The Only Way to Know Love; 1 John 3:16
1 John
The verse begins with a different
word order in the Greek and the emphasis is on the words “By this we know love.
The verb here is the perfect active indicative of ginwsko [ginwskw]
which means to know something. The perfect tense depicts something different in
Greek than it does in English: completed action, something that has happened in
the past. And the emphasis is either on the fact that it is completed or are the present results of that past action. In this case
the emphasis is on the continuing results of that past action, so that makes it
intensive perfect. The emphasis that John is making is that we know something
now as a result of what we learned in the past. It is a first person plural,
which means that we have a subject, “we.” The “we” here refers to the body of
the apostles, not “we” believers. He is stating that “we, the apostles, came to
know love by this.” They came to understand what love is. It is an active voice
because it is emphasising the fact that they, the apostles, had to learn this.
They had to study, they had to think, they had to witness the life, ministry and crucifixion of Jesus Christ in order come to
the point of learning something: what real love is. Love is expressed in the
accusative case here, which means that it is the object of that knowledge. It
is a very simple statement at the beginning: “By this we know love.” The
emphasis in the original is “By this,” which draws our attention to the fact
that there is only one way that you and I can come to understand what love is.
Mankind does not, cannot, and
will not be able to know what love is experientially. The Scripture says that
the only way we can know want love is, is to start with the cross. Whatever it
was in life by the time we got serious about the Word of God we only had our
own opinions. Now we have to go about the task of tearing everything down and
starting over again because the starting point has to be the Word of God. So we
have to overhaul our thinking and replace all of the human viewpoint concepts
of love which have more to do with emotion and sentimentality and how we feel
about somebody than with the divine viewpoint concepts of love which are based
on knowledge, on thinking, and which completely eliminate emotion and
sentimentality. This runs counter to everything that we have been taught and
have picked up from our culture. Divine viewpoint love as taught in the
Scripture is based on thinking, on character, on understanding what Christian
integrity is all about as exemplified in the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.
Therefore we have to recognise that the love we are talking about is a love
that cannot be produced on our own, it can only be produced by God the Holy
Spirit working in conjunction with the Word of God.
The phrase “By this” means
that we need to put our attention, the spotlight, on the cross. Jesus Christ is
the prototype, the model, the exemplar, the focus of what it means to love. If
we want to talk about love we have to start at the cross and we have to
completely understand everything that God did for us and the nature of the
atonement.
As Christians we need to
recognise the necessity for using the Scriptures as our starting point for
every category of thinking in life, not just the so-called religious stuff. All
areas of human thought are addressed by Scripture at some level. The Scripture
at least provides a foundation and a framework and sets the boundaries for
thought. This is why for the believer doctrine must be number one priority. Part
of our job as believers is to take every thought captive for Jesus Christ. That
doesn’t just mean not to think impure thoughts, it means every thought. Whatever
it is we are thinking about the Word of God is going to provide certain
absolutes that provide a framework.
We have seen that love in the
context of 1 John becomes a summary description of the character of the mature
believer. The immature believer hasn’t developed the capacity to love yet; he
is in the process of just learning foundational doctrines of Scripture. This love
is a product of the Holy Spirit; it is not something that we can manufacture on
our own. It is the result of abiding in Christ, John 15 & Galatians
5:16-25. Love is connected to integrity, and the conclusion is that love apart
from integrity is meaningless.
So John says, “By this [the
focus on the cross] we know [have learned it in the past with the result that we
continue knowing it] love…” Love is the object of the verb: “we know what love
is.” Then NKJV “because He laid down His life for us.” The NASB
says, “that He laid down…” In both cases it is a
mistake to translate either “Because” or “that.” In the Greek we have the
particle hoti [o(ti]. Usually it means “because” but it is also used to set apart both
direct and indirect quotations. It should be, “We know love by this: He laid
down His life for us.” That in a nutshell is how we know what love is. Apart
from the work of Jesus Christ on the cross we don’t know what love is. So this is expressing a universal principle here as to how the
believer comes to know what love is.
“He laid down His life for
us.” The verb “laid down” is the aorist active indicative
of the verb tithemi [tiqhmi] which means to set aside, to lay aside, to put
something away or to give something up. It is the idea that He gave up, He laid
aside His life for us. The word here for “life” is not the word zoe [zwh] which refers to the principle of life or the word bios [bioj] which has to do with the means or manner of life,
but it is the word psuche [yuxh] for “soul” which often stands for life but is
focusing on the immaterial aspect and not the physical aspect, reminding us
once again that it is not the physical death of Jesus Christ on the cross that
paid the penalty for our sins but it is His spiritual death on the cross. The
reason for that is that the penalty for sin is spiritual death. The
prepositional phrase “for us” is huper
[u(per] plus the genitive case. huper
is a preposition which literally means “over” but is used to indicate
substitution—instead of, in place of: “He laid down His life in our place.” So
it is a substitutionary spiritual death. His judicial separation from God the
Father on the cross is the complete and total payment of the sin penalty for
every human being in human history. Therefore since sin was paid for completely
at the cross the issue is no longer your sin, your failures, your disappointments,
it is about Jesus Christ. The issue is whether or not you are willing to trust
in Him alone, to accept His payment in your place. That is the gospel.
The doctrine of substitutionary
atonement
1.
Man is a sinner.
Every human being is born a sinner, spiritually dead and incapable of saving
himself. Romans 3:23; Ephesians 2:1.
2.
God in His
omniscience knows all the knowable. Therefore He is able to make provision for
everything that occurs in human history. That means that in eternity past God
could design a perfect, comprehensive, complete and sufficient plan for man’s
salvation.
3.
That plan
involved all three members of the Trinity. It involves God the Father as the
planner or architect of the plan. It involves God the Son as the one who
carried out the plan. And it involves God the Holy Spirit as the one who
reveals the plan.
4.
Jesus Christ is
eternally God. There never was a time when Jesus Christ did not exist, and as
such Jesus Christ possesses all the attributes of God. He possesses the perfect
righteousness and integrity of God. That means He has the same love that God
the Father has. Colossians 2:9; Philippians 2:5-8; John 1:1. He is also true
humanity. He is not distorted fallen humanity, He was
born without sin because of the virgin birth—no inherited sin nature, no imputation
of Adam’s original sin, no personal sin.
5.
As the eternal
second person of the Trinity the pre-incarnate Jesus had perfect righteousness.
That means He had perfect integrity which goes along with His eternal love.
6.
As the incarnate
God-Man He is undiminished deity and true humanity united together in one person.
He has perfect righteousness at His birth.
7.
Jesus Christ
lived a sinless life which qualified Him to go to the cross. What under girds
the act of love, His demonstration of love at the cross, is His integrity. Love
to be love must be under girded by integrity and righteousness.
8.
At the cross the
sinless or impeccable God-Man received the imputation of all human sin and bore
our punishment. 2 Corinthians
So John says: “We know love
by this, that He laid down His life for us.” That is
the doctrine; the application is in the next sentence: “and we [also] ought to
lay down our lives for the brethren.” “We [also] ought” is a subjunctive mood verb
which indicates potential; it indicates the possibility that we might not and
that it is up to our volition whether or not we apply the principle. We may or
may not lay down our lives for the brethren but we “ought to”—the verb opheilema [o)feilhma] which
means obligation. So we have an obligation to apply the principle of this
impersonal love, and that extends to sacrifice. That means we have to evaluate
the kind of characteristics that are demonstrated by Jesus Christ on the cross.
Romans 5:8 NASB “But
God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners,
Christ died [as a substitute] for us.”