1 John 2:5 KJV
But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.
Sometimes the vagueness of a passage of the Bible gives us options of interpretation, each one having some significance and help to us in our walk with Christ. I see benefit in exploring every possible option of interpretation as long as we remember that these are options and that we may not hold to any one of them too dogmatically.
This is one of those passages whose interpretation is vague enough that good students of the Bible come up with a few different understandings. I was curious this morning how the love of God could be perfected.
First, this does not mean that God's love has degrees of perfection and maturity.God is love. All His love is perfect love. It needs nothing to build it. It can ever be greater than it already is because it is the source of all love. God loves because He chooses to love and not because any of us can earn his love.
Gill says this is referring to man's love for God, which does need perfecting.
Our love for God waxes and wanes with circumstances of life. We might grow deep in our love for God during a time of crisis and we know we have nowhere else to turn, but when things become better in our life, we slide back into the rituals of life and religion. Or it might be that during a particular time of real blessing we reach out to the Lord in gratitude, but when a tragedy happens we might recede into ourselves and our relationship with Christ grows dim. When we keep His Word our love for God becomes more even and level keeled.
Clarke says the love of God is perfected in the offering of Jesus Christ.
Not that God's love for us has grown more intense since Jesus became a man, but that love has been expressed in its fullest sense through the incarnation.
But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.
Sometimes the vagueness of a passage of the Bible gives us options of interpretation, each one having some significance and help to us in our walk with Christ. I see benefit in exploring every possible option of interpretation as long as we remember that these are options and that we may not hold to any one of them too dogmatically.
This is one of those passages whose interpretation is vague enough that good students of the Bible come up with a few different understandings. I was curious this morning how the love of God could be perfected.
First, this does not mean that God's love has degrees of perfection and maturity.God is love. All His love is perfect love. It needs nothing to build it. It can ever be greater than it already is because it is the source of all love. God loves because He chooses to love and not because any of us can earn his love.
Gill says this is referring to man's love for God, which does need perfecting.
Our love for God waxes and wanes with circumstances of life. We might grow deep in our love for God during a time of crisis and we know we have nowhere else to turn, but when things become better in our life, we slide back into the rituals of life and religion. Or it might be that during a particular time of real blessing we reach out to the Lord in gratitude, but when a tragedy happens we might recede into ourselves and our relationship with Christ grows dim. When we keep His Word our love for God becomes more even and level keeled.
Clarke says the love of God is perfected in the offering of Jesus Christ.
Not that God's love for us has grown more intense since Jesus became a man, but that love has been expressed in its fullest sense through the incarnation.
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