This verse commences a profound subject. It introduces to the Divine nature. Having spoken of Jesus Christ come in the flesh, the Spirit ascends to His nature and here it is necessarily abstract thought. This is natural. We must be more abstract in the description of a man’s nature than of his person. Having described the person of Christ, it is the natural business of the Spirit to speak of the Divine nature in its essential qualities and in its manifestations.
As regards this nature, two distinct statements are made, viz., that “God is light,” and “God is love”; but the Spirit lingers more over the second than over the first. “God is light” is the contradiction of the old lie of Satan, which accused God of lying in— “Ye shall not surely die.” “God is love” is the contradiction of the other lie— “Hath God said, ye shall not eat”? Ah, then, He has refused you something; He does not love you. Here, then, are light and love, and they contradict the serpent’s lie; and this, as before remarked, keeps us in company with the early part of Genesis, where individual, and not dispensational matters, are in question.
The Spirit lingers longer over the love than over the light; not that it is not quite needful to say both “God is light” and “God is love.” If God be not light as well as love, all is over with our souls, and we are left without hope; but the Spirit delights to linger over love, and here (v. 7) He unfolds this subject, showing that not only is God love, but absolutely love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God. All love is of God’s creation. There is no other way of comprehending God. Does the beast understand man? No. 1St Cor. 2 tells me that if you have not the Divine nature, you cannot understand God. If you have derived life from God, you have a capacity for understanding Him—not otherwise. If there is no love in you, you are not born of God; you cannot understand Him.
Verse 8 follows as a matter of course. Not having the nature of God, you cannot know Him any more than the beast knows you.
In verse 9 we have the manifestation of the Divine nature. There are three distinct revelations of God made known to us— 1, His personal glory; 2, His essential glory; 3, His character in manifestation.
We have the glory of God, the invisible God, whom no man hath seen, or can see—the unapproachable God. Here you have only eternally to worship.
We have the Divine nature, which can, and does display itself in action; and 3, we have His character, which may be illustrated, and is so, in the Man Christ Jesus. We are introduced to the glory of God, but no man can penetrate that mystery; it is right to stand inside. This is true, and yet the nature of God can be, and is illustrated: “In this the love of God was manifested.” Every virtue in Jesus was a ray of the Divine character. Simple this is to understand, very blessed to grasp! Thus we are largely and fitly introduced to God. If I am introduced to His nature, it is that I may therein find my own blessedness, while His character compels me to cling to Him forever. Now the nature of God being love, when He set about to manifest it, He did it perfectly. It would be impossible for love to be more entire in its expression, “for God sent his only begotten Son,” &c. God lifts up His love, as it were, before you in its form of perfectness, its meridian glory, and here the Spirit loves to linger.
We have in vv. 9-10, two different aspects of this love-first, that the Son is given, that we might live through Him; second, that He might be the propitiation for our sins. If we read John 6, we find that life comes out of sacrifice. There is no life but in feeding on the slain Lamb. Here we have the two aspects severally given. In the Gospel it is seen that there is no life but in death; sin is put away by the death of Christ.
It will never give me life to look on the Lord Jesus as an example. He is that, but how am I to get rid of my sins? There is no life but by the death that puts away sin, and therefore the voice of Christ links death with sacrifice.
There is another thought on this tenth verse. Love in God is self-originating; it is not so in us. In God, love is an emanation of nature; in you, love is an emanation of the Divine nature, not of your own nature; no, not even when you get it from God. And this is the contrast, that when we compare our love with the love of God, ours is as nothing. How He outshines us! Nothing moved Him to love but His own nature. No attraction of ours based the history of the cross of Christ. Its foundation lay in the Divine nature. We find this in v. 10. We never drew out the love of God, it flowed out spontaneously, and this gift of the Son was the expression of it.
Verse 11.-Humbling, but very precious—very humbling, love in us, is matter of exhortation; it is not so with God. Let me say it, who could exhort Him? Ah! but He has no rival nature, “God is love.” In you there is the rival nature, and there, though you be participant in the Divine nature, you need an exhortation to love your brother. Love is God’s nature, but I am a complete creature, morally composed of principles of love and hatred, and I am therefore the proper subject of the exhortation in v. 11.
(To be continued, if the Lord will.)