Bible Studies For Life
God is Love Understanding the Character of God Session 2 8 MAR 26
1 JOHN 4:1 Dr. Herschel H. Hobbs wrote in his Studying Adult Life and Work Lessons, October-December 1982, page 30 “Christians are under the obligation to determine the source of a spiritual phenomenon. “Believe not” may read, “Stop believing. Apparently such indiscrimination had led to the success of Gnostics in disturbing the church fellowship…. Actually, John gave a twofold command: “Stop believing every spirit” and “test the spirits.” “Test” renders a verb which was used of testing something, such as metal, to see if it was genuine…. We should test others by the Bible, not by some other standard we have devised.”
This is true and currently needed. The SBC is not doing this with the heresy of Calvinism and other false doctrines. John called the people who proclaim false information as true as false prophets. Never has the SBC and local churches needed to Stop and Test as now.
1 JOHN 4:2 Dr. Hobbs, 1982, page 31 “Here is the test of a true prophet…. So we may conclude that the Holy Spirit works and teaches in accord with God’s revelation of Jesus. He never does so contrary to the teaching and work of Jesus.” But there is much more in what John means by “confesses.” He means the WHOLE Gospel of and about Jesus he wrote of in chapter 1. Calvinism, for example, does not confess Jesus as LORD as in ACTS 20:21, etc.
1 JOHN 4:3 This the true definition of any antichrist is one who “does not confess Jesus and LORD is not of God. This is the spirit of antichrist, of which you heard that it was coming, and now it is in the world already.”
1 JOHN 4:4 What a profound statement! The Holy Spirit is greater than all demons put together, including Satan! In fact it only took a no-name angle to put Satan in the Pit of Revelation 20.
1 JOHN 4:5 They refer to all antichrists and the immediate context for John: Cerinthus, the local antichrist, and his antichrists followers.
1 JOHN 4:6 False prophets, antichrists, etc. are those who do not listen to and learn from the Truth. ONLY the Truth will set anyone free from the world.
1 JOHN 4:7-8 John first states that his readers are "beloved." It is a related to the Greek agape. This word was little used n John's day. It meant the highest kind of love. For the gods of the day to love their people was a little known concept. So when the Christians writers took the word and applied it to God, it was a unique concept. So when John wrote "God is love", it was an extraordinary statement for his day. This is a fundamental doctrine of the Bible. But both Christians and the lost abuse the concept. Too many think this means God is only love. So we get questions like "How can a God of love all war, etc.?"
The fact is God is not just love. He said himself in the Law (Deu 32:35 RSV) "Vengeance is mine, and recompense, for the time when their foot shall slip; for the day of their calamity is at hand, and their doom comes swiftly." (Psa 94:1 RSV) "O LORD, thou God of vengeance, thou God of vengeance, shine forth!" Jesus said for us to (Mat 5:48 RSV) "You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." This means the love aspects of God along with his righteousness and other characteristics. But we are not allowed the role of vengeance and the like. John then developed the doctrine of Christian love based upon this characteristic of God that allowed them to become Christians. (John 3:16 RSV) "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." He began with "let us." If we love, it because we do the love ourselves. God does not make us love. Indeed God cannot make us love anymore than make us repent. The reason Christians are to love is "love is of (i.e. out of) God." Love is part of Yahweh's essential nature, for not only the Father (God in this letter) loves, but also the Son and the Holy Spirit. But here John is just speaking of the Father as Jesus did in Matt 5:48. A Christian is "born of God." This meaning is the same as Jesus meant in (John 3:5-7 RSV) "Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. {6} That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. {7} Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born anew.'"
The Father has the Holy Spirit birth again the spirit of a person through the process of adoption. (Gal 4:5 RSV) "to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons." So it is the relationship that is new through the Holy Spirit, not a new spirit. Note the verse (2 Cor 5:17 RSV) "Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come." The Greek for "creation" is 2937. ktisis, ktis'-is; from G2936; original formation (prop. the act; by impl. the thing, lit. or fig.):--building, creation, creature, ordinance. Paul is clear in Eph 4:22-24 that the same body is there when we become saved as we had when we were lost. Therefore the idea translation should be "building" instead of "creation." We become the Holy of Holies in God' real temple. (1 Cor 3:16 RSV) "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?" And we often hear phrases that speak of "The Family of God" as meaning every human being. This is false. No human is part of the family of God once that person chooses to sin at the age of accountability. The person has then lost his/her relationship with God. What God is willing to do through Jesus is not only have a new relationship but to go far beyond that relationship and make that person an official son or daughter. WHAT LOVE INDEED! Thus the Christian becomes a family member with Jesus, a situation which is not part of the original Adam and Eve situation. So we "know God" by being adopted by him. This is a knowledge that allows us to call the Father daddy! (Gal 4:6-7 RSV) "And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" {7} So through God you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then an heir." Just the opposite is true of a lost person. A lost person is not able to "know God" and call him daddy.
1 JOHN 4:9 Note the word "might." Jesus did not bring universal salvation but the opportunity for all to become saved. The Father sent Jesus with the express purpose of making adoption possible to anyone who want to be a son or daughter. The meaning of "love through him" refers to the command to love like Jesus. (John 13:34 RSV) "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another."
1 JOHN 4:10-11 "Love" is not defined from human love but from God's love and it’s a love that acted to try and achieve (2 Pet 3:9 RSV) "… that all should reach repentance." Jesus is God's finest example of his love for every human. In Greek propitiation is 2434. hilasmos, hil-as-mos'; atonement, i.e. (concr.) an expiator:--propitiation. Jesus is the one who can make a person one with the Father. And he is the ONLY one who can do so. (John 14:6 RSV) "Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me." So the logic is if God loved us that way, we should love him back. Note that God's love for us is not in response to we loving him. God loved us when we were anything lovable. But love for God is not the whole issue since "we also ought to love one another." "Ought" is not a spiritual option. . (John 13:34a RSV) "A new commandment I give to you…"
1 JOHN 4:12a "No man has seen God…" is not true if we take the English translation at face value. (Exo 24:9-10 RSV) "Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, {10} and they saw the God of Israel; and there was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness." "Saw" in Hebrew means face-to-face. John himself saw God in REV 4-5. The Greek holds the answer as usual. "Seen" in Greek is 2300. theaomai, theh-ah'-om-ahee; a prol. form of a prim. verb; to look closely at, i.e. (by impl.) to perceive (lit. or fig.); by extens. to visit:--behold, look (upon), see. Comp. G3700. No human has looked closely at the Father to fully perceive him. That is difference from getting a short physical look at the Father. Usually the phrase "God is spirit" is brought up here incorrectly. Just because the Father is spirit does not mean he has no discernable shape. (Ezek 1:26b RSV) "…and seated above the likeness of a throne was a likeness as it were of a human form." We have a form like God, so Ezekiel naturally used a human as a reference.
1 JOHN 4:12b-16 John has some heavy doctrine here and his phrasing is not always technically accurate at times because he falls back on general word usage. God the Father is not in us. John stated the Father "has given us of his Spirit." Neither does Jesus live in us. It is strictly and only the Holy Spirit who indwells a Christian. As Paul does occasionally, John used "God" several times here to mean the Trinity as well as the Father. So John said "The Trinity dwells in him, and he in the Trinity." The Trinity does this through the Holy Spirit. But only for those who confess Jesus is the Son of God. Note carefully "the Son of…" Jesus is not the Father. But people who believe that God is a single Person cannot believe Jesus is "the Son of…" The Trinity is not like water in three states at once. The Trinity is Three Persons unified as One.
1 JOHN 4:17-18 "Made perfect" has the same meaning as in Matt 5:48. Christians are to have confidence on the day of the White Throne judgment by Jesus when he hands out rewards to Christians. It is not because of the rewards as such but that there will be no punishments in Hell to fear. The Holy Spirit guarantees it. (Eph 1:13-14 RSV) "In him you also, who have heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and have believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, {14} which is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory."
1 JOHN 4:19-21 John summarizes. Christians can and do love because of John 3:16. True love is an action and not a statement. It is a show-me love. "Brother" here is probably as defined by Jesus in the story of the good Samaritan, which to Jews was a oxymoron. But even if limited to "Brothers" of 1 John 4:1, (1 Th 4:9 RSV) "But concerning love of the brethren you have no need to have any one write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another;" Therefore John states (1 John 4:21 RSV) "And this commandment we have from him, that he who loves God should love his brother also."
APPLY THE WHOLE BIBLE BEFORE YOU STATE A DOCTRINE!
Best Study Guide: How to Study the Bible Principles with Bible, A Study Sources by Orin T. Binkley.
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