SOAP 7/21 - God Is Love (1 Jn 4.7-12)

 

SOAP 7/21

God Is Love

1 John 4.7-12

by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT 5

For the next 21 days, let's commit to feeding yourself spiritually by reading and reflecting on a passage of Scripture each day using the S.O.A.P. method (Scripture, Observation, Application, Prayer). Keep a brief daily note of what you learn and how you might apply it, and at the end of the 21 days, share your biggest takeaway with someone else. 

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God Is Love

1 John 4.7-12

The First Letter of John centers on love as the essence of God and the test of authentic Christian life. In this passage, the author exhorts believers to love one another, grounding this command not in moral obligation but in God’s very nature. Love flows from God, revealed supremely in the sending of Christ, and perfected when believers embody this love in community.

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1 John 4.7-12 (NASB95)

7 Beloved, let’s love one another; for love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

8 The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

9 By this the love of God was revealed in us, that God has sent His only Son into the world so that we may live through Him.

10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God remains in us, and His love is perfected in us.

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Historical Situation

1 John was likely written around 90–100 CE to communities influenced by Johannine thought, possibly in and around Ephesus. The letter addresses divisions in the church, likely sparked by false teachers (sometimes linked to early Gnostic tendencies), who denied Jesus’ incarnation or downplayed the ethical demand of love.

The author responds by reaffirming the basics: God is love, revealed in Christ’s life and death. Authentic knowledge of God is shown not by secret knowledge or lofty claims but by embodied love in community. This passage is a theological peak: God’s very being is identified with love, and believers are called to be living icons of that divine reality.

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Observation through Three Lenses

1. Traditional (Catholic / Orthodox / Protestant Mainstream)

Tradition reads this as a sacramental and communal affirmation: God is love, and this love is mediated through the Church’s sacraments and embodied in the communion of saints. Baptism initiates believers into divine love, Eucharist nourishes it, and the life of charity perfects it. The Father’s sending of the Son is seen as the central mystery of salvation: love poured out, propitiation accomplished, and union with God made possible. Thus, Christian perfection is found in living as a community of love.

2. Evangelical (Conservative Protestant)

Evangelicals emphasize the personal nature of God’s love and its demonstration in Christ’s atoning sacrifice. Verse 10 — “propitiation for our sins” — is often highlighted as pointing to substitutionary atonement: God’s wrath against sin satisfied in Christ’s death. Love here is not human achievement but God’s initiative, and believers respond by personal faith and active love for others. Evangelical interpretation underscores both assurance of salvation and the ethical demand to love: if we claim to know God, our lives must be marked by love.

3. Process Theological (Relational, Whiteheadian)

Process theology affirms “God is love” as the truest ontological statement of God’s nature. Love is not a static attribute but the centralizing dynamic and relational essence of God, always luring creation toward harmony. Where tradition emphasizes sacramental mediation and evangelicals stress propitiation of wrath, process thought heals by reinterpreting “propitiation” as God’s radical solidarity with human suffering and sin.

In Christ, God enters fully into the world’s brokenness, not to satisfy wrath, but to persuasively transform alienation into renewed relationship. Love becomes perfected not by legal satisfaction but by relational embodiment: when we love one another, God’s very life flows through us.

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Application through Three Lenses

1. Traditional

Am I living as part of the Church’s sacramental life of love? Baptism has made me God’s child, the Eucharist nourishes me in love, and I am called to embody this love in service and charity. To love one another is to participate in the divine life itself, perfected in the communion of saints in outreach to the world around.

2. Evangelical

Does my life bear the mark of one who has received Christ’s atoning love? If God loved me so much that Christ bore my sins, how can I withhold love from others? This passage challenges me to examine whether my faith shows itself in love, for without love, any claim to know God is false.

3. Process Theological

Do I embody God’s relational love in tangible ways? Where evangelicals may emphasize propitiation as satisfaction of wrath, process theology heals by emphasizing love as God’s eternal persuasion toward life. God’s love was revealed in Jesus’ solidarity with our suffering, showing that divine power is persuasive, not coercive. Love becomes real and visible when I join God in co-creating beauty and peace in my relationships and community.

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Prayer

O God of Love,

You revealed Yourself in Christ, not by demanding sacrifice, but by entering into our suffering and showing us the way of life. Teach me to love as You love: with compassion, patience, and self-giving. May my love for others be a sign that Your Spirit dwells within me, and may Your love be perfected in me as I walk in fellowship with Your people.

Amen.

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