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- - E XPOSITORY
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"GOD IS LOVE"
TITLE--------------------'------ -=----TEXTUAL
"-=-~ -TOPICAL

DELIVERIES: Date
F.B. C. 11-28-9
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4 : 7- 21 1 JOHN 97
THIS passage is so closely interwoven that we are better to
read it as a whole and then bit by bit to draw out its
teaching. First of all, then, let us look at its teaching on
love.
(i) Love has its origin in God (verse 7). It is from the
God who is love that all love takes its source. As A. E. Brooke
puts it: "Human love is a reflection of something in the
divine nature itself." We are never nearer to God than when
we love. Clement of Alexandria said in a startling phrase
that the real Christian "practises being God." He who dwells
in love dwells in God (verse 16). Man is made in the image
and the likeness of God (Genesis I : 26). God is love and,
therefore, to be like God and be what he was meant to be,
man must also love.
(ii) Love has a double relationship to God. It is only by
knowing God that we learn to love and it is only by loving 1/S, 7fr
that we learn to know God (verses 7 nd 8). Love comes
from God, and love leads to God.
(iii) It is by love that God is known (verse 12). We cannot
see God, because he is spirit ; what we can see is # is effect.
We cannot see the wind, but we can see what it can do.
We cannot see electricity, but we can see the effect it produces.
The effect of God is love. It is when God comes into a man
that he is clothed with the lo-ve of God and the love of men.
od is known by his effect on that man. It has been said,
"A saint is a man in whom Christ lives again" and the best
demonstration of God comes not from argument but from a
life of love.
(iv) God's love is demonstrated in Jesus Christ (verse 9).
vs. Cf
When we look at Jesus we see two things about the love of
God. (a) It ·s a love which holds nothing back. God was
prepared to give his only Son and make a sacrifice beyond
whfch no sacrifice can possibly go in his love for men.
-fl) It is a totally undeserved love. It would be no wonde:.:
if we loved God, when we remember all the gifts he has given
to us, even apart from Jesus Christ; the wonder is that he
loves poor and disobedient creatures like us.
· · ~ ~ ~ , 9 - , _ , - Z U ~ · · · '/
98 1 JOHN 4: 7- 21
How thou canst think so well of us,
And be the God thou art,
Is darkness to my intellect,
But sunshine to my heart.
(v) Human love is a response to divine love (verse 19).
We love because God loved us. It is the sight of his love
which wakens in us the desire to love him as he first loved
us and to love our fellow-men as he loves them.
(vi) When love comes, fear goes (verses 17 and 18) .. Fear
is the characteristic emotion of someone who expects to be
punished. So long as we regard God as the Judge, the King,
the Law-giver, there can be nothing in our heart but fear
for in face of such a God we can expect nothing but punish-
ment. But once we know God's true nature, fear is swallowed
up in love. The fear that remains is the fear of grieving his
love for us.
(vii) Love of God and love of man are indissolubly
connected (verses 7, 11, 20, 21). As C.H. Dodd finely puts it :
HThe energy of love discharges itself along lines which form
a triangle, whose points are God, self, and neighbour." If
God loves us, we are bound to love each other, because
it is our destiny to reproduce the life of God in humanity
and the life of eternity in time. John says, with almost crude (
(
bluntness, that a man who claims to love God and hates his
brother is nothing other than a liar. The only way to prove C
that we love God is to love the men whom God loves. The
only way to prove that God is within our hearts 1s con- (

stantly to show the love of men within our lives. C

1

GOD IS LOVE

1 John 4: 7- 1r(continued)
---
IN this passage there occurs what is probably the greatest
single statement about God in the whole Bible, that God is (

love. It is amazing how many doors that single statement

unlocks and how ~c!~Y- quesHoiii 1t'aiiswers~-·-. -----·· 'l
 \'

4: 7-21 1 JOHN 99
(i) U is the explanation of g,.t:a.tion.~Sometimes we are
bound to wonder why God created this world. The dis-
obedience, and the lack of response in men is a continual
grief to him. Why should he create a world which was to
bring him nothing but trouble? The answer is that iereation
was essential to his very nature. If God is love, he cannot
exist in lonely isolation. Love must have someone to love
and someone to love it.

response 1t s not love. Rael o

gedli~/.
(ii) It i~ t~e explanation of U nless love is a free
een only law he could
have created a world in which men moved like automata,
having no more choice than a machine. But, if God had
made men like that, there would have been no possibility of a
personal relationship between him and them. Love is of
necessity the free response of the heart; and, therefore, od,
by a deliberate act of self-limitation, had to endow men with
free will.
(iii) It is the explanation of providence. Had God been
simply mind and order and law, he might, so to speak, have ~·J.-r. !J
created the universe, wound it up, set it going and left it. . - • ;, ~
There are articles and machines which we are urged to buy
because we can fit them and forget them; their most attractive
quality is that they can be left to run themselves. But, because
God is love, his creating act is followed y his constant
care.
(iv) t is the explanation of redeme_tion. If God had been
only law and justice, he would simply have left men to the
consequences of their sin. The moral law would operate;
the soul that sinned would die; and the eternal justice would
inexorably hand out its punishments. But the very fact that
God is love meant that he had to seek and save that which
~as lost. He had to find a remedy for sin.
(v) It is the explanation of the life beron<J_. lf God wer <let.~, JH_;
simply creator, men might live their brief span and die fo
ever. The life which ended early would be only another flower
which the frost of death had withered too soon. But the fact
that God is love makes it certain that the chances and changes
100 1 JOHN 4: 7-21
of life have not the last word and that his love will readjust
the balance of this life.
--------------
I _) /~·
SON OF GOD · AND SAVIOUR OF MEN v /
1 John 4: 7- 21 (continue
BEFORE we leave this passage we must note that it has also
great things to say about )_esus C:hrist. _ •1
(i) Jt tells us t~&lf.~_l)_~ J~Jll!!-2,-i!?g!!.idlif_e. God sent him vs. '/;fr
that through him we wight bave life (.y_e.rs.e.....9.). There is a
world of difference between existence and life. All men have
existence but all do not have life. he very eagerness with
which men seek pleasure shows that there is something missing
in their lives. A famous doctor once said that men would
find a cure for cancer more quickly than they would find
a cure for boredom. Jesus gives a man an object for which to
live; he gives him strength by which to live; and he gives him
peace in which to live. Living with Christ turns mere
existence into fullness of life.
(ii) It tells us that Jes,us is the restorer of, the lost _relatio!!!!.!.!£ f/ 5 · /()
with God. God sent him to be the atonmg sacrifice for sm
(yerse LQ). We do not move in a world of thought in which
animal sacrifice is a reality. But we can fully understand
what sacrifice meant. When a man sinned, his relationship
with God was broken; and sacrifice was an expression of
penitence, designed to restore the lost relationship. Jesus, by
his life and death, made it possible for man to enter into a
new relationship of peace and friendship with God. He bridged
the awful gulf between man and God.
(iii) It tells us that Jesus is the Sal'iour of the lrorld (verse II~- l'f
JA), when he came·· in1o tlie-world;-1neffwere conscious of
nothing so much as their own weakness and helplessness.
Men, said Seneca, were looking ad salutem, for salvation.
They were desperately conscious of "their weakness in
necessary things.,, They wanted "a hand let down to lift them
 ~ ,h_ /4, '5A-VIOVI! ()F TH€ l(ldl'IJ.IJ
7-21 (_!if>·?- ~ Ua ti.<i 1 JOHN 101 vs.l'f
'1

eadjust up." It would be quite inadequate to think of salvation as

mere deliverance from the punishment of hell. Men need to
.be_sa_y_e_d_ftom ...lhems~t e.:;; they need to be saved from the
habits which have become their fetters; they need to be saved
from their temptations; they need to be saved from their ~ars
and their anxieties; they need to be saved from their folfies
and !!].istake.s.. In every case Jesus offers men salvation; he
brings that which enables them to face time and to meet
1as also eternity.
(iv) It tells us that Jesus is the Son of God (¥ecse~J .~.- 1/~./S-
!nt him Whatever that may mean, it certainly means tliat Jesus Christ
:re ts a ls in a relationship to God_in which no other person ever
!11 have
stood or ever will stand. He alone can show men what
:ss with God is like; he alone can bring to men Goers grace, love,
m1ssmg forgiveness and strength.
. would One other thing emerges in this passage. It has taught us vs. 13
1ld find of God and it has taught us of Jesus; and it teaches us of
,hich to the Spirit. In verse 13 John says it is because we have a
ves him share of the Spirit that we know that we dwell in God.
1s mere It is the work of the Spirit that in the beginning makes
us seek God at all; it is the work of the Spirit that makes
tionslti[! us aware of God's presence; and it is the work of the Spirit
for sin that gives us the certainty that we are truly at peace with God. .
I
n which It is the Spirit in our heai:ts which makes us dare to address :1
lerstand God as Father (Romans 8: 15, 16). The Spirit is the inner
tionship witness who, as C. H. Dodd puts it, gives us the "immediate,
;sion of spontaneous, unanalysable awareness of a divine presence in
esus, by our lives."
r into a "And his that gentle voice we hear,
bridged Soft as the breath of even,
That checks each fault, that calms each fear,
d (verse And speaks of heaven.
:ious of
lessness. And every virtue we possess,
Jvation. And every victory won,
ness m And every thought of holiness,
.ift them Are his alone."
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