1 John 3:10 In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. 11: For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. 12: Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous. 13: Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you. 14: We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. 15: Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. 16: Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 17: But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? 18: My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.

Introduction

In this section the apostle John continues to lay out the distinguishing marks of a true child of God. He makes a distinction between the children of God and the children of the devil. That’s what we looked at last time. He pointed out that those who are in Christ, those who abide in Christ, those who are in fellowship with God and with Christ live righteously and do not practice a lifestyle of sin. But those who keep on sinning and make a practice of sinning is evident that they are not true children of God but are children of the devil.

Then John goes on to say that another mark of a true child of God is love. The passage we read this morning reveals the truth that believers are to love one another. 1 John 3:10-11 “In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.” A true Christian is one who loves the brethren. They love each other. That is the theme that John is going to cover in this section—the theme of brotherly love. That’s what I invite you to consider with me this morning—the subject of love in the life of a believer. In this study, I want us to focus on the Imperative to Love, the Illustration of Love, and the Implications of Love.

I – The Imperative to Love

The apostle John begins this section with these words in verse 11, “For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.”

In this passage John reminds his readers that the moral imperative for Christians to love one another was at the heart of the Gospel message. Loving one another as brothers and sisters in Christ is essential. It is imperative. We already heard John spoke on this subject of brotherly love on more than one occasion.

Please turn to ...

1 John 2:7 Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning. 8: Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth. 9: He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. 10: He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. 11: But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.

So, this message of loving the brethren is not new to his readers. This is not a message that John’s readers have not heard from the past. From the very beginning, as far back as the Old Testament, they have heard of the moral imperative for children of God to love one another. That’s what we read in Leviticus 19:18, “Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.” And from the very first time they heard the Gospel, John’s readers knew what God would expect and would enable them to love one another.

Wasn’t it our Lord who said in John 13:34-35, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” Our Lord Jesus Himself underscored the importance of brotherly love and its practical application.

Now the question is, what is love? What is it to love the brethren? The world talks much about love today. Yet, as someone has observed, “It is easy to see that though the world continues to talk about love, the world actually grows increasingly more loveless.” Then we have the love that Hollywood promotes, which is all about feeling, emotion, and attraction. But that is not the kind of love that John is speaking of here. He is speaking of true Biblical love. It is “agape”or divine love. A love not based on and dominated by feelings, emotions, and good looks, but a love that flows out of a heart that has been transformed by the grace of God through the new birth. True Christian love is not a feeling, but it is an action. True love may involve emotion, but it must always involve action.

The apostle Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit describes to us what true Biblical love is in 1 Corinthians 13. In this “love chapter” you will notice that Paul doesn’t describe love in terms of feeling but he describes it in terms of practical deeds and actions.

In 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, the apostle Paul describes love as patient, kind, not jealous, not boastful, not proud. Love is not rude, not self-seeking, not easily angered or provoked. Love does not keep account or records of wrongs, does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. And finally, love never fails. It is enduring. That is what love looks like. Love is truly an action.

Looking at this description of love, I hope we realize that this kind of love is not natural. It is supernatural. It is not something we are born with. It doesn’t come naturally. We just don’t love like this naturally. We don’t love our enemies naturally in our own sinful condition. But when the love of God was shed abroad in our hearts and God saved us, we now love as 1 John 4:19 says, “We love him, because he first loved us.”

William Barclay, “Agape, is that unconquerable benevolence, that undefeatable good-will, which will never seek anything but the highest good of others, no matter what they do to us, and no matter how they treat us. That love can come to us only when Christ, Who is that love, comes to dwell within our hearts…”

Christians are not just to talk about love but to practice it.  Love is not sentiment nor talk, but genuine acts towards others. 

1 John 3:18 My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.

II – The Illustration of Love

Now in the next verses, John will give us an illustration of true love. But first John mentions Cain as an illustration of one who is not of God and who does not love his brother. By the way, in verse 10, John gives us the two marks of who is not a child of God. “In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.” According to John, the two marks of a child of the devil are—they do not practice righteousness and they do not love the brethren. And so, in verse 12 he brings out Cain to illustrate this.

1 John 3:12 Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother...

John is giving us a Biblical example of one who does not love one’s brother—Cain.  Let’s go back to Genesis 4 to see who this person Cain was.

Genesis 4:1 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD. 2: And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. 3: And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD. 4: And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering: 5: But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. 6: And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? 7: If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. 8: And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.

Here we have the account of Cain killing his brother Abel. When Abel’s sacrifice was accepted by God, but his own sacrifice was rejected, Cain became angry, and he slew his brother. Abel’s sacrifice was accepted by God because it was done in faith. Cain’s sacrifice was rejected because it was not done in faith. Cain’s lack of faith led to jealousy, which led to anger, which led to hatred, which eventually led to murder. Cain’s hatred developed because there was no love in his heart for Abel. If there is no love in the heart, a human being is capable of any horrible, sinful act such as murder. Cain’s hatred for Abel was so great that he slew his own brother. And to John, that murder was evidence that Cain was of the wicked one and his works were evil. That act was an evidence that Cain was of the devil. He was acting like his father the devil. Remember what our Lord said about the devil in John 8:44, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning ...” In other words, like father, like son.

The John goes on to say in 1 John 3:15,  “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.”  Here John is quoting the Lord Jesus. In Matthew 5:21–22 we read, “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.”

Someone may say, “I have never murdered anyone.” But our Lord Jesus says, “If you have hated you are guilty of murder in your heart.” According to our Lord, to hate someone is to commit murder in our hearts. I realize that these are strong words but remember these are not my words, these are the very words of the Lord Jesus Christ.

William Barclay puts it this way, “What Jesus is saying here is this: “In the old days men condemned murder; and truly murder is forever wrong. But I tell you that not only are a man’s outward actions under judgment; his inmost thoughts are also under the scrutiny and the judgment of God. Long-lasting anger is bad; contemptuous speaking is worse, and the careless or the malicious talk which destroys a man’s good name is worst of all.” The man who is the slave of anger, the man who speaks in the accent of contempt, the man who destroys another’s good name, may never have committed a murder in action, but he is a murderer at heart.”

Please understand that this passage does not teach that an actual murderer cannot be saved. Christ paid the penalty for all sins—even taking the life of another. But, when a man is saved, he will no longer live in hatred and anger.

Steven J. Cole writes, “A person whose life is marked by selfish hatred of others shows no evidence of new life in Christ. That is the meaning of John’s words in verses 14 and 15. He is not saying that no murderer may be saved. Paul was a murderer before he was saved, and both David and Moses murdered men after they were saved. As in 3:9, here John uses present tense verbs that point to the overall direction of a person’s life. A person whose life is marked by a pattern of selfishness, envy, jealousy, strife, and hatred gives evidence that he remains in spiritual death.

While John’s words are an evidential test of a person’s spiritual condition, they are also an exhortation to those that profess to believe in Christ. As believers, we have to battle the hatred that stems from our own selfishness. While on the one hand, spiritual growth results inevitably from spiritual life, on the other hand it does not happen without our constant effort. Whenever the deeds of the flesh rear their ugly heads, we must put them to death and replace them with the fruit of the Spirit (Rom. 8:13; Gal. 5:19-23).”

Now, after giving an example of one who hates, John now gives the ultimate example of one who loves in verse 16 where we read, “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”

Jesus laid down His life for us. This clearly speaks of the crucifixion of Christ. In illustration what true love is, John takes us back to the Gospel. If you want to know what love is? If you want to know what love looks like? Look to Christ and His death on the cross. Cain took a life, but Christ gave His life. This is the 1 Corinthian 13 kind of love. This is the love that we must have for each other. It is laying our life down for the brethren. It is doing what Jesus did for the Church.

Also, the term “laid down” indicates that Jesus accomplished this act actively, deliberately, and volitionally. As Kistemaker has noted, “His death was not passive like the thousands of sacrificial animals that had been laid on the altars, none having a choice in the matter. No, Jesus died actively and purposefully.”

We see this sacrificial love in many New Testament passages –

Galatians 1:4 Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father:

Ephesians 5:2 And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.

As Cain was the supreme example of hate; Christ is the perfect picture of love. One took a life, the other laid down His life. To take another life is the worst of sins; to give up one’s life for another is the supreme example of love.

John 15:13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

It’s great love. We are to do the same. We are to lay down our lives for the brethren. This is an imperative. This is a command. This is what we as the body of Christ ought to do. We should do this. Don’t be like Cain, be like Jesus Christ.

III – The Implications of Love

John says in verse 13, “Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you.” John now relates the hatred of Cain to the hatred of the world for Christians. As Cain was jealous of Abel’s righteousness, so the world hates the righteousness of Christians. By the world, John means the unbelieving world, which is under Satan’s dominion in opposition to God. The world under the dominion of Satan hates the Christians. Our Lord forewarns His disciple about this in ...

John 15:17 These things I command you, that ye love one another. 18: If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. 19: If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. 20: Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. 21: But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me.

Actually, it is really Christ that the world hates, but because we represent Christ on earth, they direct their hatred toward us. So, John says, do not be surprised if the world hates you. If you stand up for righteousness, if you stand up for the truth, if you live a righteous life, it’s going to hate you. Just as wicked Cain hated his righteous brother, so the unbelieving world hates the Christians. Why? Because you are in the light. Just as it hated Christ who is light, it will hate you who are in the light. They will hate you because the light in you convicts them of their own sinfulness. 

Now no one wants to be hated or rejected, but as I have said before, the world’s hatred and rejection of us should give us assurance that we are not of this world. Then John goes on to say ...

1 John 3:14 We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.

What a beautiful description of our new birth! We were dead in trespasses and sins, but by the grace of God, He quickened us, He made us alive together with Christ. He saved us from sin and darkness. He has “delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son. In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.” (Col 1:13-14)

This is not just our imagination; this is not just our wishful thinking. This is reality and we can know it for sure. John says we can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are truly born again. How? When we love the brethren. By the term “brethren”, John is speaking of the church. True Christians love their brethren. Why? Because they have been brought to life. They have been born again. One evidence of new birth is brotherly love and a desire to be with fellow believers. I know there are some brothers and sisters in Christ that are not easy to love but having been born again and with the indwelling Holy Spirit’s enablement, we can demonstrate supernatural love to them.

Commentator Guzik puts it this way, “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… 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.”

Closing Thoughts

In the earlier chapter John declares that God is love, and that God demonstrated His love in sending His Son, Jesus Christ to be a Saviour for the world. Through the sacrificial death of Christ, God has provided a way where sinful men like you and me can find the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. The sinner must only believe in Christ alone as His Saviour to be saved.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17: For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18: He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

Believing alone in Christ for your salvation you will be saved and you will then experience love of God. And as you experience His love, you will begin to love those around you with a real, Biblical love.

Let me speak now to the brethren ...

“Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”

I know this is a very difficult imperative to receive. But this is what God expects form His children, from His church. We ought to be willing to do whatever it takes to love one another. We ought to be willing to make any sacrifice necessary to express our love for others. We must be willing to love as Christ loved. This cannot be done without the Holy Spirit’s enablement. As I have said at the outset, this love is supernatural, and it takes the supernatural enablement to exhibit this kind of love. In order to love as Christ love, we must constantly look to the love of Christ as our example and may it inspire us to love as He loved. May God’s love continually be shed abroad in our hearts and enable us to firmly say, “We love him, because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) and be able to say, “We love the brethren because Christ first loved us.”

May we abound more and more in brotherly love. As our Lord said, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one for another.” John 13:35

AMEN!