4:19
We love because He first loved us. God took the initiative. Indeed, this happened in all things. He created us. Our existence was not our idea! We had no role in deciding whether or not we would be born. All things originate with God, and so it is with love. God decided to love us, and our love is in response to this. To have a valid worldview we need to have God at the centre, any worldview that puts man at the centre, or nothing at the centre, is fatally flawed from the very beginning.
4:20
John then, as he likes to do, puts things very starkly. If anyone claims to love God, but hates his brother, then that person is a liar. There is no umming and ahhing here! God is love, so if we love God then we too will love. Moreover, if we do not love our brother whom we see, then any claim to love God whom we cannot see is completely bogus. It is easy to say we love someone we cannot see, but when it comes to loving our brother we are faced with all their faults and faced with the reality of loving someone and the cost involved.
4:21
So we have a commandment from God. Commandments did not go out of the window with the New Testament, and anyone who thinks they have simply has not read the New Testament, at least not with their eyes open. Loving God is not a mere feeling, it is a concrete action, and that action involves loving each other. As I have said several times before, the love the Bible talks about is not sentimental mush, but something that faces up to the realities of life, and the realities of who we are.
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