1 John 4:11

ἀγαπητοί. For the sixth and last time the Apostle uses this appropriate address. Here also it affectionately emphasizes a deduction of practical importance. See on 1 John 3:2 and comp. 1 John 4:7. No address of any kind occurs again until the last verse of the Epistle.

εἰ οὕτως ὁ Θ. ἠγ. ἡμᾶς. ‘If, as is manifest, to this extent God loved us’. The fact is stated gently, but not doubtfully, just as in 1 John 3:13; 1 John 5:9. Comp. εἰ οὖν ἐγὼ ἔνιψα ὑμῶν τοὺς πόδας, … καὶ ὑμεῖς ὀφείλετε� τοὺς πόδας (John 13:14). Οὕτως is emphatic, and refers to 1 John 4:9-10.

καὶ ἡμεῖς ὀφείλομεν. As R.V., we also ought: καί belongs to ἠμεῖς; we as well as God. In the spiritual family also noblesse oblige. As children of God we must exhibit His nature, and we must follow His example, and we must love those whom He loves. Nor is this the only way in which the Atonement forms part of the foundation of Christian Ethics. It is only when we have learned something of the infinite price paid to redeem us from sin, that we rightly estimate the moral enormity of sin, and the strength of the obligation which lies upon us to free ourselves from its pollution. And it was precisely those false teachers who denied the Atonement who taught that idolatry and every abominable sin were matters of no moral significance.