God Is Love 1 John 4:7-21

“We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us, God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 Jn 4:16, NASB).

The word love is a complicated and even sometimes confusing when English speaking people in America use the word. We can understand what this confusion is when we look at four Greek words that are translated to the one English word, love. We will take a brief look at these four Greek words so that we can better understand Jesus’ command to His disciples to love one another (Jn 13:34-35) and the New Testament writers to encourage and command the church members to love one another. The aim of this article is to help those that are members of the body of Christ learn to distinguish the love of God from other types of love.

In the Greek language four words are translated to the English word “love.” The word phila describes friendship and affection. This love is developed between people that share common interest and goals. The word storge describes love that is natural between family members; between parents and children and between brothers and sisters. The word eros describes romantic love. It is emotional and it also describes the desire for sex. The word agape describes divine love. It is perfect, unconditional, and sacrificial. The word agape is used to describe the love that Christians are to have for each other, but I have found that in the church people have a tendency to be able to verbally define love (agape), but they often seem unable to conceptualize it for their lives. Why is this? I hope that we can clear up some of questions that we might have about the love that Christians are to have for each other.

In 1 John 4:1-2 John writes the church community to clarify the confusion caused by “many false prophets.” John says that the different voices are caused by different spirits. The Spirit of God always “confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh from God” (v. 2). Thus, we can see that it is imperative that a person have the Holy Spirit in order to experience and understand the love that is to be shared between believers in Christ Jesus. This is confirmed by what John writes in verses 4-6. The believers in Christ are from God, and they have overcome the world. The false prophets (v. 1) are from the world and they speak according to the knowledge and wisdom of the world and those that are in the world do not have the Spirit of God in them so they pay attention to what the false prophets say (v. 5). On the other hand, those that have the Holy Spirit have God living inside them. Since they know God they do not listen to what the false prophets are saying. Instead, they listen to the Spirit and know the difference between the “spirit of truth and the spirit of error” (v. 6). So, how does this apply to the life of the believer?

In my experience there are three sources that inform me about this word “love.” The first one I learned early in life. It was the best known verse in the bible. I learned, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life” (Jn. 3:16, KJV). In this verse we learn that God has love for the world. God loves His creation so much that He is willing to sacrifice His Son so that we can be saved from our sins and inherit eternal life. In 1984 famous singer Tina Turner releases the song, What’s Love got to Do with it? Tina is expressing her confusion, hurt, and disappointment cause by the failure of her relationship with her husband Ike. The words “What’s love but a second hand emotion” and “Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken” are expressions that seem to indicate that Tina knows that emotional love is fleeting and temporary. The loss of emotional love causes hurt and distress. Dionne Warwick Sings What the World Needs Now Is Love, a song that declares that the world has everything that it needs except love for everyone. She says: “It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.” Further, she says,” No, not just for some but for everyone.” Everyone needs to feel that they belong; and everyone needs to feel accepted. Everyone needs to fell an emotional bond with someone else.

We can say that emotional love can be joyful and it can also cause hurt and pain. Relationship love is in short supply and not everyone experiences love in their relationships. God offers us a relationship with Him through His Son Jesus Christ. God’s love is eternal, and His love always supplies us with what we need to be the best person that we can be in this life and the life to come. John writes, “By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in the world” (1 Jn 4:17, NASB). In the church we must learn to make a clear distinction between the various forms of love. Our focus is to be on “agape.”

How can we have the love of God? John says that “God is love.” Grammatically we can say “love is God.” Thus, we can say that love and God are synonyms. Whoever God is, love is. Whatever God does, love does. We cannot separate God from His love. In seminary we learn that the two cannot be separated because love is an attribute of God. It is the totality of God’s attributes that make God be who God is. In medical terms we can say that love describes God’s DNA. Thus, love is unique to God. Thus, a person must be born of the Holy Spirit in order to receive the love of God. The writer affirms this when he writes, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (Jn. 3:6, NASB).

When Jesus washes His disciple’s feet, He explains to them the reason that He has done so. “If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet” (13:14, NASB). It will help if the reader takes the time to read chapters 13-16. Jesus knows that there is jealousy and competition among the disciples. This will hinder them from cooperating with each other. Competition and jealousy will hinder them in doing the work that He is calling them to do. Jesus is going to leave them. He is sending the Spirit to them so that they will be able to overcome their jealousy and completion. Instead of focusing on positions they will work together to do the work. They will not always agree with each other. They will not always like one another. However if they will abide in Christ and Christ abides in them they will produce much fruit. Without the Spirit they will accomplish nothing (15:1-7).

The love of God cannot be shared with the world. It is available only to those who have the Spirit of God. Therefore, the believer must separate himself/herself from the world. “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world” (1 Jn 2:15-16, NASB). Let me explain. We are talking about agape. Remember, this word means that we do what we can to bring about the best good for the object of our efforts. Thus, the writer, John, is saying that we must make every effort to promote the things that are of God. We cannot neglect God to have the best the world has to offer. There is no compromise. We can say that the love described by Tina Turner and Dionne Warwick are concepts found in the world. They do not look to God for an answer. God is love and only those that have the Spirit of God in them are able to have the love of God. God is love and those that have been born of are Spirit are love.