Believe, Love, Obey
1 John 4:15-5:4a
Part 9 of our series on 1 John.
4:15 Whoever professes that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in them, and they themselves remain in God. 16 And we have known and have believed the love which God has in us. God is love, and the one remaining in Love, remains in God, and God remains in them. 17 in this [way] Love is brought to completion with us, [so] that we have confidence on the judgment day, [the fact] that just as he is, we too are in this cosmos. 18 Fear does not exist in Love, but complete Love casts fear out, because fear holds punishment; the one that fears, has not been brought to completion in Love. 19 Let us love, because he first loved us. 20 If someone says “I love God”, and hates their Christian brother or sister, they are a liar: for the person that does not love their Christian brother or sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they haven’t seen; 21 and we have this commandment from him, that the person that loves God, loves also their Christian brother or sister.
Whereas John regularly uses participles for “the one who/the person that…”, this section starts off with a structure much more reminiscent of Jesus, “whoever shall…”1 Why does that matter? Because of the way John’s teaching here echoes and complements Jesus. It makes sense that this structure starts off a new section, even though it’s continuing and expanding the theme of the last section (love!). So, let’s take this first verse:
Whoever (fulfils this condition):
a) God [remains] in them. AND b) They remain in God.
What does ‘remain’ language remind us of? John 15 and following. The condition here is profession that Jesus is the Son of God. I think this also accords very clearly with John 20:31, the purpose statement of the gospel. In this section dealing with love, we don’t lose sight of ‘doctrine’. For John the Apostle belief, obedience, and love are three strands woven together. The, quite frankly amazing, indwelling of the trinitarian God in the believer is grounded in the belief and confession that the historical, incarnate, Jesus is God’s Son. John, as author, apostle, but also as fellow believer, has himself come to this state of knowledge and belief, or really absolutely confident knowledge and thorough-going belief, and yet what is the object of his knowledge and belief? It’s the divine love of God expressed for us, and in us. John then restates 4:8, that ‘God is Love’, but this connects remaining in Love with remaining in God. To remain in God (v15) can never be purely doctrinal, but must be relational.
One of the tricky things about John’s use of “in this” is working out whether it’s pointing backwards or forwards. Generally, I think, forwards, but here backwards. That is, the abiding of God in us, and our abiding in him, and in love, explains how the Divine Love of God is fully and completely realised among us. Divine Love, as it is expressed and lived in the lives of the beloved community, is God’s presence as Love among his people. In turn, this removes the fear of judgment day. The judgment day might be feared precisely because ‘the world is condemned’, and we are in the world, but the presence of Divine Love affirms that we are in the world the same way that he is/was in the world. That is to say, Jesus was in the world and yet not of it, we too are in it but not of it, as the fulfilment of Love among us attests.
If the grammatical structure that leads off v15 echoes Jesus especially in the Synoptics, v20 echoes Jesus especially throughout John’s gospel.2 What if someone professes love for God but fails to love their fellow believer? John has already talked about this, in 2:9, 11, and 3.15. Like most of his themes, he weaves in and out of the same concepts, but each time with vividness, verve, and new vitality. We should hear echoes here, too, of James 2:14-17, and John’s logic is similar to Matt 18:21-35. The love of God that frees us from fear of judgment, ought to have the inescapable consequence of love for others.
The failure to love others creates a contradiction, a dissonance in their identity, split between the claim to love God, and the reality that makes that claim a lie. God is invisible, and yet he is also love. To love God is expressed in the concrete deeds done daily to people around us. To claim to love God and neglect (at best) his people, is pure self-delusion. It’s the same hypocrisy that Jesus decries, of those who withhold justice and mercy from those in need, “because it belongs to God”. Nor is purported obedience to God a refuge, but in fact it is the very thing that convicts: the command of God, and/or of Jesus, is precisely to love others.
5:1 Everyone believing that Jesus is the Messiah, has been born of God, and everyone loving the One that causes-to-be-born, loves also the one that-is-caused-to-be-born of him. 2 We know that we love the children of God by this: when we love God and we perform his commandments. 3. For this is the Love of God, that we keep his commandments; and his commandments are not burdensome. 4 Because everything born of God, prevails over the cosmos.
If the last section (4:15-21) is focused on love, this next section (5:1-4) seems focused on faith, but the connection between the two is key here. Faith leads into love, and leads to love. Notice the way that the person believing ‘has been born of God’. John practically reverses Paul. For Paul, believing is what makes you a child of God (Galatians); for John, being born of God makes one a believer. Both are true. Spiritual rebirth (echoes of Nicodemus and John 3, at least) is indispensable to faith. And the outcome of that is love. Beyond my awkward translation, the love is firstly for ‘the one that causes-to-be-born’. That’s the Father, but it’s the Father who causes fellow believers to be born(-again). So, the believer is also a lover of God, and then a lover also of those born of God. Who’s that? It’s other believers. This is not a description of the Father and the Son, but of God as Father, and of all his adopted children.
John keeps saying ‘by this we know’, and here it seems to point forward. It’s when we love God and perform/do/execute his commandments, that we confirm that we love the children of God. This is circular! Because chief of his commandments, as John expresses it, is to love others. It’s all intertwined, all the way through and all the way down: to love, to obey, to believe. You cannot have one without the other two.
Love for God is expressed through obedience to God’s commands. it has a shape and a structure, actions not mere sentiment. And because of that love, God’s commandments are not experienced as a burden. Here is the secret of Ps 119, to love Torah as a delight, not a crushing requirement.
The final words here serve as a hinge between this section and the next. Why are God’s commandments not burdensome? Because everything (and that encompasses everyone) born of God, prevails over the cosmos. How? Christ is the one who has conquered, and so believers conquer through him. That is, in Christ, with their love for God, through faith, expressed in obedience, all of which are Christ’s and so become theirs in union with him.
For Greek nerds: John happily uses things like ὁ πιστεύων, ὁ μὴ ἀγαπῶν all over the place. Here he uses ὃς ἐὰν ὁμολογήσῃ, which kind of structure occurs rarely and almost always by Jesus.
ἐάν τις...