WEEKLY SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON
An international Sunday school lesson commentary
For Sunday March 5, 2017
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PERFECT LOVE
(Loving one another)
(1 John 4:7-21)
Since
perfect love originates with GOD in the Christian sense, a person who loves his
fellowman is one who is born of GOD, and, in a discerning way, “knows” GOD (“oida”
in the Greek – “to know inherently or intuitively”). Therefore, in contrast,
the absence of love can be viewed as evidence that a person does not know GOD.
And although all mankind shares “GOD’s nature” that is given to us at birth, by
the time we reach an age of accountability, we have, through parental
misguidance and being a product of our environment, been alienated from those “communicable
attributes”, and we, as a result, have to be “born again”, in order to retrieve
them.
In 1 John 4:7-21, the apostle and author of
GOD, John, elevates the topic of love to yet another level. Here John shows the
divine and inseparable link between “GOD” and “love”. GOD showed how much HE
loves us by sending HIS only begotten SON into the “human realm” so that we the
people might have eternal life through HIM (v.9). HE did not send HIM because
we were lovable, but rather, HE sent HIM because HIS love for us required that
HE rescue us from ourselves.
Such an action
from GOD provides the defining standard for love as we know it, and thus, we as
Christians are responsible to love each other because we enjoy the privilege of
GOD’s largesse. Not only is GOD the source of love, HE is love itself, by HIS
very nature. GOD is love, and anyone who doesn’t love his fellowman doesn’t
know GOD.
Christians who
say they love all mankind, and indeed, really do have the love of GOD in their
hearts, cannot stand idly by and watch while any other groups of people,
different than themselves, are being treated unjustly, or, are being oppressed
in any way, without coming to their defense in the name of JESUS. The love of
CHRIST must be expressed fully by us, and exemplified through us, in our
actions (v.12).
In the New
Testament Greek, the word used for “abide” is “meno”, and it means “to stay in
a given place, state, relationship, or expectancy”. If we abide in our
relationship with GOD, our love will grow more perfect. And when our history
judges us, we won’t be afraid to come before GOD. We can face HIM confidently,
because our history will show that we tried to live like CHRIST here on earth
(v.17). Learning to show and express the “divine love” of CHRIST will dispel
all fear of the coming judgment, which “true Christians” will not have to face.
Because GOD is
love, and CHRIST’ new commandment is love, it only stands to reason that love
will inevitably bring us closer to each other, and, at one and the same time,
closer to GOD. It is only by love that we ever come to know GOD, and it is only
by GOD, that we ever come to know love.
“The Christian
Hope” has, throughout the history of the Church, served as motivation to make
life on earth conform more fully, with the Word and ways of GOD, just as they
were presented to us by JESUS CHRIST, during HIS life here on earth. The very
foundation of that Christian hope, rest on “faith” in CHRIST JESUS, WHO
delivered us into salvation.
The
only commandment that JESUS ever gave us was to “love one another”, and so we
see why it is said that “faith”, “hope”, and “love” are “the three great
enduring things” (1 Corinthians 13:13), and of those three things, “love” is
the greatest, because “GOD is love”.
All that we know
now is partial and incomplete, because, until we finish this Christian race, we
will remain “children” in the purest sense of the word, and in the true sense
of what knowledge really is. We are incapable right now, of handling the
Heavenly knowledge that GOD will one day impart to those who abide in HIM to
the end. But we do know now that if we don’t have love for those brothers and
sisters that we now see all around us, we will never be able to love GOD, WHOM
we cannot physically see at all. We must rely on our “faith” to maintain “hope”
as motivation to endure this earthly journey until we are ushered into GOD’s
OWN glorious presence by CHRIST JESUS.
And finally, in
the biblical Greek, the word used for “confidence” is “parrhesia”
(par-rhay-see-ah), and it is “a sense of sureness that is exemplified in both
spirit and demeanor”. GOD HIMSELF has commanded that we love not only HIM, but
also, our Christian brothers and sisters. And when we honor and obey that
command, we can be confident that, when we stand before the LORD, our
conscience will be clear, and we will be able to face HIM without fear, guilt,
or shame.
A Sunday school lesson by,
Larry D. Alexander
LARRY D. ALEXANDER- Official
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