Abiding in love and light
By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
In the previous chapters, John instructed, exhorted, and compelled his readers to dwell in the love of God as they loved one another. From this point, John puts aside instruction and moves into affirmation: “By this we KNOW that we ABIDE in him and he in us.” How do we know? Because “he has given us of his Spirit” (1 John 4:13). It is overwhelming to consider that the Creator of the universe has given us his Spirit, not because of what we have (or haven’t) done, but because of his mercy and love. The Spirit of the Most High God lives within us, and as we abide in God’s love through Jesus, we can love one another. We don’t have to conjure feelings of affection for every person; we can love them in the Spirit because we abide in him, and he in us.
Abiding. The word appears four times and is alluded to at least twice more in this section of the epistle. The Greek word μένω (menō) means to remain in place. It was a favorite word of John, who used it 40 times in his epistle and 24 times in this short letter. “Stay,” he wanted his readers to understand, “be continually present in the love of God.” Perhaps he recalled Jesus’ teaching that he witnessed firsthand. “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Jesus dwelt in God’s love during his incarnation, and we follow his example by obeying the command to love God and love others. Abiding, dwelling, safely secure, we remain in the enduring love of God. From that place, we are free to love boldly. Westcott (1886) wrote,
To abide in God is to share the character of Christ under the conditions of earth. The sense of spiritual harmony with Him which this abiding brings necessarily inspires boldness in the believer; and it is the purpose of God that it should do so. So God fulfils His counsel of love. Thus the whole train of thought is brought to a natural conclusion (158).
Abiding in the love of God follows a recursive pattern: God loved us and sent his Son and so we are able to love one another. As we love each other through the Spirit, that same love matures within us. Mature love becomes complete, not because of our actions, but by the renewed filling of God’s love as it pours into us through the Spirit day by day.
Abiding in the Lord is not a promise of a life without difficulty. The reality of this world is darkness, and that darkness will deepen as more people reject Jesus and choose to stumble blindly under their own power (1 John 2:11). The Ephesian believers to whom John wrote did not see a change in their circumstances, but rather, could see beyond them to the perfection of God’s glory. Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, a group also dealing with false teachings and persecution:
Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart…the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God…But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed…So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal (2 Corinthians 4:1-18).
Abiding grants us the capacity to fix our eyes on the light of Jesus, no matter how dark the world becomes. We do not fear the world or what it can do to our bodies because we have confidence in the eternal, sanctifying perfection of God’s love. Secure in God’s love, we demonstrate our place in Christ by loving one another. Jesus himself blended ancient Jewish teachings of loving God and loving one’s neighbor as a single command upon which all the Law and Prophets depended (Deuteronomy 6:4, Leviticus 19:18, Matthew 22:37-40). As Stott (1964) wrote, “We may not separate what Jesus has joined” (171).
It is only by faith that we abide in God’s love and that the Spirit dwells within us. Faith and love are inseparable. Without faith, we cannot fully love. Without the love of God, we do not believe. The proof of the Spirit’s dwelling is our love for one another. Love for God and love for our neighbor are intertwined; loving our neighbor completes our love for God even as it perfects God’s love in us (Stott, 170). “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). The light of the world, Jesus, shines in and through us as we demonstrate God’s love to each other, not of our own volition, but by the power of the Spirit dwelling within us as we continually abide in the love of the Father.
RESOURCES
The ESV Bible. Crossway, 2001, www.esv.org/.
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.
Westcott, Brooke Foss. The Epistles of St. John: The Greek Text, with Notes and Essays. Cambridge, MacMillan, 1886. Robarts – University of Toronto, robarts.library.utoronto.ca. Borrowed from Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/epistlesofstjohn00westuoft/page/n7/mode/2up
Defaulting to Grace 