1 John 3:13

Verse 11 opens with “For”, and it gives the reason for what John has just said. He has set the children of God beside the children of the devil (1 John 3:1–10), and he closed that section with the words “neither he that loveth not his brother.” Love of a brother is the mark that tells the one family from the other, and verse 11 names it as the heart of the message.

The word for “message”, angelía, means an announcement or a precept that has been proclaimed, and it carries the authority of the one who sent it. “This” points ahead to what the message is: “that we should love one another.” The readers “heard” it, and the verb akoúō covers hearing in more than one sense, including giving audience to a speaker and understanding what is said. They received the command with understanding, and it was meant to shape their lives.

“From the beginning” (ap’ archēs) means from the first proclamation of the gospel. The command to love one another came at the start, from Jesus himself and then from the apostles, and it lies at the core of the faith. Jesus gave it to his disciples in these words: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another,” and he added that all men would know them as his disciples by this love (John 13:34–35). For John’s readers the command is as old as their faith, and the Lord himself is the one who gave it. Paul tells believers in the same way to serve one another by love, since love fulfils the law (Galatians 5:13–14).

The “we” includes John with his readers. This love is practised within the family of believers, and it is the mark of real fellowship.

“Not as Cain” turns to the first murder in human history, told in Genesis 4:3–8, a story John’s readers knew well. Cain stands against everything verse 11 commands: he killed the brother he should have loved.

“Who was of that wicked one” (ek tou ponērou) speaks of where Cain’s deeds came from. The word ponērós means hurtful or evil, evil in its effect and the harm it does, and here it names the devil. Cain’s nature and deeds belonged to the devil and matched his character. Jesus called the devil a murderer from the beginning and a liar (John 8:44), and Cain’s act carries that likeness. John is speaking of a spiritual parentage that shows itself in what a person does, just as the children of God are known by their righteousness and love. Profound evil like Cain’s has the devil behind it.

“Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you.” The verb thaumázō means to wonder or marvel, and by implication to admire, and it comes from the noun thaûma, a wonder. With the negative mē it becomes a command to stop being astonished. John wants his readers prepared for hostility, so that it never catches them off guard. He calls them “my brethren” (adelphoí mou), a family word that stands over against “the world” in the same verse.

The word kósmos comes from a verb meaning to care for or arrange, and its first sense is an orderly arrangement or adornment. In John’s writings it often means humanity ordered apart from God, under sin and darkness, with desires that run against his will. The verb miséō, “hate”, means to detest, especially to persecute, and by extension to love less. Here it is the active hostility of that world toward those who belong to Christ. The “if”, ei, speaks of something to be expected after verse 12, since the world treats the righteous the way Cain treated Abel.

The world hated Jesus before it hated his followers. He told his disciples so, and said that because he had chosen them out of the world, the world would hate them (John 15:18–20). He warned that they would be hated of all men for his name’s sake (Matthew 10:22), and he called them blessed when men hate them for his sake (Luke 6:22). Light shows up evil deeds, and those who do evil hate the light (John 3:19–20). He came into the world he had made, and the world knew him not, and his own received him not (John 1:10–11). Isaiah foretold that he would be despised and rejected of men (Isaiah 53:3), and the cross shows the world’s hatred of divine truth and love at its height.

When believers meet this hatred, they share in what their Lord bore. Paul longed to know the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings (Philippians 3:10), and the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ (Revelation 11:15). The churches John wrote to lived under Rome among largely pagan neighbours who were suspicious of a new and growing faith, and they met everything from being shut out of society to martyrdom. The world’s hatred marks them as Christ’s, and it gives them all the more reason to hold to one another in love.

“We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.” The “we know” (oidamen) is sure knowledge. The verb metabaínō means to pass over, to change place or state, and it stands in the perfect tense: the passing is complete and its result remains. thánatos, “death”, here means spiritual death, separation from God, who is the source of life, and zōḗ is life, the life of fellowship with God. The new birth is a move from one realm to the other, and Jesus spoke of the one who hears his word and believes as already passed from death to life (John 5:24).

“Because we love the brethren” gives the evidence. The brethren (adelphos) are fellow believers, and the family of God is the first place this love is seen. Love for them is the visible fruit of the new birth, and it gives believers assurance. John has already said that everyone who does righteousness is born of God (1 John 2:29), and love is the fruit the Spirit produces (Galatians 5:22).

“He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.” The verb is menei, “abideth” or remains, a continuing and settled state. A person without this love is still where he always was, whatever he professes. John sets the two states side by side with nothing between them: one either abides in death or has passed into life. Life and love belong with light, and death and hatred with darkness, as John has said from the opening of his letter (1 John 1:5–7).

“Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer.” “Hateth” is miséō, the same verb as in verse 13, and here it is a deep and settled ill will. The word for murderer, anthrōpoktónos, is made from the words for a man and for killing, and it means a man-slayer. John calls the one who hates a murderer because the heart of murder, the wish to harm another and be rid of him, is already present in hatred before any hand is raised. Jesus taught the same in the Sermon on the Mount, where the commandment against killing reaches anger and contempt in the heart (Matthew 5:21–22). God judges the heart as well as the hand.

“And ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.” The readers knew this already from what they had been taught. aiṓnios means eternal, lasting without limit of time, and zōḗ is life. “Abiding” is ménō, to stay in a place, a state or a relation, the same verb that described the man who “abideth in death” in verse 14. John speaks of eternal life as something a believer has now, dwelling in him and remaining. Eternal life and settled hatred exclude each other, because the life God gives comes from him, and God is love (1 John 4:8). Paul lists hatred and murders among the works of the flesh (Galatians 5:19–21).

“Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us.” “Perceive” translates ginṓskō, to know by experience, and “hereby” points ahead to what follows. In the KJV the words “of God” are printed in italics, because the translators supplied them to make the sense clear, and the Greek reads “hereby perceive we love”. The love meant is God’s own, for God is love. Love, agápē, is defined here by an act. “He” is Christ, and títhēmi, “laid down”, means to place or put, so that with “life” it speaks of giving one’s life up deliberately and of one’s own will. The word for life, psychḗ, means breath, the life that animates a living being, and so here the whole self. “For us” means for our benefit and in our place, as Christ bore the penalty of our sin.

Jesus said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). God commends his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). Christ humbled himself and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross (Philippians 2:5–8). By stressing that Christ laid down a real life, John also answered teachers who set the spiritual apart from the material and so made light of practical love.

“And we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” “Ought” speaks of a debt or duty. The love that gave itself for us becomes the pattern for us, and Christ’s life is now the life we live, as Paul says: “Christ liveth in me” (Galatians 2:20).

Verse 17 brings the high standard of verse 16 down to daily life. If love lays down life, it will surely open its hand. “But whoso hath this world’s good”: the word is bíos, livelihood, the means of life, the goods a person lives by (the Greek is ton bion tou kosmou). “And seeth his brother have need”: the verb theōréō means to look at, behold or observe, and chreía means need, lack or want. This man has the means, and he has looked on the need with his own eyes.

“And shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him.” The verb kleíō means to shut or close. splánchnon means the inward parts, such as the heart, liver and lungs, which in ancient thought were the seat of deep feeling, especially pity and tenderness. In the KJV the words “of compassion” are in italics, supplied to bring out what “bowels” meant to its first readers. To shut them up is to close off pity on purpose, to harden the heart against a brother, and to keep back both feeling and help.

“How dwelleth the love of God in him?” The question answers itself. “Dwelleth” is ménō, the verb of verses 14 and 15, and the love is agápē, the love of verse 16. God’s love, where it dwells, moves toward need, as it moved toward us in Christ, and a closed heart before a brother in want shows that this love is absent or sorely weakened.

James says the same, that faith which sends a needy brother away with warm words and empty hands is dead (James 2:14–17). Jesus counts what is done for the least of his brethren as done for himself (Matthew 25:34–40), and John the Baptist told the crowds that whoever had two coats should share with the one who had none (Luke 3:11). The Law and the prophets taught Israel that giving to the poor is a righteous act and a duty of the whole people, and the first believers shared what they had as each had need (Acts 2:44–45, Acts 4:32–35).

“This world’s good” covers money and possessions first, and its sense of livelihood reaches to anything that sustains life or well-being: time, skills, a home, food and help of every kind. The early church shared homes and food along with money.

Christ went this way before us. He made all things (John 1:3), and though he was rich, for our sakes he became poor, that we through his poverty might be rich (2 Corinthians 8:9). He emptied himself and took the form of a servant, and he came to minister and to give his life a ransom for many (Mark 10:45).

“My little children” (teknia mou) is John’s tender address throughout his letters. He writes as a father to his spiritual children, and the warmth of it carries the strong command that follows. “Let us not love in word, neither in tongue”: lógos means something said, speech, and “in tongue” (en glōssē) stands beside it as a second name for the same thing. John is warning against love that stays in speech, kind words with nothing done behind them. Words of encouragement are good, and they belong together with deeds.

“But in deed and in truth.” “Deed” is érgon, the same word as the “works” of Cain and Abel in verse 12, here the concrete act of giving time, goods or effort to meet a need. “Truth” is alḗtheia, truth or reality, and here it means sincerity: love without pretence, hypocrisy or hidden motive, love that matches what is real and reflects the God of truth. “In deed” guards against empty talk, and “in truth” guards against deeds done for show or for gain. Paul asks for the same thing, love without pretence and brotherly kindness toward one another (Romans 12:9–10).

John goes straight on to say that by this we know that we are of the truth and can assure our hearts before God (1 John 3:19–20). Throughout the letter he gives marks of genuine faith, among them obedience to God’s commands, walking in the light and loving one another, and love in deed and in truth is the plainest of them.

Jesus is love in deed and in truth. His coming in the flesh was itself a deed of love, for the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). He went about teaching, preaching the gospel and healing all manner of sickness among the people (Matthew 4:23), and he fed the hungry and comforted those who mourned. On the cross he gave himself as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). He is the truth (John 14:6), and what he taught and how he lived were always one. Our love for one another flows from his love for us, and his Spirit in us makes it possible.

God is love, and he has shown it in a deed: Christ laid down his life for us. Everything John asks in these verses grows from that one act. The love we owe our brothers and sisters is the love we have already received, and it comes to us with the life God gives when he brings us out of death. That gives us a way to know where we stand. Where love for the brethren is present, we have God’s own assurance that we have passed from death to life, and where it is weak, the Lord who began his work in us carries it on. The passage also prepares us for a world that may hate us, since it hated our Lord first. Against that hatred God has given us one another, a family where love is shared in deed and in truth and a brother’s need is met with an open hand.