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The simple phrase, "the love of God," may of course mean God's love to man; but it may also mean man's love to God; and that we take to be the meaning in the text. For two men to be thus distinguished from each other, by one having this affection and the other having it not — why, it is a greater distinction, when you come to think of it, than belonging to a different species of being.

I. IT IS POSSIBLE TO LOVE GOD. Human nature has its intellect and affections, and a capacity for reason, thought, and sentiment. The being that can love one thing can love another; the man that loves a creature, a person manifested to him in the flesh, may love the infinite Person.

II. WITHOUT LOVE TO GOD YOU CAN HARDLY CONCEIVE OF THERE BEING ANYTHING, IN HIS ESTIMATION, LIKE MORAL WORTH OR EXCELLENCE IN MAN. Take the case of a family presided over by a loving and virtuous parent. It is very possible to conceive of the children of that family outwardly appearing to tender him the expressions of filial obedience and respect; but if they had not a particle of love in their hearts to that father — if their hearts were altogether given to some one else, and if there were to come on the parental heart the conviction that with all their displays of respect they had not an atom of love towards him, how could there be any feeling of delight towards them in the parental breast?

III. THE LOVE OF GOD IS NOT A SPONTANEOUS AND INSTINCTIVE AFFECTION OF THE HUMAN HEART. Human beings come into the world with certain tendencies, affections, and sympathies, and have the affection of love among the rest. I think there is rather a tendency in little children to like to hear about God, and heaven, and Jesus and His influence. But human nature needs to be operated upon from without; there must be external instrumentality in order to the development and manifestation of anything; and if you leave it to itself it will grow up just a bundle of appetites — a brutal, ferocious, obscene thing.

IV. THE GOSPEL IS INTENDED TO EXCITE AND TO SUSTAIN THIS AFFECTION IN MAN. I think we may say here that the thing to be achieved has this difficulty about it; it is to be the reproduction of an extinguished affection. And then, when the love of God is excited, it is to expand and bring forth fruit; so that, in accordance with the statement of the text, the individual is not to be satisfied with the luxury of the sentiment — he is not to lose himself (as some mystics have thought) in perpetual contemplation, as though the love of God were to be perfected in that manner. We live in a world of action, and in which the great thing is to do and act according to the will of God; and if the human heart is brought into this condition, and really loves God, then it will seek to perfect that love, by its manifestation, in keeping God's word, in doing whatsoever God willeth. "Let me have Thy word, and the strong impulse of Divine affection shall be manifested and perfected." Then supposing that to be done, the text says, the result and conclusion of the whole matter is that "hereby" the individual "knows that he is in Him"; that is, in Christ.

(T. Binney.)

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KJV: And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.

WEB: This is how we know that we know him: if we keep his commandments.