Quotes & Notes
- God is love-This little sentence brought St. John more
sweetness, even in the time he was writing it, than the whole world can
bring. God is often styled holy, righteous, wise; but not holiness,
righteousness, or wisdom in the abstract, as he is said to be love;
intimating that this is his darling, his reigning attribute, the
attribute that sheds an amiable glory on all his other perfections.
- John Wesley Notes
- God is love.] An infinite fountain of benevolence and
beneficence to every human being. He hates no thing that he has made. He
cannot hate, because he is love. He causes his sun to rise on the evil
and the good, and sends his rain on the just and the unjust. He has made
no human being for perdition, nor ever rendered it impossible, by any
necessitating decree, for any fallen soul to find mercy. He has given
the fullest proof of his love to the whole human race by the incarnation
of his Son, who tasted death for every man. How can a decree of
absolute, unconditional reprobation, of the greater part or any part of
the human race, stand in the presence of such a text as this? It has
been well observed that, although God is holy, just, righteous, &c., he
is never called holiness, justice, &c., in the abstract, as he is here
called LOVE. This seems to be the essence of the Divine nature, and all
other attributes to be only modifications of this.-
Adam Clarke Commentary
- A confirmation: for it is the nature of God to love men, of which we
have a most manifest proof above all other, in that of his only free and
infinite good will towards us his enemies, he delivered to death, not a
common man, but his own Son, indeed his only begotten Son, to the end
that we being reconciled through his blood might be partakers in his
everlasting glory. - 1599 Geneva Bible Notes
- Never was a more important declaration made than this; never was
more meaning crowded into a few words than in this short sentence--God
is love. In the darkness of this world of sin--in all the sorrows that
come now upon the race, and that will come upon the wicked hereafter--we
have the assurance that a God of infinite benevolence rules over all;
and though we may not be able to reconcile all that occurs with this
declaration, or see how the things which he has permitted to take place
are consistent with it, yet in the exercise of faith on his own
declarations we may find consolation in believing that it is so, and may
look forward to a period when all his universe shall see it to be so. In
the midst of all that occurs on the earth of sadness, sin, and sorrow,
there are abundant evidences that God is love. In the original structure
of things before sin entered, when all was pronounced "good;" in the
things designed to promote happiness, where the only thing contemplated
is happiness, and where it would have been as easy to have caused pain;
in the preservation of a guilty race, and in granting that race the
opportunity of another trial; in the ceaseless provision which God is
making in his providence for the wants of unnumbered millions of his
creatures; in the arrangements made to alleviate sorrow, and to put an
end to it; in the gift of a Saviour more than all, and in the offer of
eternal life on terms simple and easy to be complied with--in all these
things, which are the mere expressions of love, not one of which would
have been found under the government of a malignant being, we see
illustrations of the sublime and glorious sentiment before us, that "God
is love." Even in this world of confusion, disorder, and darkness, we
have evidence sufficient to prove that he is benevolent, but the full
glory and meaning of that truth will be seen only in heaven. Meantime
let us hold on to the truth that he is love. Let us believe that he
sincerely desires our good, and that what seems dark to us may be
designed for our welfare; and amidst all the sorrows and disappointments
of the present life, let us feel that our interests and our destiny are
in the hands of the God of love. - Albert
Barnes Commentary
- There is no Greek article to love, but to God; therefore we cannot
translate, Love is God. God is fundamentally and essentially LOVE: not
merely is loving, for then John's argument would not stand; for the
conclusion from the premises then would be this, This man is not loving:
God is loving; therefore he knoweth not God IN SO FAR AS GOD IS LOVING;
still he might know Him in His other attributes. But when we take love
as God's essence, the argument is sound: This man doth not love, and
therefore knows not love: God is essentially love, therefore he knows
not God. - Jamieson-Faucett-Brown
Commentary
- God is love (ho theos agapê estin). Anarthrous predicate, not hê
agapê. John does not say that love is God, but only that God is love.
The two terms are not interchangeable. God is also light (1Jo 1:5) and
spirit (Joh 4:24). - Robertson's Word Pictures
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