The apostle John had a very simple and direct way of saying things: “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:8).

He’s saying that if you don’t love, then you don’t know God. Love is so central to who God is, that we can’t neglect it in our own lives.

Commenting on these very verses in the 16th century, the great Reformer John Calvin wrote: “For when any one separates faith from love, it is the same as though he attempted to take away heat from sun.”*

Can you imagine the sun without heat? Neither can I. That’s like faith without love.

This doesn’t mean we don’t have bad days. Or that we never sin.

What it does mean is that, if we truly know God in Christ, we will know the importance of love and will be moving in that direction.

“For when any one separates faith from love, it is the same as though he attempted to take away heat from sun.”*

By Matthew Ruttan

–Do you want to know what the Christian Gospel is? It’s a word that means “Good News.” Here’s a short 2:30m video I put together for YouTube to help explain it.

–*John Calvin, Commentary on the Catholic Epistles, trans. & ed. John Owen (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company: Grand Rapids, 1948), 239.

–Bible quotes are from the NIV.