Greetings!

To Continue:

1 John 4:7-10

7. Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one
that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.

7. Dilecti, diligamus nos mutuo, quia dilectio ex Deo est; et omnis qui
diligit ex Deo genitus est, et cognoscit Deum.

8. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

8. Qui non diligit, non novit Deum; quia Deus dilectio est.

9. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God
sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through
him.

9. In hoc apparuit dilectio Dei in nobis, quod Filium suum unigenitum
misit Deus in mundum, ut per eum vivamus.

10. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and
sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

10. In hoc est dilectio, non quod nos dilexerimus Deum, sed quod nos
ipse dilexit, et misit Filium propitiationem pro peccatis nostris.


7 Beloved He returns to that exhortation which he enforces almost
throughout the Epistle. We have, indeed, said, that it is filled with
the doctrine of faith and exhortation to love. On these two points he
so dwells, that he continually passes from the one to the other.

When he commands mutual love, he does not mean that we discharge this
duty when we love our friends, because they love us; but as he
addresses in common the faithful, he could not have spoken otherwise
than that they were to exercise mutual love. He confirms this sentence
by a reason often adduced before, even because no one can prove himself
to be the son of God, except he loves his neighbors, and because the
true knowledge of God necessarily produces love in us.

He also sets in opposition to this, according to his usual manner, the
contrary clause, that there is no knowledge of God where there is no
love. And he takes as granted a general principle or truth, that God is
love, that is, that his nature is to love men. I know that many reason
more refinedly, and that the ancients especially have perverted this
passage in order to prove the divinity of the Spirit. But the meaning
of the Apostle is simply this, -- that as God is the fountain of love,
this effect flows from him, and is diffused wherever the knowledge of
him comes, as he had at the beginning called him light, because there
is nothing dark in him, but on the contrary he illuminates all things
by his own brightness. Here then he does not speak of the essence of
God, but only shews what he is found to be by us.

But two things in the Apostle's words ought to be noticed, -- that the
true knowledge of God is that which regenerates and renews us, so that
we become new creatures; and that hence it cannot be but that it must
conform us to the image of God. Away, then, with that foolish gloss
respecting unformed faith. For when any one separates faith from love,
it is the same as though he attempted to take away heat from the sun.

9 In this was manifested, or, has appeared. We have the love of God
towards us testified also by many other proofs. For if it be asked, why
the world has been created, why we have been placed in it to possess
the dominion of the earth, why we are preserved in life to enjoy
innumerable blessings, why we are endued with light and understanding,
no other reason can be adduced, except the gratuitous love of God. But
the Apostle here has chosen the principal evidence of it, and what far
surpasses all other things. For it was not only an immeasurable love,
that God spared not his own Son, that by his death he might restore us
to life; but it was goodness the most marvelous, which ought to fill
our minds with the greatest wonder and amazement. Christ, then, is so
illustrious and singular a proof of divine love towards us, that
whenever we look upon him, he fully confirms to us the truth that God
is love.

He calls him his only begotten, for the sake of amplifying. For in this
he more clearly shewed how singularly he loved us, because he exposed
his only Son to death for our sakes. In the meantime, he who is his
only Son by nature, makes many sons by grace and adoption, even all
who, by faith, are united to his body. He expresses the end for which
Christ has been sent by the Father, even that we may live through him,
for without him we are all dead, but by his coming he brought life to
us; and except our unbelief prevents the effect of his grace, we feel
it in ourselves.

10 Herein is love He amplifies God's love by another reason, that he
gave us his own Son at the time when we were enemies, as Paul teaches
us, in Romans 5:8; but he employs other words, that God, induced by no
love of men, freely loved them. He meant by these words to teach us
that God's love towards us has been gratuitous. And though it was the
Apostle's object to set forth God as an example to be imitated by us;
yet the doctrine of faith which he intermingles, ought not to be
overlooked. God freely loved us, -- how so? because he loved us before
we were born, and also when, through depravity of nature, we had hearts
turned away from him, and influenced by no right and pious feelings.

Were the prattlings of the Papists entertained, that every one is
chosen by God as he foresees him to be worthy of love, this doctrine,
that he first loved us, would not stand; for then our love to God would
be first in order, though in time posterior. But the Apostle assumes
this as an evident truth, taught in Scripture (of which these profane
Sophists are ignorant,) that we are born so corrupt and depraved, that
there is in us as it were an innate hatred to God, so that we desire
nothing but what is displeasing to him, so that all the passions of our
flesh carry on continual war with his righteousness.

And sent his Son It was then from God's goodness alone, as from a
fountain, that Christ with all his blessings has come to us. And as it
is necessary to know, that we have salvation in Christ, because our
heavenly Father has freely loved us; so when a real and full certainty
of divine love towards us is sought for, we must look nowhere else but
to Christ. Hence all who inquire, apart from Christ, what is settled
respecting them in God's secret counsel, are mad to their own ruin.

But he again points out the cause of Christ's coming and his office,
when he says that he was sent to be a propitiation for our sins And
first, indeed, we are taught by these words, that we were all through
sin alienated from God, and that this alienation and discord remains
until Christ intervenes to reconcile us. We are taught, secondly, that
it is the beginning of our life, when God, having been pacified by the
death of his Son, receives us unto favor: for propitiation properly
refers to the sacrifice of his death. We find, then, that this honor of
expiating for the sins of the world, and of thus taking away the enmity
between God and us, belongs only to Christ.

But here some appearance of inconsistency arises. For if God loved us
before Christ offered himself to death for us, what need was there for
another reconciliation? Thus the death of Christ may seem to be
superfluous. To this I answer, that when Christ is said to have
reconciled the Father to us, this is to be referred to our
apprehensions; for as we are conscious of being guilty, we cannot
conceive of God otherwise than as of one displeased and angry with us,
until Christ absolves us from guilt. For God, wherever sin appears,
would have his wrath, and the judgment of eternal death, to be
apprehended. It hence follows, that we cannot be otherwise than
terrified by the present prospect. as to death, until Christ by his
death abolishes sin, until he delivers us by his own blood from death.
Further, God's love requires righteousness; that we may then be
persuaded that we are loved, we must necessarily come to Christ, in
whom alone righteousness is to be found.

We now see that the variety of expressions, which occurs in Scripture,
according to different aspects of things, is most appropriate and
especially useful with regard to faith. God interposed his own Son to
reconcile himself to us, because he loved us; but this love was hid,
because we were in the meantime enemies to God, continually provoking
his wrath. Besides, the fear and terror of an evil conscience took away
from us all enjoyment of life. Thence as to the apprehension of our
faith, God began to love us in Christ. And though the Apostle here
speaks of the first reconciliation, let us yet know that to propitiate
God to us by expiating sins is a perpetual benefit proceeding from
Christ.

This the Papists also in part concede; but afterwards they extenuate
and almost annihilate this grace, by introducing their fictitious
satisfactions. For if men redeem themselves by their works, Christ
cannot be the only true propitiation, as he is called here.