Divine Love, Integrity; Propitiation; 1 John 4:9-11

1 John 4:8 ^NASB “The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” Notice he does not say, “He who does not love is not born of God and does not know God,” he simply says, “He who does not love does not know God.” He is still born of God but he doesn’t know God yet, he hasn’t advanced to any stage of spiritual maturity. What we understand from this is that personal love for God must precede impersonal love for believers. Before we can love one another we have to first come to know God and to love God. That is what that is built on because we can’t love one another until we understand some profound things about the cross. Regeneration is the only basis for reaching a state where we can love God, practice righteousness, or not sin; but just because one is born again it doesn’t mean these things are also true.

There is a profound statement related to the essence of God at the end of verse 8: “for,” and then the causal statement, an explanation, “because God is love.” Earlier in the epistle John makes another statement: “God is light.” Now in 1 John 4:8 he says, “God is love.” Light relates to the perfect holiness or integrity of God. His integrity emphasises first His righteousness, the standard of His character. God’s justice is the application of that standard, so that what the righteousness of God approves the justice of God blesses; what the righteousness of God rejects the justice of God condemns. All of this I motivated by the love of God expressed through the grace of God. But the Scripture link one other attribute of God with His righteousness and justice in terms of integrity, and we see that in:

Psalm 85:10ff ^NASB “Lovingkindness [chesed] and truth have met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” Chesed always relates to grace. [11] Truth springs from the earth, And righteousness looks down from heaven. [12] Indeed, the LORD will give what is good [grace], And our land will yield its produce [blessing]. [13] Righteousness will go before Him And will make His footsteps into a way [our pathway].”

Psalm 89:14 ^NASB “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; Lovingkindness [chesed] and truth go before You.”

So the one other attribute that we have that the Scriptures connect with righteousness, justice and love is God’s truth, His veracity. So if we were to diagram this under the category of integrity we see that in all of the attributes of God there seem to be four that are under the spotlight here: His standard, the righteousness of God; His justice, the application of that; His love which motivates; and truth which is the absolute of His thinking. This is always expressed through His grace which is unmerited favour towards His creatures. Grace itself is not an attribute of God but is an expression of the integrity of God.

1 John 4:8: The person who does not love. The believer who has not advanced to spiritual maturity has not understood his own personal sense of destiny yet, has not grown to the stage where he can really love God or love mankind because he doesn’t know enough doctrine yet and hasn’t developed a personal relationship with God through abiding in Christ and walking by means of the Holy Spirit.

1 John 4:9 ^NASB “By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.” We have to decide what the “By this” refers to. Is it something in verse 8 or is it the second half of verse 9. The second half of verse 9 is a causal clause, an explanation. That cannot stand as an independent sentence. “Was manifested” is a familiar word in the Greek, it is the aorist passive indicative of phaneroo [fanerow], a word that has become a key word in this section of 1 John. It was first used in 2:28 ^NASB “Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming.” Again and gain John uses this word to bring us back to his main theme. He is continuing to talk about the same subject. Now he says: “By this the love of God was manifested in us…” agape tou theou [a)gaph tou qeou], genitive case. The noun “love” is what is called a noun of action. When there is a noun of action (love), that love can be from God or toward God. In the first case, love from God, it could also be translated as “God’s love.” It is divine love. If it is love for God it is human love directed toward God or personal love for God the Father. “By this God’s love was manifested (or revealed) in us.” Then we have the understanding of it: “that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.” This is the same kind of statement that was made back in 3:16: “We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” So God’s love is revealed in us by what took place on the cross. The word translated “begotten” in the Greek is monogenes [monogenhj]. mono means one; genes comes from the word in the Greek that we transliterate genus, indicating kind. Jesus Christ is the Son of God eternally, the phrase Son of God doesn’t refer to being born. He didn’t acquire His sonship at His birth, He is eternally the Son of God; Son of God has to do with deity. “…that we might live through Him” is not talking about eternal life in terms of the acquisition of life without end in heaven. Remember that Jesus said: “I came that they may have life, and have {it} abundantly.” There He was talking about the quality of the believer’s life, capacity to love, capacity for blessing. 1 John 4:9 is in the context on sanctification in phase two, so the emphasis here then must be on the quality of life.

1 John 4:10 ^NASB “In [By] this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son {to be} the propitiation for our sins.” The concept that John is making here is one he continues to make when he uses this phrase, en touto [e)n toutw] is he is showing how we know something—by this, or in this. This is demonstrated love, an example of love: “not that we loved God [human initiation] but that He loved us and sent His Son {to be} the propitiation for our sins.” Notice how he ties this together. He has been talking about love; he says that God is love; back on 1:4 he talks about light; when we combine the light and love of God we are dealing with the integrity of God. The integrity of God is a problem for the salvation of the human race. His integrity, specifically His righteousness and justice has to be satisfied, and so he comes back once again to the doctrine of propitiation which he introduced in 1 John 2:2 ^NASB “He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for {those of} the whole world.”

The doctrine of propitiation

1. Propitiation is the Godward side of salvation. Redemption is manward; we are purchased from the slave market of sin. Expiation is manward, our dept is paid. Justification is manward, we are justified, we receive the imputation of God’s righteousness and so he can declare us to be just. But propitiation is toward God; it is God’s character that is the problem. His righteousness will not allow Him to have fellowship with the unbeliever. So propitiation is the Godward side of salvation whereby God’s holiness [righteousness and justice] is satisfied by Jesus Christ’s payment for our sins on the cross. Propitiation means satisfaction. The word “propitiation” is a translation of the Greek word hilasterion [i(lasthrion] which was used in the lxx to translate the name for the mercy seat on the ark of the covenant. It is used that way in Romans 3:25 and in Hebrews 9:5.

2. The ark of the covenant provides the Old Testament picture of the doctrine of propitiation.

3. The day of atonement in the Old Testament was the portrayal of the entire picture of salvation from the standpoint of propitiation. When the animal blood was placed on the ark it represented the spiritual death of Christ who bore our sins on the cross and the acceptance of that work by the integrity of God.

4. The resulting principle is that at the moment of salvation or the moment of Christ’s death on the cross the justice of God the Father is satisfied. But it is not until one trusts in Christ as saviour that that is implied individually to each believer. Because the justice of God and His righteousness are satisfied it frees the love of God to then bless the believer.

5. Propitiation, therefore, is related to the work of Christ on the cross. His death covered our sins and provides cleansing for sin. The blood represents purification, and because purification has taken place God’s righteousness and justice are satisfied.

6. Propitiation is appropriated by faith alone in Christ alone and is then the basis for imputation of divine righteousness.

7. Propitiation resolves the problem for every member of the human race, 1 John 2:2.

1 John 4:11 ^NASB “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” The model, the standard for understanding what it is to love one another is once again emphasised by John as being what Christ did on the cross. Only by concentrating and understanding what Christ did on the cross are we going to be able to understand what it means to love one another.