Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
1 John 4:15

Clarke's Commentary

Verse 15. Whosoever shall confess — Much stress is laid on this confession, because the false teachers denied the reality of the incarnation; but this confession implied also such a belief in Christ as put them in possession of his pardoning mercy and indwelling Spirit.

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

The character of Christian love (4:7-5:5)

It is God’s nature to love. Love in human nature has been spoiled by sin, but when people are born again by the work of God, they learn to love as God loves (7-8). The character of God’s love is seen in his act of giving his Son to die for those who have rebelled against him. They are worthy of death, but Jesus died to bear the judgment of sin on their behalf. As a result they can now have life (9-10). People cannot see God, but they can see that he lives within Christians when they practise his love. They show this most clearly when they love those who do not deserve it (11-12).
Christians have increased confidence in God through their inward possession of the Holy Spirit and their outward acknowledgment of Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the Saviour of sinners. They know that they live in God and that God lives in them (13-15). This new relationship with God (who is love) enables them to practise love towards other people as Jesus Christ did. This gives them added confidence that they are saved eternally and need never fear God’s judgment (16-18). In summary, if people love God they will love one another, but if they hate one another they cannot honestly claim to love God (19-21).
John repeats that people must believe in Jesus as the Son of God in order to be saved, and that love for God is inseparable from love for God’s people (5:1). If believers genuinely love God they will also obey his commandments. They will do this not in a legalistic spirit, but in a spirit of joy and willingness, for they will want to do what pleases God (2-3). They will find strength to be obedient through their faith in Jesus as the Son of God. Because Jesus overcame the world’s evil, the children of God who trust in Jesus can triumph also (4-5).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abideth in him, and he in God.

Confess that Jesus is the Son of God … There is a form of metonymy (synecdoche) in a statement of this kind. The primary pre-requirements of salvation, i.e., the so-called "plan of salvation" is meant by this. The New Testament reveals that "obeying the gospel" as the New Testament writers called it, meant believing in Christ, repenting of one's sins, confessing the Son of God, and being baptized "into Christ." As a consequence of such primary obedience, and subsequently to it, the Holy Spirit was given, not to make men sons of God, but because upon such initial faith and obedience they became sons of God (Galatians 4:6). There are two possible meanings of John's words here, and both of them may be correct.

(1)    He refers to the Christian's obedience of the gospel at the time he became a Christian, the confession of faith in Christ, of course, being a prominent part of conversion. If this is what was in the apostle's mind, the meaning of it is almost identical with Peter's words on Pentecost (Acts 2:38 f), Peter's "gift of the Holy Spirit" meaning exactly the same thing in that passage that John meant by "God abideth in him" here. There can be no difference in these.

(2)    If, as Roberts thought, John was speaking of a time in the lives of Christians long after their conversion, then he may be "saying that if this confession can be sincerely repeated by the believer, that God abides in him, and he in God."J. W. Roberts, op. cit., p. 119.

In either view, it is conversion itself, and primary obedience of the gospel to which this verse undoubtedly refers. This somewhat sudden mention of initial Christian obedience, after all John had been saying, and continued to say about "love," reminds us that:

With John, love always includes obedience to all God's commandments; and where obedience is not manifested, love is not. Even with God, love was not mere sympathy, but sending his Son to be the propitiation.William Hurte, Restoration of New Testament Christianity (Rosemead, California: Old Paths Publishing Company, 1964), p. 489.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God - In the true sense, and from the heart. This will always prove that a man is a Christian. But the passage cannot mean that if he merely says so in words, or if he does it insincerely, or without any proper sense of the truth, it will prove that he is a Christian. On the meaning of the sentiment here expressed, see the notes at 1 John 4:2. Compare the notes at Romans 10:10.

Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

15Whosoever shall confess He repeats the truth, that we are united to God by Christ, and that we cannot be connected with Christ except, God abides in us. Faith and confession are used indiscriminately in the same sense; for though hypocrites may wisely boast of faith, yet the apostle here acknowledges none of those who ordinarily confess, but such as truly and from the heart believe. Besides, when he says that Jesus is the Son of God, he briefly includes the sum and substance of faith; for there is nothing necessary for salvation which faith finds not in Christ

After having said in general, that men are so united to Christ by faith, that Christ unites them to God, he subjoined what they themselves had seen so that he accommodated a general truth to those to whom he was writing. Then follows the exhortation, to love one another as they were loved by God. Therefore the order and connection of his discourse is this, — Faith in Christ, makes God to dwell in men, and we are partakers of this grace; but as God is love, no one dwells in him except he loves his brethren. Then love ought to reign in us, since God unites himself to us.

Smith's Bible Commentary

Shall we turn now in our Bibles to I John chapter 4. As we go back to verse 1Jo 4:24 of chapter 3, the later portion, "Hereby we know that He abides in us by the Spirit which He has given us." I know that God abides in life. How do I know? Because He has given me the Holy Spirit.

Paul said, "The Holy Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession" ( Ephesians 1:14 ). We have been sealed, he said, with this Holy Spirit of promise; the seal was God's mark of ownership. I belong to God. He's placed His stamp of ownership upon me, and that is the Holy Spirit, which is the earnest of our redemption, or the down payment. God, showing that He is sincere in His intention of total redemption for you, has given you His Holy Spirit as sort of a down payment, the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession.

Now, as he begins chapter 4, he says,

Don't believe every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world ( 1 John 4:1 ).

Jesus, in His Sermon on the Mount, chapter 7 of Matthew's gospel, said, "Beware of false prophets who will come to you as wolves in sheep's clothing." And so it's hard to tell a false prophet by his looks. He looks like a sheep.

Now, one of the deceptive things is that we think that a false prophet is going to be false in everything he says. When oftentimes a false prophet will tell 90% truth; that's what makes them deceptive. They say so much that is true. Satan came and he said a lot of things, "Did God say that you can eat of all of the trees of that are in the garden? Is that what God said?" "Yes, all the trees but the one in the midst of the garden." Jesus, when He was tempted by Satan, Satan said, "Hey, it is written, 'He will give His angels charge over Thee to keep Thee in all of Thy ways,'" but he took the scripture out of context. Beware of false prophets. How can I tell a false prophet? Basically, it comes down to: what is their witness or testimony of Jesus Christ, and what is the fruit of their ministry? Now, we are told not to believe every spirit, to try the spirits to see if they are of God, because there are many false prophets that are gone out into the world.

There's a lot of false doctrine, and there are a lot of false prophets. And unfortunately, there are a lot of people following these false prophets. Beware when someone says, "Now look, the scripture is sort of a difficult book to understand. It's best that you not read the Bible. Just read our book that explains the Bible for you, because if you don't have our book to explain the Bible, it's just such a difficult book that you will never understand it." So whenever they're peddling books and discouraging you from just going to the Word of God, beware. We encourage to get into the Bible and read the Bible. And I'm not afraid of anything you'll come to believe by just reading the Bible. But you read some of these books and you are going to be led out into left field.

Sometimes people come up to me and they'll stop me and ask, "Have you ever thought about this?" And they'll start off on some weird tangent. And I will ask them, "Now where did you get that?" And they will answer, "Well, I was reading the Bible the other day and I just thought," and I will say, "Now, come on, where did you get that? You didn't get that by reading the Bible." And, of course, it's some doctrine that's being espoused by Jehovah Witnesses or Mormons or something else and their minds have started to question because they've brought up a seeming problem. Or they've gotten hold of some Herbert W. Armstrong's stuff, and they say "Well I was just thinking," and I say, "No, you weren't. Someone planted that stupidity in your mind. You would have never gotten that just reading the Bible."

Now, God didn't say anything weird, and if your interpretation of a scripture is weird, then you've got the wrong interpretation. Mainly God said what He meant, and if you'd just read the Bible the Spirit of God will teach you the truth. And you don't have to be worried about getting all the field of truth when you just stick to the Word of God. But these people who have these weird twists, the reason why they say, "Oh, don't read the Bible. You read our books," is that you'll never come to these same weird twists that they have unless you read their books. It is so outlandish, you know.

If you read in Revelation, for instance, chapter 7, God seals a 144,000 of the tribes of Israel, and then He begins to name the twelve tribes of Israel. The tribe of Zebulun, 12,000; the tribe of Asher, 12,000; and so forth and so on. And because they do not want to recognize that God is going to be working with Israel again, they say, "Well, that is spiritual Israel. That's really the church, you see, because we are spiritual Israel." Well, what spiritual tribe are you from? You see, you wouldn't get spiritual Israel by just reading Revelation chapter 7. You've got to read that into it or have someone read it into it and then tell you, "Well, that's what it really means." "Oh, well, that's interesting. I never saw that, you know."

So try the spirits, to see if they be of God. And basically, what is their testimony of Jesus Christ, and what is the fruit?

Hereby do we know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus is come in the flesh is of God ( 1 John 4:2 ):

Now, that is more than just what meets the eye on the surface, "Jesus Christ is come in the flesh." But Jesus is His name, which is a contraction of the Hebrew Jehovah-shua, or Joshua. Jo is the Hebrew contraction for Jehovah. Joshua, shua in Hebrew is salvation. Jehovah is become our salvation. Christ is the Greek for the Hebrew Mashiyach or the Messiah, the Anointed One.

So the testimony is that Jesus is Jehovah our salvation, the anointed Messiah and that He has come in the flesh. And so it is a witness or a testimony of God coming in the flesh. And if that is not their witness then they are a false prophet. Now, they may say a lot of truth and they may have lot of fanciful stuff, but they are a false prophet when they deny the deity of Jesus Christ. That He is indeed God come in the flesh, Jehovah-shua, the Mashiyach is come in the flesh.

And every spirit that confesses not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is the spirit of antichrist, whereof you have heard that it come; and even now already is in the world ( 1 John 4:3 ).

There is a great spirit of antichrist in the world today. A lot of people opposed to Jesus Christ.

Now you are of God, little children, and you have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world ( 1 John 4:4 ).

You see, going back to verse 1Jo 4:24 of chapter 3, God has given to us the Holy Spirit who abides within us, and greater is He that is in you than the spirit of antichrist that is in the world.

Now they are of the world: therefore they speak of the world, and the world hears them ( 1 John 4:5 ).

Their message is a popular message that the world enjoys hearing, but they deny the real power of God.

Now we are of God and he that knoweth God hears us; and he that is not of God does not hear us. And hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error ( 1 John 4:6 ).

First of all, we know it by their witness of Jesus Christ. Secondly,

Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. And he that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love ( 1 John 4:7-8 ).

The second way I know the Spirit of God is the fruit of the Spirit in my life will be love. Love for one another. Beloved, let us love one another. Love is of God, and it is the proof that the spirit that dwells in me is the Spirit of God, if the fruit is love coming forth from my life.

Now, you may say, "I know I have the Spirit of God, because I speak in tongues." You don't know any such thing. Tongues is not a proof that the Spirit of God is abiding in you. Satan is able to counterfeit tongues. The real proof that the Spirit of God is abiding in you is love. The fruit of the Spirit is love. And if I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and I have not love, it's no more meaningful than taking a cymbal and clanging on it and making a noise ( 1 Corinthians 13:1 ). It is a meaningless noise. The proof is the love.

So Jesus said, "When the Holy Spirit is come, He will bear witness of Me." I know it is the Spirit of God because of the witness that He is giving of Jesus Christ. I know that it is the Spirit of God because the fruit and the effects of it within my life is love, a great love for my brothers and sisters in Christ. A great love for the family of God and the things of God. And if you can love me, you know that you've got the Spirit.

"Let us love one another, for love is of God; everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God." Now this is the agape love. It isn't the mushy, Hollywood junk that is passed off for love. It isn't even the phileo that we have within the strong family unit, but it is the agape.

There is the love which is the eros; there is the love which is the phileo, deeper and emotional, whereas the eros is pretty much fleshly. The phileo is more involved with the emotions. But then there is a love that is of the deepest level, and that is the agape. And that is love in the spirit level.

Many people who fancy themselves to be in love are actually in eros. And it's too bad that within the English language we don't have a broader word, as do the Greeks. We have love, and look what the word has to cover. Everything from peanuts to my grandkids and my wife. Hot fudge sundaes. I love them all. But what I feel for a hot fudge sundae is far different than what I feel for my wife. But I've got one word, "love them".

Now the Greeks, they had the different words for the different types of love. Well, my love for a hot fudge sundae, I suppose, would be eros, a fleshly love. And it's too bad that we can't really define our love when we are communicating with each other, because some of these young fellows that are going out with these girls, they whisper in their ears and say, "I eros you, baby. I have a strong sexual drawing to you." The eros, in reality, is pretty much self-centered. I like the relationship for what I get out of it, but I don't care what you get out of it. It's what I am getting, the satisfactions that I feel.

The phileo is a little deeper, and it is more of a give and take, reciprocal. I love you because we agree on so many things, and we can share and you can add to my understanding and you're interested in what I have to say. And it's a give and take. Like someone said, "Marriage is a fifty/fifty proposition." I've never found that to be so, but that is what they say. It's more of a seventy-five/twenty-five, but I won't tell you who has the seventy-five.

But agape is giving. Now because it is a word that was not used in classical Greek, a word pretty much coined for the New Testament by Jesus Himself, it is a word that then needed definition. If you ever make up a new word, you've to define the word so people can know what you are talking about when you use the word. And that's what language is all about, it's a mutual agreement that a certain sound conveys a certain concept or idea. So the word agape. Two places in the New Testament this word is defined for us. The fruit of the Spirit is agape. What is agape? Joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, temperance, trust. They're all involved with agape. Paul defines it also in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, where he said, "Love suffers long and is kind; love envies not; vaunts not itself, is not puffed up; does not behave itself unseemly, doesn't seek its own." You see, it's not self-centered, it's others centered. "Believes all things, bears all things, hopes all things. It never fails." This is the agape love. It is that love that is reaching out and giving, not looking for the return. Phileo looks for the return; agape doesn't look for the return. It doesn't keep an account, "Well, you owe me one. Because I had you over to my house dinner twice and I'm not asking you again until you ask me to your house." Reciprocal. Now that's not love. It doesn't keep the records. It gives, not keeping track of it. It gives because that's its nature of giving, and that's the love that God wants us to possess. And that love proves to me that the spirit that I have within me is indeed the Spirit of God, because you can't love that way apart from God's Spirit.

And so, "Try the spirits to see if they are of God." What is their witness of Jesus Christ? Does the spirit bear witness to me of Jesus, that He indeed is God manifested in the flesh? Does He bring forth fruit of love in my life? Then, indeed, it is the Spirit of God. That is something that Satan can't really counterfeit.

Now he that loveth not, knoweth not God; because God is love ( 1 John 4:8 ).

And so this word is used to define the nature of God, "God is love".

In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him ( 1 John 4:9 ).

How do you know that God loves you? "Oh, I go out and I commune with nature." Does nature tell you that God loves you? When you are out communing with nature, do you see the coyotes jumping on that poor little rabbit and tearing it to pieces? "Oh, God is love. Nature tells me so." I see the lions tearing at the gazelles, "God is love." I see the rattlesnake coiled, ready to strike, "God is love." Nature doesn't tell me that God is love, because you see, I am looking at fallen nature. I see nature as it is cursed by sin. I don't see nature as God created it. I don't see the lion lying down with the lamb, eating straw like the ox. I don't see nature as it was created by God. I see it as it has fallen as the result of man, cursed. So fallen nature cannot testify or tell me of the love of God.

Then how can I know God loves me? God does not seek to prove His love to you except in one place, and that's sufficient. It is sufficient so that you should never ever doubt the love of God again. If ever Satan questions, and he often does challenge, "Well, if God loves you, then why did God allow this? If God really loves you then why would God . . . " and you see, he often is challenging the fact of God's love and often he can put forth some pretty powerful evidence that God doesn't love me, because look at the mess I'm in. So whenever Satan begins to challenge the love of God and you start to go under, look at the cross. For therein God demonstrated His love for you once and for all. And He says, "Hey, you question My love, just look at the cross." "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son."

Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us, and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins ( 1 John 4:10 ).

God manifested His love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for the ungodly. In this was manifested the love of God towards us because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. So, there is where God manifested His love, in sending His Son into this world. He loved you so much, He desired fellowship with you so much, that He sent His Son into this world to die in your place. To take away your sins in order that you might have fellowship with God. So herein God has manifested His love there at the cross. And the whole purpose of God is that you might live.

And again, the Biblical definition of living is actually having fellowship or being one with God. If you are one with God, you're living. If you're not one with God, you are dead. Now, man has a different concept. If you're breathing, you're living. If your brain is working, you're living. So you go in the hospital and you lapse into a comma, and stroke has damaged a portion of your brain that controls your breathing and so they connect up the oxygen. They put on the EEG and they watch the monitor. They see little flickers. Now you're lying there and people say, "Oh, speak to me. How are you? Tell me your name." No response. And they pinch you, and nothing. But the monitor says, "Hey, yea. When you pinched, it registered on the monitor. They felt it and they are still alive." But when the monitor goes flat, pinch him and nothing happens, no brain wave activity, no consciousness. And the doctor says, "Well, they're gone." The consciousness has left the body; they're dead.

Not so from the Bible. You may be going through all the functions of life tonight, but if your consciousness is separated from God, the Bible says that you are dead. Jesus came that we might have life. That is, that we might have that oneness with God, that life of God, which is real life, age-abiding, eternal life.

Now, "Herein is love, not that we loved God," and some people think that they are doing such a big favor and a big deal when they say, "Oh, I love God." So what. The only thing that it proves is that you are not a fool. Because you have every reason to love God, and that's no big deal. You should love God. He's so loveable. What is the big deal is that God loves you. When He knows you so thoroughly and so completely. As David said, "Lord, You search me, You know me. You know my down sittings and my uprisings. You understand my thoughts and their origins. Such knowledge," he said, "is too wonderful for me. I can't attain it." What? Self-knowledge, I don't know myself. But God knows me. He knows me completely, and yet He loves me. "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and that He sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." He sent His Son take the guilt of our sins that had separated us from God. And to bear in His own body our sins on the cross in order that God's righteousness might be propitiated, in order that God could receive the sinful me one with Himself. That's love, that God would make Him to be sin for me who knew no sin, that I might be made the righteousness of God through Him in order that being now the righteousness of God I can have fellowship with God and become one with God and have life through Jesus Christ.

Now, if God so loved us, then we ought to love one another ( 1 John 4:11 ).

We are often exhorted in the scriptures to Christ as our example in forgiveness and Christ our example in love. And that we are to love as He loved and forgive as He forgave. "Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you" ( Ephesians 4:32 ). What should be my measure of forgiveness? God's forgiveness for me. Jesus said, "Love one another even as I have loved you." Now that's a pretty big order. And yet, that is what God requires of us, and that's what God's Spirit will do in us as we are filled and I can know that it is the Spirit of God, because of the love that He has given to me. So herein is love, not my love for God, but God's love for me in sending His Son to take my sins and to die for my guilt in order that God's righteousness might by propitiated and He can receive me in fellowship. If God so loved me, then I ought to love one another.

Jesus gave a parable on forgiveness of this certain man who had a servant that owed him sixteen million dollars. And he called him in and he said, "Your note's due, pay me what you owe me." And he said, "Oh, I don't have it yet. I need some more time. Could you give me some more time?" And he said, "Awe, that's all right. Forget it. I'll forgive your debt." He went out and got a fellow servant that owed him sixteen bucks and said, "Hey, you promised to pay. Now time's up. Pay me what you owe me." And the other servant said, "Oh, I don't have it right now, but if you will give me a few days I'll get it for you." "No, you've had enough time," and he had him thrown in debtor's prison. And the lord of that servant heard of what he had done and he called him in and he said, "Hey, how much did you owe me?" "Sixteen million bucks." "Didn't I forgive the debt?" "Yeah, boy, I really appreciate that." "How is it then that I hear that you had a fellow servant thrown in jail for a sixteen dollar debt?" "Well, he owed it to me."

And Jesus is using the ludicrous amounts to illustrate how much God has forgiven me. The whole debt of sin that God has forgiven me, and yet someone has done me some wrong, and I'll tell you, I'm not going to forget it. And I'm going to get even the first chance I get and I'll not forget that. Here I am holding this against my brother because he's slighted me or he's done me some injury and I just can't get over it, you know. And God says to me, "How much did I forgive you?" "Oh, a parcel, Lord. A load." "Well, how is it then that you are holding ought against your brother because of this little offense against you?" Love as He loved, forgive as He forgave, that's the lesson that we learn. If God so loved us, then we ought to love one another.

Now no man has seen God at any time ( 1 John 4:12 ).

What about Moses? Well, I have to believe that no man has seen God at any time, and what about Moses? Well, he saw the afterglow. God says, "Hey, you can't see Me and live. You get here in the rock and I'll pass by. And when I pass by, then you can look out and see the afterglow." And that radiated him to the extent he had to put a veil over his face. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. But before I can see God I've got have a new body, this old body just couldn't take it. No man has seen God at any time, but

If we love one another, God dwells in us, and his love is perfected in us ( 1 John 4:12 ).

And that is the work of the Holy Spirit within our lives, perfecting in us the love of God. And as I yield to the Spirit, and as I am filled with the Spirit, that work of the Spirit in me ultimately is to perfect God's love within my life. That I will indeed love as He loves.

Hereby we know that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he has given us his Spirit ( 1 John 4:13 ).

That is the same thing he said, basically, in verse 1Jo 4:24 of chapter 3. "Hereby we know that He abides in us by the Spirit which His has given us. Hereby we know that we dwell in Him." We know that He abides in us by the Spirit, and we also that we dwell in Him by the Spirit that He has given to us.

How do we know what we know? And so here we are coming across several of these "Hereby we knows."

And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world ( 1 John 4:14 ).

Now you remember pre-Christmas, out of chapter 1, dealt with the purpose of the coming of Jesus Christ to bring us into fellowship with God. "That which was from the beginning, which we have seen, which we have heard, which we have touched, we declared unto you that you might have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship was with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ." The purpose of His coming, chapter 3, to take away our sins. Now here again, he gives you another purpose of His coming, "That He might be the Savior of the world."

Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwells in him, and he in God ( 1 John 4:15 ).

The confession that Jesus is indeed the Son of God, not a son of God as the Mormons would make Him, one of many. The Son of God. Or as the Jehovah Witnesses would make Him, a son of God. But if your testimony is that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, God dwells in him and he in God.

And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. For God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwells in God, and God in him ( 1 John 4:16 ).

So, dealing with the proofs, how can we know the Spirit? There are a lot of false prophets in the world. Believe not every spirit. Satan is able to come as an angel of light to deceive. How can I know it's the Holy Spirit dwelling in me? The fruit, the love. God is love; His Spirit in me will be manifested in love.

And herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in the world ( 1 John 4:17 ).

Again, Christ our example in love. As He is, so are we. How is He in the world? Loving. How many times do you read, "Jesus looked upon them and had compassion upon them"? And rather than looking and turning away with a cold calloused indifference, if Christ is really dwelling in us, we also will be moved with compassion over the needs of people.

"Herein is our love made perfect, we might have boldness in the day of judgment." When God's love is perfected in me, I don't have to fear the judgment seat of God at all. Boldness in the day of judgment. Why? Because I'm in Christ; I'm secure.

Now, there is no fear in love ( 1 John 4:18 );

If fear has gripped your heart, it's because God's love is not perfected in you. You're not totally assured that God loves you. "I'm not really sure that this is gonna work for good, this may destroy me. This may be the end of my road. This may be all she wrote. This looks bad, I don't see any way out. What am I gonna do?" Well, you see, if God's love were perfected, if you really knew God loved you, so totally loved you, that whatever and anything that may happen to you can only happen because God allows it to happen and He loves you supremely, then I don't worry about what happens to me. "Man, what a mess, but I know that God loves me and so He's gonna work it out some way or other, you know. Well, they just foreclosed and took away my house, you know, but God loves and He's gonna work out something, you know." Oh, the confidence that comes when I know that God loves me and His love is perfected in me, I can accept what comes without fear.

perfect love casts out all fear: he that fears experiences this torment. [Fear is a very tormenting thing.] And he that fears is not yet made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us ( 1 John 4:18-19 ).

Again, God is the initiator and man is the respondent. Beware of teaching that would make man the initiator and God the respondent. And that is a very popular teaching within many churches even. I heard that teaching for years. In fact, I taught it for a long time. "We should initiate, so that God can respond. We need to fast so that God can respond to our fasting. We need to praise the Lord so that the Lord can respond to our praises and bless us. We need to give to God so that God can respond and give back to us." And we make man the initiator and God the respondent. But in reality, God is the initiator and I am the respondent. And so my praises are not to bring a blessing of God upon my life, my praises are because of the blessings of God that are so abundant and bountiful that I can't handle it. "Oh, Lord, You're good. I love You, Lord. I praise You and thank You, oh Lord." And, you see, I am responding to the grace of God that I've experienced. God has initiated His love and His grace towards me, and I love Him because He first loved me. I'm only responding to this love, but I must know God if I'm going to be able to respond to Him. I must know the love of God, I must know the grace of God, I must know the goodness of God, I must know it all in Christ, and then when I know it, I respond to it. But it's hard to respond to something you're not aware of. So God the initiator, God loved us first. I respond to that. I love Him because He first loved me.

Now if a man say ( 1 John 4:20 ),

Now this is the seventh thing we've found that men are prone to say. And this is a great thing, if a man say, "I love God," isn't that beautiful? We ought to all be able to say that. We all should be saying that. "I love God." We should be able to say that. I'm not putting down saying that; we all ought to be saying that.

But,

If a man says it, and hates his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? ( 1 John 4:20 )

Like Snoopy said, "I love the world; it's just people I hate." But I can't say, "I love God," and yet hate my brother. That's an inconsistency.

This commandment we have from him, That he who loves God love his brother also ( 1 John 4:21 ).

Jesus was questioned by a lawyer as to what the greatest commandment was. And Jesus said, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. And the second is like unto the first: thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, and on these two are all the law and commandments" (Matthew 22:37-40; Matthew 22:37-40 ). But you see, Jesus tied immediately in the love of my neighbor for my love for God. Remember when the rich young ruler came to Jesus and knelt at his feet and said, "Good Master, what good thing must I do to inherit age-abiding life?" And Jesus said, "Why do you call Me good? There is only one good, and that is, God. But keep the commandments." "Which ones?" "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit adultery, and so forth." "Lord, all these I've kept from my youth up, what do I lack in?" Well, he said, "If you're going to be perfect, then go sell all that you have and distribute it to the poor and follow me, you'll have great treasures in heaven." And he went away sorrowful because he had great riches. ( Luke 18:18-23 ). Now, he had just said, "Lord, I have kept all these commandments from my youth up. You know, I haven't stolen. I haven't committed adultery, and I haven't lied against my neighbor and so forth. I kept all those from my youth." Now, what is the real commandment? Love your neighbor as yourself.

Now, here you are and you are very wealthy, you have more than what you can eat, more than what you need. And here is your neighbor and he's starving, but you're not willing to help him. Well, you then don't love your neighbor as yourself. So you may say, "Oh, I love God and I keep all the commandments," but when you come down to a practical example, no, you're not keeping the commandment. So it isn't what I say, but it is my deed that expresses the reality of my experience. "

Contending for the Faith

Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.

Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God: "Confess" is homologeo, "to speak the same thing that another speaks" (Wuest, I John 168). It intimates that the person confessing is in agreement with a proposition formulated by someone else. In this case, the proposition is the teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. The verb is in the aorist tense, denoting a single and decisive confession made once and for all. Such a confession represents a definite and unequivocal commitment to a truth or an idea. The confession is that "Jesus is the Son of God" or that Jesus is God the Son. If Jesus is the Son of God, then the doctrine of the Gnostics is false. They said that God could not occupy evil human flesh, but John says that Jesus was a flesh and blood person who is to be confessed as God’s Son. The deity of Jesus is affirmed. The confession is more than just a verbal statement--it is a commitment to a concept that will determine a person’s actions throughout life. Wuest quotes Robertson: "This confession of the deity of Jesus Christ implies surrender and obedience also, not mere lip service" (Wuest, I John 168).

God dwelleth in him, and he in God: Further evidence of the indwelling of God is offered. It hinges on a total commitment to the truth that Jesus is God’s Son. God will not dwell in a heart that denies His Son. Furthermore, He will not allow anyone who denies His Son to dwell or abide in Him. Thus we have the mutual relationship of Christian fellowship, God in us and we in God. It all depends on one’s commitment to Jesus as the Son of the living God.

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

3. God’s Indwelling Recognized 4:7-16

John now left behind his warning about false spirits that his readers might mistake as the Holy Spirit, spirits that lure believers onto worldly paths. He returned to one of his central themes, namely, love for the brethren. As 1 Corinthians 13 contains Paul’s great statement on God’s love, so 1 John 4:7-16 contains John’s.

". . . the present section spells out precisely the nature of the love which is demanded from every believer, and may thus be viewed as an extension of the teaching contained in 1 John 2:3-11 and 1 John 3:10-24. Earlier, John has related the love command to the ’real light’ which is already shining (1 John 2:8; 1 John 2:10), and to the ’eternal life’ of which love is the evidence (1 John 3:14-15). Now he relates the requirement of Christian love to the very nature of God himself. We are to love as a response to God’s own love, and to his loving activity in Christ and in the Church." [Note: Smalley, p. 235.]

This pericope contains a comprehensive treatment of the nature of true love.

"There is considerable pastoral wisdom in John’s summons to mutual love immediately after a warning to be on the alert against deceiving spirits. He knows he must anticipate possibly deleterious effects of his own counsel as readers take it to heart." [Note: Yarbrough, p. 234.]

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

The inspiration of love 4:11-16

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

Confessing that Jesus is God’s Son is not the only condition for abiding in God. It is one evidence that one is abiding. One not abiding may or may not make this confession. Confession is the last step, the step of bearing witness (cf. 1 John 1:9; 1 John 2:23; 1 John 4:3; Romans 10:9-10).

"The notion of God ’abiding’ in someone has rich associations with John’s Gospel, where meno occurs more than three dozen times. The word can mean simply to dwell somewhere; one’s domicile is where one ’abides’ (John 1:38-39 a; John 2:12; John 4:40 [2x]; John 7:9; John 8:35 [2x]; John 10:40; John 11:6; John 11:54). But there is a fuller sense. God’s Spirit descended and ’remained’ on Jesus, according to John the Baptist (John 1:32-33). The Spirit was Jesus’s constant companion. To ’remain’ or ’abide’ in Jesus’s teaching is to be his true disciple (John 8:31). A disciple will be informed and steered by all that Jesus commanded and taught. God the Father ’remained’ or ’abode’ with Jesus during his earthly days (John 14:10). The Father was the source of the very words he spoke, and Jesus ’remained’ continually in the Father’s love (John 15:10 b. ’Abiding’ describes a reality involving father, Son, and Spirit." [Note: Yarbrough, p. 252.]

Barclay's Daily Study Bible

Chapter 4

THE PERILS OF THE SURGING LIFE OF THE SPIRIT ( 1 John 3:24 b- 1 John 4:1 )

4:1 This is how we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit which he gave to us. Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if their source is God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

Behind this warning is a situation of which we in the modern church know little or nothing. In the early church there was a surging life of the Spirit which brought its own perils. There were so many and such diverse spiritual manifestations that some kind of test was necessary. Let us try to think ourselves back into that electric atmosphere.

(i) Even in Old Testament times men realized the perils of false prophets who were men of spiritual power. Deuteronomy 13:1-5 demands that the false prophet who sought to lure men away from the true God should be put to death; but it frankly and freely admits that he may promise signs and wonders and perform them. The spiritual power is there, but it is evil and misdirected.

(ii) In the early church the spiritual world was very near. All the world believed in a universe thronged with demons and spirits. Every rock and tree and river and grove and lake and mountain had its spiritual power; and these spiritual powers were always seeking entry into men's bodies and minds. In the time of the early church all men lived in a haunted world and men were never so conscious of being surrounded by spiritual powers.

(iii) That ancient world was very conscious of a personal power of evil. It did not speculate about its source, but it was sure that it was there and that it was seeking for men who might be its instruments. It follows that not only the universe but also the minds of men provided the battleground on which the power of the light and the power of the dark fought out the issue.

(iv) In the early church the coming of the Spirit was a much more visible phenomenon than is common nowadays. It was usually connected with baptism; and when the Spirit came things happened that anyone could see. The man who received the Spirit was visibly affected. When the apostles came down to Samaria, after the preaching of Philip, and conferred the gift of the Spirit on the new converts, the effects were so startling that the local magician, Simon Magus, wished to buy the power to produce them ( Acts 8:17-18). The coming of the Spirit on Cornelius and his people was something which anyone could see ( Acts 10:44-45). In the early church there was an ecstatic element in the coming of the Spirit whose effects were violent and obvious.

(v) This had its effect in the congregational life of the early church. The best commentary on this passage of John is, in fact, 1 Corinthians 14:1-40. Because of the power of the Spirit men spoke with tongues. That is to say, they poured out a flood of Spirit-given sounds in no known language, which no one could understand unless there was someone present who had the Spirit-given power to interpret. So extraordinary was this phenomenon that Paul does not hesitate to say that, if a stranger came into a congregation in which it was in action, he would think that he had arrived in an assembly of madmen ( 1 Corinthians 14:2; 1 Corinthians 14:23; 1 Corinthians 14:27). Even the prophets, who delivered their message in plain language, were a problem. They were so moved by the Spirit that they could not wait for each other to finish and each would leap to his feet determined to shout out his Spirit-given message ( 1 Corinthians 14:26-27; 1 Corinthians 14:33). A service of worship in an early Christian congregation was very different from the placidity of most modern church services. So diverse were the manifestations of the Spirit that Paul numbers the discerning of spirits among the spiritual gifts which a Christian might possess ( 1 Corinthians 12:10). We can see what might happen in such a case when Paul speaks of the possibility of a man saying in a spirit that Christ is accursed ( 1 Corinthians 12:3).

When we come further down in Christian history we find the problem still more acute. The Didache, The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, is the first service order book and is to be dated not long after A.D. 100. It has regulations on how to deal with the wandering apostles and prophets who came and went amongst the Christian congregations. "Not every one who speaks in a spirit is a prophet; he is only a prophet if he walks in the ways of the Lord" (Didache 11 and 12). The matter reached its peak and ne plus ultra when, in the third century, Montanus burst upon the Church with the claim that he was nothing less than the promised Paraclete and that he proposed to tell the Church the things which Christ had said his apostles could not at the moment bear.

The early church was full of this surging life of the Spirit. The exuberance of life had not been organized out of the Church. It was a great age; but its very exuberance had its dangers. If there was a personal power of evil, men could be used by him. If there were evil spirits as well as the Holy Spirit, men could be occupied by them. Men could delude themselves into a quite subjective experience in which they thought--quite honestly--that they had a message from the Spirit.

All this is in John's mind; and it is in face of that surging atmosphere of pulsating spiritual life that he sets out his criteria to judge between the true and the false. We, for our part, may well feel that with all its perils, the exuberant vitality of the early church was a far better thing than the apathetic placidity of so much of the life of the modern church. It was surely better that men should expect the Spirit everywhere than that they should expect him nowhere.

A Note on the Translation of 1 John 4:1-7

There is a recurring Greek phrase in this passage which is by no means easy to translate. It is the phrase which the Revised Standard Version consistently renders of God. Its occurrences are as follows:

1 John 4:1: Test the spirits to see whether they are of God.

1 John 4:2: Every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God.

1 John 4:3: Every spirit which does not confess Jesus Christ is not of God.

1 John 4:4: Little children, you are of God.

1 John 4:6: We are of God.... He who is not of God does not listen to us.

1 John 4:7: Love is of God.

The difficulty can be seen in the expedients to which various translators are driven.

Moffatt, in 1 John 4:1-3, translates comes from God; and in 1 John 4:4; 1 John 4:6-7 belongs to God.

Weymouth, in 1 John 4:1-3, translates is from God. In 1 John 4:4 he translates: You are God's children. In 1 John 4:6 he translates: We are God's children.... He who is not a child of God does not listen to us. In 1 John 4:7 he has: Love has its origin in God.

In every case, except 1 John 4:7, Kingsley Williams translates from God; in 1 John 4:7 he has of God.

The difficulty is easy to see; and yet it is of the first importance to be able to attach a precise meaning to this phrase. The Greek is ek ( G1537) tou ( G3599) theou ( G2316) . Ho ( G3588) theos ( G2316) means God, and tou ( G3588) theou ( G2316) is the genitive case after the preposition ek ( G1537) . Ek ( G1537) is one of the most common Greek prepositions and means "out of" or "from." To say that a man came ek ( G1537) tes ( G3588) poleos ( G4172) would mean that he came either out of or from the city. What then does it mean that a person, or a spirit, or a quality is ek ( G1537) tou ( G5120) theou ( G2316) ? The simplest translation is "from God." But what does "from" mean in that phrase? Quite certainly it means that the person, the spirit or the quality has its origin in God. It comes "from" God in the sense that it takes its origin in Him and its life from Him. So John, for instance, bids his people to test the spirits to see whether they really have their source in God. Love, he says, has its origin in God.

THE ULTIMATE HERESY ( 1 John 4:2-3 )

4:2-3 This is how you recognize the spirit whose source is God. Every spirit which openly acknowledges that Jesus has come in the flesh and is Christ has its origin in God. And every spirit which is such that it does not make this confession about Jesus has not its source in God; and this is the spirit of Antichrist, about which you heard that it was to come and which is now here present in the world.

For John Christian belief could be summed up in one great sentence: "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us" ( John 1:14). Any spirit which denied the reality of the Incarnation was not of God. John lays down two tests of belief.

(i) To be of God a spirit must acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah. As John saw it, to deny that is to deny three things about Jesus. (a) It is to deny that he is the centre of history, the one for whom all previous history had been a preparation. (b) It is to deny that he is the fulfilment of the promises of God. All through their struggles and their defeats, the Jews had clung to the promises of God. To deny that Jesus is the promised Messiah is to deny that these promises were true. (c) It is to deny his Kingship. Jesus came, not only to sacrifice, but to reign; and to deny his Messiahship is to leave out his essential kingliness.

(ii) To be of God a spirit must acknowledge that Jesus has come in the flesh. It was precisely this that the Gnostics could never accept. Since, in their view, matter was altogether evil, a real incarnation was an impossibility, for God could never take flesh upon himself. Augustine was later to say that in the pagan philosophers he could find parallels for everything in the New Testament except for one saying--"The Word became flesh." As John saw it, to deny the complete manhood of Jesus Christ was to strike at the very roots of the Christian faith.

To deny the reality of the incarnation has certain definite consequences.

(i) It is to deny that Jesus can ever be our example. If he was not in any real sense a man, living under the same conditions as men, he cannot show men how to live.

(ii) It is to deny that Jesus can be the High Priest who opens the way to God. The true High Priest, as the writer to the Hebrews saw, must be like us in all things, knowing our infirmities and our temptations ( Hebrews 4:14-15). To lead men to God the High Priest must be a man, or else he will be pointing them to a road which it is impossible for them to take.

(iii) It is to deny that Jesus can in any real sense be Saviour. To save men he had to identify himself with the men he came to save.

(iv) It is to deny the salvation of the body. Christian teaching is quite clear that salvation is the salvation of the whole man. The body as well as the soul is saved. To deny the incarnation is to deny the possibility that the body can ever become the temple of the Holy Spirit.

(v) By far the most serious and terrible thing is that it is to deny that there can ever be any real union between God and man. If spirit is altogether good and the body is altogether evil, God and man can never meet, so long as man is man. They might meet when man has sloughed off the body and become a disembodied spirit. But the great truth of the incarnation is that here and now there can be real communion between God and man.

Nothing in Christianity is more central than the reality of the manhood of Jesus Christ.

THE CLEAVAGE BETWEEN THE WORLD AND GOD ( 1 John 4:4-6 )

4:4-6 You have your origin in God, dear children, and you have won the victory over them, because that power which is in you is greater than the power which is in the world. This is why the source of their speaking is the world, and is the reason why the world listens to them. Our source is God. He who knows God listens to us. He who has not his source in God does not listen to us. This is how we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

John lays down a great truth and faces a great problem.

(i) The Christian need not fear the heretic. In Christ the victory over all the powers of evil was won. The powers of evil did their worst to him, even to killing him on a Cross, and in the end he emerged victorious. That victory belongs to the Christian. Whatever things may look like, the powers of evil are fighting a losing battle. As the Latin proverb has it: "Great is the truth, and in the end it will prevail." All that the Christian has to do is remember the truth he already knows and cling to it. The truth is that by which men live; error is ultimately that by which men die.

(ii) The problem remains that the false teachers will neither listen to, nor accept, the truth which the true Christian offers. How is that to be explained? John returns to his favourite antithesis, the opposition between the world and God. The world, as we have seen before, is human nature apart from, and in opposition to, God. The man whose source is God will welcome the truth; the man whose source is the world will reject it.

When we come to think of it, that is an obvious truth. How can a man whose watchword is competition even begin to understand an ethic whose key-note is service? How can a man whose aim is the exaltation of the self and who holds that the weakest must go to the wall, even begin to understand a teaching whose principle for living is love? How can a man who believes that this is the only world and that, therefore, material things are the only ones which matter, even begin to understand life lived in the light of eternity, where the unseen things are the greatest values? A man can hear only what he has fitted himself to hear and he can utterly unfit himself to hear the Christian message.

That is what John is saying. We have seen again and again that it is characteristic of him to see things in terms of black and white. His thinking does not deal in shades. On the one side there is the man whose source and origin is God and who can hear the truth; on the other side there is the man whose source and origin is the world and who is incapable of hearing the truth. There emerges a problem, which very likely John did not even think of. Are there people to whom all preaching is quite useless? Are there people whose defences can never be penetrated, whose deafness can never hear, and whose minds are for ever shut to the invitation and command of Jesus Christ?

The answer must be that there are no limits to the grace of God and that there is such a person as the Holy Spirit. It is the lesson of life that the love of God can break every barrier down. It is true that a man can resist; it is, maybe, true that a man can resist even to the end. But what is also true is that Christ is always knocking at the door of every heart, and it is possible for any man to hear the voice of Christ, even above the many voices of the world.

LOVE HUMAN AND DIVINE ( 1 John 4:7-21 )

4:7-21 Beloved, let us love one another, because love has its source in God, and everyone who loves has God as the source of his birth and knows God. He who does not love has not come to know God. In this God's love is displayed within us, that God sent his only Son into the world that through him we might live. In this is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Brothers, if God so loved us, we too ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. If we love each other God dwells in us and his love is perfected in us. It is by this that we know that we dwell in him and he in us, because he has given us a share of his Spirit. We have seen and we testify that the Father sent the Son as the Saviour of the world. Whoever openly acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwells in him and he in God. We have come to know and to put our trust in the love which God has within us. God is love and he who dwells in love dwells in God and God dwells in him. With us love finds its peak in this, that we should have confidence in the day of judgment because, even as he is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, for fear is connected with punishment and he who fears has not reached love's perfect state. We love because he first loved us. If any one says, "I love God" and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. It is this command that we have from him, that he who loves God, loves his brother also.

This passage is so closely interwoven that we are better to read it as a whole and then bit by bit to draw out its teaching. First of all, then, let us look at its teaching on love.

(i) Love has its origin in God ( 1 John 4:7). It is from the God who is love that all love takes its source. As A. E. Brooke puts it: "Human love is a reflection of something in the divine nature itself." We are never nearer to God than when we love. Clement of Alexandria said in a startling phrase that the real Christian "practises being God." He who dwells in love dwells in God ( 1 John 4:16). Man is made in the image and the likeness of God ( Genesis 1:26). God is love and, therefore, to be like God and be what he was meant to be, man must also love.

(ii) Love has a double relationship to God. It is only by knowing God that we learn to love and it is only by loving that we learn to know God ( 1 John 4:7-8). Love comes from God, and love leads to God.

(iii) It is by love that God is known ( 1 John 4:12). We cannot see God, because he is spirit; what we can see is his effect. We cannot see the wind, but we can see what it can do. We cannot see electricity, but we can see the effect it produces. The effect of God is love. It is when God comes into a man that he is clothed with the love of God and the love of men. God is known by his effect on that man. It has been said, "A saint is a man in whom Christ lives again" and the best demonstration of God comes not from argument but from a life of love.

(iv) God's love is demonstrated in Jesus Christ ( 1 John 4:9). When we look at Jesus we see two things about the love of God. (a) It is a love which holds nothing back. God was prepared to give his only Son and make a sacrifice beyond which no sacrifice can possibly go in his love for men. (b) It is a totally undeserved love. It would be no wonder if we loved God, when we remember all the gifts he has given to us, even apart from Jesus Christ; the wonder is that he loves poor and disobedient creatures like us.

How thou canst think so well of us,

And be the God thou art,

Is darkness to my intellect,

But sunshine to my heart.

(v) Human love is a response to divine love (1Jn 1:19). We love because God loved us. It is the sight of his love which wakens in us the desire to love him as he first loved us and to love our fellow-men as he loves them.

(vi) When love comes, fear goes ( 1 John 4:17-18). Fear is the characteristic emotion of someone who expects to be punished. So long as we regard God as the Judge, the King, the Law-giver, there can be nothing in our heart but fear for in face of such a God we can expect nothing but punishment. But once we know God's true nature, fear is swallowed up in love. The fear that remains is the fear of grieving his love for us.

(vii) Love of God and love of man are indissolubly connected ( 1 John 4:7; 1 John 4:11; 1 John 4:20-21). As C. H. Dodd finely puts it: "The energy of love discharges itself along lines which form a triangle, whose points are God, self, and neighbour." If God loves us, we are bound to love each other, because it is our destiny to reproduce the life of God in humanity and the life of eternity in time. John says, with almost crude bluntness, that a man who claims to love God and hates his brother is nothing other than a liar. The only way to prove that we love God is to love the men whom God loves. The only way to prove that God is within our hearts is constantly to show the love of men within our lives.

GOD IS LOVE ( 1 John 4:7-21 continued)

In this passage there occurs what is probably the greatest single statement about God in the whole Bible, that God is love. It is amazing how many doors that single statement unlocks and how many questions it answers.

(i) It is the explanation of creation. Sometimes we are bound to wonder why God created this world. The disobedience, and the lack of response in men is a continual grief to him. Why should he create a world which was to bring him nothing but trouble? The answer is that creation was essential to his very nature. If God is love, he cannot exist in lonely isolation. Love must have someone to love and someone to love it.

(ii) It is the explanation of free-will. Unless love is a free response it is not love. Had God been only law he could have created a world in which men moved like automata, having no more choice than a machine. But, if God had made men like that, there would have been no possibility of a personal relationship between him and them. Love is of necessity the free response of the heart; and, therefore, God, by a deliberate act of self-limitation, had to endow men with free will.

(iii) It is the explanation of providence. Had God been simply mind and order and law, he might, so to speak, have created the universe, wound it up, set it going and left it. There are articles and machines which we are urged to buy because we can fit them and forget them; their most attractive quality is that they can be left to run themselves. But, because God is love, his creating act is followed by his constant care.

(iv) It is the explanation of redemption. If God had been only law and justice, he would simply have left men to the consequences of their sin. The moral law would operate; the soul that sinned would die; and the eternal justice would inexorably hand out its punishments. But the very fact that God is love meant that he had to seek and save that which was lost. He had to find a remedy for sin.

(v) It is the explanation of the life beyond. If God were simply creator, men might live their brief span and die for ever. The life which ended early would be only another flower which the frost of death had withered too soon. But the fact that God is love makes it certain that the chances and changes of life have not the last word and that his love will readjust the balance of this life.

SON OF GOD AND SAVIOUR OF MEN ( 1 John 4:7-21 continued)

Before we leave this passage we must note that it has also great things to say about Jesus Christ.

(i) It tells us that Jesus is the bringer of life. God sent him that through him we might have life ( 1 John 4:9). There is a world of difference between existence and life. All men have existence but all do not have life. The very eagerness with which men seek pleasure shows that there is something missing in their lives. A famous doctor once said that men would find a cure for cancer more quickly than they would find a cure for boredom. Jesus gives a man an object for which to live; he gives him strength by which to live; and he gives him peace in which to live. Living with Christ turns mere existence into fullness of life.

(ii) It tells us that Jesus is the restorer of the lost relationship with God. God sent him to be the atoning sacrifice for sin ( 1 John 4:10). We do not move in a world of thought in which animal sacrifice is a reality. But we can fully understand what sacrifice meant. When a man sinned, his relationship with God was broken; and sacrifice was an expression of penitence, designed to restore the lost relationship. Jesus, by his life and death, made it possible for man to enter into a new relationship of peace and friendship with God. He bridged the awful gulf between man and God.

(iii) It tells us that Jesus is the Saviour of the world ( 1 John 4:14). When he came into the world, men were conscious of nothing so much as their own weakness and helplessness. Men, said Seneca, were looking ad salutem, for salvation. They were desperately conscious of "their weakness in necessary things." They wanted "a hand let down to lift them up." It would be quite inadequate to think of salvation as mere deliverance from the punishment of hell. Men need to be saved from themselves; they need to be saved from the habits which have become their fetters; they need to be saved from their temptations; they need to be saved from their fears and their anxieties; they need to be saved from their follies and mistakes. In every case Jesus offers men salvation; he brings that which enables them to face time and to meet eternity.

(iv) It tells us that Jesus is the Son of God ( 1 John 4:15). Whatever that may mean, it certainly means that Jesus Christ is in a relationship to God in which no other person ever stood or ever will stand. He alone can show men what God is like; he alone can bring to men God's grace, love, forgiveness and strength.

One other thing emerges in this passage. It has taught us of God and it has taught us of Jesus; and it teaches us of the Spirit. In 1 John 4:13 John says it is because we have a share of the Spirit that we know that we dwell in God. It is the work of the Spirit that in the beginning makes us seek God at all; it is the work of the Spirit that makes us aware of God's presence; and it is the work of the Spirit that gives us the certainty that we are truly at peace with God. It is the Spirit in our hearts which makes us dare to address God as Father ( Romans 8:15-16). The Spirit is the inner witness who, as C. H. Dodd puts it, gives us the "immediate, spontaneous, unanalysable awareness of a divine presence in our lives."

"And his that gentle voice we hear,

Soft as the breath of even,

That checks each fault, that calms each fear,

And speaks of heaven.

And every virtue we possess,

And every victory won,

And every thought of holiness,

Are his alone."

-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)

Gann's Commentary on the Bible

1 John 4:15

Confess -- is in the aorist tense and has the force of that which is difficult to render into English, and reveals that the confession is a once-for-all act by which the one making it is commit to this concept of Christ with all the faculties of mind and body.

Confess -- see Romans 10:10 See James 2:24 note "Being Saved" for the important part confessing our faith in Christ plays in our salvation.

See Ephesians 3:17 note on "Indwelling"

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God,.... The only begotten of the Father; that he is not a mere man, as the Jews, and Ebion and Cerinthus said, but a divine person, equal with the Father; which contains all that relates to the dignity of his person, and his fitness for his office as a Saviour, and which was the test of faith in those times, and the grand article of belief: not that a bare assent to this had what followed annexed to it; for the devils believed and owned that Jesus was the Son of God; and so might, and did, unregenerate persons, as the centurion at the cross of Christ, who know nothing what communion with God is; but this confession is such as is attended with a believing in Christ from the heart unto righteousness, life, and salvation, and a cheerful obedience to his ordinances and commands, from a principle of love to him, and faith in him, things not to be found in devils and carnal men; see Romans 10:9.

God dwelleth in him, and he in God; Romans 10:9- :; this should encourage to an open and hearty confession of Christ as the Son of God, and Saviour of sinners, and to a public profession of his name, and faith in him, and an holding it fast without wavering.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      14 And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.   15 Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.   16 And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

      Since faith in Christ works love to God, and love to God must kindle love to the brethren, the apostle here confirms the prime article of the Christian faith as the foundation of such love. Here,

      I. He proclaims the fundamental article of the Christian religion, which is so representative of the love of God: And we have seen, and do testify, that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world,1 John 4:14; 1 John 4:14. We here see, 1. The Lord Jesus's relation to God; he is Son to the Father, such a Son as no one else is, and so as to be God with the Father. 2. His relation and office towards us--the Saviour of the world; he saves us by his death, example, intercession, Spirit, and power against the enemies of our salvation. 3. The ground on which he became so--by the mission of him: The Father sent the Son, he decreed and willed his coming hither, in and with the consent of the Son. 4. The apostle's assurance of this--he and his brethren had seen it; they had seen the Son of God in his human nature, in his holy converse and works, in his transfiguration on the mount, and in his death, resurrection from the dead, and royal ascent to heaven; they had so seen him as to be satisfied that he was the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. 5. The apostle's attestation of this, in pursuance of such evidence: "We have seen and do testify. The weight of this truth obliges us to testify it; the salvation of the world lies upon it. The evidence of the truth warrants us to testify it; our eyes, and ears, and hands, have been witnesses of it." Thereupon,

      II. The apostle states the excellency, or the excellent privilege attending the due acknowledgment of this truth: Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God,1 John 4:15; 1 John 4:15. This confession seems to include faith in the heart as the foundation of it, acknowledgment with the mouth to the glory of God and Christ, and profession in the life and conduct, in opposition to the flatteries or frowns of the world. Thus no man says that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost, by the external attestation and internal operation of the Holy Ghost, 1 Corinthians 12:3. And so he who thus confesses Christ, and God in him, is enriched with or possessed by the Spirit of God, and has a complacential knowledge of God and much holy enjoyment of him. Then,

      III. The apostle applies this in order to the excitation of holy love. God's love is thus seen and exerted in Christ Jesus; and thus have we known and believed the love that God hath to us,1 John 4:16; 1 John 4:16. The Christian revelation is, what should endear it to us, the revelation of the divine love; the articles of our revealed faith are but so many articles relating to the divine love. The history of the Lord Christ is the history of God's love to us; all his transactions in and with his Son were but testifications of his love to us, and means to advance us to the love of God: God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself,2 Corinthians 5:19. Hence we may learn,

      1. That God is love (1 John 4:16; 1 John 4:16); he is essential boundless love; he has incomparable incomprehensible love for us of this world, which he has demonstrated in the mission and mediation of his beloved Son. It is the great objection and prejudice against the Christian revelation that the love of God should be so strange and unaccountable as to give his own eternal Son for us; it is the prejudice of many against the eternity and the deity of the Son that so great a person should be given for us. It is, I confess, mysterious and unsearchable; but there are unsearchable riches in Christ. It is a pity that the vastness of the divine love should be made a prejudice against the revelation and the belief of it. But what will not God do when he designs to demonstrate the height of any perfection of his? When he would show somewhat of his power and wisdom, he makes such a world as this; when he would show more of his grandeur and glory, he makes heaven for the ministering spirits that are before the throne. What will he not do then when he designs to demonstrate his love, and to demonstrate his highest love, or that he himself is love, or that love is one of the most bright, dear, transcendent, operative excellencies of his unbounded nature; and to demonstrate this not only to us, but to the angelic world, and to the principalities and powers above, and this not for our surprise for a while, but for the admiration, and praise, and adoration, and felicity, of our most exalted powers to all eternity? What will not God then do? Surely then it will look more agreeable to the design, and grandeur, and pregnancy of his love (if I may so call it) to give an eternal Son for us, than to make a Son on purpose for our relief. In such a dispensation as that of giving a natural, essential, eternal Son for us and to us, he will commend his love to us indeed; and what will not the God of love do when he designs to commend his love, and to commend it in the view of heaven, and earth, and hell, and when he will commend himself and recommend himself to us, and to our highest conviction, and also affection, as love itself? And what if it should appear at last (which I shall only offer to the consideration of the judicious) that the divine love, and particularly God's love in Christ, should be the foundation of the glories of heaven, in the present enjoyment of those ministering spirits that comported with it, and of the salvation of this world, and of the torments of hell? This last will seem most strange. But what if therein it should appear not only that God is love to himself, in vindicating his own law, and government, and love, and glory, but that the damned ones are made so, or are so punished, (1.) Because they despised the love of God already manifested and exhibited. (2.) Because they refused to be beloved in what was further proposed and promised. (3.) Because they made themselves unmeet to be the objects of divine complacency and delight? If the conscience of the damned should accuse them of these things, and especially of rejecting the highest instance of divine love, and if the far greatest part of the intelligent creation should be everlastingly blessed through the highest instance of the divine love, then may it well be inscribed upon the whole creation of God, God is love.

      2. That hereupon he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him,1 John 4:16; 1 John 4:16. There is great communion between the God of love and the loving soul; that is, him who loves the creation of God, according to its different relation to God, and reception from him and interest in him. He that dwells in sacred love has the love God shed abroad upon his heart, has the impress of God upon his spirit, the Spirit of God sanctifying and sealing him, lives in the meditation, views, and tastes of the divine love, and will ere long go to dwell with God for ever.