God is Love. (423)

Keith remarks on first John chapter 4. Making note on the definition and purpose of true love.

1 John 4

• How is love depicted in television shows and movies?
• Considering our culture’s high divorce rate, how do most people seem to define marital love?
• When in your life have you been the most overwhelmed by the reality of God’s love for you?

Testing the Spirits

1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
2 By this you know the Spirit of God:
every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God;
3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world.
4 You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.
5 They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them.
6 We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

God Is Love

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God;
and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
8 The one who does not love does not know God,
for God is love.
9 By this the love of God was manifested in us,
that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.
10 In this 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 also ought to love one another.

Notes
1. Love: the Greek word is agape,

• never refers to romantic or sexual love
• The supreme measure and example of agape love is God’s love. (John 3:16).
• above all it’s sacrificial.
• sacrifice of self, even for others who may care nothing at all for us and who may even hate us.
• It is not a feeling
• it’s a determined act of will, which always results in acts of self-giving.

2. Propitiation: This term means “appeasement” or “satisfaction.”

• The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross satisfied the demands of God’s holiness for the punishment of si Romans 1:18; 2 Corinthians 5:21.
• Hebrews 9:5 translates a form of the -word propitiation as “the mercy seat.”
• Christ literally became our mercy seat, like the one in the Holy of Holies, (Leviticus 16:15).

3. let us love one another (v. 7)

• The key to the entire section (see v. 21).
  • It conveys the idea of making sure that love is a habitual practice.

4. everyone who loves is born of God (v. 7)—

• Those who are born again receive Gods nature. (see v. 8),
• God’s children will also reflect that love.

5. He who does not love does not know God (v. 8)

• Someone may profess to be a Christian but
• only those who display love possess His Divine nature and are truly born-again.

6. the lov of God was manifested (v. 9)—

• The judgment of sin on the cross was the supreme example of God’s love,
• Substitutionary atonement.

7. Oonly begotten (v. 9)

• Used of Christ to picture His unique relationship to the Father,
• His preexistence, and His distinctness from creation.
• The term emphasizes the uniqueness of Christ, as the only one of His kind.

7. we also ought (v. 11)—

• God’s sending His Son obligates Christians to follow this pattern of sacrificial love.

Abiding in God

12 No one has seen God at any time;
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 We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the 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 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.

Notes

1. No one has seen God (v. 12)—

• Nobody can see God’s love since it is invisible and
• Jesus is no longer in the world to manifest the love of God.
• The church is the only remaining demonstration of God’s love in this age.

2. whoever confesses (v. 15)—
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• This refers to the testing of spirits (see v. 1-6).

3. Love . . . perfected among us (v. 17)—

• not sinless perfection, but
• mature love marked by confidence in the face of God’s judgment.

4. Aas He is, so are we (v. 17)—

• Jesus was God’s Son in whom He was well pleased on earth.
• We also are God’s children (3:11)
• and the objects of His gracious goodness.
• If Jesus called God Father, so may we, since we are accepted

The Consummation of Love

17 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 this world.
18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.
19 We love, because He first loved us.
20 If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar;
for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom owl he has not seen.
21 And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.

Credit

When Scriptures in the show notes and episodes are quoted from the NASB. “Scripture is taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.”


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Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.–>

Notes are reformatted and derived from:

1, 2, 3 JOHN AND JUDE
macarthur bible studies Copyright © 2007 by John MacArthur.
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

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