1 John 4:10 - Clarke's commentary and critical notes on the Bible

Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Not that we loved God - And that he was thereby induced to give his Son to be a propitiation for our sins. No: we were enemies to God, and yet Christ died for our ungodly souls. (See Romans 5:6-11, and the notes there.) So it was God's love, not our merit, that induced him to devise means that his banished might not be expelled from him.