1 John 4:7–12
The wildfires burning hundreds of miles away in Canada changed the appearance of the sky over Connecticut this past week. Smoke and haze filled the atmosphere, and at sunset the sun appeared as a brilliant red and orange orb. Yet something important had not changed. The sun itself was still shining just as brightly as before. Something had simply come between us and the sun, obscuring our view.
Something similar can happen in our understanding of God. Sin can cloud our hearts. False teaching can cloud our minds. The changing values of our culture can cloud our understanding of who God really is. Some people see God only as a God of judgment. Others speak only of His love while ignoring His holiness and truth. The problem is not that God has changed. Our view of Him has become obscured.
In 1 John 4:7–12, John clears away the haze and reminds us of who God has revealed Himself to be. He brings us to one of the most profound statements in all of Scripture: “God is love.”
God’s love is not merely something He gives. It is who He is, and those who truly know Him cannot help but reflect that same love.
The Source of Love
John begins by reminding believers that love comes from God. In 1 John 4:7–8, we see a progression. Love comes from God, love is evidence of being born of God, and love reveals that we know God.
This is why we must understand John’s statement carefully. He tells us that God is love, but he does not tell us that love is God.
There is an enormous difference.
Our culture often defines love according to emotion. If something feels loving, the assumption is that God must approve of it. John turns that thinking completely around. We do not define God according to our understanding of love. We understand love according to the character of God.
If something contradicts the character and Word of God, it cannot ultimately be called love simply because it feels loving to us. Exodus 34:6–7 reminds us that God is compassionate and gracious, yet He is also righteous and just. His attributes do not compete with one another.
Love does not replace God’s holiness. In fact, God’s holiness makes His love even more breathtaking.
If God were loving but not holy, sin would not matter. If God were holy but not loving, sinners like us would have no hope. But the holy God loves sinners. The question then becomes: How can we know what that kind of love truly looks like?
John points us to Jesus Christ.
The Proof of Love
In 1 John 4:9–10, notice who takes the action.
God sent. God loved. God gave. God initiated.
We did not.
John writes, “not that we loved God, but that He loved us.” Our salvation did not begin with our movement toward God. It began with God’s movement toward us.
This is grace.
We could never earn God’s love or work our way into a right relationship with Him. Instead, God demonstrated His love by sending His Son into the world so that we might live through Him.
Then John uses the powerful word propitiation.
Jesus did not merely overlook our sins. He did not simply pretend that our debt did not exist. At the cross, Jesus Christ completely satisfied the righteous wrath of God against sin. The debt we could never pay was paid in full.
Isaiah 53:4–6 looked ahead to the suffering Servant who would bear our griefs and carry our sorrows. Centuries later, from the cross, Jesus declared in John 19:30, “It is finished.”
This is why we must be careful about measuring God’s love by what is happening around us. Circumstances change. Difficulties come. Prayers sometimes seem to go unanswered. There will be moments when we may even wonder where God is.
But we do not measure God’s love by our circumstances. We measure God’s love by the cross.
The cross settles the question. God loves us. And if God has loved us this way, how could we possibly keep that love to ourselves?
The Reflection of Love
John now moves from what God has done to how God’s people should live. First John 4:11 says that if God so loved us, “we also ought to love one another.”
Our motivation is not guilt. It is not obligation. It is gratitude. We love because we have been loved.
John then makes an extraordinary statement in verse 12: “No one has seen God at any time.” Yet when believers love one another, the love of the invisible God becomes visible through the lives of His people.
Jesus taught something similar in John 13:35 when He said that the world would recognize His disciples by their love for one another.
Think about what that means for the church.
Buildings can serve God’s purposes. Programs can accomplish good things. Budgets can fund ministry. Meetings can organize ministry. But none of those things can substitute for God’s people actually loving one another.
The church should be the easiest place to experience grace. It should be a place where forgiveness is practiced, where broken people can find restoration, and where believers serve one another with excellence because we are serving the perfect God who first served us.
We do not do this because we are perfect. We do it because we have experienced perfect love from the Perfect One.
Colossians 3:12–14 calls God’s people to put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, and, above all, love. These are not qualities we manufacture to convince God to love us. They are the reflection of the love we have already received from Him.
We are not the source of love. We are the recipients of love who become the reflections of love.
Start With the Cross
Love does not begin with us.
It begins in heaven.
It was revealed at Calvary.
And it is reproduced in the lives of believers.
We often focus on three wonderful words from this passage: “God is love.” But John never intended those words to stand alone.
Throughout this letter, John has told us that God is light. He has emphasized truth. He has warned believers to test the spirits. He has reminded us that Jesus Christ is the propitiation for our sins.
God’s love has never been separated from His holiness, His truth, or His justice.
The greatest proof that God is love is not that He overlooks our sin. The greatest proof is that He loved us enough to satisfy His justice by giving His own Son for us.
So, if we truly want to know what love looks like, we do not begin by looking at our feelings. We do not begin by looking at our circumstances. We do not even begin by looking at our own actions.
We start with the cross.
There we see the source of love. There we see the proof of love.
And when we have truly experienced that love, we can go into the world and become a reflection of the One who first loved us.