1 John

4:7-12

3. God is love, 4:7-5:12

i] The true nature of love

In 4:7-5:12 John examines the close relationship that exists between righteousness, love and belief. He initially deals with the relationship between love and belief, both of which serve to confirm a person's relationship with God. In 4:7-12 John establishes his first point, namely, that God is love and thus a child of God loves.

To properly understand this passage we must break open what John means by "love". This love, says John, is something that comes from God. As such, we are not dealing with emotions; we are not talking about sexual feelings, warmth toward others, bonding.... When it comes to love, we are dealing with something other than the affections. Gordon Clark calls it "a settled decision to obey God's laws." Lenski says "love is defined as the love of intelligence, of comprehension and understanding. It always has that meaning in the New Testament, most completely so here where it speaks of God's love." Love's outcome is "compassion and benevolence". So, love is an active compassion focused by truth. John encourages us to love, and if we truly are a friend of Jesus, then we will aim at love. If we are a fraud we will ignore the exhortation.

Love is shaped by the image of Christ's sacrifice. At the practical level, the image of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples best shows us the application of love, of active compassion. When it comes to the motivation of love, certainly Christ's love for us motivates us to love, but above all, it is his indwelling compelling that motivates us to love. The renewing work of the Holy Spirit shapes love within us. Yet, there is a more powerful motivation to love, for it is in loving one another that we actually touch the very being of God. No one has ever seen God, yet within the love of the brotherhood it is possible to experience the presence of God. In love we touch him; in loving he touches us.

With regard the place of this passage within John's argument as a whole, Kruse suggests that John, using the literary forms of the age (in this case epidoectic rhetoric), presents his ninth proof in 4:7-5:4a, namely "claims to love God tested by love for fellow believers." Smalley suggests four subdivisions: i] the source of love, v7-10; ii] the inspiration of love, v11-16; iii] the practice of love, v17-20; iv] the command of love, 4:21-5:4. Mind you, Bultmann argues that the passage is "something like the discussion of a theological seminar" - all over the place! Marshall and Wahlde think the first division consists of v7-12, but Lieu, Yarbrough and Schnackenburg agree with Smalley.

A summons to redemptive love, whose source is God, the God who first loved us, v7-12. First, John calls for brotherly love, defining its origin and its effects, v7. Love, being of the very nature of God, motivates brotherly love by prompting love in those who have come into a relationship with God in Christ.

agaphtoi adj. "dear friends" - beloved. Vocative, usually an intimate reference to fellow believers.

agapwmen (agapaw) pres. subj. "love [one another]" - let us love. Hortatory subjunctive.

oJti "for" - Here functioning adverbially serving to introduce a causal clause.

hJ agaph "love" - "This love is from God", Lenski, suggesting that the article makes the "love" demonstrative, although abstract nouns often have an article.

ek "[comes] from [God]" - out of, from [God]. Expressing source/origin. John is unlikely to be suggesting that all forms of love come from God, given that God is the origin of all things (true though this is), but rather that the special love of the brotherhood, exampled in the sacrificial love of Christ, originates from God, it is divine.

paV oJ agapwn "everyone who loves" - all the ones loving. The adjective "all/every" with the articular participle presents a fairly common problem. Should the adjective be taken as the nominative subject and the participle as adjectival, attributive, or is the participle functioning as a substantive and the adjective as an adjective? Anyway, together they function as the nominative subject of the verb gegennhtai, "has been born", so "to love is to be God's child", Barclay.

gegennhtai (gennaw) perf. pas. "has been born" - Given the context, born of God has a similar meaning to knowing God. John says that a person who loves, knows God. This again indicates that love is certainly not some fuzzy emotion, but rather active compassion / mercy. The child of God will exhibit this characteristic of the Father (albeit imperfectly) because they "know" God, are "born of" God; they are a friend of God.

A person who is not loving does not know God, v8. John has already told us that such a person, a person without brotherly love, is a person who is not from God, 3:10 and is a person who "abides in death", 3:14. Now he tells us that such a person does not know God.

oJ mh agapwn "whoever does not love" - the one not loving. The participle functions as a substantive.

ouk egnw (ginwskw) aor. "does not know [God]" - To "know God" is not to just know intellectually about God, but to know him in the sense of entering into an intimate relationship with him. This knowing (often the word belief takes a similar sense) is integrally linked to loving; "love alone opens access to all God's words and works, and whoever lacks love is blind to God", Schlatter, via Yarbrough. The reason behind this is because "God is love."

oJti "because" - Expressing cause/reason. Introducing an explanation as to why a person who does not love does not know God.

oJ qeoV agaph estin "God is love" - "Is love" is the predicate of the clause, with "God" as the subject, the predicate serving to express a truth about God. Thus, the alternate is not true, ie. "love is God." When John describes God as love, he is not just describing his character, but rather the essence of his being. He is a caring relational God. The very nature of his being is triune, one God in three persons, and this provides the shape for his love - God interrelates within himself. The capacity for human beings to love is part of the image of God within us. Yet, John's point is not so much to note this common grace possessed by all humans, but rather to pinpoint a special grace for God's children, namely, brotherly love. For John, such love is the evidence that we are a child of God. Of course, we must not assume that "love" is an all encompassing definition for God's Character. Other one-liners are just as important: "God is spirit", "God is truth", ...

Brotherly love is possible because of the new life found in Christ, v9.

en toutw/ "this is how" - by/in this. Instrumental; "by this means was the love manifested to us." "This" references forward to "he sent his only son into the world."

tou qeou "God" - [was manifested the love] of God. This fairly common use of the genitive is usually classified as subjective (ie. God produces the action, he does the loving, although some have argued for an objective genitive, human love for God), although better adjectival, possessive, or ablative, source/origin - or both!

afanerwqh (fanerow) aor. pas. "showed" - was manifested, revealed, made clear... God is the agent of the manifesting and the agent of "love", prompting the NIV to ignore the passive. For the passive sense, "this is how the love of God has appeared (in the incarnation??) for us", Moffatt.

en hJmin "among us" - in us. Locative, expressing where God's love is manifested. "Toward us", AV, "to us", NEB, makes sense, but not true to the grammar. The corporate sense, "in our midst" = "among us", NIV, RSV, is certainly possible, but probably better, "in us", "indwelling us", "within us".

oJti "-" - that. Possibly adverbial, introducing a causal clause, as AV, but better taken as introducing a noun clause, appositional, or epexegetic of "by this means." God's love is manifested "by this means .... namely that he sent ...."

autou gen. pro. "[He sent] his" - The genitive is adjectival, relational.

monogenh adj. "one and only [son]" - only begotten, one and only, one of a kind, unique [son]. "Unique", in the sense of the only one of its kind, gives the best sense of the word here, rather than the sense of "only son."

iJna + subj. "that" - that. Introducing a purpose clause, "in order that", so revealing why Jesus was sent; "in order that we might possess the fullness of new life in Christ."

zhswmen (zaw) aor. subj. "we might live" - we may live. John touches on the reason for the sending of the Son, namely, life eternal for believers.

di (dia) + gen. "through [him]" - through, by means of. Expressing agency.

The atoning sacrifice of Christ is the means by which God realizes his love, v10. Christ's atonement explicates love, but above all it empowers love in that the reception of this act of divine love provides the wherewithal to love in return, eg. a person who experiences forgiveness is more able to forgive.

en toutw/ "this" - Instrumental, as above, and referring to the noun clause introduced by oJti, "by this means is love demonstrated .... namely, that God loved us ..."

oJti "[not] that" - As in v9. Here used twice to introduce two epexegetic clauses; "not that ..... but that ....." "This is what love is, namely, not ....., but ......"

hJmeiV pro. "we" - Emphatic use of the pronoun. "Love is not, in the first instance, what people do from themselves", Loader.

hgaphkamen (agapaw) perf. "loved [God]" - have loved [God]. Perfect tense implies a past act with ongoing action - not our ongoing acts of love under God.

alla "but" - Contrastive. Love is evidenced, not in our love of God, but of his love of us.

hgaphsen (agapaw) aor. "[he] loved [us]" love. Aorist tense expresses a completed act. God's love expressed in a single moment of time, "his love for us - in the sending of his son", Moffatt.

kai "and [sent]" - The conjunction here is probably not just functioning as a connective, but rather is epexegetic, BAGD #3 p393; "God loved us, that is, he sent his Son ..."

autou gen. pro. "his [Son]" - The genitive is relational.

iJlasmon (oV) "atoning sacrifice" - a propitiation, an expiation. Accusative object complement of the accusative "Son", functioning as a predicate of "Son", ie. saying something about "son"; the "Son" serves as a "propitiation / expiation", probably in the sense that he is the means by which propitiation is achieved. We need to note that the NIV, as with many newer translations, fails to maintain the accuracy of the text when it replaces "propitiation" with "atonement". Propitiation means that the sacrificial offering of the person of Jesus achieved the turning aside of the righteous wrath of God. Jesus suffered in our stead taking the penalty for our sins.

peri + gen. "for" - concerning, about. Best taken as referring to, "serving as a propitiation / expiation with reference to our sins"; "that he might be the means of expiating our sins", Cassirer.

hJmwn gen. pro. "our [sins]" - The genitive is possessive, although often classified as subjective, ie. the sins which we commit, so Culy. "It is only through spiritual rebirth that people are infused with capacities that make reception of divine love, and thereby expression of divine love, a possibility", Yarbrough.

A second call for brotherly love, this time on the grounds of God's prior love, v11. In fact, brotherly love is the natural consequence of God's love for us such that John's call to love is a call to be what we are - a loving being in Christ. As noted above, some commentators think that this verse introduces a new paragraph, a second exhortation to love, v11-14.

ei + ind. "since" - if. Introducing a 1st. class conditional clause, where the condition is assumed to be true, "if, as is the case ....., then ...." = "since it is a fact that God's love was poured out on us in the atonement then ...."

ofeilomen (ofeilw) "we [also] ought" - we owe, we ought, be morally obligated. Expressing obligation, duty.

kai "also" - and. Adjunctive; "we also / too ought to love"

agapan (agapaw) pres. inf. "to love" - The infinitive is complementary, complementing the sense of the verb "ought." "If God loved us like that, it is our bounded duty to love each other", Barclay.

The invisible God is experienced in brotherly love, v12.

oudeiV .... teqeatai (qeaomai) perf. "no one has [ever] seen" - no one ... has beheld, seen. "God's otherness is signified by his invisibility", Yarbrough. In making the negative statement that "no one has ever seen God", John seems to imply that although God is unseen, his invisible nature is manifest in the love of the brotherhood, and this because God's nature is love.

ean + subj. "but if" - if. Conditional sentence, 3rd. class, where the condition has a possibility of coming true; "if, as may be the case, [we love one another] then ....."

menei (menw) pres. "[God] lives [in us]" - remains, abides, continue with, stays with. Expressing divine fellowship with the believer; "God becomes an integral part of our lives", Barclay. Although God's invisible nature is manifest in brotherly love it is going too far to assert that "God is accessible to us only as we love", Smith.

en + dat. "in [us]" - Local. "In our lives", Barclay, if taken personally, or "in the midst of his people", if taken corporately.

kai "and" - and. Connective.

autou gen. pro. "his [love]" - [the love] of him. Usually treated as a subjective genitive where the genitive substantive, "his", produces the action of the verbal noun "love", ie. God abides in us and we experience his loving of us, "we are the recipients of his love", Schnackenburg, so Brown, etc.. Of course, some others opt for an objective genitive where God abides in us and we respond by loving him, so Dodd. Yet, it seems better to treat this genitive as reflective of Semitic influence and so treat it adjectivally, ie. a genitive of quality, it's "God's type/kind of love"; "the love that comes from God", Smalley.

teteleiwmenh (teleiow) perf. pas. part. "is made complete" - has been perfected, completed. The participle + estin, the present tense of the verb to-be, forms a perfect periphrastic emphasizing aspect; "has been made perfect", TNT. The sense "perfect" is somewhat misleading. God's purpose of shaping love in his children is made complete, finished, brought to its desired end, when we fulfill that purpose by loving our brothers. It is absurd to suggest that God himself is completed/perfected by the actions of his children for then we suggest that God is not perfect. "His love grows in us toward perfection", Phillips.

en hJmin "in us" - Obviously locative, expressing location, but what does it modify? Presumably the perfect periphrastic "has been made perfect", as NIV, but "the love of God in us has been made perfect" is also possible, ie. modifying "the love of God." Also, is the "us" perceived as individuals, or as the Christian community? Possibly, "God abides in us and the compassion which is poured out from him finds its completion in our compassion one toward another."

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