Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 John 3:11-18

"For this is the message which ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another: not as Cain was of the evil one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his works were evil, and his brother`s righteous. Marvel not, brethren, if the world hateth you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. Hereby know we love, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoso hath the world`s goods, and beholdeth his brother in need, and shutteth up his compassion from him, how doth the love of God abide in him? [My] Little children, let us not love in word, neither with the tongue; but in deed and truth." — 1 John 3:11-18 (ASV)

BROTHERLY LOVE THE NECESSARY FLOWER OF THE DIVINE LOVE IN THE DIVINE BIRTH (1 John 3:11–18).—In 1 John 2:10, St. John showed the necessary connection between righteousness and love; there is no contradiction between the two: the one is necessary to the other. Justice will become sternness without love; love will be weakness without justice. The two thoughts are introduced and connected in both halves of the Epistle. (See 1 John 2:3–11).

Here the duty of love is still more strongly insisted on, as the general subject is the love of God, just as in the first half of the Epistle it was the light of God. We have:

1. The command or message of Christ;
2. Then the contrast of Cain;
3. Then the similar conduct of the world (a thought which had occurred before, in 1 John 2:1);
4. Then the comfort of the connection between love and life, as contrasted with hatred and death;
5. Then the identification of the hater with the murderer, and the impossibility of associating the idea of eternal life with the destroyer of temporal life;
6. Then the example of God’s love in the death of the Son, urging us even to the same extremity of self-sacrifice;
7. Then, as a minor premise, the thought thrust home for a practical conclusion: that the smaller self-sacrifice of daily assistance to others is essential to the Christian life.

(11) For verse 11 states the reason why brotherly love was added to righteousness at the end of the last paragraph: because it was the earliest and most prominent feature of Christianity presented to them.

Love one another.—The injunction is perfectly general, without the restrictions of society; wherever Christian love is due, there it must immediately be paid. (Compare to 1 Peter 1:22).

(12) Not as Cain, who was of that . . .—Rather, Not as Cain was of that . . .; an abrupt conversational form. . Cain is introduced as the prototype of envy, jealousy, and the inward hatred which the evil feel at the good.

(13) The conduct of the world to Christians is of a piece with this invariable characteristic of those who are in darkness, exemplified in Cain. (John 17:14; 2 Timothy 3:12).

Marvel not is equivalent to “Be not dismayed; be of good courage.”

(14) This is a characteristic instance of St. John’s logic. From the conciseness and richness of meaning in his style, he does not give all the steps of an argument, but frequently turns it upside down, in order more speedily to bring out a forcible spiritual truth.

But for this he would have written, “We love the brethren, because we have passed from death into life; but he that abides in death does not love.” But wishing to put these ideas in the form of a direct encouragement, in the face of a hating world, he puts the reason as the conclusion, and the conclusion as the reason. This unexpected turn rivets the attention far more than a rigid deduction.

Another ground of assurance has been stated in 1 John 2:2: keeping the commands of Christ, of which (as we have seen) love is the most prominent. “The brothers” means all the members of the human family: the love of Christ which, in 1 John 2:16, we are instructed to imitate, was for the whole world of sinners. (1 Corinthians 4:12).

Passed from death unto life.—This dates from the beginning of the new birth, the dawn of eternal life in the converted heart. And just as perfect Christian love embraces all other Christian virtues, so not only does actual hatred, but the absence of love, indicate absolute spiritual deadness.

(15) Regarding the absence of love as of one class with the presence of hatred, St. John here puts forward the active member of the class more prominently than the quiescent one. The statement is intended as an illustration of the fact that where no love is, there can be no eternal life. The full argument would be “Where love is not, there is hatred; where hatred is, there is murder; where murder is, there can be no eternal life.” .

(16) Hereby perceive we the love of God.—Rather, By this we know true love; meaning, of course, that perfection of love which is God Himself. Christ, the Word made flesh, is regarded as identical with this love, so only the pronoun is used.

The highest proof of love is the sacrifice of that which is most precious: nothing could be more precious than the life of the Word made flesh. (John 10:15; John 10:17–18; John 13:37–38; John 15:13; Galatians 2:20; Ephesians 5:2; Ephesians 5:25).

For us.—Rather, on our behalf. .

And we ought.—The reason for this consequence is that we are to be like Christ in everything; as our being is orbed in His, so whatever was His spirit will be ours: even His unparalleled act of self-sacrifice must be reproduced in us, at however great a distance. For the good of our fellows, we must even be ready to die. (John 15:12–13; Romans 9:3; Romans 16:3–4).

(17) But implies a progress from the greater duty to the less; if the less is neglected, far more completely is the command disobeyed.

Good.—Rather, sustenance, or “necessaries of life.”

World is not here used in a bad sense, but merely of such elements of existence as are not spiritual.

The word “see” is strong, and implies calm and attentive contemplation.

The word translated “bowels of compassion” is used in the Septuagint (Proverbs 12:10) for “tender mercies.” It is used in the New Testament as we use “heart,” and has nothing to do with bowels. It should be translated “compassion.”

How abideth.—In 1 John 2:15 it was eternal life; here St. John thinks of our love to God as one of the two chief signs and products of eternal life: eternal life bringing into activity its relation to its source.

The words “My little children,” are, as usual, a mark of a sudden surge of warmth, tenderness, and earnestness. “Word,” of course, is antithetical to “deed,” and “tongue” to “truth.”

The construction of the first pair (which is different from that of the second) implies merely the instruments of love, while that of the second implies its whole condition.

St. John hints that there is some danger of this conventionality among his friends and earnestly exhorts them to genuineness.

He forbids all the traitorous babble of heartless insincerity and urges that just, active, straightforward, all-embracing affection which was complete in Christ alone. (Ephesians 4:15; James 2:15–17; 1 Peter 1:22; 2 John 1:1; 3 John 1:1).