1 John 4

11. God's love to us is the grand motive for our love to one another ( 1 John 3:16 ).
if--as we all admit as a fact.
we . . . also--as being born of God, and therefore resembling our Father who is love. In proportion as we appreciate God's love to us, we love Him and also the brethren, the children (by regeneration) of the same God, the representatives of the unseen God.

12. God, whom no man hath seen at any time, hath appointed His children as the visible recipients of our outward kindness which flows from love to Himself, "whom not having seen, we love," 1 John 4:12 explains why, instead (in 1 John 4:11 ) of saying, "If God so loved us, we ought also to love God," he said, "We ought also to love one another."
If we love one another, God dwelleth in us--for God is love; and it must have been from Him dwelling in us that we drew the real love we bear to the brethren ( 1 John 4:8 1 John 4:16 ). John discusses this in 1 John 4:13-16 .
his love--rather, "the love of Him," that is, "to Him" ( 1 John 2:5 ), evinced by our love to His representatives, our brethren.
is perfected in us--John discusses this in 1 John 4:17-19 . Compare 1 John 2:5 , "is perfected," that is, attains its proper maturity.

13. Hereby--"Herein." The token vouchsafed to us of God's dwelling (Greek, "abide") in us, though we see Him not, is this, that He hath given us "of His Spirit" ( 1 John 3:24 ). Where the Spirit of God is, there God is. ONE Spirit dwells in the Church: each believer receives a measure "of" that Spirit in the proportion God thinks fit. Love is His first-fruit ( Galatians 5:22 ). In Jesus alone the Spirit dwelt without measure ( John 3:34 ).

14. And we--primarily, we apostles, Christ's appointed eye-witnesses to testify to the facts concerning Him. The internal evidence of the indwelling Spirit ( 1 John 4:13 ) is corroborated by the external evidence of the eye-witnesses to the fact of the Father having "sent His Son to be the Saviour of the world."
seen--Greek, "contemplated," "attentively beheld"
sent--Greek, "hath sent": not an entirely past fact (aorist), but one of which the effects continue (perfect tense).

15. shall confess--once for all: so the Greek aorist means.
that Jesus is the Son of God--and therefore "the Saviour of the world" ( 1 John 4:14 ).

16. And we--John and his readers (not as 1 John 4:14 , the apostles only).
known and believed--True faith, according to John, is a faith of knowledge and experience: true knowledge is a knowledge of faith [LUECKE].
to us--Greek, "in our case"
dwelleth--Greek, "abideth." Compare with this verse, 1 John 4:7 .

17, 18. (Compare 1 John 3:19-21 .)
our love--rather as the Greek, "LOVE (in the abstract, the principle of love [ALFORD]) is made perfect (in its relations) with us." Love dwelling in us advances to its consummation "with us" that is, as it is concerned with us: so Greek. Luke 1:58 , "showed mercy upon (literally, 'with') her": 2 John 1:2 , the truth "shall be with us for ever."
boldness--"confidence": the same Greek as 1 John 3:21 , to which this passage is parallel. The opposite of "fear," 1 John 4:18 . Herein is our love perfected, namely, in God dwelling in us, and our dwelling in God ( 1 John 4:16 ), involving as its result "that we can have confidence (or boldness) in the day of judgment" (so terrible to all other men, Acts 24:25 , Romans 2:16 ).
because, &c.--The ground of our "confidence" is, "because even as He (Christ) is, we also are in this world" (and He will not, in that day, condemn those who are like Himself), that is, we are righteous as He is righteous, especially in respect to that which is the sum of righteousness, love ( 1 John 3:14 ). Christ IS righteous, and love itself, in heaven: so are we, His members, who are still "in this world." Our oneness with Him even now in His exalted position above ( Ephesians 2:6 ), so that all that belongs to Him of righteousness, &c., belongs to us also by perfect imputation and progressive impartation, is the ground of our love being perfected so that we can have confidence in the day of judgment. We are in, not of, this world.

18. Fear has no place in love. Bold confidence ( 1 John 4:17 ), based on love, cannot coexist with fear. Love, which, when perfected, gives bold confidence, casts out fear (compare Hebrews 2:14 Hebrews 2:15 ). The design of Christ's propitiatory death was to deliver from this bondage of fear.
but--"nay" [ALFORD].
fear hath torment--Greek, "punishment." Fear is always revolving in the mind the punishment deserved [ESTIUS]. Fear, by anticipating punishment (through consciousness of deserving it), has it even now, that is, the foretaste of it. Perfect love is incompatible with such a self-punishing fear. Godly fear of offending God is quite distinct from slavish fear of consciously deserved punishment. The latter fear is natural to us all until love casts it out. "Men's states vary: one is without fear and love; another, with fear without love; another, with fear and love; another, without fear with love" [BENGEL].

19. him--omitted in the oldest manuscripts. Translate, We (emphatical: WE on our part) love (in general: love alike Him, and the brethren, and our fellow men), because He (emphatical: answering to "we"; because it was He who) first loved us in sending His Son (Greek aorist of a definite act at a point of time). He was the first to love us: this thought ought to create in us love casting out fear ( 1 John 4:18 ).

20. loveth not . . . brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen--It is easier for us, influenced as we are here by sense, to direct love towards one within the range of our senses than towards One unseen, appreciable only by faith. "Nature is prior to grace; and we by nature love things seen, before we love things unseen" [ESTIUS]. The eyes are our leaders in love. "Seeing is an incentive to love" [ÆCUMENIUS]. If we do not love the brethren, the visible representatives of God, how can we love God, the invisible One, whose children they are? The true ideal of man, lost in Adam, is realized in Christ, in whom God is revealed as He is, and man as he ought to be. Thus, by faith in Christ, we learn to love both the true God, and the true man, and so to love the brethren as bearing His image.
hath seen--and continually sees.

21. Besides the argument ( 1 John 4:20 ) from the common feeling of men, he here adds a stronger one from God's express commandment ( Matthew 22:39 ). He who loves, will do what the object of his love wishes.
he who loveth God--he who wishes to be regarded by God as loving Him.