Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. (8) He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.  (9) In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.  (10) In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  

In this first letter written by the apostle John, he speaks of the all importance of love.  Love is not optional for the believer and John tells us if we don’t love others we don’t love God.  Love is the imevitable result of being born again – of being a new man or woman in our faith in Christ Jesus but love is not automatic; it is not a matter of our feelings but of our will – it is the growth of our souls.

John has just witnessed in early chapter four of this letter that salvation is by faith in Christ Jesus and at the time of this transformation it is now time to turn to love each other. Love for others is evidence of God abiding in us through the Spirit. Our words and behavior must be consistent with Biblical love which is to live for the highest good for another.  This  is an action verb/a caring commitment, often involving self sacrifice. Biblical love is genuine only when it does not originate from the man/woman, but from God. Salvation is always and only from the Lord, and so this love for others originates in faith in Christ

Biblical love – real love – is seen not in our loving God but in His loving us by sending His Son into a world of hostile unloveable humans to save men from our sins. Without Christ Jesus we are all dead.  Propitiation for sin was the cause of Christ Jesus coming which also means that the acceptable sacrifice of Christ’s death was only able to be accomplished by Him. We are made right with God only through Christ – if men were able to redeem themselves by their works than Christ would not be the only true propitiation for sin.  It doesn’t matter what we think of God but it matters only what God thinks of us.