In this thoughtful episode of Through the Bible, we dive deeply into the teachings of 1 John 4, contemplating the profound truth that ‘God is love.’ Dr. J. Vernon McGee brings us a comprehensive understanding of divine love, distinctly different from worldly interpretations. By comparing love as seen in human relationships with agape love, listeners are drawn into a renewed appreciation of God’s selfless nature. Whether you’ve joined the Bible bus before or are tuning in for the first time, you’re invited to explore what it means to walk in love as a believer. The discussion underscores the dangers
The foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith.
SPEAKER 02 :
It’s a good day to study the Word of God. I’m Steve Schwetz, welcoming you to Through the Bible. We’re in the book of 1 John in our five-year journey through the whole Word of God. Our teacher, well, of course, that’s Dr. J. Vernon McGee, and he gives us a big-picture look at our purpose in opening God’s Word together. So let’s do that. Open our Bibles to 1 John 4, and while we do, here’s Dr. McGee.
SPEAKER 01 :
We are attempting not only to lead the unsaved to Christ, but to lead those that are, shall we say, cold and indifferent Christians into a closer walk with the Lord Jesus and to bring them to the Word of God, for that’s the only way that you can mature as a Christian. There’s no course you can take. There is no sort of gymnastics, mental gymnastics, you can go through that will make you a pure and spiritual Christian. It’s only as you come to the Word of God. And I want to recommend to you that if you’re not with us today and going through the Bible, send in and get the notes and outlines and join us in going through the Bible and then begin to read the Word of God.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, consider that your personal invitation from Dr. McGee to hop aboard the Bible bus as we travel through one book at a time. Now, as Dr. McGee offered, go deeper in your study of God’s Word with his free notes and outlines. They’re available in our app or at ttb.org. Look for our resource, Briefing the Bible, which is a compilation of the notes and outlines for the whole Bible. You can also call 1-800-65BIBLE or write to us at Box 7100, Pasadena, California, 91109. Or in Canada, Box 25325, London, Ontario, N6C, 6B1. And we’ll send you an abbreviated paperback version by mail. That’s also the address, by the way, to send us a quick note, and you know we love to receive those. Letters like this one from Casey in Michigan. Dr. McGee’s teaching from Hebrews 11 verses 35 to 40 is one of my favorites. I remember first listening to this over a year ago when I decided to wander through all his teachings on the book of Hebrews. I had been asking these questions to myself for a very long time. What about the others? the others that didn’t get the miracle, the others that weren’t healed, or the others whose child’s life was not spared. I finally asked God these questions. That’s when I heard this teaching from Dr. McGee. I then read his booklet, Why Do God’s Children Suffer? Dr. McGee is the only teacher I have heard discuss this subject. Many would not dare to bring it up. I was really touched this morning listening to this teaching again. God bless all the faithful who are suffering. I do think of them often, and I know God is with them. Well, he certainly is. Thank you for writing, Casey. Now let’s commit this time to the Lord. Father, thank you for your spirit that leads us into your truth. Open our eyes so that we can see the wonders of your word. In Jesus’ name, amen. Let’s open to 1 John 4 as Dr. J. Vernon McGee takes us through the Bible.
SPEAKER 01 :
Now, friends, we return back to this very important section in 1 John, the fourth chapter. Now, we are in this particular area that is called God is love. We have three great definitions of God in this wonderful little book. God is light, and that was in the first chapter down through the second verse of the second chapter. Now, the very heart of this epistle is God is love, and that began with the third verse of the second chapter, and it goes through chapter 4, and then chapter 5 that we’ll be coming to shortly is God is life. And so these are the three great definitions that are given of God, and they constitute the division of this very marvelous book. Now, beginning with chapter 4, we have what some have called a parenthesis. Maybe it’s not quite that, but it is certainly parenthesis. a red light that is put up, a caution sign, a stop-looking-listen sign that this matter of love must be done with judgment and knowledge. and that we are to love believers, but we better be sure that the believers are not false teachers, and that, as he’s made it very clear, we are to prove the spirits, and that there are false prophets that are around that are teaching false things. And in John’s day, of course, there was the Docetic and Sorinthian Gnostics. And they denied, actually, the humanity of Christ. And in so doing, they actually denied the deity of Christ also. And they made him a very strange, weird individual. Now, God’s people, for some strange reason, have always been credulous and gullible. And there are many believers that will fall victims, as Dr. A.T. Robertson, the great Greek scholar, years ago put it, the latest fads in spiritualistic humbuggery. Well, there’s a lot of that going around in our day. And he spends that time to give us that warning to beware. And a false teacher will deny the incarnation of Christ. Don’t tell me the virgin birth is not important. Somebody says, can you be a Christian and deny the virgin birth? You cannot. That’s impossible. Because the very mark of a false prophet or a false teacher is at that very point. And when you destroy the virgin birth, you destroy his death for sins of the world upon the cross. and his bodily resurrection. In other words, you wreck the Christian faith. And that is the reason that the virgin birth has been the place where there’s been so much of denial in our day. And that, of course, reveals a false teacher immediately. And then the child of God is given the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of God is to lead into guidance. Now, beginning at verse 7, he comes back to talk to his little children again about this great subject of love. Now, we went over part of this, but it’ll be good for us to have a good, healthy review today at verse 7. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. Now, all through here, the word love is the agape love. Agape love is the highest form of love, and it’s above sex, and it’s above human relationships. That is, you can love your wife or your mother or your father or your children or your kissing cousins, as we said, but that is not really what John’s talking about. He’s talking about that which is supernatural. It’s not sentimental, and it’s not sexual, and it’s not social. That is, it’s not love of the friends that you delight in being with. It has to do with the kind of love that God loves. And this is a verse that I’m afraid that some of us have misused. Now, maybe you haven’t. But when I was a student in college, I used this verse in courting a girl at that time. And I gave her verse 7. Beloved, let us love one another. For love is of God. But the kind of love I was talking about, friends, wasn’t the kind that John was talking about. I can assure you that. And I sure did misinterpret that. And I must confess, I didn’t have a very lofty purpose at that particular time. So that… This can be misused. Beloved, let us love one another. That is believers. And I want to say this is the acid test. This is the very thing that tests whether you have a real genuine coin or not. That’s the way coins are tested. And here’s the way believers test. are tested. And it’s something, by the way, that we need to, I think, emphasize today, that we are to prove the spirits. And therefore, we are to love the brethren. Beloved, let us love one another, that is, believers. For love is of God, and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. Now, that is approaching it from the human side. When you meet a person who says he’s a believer and you find out he loves you and loves the brethren, he’s a born-again child of God. I am so thrilled here in this radio ministry. I think people say things in letters to us that they probably would not understand. say to us personally. But we get many letters where people say, Dr. McGee, I love you. Well, I want to tell you I like that because of the fact that they tell me why, that we’ve been listening to you. A family wrote me and they said you brought our two children to the Lord. Well, that to me is an evidence that these are real born-again children of God that are writing to us. And then he says, “…he that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love.” Now, that’s going to occur again in verse 16, that God is love. And twice that is given here. And Dr. Ironside has a very remarkable story here relative to this. And I’m going to pass on to you his story because I think it reveals in a very wonderful way that only Christianity reveals a God of love. Look at the images of the heathen and the pagan world today. And here is Dr. Ironside’s story. He said years ago a lady who prided herself on belonging to the intelligentsia said to me, I have no use for the Bible or for Christian superstition and religious dogma. It’s enough for me to know that God is love. Well, I said, do you know it? She says, why, of course I do. She said, we all know that. And that is religion enough for me. I do not need the dogmas of the Bible. And then Dr. Ironside said, how did you find out that God is love? Why, she said, everybody knows that. And then he answered her again. He says, do they know it yonder in India? That poor mother in her distress, throwing her little babe into the holy Ganges to be eaten by filthy and repulsive crocodiles as a sacrifice for her sins. Does she know that God is love? And then this woman came back and said, oh, well, she’s ignorant and superstitious. And then he came back with this. He says, those poor wretched blacks in the jungles of Africa bowing down to gods of wood and stone and in constant fear of their fetishes and the poor heathen in other countries, do they know that God is love? And then she said, perhaps not, but in a civilized land, we all know it. But then he asked the question, but how is it that we know it? Who told us so? Where did you find it out? And she said, I don’t understand what you mean, for I’ve always known it. And then he gave her this. Let me tell you this, he said, no one in the world ever knew it until it was revealed from heaven and recorded in the Word of God. It’s here and nowhere else. It’s not found in all the literature of the ancients. Now, how was this love of God manifested here? How was it revealed here? And then he gives us that. He says, “…in this was manifested the love of God toward us.” that God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him. Now, when he says only begotten Son, and here is another verse where those who like to rob us of the deity of Christ like to turn to. When he’s called the only begotten Son, it means that there is a unique relationship, that he wasn’t created. Because God called the angels actually his sons. He says those that trust Christ, they are sons of God. But yet he says that the Lord Jesus is the only begotten son. And did you know that God said the same thing to Abraham, that he was to offer his only begotten son Isaac? Well, at that time he had Ishmael. Later on he had some others. But Ishmael was his son, and just as much his son as Isaac was his son. And the fact of the matter is, he probably looked as much like Abraham as Isaac ever did look like Abraham. But Isaac is called the only begotten. Why? Because he is unique. His birth is miraculous birth. He stands in a unique relationship. And therefore, the Lord Jesus Christ In his position in the deity is the Son, as God the Father is the Father. But that doesn’t mean he’s a human father. God is the Spirit, the Lord Jesus said. Now, may I say to you, this sets before us the uniqueness of the Son of God, his only begotten Son, into the world that we might live through him. Now, this is a strange thing, but how are we going to live through him? We’re going to live through him because he died. His death gives us life. Now, will you notice he goes on to say this in verse 10. Herein is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us. and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Now, we’ve had that up before. We had that back in chapter 2 at the beginning. He’s the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world. Now, what you have here… is something I think quite remarkable. Now, I recognize that there are two different words that are used for propitiation. I should say this. It’s the same word, but a different form of it. The greatest, I think, Greek scholar of all of them, Dr. A.T. Robison at Louisville Baptist Seminary years ago, says that Here, the word propitiation is a predictive, accusative in apposition with weos, that is, the Son. So that what the word means, actually, mercy seat. And in the Old Testament, it was the word atonement, and that word meant to cover. And it was a picture of that mercy seat that was in the tabernacle. Now, let me make it as simple as we possibly can. Back in the tabernacle, in the Holy of Holies, there was an ark. And on top of that ark, there was just a top for it. And it was highly ornamented. It was made of solid gold. And two cherry beams were up on it. And they looked down at the top of the box. And it was a very beautiful thing, for the ark was made of acacia wood, inlaid with gold and outside covered with gold. And it was a mercy seat where they met God, that is, the nation, in the person of the high priest. Once a year, and only once a year, he came in and he brought blood and sprinkled it on the mercy seat. And that’s what made it a mercy seat, because they could only meet God in that way. God loved them, but he just didn’t slop over with love and said, you can just come any way. This was the way they were to come to God. And on that great day of atonement, The high priest went in and sprinkled the blood. That meant the nation was accepted for another year. And then they’d have to go through it again. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ is called here, as Paul says in the third chapter of Romans, that he is the propitiation for our sins. That means he’s the mercy seat for our sins. Jesus is himself the mercy seat because he died down here. He was delivered for our offenses. He was raised for our justification. He’s made expiation for our sins so that you and I can come with boldness to his throne now of grace. That throne is the throne of grace because there is mercy there for us. And that is what he did. And that’s the way God, of course, demonstrated his love. Now, if you’ll notice that the two definitions we’re given here of God, it says God is love in 1 John 4, 8, and then 1 John 4, 16. God is love. All right? That’s a very wonderful thing. But do you notice that you can’t say God is mercy and you can’t say God is grace? And you can’t even say God is justice. You can say God is holy because that’s what God is light means. But you can’t say these, but you can say God is love. But again, I must say this, God does not save us by love. He loved us, and we don’t want to lose sight of that. But friends, God just cannot open the back door of heaven and slip us in under cover of darkness because he loves us. And God cannot let down the bars of heaven and bring us in the front door. God cannot do that. And God will not do that. We have seen so much of shenanigans that have gone on in this nation of ours today. And of course, the judges and the ones that are higher up today have gotten rid or wanted to get rid of capital punishment. Why? Because they know that if a man has money or an influence today, that he will not have his life taken. It is the poor fellow. The tragic thing is that we believe today that you can buy justice and influence today. My friend, with God, and though God loves you, he does not save you by love, and he cannot save you by love. God had to do something about the fact that God is holy and righteous and what He does is right. So God gave His Son to die on the cross for you and me to pay the penalty for our sins so that a holy God can now reach down and save us. And it’s only on that basis today that a holy God can save us, friends. He cannot save us on any other basis at all. So Christ is the mercy seeker. Now, that’s where God reveals His love. He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Therefore, He can say that herein is love. Not that we love God. We didn’t love Him first. God didn’t do this for us because we were attractive. or because we were good, or because we promised to do something. God did this while we were yet sinners. Christ died for us. That is the thing that is so important today, to recognize that you and I are sinners, and God loved us while we were yet sinners. Christ died for us. God did it at that time, and God loved us at that time. But he’s made a way for us if we will accept it, and he’s made it very clear you’ll have to accept it. Jesus said, I’m the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me. You either come his way or you don’t come, friends. It’s nonsense today to talk about the fact that God is love and everything’s going to work out all right. You bet it’s going to work all right, because the lost are going to a lost eternity, and the saved are going to a saved eternity. That’s the reason things are going to work out all right. And are they going to work out all right for you? They will if you come God’s way. This is tremendously important. Now, he says here in verse 11, Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. Now, God’s demonstrated his love. And therefore, you and I ought to love on that plane. He puts in, Beloved, if God so loved us. It carries our minds back here in His love that God gave His Son for us. He loved us enough to give His Son as a propitiation for our sins. Now, if we love them which love us, or there’s some motive for us loving, there’s no value in that. The Lord Jesus said, “…if ye love them which love you, what reward have you? Do not even the publicans the same?” Now, we ought to love one another. And I like that in there because when he says ought, he means it. He means that this is not a cheap sentiment that a great many people entertain today. But he said, if you love me, keep my commandment. Now, if you really love him, he says, keep his commandments. And this is my commandment, he says, that you love one another. How about it, friend? You mean to tell me that you can hate Christians down here and still love God? And I want to say this to you very frankly today. If you cannot demonstrate in your life that you have love for other believers, There’s a serious question of whether you are a child of God or not. A serious question of whether you actually are a child of God. There’s a lot of nonsense going on today. And it’s not back-slapping that we’re talking about or calling somebody brother and in the church being so nice. But do you have a concern for believers? Do you have a concern today to get out his word? Do you have a concern to serve him? That’s the thing that is important. The Lord Jesus could even say on the cross, Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they do. And the first martyr of the church said the same thing. Stephen said, can you forgive like that today? Are you able to forgive those that have hurt you and harmed you, and they profess to be children of God? Well, I want to tell you, if they can’t return your love, there’s some question about whether they’re a child of God or not. That is the real test. That’s the acid test. And this hurts, doesn’t it? Because we don’t hear this in these little seminars, these little group meetings where we talk about how to live the Christian life and how to get along with your wife. My friend, here’s the bedrock of all of it. Do you love him? Then do you love other believers? Until next time, may God richly bless you, my beloved.
SPEAKER 02 :
We can’t love others in our own strength. It takes the love of God poured out in our hearts, as Romans 5.5 says, to love each other God’s way. Visit ttb.org for more resources on sharing God’s love through His Word. If you’re looking for something specific, call 1-800-65-BIBLE. That’s 1-800-65-BIBLE, or you can go to ttb.org. Thanks for getting aboard the Bible bus today. Until next time, God bless you as you walk with Him.
SPEAKER 03 :
Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. Sin had left the prison safe, he washed it white as snow.
SPEAKER 02 :
Through the Bible exists to take God’s whole word to the whole world. And we invite you to stand with us with your faithful prayer and financial support. Where will God’s word go today?
