(11) The need to love one another.
For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
a. This is the message that you heard from the beginning: John had already emphasized the command to love as being the word which you heard from the beginning (1 John 2:7). In remembering this message to love one another, he remembered the command of Jesus in John 13:34.
b. That we should love one another: The basic Christian message has not changed. Perhaps some have thought that because Christians talk about a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ” that it is only us and Jesus who matter. But how we treat others – how we love one another – really matters before God.
3. (12) An example of hatred: Cain.
Not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brother’s righteous.
a. Not as Cain: As a negative example, John presents Cain, who was not right with God (his works were evil) and who hated his brother. When there are two children of God who are both right with God, there will be love.
b. Who was of the wicked one: Cain is a good example of the failure to love.
i. We can presume that Cain had a godly upbringing that should have equipped him to love, but he chose not to.
ii. Cain’s disobedience came from a lack of faith (Hebrews 11:4) which resulted in first disobedience, then hatred.
iii. Cain’s disobedience and hatred was based in pride (Genesis 4:5).
iv. Cain’s disobedience and hatred made him miserable (Genesis 4:5).
v. Cain refused the warning God gave him, and gave into the sin of hatred (Genesis 4:6-7).
vi. Cain’s sin of hatred led to action against the one he hated (Genesis 4:8).
vii. Cain was evasive about his sin of hatred, and tried to hide it. But God found him out (Genesis 4:9-10).
4. (13-15) Love as the evidence of the new birth.
Do not marvel, my brethren, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
a. Do not marvel: We shouldn’t be surprised when the world hates us; but we should be surprised when there is hatred among the body of Christ.
b. We know: John insists that the believer can come to a place of genuine assurance. “I have heard it said, by those who would be thought philosophers, that in religion we must believe, but cannot know. I am not very clear about the distinction they draw between knowledge and faith, nor do I care to enquire; because I assert that, in matters relating to religion, we know; in the things of God, we both believe and know.” (Spurgeon)
c. We know that we have passed from death to life: A love for the people of God is a basic sign of being born again. If this love is not evident in our lives, our salvation can be questioned. If it is present, it gives us assurance.
i. We can know we have passed from death to life by our love for other Christians. The place of hatred, of jealousy, of bitterness you find yourself in is a place of death. You need to pass from death over to life.
ii. This means knowing two things. First, we know that we were dead. Second, we know that we have passed to life from death. To pass from death to life is the reverse of the normal. We all expect to pass from life to death; but in Jesus, we can turn it around.
iii. This speaks to our pursuit of fellowship. If we love the brethren, we will want to be with them – and even if we have been battered and bruised by unloving brethren, there will still be something in us drawing us back to fellowship with the brethren we love.
iv. “Do you love them for Christ’s sake? Do you say to yourself, ‘That is one of Christ’s people; that is one who bears Christ’s cross; that is one of the children of God; therefore I love him, and take delight in his company’? Then, that is an evidence that you are not of the world.” (Spurgeon)
d. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer: To hate our brother is to murder him in our hearts. Though we may not carry out the action (through cowardice or fear of punishment), we wish that person dead. Or, by ignoring another person, we may treat them as if they were dead. Hatred can be shown passively or actively.
i. John seemed to have in mind the teaching of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount regarding the true fulfillment of the law (Matthew 5:21-22).
ii. “In the heart there is no difference; to hate is to despise, to cut off from relationship, and murder is simply the fulfillment of that attitude.” (Barker)
iii. “Every man who hates another has the venom of murder in his veins. He may never actually take the deadly weapons into his hand and destroy life; but if he wishes that his brother were out of the way, if he would be glad if no such person existed, that feeling amounts to murder in the judgment of God.” (Spurgeon)
e. You know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him: To live in the practice of murder – or to have a life style of the habitual hatred of our brethren – is a demonstration that we do not have eternal life abiding in us, that we are not born again.
i. There are many people for whom being a Christian is a “none of the above” sort of thing. They consider themselves Christians because they are not Muslim, or Jewish, or Buddhists, or atheists. But being a Christian is never a “none of the above” kind of thing.
ii. Being a Christian is more than saying, “I am a Christian.” There are in fact some who claim to be Christians who are not. How can we know if we are one of these? John’s reply has been constant and simple. There are three tests to measure the proof of a genuine Christian: the truth test, the love test, and the moral test. If we believe in what the Bible teaches as true, if we show the love of Jesus to others, and if our conduct has been changed and is becoming more like Jesus, then our claim to be a Christian can be proven true.
D. What love is and how we should love one another.
1. (16) The objective reality of love and how it shows in our life.
By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
a. By this we know love: What is love? How we define love is important. If we define love the wrong way, then everyone passes, or no one passes, the love test. To understand the Biblical idea of love, we should begin by understanding the vocabulary of love among the ancient Greeks, who gave us the original language of the New Testament.
i. Eros was one word for love. It described, as we might guess from the word itself, erotic love. It referred to sexual love.
ii. Storge was the second word for love. It referred to family love, the kind of love there is between a parent and child, or between family members in general.
iii. Philia is the third word for love. It spoke of a brotherly friendship and affection. It is the love of deep friendship and partnership. Philia love might be described as the highest love that one is capable of without God’s help.
iv. Agape is the fourth word for love. It described a love that loves without changing. It is a self-giving love that gives without demanding or expecting re-payment. It is love so great that it can be given to the unlovable or unappealing. It is love that loves even when it is rejected. Agape love gives and loves because it wants to; it does not demand or expect repayment from the love given – it gives because it loves, it does not love in order to receive.
v. Many people confuse the four loves, and end up extremely hurt as a result. Often a person will tell another, “I love you” meaning one kind of love, but the other person believes he means another kind of love. Often a man has told a woman, “I love you,” when really he had a selfish love towards her. Sure, there were strong feelings in the heart – but they were feelings that wanted something from the other person.
vi. “It’s true you can say to a girl, ‘I love you,’ but what you really mean is something like this: ‘I want something. Not you, but something from you. I don’t have time to wait. I want it immediately.’… This is the opposite of love, for love wants to give. Love seeks to make the other one happy, and not himself.” (Walter Trobisch in I Loved a Girl, cited by Boice)
b. By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us: Real love isn’t merely “felt” as an inward feeling; it is also shown by demonstration – and the ultimate demonstration was the giving of Jesus on the cross.
i. The exact same idea was expressed by Paul in Romans 5:8: But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
ii. It isn’t the death of Jesus in itself that is the ultimate demonstration of love; it is the death of Jesus together with what it does for us that shows the epitome of love. If I am on a pier, and a man jumps in the water and drowns, and cries out with his last breath, “I’m giving my life for you!” I cannot really comprehend that act as an act of love – it just seems strange. But if that same man jumps in the water to save me from drowning, and gives his own life that I may survive, then I can fully understand how the giving of his life was a great act of love.
iii. In a sermon titled “The Death of Christ for His People,” Charles Spurgeon drew three points from this great sentence:
· How great must have been our sins.
· How great must have been His love.
· How safe the believer is in the love of Christ.
c. By this we know love: There is a real sense in which we would not know what love was all about if not for the work of Jesus on the cross. We have an innate ability to pervert the true meaning of love, and pursue all kinds of things under the guise of looking for love.
i. Nature can teach us many things about God. It can show us His wisdom, His intelligence, and His mighty power. But nature, in and of itself, does not teach us that God is a God of love. We needed the death of God the Son, Jesus Christ, to ultimately demonstrate that.
ii. David Scott Crother died of AIDS in early 1993, but not before he infected his unnamed partner, who pressed charges against Crother. The woman said in an interview: “This is not an assault. It is murder… All I wanted is someone to love me, and now I’m going to die for that. I don’t think I should have to die for that.” We all have that craving for love, but we look for it in the wrong ways and in the wrong places.
d. And we also: Since we are sent with the same mandate Jesus was sent with, we must demonstrate our love by laying down our lives for the brethren. Jesus’ words As the Father sent Me, I also send you (John 20:21) seem to be ringing in John’s ears.
i. Stott on laid down and lay down: “It seems to imply not so much the laying down as the laying aside of something like clothes… It is, in fact, used in John 13:4 of Christ taking off his outer garment.” [Italics added]
e. We also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren: The focus here is on loving the brethren. Of course, we are also called to love our enemies and those who hate us (Matthew 5:44), but John calls us to a more basic test – if we can’t even love our brethren, what kind of Christians are we?
f. Lay down our lives: John also reminds us that love, and its demonstration, often involves sacrifice – the laying down of our lives for others. Wishing to be more loving won’t do, because it won’t sacrifice where it is necessary.
i. And if we take the analogy from Jesus’ love for us, sometimes the cost of love will make us feel like we are dying – but that is what it means to lay down your life. “Love means saying ‘No’ to one’s own life so that somebody else may live.” (Marshall)
ii. We often consider ourselves ready to lay down our lives in one great, dramatic, heroic gesture; but for most of us, God calls us to lay down our lives piece by piece, little by little in small, but important ways every day.
iii. Simply put, John is telling us to do the same thing we read of in Philippians 2:3-4: Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.
2. (17-18) What it means to love in real life.
But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.
a. Let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth: John will not allow us to merely talk about love; real love is demonstrated in actions (though it is also often evident in our feelings).
b. And shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? If you have the capability to meet a brother’s needs, and do nothing to meet those needs, then how can you say you love that brother? How does the love of God abide in you?
i. “Here is a test of this love; if we do not divide our bread with the hungry, we certainly would not lay down our life for him. Whatever love we may pretend to mankind, if we are not charitable and benevolent, we give the lie to our profession.” (Clarke)
ii. What is the limit to this kind of love? The only limit is the one that love itself imposes. When giving to a person, if meeting his perceived or immediate need, does him harm instead of good – then the loving thing to do is to not give him what he asks for, but to instead give him what he really needs.
c. My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth: We can substitute talk for love – talking about meeting people’s needs instead of actually meeting them.
i. Stott quoting Lewis: “It is easier to be enthusiastic about Humanity with a capital ‘H’ than it is to love individual men and women, especially those who are uninteresting, exasperating, depraved, or otherwise unattractive. Loving everybody in general may be an excuse for loving nobody in particular.”
3. (19-21) The assurance this love brings.
And by this we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him. For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God.
a. Assure our hearts: When we see this love at work in our lives, we can know that we are of the truth – and this brings assurance to our hearts before God, that we are standing in Him.
i. Gayle Erwin tells a wonderful story about a man he knew when he was a boy. The man’s name was Jake, and he was the meanest, drunkest, man in town. He would come to church from time to time, but that was only to beat up the elders. One Wednesday night, Jake came to church – but not to beat anybody up. Remarkably, Jake gave his life to Jesus. He walked down the aisle of the little church and kneeled down at the altar. The next night there was another meeting at the church, and the pastor asked if anyone wanted to share what God was doing in their lives. Jake stood up, and said: “I have something to say. Last night when I came here, I hated you people.” Heads nodded in agreement. “But something happened to me and I don’t understand this, but tonight I love you.” And even though he only had one tooth, he smiled really big. This is a wonderful assurance that we are born again.
ii. Assurance is essential – who wants to wait until it is too late to know if they are really saved or not?
b. And shall assure our hearts before Him: Our assurance is two-fold. First, God already knows everything about you and He loves you, He cares for you, He desires you; second, God knows all things, and knows who we truly are in Jesus Christ. If we are born again, then the real self is the one created in the image of Jesus Christ.
c. For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things: But what if we have been walking in love, yet our heart still condemns us before God? John assures us that God is greater than our heart, and so reminds us that we cannot base our relationship with Him purely on how we feel in His presence.
i. Condemnation can well up inside us that has nothing to do with our standing before God. It may be the work of the enemy of our souls (who, according to Revelation 12:10 accuses the brethren), or the work of an over-active conscience. At those times, we trust in what God’s Word says about our standing, not how we feel about it.
ii. “Sometimes our heart condemns us, but, in doing so, it gives a wrong verdict, and then we have the satisfaction of being able to take the case into a higher court, for ‘God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.’” (Spurgeon)
d. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God: Yet, when we are in fellowship with God, and our heart does not condemn us, we know that we can have confidence toward God and our standing with Him.
i. If someone is in true fellowship with God – not deceiving oneself, as mentioned in 1 John 1:6 – then the assurance that comes to his heart while fellowshipping with God is a precious thing. It is what Paul spoke about in Romans 8:16 – The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.
e. We have confidence toward God: How precious is the confidence we can have in Jesus Christ! There is such a thing as a false confidence, a confidence in self or in illusions; but there is also a glorious confidence we can have in Jesus.
i. “The word rendered confidence stood in ancient Greece for the most valued right of a citizen of a free state, the right to ‘speak his mind’… unhampered by fear or shame.” (Barker citing Dodd)
4. (22) Fellowship in God’s love means the assurance of answered prayer.
And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.
a. Whatever we ask: The person who walks in the kind of obedience and love John speaks of will also experience answered prayer. This is not because their love and obedience has earned them what they ask, but their love and obedience comes from fellowship – the key to answered prayer.
i. John seems to be quoting Jesus’ idea from John 15:7 – If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.
b. Because we keep His commandments: Keeping God’s commandments is important to answered prayer. But we should make a distinction between the prayer of the man who is saved, and the cry of the heart seeking mercy from God in Jesus. For the sinner who comes to Jesus in prayer, seeking mercy, the only requirement is sincerity of heart. God does not demand our obedience before He saves us.
i. The key to prayer is being in such close fellowship with God that we ask for the things that are on His heart; we take up His agenda with our requests and intercession.
ii. The spirit of true prayer is Thy will be done, not My will be done – we turn to prayer to call into action what God desires; even knowing that some of the things God desires will directly and personally benefit us.
c. And do those things that are pleasing in His sight: The person who is in fellowship with God will want to do those things that are pleasing in His sight. We should have hearts that just want to please the Lord in everything that we do.
i. It is sobering to look at our lives and see how much we do to please ourselves and how much we do to please the Lord. We shouldn’t think that the two are opposites; God is glorified when we enjoy His goodness and His good things. Yet, the godly life will have special focus on just pleasing God, even if it doesn’t particularly please us at the moment.
5. (23-24) The commandment of Jesus.
And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment. Now he who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.
a. And this is His commandment: The idea of keeping His commandments in the previous verse led John to speak specifically about what His commandment is. Simply, that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another.
i. Here, John does not refer to these two aspects of obedience as two commandments, but as one commandment. Grammatically, he may not be officially correct, but spiritually, he is right on. These two are one. When Jesus spoke of the greatest commandment: You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, He added another saying: And the second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39). There are two commandments, but they are clearly like one another.
b. We should believe on the name of His Son: Again, John seems to have quoted Jesus’ idea from John 6:29: This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent. The first commandment and the greatest work we can do, is to believe on Jesus.
i. This is not simply believing that Jesus is, or even believing that He did certain things such as die on a cross. To believe on the name of Jesus means to put your belief on Jesus in the sense of trusting in Him, relying on Him, and clinging to Jesus. It isn’t about intellectual knowledge or understanding, it is about trust.
c. And love one another: The second commandment is also a quoting of Jesus’ idea from John 15:12: This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. The love of the brethren is not an option for some Christians; it is a commandment for all.
d. Abides in Him: Those who abide in Jesus know they are abiding in Jesus, because of the presence and assurance of the Holy Spirit. John again is giving the same idea as Romans 8:16 (The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God).
i. Romans 8:9 tells us that anyone who belongs to Jesus has the Spirit in him; that indwelling Holy Spirit gives us assurance. You can’t be abiding in Jesus and not know it, though you may be attacked with doubt from time to time.
ii. The one who does not keep God’s commandments does not have the ground of confidence that he abides in Jesus. As well, he does not truly have the assurance of the Holy Spirit’s presence in his life.
iii. To know if you really have this assurance can take spiritual discernment, and that is what John deals with in the very next verse. But God has already given us another basis for assurance: seeing if we love one another (1 John 3:19).