1 John 3:11–18

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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, 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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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 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 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!

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.

"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.

To add "of God" spoils the sentence. There is no ground for inserting any words. But only One showed such love, and He was man as surely as God. "By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us." If you want to know what love is, look here. This was love indeed.

We have seen that hatred, which is murder, comes from the devil, who sinned from the beginning. Here we are taught that we know love by this: that He laid down His life for us. The contrast could not be more complete — hatred and love, each traced back to its source.

The following "for," as Meyer says, indicates substitution, not only benefit, as in 1 John 3:16.

We might soften what he says here by telling ourselves that he only means we should spend our lives serving other believers. But that is not what he says. He says plainly that we ought to die for them. Not as a substitute, of course, the way Christ died for our sins — but still to truly lose our lives in death.

"And we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers." His was a depth beyond measure, and nothing can match it. Still, it becomes the model for those who are His, however far short of atonement... He does not say that "we do" — though some believers have died not only for Christ's sake but for their brothers. He is content to say "we ought." Our love, since it comes from God, is able to do it. And in fact, if our dying would be of real use to our brother, we ought to be willing.

Yet His laying down His life for us is also an example for us... If this should end in death, so be it. But we ought to lay down our lives in service for the sake of God's people. That means living for them, not only dying for them if the occasion calls for it. Again, we are not giving our lives merely to a fine cause, however noble it may look. We give them to the glory of God, and for the blessing of the true children of God, not of the world.

With His perfect example before us, we should be ready to lay down our lives for our brothers, in the power of the new life that is marked by love. This does not have to mean actual death. It can mean letting go of life here for Christ's sake.

We may not often be called to lay down our life for our brothers. But are there not plain, simple, everyday ways in which it can be tested? My brother may be in need. It is no use talking about being ready to die for my brother if I shrink back from meeting his ordinary and perhaps urgent need. There is nothing grand here. It is very ordinary, but how practical! It puts the heart to the test, and the test may come any day of the week.

But we are also taught this: without pressing that extreme proof, there is an appeal to our hearts at our own door… Come now; look at everyday matters. Laying down our lives for fellow believers may rarely fall to us here. But ordinary need comes up often, and we know it well where we live: a brother or sister in desperate need. How does it present itself to your soul? How does our love answer to the suffering of the poor brother or sister?

"Whoever has the world's goods" means whoever has the world's means of living. And John does not say merely "sees." The man looks at, gazes on, takes in his brother's need in full. That brother may have made no sign at all, never complained, never mentioned his trouble to anyone. This silence ought to appeal to our hearts all the more. He has borne the strain without a word of complaint; she has endured and told only God about it. But with our eyes wide open, seeing our brother's trouble, we hesitate. A man has the means to help and relieve, yet instead he "closes his heart" against the sufferer. There is no need to add "of compassion," which is clearly implied… He does not ask me to die for my brother. He does ask that my love go out to someone who is suffering from cold, sickness, hunger, or other pain — with means beyond my own real needs.

Here is another mark: the love of God dwelling in a person. It is not simply love toward God, because it is the spirit in which a person himself walks toward his fellow believers. The power of this divine nature living in us shows itself in love to God and to other people. The love of God dwelling in us is the way of God Himself, who through the Spirit brings His love into us. It is not God's love to us, but it is the power of that love working in us, and therefore it will soon show itself to others.

Love is active in God, and that activity must mark His children. It is not simply a matter of duty or obligation. It belongs to their nature, and it shows itself as they walk in communion with God. That is the force of verse 17. Of course, the verse can be used to stir the conscience where there appears to be carelessness or indifference. But the apostle is exposing the mere claim to love fellow believers as unreal. His argument is this: how can love be there if it never acts? How can love that comes from God live where it is never used?

Is this not to be a real, personal exercise and responsibility before God? It is not a demand that the government relieve the poor out of public funds, while I take nothing from my own pocket. Nor is it setting up a charity that asks the world to support the poor… To give where there is no need is of course a mistake. Still, it is better to err on the side of kindness than on the side of greed and hard-heartedness.

Yet we must not encourage evil. We may share in a man's sin by giving to him — for example, if we knew he would spend the money on getting drunk. The New Testament uses two words for "covetousness." One means wanting more than you have. The other means keeping back what you ought to give. The Lord does not count as people do. By God's measure the poor widow gave more than all the rest, though the others gave something too. The Lord still sits watching the treasury.

The apostle says, "Let us love not in word, neither in tongue." This looks like repetition, but it is not. The term "logos," here translated "word," has a much wider meaning than our "word." In English, "not in word, neither in tongue" is repetition. But this word "logos" means, in Greek, not merely the word by which thought is expressed, but the thought itself. So the apostle's point is this. We are not to love in theory (or in thought), nor in mere language ("in tongue"), but in deed and in truth.

In 'word' is the actual expression coming from our lips, which may be very good, but with no actions to back it up. In 'tongue' would rather indicate the handling of the words, the art of persuasive speech. How empty this is if its truth is not proved in our deeds.

Love as a theory is held to be very beautiful — but it is not practised. The heart deceives itself. This is loving in thought only. This passage is the reverse of 1 Corinthians 13. There Paul deals with works without love. Here it is, as it were, love without works — that is, mere sentimentality. But our passage crushes both errors. It condemns love without deeds, and also deeds without love. It calls for deeds, but the deeds must come from love; that is, not in theory, nor in talk, but in acts and in truth.

God looks for reality. He is not satisfied with mere words of high profession. He says to us, "Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth." He, blessed be His name, did not love us in word or in talk. He loved us in deed and in truth. And He looks for a response from us — a response that is clear, full, and distinct. It is a response that comes out in a life of good works.

We may not often be called to lay down our life for our brothers and sisters. But are there not plain, simple, everyday ways in which love is tested? My brother may have need. It is no use talking about being ready to die for him if I shrink back at once from meeting his ordinary, and maybe urgent, need. There is nothing great here. It is ordinary, but how practical! How it puts the heart to the test, and it is a test that could come any day of the week.

"Let us not love in word or talk." It would not be divine love to send the poor brother away with a blessing — I mean a spoken one, so well known — and the latest improved tract. Divine love gives real, material help.

This is a duty about which many deceive themselves. Nothing is easier than to call for love and complain that others are short of it. But some who are loudest in the complaint are very short of it themselves. They want, or think they want, to be objects of love; but the right way is for us to love, if we would indeed be loved. When the heart goes out in goodness with no selfish aim, it draws out other hearts. The lip, though, learns all too easily to talk about love and stop there.

The point here is that if we love in deed and in truth, our hearts will have assurance before God, and so have boldness in prayer.