1 John 4:7

(7) THE PERFECT LOVE THE SUREST TEST ( 1John 4:7-21 ). (a)Fraternal love the necessary product of the true knowledge of God, because God is love (1John 4:7-8). (b)The grand recent historical exhibition of God’s love (1John 4:9-10). (c)Our consequent duty (1John 4:11). (d)God’s abode in us, the perfecting of His love in us, and the proof of His presence through the Spirit, are the equivalent for seeing Him (1John 4:12-13). (e)All this is grounded on the strong, undeniable truth of the Apostolic witness to Christ (1John 4:14-16). (f)The fearlessness which is the result of perfect love (1John 4:17-18). (g)The cause of our love to God, and the necessary connection of that love with love to our fellows (1John 4:19-21). This may be considered the central portion of the second half of the Epistle. Nothing could be more significant of St. John’s 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 First Epistle to the Corinthians. The thought of (a) was suggested, though not in so complete and concise a form, in 1John 3:10-11; 1John 3:23; 1John 2:4; 1John 3:6; that of (b) in 1John 3:16; 1John 2:2; that of (c) also in 1John 3:16; that of (d) in 1John 2:5; 1John 3:24; that of (e) in 1John 1:1-2; that of (f) in 1John 2:28; that of (g) in 1John 2:4; 1John 3:17.

The connection with the paragraph on the trial of the spirits is very obvious: “every one that loveth is born of God;” so that the quality and quantity of our affection will be the best gauge whether we have the spirit of truth or of error. The absence of love is ignorance of God, for real knowledge of Him imparts His nature. And if any ask how we know of His love, the answer is that it was seen in His Son. In sending Him, He loved us without any love on our part. Our relation to God reminds us that we must have the same love to each other. The fact that God cannot be seen is an additional reason for mutual affection among us; for brotherly love is the demonstrable proof of His presence, and of the growing completeness of the work wrought by His love in us. The Spirit Himself, through whom our love would come, confirms the reality of God’s indwelling. And these spiritual emotions and developments are not illusory, for they are guaranteed by the ocular and oral evidence of the Apostles to the historical Person of Christ. So the result of all this will be perfect and fearless confidence.

{6} Beloved, let us love one another: {7} for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. (6) He returns to the commending of brotherly love and charity. (7) The first reason: because it is a very divine thing, and therefore very fitting for the sons of God: so that whoever is missing it cannot be said to know God correctly.

1 John 4:7-21 . The Blessedness of Love. “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God, and every one that loveth of God hath been begotten and is getting to know God. He that loveth not did not get to know God, because God is love. Herein was manifested the love of God in us, because His Son, His only-begotten, hath God commissioned into the world, that we may get life through Him. Herein is the love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and commissioned His Son as a propitiation for our sins. “Beloved, if it was thus that God loved us, we also are bound to love one another. God—no one hath ever yet beheld Him: if we love one another, God abideth in us and His love is perfected in us. Herein we get to know that we abide in Him and He in us, because of His Spirit He hath given us. And we have beheld and testify that the Father hath commissioned the Son as Saviour of the world. Whosoever confesseth that Jesus is the Son of God, God in him abideth and he in God. And we have got to know and have believed the love which God hath in us. “God is love, and he that abideth in love in God abideth, and God in him abideth. Herein hath love been perfected with us—so that we may have boldness in the Day of Judgment—because, even as He is, we also are in this world. Fear there is not in love, but the perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath punishment; and he that feareth hath not been perfected in love. We love because He first loved us .