Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 John · About this commentary
Not That We Loved God
1 John 4:9-10
9 By this God’s love was revealed in us, that God has sent his only born Son into the world that we might live through him. · WEB
The definition is shown rather than asserted, and the sentence takes care to say which direction the love moved first.
Having defined God as love, the letter refuses to leave the statement abstract. Verse 9 points at an event: God has sent his only born Son into the world. The love was revealed, which is the letter's recurring verb for something made visible that already existed 1 John 1:2 1 John 3:5 1 John 3:8.
The purpose is stated in four words — that we might live through him — and the letter does not elaborate, having already named eternal life as the one promise 1 John 2:25.
Verse 10 then defines love a second time in this chapter, and where verse 9 gave the act, this one gives the direction. In this is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us. The negative half is doing the work. The sentence anticipates a reader who would locate love primarily in his own response and corrects the order before it can settle.
That correction matters in a letter this full of tests. A reader measuring himself against the standard of chapters 2 and 3 could easily conclude that the relationship rests on the quality of his loving. Verse 10 puts the foundation somewhere else entirely.
And the second half names the act again, using the word that occurs only twice in Scripture and both times in this letter 1 John 2:2. Both times God is the one who provides the covering rather than the one who is placated by it — which is what keeps this verse and the definition it serves from coming apart.
settled What this mark means