1 John 4:10

Real love is defined not by our love for God but by his initiative in sending his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. The cross is the measure of love.

Cross-references · 16

• Eph 2:4–5But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,
• Rom 5:8–10But God proves His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
• 1 Jn 4:19We love because He first loved us.
• 1 Jn 2:2He Himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
• John 15:16You did not choose Me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will remain—so that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you.
• 1 Jn 4:8–9Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
• John 3:16For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
• Titus 3:3–5For at one time we too were foolish, disobedient, misled, and enslaved to all sorts of desires and pleasures—living in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.
• 1 Jn 3:1Behold what manner of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.
• Deut 7:7–8The LORD did not set His affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than the other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples.
• 1 Pet 3:18For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit,
• 1 Pet 2:24He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. “By His stripes you are healed.”
• 2 Cor 5:19–21that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men’s trespasses against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
• Rom 8:29–30For those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers.
• Rom 3:25–26God presented Him as the atoning sacrifice through faith in His blood, in order to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance He had passed over the sins committed beforehand.
• Dan 9:24Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and your holy city to stop their transgression, to put an end to sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy Place.

Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.