I John 4:10
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And love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
Herein is love--love in the abstract: love, in its highest ideal, is herein. The love was all on God's side, none on ours. not that we loved God--though so altogether worthy of love. he loved us--though so altogether unworthy of love. The Greek aorist expresses, Not that we did any act of love at any time to God, but that He did the act of love to us in sending Christ.
Open source ↗In this chapter the apostle exhorts to try spirits (Jo1 4:1), gives a note to try by (Jo1 4:2, Jo1 4:3), shows who are of the world and who of God (Jo1 4:4-6), urges Christian love by divers considerations (Jo1 4:7-16), describes our love to God, and the effect of it (Jo1 4:17-21).
Open source ↗Cross-references
Other passages the community most often connects to this one. Tap to read.
We love because He first loved us.
He Himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
You did not choose Me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will remain—so that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you.
For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Behold what manner of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.
For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit,
He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. “By His stripes you are healed.”
Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and your holy city to stop their transgression, to put an end to sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy Place.