The author of 1 John explains 3:23 in 1 John 4:7-5:4 in terms of filiation. Within this context, 4:7-10 is the first part of an argument where he shows that the reality of God's love shown in the Christ is the basis of a Christian life that is lived within a communion of faith, hope and love.
4:7-5:4 is a literary unity that is delimited by discourses beginning with the address "Beloved" (agapetoi, vv. 7.11), where the theme of filiation is marked by words built from the verb genaw genaw , "to be father of" (4:7-9;5:1-4a) and two correlative ideas about filiation: that whoever loves and whoever believes in Jesus is born of God (4:7;5:1). Within this complex, the author develops his argument:
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4:7-10: Our life is a response to the love of God shown in the sending of the Only Begotten Son.
- 4:11-5:4a: Our response which is also obedience to His commandment is based on a faith that believes in the reality of that love.
- 4:11-16: No one has seen God, but we have experienced His love in the Son. When we confess the salvation wrought in the Son and give witness to it in a loving relationship within the community, then we truly dwell in Him and He in us.
4:17-19: Because of the reality of our love we can be confident on the day of Judgment because a love brought to perfection is a love that gives no space to fear.
4:20-5:4a: We must love the brother, then, because he who does not love the brother, does not love God. Whoever believes in Jesus is borne of God and therefore we should love the brother who has put his faith in Him.
The relationship of 4:7-10 to the rest of its context can be illustrated in the following way:
In 1 John 3:23 the author already stated that the commandment given by God to be kept is two-fold: to believe in the name of Jesus and love one another. The stress on the commandment as that word received from the beginning is due to the fact that the secessionist group (cf. 2:19) values secret knowledge claimed to be the key to salvation. The author of 1 John, in applying apostolic tradition to the crisis draws from the words of Jesus as recorded in John. The words and the event of Jesus' death on the cross contemplated in the light of the resurrection becomes -- for the author of 1 John -- an argument for confirming his community in the faith.
God is love (vv. 8.15). This declaration from the author of 1 John has become quite popular in our days, appearing as it does on bill boards, car stickers and T-shirts. Whatever sentiments this quotation arouse in us should be measured against the meaning intended by the author who declares it in view of a group that stresses knowledge over action and divinity over humanity. Within the context of 4:7-5:4, the author mentions it twice: first in 4:8 as the basis for a life committed to love and in v. 16 as the reality which makes possible the mutual indwelling of God and the Christian community.
God's Love Shown in Christ. The phrase "God is love" may be taken as a synthesis of the revelation of God's name to Moses in Exodus 34. But while the author may have had this idea at the back of his mind, he had in front of him a memory, that of Christ on the cross in whom God's love was revealed. "God sent His Only Begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him." This phrase taken with the second part of v. 10 -- "He sent His Son as atonement for sins" -- and v. 14 -- "the Father sent the Son as Savior of the world" -- leaves no doubt that the author had in mind Jesus on the cross as revelation of Divine Love. This idea echoes passages in the gospel of John about the lifting up of the Son of Man, especially Jn. 8:28 "When you lift up the Son of Man, you will know that I Am."
The phrase that we normally translate as "Only Begotten" is monogenh monogene the LXX translation for the Hebrew word yahid, the Beloved, the Favorite. Jerome has translated it Unigenitus, perhaps repeating earlier Latin confessional formulae. What the word "unigenitus" (special, unique) does not bring out is that the Son whom the Father sends to the world is much loved and the favorite of the Father. "Yahid" in the Hebrew Bible is applied to Isaac precisely in the narrative of Abram's sacrifice. Having that sacrificial context in mind, the phrase in 4:9 depicts God giving up something of Himself (His Beloved) as an expression of His love: "For God so loved the world that He gave us His yahid." (John 3:16)
Our Life of Communion, A Response to this Love. The love that has been manifested in Christ is the love that makes the Christian community children of God. Since God has shown his love in the way that He did, then the response should be as concrete as His act of giving (cf. v. 20). The life of the Christian community is a response to this love which was first shown to it as an act of atonement in the Son.
We already mentioned that the Greek word ilasmoV hilasmos is an act of purification associated with Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. In the Gospel of John, this atoning sacrifice is associated with Jesus when John the Baptist introduces him as "the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." Outside the gospel of John, we find the author of the Letter to the Hebrews describing the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus as the act of the High Priest in atoning for the sins of the people.
But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that have come to be, passing through the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made by hands, that is, not belonging to this creation, he entered once for all into the sanctuary, not with the blood of goats and calves but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of a heifer's ashes can sanctify those who are defiled so that their flesh is cleansed, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works to worship the living God. (Heb. 9:11-14, NAB)
Sacrifice, atonement, forgiveness of sins -- these characterize the significance of the Son sent by the Father. Foremost in the mind of the author is Christ on the cross, the revelation of that love which should characterize the Christian lifestyle.
In this consists love -- not that we have loved God, but that God has loved us first (v.9) ... We love because He loved us first (v. 19).
