Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son a propitiation for our sins.
God is love — but where is that proved? This verse turns away from what we feel toward God and points to what God did about our sins.
So where should a person look for proof?
God is love. That is a firm statement. If people look for proof of it in the sinful and disordered world around them, they will fail to find it. We must look in the right direction. There has been a perfect display of God's love, but only in one direction, as verses 9 and 10 so plainly state.
The verse rules out one starting point before it names the real one. Nothing in us set this love in motion.
Love has come in to deal with our sins as well as with our state... The gift God gave measures His love in all its infinite greatness. So do the depths of sorrow and judgment His dear Son entered to do this great work of propitiation — depths beyond our understanding... No feeling of love toward God on our side prompted the love that sent His Son. In our natural state as guilty sinners we did not love Him. It all began in God's own heart. The work was finished on the cross long before we ever thought of Him. That work enabled God to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
The phrase does not mean we were free from any duty to love Him. It means we failed at it.
"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son a propitiation for our sins." Indeed He loved us beyond compare, and doubly. We were dead in sins; and God's love was shown in sending His only-begotten Son, that we might live through Him. We were guilty sinners; and He sent His Son as the only and effective sacrifice for our sins.
Does the word mean God had to be won over? One writer answers plainly.
The Bible does not teach that God is set against us. He is not a frowning God who has to be kept calm by sacrifices that change His feelings toward us. That is the corrupt pagan idea... Far from our having to change His heart toward us by a sacrifice, His heart, which is toward man, is the very source of all our blessing. Our sins had made propitiation necessary, but He Himself provided the necessary sacrifice.
Verse 9 speaks of life; verse 10 speaks of propitiation. Our ruin had two sides, and God's love meets both.
But we were guilty also, as responsible beings before Him. Here His love has met us. He has given His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. It is not law, nor duty, though duty was there... Love is not that we love God. That is what we must look for in our hearts if we seek the proof of life there — but then we are under law, and the law required just that, and required it justly. Love is that God loved us and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins. It is not requiring from us what we ought to be, but putting away, making a holy propitiation for our sins. We are dead in sins, and He gives us life. We were guilty, and He has given Him to make propitiation for our sins. He has met our whole case, in both its aspects as sinners.
The wording here is exact, and it reaches all the way to the conscience.
John does not speak of the Son here as making propitiation, but as being a propitiation. God sends Him as the One who, in His own Person, is able to do this great work that no one else could do. All the power of propitiation stays in Him, and it is available for all. We could never have received or enjoyed divine life if our sins had not been put away. The conscience must be free from all sense of guilt and defilement first. Only then can we enjoy the relationships and affections with God that He, in His great love, has given us.
A person may have life and still carry the weight of past sin. This verse speaks to that distress.
In the gospel God removes this distress. He purges the believer's conscience and fills him with peace through faith in Christ's sacrifice. That is why 1 John 4:10 adds, "In this is love, not that we have loved God" (which we surely do now, living in Christ), "but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." This alone is fully effective. The Spirit seals us on the strength of it, and grace brings us into liberty and spiritual power.
- Direction. The state of the world does not prove God's love. One event does: God sent His Son.
- Origin. Nothing in us started it. There was not a single feeling of love toward God prompting the gift; it all began in God's own heart.
- Correction. Propitiation never means an angry God bought off. Our sins made it necessary; God Himself supplied it.
- Completeness. We were dead in sins, and He gives life; guilty, and He gives propitiation. He meets our whole case.
- Effect. Because the Son Himself is the propitiation, God purges the conscience and brings the believer into liberty.
Beloved, if God has so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
God's love reached its highest point in the gift of His only Son. John now turns from what God has done to what we owe each other. One small word, "so," joins the two. How can people answer a love they can never repay?
The appeal rests on a measure, not on a general idea of God's kindness. One writer presses on that small word:
"Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." Can we emphasize that little word "so" enough? Such unselfish concern led to such an amazing sacrifice. It should capture the heart and enlarge it, so that we serve the need of others in complete self-denial.
The command comes with a reason, and the reason lies outside us:
The Apostle does not say, "Now that you have the divine nature you should love one another." No — he tells us to look away from ourselves to the wonderful expression of God's love. That love thought about us in all our ruin and need, in death and guilt. It made the fullest provision for our eternal blessing. It cost God His only Son… We must not claim that there is no motive to love.
Commentators also notice what the verse does not say. The word "ought" points to one another, never to God:
First, let me remind you of a distinction. Scripture never says that we ought to love God, but it does say that we ought to love one another. The law said, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart," and so on. Christianity lays no such duty on us. It is only our brothers and sisters whom we "ought" to love. The reason is obvious. We love God because He first loved us… We love Him because we cannot help ourselves.
The word "ought" carries the sense of something owed — one debt a Christian never finishes paying:
We ought to love one another; it is a debt that we should constantly be paying. If God has so loved us, we owe to one another to love, as being born of God. We will never pay this debt off. But we owe it to one another to love — even though we should take on no other kind of debt.
Other writers are careful that "duty" is not the last word:
When the apostle says, "If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another," we must not take him to mean that loving one another is a mere duty. A duty it certainly is. But that is not the spirit of the love he calls us to. He urges us to a love shaped after the love we see in God. "We also ought to love one another" means, then, using the divine life we have received — practising it towards one another. However far we fail in this, we fail that far to show the divine bond in the family of God.
Love that stays hidden inside helps no one. It has to show:
The nature of the obligation is simple. We should act towards one another as God has acted towards us… So the obligation reaches, if the occasion arises, to the manner and the measure of the love of Christ!… Only do not forget that the apostle speaks of love shown towards one another. You can see this from the case he names: a brother in need… It is good if you love me in your heart. But I will never benefit from it if you never let me see it shown.
One writer ties this call back to John 1:18, where Christ shows God to us:
It is a wonderful word, clearly connected… with what John 1:18 says. There Christ stands as the display of God in love. Here God calls the saints to be no less. Dear friends, how far do we display our God and Father by this divine love? It never seeks its own. Whatever the cost, it is set on the good of those it loves — His children, yes, all, even enemies.
- Source. The command starts outside us: we look away from ourselves to the love that cost God His only Son, not to our own new nature.
- Measure. The small word "so" fixes the standard: the obligation reaches to the manner and the measure of Christ's love.
- Direction. Scripture never says we ought to love God. We love Him because He first loved us. The "ought" turns towards one another.
- Debt. Love here is the one account never closed. It is owed constantly, yet it is more than duty; it is the divine life practised towards each other.
- Display. Love kept in the heart benefits no one. Shown in action, it displays God the Father in His children.