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1 John 4:7

New American Standard Bible (NASB ©1995) [2]
— Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
King James Version (KJV 1769) [2]
— Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
English Revised Version (ERV 1885)
— Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God.
American Standard Version (ASV 1901) [2]
— Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God.
Webster's Revision of the KJB (WEB 1833)
— Beloved, let us love one another: for love is from God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
Darby's Translation (DBY 1890)
— Beloved, let us love one another; because love is of God, and every one that loves has been begotten of God, and knows God.
Rotherham's Emphasized Bible (EBR 1902)
— Beloved! let us be loving one another; because, love, is, of God, and, whosoever loveth, of God, hath been born, and is getting to understand God:
Young's Literal Translation (YLT 1898)
— Beloved, may we love one another, because the love is of God, and every one who is loving, of God he hath been begotten, and doth know God;
Douay-Rheims Challoner Revision (DR 1750)
— Dearly beloved, let us love one another: for charity is of God. And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God.
Geneva Bible (GNV 1560)
— Beloued, let vs loue one another: for loue commeth of God, ? euery one that loueth, is borne of God, and knoweth God.
Original King James Bible (AV 1611) [2]
— Beloued, let vs loue one another; for loue is of God: and euery one that loueth, is borne of God and knoweth God.
Lamsa Bible (1957)
— My beloved, let us love one another; for love is from God; and every one who loves is born of God and knows God.
John Etheridge Peshitta-Aramaic NT (1849)
— My beloved, let us love one another, because love is of Aloha; and every one who loveth from Aloha is born, and knoweth Aloha.
James Murdock Peshitta-Aramaic NT (1852)
— My beloved, let us love one another: because love is from God; and whoever loveth, is born of God and knoweth God.

Strong's Numbers & Red-LettersGreek New TestamentColor-Code/Key Word Studies
Beloved, 27
{0027} Prime
ἀγαπητός
agapetos
{ag-ap-ay-tos'}
From G0025; beloved.
let us love 25
{0025} Prime
ἀγαπάω
agapao
{ag-ap-ah'-o}
Perhaps from ἄγαν [[agan]] (much; or compare [H5689]); to love (in a social or moral sense).
z5725
<5725> Grammar
Tense - Present (See G5774)
Voice - Active (See G5784)
Mood - Subjunctive (See G5792)
Count - 352
one another: 240
{0240} Prime
ἀλλήλων
allelon
{al-lay'-lone}
Genitive plural from G0243 reduplicated; one another. (Sometimes with G3326 or G4314.).
for 3754
{3754} Prime
ὅτι
hoti
{hot'-ee}
Neuter of G3748 as conjugation; demonstrative that (sometimes redundant); causatively because.
love 26
{0026} Prime
ἀγάπη
agape
{ag-ah'-pay}
From G0025; love, that is, affection or benevolence; specifically (plural) a love feast.
is 2076
{2076} Prime
ἐστί
esti
{es-tee'}
Third person singular present indicative of G1510; he (she or it) is; also (with neuter plural) they are.
z5748
<5748> Grammar
Tense - Present (See G5774)
Voice - No Voice Stated (See G5799)
Mood - Indicative (See G5791)
Count - 1612
of 1537
{1537} Prime
ἐκ
ek
{ek}
A primary preposition denoting origin (the point whence motion or action proceeds), from, out (of place, time or cause; literally or figuratively; direct or remote).
God; 2316
{2316} Prime
θεός
theos
{theh'-os}
Of uncertain affinity; a deity, especially (with G3588) the supreme Divinity; figuratively a magistrate; by Hebraism very.
and 2532
{2532} Prime
καί
kai
{kahee}
Apparently a primary particle, having a copulative and sometimes also a cumulative force; and, also, even, so, then, too, etc.; often used in connection (or composition) with other particles or small words.
every one 3956
{3956} Prime
πᾶς
pas
{pas}
Including all the forms of declension; apparently a primary word; all, any, every, the whole.
that loveth 25
{0025} Prime
ἀγαπάω
agapao
{ag-ap-ah'-o}
Perhaps from ἄγαν [[agan]] (much; or compare [H5689]); to love (in a social or moral sense).
z5723
<5723> Grammar
Tense - Present (See G5774)
Voice - Active (See G5784)
Mood - Participle (See G5796)
Count - 2549
is born 1080
{1080} Prime
γεννάω
gennao
{ghen-nah'-o}
From a variation of G1085; to procreate (properly of the father, but by extension of the mother); figuratively to regenerate.
z5769
<5769> Grammar
Tense - Perfect (See G5778)
Voice - Passive (See G5786)
Mood - Indicative (See G5791)
Count - 215
of 1537
{1537} Prime
ἐκ
ek
{ek}
A primary preposition denoting origin (the point whence motion or action proceeds), from, out (of place, time or cause; literally or figuratively; direct or remote).
God, 2316
{2316} Prime
θεός
theos
{theh'-os}
Of uncertain affinity; a deity, especially (with G3588) the supreme Divinity; figuratively a magistrate; by Hebraism very.
and 2532
{2532} Prime
καί
kai
{kahee}
Apparently a primary particle, having a copulative and sometimes also a cumulative force; and, also, even, so, then, too, etc.; often used in connection (or composition) with other particles or small words.
knoweth 1097
{1097} Prime
γινώσκω
ginosko
{ghin-oce'-ko}
A prolonged form of a primary verb; to 'know' (absolutely), in a great variety of applications and with many implications (as shown at left, with others not thus clearly expressed).
z5719
<5719> Grammar
Tense - Present (See G5774)
Voice - Active (See G5784)
Mood - Indicative (See G5791)
Count - 3019
God. 2316
{2316} Prime
θεός
theos
{theh'-os}
Of uncertain affinity; a deity, especially (with G3588) the supreme Divinity; figuratively a magistrate; by Hebraism very.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Commentary

1 John 4:7

_ _ Resumption of the main theme (1 John 2:29). Love, the sum of righteousness, is the test of our being born of God. Love flows from a sense of God’s love to us: compare 1 John 4:9 with 1 John 3:16, which 1 John 4:9 resumes; and 1 John 4:13 with 1 John 3:24, which similarly 1 John 4:13 resumes. At the same time, 1 John 4:7-21 is connected with the immediately preceding context, 1 John 4:2 setting forth Christ’s incarnation, the great proof of God’s love (1 John 4:10).

_ _ Beloved — an address appropriate to his subject, “love.”

_ _ loveAll love is from God as its fountain: especially that embodiment of love, God manifest in the flesh. The Father also is love (1 John 4:8). The Holy Ghost sheds love as its first fruit abroad in the heart.

_ _ knoweth God — spiritually, experimentally, and habitually.

Matthew Henry's Commentary

1 John 4:7-13

_ _ As the Spirit of truth is known by doctrine (thus spirits are to be tried), it is known by love likewise; and so here follows a strong fervent exhortation to holy Christian love: Beloved, let us love one another, 1 John 4:7. The apostle would unite them in his love, that he might unite them in love to each other: “Beloved, I beseech you, by the love I bear to you, that you put on unfeigned mutual love.” This exhortation is pressed and urged with variety of argument: as,

_ _ I. From the high and heavenly descent of love: For love is of God. He is the fountain, author, parent, and commander of love; it is the sum of his law and gospel: And every one that loveth (whose spirit is framed to judicious holy love) is born of God, 1 John 4:7. The Spirit of God is the Spirit of love. The new nature in the children of God is the offspring of his love: and the temper and complexion of it is love. The fruit of the Spirit is love, Galatians 5:22. Love comes down from heaven.

_ _ II. Love argues a true and just apprehension of the divine nature: He that loveth knoweth God, 1 John 4:7. He that loveth not knoweth not God, 1 John 4:8. What attribute of the divine Majesty so clearly shines in all the world as his communicative goodness, which is love. The wisdom, the greatness, the harmony, and usefulness of the vast creation, which so fully demonstrate his being, do at the same time show and prove his love; and natural reason, inferring and collecting the nature and excellence of the most absolute perfect being, must collect and find that he is most highly good: and he that loveth not (is not quickened by the knowledge he hath of God to the affection and practice of love) knoweth not God; it is a convictive evidence that the sound and due knowledge of God dwells not in such a soul; his love must needs shine among his primary brightest perfections; for God is love (1 John 4:8), his nature and essence are love, his will and works are primarily love. Not that this is the only conception we ought to have of him; we have found that he is light as well as love (1 John 1:5), and God is principally love to himself, and he has such perfections as arise from the necessary love he must bear to his necessary existence, excellence, and glory; but love is natural and essential to the divine Majesty: God is love. This is argued from the display and demonstration that he hath given of it; as, 1. That he hath loved us, such as we are: In this was manifest the love of God towards us (1 John 4:9), towards us mortals, us ungrateful rebels. God commandeth his love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, Romans 5:8. Strange that God should love impure, vain, vile, dust and ashes! 2. That he has loved us at such a rate, at such an incomparable value as he has given for us; he has given his own, only-beloved, blessed Son for us: Because that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him, 1 John 4:9. This person is in some peculiar distinguishing way the Son of God; he is the only-begotten. Should we suppose him begotten as a creature or created being, he is not the only-begotten. Should we suppose him a natural necessary eradication from the Father's glory or glorious essence, or substance, he must be the only-begotten: and then it will be a mystery and miracle of divine love that such a Son should be sent into our world for us! It may well be said, So (wonderfully, so amazingly, so incredibly) God loved the world. 3. That God loved us first, and in the circumstances in which we lay: Herein is love (unusual unprecedented love), not that we loved God, but that he loved us, 1 John 4:10. He loved us, when we had no love for him, when we lay in our guilt, misery, and blood, when we were undeserving, ill-deserving, polluted, and unclean, and wanted to be washed from our sins in sacred blood. 4. That he gave us his Son for such service and such an end. (1.) For such service, to be the propitiation for our sins; consequently to die for us, to die under the law and curse of God, to bear our sins in his own body, to be crucified, to be wounded in his soul, and pierced in his side, to be dead and buried for us (1 John 4:10); and then, (2.) For such an end, for such a good and beneficial end to us — that we might live through him (1 John 4:9), might live for ever through him, might live in heaven, live with God, and live in eternal glory and blessedness with him and through him: O what love is here! Then,

_ _ III. Divine love to the brethren should constrain ours: Beloved (I would adjure you by your interest in my love to remember), if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another, 1 John 4:11. This should be an invincible argument. The example of God should press us. We should be followers (or imitators) of him, as his dear children. The objects of the divine love should be the objects of ours. Shall we refuse to love those whom the eternal God hath loved? We should be admirers of his love, and lovers of his love (of the benevolence and complacency that are in him), and consequently lovers of those whom he loves. The general love of God to the world should induce a universal love among mankind. That you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven; for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth his rain on the just and on the unjust, Matthew 5:45. The peculiar love of God to the church and to the saints should be productive of a peculiar love there: If God so loved us, we ought surely (in some measure suitably thereto) to love one another.

_ _ IV. The Christian love is an assurance of the divine inhabitation: If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, 1 John 4:12. Now God dwelleth in us, not by any visible presence, or immediate appearance to the eye (no man hath seen God at any time, 1 John 4:12), but by his Spirit (1 John 4:13); or, “No man hath seen God at any time; he does not here present himself to our eye or to our immediate intuition, and so he does not in this way demand and exact our love; but he demands and expects it in that way in which he has thought meet to deserve and claim it, and that is in the illustration that he has given of himself and of his love (and thereupon of his loveliness too) in the catholic church, and particularly in the brethren, the members of that church. In them, and in his appearance for them and with them, is God to be loved; and thus, if we love one another, God dwelleth in us. The sacred lovers of the brethren are the temples of God; the divine Majesty has a peculiar residence there.”

_ _ V. Herein the divine love attains a considerable end and accomplishment in us: “And his love is perfected in us, 1 John 4:12. It has obtained its completion in and upon us. God's love is not perfected in him, but in and with us. His love could not be designed to be ineffectual and fruitless upon us; when its proper genuine end and issue are attained and produced thereby, it may be said to be perfected; so faith is perfected by its works, and love perfected by its operations. When the divine love has wrought us to the same image, to the love of God, and thereupon to the love of the brethren, the children of God, for his sake, it is therein and so far perfected and completed, though this love of ours is not at present perfect, nor the ultimate end of the divine love to us.” How ambitious should we be of this fraternal Christian love, when God reckons his own love to us perfected thereby! To this the apostle, having mentioned the high favour of God's dwelling in us, subjoins the note and character thereof: Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit, 1 John 4:13. Certainly this mutual inhabitation is something more noble and great than we are well acquainted with or can declare. One would think that to speak of God dwelling in us, and we in him, were to use words too high for mortals, had not God gone before us therein. What this indwelling imports has been briefly explained on 1 John 3:24. What it fully is must be left to the revelation of the blessed world. But this mutual inhabitation we know, says the apostle, because he hath given us of his spirit; he has lodged the image and fruit of his Spirit in our hearts (1 John 4:13), and the Spirit that he hath given us appears to be his, or of him, since it is the Spirit of power, of zeal and magnanimity for God, of love to God and man, and of a sound mind, of an understanding well instructed in the affairs of God and religion, and his kingdom among men, 2 Timothy 1:7.

John Wesley's Explanatory Notes

1 John 4:7

Let us love one another — From the doctrine he has just been defending he draws this exhortation. It is by the Spirit that the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts. Every one that truly loveth God and his neighbour is born of God.

Geneva Bible Translation Notes

1 John 4:7

(6) Beloved, let us love one another: (7) for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.

(6) He returns to the commending of brotherly love and charity. (7) The first reason: because it is a very divine thing, and therefore very fitting for the sons of God: so that whoever is missing it cannot be said to know God correctly.

Cross-Reference Topical ResearchStrong's Concordance
let:

1 John 4:20-21 If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? ... And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.
1 John 2:10 He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.
1 John 3:10-23 In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. ... And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.
1 John 5:1 Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him.

love is:

1 John 4:8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
Deuteronomy 30:6 And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.
Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
1 Thessalonians 4:9-10 But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another. ... And indeed ye do it toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia: but we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more;
2 Timothy 1:7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
1 Peter 1:22 Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, [see that ye] love one another with a pure heart fervently:

every:

1 John 4:12 No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.
1 John 2:29 If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him.
1 John 3:14 We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not [his] brother abideth in death.
1 John 5:1 Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him.

and knoweth:

John 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
2 Corinthians 4:6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to [give] the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Galatians 4:9 But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?
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Chain-Reference Bible SearchCross References with Concordance

Dt 30:6. Jn 17:3. 2Co 4:6. Ga 4:9; 5:22. 1Th 4:9. 2Ti 1:7. 1P 1:22. 1Jn 2:10, 29; 3:10, 14; 4:8, 12, 20; 5:1.

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