“Who can ever measure the love of God shown to us in the Lord Jesus Christ?”
The Apostle John answers that question not with a philosophical definition, but with a Spirit-breathed confession:
“We love because he first loved us.”
(1 John 4:19, ESV)
In 1 John 4:15, 19, we stand at the blazing center of the Apostle’s theology of love. Here, John gathers Christology, soteriology, and assurance of salvation and binds them with a single thread: the prior, sovereign, self-giving love of God manifest in the Lord Jesus Christ. Charles Spurgeon felt the power of this text so profoundly that he could make it the foundation of an entire sermon on Christian love, insisting that all true love to God is generated and sustained by God’s own prior love. John himself goes further still, showing not only that love originates in God but that it perfects believers, drives away servile fear, and produces boldness for the day of judgment.
This blog post will linger over 1 John 4:15-19, especially verse 19, and ask how the original Greek language deepens our understanding of the immeasurable love of God in Christ. We will move through the text in context, examine key terms and phrases, and then reflect on the spiritual and pastoral implications for believers who long to rest in God’s love and respond to it with holiness.
The Context of 1 John 4: love, truth, and assurance
1 John is a pastoral letter written to communities threatened by false teaching and shaken consciences. John writes so that believers “may know that [they] have eternal life” (1 John 5:13, ESV). Throughout the letter, he repeatedly sets out three interlocking “tests” of genuine Christian life:
The doctrinal test: confessing Jesus Christ as the incarnate Son of God.
The moral test: walking in righteousness rather than in darkness.
The social test: loving the brothers and sisters in the Church.
In 1 John 4, these three tests converge around the theme of love. Verses 1–6 insist that believers must “test the spirits,” particularly by their confession of Jesus Christ “come in the flesh” (1 John 4:2). Verses 7–14 call believers to love one another because love is “from God,” and climaxes with the affirmation, “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16). Verses 15–21 then show that this divine love produces fearless confidence in the day of judgment and manifests itself in concrete love for fellow believers.
Our text belongs to this final movement:
“Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.
So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
We love because he first loved us.”
(1 John 4:15–19, ESV)
These verses trace a movement from confession to communion, then from communion to perfection in love, from perfection in love to fearless confidence, and finally from fearless confidence to the foundational axiom. Everything begins with God’s prior love.
Confession and Communion
Verse 15 reads:
“Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.”
(1 John 4:15, ESV)
“Confesses”: ὁμολογήσῃ (homologēsē)
The verb translated “confesses” is ὁμολογήσῃ, from ὁμολογέω (homologeō). Literally, it means “to say the same thing,” hence “to agree,” “to acknowledge,” “to confess.” In Johannine theology this is not a mere inward opinion, but a public, covenantal acknowledgment. It carries the sense of loyal confession, a kind of verbal allegiance to the truth about Jesus.
The content of this confession is sharply defined: “that Jesus is the Son of God.” In the Johannine writings, “Son of God” (υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ, huios tou theou) is not a generic title of honor. It signifies unique divine sonship, rooted in eternal relationship with the Father and manifested in the incarnation. To confess that “Jesus is the Son of God” is to affirm that the historical Jesus, the crucified and risen Lord, is the pre-existent Son who was “with the Father and was made manifest” (1 John 1:2, ESV).
This is crucial because in the background of 1 John stand teachers who likely denied the full reality of the incarnation, perhaps distinguishing between the “Christ” and the man Jesus. John refuses any such separation. The crucified Jesus is the eternal Son. To confess this is to align oneself with the apostolic Gospel.
“God abides in him, and he in God”: μένειν (menein) and mutual indwelling
The result of this confession is expressed with John’s favorite verb: μένω (menō), “to abide,” “to remain,” “to stay.” The phrase “God abides in him, and he in God” uses a reciprocal structure: both God in the believer and the believer in God. This double indwelling evokes union and communion rather than mere external relationship.
In Johannine theology, abiding is covenantal and relational. Jesus in the Gospel of John declares, “Abide in me, and I in you” (John 15:4, ESV). The vine-and-branches metaphor expresses the same mutual indwelling we find here. To abide in God is to live in responsive dependence, trust, and obedience. To have God abide in us is to be indwelt by his Spirit (compare 1 John 4:13).
The structure is:
Confession of Jesus as the Son of God
leads to
mutual indwelling of God and the believer.
This is already a clue that divine love is not simply external benevolence but a union-creating reality, drawing human beings into communion with the triune God.
Confession and love
John does not allow us to separate confession from love. Verse 15 flows directly into verse 16:
“So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.”
(1 John 4:16a, ESV)
The Greek uses the perfect tense in “we have come to know” (ἐγνώκαμεν, egnōkamen) and “we have believed” (πεπιστεύκαμεν, pepisteukamen), suggesting a past action with continuing results. Through the confession of Jesus as the Son of God, believers have entered into a settled knowledge and trust of the love that God “has” (ἔχει, echei) for them. This love is not a mood but a stable disposition rooted in God’s own being.
Hence John’s famous affirmation:
“God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”
(1 John 4:16b, ESV)
Again, the verb μένω structures the relationship: to “abide in love” is to “abide in God,” because “God is love.” The predicate phrase “God is love” (ὁ θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν, ho theos agapē estin) does not mean that love is God, as though “love” were a vague principle. Instead, it means that love is essential to God’s nature and that the love in view is defined by God’s saving action in Christ (see 1 John 4:9-10).
In other words, the immeasurable love of God is not an abstract quality. It is the personal, self-giving love of the Father who sends the Son as “the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10, ESV), and the indwelling love of the Spirit who makes this love known in our hearts (compare Romans 5:5).
Perfect Love and Fearless Confidence
Verses 17–18 unfold the transformative power of this divine love:
“By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”
(1 John 4:17–18, ESV)
“Love perfected”: τετελείωται ἡ ἀγάπη (teteleiōtai hē agapē)
The phrase “love perfected” uses the perfect passive of τελειόω (teleioō), “to bring to completion,” “to make perfect,” “to reach its intended goal.” The phrase literally reads, “In this, love has been perfected with us” (ἐν τούτῳ τετελείωται ἡ ἀγάπη μεθ’ ἡμῶν).
Two observations are crucial.
First, the subject of perfection is “love,” not primarily our subjective affection. The text does not say that our emotional intensity has reached a flawless degree. Rather, the love that originates in God has reached its telos in its effect on and in believers. It has run its redemptive course.
Second, the phrase “with us” (μεθ’ ἡμῶν, meth’ hēmōn) indicates that the perfection of love takes place in the relationship between God and believers. Divine love is perfected not in isolation but in the community of the redeemed, who receive it, are transformed by it, and manifest it in love for one another.
“Confidence for the day of judgment”: παρρησία (parrēsia)
The goal of perfected love is “that we may have confidence for the day of judgment.” The noun translated “confidence” is παρρησία (parrēsia), a word that combines the ideas of freedom of speech and fearless openness. It appears earlier in 1 John: “And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming” (1 John 2:28, ESV).
Here, parrēsia is eschatological. It describes the boldness of believers who, on the last day, stand before the judgment seat of Christ without shrinking back in terror. Such confidence would be impossible if salvation were precarious or if divine love were contingent on fluctuating human performance. But John grounds this confidence in two realities: the believer’s participation in Christ and the expulsive power of perfected love.
“Because as he is so also are we in this world”
The phrase “because as he is so also are we in this world” (ὅτι καθὼς ἐκεῖνός ἐστιν καὶ ἡμεῖς ἐσμεν ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ τούτῳ) is striking. “He” (ἐκεῖνος, ekeinos) almost certainly refers to Christ. The present tense “is” suggests his exalted status now, not merely his historical life. The astonishing claim is that believers, “in this world,” share a correspondence with Christ as he now is.
This correspondence is not ontological equality but representational likeness. Believers are united to Christ, justified in him, indwelt by his Spirit, and so stand before the Father clothed in the righteousness of the Son. As Paul wrote, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1, ESV). John gives the same reality a different expression: as Christ is now accepted, beloved, and vindicated before the Father, so believers, in their union with him, share that acceptance even while still in this world.
Hence the immeasurable love of God has an eschatological dimension. It does not merely forgive; it grants believers a share in the Son’s own standing before the Father. This is one reason that Spurgeon could insist that the Gospel, though it begins with free pardon to the worst of sinners, aims at “the noblest heights of virtue” and “ultimate perfection in holiness.” The love that begins in sheer mercy terminates in communion with the glorified Christ.
“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear”: ὁ φόβος, ἔξω βάλλει (ho phobos, exō ballei)
Verse 18 presses the argument further:
“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”
(1 John 4:18, ESV)
The term “fear” is φόβος (phobos). John is not denying the legitimacy of reverent awe before God, which Scripture elsewhere commends. Rather, he specifies that the fear in view is fear “of punishment” (κόλασις, kolasis). Kolasis is a judicial term, referring to penal suffering or retributive punishment.
“Perfect love casts out fear” uses the present tense “casts out” (ἔξω βάλλει, exō ballei). The verb “to throw out” evokes an expulsive action. As divine love is perfected in the believer, the servile fear of judgment is driven out. Love dislodges fear because it discloses the judicial situation of the believer: punishment has already been borne by Christ the propitiation (1 John 4:10), and therefore “there is no fear in love.”
This does not produce moral license. Rather, it liberates believers from the paralyzing terror that makes obedience grudging and joyless. Fear and love cannot occupy the same central place in the heart. When the Spirit pours out the love of God in believers, fear loses its dominion. As John concludes, “whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” Persistent servile fear signals a failure to grasp fully the depth and stability of divine love in Christ.
In pastoral terms, this means that the cure for a terrified conscience is not to minimize the reality of judgment, but to deepen the believer’s apprehension of God’s prior, propitiatory, covenantal love. The question is therefore not whether one can ever measure God’s love, but whether one has truly begun to perceive its breadth and length and height and depth (compare Ephesians 3:18–19).
The Primal Initiative of Divine Love
The culmination of John’s argument arrives in verse 19:
“We love because he first loved us.”
(1 John 4:19, ESV)
A textual note: “We love” or “We love him”
Some manuscripts read “We love him” (ἀγαπῶμεν αὐτόν, agapōmen auton), others simply “We love” (ἀγαπῶμεν, agapōmen). The ESV follows the latter. In either case, the theological point is similar, because in Johannine thought, love for God and love for the brothers and sisters are inseparable (see 1 John 4:20-21). Love for God that does not manifest itself in love for others is false; love for others that is not rooted in love for God is incomplete.
The simple “We love” is inclusive. It affirms that the entire sphere of Christian love - upward toward God and outward toward neighbor - has one and the same source: God’s prior love.
“Because he first loved us”: ὅτι αὐτὸς πρῶτος ἠγάπησεν ἡμᾶς
The causal clause is the theological engine of the passage. “Because” (ὅτι, hoti) introduces the ground, not merely the occasion, of our love. The subject “he” (αὐτός, autos) is emphatic: “He himself” is the one who loved. The adverb “first” is πρῶτος (prōtos), indicating priority in time and in initiative. The verb “loved” is aorist (ἠγάπησεν, ēgapēsen), pointing to a decisive event: the manifestation of God’s love in the sending and sacrifice of his Son (1 John 4:9–10).
Theologically, the sentence excludes the idea that human love for God can be self-generated. Love for God is not the natural upward movement of a neutral human will. Rather, it is the responsive echo of a prior divine act. As John has already said, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us” (1 John 4:10, ESV). The priority belongs wholly to God.
This is precisely the point that Spurgeon pressed in his famous sermon. He insisted that if one asks a genuine Christian, “Why do you love God?” the answer will be, in one form or another, “Because he first loved me.” Philosophers may admire the works of God, and poets may be stirred by nature, but, as he argued, admiration is not the same as redemptive love. Saving love is born at the foot of the cross, where the believer sees the Son of God bleeding for sinners.
Love’s “parentage” and “nourishment”
Spurgeon famously described divine love as the “parent” of our love. John’s text supports that metaphor. God’s prior love generates ours. God is the original subject of ἀγάπη; believers are derivative subjects, drawn into the circle of divine life.
Moreover, the same divine love that begets our love also nourishes it. John says, “we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us” (1 John 4:16, ESV). Knowledge and faith are ongoing. The believer continually feeds upon the revelation of God’s love in Christ. When love in the believer grows cold, the remedy is not introspective effort but renewed contemplation of the cross and of the eternal counsel of God in election and redemption.
Spurgeon captured this truth when he reflected that love was “born” in Gethsemane and “nurtured” at Calvary. John himself anchors divine love precisely in those events: “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world” and “to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:9–10, ESV). The cross is the definitive manifestation of immeasurable love. Every increase in our love is ultimately an increase in our apprehension of that same cross.
The immeasurability of divine love
The question, “Who can ever measure the love of God shown to us in the Lord Jesus Christ?” is, in one sense, rhetorical. Paul prays that believers may “have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge” (Ephesians 3:18–19, ESV). The paradox is deliberate: the love of Christ surpasses knowledge, yet believers are to grow in knowledge of it.
Love from eternity to eternity
John hints at the eternal dimension of this love. The adverb πρῶτος in 1 John 4:19 does not merely refer to a temporal sequence within history, as if God’s love slightly preceded our conversion. It reaches back to the eternal counsel of God. Elsewhere Scripture speaks of believers as “chosen in [Christ] before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4, ESV), and of God’s love as the ground of that choice. To say that God “first loved us” is to say that his love for his people has no beginning in time and is not caused by their loveliness. The initiative is eternally his.
Spurgeon meditated on this when he invited his hearers to “exercise their wings” by flying back in thought to the eternity before creation, when the sun and stars existed only in the mind of God. Yet, God had already inscribed the names of the redeemed upon the heart of Christ. John’s brief phrase “he first loved us” allows for precisely such reflection. The immeasurable love of God is not a late response to human misery; it arises from the depths of divine purpose.
Love in the incarnation and atonement
At the historical level, divine love is manifested in the sending of the Son. John emphasizes that “God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9, ESV). The term “only Son” (μονογενής, monogenēs) conveys uniqueness and belovedness. God does not send a mere emissary or angel, but his unique Son.
Furthermore, God “sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10, ESV). The word “propitiation” (ἱλασμός, hilasmos) refers to a sacrifice that turns away wrath. This is critical for understanding verse 18: love does not cast out fear by abolishing judgment, but by satisfying it in the cross. The punishment that fear anticipates has been borne by Christ. In light of that, the believer can say, “There is no fear in love,” for love has gone to the depths of judgment in the place of sinners.
Here, one glimpses the immeasurable intensity of the love of God. He loves not with a detached benevolence but with a love that takes upon itself the full cost of reconciling enemies. As Paul writes, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8, ESV). John and Paul agree: the cross is both revelation and accomplishment of divine love.
Love poured into the believer’s heart
Finally, divine love is immeasurable in its inward operation. John speaks of God abiding in believers and believers abiding in God. This mutual indwelling is effected by the Spirit. As Paul states, “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5, ESV). The Spirit’s ministry is not merely cognitive; he causes believers to taste and experience the love of God.
When John says, “we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us,” he implies an experiential knowledge, not bare information. The Spirit makes the objective reality of the cross subjectively luminous. Believers do not simply affirm that God is love; they live inside that love, abide in it, draw strength from it, and are thereby freed from fear and empowered for holiness.
The transformation wrought by immeasurable love
If love originates in God, is manifested in Christ, and is poured into the believer’s heart by the Spirit, what is its practical effect? 1 John 4:15–21 provides at least three major trajectories: fearless assurance, holy obedience, and concrete love for the Church.
Fearless assurance
As we have seen, “perfect love casts out fear” because “fear has to do with punishment” (1 John 4:18, ESV). John does not deny that believers still struggle with anxieties and doubts. Rather, he provides a theological basis for overcoming those fears. The believer’s standing before God is determined by the propitiatory work of Christ and the Spirit’s indwelling testimony, not by fluctuating feelings or imperfect obedience.
Spurgeon was right to insist that the Gospel, rightly preached, does not promote immorality. Quite the opposite. The proclamation that even “the very chief of sinners” may come to Christ with no prior qualifications creates in the newly pardoned heart a love that cannot be contained. Such a heart says, “I love because he first loved me.” That love, when it matures, produces not indifference but boldness and holiness.
Hence, genuine assurance is not psychological self-persuasion. It grows as believers deepen their grasp of the prior, free, blood-bought love of God. As love is “perfected” in them, fear of final condemnation gives way to filial confidence.
Holy obedience
Far from licensing sin, divine love is the most powerful motive for obedience. John has already linked love to commandment keeping: “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments” (1 John 5:3, ESV). The logic of 1 John 4:19 supports this. If our love is responsive, if it is grounded in God’s prior love, then every act of obedience becomes, in essence, a grateful response to grace already received.
This is precisely why Spurgeon could speak of love’s “walk.” If Christ were physically present on earth, he asked, what would believers do for him? They would feed him, clothe him, serve him, even die for him. But Christ has left his body, the Church, on earth. Love for Christ, therefore, expresses itself in love for his people, service to his mission, and obedience to his commands.
John himself insists on this connection immediately after our verse:
“If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar.”
(1 John 4:20, ESV)
Hence, immeasurable love, rightly apprehended, issues in measurable obedience. The measure of our grasp of God’s love is not the intensity of our feelings, but the steadfastness of our obedience and the breadth of our love for those whom God loves.
Love for the Church
A particularly striking implication of Spurgeon’s meditation is his insistence that love for Christ necessarily entails love for the Church in all its parts. 1 John confirms this. The “brother” whom John commands us to love is not an abstraction but the concrete fellow believer who bears Christ’s image, however marred.
John thus speaks not only of love for God who first loved us, but also of love for the “children of God” (1 John 5:2). The same divine love that unites us to the Father and the Son by the Spirit also binds us to other believers. The Church, in all of its weakness, is the bride of Christ. To despise the bride is to slight the Bridegroom.
In practical terms, this means that the immeasurable love of God compels believers to be generous, hospitable, patient, and mutually forbearing within the Church. It calls for a love that transcends denominational boundaries where the Gospel is truly confessed. It urges believers to see in the poor, the suffering, the tempted, and the fallen members of Christ the very presence of the Lord who said, “as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40, ESV).
Returning to the source: keeping love alive
Believers often find that their love for God grows cold. The noise of worldly concerns, the subtle pride of success, or the discouragement of suffering can numb the heart. 1 John 4:19 provides both diagnosis and remedy.
The diagnosis is simple: when love wanes, it is because the heart has lost sight of God’s prior love. Fear, legalism, self-reliance, or bitterness move into the center. The remedy is not to manufacture feelings, but to return to the fountain. The Spirit calls believers back to the contemplation of Christ crucified and risen, back to the eternal counsel of God, back to the promises of unbreakable love.
Spurgeon was exactly right that love is revived when it is brought back to the place where it was born: the garden of Gethsemane, the hall of judgment, the hill of Calvary. John would add that it is also revived when believers recall that this love did not begin at Calvary, but in eternity, and will not end with death, but will bring them with boldness into the day of judgment.
As believers meditate on such love, their own love, though always finite and imperfect, is “perfected” in the sense that it reaches its proper goal: fearless confidence in Christ, joyful obedience, and lavish love for the brethren.
Living inside Immeasurable Love
No human being will ever fully measure the love of God shown to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. That love reaches back into eternal election, descends into the depths of incarnate suffering, encompasses the breadth of the global Church, and stretches forward into the endless ages of glory. John’s simple sentence, “We love because he first loved us,” contains a world of theology and a universe of comfort.
To summarize:
Confession: Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God participates in the mutual indwelling of God and the believer.
Communion: To abide in love is to abide in God, because God is love.
Perfection: Divine love is “perfected” with us as it accomplishes its purpose in granting us confidence for the day of judgment.
Freedom from fear: Perfect love casts out servile fear, because the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ has borne punishment.
Responsive love: All our love, toward God and neighbor, is responsive and derivative, grounded in God’s prior, sovereign, eternal love.
The task of the believer, then, is not to produce love ex nihilo, but to live in ongoing reception of a love that precedes and exceeds every human capacity. The Spirit continually presses the truth of 1 John 4:19 upon our hearts: “We love because he first loved us.” Every advance in holiness, every victory over fear, every act of sacrificial service in the Church, is a ripple of that first, immeasurable movement of divine love toward us in Christ.
To dwell in this love is to begin, even now, the life of heaven, where the redeemed will forever sing of “the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” and will never exhaust its depths.
