Lecture XXXI

LOVE IS OF GOD—GOD IS LOVE

LIGHT, Righteousness, Love;—these are the three conditions or elements of that fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ in which John would have us to be joint partakers with himself and the other apostles (1:3). Of the three, Light and Righteousness have been the heads, or leading thoughts, of the two previous parts of this Exposition (3–17 and 18–30) Love is the ruling idea in the third part (31–34); love being the end to which the others are means; the consummation of the fellowship being in love. Hence there has been some anticipation of this last theme, Love, in the two preceding ones, Light and Righteousness; especially in the latter. For the righteousness meant being chiefly subjective, denoting singleness of eye, uprightness, honesty of purpose, a guileless spirit, truth in the inward parts, necessarily refers to the matters about which it is objectively exercised, the manner of dealing with God in light, and with our fellow-men in love, which it prompts and regulates. Hence that second part, having Righteousness for its key-note, carries on the line of thought begun in the first part under the idea of Light, and encroaches on the line of thought in the third, which brings out the crowning aspect of the whole in Love. Still it is manifestly Love that is now purely and simply the reigning principle.

“Beloved, let us love one another.” The distinction of the personal pronouns is here dropped. It was proper when the trying of the spirits by a sort of doctrinal test was the matter in hand. John must then speak of himself and his fellow-teachers in the first person, and to us in the second. Now, however, when love is the test, all are one. It is the trial of the spirits that still is on hand, in pursuance of the intimation formerly given (3:24):—“Hereby we know that God abideth in us, by the spirit which he hath given us.” That intimation is connected with the double commandment in the previous verse (23), “that we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he has given us commandment.” The question is about assurance; our “assuring our hearts before God;” our “having confidence toward God;” our “having boldness in the day of judgment” (3:19, 21; and 4:17). The indispensable condition of this confidence is righteousness, or “our own hearts not condemning us” of insincerity or guile (3:20, 21). But though that is an essential preliminary, it is not itself the ground or warrant of the confidence. The real ground or warrant is “our abiding in God and his abiding in us” (3:24). But how is this mutual abiding of us in God and of God in us to be ascertained and verified, to the satisfaction of our own consciousness, as a trustworthy ground and warrant of assured confidence before God? On our part there is “the keeping of his commandments;” his double “commandment, to believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another in obedience to him.” On his part, there is “his giving us the Spirit.” And the last is tested by the first. His giving us the Spirit is not to be lightly taken for granted. There must be a trial; and the trial is in accordance with the twofold commandment, to believe and to love. It is first a trial turning upon the confession or denial that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh (4:1–6). It is next a trial turning on the possession or the want of love (4:7–12). And the result of the trial is announced: “Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit” (4:13);—almost in the same terms in which the trial is, as it were, instituted: “Hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us” (3:24).

Thus it plainly appears that these two things,—righteousness in owning the true doctrine concerning Christ and righteousness in mutual brotherly love,—are closely bound together. And thus, by a natural and simple transition, the discourse passes from the first of these topics to the second: “Beloved, let us love one another.”

This exhortation is here enforced both positively and negatively;—positively, by the statement that “love is of God,” and therefore “every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God” (ver. 7);—negatively, by the opposite statement: “he that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love” (ver. 8).

I. “Love is of God.” This does not mean merely that love comes from God, and has its source in God; that he is the author or creator of it. All created things are of God, for by him all things were made, and on him they all depend. But love is not a created thing. No doubt, in the heart even of an unfallen intelligence, it may be said to be created, inasmuch as the being in whose heart it dwells is himself created. And in the heart of a fallen man it is in that sense a new creation; for he himself must be created anew or born again if he is to love. Still, the love to which he is created anew or born again is not itself created. It is not of God, as made by him; as a new thing called into existence by the fiat of his word.

In this respect love differs from light. It is not asserted of love as of light: And God said, Let there be love, and there was love. In a higher sense than that, I apprehend, it is true that love, wherever it exists, is of God. It is communicated, not created; begotten, one might say, not made. It is a divine property, a divine affection. And it is of its essence to be communicative and begetting; to communicate itself, and, as it were, beget its own likeness. “Love is of God.” It is not merely of God, as every good gift is of God. It is of God, as being his own property, his own affection, his own love. It is, wherever it is found, the very love wherewith God loveth. If it is found in me, it is my loving with the very love with which God loves; it is my loving with a divine love, a love that is thus emphatically of God. Hence the sufficiency and certainty of the test: “Every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.”

1. None but one born of God can thus love, with the love which, in this sense, is of God; therefore one who so loves must needs be one who is born of God. This is almost self-evident. If the love in question is not, like any of the constituent parts of the created universe, whether of matter or of mind, a thing made, called into being out of nothing, or a thing made over again, formed out of chaos into order; but part and parcel of the Divine Being himself, of his very essence: then its existence in me cannot be explained on any other supposition than that of my being born of him; born of him too in a very close and intimate manner; in a manner implying that I become “partaker of his nature;” “his seed abiding in me.” I doubt, therefore, if this love formed an element in that image of God in which man was originally created. I take it to be something more. It is communicated,—it is of God in such a sense that it can be communicated,—not by creation, but only by generation. It is not as a creature that I can have it, in virtue of any mere creative fiat or let it be. I can have it only as a Son,—adopted?—nay, not adopted only, but begotten. Many excellent endowments I may have as a mere creature; endowments reflecting the likeness of God’s own attributes; intelligence resembling his; a sense of right and wrong resembling his; benevolence and kindliness resembling his. As to these, God has merely, in creating me, or creating me anew, to speak and it is done. But this love is something quite peculiar. It is something, as I take it, different from the love enjoined in the “royal law,”—“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” It is the very love with which the Father loves, the love manifested in his not sparing his beloved Son. It is the very love with which the Son loves, the love proved by his laying down his life for us. That is the love, the love of the “new commandment,” which is here in question. Respecting that love I think it may be said that God alone is originally capable of it. Others are capable of it, only in so far as God communicates himself to them; not by a process of mere creative power; but by begetting them into participation with himself in his own very life.

There is one thus eternally begotten; begotten before all worlds; the eternal Son of the everlasting Father. He is “God of God; very God of very God; light of light;” nay, rather, love of love. He is the manifestation of this love which is of God;—“In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.” It shines forth in him; not through him, or by him, merely; but in him. God sent his Son to manifest this love. How? Evidently by his showing that he shared it; approving himself to be born of God by himself loving with the love which is of God. God sent his only begotten Son into the world to give us a specimen, an illustration, perhaps the only possible perfect specimen, the only possible perfect illustration, of “the love which is of God.” None but his only begotten Son could be sent to manifest it; for none but he could fully feel it. No created being, not the highest of the elect and unfallen angels, even when perfected by their trial, could adequately feel it. And therefore none of them could manifest it. But the only begotten Son, dwelling from everlasting in the Father’s bosom, of one nature with the Father, loves with “the love which is of God.” Therefore he is sent to manifest that love. He is sent to manifest a love essentially different from any love of which we are naturally capable, or of which we can naturally form any conception, a love peculiarly and distinctively divine.

Now, as it is his being the only begotten Son of the Father that qualifies him for being sent to manifest the love which is thus “of God,” inasmuch as it is that which ensures his feeling it, it is that alone which makes him capable of it; so it is only your being in the Son, being born of God by the Spirit, that can make you capable of this love which is of God, and can ensure your feeling it. None can love with that love which is of God, none can love as God loves, save only first his only begotten Son, whom on that very account he sends to manifest this love, and then you who in him receive the adoption of sons, and are begotten by the Spirit into participation with the Son in his filial oneness and sympathy with the Father. Therefore, if we love one another with that love which is of God, if we love as God loves, we must be born of God. We must have become his children, his sons; begotten of him in time, through believing union with the Son who is begotten of him from eternity; the Spirit making us, as thus born of God, in the only begotten Son, really “partakers,” in respect of this love, “of the divine nature.”

2. Being born of God implies knowing God. This consideration still further explains and illustrates the point before us:—“Every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.” He loves with God’s own love, because, being born of God, he knows God. He knows God, as none but one born of God can know him. It is a knowledge of God altogether peculiar; belonging exclusively to the relation constituted by, and realised in, your being born of God. It is a kind of knowledge of God of which, as I think, one who is simply a creature of God’s hand, a subject of his moral administration, however intelligent and however informed, is not really capable. He is not in a condition, he lacks the capacity, to take it in. He must be a child, a son, born of God, if he is to have it. For, in a word, it is the very knowledge of God which his Son has; his only begotten Son, whom he sent into the world to manifest his love. He, being of God, as his only begotten Son, knows God; he, and he alone. “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (John 1:18). “No man knoweth the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son shall reveal him” (Matt. 11:27). It is as his only begotten Son that Jesus knows God. And it is as born of God that you know God; know him even as his only begotten Son knows him. He, as the only begotten Son, knows God; he knows the love which is of God, of what sort it is; he has himself, from everlasting, been the object of it; he has been ever experiencing it. All that is in the great heart of God the Father, the only begotten Son knows intimately, and experimentally, if I may dare to say so. With a filial knowledge he knows God. With filial insight and filial sympathy, he knows all the overflowing of that love which is of God as it gushes forth in deep, full flood, from everlasting, first towards himself, and then through him towards the family of man; according to his own glorious word, “The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his ways. When he appointed the foundations of the earth, then I was with him as one brought up with him; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; rejoicing in the habitable parts of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men” (Prov. 8:22–31).

Now it is with the same knowledge with which he, as the only begotten Son, knows God, that you, as born of God, know him; with a knowledge the same in kind, however far short it may come in measure or degree. Yours, like his, is a filial knowledge; implying filial insight and filial sympathy. Your being born of God makes you capable of this knowledge, and places you in the only position in which you can have it. Born of God, you occupy the very filial position that he who is the only begotten Son occupies; you have the very filial heart that he has. You are born of the very Spirit of which he, in your nature, was born. You have in you the very Spirit that dwelt, not by measure, in him. Thus, born of God, you are one with him who is his only begotten Son. To you as to him, to you in him, God is known,—and the love which is of God is known,—by close personal acquaintance; by blessed personal experience. How God loves; how it is the manner of God to love; what sort of love his is; love going out of self; love sacrificing self; love imparting and communicating self; love unsought and unbought; unconditional and unreserved;—what kind of being, in respect of love, God is; you who are born of God know, even as the only begotten Son knows. Therefore you can love with that “love which is of God,” even as he loves with that love which is of God. He and you alone can so love; for he that loves as God loves must needs be one who “is born of God and knoweth God.”

II. The opposite statement follows as a matter of course:—“He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” The connecting link here is all-important; it is “knowing God;” all turns on that. Every one that loveth knoweth God: he that loveth not knoweth not God; these are the antagonist statements. The stress of the contrast is made to rest on knowing or not knowing God; he who loveth knoweth God, being born of him; “he who loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love.”

“God is love;” therefore, not to love is not to know God. That is a very clear and simple inference. But why this change? Why is it said, on the first or positive side of the dilemma, “Love is of God;” and on the second or negative side of it, “God is love”? Simply because the question now turns on knowing God; not anything of God, but God himself. To love with the love which is of God, is to know God; not to love thus, is not to know God; for God is love. In this view, the proposition, “God is love,” really applies to both of the alternative ways of putting the case; the positive and the negative alike. It assigns the reason why it may be said, on the one hand, “Every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God;” and why it may also be said, on the other hand, “He that loveth not knoweth not God.”

“God is love.” It is a necessity of his nature, it is his very nature, to love. He cannot exist without loving. He cannot but love. He is, he has ever been love. From all eternity, from before all worlds, God is love. Love never is or can be, never was or could be, absent from his being. He never is or can be God,—he never was or could be God,—without being also love; without loving. I say without loving; actually loving.

For this love, which is thus identified with his very being, is not dormant or quiescent, potential merely, in posse, and not in esse. Love in God never is, never has been, like a latent germ, needing outward influences to make it spring up; or like a slumbering power, waiting for occasions to call it forth. If it were so, it could not truly be said that in himself, in his very manner of being, “God is love.” It is, it has ever been, active, forthgoing, self-manifesting, self-communicating. It is, it has ever been, in exercise. Before creation it is so. In the bosom of the everlasting Father is his eternal, only begotten Son; and with the Father and the Son is the Holy Ghost. So “God is love” before all creation; love in exercise; love not possible merely but actual; love forthgoing and communicative of itself; from the Father, the fountain of deity, to the Son; from the Father and the Son to the Holy Ghost. In creation, this love is seen forthgoing and communicative in a new way towards new objects. The love which from everlasting has been in exercise evermore within the mysterious circle of the Three-One God; which especially has been evermore passing from the Father to his only-begotten Son; now seeks and finds new means of manifesting itself among created beings. It is still really the same love. For all creation is the manifestation of God’s love to his only begotten Son. He “made all things by him and for him.” He has “appointed him to be heir of all things.” Specially when that wondrous council was held in heaven from whence issued the decree, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,” this love was manifested. The only begotten Son is to be the first born among many brethren. Not, however, by creation merely is that end to be reached; another manifestation of this same love must intervene. Created innocence is not enough to secure the issue on which God’s heart of love is set; for created innocence may and does give way. Sin enters, and death by sin; all sin, and all are doomed. Still “God is love;” the same love as ever. And “in this now is manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

It is, I say, the same love still; the love which from everlasting goes forth from God to his only begotten Son dwelling in his bosom, the love which in the beginning of creation goes forth in God’s making all things by and for his only begotten Son, and especially making godlike men to be his brethren; it is the very same love that goes forth in God’s sending his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him; sending his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. It is wondrous love; love passing knowledge; love of which God alone is capable; love proper to his great heart alone. It is not such love as we may feel to him; for “herein is love, not that we have loved him, but that he has loved us.” He has loved us with the very love which is his own essential nature; which has been going forth from everlasting, self-manifesting, self-communicating, from the Father to his only begotten Son, by the Spirit; and has been going forth in time, through his only begotten Son, by the same Spirit, to the world of creation at first, and now also to the world that is to be saved.

This is its crowning glory; the saving mission from God of his only begotten Son. It is consummated in our “living through him,” through his “being the propitiation for our sins.” For now, effectual atonement being made for our guilt, our redemption and reconciliation being righteously and therefore surely effected by his being the propitiation for our sins; we, living through him, are his brethren indeed. The love wherewith God loves him dwells in us. God loves us even as he loves him. And so at last the love which, from all eternity, it is of the very nature of God’s essential being to feel and exercise, finds its full fruition in the “mighty multitude of all kindreds, and peoples, and nations, and tongues, who stand before the throne and give glory to him who sitteth thereon and to the Lamb for ever and ever.”

If this is anything like a true account of the sense in which, and the effect to which, it is said that “God is love,” the statement becomes almost axiomatic,—“He that loveth not knoweth not God.” The fact of his not loving plainly proves that he knows not God; and his not knowing God explains and accounts for the fact of his not loving. How indeed can he know God; know him as being love? To know God thus, as being love, implies some measure of congeniality, sympathy, and fellowship. I cannot so know him if there is still a great gulf between him and me; between his heart and my heart; his nature and my nature. There must be community of heart and nature between him and me; I must be “born of God.”

We thus come back to the previous positive declaration: “Love is of God; and he that loveth is born of God and knoweth God.” And we see what manner of love it is that must be the test of our being born of God, how it is that we are to love one another. We are to love with the love which is of God, the love which is his nature. We are to love as he loves; to love all whom he loves; and to love them with his own love.

First and chiefly, we are to love, as he loves his only begotten Son. Our thus loving him is one primary criterion and touchstone of our being born of God. So he himself intimates when he says to the Jews, —“If God were your Father ye would love me” (John 8:42). There would be this feature of family resemblance, this community of heart and nature, between him whom you claim as your Father and you who say you are his children, that you would love me because he loves me, and love me as he loves me;—love me as sent by him to be the Saviour of the world. Hence the force of that awful apostolic denunciation; “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema maranatha.”

Then we are to love, as God loves it, and because God loves it, the world which he sent his Son to save. We are to love thus one another; with what intensity of longing, like God’s own longing and yearning, for one another’s salvation, that all may turn and live; and with what intensity of delight in all who are really in Christ, who “live through him,” and live so as to be indeed our brethren and his, ours because they are his!