Discovery Box1 John 4:7 
Context4:7 Dear friends, let us love one another, because 1 love is from God, and everyone who loves 2 has been fathered 3 by God and knows God.
1 John 4:20-21
Context4:20 If anyone says 4 “I love God” and yet 5 hates his fellow Christian, 6 he is a liar, because the one who does not love his fellow Christian 7 whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 8 4:21 And the commandment we have from him is this: that 9 the one who loves God should love his fellow Christian 10 too.
1 tn This ὅτι (Joti) is causal, giving the reason why the readers, as believers, ought to love one another: because love comes from God. The next clause, introduced by καί (kai), does not give a second reason (i.e., is not related to the ὅτι clause), but introduces a second and additional thought: Everyone who loves is fathered by God and knows God.
2 tn As in 2:23 and 3:4, the author uses πᾶς (pas) with the present articular participle as a generalization to describe a category of people.
sn From the author’s “either/or” perspective (which tends to see things in terms of polar opposites) the use of a generalization like everyone who presents a way of categorizing the opponents on the one hand and the recipients, whom the author regards as genuine Christians, on the other. Thus everyone who loves refers to all true Christians, who give evidence by their love for one another that they have indeed been begotten by God and are thus God’s children. The opposite situation is described in the following verse, 4:8, where (although everyone [πᾶς, pas] is omitted) it is clear that a contrast is intended.
3 tn The verb γεννάω (gennaw) in this context means to be fathered by God and thus a child of God. The imagery in 1 John is that of the male parent who fathers children (see especially 3:9 and 5:1).
4 tn Grk “if anyone should say…”
5 tn “Yet” is supplied to bring out the contrast.
6 tn See note on the phrase “fellow Christian” in 2:9.
7 tn See note on the phrase “fellow Christian” in 2:9.
8 sn In 4:20 the author again describes the opponents, who claim to love God. Their failure to show love for their fellow Christians proves their claim to know God to be false: The one who does not love his fellow Christian whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
9 tn The ἵνα (Jina) clause in 4:21 could be giving (1) the purpose or (2) the result of the commandment mentioned in the first half of the verse, but if it does, the author nowhere specifies what the commandment consists of. It makes better sense to understand this ἵνα clause as (3) epexegetical to the pronoun ταύτην (tauthn) at the beginning of 4:21 and thus explaining what the commandment consists of: “that the one who loves God should love his brother also.”
