The Love of Christ

John wrote this about how we can know that Christ loves us: “Hereby perceive we the love of Christ, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (JST 1 John 3:16). It is interesting that this is the same chapter and verse as a similar statement recorded by John about how we know that the Father loves us: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). We know that Christ loves us because He laid down His life for us; we know that the Father loves us because He gave up the Son to die for us. John emphasized this again in his epistle: “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:9-10). The greatest evidence that we have that God loves us is that He sent His Son to die for our sins and to save us. John summarized succinctly: “God is love…. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love;… We love him, because he first loved us” (1 John 4:8, 16, 19). The very essence of God is love, and John knew from personal experience, walking the roads of Palestine with the Savior Himself, that this love is real and powerful to save us. So powerful was the love of the Savior felt by John that He called Himself “that disciple whom Jesus loved” (John 20:2, 21:7). I don’t think that John felt himself better than anyone else or that he had some monopoly on that love of Christ. But so powerful was its effect on him that John wanted to be labeled and remembered by the fact that Christ loved him. And so indeed we remember him as John the Beloved.

                That God loves us, though, is only half of John’s message in this first epistle to the Church. If we stop there, we miss the most important point: “Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another” (1 John 4:11). John wanted us to understand and feel the love of God for us so that we would then show that love towards others. He wrote, “He that loveth his brother abideth in the light” (1 John 2:10). He also emphasized, “For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.” He wrote in more practical terms what that looks like: “But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.” We cannot claim to have the love of God with us and turn away those in need whom we have the capacity to help. John summarized, “And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment” (1 John 3:11, 17-18, 23). The key commandment of God is to believe on His son and love one another—in other words, we must love God and our neighbor as the Savior taught. John further invited us, “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love…. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also” (1 John 4:7-8, 20-21). If we are to love God, then we must also love His children around us. John was there that night of the Last Supper and heard the Savior invite them: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:34-35). The essence of a disciple of Jesus Christ is to love others as Jesus loves us, and John’s words invite us in a powerful way to both feel the love of Christ for us and to show it to all around us.