Bible Study on 1John 4, verses 7 to 13, let us love one another

 

1John 4:7 ¶  Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. 8  He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. 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. 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. 11  Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. 12  No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. 13  Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.

For you Greekophiles out there this is the same love as noted in 1Corinthians 13 and translated as charity. This, like in that chapter, is a reference to a Christian’s love of their brothers and sisters in Christ.

The concept of love is a problem for many modern Christians who read the Bible by going back to the Greek. Let's look at another darling of liberal Bible expositors; John 21:15:17.
After the resurrection Jesus asks Peter three times if Peter loves Him, which calls into sharp, painful memory that Peter had denied His Lord three times as Jesus predicted He would. And there are many other great sermons from this passage, I'm sure.

But, there is a problem. My friend who pretends to be a Greek expert is about to burst. He excitedly points out that the first and second time Jesus asks the question He uses the word Agape' for to love someone from esteem or respect and also used for divine love. Each of those times Peter responds with Phileo, the love that comes from friendship or brotherly love. The last time Jesus Himself uses Phileo and once again Peter responds with the same. My pseudo-scholarly friend will say that this lends much more meaning to the conversation because Jesus is asking for a different kind of love, a divine love, which Peter is not capable of and this reflects a fundamental failure in mankind's capacity or willingness to love God in the right way blah, blah, blah.

What my friend who likes to think he is more intelligent and knowledgeable than a Christian janitor who can read English has done is to reveal his own ignorance. Agape' and Phileo are words for love that are used interchangeably. No extra insight into these verses is gained by playing ping pong with them. In Matthew 6:5 hypocrites phileo to pray standing in the synagogues, in Matthew 19:19 you are told to agape' your neighbor as yourself, John 15:9 says the world won't phileo the disciples, 1 Corinthians 16:22 says that if any man phileo not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha, and when we are repeatedly told to love our neighbor as ourselves with agape' the Scriptures in no way imply that this is superior to our brotherly love for our brothers and sisters in Christ. I doubt anyone would imply that the kind of love Jesus says we are to have for each other, which distinguishes us as His followers is inferior to the love we are supposed to have for a stranger who is in need.

Titus 3:4 doesn't have the love of God our Saviour toward man as agape'. Paul's admonition in Titus 3:15 isn't agape'. 1 Peter 1:22 uses both words for the same thought with phileo first and then agape'. Does knowing this change your understanding of the text? Does it help you know what you are to do? Is your lack of access or availability of access to the Greek a determinant of your ability to understand God's words? Finally, in Revelation 3:19 does it matter to you that Jesus phileo's here?

Now, my point in saying all of this is very clearly, in a limited time, and taking only a few examples, is that you will gain no valuable insights in the Bible by going back to the original languages. It's like telling me you are going to really get to know the Gettysburg Battlefield and then immediately digging the deepest hole in the ground that you can. I would tell you to compare verse with verse in the Bible or tour the entire battlefield. Keep in mind Paul's admonition in 1Corinthians 2:13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

Dictionaries, encyclopedias, and even Strong's Concordance are not inspired by God. Compare scripture with scripture and ignore the scholar who says the original languages give more insight than the English. All they are trying to do is to take the authority of your Bible from you and replace it with their own intellect as your final authority.

So back to the passage here in 1John. If we don’t love our brothers and sisters in Christ then we cannot say we know God because God loved us so much that He lived as one of us and died for our sins, raising Himself from the dead to justify us so that we might live in eternity with Him. With such a great love expressed to us and for us how can we not love others sacrificially whom He also died and rose for?

God loved us first and the Son of God, or God made flesh, satisfied His own anger at our rebellion, was a propitiation to Him for us by Himself. Because He loved us, we should love each other. God’s love is completed or perfected in us when we love our brothers and sisters in Christ properly. Consider the following passage among many.

Romans 8:1 ¶  There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 2  For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. 3  For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: 4  That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

1Peter 1:21  Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God. 22  Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: 23  Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.