1 John 4 · Verse 7

1 John 4:7

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

1 John 4:7, King James Version

1 John 4:7 in other translations

BSB	Beloved, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
WEB	Beloved, let’s love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
ASV	Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God.
YLT	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;
DARBY	Beloved, let us love one another; because love is of God, and every one that loves has been begotten of God, and knows God.
BBE	My loved ones, let us have love for one another: because love is of God, and everyone who has love is a child of God and has knowledge of God.
Webster	Beloved, let us love one another: for love is from God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.

What does 1 John 4:7 mean?

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown

7. Resumption of the main theme (1Jo 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 1Jo 4:9 with 1Jo 3:16, which 1Jo 4:9 resumes; and 1Jo 4:13 with 1Jo 3:24, which similarly 1Jo 4:13 resumes. At the same time, 1Jo 4:7-21 is connected with the immediately preceding context, 1Jo 4:2 setting forth Christ's incarnation, the great proof of God's love (1Jo 4:10). Beloved--an address appropriate to his subject, "love." love--All love is from God as its fountain: especially that embodiment of love, God manifest in the flesh. The Father also is love (1Jo 4:8). The Holy Ghost sheds love as its first fruit abroad in the heart. knoweth God--spiritually, experimentally, and habitually.

Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown, 1871 · public domain

Barnes' Notes

Verse 7. Beloved, let us love one another. This verse introduces a new topic, the consideration of which occupies the remainder of the chapter. See the Analysis. The subject is one on which John dwells more than on any other--that of love. His own character peculiarly inclined him to the exercise of love; and the remarkable affection which the Lord Jesus had shown for him, seems to have had the effect to give this grace a peculiar prominence in his views of what constituted true religion. Compare Jn 13:23. On the duty here enjoined, Jn 13:34, Jn 13:36, and 1Jn 3:11, 1Jn 3:23.

For love is of God.

(1.) All true love has its origin in God.

(2.) Real love shows that we have his Spirit, and that we belong to him.

(3.) It assimilates us to God, or makes us more and more like him. What is here said by the apostle is based on the truth of what he elsewhere affirms, (1Jn 3:8), that God is love. Hatred, envy, wrath, malice, all have their source in something else than God. He neither originates them, commends them, nor approves them.

And every one that loveth, is born of God. Is a regenerated man. That is, every one who has true love to Christians as such, or true brotherly love, is a true Christian. This cannot mean that every one that loves his wife and children, his classmate, his partner in business, or his friend--his house, or his farms, or his horses, or his hounds, is a child of God; it must be understood as referring to the point under discussion. A man may have a great deal of natural affection towards his kindred; a great deal of benevolence in his character towards the poor and needy, and still he may have none of the love to which John refers. He may have no real love to God, to the Saviour, or to the children of God as such; and it would be absurd for such a one to argue because he loves his wife and children that therefore he loves God, or is born again.

(d) "love" 1Jn 3:11,23

Albert Barnes, 1834 · public domain

Adam Clarke's Commentary

Verse 7 Beloved, let us love one another - And ever be ready to promote each other's welfare, both spiritual and temporal. For love is of God - And ever acts like him; he loves man, and daily loads him with his benefits. He that loveth most has most of God in him; and he that loveth God and his neighbor, as before described and commanded, is born of God, εκ του Θεου γεγεννηται, is begotten of God - is a true child of his heavenly Father, for he is made a partaker of the Divine nature; and this his love to God and man proves.

Adam Clarke, 1831 · public domain

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary on 1 John 4:7-13

The Spirit of God is the Spirit of love. He that does not love the image of God in his people, has no saving knowledge of God. For it is God's nature to be kind, and to give happiness. The law of God is love; and all would have been perfectly happy, had all obeyed it. The provision of the gospel, for the forgiveness of sin, and the salvation of sinners, consistently with God's glory and justice, shows that God is love. Mystery and darkness rest upon many things yet. God has so shown himself to be love, that we cannot come short of eternal happiness, unless through unbelief and impenitence, although strict justice would condemn us to hopeless misery, because we break our Creator's laws. None of our words or thoughts can do justice to the free, astonishing love of a holy God towards sinners, who could not profit or harm him, whom he might justly crush in a moment, and whose deserving of his vengeance was shown in the method by which they were saved, though he could by his almighty Word have created other worlds, with more perfect beings, if he had seen fit. Search we the whole universe for love in its most glorious displays? It is to be found in the person and the cross of Christ. Does love exist between God and sinners? Here was the origin, not that we loved God, but that he freely loved us. His love could not be designed to be fruitless upon us, and when its proper end and issue are gained and produced, it may be said to be perfected. So faith is perfected by its works. Thus it will appear that God dwells in us by his new-creating Spirit. A loving Christian is a perfect Christian; set him to any good duty, and he is perfect to it, he is expert at it. Love oils the wheels of his affections, and sets him on that which is helpful to his brethren. A man that goes about a business with ill will, always does it badly. That God dwells in us and we in him, were words too high for mortals to use, had not God put them before us. But how may it be known whether the testimony to this does proceed from the Holy Ghost? Those who are truly persuaded that they are the sons of God, cannot but call him Abba, Father. From love to him, they hate sin, and whatever disagrees with his will, and they have a sound and hearty desire to do his will. Such testimony is the testimony of the Holy Ghost.

Matthew Henry, 1706 · public domain

1 John 4:7 in the original Greek

Word-by-word with transliteration, English gloss and Strong's number. Tap a number for the full definition and every place the word is used.

Ἀγαπητοί,AgapētoiBeloved,G27

ἀγαπῶμενagapōmenwe may loveG25

ἀλλήλους,allēlousone another,G240

ὅτιhotibecauseG3754

ἡhē<the>G3588

ἀγάπηagapēloveG26

ἐκekfromG1537

τοῦtou<the>G3588

θεοῦtheouGodG2316

ἐστινestinisG1510

καὶkaiandG2532

πᾶςpaseveryoneG3956

ὁhowhoG3588

ἀγαπῶνagapōnis lovingG25

ἐκekfromG1537

τοῦtou<the>G3588

θεοῦtheouGodG2316

γεγέννηταιgegennētaihas been bornG1080

καὶkaiandG2532

γινώσκειginōskeiknowsG1097

τὸνton<the>G3588

θεόν·theonGod;G2316

Source: STEPBible TAHOT/TAGNT (Tyndale House, CC BY 4.0).

Cross references for 1 John 4:7

1 John 4:20-5:1
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. 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.
1 John 4:8
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
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:
1 John 2:10
He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.
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 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 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. For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous. Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you. …
1 John 2:29
If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him.
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.
John 17:3
And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

Ranked by reader votes · OpenBible.info cross references (CC BY).

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

let.
20,21; 2:10; 3:10-23; 5:1
love is.
8; De 30:6; Ga 5:22; 1Th 4:9,10; 2Ti 1:7; 1Pe 1:22
every.
12; 2:29; 3:14; 5:1
and knoweth.
Joh 17:3; 2Co 4:6; Ga 4:9

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (Samuel Bagster, c. 1836) · public domain

Context

1 John 4:6
We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.
1 John 4:7
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
1 John 4:8
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

Read all of 1 John 4

1 John 4:7 in other languages

Spanish Reina-Valera 1909	Carísimos, amémonos unos á otros; porque el amor es de Dios. Cualquiera que ama, es nacido de Dios, y conoce á Dios.
French Bible J.N. Darby 1885	Bien-aimés, aimons-nous l’un l’autre, car l’amour est de Dieu, et quiconque aime est né de Dieu et connaît Dieu.
German Elberfelder 1871	Geliebte, laßt uns einander lieben, denn die Liebe ist aus Gott; und jeder, der liebt, ist aus Gott geboren und erkennt Gott.
Latin Clementine Vulgate	Carissimi, diligamus nos invicem: quia caritas ex Deo est. Et omnis qui diligit, ex Deo natus est, et cognoscit Deum.