The theme of I John 4:7-21, part of a segment that extends to 5:4a, is that those who part of a Christian community are to love one another. These verses are an intensive treatment of love, 18 of the 28 occurrences in I John. In 3:23, John reminds them of the commandment to love each other. This segment is an elaboration of that commandment, while 4:1-6 is an elaboration of what it means to believe in the name of Jesus Christ, the other commandment referred to in that verse. John addresses a community shaken by mutiny. Some of the members have already left (2:18-19). The anxiety generated by such communal tension shapes this segment. Thus, it ought not to surprise us that love of stranger or outcast is not the focus of this segment. The segment underlines the quality of relationship with the community. He wants them to return to the fundamentals of their faith to prepare them for the Day of Judgment. The segment, in an exquisite and lovely way, reminds the reader of the love of God for us and the love we as believing readers are to share with each other.[1]
Throughout this segment, the author may well be interpreting John 3:16-17. The Gospel of John famously affirms that God loved the world so much that God have the only and unique Son. In this segment, John expands on love, providing a Christological content to love. This segment might have been part of the baptism/conversion/initiation language. The reason is that it also expands on the notion that those who believe in the Son will have eternal life, that God sent the Son into the world to save the world rather than condemn the world. These notions reoccur in this segment.
I begin with a brief devotion that might help us apply this passage to today.
The church continually struggles with practicing the love toward each other to which the New Testament calls it. The letters of John in the New Testament are a good example. The congregations that formed around John in the first century had a mutiny near the end of the century. Those who remain faithful to John and his message are anxious about the future of their community. Will it survive the impending split? The struggle here is not to figure how to love the world. The struggle here is how Christians will demonstrate love toward each other.
Reflect for a moment upon the phrase, “God is love.” The motivation of all the actions of God toward humanity is love. The primary contrast to this is that the world hates. In fact, the closer the church gets to hate, the closer our lives move toward hate, the further away from God we move. The statement is the closest to a definition of God that we have the Bible. Love is central to the church because it defines God. However, God is not love in the abstract. God demonstrated this love in a way that remains shocking for many people today. The Messiah, the Son of God, gave his life for each of us. In this supreme sacrifice, the love of God becomes tangible. Love is the primary mark of the children of God. We know God through love. Obedience to God and loving are interchangeable. To show love to one another is to make the invisible God visible. The failure of those who rebel against the leadership of John is the failure to love. The root of genuine love is the love of God, demonstrated by the sending of Jesus to die. The person who lives in this way can have confidence before God.
Reflect for a moment upon the title John gives to the recipients of this letter, "Beloved." They do not only receive the love of God, but they become the beloved. Likewise, if beloved, then they become loving persons. One cannot “be” without also “being.” Being the beloved and loving others is the identifying characteristic of the one who is born of God.
Well, John was writing to a community that was extremely anxious about its present ability to cope with a split, and fearful about the future. John seeks to comfort and strengthen by stressing the fundamental truth: God is love. Our fear and anxiety can lead us to do many things, most of them not helpful. By recovering the center, that of love, we learn what it feels like to abide in God, and we learn what it feels like for God to abide in us. We can then remain strong during unrest, uncertainty, and even division.
I now transition to a detailed reflection upon the same matters we confront in this passage.
Verses 7-10 have the theme that love is from the God who is love. 7 Beloved, a title that is a reminder the readers do not only receive the love of God, but also become beloved. The love of which John writes is not simply theoretical. Such love is transformative. If one is beloved, then one loves. Therefore, beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God. Augustine taught that if what this verse says is true, that love is of God, then Pelagius was wrong to maintain that we have a good will and can do what is keeping with it in our own strength. Instead, a good will is identical with the love that God has poured into us. Because it comes from God, love is grace, mediated by faith and fulfills the law, for it is the goal of the law. Therefore the gospel is the fulfillment of the law. [2] From the larger theological perspective, the obedience of love follows the obedience of faith. Sanctification is the second aspect of the reconciliation of humanity with God, willed, accomplished, and revealed by God. God is love and revealed the divine self as such by sending the Son in order that we might live through Him. In Jesus Christ, God has created an indestructible fellowship between God and humanity. That is the actualization and revelation of divine love it consists simply in the affirmation of the existence for this fellowship.[3] Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. If love is of God, then God can make of those who cannot and will not love people who love.[4] 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. Along with John 4:24, where God is spirit, we have here a second statement in the New Testament that reads like a definition of the divine nature, where God is love.[5] Thus, God not only loves, but also is love. The mere thought that God is a subject that loves does not do justice to this saying. Even if we presuppose a plurality of persons in a relationship of love, the persons are related to each other by love, which is not itself thought of as a third person.[6] The statement summarizes the whole event of the self-revelation of God in Jesus Christ, going beyond the statement that God is Spirit in John 4:24.[7] John is not describing a quality of God, but the divine essence or nature as love. John will intricately connect knowledge and love. Love has become the active life of faith. Gnostics believed in wisdom and power that separated people from the divine. For John, love testifies to the relatedness of the divine and the human. Love is not just a quality of God but is the essence of God. We know the divine essence, not because we became so perceptive, but because we have believed in the revelatory nature of an event, namely, that of Jesus Christ. The dominating idea of the segment is that love is from God, who is love. God is love leads naturally to the idea that the mark of the children of God is love. In fact, knowledge of God is through love. Love is a criterion for knowledge of God, even as is faith in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Keeping commandments and love are interchangeable. When he says, "God is love,” this is not a precise definition but a description of how God acts in relation to human beings. It is not a contrast between Old Testament God of justice and New Testament God of love. The real contrast is with a world that hates. To say that God is love is to make love a predicate of God. If so, the content remains the same if we transpose the terms: love is God. One who loves knows God, while one who does not love does not know God. Love presupposes knowledge of God, and knowledge of God results in love. To know God is to know the love that is God. 9 God revealed divine love among us in this way: God sent the only Son into the world so that we might live through him. Thus, to say that the hate, violence, and death we find in this world is not the destiny of humanity is not simply an intuition. For John, the fact that our destiny is the love of God is a matter of revelation. This knowledge arises out of a specific event. The sending of the Son into the world refers to the passion and death of Jesus, as here, but not to his human birth.[8] Being the beloved and loving others is the identifying characteristic of the one who is born of God. The one born of God knows God to be more than an ephemeral notion. Rather, to John, the believer who has experienced the transformative love of God lives to love. The love here described is dynamic and relational, an expression of the Creator's very essence to the one who believes. John then adds a most important statement: Jesus reveals the love of God. The love of God is incarnational. It is not only a feeling; it is an historic reality. The human body of Jesus fully reveals the love of God. "Love" in this letter serves the same purpose as the "Word" served in the Fourth Gospel (John 1:1-18). They are synonyms, for both are preexistent and creative, now in the flesh. Jesus, to John, is the intersection of the divine and human. Jesus is the expression of God's love and the expression of the loving human response to God, as well as to the brothers and sisters of the community. Those who love God "live through [Jesus Christ]." 10 In this is love, not that we loved God but that God loved us and sent the Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Such “sending” presupposes preexistence as the starting point of the mission, as is incontestably the case here, suggesting the unity of Jesus with God.[9] God's love through Jesus Christ is not only transformational, but also is for salvation. We would go too far to say that the only good thing that one can say of humanity is that God offered the perfect sacrifice for us in our place. It might even go too far to say that without this perfect sacrifice we would be lost.[10] However, such statements remind us that the issue John has with his opponents would have been over the Christological focus of the "God is... (love, light, spirit)" not over the statements themselves. Reminiscent, of course, is John 15:13, "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friend." Hence, the primary incarnation of God's love in Jesus becomes secondarily incarnational in the love that the believers have for each other. Another issue would have been the salvific importance of living out the implications in our lives. We can see that for John, the revelation of this love is the sending of the Son, which explains how humanity knows this love and therefore knows God. Thus, we are not engaging in arbitrary speculation if we discuss the basis of love if we were to begin the description of the being and nature of the divine being as love. God exists within the divine being as love. In the tri-unity of the divine being, the essence of God is eternal love.[11] Thus, God has declared the divine nature as love (verses 8 and 16) in the sending of Jesus Christ in his message and history. Such love gives human beings life (verse 9). John now discloses that the origin of love is in the love God had in the sending of the Son. Love is a force that radiates out from God. Love is not primarily a human act. Love lays hold of us in such a way as to make us active as well. Agape is “giving love.” The katabatic or downward thrust of love from God and toward humanity finds its meaning in the form of agape most obviously in verse 10 and in verse 19. John is presupposing the command to love God. Allowing such love to transform us necessitates the same kind of sacrificial loving outreach to one another.
At the very heart of our Christian faith is the bold assertion that God is love. Not simply that God loves, but that God is love. That is a claim about the nature of God that does not appear in the scriptures of Islam, the Quran. Theologian Miroslav Volf has studied and written on the topic of whether Christians and Muslims worship the same God. He says they do. Others would argue that when you examine the orthodox expressions of both religions, the answer would have to be no.
However, listen to what Miroslav Volf has to say. In a lecture at Yale Divinity School in October 2011, he made the case that our Gods are the same, but we understand God in separate ways. In our distinctive views of God, there are four significant similarities and two crucial differences. Both believe that God is One, created the world out of nothing, is radically different from the world, and is just, merciful, and a giving of commandments. These are significant similarities. However, let us not fall into the trap of thinking that Christianity and Islam are the very same road to God. There are at least two major differences. First, Christians believe that God is a Trinity. We are monotheists, but also Trinitarians. Muslims believe that God is fully one, not triune. Second, Christians believe that God is love (1 John 4:8). Muslims agree to a certain extent, and the mercy of God is huge in Islam. However, one will not find "God is love" among the 99 Muslim names for God.
Christians and Muslims should have an honest dialogue on love to see if there can be agreement on the belief that "God is love." To begin such a conversation, we need to be clear about our own convictions about the nature of God. We worship one God in Trinity in a way that does not confound the persons or modes of being of the Trinity and does not divide the essence of divinity. In our understanding of the event of revelation in Jesus Christ, we believe God is Father, Son, and Spirit. Their glory, beauty, and majesty exist as equal. Being God, they are not created by someone or something else. As God, they have no limits. They are infinite. They are eternal. Yet, the three exist as one. We acknowledge the contradiction, but the event of revelation in Jesus Christ and the gift of the Spirit through the risen Lord lead us to affirm unity in Trinity and Trinity in unity.[12] Such an affirmation of the nature of God seems incompatible with the central Muslim claim that there is "no god but God." Moreover, the Qur'an seems to directly condemn the kinds of beliefs the creed advocates. Consider the following texts from the Qur'an:
1) "They say: 'God hath begotten a son.' Glory be to Him—to Him belongs all that is in the heavens and on earth: everything renders worship to Him. To Him is due the primal origin. Of the heavens and the earth: When He decreeth a matter, He saith to it: 'Be,' and it is" (Al Baqarah, 2:116–117).
2) "Say: 'O People of the Book! Come to common terms as between us and you: that we worship none but God; that we associate no partners with him; that we erect not, from among ourselves, Lords and patrons other than God.' If then they turn back, say ye: 'Bear witness that we (at least) are Muslims (bowing to God's Will)''' (al 'lmran, 3:64).
3) "They do blaspheme who say: God is one of three in a Trinity: for there is no god except One God. If they desist not from their word [of blasphemy], verily a grievous penalty will befall the blasphemers among them" (al Ma'idah, 5:73).
4) "They do blaspheme who say: 'God is Christ the son of Mary.' But said Christ: 'O Children of Israel! Worship God, my Lord and your Lord: Whoever joins other gods with God, God will forbid him the garden, and the Fire will be his abode. There will for the wrongdoers be no one to help" (al Ma'idah, 5:72).
5) "They take their priests and their anchorites to be their lords in derogation of God, and [they take as their Lord] Christ the son of Mary; yet they were commanded to worship but One God: there is no god but He. Praise and glory to Him. [Far is He] from having the partners they associate with Him" (al Tawbah, 9:31).
For Christians, the Trinity is the way that the issue of the transcendence and immanence of God find their resolution. God is one, infinite, and eternal. Yet, God is love, and therefore God has loved in such a way that God has revealed who God is at a particular moment in history, in Jesus Christ, the Son. God became one with humanity to the point of suffering and death. God also brought suffering and death into the being or life of God in such a way as to conquer them through resurrection and life. Further, God is Spirit, and therefore is present with us and among us as the life-giving, healing, guiding, and liberating presence of God as the Holy Spirit. God is transcendent, while also immanent at a particular moment of revelation and immanent with us as our companion through life. Yet, we do not think of three gods, but three ways in which God is who God is.
Now, this focus on divine love that leads Christians to discuss the unity and diversity of the divine nature, what we call the Trinity, also needs to be the distinguishing feature of the Christian. If love is the soul of Christian existence, it must be at the heart of every other Christian virtue. Thus, for example, justice without love is legalism; faith without love is ideology; hope without love is self-centeredness; forgiveness without love is self-abasement; fortitude without love is recklessness; generosity without love is extravagance; care without love is mere duty; fidelity without love is servitude. Every virtue is an expression of love. No virtue is really a virtue unless love permeates and informs it.[13]
Verses 11-16b have the theme of the God of love abiding in us.11 Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. Therefore, after stressing the origin of love in God, the author can go on to say at once that if God has loved us so much then we are also under obligation to love each other. Yet, this is more than just a moral conclusion. It is a matter of abiding in the ecstatic elevation to God that faith mediates. On the side of God, such elevation is the being of God in believers by the Spirit. The opening verse of John's letter reads, "We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen ... what we have looked at and touched (1:1). In the fourth chapter John exhorts his community to become what they have heard about and seen and touched. 12 No one has ever seen God. The author focuses on the nature of his opposition to those who have left the community beginning here. He dares to make divine indwelling dependent on and expressed by our love for each other. This is where God's love reaches perfection. Thus, if we love one another, God lives in us, and divine love reaches perfection in us. Therefore, if we can think of mystical union, it does not have the purpose of a vision or ecstasy, but the discovery of the love of God reproduced in our lives. If we love each other, God abides in us and the love of God has reached its goal in us.[14] 13 By this, we know that we abide in God and God in us. John presses his followers to abide in God and to confess that Jesus is the Son of God. Abiding and confessing become particularly important to John's community. For John, those who left the community did not abide. They have not experienced truly the love of God. They have not genuinely loved their brother or sister. The foundation of this theme is that love is from God, revealed in Jesus and that we must find incarnation in us. This unit is not a contrast between God’s gift of love and commandment. Divine indwelling depends upon and expresses our love for each other. God’s love is not already perfect but needs fulfillment in the life of the believer. The reason he can write like this is that God has given us of the divine Spirit. Δέδωκεν carries the thought of the sending of the Son to the cosmos, as here, though with the special nuance that the Father gifted the Son to the world.[15] One should relate “Spirit” to the giving of the Spirit of a second step. Note the author related Spirit to love in the previous section. The Spirit allows people to see the divine origin of the ministry of Jesus. Considering that God the Creator, Christ the Savior, and the Spirit are mentioned in that order in the space of just a few verses indicates an early orthodoxy concerning the Trinity. The Spirit is the entity that allows the true believer to abide, confess, testify, and love. The concept of the Spirit as gift, based on this passage, constantly leads Augustine to the thesis of a common procession from the Father and the Son who are the givers of the gift.[16] 14 In addition, we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. 15God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, thereby identifying who Jesus is, and they abide in God. Those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God also find that God dwells in them and they dwell in God.[17] The formulation shows us that the confession of the church has placed the obedient man Jesus, in virtue of his dignity as the Kyrios, in the very being of God as the eternal Son. This is primarily a presupposition rather than a consequence of the understanding of God as love. The question arises how we are to describe more precisely the relation between the unity of the divine love and the trinity of Father, Son, and Spirit. R. Prenter calls love the unity of the divine being of Father, Son, and Spirit. They are love in the unity of free persons that nothing can separate.[18] 16 Therefore, we have known and believed the love that God has for us. The knowledge of the love God that we get from Christ is the basis of faith in him.[19]God is love. John closes this chapter with a return of his central theme. Again, he is not referring to a quality of God, but the divine essence or nature as love.
Verses 16c-19 has the theme of law reaching perfection in us. Those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. What John says about abiding in love here expresses the fact that what is at issue is not just human action, but a sphere in which we move, a force field that comes from God and binds us to God.[20] Abiding in love is a condition that makes possible the divine indwelling or, it is through love that we experience the divine indwelling. 17 Love has reached its perfection among us in this: that we may have boldness on the Day of Judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. John adds one more significant piece: A word about the judgment. This Johannine community lived with a sense of the nearness of Judgment Day. A mark of abiding in God's love until the end is "boldness," standing firm in their conviction. Those who stand firm in the faith need not be fearful of the divine wrath of the punishment. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. The fear of which John writes here is the fear believers of persons and things other than God, whom we are to love above all things.[21] Obviously, fear was a very real issue in the early church. John keeps his community mindful that if they fear then they have not experienced the perfected love of God. Again, the emphasis is on abiding, maintaining, confessing, and loving. As the believer continues to do these things, she or he continues the journey towards faithful perfection. John was writing to a community that was extremely anxious about its present ability to cope with a split, and fearful about the coming judgment and punishment. 19 We love because God first loved us. John seeks to comfort and strengthen by stressing the fundamental truth: God is love. Certainly, to center oneself like this, then and now, is the key to abiding and remaining strong during unrest, uncertainty and division.
Verses 20-21, part of a segment that extends to 5:4a, have the theme of defending loving fellow Christians. 20Those who say, "I love God," and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. Love of God and love of brothers are two facets of the same love. Sloth puts in danger the bond that joins us to other human beings in that this bond with others unites us to God. The statement here is clear-cut. The relationship of one with another is not in itself a relationship with God. Yet, since these two people have the same God, love toward God includes love toward humanity. If I choose myself in isolation from others, I enter the sphere of the even more terrible isolation in which God can no longer be my God. If one is indifferent to another, then I show indifference to God. If I can despise people, the praise that I may bring to God will stick in my throat. If I exploit my neighbor, I will do the same with God. I have hated, despised, and wounded, and attacked God. If I am inhuman, I am also stupid, foolish, and godless.[22] 21 The commandment we have from God is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also. Such a love to God is self-evident. The encouragement is also to love the Christian fellowship. Our love for God is not a separate theme alongside that of the love of God for the world shown in the sending of the Son, and our sharing in this by love of neighbor.[23] The statement is in the indicative. Love on the vertical plane is the human answer to the love of God for us, while love on the horizontal plane is an indirect repetition of this answer. The love of God evokes the love of the Christian for God, and the two together lead to mutual love of Christians.[24] The opponents of John may have refused to help in a specific situation, as 3:17 suggests. One might like to pursue the question of how much love John has for his opponents. We can all grant that trying to keep a community together when serious matters of belief and practice are at stake is a difficult one.
Soren Kierkegaard once said that the world’s talk about love is confusing. For example, the world will tell young people, “Love and you will be loved.” This is true, if properly understood. Yet, the world is deceitful. We in the church are deceitful if we do not remind our youth to hold fast to God to learn what love is. The world has a quite different conception of love than does God or the church.[25]
The church has a high calling. As Kierkegaard also said, God is the one who brings love up from within each of us, not so much that we might rejoice at the sight of it, but rather, to send love out into the world, constantly occupied with the task of loving.
When it comes to deciding what to do in any situation, we need to step back, pause, and remember that the primary calling of all Christians is to love. What would love call us to do in this situation? What would love do? Love is our deepest calling. John tells us of Jesus: Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. (John 13:1) Any decision that fails to ask the love question misses the point of Christian practice.[26]
Yet, love does not solve everything. I find John Wesley intriguing on this point. He points out that even love in all its purity will not protect us from many mistakes. Love itself can accidently lead to mistakes, for it thinks no evil as well as believes and hopes all things. Such temperament by the Christian may lead one to think others are better than they are. [27] In this sense, “love” is not the only answer to life. We need the balance of other qualities, in particular wisdom, honesty, and discernment, in order to determine properly what God wants in a situation.
Clearly, we need one another. It is so obvious. On the other hand, is it? Do we really make relationships a priority? How many times have you said thank you for what others gave to you? Yes, you may have done so. Yet, does it haunt you that you have showed little gratitude in your life? You may have had the experience of saying over a grave what you know you ought to have said while the person was alive.[28]
There is a little picture of a turtle on top of fence post. The caption simply says, "If you see a turtle on a fence post, you know it had help." We need each other, more than we know.
I offer four practical ways in which we can practice the kind of love of which John writes in this passage.
First, we need to allow the other person freedom to be themselves. I start here, because the notion that many people have of love leads to smothering the other person. Husbands and wives learn quickly that the spouse is not his or her carbon copy. They never will be. The same is true of parents. We learn quickly that our children are not carbon copies of us. They are their own persons. They will make choices, some of which we will not agree.
Second, we must be willing to assign a top priority to friendships. We often think of love as if nothing could be more natural in human experience and life than love. Yet, hardly anything fails so regularly as does love. We must make clear that love takes time, effort, even training. It is not for novices. Love is an art, just as living is an art; if we want to learn how to love, we must proceed in the same way we have to proceed if we want to learn any other art, say music or painting...or the art of medicine or engineering. Sadly, in our society, while we have a deep-seated craving for love, we considered everything else more important than love, such as success, prestige, money, or power. We will learn how to acquire all these things, while spending little effort at all to learn the art of loving.[29]
Third, we need to cultivate the ability to share ourselves with others. Most of us rightly build up defenses here. Most of us have been sorry we have trusted someone else with personal information. We become more careful in deciding when we express ourselves. Yet, that risk, that act of trust, is so important in friendship. If we are going to love each other, we need to learn to give the gift of our true self to another.
A group studied healthy marriages. The challenge of marriage is moral. Marriage is a school of virtue, a domain that requires tact and restraint along with open and honest communication, kindness, and gratitude along with assertiveness and autonomy. Take the matter of fighting. Good marriages are not free of conflict. However, respect for the partner governs the conflict. No matter how fierce the anger, it stops short of the cruelest cut. Spouses learn what the relationship can tolerate without breaking. The men and women in this study speak of protecting the marriage as if it were their child. The marriage itself is a creation they cherish and share. These happily married people see their spouses as essentially admirable and good, as morally worthy. Many express admiration for the partner’s conscience or honesty, or praise their courage in overcoming earlier obstacles in life.[30]
Fourth, we need to share affection and warmth with others. Now, in the context of a marriage, I could talk about sex right now. I see nothing wrong with that. Our sexuality is a perfectly healthy discussion to have. Yet, we also need to think broadly. This world can be cold and cruel. People lose jobs. People evaluate us all the time. We need that warmth and affection ourselves. Other people need it as well. In friendship, those physical barriers need to come down.
Frankly, technology has isolated many of us in front of the computer screen. If you have seen the animated film, Wall-E, you see an imagined future in which the only experience people have is in front of a screen, until a robot breaks the assembly line and forces the human beings to relate to each other. People need the message the church has concerning love for many reasons, not the least of which is that people can feel so lonely in our society.
Babe Ruth was one of the greatest players of baseball in history. Unfortunately, he allowed his career to go a little longer than it should have. He was getting old and had developed quite a large stomach. He was playing one of his last major league games, this time with the Boston Braves, against the Cincinnati Reds. He was no longer as agile as he once had been. He fumbled the ball and threw badly. In one inning alone, his errors were responsible for five Cincinnati runs. As the Babe walked off the field after the third out, boos and catcalls came from all over the stadium. Just then, a young boy leaped over the railing and onto the playing field. With tears streaking from his eyes down his cheeks, he threw his arms around the legs of his hero. Babe Ruth did not hesitate. He picked up the child, hugged him, and set him down on his feet with a playful pat on the head. Suddenly, the booing stopped. A hush went over that stadium. They remembered who this man was. The great Babe, who hit 714 home runs in his career. The unconditional love of this boy reminded them. It did not matter if he had a difficult day. He was still a hero.[31]
[1] When reading the Johannine epistles it is crucial to remember the historical and communal context. The letters reveal a community that has been shaken by mutiny, one in which some of the insiders have left (2:18-19). John is writing to keep the faithful together. This communal anxiety shapes this passage in the fourth chapter. The love that is described is neither a love of stranger nor of the outcast - it is a love for those who are part of the Johannine church. This is a text not to be misunderstood as some general "love of neighbor" ethic; rather, it is a text that serves to underline the quality of relationship within the church. One cannot be certain of the details, of course, but in light of the mutiny of part of the community, it is as if John is drawing his church back to the fundamentals of their faith in order to steady them for the coming judgment. Regardless, I John 4:7-21 is an exquisitely lovely passage about God's love for the believer and the love that believers should have for one another.
[2] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 72.
[3] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.1 [58.2] 102, in a discussion of the being of humanity in Jesus Christ
[4] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.2 [68.2] 776-7.
[5] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 294.
[6] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 297.
[7] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 396.
[8] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 301.
[9] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 369. He points to W. Kramer, Christ, Lord, Son of God, 1966, and Hahn, Titles, p. 304-5.
[10] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.1 [59.3] 282.
[11] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.2 [68.2] 756-7.
[12] Here is the pertinent part of the Athanasian Creed, the most serious attempt to define the Trinity.
That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; Neither confounding the Persons; nor dividing the Essence. For there is one Person of the Father; another of the Son; and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one; the Glory equal, the Majesty coeternal. Such as the Father is; such is the Son; and such is the Holy Ghost. The Father uncreated; the Son uncreated; and the Holy Ghost uncreated. The Father unlimited; the Son unlimited; and the Holy Ghost unlimited. The Father eternal; the Son eternal; and the Holy Ghost eternal. And yet they are not three eternals; but one eternal. As also there are not three uncreated; nor three infinites, but one uncreated; and one infinite. So likewise the Father is Almighty; the Son Almighty; and the Holy Ghost Almighty. And yet they are not three Almighties; but one Almighty. So the Father is God; the Son is God; and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet they are not three Gods; but one God. So likewise the Father is Lord; the Son Lord; and the Holy Ghost Lord. And yet not three Lords; but one Lord. For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity; to acknowledge every Person by himself to be God and Lord; So are we forbidden by the catholic religion; to say, There are three Gods, or three Lords. The Father is made of none; neither created, nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone; not made, nor created; but begotten. The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son; neither made, nor created, nor begotten; but proceeding. So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts. And in this Trinity none is before, or after another; none is greater, or less than another. But the whole three Persons are coeternal, and coequal. So that in all things, as aforesaid; the Unity in Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity, is to be worshipped.
[13] Fr. Richard P. McBrien, Catholicism.
[14] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 182-3.
[15] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 438.
[16] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 317.
[17] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 116.
[18] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 424-5.
[19] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 138.
[20] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 78.
[21] Barth, Church Dogmatics II.1 [25.2] 34. Thus, I disagree with those who think John refers to the fear that includes the traditional “fear of God.” Secessionists had a theology where they were secure with the author; there could be fear on judgment day. However, what of one’s own inner dwelling of the God of love? This reveals how delicate the relationship is between himself and his opponents.
[22] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.2 [65.2] 441-2.
[23] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 184-5.
[24] Pannenberg, Church Dogmatics IV.2 [68..3] 817.
[25] Soren Kierkegaard, “Works of Love,” Part One, III. A.
[26] Ruth Haley Barton, in Sacred Rhythms
[27] John Wesley, Chapter 4 of Plain Account of Christian Perfection.
[28] Albert Schweitzer could say in his Memoirs of Childhood and Youth (1925, p. 87):
When I look back upon my early days, I am stirred by the thought of the number of people whom I have to thank for what they gave me or what they were to me. At the same time, I am haunted by an oppressive consciousness of the little gratitude I really showed them while I was young. How many of them have said farewell to life without my having made clear to them what it meant to me to receive from them so much kindness or so much care! Many a time have I, with a feeling of shame, said quietly to myself over a grave the words which my mouth ought to have spoken to the departed, while he was still in the flesh.
[29] "In spite of the deep-seated craving for love, almost everything else is considered to be more important than love: success, prestige, money, power -- almost all our energy is used for the learning of how to achieve these aims, and almost none to learn the art of loving."
[30] Barbara Defoe, “The Moral State of Marriage,” Atlantic Monthly, 1995.
[31] Leadership, Winter 1983, 83.
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