Brotherly Love. A. D. 80.
7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every
one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. 8 He that loveth not knoweth
not God; for God is love. 9 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. 10 Herein is love, not that we 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 ought also to love one another. 12 No man hath seen
God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love
is perfected in us. 13 Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us,
because he hath given us of his Spirit.
As the Spirit of truth is known by doctrine (thus spirits are to be
tried), it is known by love likewise; and so here follows a strong fervent
exhortation to holy Christian love: Beloved, let us love one another, v.
7. The apostle would unite them in his love, that he might unite them in
love to each other: "Beloved, I beseech you, by the love I bear to you,
that you put on unfeigned mutual love." This exhortation is pressed and
urged with variety of argument: as,
I. From the high and heavenly descent of love: For love is of God. He
is the fountain, author, parent, and commander of love; it is the sum of
his law and gospel: And every one that loveth (whose spirit is framed to
judicious holy love) is born of God, v. 7. The Spirit of God is the Spirit
of love. The new nature in the children of God is the offspring of his
love: and the temper and complexion of it is love. The fruit of the Spirit
is love, Gal. v. 22. Love comes down from heaven.
II. Love argues a true and just apprehension of the divine nature: He
that loveth knoweth God, v. 7. He that loveth not knoweth not God, v. 8.
What attribute of the divine Majesty so clearly shines in all the world
as his communicative goodness, which is love. The wisdom, the greatness,
the harmony, and usefulness of the vast creation, which so fully demonstrate
his being, do at the same time show and prove his love; and natural reason,
inferring and collecting the nature and excellence of the most absolute
perfect being, must collect and find that he is most highly good: and he
that loveth not (is not quickened by the knowledge he hath of God to the
affection and practice of love) knoweth not God; it is a convictive evidence
that the sound and due knowledge of God dwells not in such a soul; his
love must needs shine among his primary brightest perfections; for God
is love (v. 8), his nature and essence are love, his will and works are
primarily love. Not that this is the only conception we ought to have of
him; we have found that he is light as well as love (ch. i. 5), and God
is principally love to himself, and he has such perfections as arise from
the necessary love he must bear to his necessary existence, excellence,
and glory; but love is natural and essential to the divine Majesty: God
is love. This is argued from the display and demonstration that he hath
given of it; as, 1. That he hath loved us, such as we are: In this was
manifest the love of God towards us (v. 9), towards us mortals, us ungrateful
rebels. God commandeth his love towards us, in that, while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us, Rom. v. 8. Strange that God should love impure,
vain, vile, dust and ashes! 2. That he has loved us at such a rate, at
such an incomparable value as he has given for us; he has given his own,
only-beloved, blessed Son for us: Because that God sent his only-begotten
Son into the world, that we might live through him, v. 9. This person is
in some peculiar distinguishing way the Son of God; he is the only-begotten.
Should we suppose him begotten as a creature or created being, he is not
the only-begotten. Should we suppose him a natural necessary eradication
from the Father's glory or glorious essence, or substance, he must be the
only-begotten: and then it will be a mystery and miracle of divine love
that such a Son should be sent into our world for us! It may well be said,
So (wonderfully, so amazingly, so incredibly) God loved the world. 3. That
God loved us first, and in the circumstances in which we lay: Herein is
love (unusual unprecedented love), not that we loved God, but that he loved
us, v. 10. He loved us, when we had no love for him, when we lay in our
guilt, misery, and blood, when we were undeserving, ill-deserving, polluted,
and unclean, and wanted to be washed from our sins in sacred blood. 4.
That he gave us his Son for such service and such an end. (1.) For such
service, to be the propitiation for our sins; consequently to die for us,
to die under the law and curse of God, to bear our sins in his own body,
to be crucified, to be wounded in his soul, and pierced in his side, to
be dead and buried for us (v. 10); and then, (2.) For such an end, for
such a good and beneficial end to us--that we might live through him (v.
9), might live for ever through him, might live in heaven, live with God,
and live in eternal glory and blessedness with him and through him: O what
love is here! Then,
III. Divine love to the brethren should constrain ours: Beloved (I would
adjure you by your interest in my love to remember), if God so loved us,
we ought also to love one another, v. 11. This should be an invincible
argument. The example of God should press us. We should be followers (or
imitators) of him, as his dear children. The objects of the divine love
should be the objects of ours. Shall we refuse to love those whom the eternal
God hath loved? We should be admirers of his love, and lovers of his love
(of the benevolence and complacency that are in him), and consequently
lovers of those whom he loves. The general love of God to the world should
induce a universal love among mankind. That you may be the children of
your Father who is in heaven; for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil
and on the good, and sendeth his rain on the just and on the unjust, Matt.
v. 45. The peculiar love of God to the church and to the saints should
be productive of a peculiar love there: If God so loved us, we ought surely
(in some measure suitably thereto) to love one another.
IV. The Christian love is an assurance of the divine inhabitation: If
we love one another, God dwelleth in us, v. 12. Now God dwelleth in us,
not by any visible presence, or immediate appearance to the eye (no man
hath seen God at any time, v. 12), but by his Spirit (v. 13); or, "No man
hath seen God at any time; he does not here present himself to our eye
or to our immediate intuition, and so he does not in this way demand and
exact our love; but he demands and expects it in that way in which he has
thought meet to deserve and claim it, and that is in the illustration that
he has given of himself and of his love (and thereupon of his loveliness
too) in the catholic church, and particularly in the brethren, the members
of that church. In them, and in his appearance for them and with them,
is God to be loved; and thus, if we love one another, God dwelleth in us.
The sacred lovers of the brethren are the temples of God; the divine Majesty
has a peculiar residence there."
V. Herein the divine love attains a considerable end and accomplishment
in us: "And his love is perfected in us, v. 12. It has obtained its completion
in and upon us. God's love is not perfected in him, but in and with us.
His love could not be designed to be ineffectual and fruitless upon us;
when its proper genuine end and issue are attained and produced thereby,
it may be said to be perfected; so faith is perfected by its works, and
love perfected by its operations. When the divine love has wrought us to
the same image, to the love of God, and thereupon to the love of the brethren,
the children of God, for his sake, it is therein and so far perfected and
completed, though this love of ours is not at present perfect, nor the
ultimate end of the divine love to us." How ambitious should we be of this
fraternal Christian love, when God reckons his own love to us perfected
thereby! To this the apostle, having mentioned the high favour of God's
dwelling in us, subjoins the note and character thereof: Hereby know we
that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit,
v. 13. Certainly this mutual inhabitation is something more noble and great
than we are well acquainted with or can declare. One would think that to
speak of God dwelling in us, and we in him, were to use words too high
for mortals, had not God gone before us therein. What this indwelling imports
has been briefly explained on ch. iii. 24. What it fully is must be left
to the revelation of the blessed world. But this mutual inhabitation we
know, says the apostle, because he hath given us of his spirit; he has
lodged the image and fruit of his Spirit in our hearts (v. 13), and the
Spirit that he hath given us appears to be his, or of him, since it is
the Spirit of power, of zeal and magnanimity for God, of love to God and
man, and of a sound mind, of an understanding well instructed in the affairs
of God and religion, and his kingdom among men, 2 Tim. i. 7.
The Divine Love. A. D. 80.
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, v. 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, v. 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 Cor. xii. 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, v. 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 Cor. v. 19. Hence we may
learn,
1. That God is love (v. 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, v. 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.
The Divine Love. A. D. 80.
17 Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in
the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. 18 There
is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath
torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. 19 We love him, because
he first loved us. 20 If a man say, I love God, and hateth 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? 21 And this commandment have we
from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.
The apostle, having thus excited and enforced sacred love from the great
pattern and motive of it, the love that is and dwells in God himself, proceeds
to recommend it further by other considerations; and he recommends it in
both the branches of it, both as love to God, and love to our brother or
Christian neighbour.
I. As love to God, to the primum amabile--the first and chief of all
amiable beings and objects, who has the confluence of all beauty, excellence,
and loveliness, in himself, and confers on all other beings whatever renders
them good and amiable. Love to God seems here to be recommended on these
accounts:-- 1. It will give us peace and satisfaction of spirit in the
day when it will be most needed, or when it will be the greatest pleasure
and blessing imaginable: Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have
boldness in the day of judgment, v. 17. There must be a day of universal
judgment. Happy they who shall have holy fiducial boldness before the Judge
at that day, who shall be able to lift up their heads, and to look him
in the face, as knowing he is their friend and advocate! Happy they who
have holy boldness and assurance in the prospect of that day, who look
and wait for it, and for the Judge's appearance! So do, and so may do,
the lovers of God. Their love to God assures them of God's love to them,
and consequently of the friendship of the Son of God; the more we love
our friend, especially when we are sure that he knows it, the more we can
trust his love. As God is good and loving, and faithful to his promise,
so we can easily be persuaded of his love, and the happy fruits of his
love, when we can say, Thou that knowest all things knowest that we love
thee. And hope maketh not ashamed; our hope, conceived by the consideration
of God's love, will not disappoint us, because the love of God is shed
abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost that is given to us, Rom. v. 5.
Possibly here by the love of God may be meant our love to God, which is
shed abroad upon our hearts by the Holy Ghost; this is the foundation of
our hope, or of our assurance that our hope will hold good at last. Or,
if by the love of God be meant the sense and apprehension of his love to
us, yet this must suppose or include us as lovers of him in this case;
and indeed the sense and evidence of his love to us do shed abroad upon
our hearts love to him; and thereupon we have confidence towards him and
peace and joy in him. He will give the crown of righteousness to all that
love his appearing. And we have this boldness towards Christ because of
our conformity to him: Because as he is so are we in this world, v. 17.
Love hath conformed us to him; as he was the great lover of God and man,
he has taught us in our measure to be so too, and he will not deny his
own image. Love teaches us to conform in sufferings too; we suffer for
him and with him, and therefore cannot but hope and trust that we shall
also be glorified together with him, 2 Tim. ii. 12. 2. It prevents or removes
the uncomfortable result and fruit of servile fear: There is no fear in
love (v. 18); so far as love prevails, fear ceases. We must here distinguish,
I judge, between fear and being afraid; or, in this case, between the fear
of God and being afraid of him. The fear of God is often mentioned and
commanded as the substance of religion (1 Pet. ii. 17; Rev. xiv. 7); and
so it imports the high regard and veneration we have for God and his authority
and government. Such fear is constant with love, yea, with perfect love,
as being in the angels themselves. But then there is a being afraid of
God, which arises from a sense of guilt, and a view of his vindictive perfections;
in the view of them, God is represented as a consuming fire; and so fear
here may be rendered dread; There is no dread in love. Love considers its
object as good and excellent, and therefore amiable, and worthy to be beloved.
Love considers God as most eminently good, and most eminently loving us
in Christ, and so puts off dread, and puts on joy in him; and, as love
grows, joy grows too; so that perfect love casteth out fear or dread. Those
who perfectly love God are, from his nature, and counsel, and covenant,
perfectly assured of his love, and consequently are perfectly free from
any dismal dreadful suspicions of his punitive power and justice, as armed
against them; they well know that God loves them, and they thereupon triumph
in his love. That perfect love casteth out fear the apostle thus sensibly
argues: that which casteth out torment casteth out fear or dread: Because
fear hath torment (v. 18) --fear is known to be a disquieting torturing
passion, especially such a fear as is the dread of an almighty avenging
God; but perfect love casteth out torment, for it teaches the mind a perfect
acquiescence and complacency in the beloved, and therefore perfect love
casteth out fear. Or, which is here equivalent, he that feareth is not
made perfect in love (v. 18); it is a sign that our love is far from being
perfect, since our doubts, and fears, and dismal apprehensions of God,
are so many. Let us long for, and hasten to, the world of perfect love,
where our serenity and joy in God will be as perfect as our love! 3. From
the source and rise of it, which is the antecedent love of God: We love
him, because he first loved us, v. 19. His love is the incentive, the motive,
and moral cause of ours. We cannot but love so good a God, who was first
in the act and work of love, who loved us when we were both unloving and
unlovely, who loved us at so great a rate, who has been seeking and soliciting
our love at the expense of his Son's blood; and has condescended to beseech
us to be reconciled unto him. Let heaven and earth stand amazed at such
love! His love is the productive cause of ours: Of his own will (of his
own free loving will) begat he us. To those that love him all things work
together for good, to those who are the called according to his purpose.
Those that love God are the called thereto according to his purpose (Rom.
viii. 28); according to whose purpose they are called is sufficiently intimated
in the following clauses: whom he did predestinate (or antecedently purpose,
to the image of his Son) those he also called, effectually recovered thereto.
The divine love stamped love upon our souls; may the Lord still and further
direct our hearts into the love of God! 2 Thess. iii. 5.
II. As love to our brother and neighbour in Christ; such love is argued
and urged on these accounts:-- 1. As suitable and consonant to our Christian
profession. In the profession of Christianity we profess to love God as
the root of religion: "If then a man say, or profess as much as thereby
to say, I love God, I am a lover of his name, and house, and worship, and
yet hate his brother, whom he should love for God's sake, he is a liar
(v. 20), he therein gives his profession the lie." That such a one loves
not God the apostle proves by the usual facility of loving what is seen
rather than what is unseen: For he that loveth not his brother, whom he
hath seen, how can he love God, whom he hath not seen? v. 20. The eye is
wont to affect the heart; things unseen less catch the mind, and thereby
the heart. The incomprehensibleness of God very much arises from his invisibility;
the member of Christ has much of God visible in him. How then shall the
hater of a visible image of God pretend to love the unseen original, the
invisible God himself? 2. As suitable to the express law of God, and the
just reason of it: And this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth
God love his brother also, v. 21. As God has communicated his image in
nature and in grace, so he would have our love to be suitably diffused.
We must love God originally and supremely, and others in him, on the account
of their derivation and reception from him, and of his interest in them.
Now, our Christian brethren having a new nature and excellent privileges
derived from God, and God having his interest in them as well as in us,
it cannot but be a natural suitable obligation that he who loves God should
love his brother also.
