The apostle in this part of the chapter returns to the great doctrine of the whole Epistle. It is not here so much the great work that sets the soul before God, but the truth we have when we are before God. We were before seeing the difference between Paul and John. While Paul sets the church as in Christ before God, opening out the counsels of grace, John brings out the nature of God in the saints. It is not so much the ground of that which brought the soul to God—righteousness (although he does speak of this too), but the character of the life that is communicated, the life which is in God the Father derived through the Son. It is first given in Christ and then to be manifested in the saints. The traits of God are brought out wholly in Christ but through the Christian, and this is what is particularly shown in John.
There is also another thing:—not only a nature and capacity to enjoy God, but the Holy Ghost dwelling in us gives us the power of enjoyment, that there may be no vacillation or uncertainty. He grounds the testimony on the public manifestation of the Lord Jesus Christ; and the capacity of enjoying the source of the life is by the power of the Holy Ghost dwelling in us. God is love, and this is first openly seen at the cross of Christ; then in the new nature we have a capacity to enjoy that love. But the fear must be taken away, because fear has torment, and torment is not enjoyment; and thus he shows what removes the fear. “Perfect love casteth out fear.” If it be asked, How do you know God loves you? Oh! I reply, I have a certain and constant proof of this in the gift of His Son, and then besides that, I have the daily and hourly enjoyment of God as my Father, and I know it because I am enjoying it.
I may prove to another the love of God by certain acts, such as the gift of His Son, which is an open manifestation of God's love; but this does not take away from the daily enjoyment of God, the capacity for which I get in the new nature and by the power of the Spirit. It is remarkable to see how the apostle guards from mysticism by bringing the mind back to the plain statement of the gospel: “We have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.” In the seventh verse he begins by saying, “Beloved, let us love one another.” Here we have the love of God in exercise in the new nature; and the characteristic of this nature is to recognize it in another. If I have got this divine nature, I cannot but love it in another. I may have many prejudices to overcome, but there is the attractive power in the thing itself. I do not speak of it as a mere duty; it is there in the nature, and being divine it is much above angels, although they are higher as to creation. Nevertheless we need something more than the new nature, because it is a dependent nature, and therefore wants something else. Christ when down here lived a dependent life in one sense. (“I live by, or on account of, the Father.") The old man sets himself up and pretends to be independent, but all the while he is under the power of Satan.
But the new nature is a dependent nature, and says, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” Life in Christ leans on God's power, and delights to do so. The Holy Ghost is the power: “strengthened with all might by the Spirit in the inner man,” and there is the full blessing, both in the individual and in the church of God. Although we have the new nature, we want also the power of the Holy Ghost to remove the obstacles to its display. Labor will not do. You may labor on the cold snow, but the sun must shine before it melts. So the Holy Ghost is needed to dissolve the thick ice of our hearts and melt away that which is in us to obstruct and hinder its fuller manifestation. “God is love, and every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God.” When I have got this nature, I am born of God, I am brought into a position to refer everything up to God, for the nature we get from God has God for the object of that new nature to act upon; when I see the traits of this new nature, I say, He is born of God. I see love in natural affection, but here it is in a divine sense. In natural affection selfishness is the ground of it all, but in the saint he that loves is born of God. I see love in natural affection, but here it is in a divine sense. While selfishness is the spring of everything out of God, we find in a soul that is born of God another principle which takes a man clean out of himself. A man makes himself a fortune by some new invention that makes the world more comfortable, and what is this but selfishness? And all that gives an impulse to the progress of the world is selfishness. But here is the difference, because we are in a world where we all have to follow our various occupations and callings. In a Christian it is not selfishness, it is love; he is born of God, and love is the principle of God's nature. It may be very feeble in me, but am I to be satisfied that it should remain so? No; whatever is born of God came down from God, and returns to God again; therefore “Be ye imitators of God as dear children."
This perfect love came down from God that it might return to God again, for whom did Christ come to glorify in this but His Father? So all that Christ did returned to God a sweet-smelling savor, or else it would have been lost. There are many beautiful qualities in a creature of God, but do they return back to God again? No. Then it becomes sin. I get a good thing, I enjoy it and leave God out, and this is man's sin. There may be a great deal of selfishness under that which outwardly appears like liberality. And you will see a Christian help his brother and look up to God as doing it to God because He loves God; but if he helps him and says to himself, I have done well, it is not love, it is self-righteousness. The new nature has God for its source and God as its object; the new nature acts in us like God, so that others can see it, but then it knows God. “Every one that is born of God knoweth God,” and it is a great comfort to say in everything, I have found God knew.
Then mark, there is something else in verse 8: “He that loveth not; knoweth not God.” There is a knowledge of God. But, without the possession of the nature of God, there is no power to apprehend His love. You may see His works and say there must be a God, but is that knowing Him? I must have God's nature to know Him, because none can know love but by loving, and he who thus knows Him will apprehend Him. “In this was manifested the love of God towards us” This is no abstract notion about love; it is not said merely, “in this was manifested the love of God;” but, “In this was manifested the love of God towards us.” Man's mind cannot measure God. Mind can measure mind or thoughts, but mind cannot measure love, for love is only known by being loved. If man's mind was a competent judge of what God should be, God would not be God; and how must this love be found? In a most humbling way (and so much the better). The soul must come in as wanting this love; for if it can come in in any other way, it does not want God. The moment any soul finds its need of God, there and then God is waiting to meet its need. It was so in the case of the Syrophenician woman; and it brought forth that word of the Lord,” Ο woman, great is thy faith, be it unto thee even as thou wilt.” The great faith is knowing my great need and counting on God's power to meet it. It may be vague; it was so in the woman who came into the house; but still there was faith. When I find that manifested in God which meets my need and receive it as a poor needy one, that is faith. I never get into the place of God's meeting my need, till I know God is God and I am a sinner. When we are in our place, we shall find God acting towards us in His. When I am brought down to the sense that the only thing I have is sin, then God can act. “When we were without strength in due time, &c.” God acted in due time. God being the doer, He does it in the perfectness of His own love and time.
I can stand before God, and talk to sinners, and say, I know God in a way that angels do not know Him, “which things angels desire to look into” —God's love towards us. I do not say me, but us, taking all in who believe the love. That little word us, how it rings on our ears by the power of the Holy Ghost, putting me in the full consciousness of the favor of God towards us, that we might live through Him! It was manifested when we were dead. Not only was God's love manifested where it was needed, but at the time it was needed, when we were dead. Nothing of man was needed to add to the perfectness of this love and of its manifestation. If I examine my own heart I cannot find it out. I know more of God's heart than of my own, for mine is “deceitful above all things,” &c, and the best man upon earth will be the first to own this. But God has manifested His love. Not only is it there, but it is manifested. I do not get the full character of God to my soul till I see it in the cross, for what was in man was nothing but sin, and when that sin was met, there was none between God and His Son, and if He was alone in His work, this is a proof of what God has done in my circumstances of death. He sent His Son that I might live through Him, but, my sins being all put away, I see there is eternal life for me, and, He being the propitiation for sins, I find all mine are gone, and life is come in Christ for the believer.
After such manifestation of God's love, let us not be thinking of our love to God. Who am I that I should be coupling His love with mine? The moment I begin to think of my love to God, that moment it ceases, it is gone, like the manna that had worms and stank. Heaven will be when I have entirely forgotten myself and am filled with God. That very same love which will fill heaven was manifested in the cross. God's love is not exhausted, though my need may be and is great, and my failures many.
Verse 11. The apostle, having given us a proof of God's love, goes on to the exercise of it in us while down here. “If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another;” and this principle we find in other parts of the word. (Eph. 4:3232And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. (Ephesians 4:32); Col. 3:1313Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. (Colossians 3:13).) I cannot know God by seeing Him, but (John 1:1818No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. (John 1:18)) “The only begotten Son,” &c, the one who knew what God's love was, has told it out. The Son, who dwelt in the Father's bosom, who knew Him in the intimacy of a son, who enjoyed His love without alloy, He tells it to me as He knew and enjoyed it in Himself.
But in the Epistle of John he goes a step farther: it is communicated livingly to us, “true in him and in you.” “If we love one another, God dwelleth in us."
This is the source of it, the enjoyment is by the power of the Holy Ghost. It is not my love perfected in God, but His in me; and I know (being in Him that is infinite) that I can never get out of it. It is not that I am infinite, but that I am in Him who is so. “Hereby know we that we dwell in him and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.” Here it is communion, not merely power; the qualities of His nature are, as it were, wrought in me. Angels know not this joy! Why is this? Because they have not the Holy Ghost dwelling in them. But God has given us of His Spirit, because we are members of Christ, the fruit of the travail of His soul.
Verse 14. Observe how the apostle gets back to the person of the Son, but it is in a more advanced state of soul, as knowing Him who sent the Son. “We have seen and do testify.” It was a known and enjoyed love. While Paul gives us the church and the purposes and counsels of God, John speaks of the nature in which God dwells. And what is the effect of this? Worship! Because the highest thing we can enjoy is the knowledge of God, as the little hymn says, “What joy, twill be with Christ to reign.” Look at the scene in Revelation. God is on His throne and the elders are on thrones around. Can anything be higher than this? Yes! They fall down and worship before Him that sits upon the throne, and cast their crowns, &c.
So in the present life we see that, when the apostle realized the privilege of getting up to the Giver of all good and perfect gift, he returns to the very simplest truth, “the Father sent the Son, to be the Savior of the world.” Thus we see the saint who knows most of the heart of God the best evangelist. The fathers in Christ will be the most careful to take account of the weakest babe in Christ.
Oh, our littleness I our narrow hearts! Why have we difficulty in believing what He is? Just because it is so simple. May our hearts be like wax to receive the impress of Him every time He speaks to us, if we cannot learn all about Him at once.