SEV Biblia, Chapter 4:8
El que no ama, no conoce a Dios; porque Dios es caridad.
Clarke's Bible Commentary - 1 John 4:8
Verse 8. He that loveth not] As already described, knoweth not God - has no experimental knowledge of him. God is love.] An infinite fountain of benevolence and beneficence to every human being. He hates no thing that he has made. He cannot hate, because he is love. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends his rain on the just and the unjust. He has made no human being for perdition, nor ever rendered it impossible, by any necessitating decree, for any fallen soul to find mercy. He has given the fullest proof of his love to the whole human race by the incarnation of his Son, who tasted death for every man.
How can a decree of absolute, unconditional reprobation, of the greater part or any part of the human race, stand in the presence of such a text as this? It has been well observed that, although God is holy, just, righteous, &c., he is never called holiness, justice, &c., in the abstract, as he is here called LOVE. This seems to be the essence of the Divine nature, and all other attributes to be only modifications of this.
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 8. He that loveth not, knoweth not God , &c.] If a man loves not the children of God, those that are born of him, he does not know, so as to love God, the Father of them; for to pretend love to God, the begetter of them, whom he sees not, and not love those who are begotten by him, and are visible objects of respect, is a contradiction, and cannot be reconciled: (see 1 John 4:20). This clause is left out in the Ethiopic version, and is transposed in the Syriac version, which reads the text thus, “for God, is love, and whoever loveth not, knoweth not God”. By which reading, the following reason stands in close connection with ( 1 John 4:7). For God is love ; he loves himself; there is an entire love between the three divine Persons, who are in the strictest, and in the most inconceivable and inexpressible manner affected to each other; their love is natural and essential: God loves all his creatures as such, nor does he hate any of them, as so considered; and he bears an everlasting, unchangeable, and invariable love to his elect in Christ Jesus; of which an instance is given in the following verses, and is a reason why the saints should love one another; that they might be like their heavenly Father, by whom they are begotten, and of whom they are born, and whose children they are; seeing he is love itself, and in his breast is nothing else but love. So the Shekinah is, by the Cabalistic Jews f43 , called hbha , “love”.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 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 salvatio of sinners, consistently with God's glory and justice, shows that God is love. Mystery and darkness rest upon many things yet. God has s shown himself to be love, that we cannot come short of eterna happiness, unless through unbelief and impenitence, although stric justice would condemn us to hopeless misery, because we break ou 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 no 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 wer saved, though he could by his almighty Word have created other worlds with more perfect beings, if he had seen fit. Search we the whol 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 an sinners? Here was the origin, not that we loved God, but that he freel loved us. His love could not be designed to be fruitless upon us, an when its proper end and issue are gained and produced, it may be sai to be perfected. So faith is perfected by its works. Thus it wil appear that God dwells in us by his new-creating Spirit. A lovin 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. 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 whethe the testimony to this does proceed from the Holy Ghost? Those who ar truly persuaded that they are the sons of God, cannot but call his Abba, Father. From love to him, they hate sin, and whatever disagree with his will, and they have a sound and hearty desire to do his will Such testimony is the testimony of the Holy Ghost.
Greek Textus Receptus
ο 3588 μη 3361 αγαπων 25 5723 ουκ 3756 εγνω 1097 5627 τον 3588 θεον 2316 οτι 3754 ο 3588 θεος 2316 αγαπη 26 εστιν 2076 5748
Vincent's NT Word Studies
8. Knoweth not (ouk egnw). The aroist tense: did not know, from the beginning. He never knew.Is love (agaph esti.n). See on God is light (i. 5), and the truth (i. 6); also God is spirit (John iv. 24). Spirit and light are expressions of God's essential nature. Love is the expression of His personality corresponding to His nature. See on love of God (ii. 5). Truth and love stand related to each other. Loving is the condition of knowing.
