1 John 4:15-16 - Homiletics

Divine love a home for the soul, and a force within it.

Connecting link: There is a connection between the several verses on which we are now dwelling ( 1 John 4:7-19 ). But it is not so much a connection of thoughts that follow consecutively one from another, as a connection such as exists between glowing sparks that follow one after another, from the same mass, when struck upon the same anvil, by the same hammer, wielded by the same arm. The apostle gives us here a startlingly beautiful succession of truths concerning love—Divine love—revealed in Christ, and laying hold of men. Obviously, in 1 John 4:15 , 1 John 4:16 there are two statements concerning believers generally—"Whosoever shall confess," etc.; "He that dwelleth in love," etc. There is also one statement concerning the apostle and his fellow-workers—" We have known," etc. Let us take these in their order. £

I. HERE ARE TWO GENERAL STATEMENTS , CONCERNING A BLESSED CONDITION AND THOSE TO WHOM IT BELONGS .

1 . Here is a supremely happy condition. It is twofold.

2 . To whom does this twofold blessedness belong? See footnote to homily on 1 John 3:4-12 . There are here two statements in reply to this question. The apostle says, "Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God" is thus blessed; and that "he that dwelleth in love" is so also. We must elucidate this by offering, first, a word or two on each phrase, and then by showing the connection that exists between them.

(a) that "Jesus is the Son of God," and as such the Revealer of love, is the message addressed to faith.

(b) Faith receives him, and with him the love which he reveals.

(c) Confession constantly rings out the faith, and by so doing vastly increases faith's realizing power.

(d) This, through the energy of the Holy Ghost ( 1 Corinthians 12:3 ), makes the love of God in Christ so real to the faithful confessor, that he actually dwells in love, and so reaches the state specified as "dwelling in love" ( 1 John 3:16 ). Thus the two conditions differ only as the terminus a quo from the terminus ad quem. Confession is the former; dwelling in love is the latter. Note: This is verified by the order of the phrases being in the one case, "God dwelleth in him, and he in God;" and in the other, "dwelleth in God, and God in him."

II. THE APOSTLE MAKES A SPECIFIC APPLICATION OF THIS TO HIMSELF AND HIS FELLOW - BELIEVERS . He has not been writing at random, nor has he been moving in a region so transcendental that experience cannot verify it. He can verify it from his own experience. Those to whom he is writing can verify it from theirs. The difference between the Authorized Version and the Revised Version should be noted here: "We have known and believed the love that God hath in us ἐν ἡμῖν ." Not "toward us" or "to us," as if it were εἰς ἡμᾶς . The miserable marginal rendering in the Revised Version should also be carefully avoided: "in our case" (!). The believer has gone much further than to know the love of God to him. He knows it in him, as a reviving, cheering, glowing, inspiring, life-giving power. It is in him as the "living water springing up into everlasting life." The following order of thought might develop this. Divine love is:

1 . A manifestation amongst us, ἐν ἡμῖν ( 1 John 3:9 ).

2 . An impartation realized in us ( Romans 5:5 ).

3 . A reciprocated love, as ours has been called forth thereby ( 1 John 3:19 ).

4 . A transforming love, causing us to love as God loves ( 1 John 3:12 ).

5 . A self-consummating love, fulfilling its own ends in and through us, and causing its outworking to be perfected in us, as its newly opened channel, through which it is flowing on to the boundless ocean of everlasting life and glory ἡ ἀγάπη αὐτοῦ τετελειωμένη ἐστὶν ἐν ἡμῖν .

Who, who is equal to the adequate unfolding of thoughts so sublime? In writing this homily we feel as if human words were an intrusion; and such they are, if irrelevant or superfluous. But if they are such as we aim to make them—illustrative of the thoughts in the text—then the gracious Spirit wilt deign to own them, however far they fall short of what the writer's largest wishes could desire. With three queries for the conscience and the heart we close.