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.
No one has seen God at any time if we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us.
The verse repeats the opening words of John 1:18 — no one has ever seen God — but it answers the problem in a new way. The Son who declared the Father is now in heaven, so where can the world see God today?
John's Gospel meets the same problem with a different answer. Darby sets the two verses side by side, using an older wording of John 1:18.
"No one has ever seen God." How can I know and love a being I have never seen? "The only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him." In the Gospel, which is meant to bring Christ before us, I find the sense to be this. You have not seen God, and yet you have. He who was the very delight of the Father — who is in the bosom of the Father, the closest object of the Father's delight — has declared Him. So I do know Him. This is the answer to the difficulty that no one ever saw God. Christ has made Him known to me. Here, in the letter, it is, "No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us." What is revealed in Christ comes straight into our own hearts, because the Holy Spirit is in us.
Christ showed God in full while He was here. So what happens now that He has gone?
But now the Lord is gone. He who declared God is in heaven. Is there no present living witness of God? … His love was in all perfection in Christ; He stood in contrast with all human imperfections. Where is the resource? "If we love one another." Is it not very solemn that God points to Christians to let this dark world see what God is? God calls us to be His witnesses to a world that doubts anything can be known about Him. He does it above all by the working of divine love in our souls and in our ways.
The same writer names what such love in us rests on:
1 John 4:12 could not have been without John 1:18, and more too — Christ's death for us and the gift of the Spirit to us. Christ must be our life before such love can appear in us.
The phrase is not a figure of speech for good feelings. Writers take it as God Himself present, known from the inside.
What is the answer in our epistle to this same difficulty? "If we love one another, God dwells in us, and His love is perfected in us." By the communication of the divine nature, and by the dwelling of God in us, we inwardly enjoy Him as He has been manifested and declared by His only Son. His love is perfect in us, known to the heart, as it has been declared in Jesus. The God who has been declared by Him dwells in us.
Because that nature is active by definition, the love shows itself:
The moral nature of God is in us. This, as we have already seen, is an active nature. If it is present at all in a man, it is present in activity. Since it is the moral nature of God, it is proper to say God is dwelling in us. God dwells in us by a nature and life from Himself. It is His love that is in us. In loving one another, that love is having its normal activity in us. This is what is meant by the expression, "And His love is perfected in us."
The word points to love reaching its full growth, not to a score for our effort.
This is the proof that God abides in us. And His love is perfected in us in this way: it is producing its matured fruit. He is not speaking of how much we love one another, but of the fact. But a fact will always manifest itself. How much we love will depend on how much we enjoy God's love, but the apostle is not speaking of that here.
"Perfected" does not mean we become flawless:
Of course it does not mean the strange error of the man's own perfection. The flesh is never rooted out while we live, but God dealt with it in Christ's cross… So His love is perfected in the one who keeps His word, and it is perfected as we love one another. We submit to His word, and we walk together in love despite all difficulties. That is how God's love is perfected in us: it is carried out according to the mind of God.
Because God is unseen, anyone can claim to love Him. The verse points to a test you can see:
A careless, self-centred man does not see God, so he will assume he loves God even though his claimed love never takes any practical shape. But the test of this is in whether or not he loves the children of God.
Once God dwells there, the source of that love changes:
There is no stint in God's love, but marvellous meagreness in man's love. But when God dwells in us, the human heart, selfish by nature, becomes a fountain of kindness to others — kindness of a divine character.
- Unseen — The same difficulty opens John 1:18 and this verse: no one has seen God. Both passages answer it, one by the Son declaring Him, one by God dwelling in His children.
- Indwelt — The answer now is not a sight but a home. God dwells in us by a nature and life from Himself.
- Active — That nature never lies idle. If it is present at all, it is present in activity, and its normal activity is loving one another.
- Perfected — Love reaching its matured fruit, carried out according to the mind of God. It never means we are flawless; the flesh is never rooted out while we live.
- Visible — What the world cannot see in God it is meant to see in Christians. God points to believers to let a doubting world behold what He is.