From: 1 John 4:7-10
God is Love. Brotherly Love, the Mark of Christians
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Commentary:
7-21. St John now expands on the second aspect of the divine commandment
(cf. 1 Jn 3:23) — brotherly love. The argument is along these lines: God is love
and it was he who loved us to begin with (vv. 7-10); brotherly love is the response
which God’s love calls for (vv. 11-16); when our love is perfect, we feel no fear (vv.
17-18); brotherly love is an expression of love of God (vv. 19-21).
This is not tiresome repetition of the ideas already discussed (2:7-11; 3:11-18):
contrary to the false teaching which is beginning to be spread, charity is the sure
mark, the way to recognize the genuine disciple. St Jerome hands down a tradi-
tion concerning the last years of St John’s life: when he was already a very old
man, he used always say the same thing to the faithful: “My children, love one
another!” On one occasion, he was asked why he insisted on this: “to which he
replied with these words worthy of John: ‘Because it is the Lord’s commandment,
and if you keep just this commandment, it will suffice”’ (”Comm. in Gal.”, Ill. 6,
10).
7. The divine attributes, God’s perfections, which he has to the highest degree,
are the cause of our virtues: for example, because God is holy, we have been
given a capacity to be holy. Similarly, because God is love, we can love. True
love, true charity, comes from God.
8. “God is love”: without being strictly speaking a definition (in 1:5 he says “God
is light”), this statement reveals to us one of the most consoling attributes of God:
“Even if nothing more were to be said in praise of love in all the pages of this epis-
tle”, St Augustine explains, “even if nothing more were to be said in all the pages
of Sacred Scripture, and all we heard from the mouth of the Holy Spirit were that
‘God is love’, there would be nothing else we would need to look for” (”In Epist.
Ioann. ad Parthos”, 7, 5).
God’s love for men was revealed in Creation and in the preternatural and super-
natural gifts he gave man prior to sin; after man’s sin, God’ s love is to be seen
above all, in forgiveness and redemption (as St John goes on to say: v. 9), for the
work of salvation is the product of God’s mercy: “It is precisely because sin ex-
ists in the world, which ‘God so loved...that he gave his only Son’ (Jn 3:16), that
God, who ‘is love’ (1 Jn 4:8), cannot reveal himself other than as mercy. This cor-
responds not only to the most profound truth of that love which God is, but also
to the whole interior truth of man and of the world which is man’s temporary
homeland” (John Paul II, “Dives In Misercordia”, 13).
9. God has revealed his love to men by sending his own Son; that is, it is not on-
ly Christ’s teachings which speak to us of God’s love, but, above all, his presence
among us: Christ himself is the fullness of revelation of God (cf. Jn 1:18; Heb 1:1)
and of his love for men. “The source of all grace is God’s love for us, and he has
revealed this not just in words but also in deeds. It was divine love which led the
second Person of the most holy Trinity, the Word, the son of God the Father, to
take on our flesh, our human condition, everything except sin. And the Word, the
Word of God, is the Word from which Love proceeds (cf. “Summa Theologiae”, I,
q. 43, a. 5, quoting St Augustine, “De Trinitate”, IX, 10).
“Love is revealed to us in the incarnation, the redemptive journey which Jesus
Christ made on our earth, culminating in the supreme sacrifice of the cross. And
on the cross it showed itself through a new sign: ‘One of the soldiers pierced his
side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water’ (Jn 19:34). This
water and blood of Jesus speaks to us of a self-sacrifice brought to the last ex-
treme: ‘It is finished’ (Jn 19:30) — everything is achieved, for the sake of love” (St.
J. Escriva, “Christ Is Passing By”, 162).
“Among us”: it is difficult to convey in English everything the Greek contains.
The Greek expression means that the love of God was shown to those who wit-
nessed our Lord’s life (the Apostles) and to all other Christians, whose partici-
pate in this apostolic witness (cf. note on 1 Jn 1:1-3; this idea is repeated in vv.
14 and 16). But it also means “within us”, inside us, in our hearts, insofar as we
partake of God’s own life by means of sanctifying grace: every Christian is a wit-
ness to the fact that Christ has come so that men “may have life, and have it
abundantly” (Jn 10:10).
10. Given that love is an attribute of God (v. 8), men have a capacity to love inso-
far as they share in God’s qualities. So, the initiative always lies with God.
When explaining in what love consists, St John points to its highest form of ex-
pression: “he sent (his Son) to be the expiation of our sins” (cf. 2:2). Similar
turns of phrase occur throughout the letter: the Son of God manifested himself
“to destroy the works of the devil” (3:8); “he laid down his life for us” (3:16). All
these statements show that: 1) Christ’s death is a sacrifice in the strict sense
of the word, the most sublime act of recognition of God’s sovereignty; 2) it is an
atoning sacrifice, because it obtains God’s pardon for the sins of men; 3) it is
the supreme act of God’s love, so much so that St John actually says, “in this
is love.”
What is amazing, St Alphonsus teaches, “is that he could have saved us without
suffering or dying and yet he chose a life of toil and humiliation, and a bitter and
ignominious death, even death on a cross, something reserved for the very worst
offenders. And why was it that, when he could have redeemed us without suffe-
ring, he chose to embrace death on the Cross? To show us how much he loved
us” (”The Love of Jesus Christ”, chap. 1).
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.