NOTES for Jo1 4:7-16

What the apostle John says today is very simple and very hard... The constantly repeated word "love" is the key. What could be simpler? What could be harder? The apostle says that we know God lives in us by the fact that we love one another, and immediately he puts forward another version as well: that God abides in the one who confesses that Jesus is the Son of God. In general, all of us, calling ourselves Christians, already confess that He is the Son of God. Some of us even read the Creed every day. But with love things are somewhat worse... So what do we have in the way of criteria for abiding in God? This is what we get: there are no simple answers. We are in Him insofar as we believe in Him, and outside Him insofar as we do not know how to love... and only He can somehow sort out this confusion and teach us to love.

For the apostle, love and knowledge of God are not only inseparable from one another; for him they are two sides of one and the same reality. No one has ever seen God, John says, but if we love one another, then God abides "in us," and the corresponding Greek expression can mean both "within each of us" and "among us." In this case God's love abides "in us," in both meanings of the expression, in all fullness. At first glance the thought that all knowledge of God is love may seem strange. There are other forms of it, after all, that do not deny love but also do not place it at the center of a person's relationship with God.

But if love is viewed not only as relations among people but also as a form of God's presence, the primary and foundational form for the Kingdom, much becomes clearer. Indeed, how can a person see God? The only real possibility, not counting speculative abstractions that usually have no relation to genuine knowledge of God, is awareness of that breath of life which God "breathed" into a person at creation.

Consciously placing it at the center of one's own life in all its manifestations. Only in this way can knowledge of God and communion with God become reality for a person. Then God's power and God's love become reality for him too: those forms of God's presence that were accessible to humanity even before Christ came into the world. Every other experience of communion with God proves derivative from the experience of becoming aware of this Presence.

But with Christ's coming the situation objectively changes: now every experience of the Presence, if it is genuine, is inseparable from the Kingdom entering the world. The breath of life given to everyone can today become a door into the Kingdom, if only one knocks. But only Christ can open the door, and when He opens it, the new foundation of a person's life becomes the energy of love on which the whole life of the Kingdom is founded. Only the life of the fallen world is founded on natural energy, yet God is hidden even behind natural energy.

But behind the energy of love God is not hidden; in it and through it He is revealed, and therefore it lies at the foundation of the Kingdom. But if, according to the Savior's words, the Kingdom is within us and among us, then love, if we are residents of the Kingdom, will also be within us and in our midst. And behind its concrete manifestations within us and among us stands the whole fullness of God's love revealed to the Kingdom. Everything else, every form of being, awareness, and knowledge of God, is derivative from God's love. Regardless of how much people understand this.

We continue to seek signs, for it seems that without them it is so hard to believe. We continue to wait for the Lord Himself to appear to us, to dream that we will see Him with our own eyes and hear Him with our own ears.

But we do not see the miracle of love in our life. Yet these miracles precisely, when suddenly and unexpectedly you understand that this person has looked at you with love, or that your own stony heart has suddenly warmed at the thought of another person, are the sign of God's presence in our heart and in this world.

The phrase "No one has ever seen God" sounds strange on the lips of the apostle John, who reclined at the Last Supper with his head on Jesus' breast, who saw Him on the Cross and saw Him risen. Yet perhaps the apostle meant something else: that God's existence cannot be proved, that He cannot force His disciples, even those whom He calls children, and that John himself still cannot force them to believe what he saw with his own eyes and heard with his own ears.

But everyone can see love. Because even in a world full of wars, hatred, and strife, love is always present and always conquers. For God has already conquered on the Cross by His love, and He is greater than the evil of this world. God is all-conquering love.

Boldness on the day of judgment... What is the apostle John talking about? Boldness means both courage and confidence. But imagine His judgment. Eye to eye with the only Righteous One... Is it really possible at that judgment to remain calm and confident? The apostle John says that the Lord has given us enough capacity to love, and love can reach such perfection in us that we will act as He does, and therefore will not fear His judgment... Simple? Not simple at all, because this is only a capacity, a possibility. This is what He has given; His gift is boundless, His gift has been given in fullness. But the degree to which we accept His gift is another question. And it depends not on someone or something else, but on us ourselves.

In ordinary words John speaks of what is simple and natural to him, yet so difficult to grasp with the mind, and still more difficult to experience fully: God's mysterious presence in those who confess Jesus as the Son of God. When this thought truly sinks in, our first reaction is like Peter's when he cried out to Christ: “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man” (Luke 5:8). Yet He comes to us precisely to free us from the power of sin.

If God is love, then abiding in love means abiding in God. In unfolding the qualities of love, John stresses that there is no fear in love, whereas fear involves torment. This means that there is no torment in God. If so, how are we to explain the torments of unrepentant sinners? Is it not that, in turning away from God, they have rejected the source of love and fallen under the power of fear, from which they cannot free themselves, however brave a face they may put on? For fear involves torment...

Love for one's brother is the sign of love for God. All people are called to brotherhood; and if we are told to help our neighbours, it is because we must begin with those close at hand, not excuse ourselves by saying we first need to care for those far away. The beginning is always near, within ourselves and close by, but from this little patch of ground we are called to go further, serving the Lord, who seeks to save and transform the whole world.

The apostle proposes testing the spirits because many false prophets have gone out into the world. John does not write about this, but we are entitled to develop his warning: we ourselves might mistake a voice from the darkness for a voice from above and become such false prophets. To prevent this, John offers a simple criterion: pay attention to how the spirit claiming to be prophetic responds to Christ. Such a spirit will not necessarily reject Him openly; it may even speak respectfully of Him. Yet even then, sooner or later, it will inevitably begin to qualify its praise of Christ with numerous “buts,” whose ultimate purpose is to deny the real Christ who came in the flesh. Thus we can distinguish what we are dealing with: differences of opinion, whose inevitability the Apostle Paul wrote about, or a distortion of the very foundations of the Gospel.

False prophets often claim to possess special knowledge, but as a rule they have no love, which is unsurprising because they do not have Christ. The presence or absence of love may seem to many an overly simple and unreliable criterion, especially in our time, when the accumulation of information has become one of the foundations of civilization. Both ancient false teachers and modern ones lay claim to knowledge, not to love; love seems insufficiently serious to them, and if it is acknowledged at all, it is reduced to something else, such as sentimentality, and that is not even the worst possibility.

But there is no sentimentality in the sacrifice of Golgotha.

The apostle urges us to test the spirits because many false prophets have appeared in the world. John does not say this, but we may take his warning further: let us beware of becoming such false prophets ourselves by mistaking a voice from the darkness for a voice from above. To prevent this, John offers a simple criterion: observe how a spirit claiming to be prophetic responds to Christ. Such a spirit will not necessarily reject Him outright; it may even speak of Him respectfully. Yet even then, sooner or later, it will inevitably begin to qualify its praise of Christ with numerous ‘buts’, whose ultimate purpose is to deny the real Christ, who has come in the flesh. We therefore have a way to distinguish what we are dealing with: differences of opinion, whose inevitability the apostle Paul wrote about, or a distortion of the very foundations of the Gospel.

False prophets often claim to possess special knowledge, but as a rule they have no love. This is not surprising, for they do not have Christ. The presence or absence of love may seem to many an unduly simple and unreliable criterion, especially in our time, when the accumulation of information has become one of the foundations of civilisation. Ancient false teachers and modern ones alike lay claim to knowledge, not love. Love seems insufficiently serious to them, and even when it is acknowledged, it is reduced to something else, such as sentimentality—and that is not even the worst possibility.

But there is no sentimentality in the sacrifice on Calvary.