Greetings People Loved by God,
Today, let us explore another attribute of God that is revealed in Holy Scripture:
The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
— 1 John 4:8
As the apostle John explains this truth about his readers loving one another, he states a profound truth about God and its implications, especially in the life of believers: God is love.
It is important to notice that John doesn’t merely state that God has love or that God possesses love. Rather, his statement emphatically declares that God Himself is love. This means that God is the embodiment of love itself. You cannot separate love from God, nor can you separate God from love. One is the other, and the other is the one.
Consequently, this means that God is the one who can factually and accurately define what love is. The definition of love is linked directly to God because He is that definition. Simply put, all that love is, is all that God is. As one defines love, they can’t pick and choose which parts to include and which parts to leave out. Just as you can’t have a loving God who is not just, you can’t have love that does not fully embrace all the attributes of God.
The first implication we see is presented at the beginning of the verse. John states, “the one who does not love does not know God.” He draws from this statement, saying that since God is love Himself, one can’t say that they love if they don’t know who love is. Conversely, one can’t say that they know God if they don’t love.
Knowing God involves learning about the amazing love that God expresses to His people. This reasoning leads John to conclude that the purpose of us loving people is because God showed us love first:
We love because He first loved us.
— 1 John 4:19
This is one of the implications of the statement he makes in this verse. In other words, the reason we love people is not because they are so lovable. Far from it, we should always remember that we are all just fallen sinners saved by grace. There’s not a lot to love about us in our flesh. The kind of love that we’ll show to one another based on the flesh is only the corrupt kind of love. This is what we see when the word “love” is typically used in our society. We should be careful not to confuse this.
Those who have fallen into the trap of defining love in fleshly terms always end up with very wrong conclusions about what love is and what it looks like.
The only real reason we can truly come to love one another is not because of our lovability, but because when we were fallen sinners, unable to save ourselves, we were shown love by God.
John doesn’t stop here in making this connection. He then explicitly draws out another implication regarding this attribute of God. He states that one’s status as a believer can actually be gauged based on their abidance in love:
And we have come to know and have believed the love which God has in us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
— 1 John 4:16
What he’s basically saying is that one cannot claim to be a follower of Christ and not display these godly attributes. Since the life of the believer is constantly being reshaped and remodeled to look more and more like Christ (Romans 8:29), it stands to reason that the believer will have this attribute of love more and more. This is similar to the command that Jesus shares with His disciples:
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.
— John 13:34-35
Here, Jesus links the identity of the disciples to their showing of love to one another. He commands His disciples to love each other in keeping with the example that He had shown them when He showed love to them. Furthermore, He stresses that this is how they will be identified as His disciples.
Such is the case of a Christian. A Christian should be able to be identified by their obedience to their Lord in keeping a commandment such as this: to love one another. When Christians show love, it identifies them as true believers and followers of Christ. And this is because Christ is God and God is love. This is yet another point that John makes: if we are really in Christ, we need to walk as He walked:
The one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.
— 1 John 2:6
Here we see that the truest expression of love is actually obedience. This goes contrary to our current society’s understanding of love. When we think of love, we often think in terms of feelings. And love is then associated more and more with one’s emotions and feelings. This is not exactly what we see being presented here by the apostle when he says that God is love.
This brings us back to the topic of the sovereignty of God. As we mentioned earlier, since God is the embodiment of love, He gets to define what love is and how it looks. God makes the rules, and true love will be expressed in us submitting to that definition that God offers about love because He is love.
More often than not, we find ourselves equating acts of love with affirming and indulging one’s desires, feelings, and wishes, especially when such desires are destructive. This is what we see prominently in our society today. For example, instead of rebuking sin, we affirm it in fear of offending the person, and we count this to be an act of love.
We should understand that the expression of love and the acts of love do not always appear as smiles and chuckles. Sometimes, an act of love can be reproof, correction, instruction, and teaching.
This is only possible if we obey God and His word. In this way, we can see that the greatest act of love we can express to other people is to bring them closer to God, who is Love. This involves sharing the message of Christ with the people around us, as well as helping other believers draw closer to God.
Here are some things to think about:
- If God is love, how does that affect my life?
- How do I make sure that my expressions of love are in keeping with God’s definition of love?
- What’s the most loving thing I can do for a loved one?
Love is patient, love is kind, is not jealous, does not brag, is not puffed up; it does not act unbecomingly, does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered; it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails, but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away.
— 1 Corinthians 13:4-8
I pray this reminds us to abide by the true definition of love and live by it.
Blessings,
Paul
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