Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 John · About this commentary
The One Who Remains in Love
1 John 4:15-16
15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him, and he in God. · WEB
The definition of God as love is repeated, and this time a clause is attached that turns a statement about God into a place to live.
Verse 15 states the confession in its shortest form — whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God — and attaches the mutual remaining to it. This is the third time the letter has tied the indwelling to something checkable, and each time the check is different: keeping the commandment 1 John 3:24, the Spirit given 1 John 4:13, and now the confession.
Verse 16 opens with two verbs about the readers themselves. We have come to know and have believed the love God has for us. Both are in the perfect tense — settled events with standing results — and the order is unusual, knowledge before belief, which suits a letter arguing that the readers already have what they need 1 John 2:20.
Then the definition returns, word for word: God is love 1 John 4:8. A letter that states a thing twice in eight verses is not repeating itself absently.
And the clause that follows is what the repetition was for. He who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. The first statement made love a definition of God's nature; this one makes it a location. Love is where a person stays, and staying there is described as staying in God.
That is as close as the letter comes to explaining what remaining means, and it is characteristically practical. The abiding it keeps commanding is not an interior technique. It is the continued practice of the love it has spent two chapters describing in terms of open purses and unclosed hearts 1 John 3:17.
settled What this mark means