1 John 4:7 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Let us love one another From the doctrine he has just been defending, he draws this exhortation: as if he had said, Think it not enough speculatively to admit the Christian doctrine, but let it be your great care to acknowledge it practically, and especially with respect to that most important article, brotherly love. The frequency and earnestness with which the apostle, in the present epistle, inculcates this love, is very remarkable. The greatest part of this chapter, and of chapter 3., is employed in pressing this duty. See also 1 John 2:8-11. For love is of God Is from him as its source, and particularly enjoined by him as a duty of the greatest importance, and of absolute necessity, in order to our pleasing and imitating him. And every one that loveth is born of God Every one, in whose heart this divine principle reigns, and conquers the selfish and contrary passions, shows by it that he is regenerated and transformed into the divine image; and that he knoweth God By the teaching of his Holy Spirit, as the God of love, infinitely amiable in himself, and infinitely loving to his people. On the other hand, he that loveth not, whatever he may pretend, knoweth not God Has no experimental and saving knowledge of him; for God is love Its great fountain and exemplar. He enjoins it by his law, and produces and cherishes it by the influences of his Spirit; and the due contemplation of him will naturally inflame our hearts with love to his divine majesty, and to our fellow-creatures for his sake, whose creatures they are, and especially to his children, who love him, bear his image, and are peculiarly dear to him. This little sentence, God is love, brought St. John more sweetness, even in the time he was writing it, says Bengelius, than the whole world can bring. God is often styled holy, righteous, wise; but not holiness, righteousness, or wisdom, in the abstract, as he is said to be love: intimating that this is his darling, his reigning attribute; the attribute that sheds an amiable glory on all his other perfections.