1 John 4:7

Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(7) THE PERFECT LOVE THE SUREST TEST (1John 4:7-21).

(a)Fraternal love the necessary product of the true knowledge of God, because God is love (1John 4:7-8).

(b)The grand recent historical exhibition of God’s love (1John 4:9-10).

(c)Our consequent duty (1John 4:11).

(d)God’s abode in us, the perfecting of His love in us, and the proof of His presence through the Spirit, are the equivalent for seeing Him (1John 4:12-13).

(e)All this is grounded on the strong, undeniable truth of the Apostolic witness to Christ (1John 4:14-16).

(f)The fearlessness which is the result of perfect love (1John 4:17-18).

(g)The cause of our love to God, and the necessary connection of that love with love to our fellows (1John 4:19-21).

This may be considered the central portion of the second half of the Epistle. Nothing could be more significant of St. John’s teaching. Here many trains of thought which have occurred before are gathered together in one grand treatise on love, divine and human—the complement of the thirteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians. The thought of (a) was suggested, though not in so complete and concise a form, in 1John 3:10-11; 1John 3:23; 1John 2:4; 1John 3:6; that of (b) in 1John 3:16; 1John 2:2; that of (c) also in 1John 3:16; that of (d) in 1John 2:5; 1John 3:24; that of (e) in 1John 1:1-2; that of (f) in 1John 2:28; that of (g) in 1John 2:4; 1John 3:17. The connection with the paragraph on the trial of the spirits is very obvious: “every one that loveth is born of God;” so that the quality and quantity of our affection will be the best gauge whether we have the spirit of truth or of error. The absence of love is ignorance of God, for real knowledge of Him imparts His nature. And if any ask how we know of His love, the answer is that it was seen in His Son. In sending Him, He loved us without any love on our part. Our relation to God reminds us that we must have the same love to each other. The fact that God cannot be seen is an additional reason for mutual affection among us; for brotherly love is the demonstrable proof of His presence, and of the growing completeness of the work wrought by His love in us. The Spirit Himself, through whom our love would come, confirms the reality of God’s indwelling. And these spiritual emotions and developments are not illusory, for they are guaranteed by the ocular and oral evidence of the Apostles to the historical Person of Christ. So the result of all this will be perfect and fearless confidence. To sum up (1John 4:19): our love to God springs from His to us; hatred of our brother (or the absence of love for him) is the denial of all love for God; and for this duty we rest not on our own deductions only, however true, but on His plain command.

(7 a.) (7) One another.—As God loved the world, so we are to love mankind, not merely Christians. (Comp. 1John 3:13.)

For love is of God.—He who is truly alive shares the life of God, which is love. All true love is part of His being.

(8) Knoweth not.—Rather, never knew. Real knowledge of God has a convincing practical effect; without such an effect it is not knowledge, but a mere mental deception.

God is love.—In the early part of the Epistle St. John had defined God as light, and the thoughts had been grouped round and in relation to that central idea. It would of course be impossible ever to exhaust all the definitions of God; but just as our nature may be roughly classified as intellectual and moral, mind and heart, thought and emotion, so, when we have thought of God as Light (embracing all such attributes as truth, knowledge, purity, health, power, and justice), we shall not have traversed in outline all that we can know of His nature, or all that concerns us to know, until we have also thought of Him as Love, the author and source of all true affection, kindness, pity, friendliness, rejoicing in the creation of infinite life for the sake of its infinite happiness, and offering eternal bliss to all His human family, that He may be for ever surrounded by inexhaustible illustrations of the joy and glory of perfection.

(7 b.) (9) In this was manifested.—St. John echoes his beloved Lord (from John 3:16).

In us.—(Comp. John 9:3.) “In our case.”

Only begotten.—In contrast to us, His adopted sons.

That we might live.—Human life is regarded as no true living, but a mere existence, until “Christ be formed in the heart” and we become “partakers of the divine nature.”

(10) Herein is love.—What love is this, that, distasteful, uncongenial, unloving, unlovely as we must have been in His sight, He did this great thing for us! (Comp. John 15:16; Romans 5:8; Romans 5:10; Titus 3:4.) On Propitiation, see 1John 2:2; 1John 3:16.

(7 c,) (11) Beloved.—An impulse moves St. John’s mind corresponding to that in 1John 4:7.

We ought.—As God has bestowed his affection so gratuitously on us, and we benefit by it in such an inconceivable degree, and can make Him no return, we can only pay the debt by bestowing our poor equivalent on our fellow men. Although our happiness depends strictly on God, still He has allowed us to be stewards for Him in some small degree for the happiness of those about us.

(7 d.) (12) No man . . .—St. John quotes his Gospel (John 1:18). This is simply the general proposition, “God is invisible,” and has no reference to spiritual sight. (Comp. Exodus 33:20; John 6:46; 1Timothy 6:16.) The appearances of God to Abraham or Moses would be like the Shechinah in the Temple, but no material glimpse of Him who is a Spirit. St. John mentions the fact as an admission of the limits of human nature and the condition of faith, but only in order to state the richness of the substitute, which is the presence of God within the soul, verified and substantiated by the historical Person of Christ.

His love is perfected in us.—Its operation in us has full scope and sway.

(13) Hereby know we.—Comp. 1John 3:24.

(7 e.) A second antithesis to the opening words of 1John 4:12. The Apostolic witness to the person of Christ is again and again insisted on as the foundation of Christian theology. (Comp. 1John 1:1-3; John 1:14; Acts 4:20; Acts 22:15; Acts 26:16.)

(14) Saviour of the world.—Comp. 1John 2:2.

(15) Whosoever shall confess—i.e., receives the Apostolic witness as beyond dispute. (Comp. 1John 2:23, and 1John 4:6; Romans 10:9.) The noble width of this declaration is most remarkable, in opposition to human inventions of narrow and sectarian communions.

Son of God, in the sense of “only begotten,” as in 1John 4:9.

(16) And we have known and believed.—This has the effect of a reflective repetition of 1John 4:14, “Yes. we have known and believed.” This time, however, the “we” includes those who have heard and accepted the testimony of the eye-witnesses.

God is love.—In this meditative recapitulation St. John cannot help summing up everything again in the boundless formula of 1John 4:8. Knowledge is here the process that leads to conviction; belief, the result of conviction.

He that dwelleth in love.—St. John’s whole purpose is none other than to raise man to his highest possible development by demonstrating the reality and nature of fellowship with the Divine. Here he arrives at the very central position of all: that as God is Love itself, so he that allows nothing to trouble that atmosphere of pure love (here neither specially towards God or man) which God would enable him to breathe, if his own wilfulness did not turn him away from it, will be bathed in the light of God, animated with His life, and one with Him. It is a combination of 1John 4:8; 1John 4:15.

Us has the same width as 1John 4:15.

(7 f.) (17) Herein is our love made perfect.—Rather, In this love is perfected with us. “Love,” as in 1John 4:16, is the disposition to be attracted towards what is worthy of sympathy, whether it be God or man.

That we may have boldness.—The day of judgment, whether near or remote, is regarded as so certain that it is a present fact influencing our conduct. Love will be more or less perfect in us in proportion as it gives us more or less just and reasonable grounds for confidence were we suddenly placed before the great white throne. (Comp. 1John 2:28.)

Because as he is, so are we in this world.—If we live in this serene atmosphere of pure sympathy with God and man, Christ is in us and we in Him, because God is Love itself. Sharing His nature, therefore, we must be like Him, and the more completely we allow this Divine love towards our Father and our brothers to transform our whole being, the more we shall be like our Judge, and the less cause we shall have for dread.

In this world merely indicates our present place of habitation.

(18) There is no fear.—The more perfect this disposition of serene sympathy becomes, the less share can any form of anxiety have in it. Even if regarded as directed to an earthly object, if it be pure and divine in its character, not even want of reciprocity can disturb its equanimity. Where it is a well-grounded sympathy with a perfect being, its serenity is all the more complete in proportion to its sincerity. When love is perfect, fear dwindles to nothing, is absolutely expelled. Love, seeking to be perfect, and finding fear alongside of it, will diligently seek out the cause of the fear, perfect itself by getting rid of the cause, and so get rid of the fear. Fear in such a connection implies some ground for alarm, and suffers punishment (not “torment”) by anticipation. The presence of such a ground for alarm would imply a proportionate imperfection of love. (Comp. 1John 3:19-21.)

(7 g.) The cause of our love to God, and the necessary connection of that love with love to our fellows (1John 4:19-21).

(19) We love him, because he first loved us.—God’s loving us made it possible for us to love Him: otherwise we should not have known Him, or had the faculty of loving Him even had we known Him. To suppose that St. John is putting a mere case of gratitude is to rob him of the dignity and depth of his meaning.

(20) These last three verses are a recapitulation in a vivid form, of the truth and the duty contained in 1John 4:10-11. God made it possible for us to love Him, and the very first result of our feeling this power within us, and allowing it to put itself into force will be seen in pure and devout sympathy for all whom we can help. As usual, hating, and not loving, are put as interchangeable members of the class of malevolence. St. John argues on the ground that it is much easier for human nature to be interested by what comes before its eyes than by that about which it has to think. Gregory the Great says, “In love the eyes are guides;” and Œcumenius, “Sight leads on to love.” (Comp. 1John 2:4

Benson Commentary

1 John 4:7-8. Let us love one another — From the doctrine he has just been defending, he draws this exhortation: as if he had said, Think it not enough speculatively to admit the Christian doctrine, but let it be your great care to acknowledge it practically, and especially with respect to that most important article, brotherly love. The frequency and earnestness with which the apostle, in the present epistle, inculcates this love, is very remarkable. The greatest part of this chapter, and of chapter 3., is employed in pressing this duty. See also 1 John 2:8-11. For love is of God — Is from him as its source, and particularly enjoined by him as a duty of the greatest importance, and of absolute necessity, in order to our pleasing and imitating him. And every one that loveth is born of God — Every one, in whose heart this divine principle reigns, and conquers the selfish and contrary passions, shows by it that he is regenerated and transformed into the divine image; and that he knoweth God — By the teaching of his Holy Spirit, as the God of love, infinitely amiable in himself, and infinitely loving to his people. On the other hand, he that loveth not, whatever he may pretend, knoweth not God — Has no experimental and saving knowledge of him; for God is love — Its great fountain and exemplar. He enjoins it by his law, and produces and cherishes it by the influences of his Spirit; and the due contemplation of him will naturally inflame our hearts with love to his divine majesty, and to our fellow-creatures for his sake, whose creatures they are, and especially to his children, who love him, bear his image, and are peculiarly dear to him. This little sentence, God is love, brought St. John more sweetness, even in the time he was writing it, says Bengelius, than the whole world can bring. God is often styled holy, righteous, wise; but not holiness, righteousness, or wisdom, in the abstract, as he is said to be love: intimating that this is his darling, his reigning attribute; the attribute that sheds an amiable glory on all his other perfections.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

4:7-13 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 salvation of sinners, consistently with God's glory and justice, shows that God is love. Mystery and darkness rest upon many things yet. God has so shown himself to be love, that we cannot come short of eternal happiness, unless through unbelief and impenitence, although strict justice would condemn us to hopeless misery, because we break our 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 not 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 were saved, though he could by his almighty Word have created other worlds, with more perfect beings, if he had seen fit. Search we the whole 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 and sinners? Here was the origin, not that we loved God, but that he freely loved us. His love could not be designed to be fruitless upon us, and when its proper end and issue are gained and produced, it may be said to be perfected. So faith is perfected by its works. Thus it will appear that God dwells in us by his new-creating Spirit. A loving 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. A 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 whether the testimony to this does proceed from the Holy Ghost? Those who are truly persuaded that they are the sons of God, cannot but call him Abba, Father. From love to him, they hate sin, and whatever disagrees with his will, and they have a sound and hearty desire to do his will. Such testimony is the testimony of the Holy Ghost.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Beloved, let us love one another - This verse introduces a new topic, the consideration of which occupies the remainder of the chapter. See the Analysis. The subject is one on which John dwells more than on any other - that of love. His own character especially inclined him to the exercise of love; and the remarkable affection which the Lord Jesus had shown for him, seems to have had the effect to give this grace a special prominence in his views of what constituted true religion. Compare John 13:23. On the duty here enjoined, see the John 13:34-35 notes, and 1 John 3:11, 1 John 3:23 notes.

For love is of God -

(1) All true love has its origin in God.

(2) real love shows that we have his Spirit, and that we belong to him.

(3) it assimilates us to God, or makes us more and more like him.

What is here said by the apostle is based on the truth of what he elsewhere affirms, 1 John 4:8, that God is love. Hatred, envy, wrath, malice, all have their source in something else than God. He neither originates them, commends them, nor approves them.

And everyone that loveth, is born of God - Is a regenerated man. That is, everyone who has true love to Christians as such, or true brotherly love, is a true Christian. This cannot mean that everyone that loves his wife and children, his classmate, his partner in business, or his friend - his house, or his farms, or his horses, or his hounds, is a child of God; it must be understood as referring to the point under discussion. A man may have a great deal of natural affection toward his kindred; a great deal of benevolence in his character toward the poor and needy, and still he may have none of the love to which John refers. He may have no real love to God, to the Saviour, or to the children of God as such; and it would be absurd for such a one to argue because he loves his wife and children that therefore he loves God, or is born again.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

7. Resumption of the main theme (1Jo 2:29). Love, the sum of righteousness, is the test of our being born of God. Love flows from a sense of God's love to us: compare 1Jo 4:9 with 1Jo 3:16, which 1Jo 4:9 resumes; and 1Jo 4:13 with 1Jo 3:24, which similarly 1Jo 4:13 resumes. At the same time, 1Jo 4:7-21 is connected with the immediately preceding context, 1Jo 4:2 setting forth Christ's incarnation, the great proof of God's love (1Jo 4:10).

Beloved—an address appropriate to his subject, "love."

love—All love is from God as its fountain: especially that embodiment of love, God manifest in the flesh. The Father also is love (1Jo 4:8). The Holy Ghost sheds love as its first fruit abroad in the heart.

knoweth God—spiritually, experimentally, and habitually.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Beloved, let us love one another: in opposition to the malice and cruelty of these enemies to true and pure Christianity, he exhorteth to mutual love, not limited to themselves, as undoubtedly he did not intend, see note on 1Jo 3:14; but that they should do their part towards all others, letting it lie upon them, if it were not reciprocated and mutual.

For love is of God; this he presses as a further discrimination; nothing being more evidential of relation and alliance to God, than a duly regulated love, which is of him.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Beloved, let its love one another,.... The apostle having finished what he proposed to say concerning the trying of spirits, returns to his former exhortation to brotherly love, and which comes with fresh force and strength; for since worldly men follow, hear, embrace, and cleave to the false teachers; such as are of God, and on the side of truth, should love one another, and their faithful ministers, and stand fast in one spirit by the truths of the Gospel, in opposition to every error:

for love is of God: to love one another is the command of God, it is his revealed will, and is well pleasing in his sight; it comes from him, is a gift of his grace, and a fruit of his Spirit, and which he teaches regenerate ones to exercise:

and everyone that loveth God, as the Alexandrian copy reads, or Christ, and the saints, who seem to be particularly meant:

is born of God; for love to the brethren is an evidence of regeneration; See Gill on 1 John 3:14;

and knoweth God; he knows God in Christ, and therefore loves those who have the grace of God in them, and the image of Christ upon them; he knows the mind and will of God, being taught of God to love the brethren; and he knows the love of God, and has had an experience of the grace of God, which influences him to love the saints.

Geneva Study Bible

{6} Beloved, let us love one another: {7} for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.

(6) He returns to the commending of brotherly love and charity.

(7) The first reason: because it is a very divine thing, and therefore very fitting for the sons of God: so that whoever is missing it cannot be said to know God correctly.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

1 John 4:7-8. Exhortation to mutual love, and the establishing of this.

The address ἀγαπητοί emphatically introduces the command: ἀγαπῶμεν.

The object ἀλλήλους shows that here also it is not human love in general, but Christian brotherly love that is the subject. Mutual love is the holiest calling of Christians who are τέκνα τοῦ Θεοῦ, for ἡ ἀγάπη ἐκ τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐστι,[261] i.e. love proceeds from God; Calovius: originem habet a Deo. Unsatisfactory is the explanation of Grotius: Deo maxime placet bonitas. ἡ ἀγάπη is used without a determining object, because it is love in its full extent that is meant.

καὶ πᾶς ὁ ἀγαπῶν ἐκ τοῦ Θεοῦ γεγέννηται κ.τ.λ.] Inference from what immediately precedes. If love is of God, then he who lives in love must also be born of God and know Him. The relation of ἀγαπᾷν and ἐκ τοῦ Θεοῦ γεγεννῆσθαι is not to be defined thus, that the former is the condition of the latter (de Wette), but thus, that the former is to be regarded as the criterion of the latter; to be born of God does not follow from love, but love follows from being born of God. The same relationship exists also between ἀγαπᾷν and γινώσκειν τὸν Θεόν;[262] what sort of a knowledge of God is meant, however, is seen from the close connection of ΓΙΝΏΣΚΕΙ with ἘΚ ΤΟῦ ΘΕΟῦ ΓΕΓΈΝΝΗΤΑΙ.—1 John 4:8. From the foregoing it follows further: Ὁ ΜῊ ἈΓΑΠῶΝ ΟὐΚ ἜΓΝΩ ΤῸΝ ΘΕΌΝ; ΟὐΚ ἜΓΝΩ, i.e. “has not known.” The reason is: ὅτι ὁ Θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν.

By this thought the preceding Ἡ ἈΓΆΠΗ ἘΚ ΤΟῦ ΘΕΟῦ ἘΣΤΊ receives its full comprehension.

ἈΓΆΠΗ is without the article, because it is considered as a general definition of the nature of God; so 1 John 4:16, comp. 1 John 1:5 : Ὁ ΘΕῸς Φῶς ἘΣΤΊ. “Love is not so much a quality which God has, as rather the all-embracing total of what He is” (Besser). Luther: Deus nihil est quam mera caritas; Grotius tamely: plenus est dilectione.

[261] Neander: “The apostle does not here lay down a commandment of love; he does not want to impress on believers new motives for love, but to convince them that as sure as they are God’s children, this fact must he manifested by mutual love.—As proof he adduces that love is of God, and therefore every one who loves is born of God.”

[262] It was previously stated in this commentary: “John does not here say that love flows from the knowledge of God, but that love, because it is of divine nature, necessarily brings with it the knowledge of God.” This is incorrect, since γινώσκει τὸν Θεόν stands in the same relationship to ἀγαπῶν as ἐκ τοῦ Θεοῦ γεγέννηται does, even though it is in itself true also that only he who himself loves can really know God, who is love. For the correct explanation, see Lücke, Braune, Weiss. It has already been observed, however, that the last-named does not correctly state the connection between being born of God and the knowledge of God, as he makes the latter the condition of the former.

1 John 4:7-21. After the apostle, induced by the appearance of the antichristian nature, has characterized the spirit of truth and the spirit of error, he passes on directly to a detailed account of the elements of faith and love alluded to in chap. 1 John 3:23.

Expositor's Greek Testament

1 John 4:7-21. The Blessedness of Love. “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God, and every one that loveth of God hath been begotten and is getting to know God. He that loveth not did not get to know God, because God is love. Herein was manifested the love of God in us, because His Son, His only-begotten, hath God commissioned into the world, that we may get life through Him. Herein is the love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and commissioned His Son as a propitiation for our sins.

“Beloved, if it was thus that God loved us, we also are bound to love one another. God—no one hath ever yet beheld Him: if we love one another, God abideth in us and His love is perfected in us. Herein we get to know that we abide in Him and He in us, because of His Spirit He hath given us. And we have beheld and testify that the Father hath commissioned the Son as Saviour of the world. Whosoever confesseth that Jesus is the Son of God, God in him abideth and he in God. And we have got to know and have believed the love which God hath in us.

“God is love, and he that abideth in love in God abideth, and God in him abideth. Herein hath love been perfected with us—so that we may have boldness in the Day of Judgment—because, even as He is, we also are in this world. Fear there is not in love, but the perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath punishment; and he that feareth hath not been perfected in love. We love because He first loved us. If one say, ‘I love God,’ and hate his brother, he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, God whom he hath not seen, he cannot love. And this commandment have we from Him, that he that loveth God love also his brother.”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

7–21. Love is the Mark of the Children of the God who is Love

7. Beloved, let us love one another] See on 1 John 3:2. The transition seems abrupt, as if the Apostle had summarily dismissed an unwelcome subject. But the connexions of thought in S. John’s writings are often so subtle, that it is rash to assert anywhere that two consecutive verses or sections are entirely without connecting links. Two such links may be found here. 1. The power to love one another, no less than the power to confess the Incarnation, is the gift of the Spirit (1 John 4:2; 1 John 4:12-13). And faith and love mutually aid one another. This is the case even between man and man. Faith and trust soon pass into love. 2. The antichristian spirit is a selfish one; it makes self, i.e. one’s own intellect and one’s own interest, the measure of all things. Just as it severs the Divine from the human in Christ, so it severs Divine love from human conduct in man. ‘Beloved, let us do far otherwise. Let us love one another’.

For the third and last time in this Epistle the Apostle introduces the subject of brotherly love. First it was introduced as a consequence and sign of walking in the light (1 John 2:7-11). Next it was introduced as a special form of righteousness and mark of God’s children (1 John 3:10-18). Here it appears as a gift of the Spirit of God, a contrast to the antichristian spirit, and above all as an effluence from the very Being of God.

‘Love one another’ here, as in 1 John 3:11, applies primarily to the mutual love of Christians. The love of Christians to unbelievers is not expressly excluded, but it is not definitely before the Apostle’s mind.

love is of God] And ‘we are of God’ (1 John 4:6), and ‘ye are of God’ (1 John 4:4); therefore there should be the family bond of love between us.

every one that loveth is born of God] This follows from the preceding statement. If God is the source of all love, then whatever love a man has in him comes from God; and this part of his moral nature is of Divine origin. Of ‘every one that loveth’ is this true, whether he be heathen or Christian: there is no limitation. If a Socrates or a Marcus Aurelius loves his fellow-men, it is by the grace of God that he does so. See concluding note on 1 John 3:4.

knoweth God] He comes by experience to know Him by thus sharing the Divine nature.

Bengel's Gnomen

1 John 4:7. Ἀγαπῶμεν, let us love) From that very doctrine, which he has just defended, he now derives an exhortation to love. See 1 John 4:9. The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit: 1 John 4:2; Romans 5:5.—ἡ ἀγάπη, love) All love is from God.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 7-21. - God is Love, and love is the surest test of birth from God. From 1 John 3:11, 12 St. John renews his exhortations to love, this time at greater length and in closer connexion with the other great subject of this second half of the Epistle, the birth from God. Verse 7. - Beloved (see on verse 1) The address is specially suitable where the subject is love. As before, we must not look for the chief purport of the section in the exhortation with which it opens. Just as "prove the spirits" is subordinate to "every spirit which confesseth," etc., so "let us love one another" is subordinate to "God is Love." (For the history and meaning of the specially Christian term ἀγάπη, see Trench's 'Synonyms of New Testament.') 1 John 4:7

Vincent's Word Studies

Of God (ἐκ τοῦ Θεοῦ)

Flows from God.