7For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist. 8Watch yourselves, that you do not lose what we have accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward.
Biblical love is not a gushy, sentimental feeling toward others. Popular songs convey a superficial notion—”What the world needs now is love, sweet love”—but they leave love rooted in ambiguity or reduce it to a feeling, whether romantic or platonic.
Biblical love, however, is rooted in truth, that which is solid, factual. It is not a feeling or euphoric sense of wellbeing but a choice and an action. John forcefully asserts this truth about love by warning us about false teachers. John, as an apostle, has seen the gospel accomplish much in the lives of his readers. They have been transformed by the love of God and have been motivated by His love to love others in the same way. False teaching strips all that away and leads people back to a works-oriented way of earning merit with God.
Only in Christ—incarnate in the flesh as Jesus of Nazareth, a physical, fully human man—can we fully understand the love of God. He died a physical death on the cross, as a perfect man, in place of me, a sinful person. He satisfied the wrath of God against my unrighteousness by His shed blood on the cross. To teach anything else is to water down God’s love to a feeling or occasional act of kindness. But God displayed His love for all to see when His Son sacrificed His life for us, as John recorded our Lord saying,
“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you.” (John 15:12–14)
Bar none, there is no greater expression of love than sacrificing one’s life for another. But if Christ, the Son of God, did not come in the flesh, that ultimate act of love did not happen. In other words, to deny the incarnation of Jesus Christ would nullify the apostolic teaching of the cross. Without the cross, we would not be recipients of God’s sacrificial love, we would still be dead in our sins, and this teaching of Paul would be false: “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). Any lesser love than the sacrifice on the cross would come short of saving us while we were sinners, or keeping us while we are believers who sin.
Lord, I confess that Jesus Christ was and is fully human and fully divine and that You love me unconditionally and eternally.
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