1 John 2 – the perfection of the love of God

1 John 2 is much longer than 1 John 1 which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, and it contains a wide range of themes and ideas – sin (again), forgiveness (again), light & dark (again), warning of anti-Messiahs, and encouragements to abide in God. It’s well worth reading and meditating on.

But as we’re thinking about the love of God, I want to highlight the first half of verse 5 – Whoever obeys Jesus’ (or God’s) word, truly in this person the love of God has reached perfection (that’s one translation, click the link to see a couple of others).

This verse, and actually quite a lot of this chapter, is quite striking and challenging, because it links our actions (obedience to God) with the perfection or completeness of the love of God. How, we wonder, can God’s love depend on what we do? Aren’t we supposed to be saved by faith, through the free gift of God, not by our own works?

I think we can say a couple of things. First, ‘love of God’ here probably does not mean God’s love for us, but rather our love for God. This is reflected in a couple of the translations at the link above. In this case, John is not saying that the quality of God’s love for us is affected by what we do. Elsewhere, he says that God is love, so it would not make sense for an inherent characteristic of God to be dependent on our actions.

Secondly, and following on, John is again saying something incredibly practical (as we saw at the start of 1 John 1). Our love for God is not fully expressed in our belief that Jesus saves us (although he does) or in our expressions of praise to God (which are right and proper as demonstrated in the Psalms). It is in our obedience to the word of God, our walking each day as disciples, our ‘loving our neighbour’ and extending care and hospitality to those in need, our standing for truth and justice as revealed by Jesus, that our love for God is made whole.

One practical step CCC has taken is to register Connection Point, our weekly coffee-and-cake drop-in,  with ‘Warm Welcome Space’ which is an organisation supporting churches and other organisations to give a warm welcome to those struggling to afford to heat their homes this winter. We hope this will let people know about Connection Point and that they are welcome to spend time in The Point.

God’s love for us and the world, which is shown in Jesus, and our love for God are closely linked, and our love for God is the appropriate response to God’s love for us. Let’s allow this to change us as we continue to explore the love of God and 1 John.

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