John Calvin Commentary 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." — 1 John 4:10 (ASV)

Herein is love. He amplifies God’s love with another reason: that He gave us His own Son at the time when we were enemies, as Paul teaches us in Romans 5:8. However, he uses other words, stating that God, not induced by any love from people, freely loved them. He meant by these words to teach us that God’s love towards us has been gratuitous. And though it was the Apostle’s object to present God as an example for us to imitate, yet the doctrine of faith which he intermingles ought not to be overlooked. God freely loved us—how so? Because He loved us before we were born, and also when, through the depravity of nature, we had hearts turned away from Him and were influenced by no right and pious feelings.

If the prattlings of the Papists were entertained—that everyone is chosen by God as He foresees them to be worthy of love—this doctrine, that He first loved us, would not stand. For then our love to God would be first in order, though later in time. But the Apostle assumes this as an evident truth, taught in Scripture (of which these profane Sophists are ignorant): that we are born so corrupt and depraved that there is in us, as it were, an innate hatred of God, so that we desire nothing but what is displeasing to Him, so that all the passions of our flesh carry on continual war with His righteousness.

And sent His Son. It was then from God’s goodness alone, as from a fountain, that Christ with all His blessings has come to us. And as it is necessary to know that we have salvation in Christ because our heavenly Father has freely loved us, so when a real and full certainty of divine love towards us is sought, we must look nowhere else but to Christ. Hence, all who inquire, apart from Christ, what is settled concerning them in God’s secret counsel are, in their madness, bringing about their own ruin.

But he again points out the cause of Christ’s coming and His office when he says that He was sent to be a propitiation for our sins. And first, indeed, we are taught by these words that we were all alienated from God through sin, and that this alienation and discord remains until Christ intervenes to reconcile us.

We are taught, secondly, that it is the beginning of our life when God, having been pacified by the death of His Son, receives us into favor; for propitiation properly refers to the sacrifice of His death. We find, then, that this honor of expiating for the sins of the world, and of thus taking away the enmity between God and us, belongs only to Christ.

But here some appearance of inconsistency arises. For if God loved us before Christ offered Himself to death for us, what need was there for another reconciliation? Thus, the death of Christ may seem to be superfluous.

To this I answer that when Christ is said to have reconciled the Father to us, this is to be referred to our apprehension. For, being conscious of our guilt, we cannot conceive of God otherwise than as displeased and angry with us, until Christ absolves us from that guilt.

For God, wherever sin appears, would have His wrath and the judgment of eternal death to be apprehended. It follows from this that we cannot be otherwise than terrified by the prospect of death before us, until Christ by His death abolishes sin and by His own blood delivers us from death. Furthermore, God’s love requires righteousness; so that we may then be persuaded that we are loved, we must necessarily come to Christ, in whom alone righteousness is to be found.

We now see that the variety of expressions which occurs in Scripture, according to different aspects of things, is most appropriate and especially useful with regard to faith. God interposed His own Son to reconcile Himself to us because He loved us; but this love was hidden because we were meanwhile enemies of God, continually provoking His wrath.

Besides, the fear and terror of an evil conscience took away from us all enjoyment of life. Thus, from the perspective of our faith’s apprehension, God began to love us in Christ. And though the Apostle here speaks of the first reconciliation, let us nevertheless know that propitiating God towards us by expiating sins is a perpetual benefit proceeding from Christ.

The Papists also concede this in part, but afterwards they diminish and almost annihilate this grace by introducing their fictitious satisfactions. For if people redeem themselves by their works, Christ cannot be the only true propitiation, as He is called here.