Some enormous claims have been made in the last two posts. First, we have seen that there is no love apart from being born of God and knowing God (I John 4:7-8). Second, the love that a believer has from God is really the love of God for Himself and He gives that to the believer by dwelling in the believer and sharing His love for Himself with the believer. In this post I would like to develop that thought some more.
Last time (The Love of God in the Believer) the effort was to show that love is really God Himself as triune. We saw this from I John 4:12 where it is God Himself who abides in the believer and so perfects His love in the believer. I John 4:13 then goes on with the same thought: “By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.” Jonathan Edwards wrestled with this text and came to the conclusion that God abiding in us and perfecting His love in us (v. 12) can only be understood if we understand the Holy Spirit as the love of God. This has caused some people to stumble in some way, but the alternative position is far worse. It is said that if we believe that the Spirit is the love of God, then we have denied that the Spirit is a divine person by implication. On the other hand, if we deny that love is the Spirit of God we have asserted that love is something greater than God Himself and that God gives things other than Himself as the greatest good. It is not necessary to deny that the Holy Spirit is a divine Person to assert that He is the love of God. All that is necessary is to understand that God is love and that He is love as triune. We know from Scripture that it is through the Spirit that He pours out His love in the heart (Romans 5:5) and it is only by the Spirit that the fruit of love is worked in us (Galatians 5:22). We can simply say that the Spirit in some way is the very outflow of the love of God for Himself and it is the Spirit who works the very love of God for Himself into the souls of human beings.
I John 4:15 tells us of a true confession of Christ: “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.” A true confession of Christ is in the context of love here. God abides in the person that confesses (confess means to speak the same as) and we know from v. 12 and v. 16 that when God abides in a person the love of God abides in that person. To speak the same of Christ as the Father speaks of Christ is to speak of Christ as the beloved Son of God that is loved above all by the Father. It is far more than just saying some words about an intellectual agreement one has with some historical facts. Verse 16 then goes on to say: “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.”
I John 4:16 is an enormous verse with an enormous meaning for the text. The problem is that there is a better way to translate the verse. In the first part of the verse it tells us that “we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us.” The word “for” in that verse is really the preposition for “in.” That word is translated as “in” many, many times. It is not that the word cannot be translated as “for,” but it is a theological translation rather than just a grammatical one. In other words, if we read the verse like this we see how it fits the context much better: “we have come to know and have believed the love which God has in us.” In other words, we know the love of God by what it is doing in us, and even more than that we know the love of God in us because it is God in us. We see that in the next part of the verse: “God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” The second part of the verse only makes sense if we change the translation from the first part or the verse from “for” to “in.” We know we are believers because the love of God dwells in us and that shows us that God Himself dwells in us. In light of 4:7-8, then, it tells us that we are true believers because only true believers are born of God and know God and therefore have the love of God in them.
This is one of the major teachings of I John. It tells us that the believer is truly a believer and that a believer does certain things and does not do certain things because of the nature of true love. The nature of true love is not just that God gives something to people, but that God gives Himself to people and true love behaves in certain ways with certain motives because true love is God Himself in the soul of the true believer and the life of the believer is Christ in the soul, which is nothing else but eternal life Himself. Christ Himself is the Word of life (I John 1:1) and is the life of God manifested in the soul of human beings who confess Him as Lord. Christ is the life of God shining out His glory in the world and in the souls of true believers. Christ has purchased the Spirit for believers and they have the love of God in their souls. Believers have God as triune dwelling in their souls and so have the life and love of God in them. This explains I John 4:19 better: “We love, because He first loved us.” Indeed we love because He set His love on us and now He as love abides in us and shares His love with us.
God Loves... Himself 
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