1 John 4:7-11

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.

Footnotes

• [a]. Or revealed in us
• [b]. Or a
• [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.