1 John 4:7-12
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.
In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.”
Love is the duty of the Christian and should motivate and energize everything we do. The importance—the priority—of love in the life of the Christian is powerfully communicated in this passage from 1 John. We are told to”love on another” three times in three different ways.
- A command statement: “let us love one another” (verse 7).
- A responsibility statement: “we also ought to love one another” (verse 11).
- A conditional statement: “if we love each other” (verse 12).
The reason we should love people, John writes, is because “love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.” God is motivated by love, and he wants us to have the same motivation. It was love that sent Jesus into the world to die in our place and for our sin, which is what propitiation means. Jesus died so that we might live. God’s love for us was displayed—”made manifest”—upon the cross.
2 Corinthians 5.21 clearly states the incredible theological truth of propitiation: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5.21)
The Lord did not wait for us to show love to him; rather, he took the initiative to love us. Let me restate that and make it very personal. The Lord did not wait for you to show love to him; rather, he took the initiative to love you.
“We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4.19)
“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us.” (1 John 3.16)
“God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5.8)
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3.16)
To summarize this powerful directive from the Lord: God is love, and it is his love that motivated him to send Jesus into the world to die for our sin and give us life. Therefore, the Lord commands us to operate our lives in a way that reflects the reality of his love. As recipients of God’s love, we must respond by loving other people.
More tomorrow …
