If We Love One Another

1 John 4:12-13

June 22, 2003

 

            One of the greatest tragedies a person could experience is described in Matthew 7:21-23. In that passage we read about people who stand condemned before our Lord in judgment on the last day. What is so tragic about that passage is that the people described truly believe they are followers of Christ. They say to Jesus on that day, “Lord, Lord,” but they will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus goes on to say that this will be the position of many on that day. It will not be a small minority. Many will protest, and they will point to all types of works they performed as proof of their union with Christ. In verse 22 Jesus said, Many will say to Me on that day, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?” In the name of Christ many things were done by these people, many incredible signs and wonders. Yet what is our Lord’s devastating response? Verse 23: And then I will declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.” Jesus says, in essence, “We had no relationship. We were not in union. You were not in Me, and I was not in you.” And if you read carefully you will notice that these people practice lawlessness. They lived lives marked by disobedience to God’s Word. This is a tragedy, a personal tragedy, for all of those who will stand before our Lord and be condemned for all eternity, and who believed that they were truly saved.

            While that is a tragedy, and a great tragedy, I also believe it is a tragedy that there are Christians who have no assurance of their faith whatsoever, and they live absolutely defeated lives because they do not realize the power of God that dwells within them. They are always wondering whether or not they are saved, and they can never come to a resting, peaceful assurance that they are in Christ. I believe that self-examination is necessary, and that we should constantly be testing ourselves to be sure we are in the faith, and encouraging each other to righteousness and holy living, but I also believe that we can live in confidence that we are children of God. I believe that we can know that we are born again, and it is a great tragedy for the children of the King to live lives of fear, doubt, anxiety, and worry. It is a tragedy for a Christian to be so anxious and fearful that he has no impact for the Kingdom of Christ. It is a tragedy for a Christian to worry and fret so much about his or her own salvation, that he or she never has enough assurance to reach out and lead others to the Savior.

            The Apostle John, I believe, also viewed these two types of lives as tragic. The first he wanted to deal with in this letter, and he does so indirectly. Throughout 1 John we have seen this beloved Apostle give standards that, if we do not meet, we can be certain that we are not in the faith no matter what we think or feel. He has made it absolutely clear how a true child of God will live in this world, and so if we are not God’s children, if we have not been born again, we can see it from this letter, and we have opportunity to repent before we find ourselves before Christ, being condemned to an eternity of enduring the wrath of God.

            The Apostle John is also anxious to give those who are true believers assurance and confidence that they are in fact in the faith. In 5:13 the Apostle writes, These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. One of his purposes in writing is so that we know that we have real, authentic fellowship with God. He wants us to know that God knows us and that we know God, and that we are in this intimate relationship with Him. He wants us as Christians to live lives full of assurance and confidence before God, which leads to victorious Christian living in every sphere, including prayer, evangelism, sanctification, and discernment. When we have confidence we view the world differently. Many times in sports you will see a team that naturally should not win a game defeat a more skilled opponent. Perhaps they are not as big, as strong, or as athletic, and yet they win. And inevitably the commentator will say, “That team just had confidence, and they played at another level.” Although naturally they should not have won, because they played with such confidence they rose to play a better game. As Christians, I believe we need confidence in our walk with God if we are to be victorious and not walk around defeated and destroyed by the world, sin, and the devil. The Apostle John evidently believed the same thing, so he wrote this letter to give his readers confidence in their faith in the midst of a world that doubted the truth and ridiculed Christ.

            If we are going to have such confidence there are two ways we must live. First, we must walk in the light. We must live lives built on the truth of God’s Word, and in obedience to that Word. Our lives must consist of sound doctrine and sound practice. We must walk in the light. Secondly, and equally important, if not more so, we must walk in love. We must live in such a manner that love is our driving force, both love to God and love to our neighbors, especially fellow Christians. The Apostle’s basic proposition to us is that if we walk in the light and if we walk in love, we will have assurance of our salvation. In other words, we will be absolutely certain our fellowship with God is real and authentic.

            As we try to understand this section, from 4:7-5:5, it is important that we understand that John’s primary focus is walking in love. Yes, he will deal with truth and light at times in this section, but the primary heading is walking in love. We are to live lives driven and motivated by love. This is seen clearly in his appeal in verse 7, where he writes, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. This verse lays down the basic principle, and the Apostle goes on to expand that principle throughout the rest of this section. In verse 8 he shows the equal and opposite principle and gives the grounds for it. Then in verses 9 and 10 he shows how God has demonstrated His own love to His children, and based on the manifest love of God, he reinforces his appeal in verse 11.

            In verse 12 John begins to further his argument that we should love one another. In verses 7-11 his main argument is theological. That is, we should love because God is love, and God has shown us such incredible love. Our love should be motivated by the fact of God’s love. Because of how much we have been loved, we also ought to love. The theological truth that God is love drives our own love. Now in verses 12-16 the beloved Apostle takes his argument a step further. Here he wants to emphasize that we should, indeed must, love one another because God dwells within us. God has not only manifested His love among us at the Incarnation, but He has made His dwelling in us, which demands that we love one another. John’s basic proposition in these 5 verses, verses 12-16, is that if God dwells in us, we will walk in love. If God abides in us, which He does if we are born of God, we will walk in love toward one another.

            There is much debate and discussion about how verse 12 is connected to the rest of this section, and nearly everyone’s outline at this point is unique because of the complexity of the structure of this text. Some commentators even go as far as to suggest that when we come to verses 12 and 13 the Apostle really has no coherent thought in mind. He is now just making small statements that are only loosely connected. I, however, disagree with this assessment of the Apostle’s writing. I believe John has a very definite, concrete thought in mind as he comes to verse 12, and I believe our exposition of verse 7 confirms that very thing. Verse 12 is tightly knit and connected to verse 7. Verses 8-11 serve to strengthen the appeal based on God’s own love, while verses 12-16 serve to demonstrate just how it is Christians know God and relate to Him in relation to the appeal of verse 7. Bear in mind that in verse 7 John said, love is from God. God is the source of love. It is only as He supplies it that we receive it. Thus, there needs to be intimate fellowship with God if we are to love one another. We discussed that at length a few weeks back. The Apostle’s basic conclusion in verse 7 was that since love is from God, if we love we must have been born of God, and we must certainly know Him. That is the only way we could love in this way. And so, as Christians walking in love, we know God personally. Yet this creates some problems for his readers, and for us in our modern society that prizes spiritualism and a type of New Age philosophy. The question must be answered, “What type of knowledge of God is this? From where does our assurance about this knowledge come?” Some of the antichrists, of whom we have spoken, taught that there was a higher-level knowledge of God that could be received through special visions, or voices, or dreams, or these kinds of mystical experiences, and they claimed to know God based on these types of experiences. So the Apostle John is now anxious to define just how it is the Christian knows God, and he does it in this context of love, something the false teachers miserably failed to show.

 

Knowledge of God Not by Sight (v. 12a)

 

            The Apostle begins his explanation of the Christian’s relationship with God with a negative. He writes in verse 12, No one has seen God at any time. No one has ever seen God. What does he mean by this statement? Certainly he means to eliminate visions of God from all men at all times during history. No one has seen God or will see God before the second coming of Christ. He has made that much plain in 3:2, where he wrote, We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. Once our redemption is complete we will see God, and Jesus promised the same thing in Matthew 5:8. But until that glorious day of the appearing of our Lord Jesus, no one will ever see God with human eyes.

            It also seems that the Apostle here is teaching that no one has ever seen God in His pure, holy, infinite essence. No one has ever seen God for all that He is, without any restraint or any diminution of the fullness of His excellencies. The Apostle has said this very thing in John 1:18, where he wrote, No one has seen God at any time. In English it is the same as 1 John 4:12, yet in Greek it is slightly different. The differences are not essential to the basic teaching as it applies here, and the translation is correct. The Apostle goes on to say that it is through Christ that God has been explained to us. It is through Jesus Christ that we have our conception and explanation of God. The Apostle Paul also makes plain that we cannot see God as we are now, and that no one has seen Him in His glorious, eternal essence. In 1 Timothy 6:16 he wrote that God alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. Once again the Apostle Paul makes plain that we, as sinful, mortal men cannot see God, and he eliminates mystical experiences and visions from our present relationship with God.

            As clear as these verses are, they do present some difficulties. For example, in Genesis 32:30, after having wrestled with an unnamed man, Jacob exclaims, I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved. In Numbers 12:8 God Himself says to Miriam and Aaron concerning Moses, With him I speak mouth to mouth, even openly, and not in dark sayings, and he beholds the form of the Lord. In Judges 13:22, after hearing the promise of a child from the Angel of the Lord, Samson’s father exclaimed, We will surely die, for we have seen God. And finally, in Isaiah 6:5, after being taken to heaven and seeing the Lord seated on the throne, Isaiah cried out, Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. We must at once admit that these four examples do present a challenge to us in understanding what the Apostles are trying to say in the New Testament. What do we do with this apparent contradiction?

            We must start with John 4:24. There Jesus says, God is spirit. That is a statement that is difficult for us to grasp, but the basic meaning you need to understand from that statement is that God in His essence is invisible. He is invisible spirit. This means, of course, that human, physical eyes can never see Him in His essence as spirit. Our eyes cannot see what is invisible. It is a sheer impossibility. So what did these four people see?

            I believe what Moses saw is explained in Exodus 33:20. There the Lord said to Moses, You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live! In other words, if we were truly able to see God for all that He is in His most holy, righteous, infinite, eternal essence, we would be consumed instantaneously. We would be incinerated to ashes in His presence. Moses didn’t see God’s face, meaning he didn’t see God in His full glory and splendor. Moses saw the form of God, but not the fullness of God. He saw a part of God, but not the entirety of Him. This explains what Moses saw, but what about the others?

            I believe John 14:7-9 explains what they saw. There Jesus is discussing His impending death with His disciples, and He says in verse 7, If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him. This is a puzzling statement, and thankfully Philip responds to it so we might understand it more clearly. In verse 8 Philip says, Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us. Philip still didn’t understand completely who Jesus is, so Jesus responds in verse 9, saying, Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father. Here, I believe, is the key to understanding all of these appearances of God in the Old Testament. When someone saw the Son, they saw God, and they knew it. They did not see God in all of His fullness, just as the disciples did not see Jesus in all of His glory, but they saw the Son of God, and this vision exactly represented God so that they would know they had seen God.

            While Paul tells us in 1 Timothy 6:16 that God, in His essence, is invisible, the writer of Hebrews explains that Jesus Christ, God the Son, is the exact representation of His nature (Heb 1:3). When people saw Jesus they saw God because Jesus exactly shows God to us. He represents God’s nature perfectly, and He does so because He is, by nature, God. In writing to the Colossians, Paul puts it this way. He says in Colossians 1:15, He is the image of the invisible God. He is speaking of Jesus, God the Son. Jesus is the visual representation we have of God. He is the image of that which cannot be seen. He is the visible image we have. God, in His essence, is invisible, yet through His Son we have a visual representation of Him. This is high doctrine, and it surely is beyond our full comprehension. This is a great mystery, but we must believe it by faith, because God has told us that He is God, and He exists in these eternal Persons, Father, Son, and Spirit. Although we may not comprehend it, we must hold on to it, and realize that no one has seen God at any time. We may spend all eternity coming to grasp this mystery, yet we know for certain that while we are in these earthly, mortal bodies, we have not seen and will not see God.

            What is the significance of this statement in this text? Why is this so essential? I think what John is trying to convey here is that our fellowship with God is not of a physical, material nature. God is not someone that we see. He is not knowable by physical sight. John’s opponents were highly mystical, basing much of their “assurance” on supposed visions and messages they claimed were from God. So John is here saying that God is not known with the physical senses, especially that of sight. When we love, and therefore know that we know God, it is not because God makes Himself visible to us in some image, vision, or anything else material. Our security in our relationship with God is not built on our physical senses. We do not have assurance because we have seen a vision, or heard a voice, or had a dream. “No!” John says, “God is not to be known that way. He is the invisible God whom no man has seen or can see. He is spirit, and we must not try to perceive Him with our physical senses.” Martyn Lloyd-Jones put it like this: “We must not desire ever to hear audible voices or to have such visions as will give us a kind of mechanical, material security.” Our assurance is not built on this type of knowledge. What, then, is it based on?

 

Knowledge of God Is Spiritual (v. 12b)

 

            The Apostle goes on to write in verse 12, if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. Immediately we are confronted with a very tangible test. Do we love one another? Do we, as a life pattern and habit, live lives of love? Are our lives driven and motivated by love, first to God, and then to our neighbors? Is this our manner of living? Here the Apostle is trying to prevent personal tragedies. He is trying to strengthen the faith of the believer, and he is seeking to destroy the false assurance of the unbeliever. This is a test of the reality of our relationship with God. Do we love one another?

            If we do, the Apostle says, God abides in us. He takes up residence and makes His home in us. He is in us producing love (v. 7). This abiding of God is an absolute certainty if we love one another, because there is no way we could do it without His presence in us. His presence is the source of our love. If we love one another, we know that He is working in our lives.

            But not only this, but if we love one another His love is perfected in us. What does this mean? First, notice that God has, in verse 9, manifested His love. He has made it known through His Son. He has demonstrated it on the cross. His love was manifest. But not only was it manifest, it was implanted in us when we were born again. God not only manifested His love, He implanted it in us when He took up residence in us. When He joined us to Christ, He put His love in us. And He finally intends to perfect that love in us. He intends to bring it to its goal, which is perfect love with one another. The love that God manifested among us and put within us has a goal, and that goal is that we love one another. When we love one another, we are living in agreement with God’s purpose in our salvation. One of His purposes was to make us a race of loving people. One of His purposes is to make us like Himself in our character, so that we also are defined by love. In 1 Peter 1:22 Peter tells us that one of the reasons we were purified was for a sincere love of the brethren. One of the goals God is accomplishing in us as believers is the perfecting of His love in us.

            Ultimately, of course, we will not see the perfection of this love until sin is purged from us entirely, but we should be living as God would have us live, which is loving one another. As we do, His love is perfected in us. It reaches its desired goal. It meets the end for which God put it there.

            Since we know that one of God’s purposes in us as believers is to perfect His love in us, when we see that happening it is a great assurance of faith! When we see ourselves loving one another more and more fervently, we see this intention of God coming to fruition, and we know that we are His children. We know that He abides in us. We have assurance of faith. We may not have visions and audible voices and dreams and mystical experiences, but we know that God is working in us to bring us to manifest His love with one another. But the Apostle does not even stop here. He takes it a step further to show the absolute assurance we ought to have as believers walking in love.

 

Certainty Is from the Spirit (v. 13)

 

            In verse 13 he writes, By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. Again, we come across a verse with much difficulty in interpretation and much debate and discussion about how it relates to the whole structure of this passage. I think most of the trouble comes because we fail to recognize the surrounding context. Many commentators seem to rip this verse right out of context and see it in absolute isolation, yet I believe the inspired Apostle most certainly saw this connected to what he had just written by the Spirit.

            He begins by saying, By this we know. The question is: What does the Apostle mean when he says, “By this?” Is he speaking of the indwelling Spirit, or is he speaking of what he has just said, our love for one another? We encountered this problem back in 3:24 in the context of obeying the commandments. I think here we have the same situation as before. I believe the Apostle is looking forward and backward when he says, By this we know. I believe that our love for one another and the gift of the Spirit are so closely related that we cannot separate the two from the Apostle’s thinking at this point. Here is a basic explanation of what the verse means: By walking in love for one another we know that we are in union with God, and we know that because God has given us of His Spirit. Our walking in love is dependent upon us having the Spirit. We will never walk in love apart from receiving the Spirit. So it is this inseparable unity of walking in love by the Spirit that assures our hearts that we are in Christ.

            You must understand that the certainty we receive here is that we are in this vital union with God Himself. That is what we know. The Apostle says, By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us. We know that we have this intimate, personal relationship with our Creator, the invisible God who, although we do not see, we love and adore and worship and know firsthand. This doctrine is so essential to the Christian faith. In fact, this doctrine of our union with Christ is so essential that some would consider it an integral part of evangelism. This is something everyone needs to know immediately at conversion – they are now in this union with the living God Himself. He abides in them, and they abide in Him. Lloyd-Jones commented on this doctrine, saying, “Evangelism is not simply saying, ‘Come to Christ; He will do this, that, and the other for you.’ No! The glorious thing about salvation is that…I am in Christ, and all the blessings that come to me come because of my union with Christ.” It is only because we have this union with Christ, God the Son, that we receive all of these wonderful blessings of the Christian life. This is a basic doctrine that needs to become a part of our evangelism. We need to proclaim to people that they too will be in intimate union with the living God if they humble themselves, repent of their sin, and believe in the name of Jesus. This is the wonderful thing about salvation – intimacy with God Himself! We were created for this very thing, to fellowship with God. And the Apostle here says that we can know that we are living in this relationship when we walk in love. We can have assurance! Oh how the world longs for assurance, security, stability, something to satisfy them. Yet we as Christians can know and be absolutely sure that we are living as God intended for us to live when we love one another! How irrational it is not to live this way, and to forfeit this blessed assurance! Do you know that you, dear friend, are in vital union with God? Do you know that He abides in you and you in Him? Can you say with certainty that He is living in you because you see His love in you?

            Notice, moreover, that it is not simply because of our love for one another that we know we are in union with God, but because He has given us of His Spirit. It is the Spirit who assures our hearts that we are in this union. He produces the love, and He assures us that it is His work in us. In Galatians 5:22 we read that the fruit of the Spirit is love. The Spirit produces love in us. Of all the gifts and workings of the Spirit, the most excellent is love. There is nothing greater that the Spirit does to people than to make them first of all people who love God, and then secondly people who love one another. It is love that edifies. The Corinthian church had all sorts of problems because they had so many people with extraordinary spiritual gifts, yet in 1 Corinthians 12-14, especially chapter 13, Paul rebukes them for not realizing the absolute supremacy of love! All of their problems would have been solved if only they had loved one another as God had loved them. It is this operation of the Spirit that assures our hearts that we are in this union with God.

            This is great assurance indeed! We do not need visions and mystical experiences. We do not need voices and dreams. We only need to have the Spirit at work in some measure in us, producing this love that comes from God. When we see that in our lives, we ought to be fully convinced that God does indeed abide in us. His purposes in saving us are being fulfilled as He perfects His love in us.

            Where do you look for assurance? Do you look for dreams? Do you count on visible manifestations of God, or some other material reassurance? Do you need some sort of revelation of God that appeals to your physical, bodily senses? If you are looking there, do so no longer! The Apostle here has exhorted us to find our assurance in our love for one another through the Spirit given to us by God. You must not base your assurance on how you think God should show you Himself. Rather, God has told you how to have assurance of your faith. In this epistle the Apostle has been moved by the Spirit to teach us to walk in the light and to walk in love, and thereby to have full assurance. This is absolutely essential to victorious Christian living. Our assurance is based on God’s Word and what He has told us. He has proclaimed that if we love one another, He abides in us. We know by this that we are in union with Him because He has given us of His Spirit. Are you this morning walking in the Spirit? Are you living as a vessel filled with the Holy Spirit, controlled by the Spirit in your every word, thought, and deed? Do you know for certain that God dwells in you through His Spirit? Or have you been lately doubting, perhaps looking for your assurance in the wrong places? Have you been living by the flesh or by the Spirit? Avoid living a tragic life. Do not be deceived and think that you have a relationship with God if you have no love in you, no love produced by God and manifested in His Son. Do not live a tragic Christian life if you are saved, but live out this love of God. Allow His love to be perfected in you in great measure in this life, reassuring your own heart, and rejoice in the glories to come when we will be made like Him, because we will see Him as He is. Let’s pray.

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