God Is Love: The Son Sent as Propitiation
“God is love” is one of the Bible’s most famous statements, but John defines that love through God’s action rather than human sentiment. Love is revealed because God sent his only begotten Son so that “we might live through him,” and because he sent the Son as the propitiation for our sins. The movement is from God’s prior love to the believer’s obligation to love others. Verse 12 echoes the Gospel of John’s statement that no one has seen God; yet here the unseen God becomes visible in a different sense when his love is perfected among his people. The passage therefore joins incarnation, atonement, life, divine nature, and community ethics. God’s love is not a permission slip to ignore holiness or truth; it is the self-giving pattern revealed in the sending of the Son and reproduced in those born of God.