Chapter
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Verse
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

1 John 4:10
ESV In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
NIV This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
NASB In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
CSB Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
NLT This is real love — not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.
KJV Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

What does 1 John 4:10 mean?

John emphasizes in this verse that godly love is not something which originated with man. Rather, it comes from God to us. As verse 19 will say, it was God who loved us first. As a result, and only as a result of this, we can love Him. His love provides us the opportunity to be born of Him, to know Him, and to love others.

God's love was not simply a feeling, or an opinion. John taught that love needs to be acted out (1 John 3:18). This, again, is because of the example God has given to us. God sent Jesus to our world (1 John 4:9) as an act of love. Here we find the purpose: the "propitiation" for our sins. The word "propitiation" involves a payment or sacrifice to cover the cost of our sins. Under the Mosaic Law, the Jews offered ongoing sacrifices for their sins. Yet Christ provided the only sufficient payment, once for all, to cover the sins of the world. This was because He is the perfect sacrifice, without sin (Hebrews 4:15).
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