Love

1 John 4:7-21

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone 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. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

This section is one of the greatest hymns of Christian love. God loves us! God loves us first. When we love another person, have a liking and affection for him/her, we usually say: “I love you,” but we sense that these often-used words do not really express our feelings. It is more appropriate to say, “we are in love,” –a love that surrounds us like the air we breathe. It is God’s love in which we are living, and we are privileged to experience only a limited portion of this divine gift when we express our affection for another person.

When we read this text we must always bear in mind that it concerns Christian love, not general human love. It would be wrong to say whoever is in love is automatically born of God and knows God. It is made quite clear that this love arises from the confession that “Jesus is the son of God and the Savior of the word.” Or, as the gospel according to John has it: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” (John 3:16). Without this confession we are loveless, and God does not abide in us. But when we live in Christ, all our loving is of God. God abides in us, and perfects our love and takes all fear form our life. “Perfect love casts out fear.” The often subliminal apprehension that some day somehow we are accountable to God is a measure of our degree of love.

When the love of God is shed out in our hearts, our self-evident reaction is to love others. One cannot love God and hate one’s sister or brother. Just as the love of God is universal, so out love, based on our faith in Jesus Christ, will not discriminate between lovable and un-lovable persons. It reaches its perfection in the love of enemy. “Whoever loves God must also love his/her brother and sister.”

Prayer: Loving God, give me strength to love indiscriminately. Amen.

Manfred Hoffmann