God Is Essentially Light and Love, Holy Love, And Therefore Those who Are His and Know Him and Abide in Him Will Reveal That Love To All Who Are His (1 John 4:7 to 1 John 5:3).
‘Beloved, let us love one another. For love is of God, and every one who loves is begotten of God, and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.'
This statement, beloved of all, especially the world which interprets it totally incorrectly, is not at all quite so simple to understand, and certainly does not mean what the world thinks that it means. It rather seeks to make the believer consider the heart of things. It seeks to settle him down and look at what is most important.
The first question we must ask is, what is meant by love? It is certainly not romantic love. That is represented by a totally different Greek word. Love which is simply the result of sexual arousal and sexual passion has no appeal to Him at all. Indeed He is angry at its misuse by men. Its purpose was to bind man and wife together. Any other use of it He sees as an abomination (Romans 1:24-28). Loving one another has nothing at all to do with this kind of love. God is not involved in emotional tangles.
Nor is it general affection, for the love spoken of is within the Christian community. It is a special kind of love, as exemplified in 1 Corinthians 13. It is a noble love. It is an attitude that intends well to its brother, even when the brother is totally undeserving or is totally the opposite of what appeals to us. It is a mutual oneness based on being in the light and in fellowship with God. It is a holy love. We may not like our fellow-brethren, they may even annoy us sometimes, but we still love them, we still direct our thoughts to their good, we still bear with them (1 Corinthians 13). Because they are in the light as we are, we still seek their sanctification. They are our fellow-travellers on the way to perfect righteousness, our fellow-workers in the purposes of God, our fellow-citizens of Heaven (Philippians 3:20) with whom we will spend eternity. It is the same kind of love as that described in the commandment, ‘you shall love your neighbour as yourself', and yet goes deeper because it is between brothers. But it is not necessarily suggesting deep affection, but a right attitude of heart and mind. Although in the case of loving one's neighbour the love reaches out beyond the brotherhood.
It gains its meaning from the fact that ‘God is love'. But that also does not mean that God looks on all people with general affection. ‘The wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold down the truth by unrighteousness' (Romans 1:18). There is no affection there.
Rather God's love, coming from the One Who is light, is revealed by what He has done. He has sent His only Son into the world in order that we might have life. He has sent Him to a cross that He might become the propitiation for our sins. It is thus great benevolence acting towards those who were totally unworthy. His love comes from what He is, not from what we are. He has little affection for what we are in ourselves. His love comes in spite of what we are. He purposes good towards all (it is thus a true love), but without response His love is individually ineffective. It requires response.
It is specifically a love in the light. There is no love for what is in darkness, except in order to reach out and bring it into the light. His love is offered to all in darkness, to those at whom His wrath, His aversion to sin, is levelled, that He might bring them to His light. But He does not love them as they are. He loves them in spite of what they are. He so loved the world that He gave His only Son (John 3:16). But it is only to those who respond and believe, or to those that He knows will respond and believe because of His own working, that His love as described here becomes personal.
Thus when the Christian's love for one another is compared with love as it is in God, it is thinking of love within the Kingship of light, within the sphere of God's light. It is pure love, holy love. Its concern is for the true wellbeing of others, for their holiness, for their being made pure. It rejoices in righteousness, it strives to achieve righteousness for those within the sphere of that love. That is the love being described here. It is far from being a love that is indulgent towards men, however they behave.
That is not to deny a general benevolence of God in that He still allows provision for His rebellious creatures (Matthew 5:45; Acts 14:17), but it is not because of His love for them in the way described here, but because of what He is, Someone of general compassion. There it is a different kind of ‘love'. It is general benevolence. That is how we too should behave towards all mankind. But it is not love in the light.
‘Beloved, let us love one another. For love is of God, and every one who loves is begotten of God, and knows God.' This makes instantly clear the unique nature of this love. It is a love that only those begotten of God know and experience. It is love within God's pure light. It is a love that delights in righteousness and holiness. It is a love that is of God, and is directed at what God loves. It is a love that wants to bring about God's will, a totally unselfish love. It is a love that the knowing of God produces. It is a love shared with those who love God and are loved by God.
‘He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.' The one who does not have this kind of love for his fellow-believers does not know God. For if he did God's love would possess his heart and he would love those whom God loves. For that is what God is like. He loves all that is within the sphere of holiness and righteousness. He loves in the light, and if we are in the light His love must affect us and love through us.
Thus His love surrounds all who have been accounted as holy and righteous in Christ, and in whose life He has planted His seed whereby they will grow into righteousness and true holiness. His love is effective in all who, because they are in Him, seek to walk without sinning, and who repent of sin when known, and receive His forgiveness and cleansing, all who walk in the light (1 John 1:7).
Note on ‘God is love.'
John reveals God in three ways, God is Spirit (John 4:24), God is Light (1 John 1:5), God is Love. He uses the most incorporeal things that he knows in order to describe God. To him none had physical form. God as He is in Himself is without body or physical attributes, He is totally separated from all that is evil and in darkness, He is pure light, and He is pure, righteous love. Thus all that He is seeks to produce what is holy, righteous and good, untainted by the effects of sin and of the world. That is what His love seeks to achieve, and will achieve. That is what His love offers. And we are to seek to be like Him. But it is not the physical world itself that is tainted, it is the spirit of the world (1 John 2:15-16). God does not love that. His general benevolence is towards His creation, for it is His workmanship. But he does not love the spirit of the world. The spirit of the world is what man has produced without God, with the aid of the Evil One, and love of it is thus condemned. It is self-seeking. It is thus in direct contrast with the ‘love of the brethren', which seeks not wealth, nor physical satisfaction, nor honour and fame, but the good of others, and especially of those who are God's.
As such God is totally distinct from His creation. He sees His creation as good. What is not good is what man and the Evil One have done with it, and the spirit that they have introduced into it. Both God's light and God's love abhor the spirit of the world. His light reveals it for what it is, and His love seeks to remove it and to call men out of it. It is the ‘power of darkness', in contrast with ‘the kingly rule of His beloved Son' where He gives to those who respond to Him ‘the inheritance of those who are separated to God in light' (Colossians 1:12-15).
It is under that kingly rule, and to those who are under it, or who will be under it, that His love fully shines forth. To those who are ‘in the world' He shows a general benevolence, but His love as the God Who is love is only fully shown to those who walk in His light, and have turned from sin in their hearts, for only they are receptive to it. His benevolence in general is open to all, His general benevolence reaches out to all, but His full love as the God Who is love can only become experienced and personal to those who respond to Christ and receive the life that He offers, eternal life, although the same love is active in seeking to bring men to this point. It is His love that draws men to respond to Christ (John 6:44). It is His love that has given to Jesus Christ those whom He has chosen (John 6:37; John 6:39).
God does not love all men as they are. His wrath is revealed at what they are (Romans 1:18). But His love reaches through with the aim of making some respond to Him so that they may enjoy His love. It is a love revealed to such from the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4) which will be fulfilled within His final purposes. It is holy love.
But the message that John is emphasising stresses that God in His ‘otherness' from His creation Himself became true man in Jesus Christ, so that He might be the representative of man in His death on the cross and in His physical resurrection. It was as God-made-man that He died on the cross for our sins, and as glorified God-made-man that He took His seat at the right hand of God, a distinction necessary because while in His Godhood He was One with the Father on His throne, in His glorified manhood He received His own throne to which He calls His own (Revelation 3:21).
The physical creation is therefore not in itself evil. It is what man has made of it that is evil. And the creation itself will therefore be ‘redeemed' by itself also being totally transformed, so that it will result in a new Heaven and a new earth in which dwells righteousness (2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1; Romans 8:19-21). In this will His love for His creation be revealed, and all sin, all that is not light, will be done away.
End of note.