4
You are from God, little children, and you have conquered them, because the One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.
5
They are from the world. Therefore what they say is from the world, and the world listens to them.
6
We are from God. Anyone who knows God listens to us; anyone who is not from God does not listen to us. From this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of deception.
Knowing God through Love
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
8
The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
9
God's love was revealed among us in this way:[a] God sent His One and Only Son into the world so that we might live through Him.
10
Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the[b] propitiation[c] for our sins.
11
Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another.
12
No one has ever seen God.[d] If we love one another, God remains in[e] us and His love is perfected in us.
13
This is how we know that we remain in Him and He in us: He has given to us from His Spirit.
14
And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world.
[c].
The word propitiation has to do with the removal of divine wrath. Jesus' death is the means that turns God's wrath from the sinner; see 2 Co 5:21.
[d].
Since God is an infinite being, no one can see Him in His absolute essential nature; see Ex 33:18-23.