HE FIRST LOVED US
HE FIRST LOVED US (1 John 4:19)
“We love because He first loved us” vs “We love Him because He first loved us” The first sentence could be love for anyone else, but based on the original text in Greek as translated in the King James Version, it is not loving anyone else but God, it’s love towards Him. In the next verse, we have the idea of loving one another, but this love for one another is the direct result of our love for God. But we love Him because He first loves us. John writes that if we love Jesus, we must love the One Who sent Him. According to the apostle Paul, we were by nature deserving of the wrath of God. He is the only One who could change this situation and He actually did it, “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)
ήμεις άγαπώμεν αύτόν ότι αύτός πρώτος έγάπησεν ήμάς.
“We love him because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19 – KJV)
ήμεις- we
άγαπώμεν- love
αύτόν- him
ότι- because
αύτός- he
πρώτος- first
έγάπησεν- loved
ήμάς- us
αύτόν and αύτός- are variants of the same root in Greek.
Πρώτος- is like a prototype. For once - first.
The idea of loving God is deep-rooted in God’s love for us in the first place, many like to use the text when Jesus said: “By this everyone will know you are my disciples if you love one another” (John 13:35), we going to be recognized as Jesus’ disciples by loving one another, but how can we be recognized as lovers of God? We love Him because He first loved us, but what does it mean to love God? John 14:21 gives us the answer “Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them”, In the Old Testament we have a verse just like this one here showing us what kind of love God expects from us, and it is in obedience, do you want to love God and show how much you love Him? Obey His commands in the Bible. (1 Samuel 15:22) “But Samuel replied: “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice.” See? Throughout the Scriptures, the only way to love God is through obedience, if we think about that more carefully, we are going to understand why it would be impossible for us to love God, indeed since the only love He wants from us is obedience and we were deserving His wrath as a result of our disobedience towards His decrees. The reality is that we always run away from God just as John the Baptist accused those coming to the Jordan River of trying to escape God's coming wrath. (Luke 3:7). We were enemies because of our disobedience, till God made peace with us by the blood of Christ, and if we take the principle of obedience as a synonymy for love as Jesus portrayed, what to say about our disobedience towards God? It was not only an act of rebellion but an act of hatred towards the Almighty God. Because He first loved us and rescued us from our sins through the death and resurrection of Christ, now we can love Him, and we can obey His commands. Before that, we were dead in our sins and without hope in the world. We used to hate the Lord, and now we recognize how impossible it was for us to love God and obey Him. Who wants to obey the one he hates? Nobody. Obedience is the fruit of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the sinner fighting against the will of the flesh so we don’t do what we want but what pleases God who loved us and sent His Son to die for us so we could be sons by adoption. Now with a brand new heart, we can love God and love without fear, our disobedience was rooted not only in hate but also in fear since we knew we were deserving to be punished and condemned as a consequence of our disobedience to the Lord, now that we know He has made peace with us by the work of Christ and we believe we’ve been the subject of this sacrificial love we don’t have to fear condemnation anymore, we are loved by the Lord of our salvation.
I believe you can understand how important it is to take this verse right, the impossibility of us loving God couldn’t be changed unless God Himself wanted to do this. Abraham Lincoln said: “The best way to overcome your enemies is by turning them into friends”, and this is exactly what God did; because He did it, He has the right to ask us to do the same thing. How many times do we read in the Gospels that we must love even our enemies? See how God asks us to do something that he had already done for us, we received this kind of treatment coming from God and we are to do the same even towards those who hate us.
“You have heard that it was said, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.” (Mathew 5:43-45).
We love God by obeying His commands. And we know that God feels our love towards Him through obedience. (John 14:21). If we love Jesus, we must love God the Father who sent Him and love also one another, beyond that, we must love even our enemies once God did this for us. God reconciled us to Himself by sending His Son to die for us on a Cross, by His blood we’ve been made Sons and daughters of God by adoption.
God loved us and made us sons and daughters and because of that we love one another, we’ve been saved by grace through faith alone. We love each other because we’ve been made brothers and sisters through the blood of Christ, having the same Father Who is God Himself. The blood of Christ is what bound us together, the Holy Spirit of God is the One Who keeps us in obedience to please God and it includes obeying God by loving our brothers and sisters.
Gezer Carlos Freitas, Theologian from the Charles Spurgeon School of Theology.