Loving One Another 1 John 3:11-12

    Let’s take a look at the “big picture” of 1 John first.

    The letter begins with a prologue  (1:1-4). John emphasizes the incarnation several times in the letter. The definition of the “anti-Christ” is one who denies the incarnation. John’s point about the witness of the “water and the blood” in 5:6-8 seems to be directed toward proving the incarnation. 

    The letter ends with this challenge: “Little children, guard yourselves from idols” (5:21). The letter begins by emphasizing the incarnation but it concludes by warning against idolatry. In the middle, we have the greatest concentration of the use of the word “love” in any book of the NT. What is the relationship between the incarnation, idolatry, and love?

     We stay away from idolatry because we know that God has come in the flesh. We know that idolatry is nothing, that it is not helpful, because Jesus is God in the flesh. Jesus, being God in the flesh, has provided the highest motivation and the clearest example, of love for brethren. There’s the connection… What you believe and what you follow affects how you live!

    We see the connection between the incarnation and love in 3:16: “We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” Since the incarnation is true, then the crucifixion was possible which makes our service reasonable. 

    In 3:7-10, the apostle John writes that the distinction between a child of God and a child of the devil is this: if you don’t practice righteousness and if you do not love your brother, you are a child of the devil. Doesn’t that sound like Jesus’ words about the greatest commandments in Matt. 22:37-39? 

    Why out we to love our brethren (3:10)? “For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning…” (3:11) What message is that? “We should love one another” (Matt. 22:37-39; Romans 13:9; James 2:8). Jesus. Paul. James. John now says the same thing, the same message that has been heard “from the beginning:” “love one another.”

    The antithesis of this message of love can also be traced back to the “beginning,” as John draws our attention to Cain, who was of the “evil one,” who slew his brother. Cain was “of Satan.” He was under the influence of Satan. It was Satan who influenced Cain to kill his brother. John asks, “Why did he kill his brother?” Well, because Cain’s “deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous.”

    Envy is what killed Abel at the hands of his brother. John goes on to say in verse 13, do not be surprised if the world, out of envy as Cain, hates you. But we, Christians, have passed out of death into life because we love the brethren.

    Back to 1 John, in 3:17-18, John makes an application of this “love one another” to his first century audience: “But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth” (cf. James 2:15-17).

     Let us love one another as God has loved us.

Paul Holland