1 John 4:7-12

Introduction

Before we resume our study of First John a review is in order because of the long delay we have had in between our studies.

1. The theme of First John is found in 5:13. John writes to those who are believers so they may know they have eternal life. In other words John writes to ASSURE these readers that they were of the truth. They were the real believers and not the heretics who came into the church to confuse the church.

2. John was fighting against a false teaching which was an early form of Gnosticism. They believed that Jesus was not God. God could not have come in the flesh because the flesh is evil and the spirit is good. No doubt they thought of John’s gospel where John records Jesus saying God is Spirit. They took this truth and ran with it and took it to far. They denied the person of Jesus. They believed that salvation was found through a special knowledge and not through Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone.

3. Assurance is Objective. That is as believers we have assurance when we are obedient to what the word of God teaches. It is the times when we are not obeying when we feel the most like we are not believers. Assurance comes from doing something, and it is always to be based in the here and now. In other words am I living a Christ like life of obedience in the here an now. We are not to look back at some event we may have had and base our assurance off of walking down an aisle or praying a prayer. Are we obedient now?

John in 4:1-6 pointed to the importance to be discerning believers. Many people try to distort the truth of who Jesus is. They want to come up with a Jesus of their own making. They want a Jesus that is to their liking. This section seems kind of out of place if you do not read it in light of the thought of 3:24. Where John said the Holy Spirit dwells within believers.

John’s thought in 3:11-24 was that of love, John almost seems to make the comments of 4:1-6 as a parenthetical statement, and then resumes the teaching on love in 4:7-21.

In this lesson we are going to study verses 7-12. There is so much truth packed into these verses that it is hard to just breeze through them. There is no doubting that the main theme of vs. 7-21 is love. Different forms of the word love occur 26 times in this passage. No doubt this theme is a big theme with John. No doubt he though back to what Jesus said in Jn. 13:35 where the world will know we are disciples of Jesus by the way that we love each other.

Now to turn to the passage.

We are going to look at two things tonight. First John gives the reason why believers are to love and then he gives a revelation of love.

The Reason For Love (7-8)

John is exhorting his readers, and us today, to love one another. It is important to remember that here, as also in 3:11-24, the love John is speaking of is love for other believers. Let us love one another is an exhortation. It is not a command, but is an exhortation. It is an admonishment or and encouragement to love other believers.

The first reason that John gives that we are to love one another is because love is from God. Love finds its source in God. No one can truly know what love is unless they look to God. If we are Christians we will love other believers because God is our source of love.

The second reason John gives for believers to love one another is it shows or proves, or validates that a person has been born of God. The verb has been born is in the Perfect Passive Indicative, which means that the believer was born of God in the past and this new birth has implications on the present. The passive part of the verb signifies that someone from the outside caused this birth. It was GOD who caused this birth, believers do not make themselves born again.

In our study so far we have seen this phrase born of God two times already and we will see it two more times in chapter five after this occurrence. This is an important truth to John. It is seen in all of his writing. We see this teaching of being born in God in this letter and also in the Gospel of John. Since this phrase and truth is important to John I want to park here for a little while and try to understand what it means to be born of God. We will look at the pertinent passages in John, but we will also get a biblical perspective in being born of God.

The doctrinal name for being born of God is often times referred to as regeneration, the meaning of this word should become apparent as we look at the pertinent biblical passages.

The Old Testament

• Deut. 30:6 And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.
o There is a change here in this circumcision. The peoples heart and soul will be changed so that they may live.

• Jer. 31:33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it ton their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

o This passage is commonly referred to as the New Covenant passage. What we see here is the law will be written upon the heart of God’s people. It was not there before. Notice again there is some kind of change going on here.

• Ezek. 11:19 And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh,
• Ezek. 11:20 that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.
• Ezek. 11:21 But as for those whose heart goes after their detestable things and their abominations,* I will bring their deeds upon their own heads, declares the Lord GOD.”

o The heart of stone will be made into a heart of flesh. Once again there is a change that is occurring here.

• Ezek. 36:25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from fall your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.
• Ezek. 36:26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
• Ezek. 36:27jAnd I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

o This verse is the same as the one we just read. The heart of stone will be replaced with a heart of flesh.

• Take note here that the changes that have occurred here result in obedience. Most of these passages, especially in Jeremiah and Ezekiel, were written to the people of Israel who were about to be exiled because of their disobedience to God. A person was changed and they now obey. Those who are born of God, who have been regenerated, will obey God. This is pretty cut and dry even from the Old Testament. If anyone claims to be a Christian, yet they do not obey, they have not been born of God. The first thing we then learn is to be born of God, to be regenerated, involves a change towards obedience.

The New Testament

In the New Testament the same thing is seen. What we will notice here is that being born of God, being regenerated by God, is the passive verbs, as we see in 1 John 4:7, something from the outside affected this.

• Titus 3:5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,

o God saved us and regenerated us according to HIS own mercy. He saved us by the washing of the regeneration.

• 1Pet. 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

o God has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,

• Col. 2:13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,

o We were dead in our trespasses and sins and God made us alive. We were dead and we were born again. We were regenerated, we were changed.

• 2Cor. 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.* The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

o Those who are in Christ are a new creation. The old has passed away and new has come. Notice the change once again.
• The Writings of John

o John 1:12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, the gave the right to become children of God,
o John 1:13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
o See the encounter with Nicodemus in John 3 where Jesus says one must be born again to see the kingdom of God.

o In First John
• 2:29
• 3:9
• 4:7-8
• 5:1-4
• 5:18

Definition of Regeneration

Here is then a biblical definition of what it means to be born of God. Regeneration is the work of the Holy Spirit whereby he initially brings persons into living union with Christ, changing their hearts so that they who were spiritually dead become spiritually alive. When a person is born of God they are now spiritually alive, those who were once dead. Those who are born of God have been changed by God therefore they are now eternally saved because of the work of Christ on our behalf, and now through our lives being changed we are now enabled to obey God’s commandments.


Back to the passage at hand. A Christian will love because love is from God and the Christian who loves show they have been born of God. The next reason we find in verse 7 is the one who love knows God. The word know here is not just some typical or intellectual knowledge. This knowledge here is a relational knowledge. The person who loves shows that they have a relationship with God, they have a relational knowledge of God.

John seeks to prove his point of what he is saying in v.7 in v.8 by stating the negative. This is something we have seen John do throughout this letter. John makes a blanket statement. Whoever does not love does not know God. John might have been thinking I want to make sure that his readers get this. John is black and white. He says if you do not love you do not know God. Once again this is in the context of loving other believers. Those who claim to be a Christian and yet do not love other believers do not know God because God is LOVE. John says God is love. John bases what he has just said that anyone who does not love does not know God on the character of God. John is not saying here that God is a loving God. John is saying rather that God is love. John would say if you want to know what love is like look to God. John says friends do you want to know what love is? Look to God. God is love. This is the second time John has made an explicit reference to the character of God, each time he has done this to prove an ethical point. Here once again, as in 1:5, John says to not love other believers is to say I do not know God, because God is love. The Christian will love because God is love.

The question that naturally arises in my mind when someone makes tough statements like these that John is making here okay I am supposed to love other believers, and you tell me that God is love, but what does this look like? How can I apply this to my life? John does not leave us hanging and in vs. 9-12 he gives us the revelation of love.

The Revelation of Love, 9-12

John does not leave his readers or us today hanging as we read this passage. It would be easy to exhort people to do something without making it practical or without giving them an example of what you are talking about.

John says love was made manifest among us. Love has been revealed to us. The word manifest here is the same word as in 1:2. It simply means to show or to reveal something. Love was made manifest to us by God by sending His only Son into the world that we might love through Him. All of what John says here no doubt is launched from what John said at the end of v. 8 that God is Love. God’s love is an active love.

What God did out of His love was to send His only Son into the world to be our Savior so that we can be made right with Him. This shows the extent of the love of God. God’s love went to great lengths, to such great lengths that He sent His only Son into the world to die for us. Do you realize that God the Father sent His only Son into this world so that He could die. The Love of God sacrificed something precious to Him, His only Son. Imagine what this would be like. It is hard for us to think of this.

John does not stop here. He says in this is love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us and sent Jesus to be the propitiation or atoning sacrifice for our sins. Notice John is not saying here that because we loved God so much that He sent Jesus. It was out of His love for us that God sent Jesus. He sent Jesus to pay the penalty for our sin because He loved us. There was no way we could be made right with Him. There was nothing we could ever do. Humans, all humans everywhere, do not love God. In fact John portrays everyone who is not a child of God as a child of the devil. We love everything that is opposite to God. We want nothing to do with God. We want everything to be about us. God sent His only Son to be the atoning sacrifice for the sins of people like this. He loved people like this so much that He sent His only Son to pay the price for sin.

In our study in 3:11-24 we talked about the importance that our love be active. John proves the point here by teaching us that the love of God is active. God acted upon His love so that people could be made right with Him.

John’s thought continues in v.11 uses what he has just said about the love of God to urge his readers onto love for one another. He says if God so loved us we also ought to love one another. You could translate if God so loved us and if God loved us in this manner we ought to love one another. If God loved us in this way we ought to love one another. John is talking about loving other believers here. If God so loved people to the extent that He did, we should love other believers as God loved us. In other words the love we have for other believers should cost us something. Maybe its not material cost. But loving other believers will hurt at time. It will take time sometimes. It is against our nature many times. Even though a person may be a believer does not mean we are exactly the same.

If as believers we know the extent to which God loved us it should grieve us even more when believers do not show love for one another. When a church, a community of Christians, believers, are not characterized by the love they have for one another, we are ceasing to imitate the character of God. John says God is love and when we backbite and slander and complain about each other we are living in opposition to the character of God. Jesus said the world will know we are disciples of Jesus by the way that we love each other. There is something wrong with a person who claims to be a believer, yet they do not love other believers.

Verse 12 John strives to show why love is important. There are three reasons for this.

The first reason is no one has ever seen God. This phrase seems a little out of place if we just read through it casually. Think of this though. No one can see God, the God who is love. But His followers are commanded to love one another because God is love. Therefore people may not be able to physically see God, but they should see God through the way we as believers interact with each other. By the way we love one another we are being a witness to God.

Secondly when we love one another we are showing that God abides in us. John is not saying here that because we love God abides in us. “Our love for one another is evidence to God’s indwelling presence.” (Stott, 167). Our love for other believers is an evidence that God abides or remains in us. God does not abide in us because we love one another, we love one another because God abides in us. To not to love, while claiming to be a Christian, shows that God does not abide in that person. An evidence that God abides in us is our love for other believers.

Lastly when we love one another we show that God’s love has been perfected in us. What in the world does this mean? The views on this passage are all over the place. First remember the context in which John is writing. He is writing in a context where he has been speaking of God’s love shown to us in Christ. Second this is talking about God’s love for us. Not our love for God. The word perfected here can also mean complete. God’s love has been completed within us? It is full there is nothing lacking in it? Why is this? It is not because we love one another. The love of God can only be complete in us because of Christ. Because of Christ God’s love can be completed in us. Our love for other believers is an evidence that God’s love has been perfected in us.

Tying it All Together

The final thing to look at in our study is how do these five verses fit into the overall theme of this First letter of John. Here is how it all fits together. First God is love. Therefore those who love other believers show evidence that they are born of God, they know God, that God abides in them, and that God’s love has been perfected in us. How assuring is this? When we are obedient and we love other believers we are showing that we are a true child of God.

What does love imply then? First it implies that in order to love other believers, as God intended it, we must be in a body of believers. We need to be in a church. If we are not in a church it is IMPOSSIBLE for us to fulfill this and show that we are born of God. We cannot do it. Second it implies that we need to be loving people. How are we loving other believers? Are we serving them? Or are we slandering them? Are we helping them? Or are we hurting them? What have we done for another believer lately? Do we focus more on our spiritual walk or are we focused on other believers and their walk? Are we loving to the extent God loved?