By Jeffery M. Leonard, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Biblical & Religious Studies, Samford University
GOD IS LOVE
1 John 4:7–19
Love comes from God because God is love. (7–10)
“God is love” (v. 8). God is the source of love, and He has revealed His love to us.
God has shown us His love in a number of ways. The Father has shown us His love by sending His Son to rescue us from sin and to give us life, and the Son showed us love when He “laid down His life for us” (3:16).
We humans did not showcase love (4:10). But now that we are God’s children who know God, we know love, because we know God who is love and who has shown us His love.
As God’s children we love God and we love one another.
When we remain in God’s love, His love is made complete in us. (11–15)
God is not flesh and blood like us. God is spirit. He is invisible. Thus, no one has ever seen God.
However, God made himself known to us by giving us His Spirit so that He lives in us and we live in Him.
This mutual indwelling of God living in us and we in Him is the way by which God and God’s love is made visible to the world.
Since God is love and God lives in us, people can see God’s love when we love one another.
When we love, the invisible God shows Himself and love to the world through our love. Our acts of love reveal God, who is love.
Jesus taught that this love would be the distinguishing mark of His followers. “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).
We love because God first loved us. (16–19)
How does God live in us and we in God? This happens by confessing that Jesus is the Son of God (v. 15) and by loving God and our brothers and sisters.
Because God first loved us, we now respond by loving God and our neighbors. God’s initial action of love toward us while we were yet sinners demonstrated the depth of His love, and His work in us allows us to extend grace toward those who are difficult to love.
In the gospels, Jesus summarized the law and the prophets as hanging on these two great commandments: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:37, 39; Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18).
First John’s repeated insistence on loving God and brother and sister is a recollection of these two great commandments and connects these two commandments together.
Those who do not fulfill the second commandment also transgress the first. Those who do not love their brothers and sisters, whom they see, cannot love God, who is invisible to them (1 John 4:20).
We must love both God and our brothers and sisters, and if we live in love we have no reason to be afraid on the day of judgment.
Only those who do not love should be afraid of God’s punishment. As we love God and neighbor, God’s love is completed in us.
EDITOR’S NOTE — The Sunday School lesson outlines are provided by Lifeway.
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