Maturing Love; 1 John. 4:11

See from His head, His hands, His feet,

Sorrow and love flow mingled down!

Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,

Or thorns compose so rich a crown.

As Isaac Watts penned these words he was saying what John is saying, and that is that there is no love anywhere in human history that even comes close to the love that is modelled for us at the cross. That is the example. As John says in 1 John 3:16 it is by this that we know what love is. If we want to know what real love is we have to start at the cross. That is one of the reasons, among many, that the Lord instituted the Lord’s table. It focuses us on historical reality, takes out attention off the day-to-day events and cares of life, to remember on a regular basis that everything we are and have is the result of what Jesus Christ did for us at the cross. It is all grace, it has nothing to do with any merit on our part or with who we are or have done but it has everything to do with who Jesus Christ is and what He did on the cross.

As John looks at love and as we have studied love in the past, love is used almost as a code word for spiritual maturity itself. He makes a point that if we know God we are going to keep His commandments; if we love God we are going to keep His commandments. To know God we have to study the Word, we have to understand what is revealed in the Scriptures, and when we tie all of this together it becomes obvious that we can be saved, justified, redeemed, a child of God growing and maturing in the spiritual life, and still not know God. As John uses that phrase “know God” he has in mind someone who has reached a certain level of maturity in his understanding of who and what God is, His plan, and in the application of His Word. Therefore when we equate the concept of knowing God, as John uses it, with loving God and loving one another it becomes clear that love is a code word for spiritual maturity, for somebody who has reached spiritual adulthood.

The way that we have dealt with this is graphically to help us understand how these things get together, is to relate it to the ten stress-busters or spiritual skills that we have been studying. The three stages of the spiritual life that John addresses in 1 John chapter two are spiritual childhood, spiritual adolescence and spiritual adulthood. In spiritual childhood we begin to learn to understand and apply the basic skills that are necessary to go anywhere in the spiritual life. These are just fundamental skills that every believer has to have.

When we come to spiritual adolescence we slowly grasp the reality that the decisions we make today determine who and what we will be in eternity—not in terms of our eternal destiny in relationship to heaven or hell, but in relationship to our inheritance. Romans 8:16, 17. Once we get that personal sense of eternal destiny we start making decisions not on the basis of how it is going to affect things today or tomorrow or next year but in terms of eternity. Once we get these things in place to where they are a solid part of our thinking it is only then that we are going to really see developments in the arena of love. Now that we understand God’s grace and understand more and more of what God has done for us, we can love Him more and more. As we develop and understanding of God’s plan and purposes, then we know God in all of His breadth and depth and we begin to lobe Him in more mature ways. Then, because we understand what love for God is, that motivates us in impersonal love for all mankind. The reason we call it impersonal love is because this emphasises the fact that we don’t have to have a personal knowledge or a personal relationship with the other person, the other believer. We are to love one another. Then the third element in love is occupation with Christ: our focus is on Jesus Christ. These three elements together make up the concept of love in the Christian life. The result of all this is that we share the happiness of God and we have a measure of happiness. It is not emotional but it based on a stability, tranquillity and contentment in life because of our mental attitude and the divine viewpoint that dominates our soul. Love is that key element that is being developed in us as spiritual adults.

John emphasises the radical importance of love in this epistle. But the love he emphasises is a far cry from the kind of love that I usually taught and extolled from the pulpits of most churches and the kind of love we hear people talk about. It is not the kind of love we find in a church where people are told to stand up, turn around and tell somebody they love them. It is not having warm feelings of affection toward other believers. It is not emotion. Emotions change, they are fluid, up one day and down the next. They respond to numerous situations in life, so it is not something that is based on emotions; they vacillate too much. Love that is explained in 1 John is not a love that is expressed in superficial or sentimental ways, it is a love that is not based on human experience but on what Jesus Christ did on the cross. So we have to go to the cross to understand it. 1 John 3:16 ^NASB “We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” That implies an obligation that we should lay down our lives for the brethren. 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.” How do we know God’s love? By the incarnation; by the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Then verse 10, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son {to be} the propitiation for our sins.”

Eight characteristics of love

1. It is initiating. That means it takes charge. In God’s plan of salvation he provided a perfect solution from eternity past in order to restore the relationship with man that was broken by Adam’s original sin.
2. His love at the cross is aggressive. He took charge of the situation, made a plan, worked the plan, and asserted Himself with confidence and boldness.
3. It is a love that is humble. It doesn’t seek its own personal glory. Jesus Christ gave up His rights to have that glory as demonstrated on the Mount of Transfiguration, to be all that He was as God in heaven, and to take on the form of a servant to do everything that was necessary to bring about salvation for fallen humanity.
4. It is intense. There is a passion to it, not necessarily in an emotional sense but in the sense that there is a zealous determination to achieve the goal of salvation despite all obstacles.
5. There is steadfast loyalty. God is loyal to His promises to man despite all of man’s disobedience and sinfulness.
6. It is consecrated. We are set apart to a test. Jesus Christ was set apart for the high purpose of being the exclusive means of salvation for the church.
7. Dedication. Jesus was dedicated to the task of service, sacrifice, salvation and sanctification.
8. Devoted. He gave or applied Himself entirely to a particular activity. In His case the activity was the incarnation and crucifixion for the salvation of the world.

These are characteristics of love as seen in salvation. So we have to factor those in to our concept of what it means to love. A definition: Love always seeks the best for its objects. Notice: A word like “best” is a superlative, it implies comparison, and that involves an evaluation judgment. That means that we have to be able to determine what actually is the best. A person is an immature believer operating on human viewpoint doesn’t have a clue what is best for somebody else. Love, then, comes only as a result of spiritual growth and only as a result of having doctrine in the soul, and only as a result of having an objective and absolute standard which was demonstrated at the cross.

1 John 4:11 ^NASB “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” John calls them beloved, emphasising the fact that they are the objects of God’s love. The verb he uses there is the present active indicative of opheilo [o)feilw] which means obligation. If God loved us we have an obligation to love one another in that same way; it is not an option as far as God is concerned. The words “God so loved” is almost identical to the words in John 3:16. The word translated “so” is the Greek demonstrative adverb houtos [o(utwj] which is used to emphasise degree, extent, to such a degree or in such a manner. Therefore we need to focus on the cross, understanding what love is. That is the model; that is the standard that we are expected to stand up to. We can’t do it on our own, it can only come by the Holy Spirit. It can only be produced as a result of growth. Growth comes by studying the Word, knowing His commandments and applying His commandments.