He that loveth not knoweth not God: for God is charity.
ο μη αγαπων ουκ εγνω τον θεον οτι ο θεος αγαπη εστιν
12 Church Fathers comment on this verse
Of what love does he speak? Of wholehearted love, not limited to words, love according to disposition and conviction, and according to sincere compassion. The wicked also have love: robbers love robbers, and murderers love murderers. But this does not come from a good conscience, but from an evil one.
But the one who does not have love does not know God. Why does the one who does not love fail to know God? He confirms this as follows: “God is love.”
What more could have been said than this? If nothing had been said in praise of love throughout all the pages of this Epistle, and if nothing at all had been said on the other pages of Scripture, yet we heard only this from the voice of God's Spirit, that God is love, we ought to seek nothing more.
Now see that to act against love is to act against God. Let no one say, "When I do not love my brother, I sin against a man." Consider this: "A sin against a man is no great matter, if only I do not sin against God."
How do you not sin against God, when you sin against love? "God is love." Are these my words? If these were my words, "God is love," then perhaps one of you might take offense and say, "What has he said? What did he mean when he said that God is love? God gave love; God bestowed love."
But it is said, "Love is from God." "God is love." See, brethren, you have the Scriptures of God. This Epistle is canonical; it is read among all nations and confirmed by the authority of the whole world.
This very Epistle has instructed the world. You hear from the Spirit of God, "God is love." Since you hear this, can you act against God? Can you fail to love your brother?
But how was it said earlier, "Love is from God," and now, "God is love"? God from God. There is God the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The Son is God from God, and the Spirit is God from God. These three are one God, not three gods. If the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and the one in whom the Holy Spirit dwells loves, then love is God.
Yet He is God because He proceeds from God. For both statements are found in the Epistle, that love is from God and that God is love. Scripture says only of the Father that He is not from God.
When you hear "from God," either the Son or the Holy Spirit is understood. But since the Apostle says, "The love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us" (Rom 5:5), we must understand the Holy Spirit in love.
He is that Holy Spirit whom evil men cannot receive. He is that very fountain of which Scripture says, "Let the fountain of your water be your own, and let no stranger share it with you" (Prov 5:16-17).
For all who do not love God are strangers; they are antichrists. Although they enter basilicas, they cannot be numbered among the sons of God, and that fountain of life does not belong to them.
An evil man can be baptized, and an evil man can possess the capacity for prophecy. We see that King Saul too could prophesy. He persecuted holy David, was filled with the spirit of prophecy, and began to prophesy (1 Sam 19:20-24).
An evil man can receive the mystery of the Body and Blood of Christ. Of such it is said, "He who eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks judgment to himself" (1 Cor 11:29).
An evil man can bear the name of Christ, that is, even an evil man can be called a Christian. Of such it is said, "They profaned the name of their God" (Ezek 36:20).
Thus an evil man can have recourse to all these mysteries. But to have love and be evil is impossible. This is the proper gift of the good, the fountain that belongs to them alone.
From this the Spirit of God calls us to drink. The Spirit of God calls you to drink from Himself.
If God is love, then the more we see fellow participants and companions in faith appear among us, the more fully we enjoy love.
Love is so truly the gift of God that it is called God.
Although one thing is done through you and another through us, one love for all has made both necessary for brotherly salvation. Therefore the one God did this for all, since God is love.
We honor love, for according to the saying of the Holy Spirit, our God is love. This name is more pleasing to God than any other name. And what is chief in the Law and the Prophets? On this also, the Evangelist (Mt 22:40) does not permit any answer other than the former one.
The one born in the true and ineffable light has passed from eternal death into eternal life (see Jn 5:24). Whoever sees this true light (Jn 1:9), has it within himself, and has acquired spiritual fruits, inevitably sees the darkness disappearing. For this light is ineffable love, long-suffering, goodness, mercy, faith (Gal 5:22), and the other works of virtue. All this is that true light, which is God, as the Apostle John says: “God is love.”
John bears witness, saying, “God is love.” Therefore the one who lives in love already, in this created world, breathes the scent of eternal life from God. Even here he breathes the air of the resurrection. The righteous will delight in this air after the resurrection.
“God is love.” From what does this follow? From the fact that He sent His Only-begotten Son into the world, to give us true life and so that we might live through Him.
Whoever does not love his neighbors according to Christ's commandment, as himself, does not have true knowledge of God.
Whoever does not love his neighbors does not know as he ought that God is all-good and self-existent Love. Nor does he know that God wills us to love one another and loves those who love.
If he knew, as he ought, with mind and heart, that God is Love, he could not fail to love God with all his heart.
Nor could he fail to love his neighbors, imitating God and striving for union with God.
Wishing to show briefly the greatness of boundless divine love, the Apostle points to the redemption of the human race through Jesus Christ as the greatest work of this divine love toward mankind.
“He who does not love has not known God.” Love and knowledge are inseparable from each other, even in ordinary life.
A closer acquaintance with an object or person may dispose us more and more to love him, or, on the contrary, may repel us from him.
So also love for someone or something awakens in us the desire to know its beautiful qualities more closely. What we do not love, we do not wish to know.
In relation to God, love has the same significance, not only love for Him, but even love for people.
This is because love for God is closely bound to love for neighbors, and because love in general is a property of God.
Therefore the Apostle adds further: because God is love.
“As God is called goodness because in His goodness He created the intelligible and sensible world, so by sending His Only-begotten Son into the world out of love for us, He showed through this that He is also love” (Theophylact).
No property of God and no name can express the entire fullness of God's infinite being.
Yet the property of love, and the naming of God as love, express His being more than other names and properties.
God is love in Himself. God is love in relation to creatures. God is love by essence and by His actions.
On the contrary, the one who does not have true love for his neighbor in his heart, and still more one who has enmity or hatred (1 Jn 3:15), has not known God. He does not have a proper and correct conception of God. “Love and the one who loves are from God. The one who loves, and only he, has been born of God and knows God. But the one who does not have love does not know God” (Theophylact). “God is love”: the expression “God is love” belongs properly to John and is not found in this form in the sacred books, though the concept exists and occurs in them. This is the best and fullest definition of the concept and being of God.
Those who know God always join love to this knowledge (1 Jn 4:7-12).
For “he who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 Jn 4:7-8). This was revealed in the fact that He sent His Only-begotten Son and gave Him “as the propitiation for our sins.”
And this was so not because we first loved Him, “but because He loved us” (1 Jn 4:9-10).
“If God so loved us,” then, according to the reasoning of the holy Apostle John, love must also be manifested on our part.
Since God is invisible in Himself, our love must be directed toward beings who bear His image. Thus our union with Him may be living, and love may be not an empty sound, but perfect love.
“No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His perfect love is in us” (1 Jn 4:11-13).
After interrupting his discourse on love for a time by speaking about heretics, the Apostle now returns again to the teaching on Christian love. He gives the most exalted and profound doctrine concerning it.
In this he follows the example of the Lord's discourse in His farewell conversation with the disciples.
He often interrupts his speech with living addresses and repetitions, so natural and necessary in the fatherly instruction of a father and pastor speaking with his spiritual children.
He indicates the first motive for mutual Christian love in the origin of Christian love from God.
By this, on the one hand, the high dignity of love is shown. On the other hand, it is shown to be a gift of God that we must put into action.
The second motive for Christians to love is that through love our regeneration takes place. Finally, according to the Apostle's thought, through love the knowledge of God is also attained.
In explaining all this, the Apostle calls God love. He thereby shows more clearly that love is absolutely necessary for the knowledge of God, because there is no means of comprehending love except love.
As for calling God love, this name expresses the gracious being of God more vividly and precisely than His other most exalted name, Light.
In the name of God as love, a representation of God is given that is closer to our heart, more intelligible to our mind, and wholly accessible to the will.
This is why the holy fathers regarded love as the highest name of the All-Perfect Being, such as Saint Irenaeus, Dionysius the Areopagite, and others.
That God truly is love, the Apostle confirms by pointing to its manifestation in the sending of the Only-begotten Son into the world.
He appeared in the world not because men loved God, but because they were sinful and ready to perish.
Here the words of the Savior to Nicodemus are, as it were, reproduced: God so loved the world that He gave His Only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life (Jn 3:16).
Passages read together with this verse.
Greek text, 12 words with lemma, transliteration and Strong’s number. Tap to expand.
THEOSIS