"If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from Him, That he who loveth God love his brother also."
1 John 4:20-21
Yesterday we saw that – “God’s love brings discipline and correction to us as we need it.”
Today:
“If we say we love God but hate any of our brothers or sisters in His family, we are liars. If we don’t love someone we have seen, how can we love God? We have never even seen Him. God gave us this command: If we love God, we must also love each other as brothers and sisters” [1] (1 John 4:20-21, HSB)
These are sobering words of truth from John’s first letter.
“If a man say, I love God!”
“I love God,” this is not a hard thing to say. Anyone can say it, and many do. This is an easy thing to tell people, and it’s difficult for them to prove you don’t love Him, at least on the surface. They cannot see God, just like you cannot see Him, and they certainly cannot see what is in your heart. That is a personal relationship with an invisible God. So, to float the statement out there, “I love God,” seems like a reasonably safe thing to do.
“And hateth his brother.”
Now the truth comes out. This person wants to claim their love for God, but they hate one or more of God’s children.
The human creatures’ habit is to “look before he or she leaps.” It is “seeing is believing” before faith. And many believe that “If I can’t see it, it’s not true.” We tend to trust what our fallible senses tell us long before accepting what we cannot see.
“Nature is prior to grace; and we by nature love things seen, before we love things unseen [Estius]” [2] (JFB).
John points that out.
“If we do not love the brethren, the visible representatives of God, how can we love God, the invisible One, whose children they are?” [3] (JFB).
These two ideas cannot live together. They do not compute!
“He is a liar!”
What harsh but true words! Simply defined, “a lie is the intent to deceive.” [4] It covers the actual truth with words or ideas meant to mislead whoever sees it. The person who lies is a liar.
“a liar – Describes anyone who claims knowledge of God but fails to carry out His commandment to love fellow Christians and by extension other people in general….” [5] (FSB).
Jesus is never fooled by any lies, even from the best liars. And He warns us that if we claim to know Him, but we are not obedient to Him, we are liars!
“If we say we know God but do not obey His commands, we are lying. The truth is not in us” (1 John 2:4).
Our loving heavenly Father wants His offspring to love others as He does.
“And the second [command] is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Matthew 22:39).
The person claiming to love God without loving other people is lying.
“According to John, this person is a liar because it is impossible to love God without also demonstrating love to other believers” [6] (FSB).
“Anyone who claims to love God, yet hates his brother makes a false claim: he is a liar” [7] (BKC).
“For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?”
Here is a spiritual oxymoron. “I love God, but I hate people!” This kind of statement has the devil’s fingerprints all over it!
“Love for the unseen God (cf. 4:12) can only be concretely expressed by love for one’s visible Christian brother” [8] (BKC).
“Love for God is shown by love for people; if the latter is lacking, then so is the former. John goes so far as to say of anyone who does not love his brother that he cannot love God. He makes a distinction between the brother who is seen and God who is not. To affirm one’s love for the unseen while failing to love the seen is to enter the realm of fantasy” [9] (NBC).
“And this commandment have we from Him.”
The command to love is from God Himself! He commands it, and we obey. If we think and say we cannot do it, we say that God is lying to us. That is a serious offense against God!
“Because of this, the excuse “I just can’t love that person” (or other such excuses) is invalid. If we are born of Him and are abiding in Him, then the resources for love are there. It is up to us to respond to His command with our will and whole being” [10] (Guzik—EWC).
“That he who loveth God love his brother also.”
Here’s the litmus test of our love for God.
“There is a difference between the love of man and divine love. “These verses are the equivalent of saying that a person cannot practice agape-love unless he can first practice philia-love” [11] (Boice–EWC).
“Furthermore, God’s command … has joined together the two kinds of love—love for God and love for one’s brother” [12] (BKC)
Because God loves us, our love is directed to God and people.
Quote: “Followers of Christ love God and love others—or they are not true disciples of Christ” [13] (CSB).
[1] HSB is the Harvest Study Bible from Harvest Ministries on Guam.
[2] JFB, Jamieson, R., Fausset, A. R., & Brown, D. (1997). Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (Vol. 2, p. 535). Logos Research Systems, Inc.
[3] JFB, ibid. The emphasis is theirs.
[4] I first heard this definition for “a lie” from Dr. Bill Goode, Faith Baptist Church in Lafayette, IN. It was during counseling school.
[5] FSB, Barry, J. D., Mangum, D., Brown, D. R., Heiser, M. S., Custis, M., Ritzema, E., Whitehead, M. M., Grigoni, M. R., & Bomar, D. (2012, 2016). Faithlife Study Bible (1 Jn 4:20). Lexham Press. The emphasis is theirs.
[6] FSB, ibid.
[7] BKC, Walvoord, J. F., & Zuck, R. B., Dallas Theological Seminary. (1985). The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Vol. 2, p. 900). Victor Books. The emphasis is theirs.
[8] BKC, ibid. The emphasis is theirs.
[9] NBC, Morris, L. L. (1994). 1 John. In D. A. Carson, R. T. France, J. A. Motyer, & G. J. Wenham (Eds.), New Bible commentary: 21st-century edition (4th ed., p. 1407). Inter-Varsity Press.
[10] EWC – David Guzik. Enduring Word Commentary, the electronic version in eSword.
[11] EWC, ibid.
[12] BKC, ibid. The emphasis is theirs.
[13] CSB, Yarbrough, R. W. (2017). 1 John. In E. A. Blum & T. Wax (Eds.), CSB Study Bible: Notes (p. 1998). Holman Bible Publishers.