From: Deuteronomy 7:6-11
God’s Election of Israel
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Commentary:
7:6-16. It is fair to say that Deuteronomy 7:6-7 is the classic passage in Old Tes-
tament revelation on God’s special election of Israel. That election, and the love
which it evidences, are themes basic to this book; it keeps on stressing them (cf.,
e.g., 4:20, 34; 9:5). God makes his choice first—quite independently of the quali-
ties or merits of the people or of individuals. The only reason for his choice is pure
love and (in the case of the Israelites) the promises he made to their ancestors
(cf. the note on Ex 1:8-14). Consciousness of this election, awareness that Isra-
el is God’s special possession, runs right through Holy Scripture. The New Testa-
ment upholds this privilege that belongs to Israel: John 1:11 (”He came to his own
home”) must be interpreted in the first instance as meaning that the Word comes
specially to his people Israel; in the second instance he comes to all mankind.
Romans 9:4-5 carries the same message: “They are Israelites, and to them be-
long the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and
the promise, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ [...].”
Verses 7-8 give the theological explanation of this election: God’s pure love, his
predilection, is totally unmerited by Israel; this means that God is sovereignly
free to choose whomever he wishes for the mission he has in mind; and no one
has any right to be chosen specially by God.
What happens in the collectivity of the people of Israel also applies when God
singles out individuals for special assignments. In the New Testament, it says a-
propos of the apostles, that “he called to him those whom he desired” (Mt 3:13);
and the case of St Paul is particularly apposite: Jesus called him though he “had
blasphemed and persecuted and insulted him [Christ]” (1 Tim 1:13).
“Vocation comes first,” BI. Josemaria Escriva reminds us. “God loves us before
we even know how to go toward him, and he places in us the love with which we
can respond to his call. God’s fatherly goodness comes out to meet us. Our Lord
is not only just. He is much more: he is merciful. He does not wait for us to go to
him. He takes the initiative, with the unmistakable signs of paternal affection”
(”Christ Is Passing By”, 33).
7:10. This verse touches on something very important as regards human behavior:
God rewards those who do good and punishes those who do evil. Everyday expe-
rience does not always seem to bear this out: evil people enjoy success whereas
good people are mistreated and despised. Men have always asked themselves
how God’s justice can be compatible with these facts.
The prophet Jeremiah will ask the Lord: “Why does the way of the wicked pros-
per? Why do all who are treacherous thrive?” (Jer 12:1). Many psalms echo the
same idea (cf Ps 37; 38; 29; 49; 73; 92). But the place where the matter is dealt
with most dramatically is the book of Job. The Wisdom books of the Old Testa-
ment do a lot to provide an answer to this question, but it will not be until the full-
ness of Revelations in the New Testament that it is fully solved. Throughout the
New Testament reward or punishment is not depicted as a mathematical calcula-
tion, to produce instant recompense in this life; rather, the way a person behaves
in this life decides his or her fate in the next life. If the wicked are successful in
this life, that is something very short-lived; whereas the joy of the righteous will
reach its fullness in eternal beatitude. Prior to that, the righteous often suffer con-
tradiction, pain and sorrow: it purifies their lives and gives an increase of divine
grace.
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.
From: 1 John 4:7-16
God is Love. Brotherly Love, the Mark of Christians
[11] Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. [12] No man
has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is per-
fected in us.
[13] By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us
of his own Spirit. [14] And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his
Son as the Savior of the world. [15] Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of
God, God abides in him, and he in God. [16] So we know and believe the love
God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God
abides in him.
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Commentary:
7-21. St John now expands on the second aspect of the divine commandment (cf.
1 Jn 3:23)—brotherly love. The argument is along these lines: God is love and it
was he who loved us to begin with (vv. 7-10); brotherly love is the response which
God’s love calls for (vv. 11 16); when our love is perfect, we feel no fear (vv. 17-18);
brotherly love is an expression of love of God (vv. 19-21).
This is not tiresome repetition of the ideas already discussed (2:7-11; 3:11-18):
contrary to the false teaching which is beginning to be spread, charity is the sure
mark, the way to recognize the genuine disciple.
St Jerome hands down a tradition concerning the last years of St John’s life: when
he was already a very old man, he used always say the same thing to the faithful:
“My children, love one another!” On one occasion, he was asked why he insisted
on this: “to which he replied with these words worthy of John: ‘Because it is the
Lord’s commandment, and if you keep just this commandment, it will suffice”’
(”Comm. in Gal.”, III, 6, 10).
7. The divine attributes, God’s perfections, which he has to the highest degree,
are the cause of our virtues: for example, because God is holy, we have been
given a capacity to be holy. Similarly, because God is love, we can love. True
love, true charity, comes from God.
8. “God is love”: without being strictly speaking a definition (in 1:5 he says “God
is light”), this statement reveals to us one of the most consoling attributes of
God: “Even if nothing more were to be said in praise of love in all the pages of
this epistle”, St Augustine explains, “even if nothing more were to be said in all
the pages of Sacred Scripture, and all we heard from the mouth of the Holy Spi-
rit were that ‘God is love’, there would be nothing else we would need to look for”
(”In Epist. Ioann. Ad Parthos”, 7, 5).
God’s love for men was revealed in Creation and in the preternatural and super-
natural gifts he gave man prior to sin; after man’s sin, God’s love is to be seen,
above all, in forgiveness and redemption (as St John goes on to say: v. 9), for
the work of salvation is the product of God’s mercy: “It is precisely because sin
exists in the world, which ‘God so loved . . . that he gave his only Son’ (Jn 3:16),
that God, who ‘is love’ (1 Jn 4:8), “cannot reveal himself other than as mercy”.
This corresponds not only to the most profound truth of that love which God is,
but also to the whole interior truth of man and of the world which is man’s tem-
porary homeland” (Bl. John Paul II, “Dives In Misericordia”, 13).
9. God has revealed his love to men by sending his own Son; that is, it is not on-
ly Christ’s teachings which speak to us of God’s love, but, above all, his presence
among us: Christ himself is the fullness of revelation of God (cf. Jn 1:18; Heb 1:1)
and of his love for men. “The source of all grace is God’s love for us, and he has
revealed this not just in words but also in deeds. It was divine love which led the
second Person of the most holy Trinity, the Word, the Son of God
the Father, to take on our flesh, our human condition, everything except sin. And
the Word, the Word of God, is the Word from which Love proceeds (cf. “Summa
Theologiae”, I, q. 43, a. 5, quoting St Augustine, “De Trinitate”, IX, 10).
“Love is revealed to us in the incarnation, the redemptive journey which Jesus
Christ made on our earth, culminating in the supreme sacrifice of the cross. And
on the cross it showed itself through a new sign: ‘One of the soldiers pierced his
side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water’ (Jn 19:34). This
water and blood of Jesus speaks to us of a self-sacrifice brought to the last ex-
treme: ‘It is finished’ (Jn 19:30)—everything is achieved, for the sake of love” (St.
J. Escriva, “Christ Is Passing By”, 162).
“Among us”: it is difficult to convey in English everything the Greek contains. The
Greek expression means that the love of God was shown to those who witnessed
our Lord’s life (the Apostles) and to all other Christians, whose participate in this
apostolic witness (cf. note on 1 Jn 1:1-3; this idea is repeated in vv. 14 and 16).
But it also means “within us”, inside us, in our hearts, insofar as we partake of
God’s own life by means of sanctifying grace: every Christian is a witness to the
fact that Christ has come so that men “may have life, and have it abundantly”
(Jn 10:10).
10. Given that love is an attribute of God (v. 8), men have a capacity to love inso-
far as they share in God’s qualities. So, the initiative always lies with God.
When explaining in what love consists. St John points to its highest form of ex-
pression: “he sent (his Son) to be the expiation of our sins” (cf. 2:2). Similar turns
of phrase occur throughout the letter: the Son of God manifested himself “to des-
troy the works of the devil” (3:8); “he laid down his life for us” (3:16). All these
statements show that: 1) Christ’s death is a SACRIFICE in the strict sense of
the word, the most sublime act of recognition of God’s sovereignty; 2) it is an ato-
ning sacrifice, because it obtains God’s pardon for the sins of men; 3) it is the su-
preme act of God’s love, so much so that St John actually says, “in this is love.”
What is amazing, St Alphonsus teaches, “is that he could have saved us without
suffering or dying and yet he chose a life of toil and humiliation, and a bitter and
ignominious death, even death on a cross, something reserved for the very worst
offenders. And why was it that, when he could have redeemed us without suffe-
ring, he chose to embrace death on the Cross? To show us how much he loved
us” (”The Love of Jesus Christ”, chap. 1).
11-12. The Apostle underlines here the theological basis of brotherly love: the
love which God has shown us by the incarnation and redemptive death of his
Son, places us in his debt: we have to respond in kind; so we “ought” to love our
neighbor with the kind of gratitude and disinterest that God showed by taking the
initiative in loving us.
Moreover, by loving one another we are in communion with God. The deepest de-
sire of the human heart, which is to see and to possess God, cannot be satisfied
in this life, because “no man has ever seen God” (v. 12); our neighbor, on the o-
ther hand, we do see. So, in this life, the way to be in communion with God is by
brotherly love. “Love of God is the first thing in the order of commands”, St Au-
gustine explains, “and love of neighbor is the first thing in the order of practice
[...]. You, who do not yet see God, will, by loving your neighbor, merit to see him.
Love of neighbor cleanses our eyes to see God, as John clearly says, If you do
not love your neighbor, whom you see, how can you love God, whom you do not
see (cf. 1 Jn 4:20)” (”In Ioann. Evang.”, 17, 8).
13. Having the gift of the Holy Spirit is the sure sign of being in communion with
God. Since the Holy Spirit is the love of the Father and of the Son, his presence
in the soul in grace is necessarily something dynamic, that is, it moves the per-
son to keep all the commandments (cf. 3:24), particularly that of brotherly love.
This interior impulse shows that the third Person of the Blessed Trinity is at work
within us; it is a sign of union with God.
The Holy Spirit’s action on the soul is a marvelous and deep mystery. “This brea-
thing of the Holy Spirit in the soul,” says St John of the Cross, “whereby God
transforms it into himself, is so sublime and delicate and profound a delight to it
that it cannot be described by mortal tongue, nor can human understanding, as
such, attain to any conception of it” (”Spiritual Canticle”, stanza 39).
14-15. Once more (cf. v. 1:4) St John vividly reminds his readers that he and the
other Apostles have seen with their own eyes the Son of God, made man out of
love for us. They were eyewitnesses of his redemptive life and death. And in the
Son, sent by the Father as Savior of the world, the unfathomable mystery of God
is revealed—that his very being is Love.
“It is ‘God, who is rich in mercy’ (Eph 2:4) whom Jesus Christ has revealed to us
as Father: it is his very Son who, in himself, has manifested him and made him
known to us (cf. Jn 1:18; Heb 1:1f)” (Bl. John Paul II, “Dives In Misericordia”, 1).
16. “Knowing” and “believing” are not theoretical knowledge but intimate, expe-
rienced attachment (cf. notes on 2:3-6; 4:1-6; Jn 6:69; 17:8). Therefore when St
John says that they knew and believed “the love God has for us” he is not refer-
ring to an abstract truth but to the historical fact of the incarnation and death of
Christ (v. 14), the supreme manifestation of the Father’s love.
“He who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him”: St Thomas Aqui-
nas explains “that in some way the loved one is to be found in the lover. And so,
he who loves God in some way possesses him, as St John says (1 Jn 4:16) [...].
Also, it is a property of love that the lover becomes transformed into the loved
one; so, if we love vile and perishable things, we become vile and perishable, like
those who ‘became detestable like the things they loved” (Hos 9:10). Whereas,
if we love God, we are made divine, for the Apostle says, ‘He who is united to
the Lord becomes one spirit with him’ (1 Cor 6:17)” (”In Duo Praecepta”, prol.,
3).
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.