2/16/20 A.M.

This love requires a way of living life. Love is shown when living in God’s love has been shared and understood. The test doesn’t include a person choosing to trust Christ as savior. That step is between God and them.

This kind of love is synonomous with having a personal relationship with God through Christ!

The Test: This is a love that promotes God’s love through Christ to the point that salvation (the Gospel) is shared.

1 John 4:9–10 NIV

9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

God sent His Son! This is the message we need to pass on. It is the message of God’s love. God’s love was shown by sending His Son into the world so that we might live through Him.

A person can get a great feeling of accomplishment by doing acts of love (care) toward others. However, this can be a selfish love if living in Christ is not the primary reason for the action.

to love (Christian) v. —(social Love) to have a strong, non-sexual affection and love for a person and their good as understood by God’s moral character; especially characterized by a willing forfeiture of rights or privileges in another person’s behalf. - Action

love (affection) n. — (Affection or benevolent Love) a strong positive emotion of regard and affection. - A Thing -

1 John 4:9–10 (NIV)

9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love (noun): not that we loved (Verb) God, but that he loved (Verb) us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

1 John 4:7 - a lasting love comes from God - this is a spiritual love (noun) not the definition of love in action. Everyone who loves in action has been born with the Love (noun) of God.

A lasting love is a love provided to a child of God through the regeneration that comes through the Holy Spirit. To know God includes the definition of being born again.

This Love requires a New Spiritual Birth.

“Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”” (John 3:3, NIV)

“Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”” (John 3:5–8, NIV)

John Miley’s Systematic Theology, Volume 2 Chapter VI: Regeneration

CHAPTER VI

REGENERATION

WHILE regeneration is closely related to justification, there are real points of difference between them. They differ widely in the grounds of their necessity. The necessity for justification lies in the fact of guilt, while the necessity for regeneration lies in the depravity of our nature. Hence they must fulfill different offices in the work of our salvation. It is the office of justification to cancel our guilt, while it is the office of regeneration to renew or purify our moral nature. Yet in other facts the two are closely related. They are coincident in time. There is no reason for any chronological separation; not even where the consciousness of the moral change wrought by regeneration is a gradual attainment. Further, we are justified and regenerated on the same act of faith. The two great blessings are not separately offered to separate acts of faith; they are offered together as inseparable blessings of the salvation in Christ, and so are received on one and the same act of faith.

Regeneration, like justification, is a vital part of Christian soteriology. It must be such, since native depravity is a reality, and regeneration a necessity to a truly spiritual life. It follows that a truthful doctrine of regeneration must be profoundly important. Yet it is one respecting which error has widely prevailed, and greatly to the detriment of the Christian life. However, as between evangelical systems, the doctrine of regeneration has been far less in issue than that of justification, mostly because it is less directly concerned in the doctrinal view of the atonement.

How do we know we have a lasting love?

to live (supernaturally) v. — to be or become alive in a transcendent manner; especially as characteristic of resurrected life, or life without sin or with sin subjugated.

Atoning Sacrifice: propitiation n. — the means of appeasing wrath and gaining the good will of an offended person; especially with respect to sacrifices for appeasing angered deities.

Lasting Love Demonstrated

Two passages in 1 John

1 John 4:9 NIV

9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.

What does it mean to live through the Son?

1 John 4:10–12 NIV

10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

Point: A Lasting Love can only be found in the love of God.

Love in action is often miss applied. A love that leads to action without living in Christ is a fallen and fleshly love.

The Characteristics of Love

Collins Thesaurus of the Bible A1 about Love

The characteristics of love (1 Cor. 13:4–7

1 Corinthians 13:4–7 NIV

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

The characteristics of love (1 Cor. 13:4–7);

Day, A. C. (2009). Collins Thesaurus of the Bible. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.

Love Covers all Wrongs

love covers all transgressions (Prov. 10:12); love covers a multitude of sins (1 Pet. 4:8); he who covers a transgression seeks love (Prov. 17:9);

Day, A. C. (2009). Collins Thesaurus of the Bible. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.

Proverbs 10:12 NIV

12 Hatred stirs up conflict, but love covers over all wrongs.

1 Peter 4:8 NIV

8 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

Proverbs 17:9 NIV

9 Whoever would foster love covers over an offense, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends.

No Greater Love

greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13);

Day, A. C. (2009). Collins Thesaurus of the Bible. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.

John 15:13 NIV

13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

I submit to you that the Greater love that is presented in the Bible is not a self-centered love. It is a love that includes atonement. Specifically the atonement that comes from God through Jesus Christ.

A Faith that Counts

faith working through love is what counts (Gal. 5:6);

Day, A. C. (2009). Collins Thesaurus of the Bible. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.

Galatians 5:1–4 NIV

1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. 2 Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. 3 Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. 4 You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.

Galatians 5:5–6 NIV

5 For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

Through the Spirit

Faith expressing itself through Love!

This love is a Noun.

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