There’s a church not far from here that is displaying this message on an electronic marquee: Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 1 John 4:16. The message they are trying to convey is: All you need is love. If you have love then you are in good with God. In fact, God is inside you.
This is the New Age Gospel: There’s no need to repent. No need to accept responsibility for your sins. No need to recognize your need for a Savior to pay a price you could not pay. All you need is love.
The real message of the verse cannot be understood outside of context. Full understanding requires reading the entire letter John wrote but enough context to dispel the New Age nonsense can be provided by just reading a few words which precede the quotation:
This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them
1 John 4:13-16
Thus there is a prerequisite for prescription on the church marquee. First you need to acknowledge that Jesus is the Son of God. But we mustn’t say that since Jews and Muslims and Buddhists and Hindus and all manner of others deny that Jesus is the Son of God.
Beyond the context there is a level of deception even in the choice of translation. The quote comes from the New International Version which chooses to translate the Greek word μένω (men’-o) as “live.” In fact this is rarely the appropriate English translation. More accurately the word means “stay” or “remain.” The most frequent Biblical translation is “abide.” Using the word “live” waters down the meaning. We all live until we die. That’s just what we do. Staying, remaining, and abiding are life choices that demand commitment, not just blundering through life living “in love” or any other way.
And finally, while I can’t argue with the use of the word “love” for the Greek ἀγάπη (ag-ah’-pay) in this and many other New Testament translations, the context of that word must be understood. I’ll quote John Piper on this:
One of the most popular linguistic and exegetical fallacies in modern times is that the Greek word for love, agapao, carries in it the implication of a divine love that is unconditional and comes to us in spite of our sin.
That is not true. Context must decide if agapao refers to our proud, cliquish love for our cronies (as in Matthew 5:46), or if it refers to God’s merciful and sacrificial love for sinners (as in John 3:16), or if it refers to our love for leaders, not unconditionally but precisely because of their labor (1 Thessalonians 5:13).
John Piper
What 1 John 4:16 really means is: “Whoever abides in the merciful and sacrificial love God has for sinners abides in God and God in them.”
“All you need is love” was a delusion when John Lennon sang it to the world live via satellite in 1967. The insidious nature of that feel-good delusion continues to permeate modern society. It is fundamentally non-Christian yet Christian churches continually promote it.
