1 John 4:10

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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.