Passage

1 John 4.10

Book: 1 John · ASV

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV (ASV)

"8. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. 9. Herein was the love of God manifested in us, that God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him."

"10. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."

"11. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12. No man hath beheld God at any time: if we love one another, God abideth in us, and his love is perfected in us:" (1 John 4:8-12, ASV)

WEB (WEB)

"8. He who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, for God is love. 9. By this God’s love was revealed in us, that God has sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him."

"10. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins."

"11. Beloved, if God loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another. 12. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God remains in us, and his love has been perfected in us." (1 John 4:8-12, WEB)

KJV (KJV)

"8. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. 9. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him."

"10. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."

"11. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. 12. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us." (1 John 4:8-12, KJV)

YLT (YLT)

"8. he who is not loving did not know God, because God is love. 9. In this was manifested the love of God in us, because His Son, the only begotten, hath God sent to the world, that we may live through him;"

"10. in this is the love, not that we loved God, but that He did love us, and did send His Son a propitiation for our sins."

"11. Beloved, if thus did God love us, we also ought one another to love; 12. God no one hath ever seen; if we may love one another, God in us doth remain, and His love is having been perfected in us;" (1 John 4:8-12, YLT)

Setting

Speaker: John the Apostle (traditionally)
Audience: Christian believers in the Ephesian-Asian church network; the letter addresses internal threats from proto-Gnostic / Cerinthian docetism (denying the real incarnation) and from secessionist ethical antinomianism
Location: Ephesus (composition)
Time period: composed c. AD 85-95

Theological reading

1 John 4:10 is one of two Johannine deployments of [[G2434 - hilasmos|hilasmos]] (G2434), the noun-cognate of [[G2433 - hilaskomai|hilaskomai]] (G2433), and supplies the structural foundation for the Johannine doctrine of love-grounded propitiation. The verse runs: en toutō estin hē agapē, ouch hoti hēmeis ēgapēkamen ton theon, all' hoti autos ēgapēsen hēmas kai apesteilen ton huion autou hilasmon peri tōn hamartiōn hēmōn, "in this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son [as the] propitiation for our sins."

Three structural claims interlock:

(1) Love's direction is divine-to-human, not human-to-divine. John forecloses the medieval-mystical reading that grounds the atonement in human ascent or response. The propitiation is not effected by humans whose love rises to God; it is grounded in divine love that descends to humans. The propitiation is the expression of love, not the purchase of love, God does not need to be made loving by the atonement; God's love sends the atonement.

(2) Propitiation is the form love takes against sin. The C.H. Dodd / Leon Morris debate (see the G2433 - hilaskomai entry) finds its sharpest test here. Dodd's expiation-only reading (love cleanses sin, no wrath in view) struggles with the verse's structure: love sent the Son AS the hilasmos. If sin merely required cleansing and no wrath-aversion, the propitiation-language is redundant. Morris's propitiation reading preserves both moments: God's love sends the Son to address the sin that grounds the wrath, expiating the sin and thereby propitiating (turning aside) the wrath. The same divine love that sends the propitiation is the divine love that judges sin as sin, they are not rivals.

(3) Anti-Marcionite, anti-liberal force. The verse forecloses Marcion's OT-wrath-vs-NT-love bifurcation (the same God who sent the Son is the God whose wrath the Son's atoning act addresses) and forecloses classical-liberal moral-influence atonement (the atonement is not merely the demonstration of love but the substitutionary propitiation that love takes the form of). Augustine (Tract. in 1 Joh. 7-8) and Athanasius (De Incarnatione 6-9) both develop the verse along these lines: divine love is the agent, the propitiation is the form.

The companion verse at 1 John 2:2 (autos hilasmos estin peri tōn hamartiōn hēmōn, ou peri tōn hēmeterōn de monon alla kai peri holou tou kosmou, "He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world's") supplies the scope of the propitiation; 4:10 supplies the grounding. Together they anchor the Johannine atonement theology that 1 John 1:7-9 and the upper-room discourse of John 13-17 develop.

The verse is foundational for any doctrine of atonement that holds together (a) divine love as the motive, (b) substitutionary wrath-aversion as the mechanism, and (c) covenantal sonship as the end (the huios sent supplies the sonship-into-which we are adopted). It defeats the false dilemma, common in popular atonement debate, between "God loves you" and "God propitiates wrath" by showing that love is what propitiation looks like.

Key words

G2434 - hilasmos, hilasmos, the noun cognate of hilaskomai; "propitiation, atoning sacrifice." Also at 1 John 2:2.
G0026 - agape, agapē, the divine love that grounds the sending (the verse's lead noun).
apostellō (G649), "to send", the verb of the missio Dei; the Son's being-sent-as-propitiation.
peri tōn hamartiōn, "concerning our sins", the prepositional construction that names the propitiation's object (sins) and matches the LXX sacrificial vocabulary (Lev 4-5 LXX repeatedly: peri hamartias, "for sin").

Quoted in

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.