1 John 4:10

4:7-13 The Spirit of God is the Spirit of love. He that does not love the image of God in his people, has no saving knowledge of God. For it is God's nature to be kind, and to give happiness. The law of God is love; and all would have been perfectly happy, had all obeyed it. The provision of the gospel, for the forgiveness of sin, and the salvation of sinners, consistently with God's glory and justice, shows that God is love. Mystery and darkness rest upon many things yet. God has so shown himself to be love, that we cannot come short of eternal happiness, unless through unbelief and impenitence, although strict justice would condemn us to hopeless misery, because we break our Creator's laws. None of our words or thoughts can do justice to the free, astonishing love of a holy God towards sinners, who could not profit or harm him, whom he might justly crush in a moment, and whose deserving of his vengeance was shown in the method by which they were saved, though he could by his almighty Word have created other worlds, with more perfect beings, if he had seen fit. Search we the whole universe for love in its most glorious displays? It is to be found in the person and the cross of Christ. Does love exist between God and sinners? Here was the origin, not that we loved God, but that he freely loved us. His love could not be designed to be fruitless upon us, and when its proper end and issue are gained and produced, it may be said to be perfected. So faith is perfected by its works

. Thus it will appear that God dwells in us by his new-creating Spirit. A loving Christian is a perfect Christian; set him to any good duty, and he is perfect to it, he is expert at it. Love oils the wheels of his affections, and sets him on that which is helpful to his brethren. A man that goes about a business with ill will, always does it badly. That God dwells in us and we in him, were words too high for mortals to use, had not God put them before us. But how may it be known whether the testimony to this does proceed from the Holy Ghost? Those who are truly persuaded that they are the sons of God, cannot but call him Abba, Father. From love to him, they hate sin, and whatever disagrees with his will, and they have a sound and hearty desire to do his will. Such testimony is the testimony of the Holy Ghost.

1 John 4:10 . The love which proves us children of God is not native to our hearts. It is inspired by the amazing love of God manifested in the Incarnation—the infinite Sacrifice of His Son’s life and death. Aug.: “Non illum dileximus prius: nam ad hoc nos dilexit, ut diligamus eum.” ἀπέστειλεν : the aor. is used here because the Incarnation is regarded as a distinct event, a historic landmark. Having inculcated love, the Apostle indicates two incentives thereto: (1) God’s love for us imposes on us a moral obligation to love one another ( 1 John 4:11-16 a); (2) If we have love in our hearts, fear is cast out ( 1 John 4:16-18 ).

1 John 4:10-12 . Herein is love — Worthy of our highest admiration; not that we loved God — First; for we were, on the contrary, in a state of enmity to him, in which, if we had remained unsolicited and untouched by his love and grace, we should have persisted and perished; but that he loved us — First, ( 1 John 4:19 ,) without any merit or motive in us to induce him to do it; and, in his boundless compassion to our necessities and miseries; sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins — That is, to make atonement to his injured justice for them by offering himself as a sacrifice, and so to introduce us into his favour on honourable terms. If God so loved us — With such a transcendent, free, and inconceivable love; we ought also to love one another — In imitation of his divine example, from a sense of the happy state into which we are brought, and in gratitude to him for so inestimable a favour. And it is of the greater importance that we should do this, because it is absolutely necessary in order to our having fellowship with him.

For no man hath seen God at any time — Nor indeed can see him, since he is in his own nature invisible; nor can any one have any knowledge of him, or intercourse with him by his senses, or any information concerning his will and the way of pleasing him by any visible appearance of him, or converse with him; yet, from what his only-begotten Son hath taught us, we know that if we love one another — In consequence of first loving him; God dwelleth μενει , abideth, in us — This is treated of 1 John 4:13-16 ; and his love is perfected — Has its full effect; in us — This is treated of 1 John 4:17-19 .

Verse 10. - Let no man think that any higher manifestation of love than this can be found. It is not in any love of man to his Maker, but in his Maker's love to him, that the real nature of love can be perceived. Note the change from perfect to aorist; ἀπέσταλκεν in verse 9 expresses the permanent results of the mission; ἀπέστειλεν here states the mission as an accomplished fact complete in itself. (For ἱλασμός , see on 1 John 2:2.) 1 John 4:10

10. Herein is love—love in the abstract: love, in its highest ideal, is herein. The love was all on God's side, none on ours. not that we loved God—though so altogether worthy of love. he loved us—though so altogether unworthy of love. The Greek aorist expresses, Not that we did any act of love at any time to God, but that He did the act of love to us in sending Christ.

1 John CHRIST’S MISSION THE REVELATION OF GOD’S LOVE 1 John 4:10 . This is the second of a pair of twin verses which deal with substantially the same subject under two slightly different aspects. The thought common to both is that Christ’s mission is the great revelation of God’s love. But in the preceding verse the point on which stress is laid is the manifestation of that love, and in our text the point mainly brought out is its essential nature. In the former we read, ‘In this was manifested the love of God,’ and in the present verse we read, ‘Herein is love.’ In the former verse John fixes on three things as setting forth the greatness of that manifestation--viz., that the Christ is the only begotten Son, that the manifestation is for the world, and that its end is the bestowment of everlasting love.