If any one say, I love God, and hate his brother, he is a liar for he that loves not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?
The verse puts a claim under a test. Anyone can say the words "I love God", so John sets a visible person in front of the speaker and asks what he does with him.
The word "liar"
The claim costs nothing, because no one can see the God it names. One writer exposes the excuse behind it.
The natural heart will grab at any excuse. A man will quite easily claim to love God. It suits him that God is out of sight, so he avoids real, serious dealings with Him. But he must deal with his brother. If God's love has truly entered his heart, how can he help loving his brother? If he does not, then he does not love God either: he is a liar. What a dreadful name! It is not simply that the man has been untruthful on one occasion. When he takes the hypocritical position of professed love for God while hating the children of God, this is the very spirit of antichrist. Antichrist is a liar, as is his father the devil.
Why a brother is the test
Why does John point to a brother? Because God shows Himself in someone born of Him.
If I myself am born of God, then everyone else who is also born of God is a brother to me. The God whom I cannot see is presented to me in the one who is begotten of Him — this brother whom I can see. That being so, the test John's question puts is impossible to escape.
Where those qualities stir nothing in us, the answer is plain.
We have not actually seen God, but we can see something of God in our brother. If the qualities of God in His people do not draw out our affection, it is obvious that we do not love God.
Why it comes as a question
Older translations end the verse with a question. One writer explains what that question does.
The apostle does not only brand such a person as "a liar", making a false profession. He would have us realise that it is utterly impossible for that profession to be true. "No one has ever seen God", he says. God is invisible. How can someone who does not love the children of God whom he sees love their Father whom he does not see? The question form only adds force in the conscience: it is impossible, and the profession is not true.
Is the verse too harsh? One writer sees the severity as protection.
The severity of 1 John 4:20 is right; God would guard us against all hypocrites and all hypocrisy. It is a crushing rebuke where one is needed, and its form challenges the conscience.
A settled state, not a bad day
The verse is not aimed at the believer who loses his temper. One writer draws the line.
When the apostle speaks of hating his brother, he is not thinking of some sudden outburst of temper, provoked or unprovoked. We may be sure he would not excuse that. He would call it sin without hesitating, and it interrupts, for the time, the flow of fellowship between the Father and His child. But the apostle is not dealing with that subject here. He is speaking of what we might call the steady activity or state of the soul, its continuous habit. Anyone marked by hatred of God's children speaks falsely when he says that he loves God.
Where love comes from, and where it is tested
Can anyone argue himself into love? One writer says no, then shows where God places the test.
Logic never produced love, and never rises above a mental conclusion. But the new nature, with Christ acting on it, produces the result according to God. God arranges matters so that we have practical tests around us. A brother may act wrongly. Am I not to love him? Certainly I am. His conduct may give a different shape to your love, but love always has to be exercised as in the sight of God.
That has a practical edge. The person watching for love to arrive has the test pointing the wrong way.
We might say that we love God, but it is what is of God in the world that tests us. We may go about looking for love from our brothers and sisters, and complaining because we do not seem to get as much of it as we would like. This is a sad state to be in, and it shows a heart that is not enjoying the love of God.
Summary
- Seen — God is out of sight, so a claim to love Him costs nothing. The brother stands in plain view, and he tests the claim.
- Shown — God shows Himself in the brother. If what is of God in another draws nothing out of us, we do not love God.
- Settled — the verse targets a continuous habit of hatred, not a sudden outburst. An outburst is sin, and it breaks fellowship for a time, but it does not prove a false profession.
- Severe — "liar" is a brutal word, and it is meant to be. The question presses the impossibility onto the conscience and guards God's people from hypocrisy.
- Sourced — no one argues himself into love. It comes from the new nature with Christ acting on it, and it shows in giving love, not in complaining about what we do not receive.