JESUS THE GREATEST LOVE GIFT

JESUS WAS THE GREATEST LOVE GIFT
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He
lovedus, and sent His Son to be the propitiationfor
our sins.” 1 John 4:10.
BIBLEHUB RESOURCES
Pulpit Commentary Homiletics
The Supreme Manifestation Of Love
1 John 4:9-11
W. Jones In this was manifested the love of God toward us, etc. Our text does not speak of the
only manifestation of the Divine love. In many things is the love of God manifested to us - in the
beauty, the utility, and the fertility of our world; in the exquisite structure of our souls and
bodies; in the apt relations of the outer world to our nature. Nor does our text mention the
manifestation to angelic beings of the love of God. But St. John sets forth the richest and most
glorious exhibition in regard to us of the love of God. We see here several aspects of the Divine
love.
I. IN ITS GREAT ORIGIN. "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us"
1. God's love to man originated entirely with himself. This love in its beginning was all on God's
part, and none on ours. We did not love him. There was nothing in us to awaken his love to us.
We were not beautiful, or amiable, or meritorious, or good. "But God commendeth his own love
toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." It was our sin and suffering and
deep need that called forth his compassion toward us; and ere he could love us with the love of
complacency, he loved us with the love of tender and Divine pity.
2. God is the Fountain of all love. Love flows from the essential nature of the Divine Being.
"Love is of God... God is Love" (verses 7, 8). As light and heat from the sun, so all true love
everywhere flows from him, or took its rise from him. And seeing that he is love, that love is of

his essence, the flowing forth of his love to us is the giving of himself to us. But the love of God
was manifested in our case -
II. IN THE GREAT MESSENGER WHICH HE SENT UNTO US. "Herein was the love of God
manifested in us [or, 'in our case'], that God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world, that
we might live through him." Notice:
1. The pre-existence of Jesus Christ. This is clearly implied in the expression, "God hath sent his
Son into the world" (cf. John 17:4, 5; John 3:17, 34).
2. The endearing relation of Jesus Christ to God the Father. He is "his only begotten Son." The
word" Son" alone would suggest that their relation is one of deep affection; but other terms are
added, which intensify and strengthen this idea. The Father speaks of him as "my- beloved Son,
in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17). St. Paul writes of him as "God's own Son" (Romans
8:3). And St. John styles him "the Only Begotten of the Father.... the only begotten Son, which is
in the bosom of the Father" (John 1:14, 18); "The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things
into his hand" (John 3:35). And our Saviour said, "Father, thou lovedst me before the foundation
of the world" (John 17:24). It is impossible for us to comprehend this ineffable and infinite love
subsisting between the Father and his only Son, or the deep and unutterable joy of their
communion. In sending such a Messenger to our world, what a revelation we have of the love of
God!
3. The subordination of Jesus Christ to God the Father in the work of redemption. "God sent his
only begotten Son into the world." "As thou didst send me into the world, even so sent I them
into the world" (John 17:18). The Divine Son cheerfully became a servant that his Father's
authority might be vindicated, and his Father's glory be promoted in the redemption of the
human race (cf. Philippians 2:6-8).
III. IN THE BLESSING WHICH HE DESIGNS FOR US. "That we might live through him."
Notice:
1. The condition in which the love of God finds man. "Dead by reason of trespasses and sins."
There is a resemblance between a dead body and the state into which the soul is brought by sin.
In both there is the absence of vision, of hearing, of sensibility, and of activity.
2. The condition into which the love of God aims to bring man. "That we might live through
him." His design is to quicken men into spiritual life - the life of true thought, pure affection,
righteous and unselfish activity, and reverent worship. This life is eternal in its nature. It is not
perishable or decaying, but enduring and progressive. And it is blessed. Life in the text
comprises salvation in all its glorious fullness. How clear is the manifestation to us of the Divine
love in this!
IV. IN THE MEANS BY WHICH THIS BLESSING IS OBTAINED FOR US. "He sent his Son
to be the Propitiation for our sins." The best commentary on Christ the Propitiation that we
know, is that found in the words of St. Paul, in Romans 3:24-26. Two remarks only do we offer
concerning the propitiation.
1. It was not anything offered to God to render him willing to bless and save us.
2. It was designed to remove obstructions to the free, flowing forth of the mercy of God to man.
How splendid the expression of the love of God in sending his Son, only and well-beloved, to be
the Propitiation for our sins!

V. IN THE EXAMPLE WHICH IT PRESENTS TO US. "Beloved, if God so loved us, we also
ought to love one another." The obligation to copy the Divine example in this respect is
grounded upon our relation to him as his children. Because we are "begotten of God" (verse 7)
we should seek to resemble him. The argument of the Apostle Paul is similar: "Be ye therefore
imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love," etc. (Ephesians 5:1, 2). If we are
"partakers of the Divine nature," we should imitate the Divine example.
1. In relation to mankind in general. "I say unto you, Love your enemies, and pray for them that
persecute you; that ye may be sons of your Father which is in heaven," etc. (Matthew 5:44, 45).
He loved us with the love of compassion before he could love us with the love of complacency.
Let us imitate him in this respect in our relation to those who are yet in their sins.
2. In relation to the Christian brotherhood in particular. (Cf. chapter 1 John 3:10-18.) Let us
evince our relation to the Father, who is infinite Love, by our unfeigned love to our Christian
brethren. Let the supreme manifestation in regard to us of his love thus produce its appropriate
effect in us. - W.J.
Biblical Illustrator
Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the
propitiation for our sins
1 John 4:10
Herein is love
C. H. Spurgeon.I. THE INFINITE SPRING OF LOVE. Our text has two words upon which I
would place an emphasis "not" and "but." The first is "not." "Herein is love, not" — "not that we
loved God." Very naturally many conclude that this means "not that we loved God first." That is
not exactly the truth taught here, but still it is a weighty truth, and is mentioned in ver. 19 in
express words — "We love Him because He first loved us." We inscribe a negative in black
capital letters upon the idea that man's love can ever be prior to the love of God. That is quite out
of the question. "Not that we loved God." Take a second sense — that is, not that any man did
love God at all by nature, whether first or second. The unregenerate heart is, as to love, a broken
cistern which can hold no water. We come nearer to John's meaning when we look at this
negative as applying to those who do love God. "Not that we loved God" that is, that our love to
God, even when it does exist, and even when it influences our lives, is not worthy to be
mentioned as a fountain of supply for love. What poor love ours is at its very best when
compared with the love wherewith God loves us! Let me use another figure. If we had to
enlighten the world, a child might point us to a bright mirror reflecting the sun, and he might cry,
"Herein is light!" You and I would say, "Poor child, that is but borrowed brightness; the light is
not there, but yonder, in the sun: the love of saints is nothing more than the reflection of the love

of God." We have love, but God is love. Let us contrast our love to God with His love to us. We
do love God, and we may well do so, since He is infinitely lovable. When the mind is once
enlightened it sees everything that is lovable about God. He is so good, so gracious, so perfect
that He commands our admiring affection. In us there is by nature nothing to attract the affection
of a holy God, but quite the reverse; and yet He loved us. Herein, indeed, is love! When we love
God it is an honour to us; it exalts a man to be allowed to love a Being so glorious. He that loves
God does in the most effectual manner love himself. We are filled with riches when we abound
in love to God; it is our wealth, our health, our might, and our delight. It is our duty to love God;
we are bound to do it. As His creatures we ought to love our Creator; as preserved by His care
we are under obligation to love Him for His goodness: we owe Him so much that our utmost
love is a mere acknowledgment of our debt. But God loved us to whom He owed nothing at all;
for whatever might have been the claims of a creature upon his Creator, we had forfeited them all
by our rebellion. Let us turn to the "but." "But that He loved us." I should like you to meditate on
each one of these words — "He loved us." Three words, but what weight of meaning! "He," who
is infinitely holy and cannot endure iniquity — "He loved us"; "He," whose glory is the
astonishment of the greatest of intelligent beings — "He loved us." Now ring that second silver
bell: "He loved us." He saw our race ruined in the fall, and He could not bear that man should be
destroyed. He saw that sin had brought men into wretchedness and misery, and would destroy
them forever; and He would not have it so. He loved them with the love of pity, with the love of
sweet and strong benevolence. Would a man want any other heaven than to know for certain that
he enjoyed the love of God? Note the third word. "He loved us — us" — the most insignificant
of beings. Observe that the previous verse speaks of us as being dead in sin. He was wroth with
us as a Judge, but yet He loved us: He was determined to punish, and yet resolved to save.
II. THE MARVELLOUS OUTFLOW OF THAT LOVE. Consider every word: "He sent His
Son." God "sent." Love caused that mission. Oh, the wonder of this, that God should not wait till
rebellious men had sent to His throne for terms of reconciliation, but should commence
negotiations himself! Moreover, God sent such a One: He "sent His Son." Yes, "He spared not
His own Son, but freely delivered Him up for us all." He knew what would come of that sending
of Him, and yet He sent Him. Note further, not only the grandeur of the Ambassador, but the
tenderness of the relationship existing between Him and the offended God. "He sent His Son"'
The previous verse says, "His only-begotten Son." Christ's death was in fact God in human form
suffering for human sin; God incarnate bleeding because of our transgressions. Are we not now
carried away with the streams of love? Go a step further. "God sent His Son to be a propitiation,"
that is, to be not only a reconciler, but the reconciliation. His sacrifice of Himself was the
atonement through which mercy is rendered possible in consistency with justice.
III. THE CONSEQUENT OUTFLOW OF LOVE FROM US. "Beloved, if God so loved us, we
ought also to love one another." Our love then to one another is simply God's love to us, flowing
into us, and flowing out again. If you and I desire to love our fellow Christians and to love the
fallen race of man, we must be joined on to the aqueduct which conducts love from this eternal
source, or else we shall soon fail in love. Observe, then, that as the love of God is the source of
all true love in us, so a sense of that love stimulates us. Whenever you feel that you love God you
overflow with love to all God's people; I am sure you do. Your love will respect the same
persons as God's love does, and for the same reasons. God loves men; so will you; God loves
them when there is no good in them, and you will love them in the same way. Our love ought to
follow the love of God in one point, namely, in always seeking to produce reconciliation. It was
to this end that God sent His Son.

(C. H. Spurgeon.)
The perfect love
C. Kingsley, M. A.God is love. But if we say that, do we not say that God is good with a fresh
form of goodness, which is not justice, nor truthfulness, nor purity, bounty, nor mercy, though
without them it cannot exist? And is not that fresh goodness, which we have not defined yet, the
very kind of goodness which we prize most in human beings? And what is that? What — save
self-sacrifice? For what is the love worth which does not show itself in action; and more, which
does not show itself in passion, in the true sense of that word, namely, in suffering? On the Cross
of Calvary, God the Father showed His own character and the character of His co equal and co-
eternal Son, and of the Spirit which proceeds from both. For there He spared not His only-
begotten Son, but freely gave Him for us. The comfortable prosperous man shrinks from the
thought of Christ on His Cross. It tells him that better men than he have had to suffer; that the
Son of God Himself had to suffer. And he does not like suffering; he prefers comfort. The lazy,
selfish man shrinks from the sight of Christ on His Cross; for it rebukes his laziness and
selfishness. Christ's Cross says to him — Thou art ignoble and base, as long as thou art lazy and
selfish. Rise up, do something, dare something, suffer something, if need be, for the sake of thy
fellow creatures. He turns from it and says in his heart — Oh! Christ's Cross is a painful subject,
and Passion week and Good Friday a painful time. I will think of something more peaceful, more
agreeable than sorrow, and shame, and agony, and death. Yes, so a man says too often, as long as
the fine weather lasts, and all is smooth and bright. But when the tempest comes; when poverty
comes, affliction, shame, sickness, bereavement, and still more, when persecution comes on a
man; then, then indeed Passion week begins to mean something to a man; and just because it is
the saddest of all times, it looks to him the brightest of all times. For in his misery and confusion
he looks up to heaven and asks, Is there anyone in heaven who understands all this? Then does
the Cross of Christ bring a message to that man such as no other thing or being on earth can
bring. For it says to him — God does understand thee utterly. For Christ understands thee. Christ
feels for thee. Christ feels with thee. Christ has suffered for thee, and suffered with thee. Thou
canst go through nothing which Christ has not gone through. Passion week tells us, I believe,
what is the law according to which the whole world of man and of things, yea, the whole
universe, sun, moon, and stars, is made: and theft is, the law of self-sacrifice; that nothing lives
merely for itself; that each thing is ordained by God to help the things around it, even at its own
expense. On this day Christ said — ay, and His Cross says still, and will say to all eternity —
Wouldest thou be good? Wouldest thou be like God? Then work, and dare, and, if need be,
suffer, for thy fellow men.
(C. Kingsley, M. A.)
The love of God
W. Jay, M. A.I. JOHN WOULD HAVE US MAGNIFY THE LOVE OF GOD BY THE
DEMERIT OF ITS OBJECTS. God had thoughts of love towards us before man had existence.
"We rejoice in hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie hath given us before the world
began." Then view man as created. "God made man upright, but he sought out many inventions."
Sin soon entered our "world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have
sinned." The apostle, speaking of the heathen nations, says, "When they knew God, they
glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful," etc. So when God looked down upon the
children of men, to see if there were any that sought after God, He says, "They are all gone out of
the way, there is none that doeth good, no, not one." Do you ask, "Were not the Jews an

exception here? for to them were committed the oracles of God." God planted them in His
vineyard, and fenced it in, and gave it every kind of culture, so that He said, "What more could
have been done than I have done to My vineyard?" Yet what was His testimony? "When I looked
that it should bring forth grapes, wherefore brought it forth wild grapes?" We pass from the
prediction, and read the history of the transgression. "He was in the world, and the world knew
Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not." What must have been the
condition of man, not to love the perfection of holiness, the source of excellence, the fountain of
life, the supreme good? What must have been the perversity of his mind which should induce
Him to regard God as an invader, and to say, "Depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of
Thy ways"? Now the carnal mind is enmity against God; there is no neutrality here. "He that is
not with Me," says the Saviour, "is against Me; and he that gathereth not with Me, scattereth
abroad." We are alienated in our minds by wicked works.
II. THE EXCLUSIVENESS OF THE EXERCISE.
(W. Jay, M. A.)
The love of God, and the response due to it
A. Forman.I. IN REFERRING TO THE LOVE OF GOD, AS EXHIBITED BY THE APOSTLE,
THERE ARE A VARIETY OF ASPECTS OFFERED TO OUR NOTICE.
1. There is the fact that the free, unbought love of God, is the source of human redemption.
2. The matchlessness of the Divine love, as demonstrated in the mode of its expression.
3. The signal issues of the Divine love, as it achieved a propitiation for sin.
4. A propitiation has been made.
II. THE RESPONSE WHICH IS DUE ON THE PART OF MAN TO THESE MATCHLESS
DISPLAYS OF THE DIVINE LOVE.
1. It is by faith that we embrace the propitiation of the gospel.
2. The costly character of the propitiation of God bespeaks a corresponding dedication to its
benefits.
3. Infinite love bespeaks fervent response from us.
(A. Forman.)
The great benefit received by the Incarnation
Bp. Brownrigg.I. FROM THE EXCELLENCY OF THE FOUNTAIN AND ORIGINAL, FROM
WHICH IT SPRINGS that is the love of God to us.
1. The instance: "Herein is love." A speech it is of great emphasis, spoken by the apostle with
great strength of affection; and it carrieth with it a three-fold intimation.(1) It is a specification of
that affection, or rather attribute, in God, which most of all shone in this great work of Christ's
Incarnation. It was His love that employed His wisdom, His power, His righteousness; set them
on working for our good and benefit.(2) It shows the real proof and manifestation of His love. It
was love testified in the reality of love. It intimates not only an act of love, but an effect of love,
a fruit of love. It was not a well wishing love only, but a love that breaks forth into action and
evidence.(3) It carries with it the most clear and full demonstration of love to us. Other fruits of
love He hath vouchsafed us, and we enjoy them daily; but none so evident proofs of His love as
the sending of His Son to us.

2. The illustration of the greatness and excellency of this love. "Not that we loved Him, but that
He loved us."(1) We may resolve these words into a preventing sense. We began not with Him in
this league of love, but He began with us. That is one excellency of His love; it was a forward,
antecedent, preventing love.(2) We may resolve it into a negative sense. We loved not Him, and
yet He loved us. That is another excellency of His love; it was a free, undeserved love, no way
due to us.(3) We may resolve it into a comparative sense. Had we loved Him, or do we love
Him? Yet that is nothing in comparison of His love to us. "Herein is love, not that we loved
Him": no great matter in that. Our love to Him — it is not worth the naming.
II. THE EXCELLENCY OF THE BENEFIT WHICH FLOWS FROM THE FOUNTAIN — that
is the sending of Christ to accomplish our salvation. And here are three great and gracious fruits
of love.
1. That He would send to us.(1) This act of sending to us argues much love. It had been much for
Him to admit of our sending addresses to Him. Consider upon what terms we stood with God,
and we will confess it.
(a)The inferior should send and seek to the superior.
(b)The party offending to the party offended.
(c)The weaker should send to the stronger.
(d)They that need reconciliation should seek to him that needs it not.(2) God sent Him to us
wittingly and willingly. Our Saviour came not of Himself only, but the Father sent Him. It was a
full mission and commission. He sent Him; yea, more than so, He sent Him and authorised Him
(John 6:27).(3) He sent Him —(a) Not as a Messenger only but as a Gift also; that is the best
kind of sending. He so sent Him as that He gave Him to us.(b) He was a gift not only promised
but actually bestowed and exhibited to us. We enjoy Him, whom the prophets promised, the
patriarchs expected.
2. Here is an higher expression of His love in that He sent His Son to us.(1) Take notice of the
dignity of Him that was sent (Philippians 2:6, 7).(2) For so great a God to send any, though never
so mean, to such wretches as we were, had been a favour more than we could expect; but to send
His only Son, His beloved Son, is a testimony of love beyond all comprehension.
3. The purpose and end of sending Him — that is, "to be the propitiation for our sins."(1) It was
for sins.(a) It had been much for just and good men and for their benefit.(b) To mediate for those
that have offended another is a kindness and office of love that may be found amongst men; but
God is the Person wronged, our sins are all against Him, His law was broken, His will disobeyed,
His name dishonoured. Yet see His love — He sends to propitiate and expiate our sins against
Himself.(c) To send to rebels in arms and to offer them pardon, hath been found amongst men;
but for rebels subdued and under the power of their sovereign, nay, shut up — we lay all at His
mercy — and then He sends unto us His propitiation.(2) It was for the propitiating of our sins.
That was the great work for which He came (Isaiah 27:9). That was His errand on which He
came. This He published and made known to the world.(a) To propitiate is to appease God's
wrath and displeasure, justly taken against us, and to reduce us into grace and favour again. He
loved us in our deformity, that He might put upon us a spiritual beauty. He loved us when we
displeased Him, that He might work in us that which pleaseth Him.(b) He did it by the means of
making a full satisfaction to the justice of God for us. He hath done away our sins, not by a free
dispensation, but by a full and just compensation.(c) What is the matter of our propitiation — the
price of our ransom? That is the highest improvement of love. He is our propitiation: not only

our propitiator, but our propitiation. He is not only our Saviour, but He is become our salvation
— as David speaks. He is not only our Redeemer, but our ransom (1 Timothy 2:6; Isaiah 53:10;
Romans 3:25; Leviticus 17:11). He was not only the Priest, but the Sacrifice also. He not only
acted for us, but suffered for us (Galatians 2:20; Galatians 3:13).
III. WHAT EFFECT SHOULD THIS LOVE OF GOD WORK IN US?
1. It should teach us to fasten our admiration on this great love of God, to work ourselves to an
holy wonderment, that God should bestow such love upon us.
2. This great love of God to us calls for another effect: that is an holy retribution of love to Him
again. Provoke thyself, inflame thine heart with the love of Him who hath so loved thee.
3. This love of God requires in us an holy imitation. In particular, imitate this love of God in all
the characters of love expressed in my text.(1) The reality of thy love. Show thy love by the
fruits of love, as St. John speaks (1 John 3:18).(2) We must imitate this love of God in the
preventions of love, in showing of love, going one before another.(3) We must imitate this love
of God in the condescensions of His love to our inferiors, to our enemies.(4) We must imitate
this love of God in that great and main effect of His love to our souls in freeing them from sin
(Leviticus 19:17). Love to the soul of thy brother, it is the best love; and to keep him from sin, or
to free him of sin, it is the best love to his soul.
(Bp. Brownrigg.)
Christ the great propitiation
Samuel Wilson.Leave Christ as God's salvation out of the Bible, and it is of little account to a
guilty, perishing sinner.
I. WE ARE TO STATE THE IMPORT OF THE TERM, OR SHOW YOU WHAT WE ARE TO
UNDERSTAND BY PROPITIATION, And here I would appeal to the understanding of all men,
whether we have not some other idea of this word than what is contained in repentance,
amendment, and mortification. The Jews well understood the meaning of it: they had their
eucharistical and expiatory or atoning sacrifices. Now can it reasonably be supposed that the
apostles would recede from the well known meaning of this word, especially in their writings to
the Jews, and always use it in a metaphorical or figurative sense? Further, the heathens were no
strangers to the sense of the word propitiation.
II. TO INQUIRE INTO THE NECESSITY AND IMPORTANCE OF IT. By necessity, I do not
mean that God was obliged to provide an atonement for the sin of man. Misery may excite but
not oblige to pity, especially where guilt is the spring of it; and ruin the just consequence of
apostasy. I know the Socinians suppose the goodness of God will not admit Him to demand or
receive a satisfaction. Mercy is abundantly more natural and glorious without a propitiation; but
the Scripture asserts the fact, and points out the necessity of it. I stay not to inquire whether God
could not have fixed on any other method of recovery. Had we proper apprehensions of the
holiness and justice of God when we consider this, and our circumstances as transgressors
without saying what He might do, we may well adore Him for what He has done. The necessity
of an atonement might be further evinced from the sanction of the law, clothed with the authority
of a God who cannot lie; a God as jealous of His glory as of His faithfulness. As to the
importance of the blessing of propitiation. Is there anything valuable in the favour and friendship
of God?

III. TO POINT OUT SOMETHING OF THE EXCELLENCE AND PERFECTION OF THIS
PROPITIATION.
1. That God sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
2. The doctrine, worship, and faith of the Old Testament saints were directed to this as the great
centre of efficacy and perfection.
3. God the Father, sustaining the character of a Judge, has declared the highest satisfaction in it,
by raising His Son from the dead and crowning Him with honour and glory as Mediator.
4. He will receive no confession, petition, or thanksgiving but through His hands. No man can
come unto the Father but by Him. Lastly, the virtue of this sacrifice remains the same through all
ages.
IV. THAT PROPITIATION IS THE PURE EFFECT OF DIVINE LOVE, AND THE
BRIGHTEST DISPLAY OF IT. By love we mean not a foolish, weak passion, but such favour,
grace, or mercy as founded in infinite wisdom and in full agreement with all the perfections of
God; and that the gift of His Son is the fruit of Divine love stands uncontested. Love is the noble
spring of all the good the believer has in time, and all the glory he will possess in eternity; but
the gift of God's Son exceeds them all. Application:
1. Sinner, art thou deeply affected with thy guilt, and afraid of the consequences of thy
transgressions? Here is a remedy exactly suited to thy ease.
2. Let believers labour, in the strength of grace, after the comfortable evidence of an interest in
that which is to be their great support in death and security in judgment. Lastly, let us all take
heed that we are not deceived; repentance and reformation without Christ will leave us short of
heaven.
(Samuel Wilson.)
The propitiation
Sketches of Sermons.I. THE STATE OF MAN REQUIRED A PROPITIATION.
1. The perfection and excellence of the law which he has broken.
2. The inability of man to expiate his offences.
3. The inflexible nature of Divine justice, which supports the honour of the law, and enforces its
claims.
II. JESUS CHRIST IS THE PROPITIATION REQUIRED.
1. No creature could or would become a propitiation for man.
2. Jesus Christ is every way adapted to become our propitiation.
3. The Scriptures everywhere testify that Jesus Christ is our propitiation(Isaiah 53:5, 6, 7, 10;
Matthew 20:28; Romans 3:24, 25; Romans 4:25; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 3:13; Colossians
1:20; 1 Timothy 1:15; Hebrews 9:22-26; 1 John 2:2). The Father gave the Son (John 3:16). The
Son gave Himself (Galatians 1:4). He offered Himself through the Eternal Spirit (Hebrews 9:14).
III. THIS PROPITIATION IS A GLORIOUS DISPLAY OF THE LOVE OF GOD.
1. Unparalleled in its nature.
2. Intense in its ardour.

3. Immense in its extent.
4. Glorious in its purpose and final issue.Inferences:
1. How pernicious is the doctrine of Socinianism, which completely destroys this only hope of a
penitent — redemption by Christ!
2. How dangerous is the delusion of the self-righteous!
3. What abundant consolation does this subject afford penitent sinners!
4. In this love of God we are furnished with a rule and a motive for love to each other, "Beloved,
if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another."
(Sketches of Sermons.)
The atonement for sin, by the death of Christ
T. Raffles, LL. D.I. STATE THE CASE, WITH REGARD TO THE NATURE AND
NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT, AS REPRESENTED IN SCRIPTURE.
II. ESTABLISH THE FACT THAT JESUS CHRIST HAS OFFERED A TRUE AND PROPER
ATONEMENT FOR SIN.
1. I am well aware it does nothing towards the proof of this proposition to observe that this is
precisely such a provision as the circumstances of man required, while it was perfectly consistent
with all the attributes of Deity that God should grant it. There is nothing in the Scripture doctrine
of the atonement by Jesus Christ repugnant to the most correct ideas of fitness and propriety,
with regard either to the offending or the offended party. If man had never sinned, we should
have seen the glory of the Divine power, wisdom, and benevolence in the creation of the world.
If, having sinned, man had been left to perish, we should have seen the glory of the Divine
justice. If he had been freely pardoned, without any satisfactory atonement, we should have seen
the glory of the Divine mercy; but, having sinned, and receiving free forgiveness and eternal life
by means of an adequate, because infinitely valuable, atonement, we see the glory of all the
Divine attributes, and, overwhelmed with the astonishing exhibition, exclaim with the apostle,
"Herein is love."
2. The universal prevalence of sacrifices.
3. The sacrifices of the Mosaic economy.
4. The language of the prophets.
5. The testimony of the apostles, from that of Philip, in his preaching to the eunuch, to that of
John, in the visions of the Apocalypse.
6. The language of Jesus Christ Himself.
(T. Raffles, LL. D.)
Love descends
F. W. Robertson.Love is its own perennial fount of strength. The strength of affection is a proof
not of the worthiness of the object, but of the largeness of the soul which loves. Love descends,
not ascends. The Saviour loved His disciples infinitely more than His disciples loved Him,
because His heart was infinitely larger. Love trusts on, ever hopes and expects better things, and
this a trust springing from itself and out of its own deeps alone.
(F. W. Robertson.)

God seeks our loveA mother said to her pastor, "I wish some one could tell me why the Saviour
died for us. I have never heard it answered to my satisfaction. You will say it was because He
loved us; but why was that love? He certainly did not need us, and in our sinful state there was
nothing in us to attract His love." "I may suppose," said her pastor, "that it would be no loss for
you to lose your deformed little babe. You have a large circle of friends, you have other children,
and a kind husband. You do not need the deformed child; and what use is it?" "Oh, sir," said the
mother, "I could not part with my poor child. I do need him. I need his love. I would rather die
than fail of receiving it." "Well," said her pastor, "does God love His children less than earthly,
sinful parents do?"
COMMENTARIES
MacLaren's Expositions1 John
CHRIST’S MISSION THE REVELATION OF GOD’S LOVE
1 John 4:10.
This is the second of a pair of twin verses which deal with substantially the same subject under
two slightly different aspects. The thought common to both is that Christ’s mission is the great
revelation of God’s love. But in the preceding verse the point on which stress is laid is the
manifestation of that love, and in our text the point mainly brought out is its essential nature. In
the former we read, ‘In this was manifested the love of God,’ and in the present verse we read,
‘Herein is love.’ In the former verse John fixes on three things as setting forth the greatness of
that manifestation--viz., that the Christ is the only begotten Son, that the manifestation is for the
world, and that its end is the bestowment of everlasting love. In my text the points which are
fixed on are that that Love in its nature is self-kindled--’not that we loved God, but that He loved
us’--and that it lays hold of, and casts out of the way that which, unremoved, would be a barrier
between God and us--viz., our sin: ‘He hath sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.’
Now it is interesting to notice that these twin verses, like a double star which reflects the light of
a central sun, draw their brightness from the great word of the Master, ‘God so loved the world,
that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have
everlasting life.’ Do you not hear the echo of His voice in the three expressions in the verse
before the text--’only begotten’ ‘world’ ‘live’? Here is one more of the innumerable links which
bind together in indissoluble union the Gospel and the Epistle. So, then, the great thought
suggested by the words before us is just this, that in the Incarnation and Sacrifice of Jesus Christ
we have the great revelation of the love of God.

I. Now there are three questions that suggest themselves to me, and the first is this, What, then,
does Christ’s mission say about God’s love?
I do not need to dwell on the previous question whether, apart from that mission, there is any
solid revelation of the fact that there is love in Heaven, or whether we are left, apart from it, to
gropings and probabilities. I need not refer you to the ambiguous oracles of nature or to the
equally ambiguous oracles of life. I need not, I suppose, do more than just remind you that even
the men whose faith grasps the thought of the love of God most intensely, know what it is to be
brought to a stand before some of the dreadful problems which the facts of humanity and the
facts of nature press upon us, nor need I remind you how, as we see around us to-day, in the drift
of our English literature and that of other nations, when men turn their backs upon the Cross,
they look upon a landscape all swathed in mists, and on which darkness is steadily settling. The
reason why the men of this generation, some of them very superficially, and for the sake of being
‘in the swim’ and some of them despairingly and with bleeding hearts, are turning themselves to
a reasoned pessimism, is because they will not see what shines out from the Cross, that God is
love.
Nor need I do more than remind you, in a word, of the fact that, go where we will through this
world, and consult all the conceptions that men have made to themselves of gods many and lords
many, whilst we find the deification of power, and of vice, and of fragmentary goodnesses, of
hopes and fears, of longings, of regrets, we find nowhere a god of whom the characteristic is
love. And amidst that Pantheon of deities, some of them savage, some of them lustful, some of
them embodiments of all vices, some of them indifferent and neutral, some of them radiant and
fair, none reveals this secret, that the centre of the universe is a heart. So we have to turn away
from hopes, from probability dashed with many a doubt, and find something that has more solid
substance in it, if it is to be enough to bear up the man that grasps it and to yield before no
tempests. For all that Bishop Butler says, probabilities are not the guide of life, in its deepest and
noblest aspects. They may be the guide of practice, but for the anchorage of the soul we want no
shifting sand-bank, but that to which we may make fast and be sure that, whatever shifts, it
remains immovable. You can no more clothe the soul in ‘perhapses’ than a man can make
garments out of a spider’s web. Religion consists of the things of which we are sure, and not of
the things which are probable. ‘Peradventure’ is not the word on which a man can rest the weight
of a crushed, or an agonising, or a sinking soul; he must have ‘Verily! verily!’ and then he is at
rest.
How do we know what a man is? By seeing what a man does. How do we know what God is? By
knowing what God does. So John does not argue with logic, either frosty or fiery, but he simply
opens his mouth, and in calm, pellucid utterances sets forth the truths and leaves them to work.
He says to us, ‘I do not relegate you to your intuitions; I do not argue with you; I simply say,
Look at Him; look, and see that God is love.’
What, then, does the mission of Christ say to us about the love of God? It says, first, that it is a
love independent of, and earlier than, ours. We love, as a rule, because we recognise in the object
to which our heart goes out something that draws it, something that is loveable. But He whose
name is ‘I am that I am’ has all the reasons of His actions within Himself, and just as He

‘Sits on no precarious throne,
Nor borrows leave to be,’
nor is dependent on any creature for existence, so He is His own motive, He is His own reason.
Within that sacred circle of the Infinite Nature lie all the energies which bring that Infinite
Nature into action; and like some clear fountain, more sparkling than crystal, there wells up for
ever, from the depths of the Divine Nature, the love which is Himself. He loves, not because we
love Him, but because He is God. The very sun itself, as some astronomers believe, owes its
radiant brightness and ever-communicated warmth to the impact on, and reception into, it of
myriads of meteors and of matter drawn from the surrounding system. So when the fuel fails,
that fire will go out, and the sun will shrivel into a black ball. But this central Sun of the universe
has all His light within Himself, and the rays that pour out from Him owe their being and their
motion to nothing but the force of that central fire, from which they rush with healing on their
wings.
If, then, God’s love is not evoked by anything in His creatures, then it is universal, and we do not
need anxiously to question ourselves whether we deserve that it shall fall upon us, and no
conscious unworthiness need ever make us falter in the least in the firmness with which we grasp
that great central thought. The sun, inferior emblem as it is of that Light of all that is, pours down
its beams indiscriminately on dunghill and on jewel, though it be true that in the one its rays
breed corruption and in the other draw out beauty. That great love wraps us all, is older than our
sins, and is not deflected by them. So that is the first thing that Christ’s mission tells us about
God’s love.
The second is--it speaks to us of a love which gives its best. John says, ‘God sent His Son,’ and
that word reposes, like the rest of the passage, on many words of Christ’s--such as, for instance,
when He speaks of Himself as ‘sanctified and sent into the world,’ and many another saying. But
remember how, in the foundation passage to which I have already referred, and of which we
have some reflection in the words before us, there is a tenderer expression--not merely ‘sent,’ but
‘gave.’ Paul strengthens the word when he says, ‘gave up for us all.’ It is not for us to speculate
about these deep things, but I would remind you of what I dare say I have had occasion often to
point out, that Paul seems to intend to suggest to us a mysterious parallel, when he further says,
‘He that spared not His own Son, but freely gave Him up to death for us all.’ For that emphatic
word ‘spared’ is a distinct allusion to, and quotation of, the story of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac:
‘Seeing thou hast not withheld from Me thine only son.’ And so, mysterious as it is, we may
venture to say that He not only sent, but He gave, and not only gave, but gave up. His love, like
ours, delights to lavish its most precious gifts on its objects.
Now there arises from this consideration a thought which I only mention, and it is this. Christian
teaching about Christ’s work has often, both by its friends and its foes, been so presented as to
lead to the conception that it was the work of Christ which made God love men. The enemies of
evangelical truth are never tired of talking in that sense; and some of its unwise friends have
given reason for the caricature. But the true Christian teaching is, ‘God so loved ... that He gave.’
The love is the cause of the mission, and not the mission that which evokes the love. So let us be

sure that, not because Christ died does God love us sinful creatures, but that, because God loves
us, Christ died for us.
The third thing which the mission of Christ teaches us about the love of God is that it is a love
which takes note of and overcomes man’s sin. I have said, as plainly as I can, that I reject the
travesty of Christianity which implies that it was Christ’s mission which originated God’s love to
men. But a love that does not in the slightest degree care whether its object is good or bad--what
sort of a love do you call that? What do you name it when a father shows it to his children?
Moral indifference; culpable and weak and fatal. And is it anything nobler, if you transfer it to
God, and say that it is all the same to Him whether a man is living the life of a hog, and
forgetting all that is high and noble, or whether he is pressing with all his strength towards light
and truth and goodness? Surely, surely they who, in the name of their reverence for the supreme
love of God, cover over the fact of His righteousness, are mutilating and killing the very attribute
that they are trying to exalt. A love that cares nothing for the moral character of its object is not
love, but hate; it is not kindness, but cruelty. Take away the background because it is so black,
and you lower the brilliancy of whiteness of that which stands in front of it. There is such a
property in God as is fittingly described by that tremendous word ‘wrath.’ God cannot, being
what He is, treat sin as if it were no sin; and therefore we read, ‘He sent His son to be the
propitiation for our sins.’ The black dam, which we build up between ourselves and the river of
the water of life, is to be swept away; and it is the death of Jesus Christ which makes it possible
for the highest gift of God’s love to pour over the ruined and partially removed barrier and to
flood a man’s soul. Brethren, no God that is worthy the name can give Himself to a sinful soul.
No sinful soul that has not the habit, the guilt, the penalty of its sins swept away, is capable of
receiving the life, which is the highest gift of the love. So our twin texts divide what I may call
the process of redemption between them; and whilst the one says, ‘He sent His Son that we
should have life through Him,’ the other tells us of how the sins which bar the entrance of that
life into our hearts, as our own consciences tell us they do, can be removed. There must first be
the propitiation for our sins, and then that mighty love reaches its purpose and attains its end, and
can give us the life of God to be the life of our souls. So much for my first and principle
question.
II. Now I have to ask, secondly, how comes it that Christ’s mission says anything about God’s
love?
That question is a very plain one, and I should like to press the answer to it very emphatically.
Take any other of the great names of the world’s history of poet, thinker, philosopher, moralist,
practical benefactor; is it possible to apply such a thought as this to them--except with a hundred
explanations and limitations--that they, however radiant, however wise, however beneficent,
however fruitful their influence, make men sure that God loves them? The thing is ridiculous,
unless you are using language in a very fantastic and artificial fashion.
Christ’s mission reveals God’s love, because Christ is the Son of God. If it is true, as Jesus said,
that ‘He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father,’ then I can say, ‘In Thy tenderness, in Thy
patience, in Thy attracting of the publican and the harlot, in Thy sympathy with all the erring and
the sorrowful, and, most of all, in Thy agony and passion, in Thy cross and death, I see the glory
of God which is the love of God.’ Brother, if you break that link, which binds the man Christ

Jesus with the ever-living and the ever-loving God, I know not how you can draw from the
record of His life and death a confidence, which nothing can shake, in the love of the Father.
Then there is another point. Christ’s mission speaks to us about God’s love, if--and I was going
to say only if--we regard it as His mission to be the propitiation for our sins. Strike out the death
as the sacrifice for the world’s sin, and what you have left is a maimed something, which may
be, and I thankfully recognise often is, very strengthening, very helpful, very calming, very
ennobling, even to men who do not sympathise with the view of that work which I am now
setting forth, but which is all that to them, very largely, because of the unconscious influence of
the truths which they have cast away. It seems to me that those who, in the name of the highest
paternal love of God, reject the thought of Christ’s sacrificial death, are kicking away the ladder
by which they have climbed, and are better than their creeds, and happily illogical. It is the Cross
that reveals the love, and it is the Cross as the means of propitiation that pours the light of that
blessed conviction into men’s hearts.
III. My last question is this: what does Christ’s mission say about God’s love to me?
We know what it ought to say. It ought to carry, as on the crest of a great wave, the conviction of
that divine love into our hearts, to be fruitful there. It ought to sweep out, as on the crest of a
great wave, our sins and evils. It ought to do this; does it? On some of us I fear it produces no
effect at all. Some of you, dear friends, look at that light with lack-lustre eyes, or, rather, with
blind eyes, that are dark as midnight in the blaze of noonday. The voice comes from the Cross,
sweet as that of harpers harping with their harps, and mighty as the voice of many waters, and
you hear nothing. Some of us it slightly moves now and then, and there an end.
Brethren, you have to turn the world-wide generality into a personal possession. You have to say,
‘He loved me, and gave Himself for me.’ It is of no use to believe in a universal Saviour; do you
trust in your particular Saviour? It is of no use to have the most orthodox and clear conceptions
of the relation between the Cross of Christ and the revelation to men of the love of God; have
you made that revelation the means of bringing into your own personal life the conviction that
Jesus Christ is your Saviour, the propitiation for your sins, the Giver to you of life eternal? It is
faith that does that. Note that, in the great foundation passage to which I have made frequent
reference, there are two conditions put in between the beginning and the end. Some of us are
disposed to say, ‘God so loved the world that every man might have eternal life.’ That is not
what Christ said, ‘God so loved the world that’--and here follows the first condition--’He gave
His Son that’--and here follows the second--’he that believeth on Him should not perish, but
have everlasting life.’ God has done what it is needful for Him to do. His part of the conditions
has been fulfilled. Fulfil yours--’He that believeth on Him.’ And if you can say, not He is the
propitiation for our sin, but for my sin, then you will live and move and have your being in a
heaven of love, and will love Him back again with an echo and reflection of His own, and
nothing shall be able to separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Benson CommentaryHYPERLINK "/context/1_john/4-10.htm"1 John 4:10-12. Herein is love —
Worthy of our highest admiration; not that we loved God — First; for we were, on the contrary,
in a state of enmity to him, in which, if we had remained unsolicited and untouched by his love
and grace, we should have persisted and perished; but that he loved us — First, (1 John 4:19,)
without any merit or motive in us to induce him to do it; and, in his boundless compassion to our

necessities and miseries; sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins — That is, to make
atonement to his injured justice for them by offering himself as a sacrifice, and so to introduce us
into his favour on honourable terms. If God so loved us — With such a transcendent, free, and
inconceivable love; we ought also to love one another — In imitation of his divine example,
from a sense of the happy state into which we are brought, and in gratitude to him for so
inestimable a favour. And it is of the greater importance that we should do this, because it is
absolutely necessary in order to our having fellowship with him. For no man hath seen God at
any time — Nor indeed can see him, since he is in his own nature invisible; nor can any one have
any knowledge of him, or intercourse with him by his senses, or any information concerning his
will and the way of pleasing him by any visible appearance of him, or converse with him; yet,
from what his only-begotten Son hath taught us, we know that if we love one another — In
consequence of first loving him; God dwelleth μενει, abideth, in us — This is treated of 1 John
4:13-16; and his love is perfected — Has its full effect; in us — This is treated of 1 John 4:17-19.
Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary4:7-13 The Spirit of God is the Spirit of love. He that
does not love the image of God in his people, has no saving knowledge of God. For it is God's
nature to be kind, and to give happiness. The law of God is love; and all would have been
perfectly happy, had all obeyed it. The provision of the gospel, for the forgiveness of sin, and the
salvation of sinners, consistently with God's glory and justice, shows that God is love. Mystery
and darkness rest upon many things yet. God has so shown himself to be love, that we cannot
come short of eternal happiness, unless through unbelief and impenitence, although strict justice
would condemn us to hopeless misery, because we break our Creator's laws. None of our words
or thoughts can do justice to the free, astonishing love of a holy God towards sinners, who could
not profit or harm him, whom he might justly crush in a moment, and whose deserving of his
vengeance was shown in the method by which they were saved, though he could by his almighty
Word have created other worlds, with more perfect beings, if he had seen fit. Search we the
whole universe for love in its most glorious displays? It is to be found in the person and the cross
of Christ. Does love exist between God and sinners? Here was the origin, not that we loved God,
but that he freely loved us. His love could not be designed to be fruitless upon us, and when its
proper end and issue are gained and produced, it may be said to be perfected. So faith is
perfected by its works. Thus it will appear that God dwells in us by his new-creating Spirit. A
loving Christian is a perfect Christian; set him to any good duty, and he is perfect to it, he is
expert at it. Love oils the wheels of his affections, and sets him on that which is helpful to his
brethren. A man that goes about a business with ill will, always does it badly. That God dwells in
us and we in him, were words too high for mortals to use, had not God put them before us. But
how may it be known whether the testimony to this does proceed from the Holy Ghost? Those
who are truly persuaded that they are the sons of God, cannot but call him Abba, Father. From
love to him, they hate sin, and whatever disagrees with his will, and they have a sound and
hearty desire to do his will. Such testimony is the testimony of the Holy Ghost.
Barnes' Notes on the BibleHerein is love - In this great gift is the highest expression of love, as if
it had done all that it can do.
Not that we loved God - Not that we were in such a state that we might suppose he would make
such a sacrifice for us, but just the opposite. If we had loved and obeyed him, we might have had
reason to believe that he would be willing to show his love to us in a corresponding manner. But
we were alienated from him. We had even no desire for his friendship and favor. In This state he

showed the greatness of his love for us by giving his Son to die for his enemies. See the notes at
Romans 5:7-8.
But that he loved us - Not that he approved our character, but that he desired our welfare. Hc
loved us not with the love of complacency, but with the love of benevolence.
And sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins - On the meaning of the word "propitiation,"
see the notes at Romans 3:25. Compare the notes at 1 John 2:2.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary10. Herein is love—love in the abstract: love, in its
highest ideal, is herein. The love was all on God's side, none on ours.
not that we loved God—though so altogether worthy of love.
he loved us—though so altogether unworthy of love. The Greek aorist expresses, Not that we did
any act of love at any time to God, but that He did the act of love to us in sending Christ.
Matthew Poole's Commentary In comparison of this wonderful love of his, in sending his Son to
be a sacrifice for sins, our love to him is not worthy the name of love.
Gill's Exposition of the Entire BibleHerein is love,.... The love of God, free love, love that cannot
be matched: herein it is manifested, as before; this is a clear evidence of it, an undoubted proof,
and puts it out of all question:
not that we loved God: the love of God is antecedent to the love of his people; it was when theirs
was not; when they were without love to him, yea, enemies in their minds, by wicked works, and
even enmity itself, and therefore was not procured by theirs; but on the contrary, their love to
him is caused by his love to them; hence his love, and a continuance in it, do not depend on
theirs; nor does it vary according to theirs; wherefore there is good reason to believe it will
continue, and never be removed; and this shows the sovereignty and freeness of the love of God,
and that it is surprising and matchless:
but that he loved us; that is, God; and so the Syriac version reads, "but that God himself loved
us". The Vulgate Latin version adds, first, as in 1 John 4:19; the instance of this love follows:
and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins: this is a subordinate end to the other,
mentioned in 1 John 4:9; for, in order that sinful men may possess everlasting life and happiness,
it is necessary that their sins be expiated, or atonement be made for them, which is meant by
Christ's being a propitiation for them; that the justice of God should be satisfied; that peace and
righteousness, or love and justice, should be reconciled together; and kiss each other; and that all
obstructions be removed out of the way of the enjoyment of life, which are brought in by sin; and
that the wrath of God, which sin deserved, be averted or appeased, according to our sense
apprehension of it; for otherwise the love of God people is from everlasting, and is
unchangeable, never alters, or never changes from love to wrath, or from wrath to love; nor is the
love of God procured by the satisfaction and sacrifice of Christ, which are the effects of it; but
hereby the way is laid open for the display of it, and the application of its effects, in a way
consistent with the law and justice of God. This phrase is expressive of the great love of Christ to
his people, and of his substitution in their room and stead; and so it is used among the Jews for a
substitution in the room of others, , "to express the greatness of love" (u); See Gill on Romans
3:25 and See Gill on Romans 9:3.
(u) Misn. Negaim, c. 2. sect. 1. Maimon. & Bartenora in ib. Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 2. sect. 1. &
Jarchi & Bartenora in ib. vid. T. Bab. Yoma, fol. 23. 1. & Succa, fol. 20. 1.

Geneva Study BibleHerein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son
to be the propitiation for our sins.
EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)
Meyer's NT CommentaryHYPERLINK "/1_john/4-10.htm"1 John 4:10. ἐν τούτῳ ἐστὶν ἡ ἀγάπη]
i.e. “herein consists love,” love is in its nature of this kind. Oecumenius inaccurately: ἐν τούτῳ,
δείκνυται, ὅτι ἀγάπη ἐστὶν ὁ Θεός; for ἐστί is not = δείκνυται; nor is τοῦ Θεοῦ to be supplied
with ἡ ἀγάπη (with Lücke, de Wette, Brückner, etc.), but the expression means love in general,
as in 1 John 4:7 in the words: ἡ ἀγάπη ἐκ τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐστί (Düsterdieck, Ebrard, Braune).
οὐχ ὅτι ἡμεῖς ἠγαπήσαμεν τὸν Θεόν, ἀλλʼ ὅτι κ.τ.λ.] Grotius and Lange arbitrarily render οὐχ ὅτι
here = ὅτι οὐχ. Several commentators take the first part as, according to its sense, a subordinate
clause = ἡμῶν μὴ ἀγαπησάντων; Meyer: “Herein consists love, in that, although we had not
previously loved God, He nevertheless loved us;”[265] this, however, is incorrect; as John in 1
John 4:7 has said that love is ἘΚ ΤΟῦ ΘΕΟῦ, so here also he would emphasize the fact that love
has its origin not in man, but in God; it is originally in God, and not first called forth in Him by
the love of men; the latter is rather first the outcome of the divine love;[266] the words οὐχ ὅτι
therefore serve to specify love as something divine, not, however, as Düsterdieck (who otherwise
interprets correctly) thinks, to emphasize the fact that “the love of God to us is entirely
undeserved;” this is a thought which is only to be derived from the statement of the apostle
(Braune).
ἩΜΕῖς and ΑὐΤΌς are emphatically contrasted with one another.
ΚΑῚ ἈΠΈΣΤΕΙΛΕ ΤῸΝ ΥἹῸΝ ΑὐΤΟῦ Κ.Τ.Λ.] states the actual proof of ΑὐΤῸς
ἨΓΆΠΗΣΕΝ ἩΜᾶς; here also the special emphasis rests, not on ἈΠΈΣΤΕΙΛΕ, but on
ἹΛΑΣΜῸΝ Κ.Τ.Λ., which corresponds to the ἽΝΑ ΖΉΣΩΜΕΝ of 1 John 4:9, inasmuch as it
states the basis of the ΖΩΉ; with ἹΛΑΣΜΌΝ, comp. chap. 1 John 2:2. The aorists
ἨΓΑΠΉΣΑΜΕΝ, ἨΓΆΠΕΣΕ, ἈΠΈΣΤΕΙΛΕΝ, are to be retained as historical tenses (de
Wette); by the perfect ἈΠΈΣΤΑΛΚΕΝ, 1 John 4:9, the sending of Christ is merely stated,
whereas the aorist employed here narratively depicts the loving act of God in the sending of His
Son (Lücke).
[265] Similarly a Lapide: Hic caritatem Dei ponderat et exaggerat ex eo, quod Deus nulla
dilectione, nullo obsequio nostro provocatus, imo multis injuriis et sceleribus nostris offensus,
prior dilexit nos.
[266] With this interpretation it is not at all necessary, as Baumgarten-Crusius thinks, to give a
different meaning to the ὅτι in each case: “not as if … but in the fact that;” but ὅτι has the same
meaning both times, as the sense is: “this is not the nature of the love that we were the first to
love, but that God was the first to love.”
Expositor's Greek TestamentHYPERLINK "/1_john/4-10.htm"1 John 4:10. The love which
proves us children of God is not native to our hearts. It is inspired by the amazing love of God
manifested in the Incarnation—the infinite Sacrifice of His Son’s life and death. Aug.: “Non
illum dileximus prius: nam ad hoc nos dilexit, ut diligamus eum.” ἀπέστειλεν: the aor. is used
here because the Incarnation is regarded as a distinct event, a historic landmark.

Having inculcated love, the Apostle indicates two incentives thereto: (1) God’s love for us
imposes on us a moral obligation to love one another (1 John 4:11-16 a); (2) If we have love in
our hearts, fear is cast out (1 John 4:16-18).
Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges10. Herein is love] ‘Herein’ again refers to what
follows: Love in Its full perfection is seen, not in man’s love to God, but in His to man, which
reached a climax in His sending His Son to save us from our sins. The superiority of God’s love
does not lie merely in the fact of its being Divine. It is first in order of time and therefore
necessarily spontaneous: ours is at best only love in return for love. His love is absolutely
disinterested; ours cannot easily be so. Comp. Titus 3:4. ‘For propitiation’ and ‘for our sins’ see
on 1 John 2:2. ‘To be the propitiation’ is literally ‘as a propitiation’; it is parallel to ‘that we
might live through Him’ in the previous verse; but at the same time is an expansion of it. It states
the manner in which life is won for us.
Bengel's GnomenHYPERLINK "/1_john/4-10.htm"1 John 4:10. Ἔστιν, is) This denotes
something prior to His manifestation.—τὸν Θεὸν, God) who is most worthy to he loved.—ἡμᾶς,
us) who are most unworthy.
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 10. - Let no man think that any higher manifestation of love than this
can be found. It is not in any love of man to his Maker, but in his Maker's love to him, that the
real nature of love can be perceived. Note the change from perfect to aorist; ἀπέσταλκεν in verse
9 expresses the permanent results of the mission; ἀπέστειλεν here states the mission as an
accomplished fact complete in itself. (For ἱλασμός, see on 1 John 2:2.)
Vincent's Word StudiesPropitiation
See on 1 John 2:2.
PRECEPT AUSTIN RESOURCES
BRUCE HURT MD
1 John 4:10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to
be the propitiation for our sins:
Greek - en touto estin (3SPAI) e agaphe ouch hoti hemeis egaphekamen (1PRAI) ton
theon all hoti autos egaphesen (3SAAI) hemas kai apesteilen (3SAAI) ton huion autou
hilasmon peri ton hamartion hemon

Amplified - In this is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son
to be the propitiation (the atoning sacrifice) for our sins.
Wuest - In this is the love, not that we have loved God with the present result that we
possess love (for Him), but that He Himself loved us, and sent off His Son, a satisfaction
concerning our sins.
NLT - This is real love-- not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a
sacrifice to take away our sins.
• In this: 1Jn 4:8,9 3:1
• not: 1Jn 4:19 Deut 7:7,8 John 15:16 Ro 5:8-10 8:29,30 2Co 5:19-21 Eph 2:4,5 Titus 3:3-
5
• sent: 1Jn 2:2 Da 9:24 Ro 3:25,26 1Pe 2:24 3:18
• 1 John 4 Resources - Multiple Sermons and Commentaries
MANIFESTATION OF GOD'S LOVE
IN THE ATONEMENT
In this is love (One might translate it "in this way is seen true love") - Where? John again is
looking forward in the passage. Literally it reads "in this is the love," the definite article ("the")
appears before the word “love,” (in the original Greek text) which defines this as not just any
kind of love, but that particular love (agape) that flows from God as the Source.
Not that we loved God - John uses the negative "ou" signifying that before we were born again,
we absolutely did not love God. In fact Ro 5:10-note says "we were (God's) enemies." Fallen
mankind does not "naturally" love God, contrary to popular opinion! It follows that natural men
(those still dead in their trespasses and sins - Eph 2:1-note) absolutely cannot express the quality
of love (supernatural) about which John writes.
It is possible that the those with the spirit of anti-Christ were making the claim with their "lips"
that they love God, but their "life" proved their words to be a lie.
Cole on the phrase not that we loved God - So that we don’t get our focus on ourselves, or get
puffed up with pride over how loving we are, John directs us back to God’s love as seen in His
sending His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:7-11 Why We Must Love)
Piper - He is emphasizing that the nature and the origin of love does not lie in our response to
God. That is not where love starts. That is not mainly what love is. Love is, and love starts with
God. And if anything we feel or do can be called love, it will be because we are connected with
God by the new birth.
Spurgeon - In us there was no love; there was a hatred of God and goodness. The enmity was
not on God’s side toward us; but on our side toward him. “He loved us and sent his son.” The
gift of Christ; the needful propitiation for our sins, was all of love on God’s part. Justice
demanded the propitiation, but love applied it. God could not be just if he pardoned sin without
atonement; but the greatness of the love is seen in the fact that it moved the Father to give his
Son to an ignominious death, that he might pardon sinners and yet be just.
But (term of contrast) should always prompt us to ask What is the author contrasting? - John first
makes a negative statement, followed by a positive statement.

Guzik - His love for us initiates our relationship of love with Him, our love only responds to His
love for us. We can't love God the way we should unless we are receiving and living in His love.
He loved (25)(agapao) us sacrificially even when we did not love Him. Amazing love! Charles
Wesley was right to ask "Amazing love how can it be that Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?"
And can it be that I should gain
An int’rest in the Savior’s blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain?
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! how can it be
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
Amazing love! how can it be
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
Wuest on He loved - “He loved” is constative aorist, giving a panoramic view of God’s love for
the human race. God has always loved sinners. “Sent” is also aorist, marking the Incarnation as
an historic event. God took the initiative in this His great "operation rescue!"
Hiebert adds that "The aorist-tense verb “loved” refers to the historical, redemptive work of
Christ, regarded as a distinctive landmark." (The Epistles of John- An Expositional
Commentary) (See also related journal article - 1 John 4:7-21 - Excellent)
He loved us and sent - The "and" links the fact of God's love with act of God's love. Love is a
dynamic verb. While we clearly cannot duplicate this act, we can imitate it by giving our best to
those who do not deserve it.
Three times in this section on love John writes that the Father sent His Son - that we might live
through Him (1Jn 4:9), as the propitiation for our sins (1Jn 4:10), and as the Savior of the world
(1Jn 4:14). In horse racing a trifecta is when the bettor wins by selecting the first three finishers
of the race in the correct order. That Jesus would achieve all three of the goals for which He was
sent was never in doubt, as His cry underscored -- "It is finished." (Jn 19:30) (See discussion of
Tetelestai - It is Finished! Paid in Full!)
His Son to be the propitiation - There is no verb "to be" so this literally reads "His Son
propitiation." In chapter 2 John said of Jesus "He Himself is the propitiation for our sins." In
other words Jesus was not sent to be just the "propitiator," who offered the sacrifice as did the
OT priests, but that He Himself BE the actual propitiation. In sum, Christ Jesus is both the
propitiator and the propitiation for our sin. As Dwight Pentecost said "The death of Jesus Christ
did not change the heart of God, as if One who hated us now loves us, rather it opened the
floodgate so that the love of God for sinners could be poured out to them through Jesus Christ."
Babies are born into the world,
but only Jesus was sent into the world!
Sent (649)(apostello from apo = off, away from, speaks of separation + stello = appoint to a
position this sense in the derivative word apostolos = emissary) literally means to send forth. "To
dispatch someone for the achievement of some objective, send away/out." (BDAG) Apostello is
in the perfect tense signifying the permanent effect of the sending of the Son. The sending of the
Son has lasting effect! Indeed, the results of the Father's sending the Son will abide throughout
eternity in those who have received the Son as their propitiation and Savior. For example in
context the result "that we might live through Him" will be everlasting! Hallelujah!

Vine on apostello - lit., "to send forth" (apo, "from"), akin to apostolos, "an apostle," denotes (a)
"to send on service, or with a commission." (1) of persons; Christ, sent by the Father, Matthew
10:40; 15:24; 21:37; Mark 9:37; 12:6; Luke 4:18,43; 9:48; 10:16; John 3:17; 5:36,38; 6:29,57;
7:29; 8:42; 10:36; 11:42; 17:3,8,18 (1st part), Jn 17:21,23,25; 20:21; Acts 3:20 (future); 3:26; 1
John 4:9,10,14; the Holy Spirit, Luke 24:49 (in some texts; see No. 3); 1 Peter 1:12; Revelation
5:6; Moses, Acts 7:35; John the Baptist, John 1:6; 3:28; disciples and apostles, e.g., Matthew
10:16; Mark 11:1; Luke 22:8; John 4:38; 17:18 (2nd part); Acts 26:17; servants, e.g., Matthew
21:34; Luke 20:10; officers and officials, Mark 6:27; John 7:32; Acts 16:35; messengers, e.g.,
Acts 10:8,17,20; 15:27; evangelists, Romans 10:15; angels, e.g., Matthew 24:31; Mark 13:27;
Luke 1:19,26; Hebrews 1:14; Revelation 1:1; 22:6; demons, Mark 5:10; (2) of things, e.g.,
Matthew 21:3; Mark 4:29 , RV, marg., "sendeth forth," text, "putteth forth" (AV, "… in"); Acts
10:36; 11:30; 28:28; (b) "to send away, dismiss," e.g., Mark 8:26; 12:3; Luke 4:18 , "to set (at
liberty)." (Send - Vine's Expository Dictionary of NT Words)
Spurgeon - By nature, we had no love to God; we were his enemies. We loved sin, and we had
ruined ourselves by it; but God took out of his own bosom the only Son he had, that he might
make reconciliation for us, and put away our sin. “Herein is love,” says the apostle, as though
you could find it nowhere else as it is here. Here is the height and depth of love immeasurable;
here is love summed up, here is love’s climax: “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he
loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
Harry Ironside - On the Cross the Son of God took our place in judgment. It was not merely the
sufferings that men heaped on Jesus that settled the sin-question, but there as he hung upon the
cross and supernatural darkness covered the scene, we read that Jehovah made “his soul an
offering (a guilt offering) for sin” (Isaiah 53:10). In those hours of darkness God was dealing
with His Son in judgment. There He bore in His inmost soul the punishment that you and I
would have to bear ourselves for all eternity if left without a Savior. There He became the
propitiation and expiation for our sins. It is at the Cross that we see the fullest extent of God’s
love. “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the
propitiation for our sins” (1John 4:10). This indeed is love. We hated Him, we loved our own
way, we wanted to take our own course, and we did not want to be submissive to His will. But
He loved us and looked upon us in grace. He yearned to have us with Him in glory, free from
every stain of sin. And because there was no other way whereby we could be justified (declared
righteous), He sent His Son to become the propitiation for our sins. Don’t talk about believing
God is love if you won’t accept the gift of His love, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is in Christ
alone we have life and propitiation. “There is no other name under heaven that has been given
among men, by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12), but the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (1
John 4 Commentary - Ironside's Notes on Selected Books)
Barclay on propitiation - Jesus is the Restorer of the lost relationship with God. God sent Him
to be the atoning sacrifice for sin (1Jn 4:10). We do not move in a world of thought in which
animal sacrifice is a reality. But we can fully understand what sacrifice meant. When a man
sinned, his relationship with God was broken; and sacrifice was an expression of penitence,
designed to restore the lost relationship (Ed: But see caveat - Heb 9:22-note, Heb 10:4-note).
Jesus, by His life and death, made it possible for man to enter into a new relationship of peace
and friendship with God. He bridged the awful gulf between man and God.(1 John 4
Commentary - William Barclay's Daily Study Bible)

Harry Ironside - It is God who came out to us. We did not seek after Him. We did not love
God, and our hearts were filled with hatred for Him. But He met our every need. You see,
because we were dead we needed life and God sent Christ that we might live through Him.
Because we were lost and guilty sinners it was necessary that a propitiation be made for sin, and
God sent His Son to effect that propitiation. (1 John 4 Commentary - Ironside's Notes on
Selected Books)
The Son of God was sent to be the Son of Man that He might die for man. His death was not an
accident but an appointment! (Acts 2:23, Acts 4:28, Messianic prophecy in Acts 3:18, 2Ti
1:9NIV-note) (See related resource: Messianic Prophecies)
The propitiation ("Satisfaction") (2434) (hilasmos [see in depth discussion] akin to hileōs =
merciful, propitious) in the NT (only here and 1Jn 2:2-note) refers to a sacrifice that turns away
the wrath of God and thereby makes God propitious (favorably inclined or disposed, disposed to
be gracious and/or merciful, ready to forgive) toward us. It is important to make the distinction
that propitiation does not mean we must do something to appease God or to placate His anger,
but that is refers to something He does to make it possible for men to be forgiven! Glory,
Hallelujah!
Wiersbe explains that "“God is light,” and therefore He must uphold His holy Law. “God is
love,” and therefore He wants to forgive and save sinners. How can God forgive sinners and still
be consistent with His holy nature? The answer is the cross. There Jesus Christ bore the
punishment for sin and met the just demands of the holy Law. But there, also, God reveals His
love and makes it possible for men to be saved by faith." (Bible Exposition Commentary)
NET Note on hilasmos says "inherent in the meaning of the word translated atoning sacrifice (
hilasmos) is the idea of turning away the divine wrath, so that “propitiation” is the closest
English equivalent. God’s love for us is expressed in his sending his Son to be the propitiation
(the propitiatory sacrifice) for our sins on the cross… The contemporary English “atoning
sacrifice” communicates this idea more effectively."
MacArthur - Hebrews 9:5-note translates a form of this word (hilasmos) as “the mercy seat.”
((hilasterion or hilasterios) Christ lit. became our mercy seat like the one in the Most Holy Place,
where the high priest splattered the blood of the sacrifice on the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16:15-
note). Christ did this when His blood, spilled on behalf of others, satisfied the demands of God’s
holy justice and wrath against sin. (Ibid)
The Septuagint (Lxx), the Greek text of the Hebrew OT, uses hilasmos in Leviticus 25:9 of the
Day of Atonement - 'You shall then sound a ram's horn abroad on the tenth day of the seventh
month; on the day (yom) of atonement (Hebrew = kippur [Yom Kippur - 10th day of 7th month,
Tishri]; Lxx = hilasmos) you shall sound a horn all through your land."
Wuest - The English word “propitiate” means “to appease and render favorable.” That was the
pagan meaning of the Greek word. The pagan worshipper brought gifts to his god to appease the
god’s wrath and make him favorable in his attitude towards him. But the God of Christianity
needs no gifts to appease His wrath and make Him favorable towards the human race. Divine
love springs spontaneously from His heart. His wrath against sin cannot be placated by good
works. Only the infliction of the penalty of sin, death, will satisfy the just demands of His holy
law which the human race violated, maintain His government, and provide the proper basis for
His bestowal of mercy, namely, divine justice satisfied. Hilasmos is that sacrifice which fully
satisfies the demands of the broken law. It was our Lord’s death on Calvary’s Cross. Thus does

this pagan word accrue to itself a new meaning as it enters the doctrinal atmosphere of the New
Testament.
ESV Study Bible says Hilasmos "here means 'a sacrifice that bears God's wrath and turns it to
favor" which is "also the meaning of the English word propitiation."
StevenCole - “Propitiation” means to satisfy God’s justice and wrath to-ward our sin. His love
didn’t just brush aside our sin, because His holiness and justice would have been compromised.
Rather, His love moved God to send His own Son, who bore the penalty that we rightly
deserved. The initiative was totaly with God! He didn’t wait until we showed some promise of
changing or until we cried out for help. Rather, as Paul put it (Ro 5:8), “But God demonstrates
His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (1 John 4:7-11
Why We Must Love)
See articles on Propitiation
• What is propitiation?
• What is the mercy seat?
• Why would the aroma of a sacrifice be important to God?
• Propitiation - Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
• tPropitiation - Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testamen
• Propitiation (2) - Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
• Propitiation - Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary
• Propitiation - Bridgeway Bible Dictionary
• Propitiation - Charles Buck Theological Dictionary
• Propitiation - Easton's Bible Dictionary
• Propitiation - Fausset's Bible Dictionary
• Propitiation - The Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance And Dictionary
• Propitiation - CARM Theological Dictionary
• Expiation, Propitiation - Holman Bible Dictionary
• Propitiation - See Atonement - Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology
RelatedWord Studies:
Mercy Seat, Propitiation (2435) hilasterion
Make propitiation (be merciful) (2433) hilaskomai
Boice - If God had merely sent Jesus to teach us about Himself, that would have been wonderful
enough. It would have been far more than we deserved. If God had sent Jesus simply to be our
example, that would have been good too and would have had some value … But the wonderful
thing is that God did not stop with these but rather sent His Son, not merely to teach or to be our
example, but to die the death of a felon, that He might save us from sin.
For our sins - "Our" is genitive indicating a personal possessive pronoun. Jesus personally died
for our personal sins, each and every one we personally committed! That is love "that will not let
me go." (Matheson)

Sins (266)(hamartia) literally conveys the idea of missing the mark as when hunting with a bow
and arrow (in Homer some hundred times of a warrior hurling his spear but missing his foe).
Later hamartia came to mean missing or falling short of any goal, standard, or purpose. Hamartia
in the Bible signifies a departure from God's holy, perfect standard of what is right in word or
deed (righteous). It pictures the idea of missing His appointed goal (His will) which results in a
deviation from what is pleasing to Him. In short, sin is conceived as a missing the true end and
scope of our lives, which is the Triune God Himself. As Martin Luther put it "Sin is essentially
a departure from God."
Spurgeon - Who among us would think of giving up his son to die for his enemy, for one who
never did him a service, but treated him ungratefully, repulsed a thousand overtures of
tenderness, and went on perversely hardening his neck? No man could do it.
TGIF (Read: Romans 5:6-21) In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and
sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. —1 John 4:10 - We hear it often: “TGIF” (Thank
God it’s Friday!). Although many people use this phrase carelessly, without reverence for their
Creator, they’re grateful because Friday marks the end of the workweek. It opens the door to 2
days when they can relax and just do their own thing.
On this Good Friday, millions of Christians around the world are especially thankful because it
reminds them of what God accomplished through His Son nearly 2,000 years ago.
But why do we call this day good? Was not this one of the blackest days in history? God’s
sinless Son, who went about doing good, healing the sick, and bringing hope to sin-ruined lives,
was nailed to a shameful cross by self-righteous religious leaders. That’s evil at its worst. That
sounds more like God’s day of defeat. Where is the good in that?
Paul gave us the answer. On this day centuries ago, God demonstrated “His own love toward us,
in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Ro 5:8). Such love is too profound for a
genius to fully grasp, yet so simple that a child can accept it. And this love is experienced by all
who repent of their sins and receive Christ by faith.
TGIGF—Thank God it’s Good Friday! - D J De Haan (Our Daily Bread, Copyright RBC
Ministries, Grand Rapids, MI. — Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved)
See, from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down;
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?
—Watts
Christ endured the darkness so that we can enjoy the light.
What’s Love? (Read: Psalm 103:1-14) - When asked “What’s love?” children have some great
answers. Noelle, age 7, said, “Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it
every day.” Rebecca, who is 8, answered, “Since my grandmother got arthritis, she can’t bend
over and polish her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even after
his hands got arthritis too. That’s love.” Jessica, also 8, concluded, “You really shouldn’t say ‘I

love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.”
Sometimes we need reminding that God loves us. We focus on the difficulties of life and
wonder, Where’s the love? But if we pause and consider all that God has done for us, we
remember how much we are loved by God, who is love (1 John 4:8-10).
Psalm 103 lists the “benefits” God showers on us in love: He forgives our sin (Ps 103:3),
satisfies us with good things (Ps 103:5), and executes righteousness and justice (Ps 103:6). He is
slow to anger and abounds in mercy (Ps 103:8). He doesn’t deal with us as our sins deserve (Ps
103:10) and has removed our sin as far as the east is from the west (Ps 103:12). He has not
forgotten us!
What’s love? God is love, and He’s pouring out that love on you and me. - Anne Cetas (Our
Daily Bread, Copyright RBC Ministries, Grand Rapids, MI. — Reprinted by permission. All
rights reserved)
Our God is God—
His truth, His love remains each day the same,
He’s faithful to His matchless name,
For God is God—He does not change.
—D. DeHaan
The death of Christ is the measure of God’s love for you.
Love Undeserved - Years ago in North Carolina, Judge Clara Warren served in the juvenile
court system. She was known for her strict interpretation of the law, but also for her love and
compassion.
One day Judge Warren took reporter Phyllis Hobe on a tour of a correctional facility. Hobe was
surprised by the judge’s sincere concern for many of the inmates. She was helping them to get
into schools and find jobs when they were released. She even continued to care for them if they
were readmitted. “How can you keep on loving them?” the reporter asked. “They don’t seem to
appreciate all you’ve done for them.” The judge explained that she didn’t love them because she
wanted to receive their thanks. She simply loved them, expecting nothing in return.
Isn’t that how God loves us? The Bible tells us that He loved the world so much that He gave His
Son to die for us (John 3:16; Ro 5:8). Though sinful and ungrateful, every man, woman, and
child is the object of His love. Yes, He longs for our loving obedience. But when that doesn’t
happen, He continues to love us no matter how unlovable we are.
Dear Father, enable us to love others the way that You love us. —Vernon Grounds (Our Daily
Bread, Copyright RBC Ministries, Grand Rapids, MI. — Reprinted by permission. All rights
reserved)
O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in Thee;
I give Thee back the life I owe,
That in Thine ocean depths its flow

May richer, fuller be.
—Matheson
Nothing is more powerful than God's love.
No Greater Love —1 John 4:10 - On our family-room wall, in a small shadowbox, hangs a
“treasure” that belongs to my wife Carolyn. Oh, we have things more intrinsically valuable on
the walls of our home —a handmade quilt from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Kentucky, antique
mirrors, oil paintings, and a magnificent dulcimer from an artisan in the back-country of Idaho.
Carolyn’s treasure, though, is far more valuable to her than any other possession, for it contains a
gift from our granddaughter Julia. It was a present to her “Nana” on Valentine’s Day several
years ago when Julia was only 6 years old — a small, red, clay heart. Inscribed on it in childish
scrawl are the words“ I Luv U.”
The little heart is crudely made, ragged on the edges, and bears a number of thumbprints and
smudges, but Carolyn has enshrined it in a frame made especially for that heart. Each day it
reminds her of Julia’s love.
Is God’s love more valuable to you than silver or gold or any other possession? He“ sent His
only begotten Son into the world, that [you] might live through Him”(1 John 4:9). He did that
because He loves you, not because you loved Him. And because of His love, one day you will be
with Him in heaven. There is no greater love! By David H. Roper (Our Daily Bread, Copyright
RBC Ministries, Grand Rapids, MI. — Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved)
Love sent my Savior to die in my stead,
Why should He love me so?
Meekly to Calvary’s cross He was led,
Why should He love me so?
—Harkness
God’s eternal love is the source of our eternal life.
Where Love Comes From - I have loved you with an everlasting love; … with lovingkindness I
have drawn you. —Jeremiah 31:3 - What happened between my husband and a dog named
Maggie was not love at first sight. In fact, their first meeting was more like a war dance. When
Jay came home from work, Maggie stopped him at the back door and growled at him as if he
were an intruder. Then Jay growled, wanting to know why a strange dog was in his home. I
explained why I rescued her from the kennel, but he was unmoved.
But soon Maggie began welcoming Jay home in the evening with a wildly excited dance routine.
With all 20 toenails tapping on the tile she would wag her tail and wiggle to tell him that his
arrival was the highlight of her day. Within a week, her enthusiastic welcome had won his heart.
Maggie’s method of winning Jay’s affection reminded me of what the prophet Jeremiah and the

apostle John wrote. God’s love for us, they said, draws us into a loving relationship with Him
(Jeremiah 31:3; 1John 4:7-8,19).
When I think about God enjoying my presence as much as Maggie enjoys Jay’s, I am eager to
spend time with Him. I realize that God loves me far more than Maggie loves Jay, and my heart
fills up with love for Him. And then my heart overflows with love for others, for the power of
God’s love empowers me to love even those who don’t love me. — By Julie Ackerman Link
(Our Daily Bread, Copyright RBC Ministries, Grand Rapids, MI. — Reprinted by permission.
All rights reserved)
Loved with everlasting love,
Led by grace that love to know—
Spirit, breathing from above,
Thou hast taught me it is so!
—Robinson
We love because God first loved us.
LOVE’S CLIMAX NO. 2394
A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD’S DAY, JANUARY 6,
1895. DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN
TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD’S-DAY EVENING, JANUARY 10,
1887.
“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to
be the propitiation for our sins.” 1 John 4:10.
To find love, you have need send a lover; one whose soul is full of love is the
most likely to discover it. John, with love in his heart, soars aloft, and using his
eagle eyes, looks over all history and all space, and at last, he poises himself over
one spot, for he has found that for which he was looking, and says, “Herein is
love.” There is love in a thousand places, like the scattered drops of spray on the
leaves of the forest, but as for the ocean, that is in one place, and when we reach it,

we say, “Herein is water.” There is love in many places, like wandering beams of
light, but as for the sun, it is in one part of the heavens, and as we look at it, we
say, “Herein is light.” So, “Herein,” said the apostle, as he looked toward the Lord
Jehovah, Himself, “Herein is love.” He did not point to his own heart and say,
“Herein is love,” for that was but a little poolfilled from the great sea of love. He
did not look at the Church of God, and say of all the myriads who counted not their
lives dear unto them, “Herein is love,” for their love was only the reflected
brightness of the great sun of love! No, he looked to God the Father, in the
splendor of His condescensionin giving His only Son to die for us, and he said:
“Herein is love,” as if all love were here; love at its utmost height, love at its
climax, love out-doing itself: “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He
loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” I have no time for
an elaborate discourse, and I have no desire to preach in such a fashion, but I do
want to get at your hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit. There seem to me to be
four things in the text, each of which tends to bring out the greatness of divine
love. First, here is love to the loveless—“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but
that He loved us.” Secondly, here is love to the sinful—“God loved us, and sent
His Sonto be the propitiation for our sins.” Thirdly, here is love providing a
propitiation, not passing by sin without atonement, but making a propitiation for
sin. And, lastly, here is love surrendering the Only-Begotten—“God loved us, and
sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” I. First, then, dear friends, that
we may see the love of God in its fullness, I invite you to think of His LOVE TO
THE LOVELESS—“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us.”
Now, if man had loved God, God need not have loved man. If all of us from our
earliest childhood had loved our God, it would have somewhat lessened the
wonder that He should love us. I can understand that we should marvel at God’s
loving us, even if we had always loved Him, for we are so insignificant that what
little love we can give to Him can never deserve that He should fix His heart of
love upon us. If an ant were in love with an angel, it would not, therefore, follow
that the angel ought to be in love with the ant, yet there is no difference between an
ant and an angel compared with the difference between us and God!We are
nothing and He is all in all! Yet I admit that if, from our youth up we had always
loved God, it would not have seemed so extraordinary a thing, knowing what we
do of God, that He should have loved us, but this is the startling word in our text—
“Not that we loved God.”There is a negative put there, and the positive assertion is

that God did love us, even though there is also the negative that we did not love
Him. It is very easy for us to love those who love us. It is hard, sometimes, to love
those who do not love us, especially if they are under great obligation to us—and I
am sure that was our case with regard to God. We were deeply in debt to Him, and
we ought to have loved Him with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength; but we did
nothing of the kind! Yet, notwithstanding all that, He loved us. While we were His
enemies, He loved us, and sent His Son to save us. Furthermore, let me remark
that, when man does love God, it is no very great wonder. If you and I love God;
and I hopethat we do—if we love Him with all the fervor of which our hearts are
capable, is there anything, after all, very extraordinary in such affection? Why,
brothers and sisters, not to love the
2 Love’s Climax Sermon #2394
2 Tell someone today how much you love Jesus Christ. Volume 41
Lord our God is detestable! To love Him is, in one sense, commendable, but it can
never be considered meritorious! Who can help loving a kind father who has cared
for him all his days? Who can help loving one who has saved him from death?
Who can help loving one who has laid down his life for him? Surely, if we are in a
right state of heart, we cannot help loving God becauseHe first loved us. When we
do love Him, it is not at all wonderful; it would be little enough return for the great
love wherewith He has loved us if we gave to Him all the love that we can ever
bestow upon anyone— “Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were a
present far too small! Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my
all!” And, if God’s love gets all that it demands, it is even then but a poorreturn
that we have made for love as magnificent as His! But, beloved, I have been only
supposingsomething which is not true, for I have been supposing that we loved
God. The fact is otherwise, according to the text, for the apostle says, “Not that we
loved God.”Let us think a little of that terrible fact! I do not want to preach to you,
but I do wish you to preach to yourselves, or rather, that the Holy Spirit may
preach to you from this passage: “Not that we loved God.”For many a year we
were indifferent to God. He came across our path in many ways, but we did not
want to see Him, or to hear about Him. Some of us were favored by godly training,
yet we did our best to miss the blessing of it. We tried, as men say, to “sowour
wild oats.” We did not care to do what God would have us do;we were totally

indifferent to His claims! Yet now, with tears in our eyes, we can truthfully say
that, “He loved us.” We know that the Lord loved us even when we were
indifferent to Him! Worse than that, there were some who were even insulting to
God. I mean that they spokeill words about Him, and about His grace, His day,
His people, His cause, His Word. Some spokeexceedingly proud, and exalted
themselves against the Lord; yet He loved them. Oh, how it wrings the heart of a
penitent sinner to think that God loved him when he was a blasphemer; loved him
when he imprecated a curse upon himself; loved him when God, Himself, could
not see anything in him that was lovable, and even loved him when there was not
a spotof merit as big as a pin’s head upon which love could have rested if it had
needed to rest on merit at all! Oh, wonder of wonders! “Herein is love, not that we
loved God,”but that we were indifferent to Him, and some even insulting to Him!
And oh, what rebellion against God there was in some of our hearts! How we
kicked and struggled against the idea of yielding to Him! Are there not numbers of
you who never think of God at all? You go to your daily work, or to your business,
and God is not at all in your thoughts! If there were no God, it would make no
difference to some of you, except that you would feel a little more comfortable,
and you would then be glad that there would be no judgment day. But, O sirs, this
is a sad, a miserable state to be in! If there were no hereafter, and I had to die like a
dog, I would chooseto love my God, for I find a peace, a strength, a joy in it that
makes life worth living! There is nothing here on earth that is worth a man’s
pursuit except his God!If he once knew the love of God, life would wear
sunbeams about it; but apart from that it is a drudgery! To the unbeliever, existence
in this world is a horrible slavery. But, brothers and sisters, it is very wonderful
that God should love us when we try our hardest to be rid of Him, when we are at
enmity against Him, when we are opposed, even, to His love, and will not listen to
the gospel of His grace! Yet so He did; He loved us even in this condition! Perhaps
some of you do not feel that there is anything very remarkable in this love of the
Lord to the loveless. I should like you to try, if you could, love somebodywho has
nothing about him that is at all lovable. I hope, dear Christian people, that you do
this, but if you learn to love the wicked, the ungodly, the injurious, the deceivers; if
you even love those who vilify you, those who slander you every day, those who
despise you and deride you, and those who are ungrateful to you; if you do this,
then you will get into some sortof sympathy with God, and you will begin to
understand a little of what His great love must be! But there are some men who

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