What is the greatest love story ever told? The way you answer that question will tell you a lot about how you define love and the highest forms that it can take. Each of us have that romantic comedy, relational drama, or swashbuckling adventure that pops into our minds when we think of true love. Love may be Wesley saving his beloved Buttercup from the evil prince in The Princess Bride. Love may be Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy arguing in the rain over their mutual love for one another thwarted by circumstance and scandal. Love may be Tony Stark signing off from his video message with his daughter’s own words, “I love you 3000”. In each of these scenes we catch a glimpse of love taking on a different shape, but are they each as true to love as the other? Is love just how we express it, or is there such a thing as “real love” to which all loves compare or contrast? John claims to know such a love in 1 John 4:7-21. In this text we get to see John outline the markers of real love that all Christians should strive to attain.

God is the Source of Love

John writes that “love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God” (4:7). This means that rela love can only come from God Himself. Anything that claims to be love and comes from somewhere else is a shadow of the real thing. This also means that anyone who attempts to feel, display, or enact love without God’s help or without a relationship with God is doomed to fail. If God is the source of love we can only give it to others or feel it ourselves if we have truly received it from Him.

God is the Definition of Love

John continues that “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (4:8) This is one of the most quoted verses in the New Testament, often by people who have never seriously studied it. The claim often made about this verse is that anything we would call loving must be true of God, or more simply, love defines God. This is to get the verse entire backwards and inside-out. The verse and this entire passage argues the opposite: God is love. This means that God defines what love is, and love is defined by God’s character. This means we cannot use love as an excuse for participating in or condoning sin, since God’s love never leads Him to do the same. God’s love seeks the eternal good of His creatures, and benefits everything under His care, even at great cost to Himself. If we want to know what love is really like, we look at God.

God is the Ultimate Example of Love

John paints the picture of God’s love in 4:9-12,

“In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.”

John 4:9-12

Here we see that God’s love to us is shown most clearly in what Jesus did for us on the cross. And in this picture, we get several more aspects of God’s love. God’s love leads to action. God could have left us trapped in our sin, but instead He did what was necessary to meet our need for forgiveness. God’s love moves first, loving sinners despite them not deserving it, and never asking for it. God’s love is costly, even leading to the death of His only Son. God’s love is transformative, so that when God dwells in us, He changes us to share His perfect love. God’s love is our example, meaning that this love He shows to us is the same kind of love we should show to one another: love that moves first and leads to action no matter the cost to transform the person for their good in a way that inspires others to do the same.

God’s Love Brings Him Closer To Us

John observes, “So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” This abiding is evident in the fact that the Holy Spirit lives in us. God’s love brings Him closer to us, to live within us always. Love does not allow God to remain distant or disinterested. God loves in a way that draws us toward Him and keeps us in a life-giving relationship. 

God Chases Away Fear with Love

John knows that many Christians worry that they will not live up to God’s calling of love, but John knows that God will accomplish in us what He wants, and this promise of God’s perfect love being made complete in us gives us confidence that when we stand before Him it will not be for judgment leading to punishment, but for reunion leading to life. John says,“By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” (4:17-18) John says that the more we understand God’s love for us, the less we will fear his punishment becuase we will realize that if God loved us enough to send Jesus to die for us, then no coming judgment will harm us. We have already seen God save us once, and His love for us will not go away.

God Motivates Our Obedience with Love

John says in 4:19, “We love because he first loved us.” which shows how the love of God as example becomes God’s love in action. We do what God tells us not out of some dire sense of fear, but as a response to God’s love for us. We love not from obligation, but from gratitude. We love because we are so overwhelmed by the love already shown us when we did not deserve it. 

So we see that John describes real love as finding it’s source in God’s person, it’s definition in God’s character, it’s example in Jesus’ sacrifice, it’s shape in the Holy Spirit’s presence, it’s comfort in driving out fear, and it’s result is more love for others. Such love is truly rare, but it should be the marker of all Christians as we strive to live into the actual greatest love story ever told; God’s love for us.