Part 299

4:7. Dearly beloved, let us love one another: for charity is of God. And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God.

4:8. He that loveth not knoweth not God: for God is charity.

4:9. By this hath the charity of God appeared towards us, because God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by him.

4:10. In this is charity: not as though we had loved God, but because he hath first loved us, and sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins.

4:11. My dearest, if God hath so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

4:12. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abideth in us: and his charity is perfected in us.

4:13. In this we know that we abide in him, and he in us: because he hath given us of his spirit.

4:14. And we have seen and do testify that the Father hath sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world.

4:15. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abideth in him, and he in God.

4:16. And we have known and have believed the charity which God hath to us. God is charity: and he that abideth in charity abideth in God, and God in him.

4:17. In this is the charity of God perfected with us, that we may have confidence in the day of judgment: because as he is, we also are in this world.

4:18. Fear is not in charity: but perfect charity casteth out fear, because fear hath sin. And he that feareth is not perfected in charity.

Fear is not in charity, etc. . .Perfect charity, or love, banisheth human fear, that is, the fear of men; as also all perplexing fear, which makes men mistrust or despair of God's mercy; and that kind of servile fear, which makes them fear the punishment of sin more than the offence offered to God. But it no way excludes the wholesome fear of God's judgments, so often recomended in holy writ; nor that fear and trembling, with which we are told to work out our salvation. Phil. 2.12.

4:19. Let us therefore love God: because God first hath loved us.

4:20. If any man say: I love God, and hateth his brother; he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother whom he seeth, how can he love God whom he seeth not?

4:21. And this commandment we have from God, that he who loveth God love also his brother.

1 John Chapter 5

Of them that are born of God, and of true charity. Faith overcomes the world. Three that bear witness to Christ. Of faith in his name and of sin that is and is not to death.

5:1. Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God. And every one that loveth him who begot, loveth him also who is born of him.

Is born of God. . .That is, is justified, and become a child of God by baptism: which is also to be understood; provided the belief of this fundamental article of the Christian faith be accompanied with all the other conditions, which, by the word of God, and his appointment, are also required to justification; such as a general belief of all that God has revealed and promised: hope, love, repentance, and a sincere disposition to keep God's holy law and commandments.

5:2. In this we know that we love the children of God: when we love God and keep his commandments.

5:3. For this is the charity of God: That we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not heavy.

5:4. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world. And this is the victory which overcameth the world: Our faith.

Our faith. . .Not a bare, speculative, or dead faith; but a faith that worketh by charity. Gal. 5.6

5:5. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?

5:6. This is he that came by water and blood, Jesus Christ: not by water only but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit which testifieth that Christ is the truth.

Came by water and blood. . .Not only to wash away our sins by the water of baptism, but by his own blood.

5:7. And there are Three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost. And these three are one.