Revelation 11

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Revelation 11:1

God Is Love

1 John 4:7. After the warning teaching with regard to evil spirits in the previous verses, John again focuses on the nature of God, which you have received as a child of God. He again starts with addressing you with ‘beloved’. In that way John wants to make you feel that he loves you, for you also have, like he does, the Lord Jesus as your life. By that he also means to say that you are a ‘beloved’ of God. God Himself loves you.

The fact that you have the nature of God has to become visible, for love in itself cannot be seen. The love you have for the other “is from God”. That love is from God does not mean that each form of love comes from God. From the context it appears that it is about Divine love. In God’s Word you also read about the love of man, which he received from his Creator. That’s called ‘natural love’. By this is meant, for example, the love of parents for their children and vice versa. That love is also given by God, but that love can cool down. It goes without saying that by natural love God has never meant a wrong love, such as homosexual love. That is unnatural love (Romans 1:26-27).

Divine love can never cool down. That love is not dependent on the response of the person to whom it is expressed. That love is in you and is proof that you are born of God and that you know God. You see how love is connected to its origin and the knowledge of it. To live, by being born of God, and to know the One Whom you are born of, belong together. Through the new birth you have a relationship with Him. You know to Whom you belong, you know Him.

1 John 4:8. A person with whom the Divine love is missing, has no relationship with God. Such a person has never even known God; there has never been a relationship with Him ever. However wonderfully a person might speak about Him, he is a fraud and a deceiver. Not knowing God means that there is no fellowship with God. The verb ‘to know’ in the Bible has the meaning of ‘having fellowship with’. The meaning of ‘knowing’ is beautifully expressed in Genesis 4:1 where you read: “And Adam knew Eve his wife” (NKJV). Fellowship is a matter of the deepest intimacy. Therefore it speaks volumes when John relates ‘love’ with ‘knowing’ God, because God is love.

True love comes from God “for God is love”. Only when there is Divine love there will be love for one another, a love that comes from the fellowship with God. When we speak about God as love and that His love is in us and through that love we therefore are able to love, you can compare it with a sea. When it says here: ‘God is love’, then you, as it were, stand at the seashore. That He lives in you as love, you can compare with a bucket that is filled with water from the sea. When you let a bucket sink in the sea you can say that the sea is in the bucket. That’s how it is with your heart which is sunk in the love of God. You should ponder on it for a moment and you will be overwhelmed.

1 John 4:9. God has given a great proof of the fact that He is love. Love is invisible and must be revealed. God dwells in unapproachable light (1 Timothy 6:16). We would have never known anything of Him had He not revealed Himself. But He made His love visible by giving “His only begotten Son”, or better said, as it is written, by sending “His only begotten Son into the world”.

We would have never known God if He had not done this. We would have never known anything of the mystery in God regarding the mutual love between the Father and the Son. John speaks about the ‘only begotten Son’. That does not mean that He only became Son by His birth. He has always been the only begotten Son. ‘Only begotten’ means unique, the only one of His kind. As such the Father has sent Him and as such He came.

You read that that love “was manifested toward us” (NKJV). That implies that the proof of God’s love is completely outside you. False teachers also speak about love, but then as a mystical experience to learn to know God in that way. To succeed you must turn into yourself and follow your own feelings. That’s of course not the way. ‘Toward’ you means that it indeed is outside you, but it also means that you were allowed to perceive, acknowledge and accept that manifestation. That’s how you received life.

1 John 4:10. You had no life, for you were dead in your trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1). Because you were dead it was impossible to love God. Besides that you were dead you were also guilty because you did not love God. That’s why you needed reconciliation. God also provided with that. A propitiation was needed to meet the holiness and righteousness of God.

There was no love for God with you and me. Everything in God’s love came from Him. His heart went out to you because He also wanted you to partake of a company of people whom He loves to bring into His presence, to His heart. He removed everything that stood in the way by sending His Son as “a propitiation for our sins”, which also includes your sins. Herein you see the great price He was willing to pay.

That God is love ought not to be lowered to the level of ‘God can love’, as if there are moments that He does not love. God’s love became evident on the cross of Calvary. That’s the way for you to know what love is. The measure is that love has given Himself for sins He Himself did not commit.

1 John 4:11. John concludes now that if God has loved us in such an exalted and impressive way, it cannot be otherwise than that we love one another too. In that way we make visible that God is love.

1 John 4:12. Nobody has ever seen God, but God’s love has become visible by His Son Whom He sent into the world (John 1:18). However, His Son is not on earth anymore, but the family of God is. This family has the Son as their life. What the Son first did when He was on earth, ought to be done now by the family of God. And how can the family of God make possible that God is seen? By loving one another!

The public testimony of Whom God is, is given when there is love among the believers, among those who have the nature of God. From your love toward your brother and sister it becomes apparent that God abides in you and that His love in you is perfect. That means that His love in you is fully expressed if you love your brother and sister. All your actions toward your brother and sister are then in fact God’s actions. The love for the other comes to its full right and purpose in you.

If God, Who is the source of love, abides in you – and He does! –, then love doesn’t work differently in you than it does in Him, Who is the source of it. Wherever the love of God is being expressed from that source, it can only happen in the perfection which is typical to that source.

You may know it in the meantime, but I still want to remind you of the fact that John presents things in their essence and not after to the poor practice we sometimes show. That must not cause you to become blind to the wrong things, but that is not the point here. You are seen here in connection with the propitiation through which your sins have been taken away. God sees you without sins and that’s the way you should look at yourself and others too.

1 John 4:13. In case you may wonder how you could know that God abides in you and that you abide in Him, John gives another assurance. Indeed, you may know this by the fact that God “has given” you “of His Spirit”. As a result, you already participate now in the same atmosphere of fellowship that you will soon enjoy in the Father’s house. ”Of His Spirit” implies that the fullness of the enjoyment is still to come in the house of the Father. The Spirit has been given to you because only the Spirit knows what is in God (1 Corinthians 2:11). You have the knowledge of the truth – that you abide in God and He in you – not from yourself or someone else, but from God’s Spirit. Through the Spirit you share with God what is His.

1 John 4:14. The Spirit gives you the inner assurance that you abide in God and that God abides in you. But something more is added that is external, that is, that which is outside of you, but which you see and testify to. You have not seen the Spirit nor do you testify to all kinds of spiritual gifts that you yourself or others would have. What the Spirit has shown you and the power He has given you to testify to, refers to the Son, Who was sent by the Father “[to be] the Savior of the world”.

‘Seeing’ these things and ‘testifying’ to these things are also wonderful expressions of the new life that you have received. In that way those who are not yet partakers of it, are able to hear about it and if they convert they will also partake of it.

Now read 1 John 4:7-14 again.

Reflection: How did you get to know the love of God and how does that love work in you?

Revelation 11:2

God Is Love

1 John 4:11. John concludes now that if God has loved us in such an exalted and impressive way, it cannot be otherwise than that we love one another too. In that way we make visible that God is love.

Now read 1 John 4:7-14 again.

Reflection: How did you get to know the love of God and how does that love work in you?

Revelation 11:3

God Is Love

1 John 4:11. John concludes now that if God has loved us in such an exalted and impressive way, it cannot be otherwise than that we love one another too. In that way we make visible that God is love.

Now read 1 John 4:7-14 again.

Reflection: How did you get to know the love of God and how does that love work in you?

Revelation 11:4

God Is Love

1 John 4:11. John concludes now that if God has loved us in such an exalted and impressive way, it cannot be otherwise than that we love one another too. In that way we make visible that God is love.

Now read 1 John 4:7-14 again.

Reflection: How did you get to know the love of God and how does that love work in you?

Revelation 11:5

Perfect Love

1 John 4:15. There is another assurance to recognize whether a person abides in God and whether God abides in such a person. That assurance is the confession “that Jesus is the Son of God”. This confession is not a profound or inconceivable truth, but it is the confession of each true believer. There is no believer without this confession, regardless of his age. It is a great truth. The humiliated Man Jesus is the Son of God. He was that not only when He was on earth; He still is. He who does not believe that is not a child of God.

God has fellowship with those, who have exactly the same thought about Jesus as He does. Such people feel fully at home with God. That is what God desires. The word ‘confess’ also indicates that wonderfully. Confessing means ‘saying the same’ and in this case it implies: saying the same thing as God. You also find that thought in “if we confess our sins” (1 John 1:9). In that way we declare that God is right about everything He has always said about our sins. You have acknowledged and accepted His thoughts about His Son and about yourself and about the world. If you are aware that you have been far away from God and now have been brought in such a circle of glory, then you will surely ascribe all honor to God.

1 John 4:16. John speaks with certainty about what he and all believers – “we”, this word is put in front and therefore has emphasis – “have come to know and have believed”. It is beyond all doubts that false teachers want to cause about it. You can make this statement your own too. You have known and believed “the love which God has for” you. “Come to know” means that you have realized, and “have believed” means that you have accepted.

Once again that wonderful expression sounds “God is love”. It makes you want to shout it out loud: God is love! You have experienced it, you have been saved by His love. You have seen the manifestation of His love by sending His Son and in the propitiation the Son has become for your sins. Because of that, you have life from God. The Son is your life. That implies that you abide in love and therefore you abide in God and that God abides in you.

1 John 4:17. That love can be with you, as well as it is with each other believer, not otherwise than “perfected”. If God is love and He abides in you and you in Him, there is no lack in that love. You can note that if you think of “the day of judgment”. Do you think that when that day comes the judgment of God will be different than it is now? Of course not. Therefore you are looking forward to that day with confidence. You do not need to have any fear for the Judge, because you are in the world “as He is”. And how is He? He is in the glory, surrounded by glory, without having anything to do with sin. You know that He has finished the work and that you have Him as your life. As a result, you are as He is, although you are not there yet where He is.

Here it is not about your position in Christ before God. Your position in Christ before God is addressed by Paul in the letters he has written. John shows that the Lord Jesus is with God and in full fellowship with God in a realm and place that harmonize with the love of God. In that place there is no thought that’s related with sin, for it has been completely propitiated. And what He is you are in the world. You are living in a realm where everything is against God, but as far as you are personally concerned you are as He is. There is full fellowship with God, harmony and rest and peace. You have been brought into fellowship with Divine Persons. There is no need for you to fear judgment.

John already spoke twice about confidence. In chapter 2 it is about the confidence at the coming of the Son: how you can then face Him without any hindrance (1 John 2:28). In chapter 3 it is said that you now already have confidence in respect to your relation toward God to ask Him in confidence for what you need (1 John 3:21).

When John for the third time speaks about confidence (boldness), then it is indeed in relation to chapter 2:28, but he now uses the expression “the day of judgment”. In that way he draws your attention to the moment that all things will be exposed in the true light. At this moment, many things may still be unclear or in confusion to you, but on the day of judgment it will become apparent how things are in reality. Then the perfection of the love of God will only become even clearer. The day of judgment has not come yet, but the confidence definitely is here already.

1 John 4:18. The thought of fear does not belong to confidence, for fear does not go together with love. Love is the full expression of Who God is, and God has no fear at all. Now you know the perfect love and that perfect love is in you, the fear has been cast out. You see that God in His love has removed everything that hindered you to live in fellowship with Him. That life in fellowship with Him is just as perfect on earth as it is in heaven where we will be soon with Him. The circumstances will then be different, but not the new life that you now already have.

It is not imaginable that someone, after everything what John has explained in this letter, would still fear God concerning the eternal punishment. You will without a doubt agree that fear for a judging God has been completely removed because of what you have seen of His love. John uses a powerful word when he says that love ‘casts out’ fear. There is a power in love working that causes fear to lose the fight. He who fears, “is not perfected in love”. He who fears has not comprehended the love of God because he doesn’t partake of it (cf. Matthew 25:25; 30). Such painful fear for punishment doesn’t fit in the sphere of confidence of love in which God’s children may be.

You may wonder how this is consistent with Peter’s call to fear God (1 Peter 1:17). But Peter does not refer to the fear for the eternal judgment, but he refers to the appropriate reverence for Him Who is full of majesty. You will agree with me that this is an aspect that you also must take into consideration. John does not mean to say that you should not have respect for God now. Confidence and respect go together very well.

1 John 4:19. In this verse John concludes the section about love with a summary: “We love, because He first loved us.” Thereby he doesn’t say whether it is about our love toward God or our love toward the brothers and sisters. Both aspects should not and cannot be separated. That you are able to love is because He first loved you. He is the source. John does not go into details Who “He” is. It can be the Father and it can be the Son. It doesn’t matter. Both the Father and the Son are God and therefore both the Father and the Son are love. The Father has proven that by giving His Son for you and the Son has proven that by giving Himself for you. Therefore it cannot be otherwise than that he who knows this love also love.

1 John 4:20. Now you have seen what love is up to 1 John 4:19, from 1 John 4:20 you read about the test of love. Someone may claim to love God, but how can you know whether this is really true? Well, you have discovered again and again in this letter that God’s nature is reflected in your brother and sister and that they are in the same relation toward God as you are. He who says that he loves God will love all who have the Son of God as their life. Life expresses itself. What is claimed must be visible in the brotherly love. You cannot see God, but you can see your brother.

The word ‘seen’ means that you have seen something very well, that you have given full attention to it. This is how the disciples have seen the Lord Jesus (1 John 1:1), which caused them to learn to know Who the Father is. This is how you also should look at your brother for whom Christ has died.

Someone with whom is hatred instead of love for his brother, while he says to love God, is a liar. As it has been noted more often, such a person is in the Christian company. In that company he calls the others ‘brother’, but that is a lie. He says of himself that he is a brother, but he is not. Life and love are missing, they are not present in him.

1 John 4:21. Such a person also does not care about the commandment that the Lord Jesus has given that we should love one another. He does not have love in him nor does he see anything in the other that he finds worth loving. The commandment to love the brother is only possibly to be followed by those who love God because they have known and believed God’s love.