The origin of love is God. The manifestation of love is the incarnation of Jesus. The perfection of love is completed in us, those who are so overwhelmed and overflowing with God’s love that it spills out and over the people around us.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
“Love your friends and hate your enemies” is the rallying cry for a divided world today, much as it was the traditional thought when Jesus said,
You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:43-48).
The notion of hating enemies is found in The Community Rule, a manual of behavior for a Jewish sect at Qumran in the first century. Part of the teaching in that manual was to seek God, obey the prophets, and “love all the sons of light, each according to his lot in God’s design, and hate all the sons of darkness, each according to his guilt in God’s vengeance” (Ward). It was a common enough saying, but not the dominant teaching of Judaism. However, clearly people had heard the phrase often enough that Jesus’ reference would be understood by his hearers. The modern church often falls to a similar sectarian error: love those who agree with us and either revile or dismiss those who do not.
Stott noted that in the ancient world, it was appropriate only to love those deemed worthy. Current culture tends to elevate the “worthy” and diminish those deemed “less than.” This must not be the practice of believers. Stott said, “But God loves sinners who are unworthy of his love, and indeed, subject to his wrath. He loved us and sent his Son to rescue us, not because we are loveable, but because he is love” (Stott 163). God’s love is the real beginning of all things and it is in his love that “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). To act as though any person is outside the reach of God’s love or to create some false scale upon which God decides to love is false.
In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4: 9-10).
There is no hierarchy of love in Christ. We are all unworthy of God’s love, yet he chooses to love us enough to become one of us. We live through Jesus because of love.
John called his readers, “beloved.” To the Ephesians then, and to Christians living the brokenness of the 21st century, the knowledge of being beloved by God must envelop every moment of every day, not just for the sake of the individual believers, but for the corporate Church as well. Love for one another proves the Spirit’s indwelling and empowers the Church to do the work of justice and mercy in humility. It begins with one another. It begins with the radical understanding that the Creator of the universe has inexplicably chosen to love us. Van Neste put it this way,
If we have experienced this amazing love, such that an all-holy God who does not need us nevertheless, for our good, sent his only Son to die in our place, then we cannot help but love others who have also received this love.
The origin of love is God. The manifestation of love is the incarnation of Jesus. The perfection of love is completed in us, those who are so overwhelmed and overflowing with God’s love that it spills out and over the people around us. It is love that allows us to recognize false teachers; they are from the world and the world loves them (1 John 4:5). Those who love God are those who know him and receive his amazing love. “Beloved,” John wrote, “if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11). If God so loved us, we cannot help but love one another, even when we don’t agree.
The essence of God’s love allows us to be different and live in unity. The two ideas are not exclusive. Love frees us to learn from one another, to enrich one another, and to enjoy the beautiful diversity of thoughts and cultures (and yes, even politics). Our experiences with the love of God, manifested in Jesus, and maintained in us by the Spirit of Truth, motivate and inspire us to love deeply and authentically. There is no room in the Christian life for anything else.
Resources
The ESV Bible. Crossway, 2001, www.esv.org/.
Lewis, C.S. Surprised by Joy (1955) and The Four Loves (1960, 1968); Two Works. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2011.
Palmer, Earl F., The Communicator’s Commentary Series, Volume 12: 1,2,3 John; Revelation. Word, Inc. 1982/
Stott, John R.W. The Letters of John. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, vol. 19, InterVarsity Press, 1964, 1988.
Van Neste, Ray. 1 John: A Commentary. The Gospel Coalition, www.thegospelcoalition.org/commentary/1-john/.
Ward, Douglas. “Who Taught ‘Hate Your Enemy’ and Why?” JC Studies, https://www.jcstudies.store/who-taught-hate-your-enemy-and-why/.
Defaulting to Grace 