1 John 4:7–12

4:7 Once again, direct address using a term of endearment marks the transition to a new section. Here the term, “beloved,” also introduces the theme. John returns to the recurring theme of love, now giving a command rather than discussing one.¹ This first-person-plural command to love is particularly Johannine language.²

Christians must love one another for two reasons. First, love originates from God, and so his people should be marked by it. Second, love is evidence of being “born of God” and “know[ing] God.” Love is fundamental to God’s character; thus his children must bear the family resemblance. This does not mean that anyone who does something loving or kind is by that fact alone a believer in Christ. There is no basis here for universalism or an inclusivism that teaches that people who deny Christ will be saved apart from faith. Such an idea would flatly contradict what John says elsewhere in this letter. Unbelievers can be loving and kind, but John is describing a deep, self-sacrificial sort of love that is directed specifically by Christians toward other Christians.

4:8 If one does not love in this way, he must not know God, for this love is central to who God is. The statement “God is love” (repeated at 4:16) is a momentous theological point, one that J. I. Packer calls “one of the most tremendous utterances in the Bible.”³ It is also true that much misunderstanding has arisen here.

What does it mean to say that “God is love”? It is helpful to consider this statement alongside the other statement of God’s basic character in 1:5: “God is light.” Neither statement intends to reduce God to an abstract idea or emotion. Rather, these statements refer to God’s action, the essential elements of his character that shape all that he does, and thus how we experience him. Thus, God is loving in all he does: “The love which he shows to men, and which Christians know and rejoice in, is a revelation of His own inner being.”⁴ This is amazing news for sinful beings like us. It brings us to the glory and beauty of the gospel that an all holy God (1:5) would choose to love sinners and accomplish their salvation and sanctification. Surely Packer is right that in this doctrine we stand on holy ground.⁵

4:9 Since this love is so crucial, John turns now to make clear what it looks like in concrete terms by pointing to the supreme example of love, the work of Christ. This love was “made manifest” or “revealed” among us. The verb used here (phaneroō) typically refers to the revelation of something that was previously hidden. God’s love for humanity stretches back to before the dawn of time, and although it was revealed in part throughout the OT, it was fully revealed only in the sending of the Son to redeem us. In language strikingly similar to John 3:16,⁶ John shows that this event dwarfs all others in terms of its demonstration of God’s love (cf. also Rom. 5:8). This statement and others like it point to the fact that this work of Christ is the center-point of all of Scripture.

The “sending” of the Son envisions the full work of Christ—incarnation, life, death, burial, resurrection and ascension. The one sent is God’s “only” Son. The adjective used (monogenēs) stresses the uniqueness of Jesus as God’s son;⁷ as Calvin wrote, “He who is his only Son by nature, makes many sons by grace and adoption.”⁸ Whereas false teachers went out “into the world” to deceive (1 John 4:1), the Son was sent “into the world” (same Greek phrase) “so that we might live through him” (v. 9). This is why his work is a demonstration of love—at great cost to himself, Jesus rescued us. Thus two things are involved in this love: self-sacrifice, and action done for the benefit of others.⁹

4:10 John further clarifies love, stating very clearly where love began: it began with God, not with us. Our love is weak, fragile, inconstant. We could not be the measure of true love. Rather, God is the standard and the initiator of love. Before we did anything, he “sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” As Paul says, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).

As in 4:9, God’s love is demonstrated by his sending of the Son. Here the work of the Son is more specifically delineated. “Propitiation” describes Jesus’ work at the cross as a sacrifice that turns away God’s holy wrath because of our sins (cf. comment on 2:2). As he often does, John refers to large theological realities without elaboration. By referring to propitiation, John says that God’s love is seen in the fact that he sent his Son to die a cruel death, bearing the full fury of the Father’s wrath for our sins so that we might be forgiven and redeemed. He came to die that we might live. This is no mere sentimental indulgence. This is love. William Rees (1802–1883) captured this truth well in his classic hymn, “Here Is Love”:

Here is love, vast as the ocean,

Lovingkindness as the flood,

When the Prince of life, our ransom,

Shed for us His precious blood. . . .

On the mount of crucifixion

Fountains opened deep and wide;

Through the floodgates of God’s mercy

Flowed a vast and gracious tide.

Grace and love, like mighty rivers,

Poured incessant from above,

And heaven’s peace and perfect justice

Kissed a guilty world in love.

4:11 “Beloved” marks John’s return to his exhortation. Having paused to define love by pointing to the work of Christ, John now comes back to his hortatory purpose, saying in essence, “Beloved, in view of this amazing love, as recipients of such a persevering, sacrificial, effective love, how can we not love one another as well?” This is the root of all of John’s statements declaring that one who does not love his brother cannot know God. If one knows this love that has just been described, he will love in return. As a skilled preacher, John has moved from the pinnacle of marvelous theological truth to pointed moral exhortation. Adoration must lead to action.

4:12 The connection of this verse to the preceding material is not immediately clear. That no one can see God because he is spirit is a basic truth of the Bible (Ex. 33:20; 1 Tim. 1:17), but one might wonder what the point is of the assertion here. There does not seem to have been any questioning of this truth among John’s hearers. Rather, John is arguing from a theological given to an ethical necessity. Since God cannot be seen, Christians can “show” him to a watching world only by loving one another.

When Christians love one another, God abides in them; he dwells in their midst. And his love, which has just been so powerfully described, is brought to completion in them. To say God’s love is “perfected” is not to suggest a deficiency in God’s love. Rather, the word (teleioō) means “to complete,” to bring to its intended outcome: “God’s already pristine love find[s] its fullest possible earthly expression as people respond to the message of Christ and reach out to one another as a result.”¹⁰ Thus the way for God to be “seen,” recognized—for people to see that he is real—is for Christians actively and aggressively to care for one another.