God is love, and that is the definition of God (I John 4:8). The Greek agape means God's willful direction toward men, doing what He knows is best for them, not necessarily what they desire, like a parent who swats a child away from the street. His love is individual, marked by sympathy, kindness, and generosity, and His overall plan is philanthropic on the largest scale: that all mankind might share in the Kingdom of God. It is proved supremely by sending His Son as propitiation for our sins while we were still sinners (John 3:16; Romans 5:8; I John 4:9-10). Even letting man suffer under his own rule shows love, since God must let him learn that he cannot govern himself apart from his Creator. Love originates with God, and those who love are born of Him; whoever does not love does not know God, no matter how much Bible knowledge he has. Because God first loved us, we are to love Him with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, shown through the first four commandments, and to love our neighbor, even enemies, as the Good Samaritan did. Keeping His commandments is the love of God. As we love others as He loves us, His love is perfected in us, casts out fear, and gives boldness in judgment. I Corinthians 13 describes this love: patient, kind, unenvious, unselfish, not easily provoked, keeping no record of wrong, and never failing. It is the greatest virtue, because it is how God lives and will endure throughout eternity.

The world, despite its longing for love as expressed in popular sentiment, reveals a profound lack of true love through its actions and misunderstandings. Commonly, love is seen as a mere emotional thrill or a warm feeling, often confused with preferences or lust, which devalues its true essence. Many express love for trivial things, further diluting its meaning, as these expressions are not rooted in the biblical understanding of love. In the absence of genuine love, even God's gifts can corrupt the recipient. Without love, knowledge can puff up and lead to destruction rather than edification, as seen among the Corinthians who drifted into wrong emphases. Love's absence allows pride to corrupt, highlighting its supreme necessity as the attribute that enables the proper reception and use of divine gifts. Moreover, the lack of love threatens the unity of any group or congregation. Without love as the binding force, frictions arise, and self-seeking traits such as competitiveness, anger, and slander emerge, leading to division. Love's absence fosters individualism over community, countering the virtues that enable communal living. The scriptures emphasize that hating one's brother while claiming to love God reveals a lie, for true love for God is inseparable from love for others. Without loving those seen, one cannot love the unseen God. Obedience to God's commands is the proof of love, and its absence signifies a failure to express love through action. Even when actions are performed, a lack of joyous, wholehearted enthusiasm in obedience reflects a deficiency in the spirit of love, which is far less attractive to both God and man.

He might as well have said that, if you do not have love, you do not have eternal life, because if eternal life is to know God and he who does not love does not know God, then the two are almost equal to one another. That makes sense, does it not, when John says, and I read, that unless you have love the love of God you do not know God! And if you do not know God, you do not have eternal life because God is love. It is a simple equation. This is what Christianity is all about. This is its essence. This is its heart. This is its core. Unless we have the love of God, we do not have eternal life. If we want to have eternal life, then we had better know God. We had better get close to Him. We had better live with Him. He had better be a part of our lives. We had better be walking with Him. We had better know His mind. We had better be communicating with Him. We had better be fellowshipping with Him. How many different ways can I put it? We had better be studying His Word. We had better be talking to Him on a daily basis, very frequently. We had better not be like those people who are described by God in Psalm 14:1, where it says only the fool has said in his heart, There is no God. God had better be a reality, and He had better be such a part of our life that He is with us all the time, in everything. Man cannot be described, like God, as being love. Instead, the Bible describes man as being self-centered, deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9). We are described as being carnal, that is, fleshly. And so, by contrast, God is love. There is a human love, but that human love is not the love of God. That human love, we will find (not in this sermon, but later on), is essentially self-centered. But God's love, though it benefits the self, is essentially others-centered. That is not natural. If it were natural for man, man would not be described as being carnal, self-centered, and deceitful. So what we are talking about here, then, is the love of God. Obviously, Judas did not love Him even though Christ loved him right up to the end. Yet Judas did not love. If we love the Father, we also love the child. That is the analogy that he is using. We are the children. If we love the Father that begot the children, then we must love the children the Father has begotten. Otherwise, there is reason to question whether we love God. If we do not love the brethren, then do we really love God? John is telling us here that the love of God and the love of man (again, mostly here within the fellowship) are inseparable. They are inseparable parts of the same experience. If we do not use it, then it is almost as if it bounces off us (like a laser beam) and nothing is accomplished. Use it or you lose it. If the church of God is ever going to follow through on what God has called us for, it is going to be because the love of God is active in the life of His people. And that they are strengthening one another within that fellowship. Where did ancient Israel fall down? They were never prepared to be a good witness for God, so they could not carry out their responsibilities. A person can take isolated statements about love from other parts of the New Testament; and this can lead those people into saying that the keeping of the commandments is not necessary. The great body of Christianity out there says that the keeping of the commandments is not necessary. In fact, we heard one spokesman for the Worldwide Church of God, when asked whether we needed to keep the Sabbath and the holy days, he said, No. That shows you how far they are drifting away. So, some will go so far as to say that church and all the rest of the Bible is unnecessary. In fact, I just read a letter within the past two or three days and this person said that all you need to do is keep things like the Sermon on the Mount and you do not have to worry about the law of God. What that other way will produce is a purposeless, directionless way of life. In practical fact, t