1 John 4:8 - Forerunner Commentary

1 John 4:8

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Articles, Bible studies, and sermons that contain The First Epistle of John 4:8:

I John 4:7-12
Excerpted from: Love's Importance and Source

If anything is going to hold the world together, it is going to have to be love. But, as we can see, we know from prophecies that love is going to have to come from Someone outside the earth.

There are those who say that this is the most sublime statement in all of the Bible regarding God's nature. These verses tell us a great deal about Him and also a great deal about our responsibilities if we are going to be like Him. First, that love is of God, as it says in verse 7. This love (that we have been talking about in I Corinthians 13, in Romans 13, and in Colossians 3) is of God. It is the agape love that we are talking about here. What this verse is saying is that He is its source. This love which John has written of is from God, and it is not normally a part of man's nature.

This agape love means, then, that human love—apart from God—is, at its very best, merely a pale and vague reflection of what God is all the time. Paul said that there are times when a man might give his life for someone else, but it is a rare occasion. But God's love is such that it is always on that level. It is His nature. It is what He is all the time.

John says that God is love, in verse 8. Now, I want to correct something here. Even though that is such a sublime statement, it is also misleading. Again, it is misleading because of what we have learned about love in the past. God is not an abstraction. That is, He is not an abstraction, like love—abstraction, in this case, meaning something that we cannot really see in a form or a shape. It is mystical. God is not like that at all. God is living. He is dynamic. He is a powerful being who has multitudes of facets to His personality. He is not just "love." That is not His only quality. God is so much that He cannot be boxed in. He cannot be wrapped up and presented as merely being one attribute.

That last phrase in I John 4:8 reads in the Greek, "the God is love." The definite article is right in front of, precedes, the word 'God'. The emphasis therefore is on God, not on love. The construction of the sentence means, then, that the two words are not interchangeable. The way that the statement is translated into English makes it appear as though 'God' and 'love' are one and the same thing, but in the Greek it makes it very clear that they are not interchangeable. The emphasis is on God. The God is love. That is what it literally is saying.

Now, if we were going to expand that, or amplify it in the English, it would read somewhat like this: "The God, as to His nature, is love." What it means, then, is God is a loving God. Most of the gods in the ancient world, in Greek mythology, were wrathful, vengeful, angry, picky things who had the same foibles, the same weaknesses, as human beings. They were not 'loving' gods. But the God is a loving God. So it is not to be understood that loving is one of God's activities; but rather that every activity of God is 'loving'. Therefore, if He creates, He creates in love. If He rules, He rules in love. If He judges, He judges in love. All that He does is an expression of His nature.

Now, let us think about this in reference to man. We are still talking about how God is the source of this love, and man, by nature, does not have it. Man was made in the image and the likeness of God (Genesis 1:26-28). But, God is described as being "spirit." "God is Spirit" (John 4:24). And we find here that God is love. Now contrast that to man. Man is flesh. You see, the image begins to change. We are not quite in the image of God, are we?

Not only that, but the Bible describes us as being carnal. In this case, I am using it in the sense of being fleshly or physical. We are self-centered, and we are deceitful. What this means in practical fact is that man cannot be what he is meant to be—in the image of God—until he loves as God loves. Until his nature is the same as God's, we will never really be in the image of God. This is … . . .

I John 4:7-12
Excerpted from: Love's Basic Definition

We also went into some of these verses in order to show that this love—the agape love the Bible is teaching us of—is not something that is normally a part of man's attributes. Man cannot be described, like God, as being "love." Instead, the Bible describes man as being self-centered, deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9). We are described as being carnal, that is, fleshly. And so, by contrast, God is love.

"God is love" means that God is a loving God. You might recall that I told you that the construction of the sentence here, in Greek, puts the emphasis on the word "God," not on the word "love." Because it is constructed in that way, it means that the two words are not interchangeable. "God" and "love" are not interchangeable. The emphasis is on God. God is God. Love is not God. Let us make that clear. Because, if the words are interchangeable, then we could turn them right around and say "love is God." But love is not God. God is a Personality, not an attribute. God is a Personality, not His nature. And so, God is God—not, love is God.

It has not been our love for God that has made this relationship—this fellowship—with Him possible, but His love for us. Therefore, our love is merely a response to His. Now this is an important distinction. There is a human love, but that human love is not the love of God. That human love, we will find (not in this sermon, but later on), is essentially self-centered. But God's love, though it benefits the self, is essentially others-centered. That is not natural. If it were natural for man, man would not be described as being carnal, self-centered, and deceitful. So what we are talking about here, then, is the love of God. And, if we do then love God, it is merely a reflection of the love that He has given us.

Do you know what the word "abides" means? Remains, continues. If we love one another, God remains in us. Do you see any importance to love? Do you want to maintain your relationship with God? Then we have to love one another.

God's love, then, originates in Himself. It was manifested in His Son, and it is perfected in His people. (Interesting little formula there.) Now, we can use "perfected" in two ways here. One is that when it comes into His people, then the cycle completes itself—God, to His people, and back to God. God, to His people, out to others—especially those who also have the Spirit of God—back to God. The cycle then is perfected. And so we see something that is similar to the analogy that we get from electricity, that it only flows through a completed cycle.

Articles
Abstaining From Evil
The Fruit of the Spirit: Love

Sermons
Spirituality and True Conversion
Principled Living (Part 4): Giving of Ourselves
Is the United States a Christian Nation? (Part 7)
Marriage and the Bride of Christ (Part 5)
Many Are Called, But Few Are Chosen (Part Twelve)
Passionate Patience

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