Love God, Love Thy Neighbour; And Why They Are Inseparable

Hello! Welcome again and I hope you'll enjoy this mini breakdown of this short passage.

On Reading 1 John 4...

This chapter is a particularly encouraging one - it tells us to love one another because God is love. Wait a minute, how does that follow?! To understand this correlation, let us explore what 1 John 4 says briefly:

1 John 4 encompasses these 3 points: God is the source of all love, God models true love for us, and God commands us to love each other.

Firstly, God is the source of all love. How do we know this? Let's start with the premise God is love. The passage explicitly says this about God. God is love. This is further reaching than just saying God is loving. We may say that our friend is loving because she demonstrates the values of selfless, genuine love. Yes, that is correct. However, it makes less sense to say that our friend is love because she may be loving but she cannot be characterized by the value of love. This is where the distinction comes in: God is characterized by love, and hence, we say that God is love. Now, when we say God is love, we speak of love like its the flowing water in the rivers that comes from the source, that is God Himself, and flows to others (people) like a river's distributaries. This means that people that claim to know of love or are able to receive love must have had love flowing through them; this means that our love comes from the source of the love river and that is God Himself, thus, we know that our God is the source of all love. 

Next, the bible tells us that God models true love for us and I think that if we probe deeper to find out how this is true, it really isn't hard to see it. 

"While we were sinners, Christ died for us." - Romans 5:8

The above verse accurately and succinctly describes the extent of God's love for us. God was not obligated to send his one and only son to die just to save us from our own damnation. God had a choice: No one would have blamed him if he chose to let us die from our own sins; yet God chose to sacrifice his son to save us. Why? Because God loves us - there is no greater love than this. Our salvation was infinitely costly to God, but it is absolutely free to us! 

How then, shall we learn from God's example? If God's love was manifested in the sending of his son, then it should be clear that we demonstrate our love for others by action. We live out our love in kindness, generosity and service to others.God has loved us in a way that has given us life. It has created a life-giving realm where love is received and expressed.

Lastly, God commands us to love each other simply because scripture tells us that by loving others, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us. What this is trying to tell us is not what God is like but how God is known. If we as believers hope to know the Lord and follow his commandments, it is an obligation to love others because to live in love is to live in God Himself. As we've been in touch with the very source of love and also been shown what love is, we can receive the commandment with hope and joy. We understand that we are not commanded to do something that is an external compulsion nor is it something beyond our ability to learn and do.

Here's an epiphany of mine while reading this passage: The commandments of 'Love God' and 'Love Thy Neighbour' are actually the same commandment but understood in two parts. Why do I say this? To love God is to honour His word and His commandment; and hence, do what he tells to do which is to love our neighbour. To love our neighbour is symbolic: it is a demonstration of the love God has for us; it also says that we have come to know the source of love which is our God and we have received love from him that we are able to love another. These commandments aren't dichotomies, they are mutually dependent - one simply cannot hold true without the other. If one loves God but is hateful to his neighbour, he is a hypocrite and does not truly love God for he has broken the commandment of his God. Likewise, if one loves his neighbour but does not love God, it simply does not make sense because if he does not love God, then he will not be in touch with the source of love and hence the question, how can he hope to love his neighbour if he doesn't have love in him in the first place? Therefore, I think that they are, in fact, inseparable notions of the commandment and this may also help us see clearer, what it truly means to love God: to love others around us as well. After all, don't we all get some feeling of satisfaction when we love another? Perhaps it might be the manifestation of the resounding applause God is giving us silently. Paradoxical? Maybe.

Let me know what you think :)

Again, take care and have a great weekend ahead!

"Character is how you treat those who can do nothing for you" - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Matt