The love we have for one another

In 1 John 4:12, John writes that “No one has ever seen God, but if we love each other, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” 

On the one hand, then, we cannot see God. Only “God the Son who is at his Father’s side” has seen the Father in all his glory (John 1:18), because he is himself “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), made of the very same ‘invisible stuff’ the Father is. 

But we aren’t, which explains why God communicated with humans in the Old Testament in ways they could see, like a burning bush, a pillar of fire, and walking and talking with people in a human form. He showed his back to Moses, but that was still visible, so it wasn’t the invisible God Moses saw. As humans we can’t even see the wind, let alone see God.  

Which leaves us in a quandary, because how can we know for sure that God exists if we can’t see him? Fortunately, Philip piped up for all of us when he said to Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father.” To which Jesus replied, “How can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’ Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me?” (John 14:8-10). It was the Father living in Jesus (10) and Jesus living in his Father (11) that would produce “the evidence” of the Father’s existence – which at that point in time was in the amazing “miracles” Jesus was doing (11). 

Which becomes a startling statement when reading 1 John 4:13, because it’s also God living in us and us living in him that produces the evidence of the Father’s existence today. But not in doing miracles like Jesus did. Instead, according to John in verse 16, it’s in “Whoever lives in love.” That’s what turns the lights on to seeing the invisible God today: it’s in humans living in love. 

And Jesus showed us what living in love means “by laying down his life for us” (3:16). We can live in love too then, John adds, “by laying down our lives for our brothers.” 

That’s the key to how God – who is love – becomes visible today: “it’s seen in him (Jesus) and in us” (2:8) – in Jesus making ‘the God who is love’ visible in what he did for us, and in us making ‘the God who is love’ visible in what we do for each other (3:17-18). 

And that’s important, because it’s also in our love for each other that’s also evidence that we’re “Passing from death to life”….(next blog)