Series: 1 John
Title: This is the
Love of God
Text: 1 John 4:21-5:
3
Date: February 21,
2019
Place: SGBC, NJ
1 John
4: 21: And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his
brother also. 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.
Subject: This is the Love of
God
When you read “the love OF God” it does not mean our
love toward God but God’s love toward his people. We saw in chapter 3 that God’s love makes believers
love one another. And God’s love casts out fear, giving us boldness
for the day of judgment. Here we are
told:
Proposition: God’s love never
fails to make his people obey his commandments.
HIS
COMMANDMENT
1 John
4: 21: And this commandment have we from him,…
The commandment that
comes in power making us obedient is from God our Father through Christ his
Son. This is God the Father’s command commanded
by Christ Jesus his Son. The Lord Jesus Christ
is that Prophet that God promised to raise up from among his brethren? God said,
Deuteronomy 18: 15: The
LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy
brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken; 16: According to all that
thou desiredst of the LORD thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying,
Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, neither let me see this
great fire any more, that I die not. 17: And the LORD said unto me, They have
well spoken that which they have spoken. 18: I will raise them up a Prophet
from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth;
and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. 19: And it shall come to pass, that whosoever
will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it
of him.
God said, “I will put my words in his mouth; and he
shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.” Therefore,
when Christ walked this earth, he said,
John 12: 49: For I
have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment,
what I should say, and what I should speak. 50: And I know that his commandment is life
everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so
I speak.
So the commandment
John speaks of is not the commandments given at Mt Sinai. Christ said that the Father gave him A
COMMANDMENT. This is the commandment
that Christ Jesus our Prophet speaks effectually in the hearts of those he
calls.
THE
COMMANDMENT
1 John
4: 21:…That he who loveth God love his brother also.
This is God the
Father’s commandment given to his elect through Christ Jesus our Prophet. It is the law that the Spirit writes on the
hearts of his saints in the new birth. John
declared it in chapter 3,
1 John 3:23: And this
is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ,
and love one another, as [Christ] gave us commandment.
“Faith which worketh by love” is the believer’s rule of life, not
the law given at Mt Sinai.
Galatians 3:12: the
law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them.
Galatians 5:6: in
Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but
faith which worketh by love.
Christ said, “his commandment is life everlasting.” The law of Sinai is the “ministration of death, written and engraven
in stones”; “the ministration of condemnation” (2 Cor 3: 7, 9). It was a covenant of works which declared all
men guilty. Christ’s command is the covenant of grace. God
the Father chose his people freely by his grace in eternity and trusted the
work to his Son. Christ Jesus
established the law for his people and put away our sins forever, making us the
righteousness of God in him. He brings
his redeemed under the gospel and the Spirit of God gives us life. Christ commands us effectually,
Matthew 11: 28: Come
unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29: Take
my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye
shall find rest unto your souls. 30: For my yoke is easy, and my burden is
light.
With the
command comes the power and we believe on him unto life everlasting.
1 John 5: 11: And
this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in
his Son. 12: He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of
God hath not life.
Oh, that Christ would
command one of his lost sheep this hour.
Salvation is not by our works. Salvation
is by Christ’s works. I can tell you to
believe on him and you shall be saved!
But if his command comes it will come in power and none can resist his
call.
Once,
the Spirit has revealed the great love wherewith God first loved us, Christ constrains
our hearts, making our hearts overflow in love and gratitude to him. His great love for us, in laying down his life
under the wrath of God in our place, makes his child want to obey him! But Christ does not bring us under the rigor
of the law of Sinai. He gives his saints
his light and easy yoke,
John 13: 34: A new
commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you,
that ye also love one another. 35:
By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one
to another.
What
a light and easy yoke! Believe on Christ
and by Christ’s obedience unto the death of the cross, every believer has
established the law in perfect righteousness.
And constrained by his great love for us, Christ simply commands us to
love our brethren who are begotten of him. How great it is to be under grace and not
under the law!
BORN OF GOD
1 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
Our
believing on Christ and our loving God and our brethren is not of our flesh. We must be born of God. We have no more to do with the new birth than
we did with our first birth. Life, as
well as faith and love, are not of us but they are the gifts of God given us
when we are born of God.
John 1: 12: But as
many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to
them that believe on his name: 13: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the
will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
Ephesians 2: 8: For
by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift
of God: 9: Not of works, lest any man should boast.
John is declaring
that God is sovereign in salvation. That
means God never fails to make each and every one of his elect believe on Christ
and love Christ and love our brethren. There
are no exceptions. He said, “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.” That means each and every sinner who
believes that Jesus is the Christ, that is, every sinner that believes that the
Lord Jesus is God’s anointed who shall save his people from our sins, is born
of God.
Now, we do not go
around speaking about our love for Christ.
We certainly do not look to our love for assurance. It is because due to our sinful flesh we do
not see ourselves loving him as we ought nor as we want. But what God produces in our new man is unfeigned,
without sin, because God produced it. Therefore,
Christ Jesus the Truth said that when we are born of God there is no doubt that
we will love him. He said to the
Pharisees, “If God were your Father…ye would
love me” (Jn 8:42). Love for Christ
is produced in us by God. It is produced
in our new man; our flesh never loves God and only hinders our love for Christ.
Still, love for
Christ is produced in our new man by Christ effectually declaring to us the
name of God through the preaching of the gospel. This is amazing but this is what Christ said
in his high priestly prayer! He said
that our love for him, which God produces in us, is the love wherewith God loves
Christ. This love is produced in our new
spirit by Christ taking up abode in us. We
see this when Christ prayed to the Father concerning his disciples, “And I have declared unto them thy name, and
will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and
I in them.” (Jn 17: 26)
In
addition to God giving us love for Christ, God produces in us love for our
brethren who are begotten of God. Our
text says, “And every one that loveth him
that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him.” Try to get hold of
what John is saying. That brother and
that sister who is born of God’s incorruptible seed is a child of God our
Father.
By the Holy Spirit, all who love God also love his children who are
born of God. And “charity”—the spiritual love that is produced of God in his child—"never faileth” (1 Cor 13:8). God does not fail to produce love in the
heart of his child and the love God produces in his child for Christ and for
our brethren will never cease for all eternity.
In
the context of this first epistle and the next, the Spirit of God used John to declare
that God makes those born of him believe on Christ and abide in the doctrine of
Christ, in contrast to those who are antichrist who apostatize from Christ and go
out from us. The manifest difference
between a child of God and a child of the devil is of God. It is that every child born of God cannot commit
sin. A child born of God cannot break
God’s commandment to believe on Christ and apostatize from Christ—“for his seed remaineth in him: and he
cannot sin, because he is born of God.” Due to what Christ did for us and in us we have
a new man that cannot sin. And our love
for our brethren is by our continuing in the unity of the faith that is in
Christ Jesus our Lord. Since God has chosen to save his people through
the means of the gospel, he has united us together in Christ’s body, the
church, so that “Speaking THE TRUTH IN
LOVE, [we] may grow up INTO HIM in all things, which is the HEAD, EVEN CHRIST: FROM
WHOM the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every
joint supplieth, according to [CHRIST’S] EFFECTUAL WORKING in the measure of
every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself IN LOVE” (Eph
4:16). For this reason, concerning those he calls antichrist, God declares dogmatically
through John,
1 John 2: 19: They
went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they
would no doubt have continued with us:
but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of
us.
WE LOVE GOD’S CHILDREN THROUGH FAITH
IN CHRIST
1 John
5: 2: By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and
keep his commandments.
How do we know that we
love the children of God?
Some might put on a
show of love who do not have the love of God in their heart. Natural love is for personal gain or other vain
reasons. Usually, it eventually ceases
because it cannot keep up the charade.
But
in those God has first loved, he makes us love him and keep his commandments. All God’s commandments are to this one end:
to hear and believe on Christ his Son. He
constrains us by his love so that we truly desire to please our Father by “keeping his commandments”—that is, by persevering
in faith in Christ his Son. The way we know
we love our brethren is when we love God and keep his commandment to believe on
his Son.
His
commandments are not the law at Sinai. The
commandment of God is that we believe on Christ. And it is by believing on Christ that we truly
love those born of him. When you read
the word “commandments” here understand that our motivation in doing whatever
we do for Christ is not to obtain a righteousness by our works. It is that Christ has already made us righteous.
Our motive is entirely new when God has
made us his new creation. It is the love
of Christ for us that now constrains us. We love God and we love those born of God by
continuing in the unity of the faith that is in Christ Jesus our Savior. Christ
said,
John 14: 21: He that
hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that
loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself
to him….23:…If a man love me, he will keep my words:…24: He that loveth me not
keepeth not my sayings:
John simply repeated
what our Savior said, “By this we know
that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.” Our
God and Savior said,
John 15: 12: This is
my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. 13: Greater love
hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. 14: Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I
command you.
Greater
love hath no man than Christ’s love for his people which was manifest by him
laying down his life for us. Through
faith in Christ we have loved our brethren perfectly when he loved our brethren
perfectly. And it is his great love for
us that constrains us do whatsoever he commands us for the unity of the faith
and this is true love for our brethren. We
love our brethren in the context of believing on Christ and supporting his gospel
so that our brethren can have the gospel as well as we. So “By
this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his
commandments.” In other words, love
is only true when it is of God so that the motivation of the heart is Christ’s
love for us.
OBEDIENCE SURELY ACCOMPLISHED
1 John 5: 3: For this is the love OF
God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.
The
love of God, spoken of here, is God’s love for his people. This verse declares that the love of God
always accomplishes bringing his child to believe on Christ and love our
brethren. His love for us makes Christ’s
yoke all the more light and easy. His
commandments are not grievous because of his love for us.
“We love him because he first loved us” (1
Jn 4: 19). God’s love is perfected, or
accomplished in us, and thereby we love him and believe on Christ and thereby
we love our brethren. God puts his love
for Christ and his love for his people in us.
So love for Christ and for brethren is, not of us, but is the fruit of the
Spirit of God.
We
do not look to our love for
salvation or for assurance. Faith in Christ
is how we know we have been born of God.
It is not faith in our faith. It
is the object of our faith that is our assurance. And we believe on him by Christ first loving
us and abiding in us. Again, look at
what Christ said,
John 14: 21: He that
hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that
loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself
to him
By
Christ loving us we first began believing on him and loving those born of him. Then Christ said as we keep his commandments—believing
on him—he and the Father will abide in us and manifest himself to us, thereby
we continue believing on him and loving one another. So in all this, his love for
us makes his commandments not grievous to us.
There
was a time when we were dead in sins that the command to believe on Christ was grievous to us. We did not want to give up our so-called
goodness, our so-called free will, our so-called good works. But when the commandment came, sin revived,
and we died. Then when Christ revealed
his great love for us and commanded us to believe on him, with the command came
the power to reach forth our withered hand of faith and we believed on him and
it was not grievous.
What
is included in Christ’s commandment to love our brethren? Every command in these epistles, the apostles
got directly from Christ. Believers love
one another in the context of our union together as the church of God, by believing
on Christ, by partaking of the gospel of Christ, by supporting the preaching of
the gospel so that all our brethren might have the word of Christ together. It is impossible to love our brethren in any
way but by believing on Christ and resting entirely in him together with one
another.
John
spoke of some forsaking assembling with brethren. He said, “They
went out from us.” They did not move
to another church where the gospel is preached in truth. They went out to either join in will-worship
or nothing at all. Some in our day live
close enough to where God has planted his church, but they do not identify with
God’s people. We understand that some of
God’s saints have infirmities that prevent them from doing so as often as they
would like. But John speaks of those who
could have continued but went out from us, instead. God makes his child obey his commandment to
believe on Christ by giving us a hunger and thirst after Christ our
righteousness. We desire to hear Christ
preached. This is our food. This is the means God ordained to save his
people. God makes us keep his commandments to seek
Christ preeminently so that we make certain Christ is the focus of all we say
and do when we gather together. We love our
brethren born of Christ by loving God and believing on Christ as he
commanded. That includes doing whatever
God enables us to do to relieve one another’s burdens so that Christ remains
the focus as they hear the gospel rather than the cares of this world and
rather than turning their attention to us. It takes God giving us a heart to keep his
command to believe on Christ for us to keep God’s commandment not to forsake
assembling together. And by our very
presence we love our brethren and exhort one another to love and good works.
John
is saying we know we love the brethren when we love God and keep his commandments
to seek Christ preeminently in faith and love. We love our brethren by believing on Christ
and trusting him to make them stand. This
is God’s commandment. It takes faith in Christ to commit our
brethren to Christ’s care as we bear their burdens. This is God’s commandment. God-given faith and love for Christ makes a
child of God willing to do whatever is necessary to help our brethren continue
in faith, stayed on Christ, rather than the cares of this world. After praying that God would root and ground
them in love so that they might know the love of Christ and be filled with the
fulness of God, Paul said,
Ephesians 4: 1: I
therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the
vocation wherewith ye are called, 2: With all lowliness and meekness, with
longsuffering, forbearing one another IN LOVE
All
these things are God’s commandment and all are involved in loving our brethren
who are born of God. These things are
not of our flesh. They are produced in
the new spirit by God. This is the heart
of love which is of God when we are made partakers of the divine nature. We see all of the following preeminently in Christ. But the scriptures do say that if we have not
charity we are nothing. Charity is
God-produced love which we are given when Christ is formed in our new man and
we are made partakers of the divine nature.
1 Corinthians 13: 4: Charity
suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself,
is not puffed up, 5: Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is
not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; 6: Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth
in the truth; 7: Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth
all things. 8: Charity never faileth:
The disciples knew so
little about what Christ was about to do on the cross. But Christ was so forbearing and longsuffering
toward them. He did not say, “If you
don't believe this fact then you are lost!” He said, “I have yet many things to say unto you but you cannot bear them now. Howbeit
when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth:…He
shall glorify me” (Jn 16: 12-14).
Faith and love are
intertwined. They are like faith and
repentance. Two sides of the same coin. Loving our brethren requires faith in Christ. And it is by faith in Christ that we love our
brethren. True love for brethren believes
Christ and trusts Christ to teach and uphold our brethren, the same as we trust
him to teach and uphold us.
Ephesians 4: 3:
Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Why?
Because we are inseparably one.
Ephesians 4: 4: There
is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;
5: One Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6: One God and Father of all, who is above
all, and through all, and in you all.
My
brethren and I are members of the same body of Christ! Paul said, “the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the
head to the feet, I have no need of you. Nay, much more those members of the body,
which seem to be more feeble, are necessary (1 Cor 12: 21-22). As we
endeavor to keep unity, we do so by believing on Christ, by trusting Christ to
give grace to our brethren. And we
cannot find fault with our brethren because Christ gives grace as he will.
Ephesians 4: 7: But
unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of
Christ
Notice, how this is
all in the context of our assembling together as the body of Christ, the church
of our Lord Jesus, under the preaching of the gospel of Christ.
Ephesians 4: 11: And he gave some, apostles; and
some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; 12: For the perfecting of the saints,
for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: 13: Till we all come in the unity of
the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the
measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
Christ
will continue to provide pastors and assemble his people together until
Christ’s body is complete. The Psalmist
said, “Behold, how good and how pleasant
it is for brethren to dwell together in unity” (Ps 133:1)! Here is love: we
dwell together in “the unity of THE FAITH.” God in wisdom chose this means for the
safety of his people.
Ephesians 4: 14: That we henceforth be no more
children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by
the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to
deceive; 15: But SPEAKING THE
TRUTH IN LOVE, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even
Christ:
Truth
and faith and love in Christ are all united.
Next is what John is talking about in our text. Watch this sovereign work that Christ
accomplishes in each member that he assembles in his body, the church.
Ephesians 4: 16: FROM
WHOM the whole body fitly joined together and compacted…
God
promised, “I will plant [my people] that
they may dwell in a place of their own, and move no more.” “Those that be planted in the house of the
LORD shall flourish in the courts of our God” (2 Sam 7:10; Ps 92:13). We flourish by Christ,
Ephesians 4: 16: FROM
WHOM the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every
joint supplieth, according to [CHRIST’S] EFFECTUAL WORKING in the measure of
every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself IN LOVE.”
Christ commands us not to forsake assembling together. The preeminent way we love one another is by providing
the gospel of Christ for one another which is the thing we all need most. In this, faith and love are connected and both
are of God. Notice this in Hebrews 10,
Hebrews 10: 21: Having an high priest over the house of God; 22: Let us
draw near with a true heart in FULL ASSURANCE OF FAITH…23: Let us hold fast the profession of OUR FAITH without wavering; (for HE IS FAITHFUL THAT PROMISED)
Again, we see love and faith are vitally connected. We love one another by depending entirely
upon God through Christ Jesus our great High Priest.
Hebrews 10: 24: And let us
CONSIDER ONE ANOTHER TO PROVOKE UNTO LOVE AND GOOD WORKS:
How do we do this?
Hebrews 10: 25: Not forsaking
the assembling of ourselves TOGETHER, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as
ye see the day approaching. 26: For if we sin wilfully after that we have received
the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, 27: But
a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall
devour the adversaries.
It is impossible for
us to hold fast our profession, to consider one another, to provoke to love and
good works and to exhort one another if we apostatize from Christ—if we go out
as the antichrist that John spoke of. If
we sin willfully by forsaking Christ and his assembly then we forsake where
Christ promises to meet with his people.
We forsake the ministry of the gospel from Christ our Head, our Prophet,
Priest and King, himself! How can we
love those born of God if we forsake those born of God? Impossible!
John’s point in all
his epistles is that those born of Christ’s incorruptible seed abide in the doctrine
of Christ by faith. John said in the first
chapter of his epistle that God gives us fellowship with his saints, with the
Father and his Son, and we walk in the light.
Walking in Light is continuing believing on Christ. John calls is “doing righteousness.” It is the same as Christ said when he said, “He that doeth truth cometh to the light
that his deeds might be manifest that they are wrought in God.” John said if we do not continue believing on
Christ then we walk in darkness and the truth is not in us—we have not been born
of the incorruptible seed.
In
the second chapter of 1 John, Christ commands us through John not to love this world. Do not forsake Christ and his gospel and our
brethren for the world. Let us never arrange
the gospel around a worldly life but arrange our life around the gospel. For instance, never seek a job somewhere then
look for a church. We find a church then
seek a job in that area. And this
commandment—to believe on Christ—we will obey, if we are born of God—"For whatsoever is born of God
overcometh the world.” (1 Jn 5:4)
Next
time, we will see it is through God-given faith in Christ that we overcome. Not faith in our faith. But we overcome by trusting the object of our
faith, Jesus Christ our Lord who overcame the world and we in him.
In
1 Thessalonians, we see another list of things involved in loving our brethren. Notice, that where we find the mention of
love for brethren we always find faith in Christ and love for Christ. And we find this by being together with God’s
saints.
1 Thessalonians 5: 8:
But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of FAITH
AND LOVE; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. 9: For God hath not appointed
us to wrath, but to obtain salvation BY OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, 10: WHO DIED FOR
US, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him. 11:
Wherefore comfort yourselves TOGETHER, and edify ONE ANOTHER, even as also ye do. 12: And we beseech you, brethren, to know
them which labour AMONG YOU, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you;
13: And to esteem them very highly IN LOVE for their work’s sake. And be at
peace AMONG YOURSELVES. 14: Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are
unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, be patient toward all men. 15: See that none render evil for evil unto
any man; but ever follow that which is good, both AMONG YOURSELVES, and to all
men. 16: Rejoice evermore. 17: Pray without ceasing. 18: In every thing give thanks: for this is
the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. 19: Quench not the Spirit. 20: Despise not prophesyings. 21: Prove all things; hold fast that which is
good. 22: Abstain from all appearance of
evil. 23: And the very God of peace
sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be
preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24: FAITHFUL IS HE THAT CALLETH YOU, WHO ALSO
WILL DO IT.
Amen!