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NASB | 1 John 4:16 We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | 1 John 4:16 We have come to know [by personal observation and experience], and have believed [with deep, consistent faith] the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides continually in him. |
Subject: How do we know that God is love? |
Bible Note: I found a ministry called No Greater Love and tried to understand what it is all about. The statement that "No Greater Love Ministries is a non-denominational mission organization focused on the task of, 'putting the Gospel in the hands of faithful men'" was interesting but, to me, unclear. I could not determine why they had chosen that name. It seems that many other groups are using that phrase in their names too, because of Jesus' statement in John 15:13. It seems that many of us are grappling with the fact and the extent of the love of God. We are not sure if the little word "So" in John 3:16 means "to this extent" or "in this way". It seems that words cannot tell it all. So great is his love. Paul speaks of "his great love wherewith he loved us" (Ephesians 2:4). The hymn writer says simply, “Great is the measure of our Father’s love”. But it is only John who uses the phrase: “God is love”. Moses spoke about the love the Lord had for the children of Israel. In Deuteronomy 7 he told them that God loved them. As for the reason, it almost seems to be what we cal circuitous reasoning. “The LORD set his love upon you (v.7) because … because the LORD loved you” (v.8). And God kept repeating and showing that he loved them (Deuteronomy 10:15; 32:8-14; Isaiah 41:8,9; 43:4; Jeremiah 31:3; Romans 11:28). He loved them because he loved them, and he did that in spite of what they did. And now I wonder if Moses was saying that God is love. God loved them because he loved them. He loved them “according to the good pleasure of his will” (as in Ephesians 1:5). God loves because he wants to love. He “worketh all things after the counsel of his own will ” (Ephesians 1:11). But I wonder if he is not also saying that God loves because he cannot help it. It is his nature to love. The problem with that reasoning is that God was choosing whom to love. He also has the ability to hate. “As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated” (Romans 9:13). And yes, I have heard the explanations of what that word “hate” means. I wonder what God meant by those words (Malachi 1:2,3). God blessed Jacob; but as for Esau, he “laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness”. Someone has noted that “through every period of the history of Jacob’s posterity, they could not deny that God had remarkably appeared on their behalf; but he had rendered the heritage of Esau’s descendants, by wars and various other means, barren and waste forever”. We cannot question God (Job 33:13, Romans 9:20, etc.). But he invites us to understand him (Jeremiah 9:24). And he is love. We should try to understand that. |
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Questions and/or Subjects for 1 John 4:16 | Author | ||
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Aixen7z4 | ||
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Stultis the Fool | ||
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Ray | ||
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Aixen7z4 | ||
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EdB | ||
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young grasshopper |