They spread malicious gossip with great delight, and they are defensive if you try to point out any of these sins to them. Why, then, do you say that Christ made, or bought, or in any way procured the love of God, when it was God’s love that sent Him forth on His mission? IV. Moreover, "Our God is a consuming fire" (Hebrews 12:29). But these were the mere trifles of God’s works. And those who draw upon that love Antinomianism in a religious mind seems to me to be an impossible moral phenomenon. (J. M. Pascoe.). And it is incredible. Terrible disasters require terrible remedies; but he who can use terrible remedies, loves. What then can I know of Him whose name is “I Am”? Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly be broken. “Because He is love, God works against whatever works against love.” (The Epistles of John- An Expositional Commentary) (See also related journal article - 1 John 4:7-21 - Excellent). (M. G. I hear of the Almighty, but what does it mean? According to Him, the greatest commandment is to love—to love Him first and then others (Mark 12:29-31). These are all metaphors that emphasize certain characteristics of God. 507 Cf. They have become so familiar now that we do not know their meaning; but if we could throw ourselves back mentally and spiritually to the right standpoint, we should know that it did not lie within the compass of human genius to invent any of these words. He was detected in the act, sent to prison, and brought a stain upon the family name. No one in the whole world ever knew that God is love until it was revealed from heaven and written in the New Testament. What is that? This subject warns sinners to flee from the wrath to come. The first word, Apokalypsis (revelation), gives this book its title. In the redemption of man God has found a work by which He manfully express Himself. If “God is love,” may I not say, “Love is God”? It has been well observed that, although God is holy, just, righteous, etc., he is never called holiness, justice, etc., in the abstract, as he is here called Love. If a man loves not the children of God, those that are born of him, he does not know, so as to love God, the Father of them; for to pretend love to God, the begetter of them, whom he sees not, and not love those who are begotten by him, and are visible objects of respect, is a contradiction, and cannot be reconciled: see 1 John 4:20. “One who is a stranger to love, is a stranger to God also!” Compare 1 Corinthians 2:9and note. While a genuine believer may not always manifest divine love to other believers, to never demonstrate such love John says is to demonstrate that one does not know God. Man is responsible for it, not God. This does not mean that “love is God.” And the fact that two people “love each other” does not mean that their love is necessarily holy. To its anointed eye all things are revelations and emblems, and to its tuned heart every breath is music. 1 John 4:8. It is not the place here to enter on the theological import of this weighty and wonderful sentence. The sun cannot shine upon the just, and not upon the unjust, for the sun is light, and it cannot help shining. May we not say that God must express Himself for His own sake? Here man finds his most perfect good, and God works through every other good to this. Jesus tells us (John 14:21), “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.”, I might add that, perhaps another aspect of Christ’s love was His special love for the apostle John, who refers to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved (John 13:23). Love exists and works in the Eternal Being apart from the creature; and its radiation upon the creature is but a feeble reflection of its being. Pardon, hope, life, for all the world; the break of the eternal day. It is significant that we have these words not from Jesus but from John. When our hearts are right all is right. For God is love; he loves himself; there is an entire love between the three divine Persons, who are in the strictest, and in the most inconceivable and inexpressible manner affected to each other; their love is natural and essential: God loves all his creatures as such, nor does he hate any of them, as so considered; and he bears an everlasting, unchangeable, and invariable love to his elect in Christ Jesus; of which an instance is given in the following verses, and is a reason why the saints should love one another; that they might be like their heavenly Father, by whom they are begotten, and of whom they are born, and whose children they are; seeing he is love itself, and in his breast is nothing else but love. The brightest lights throw the deepest shadows. (2) God’s providential love over al that he has made. In other words they have never been born again and are not genuine believers regardless of what they claim! II. You go through the drill of your daily work, you wrestle with temptations; it is fuel for the fire. Maclagan (P. No one but a God of love could send the loving Christ. Kingsley, Westminster Sermons, p. 15; Christian World Pulpit, vol. Did you ever see a little mother hen spread her feathers and give defensive battle to a hawk? There are many in evangelical churches that claim to be born again, but they do not love others and they do not even make an effort to do so. It includes the sunniest as well as the gloomiest sides of human life. In the original structure of things before sin entered, when all was pronounced “good;” in the things designed to promote happiness, where the only thing contemplated is happiness, and where it would have been as easy to have caused pain; in the preservation of a guilty race, and in granting that race the opportunity of another trial; in the ceaseless provision which God is making in his providence for the wants of unnumbered millions of his creatures; in the arrangements made to alleviate sorrow, and to put an end to it; in the gift of a Saviour more than all, and in the offer of eternal life on terms simple and easy to be complied with - in all these things, which are the mere expressions of love, not one of which would have been found under the government of a malignant being, 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 benevolent, but the full glory and meaning of that truth will be seen only in heaven. He would go on holding fellowship with his own soul’s visions in the soul’s private sanctuary; but he would not demean himself by selling his soul to the man who merely could pay the highest price for it. He has been telling it unweariedly through the ages. Read 1 John 4:8 commentary using Robertson's Word Pictures of the New Testament. Political Economy has told us that the law of supply and demand is final in trade, and that an enlightened self-interest is the highest motive which commerce can know. Sermon Bible Commentary. One truth is written: all conspire to prove. Love (26)(agape) is a self-sacrificing, caring commitment that shows itself in seeking the highest good of the one loved. D. A. Carson wrote a perceptive little book, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God - free download pp. And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. Yes. Well, take the words and brood over them until the very Spirit of God speaks them to the heart. We do not find it in the Old Testament; nor till the whole scheme of our salvation was finished and revealed; and then, on the entire temple of truth, this was placed as the top-stone—“God is love.” And it was only right his hand should set it up who had been admitted into the closest intimacy with that dear Saviour Who had brought that “love” to us, and Whose whole life was only its embodiment; and therefore it was reserved for St. John to lay the pinnacle, “God is love.”’. The statement “God is love” implies much more than that God demonstrates His love regardless of the circumstances. IV. Look into modern philosophy, where God is Force without heart, and Law without pity. Some mother quails have lost their lives in that way, no doubt, but they have saved the nest. But that is not the noblest genius. They are not born again, because they do not practice biblical love. II. (Our Daily Bread, Copyright RBC Ministries, Grand Rapids, MI. I have seen a band of roving gypsies tear down the exquisitely carved panels of an old palace to light a fire to boil their kettle with. (1 John 4:7-11 Why We Must Love), God Is Love - A farmer placed a weather vane inscribed with the words “God is love” on top of his barn. They appear as two vague figures wrapped in clouds; the man half recumbent, the woman lying prone on the ground; time in the form of the woman illumined with a bright light; death in the form of a man overshadowed by his own form, and knowing nothing of the secrets that are hidden in his stern keeping. Does not this thought interpret some of the mysteries of life to us? Bengel says: “This brief sentence gave John, even during the mere time he took to write it, more delight than the whole world can impart.” And, indeed, one can well believe it; for, you must remember, John really and deeply cared about God; and if we really care about God and men, this text, if we believe it, will assuage our sorrow, lighten our hearts, and brighten our lives. There is a great deal of reiteration in this chapter, but additional truth appears with regard to testing the spirits (1 John 4:1-6), and there is more extended teaching on love.God is love, love as a test, love of one another, love of God, God's love of us, etc. ], There is a pretty story of St. Augustine. Awhile to listen, but would take its part? The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 3. Strictly, there cannot be self-love, for selfishness is the negation of love. That all my lilies are safe, in the dust. Knoweth not, [ egnoo (Greek #1097), aorist] - not only knoweth not now, but never has once for all known God. ", . These are the words out of which all the other words come. 4. The good of man includes the whole man. In Christ love stooped to infinite sacrifice.—Nowhere else but on the Cross could it fully utter itself. Amplified - He who does not love has not become acquainted with God [does not and never did know Him], for God is love. —DJD Surely, under a law of liberty, all obedience freely paid becomes by that very freedom more hearty, more trustworthy, more true. There is nothing in the nature of God which any of His creatures can imitate, except His benevolent feelings. We may reject it or receive it: God must give it. Love is not God, but God is love; and He is sufficient to Himself to love absolutely and for ever. In verses 1 and 4, we learn that the one who received this revelation and wrote this book is John. Love is self-sacrifice, and the death of Calvary is the self-sacrifice of God. This Epistle was an Epistle General, that is, it was not directed to any local Church. 1 John 4:10, 1 John 4:11.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. 233. (c) Thirdly, if there are degrees in glory, the degree of the glory must depend on the degree of the grace; and, to a great extent, the degree of the grace is dependent on the degree of the schooling. Although this is the one truth about God which we can know, yet it is the last truth which we accept. Amen. This knowledge of Christ’s character is the primary source of John’s knowledge of God. On the other hand, if we only speak of God’s love for His elect, we will not be able to offer the gospel freely to sinners. Christ, says Clement of Rome, was taught His message of glad tidings by the Father, and the Apostles were taught theirs by Christ. But the mists which cloud the summer morning are only made to melt into the sweeter noonday brightness. 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