1 John 4:10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. I. JOHN WOULD HAVE US MAGNIFY THE LOVE OF GOD BY THE DEMERIT OF ITS OBJECTS. God had thoughts of love towards us before man had existence. "We rejoice in hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie hath given us before the world began." Then view man as created. "God made man upright, but he sought out many inventions." Sin soon entered our "world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." The apostle, speaking of the heathen nations, says, "When they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful," etc. So when God looked down upon the children of men, to see if there were any that sought after God, He says, "They are all gone out of the way, there is none that doeth good, no, not one." Do you ask, "Were not the Jews an exception here? for to them were committed the oracles of God." God planted them in His vineyard, and fenced it in, and gave it every kind of culture, so that He said, "What more could have been done than I have done to My vineyard?" Yet what was His testimony? "When I looked that it should bring forth grapes, wherefore brought it forth wild grapes?" We pass from the prediction, and read the history of the transgression. "He was in the world, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not." What must have been the condition of man, not to love the perfection of holiness, the source of excellence, the fountain of life, the supreme good? What must have been the perversity of his mind which should induce Him to regard God as an invader, and to say, "Depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of Thy ways"? Now the carnal mind is enmity against God; there is no neutrality here. "He that is not with Me," says the Saviour, "is against Me; and he that gathereth not with Me, scattereth abroad." We are alienated in our minds by wicked works. II. THE EXCLUSIVENESS OF THE EXERCISE. (W. Jay, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. |
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