He First Loved Us

1 John 4:19

August 10, 2003

 

            In 1 John 4:19 we have a short but powerful verse. The verse is only seven words long, yet it contains truths that have taken up thousands and thousands of pages of discussion. Verse 19 is perhaps the shortest, most concise summary of the Gospel and the doctrine of election in the Bible. This morning I want to spend our entire time focusing on these seven words – We love, because He first loved us – and looking at the meaning they have in this context and the application that should flow out of that meaning.

            The context, let me again remind you, is this section that begins in verse 7, Beloved, let us love one another. That is the Apostle John’s exhortation to us in this section. That is the major theme with which he is now dealing in his letter to these believers who have been plagued by false teachers, antichrists, seducers, and lawless men living sinful, sensuous, hateful lives. These believers find themselves in a very difficult time and situation, and the strife that has been evident in their church due to these antichrists has certainly taken its toll. At this point in the letter, then, the Apostle exhorts them (and us) to love one another.

            The statement in verse 7 is not a command because the Apostle includes himself in his statement, but it has the force of a command. John is not giving a suggestion or a wish. This is something the Holy Spirit through this Apostle has commanded us to do, and if we fail to do it we are sinning. The Apostle softens the statement somewhat by including himself, but that does not take away from the absolute necessity of heeding this exhortation and earnestly seeking to love one another.

            After giving this exhortation, the Apostle, in the rest of verse 7 to the end of verse 11, gives his readers the theological motivation for loving one another. He reminds them that love is from God, that God is love, and that, most importantly for us, God has manifested His love among us in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ. God has made a way of salvation for us through Christ, and through His death on the cross we can have our sins forgiven and be reconciled to God. Seeing what God has done in Christ on our behalf ought to motivate us to love one another. Because we have been the recipients of such great love, we ought to demonstrate love to others in need.

            The Apostle, however, does not stop at the theological reasons for loving one another. He moves on and gives us very practical reasons for loving one another, showing us two benefits of being obedient to this command. Loving one another isn’t simply to be done just because it is commanded, but God desires that we love another because when we do, we will personally reap great benefits from it. To encourage us to love one another, then, the Apostle tells us what benefits we will derive from it, and he gives us two benefits.

            First, in verses 12 through 16 he tells us that when we abide in love we abide in God. Fellowship with God is one benefit of loving one another. Do you want to have unbroken, unhindered, deep fellowship with God and know Him intimately? You can only do it when you love one another. You can’t know God intimately and at the deepest levels apart from love because God is love. So if you want to have fellowship with God and to know Him, you must realize who He is and partake of His nature, and that necessarily means that you love one another. There were those, it seems, within the churches to whom John writes who were unloving and at the same time claimed to have some type of unique knowledge of God, apparently through physical images and visions of Him. Perhaps there were those who were either in the church or who had left with the antichrists who claimed to have seen God and been enlightened directly through physical means of visions or voices or these types of things. The Apostle is quite emphatic that God isn’t known by the physical senses. He isn’t know physically; He is known spiritually, and the only way to know God intimately in this way is to know who He is in His essence. God is love, so the Apostle argues in verses 12-16 that to know God we must abide in love. We must live a life governed and controlled by love if we are to have fellowship with God. So the first benefit is fellowship with God.

            The second benefit is given in verses 17 and 18, where the Apostle tells us that living this life of love provides confidence in the day of judgment. When we live a life governed and controlled by love, we have confidence in that great and final day of judgment. Why do we have this confidence? It is because we are like Christ. We reflect His nature, and in this world we have seen God working in us. We know that we have fellowship with God when we see ourselves becoming like Him in our personalities and our attitudes and actions. Living a life of love not only allows us this intimate fellowship with God, but it gives us certainty that we are actually having that fellowship. When we have this certainty, the Apostle John argues that we have confidence in the day of judgment, having been perfected in love. Since God’s love is reaching its goal with us, and we are being made into a race of Christlike, loving people, we have confidence in our fellowship with God.

The two benefits then are fellowship with God and confidence about that fellowship. No matter what anyone may say they have seen, heard, or known, when we live this type of life, the life in which we live out the love of God, we have confidence in our fellowship with God. The world may tell us we are not experiencing spirituality as we could; cults may tell us we are not doing enough works or reading the right books or attending the right church, but we know, no matter what happens around us, that when we live this type of life through the power of the Gospel and the Spirit in our hearts, that we have fellowship with God, and on the day of judgment we will stand confidently before Him.

It is at this point in the exposition of the text that we read verse 19. John writes, We love, because He first loved us. As we come to this text let’s ask four questions of it. Let’s take it from these four angles. First, What does it mean? What does this verse mean? As we look at these seven words, what significance do they have and what is John trying to say? Second, let’s ask the question, “Why is this verse here, at this point, in 1 John 4?” Why does John include this verse, and how does it fit in the context? He has already said a similar thing in verse 10 when he said, Not that we loved God, but that He loved us. Why does the Apostle bring this concept to bear again? Third, what theological implications does this verse have? What effect should this verse have on our doctrine and on our thinking about God and ourselves and life? And finally, What practical implications does this verse have? How should this verse impact how we live? Let’s try to answer these four questions this morning.

 

The Meaning

 

Let’s start with the basic question, “What does this verse mean?” Look at verse 19 again. The Apostle writes, We love, because He first loved us. I don’t think the verse is complicated, but I do think it is profound. Let me put the meaning to you in this way: Our love is dependent upon God’s love for us. Our love is dependent upon God’s love for us. Let me break that down even further.

When the Apostle says, we love, he is referring back to verse 7. There we read, Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The idea is a habitual life of love, and there is no specific object in view. It is a life characterized by love. Love for whom? The Apostle doesn’t say specifically in that sentence who those born of God love. He simply says, Everyone who loves… The meaning, as we said several weeks ago, is living a life characterized by love in general. So in verse 19 when the Apostle says, We love, and he says it again without any object attached to our love, he is once again describing a lifestyle of love. He is discussing a habit of love.

Why do Christians live such a life of love? The Apostle says in the second half of the verse, because He first loved us. This statement is a statement of cause. Our life of love is caused by God’s love for us. God’s love is the reason we love. If we live a life as described by the Apostle throughout this section, it is because God has first loved us. It is not because we have decided to do it. It is not because we have learned by our own experiences that living a life of love is the best type of life. No, it is not because we have done anything or decided anything, but it is simply because God has first loved us. Our love is dependent upon God’s love for us. His love is the motivating factor. It is the key that starts the engine. Our love would never be “turned on” if it wasn’t for God’s love turning the key. Those who love do so because God first loved them.

 

The Context

 

            If verse 19 means that our love is dependent upon God’s love for us, why did John put it here in his exposition on loving one another? This brings us to question number two. What does this verse mean in this context? Why is it here? How does it fit in with what John is saying here?

            Again, we have one of those instances where most commentators either say nothing or they disagree. It’s another one of those statements that almost seems out of place upon a cursory reading. We have seen how the Apostle is very subtle in tying together his points, yet he does have a logical direction and flow. Although he is poetic and subtle, he is not illogical or incoherent. If you think about the progression of this section, I think it becomes abundantly clear why the Apostle says here that we love, because He first loved us. He has dealt with the command to love and the benefits of love. And the benefit of loving one another is a confident fellowship and relationship with God. He has just dealt with confidence, and we, being what we are – sinners prone to extremes and excess – need to always remember who God is, lest our confidence becomes arrogance and presumption.

            There is a tendency, I believe, for men to take credit for things for which only God deserves credit, even their relationship with God. The whole system of Arminian doctrine is an example of man taking credit for what God alone has done. And we all have this tendency to credit ourselves, and to become arrogant even before God. The Apostle, having just given us great confidence in our fellowship with God, is concerned that we don’t take it too far. He has just spent a great deal of time discussing how we have fellowship with God by loving one another, and we have confidence in that fellowship because we love one another. The danger is to begin to think, “I love my fellow Christians, and I am getting something because of what I have done. I am benefiting because of my own works. I am gaining something by my works.” The danger of the Apostle’s teaching in verses 12 through 18 is that we will begin to have confidence in our relationship with God because of our works, because of ourselves, and we will forget that God is our source, God is our supply, and it is He who has caused us to love. We have done nothing whatsoever. It is all of grace, and not of works, lest any man should boast.

            The Apostle, then, being the wise pastor and teacher that he was, and being inspired by the Spirit of God, brings this fact to bear upon us once again. We love, because He first loved us. In all of your confidence and assurance of your fellowship with God, don’t begin to take credit for anything yourself. Don’t begin to feel as though you are doing something by works. Don’t start to take the credit and the glory for your success in living this life of love. Don’t feel as if you are putting God in debt to you, and that He now owes you something because you are living this life of love. Realize that all that you have, even your assurance, comes from God Himself. It is all by His grace, and by His mercy and love. If you live a life of love, praise God! Thank Him and don’t become arrogant and conceited and think you are something when you are nothing at all. Don’t exalt yourselves over the false teachers and antichrists, because it is God who has worked in you. You have not done it. You are not to be praised at all for your love, because God is the one at work in you.

            The Apostle, you can see, is guarding against this tendency and danger we have to think more of ourselves than we should. We see growth and success in our Christian life, and now suddenly pride sneaks in. Oh how easily that happens! But we must not let it. We must continually remind ourselves, We love, because He first loved us. We have been recipients of grace. We have not done anything at all for which we deserve the credit. Our love is dependent upon His love for us. If He were to remove that love from us, we would at once be forever lost. We are creatures fully dependent upon the grace and mercy of our Creator. That, I believe, is why John inserts this small verse here. Don’t begin to think your assurance and confidence is the result of what you have done. No, no! It is the result of what God has done in you and through you. The Apostle, then, reminds us in verse 19 that, although we should have confidence, our confidence is rooted in what God has done, not in what we have done. All that we do is dependent upon His love for us. Our love is dependent upon His love for us.

 

Theological Implications

 

            This brings us to our third question: What are the theological implications of this text? How does this text affect our doctrine, and how does this text affect our thinking? I want to bring several doctrinal and theological points to bear from this text.

            The first point I want to show you is this: God’s love is the direct cause of our love. God’s love is before ours, and it produces our love. That is what the Apostle is saying. The reason that we love is because God loved us. His love directed toward us caused us to love. It is His love that was the cause of Him saving us, and our salvation is what enables us to love. The new birth, being born again, enables us to love God and men. It is solely based on the love of God that we were born again. God’s love motivates ours, it causes ours, and our love is completely dependent upon His love for us.

            The second point is a logical outflow from the first point. The second point is this: We would never love God or man if God had not first loved us. We would never love God or man if God had not first loved us. I believe this also is in the text if you think through the full implications of it. If God’s love causes ours, then we would not and could not love unless He first loved us. The reason we love, remember, is because of God’s love toward us. That is the reason, and the only reason, that we love God and that we love one another. Our love for God and our love for one another is contingent on only one thing – God’s love for us. So the truth of the matter is that if God had not loved us first, we would never have loved Him. John makes this point explicit in verse 10, when he says, Not that we loved God, but that He loved us. We did not love God, and what is more, we could not love God unless He first loved us. Charles Spurgeon, in his typically vivid way, makes this comparison to prove the point: “If an emmet or a snail were to say that it loved a queen, you would think it strange that it should look so high for an object of affection; but there is no distance between an insect and a man compared with the distance between man and God.” The distance between sinful man and holy God is so great that man could never cross it on his own. He could never find an object as high as God for his affections by himself. It would be more absurd than a snail seeking to love a queen.

            The Scripture also supports this idea that man could never love God apart from God first, by grace, loving him. Ephesians 2:4-5 says, But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved). It was the love of God that made us alive. We were dead in transgressions, and as dead people, we could not make ourselves alive. God had to make us alive. We could not have resurrected our own spirits to love God. It is a sheer impossibility. But God, because of His own great love toward us, made us alive with Christ, and all of this by grace. That means that we did not deserve it. We did not merit it. We could not earn it. It was nothing in us, but it was completely by the free will of God Himself. This is the second theological implication: we could never have loved God or one another if God hadn’t loved us first. We could not have had faith, we could not have been born again, we could not have produced one ounce of love in our hearts, unless God had first loved us by His own mercy and free grace. We are going to come to the practical application of these doctrines, but for now we are simply looking at the truths that derive from this profound statement in 1 John 4:19: We love, because He first loved us. So let’s move to our third point.

            The third implication of this verse is this: God’s love is not based upon us or determined by anything in us. God’s love is not based upon us or determined by anything in us. Follow the logic with me. God’s love causes our love directly. His love causes us to love. This means that we never could have loved God if He did not first love us. And the implication of that is this: since we never could have loved God first, there never could have been nor could be anything lovable in us. Therefore, God did not love us because we would love Him, or because we were inclined toward Him, or for any reason whatsoever that is related to us. His love was freely given to those who believe because He decided to love them of His own free will. We hear a lot these days about man’s free will. It seems to me the Bible speaks more of God’s free will than man’s free will, and the third implication of this verse is that God’s love is not based upon us or determined by anything in us. His love is of His own free will and free grace.

            I want to show you this in Scripture, because this is the foundation for the doctrine of election, which our church upholds and teaches in our statement of faith. So I want to show you a few verses to back up this statement that is in 1 John 4:19. There are at least two very explicit statements of this very fact in Scripture. The first is in the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 7:7. I want you to notice in this verse two things, the love of God, and the election, or the choice made, by God. Deuteronomy 7:7 says, The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. Now this verse demonstrates two things. The Lord’s love for Israel was not based on anything in them. It was not based on their own greatness, for they had no greatness, and the point is that there was nothing inherent in the nation of Israel that the Lord should love it. There was nothing about this nation of wanderers, this stiff-necked, rebellious nation, that should cause God to love it. Yet He did. Second, God’s choice of Israel was not based upon anything in them. God’s love and His choice, His election, always go together, as they do in this verse. God did not elect, or choose, Israel, because there was anything significant, good, praiseworthy, or marvelous about Israel. His election was of His own free grace and free will, and so was His love.

            There is a New Testament corollary to this in Romans 9. Romans 9 deals with the casting away of Israel as a nation and the purpose and promise of God. In Romans 9:10-13 Paul shows that God’s choice, God’s love, once again seen together in harmony, is not based on anything in anybody, but on His own purpose and grace. Listen to Romans 9:10-13: And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac; for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, it was said to her, “The older will serve the younger.” Just as it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” What’s the point? Here’s the point for our discussion this morning. God’s choice of Jacob, His love for Jacob, was not based on anything Jacob had done or would do, or anything Esau had done or would do. It was because of Him who calls. It was based on God’s own sovereign purpose. God’s love is not based upon us, and it is not determined by us. We cannot do anything to get it. God’s love for us is based on His own purpose and His own plan. When John says, We love, because He first loved us, he means that God loved us freely, and we love necessarily because of God’s love for us. We love because God loved. It is never the other way around.

            But I want to take it a step further. Not only do we receive God’s love because of God’s free grace and sovereign purpose, but we keep God’s love the same way. The reason God loves us and will always love us is because of His own plan and purpose and promise. God’s love for us is not contingent upon our present or future actions. God’s love will shape and change our lives and cause us to be obedient to Him, but it is His love that does it, not our own love. This truth that God’s love is not based upon us or determined by us has to be true before salvation as well as after salvation. There are a lot of people who would like only the back end and not the front end. They don’t want to believe that God loves us because He chooses to and it’s not based on us, but they want to believe that God keeps loving us because of Himself and not because of us. Those who would teach this are self-contradictory. You cannot believe in eternal security, or as it is better understood, perseverance of the saints, and not in election and be consistent. You do a disservice to the Word of God if you tell people God keeps loving them in spite of them, but He started loving them because they made a decision for Christ, or He loved them because they prayed the sinner’s prayer, or whatever else they might have done. Salvation begins by God’s grace and it is eternally secured by God’s grace. If you want to be logical and, most importantly, biblical, you have to believe in election if you believe in eternal security. If you don’t believe in either than you may be logical, but you’re certainly not biblical in that respect. You may be biblical in other areas, but not in this one.

            Now, because I state this so strongly, I want to give you a text to back it up. I want to show you why I say that God’s love is not based upon us, either before salvation or after salvation. I want you to see a text that shows clearly that God’s love toward us always has been and always will be because of His own purpose. Romans 8:28. Paul writes, And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. First, notice that, once again, love and election are in harmony. Those who love God are called according to His purpose. Those who love God love God because God first loved them. Right? Isn’t that what 1 John 4:19 says? When did God love these people? After they were born? Sometime in the past as He looked into what they would do in the future? No! Romans 9, which we read earlier, makes it clear that God does not take into account who we are or what we will or will not do when He decides to love us. If He did, He would never have loved any of us! We all would have rejected Him and despised Him. Everyone would be eternally damned if God looked into the future to see what choices we would make on our own. God’s calling according to His purpose is based on His purpose and His free will. Therefore, His love that saves us in Christ is based on His own purpose and free will. How does that make it secure? It makes it secure because God does what He purposes to do. That is the only reason Paul can say in Romans 8:38-39, For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Why can nothing separate us from God’s love, Paul? Because when God loved us, He did it with an eternal purpose in mind, and God will carry out that purpose until it is complete. Therefore, God’s love for us will go on into all eternity, and our love for God and one another will go on into all eternity because His love for us causes us to love.

            What would it be like if God loved us because we first loved Him? Well, first, God wouldn’t have loved anyone. No one would have loved Him. But suppose someone did love Him. If God’s love was contingent upon our love, then at any time that we failed to love God perfectly, He would also stop loving us. If His love was determined by us and based upon us, then every time we failed to love Him, His love toward us would cease. There are some who believe this to one degree or another, and they clearly contradict the teaching of Scripture, especially 1 John 4:19. Praise God that His love is not based on us or determined by us. We would be miserable indeed if God loved us because we loved Him. How wretched and miserable would we be.

            These are the theological implications of this text. God’s love is the direct cause of our love. Therefore, we would never love God or one another if God did not first love us. And lastly, then, we see that since we could never have loved God, His love for us is not determined by our actions or love and it is not based upon us or anything about us, but it is of His own free will and grace. This is rock under your feet, and a firm foundation to live upon. When you believe that God has loved you this way in spite of all that you are, you will face life with renewed confidence, and you will be able to go on and serve Him with confidence and not with slavish fear.

 

Practical Implications

 

            This brings me to my last heading – practical implications. These doctrines have very practical implications. Let me quickly give you two of them. First, we should have humility before God. We should have humility before God. If we realize that God’s love toward us is only based on His own free grace, we have nothing about which to boast. Our confidence, our fellowship with God, our obedience to His Word, and our spiritual growth is all due to Him. The Apostle knows that we love to take credit for things, and the practical outworking of verse 19 is that we must not take credit for our confidence and assurance. It is not by our works, but by God’s grace.

            Do you realize this? You understand this morning that anything you have done or ever will do for the kingdom of Christ is really something Christ has done for you? You have not given God anything, but He has given you everything! You are fully indebted to Him. We have nothing about which to boast, but we stand indebted to God for everything, including our fellowship with Him, and our confidence of that fellowship.

            Second, this truth ought to cause you to have a greater dependence upon God. When you see that everything is done by God’s will and God’s grace, and not by man’s might or power or strength or will, then you realize that you must go to God for what you need. You do not have it in you. You cannot do anything apart from Him. You could not even love Him, the most lovable Being in the universe and all of existence, if He had not first reached down to you and loved you. This truth ought to make you realize your utter dependence upon Him for everything. Is there a need that you have? You cannot meet it; you must go to Him. Is there a dear friend or relative who is an enemy of God? You cannot change that, and your friend or relative is a slave of sin and cannot do a thing about it either. You must go to God and plead for his or her soul, and pray that God would shed His love abroad in the heart of that unbeliever. You must plead with God for the church, knowing that He is the one who gives the grace for all things.

            Do you realize your dependence upon God? Do you know what it means to rely on Him for everything, and to realize that everything you have is a gift of His sovereign, loving grace and mercy? This morning realize again that everything is by God’s holy love and His sovereign grace, and that if you love God, it is because He has first reached down to love you. In your fellowship with Him, and in your confidence, realize that it is all by His grace, and that We love, because He first loved us. Let’s pray.

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