Commentaries:
Robertson's Word Pictures (NT)
We know (egnwkamen). Perfect active indicative, "we have come to know and still know" as in John 6:9, only there order is changed (pepisteukamen coming before egnwkamen). Confession (omologew) follows experimental knowledge (ginwskw) and confident trust (pisteuw). Believers are the sphere (en hmin, in our case) in which the love of God operates (Westcott). See John 13:35 for "having love."
God is love (o qeov agaph estin). Repeated from verse I John 4:8. So he gathers up the whole argument that one who is abiding in love is abiding in God and shows that God is abiding in him. Thoroughly Johannine style.
Other Robertson's Word Pictures (NT) entries containing 1 John 4:16:
John 1:1
John 5:42
John 6:56
1 John 4:17
1 John 5:1
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