Causal Love (1 John 4:19)

"We love because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19).

This isn't merely reciprocal love, it's a causal fact. Reciprocity declares that God began loving us at some point, and therefore we respond in love. The biblical doctrine is much different: in Psalm 103:17-18, David says, "But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, and His righteousness to children's children, to those who keep His covenant and remember to do His commandments."

Of course that doesn't mean any of us keep His covenant or do His commandments—through our faith in Christ we receive the imputation of righteousness (Ephesians 2:8-10; Romans 3:21-31). But the fact that God's love is "from everlasting to everlasting" shows that He never (as the great Geerhardus Vos put it) began to love us. Rather, God always loved His elect children, before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:3-14).

If we bear this in mind, we won't fall into anti-Gospel attitudes that demand of us something we can't give. No one is able to conjure love for God out of his own deceitful, sin-poisoned heart, which is what a reciprocal view of 1 John 4:19 leads to. But if we understand God's love to be causal, i.e. that from which our love flows, we can embrace fully the glory of the Gospel message that God raises dead sinners to life.

How do we love God and keep His commandments, then? We trust in Christ for our salvation. Only the God-man Jesus was able to love God the Father as His righteousness, law, and majesty demand, but through the faith He gives us that perfect love is imputed to us. Salvation is about God: He bestows it, He maintains it (Hebrews 12:1-2), and He is glorified by it. Truly, we love Him because He loved us from everlasting to everlasting.