1 John 4:14 - Meaning and Application

Since faith in Christ produces love for God, and love for God must awaken love for fellow believers, the apostle now confirms the main truth of the Christian faith as the basis of that love.

He first states the central truth of the Christian religion, a truth that shows God’s love so clearly: “We have seen, and we testify, that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world” (1 John 4:14). Here we learn, first, Jesus’ relationship to God. He is the Son of the Father, a Son unlike anyone else, truly one with the Father as God. Second, we learn his role toward us. He is the Savior of the world. He saves us by his death, his example, his intercession, his Spirit, and his power against everything that fights our salvation.

Third, we see the basis of his coming. The Father sent the Son. That means the Father planned and willed his coming, with the Son’s agreement. Fourth, we see the apostle’s confidence in this truth. He and his fellow believers had seen it. They had seen the Son of God in his human life, in his holy words and works, in his transfiguration on the mountain, and in his death, resurrection, and royal ascent to heaven. They had seen him enough to know he was the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. Fifth, we see the apostle’s witness to this truth. “We have seen and do testify.” The importance of this truth makes them speak. The salvation of the world depends on it. Their own eyes, ears, and hands were witnesses to it.

From there, the apostle points to the great blessing that comes from rightly confessing this truth: “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him, and he in God” (1 John 4:15). This confession includes faith in the heart as its root, speaking with the mouth for God’s glory, and a life that openly follows Christ instead of giving in to the praise or pressure of the world. In this way, no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit, through the Spirit’s outward witness and inward work (1 Corinthians 12:3). The person who confesses Christ in this way, and has God dwelling in him, is filled with God’s Spirit and enjoys a true, blessed knowledge of God.

The apostle then uses this truth to stir up holy love. God’s love is shown and put into action in Christ Jesus, and so “we have known and believed the love that God has for us” (1 John 4:16). The Christian message is meant to make God’s love dear to us. The truths we believe are all tied to that love. The story of Christ is the story of God’s love for us. Everything God did in and through his Son showed that love and aimed to bring us into love for God. “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19).

From this we learn, first, that God is love (1 John 4:16). He is love in his very being, boundless and beyond measure. He has a love for us in this world that is unlike anything else, and he showed it in sending and using his beloved Son. Some people object to the Christian message because they cannot understand how God’s love could be so great as to give his own eternal Son for us. Others object to the Son’s eternal nature and divine identity because such a great person was given for us. I admit this is mysterious and beyond full understanding. Yet Christ contains riches that cannot be searched out. It is a poor thing to turn the greatness of divine love into an objection against believing it.

Still, what will God not do when he wants to show the greatness of one of his perfections? When he wants to show his power and wisdom, he makes a world like this. When he wants to show more of his majesty and glory, he makes heaven for the angels before his throne. Then what will he not do when he wants to show his love, his highest love, and show that love to heaven, earth, and hell? He does this not only for a moment of wonder, but for endless admiration, praise, worship, and joy. It fits the greatness and purpose of his love better to give an eternal Son for us than to create a son merely for our rescue. In giving his natural, eternal Son for us and to us, God truly commends his love to us. What will the God of love do when he wants to make his love known, in the sight of heaven, earth, and hell, and recommend himself to us as love itself?

And what if, in the end, it should prove that God’s love, especially his love in Christ, stands behind the glory of heaven, the salvation of this world, and even the punishments of hell? That last point may sound very strange. But what if the lost are punished because they despised the love already shown to them, refused the love offered and promised to them, and made themselves unfit for God’s delight? If their own conscience accuses them of rejecting the clearest proof of divine love, while the greater part of God’s intelligent creation is forever blessed through that same highest love, then it is fitting to say over all creation, “God is love.”

Second, the one who lives in love lives in God, and God lives in him (1 John 4:16). There is deep fellowship between the God of love and the loving soul, that is, the person who loves God’s creation in the right way, according to its place before God and its relation to him. The one who stays in holy love has God’s love poured into his heart, bears God’s mark in his spirit, and is sanctified and sealed by the Spirit of God. He lives by thinking on God’s love, looking at it, and tasting it. And before long, he will go on to live with God forever.