I. God’s Love is Completed in Us When We Abide in Him – (12).
Love fulfills two important functions.
1. Our love for others is evidence that God is real and dwells in us. Since no one has seen God, how are we supposed to get people who don’t know God to believe that he exists?
2. This lifestyle of love is the evidence that the goal of God’s love has been “perfected” in us. One of the evidences of spiritual maturity is love.
When John speaks of God’s love being perfected in us, he may be saying:
- 1) that God’s love reaches its intended goal when those whom God loves practice love toward others.
- 2) that our love for God is complete only when we love other people.
Both concepts are true, but it is difficult to determine which meaning John intends to convey. Interestingly, four times in this passage John juxtaposes the word “perfect(ed)” with “love.” As John uses the word “perfection,” he is not speaking about moral perfection or a perfection in the sense of “without flaw.” Rather, the word means “mature, complete, full-orbed.” God’s love for us, which is indeed a perfect love, finds its most complete expression when we respond to that love and then practice that love in our relationships with others.
When we abide in Christ, we are behaving according to his character.
II. The Spirit’s Testimony to Christ in Us is Our Testimony to the World Through our Love – (13–15).
1. We have assurance we are truly saved because God has given us his Holy Spirit to indwell our lives. (13)
2. The Father has sent Jesus to be the savior of the world. Here is God’s 1) purpose, 2) plan, 3) person of salvation. “World” = all sinful people, estranged from God and under the dominion of the evil one. (14)
3. To confess is the idea of saying a hearty “amen!” to what God has said and done. Confession of Jesus as Son of God means confession of the full deity of Christ. The phrase “God abides in him and he in God” is John’s way of speaking about someone’s genuine salvation. (15)
III. Love Brings Confidence to Us in the Day of Judgment – (16–19)
1. We have come to know and believe God’s love for us. (16)
God is faithful to his promises. All that he has given us through his love is ours now and will always be ours. His past faithfulness and his present faithfulness guarantee his future faithfulness to us. Though the promise is past tense and the fulfillment is future tense, God is with us moment by moment in the present.
Christ saves us from the 1) penalty of sin, 2) power of sin, 3) pollution of sin, and 4) presence of sin (in heaven).
We are to “abide” in love – the foundation for our loving action that John commands all of use to engage in vv. 20 and 21. To abide in God is to be saved; to be saved is to abide in God.
2. Three things are inevitable consequences of dwelling in love.
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1) To dwell in love is proof of the fact that God dwells in us and that we are in God (16)
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2) This is the demonstration of the fact that love has been perfected in us (17).
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3) We have boldness before God in the day of judgment (17).
The day of judgment will be formal and final. Christ Himself will be the Judge (John 5:27, Matt 25:31, Acts 10:42; 17:31.)
Who will be judged?
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1) Believers will be judged at the Judgment Seat of Christ (2 Cor 5:10; Rom 14:10).
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2) Unbelievers will be judged at the Great White Throne Judgment (Rev 20:11–15).
What is the standard of judgment?
The will of God through the Word of God. Unsaved people will be judged according to their works and the fact that their name is not written in the Lamb’s book of life (Rev 20:11–15).
3. Christians have a loving confidence before God — no need to fear at the final judgment because their eternal destiny is not at stake. Love for God and others frees us from fear. (18)
4. Christians have a loving concern for others — We love because he first loved us. (19)
IV. It is Impossible to Love God and Hate Your Brother – (20–21).
- 1. Impeccable Logic: the one who cannot love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. (20)
- 2. Final Command – “Whoever loves God must also love his brother.” (21)