LOVING AS GOD LOVES
"We love because
He first loved us" 1 John 4:19
The omission of the pronoun "Him"
from this sentence by the Revisers is unquestionably warranted. So far from robbing
the statement of point and power, it leaves it in all its fullness of meaning.
It remains true that we love God because He first loved us; but it is also true
that we love one another, that we love all men, because God first loved us.
When John wrote this, he was true to his WHOLE CONCEPTION OF LOVE. He had come
to realize that much which is called love IS NOT LOVE AT ALL. He had already
declared: "Hereby
know we love, because He laid down His life for us" (3:16)
and "Love
is of God" (4:7);
and superlatively, "God is love" (4:8). To him, then, nothing was worthy of the name which was not of
that nature. Therefore when he wrote "We love," he was not thinking of
any mere human affection or emotion, in which there may lurk much of
selfishness; but of that pure, disinterested love, which pours itself out in
the uttermost giving. How true, then, the declaration that "We love because He first loved
us." We only come to the KNOWLEDGE OF LOVE, when we find it redeeming us at infinite
cost. We only come to the EXPERIENCE OF LOVE as that love is shed abroad within us, and begins to
lead us out in activities of the same nature. But the statement is
positive. WHEN WE KNOW THAT LOVE, WHEN THAT LOVE IS SHED ABROAD WITHIN US (Rom. 5:5), THEN
WE DO TRULY LOVE. We love God in an UTTER ABANDONMENT OF ALL WE ARE AND HAVE TO
HIM. Nothing is withheld from Him. We love men with the SAME ABANDONMENT USING GOD'S DEFINITION. Like
the early disciples, we do not say that anything we have is our own. Everything is valuable in proportion as it
may be given for the enrichment of others.
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