Week 30 · Day 5: The Love of God
God Is Love
A sentence about who God is, and what His love cost (1 John 4:8-10).
What the labels mean
- Scripture explicitly says
- This states what the biblical text itself says, in the passage being read.
- Direct quotation or allusion
- One part of Scripture quotes or clearly alludes to another. The citing reference is named so you can check it.
- Canonical theme
- A connection across the whole Bible. The passages develop the same theme; one is not quoting the other.
- Interpretive conclusion
- A conclusion drawn from the text. The reasoning is given so you can weigh it against the passage.
- Application
- A step, prayer or question for the reader. Not a claim about what the passage states.
Today’s verse
Loading 1 John 4:9-10…
1 John 4:9-10
Today’s focus
The truth of the day
John does not leave 'God is love' as an isolated statement to be filled in however the reader likes. He immediately defines it by an event: God sent His only Son so that we might live through Him, and so that His Son would be the atoning sacrifice for sin.
The order in verse 10 is deliberate and corrective: this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us. Any definition of love that begins with human affection toward God has the direction backwards. Real love, by John's definition, begins with God moving toward people who had not moved toward Him.
Today’s reminder
Scripture explicitly says- God is love is defined by an act, not left as a vague sentiment.
- Love in Scripture starts with God's initiative, not human affection.
- The word 'propitiation' or 'atoning sacrifice' means the sending had a purpose: dealing with sin.
Deeper insight
What the passage says in its own setting
John's letter is written partly against an early error minimizing either the reality of Christ's incarnation or the seriousness of sin, and this passage answers both: God's love was revealed specifically by sending His Son 'into the world', a real, historical, bodily event, and the purpose named is atonement, addressing actual sin rather than merely modeling virtue. Love, for John, cannot be separated from the incarnation and the cross without becoming a different, thinner idea.
The immediate application John draws, just two verses later, is startlingly direct: 'Beloved, if God loved us so, we also ought to love one another' (4:11) and 'no one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God remains in us' (4:12). John will not allow 'God is love' to remain theological description. He turns it at once into an argument for how believers must treat each other, making love both a statement about God and a test of whether His people know Him.
Christ connection
Where this leads to Jesus
Canonical themeThe whole passage centers on the sending of God's 'one and only Son' as the definition of love, meaning any true account of God's love must run directly through the cross of Christ.
Reflection
ApplicationDoes your working definition of love begin with your feelings toward God, or with what 1 John 4:10 says He has already done?
Today’s action
ApplicationRead 1 John 4:7-21 in one sitting, and note every place love toward God is tied to love toward another person.
Today’s prayer
ApplicationFather, You have not left love as an idea for me to fill in myself. You showed it by sending Your Son as the sacrifice for my sin while I had not yet loved You. Let that settle where I look for love's definition. Amen.
Another layer