For this is the message which ye have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another
John has just marked out two families by two visible signs: doing righteousness, and loving one's brother. Here he takes up love, and raises the questions this verse turns on — which "beginning" he means, and how this call differs from the old command to love your neighbour.
John used the word "message" once before, in the first chapter. One writer sets the two side by side and weighs the small word "from":
He begins, "For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning." You will remember that in verse 5 of the first chapter we had the same phrase: "This then is the message which we have heard from Him." Here it is still more precise. It was not before the beginning, but "from the beginning." Both make it decisive. What men added is of no account. This stands: the unchangeable truth of practical Christianity. It matters all the more because it runs flat against the common ideas of men.
So which beginning does John mean? The verse itself gives the answer:
We again see in the first of these verses the proof of what "the beginning" is here. The great thing we have to look to, as regards life, and what that life is, is Christ manifested in this world. "This is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another." There Christ stands out clearly as the One who alone could give us the true measure and character of everything else: He is the truth. Divine light like this did not exist until Christ came.
Why is this call such a change for us? One writer starts with what fallen man is like, then says what the message is not:
If there is any one thing that stamps a fallen man, it is that he is always the centre of his own thoughts and feelings. We are what we seek and value. Self is certainly not love… But you heard this message "from the beginning" — clearly from the time Christ was here. And it was not a mere call to love one's neighbour as one's self. That was the law.
John does not leave this as advice. Later in the same chapter he gives it a stronger name:
Loving one another as brothers and sisters is not only the message "that you have heard from the beginning" (1 John 3:11). It is also "His [God's] commandment … as He [His Son Jesus Christ] gave us commandment" (1 John 3:23). It is the commandment of the Lord Jesus, ratified and endorsed by God. A commandment therefore of the utmost solemnity.
Right after this verse, John names Cain. That is no accident:
Having shown this, he now brings in the other test: not simply righteousness but love… Man now is not only a sinner. His character shows above all in this: he shows no love. By love he means what is of God, and this exclusively. He does not of course deny natural affection, but insists on love as divine. Cain had no love, and proved it by slaying his own brother… He here traces the link that binds righteousness with love. We have had righteousness on its own, and love on its own. Now he shows that the two are woven together, and that you find them only in the same people.
If love could be manufactured by effort, the test would prove nothing about birth. Writers point out how John frames it:
"God is love." This is His essential nature. That other word, "God is light," expresses His holiness. So if we have this nature through being born of Him, love must mark us, and it will reach out to all that the heart of God reaches out to. Notice again: seen this way, love is not pointed out as a responsibility. Effort cannot produce love. No — love is a necessity of the divine nature, and therefore a necessity for the child of God.
- Message. John calls this "the message" — something his readers heard from the start, not an idea men added later.
- Beginning. "From the beginning" means from the time Christ was here, so no later idea can improve on it.
- Measure. Christ Himself sets the standard; this is more than the law's "love your neighbour as yourself."
- Weight. What John calls a message he also calls a commandment given by the Son and endorsed by God.
- Evidence. Effort cannot produce love. It flows from the nature God gives — and Cain, who had none, shows the other family.
not as Cain was of the wicked one, and slew his brother; and on account of what slew he him? because his works were wicked, and those of his brother righteous.
John has just said that the message from the beginning is that we should love one another. To show the opposite, he points back to the first family on earth. The example is a murder. The verse asks and answers its own question: not how Cain killed, but why.
John does not simply call Cain wicked. He traces him to a source. One writer shows how far John pushes that contrast:
He draws a sharp contrast between the children of God and the children of the devil, tracing both to the root of the matter. Not content with calling them evil, children of wrath like others, he says here "children of the devil."... Cain is not to be our pattern but to be shunned. And why? He "murdered his brother." That is where his wickedness carried him. Certainly this was not love but hatred; and that is what John wants to show. He will not allow any middle ground between love and hatred.
Most people condemn Cain for the killing. The verse points further back, to something God calls evil before a hand was ever raised:
From our earliest years he has been set before our minds as a figure of shame; indeed, as one of the wickedest men in earth's earliest ages. Ask many people why Cain is looked at with such horror, and they would likely answer, "Because he killed his brother." But Scripture puts the case differently... So there was something behind his murder of Abel, and God calls it "evil." A closer look shows that his sin against man came after a sin against God. Sadly, people usually treat that sin against God very lightly.
Cain was religious. He came to God with an offering, and God calls that offering evil:
Do you know why he killed him? Four thousand years after this terrible murder, God gives the reason for it... God tells us here that the way of Cain was evil — his "works," supposed to be suited to God, were evil. If you are unsaved, even though you are religious, your works are evil. It is no good to deny it... His works were evil, and so his anger appeared, and he killed his brother. Only think — he was guilty of murder because he was angry that his brother was accepted, and he himself was not.
Behind the rejected offering lay a denial:
Cain founded a religion that denied God's righteous claims, even though man had fallen away from God. He also overlooked the fact of the curse that had come in through that fall... Cain worked the ground. Though it was cursed, it gave him its fruit. He brought that fruit from the cursed ground as if there were no curse at all, and offered it to God... The moment the fall is a fact, we can bring nothing to God that He will accept except through the death of Christ... What marked the religion Cain invented was bringing God an offering in a way that denied the great principle, "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins."
The trigger was not injury done to Cain. It was the sight of what was right in someone else:
Cain's works were wicked, and because of this he hated his brother, and killed him... Sin, hatred, and murder marked him. What provoked him and set his whole evil nature in motion was what was of God in Abel... The word of God in the heart is the secret of righteousness in the saints. It is also the secret of the world's hatred of them: "I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world" (John 17:14).
Cain shows one family. Those born of God show the other:
Cain, the offspring of the devil, was a lawless man, and as a result he hated and killed his brother. As begotten of God we have love as our proper nature, and are left here to practise righteousness also. When we love our brother and practise righteousness, we show clearly that we are children of God.
The verse also tests anyone who claims to belong to God:
When someone who claims to be a Christian hates his brother, that hatred proves he is in the state of death. It shows he is linked with the murderer from the beginning.
- Source. John does not just call Cain evil. He calls him "of that wicked one." He traces both families to their root and leaves no middle ground between love and hatred.
- Sequence. The murder was the second sin, not the first. Earlier came an offering from cursed ground, brought without blood, as if the fall had never happened.
- Spark. Nothing Abel did to Cain provoked him. Righteousness in another was enough. The word of God kept in the heart still draws the world's hatred.
- Sign. Two families, two sets of marks: love and righteousness on one side, hatred and lawlessness on the other.
- Self-test. Hatred of a brother is not a small failing. It is evidence of death, and a tie to the murderer from the beginning.
Do not wonder, brethren, if the world hate you.
John has just pointed back to Cain and his murder of Abel. Now he tells his readers not to be shocked when the world hates them. Why is that hatred no surprise for people who belong to God? And what should a believer do with it?
The surprise John forbids is one we still feel. And who is this "world" that hates?
So there is nothing surprising if the believer meets the hatred of this world. The "world" here is not the world-system — a system cannot hate. It is the people that the world-system controls. The child of God does not hate them. How could he, when it is his very nature to love? The world hates him, for the same reason as he who does evil hates the light, for the same reason as Cain hated Abel. Sadly, we must admit that we often do marvel when we are hated. That is very foolish of us. It is what we should expect, given the nature of things.
The cause goes back to the first family. Cain suffered no injury from his brother. What stirred him was his brother's righteousness.
Cain's works were wicked, and because of this he hated his brother, and killed him. He belonged to the evil one, and the devil's moral features marked him. Sin, hatred, and murder marked his life. What provoked him, and set his whole evil nature in motion, was what was of God in Abel: "Why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous." So the saints are not to marvel if the world hates them. It is only natural to it to do so. It did not know Christ, and it does not know the children of God. It hated Him, and it hates them. The word of God in the heart is the secret of righteousness in the saints. It is also the secret of the world's hatred of them: "I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world" (John 17:14).
But who exactly did John have in mind? One writer's answer is uncomfortable.
Who made up the world? And who were these haters the apostle had in mind? Mainly, at least, those who had once been part of the church's fellowship and had left it. These are always the worst. People who turn back from the truth have a special hatred for the truth itself, and for those who hold on to it. They cannot bear either, and why? For the same reason as Cain could not. It is self-condemnation.
If our own failings caused this hostility, it would shame us. They don't.
The world hates those who belong to Christ and so are no longer of the world. But the Lord wants us to know this: it hated Him before us, just as surely as it hates us. It hates us because of Him, not Him because of us. So our faults are not the true cause. The cause is His grace and moral excellence, His divine nature and glory.
The same truth works in reverse, as a test.
If we love the world and the things of the world, the world will love us. A testimony to its evil, from someone who remains separate from it, will call down its hatred. And it is Christ that the world hates. The more the believer shows Christ, the more hatred he draws.
The name John gives his readers here is chosen, not casual.
He is about to speak about love among brothers, so he calls them "brothers." We should never pass over a word of Scripture without asking why God uses that word and not another.
The next verse is not a change of subject; it is the answer to the hatred.
It is no strange thing that the world hates the child of God. The world has rejected Christ openly and completely. Any confession of Him, or any reflection of His character, offends the world. The believer therefore should calmly accept this, and show love in return. The strong assurance of verse 14 brings comfort beyond words. The world does not know, but the believer knows for certain that he has already passed from death into life. No need to fear the world's hatred then, or even death at their hands. Nothing can touch the life he has from God.
- Expect — hatred from the world is not strange; marvelling at it is the foolish part.
- Cain — his reason is still the reason: the righteousness he saw in his brother condemned him.
- Christ — the world hates us because of Him, not Him because of us; our faults are not the true cause.
- Test — love what the world loves and it will love you back; show Christ and its hatred comes out.
- Comfort — take it calmly, return love, and hold verse 14: nothing the world does can touch the life God has given.
*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.
This verse follows a warning: do not be surprised when the world hates you. Against that hatred it sets a quiet certainty. It offers a test anyone can apply: love for fellow believers is how you know a change has already taken place in you.
John's words here echo something Jesus Himself said.
These words deserve extra weight, because they link at once to words of the greatest weight in the Gospel. In John 5:24 the Lord Himself used the same words in the last clause. There He was speaking to the individual believer, and He did not use the emphatic "we": "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life."
William Kelly (Kelly used an older translation, in which both verses end with the same words.)
The change has two sides:
Death was his lost condition through sin; but he now lives of His life. This change has taken place already for the soul, though not yet for the body.
It would be easy to read the verse backwards, as though loving other Christians were what earns the new life. The order runs the other way.
Of all people on earth, only believers, only brothers in the Lord, only "we" can say that we have passed out of death into life because we love our brothers. This love is the testimony to it and the practical evidence of it; but faith alone through Christ's grace brought us into the blessing. We neither received life eternal, nor passed out of death into life, because we loved our brothers. Back then we hated them, because we were dead in sins. But when we believed God, we passed out of death into eternal life. Only then did we come to know them, and we have loved them ever since.
The love in view is not personal preference or shared background. It shows itself with people you have no natural reason to be drawn to.
Love is the practical proof of divine life. We meet a child of God who has been a complete stranger to us until now. He may be far above us in social standing, or, on the contrary, in a much humbler position. He may come from another land and speak a different language. Yet at once our love goes out to one another, and we are on closer terms than with our own relatives. The reason is simple: we have the same life — eternal life — with the same Object, Christ.
The verse sits inside a larger argument that has already sorted people into two families, and love is the second thing that tells them apart.
The apostle has now named the two families, the family of God and that of the devil. He adds the second mark. Where that mark is missing, it proves that the person is not of God. He had already spoken of righteousness; he adds love for fellow believers... If this love is an essential proof of being renewed, it is quite natural that it should not be found in the men of the world.
The second half of the verse is worded with unusual care — not "he is dead," but something more settled.
Notice how pointed his language is. He does not just say that the man is dead. He says that he abides in death. Whatever he claimed to be, he was always dead spiritually, and he abides in death. The proof is that he never loved the one he was called to love as of God's family. He had no love; but he would have love if he had the life of Christ in his soul.
Religious credentials do not survive this test:
There may be a high religious profession, and a zeal for so-called Christianity, but to have no love for fellow believers is to have no divine life.
Having this life and feeling sure of it are two different things.
Not all who have life have peace. They have eternal life, but do not know it... they look to Christ, and cannot give Him up; they little think that the self-humbling experience they have is the effect of their having life.
- Life first. We passed out of death into life by believing God, through Christ's grace. It is already done for the soul, though not yet for the body.
- Love follows. Love for other believers is the evidence of that life, never the payment for it. Before it, we hated them.
- Life explains love. Believers who are strangers become closer than family. They share the same life and the same Object, Christ.
- Love sorts. Love is the second mark, after righteousness, that tells the two families apart. Its absence in the world is no surprise.
- Love, or death remains. The verse does not say "dead" but "abides in death." No religious record or zeal can replace the love that divine life always produces.
Every one that hates his brother is a murderer, and ye know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
John has just made love for fellow believers the evidence of having passed from death to life. Now he turns to the dark side of that test. He gives hatred a name no one would choose for himself, and then ties a verdict about eternal life to that name.
The verse does not describe an act. It describes what is working inside a person before any act happens. That inward working is the real measure of the man.
"Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer." Here he comes down with greater severity. It is not merely one who does not love, but the positive activity of hating. His words are more open and his conduct more outrageous. He shows his hatred, and so he is called a "murderer." The apostle here goes down to the root of things. When hatred is found to mark a man's spirit under trial, he is a murderer in principle. The Lord speaks the same way about lust: a man who indulges lust he ought to judge, rather than allow, is an adulterer in principle. God deals with the heart and not with the externals only in Christianity. The inward working, as well as what comes out, is what marks the man who claims to be a Christian. A court of law could never accept such evidence.
Most people assume a middle position: they neither love a person nor hate him. John removes that option, and he does it the way Jesus did with anger.
Verse 15 puts the case even more strongly. The truth is that we cannot be neutral here. If we do not love our brother we hate him; and he who hates is potentially a murderer. Cain was an actual murderer. But in Matthew 5:21-22 the Lord Jesus puts the emphasis not on the act but on the anger and hatred behind it. Our verse here does the same... As we abide in Him, eternal life abides in us, and the very nature of that life is love.
The word John uses for "murderer" is wider than a legal conviction. It is also the word used of the devil.
The Greek word anthropoktonos comes from anthropos, "man," and kteino, "to slay." It is closer to our word "man-slayer," and it is used even when no murder has taken place. "Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him." 1 John 3:15. The devil "was a murderer from the beginning." John 8:44. This word sets the killing of man against eternal life for man through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Hatred can hide behind friendly words for years before it shows what it always was. That is why John names the nature and not the deed.
Hatred is the very spirit of murder. The apostle of course speaks of the man's nature here, not of his acts. Still, Cain's hateful nature led to his actual murder of Abel... The hatred of Judas did not show itself for three and a half years, but then he was proven a murderer also. What a dreadful description of all who use a form of godliness as a cloak of deception!
The negative statement carries a positive one inside it. If "abiding in him" is what the murderer lacks, then that is what the Christian has.
So it is eternal life or no life... And again in his first epistle John says, "Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him" (1 John 3:15). Those words would have no force unless the Christian has eternal life abiding in him.
Many have read the second half of the verse as shutting the door of salvation on anyone who has killed. Commentators answer that the verse describes a nature. Grace gives a new nature, and God then looks at the person through it.
"You know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him" has often been misunderstood. It has been taken to mean that no murderer can be saved... Is it not plain that the apostle points to the nature that marks one who, like Cain, is of the wicked one? A man does not need to take the life of a fellow man to be a murderer; he is one already, because he has that nature... But when the grace of God lays hold of one who is like this in His eyes, he is born anew — "born from above." He has a new nature, and that is what now marks him in God's eyes.
- Nature, not verdict. The verse names what a person is, not what a court could prove; hatred is murder in seed form.
- Nature shows. Cain acted at once, Judas waited three and a half years — hidden hatred is still the same nature, only slower.
- Nature has a father. The word used for "murderer" is the word used of the devil in John 8:44; hatred is a family resemblance.
- Nature has an opposite. No middle ground exists: if we do not love our brother, we hate him.
- Nature can be changed. The verse is not a locked door for the guilty. It describes the old nature. God views the one born again by the new life that abides in him.