So far in the book of 1 John, John has used the word “love” 13 times. That’s a lot for such a small letter! The frequency of the word “love” is how we know it is one of the main themes of John’s letter here. Though love is certainly one of the main things John talks about, he gives almost equal attention to light, to walking in the light, being in the light, and knowing the light. In fact, for John, if you read the whole letter of 1 John in one sitting, you start to see and understand that for John, love comes from light, and that light must be shone through the acts of love. So for John, love and light are partners, working together to bring a person closer to God.
Let’s pick up in 1 John 4:7-5:1, “Beloved, let’s love one another; for 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 By this the love of God was revealed in us, that God has sent His only Son into the world so that we may 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. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God remains in us, and His love is perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we remain in Him and He in us, because He has given to 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 remains 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 remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. 17 By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, we also are in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives 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 yet he hates his brother or sister, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother and sister whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God must also love his brother and sister. 5:1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves the child born of Him.” (NASB)
Alright, as we’re talking about the connection between love and light, and why they must go together, I want us to remember what love and light mean. Love is not the romantic love between spouses, or brotherly love between friends and siblings, nor is it the love that we might have for really good ideas or other inanimate things that bring us happiness, like a good book. Love here is agape. It is not a feeling, but rather a decision to have a selfless commitment to do good to someone regardless of whether they deserve it.
Light then isn’t some abstract idea about self-truth or inspiration from wherever you might find it. Light is God’s righteousness, which is always in truth and holiness. By this, we understand that walking in the light means walking in God’s righteousness, truth, and holiness, and staying in God’s righteousness, truth, and holiness. These are the true definitions of love and light.
It is imperative, the most important thing, that we know what true love is, especially given that we have these commands from 1 John in 4:7-8, “Beloved, let’s love one another; for 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.” We read that we must love one another because God is love and love is from God, and so if you have been born of God and you know God, then you, too, will love one another.
I want us to look specifically at a few verses to look at the example of God’s love for us to see how God has showed His love for us so that we know what love looks like and how love acts. Look again at 1 John 4:9, “By this the love of God was revealed in us, that God has sent His only Son into the world so that we may live through Him.” God’s love has been shown to us, made known to us, by the act of sending His only Son into the world so that we may live through Him.
How does this show us God’s love? Well, here it is, and it goes all the way back to Genesis. We have the creation of Adam and Eve, the first people, and what did they do with their time? You might say, “Well, they took care of the garden and the earth and they took care of the animals, and they multiplied,” and you’re right, they did do that. But they did something else that’s far more important, and it is in fact what they were actually made to do. Genesis 1:28, 29; 2:16, 18, all record that before the first sin and the fall of humankind, God freely spoke with humans in a voice that they could actually hear, and there was nothing to hinder them from hearing His voice. In Genesis 3:8-9 we even gain the understanding that before sin entered the world, Adam and Eve walked with God in the garden, able to see Him, able to speak directly with Him, without anything keeping them from that relationship. That in fact, is what they were created to do. They were created to walk and talk with God, every day.
That relationship, walking and talking with God, and the image of God being perfect in us is what makes us truly, fully human. Our sin messed that up, and what happened is that we were removed from our purpose and we became sub-human. Without a relationship with God, without the image of God being made alive again in you, you are less than human. You’re not even human, you’re less than human! But then Christ Jesus came, and He walked and talked with God and the image of God was alive in Him. He, Jesus Christ, is the very definition of what it means to actually be fully human.
But if we are not living a life through Jesus, if we are not living life like Jesus, we are still sub-human. Only through a life in Jesus can you really be what it is to be human. Only a life through Jesus will make you truly human. So God showed His love for us by giving us a way to become truly, fully human again, and He did this through His Son Christ Jesus. Remember Jesus’s words from John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life…” Not only is He the only way to get to God again, to have that relationship with God, but He is the only way to be fully human, He is the only way to have true life. That is why He came, as He said in John 10:10, “I came so that they would have life, and have it abundantly.” Aside from a life in Christ Jesus, you are not fully human, not truly living life. Just walking around drawing breath and thinking is not life. Only in Jesus can you be fully human and have real life. So, God showed His love for us by giving us a way to live.
Second, God also showed His love for us in this, that He made a way for the price of our sins to be paid. Look again at 1 John 4:10, “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.” Propitiation is another way of saying sacrifice. Why is a sacrifice for sins necessary?
Well, we remember from Genesis that Adam and Eve sinned, and from there it was a downward spiral. Even by the time Noah came around just a few generations later, we’re told this about the hearts of humans in Genesis 6:5, “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of mankind was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually.” (NASB) That hasn’t gotten any better, right? Romans 3:23 tells us that every single person has sinned and falls short of the glory of God. This is something even John repeats in 1 John when he says in 1 John 1:8, “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.” (NASB)
Our sin breaks the relationship we’re supposed to have with God, walking and talking with Him. It breaks the relationship because He is light and in Him there is no darkness, so He can’t be near the darkness, which is what our sin causes. Remember in Genesis that God gave Adam and Eve animal skins to cover themselves after they had sinned? Well, in order to cover them after their sin, an animal had to die, blood had to be spilled to make the covering for them. This continued to be what was required all throughout the Old Testament. If there was sin, which there always was, it had to be covered and the only way to do that was through an animal sacrifice.
Every year, God’s people would sacrifice an animal to “cover” their sins for a year. If they didn’t, they understood that their own sins would mean their destruction, so instead, the animal paid the price for their wrongs. But, a price has to be paid, and Romans 6:23 reminds us that the price of sin is death. Sin causes death, and if we don’t pay the price…someone has to.
But animals could only cover sins, they couldn’t forgive sins. If we were to die for our sins, our sins still would not be forgiven because sin cannot forgive sin and we are sinful. In order for forgiveness of sins to be possible, a perfect human had to die. A perfect human without any sin had to be the price paid for your sin. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says this, “Christ didn’t have any sin. But God made Him become sin for us. So we can be made right with God because of what Christ has done for us.” (NIRV)
Jesus paid the price for your sin, so you wouldn’t have to, so you could once again have a relationship with God, so you could walk and talk with God like you were created to do. This is how God showed His love for you.
Third, God also showed His love for us in this, 1 John 4:14, “We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.” (NASB) I’ve told you about how sin brings death. Sin causes death and destruction and chaos in a person’s life. Sin will take us and trap us in patterns that hurt us and hurt other people. Sin will keep us trapped in addictions, in anger, in bitterness, in wrath, in selfishness, in apathy, in depression, and every other thing a person might be trapped in. That is what sin does. If God, who is light, who is good, who is kind, who is merciful, if He didn’t give us a way to get out of all that death, He wouldn’t be very loving, would He?
If He looked at your pain, and your hopelessness, and your brokenness, and your destruction, and turned a blind eye, He would not be a loving, good God. But He doesn’t turn a blind eye. He sees you. He sees you, and your pain, and your brokenness, and all the things that hurt you. And He sent His Son to save you from all that, because He loves you. And He couldn’t just let you stay in darkness.
And so, then we are called to love others. How? As Jesus has loved you. That means that your love for others has to be coupled with light, just like God’s love. You love others, yes, but that means that you love them in God’s righteousness, truth, and holiness as well. What does that look like for us humans, who are broken and sometimes mess up?
First, we urge and lead others to live through Christ. We are not fully human without living life in Christ, so if we are really going to love people we have to urge them to live life in Jesus. You’re not loving someone if you’re not telling them about how Jesus can give them true life! We have to love people enough to tell them how to truly live life the way they were created to! Love them enough to tell them that they are missing out on what life really is.
Second, we need to urge people and teach them to sin no more. The price for their sins has been paid, just as yours were. Just like you have the power of Christ living in you, the power of the Spirit living in you to be able to say, “no” to all manner of sins, you have to love people enough to tell them that they can have that power too! You have to love people enough to tell them that living a life of sin isn’t going to be good for them. Remember that true love, agape love, the kind of love that God has for us, means that we seek to do what is good for those that we love. It is not good for them to live a life of sin, just like it is not good for you to live a life of sin! We need to be loving people enough to tell them that their sin is literally killing them. We need to be loving people enough to show them how to walk away from sin, how to say no to sin, and walk in the light.
Third, we need to love others enough to share God’s love with them, to teach them to share God’s love with others. If God loved us so much that He couldn’t leave us to our darkness, but rather made a way to live in light, we have to share that with others. People need to know that this kind of love exists, and that it only exists in God’s light. The people you love need to know that they can have the kind of love that is so deep there is nothing they could ever do to make God not love them. That His love for them reaches them in the darkest most desperate places of their life and wants to pull them free of all that so that they can walk in His righteousness, truth, and holiness. People you love need this kind of love, and you have to love them enough to tell them about it!
See, God so loves us. But He loves us with a deep kind of love that refuses to let us just destroy ourselves. He loves us enough to tell us the truth about our mess, hoping that we’ll see that He offers us a better way. And John says that if we say we love God, we have to love others just like God does. We have to love them with a kind of love that refuses to let them destroy their lives with sin. We have to love them enough to tell them the truth about their mess, and offer the better way of life through Christ. Love AND light.
1. Growing Up with God: If no one has ever seen God (4:12), how is it that people can come to know what He is like according to what John says it this Sunday’s passage?
2. Growing Deeper with the Body: God’s love for us cost Him His Son. Christ’s love for us cost Him His life. What will it cost you to love someone you need to love this week?
3. Go Out: What truth of the light do you need to share to a pre-Christian in your life this week? Though it may be hard to do, remember that God’s perfect love in you drives out fear. Show that person true love this week by sharing the truth with them.