04/28/2026
Live Through Him
A Devotional by Ruling Elder Joey Knight
This verse stands as one of the most luminous declarations of the gospel in all of Holy Scripture.
The Apostle John does not merely assert that God is love (v. 8); he shows us how that love has been historically and visibly “made manifest among us”—not in abstract sentiment, but in the sending of the eternal Son, the only-begotten, into our sin-cursed world.
The purpose clause that follows is decisive: “so that we might live through Him.” In Reformed theology, grounded in the Westminster Standards and the plain teaching of Scripture, this “life through Him” is no vague spiritual stirring; it is the sovereign, effectual application of redemption purchased by Christ, whereby those who were dead in trespasses and sins are made alive, justified, sanctified, and preserved unto eternal life.
Our Natural Condition: Spiritually Dead
The background against which this verse shines is the universal reality of spiritual death. As the Apostle Paul declares, “you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked” (Eph. 2:1–2; Gen. 2:17; Rom. 5:12).
Sin’s wages are death—separation from the fountain of life who is God Himself (Isa. 59:2). In Adam we fell; by nature we are children of wrath, alienated from the life of God (Eph. 2:3; Col. 1:21). No human effort, no religious striving, no moral reformation can enliven a co**se. We are utterly dependent upon divine initiative.
The Manifestation of Divine Love: The Only Son
Here is the wonder of covenant grace: “God sent His only Son into the world.” This sending encompasses the incarnation (John 1:14; Phil. 2:5–8), the perfect life of obedience (Heb. 5:8–9), and supremely the atoning death and victorious resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
John immediately clarifies the nature of this sending in the next verse: “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” (1 John 4:10).
Propitiation—hilasmos—means the wrath of a holy God has been turned away by the substitutionary sacrifice of the Lamb of God. Christ bore our curse (Gal. 3:13), satisfied divine justice (Rom. 3:25–26), and “by His death… restore[d] us to life,” as John Calvin so beautifully expounded on this very passage.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism captures this wonderfully: Christ was “anointed with the Holy Spirit, to be our chief Prophet, Priest, and King” (Q. 23), and “Christ executeth the office of a priest, in His once offering up of Himself a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice, and reconcile us to God” (Q. 25). The Father’s sending of the Son was the eternal plan of redemption made visible in time (Eph. 1:3–10; 2 Tim. 1:9–10).
“That We Might Live Through Him”: The Application of Redemption
The purpose of this sending is not merely to display love, but to effect life. “Live through Him” (hina zēsōmen di’ autou) speaks of vital, personal, spiritual union with the risen Christ.
This life is threefold, according to the ordo salutis taught in Scripture and confessed in our Standards:
1. Regeneration and New Birth: We who were dead are made alive together with Christ (Eph. 2:4–5). The Holy Spirit sovereignly applies the benefits of Christ’s work, implanting new life so that we are “born of God” (1 John 4:7; cf. John 3:3–8; Ezek. 36:26–27). As the Larger Catechism teaches, effectual calling “is the work of God’s Spirit, whereby… He doth, in His accepted time, invite and draw them to Jesus Christ, by His Word and Spirit” (Q. 67).
2. Justification and Reconciliation: Through faith alone, the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us (Rom. 5:1, 18–19; 2 Cor. 5:21). Our sins are forgiven because they were charged to Him; His obedience is credited to us. The barrier of guilt is removed, and we are reconciled to the Father. Calvin again: God “spared not His own Son, that by His death He might restore us to life.”
3. Union with Christ and Sanctification: We are now “in Christ” and He in us (John 15:1–5; Gal. 2:20). This mystical union is the source of all spiritual vitality: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). We live through Him as the vine sustains the branches, as the Head empowers the body (Col. 2:19). This life is both present (abundant life, John 10:10; newness of life, Rom. 6:4) and eternal (John 3:16; 17:3). It issues in love for God and neighbor—the very evidence that we have “passed from death to life” (1 John 3:14).
Matthew Henry, that faithful Puritan expositor so prized in Reformed circles, rightly notes that God “has given His own, only-beloved, blessed Son for us… that we might live through Him.” This life is not earned; it is the free gift of sovereign grace, received through faith alone, and preserved by the same power that raised Christ from the dead (1 Pet. 1:3–5).
Practical and Pastoral Implications
To “live through Him” is therefore the defining mark of the Christian: not self-reliant morality, but daily, vital dependence upon the crucified and risen Savior. It humbles us (we contributed nothing), exalts Christ (He is all in all), and fuels holy obedience and love for the brethren (1 John 4:11).
As the Westminster Confession so clearly states, “The principal acts of saving faith are accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life” (WCF 14.2).
May the Lord grant us, by His Spirit, to behold afresh this manifested love, to rest in the finished work of the only Son, and so to walk in newness of life to the praise of His glorious grace. If these things are true—and Scripture, the Confessions, and the testimony of the saints declare they are—then let us live through Him indeed, “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith” (Heb. 12:2).
Soli Deo Gloria. Grace to y'all.
