[We apologize for the rough quality of this recording]
This passage is “the premier Johannine statement” on the love of God. If 1 Corinthians 13 is Paul's love chapter, then 1 John 4 is John's love chapter.
And the emphasis on love is appropriate at just this point in John's epistle because he has just issued a firm command to test the spirits. John has just made a very strong statement of the antithesis between “us” and the world:
“They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” (1 John 4:5-6)
In other words, John has just issued a command to maintain doctrinal orthodoxy. You must preserve the apostolic teaching – you must listen to us.
But John follows this up with an insistence upon the absolute necessity of love...
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