61 - 1Jn 4:10
Ἐν τούτῳ ἐστὶν ἡ ἀγάπη, οὐχ ὅτι ἡμεῖς ἠγαπήσαμεν τὸν Θεὸν, ἀλλ᾽ ὅτι αὐτὸς ἠγάπησεν ἡμᾶς, καὶ ἀπέστειλε τὸν υἱὸν αὑτοῦ ἱλασμὸν περὶ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν. The love of God has become in the mission of His Son a power of love working in us,—that is, it infers the thought that in this way only can we ourselves love in the manner and after the standard of the ἐντολὴκαινή[“new commandment”] (compare 1Jn 2:8): this is the idea of the ninth verse, which the tenth more fully expands. It begins with ἐντούτῳἐστὶνἡἀγάπη [“in this is love”]. This cannot mean the love of God, for an αὐτοῦ [“of him”] would in that case hardly have been left out; rather the subject of the loving must be derived from the following clause with ὅτι [“that”]. That, however, contains two of them, ἡμεῖς [“we”] and Θεὸς [“God”], and thus we must take the ἀγάπη [“love”] quite generally, as it might be plainly expressed in the infinitive expression “loving.” The topic is the nature of love generally, all love which may be found in God or man: neither the love of God to us alone, nor our love to God alone. The ἐντούτῳἐστὶν [“in this is”] suggests an unfolding of the nature of love; “it consists in this, that;” the ὅτιἡμεῖςἠγαπήσαμεν [“that he loved us”], ὅτιἀπέστειλεν [“that he sent”] point through the very tense up to the causality of love, the principle of its origination. The two, however, are in fact inseparably united. This let its try to make clear by an example. Concerning the publicans, whom the Lord in Mat 5:46 introduces, the very converse of the proposition before us might have been said, ἐντούτῳἐστὶνἡἀγάπητῶντελωνῶν,οὐκὅτι ἐμὲἠγάπησανἀλλ᾽ὅτι ἐγὼαὐτοὺςἠγάπησα [“in this is the love of the tax collectors, not that they love me but that I loved them”]. The ground of their love to me lies not in them, but in me; if I cease to love them, they cease to love me; thus their love to me is essentially no other than my love to them. Therefore, as the publican’s love to me consists of or may be resolved into my love to him, the apostle says here that all loving on earth and in heaven has its originating cause and consists (thus are the two forms of the proposition to be united) in God’s loving. All human loving is a flame from the divine Flame, having in itself no independent existence: “I love” means no other than that the divine love has become in me an over-mastering and all-pervading power of life. Accordingly, it is not the apostle’s design here to make prominent the priority of the divine love, to exhibit it as causa sui, as we find it in Rom 5:8. Had that been his intention, to show that love in us has been enkindled by an anticipation on the part of God, he would have used the perfect instead of the aorist, in order to express the finished action and expression of it. But the explanation we have given is in precise harmony with the aorist. The historical fact of the mission of the Son is love: it is the demonstration and; substance of divine love, and it is the germ and ground and substance of our love. If we introduce the priority of the divine love, that it is the divine manner of love to take precedence and anticipate, and that we must follow and copy it, we derange the whole thought of the apostle. The πρῶτος [“first”], which the Vulgate interpolates here, and which actually occurs in 1Jn 4:19, would on such a supposition not have been wanting. To repeat what we have said: the apostle does not say that God loves first, and we then in the second order; true as that is, he says something more comprehensive and much higher, including the former, to wit, that the divine love dwells in us. And this must regulate our view of the standard aimed at in the last words of the clause, ἀπέστειλε τὸν υἱὸν αὑτοῦ ἱλασμὸν περὶ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν [“he sent his Son