Title: 13
Author: JBG
Last saved by: Auth User
Company: Auth CO

© 2000  Joe Griffin

00-07-30-B.JSH-352 /

The Inscrutable Question: Principles on Agape; Love for Others Impossible without Love for God First, 1 John 4:20-5:3
A few principles now on the Greek verb ¢g£ph / agape /, to love: 
1.	’Ag£ph / agape /	is a monadic noun, meaning that it is one of a kind.  The love of God is one of a kind that has existed from eternity past and constitutes the integrity of God.
2.	God’s righteousness and justice are expressions of His love.  Justice may change from blessing to discipline or from discipline to blessing based on the demands of righteousness, but God’s love never changes.
3.	We don’t have the power to change the love of God either through our successes or our failures.
4.	Our reciprocal love is a response to what God did for us in eternity past. The emphasis is on God’s initial love for us which by means of omniscience knew all about us before He created us.
5.	Knowing of our spiritual depravity, God’s love provided salvation based on faith alone in Christ alone. 
6.	Knowing of our failures as believers God’s love also provided rebound as the only way to recover the unique spiritual life.
7.	God’s love in eternity past provided the basis for our reciprocal love for Him in time as we have just noted in 1 John 4:19.
8.	Knowledge of doctrine and reciprocal love motivation advance together and merge at pl»rwma / pleroma / resulting in occupation with Christ.
1 John 4:20 -	If someone should allege, "I love God," and yet he hates his fellow believer, he is a liar.  For if he does not love [ unconditionally ] his fellow believer whom he has seen, he is not able to love God [ with reciprocity ], whom he has not seen.
v 21 -		Furthermore, we have this mandate from Him that he who loves God [ personally ] should also love his fellow believer [ unconditionally ].
1 John 5:1 -	Everyone who believes [ pisteÚw / pisteuo /: faith alone in Christ alone ] that Jesus is the Christ [ CristÒj / Christos /: Greek for the Hebrew jyvm / ma-SHE-yak / or Messiah and means the Anointed One ] has been born from God [ salvation by grace through faith ]. Furthermore, everyone who loves the Father [ reciprocal love for God ] loves everyone [ unconditional love ] who has been born from Him. 
v 2 -	By this we know [ left column ™p…gnwsij / epignosis / ] that we keep loving the children of God [ unconditionally ] when we simultaneously love God [ reciprocally ] and keep His mandates [ simultaneous advance of the double columns ].
v 3 -	For this is the love for God: that we might continue executing His mandates [ sophisticated spiritual life following the merger of the two columns at a personal sense of destiny ].
10.	These passages introduce us to the tandem concept of the two virtue-love problem-solving devices: Personal Love for God and Unconditional Love for Mankind.  We will now turn our attention to Personal Love for God, its origin and its application.  And we will approach this from one of the verses we have just noted:
1 John 4:19 -	We love [ reciprocally ] because He first loved us [ eternally ].

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