1 John 4

12 We have not seen God with our eyes (John 1:18). But that is not necessary. God is in our hearts. We don’t need to look for Him with our eyes.

If we love one another, God, who is love, will live in us (see John 14:23). His love will fill us (Romans 5:5). As we continue to love each other—that is, as we continue to obey His word—his love is made complete in us (see 1 John 2:5).

13 Here John repeats an earlier thought (see 1 John 3:24 and comment). John says here: … he (God) has given us of his Spirit. Other New Testament passages say simply that God has given us His Spirit (Galatians 3:2,5; 4:6). But here, says John, God has given us of his Spirit. However, to say, “God gives of His Spirit,” is the same as to say, “God gives His Spirit”; the meaning is the same. God doesn’t give an unlimited measure of His Spirit to men; He gives to men only a certain measure of His Spirit. But to Christ God gave His Spirit without limit (John 3:34).

14 No one has ever seen God²⁰ (verse12). But, says John, we have seen Christ (see John 1:14). And having seen Him, we testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world (see John 3:16-18).

Christ is the Savior of the world. But not everyone in the world is saved. To be saved, a person must acknowledge that Jesus is the Son of God; that is, a person must believe in Jesus (verse 15).

15 John here repeats the thoughts he has written in 1 John 2:23-24 and 4:2. To acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God—that is, to believe in Him—is to live in God. To live in God is to know God (verse 16). To know God is to have eternal life (John 17:3).

Notice that all these things—to acknowledge Jesus as God’s Son, to believe in Jesus, to obey Jesus, to love God and others, to know God, to live in God, to have eternal life, to be saved—all are closely related. They always go together; they cannot be separated.

16 Because God lives in us (verse 15), we know the love He has for us; that is, we experience it. And having experienced God’s love, we rely on it.

Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him (see 1 John 3:24; 4:12 and comments).

17 As God’s love is made complete in us, we become more like Christ. To become like Christ—to have His love made complete in us—is the main goal of our Christian lives (Romans 8:29). When His love is made complete in us, then we will have confidence on the final day of JUDGMENT (see 1 John 2:28). We will not have to fear God’s judgment; for us there will be no condemnation, no punishment, on that day.

We will escape punishment, because in this world we are like him (Christ); that is, we are like Christ in the sense that we, too, have been born of God and are no longer of the world.²¹ We are like Him in the sense that His love is in us. But because of sin, we cannot be fully like Him in this life. Only at the end of the world, when Christ has come again, will we become completely like Him (2 Corinthians 3:18; 1 John 3:2)

18 What do men fear? They fear punishment. But because of God’s great love toward us, we believers have been freed from punishment for our sins. For those who are in Christ, there is no condemnation, no punishment (Romans 8:1). Therefore, if we fear God’s judgment, it means that we have not been made perfect in love; it means that Christ’s love has not been made complete in us (verses 12,17). If we fear God’s judgment, it means that we have not fully experienced His love.

To become a child of God, we go through four stages. In the first stage, we have no fear of God and no love for God. In the second stage, we begin to fear God, but we still have no love for Him. In the third stage, we begin to experience God’s love, but fear still remains. Finally, in the fourth stage, we lose our fear; only Christ’s love remains. When we reach the fourth stage, then we will have confidence before God, because we will know with certainty that we are indeed His children.

In Proverbs 1:7, it is written: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. The fear mentioned in Proverbs is a different kind of “fear” than the fear John is talking about here. The fear John is talking about is a dread of God’s judgment and wrath. But the fear mentioned in Proverbs is more a feeling of awe and respect; such “fear” comes from an awareness that God knows everything about us, and that He has the power to punish those who disobey Him. To “fear” God in this way is proper and necessary. But we who believe in Christ do not need to have the other kind of fear—that is, the fear (or dread) of God’s judgment and wrath.

19 We love because he first loved us. Natural man has no pure spiritual love within him. We cannot truly love until God has poured out His own love into our hearts (see Romans 5:5). It is only because God first loved us and gave us His Holy Spirit that we can now love Him and love others²² (see Romans 5:8; 1 John 4:10-11 and comments).

20 Love for God and love for others cannot be separated. If we truly love God, we will also love men. If we truly love men, we will also love God.

In one way, it is easy to love God. He is a Spirit. We can’t see Him or hear Him. “I love God” is easy to say. But to love men is different. Men give us trouble. They oppose us. They make us angry. It is difficult for us to love them. So we say: “I love God, but I can’t love men.”

But to say “I love God” without loving men is a lie (see 1 John 2:4). Because our love for men is the proofofour love for God. We can only show our love for God by showing love to men. If we have no love for men, we have no love for God.

All men are made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27). Therefore, there is something of God in every man. If we cannot love the image of God (man) which we can see, how can we love God Himself, whom we can’t see.

From this, we can see that it is not so easy to love God! In fact, to love God is the highest and most important and most difficult work in all the world.

How, then, can we love God? We can love Him, because He has poured out His own love into our hearts (verse 19). It is only as we receive God’s love that we are able to love Him and to love others. We love, not with our own love, but with His love.

21 See Mark 12:30-31; John 13:34; 1 John 3:23 and comments.