Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 John · About this commentary
Loving the Brother He Has Seen
1 John 4:19-21
19 We love him, because he first loved us. · WEB
The chapter closes with an argument from the easier case to the harder, and it treats loving the invisible God as the harder one.
Verse 19 states the order one final time: we love because he first loved us. Four words carrying the letter's whole structure, and the same correction made earlier in the chapter 1 John 4:10.
Verse 20 quotes the last of the claims the letter has been answering since its first chapter. If anyone says I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. The verdict is the same one given to the claim about walking in darkness 1 John 1:6 and to the claim of knowing him without obedience 1 John 2:4. Three boasts, one word for each.
The reasoning that follows runs in the direction a reader does not expect. One might assume loving a visible person is the hard part and loving God the natural one. The letter reverses it: he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. The visible case is treated as the easier, and failing the easy case settles the harder.
That argument only works because of what the letter has already said about seeing. No one has ever seen God 1 John 4:12, and love among believers is where he becomes evident. A love that cannot manage the visible has nowhere to demonstrate itself.
Verse 21 closes by making it a commandment rather than an inference, and joins the two once more, exactly as before 1 John 3:23: he who loves God must also love his brother.
settled What this mark means