then, will it not fall? It has plucked millions of brands from the burning, and can pluck millions more. The gift of the beloved Son is the expression, the manifestation of this love: ‘Hereby perceive we the love of God, that He laid down His life for us.’ How infinite the fountain, to pour forth such a stream! And in the love of Christ we read the love of the Father. It was reflected in Him. In every word and deed, he who saw and heard Him saw and heard the Father. No man who came into contact with Jesus could doubt His love. The law of love was in His heart and on His lips; He came from the bosom of the Father to show what was there. And this is God’s answer to any one who doubts His love, ‘I have given my Son.’ You say, I am the chief of sinners; still His answer is the same, ‘I have given my Son.’ This is His message of love to the chief of sinners. II. Our knowledge of this love.—The record is given, yet it is not every one that knows it; it is true, yet it is not every one that believes it. They who know and believe it are few. But there are some who do so, and it is in their name that the apostle speaks. The love is free, sure, fully published. It is not to be bought, or deserved, or waited for; it is simply to be known and believed. For the things contained in this gospel of the free love, are such that they flow into us immediately in knowing and believing. There are cases in which good news may merely point to blessing, and tell of the possibility of obtaining it by exertion or purchase. Not so here. The good news are such that the simple knowledge of them is itself the blessing. That there are blessings after, or following upon this knowledge, is true; but the primary blessing is in knowing and believing. ‘Blessed are the people that know the joyful sound.’ It is out of this free love that we extract the peace which we need, our strength, our health. This love is everything to the soul; and he who has it shall abide satisfied. To know it is life. This is the history of a Christian man. It is all that he can tell about himself: he has known and believed the love. He has nothing good to say for himself. This is the line of separation between him and the world. They know not this love; he knows it. A small difference, a slender line, some would think; yet real, and deep, and broad. All on one side of it, darkness; all on the other, light. This is the ground of his hope. He has known the love, and rests on it. It is shed abroad in his heart, and gives him the hope which maketh not ashamed. This is the secret of his sanctification, the knowledge of God’s love. For it is holy love as well as free; and he who knows it knows what is best fitted to make him a holy man. This is our defence against adversaries, and our consolation under the world’s hatred. Let who will hate, revile, persecute, we are in possession of a love which is more than a compensation for all.
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Spurgeon - If we can be to the world, in our poor feeble measure, what God is to it, —fountains of love, dispensaries of goodness, — then we need not be afraid of the verdict even of the great day of judgment. (Exposition on 1 John 4) Henry Alford - the confidence which we shall have in that day, and which we have even, now by anticipation of that day, is the perfection of our love; C H Spurgeon on we may have confidence - That is a wonderful expression, “boldness in the day of judgment.” According to some, the saints will not be in the day of judgment. Then, what is the use of “boldness in the day of judgment”? As I read my Bible, we shall all be there, and we shall all give an account unto God. (ED: HERE WE MIGHT SLIGHTLY DISAGREE - YES WE WILL ALL BE JUDGED, BUT THERE IS NO SCRIPTURE TO SUPPORT THAT BELIEVERS WILL STAND AT THE GREAT WHITE THRONE JUDGMENT WHICH IS FOR ALL THE UNBELIEVERS OF ALL THE AGES) I shall be glad to be there, to be judged for the deeds done in my body; not that I hope to be saved by them, but because I shall have a perfect answer to all accusations on account of my sin. “Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.” (Ro 8:34+) If I am a believer in Christ, —Happy Christian men, who can say that? If you live among men as Christ lived among men, if you are a Saviour to them in your measure, if you love them, if you try to exhibit the lovely traits of character that were in Christ, happy are you. (Exposition on 1 John 4) Bold shall I stand in that grand day, For who aught to my charge shall lay? While through thy blood absolved I am From sin’s tremendous curse and shame.” Because as he is, so are we in this world. Our relationship with Him may be different, but we must all come face to face with the Lord Himself. Ray Stedman has some sobering reflection on "Confidence in the day of judgment" writing "I doubt if there is a single person who does not realize, deep in his heart, that at the end of life there is an accounting. We must stand before the Lord, our Maker. It does not make any difference whether we are Christians (BEMA or Judgment Seat of Christ) or non-Christians (GREAT WHITE THRONE JUDGMENT). Our relationship with Him may be different, but we must all come face to face with the Lord Himself. He stands at the end of every path we may be taking today, and we must come at last to a day of accounting. This is what Paul declared to the Athenian intellectuals on Mars Hill, "God has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all men by raising him from the dead," Acts 17:31+). That day lies ahead of us all. Gary Derickson on we may have confidence - This is similar to the idea of walking in the light. John is now talking about the impact of a believer walking in the sphere of God’s love. When God’s love is fully understood and thereby impacts the life of a believer, it will radically change his or her view of himself or herself. That changed view invokes within each of them a confidence that enables him or her to live in the realm of God’s love and not in the realm of fear. Kenneth
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Spurgeon - If a man is conscious that he intends no harm to anyone, that he wishes good to all mankind, that he loves his God, and loves his fellowmen for God’s sake, what has he to fear? He becomes the bravest of the brave, and often finds himself safe and unharmed in places where others dare not go. When a man loves with a perfect love, he escapes from bondage. (Exposition on 1 John 4) If you still fear God’s judgment, at the very least, you are not practicing biblical love for others Steven
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Spurgeon - There is a loving, holy fear, which is never cast out. Filial fear grows as love grows. That sacred dread, that solemn awe of God, we must ever cultivate; but we are not afraid of him. Dear heart, God is your best Friend, your choicest love. “Yea, mine own God is he,” you can say; and you have no fear of him now. You long to approach him. Though he is a consuming fire, you know that he will only consume what you want to have consumed; and will purify you, and make your gold to shine more brightly because the consumable alloy is gone from it. He will not consume you, but only that which would work for your hurt if it were left within you. Refining fire, go through my heart! Consume as thou wilt! I long to have sin consumed, that I may be like my God. Say you not so, my brethren? (Exposition on 1 John 4) “We arrive at a calm rest outside fear by being aware of God’s love towards us” -- John Calvin C H Spurgeon - John! John! John! This is a very strong expression. Did we not always understand that John was full of affection? Yes, but he was not one of those oily, sugary sort of people who cannot speak the truth. There is no real love in that kind of man; he has only the mere pretense of love. John speaks sharply because he loves ardently. True love hates that which is unlovely. It is inevitable that a man, who is full of love, should feel intense indignation against that which is contrary to love. Hence the apostle says, “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar.” (Exposition on 1 John 4) For a Christian, judgment is not future; it is past. It is interesting that some (Calvin, Luther, Bengel, Augustine) interpret kolasis merely as pain or torment, rather than punishment. But torment (as the KJV translates it) does not fit the context which places the day of judgment (1Jn 4:17+) before our mind. "Fear, by anticipating punishment, has it even now; bears about a foretaste of it and so partakes of it." --Henry Alford Henry Morris on fear involves punishment - The denial of God and rejection of Christ because of the fear of men will, indeed, lead to torment, because "the fearful (deilos = of persons showing fear in a shameful way)… shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone" (Revelation 21:8KJV+). Wuest sees this as related more not to loss of life but loss of reward - Thus, the saint who has experienced the fulness of this divine love in his earthly life, will have no fear of correction or penalty (loss of reward) at the Judgment Seat of Christ. The saint who approaches that tribunal (Judgment Seat of Christ) in a spirit of fear is the saint who has not experienced the fulness of this love, and for the reason that he did not maintain a Spirit-filled life during his earthly sojourn. (Eerdmans Publishing - used by permission) John Stott - Once assured that we are ‘like Him’ (1Jn 4:17+) God’s beloved children, we cease to be afraid of Him. It is evident, therefore, that the one who fears is not made perfect in love. (Borrow The Letters of John) John
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Spurgeon - The reason for our love is found in free grace. God first loved us, and now we must love him; we cannot help it. It sometimes seems too much for a poor sinner to talk about loving God. If an emmet or a snail were to say that it loved a queen, you would think it strange, that it should look so high for an object of affection; but there is no distance between an insect and a man compared with the distance between man and God. Yet love doth fling a flying bridge from our manhood up to his Godhead. “We love him, because he first loved us.” If he could come down to us, we can go up to him. If his love could come down to such unworthy creatures as we are, then our poor love can find wings with which to mount up to him. (Exposition on 1 John 4)
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Spurgeon has a number of quotes related to the love for God - This is a fact for every true follower of Jesus. “There is no exception to this rule; if a man loves not God, neither is he born of God. Show me a fire without heat, then show me regeneration that does not produce love to God.” “I cannot imagine a true man saying, ‘I love Christ, but I do not want others to know that I love him, lest they should laugh at me.’ That is a reason to be laughed at, or rather, to be wept over. Afraid of being laughed at? Oh sir, this is indeed a cowardly fear!” Look through all the pages of history, and put to the noblest men and women, who seem to still live, this question, ‘Who loves Christ?’ and, at once, up from dark dungeons and cruel racks there rises the confessors’ cry, ‘We love him;’ and from the fiery stake, where they clapped their hands as they were being burned to death, the same answer comes, ‘We love him.’ If you could walk through the miles of catacombs at Rome, and if the holy dead, whose dust lies there, could suddenly wake up, they would all shout, ‘We love him.’ The best and the bravest of men, the noblest and purest of women, have all been in this glorious company; so, surely, you are not ashamed to come forward and say, ‘Put my name down among them.’ “Be out-and-out for him; unfurl your colours, never hide them, but nail them to the mast, and say to all who ridicule the saints, ‘If you have any ill words for the followers of Christ, pour them out upon me.… but know this—ye shall hear it whether you like it or not,—“I love Christ.” “Every man that ever was saved had to come to God not as a lover of God, but as a sinner, and then believe in God’s love to him as a sinner. “Jesus loved you when you lived carelessly, when you neglected his Word, when the knee was unbent in prayer. Ah! He loved some of you when you were in the dancing saloon, when you were in the playhouse, ay, even when you were in the brothel. He loved you when you were at hell’s gate, and drank damnation at every draught. He loved you when you could not have been worse or further from him than you were. Marvellous, O Christ, is thy strange love!” “I have sometimes noticed that, in addressing Sunday-school children, it is not uncommon to tell them that the way to be saved is to love Jesus, which is not true. The way to be saved for man, woman, or child is to trust Jesus for the pardon of sin, and then, trusting Jesus, love comes as a fruit. Love is by no means the root. Faith alone occupies that place.” “Love believed is the mother of love returned. “Yet we must not try to make ourselves love our Lord, but look to Christ’s love first, for his love to us will beget in us love to him. I know that some of you are greatly distressed because you cannot love Christ as much as you would like to do, and you keep on fretting because it is so. Now, just forget your own love to him, and think of his great love to you; and then, immediately, your love will come to something more like that which you would desire it to be. “Now remember, we never make ourselves love Christ more by flogging ourselves for not loving him more. We come to love those better whom we love by knowing them better … If you want to love Christ more, think more of him, think more of what you have received from him.” “Oh, if you do really believe that he has loved you so, sit down, and turn the subject over in your mind, and say to yourself, ‘Jesus loves me; Jesus chose me; Jesus redeemed me; Jesus called me; Jesus has pardoned me; Jesus has taken me into union with himself.’ ” Love (verb) (25)(agapao) means to love unconditionally and sacrificially as God Himself loves sinful men (John 3:16), the way He loves the Son (John 3:35, 15:9, 17:23, 24). Note that agapao is a verb and by its verbal nature calls for action. This quality of love is not an emotion but is an action initiated by a volitional choice."expresses the purest, noblest form of love, which is volitionally driven, not motivated by superficial appearance, emotional attraction, or sentimental relationship." (John Macarthur) Vine writes that "Love can be known only from the actions it prompts. God’s love is seen in the gift of His Son, 1 John 4:9, 10. But obviously this is not the love of complacency, or affection, that is, it was not drawn out by any excellency in its objects, Ro 5:8. It was an exercise of the divine will in deliberate choice, made without assignable cause save that which lies in the nature of God Himself." (Collected Writings)
1 João 4:19
Spurgeon - "We love him because he first loved us." - 1 John 4:19 There is no light in the planet but that which proceedeth from the sun; and there is no true love to Jesus in the heart but that which cometh from the Lord Jesus Himself. From this overflowing fountain of the infinite love of God, all our love to God must spring. This must ever be a great and certain truth, that we love him for no other reason than because he first loved us. Our love to him is the fair offspring of his love to us. Cold admiration, when studying the works of God, anyone may have, but the warmth of love can only be kindled in the heart by God's Spirit. How great the wonder that such as we should ever have been brought to love Jesus at all! How marvellous that when we had rebelled against him, he should, by a display of such amazing love, seek to draw us back. No! never should we have had a grain of love towards God unless it had been sown in us by the sweet seed of his love to us. Love, then, has for its parent the love of God shed abroad in the heart: but after it is thus divinely born, it must be divinely nourished. Love is an exotic; it is not a plant which will flourish naturally in human soil, it must be watered from above. Love to Jesus is a flower of a delicate nature, and if it received no nourishment but that which could be drawn from the rock of our hearts it would soon wither. As love comes from heaven, so it must feed on heavenly bread. It cannot exist in the wilderness unless it be fed by manna from on high. Love must feed on love. The very soul and life of our love to God is his love to us. I love thee, Lord, but with no love of mine, For I have none to give; I love thee, Lord; but all the love is thine, For by thy love I live. I am as nothing, and rejoice to be Emptied, and lost, and swallowed up in thee. C H Spurgeon - Daily Help “We love him, because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Here is the starting point of love’s race. This is the rippling rill which afterwards swells into a river, the torch with which the pile of piety is kindled. The emancipated spirit loves the Savior for the freedom which He has conferred upon it. It beholds the agony with which the priceless gift was purchased, and it adores the bleeding Sufferer for the pains which He so generously endured. On taking a survey of our whole lives, we see that the kindness of God has run all through it like a silver thread. Warren
1 João 4:19
Spurgeon - Love (See full sermon Love) “We love him, because he first loved us.” 1 John 4:19 We have known many Christians who have forgotten much of their love to Christ when they have risen in the world. “Ah!” said a woman, who desired to do much for Christ in poverty, and who had had a great sum left her, “I cannot do as much as I used to do.” “But how is that?” said one. Said she, “When I had a meagre purse I had an overflowing heart, and now I have an overflowing purse I have only a meagre heart.” It is a sad temptation for some men to get rich. They were content to go to the meeting-house and mix with the ignoble congregation, while they had but little; they have grown rich, there is a Turkey carpet in the drawing-room, they have arrangements now too splendid to permit them to invite the poor of the flock, as once they did, and Christ Jesus is not so fashionable as to allow them to introduce any religious topic when they meet with their new friends. Besides this, they say they are now obliged to pay this visit and that visit, and they must spend so much time upon attire, and in maintaining their station and respectability, they cannot find time to pray as they did. The house of God has to be neglected for the party, and Christ has less of their heart than ever he had. “Is this thy kindness to thy friend?” And hast thou risen so high that thou art ashamed of Christ? And art thou grown so rich, that Christ in his poverty is despised? Alas! Poor wealth! Alas! Base wealth! Alas! Vile wealth! It would be well for thee if it should be all swept away, if a descent to poverty should be a restoration to the ardency of thine affection. C H Spurgeon - Love's Logic (See full sermon Love's Logic) God loves me—not merely bears with me, thinks of me and feeds me, but loves me. It is a very sweet thing to feel that we have the love of a dear wife or kind husband; and there is much sweetness in the love of a fond child or a tender mother; but to think that God loves me, this is infinitely better! Who is it that loves you? God, the Maker of heaven and earth, the Almighty, All in all, does he love me, even he? If all men, all angels and all the living creatures that are before the throne loved me, that would be nothing to this—the Infinite loves me! And who is it that he loves? Me. The text says ‘us.’ ‘We love him, because he first loved us.’ But this is the personal point—he loves me, an insignificant nobody, full of sin, who deserved to be in hell and who loves him so little in return—God loves me. Beloved believer, does this not melt you? Does this not fire your soul? I know it does if it is really believed. It must. And how did he love me? He loved me so that he gave up his only begotten Son for me, to be nailed to the tree and made to bleed and die. And what will come of it? Why, because he loved me and forgave me, I am on the way to heaven and within a few months, perhaps days, I shall see his face and sing his praises. He loved me before I was born; before a star began to shine he loved me and he has never ceased to do so all these years. When I have sinned he has loved me; when I have forgotten him he has loved me; and when in the days of my sin I cursed him, yet still he loved me; and he will love me when my knees tremble and my hair is grey with age; ‘even to hoar hairs’ he will bear and carry his servant; and he will love me when the world is on a blaze, and love me for ever and for ever. Spurgeon - Love’s birth and parentage (See full sermon Love's Birth and Parentage) ‘We love him, because he first loved us.’ 1 John 4:19 It is notable that the older a believer becomes and the more deeply he searches into divine truth, the more inclined he is to give the whole of the praise for his salvation to the grace of God and to believe in those precious truths which magnify, not the free will of man, but the free grace of the Ever Blessed. I want no better statement of my own doctrinal belief than this—‘We love him, because he first loved us.’ I know it has been said that he loved us on the foresight of our faith, love and holiness. Of course the Lord had a clear foresight of all these, but remember that he had also the foresight of our lack of love, our lack of faith, our wanderings and our sins, and surely his foresight in one direction must be supposed to operate as well as his foresight in the other direction. Recollect also that God himself did not foresee that there would be any love to him arising out of ourselves, for there never has been any, and there never will be; he only foresaw that we should believe because he gave us faith; he foresaw that we should repent because his Spirit would work repentance in us; he foresaw that we should love, because he wrought that love within us; and is there anything in the foresight that he means to give us such things that can account for his giving us such things? The case is self-evident—his foresight of what he means to do cannot be his reason for doing it. His own eternal purpose has made the gracious difference between the saved and those who wilfully perish in sin. Let us give all the glory to his holy name, for to him all the glory belongs. “Daddy, I Found You!” We love Him because He first loved us. — 1 John 4:19 Today's Scripture : John 20:11-18 In his book Jesus Among Other Gods, Ravi Zacharias tells a story about a girl who became hopelessly lost in a dark and dense forest. She called and screamed, but to no avail. Her alarmed parents and a group of volunteers searched frantically for her. When darkness fell, they had to give up for the night. Early the next morning the girl’s father reentered the forest to search for her and spied her fast asleep on a rock. He called her name and ran toward her. Startled awake, she threw her arms out to him. As he picked her up and hugged her, she repeated over and over, “Daddy, I found you!” Applying this story to Mary Magdalene’s search for Jesus in John 20, Zacharias comments: “Mary discovered the most startling truth of all when she came looking for the body of Jesus. She did not realize that the person she had found was the One who was risen, and that He had come looking for her.” What is the nature of God’s love, and how can we embrace it? When we find Christ, we discover that we were the ones who were lost. The Miracle Of Restraint - We love Him because He first loved us. —1 John 4:19 In Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov, Ivan Karamazov refers to “the miracle of restraint”—God’s choice to curb His own power. The more I get to know Jesus, the more that observation impresses me. The miracles Satan suggested to Jesus (Luke 4:3,9-11), the signs the Pharisees demanded (Matt. 12:38; 16:1), the final proofs I yearn for offer no obstacle to an omnipotent God. More amazing is His refusal to perform, to overwhelm. God’s terrible insistence on human freedom is so absolute that He granted us the power to live as though He does not exist. Jesus must have known this as He faced the tempter in the desert, focusing His power on the energy of restraint. I believe God insists on such restraint because no pyrotechnic displays of omnipotence will achieve the response He desires. Only love can summon a response of love. “I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself,” Jesus said (John 12:32). He said this to show the kind of death He would die. God’s nature is self-giving. That leaden night on which He was betrayed, The One by whom the universe was made Reclined with friends, took bread and stretched a hand Of love to him who His demise had planned. —Gustafson Revenge restrained is a victory gained. Does God Love Me? (Read: Romans 5:6-11+) We love Him because He first loved us. —1 John 4:19 It’s not easy to understand the depth of God‘s love for us. Because of our pride and fear, we fail to grasp how undeserving we are and how free His love is. At times I struggle with pride, so I tend to believe that I have earned any love I receive. Pride tells me that I am loved only when I am lovable, respectable, and worthy. At other times I feel the tug of fear. Deep down inside, I know that I don‘t deserve the love I get. My motives are never pure, and I fear I will be rejected if they are exposed. So even while I am basking in acceptance, I live with the fear of being unmasked, revealing that I am much less than what others think me to be. When I consider my relationship with God, therefore, I tend to feel that His affection for me is based on my performance. When I do well, He loves me; but if I foul up, then I expect only His scorn. Oh, such love, my soul, still ponder-— Love so great, so rich, so free! Say, while lost in holy wonder, “Why, O Lord, such love to me?” —Kent No one is beyond the reach of God’s love. James Hastings - THE RAY AND THE REFLECTION We love, because he first loved us.—1 John 4:19. SOME truths, when we have learned them, are to us like precious jewels which we keep in caskets, hidden most of the time from sight, our great satisfaction regarding them being simply their possession, simply that they are ours. Other truths, when we have learned them, are like new countries into which our lives have entered, and in which they thenceforth constantly live. There is a new sky over our head and a new earth under our feet. They fold themselves about us and touch every thought and action. Everything that we do or think or are is different because of them. Of this second sort is the truth of the priority of God’s love. ¶ I think I might say of this sentence what the poet says of prayer: it is “the simplest form of speech that infant lips can try,” and yet it is one of the “sublimest strains that reach the majesty on high.” Take a little believing child and ask her why she loves the Saviour, and she will reply at once, “Because He loved me and died for me”: then ascend to heaven where the saints are perfect in Christ Jesus and put the same question, and with united breath the whole choir of the redeemed will reply, “He hath loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood.” When we begin to love Christ we love Him because He first loved us; and when we grow in grace till we are capable of the very highest degree of spiritual understanding and affection, we still have no better reason for loving Him than this, “Because he first loved us.”1 I GOD’S LOVE TO US 1. God is first.—Unless God had been first, we—our whole human race in general and each of us in particular—never would have been at all. We are what we are because He is what He is. Everything that we do God has first made it possible for us to do. Every act of ours, as soon as it is done, is grasped into a great world of activity which comes from Him; and there the influence and effect of our action is determined. Everything that we know is true already before our knowledge of it. Our knowing it is only the opening of our intelligence to receive what is and always has been a part of His being who is the universal truth. Every deed or temper or life is good or bad as it is in harmony or out of harmony with Him. Everywhere God is first; and man, coming afterward, enters into Him and finds in God the setting and the background of his life. If we love, He loved first. ¶ It is as when up the morning sky, all coldly beautiful with ordered ranks of cloud on cloud, is poured the glow of sunrise, and every least cloud, still the same in place and shape, burns with the transfiguring splendour of the sun. So is it when the priority of existence is seen to rest in a Person, and the background of life is God. Then every new arrival instantly reports itself to Him, and is described in terms of its relationship to Him. Every activity of ours answers to some previous activity of His. Do we hope? It is because we have caught the sound of some promise of His. Do we fear? It is because we have had some glimpse of the dreadfulness of getting out of harmony with Him. Are we curious and inquiring? It is that we may learn some of His truth. Do we resist evil? We are fighting His enemies. Do we help need? We are relieving His children. Do we love Him? It is an answer of gratitude for His love to us. Do we live? It is a projection and extension of His being. Do we die? It is the going home of our immortal souls to Him.1 2. The love of God to us precedes our love to God.—From all eternity the Lord looked upon His people with an eye of love, and as nothing can be before eternity, His love was first. He loved us before we had any being, before we had any desire to be loved, before any repentance on our part was possible. Divine love is its own cause, and does not derive its streams from anything in us whatsoever. It flows spontaneously from the heart of God, finding its deep wellsprings within His own bosom. This is a great comfort to us, because, being uncreated, it is unchangeable. If it had been set upon us because of some goodness in us, then when the goodness was diminished the love would diminish too. If God had loved us second and not first, or had the cause of the love been in us, that cause might have altered, and the supposed effect, namely, His love, would have altered too; but now, whatever may be the believer’s condition to-day, however he may have wandered, and however much he may be groaning under a sense of sin, the Lord declares, “I do earnestly remember him still.” Strictly speaking, the words of the Apostle only declare the priority of the Divine love towards us over ours towards Him. But we may fairly give it a wider meaning, and say—first of all, before creation and time, away back in the abysmal depths of an everlasting and changeless heart, changeless in the sense that its love was eternal, but not changeless in the sense that love could have no place within it—first of all things was God’s love; last to be discovered because most ancient of all. The foundation is disclosed last when you come to dig, and the essence is grasped last in the process of analysis. So one of the old psalms, with wondrous depth of truth, traces up everything to this, “For his mercy endureth for ever.” Therefore, there was time; therefore, there were creatures—“He made great lights, for his mercy endureth for ever.” Therefore, there were judgments—“He smote great kings … for his mercy endureth for ever.” And so we may pass through all the works of the Divine energy, and say, “He first loved us.” ¶ We may say of the silvered sea that it shines because the moon sheds upon it its silvery light. We may say of the full-orbed moon that she shines in soft beauty because she reflects the glory of the far-absent sun. But of the sun we can only say that it shines because it shines. We know of no eternal sources from which it draws its glory. So it is with the great heart of God. He loves, because He loves. “He first loved us.”1 ¶ If you look on the buds on the trees in the spring-time you will see they are all covered over with a gummy hard case, which keeps them from opening out. Well, there was a little bud like this and its little heart was dark and cold and uncomfortable. But one day the sunshine came streaming upon it, and it felt the hard case melt away from round it, and as the light grew brighter and warmer the case all melted away and the bud opened out into a beautiful blossom, and the fine, rich sunbeam found its way right into the little bud’s heart, then, when the bud saw the light it smiled and said, “See! see!—I have made the sun!” “Nay, nay, my child,” said a little sunbeam passing by, “you didn’t make the sun—it was the sun which made you. It was the sun which nourished you and cherished you, and opened your leaves and touched your heart. You should love the sun because the sun first loved you.”1 3. The love of God begets love in us.—One thing may be first and another second, and yet the first may not be the cause of the second, there may be no actual link between the two: but here we have it unmistakably, “We love, because he first loved us”; which signifies not merely that this is the motive of which we are conscious in our love, but that this is the force, the Divine power, which created love in us. ¶ The meeting-point of God and man is love. Love, in other words, is, for the poet, the supreme principle both of morality and of religion. Love, once for all, solves that contradiction between them which, both in theory and in practice, has embarrassed the world for so many ages. Love is the sublimest conception attainable by man; a life inspired by it is the most perfect form of goodness he can conceive; therefore, love is, at the same moment, man’s moral ideal, and the very essence of Godhood. A life actuated by love is Divine, whatever other limitations it may have … God is Himself the source and fulness of love. ’Tis Thou, God, that givest, ’tis I who receive: In the first is the last, in Thy will is my power to believe. All’s one gift. Would I suffer for him that I love? So wouldst Thou—so wilt Thou! So shall crown Thee the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost crown— And Thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor down One spot for the creature to stand in!2 ¶ It is with love exactly as with life. You know that there has been a controversy in the field of science about the origin of life, which has raged for a considerable part of this century, and has only lately been settled. One school said that life was born of itself; the other that life must come from a Life without. One school, to take an illustration that makes it plainer, took an infusion of air, heated it to a very high temperature, put it into a flask, sealed it hermetically, put it aside. A few weeks after the flask was opened; there was life inside it. Now, you see, they claimed this as spontaneous generation. The other side said, “It is not conclusive. You did not apply enough heat.” They heated it several degrees higher till there could not possibly have been any existing germs of life within the flask. They opened it after a lapse of time; there was no life. And now they accept this truth, life alone can propagate life. Life cannot spring into existence, it must be communicated. It is exactly the same thing with regard to love. You cannot make the black coals on your hearth burst into flame until you apply a light. If you want to love, you must wait till love comes from without. There is just one source of love, and that is God. And there can be no love in the human heart till the love of God comes in and creates it there. It must come by a genesis, not by spontaneous generation. We love because God has first loved us.1 He seeks for ours as we do seek for His; Nay, O my soul, ours is far more His bliss Than His is ours; at least it so doth seem, Both in His own and our esteem. His earnest love, His infinite desires, His living, endless, and devouring fires, Do rage in thirst, and fervently require A love ’tis strange it should desire. We cold and careless are, and scarcely think Upon the glorious spring whereat we drink. Did He not love us we could be content: We wretches are indifferent! ’Tis death, my soul, to be indifferent; Set forth thyself unto thy whole extent, And all the glory of His passion prize, Who for thee lives, who for thee dies.2 (1) But in order that the love of God may beget love in us there must be sufficient evidence of His love. What evidence have we? We have evidence enough of God’s love—at least for the ordinary experience of life—in the beauty of the world, the beneficence of nature, and all the joy of human intercourse. ¶ Mazzini crossed the St. Gotthard with some danger. “The scene,” he wrote back to England, “was sublime, Godlike. No one knows what poetry is, who has not found himself there, at the highest point of the route, on the plateau, surrounded by the peaks of the Alps in the everlasting silence that speaks of God. There is no atheism possible on the Alps.”1 ¶ One who went with Dr. McLaren to the Isle of Wight writes: “I saw during our walks on one or two lovely mornings that wonderful light in his eyes, his lips slightly parted, his face almost transfigured, a look of ecstasy as he gazed lovingly (no other word will do) at the minute flowers covering the merest cranny in the moss-grown walls by the roadside. He said no word, but one could see that he was worshipping at the ‘Temple’s inner shrine.’ ”2 ¶ Wilberforce did not do things by halves. What he did, he did with all his might. His likes and dislikes were strong. He felt strongly, and so he spoke and acted strongly. There were three things for which he evidently had an intense love: the Truth, Nature, Home. And if we were permitted to look for the underlying cause we should probably find it in a perfectly simple belief in the Fatherhood of God as revealed to us by our Lord. The truth was God’s truth. The world was God’s world. The home was God’s home.3 (2) It is only when we come to the dark sad side of life that our faith begins to fail. And here the Incarnation takes up the thread of proof, not by removing the problem of the mystery of sorrow from our minds, but by revealing God Himself as willing to bear it with and for us, and so enabling our hearts to feel it the crowning testimony of His love. The soul that has reached this certitude needs no other motive to ensure its obeying the commandment, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.” But there are many who have not attained it, from fearing to make the initial venture of taking up their cross. With all their disbelief in miracles, they still seek after a sign. A sign, they must remember, cannot produce conviction; for conviction comes by obedience, and by that alone. But a sign may arrest attention, and lead to obedience in the end. And there is a sign which outsoars all other miracles, and grows only more wonderful as the ages pass along, and that is the empire of Jesus Christ over human hearts. He claimed it, and history has justified the claim. No other founder of religions, patriot, martyr, king, or saint, has ever claimed it or received it. In all history it is unique. Critics tell us that the sayings of the Sermon on the Mount were not original, and the suffering of Calvary no greater than what other men have borne, and even that the Gospel narratives are in many points inaccurate. But all these things, if granted, only force into stronger relief the wonder of the fact that Jesus Christ, crucified, dead, and buried, more than eighteen centuries ago, has inspired in every age, and among wholly diverse nations, in thousands after thousands of sinful and saintly hearts alike, not merely reverence for His memory, or sympathy for His sufferings, or enthusiasm for His cause, but a personal, passionate, living adoration, passing the love of woman; and characterized by a finality, a restfulness, a peace, which finite objects of affection never can afford. That this is so is a fact beyond the reach of controversy, and a fact which defies explanation on any other view than that Jesus Christ is God—the Infinite and therefore adequate Object of human love, the desire of all nations, who alone could say, “I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.” ¶ Like the skilfully painted portrait which seems to look at each individual in a crowded room, the Saviour on the Cross appears to gaze on me. I listen in the silence, and He, as it were, addresses me, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love,” and as I look I reply in wonder, “He loved me, and gave himself for me!” And this love becomes a double bond, uniting with his Lord and Master the Christian’s heart and life. Love has a hem to its garment That touches the very dust, It can reach the stains of the streets and lanes, And because it can, it must. (3) But if the highest manifestation of the love of God is seen in the cross of Christ, then God loves us not because of our deserving but of His grace. In our natural desire to ascertain the cause of things, we can generally give a good reason why we love this person or that. A relationship—husband and wife, parent and child, friend and friend—is quite enough to account for it; or it may be in his nature or conduct that we see what causes our love to go out to another. These reasons may be often inadequate, sometimes even unworthy, but they satisfy our desire to trace the emotion to its originating cause. And when we are asked to believe that God loves us, even us, we are led at once to ask, Why? Why should God love me? And if we know even a little of Him or of ourselves—His greatness and our littleness, His glory and our poor estate, His holiness and our sinfulness—we have ample ground for doubting the fact. We fail entirely to account for it, and so we disbelieve it. If we were good, we say, the good God would love us. If we were holy, the Holy One would love us. Perhaps this is the earliest theology most children learn: “If you are not good God will not love you!” “If you do that God will not love you!” As if sin, the child’s or the man’s, placed the sinner outside the sphere of the love of God. This heresy lies at the root of all false religions, and of all hypocrisies, that we must by our goodness win the love and favour of God; till we are “good” God will have nothing to say to us! ¶ We are amongst savages of the very lowest type, caring for nothing but what satisfies the cravings of their fleshly lusts. Nevertheless, I love them, not because of any virtue in them, but for the sake of Him who died for them, as well as for us. And although it is not my lot to preach, and a thing I cannot do, yet I hope, while working with and among them, that my life and example will help to mould them to the likeness of our Lord and. Master.1 ¶ “I love poverty,” says Pascal, “because He loved it. I love goods, because they enable me to succour the needy. I keep faith with all the world, I do not return evil for evil; and I would that those who wish me harm had reached a state like mine beyond the power of men to make or mar. I try to be true and just to all, and I feel peculiar tenderness for those to whom God has more closely bound me. In all my actions, public and private, I keep in view Him who will one day judge them, and to whom they are all offered up beforehand. Such are my feelings. Every day of my life I bless my Redeemer, who has implanted them within me. Out of a mass of weakness and misery, pride, ambition, and ill-will He has made a man freed from all these evils by the power of grace.”2 II OUR LOVE TO GOD The Revised Version omits “him” in the first clause, and simply says “we love,” without specifying the object. That is to say, for the moment John’s thought is fixed rather on the inward transformation effected, from self-regard to love, than on considering the object on which the love is expended. When the heart is melted, the streams flow wherever there is a channel. The river, as he goes on to show us, parts into two heads, and love to God and love to man are, in their essence and root-principle, one thing. 1. Our love is the heart’s response to God’s love.—We love, because He first loved us. Our love is secondary, His is primary; ours is reflection, His the original beam; ours is echo, His the mother-tone. Heaven must bend to earth before earth can rise to heaven. The skies must open and drop down love, before love can spring in the fruitful fields. And it is only when we look with true trust to that great unveiling of the heart of God which is in Jesus Christ, only when we can say, “Herein is love—that he sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins,” that our hearts are melted, and all their snows are dissolved into sweet waters, which, freed from their icy chains, can flow with music in their ripple, and fruitfulness along their course, through our otherwise silent and barren lives. As the sun holds our planet in the strong grasp of its attraction, while the earth by its own very weak gravitation is also held in its place, so does the consciousness of God’s great love grasp and sustain my soul and my life; and then my own weak and feeble love to Him (itself the “first-fruits of the Spirit”) serves to “bind my wandering heart” to Him. I apprehend, though with poor and trembling hand, Him by whom I am apprehended with a hold which no other power can destroy. It is to this love that our Lord appeals as the motive of all obedience. Hence the tender, anxious, repeated inquiry, “Lovest thou me?” This love will account sufficiently for single actions and for whole lives. The perfumes which the woman poured upon the Saviour’s feet, and the “spikenard very precious” which the sister of Bethany lavished on her Divine Master, were prompted by a like love. The grandest human life of service and of suffering ever lived on earth is explained and accounted for in the words, “the love of Christ constraineth us.” “We love, because he first loved us.” ¶ How all reasoning and arguing fails where one word of love softens, and influences, and does the work! and it is, as ever, by dwelling on the good rather than driving out the evil that the right thing is brought about.1 ¶ The Holy Spirit cries in us with a loud voice and without words, “Love the love which loves you everlastingly.” His crying is an inward contact with our spirit. This voice is more terrifying than the storm. The flashes which it darts forth open the sky to us and show us the light of eternal truth. The heat of its contact and of its love is so great that it well-nigh consumes us altogether. In its contact with our spirit it cries without interruption, “Pay your debt; love the love which has loved you from all eternity.” Hence there arises a great inward impatience and also an unlimited resignation. For the more we love, the more we desire to love; and the more we pay of that which love demands, the greater becomes our debt to love. Love is not silent, but cries continually, “Love thou love.” This conflict is unknown to alien senses. To love and to enjoy, that is to labour and to suffer. God lives in us by His grace. He teaches us, He counsels us, He commands us to love. We live in Him above all grace and above our own works, by suffering and enjoying. In us dwell love, knowledge, contemplation, and possession, and, above them, enjoyment. Our work is to love God; our enjoyment is to receive the embrace of love.2 O eyes that strip the souls of men! There came to me the Magdalen. Her blue robe with a cord was bound, Her hair with Lenten lilies crowned. “Arise,” she said, “God calls for thee, Turned to new paths thy feet must be. Leave the fever and the feast, Leave the friend thou lovest best: For thou must walk in barefoot ways, To give my dear Lord Jesus praise.” Then answered I—“Sweet Magdalen, God’s servant, once beloved of men, Why didst thou change old ways for new, That trailing red for corded blue, Roses for lilies on thy brow, Rich splendour for a barren vow?” Gentle of speech she answered me:— “Sir, I was sick with revelry. True, I have scarred the night with sin, A pale and tawdry heroine; But once I heard a voice that said ‘Who lives in sin is surely dead, But whoso turns to follow me Hath joy and immortality.’ ” “O Mary, not for this,” I cried, “Didst thou renounce thy scented pride. Not for a taste of endless years Or barren joy apart from tears Didst thou desert the courts of men, Tell me thy truth, sweet Magdalen!” She trembled, and her eyes grew dim:— “For love of Him, for love of Him.”1 2. Our love is the necessary and moral result of our persuasion of God’s love to us.—It is a part of the ordinary constitution of our nature that we should love those who, we believe, love us. Sometimes far out at sea the sailor sees the sky grow tremulous and troubled. The cloud seems to be all unable to contain itself; its under surface wavers and stretches downwards toward the ocean. It is as if it yearned and thirsted for the kindred water. A great grasping hand is reached downward and feels after the waves. And then the sailor looks beneath, and lo, the surface of the waves is troubled too; and out from the water comes first a mere tremble and confusion, and then by and by a column of water builds itself, growing steadier and steadier, until at last it grasps the hand out of the cloud, and one strong pillar reaches from the sea into the heavens, from the heavens to the sea, and the heavens and the sea are one. So you must make man know that God loves him, and then look to see man love God. ¶ What will you do if you are sent to carry the Gospel to your friend, your child? Will you stand over him and say, “You must love God; you will suffer for it if you do not”? When was ever love begotten so? “Who is God?” “Why should I love Him?” “How can I love Him?” answers back the poor, bewildered heart, and turns to the things of earth which with their earthly affections seem to love it, and satisfies itself in loving them. Or perhaps it grows defiant, and says, “I will not,” flinging back your exhortation as the cold stone flings back the sunlight. But you say to your friend, your child, “God loves you,” say it in every language of yours, in every vernacular of his, which you can command, and his love is taken by surprise, and he wakes to the knowledge that he does love God without a resolution that he will.1 ¶ It was early in his career that he happened one day to be alone for a few minutes with a young lady, who afterwards became the wife and active helpmate of a devoted minister of Christ in Edinburgh. In early life she had felt her need of a Saviour, and tried to become a Christian, but failed in finding the sinner’s Saviour. She looked too much into her own heart, and sought there, and sought in vain, for that kind and degree of conviction of sin which she thought to be necessary to fit her for coming to Jesus. As a natural result, she was almost reduced to despair. Mr. North, guided by the Spirit, on whose direction he constantly relied, and with that aptitude to understand the exact position of an anxious soul with which he was gifted, asked her if she was saved, and on her replying that she was not, he asked her, Why? and she answered, “Because I do not feel that I love Jesus.” He then said simply, “That does not matter, He loves you.” No other word was spoken, but this was enough, and was the means of leading her to trust in the Saviour’s dying love to sinners. She was enabled henceforth to rest in that love, and to follow Christ, and after a useful and happy life, closed it, in the beginning of 1877, by a very triumphant death.2 3. And our love to God is the best evidence to ourselves that we are passed from death into life. ¶ Robert Hall charmed the most learned by the majesty of his eloquence, but he was as simple as he was great, and he was never happier than when conversing with poor believers upon experimental godliness. He was accustomed to make his journeys on horseback, and having been preaching at Clipstone he was on his way home, when he was stopped by a heavy fall of snow at the little village of Sibbertoft. The good man who kept the “Black Swan,” a little village hostelry, came to his door and besought the preacher to take refuge beneath his roof, assuring him that it would give him great joy to welcome him. Mr. Hall knew him to be one of the most sincere Christians in the neighbourhood, and therefore got off his horse and went into the little inn. The good man was delighted to provide for him a bed, and a stool, and a candlestick in the prophet’s chamber, for that rustic inn contained such an apartment. After Mr. Hall had rested awhile by the fire the landlord said, “You must needs stop here all night, sir; and if you do not mind I will call in a few of my neighbours, and if you feel that you could give us a sermon in my taproom they will all be glad to hear you.” “So let it be, sir,” said Mr. Hall, and so it was: the taproom became his cathedral, and the “Black Swan” the sign of the gospel banner. The peasants came together, and the man of God poured out his soul before them wondrously. They would never forget it, for to hear Mr. Hall was an event in any man’s life. After all were gone Mr. Hall sat down, and there came over him a fit of depression, out of which he strove to rise by conversation with his host. “Ah, sir,” said the great preacher, “I am much burdened, and am led to question my own condition before God. Tell me now what you think is a sure evidence that a man is a child of God.” “Well, Mr. Hall,” said the plain man, “I am sorry to see you so tried; you doubt yourself, but nobody else has any doubt about you. I hope the Lord will cheer and comfort you, but I am afraid I am not qualified to do it.” “Never mind, friend, never mind, tell me what you think the best evidence of a child of God?” “Well, I should say, sir,” said he, “if a man loves God he must be one of God’s children.” “Say you so,” said the mighty preacher, “then it is well with me; I do love Him.”1 ¶ The opening paragraphs of Wesley’s Earnest Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion are perhaps the finest epitome of the ruling purpose of the Great Revival. The lifeless, formal religion of the time was a sad contrast to that religion of love which they had found. The love of God and of all mankind “we believe to be the medicine of life, the never-failing remedy for all the evils of a disordered world, for all the miseries and vices of men. Wherever this is, there are virtue and happiness going hand in hand. There is humbleness of mind, gentleness, long-suffering, the whole image of God, and at the same time a peace that passeth all understanding, and joy unspeakable and full of glory.”2 III OUR LOVE TO MAN 1. Man’s life expands when God’s love possesses it. It becomes as the universe. God is everywhere its occupant, and yet excludes not one particle of His infinite productions. We are not bidden to abstract all affections from the creature when bidden to love God “with all the heart, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and with all the mind.” It is a principle laid down by St. John—“Every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him.” And therefore the way to increase in that love which alone deserves the name as being anything better than a development of selfishness, is to increase in love to God. Piety will produce charity. The more we love God the more will we love man. ¶ Those thinkers who cannot believe in any gods often assert that the love of humanity would be in itself sufficient for them; and so, perhaps, it would, if they had it.1 2. We can show our love by loving service. Where the love of the Almighty has been excited, it will become a ruling principle, and manifest itself in every department of conduct. If we love God, it will necessarily follow that we will desire to please Him; that we will delight in contemplating His glories; that the sense of His favour will be our choicest treasure; and that, consequently, obedience to His will, and earnestness in winning others from their enmity, will be evident in our actions. ¶ I think that it was at this time of his life that he used to go down every night of the week to the Grassmarket and convoy a man home past the public-houses.2 ¶ But still, the main lesson which her lady-pupils carried away from Walsall was not how to dress wounds or how to bandage, or even how to manage a hospital on the most popular as well as the most economical method, but rather the mighty results which the motive-power of love towards God, and, for His sake, towards mankind, might enable one single woman to effect. Sister Dora said to a friend who was engaging a servant for the hospital, “Tell her this is not an ordinary house, or even hospital; I want her to understand that all who serve here, in whatever capacity, ought to have one rule, love for God, and then I need not say love for their work. I wish we could use, and really mean, the word Maison-Dieu.”1 ¶ One night she was sent for by a poor man who was much attached to her, and who was dying of what she called “black-pox,” a violent form of small-pox. She went at once and found him almost in the last extremity. All his relations had fled, and a neighbour alone was with him, doing what she could for him. When Sister Dora found that only one small piece of candle was left in the house, she gave the woman some money, begging her to go and buy some means of light, while she stayed with the man. She sat on by his bed, but the woman, who had probably spent the money at the public-house, never returned; and after some little while the dying man raised himself up in bed with a last effort, saying, “Sister, kiss me before I die.” She took him, all covered as he was with the loathsome disease, into her arms, and kissed him, the candle going out almost as she did so, leaving them in total darkness. He implored her not to leave him while he lived, although he might have known she would never do that. It was then past midnight, and she sat on, for how long she knew not, until he died. Even then she waited, fancying, as she could not see him, that he might be still alive, till in the early dawn she groped her way to the door, and went to find some neighbours.2 3. The more we love others and make our love manifest in our life, the more will we persuade them of the reality of love and therefore of the love of God. Our age is remarkable for triumphs of mercy, and not the least of the blessings which the merciful have rendered to us is that they have shown disinterested virtue to be possible. He who ennobles himself ennobles his race, draws away many a wavering recruit from the seat of the scorner, giving him an ideal and a hope in life. Ask those who have thus elevated their generation whence they drew their inspiration, and they will one and all reply: “We love, because he first loved us.” They will say: If we have taught our soldiers and sailors to keep their bodies in temperance, soberness, and chastity; if we have cleansed and clothed the waifs and strays of our modern Babylons and sent them forth as welcome colonists to subdue the virgin lands of our empire; if we have rescued woman from corruption and slavery; if we have carried thrift and peace and purity into the lowest dens of misery—we were but following Him who promised rest to the weary and heavy-laden. If our light shines before men, if they see any good works in us, let them glorify not us, but our Father which is in heaven, the Sun of all our day, from whom every good and perfect gift descends. We are unprofitable servants: we have done but a scantling of our duty. We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please ourselves. If He, the Lord and Master, washed our feet, we also ought to wash one another’s feet. It is the part payment of a debt. ¶ To many a man the strongest force for good has come by his finding out that some one loves him and trusts him far more than he has ever deserved. He discovers or slowly realizes that some one better, purer, nobler than himself cares for him, believes in him, loves him; and the discovery makes him ashamed of his unworthiness and ingratitude: it gives him a new hope, a higher standard for life. He has been content, perhaps, to be no better than the most easy-going, the least particular of his set; and then he finds out that a pure, true heart—his mother’s, it may be, or his wife’s, or his child’s, or his friend’s—is pouring out on him its wealth of love and trust, thinking him good, expecting great things of him, ready to wait or toil or suffer for his sake: some special occasion, it may be, or some side-light lets him see how deeply and generously he is cared for; and he begins to say to himself that it’s rather a shame to go on as he does. There must be some hope for him, some power or way for him to grow better, if people care for him, believe in him like that; anyhow, it’s a shame not to try to be a bit more like what their love makes them think he is. And so he tries; and, because they first loved him, he learns to love; he begins to live a steadier, purer, more unselfish and dutiful life: a life in which love springs up higher, stronger, happier, like a tree growing in the soil that suits it.1 ¶ It was in the fall of 1859 that my future husband, then a young man of about twenty-one years, came to our section to teach school, where he used his talents and influence for the good of all with whom he came in contact. He was an excellent teacher, loved and respected by parents and pupils alike. He soon found his way to my father’s and mother’s home, for the former teachers had not been strangers there. He said afterwards that when he saw me for the first time that day in my own home, he determined that I should be his. The task proved to be not as easy as may have seemed; but he had made up his mind, and, as in after-years in more important matters, when he won in spite of difficulties, so it was then. He poured forth his wealth of love and affection and compelled me to love him in return as I had never loved before. Of course we had to wait, but the time did not seem long. It was unalloyed bliss. Three years of school, of walks and talks, and when he left for college there were the letters, the visits, the hopes and aspirations and preparations, and with all at times a tinge of sadness lest I was not quite worthy of it all.1 ¶ So they began to show him every possible kindness, and one after another helped him in his daily tasks, embracing every opportunity of pleading with him to yield to Jesus and take the new path of life. At first he repelled them, and sullenly held aloof. But their prayers never ceased, and their patient affections continued to grow. At last, after long waiting, Nasi broke down, and cried to one of the Teachers,—“I can oppose your Jesus no longer. If He can make you treat me like that, I yield myself to Him and to you. I want Him to change me too. I want a heart like that of Jesus.”2 ¶ There was one case of awful despair in a poor dying woman who refused to listen to any words of the mercy of God, saying only “too late, too late.” To her, Mr. Marriott devoted much care and many prayers. It seemed as though no impression could be made upon her. The cry went on—“too late, too late, too late for me.” But Mr. Marriott’s tender fervour to bring her to faith and trust in her Saviour prevailed at last. He said,—“But you do believe in the love of those around you, now that Jesus sends it to you?” With what seemed the last effort of life, she raised herself,—clasped her arms round the neck of the sister who was attending to her,—and kissing her answered,—“Yes, it is love.” The last struggle followed almost immediately and we heard her say, “Jesus, save me,”—the words he had entreated her to use. So his prayers had been heard. She died in hope and faith.3 Upon the marsh mud, dank and foul, A golden sunbeam softly fell, And from the noisome depths arose A lily miracle. Upon a dark, bemired life A gleam of human love was flung, And lo, from that ungenial soil A noble deed upsprung.1 THE RAY AND THE REFLECTION LITERATURE Banks (L. A.), John and his Friends, 152. Brooks (P.), The Light of the World, 40. Campbell (R. J.), City Temple Sermons, 122. Davies (D.), Talks with Men, Women and Children, v. 342. Davies (J. Ll.), The Work of Christ, 205. Gibbon (J. M.), The Gospel of Fatherhood, 54. Girdlestone (A. G.), The Way, the Truth, the Life, No. 6. Gregory (B.), Perfect in Christ Jesus, 104. Gregory (J. R.), Scripture Truths made Simple, 64. Howatt (J. R.), The Children’s Angel, 14. Illingworth (J. R.), University and Cathedral Sermons, 87. Jeffrey (R. T.), Visits to Calvary, 347. Jones (T.), The Divine Order, 226. Kingsley (C.), All Saints Day Sermons, 151. Lewis (F. W.), The Unseen Life, 51. Maclaren (A.), Sermons, ii. 216. Maclaren (A.), Triumphant Certainties, 305. Mayor (J. E. B.), Twelve Cambridge Sermons, 117. Paget (F.), The Redemption of War, 58. Pusey (E. B.), Parochial and Cathedral Sermons, 439. Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xvii. (1871) 481; xxii. (1876) 337; xlvii. (1901) 265. Stockdale (F. B.), Divine Opportunity, 40. Temple (F.), Sermons Preached in Rugby School Chapel, iii. 57. Thomas (J.), The Dynamic of the Cross, 52. Vaughan (J.), Sermons, 1st Ser. (1869), 227. Voysey (C.), Sermons (1876), No. 36; (1884) No. 34; (1907) No. 10. Walpole (G. H. S.), Life’s Chance, 81. Christian World Pulpit, liv. 168 (Scott Holland). Churchman’s Pulpit: 1st Sunday after Trinity: xxi. 481 (Grimley), 483 Moore; 18th Sunday after Trinity, xxxviii. 402 (Melvill). Church of England Magazine, li. 80 (Burland). Contemporary Pulpit, 2nd Ser., ii. 294 (Watson).
1 João 4:20
Spurgeon - It is very rude of you, John, to call people liars. But it is not John’s rough nature that uses such strong language; it is his gentle nature. When a loving disposition turns its face against evil, it turns against it with great vehemence of holy indignation. You can never judge a man’s character by his books. Curiously enough, Mr. Romaine. Of St. Anne’s Church, Blackfriars, wrote the most loving books that could be; yet he was a man of very strong temper indeed. Mr. Toplady wrote some of the sharpest things that were ever said about Arminians; but he was the most loving and gentle young man that ever breathed. St. John, full of love and tenderness, hits terribly hard when he comes across a lie. He was so fond of love, that he cannot have it played with, or mocked or mimicked. “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar.” (Exposition on 1 John 4) Love (verb) (25)(agapao) means to love unconditionally and sacrificially as God Himself loves sinful men (John 3:16), the way He loves the Son (John 3:35, 15:9, 17:23, 24). Note that agapao is a verb and by its verbal nature calls for action. This quality of love is not an emotion but is an action initiated by a volitional choice."expresses the purest, noblest form of love, which is volitionally driven, not motivated by superficial appearance, emotional attraction, or sentimental relationship." (John Macarthur) Vine writes that "Love can be known only from the actions it prompts. God’s love is seen in the gift of His Son, 1 John 4:9, 10. But obviously this is not the love of complacency, or affection, that is, it was not drawn out by any excellency in its objects, Ro 5:8. It was an exercise of the divine will in deliberate choice, made without assignable cause save that which lies in the nature of God Himself." (Collected Writings)
1 João 4:21
Spurgeon - This is that “new commandment” which our Lord gave to His apostles, and through them to His whole church. “That ye love one another as I have loved you.” John was, in a special sense, “that disciple whom Jesus loved.” It was meet, therefore, that he should be the apostle to be inspired by the Holy Spirit to bring “this commandment” to the remembrance of any who had forgotten it. “This commandment have we from Him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.” God help us so to do, of His great grace! (Exposition on 1 John 4) Marvin Vincent sees his brother as referring to Christ's brethren and quotes Augustine “To the persecutor Saul, Christ said, ‘Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me? I have ascended into heaven, yet still I lie upon earth. Here I sit at the right hand of the Father; there I still hunger, thirst, and am a stranger’." Danny Akin points out that "Love God and love one’s brother is really 2 parts of one command. One looks toward heaven and the other looks toward earth." In his commentary Akin goes on to elaborate... “And we have this command from Him” refers again to the words of Jesus concerning the greatest command, found in Matthew 22:37–39 and Mark 12:30–31. What Jesus gave us was a command. It was not a suggestion or recommendation. It was not just a good idea we might consider. If we truly love God, then we must truly love our brother as well. The Godward and human-directed aspects of love cannot be divided. They cannot be separated. They really are the bookends of all the commands. They are the “heads and tails” of the same coin of love. Our ability to actually love God is wedded to the reality of our love for fellow human beings. And such a love is not sporadic or periodic. It is not occasional. It is continual. It reflects and demonstrates for all to see the love of God for sinners that was put on public display on a bloody Roman cross when “the Father … sent His Son as the world’s Savior” (1 John 4:14). As D. Edmond Hiebert has wisely observed, “Since God’s love is no longer visible in the presence of the incarnate Christ here on earth, God is manifesting His love as it is now displayed in His people” (“An Exposition of 1 John 4:7–21,” 83). Exalting Jesus in 1,2,3 John - Page 117 Brian Bell - So the end of this matter is this: loving God and loving others is a package deal. You can’t have one w/o the other. There is a natural, logical kind of loving that loves lovely things and lovely people. That’s logical. But there is another kind of loving that doesn’t look for value in what it loves, but that CREATES value in what is loves. Like a small child’s rag doll. When a little girl, has a little rag doll, it is often an inseparable companion. She has other toys that are intrinsically far more valuable, but none that she loves like she loves the rag doll. Soon the rag doll becomes more and more rag and less and less doll. It also became more and more dirty. If you tried to clean the rag doll, it became more ragged still. And if you didn’t try to clean the rag doll, it became dirtier still. The sensible thing to do is to trash the rag doll. But that was unthinkable for anyone who loved the little child. If you loved the little girl, you love the rag doll - it is part of the package. We’re under a new law—the law of LOVE. (Ed: But we have a NEW power enabling us to keep this law, out of love, not legalism -- the indwelling Spirit. Let Him love through you!) (Sermon Notes on 1 John 4:7-21) Loved with everlasting love, Led by grace that love to know; Gracious Spirit from above, Thou hast taught me it is so! O, this full and perfect peace! O, this transport all divine! In a love which cannot cease, I am His, and He is mine. ILLUSTRATION - Steven