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1 John 4:19
Love Responding to Love
1 John 4:19
We love him, because he first loved us.
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Why it is worth knowing
- Our love is always responsive, never originating: God loved first
- The brevity of the verse is itself a statement: love’s logic is simple
- Love for God and love for others both flow from receiving his love
- “First” implies a priority in time and in cause: his love is the source
Where it sits: 1 John 4:18-21
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has punishment. He who fears is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us. If a man says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who doesn’t love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? This commandment we have from him, that he who loves God should also love his brother.
Hear the passage it sits in, sung word for word, on BibleDo's 1 John page.
Background
This tiny verse carries enormous theological weight. It dismantles any notion of moral self-improvement or spiritual bootstrapping: we do not work up love for God: we receive his love and respond. Augustine wrote, “Our heart is restless until it rests in Thee”: this verse is the mechanism: we rest in his love first, and then love flows outward. John immediately follows it with the inseparable connection between love for God and love for neighbor: you cannot authentically have one without the other.