1 John 4:19 – 5:5 Bible Teaching

Agape Love and Divine Reflection

In a recent teaching, we explored the profound insights found in the latter part of 1st John 4 and the beginning of 1st John 5, focusing on the theme of love—specifically, Agape love. John emphasizes that our love for God is a response to His love for us, as stated in 1 John 4:19: “We love him, because he first loved us.” This love is not merely a feeling but a call to action, urging believers to love one another as a reflection of their love for God.

The discussion delved into the nuances of the Greek language, highlighting different interpretations of the phrase “we love” and whether it is indicative or subjunctive. Regardless of the grammatical stance, the essence remains that our love is a response to God’s initial love for us.

John challenges believers by stating that claiming to love God while hating a brother is contradictory. He argues that genuine love for God naturally extends to love for others, as seen in 1 John 4:20. This love is not just an ideal but a practical commandment that believers are called to live out.

Moving into 1st John 5, the text reiterates that belief in Jesus as the Christ is a sign of being born of God. This belief is intertwined with love for God and His children, emphasizing that true faith manifests in love and obedience to God’s commandments, which are not burdensome.

The teaching concluded with a reflection on the nature of God’s commandments. While they may seem challenging, they are described as light and manageable compared to the burdens of sin. The journey of faith involves choosing the yoke of Christ, which, though it requires effort, leads to true freedom and peace.

This exploration of John’s epistle invites us to examine our own expressions of love and challenges us to align our actions with the divine love that God has shown us.

Teaching Script:

Welcome
Prayer
Music
Silence
16 1st John 4.19-end
1st John 5.1-3
July 17th 2016
Meat

Okay we left off last week finishing chapter 4 where John said (verses 17 and 18)

17 Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.
18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

Let’s continue on and wrap up chapter four beginning at verse 19 which, continuing on with the subject of Agape love says:

1st John 4:19 We love him, because he first loved us.
20 If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?
21 And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.

Alright back to verse 19 where he says:

“We love him, because he first loved us.”

The “Him” spoken of here is speaking of God because that is who is being spoken of in the verse before this and in the verses after.

John is talking to believers – the cream of the crop believers and he says to them:

“We love God because God first loved us.”

What does this mean? What could it mean? It could mean a few things.

Let’s read how the various translations put it:

1John 4:19 (RSV) We love, because he first loved us.

1John 4:19 (WEB) We love Him, because he first loved us.

1John 4:19 (BBE) We have the power of loving, because he first had love for us.

What’s interesting in these examples is there is a difference of opinion on the Greek, which helps us to determine how the translations should go.

Robertsons Word Pictures says the following:

He first (autos prôtos) is in the nominative and is not proton so what that means is “God loved us before we loved him” supporting John 3:16.

Therefore our love is in response to his love for us.

Then “Agapômen” is in the indicative (we love), not the subjunctive (let us love).

So according to this we read the passage as it is translated in the KJV and even the Revised – We love or We love Him BECAUSE He first loved us.

Our loving is in the present active according to this main view.

However we need to note that many believe that the Greek words rendered “we love” are NOT in the indicative, but in the subjunctive; and that this is an exhortation saying “let us love him, because he first loved us.”

Interestingly enough this is how the Syriac, the Arabic, and the Vulgate translations say it and so Bible scholars like Benson, Grotius, and Bloomfield say this is what it should say.

I don’t think there is really much difference between the two to be honest. If we love it’s because He first love us and if we told to love because He first loved us, the differences are almost semantical.

Why do we have, however most saying that the phrase is in the indicative (describing us and our love) but there are others who say it is in the subjunctive and making it an exhortation?

It comes down to the mss. resorted to for your support for the verse. Again to me, not a biggie, but there’s the reason.

Whether an exhortation or an indication of a Christians love the source is the same – God first loving us and us then loving and/or loving Him.

I believe, in the context of all John has said in previous verses about our need to love because He has loved us as the intended interpretation and this is in accordance with “Let us therefore love him, because he first loved us.”

But I have to admit to a disconnect in my heart and mind when I have read and heard this verse. In all honesty when I hear it quoted I do not relate to it the way it is traditionally used.

What does it mean to you?

(beat)

The typical understanding says:

1. We love him because we find he has loved us.

Then there is the
2. We love him from a sense of obligation and gratitude.

And then we have . . .

3. We love him from the influence of his own love; from his love shed abroad in our hearts, our love to him proceeds. It is the seed whence our love springs.

Upon reflection I think all of these reasons are scripturally valid. I suppose my resistance is when only one of them is imposed as the definitive meaning.

As to, “We love him because we find he has first loved us,” I think this speaks of what most of us discover at our conversion – the love of God in giving us His Son, that while we were yet sinners He came and died for us all.

It causes such a response in our heart and overwhelms us with gratitude which is directly tied to our realizing the shame and guilt upon us for sin. Admittedly this is the way most people use the passage and while it has merit it cannot bear the only meaning.

So in terms of our regeneration I can accept this view at face value and relate to it in that context.

I have issue with it when it continues to be applied to believers mature in the faith because it sort of sounds empty – that we only love God because He loved us first. Meaning, “if we discovered (or somehow came to believe) that he didn’t love us, then we wouldn’t love Him either.”

I know this view is a reality in terms of bringing us up and out of sin and death. We love Him because He loved us – like children on Christmas morning getting the bike we want. But to remain in that goes counter to growth in His Spirit and walk – in my opinion.

And this may be where the second definition comes into play – that

2. We love him from a sense of obligation and gratitude.

Granted, in the first working definition we also love Him out of gratitude but in that definition alone our love seems to be highly conditional. Maybe that’s what bugs me about it. It seems and sounds so conditional.

But in this second view we love Him as believers out of a deep obligation and gratitude for saving us – and the conditions at this point seem to be fading.

In other words we go from a love that is predicated on I love you because of what you have done for ME to I love you because of what you have done.

The third view brings it all home in my estimation.

“We love him from the influence of his own love; from his love shed abroad in our hearts, our love to him proceeds. It is the seed whence our love springs.

In this view we simply say I love, not just Him but all others, knowing full well that this amazing love is present because He first loved us, that there is an obligation to respond to Him and others in this fashion AND it JUST is – because He is.

This end love is unconditional. It’s the kind that says, I will love you always. You can test me, try me, put me through trials but I love you, and I will love others in your name.

I hope this made some sense.

And now John returns to a point he has made a number of times before and says (verse 20)

20 If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?

The sense is, that no man, whatever may be his professions and pretensions, can have any true love to God, unless he loves his brethren or brothers too.

The apostle, again, goes so far as to all such a man a liar who claims to love God but who hates his brother.

And the logic John uses is this:

“for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?”

This perspective is odd to me as well.

“If we don’t love someone who we have seen HOW can we love a God whom we have not seen?”

Where does the phrase “familiarity breeds contempt” come in to play here? I mean I can love Angelina Joilie all day long – but then again I don’t know her nor do I have to live with her.

Is it true or not that it is easy to love the idea of a person and far more difficult to love them in reality?

How many people claim to love God (for the simple reason He is not in their lives at all) but cannot stand his followers because they are – and they are driving us crazy along the way!

The only way to justify this statement of John’s is to see it through his eyes – and God’s eyes who is inspiring him to write – and if we allow ourselves to believe that John is speaking from a heart of genuine agape love what He writes is totally true.

When we really genuinely love God and others with the Love of God unadulterated, then it IS far easier to love those we see then Him who remains invisible.

Remember, we are speaking in ideal terms of agape love in action. In other words, pretend you are absolutely FULL of God’s love – for God and Man.

In that state, you would rejoice and really love the presence of others – and everything about them and this would be much easier to do (since love is a verb) than to love God from a distance and in a material absence.

Get it?

So from a natural mind sense John’s rationalization is non-sense. I can much better “love” God who is not in my presence that people who are.

But if speaking from a position of total agape love what he writes is true. And here’s the thing – this is the position John is speaking from – one of divinely inspired agape love for all.

THEREFORE, if a professed Christian, who WOULD be the bearer of the Love of God (Agape Love) does not love others with that love, others that he can see and does know and ought to have utter joy in their presence, then how could he or she really love God?

One last thing – and it’s a paradox – which we often find in scripture. In this passage John writes:

20 “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar”

The word for hateth is miseo in the Greek and it truly means despise.

Got that? But in Luke 14:26 Jesus said:

“If any man come to me, and hate (miseo – despise – same as in 1st John) not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

Now, in teaching Luke we would of course appeal to context, intent, and the rest of scripture. But to those who want black and white certainty in the Word this is a good example that it does not exist.

Miseo is Miseo – despise is despise. Certainly context tells us that these two passages cannot co-exist in the same book if they are to be taken literally. So we remember what Jesus purpose was in saying what He said and include that in the way we interpret His words.

Finally, here in chapter four John gives us a summary – but it is in the reverse of what he has said before on a number of occasions. Here he states:

21 And this commandment have we from him, “That he who loveth God love his brother also.”

“If you keep the first and great commandment – to love God – then those who are Christian ought to keep the commandment of His Son, which is like unto the first, to “Love neighbor as Himself.”

Again, those who LOVE GOD WILL LOVE OTHERS, and those who
TRULY LOVE OTHERS WILL LOVE GOD

This brings us to chapter five – the last of the 1st Epistle of John.

Now the first three passages in five should have been kept in chapter four because they are a continuation of the same subject and therefore are obviously part of John’s thought stream.

We’ll cover them now and then move on to verses 4-5 before wrapping it up.

In verse 1-3 John wrote:

1st John 5:1 Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of him.
2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.
3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.

1st John 5:1 Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him.

Whosoever believeth that Yeshua is the Messiach.

That Iesuous is the Christos.

That Jesus is the Christ.

As you all know the word Christ is a Greek word which means “anointed.”

The Hebrew word meaning the same thing is Messiach. Therefore, Jesus is called either the Messiah, or the Christ, or the anointed one – all the same thing.

In the Old Testament when kings and priests were set apart to their office, they were anointed with oil. This practice is all over the narrative.

The act of anointing often includes the idea of consecrating, setting apart to an office, and literally anointing with oil.

In its application toward the promised Messiah or Christ the idea seems to NOT include any real importance on a physical anointing or setting apart but to recognized Jesus as the one God – GOD – has set apart, consecrated and anointed with His Spirit to save the Nation of Israel and the World.

Daniel in his infamous prophecy of the coming of Christ etc said in Daniel 9:24:

“Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.”

John here says in other words, Jesus was set apart by God to be the King, and High Priest, and Prophet of his people. He, the most holy, was anointed by God to be all of these things – and even more. Savior, Redeemer, the propitiation for Sin.

John says:

“Whosoever believeth that Jesus is THE anointed One of God is born of God:

We could just take the word believe here and define it as any sort of acceptance of Him as the promised One – and maybe this is true.

But it seems that when an apostle writes “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Holy Anointed One of God that it is safe to say that this means genuine belief – one that is truly manifested by love – for God, Him and others.

How can we tell if such a belief is legitimate or genuine or proper? I would say that if it is, or when it is, such a person IS born of God.

They are begotten of God.

Born from above means to be begotten By God from Above.

This is such a radical concept I have trouble with getting my mind wrapped around it properly.

Nevertheless this is the way scripture describes the condition. Again:

When someone legitimately, genuinely, sufficiently, in accordance with God who is Truth BELIEVES that Jesus is the Anointed of God . . .

THEY WILL BE BEGOTTEN OF GOD.

They will be His children just as Jesus is His Only begotten Son from the womb.

Then John adds:

“AND . . . AND . . . and every one that loveth him that begat (meaning God) loveth him also that is begotten of him.

I suppose we could (could) suggest that this last line is speaking of Jesus and we could understand this passage to be saying:

Everyone who loves Him who begat (meaning God) loves also Him that is begotten of Him (meaning Jesus).

I do think this would be a faulty interpretation though.

First of all, God is He who begats and since Jesus is God we know that He begats too.

Secondly, in context of all John has been saying (that true believers love) it seems very clear that what John means here is:

“Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth Him that begat” (God the Father, Jesus, the Holy Spirit) loveth him also that is begotten of him (other believers!) WHICH IS THE CONTEXT OF ALL HE HAS BEEN SAYING.

Let’s step back and just assign the idea to the human family.

Suppose that there are some parents who have five children and all that the parents really want from their children is for them to love one another.

That is the parents true heart of hearts for their family.

If the children love their parents they would in turn love their siblings KNOWING that this is the wish of the parents they claim to love.

When a child in the family decides to let animus and anger reign and bears fill-will to his siblings it’s really a direct reflection on the love the child has for the parents – as much as it is for the hated children.

And then it is also a great indicator of the heart of the child.

As believers we are in the same family. We share the same Father of our begotten Spirits, the same Lord, Savior and King and the general idea is that since we all have the same Father and His greatest desire is for us to Love, that is what we will, should, and ought to do.

(Verse 2 is a repetition of the same theme said in a different way)

2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.

In other words, if we love Him who has begotten us we shall also love his children so it is true also that if we love his Children it will follow that we love Him – because we have kept His commands.

I’m not going to repeat this in any other way. The point is clear (then verse 3).
3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.

At this point I want to take all of this talk John has done about God, and Love, and His Children (and love) and knowing that we are Him (and love) and keeping His commandments (which are to love), and being liars if we claim to love God but don’t, and explain the summary Jojn provides us in verse 3.

I will summarize what John has said by appealing to my own experience with God and love and the Words John uses:

“Loving God is keeping his laws AND his laws are not hard.”

The Greek translated “not hard” here is “bar-OOSE” and it means heavy or weighty.

As in, “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother.”

Jesus said it before John in Matthew 11:

“For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

God has laws, to be sure, but they are not unreasonable. John says that they are NOT heavy. Jesus said His yoke that we bear is easy and that His burden is light.

Straight across the board, however, Jesus does not use the same term for burden in Matthew 11 that John uses in 1st John 5:3.

The word Jesus uses is not bar-oose (for heavy) but is FOR-TEE-ON which means “an invoice.”

“He yoke is easy His invoice is light.”

In other words and combining the two, we do not become Christians and receive a five foot stack of paper invoices that weigh a ton but instead we receive a slip of paper that says:

Love God. Love Man.

And here’s the deal.

It is a labor, but it is a labor born by Him. When it is a labor born by us there is a problem in the approach, and it is at this juncture that matters become weighty.

I can honestly say that over the course of my Christian life, due to the undeniable presence of the Spirit of Christ that loving others in the Agape sense of the Word has become much, much easier compared to what it was when I first left the romanticism of being born-again.

And I can honestly say, praying all the while that God will not test me, that His yoke and invoice is easy and light, that loving others – even those who maliciously malign my person, has gotten less burdensome, less heavy.

But we must admit, as does the scripture, that there is a burden present, right.

Jesus calls is “easy and light,” and John says His Laws are not hard (translated not heavy or weighty).

But they do have some weight and they are considered a yoke and a burden.

Here’s the bottom line – like we discussed before – we will either choose warfare in our walk or we will choose bondage.

It’s one or the other.

To be in willful bondage to Christ requires a willingness to engage in a constant warfare with our flesh.

While the verbiage of this SOUNDS heavy and brutal the reality is compared to the bondage awaiting on the other side it is a walk in the park.

Because He is with us, and He is guiding, and He lifts the load when we step aside, as willing bondservants, and let Him reign.

In this His yoke is indeed easy and His burden and invoice are indeed light.

But some of us do NOT want the liberation. We want the bondage of other lesser task-masters whose yoke and burden are typically incomprehensible in their weight, and taxation of the soul.

Think about this a minute. We have the request to be patient, and kind, and gentle, and forgiving and to give a brother or sister a chance.

To give God the glory, to think of others and place them and their needs ahead of our own. TO be selfless.

It’s admittedly a task. And initially its not an easy one. But like some burdens His burdens get easier with time and practice, not harder.

Christians find service to Him much much easier than the service demanded from sin.

Think of the weight, the growing unmanageable weight of the sins of the flesh, in comparison to the demands of Christ for a minute.

(Beat)

There’s the chaos, the anger, the frustration, the loss, the bitterness, the shame, the finger pointing, the secrecy, the lies and deception – all of the above – that does NOT subside but increases with sin and compare it to the burden of having to forgive someone who has offended us.

When we sit back and consider these types of burdens we can’t help but note that they are different.

In some ways the burden of sin makes some people paradoxically feel alive in their senses and flesh. But on the other hand the sense we get from doing God’s Love is one of peace with Him – even if it is unrewarded by those who receive it.

For some it seems like pleasing God and receiving the peace He bestows on loving acts is not enough.

They yearn for the bondage and sorrows and chaos that comes with the flesh – even if it is bondage in the flesh.

And in all this we see that the service of God is true freedom and the service of the world is true bondage.

And in the end I would suggest that some people like the bondage and chains more than they want emancipation – they like the dark more than the light. They love their fleshly need to experience something – anything – rather than to know that God is pleased.

And this brings us to chapter five verse 4 where John starts a new line of thought.

Q and A