Down an Unfamiliar Road

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson LXI) 04/13/22

^4:9 God showed how much He loved us by sending His only Son into this wicked world to bring us eternal life through His death.

William Burkitt (1650-1703) points out that it was a remarkable instance of God’s agápe-love, that He considered our case and concerned Himself for our happiness, as nothing is more helpful to human nature than love. Therefore, if no love assists more than some people exercised with great disdain after a provocation, it does not match God’s agápe-love to offending sinners.[1]

Johann Bengel (1687-1752) explains that in verse nine, “toward us” – that is, God’s agápe-love, which is now ours throughout our whole spiritual experience, “because” – this motive of love is derived from verse three. It is said respecting Jesus the Anointed One, who is come in the flesh, mutual love is inferred in verse seven. The consequence is proven from the agápe-love of God towards us, as we see in verse nine, who sent His Son, that we might live. It is proof of God’s agápe-love towards us: it is a motivating factor for our mutual love for each other.[2]

James Macknight (1721-1800) says that the Apostle John says here in verse nine is an allusion to our Lord’s words in John 3:16. The Anointed One is called God’s only begotten Son to distinguish Him from all others, who are called the sons of God in Scripture. It is to intensify our idea of God’s agápe-love to us, in giving a Person of such dignity, and so beloved of God, to die for us. It is possible that by John giving the Anointed One the title of God’s only begotten Son, he intended to overturn the error of the Ebionites, [3] and Cerinthus, [4] who avowed that the Anointed One was not God’s Son by nature, but that, like other distinguished men, He was honored with the title of God’s Son on account of His virtues; in which opinion these founders of heretical sects have been followed by some into modern times. However, those who hold this opinion should show why the only begotten nickname is applied to the Anointed One.[5]

William Jones (1726-1800) is sure that God’s Word is weightier than any human testimony. The Apostle John’s meaning is that if we feel it obligatory not to reject human testimony when clear and adequate, that much more should we consider it binding on us to receive God’s testimony, especially when it concerns the Anointed One. What John says here in verses nine and ten is more significant than any human testimony could be. In what sense? It is more meaningful because of its origin – God. Some unbelievers might, and probably would say, “Granted, God’s testimony is greater than mankind’s. But since it’s God’s testimony, is there any way to prove that it’s true.” John would answer, “No one is asking you to believe it blindly; that’s why God proved it by showing it to the world. He sent His Son to communicate His Word.”

Rev. Jones concludes with lyrics from an old Church hymn sung in the 1700s that express the sentiments of both sinner and saint:

Hence and forever from my heart

I bid my doubts and fears depart;

And to those hands, my soul resign

Which bear credentials so divine.[6]

English Philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) acknowledges that “at the back of all things there is an infinite energy.”[7] Spencer said that if the energy is infinite, it can let us know something about itself as a starting point. (1) If the infinite energy consents to tell us something about itself, it must be through such channels of life, thought, and words as we can apprehend. (2) The fact that the communication channel may be human is entirely consistent with the origin of communication being Divine. (3) When this is the case, such human communication has to be interrogated and tested as to where it came from and how. (4) If it stands this test, namely, if (a) it claims to be from God, if (b) it justifies that claim, [8] and if (c) there is nothing inconsistent with the claim, – then the proof of the validity of its testimony is complete.[9]

Richard Rothe (1799-1867) points out that there was no better way for God to reveal that He is love than to send His only Son into the world with a message of that love. In doing so, God also established that love is a gift. In many commentaries, I read that love is a “free” gift. If it is a gift, it has to be free; otherwise it is not a gift. So, there is no used in using “free” with gift. You cannot buy it, merit it, bargain for it, nor earn it. True agápe love is a gift from Love Himself, by which He gave Himself to the world through His Son. So, if you accept His Son, you also accept His agápe-love.

Consequently, says Rothe, it is only through a revelation, which factors in mankind’s ethical nature and ethical needs, that the agápe-love of God can be exhibited to us in its true light.[10] In other words, Rothe points out that no one knew of God’s agápe-love until He showed it. The same is true of us. We can talk about love, think about love, define love, preach love, etc. But until we manifest the existence of love in our hearts, it does not exist. Love is an act of our will, not a concept of the mind or emotion.

Alfred Plummer (1841-1926) says that we see the uniformity of verses 10, 13, and 17 with what the Apostle John says here in verse nine. We have the same Greek pronoun, toutō, in all four verses. “Herein” plainly refers to what follows.[11] John tells us that “In this was manifested the agápe-love of God.”[12] Here is another reason for our loving one another. We must do this (1) because love is the very essence of Him whose children we are; (2) because of the superior way in which His agápe-love was manifested. The context shows that “the agápe-love of God,” which usually in this Epistle expresses our love to God, here means His agápe-love to us.[13] [14]

Albert Barnes (1798-1870) gives us another outline to consider in determining the measure of God’s agápe-love. He died that we might have eternal life through the merits of His sacrifice. The extent of that love, then, which was manifested in the gift of a Savior, is to be found (1) in the worth of the soul; (2) in its exposure to eternal death; (3) in the greatness of the gift; (4) in the greatness of His sorrows for us; and, (5) in the immortal blessedness and joy to which He will raise us. Who can estimate all this? All these things will magnify themselves as we draw near to eternity, and in that eternity to which we go, whether saved or lost, we will have an ever-expanding view of the beautiful agápe-love of God.[15]

Thomas K. Arnold (1800-1853) tells us that the Apostle John had no doubt; neither do we need any, though some doubt it, thinking that God’s justice and hatred of sin interfere with His agápe-love. But justice does not interfere with God’s love. On the contrary, justice and love are compatible with humankind and God. The Cross of the Anointed One reveals and establishes the harmony between righteousness and mercy. There, justice gets its own, love has its way, God is a “just God and a Savior,” and “grace reigns through righteousness.” The Anointed One’s Cross is not the cause, but the consequence, of God’s agápe-love. The text asserts God’s agápe-love before He sent the Anointed One; affirms the Anointed One’s mission to be the manifestation of God’s agápe-love. There is no need for doubt, then, as to the fact that God loves us, has loved us. But more than this, the text not only implies that God is loving and loves us, but asserts that He is love. Love is the sum and harmony of all His attributes, His divine essence.[16]

John Nelson Darby (1800-1882) asks what a ministry source is opened to us! It is the agápe-love of God in the Anointed One towards poor sinners. This agápe-love was fulfilled[17] in the death of the Son of man, who descended into the lowest depth of mankind’s misery. He who was glorified as God is now celebrated as a man. What a glorious function, and how small we feel as we kneel before Him. It is, indeed, the ministry of the Spirit and righteousness. Since God’s agápe-love is the source and the subject of the Anointed One’s passion, then God’s justice is accomplished in glorifying the Son of man upon the earth. He more than re-established all that glory of God (which was falsified and, in appearance, contradicted by the victory of Satan in the Garden of Eden and the ruin introduced into God’s creation); this righteousness also becomes its foundation. And because of this glorification of the Anointed One in power, there were also healings and miracles attached to this ministry, for miracles were likewise a confirmation of the essential part: the life-giving Word.[18]

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[1] Burkitt, William: Notes on N.T., op. cit., pp. 730-731

[2] Bengel, Johann: Critical English Commentary, op. cit., p. 321

[3] Ebionite, member of an early ascetic sect of Jewish Christians. The Ebionites were one of several such sects that originated in and around Palestine in the first centuries AD, and included the Nazarenes and Elkasites. The name of the sect is from the Hebrew ebionim (“the poor”); it was not founded, as later Christian writers stated, by a certain Ebion.

[4] Cerinthus, (flourished c. AD 100), Christian heretic whose errors, according to the theologian Irenaeus, led the Apostle John to write his New Testament Gospel.

[5] Macknight, James: Literal Paraphrase, op. cit., pp. 91-92

[6] “Behold the Blind Their Sight Received” Lyrics by Isaac Watts (1707); Music by Frederick Marc Antoine Venua (1810)

[7] Article in Nineteenth Century Magazine, a publication of the Victorian Society in America, January 1884

[8] The claim might be justified (1) by the glory of pure moral teaching; (2) by the purity of personal character; (3) by mighty works. Jesus the Anointed One appealed to all three. This, however, is now regarded by some as an additional hindrance rather than a help. To such, we would offer the following hints. (a) The New Testament miracles are not merely wonders, but signs. They harmonize with a great redemptive plan. (b) If the evidence afforded by the noble moral teaching is sufficient, well, be it so, and wait for further light on what you deem miraculous, only remember: (c) That when we believe in one God and Father of all, we do in that one article of faith cover vastly more supernatural ground than all the recorded miracles put together. (d) Certainly there have been days when miracles were the very helps that men required. Our Lord did not prefer this. He complained of it. Apostles put miracles in the fourth place. But if to some minds they were the most efficient helps, it was very kind of the Father thus to stoop to teach His children in their infancy.

[9] Jones, William: First Epistle of John, Pulpit Commentary, Vol. 22, op. cit., Homiletics, pp. 149-150

[10] Rothe, Richard: The Expository Times, op. cit., February 1894, p. 232

[11] Cf. 3:16, 19

[12] See 1 John 1:2; 2:19, 28; 3:2, 5, 8

[13] 1 John 3:16

[14] Plummer, Alfred: Cambridge Commentary, op. cit., p. 148

[15] Barnes, Albert: Notes on N.T., op. cit., p. 4863

[16] Arnold, Thomas; The Church Pulpit Commentary, op. cit., Vol. 12, p. 297

[17] 1 John 4:9

[18] Darby, John N. On Ministry: Its Nature, Source, Power, and Responsibility, p. 12

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson LX) 04/12/22

^4:8 If a person isn’t loving and kind, it shows that they don’t know God – for God is love.

Karen H. Jobes (1968) points out that this is the third time the Apostle John mentioned: “the one who does not love.” Such a person remains in spiritual death.[1] Therefore, they do not have eternal life. The essence of that life is knowledge of God and the One He sent.[2] The failure to love is not simply an ethical failing, but means that one remains in the ignorance of sin, apart from salvation’s Light. Those who fail to love are outside the Christian community and have no truthful testimony of God, for they have no actual knowledge of God. As God defines it, personal understanding of God and agápe-love for others are inseparable. John’s appeal, therefore, implicitly demands self-examination.[3]

David Guzik (1984) notes that the love the Apostle John speaks of comes from the ancient Greek word agápe; it is the concept of a self-giving love that gives without demanding or expecting re-payment God-kind of love. Since this is God’s kind of love, it comes into our life through our relationship with Him. If we want to love one another more, we need to draw closer to God. Every human connection is like a triangle. The two people in the relationship are at the triangle’s base, and God is at the top. As the two people draw closer to the top of the triangle, closer to God, they will also draw closer to one another. Weak relationships grow stronger when both people draw near to the Lord![4]

4:9       This is how God showed His agápe-love to us: He sent His only Son into the world to give us life through Him.

EXPOSITION

In the opening of his Gospel, the Apostle John states, “The Word became a man and lived among us. We saw His divine greatness – the greatness that belongs to the Father’s only begotten Son. The Word was full of grace and truth.”[5] Then, later on in his story about Jesus and Nicodemus, John remarks: “God loved the world so much that He gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in Him would not be lost but have eternal life.  Yes, God sent His Son into the world, but He did not send Him to judge the world guilty, but to save the world through Him.”[6]

When Jesus fed the 5,000, He spoke about Himself as living bread and what partaking of the bread means, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my body. I will give my body so that the people in the world can have life.”[7]  And when speaking about Himself as the Good Shepherd as opposed to those who claim to be shepherds, our Lord pointed out, “A thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy. But I came to give life-life that is full and good . . . I give My sheep eternal life. They will never die, and no one can take them out of my hand.” And when the Master wanted to comfort His followers in light of His leaving them for a short time, He told them this, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”[8] [9]

So, it is clear that God meant for His expression of love to provide life.  However, no one should mistake John’s use of the word “love” here as the same as what the world calls “love.”  But love is like a light switch.  It is something we turn on and off at will.  It will not turn on by itself.  It cannot be programmed to turn on at a particular time to become automatic. But, when we turn it on, it can light up the room. People can see better and discern their environmental surroundings more clearly. It also gives warmth. When dealing with other people, we can turn love on or off. But when it comes to God, the switch is always on, day and night. King David gave an illustration of love for God and His word in Psalm One.

The phrase “in this” refers to what follows. John shows how the nature of God’s agápe-love concretely exhibits itself. God’s agápe-love for His Son existed for all eternity, but He manifested His agápe-love for us by sending His Son to earth to die for our sins.  God now shows how He demonstrates His agápe-love.  His best demonstration is in sending His Son to die for our sins.  God’s agápe-love is not motivated by any worthiness in us[10] but by His character. God “sent” His Son into the world.  The word “sent” carries the idea of being commissioned with a mission. God sent His Son on the unique mission to pay for our sins.[11] Sending God’s Son into the world was no passing act of sentimentality. This phrase does not imply that Jesus was reluctant to come into the world to die for our sins.  On the contrary, He was willing to come.[12] The standard of God’s agápe-love is the ultimate sacrifice. 

The words “only begotten” pertain to what is unique in being the only one of the same kind or class – unique. The Son is the One-of-a-Kind. He is incomparable to anyone else. God calls His Son “only begotten” five times in the Final Covenant. All five times occur in John’s writings, four in his Gospel and once in his first epistle. “Only-begotten” speaks of Jesus’ uniqueness rather than His origin. Jesus is the one-of-a-kind agent of the Father and the Father’s plan for salvation. God did not have another Son born of a woman. The Son of God is the Great One-of-a-Kind.

The word “that” expresses purpose. Without God’s purpose of sending His unique Son, the one-and-only Son, into the world to save us, we would be spiritually lost and subject to the Second Death, eternal death.

John sets the word “live” in stark contrast to the idea of spiritual death. It is to live in the absolute sense—to live forever with God. God loved us so that we could experience eternal life, His life. God loved us so that we might live eternally. Physical life came through creation, but spiritual life comes through the death of the Anointed One. God fully manifested His unconditional love to us at Calvary. 

Verse nine is similar to what John said in chapter three, verse sixteen. Also, “in this” refers to what follows and introduces a concrete and crucial example of love. Beware of the inadequate and misleading rendering “towards us.” It means in us and belongs to “manifested.”[13] We must not connect “the love of God in us,” still less “the love of God toward us,” is one idea. “In us” means “in our case,” and we can paraphrase the whole thing to read: “A transcendent manifestation of God’s love has been made regarding us, in that he has sent,” etc. The verse might serve as a summary of John’s Gospel. The word “only begotten” as applied to the Anointed One is peculiar to John; it and “we might live” are the keywords of the passage. This is love indeed; God’s only Son He sent to give us eternal life.

COMMENTARY

In his epistle to the Philippians, Polycarp (69-155 AD) urges them to remain in hope and patience. He encourages them to persevere in hope continually and the seriousness of right living, which is Jesus the Anointed One, who bore our sins in His body on the tree, [14] who did not sin, neither was there any artificial word coming from His mouth, [15] but endured all things for us, that we might live in Him.[16] Let us then be imitators of His patience, and if when persecuted for His name’s sake, [17] let us glorify Him. For He has set Himself as an example, [18] and we believe that such is the case.[19]

John Calvin (1509-1564) tells us that the agápe-love of God towards us testifies with many other proofs. For if someone asks why the world was created, tell them we have been placed here as stewards of the earth, we are preserved in life to enjoy innumerable blessings; we are endued with Light and understanding; no other reason can be adduced, except the gratuitous agápe-love of God. But the Apostle John chose its principal evidence, and what far surpasses all other things. It was not only an immeasurable love, that God spared not His Son, that by His death He might restore us to life; but it was His marvelous goodness which ought to fill our minds with wonder and amazement. Then, the Anointed One illustrates so memorable and singular a proof of divine love towards us that whenever we look upon Him, He fully confirms to us the truth that God is love.[20]

John Trapp (1601-1669) says that the manifestation of Jesus, God’s Son, the very seat of His tenderest compassion, is laid open to us.[21] God so loved His Son that He gave Him the world for His possession, [22] but He so loved the world that He gave Son for its redemption.[23]

John Owen (1616-1683) says that all those who believe that God’s love and grace are offered as the only way and means that Jesus the Anointed can provide for our recovery and salvation. That’s why they become, or God in them, the supreme efficient cause of our justification.[24] Therefore, being justified through the redemption in the Anointed One, Jesus.[25] Through this, the Lord the Anointed One directs our faith continually, referring all to Him that sent Him and whose will He came to do.[26] [27]

The word “Atonement” is too limited in its significance for its purpose, says Owen. It does not express all that Scripture declares that the Anointed One did to “satisfy all the demands of God’s law.” It properly signifies the ransom price for sin and nothing more. It represents only that satisfaction which the Anointed One rendered to the justice of God on our behalf by suffering the penalty due to our sins.[28]

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[1] 1 John 3:10, 14

[2] Cf. John 17:3

[3] Jobes, Karen H., 1, 2, and 3 John (Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on The New Testament, Book 18), p. 190

[4] Guzik, David: Enduring Word, op. cit., loc. cit.

[5] Revelation 1:14

[6] Ibid. 3:16-17

[7] Ibid. 6:51, 57

[8] John 10:10, 28

[9] Ibid. 14:6

[10] Romans 5:5-9

[11] John 3:17, 34: 5:37-37; 7:29; 8:12; 10:36; 17:3, 18; 30:21

[12] Romans 5:8

[13] See John 9:4

[14] 1 Peter 2:24

[15] Ibid. 2:22

[16] 2 Timothy 2:10; See 1 John 4:9

[17] Acts of the Apostles 5:41; 1 Peter 4:16

[18] 1 Peter 2:21

[19] Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians, Ch. 8

[20] Calvin, John: Commentary of the Catholic Epistles, op. cit., loc. cit.

[21] Trapp notes a comparison to a surgeon opening up a patient’s abdomen for all to see its contents. That is why he uses the term “bowls” as the place where we will find God’s tenderest compassion.

[22] Psalm 2:7

[23] Trapp, John: Commentary upon all books of New Testament (1647), op. cit., p

[24] See John 3:16; also, Romans 5:8; 1 John 4:9-10

[25] Romans 3:24; 5:1; Ephesians 1:6-8.

[26] Hebrews 10:5

[27] Owen, John: The Doctrine of Justification by Faith, op. cit., pp. 144-145

[28] Hodge, Archibald Alexander: The Atonement. Pneuma Press. Kindle Edition.

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson LIX) 04/11/22

^4:8 If a person isn’t loving and kind, it shows that they don’t know God – for God is love.

Judith M. Lieu (1951) believes that by the Apostle John putting verses seven and eight together, he reinforces the non-negotiability of love as the mark of those who claim to relate to God. A relationship is expressed in terms already familiar in the letter: “born of God”[1] and “knowing God.”[2] The structure suggests that they may have been influenced by the earlier opposing formulations or have come from a common source:

               Everyone who does justice has been born from him (2:29)

               Everyone who loves has been born from God (4:7)

               Everyone who sins has not seen Him or known Him (3:6)

               The one who does not love does not know God (4:8)

Therefore, says Lieu, these two celebrated verses are embedded within the whole letter’s thought and argument. In order to trace the inspiration or sources behind them, there is no need to look outside the ideas and influences that have shaped the letter so far, the Scriptures and later Jewish thought, as well as some concepts and language shared with other early Christian writings, distinctive to the Johannine tradition.[3]

Ben Witherington III (1951) points out that in Greek literature before the Final Covenant was complied, the verb agapaō had no importance or even implications in the Apostolic writings. How can we explain this rare usage? In its verb form, agápe indicates “be content with,” “like,” “esteem,” and “prefer.” It is a comparatively calm and colorless word. The translators of the First Covenant preferred agápe as a noun to describe God’s love for humanity and mankind’s response. They began to fill it with the unique content for which paganism, even in its highest forms, had no proper expression.

Interestingly, when pagan religious writers speak of a god who loves, they frequently use the Greek word Eros, which usually refers to sexual desire and sexual intercourse. This word has no place in the apostolic writer’s vocabulary in defining God’s love for humanity or His character. From the Jewish point of view, a deity is not a human being with more power and life. The God of the Bible is the creator God, who is wholly other and is not a being who takes His cues from human behavior. God is the definition of what goodness, truth, life, light, love, and holiness mean. God does not conform to human definitions of these things.[4]

Vincent Cheung (1952) states that the LOVE of God is a favorite topic, but it is also one of the most abused and distorted Christian teachings. Although it is said that “God is love,” very few people understand what this means. An adequate exposition of the doctrine will entail corrections to common misunderstandings. Knowledge of God comes from His verbal revelation and not from non-verbal means of religious exercises. Most people who resist theological studies have not thought through these questions. Yet, they perform prayer and worship by assuming the object and manner of these spiritual practices, often without understanding and in error. Still, others might say we get to know God by walking in love. But again, the idea of love remains undefined until there is a theological reflection on the matter. Even the relationship between knowing God and walking in love originates from the Bible, as we see in verses seven and eight.

Without biblical passages like this, says Cheung, a person cannot justify their claim that knowing God is to walk in love or that it is to know God. Also, does John say that we are born of God and know God before we love one another, or that we love one another before we are born and know God? Clearly, we are born of God and know God before we love one another. It is precise because we are born of God that we are able to love, and it is because we know God that we realize what love means. Those who claim to know God by walking in love are doing nothing other than being kind to each other. They only define kindness according to non-Christian norms rather than scriptural principles. They possess only an illusion of knowing God.[5]

Bruce G. Schuchard (1958) notes that John is not speaking to Christians who are uncertain about their failures, sins of weakness, lovelessness, or need to do better. John is not suggesting that being loving is a good sign that someone is born of God. Instead, John focuses again on the problem of “us” (Christians) versus “them” (the secessionists). We need to identify what distinguishes those in the Church from those in and of the world. John speaks once more of the failure, of the lovelessness of those who abandoned their faith and fellowship. Because God shows Himself to be a God of love, to refuse to love – as the secessionists did when they forsook the love of the community of the beloved – “is the very nature of those who do not know Him.”[6]

Marianne Meye Thompson (1964) says it is typical of the Elder Apostle John that, having stated his case in positive terms, he then states it negatively: “Whoever does not love, does not know God. Where there is a lack of love for fellow Christians, there is neither love for nor knowledge of God.” The same is true today; you cannot preach about heaven unless you include hell. It is incomplete to proclaim salvation without pointing out what it means to be drowning in sin. John’s statements about those who do not love are probably directed at the secessionists in their historical context. Although these people undoubtedly claimed to know God, John deems such a claim impossible, for how can one who lacks love for God’s children be said to know the God who is love? Their lack of passion shows that the dissidents are not in touch with the source of love.[7] Furthermore, they do not imitate the model of love given to them on the cross.[8] They have disobeyed the command of Jesus.[9] In short, their claim to know God is hollow.[10]

Peter Pett (1966) says that the next question we must ask is, what is meant by “love?” It is not romantic love. Nor is it mutual affection within the Christian community. It is a special kind of love, as exemplified by the Apostle Paul.[11] It is a noble love. It is an attitude that intends well to its brother or sister, even when they are undeserving. God’s love is a mutual oneness based on being in the light and fellowship with God. It is a holy love. It is agápe Love. We may not like all our fellow believers, they may even annoy us sometimes, but we still love them, direct our thoughts to their good, and bear with them.

Because they are in the Light as we are, says Pett, we still seek their sanctification. They are our fellow travelers on the way to perfected Love, our fellow workers in the purposes of God, our fellow citizens of Heaven with whom we will spend eternity.[12] It is the same kind of love described in the commandment, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself,” yet it goes deeper because it is between God’s children. But it is not necessarily deep affection, but a proper attitude of heart and mind. Although in the case of loving one’s neighbor, this agápe-love reaches out beyond our Christian community.[13]

Duncan Heaster (1967) reflects that to know God in the Hebraic sense of having a relationship with Him will focus on love – His unique, self-sacrificial love, which led to the events of the cross as their pinnacle. To “see” or “know” both the Father and Son are to become like them; beholding their glory results in the glory of their person and Name shining off from our faces.[14] So a litmus test of false brethren is whether they have love. And so often, those who appear the most conservative in their teaching fail the agápe test. To experience God is to know Him. So often, the Hebrew prophets speak of “knowing God” as meaning “to experience God intimately.”[15] Because God is love, to love is to know God. How deeply we have loved shows the depth of our comprehension of God – and vice versa. And that love is worked out in the very earthliness and worldliness of human life in practice.[16]

David Legge (1969) addresses the subject of love. He points out that one of the signs of Christian fellowship, and take assurance as children of God that we belong to the Lord, is that the love of God is in our hearts and outflows from our hearts to others who are our brothers and sisters in union with the Anointed One. John adds that “if we do not have God’s love, we are probably not God’s children,” for this is their chief characteristic. But now he’s bringing us to the point of flinging open the throne room doors to let us see that we are to have love and show love because our God is love! Then, of course, we found out that this love that John describes is not a sentimental love that the world has, it is not erotic love, it is not just an emotional friendship love, it is not even a family love – but it is what the Greeks call, agápe love, God’s love. It is not something we can make or try to imitate, but actually, allow God to love others through us.

Therefore, says Legge, we must know why we should love one another, the source and the signs of this Christian love. John gives us the first reason in verses seven and eight: it is simply God’s nature. Now notice John doesn’t say “God has love,” of course, God loves. John is talking about the origin and the source of this agápe love. But that’s not his chief thought here; he’s telling us that God’s essence is love. John repeats this in verse sixteen. So, John is not now saying that love is a gift from God or love is even an attribute of God, but love in its essence. We see this most clearly in the Apostle Paul’s statement that the fruit of our reborn spirit begins with love that influences its expressions, such as Joy, Peace, and Goodness.[17]

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[1] Cf. 1 John 2:29; 3:9

[2] Cf. Ibid. 2:3-4; 3:1-6

[3] Lieu, Judith, The New Testament Commentary, op. cit., pp. 177-178

[4] Witherington III, Ben: Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians: op. cit., loc. cit., (Kindle Locations 7145-7155)

[5] Cheung, Vincent. Systematic Theology, op. cit., (Kindle Locations 223, 1723)

[6] Schuchard, Bruce G., Concordia Commentary, op. cit., pp. 444-445

[7] 1 John 4:8, 16

[8] Ibid. 3:16; 4:10

[9] Ibid. 2:7; 4:21; John 13-34-35; 15:12, 17

[10] Thompson, Marianne M., The IVP New Testament Commentary, op. cit., p. 121

[11] 1 Corinthians 13

[12] Philippians 3:20

[13] Pett, Peter: Commentary on the Bible, op. cit., PDF, loc. cit.

[14] See 2 Corinthians 3:18

[15] Jeremiah 9:11-13, 23-24; 31:33-34; Daniel 11:32

[16] Heaster, Duncan: New European Commentary, op. cit., 1 John, pp. 31-32

[17] Legge, David: 1,2,3 John, Preach the Word, “Christian Love: Its Source and Sign,” op. cit., Part 13

CYNICS may ask, how many people actually follow the advice found in the numerous proverbs and maxims of forethought available for centuries? They conclude that they are only used after some hopeful venture has gone “horribly wrong.” When, for instance, a person gambles and loses all they have, including their house, they should have remembered the old Scottish proverb which declares that “willful waste leads to woeful want.” But didn’t the gambler know this well-worn saying from earlier years? But, what good, then, did it do? Are the maxims of morality useless because people disregard them? For Christians and Jews, the Book of Proverbs is a great example. But what about other religions?

Here is one to consider by Salmān al-Fārisī, (flourished 7th century, born near Esfahān, Iran), popular figure in Muslim legend and a national hero of Iran:

“I asked an experienced elder who had profited by his knowledge of the world, ‘What course should I pursue to obtain prosperity?’ He replied, ‘Contentment – if you are able, practice contentment.’”

This sounds very much like one of King Solomon’s proverbs, in which he says, “A content heart leads to a healthy body; envy is like cancer in the bones.” (Proverbs 14:30)

THE DANGERS OF INTELLECTUAL CHARISMA

Just like the seasons of nature, we have spiritual seasons. Admittedly, sometimes we’re hot with excitement and, at other times, emotionally cold. Occasionally, we produce a lot of spiritual fruit, and at other times all we have are leaves. So, in our obedience to God’s Word, we should not put too much trust in our intellect to produce the Fruit of the Spirit.

Do not obey an advisor because they can argue more forcibly or speak more feelingly than others. Instead, because they are providentially assigned to you, or because apart from all else, you feel that they more than others can help you conquer your fears and lead you to putting God first in your life.

Remember what the Apostle Paul says, “Our dedication to the Anointed One makes us look like fools, but you claim to be so wise in the Anointed One.”[1] 1t would be best to see no wisdom in you but that of grace, which leads faithful souls in the sure way when they do not yield to temper, passions or self-will, or any merely natural impulse. To such faithful souls, all that the world calls talent, taste, and good reasoning is as nothing, nothing.

Let me repeat: Beware of your intellectual gifts and those of others; judge no one according to them. God, the only wise Judge, takes a very different approach: He prefers children and the childlike mind.[2] Therefore, read nothing out of mere curiosity or to confirm your opinions. Rather, read with a view to foster a robust spirit of humility and submission.

Be as frank as a child toward those who counsel you. Make no list at all of your revelations or spiritual gifts. Instead, abide in simple faith, content in obedience to God’s commandments. Act on whatever God may make known to you through others, and humbly accept whatever may seem unique to you.

Self-forgetfulness should take the shape of crushing our self-will, not neglecting the watchfulness that is essential to the absolute love of God. As the great preacher of the First Covenant stated: “Don’t try to be too good or too wise! Why destroy yourself?”[3] There’s nothing more upsetting than a conceited Christian.

The greater your love, the more jealously you will watch over yourself so that nothing unworthy of that love may creep in.[4]

Archbishop François Fénelon

 (1651-1725)

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[1] 1 Corinthians 4:10

[2] Matthew 18:3

[3] Ecclesiastes 7:16

[4] Fénelon, François: Paraclete Giants, The Complete Fénelon, Translated and Edited by Robert J. Edmonson, Paraclete Press, Brewster, Massachusetts, 2008, p. 53; Vocabulary and grammar redacted by Dr. Robert R Seyda

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson LVIII) 04/08/22

^4:8 If a person isn’t loving and kind, it shows that they don’t know God – for God is love.

Warren W. Wiersbe (1929-2019) points out that it is one thing to “know” something, but that is only the beginning of gaining intimate knowledge. For example, the verb “know” is used in Torah to describe the intimate union of husband and wife.[1] To know God means to be in an in-depth relationship with Him – to share His life and enjoy His agápe-love. This knowing is not simply a matter of understanding facts; it is perceiving truth.[2]

Wiersbe then offers this illustration: Someone stole a large quantity of radioactive material from a hospital. When the hospital administrator notified the police, he said, “Please warn the thief that he is carrying death with him and that the radioactive material cannot be successfully hidden. As long as he has it in his possession, it is affecting him disastrously!” A person who claims to know and be in union with God but continues to hate a fellow believer will be devastatingly affected by this relationship. A Christian ought to become what God is, and “God is love.” To argue otherwise is to prove that one is not serious about knowing God![3]

Simon J. Kistenmaker (1930-2017) says that verses seven and eight are among the treasured passages of the entire epistle. They speak of love that originates in God, describing the believer as someone who loves and knows God. By contrast, unbelievers do not love because they do not know God. When the Apostle John compares the believer with the unbeliever, he observes that knowledge of God is nonexistent when love is absent. The person who fails to commune with God in prayer and neglects to read the Bible cannot be the instrument through which God demonstrates His divine love. The unbeliever has not even begun to know God. Without knowledge of God, there is no love. Love and knowledge of God are two sides of the same coin.[4]

Stephen S. Smalley (1931-2018) mentions that Love cannot be the measure of knowing God; similarly, a lack of love does not prove that no relationship with God exists. But because God’s nature is Love, the knowledge of God should lead to love for others. The positive implication here is more important than the negative. The vital thing to keep in mind is that anyone who enters into a personal relationship with a loving God can be transformed into a caring person.[5]

Edward J. Malatesta (1932-1998) feels that the Apostle John wants to impress his readers that Love is not just some physical emotion or mental projection. Instead, it shows that they have a personal relationship with God, who is Love. And with Him now being present in their lives through the Spirit, Love is an act of the will in obedience to God’s command.[6] By contrast, says John, if you do not love your fellow man, especially God’s other children, you don’t have a personal relationship with God. Therefore, since it’s entirely about Love, it’s all about God.[7]

Ian Howard Marshall (1934-2015) notes that “God is Love”[8] is rightly recognized as one of the high peaks of divine revelation in this Epistle. Logically, the statement stands parallel with “God is Light”[9] and “God is Spirit”[10] as one of the three great Johannine expressions of the nature of God. Some theologians give the impression that the present statement is superior to the other two, but give no reason why. There is also no need to enter into a historical survey of the teaching of Scripture on this point. It would demonstrate that this statement is simply the most precise expression of a doctrine of the nature of God that is proven throughout its pages. Equally, it would show no similar picture of God outside the Scripture. God is all-loving and, equally, all-holy.[11] These two characteristics do not stand in opposition to one another but belong together and determine His actions. Consequently, it is not surprising that John does not stay on the level of abstract theological assertion, but proceeds directly to speak of the practical way God showed His agápe-love.[12]

Messianic writer David Stern (1935) notes that this simple sentence embodies the most profound religious truth. Yet, it can be perverted into a meaningless slogan, in which God is pictured as some sort of floating fuzz-ball of love, accepting everything and judging nothing. It is wrong for two reasons: (1) God’s agápe-love is not a mere feeling but action, as the familiar teaches:[13] (2) God is not only loving; He is also justice, pouring out wrath on those who reject His mercy.[14] Therefore, believers must proclaim God’s love and hatred for sin and His intolerance of human pride that presumes on God: God is not mocked.[15] [16]

Muncia Walls (1937) says that we should be aware that love alone does not define God for us. Nor can we express love in the same way we would explain our feelings toward our loved ones. It would not be proper to say that two people in love are manifesting God. Their passion may be strictly carnal, without any thought of God involved in their relationship. So, in this manner, we could say that love does not define for us what God is.[17] In other words, “GOD” is another way to spell “LOVE.”

Stanley L. Derickson (1940) points out that we must keep in mind that God is love: “Those who do not love do not know God because God is love.”[18] God’s very nature is that of love. He exudes love in all that He does for humanity. Even in judgment upon the earth after the fall, He left us a beautiful planet to behold. He gave us many things to enjoy in this life.

As a fellowship, we pledge to walk in Christian love, remember each other in prayer, aid one another in Christian living[19] and help those sick and in need.[20] There should be no gossip, backbiting, or anger, being slow to take offense and quick to reconcile, keeping unity and peace.[21] So loving one another was not a pet doctrine of the Apostle John. On the contrary, all the apostles emphasized it as a hallmark of Christians living in love.[22]

Michael Eaton (1942-2017) notes that the person who does not love may still be a Christian (for every Christian has had times when they have not shown love). John is not denying anyone’s Christian conversion. His point is rather that at that point in their life, knowledge of God was not functioning. John explicitly does not say that lack of love is proof of not having been born of God. He cannot say that would imply that it is impossible for the Christian not to love. John knows that some of His little children have fallen into lovelessness.[23] Yet he does not deny the reality of their first faith.[24] In truth, they have become like the Laodiceans; they are neither hot nor cold.[25] God tells them that, like water, He doesn’t mind if they are hot or cold, but lukewarm makes Him want to spit them out.

From what William Loader (1944) says about this verse, we can assume that the Apostle John did not mean that God had love, but that the God of love is loving.  And, more than that, John sees such loving as a manifestation of God’s being. He seems not to think of loving independently of God. Another way of saying this would describe every act of loving as a work of the Spirit. It is a theology of spiritual love. It calls to mind Jesus’ persistent tendency to address the issue of God, and God’s relationship with people, by telling stories about human love and generosity, the most famous instance being the parable of the prodigal son.[26] [27] I would agree with Loader that it illustrates a father loving his son. But for me, the Good Samaritan parable tells about loving a stranger, [[28] while the thief on the cross is an example of loving a sinner.[29]

Robert W. Yarbrough (1948) notes that of the eighteen Final Covenant occurrences of “the one who does not,” nearly half are on Jesus’s lips.[30] The Apostle Paul uses the phrase three times.[31] The other seven occurrences are in First John.[32] John has already spoken of “the one who” does not do what’s right and does not confess Jesus as having come from God. He has also spoken twice of “the one who” lacks love, in this case, brotherly love: such a person is not from God, and, worse, they “abide in death.”

In an age of increasing tolerance of the notion that all religions amount to the same thing, it is worth noting that John’s picture of God is part of a unique affirmation. Further, John does not say that love is God, a statement found nowhere in Scripture. To do so would replace a living, personal, and active God with an intellectual, ethical, purposeful, or emotional concept – the last thing that the language of John’s First Epistle or the graphic portrayal of God incarnate in the Gospels would permit.[33]

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[1] Genesis 4:1

[2] 1 John 2:3-5

[3] Wiersbe, Warren W., Be Real; Turning from Hypocrisy to Truth, (The BE Series Commentary) op. cit., pp. 139-140 

[4] Kistemaker, Simon J., New Testament Commentary, op. cit., pp. 330-331

[5] Smalley, Stephen S., Word Biblical Commentary, Vol. 51, op. cit., p. 238

[6] See 1 John 4:21

[7] Malatesta, Edward J., Interiority and Covenant, op. cit., p. 295

[8] 1 John 4:8

[9] Ibid. 1:5

[10] John 4:24

[11] 1 John 1:5

[12] Marshall, I. Howard. The Epistles of John (The New International Commentary on the New Testament), op. cit., pp. 212-213

[13] John 3:16

[14] Romans 1:18–2:16, 3:19–20

[15] Galatians 6:7

[16] Stern, David H., Jewish New Testament Commentary, Kindle Edition.

[17] Walls, Muncia: Epistles of John & Jude, op. cit., p. 73

[18] 1 John 4:8

[19] Ibid 4:7-8

[20] James 5:14

[21] Ephesians 4:31-2

[22] Derickson, Stanley L., Notes on Theology, op. cit., pp. 255, 1160

[23] Revelation 2:4

[24] Eaton, Michael: Focus on the Bible, 1,2,3 John, op. cit., p. 142

[25] Revelation 3:15-16

[26] See Luke 15:11-32

[27] Loader, William: Epworth Commentary, op. cit., p. 52

[28] Luke 10:25-37

[29] Ibid. 23:32-43

[30] Matthew 12: 30^x2; Luke 11: 23^x2; 22: 36; John 5: 23; 10: 1; 14: 24

[31] Romans 14: 6, 22; 1 Corinthians 7: 38

[32] 1 John 3: 10^x2, 14; 4: 3, 8; 5: 10, 12

[33] Yarbrough, Robert W., 1-3 John (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament), op. cit., p. 236-237

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson LVII) 04/07/22

^4:8 If a person isn’t loving and kind, it shows that they don’t know God – for God is love.

Harry A. Ironside (1876-1951) tells an interesting story about the theme of verse eight. He says, years ago, a lady who prided herself on belonging to the intelligentsia said to him, “I have no use for the Bible, nor for Christian superstition and religious dogma. It is enough for me to know that God is love.” “Well,” said Ironside, “do you know it?” “Why, of course, I do,” she said; “we all know that, and it is religion enough for me. I do not need the doctrines of the Bible.” “How did you find out that God is love?” Ironside asked. “Why,” she exclaimed, “everybody knows that!”

“Do they know it over in India?” Ironside asked. “That poor mother in her distress throwing her little babe into the holy Ganges to be eaten by filthy and repulsive crocodiles as a sacrifice for her sins – does she know that God is love?” “Oh, well, she is ignorant and superstitious,” the lady replied. “Those poor wretched natives in the jungles of Africa, bowing down to gods of wood and stone, and in constant fear of their images, the poor heathen in other countries, do they know that God is love?” “Perhaps not,” she said, “but in a civilized land, we all know it.” “But how is it that we know it? Who told us so? Where did we find it out?” inquired Ironside. “I do not understand what you mean,” she said, “for I’ve always known it.” “Let me tell you this,” Ironside answered; “no one in the world ever knew it until it was revealed from heaven and recorded in the Word of God. It is here and nowhere else. It is not found in all the literature of the ancients.”[1]

Charles H. Dodd (1884-1973) states that the Apostle John adds a theological statement of the utmost importance in this eighth verse, which justifies his teaching: for God is love. In this form, this statement might appear to identify God with an abstract principle and imply an impersonal conception of Deity. But it is clear that this is not John’s intention, for, in the context, he speaks of the agápe-love of God and says that love belongs to God and that God loved us. God, therefore, is presented as the personal Subject of the act of love. Yet, the proposition, “God is love,” is intended to go further than the proposal, “God loves us.”

What is its meaning, asks Dodd? Christianity always assumed the Hebrew conception of Deity as the “living God.” In the First Covenant, there is little or no speculation about the nature of God as He is in Himself. In His actions, people recognize God as the Creator of the world, Ruler of mankind, and the Saving King of His people. History is the canvas of His self-revelation, and communion with Him is conditioned by obedience to His commands. Accordingly, the Word of God is not primarily the communication of knowledge about the divine nature; it is the active energy by which the world was made and sustained, by which believers are called into active fellowship with God in carrying out His purpose.

If therefore, notes Dodd, we ask what God is, the answer must speak in terms of what He does. He creates and sustains the universe; He judges the world in righteousness; He helps those in distress; He guides those who submit to His will; He forgives the repentant. Now Christianity takes over this Hebrew conception of the “living God.” It is an idea in the Gospel teaching about the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is essentially dynamic, not static. The Kingdom is something that comes as an event in history. Its coming means that God has acted to fulfill His purpose. The Kingdom of God came with the Anointed One. Consequently, the character of His action is to be discovered from the life, teaching, sufferings, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Anointed One. If this is to be put in terms defined in the First Covenant as the “Word of God.” Thus, it may be expressed based on “the Word was made flesh” in Jesus the Anointed One. [2]

Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976) notes that when it is said of “love” that “it is of God,” then “to be of” characterizes the origin and thus the nature of love, as elsewhere; it is the “way of God.” We can say that the ones loving “are born of God,” corresponding with other expressions.[3] It is told so that love is emphasized as the mark of having been born of God. Again, “and knows God” corresponds to phrases in earlier passages[4] keeping the commandments serves as the mark of knowledge of God; here, it is “love,” which, together with “belief,” is the content of the commandments (or commandment).[5] [6]

Amos N. Wilder (1895-1993) reminds us (a) that Love here is not merely an attribute of God but defines His nature in a practical rather than philosophical sense. God’s nature is not exhausted by the quality of love, but love governs all its aspects and expressions. (b) The Greek term used here for love – agápe – is God’s creation in Christians. Greek-speaking Jews no longer used pagan phrases for love to translate Hebrew words expressing the agápe-love of God and the love of neighbor. Then the church transformed it with meanings understood in the Christian experience, (c) The present verse requires a personal light or spirit, as used in pagan religious teaching. Thus, emphasizing the significance of God, not only for nature and history but for personal religion and ethics, was revolutionary.[7]

But when God revealed this masterpiece of grace – His only begotten Son – it was in a stable smelling of manure in Bethlehem amidst the surroundings of poverty. But the question is, who has believed that love? Many have heard about it, but it makes a vast difference when believed. Rainsford then tells us that one day he stood by the death bed of a young man; his wife was beside him, and some friends were in the adjoining room. Rainsford was there speaking with them. And one earnest young man said, “Sir, can you understand why God allows such sorrow as that?” And Rainsford said, “Honestly, I don’t understand it either; but I know that God loves us and knows what is best for us.” Then Rainsford asks, supposing you have a friend in trouble, and you loan him £20,000. Do you think you should watch him starve for the lack of a sandwich? Well, then, if God loves us so much that He gives His Son, let us trust Him for the rest, though we cannot understand it.[8]

Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) points out that love is one of the things emphasized more than anything else in the Final Covenant. At the end of His ministry, our blessed Lord Himself kept repeating this same thing – “love one another.” He constantly told them that the world would be against them and that they would have tribulation. “But,” he kept saying, “love one another, and that is how the world will know that you are my disciples.”[9] It is how You can demonstrate more clearly than anything else that you are God’s faithful followers and that you are God’s children. You will find this standing out in an exceptional way if you read John’s Gospel, chapters 13-17. But it is indeed a great theme running right through the Gospels and the Epistles.[10] So, why then is there so much emphasis on loving God and not loving each other?

John R. W. Stott (1921-2011) notes that verses seven and eight should be read as one. It completes the Apostle John’s thought on the pros and cons of love. Not only is God the source of all true love; He is love in His innermost being. There are three other statements in the Final Covenant concerning what God is in substance and nature: He is “spirit,”[11] He is “light,”[12] and He is “a consuming fire.”[13] The Gnostics believed that God is immaterial spirit and light, but they never taught that God is love.[14]

John Phillips (1927-2010) says that the Apostle John tells us why we should love in verse eight. At last, the ultimate revelation about God – “God is love!” The truth has always been there, woven into the tapestry of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. The Mosaic Law, for all its great principles, precepts, and penalties, is quite unable to hide the loving-kindness of God. Throughout the Psalms and prophecies, the dark skies of judgment are unable to conceal His love’s rainbow. It was manifest in the flesh in everything Jesus was and did and said, shining out in the Epistles in many a pragmatic demand that we love the Lord and love the lost and love the Lord’s people. Now John writes it down without quibble or qualification – “God is love.”

Raymond E. Brown (1928-1998) reminds us of the other two Johannine descriptions, God is Spirit, [15] God is Light, [16] and now, God is love.[17] The Apostle John does not simply say, “God loves,” loving is not just another act of God, like reproduction. Instead, all God’s activity is love in action. Nor does John say, “Love is God,” for he is interested in a visible person’s loving activity, not some abstract image they only imagine because He is invisible. This verse requires a personal view of God we see in others.[18]

In verse eight, David E. Hiebert (1928-1995) points out that the Apostle John presents the opposite picture of what he said in verse seven. The negative with the present tense views one who is unloving in attitude and practice. The absence of love in their life proves that they “do not know God” and that they have never come to know what God is like personally. Because John uses the aorist tense in “does not,” he has them looking back to the time of their professed conversion. Not knowing love shows that they are still a stranger to God. As Bible scholar Edward McDowell remarks, “Ignorance of God and, we may deduce, misinterpretations and misrepresentations of God, are traceable to the absence of love in men’s hearts.”[19] The reason for this is that it’s God’s agápe-love.[20]

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[1] Ironside, Harry A., The Epistles of John and Jude, op. cit., pp. 137-138

[2] Dodd, Charles H., Moffett Commentary, Johannine Epistles, op. cit., pp.107-108

[3] 1 John 2:29; 3:9

[4] Ibid. 2:3ff

[5] Ibid. 1 John 4:21; 2:10; 3:23

[6] Bultmann, Rudolf: Hermeneia, Critical and Historical Commentary, op. cit., pp. 66-67

[7] Wilder, Amos N., The Interpreter’s Bible, op. cit., 1 John, Exposition, pp. 279-280

[8] Rainsford, Marcus: The Biblical Illustrator, op. cit., 1 John 4, p. 69

[9] John 13:35

[10] Lloyd-Jones, Martyn: Life in the Anointed One, op. cit., p. 420

[11] John 4:24

[12] 1 John 1:5

[13] Hebrews 12:29, cf. Deuteronomy 4:24

[14] Stott, John. The Letters of John (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries), op. cit., p. 161

[15] John 4:24

[16] 1 John 1:5

[17] Ibid. 4:8

[18] Brown, Raymond E., The Anchor Bible, op. cit., Vol. 30, p. 515

[19] McDowell, Edward A., 1-2-3 John, in The Broadman Bible Commentary, Broadman Press, Nashville 12:216

[20] Hiebert, David E., Bibliotheca Sacra, op. cit., January-March 1990, p. 72

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson LVI) 04/06/22

^4:8 If a person isn’t loving and kind, it shows that they don’t know God – for God is love.

John Morlais Jones (1843-1905) states that God’s agápe-love makes believing possible. It would be impossible to think if we did not know that “God is love.” Most people accept the Bible as a marvelous, historical book full of psalms and proverbs. But when you speak of the Cross, of the “Lamb of God,” upon whom the world’s sins laid, of eternal punishment if His offer of grace is not accepted, people begin to hesitate and stammer. “No, no; that is incredible; that can never be,” they say. But the agápe-love of God makes every item of the Anointed One’s story believable. We have all seen the miracles that love works. The Cross will be forever the symbol of love’s perfect triumph, not shame, humiliation, grief, and embarrassment. It was love that did it. “God’s agápe-love” for a lost and dying world full of hopeless, hostile sinners.[1] And then we have difficulty loving our neighbors or fellow believers!

Clement Clemance (1845-1886) says the Apostle John once again varies his thinking. Instead of “Love is of God, [2] we have “God is Love” – a far deeper thought; and instead of “knows not God,” we “never knew God.” A person not loving their spiritual brother or sister shows that in no real sense have they ever in the past known God; they are of the world, [3] not of God. We must beware of watering down “God is Love” to “God is loving,” or even “God not only loves you, but He’s also in love with you.” Love is not merely a Godly attribute; it is His very nature. As “God as Light” sums up “being of God” on the knowledge side, so “God is Love” adds up the same on the moral side. Only when we apply this strong meaning to the statement does John’s argument hold, that “they that don’t know love don’t know God.”[4]

Aaron M. Hills (1848-1911) addressed that redemption and salvation are gifts of God’s agápe-love tells us that the Scriptures point out that there are two sorts of spiritual love: One Created, the other Uncreated. Love uncreated is God Himself, and the Third Person in the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. As the Apostle John says, “God is love.”[5] That is the Holy Spirit. Love created is the affection of the soul produced by the Holy Spirit out of sight and with the knowledge that God stirred it up and placed it in the heart. This agápe-love is created, for the Holy Spirit makes it. Agápe-love is not God, for it is made: but it is the love of the soul felt by the sight of Jesus and came alive in Him.

Now, says Hills, may you see that created love is not the cause why a soul comes into the spiritual Light of Jesus. And some may think that they could love God so fervently, as it were by their strength, that they might be worthy to know Him spiritually. No, it is not so, but love uncreated, God Himself, is the cause for gaining this knowledge. A blind wretched soul is so far from the clear knowing and the blessed feeling of His agápe-love, through sin and frailty of its human nature, that it could never exist were not for the infinite greatness of God’s agápe-love. But because He loves us so much, He gives us His agápe-love, the Holy Spirit. He is both the giver and the gift, and makes us then by that gift to know and love Him.[6]

James B. Morgan (1850-1942) says that “speaking the truth in love” is the Final Covenant’s rule for the Christian. God’s uncompromising faithfulness is not inconsistent with His extraordinary tenderness. Our Lord is known as “the faithful and true witness,” yet He was the embodiment of love. He spoke more plainly and severely, yet more affectionately, than any other public teacher. In these traits of character, the Apostle John, most resembles Him. And we do not need to go beyond the passage before us, says Morgan. Two duties, implying severity, are joined in verses seven and eight. First, he calls upon the members of the Church to exercise a strict vigilance over the faithfulness of its ministers, charging them to “try the Spirits.” Then he demands that they will be no less rigorous in judging themselves, whether they are profitable hearers of the word. They should determine whether they are guided by “the spirit of truth, or the spirit of error.” But having thus faithfully called them to these urgent duties, John returns to his favorite theme of love, on which he had been previously speaking. He pours out the tender address of the text, “Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God and everyone that loves are born of God and knows God. Those that do not love do not know God, for God is love.”

Morgan asks: “Is this the Christian’s model?” Yes. “They know God who is born of God.” What manner of conversation then must this blessed individual exhibit? They are “of God,” created by Him, dependent on Him, who is Love.” They are “born of God,” born anew by the grace of His Spirit – who is love. “They know God,” are acquainted with Him as a friend, live in communion with Him – who is love. What must they be? The ray of light that radiates from the sun is light. The beam of love that sparkles from the eye is love. Any child of God, a companion of His Son, and the temple of His Spirit must also love as He loves. Oh! How natural for such a one to say – “Beloved, let us love one another; love is of God, and everyone who loves is born and knows God.” They that don’t love don’t know God: for God is Love.[7]

William Sinclair (1850-1917) says that this may be considered the central portion of the second half of the Apostle John’s First Epistle. Nothing could be more significant than his teaching. Here many trains of thought which have occurred before are gathered together in one grand treatise on love, divine and human – the complement of the thirteenth chapter of the Apostle Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians.

In the early part of the Epistle, John defined God as Light, and his thoughts grouped around and with that central idea. But, of course, it would be impossible to exhaust all the definitions of God. And just as we might classify our human nature as intellectual and moral, mind and heart, thought and emotion, so, when we consider God to be Light (embracing all such divine attributes like truth, knowledge, purity, power, and justice), we will not have an outline listing all that we can know of God’s Divine nature or all that we should understand until we have also considered Him to be Love. God is the Author and Source of all Divine kindness, compassion, friendliness, and rejoicing in creating eternal life for everlasting happiness. This way, God offers timeless bliss to all His human family, eternally surrounded by inexhaustible artworks of the joy and glory of perfection.[8]

Reverend William F. Harper (1854-1930) notes that the Apostle John did not address his Epistle to any local Church. He was by now an elderly servant of God. The Apostles Peter, James, and Paul had all gone “to be with the Anointed One”[9] to await the resurrection, and he survived them all. The phrase “God is love” is one of the golden sentences only to be found in the Book of God. It is “an ocean of thought in a droplet of language.” Even during the short amount of time, it took to write this letter, it came from the pen of someone who laid his head on his Master’s shoulder at the Last Supper.

Therefore, John is more than qualified to share these insights. First, here is the source of salvation. (a) God sent His Son. That was love. (b) The Anointed One came. That was love. (c) The Holy Spirit distributes God’s agápe-love in our hearts.[10] That is love. (d) So, every saved soul is saved, sanctified, and maintained by love.

Secondly, here is the fountain of comfort. How refreshing to be able to fall back upon this truth in a world giving us a welcome basket filled with – tears, difficulties, anxieties, burdens, clouds, heart-aches, heart-breaks, sick-beds, death-beds, graves, etc., – but “God is love.”’ Every believer may say, “Not a single love arrow can hit until the God of Love sees fit.”[11] Thirdly, here is our hope for the future. (a) In heaven, there is rest. (b) In heaven, there is light. “Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”[12] (c) But above all, there is love in heaven, for “God is Love.”[13]

Alonzo R. Cocke (1858-1901) says that love indicates the presence of God’s life in the heart, but it is also essential to any proper knowledge of God. By participating in the divine life, we are born of God and have the capacity for knowing God through love. By love, we know God, for we participate by loving in that which is the very nature of God. The unregenerate person cannot know God and commune with Him in His divine plans and purposes, for they do not have God’s nature. Those that do not love lack Christian love that flows from the eternal fountain of God’s agápe-love, and it is along the channel of its flow alone that we can come to the great sea of His being and fathom its infinite depths. Love is not only a mark of that higher life which proceeds from God, but it is the door of entrance into the treasure-house of his nature. It is a ray from the eternal source of divine life shining in the face of all His children, and it is also the light that guides them to their home in God’s heart and reveals all its wealth of affection.[14]

Albert Barnes (1872-1951) says that never was a more critical declaration made than this nor more meaning crowded into a few words than in these – “God is love.” In the darkness of this world of sin – all the sorrows that blanket the human race and will come and inflict the wicked hereafter – we have the assurance that a God of infinite kindness rules overall. However, we may not be able to reconcile all that occurs with this declaration or see how the things which God has permitted to take place are consistent with it. Yet, in the exercise of faith in His testimony, we find consolation in “believing” that it is so. We may also look forward to a period when all His universe will see it to be so. In the midst of all that occurs on the earth of sadness, sin, and sorrow, there is abundant evidence that God is love.[15]

In the arrangements made to alleviate sin and sorrow, notes Barnes, a Savior was prepared to offer eternal life on terms simple and easy to accept. In all these things, which are the mere expressions of love, we see illustrations of the sublime and glorious sentiment before us that “God is love.” Even in this world of confusion, disorder, and darkness, we have evidence sufficient to prove that He is kindhearted. But the full glory and meaning of that truth will be seen only in heaven. Meantime, let us hold on to the reality that He is love. Let us believe that He sincerely desires our good and that what seems dark to us may be designed for our welfare, and amidst all the sorrows and disappointments of the present life, let us feel that our interests and our destiny are in the hands of the God of love.[16] [17]

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[1] Jones, John Morlais, The Biblical Illustrator, op. cit., 1 John 4, pp. 54-55

[2] 1 John 4:7

[3] 1 John 3:1

[4] Clemance, Clement: First Epistle of John, Pulpit Commentary, Vol. 22, Exposition, op. cit., p. 103

[5] 1 John 4:8

[6] Hills, Aaron M., The Scale of Perfection, Bk. 1, Part 3, p. 179

[7] Morgan, James B., An Exposition of the First Epistle of John, op. cit., Lecture XXXI, p. 314

[8] Sinclair, William: A New Testament for English Readers, Ed. Charles J. Ellicott, op. cit., p. 488

[9] 2 Corinthians 5:8

[10] Romans 5:5

[11] Sovereign Ruler of the Skies, by John Ryland (1753-1825), inspired by Psalm 103:19

[12] 1 Corinthians 13:12

[13] Harper, William F., The Church Pulpit Commentary, op. cit., Vol. 12, pp. 292-293

[14] Cocke, Alonzo R., Studies in the Epistles of John, op. cit., loc., cit., Logos

[15] Barnes, Albert: Notes on N.T., op. cit., p. 4864

[16] 2 Corinthians 13:11; 1 John 4:16

[17] Barnes, Albert: New Testament Notes, op. cit., p. 4864

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson LV) 04/05/22

^4:8 If a person isn’t loving and kind, it shows that they don’t know God – for God is love.

Daniel Steele (1824-1914) points out that “God is love” is more than saying God is friendly. Only if He is love in His essential being is the statement true that to have no personal, experimental knowledge of love is to have no fundamental understanding of God. The Gnostics were doubtless, in John’s mind, who knew much about God. Still, they did not know God by experience, for instead of loving those humble brethren who were not their equals in intellectual attainments, they treated them with arrogant and heartless contempt. The heathens regarded God as terrible, whose fierce anger is soothed with sacrificial offerings. The Jews believed He was just and jealous and, possibly, merciful, whose inmost being a mystery beyond what His name Yahweh revealed, “I am that I am.” To the regenerate believer alone is He known as Love.[1]

In verse eight, William Lincoln (1825-1888) asks us to look at the first stage in the descending scale of God’s agápe-love, “God is love.” If we are His children, we must have His nature. In chapter one, we are told that “God is light;” “God is love.” Truth is two-sided; we must not lean on one side and ignore the other; that is the cause of all error. Heresy is just a selection of truth. The statement “God is love” refers to God’s agápe-love coming to meet us; it introduces the descending scale of God’s agápe-love. In other words, if John says that God is love, then he must prove it somehow. So, in verse nine, John says, God’s agápe-love is “manifested” in a spectacular way.[2]

Charles H. Spurgeon (1834-1892) lets us know that a Christians’ distinguishing mark is their confidence in the love of the Anointed One and the yielding of their affections to the Anointed One in return. First, faith sets her seal upon the individual by enabling the soul to say with the Apostle John, “the Anointed One loved me and gave Himself for me.”[3] Then love gives its endorsement and stamps upon the heart gratitude and love to Jesus in return. “We love Him because He first loved us.”[4]

In those grand old ages and heroic periods of the Christian religion, remarks Spurgeon, this double mark of mutual love could be seen in all of Jesus’ believers. They were people who knew the love of the Anointed One and rested upon it as a person leans on a staff whose trustworthiness they have proven. The love they felt towards the Lord was not a quiet emotion that they hid within themselves in the secret chamber of their souls. Nor was it something they only spoke of in their private assemblies when they met on the first day of the week and sang hymns in honor of the Anointed One, Jesus the crucified. Instead, it was a passion with them of such all-consuming energy, visible in all their actions. People heard in their everyday talk and looked out their eyes even in a casual glance. Love to Jesus was a flame that fed upon the core and heart of their being. Therefore, its 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 the Anointed One’s love, they dared to do much because of their love for Him.

Why is it no longer the same, asks Spurgeon? God’s children are ruled in their innermost being by love. The love of the Anointed One compels them; they rejoice that divine love given to them, they feel it in their hearts by the Holy Spirit, and then by force of gratitude, they love the Savior with a sincere and pure heart. Then Spurgeon has a question for those who read this devotion, do you love Him? Before you go to sleep, give an honest answer to this weighty question about your love for your Savior.[5]

John James Lias (1834-1923) states that this root truth of the Gospel is as important an article of faith as any Christian creed. It would solve most of life’s difficulties and most of the problems that affect Christian theology if firmly grasped. No doctrine, it may be safely affirmed, which is contrary to this fundamental principle, can be true. Many parts of the Christian creed may seem opposed to this proposition. Yet, in reality, they are not so. Whatever appears to conflict with it must be explained so that  this essential doctrine is not put out of sight. It is to be lamented that this doctrine, standing as it does in the forefront of the Gospel, is attested not only by its double repetition here but by the language of the Savior. In the Apostle John’s Gospel, [6] what we find about love has been allowed to fall into the background. It’s plain and simple; If you don’t love, you don’t know God because God IS love.[7]

Marvin R. Vincent (1834-1922) says we see that God is light[8] and the truth;[9] also, God is spirit.[10] Spirit and light are expressions of God’s essential nature. Love is the expression of His personality, corresponding to His nature. Truth and love stand related to each other. Loving is the condition of knowing.[11]

Augustus H. Strong (1836-1921) discusses that getting to know ourselves is a way of knowing if God is in us. First, there are many passages representing the Anointed One as the Image of God.[12] Therefore, the Anointed One is the perfect image of God.[13] The Anointed One, therefore, has consciousness and will. He possesses all the attributes and powers of God. The word “Image” suggests the perfect equality with God, which the title “Son” might at first seem to deny. The living Image of God, which is equal to Himself and is the object of His infinite love, can be nothing less than personal. The Image is not precisely the repetition of the original. The stamp from the seal is not precisely the reproduction of the seal. The letters on the seal run backward and can be easily read when the impression is before us. So, the Anointed One is the only interpretation and revelation of the hidden Godhead. As only in love do we come to know the depths of our being, so it is only in the Son that “God is love.”[14]

Strong goes on to say that the Unitarian idea of a solitary God profoundly affects our conception of God, reduces it to mere power, and identifies God with abstract cause and thought. Love is grounded in power, not power grounded in love. The Father is the embodiment of the omniscient and omnipotent genius of the universe. That’s why whoever denies the Son denies the Father.[15] Charles Frederick D’Arcy (1859-1938) says, “If God is simply one great person, then we have to think of Him as waiting until the whole creation process has been accomplished before His love can find an object upon which to bestow itself.”[16] His agápe-love belongs, in that case, not to his innermost essence but his relation to some of His creatures. The words “God is love”[17] become a rhetorical exaggeration, rather than the expression of truth about the divine nature.

Erich Haupt (1841-1910) says that if we take “God is Light” and “God is Love” together, we reach the result that no action of God is conceivable that does not have for its aim the demonstration of love. Furthermore, there is no evidence of a love that does not have for its substance the communication of the divine natures of Light and Glory. Suppose this self-communication of perfect love has an absolute sense of perfection, as a ray of light passing unbroken from one point to another. In that case, we have the eternal brightness and character of God’s glory in His Son. Thus, it is plain how not only the Anointed One but the Church, the perfected kingdom of God, with its body, the earthly creation, may be called the fullness of God. If, then, Light and Love are as inseparably as form and matter make up any material thing, then it follows that everyone born of God must be a partaker of this Light and this agápe-love.[18]

Alfred Plummer (1841-1926) proposes that if no previous religion, not even the Jewish, achieved the level of truth that “God is Light,”[19] still less have any reached the level of enlightenment that “God is love.” For the heathen world, God is a powerful, terrible, and often a cruel being, one whose fierce wrath needs to be denounced and whose ill-will needs to be appeased, rather than one on whose love people may rely. The Jews felt, He was a just and a jealous, if also a merciful God, of whose inmost being all that was known was I AM THAT I AM. To the Christian alone, He is known as LOVE.[20]

Methodist preacher Mark Guy Pearse (1842-1930), from Cornwall, [21] says I’ve heard that God is Almighty, but what does it mean? I judge strength by my arm, the winds, and angry seas, or the power of human mechanisms. In all these, I can see only matter overcoming matter. I have nothing by which to know the Omnipotent. I hear of Self-existence, Independence. What is that? I see all things depending on their source and their sustenance upon others. What can I know of Him whose name is “I AM?”[22] And if I turn from these aspects to the moral character of God, I am yet more bewildered. Sin has put out the spiritual eyes by which I can see true righteousness, and perhaps as much in mercy as in punishment.

But let’s think, says Pearse, if I know all this about God, does it still mean I can’t know Him personally? His vastness, immensity, knowledge, and power leave me an utter stranger to God. But tell me that He is love –what love is, is God – then I know Him. I know now how He feels and thinks and acts. I know now how to come to Him and speak to Him. Now, do I know Him when I know that He is love? Those that love know God – look at this faculty within us by which we know God. Love is ours, as nothing else is ours. The slow and irksome toil of learning is not needful for love. The dullest scholar may be a very master of this art, and the most unlettered may rightly translate the signs and mysteries of love.[23]

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[1] Steele, Daniel, Half-Hour, op. cit., pp. 103-104

[2] Lincoln, William: Lectures on 1 John, op. cit., Lecture VII, p. 114

[3] Galatians 2:20

[4] 1 John 4:19

[5] Spurgeon, Charles H., Morning and Evening Daily Readings, op. cit., June 5 PM

[6] John 5:42; 13:34-35; 14:23, 31; 15:9-10

[7] Lias, James John: The First Epistle of St. John with Exposition, op. cit., pp. 308-309

[8] 1 John 1:5

[9] Ibid. 1:6

[10] John 4:24

[11] Vincent, Marvin R., Word Studies in the New Testament, Vol. II., op. cit., p. 357

[12] 2 Corinthians 4:4; Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3

[13] See Genesis 1:26-27

[14] Strong, Augustus H., Systematic Theology, Vol. 1, op. cit., pp. 608-609

[15] 1 John 2:23

[16] D’Arcy, Charles Frederick: Idealism and Theology, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1899, Lecture VI, p. 204

[17] 1 John 4:8

[18] Haupt, Erich: The First Epistle of John, op. cit., pp. 258-259

[19] To those under the First Covenant, God’s light came through His Word. However, in Psalm 27:1 David did talk about the LORD being his light. However, the Hebrew noun there is (‘ôr) which means, light that comes from the daylight or a lamp or instruction.

[20] Plummer, Alfred: Cambridge Commentary, op. cit., p. 147

[21] Cornwall is a county on England’s rugged southwestern tip. It forms a peninsula encompassing wild moorland and hundreds of sandy beaches, culminating at the Land’s cape.

[22] Exodus 3:14

[23] Pearse, Mark Guy, Biblical Illustrator, First Epistle of John, Vol. 22, op. cit., p. 51

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson LIV) 04/04/22

^4:8 If a person isn’t loving and kind, it shows that they don’t know God – for God is love.

Albert Barnes (1798-1870) says that never was a more important declaration made than this nor more meaning crowded into a few words than in these – “God is love.” In the darkness of this world of sin – all the sorrows that blanket the human race and will come and inflict the wicked hereafter – we have the assurance that a God of infinite kindness rules overall. However, we may not be able to reconcile all that occurs with this declaration or see how the things which God has permitted to take place are consistent with it. Yet, in the exercise of faith on His testimony, we find consolation in “believing” that it is so. We may also look forward to a period when all His universe will see it to be so. In the midst of all that occurs on the earth of sadness, sin, and sorrow, there is abundant evidence that God is love.[1]

Henry Alford (1810-1871) states that when we treat “God is Love” as “God is loving,” we form a misconception of what the Apostle John said first, “Whoever does not love does not know God because God is love.” What comes next? Even though God is loving, this person never knew Him that way. They may have known Him as far as He is for fairness or power. But taking that “God is love,” it is an essential part of His being – just as an exact definition of God requires a strict argument: They who’ve never known such love, and since God is love, therefore, they who’ve never loved like this never knew God.[2] In other words, to love a loving God, He must first put that love in our hearts.[3]

William E. Jelf (1811-1875) proposes no reason why agápe-love should be limited to Christians. Those whose hearts see love as a stranger are not only hostile to God but utterly ignorant of Him. They have never gotten to know God. We cannot extinguish Love’s light where it once shined bright. The person whose principle of thought, feeling, and action is sheer selfishness, uninfluenced by God’s agápe-love or others, is barely ahead of the animal world. They, of course, have no idea or notion of God.

As an instance of such a being, one might take some of the African kings described by English explorer Sir Samuel W. Baker.[4] The Apostle John seems to present the divine nature and excellence of love in general, rather than stating any peculiar privileges of Christians, so he immediately applies what he has been saying to the particular agápe-love that Christians have towards each other. Although differing in kind and degree from the ordinary emotion of fondness in general, John says we should appreciate each other with agápe-love because it comes from God. Therefore, if you love God, you can talk about loving each other with greater emphasis.[5]

John Stock (1817-1884) laments the condition of the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches in his day. He regrets that ignorance of God’s Word is not the parent of devotion but the foster parent of superstition because it is empty of God’s agápe-love. If it is not removed it is fatal, involving eternal punishment.[6] They who love to keep people in ignorance, hunt them as prey, are offenders in no small degree; and are not of or with God, who complains that His people perish for lack of knowledge.[7] To know God as their Creator, Preserver, and Redeemer in and through the Anointed One Jesus the Lord, and continually meditate on this awareness, is the believer’s first duty.[8]

Stock says that in this knowledge of the Anointed One is life and, consequently, to be lacking it is death. The words, “This is eternal life: that people know you, the only true God, and that they know Jesus the Anointed One, the One you sent,”[9] show this to be the case beyond all controversy. The workers of iniquity do not know. “The way of peace they have not known there is no fear of God before their eyes.”[10] The spiritual condition of such is, unfortunately. Believers must have such heartbreak for them that it will motivate a combined effort on the part of those blessed with the Light to seek to remove the destructive darkness of their ignorant hearts. This knowledge of God produces love in return and a union with God, and its absence proves the ignorance of God.[11]

Charles Ellicott (1819-1904) says it is significant that we have these words not from Jesus but from John. Jesus did not say exactly, “God is love.” He taught by the inductive method. He said, “Those who’ve seen me have seen the Father.”[12] John looked at Him, leaned on His breast, stood beside His cross, gazed into His empty tomb, listened to His words after He rose from the dead, and said, “God is love.” So, how did John know that God is love because he saw the Anointed One? This knowledge of the Anointed One’s character is the primary source of John’s knowledge of God. He sought a description of the Anointed One’s character, and there was no name good enough.

No doubt John thought of Jesus, who went about doing good.[13] His self-denial and poverty for humanity’s sake; His compassion on the multitudes; His sympathy for the bereaved; His kindness towards the outcast; His tears at Lazarus’ grave; His message of forgiveness to the sin-stricken; His words such as no man has ever uttered; His washing His disciples’ feet; His death in pity for human sin; and His resurrection into immortality and glory. All this is the manifestation of the life of God in its fundamental meanings. He knew what Spirit was in Jesus; he knew by what word to characterize His life. He knew that whatever of God’s life was manifest through Jesus of Nazareth was eternally true of the Almighty Father, and he told it all in three sublime and immortal words, “God is love.”

According to Ellicott, we should also consider that John defines God as light in the early part of this Epistle. It would be impossible to exhaust all the definitions of God. However, we may roughly classify our human nature as intellectual and moral, mind and heart, thought and emotion. So, when we consider God as the Light (embracing all His attributes such as truth, knowledge, purity, health, power, and justice), we still have not comprehended all we can know about His nature.  Nor do we appreciate all that concerns us to know until we have also considered Him to be Love. He is the author and source of all genuine affection – kindness, compassion, friendliness, etc. As a result, we rejoice in the creation of infinite life for its endless happiness and offer eternal bliss to all His human family that surrounds us with inexhaustible illustrations of the joy and glory of perfection – godly perfection.[14]

Irish pastor and Evangelist Dwight L. Moody’s (1830-1899) good friend, Marcus Rainsford (1820-1897), speaks about the manifestation of God’s agápe-love. He stays that it was demonstrated ten thousand ways. If we look at it without prejudice, everything in Nature is the embodiment of God’s agápe-love. Every day, the sun shines, it expresses God’s agápe-love in warm rays. But oh, the display of God’s agápe-love in nature is not enough to make us spiritually alive. When great artists illustrate their skills in a painting or portrait, brought into being by their genius, it is exhibited in carpeted museums, amid grandeur and splendor, and within mansions, its walls draped with huge paintings.[15] But we can see it at work on dirty streets, in filthy neighborhoods in some of the world’s largest slums. It’s like spotting a brilliant diamond sticking out of a mud puddle.

William Kelly (1822-1888) adds to what the Apostle John said in verse seven about knowing the value of one’s salvation. It does not matter what gifts an individual may have, how active they are in ministry, or what reputation and influence they possess; if they do not love others, they do not know God. The factor is full of self-deceit. Those born of God love their brothers and sisters because they know God’s character. Their new divine affections have a definite sphere, and they have that knowledge of God that our Lord Jesus said is to establish eternal life. In His prayer for His disciples, Jesus presented this to His Father in heaven: “This is the way to have eternal life – to know You, the only true God, and Jesus the Anointed One You sent to earth.”[16] John reproduced this in a brief dogmatic statement with its negative. “Anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” Where there is no love, there is no knowledge of God. The reason is as plain as it is decisive; “for God is love.”[17]

By speaking this way, notes Kelly, John illustrates how God has shown His agápe-love. He brings it out in three forms. First, there is the wondrous manifestation of God in the Anointed One, which is the foundation of the Gospel; second, it is manifested in the Anointed One as life, and third, as paying our ransom price. If we didn’t have the Anointed One’s life in us, we would never be able to understand God at all. Could we have understood Him by having the Anointed One as our life without knowing we were set free from sin’s punishment? No! His holiness and judgment would have been insulted; it would have only brought misery. Knowing what God is and what we are, and not having our sins carried away, must be like His dishonor and our everlasting shame and anguish. That’s why many touched by the Gospel are still ignorant of the efficiency of redemption, proves the point.[18]

William B. Pope (1822-1903) believes we must understand that this God-Love is absolutely love in itself, in its nature, and apart from any object because it is from the very being of God. Therefore, this out-of-this-world experience involves nothing but love and regeneration. This miracle presents evidence of new birth in the past continues, and in the present, we still know God with this same love, discerning and delighting in its source. His eternal essence is unfathomable, and the bond of the intercommunion of the Trinity is adorable, revealing His unchanging nature. Since His nature is in us, this agápe-love will continue as long as He is there.[19]

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[1] Barnes, Albert: Notes on N.T., op. cit., p. 4864

[2] Alford, Henry: Critical and Exegetical Commentary, op. cit., p. 488

[3] Romans 5:5

[4] See: The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia and the Sword Hunters of the Hamran Arabs (1868)

[5] Jelf, William E., First Epistle of St. John, op. cit., p. 60

[6] Isaiah 28:11

[7] Hosea 4:6

[8] Ecclesiastes 12:1

[9] John 17:3

[10] Romans 3:17-18

[11] Stock, John: Exposition of First Epistle of John, op. cit., pp. 341, 343

[12] John 14:9

[13] Acts of the Apostles 10:38

[14] Ellicott, Charles: Ellicott’s Bible Commentary for English Readers, pp. 16255-16260

[15] Rainsford, Marcus: Biblical Illustrator, 1 John 4, op. cit., pp. 69-70

[16] John 17:3

[17] Kelly, William: Exposition of the Epistles of John the Apostle, op. cit., Logos, loc. cit.

[18] Ibid. Lectures on the Catholic Epistles, op. cit., pp. 325-326

[19] Pope, William B., Popular Commentary, op. cit., p. 315