1 John, Part 11: God is Love 

1 John 4:7-21 (BSB)

Last week we looked at John’s three criteria for determining whether a spirit is from God and should have fellowship with us. The test is simple: do they confess that Jesus came in the flesh and is the Son of God, do they practice righteousness, and do they love fellow believers?

All throughout his letter, John has been stating and restating those three themes. But now, he’s reached the most important point. Everything that he’s been building on is summed up in this section. Let’s read it in its entirety, and then we will go back through it, verse by verse.

1 John 4:7-21 says:

7 Beloved, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 

8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

9 This is how God’s love was revealed among us: God sent His one and only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. 

10 And love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 

12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God remains in us, and His love is perfected in us. 

13 By this we know that we remain in Him, and He in us: He has given us of His Spirit. 

14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world.

15 If anyone confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 

16 And we have come to know and believe the love that God has for us. God is love; whoever abides in love abides in God, and God in him. 

17 In this way, love has been perfected among us, so that we may have confidence on the day of judgment; for in this world we are just like Him.

18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. The one who fears has not been perfected in love. 

19 We love because He first loved us.

20 If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 

21 And we have this commandment from Him: Whoever loves God must love his brother as well.

There is no doubt as to what John is talking about. It was hard not to lose count, but twenty-seven times John mentions love in this short section. Love is the foundation of it all.

Why is it important that we know that Jesus truly came to earth in the flesh?

Why is it important that we practice righteousness?

Why is it important that we love one another?

The answer, John says, is because God is love.

If we don’t understand that God is love, then we won’t understand why those three things are the ultimate litmus test for determining if a spirit is from God or if someone is a false prophet/antichrist as John had said earlier.  Let’s go back through this text, now taking it one verse at a time, and I will explain why John is making this important point.

Verse 7 says, “Beloved, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.”

This time, John doesn’t refer to his readers as “little children,” instead, he uses the term “beloved.” He wants them to know that not only is this a new thought they need to pay attention to, but that he truly loves them and says the following things to them from a place of love.

Then he says, “let us love one another.” He’s not talking about emotional feelings. To love one another involves action. He could have also said, “show love to one another.”

This distinction is important because, just like we need to practice righteousness, we need to practice love. It’s not enough to just say the words, “I love you.” We need to show our love through our actions, too.

And why are we to show love? He says, “because love comes from God.”

This statement might be more important than you might guess, because sadly, some people preach that God being sovereign means that He is the author of all things, including sin and suffering. But that is not true. Love comes from God. Sin does not. As Barnes’ Notes on the Bible rightly observes about this verse: “Hatred, envy, wrath, malice, all have their source in something else than God. He neither originates them, commends them, nor approves them.”

That’s why John follows that statement up by saying that “Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.” This is the third litmus test: Does someone who claims to know God love other people?

If we have been born again and know God, then we will love. But this doesn’t mean that everyone who loves anybody at all is automatically born of God and knows God. Even though John has worded it this way, that is not his meaning. He’s simply saying that if a person is born of God and knows God, that person will love others.

And the test works because the inverse is also true, as verse 8 says, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

God is not only the source of love, but God is love. He is the source because He is love. Love is not just a character trait of God. It is far more than that. He is love.

In verse 9, John tells us how we know this is true. He says, “This is how God’s love was revealed among us: God sent His one and only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him.”

Do you see why knowing that Jesus truly came in the flesh is the first litmus test for whether someone is from God? God revealed His love to us when He sent His one and only Son into the world. Jesus is God in the flesh, or in theological terms, we say that Jesus is God incarnate. God’s love was shown to us when He sent us Jesus.

This is crucial to our understanding of who God is, because some people teach that Jesus’ death appeased God’s wrath toward us. But God willingly gave His only Son to us. Jesus didn’t cause God to stop hating us. God has always loved us.

Theologian Alexandar MacLaren points out that, just as “‘God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son,’ so then, it was not Christ’s death that turned God from hating and being angry, but it was God’s love that appointed Christ’s death.”

Proof of this is seen in verse 10, which says, “And love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

This statement is basically a repeat of what John said in 1 John 2:2, which says, “He Himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” Jesus became the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, not just the “elect” as some people teach.

This word for “atoning” is the Greek word hilasmos, and it is also translated as propitiation. Again, some people interpret “propitiation” as the appeasing of God’s wrath, but others understand it as God’s provision for dealing with sin and restoring relationship. I agree with them because this Greek word is the same word used for the Mercy Seat, the place where atonement happened in the Old Testament. So, when Jesus died, He was the atoning sacrifice that not only covered our sin like we see in the Old Testament when people made a blood sacrifice, but He removed our sin. By doing this, He reconciled us to the Father, not because the Father needed to be persuaded to love us, but because our sin created a barrier, separating us from God. 

Jesus’ sacrifice was the propitiation that took away the sins of the whole world, so that whoever repents and believes in Him can stand before the Father in confidence. His blood has made atonement; His blood has washed us clean from our sins. In Jesus, we see that God loved us so much that He provided a way to deal with sin so we could stand before Him. Never before has there been demonstrated a love as great as this. God gave us His Son Jesus. That is how much He loved us. 

I said a couple weeks ago that we need to understand just how much God loves us before we can rightly follow Him. Well, it’s also difficult to love others if we don’t know that God loves us. I think John understood this too, for look what he says in verse 11: “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” This is the key. This is the main point of John’s letter. If God loved us enough to give us His Son as the atoning sacrifice, then shouldn’t we love each other?

Then, John really brings this home. In verse 12, he adds this gem of a statement. He says, “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God remains in us, and His love is perfected in us.” 

This is similar to how John began his Gospel. John 1:18 says, “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is Himself God and is at the Father’s side, has made Him known.”

N.T. Wright says about this parallel that, “The meaning of that statement is striking: we don’t really know who ‘God’ is—until we look at Jesus. Now we see the meaning of our present statement in 1 John 4:12: people don’t really know who ‘God’ is—until they see it revealed in the life of Christians. Until, that is, ‘his love is completed in us’” (The Early Christian Letters for Everyone, p.159).

Just as Jesus is God in the flesh, so too, Jesus is love incarnate. And if we love other people, not only do we show other people who God is, but Jesus says that people will know that we follow Him. Look again at what Jesus said in John 13:34-35. He says, “A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you also must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.”

Then, in the next few verses, in his typical style, John basically repeats what he just said, but first he seems to think back to the very beginning of his letter. He says in verses 13-14, “By this we know that we remain in Him, and He in us: He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world.”

He and the other disciples of Jesus physically saw Jesus. And they received the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost when they spoke in tongues. He and the others can testify that the Father really did send Jesus to be the Savior of the world. He was a firsthand witness. But then he clarifies in verses 15-16 that this experience isn’t limited just to those who saw Jesus in the flesh. He says, “If anyone confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. And we have come to know and believe the love that God has for us. God is love; whoever abides in love abides in God, and God in him.”

Each one of us who believes can testify too, that we have come to know and believe in this incredible love that God has shown us. Proof that we know He abides in us is that we too have received the Holy Spirit. And this is our message we are to tell others and testify about: “God is love; and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God in him.”

We can proclaim that message all day long, but our testimony isn’t going to be very effective unless we abide in love. So that’s why he says in verse 17, “In this way, love has been perfected among us, so that we may have confidence on the day of judgment; for in this world we are just like Him.”

John is saying that we may have confidence on the day of judgment when, if in this world, we are just like Jesus.

A slightly more accurate translation of this verse is, ‘Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as He is, so are we in this world.’

About this verse, MacLaren says: “‘So are we.’ Well! you would be quite easy if John had said: ‘So may we be; so should we be; so shall we be.’ But what about the ‘so are we’? What a ghastly contradiction the lives of multitudes of professing Christians are to that plain statement! ‘Like Jesus Christ’--would anybody say that about anything in me? ‘So are we’--no words of mine, dear brethren, can make the statement more searching, more impressive; but, I pray you, lay this to heart: ‘If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.’”

As Jesus is, so are we in this world. Let me ask you: Are you like Jesus? It’s a sobering question, isn’t it? I pray that none of us take this lightly. Because, as Barnes’ Notes says, if “we have the same traits of character which the Saviour had, and, resembling Him, we need not be alarmed at the prospect of meeting Him.” Does that thought give you peace and confidence? Or does that make you afraid?

Almost as if he could read our minds, then John adds a profound statement. Look at what verse 18 says: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. The one who fears has not been perfected in love.”

If love is perfected in us when we love the way Jesus loves, then any of us who have not been perfected in love will still have fears.  

But did you notice, too, that John doesn’t say that perfect love drives out hate. He contrasts love with fear. I think this is truly profound. If we aren’t secure that someone loves us, aren’t we actually afraid that they don’t love us? We all want to be loved, but I think we all struggle with fear. That fear keeps us locked up.

Think back with me for a minute to the disciples during the Last Supper. Jesus tells them that one of them is going to betray Him. The disciples start asking, “Is it me?” They all seem afraid. Nobody wants to ask Him who it is. Peter must be afraid, for he tells John to ask Jesus who it is. What’s interesting is that John doesn’t ask Him, “Is it me, Lord?” He asks, “Who is it?” He doesn’t seem to have any fear. Why? Because he knows that Jesus loves him, and that love has driven out any fear he might have otherwise had. 

If we truly understand the love that God has for us, then we will more easily abide in that love and we won’t have fear. And then we will be empowered to love other people around us. But if we don’t abide in God’s love, or we doubt that God truly loves us, then it will be a struggle to love others. Because then, instead of being free with our love, we will be insecure and fearful. 

Fear keeps us from truly loving other people. If we aren’t secure in God’s love for us, then when we see God loving someone else, it can make us jealous, just like Cain. Earlier in this letter you might remember, John had used him as an example. He is an extreme example of someone who, because he did not follow God’s instructions, lashed out and murdered his brother who did.

Well, if we don’t abide in Christ, obeying His commandments, then it creates insecurity and fear inside of us. We will lack confidence—oftentimes rightly, I might add. But sometimes, even when we are trying to follow Jesus’ commands and we are practicing righteousness, we can still struggle with confidence before God. We can still doubt that He loves us. When that happens, then we might find ourselves struggling to love others because we are still fearing that if God blesses other people, then there won’t be blessing left over for me. Can you relate to that feeling?

There are a lot of people who seem to live as though there is a limited amount of blessing, and so when someone else receives something good, they don’t like it. But that is the opposite of the love of God. God is not finite, and so neither are His blessings. He is infinite in love. His love will never run out because love is not something He holds; it is who He is.

To check and see if you are living like this, let me ask you something. When other people succeed, are you truly happy for them, or do you feel worried that their success somehow means your failure?

If you can’t rejoice when someone else is blessed, then God’s love has not yet been made complete in your heart. If that resonates with you, please hear this: God loves you and wants to make His love complete in you. Love will drive out fear. Even the fear of being overlooked or forgotten.

If you aren’t loving others the way you know you should, let me remind you of what John says next in verse 19. He says, “We love because He first loved us.”

We can love one another because God loved us first. As Romans 5:8 tells us, “But God proves His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

So that’s why, as John states last, in verses 20-21, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And we have this commandment from Him: Whoever loves God must love his brother as well.”

It’s not enough to say, “I love God.” Our actions must line up with our words. If that produces fear in your heart, then let it motivate you to draw nearer to Jesus. As John said, “perfect love drives out fear.”

You know, George Mueller said, “The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith, and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety.” I think we could say, “The beginning of fear is the end of love, and the beginning of true love is the end of fear.”

As we draw nearer to Jesus and allow Him to fill us with His love, His love will grow inside of us and overflow to those around us. And as we love those around us, we will grow in confidence until there is no more fear of righteous judgement because we will have confidence before the Lord that we are following Him, practicing righteousness and obeying His commands.

Thinking back to the start of this sermon and the litmus test, do you understand why knowing that God is love is the key to passing that test?

Because God is love, He made a way for us to abide in Him. Anyone who wants to abide in God must believe that He loved us so much He sent us Jesus in the flesh to die on the Cross to be the anointed sacrifice for our sins.

Because God is love, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness, but if we are born again, we will refuse to practice sinning. We will practice righteousness. As Jesus said, “If you love Me, you will obey My commands.” 

Because God is love, whoever loves God must love his or her brothers and sisters in Christ as well, and in that way, the love of God is perfected in us, casting out fear.

If all of us who claim to follow Jesus Christ would just stick to what Scripture says and proclaim the truth that only way to the Father is through faith in Jesus who truly came to earth in the flesh; if we practiced righteousness instead of sin; and if we loved one another as God loves us, then we would be an unstoppable witness to the world, showing them who God really is. Our love for Jesus and each other acts as proof, telling the world that Christianity is real, and it shows the world who Jesus really is.

 So, let us place our faith in Jesus Christ, practice righteousness, and love another because God is love.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, we thank You that You loved us so much that You did not spare Your only Son, but You gave Him for us all. Please help us by Your Holy Spirit to love one another so we can show the world an accurate picture of who You are. Please fill us with a greater understanding of Your love so that Your love may be perfected in us, so we are free to love others wholeheartedly, not holding back out of fear. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.