What Does 1 John 4:21 Mean?
And we hold this command from him, that the one who loves God should also love his brother.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.THE KEY
One verb governs both loves, so devotion to God cannot be separate from love of your brother.
THE MEANING
The love you direct toward God takes visible form in how you love your brother. The verse binds the unseen and the seen together as one expression of love.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that love for God can remain genuine while hatred or neglect of your brother is treated as unrelated.
THE ROOT
ἀγαπῶν
agapōn
GROWS FROM
ἀγαπ- (from ἀγαπάω, agapaō)
To love or cherish; this Greek word family uses a verbal stem, rather than a three-consonant Hebrew root.
“loveth / love” in this verse is agapōn. The same Greek verb family appears for the one loving God and for the command to love a brother. The repeated word binds these relationships into one expression of love.
ALSO GROWS
agapē: Love; the noun in the same Greek word family.
ἀγάπη
The noun names the love that the verse expresses through the same verb toward God and brother.
agapētos: Beloved, dear; from the same Greek word family.
ἀγαπητός
This branch shows the same family describing a person as beloved, linking love as an action with the relation it creates.
THE PATTERN
Love for God becomes visible in love extended to another person.
You shall not avenge, nor hold a grudge against the children of your people; but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.And the second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.If anyone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar. For the one who does not love his brother, whom he has perceived, cannot love God, whom he has not perceived.THE THREAD
If anyone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar. For the one who does not love his brother, whom he has perceived, cannot love God, whom he has not perceived.The same Greek verb for love appears toward God and toward the brother in both verses. This verse states the command; the connected verse exposes the contradiction when the two loves are separated.
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