We are talking this week about something that is very old, written in the Old and New Testaments. This is in no way something new. That is what John is telling us at the beginning of this passage. It is the same thing they have heard since God passed down the Ten Commandments. Love has always been commanded of God’s people that is what makes this commandment old. “You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.” – Leviticus 19:18 “You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.” – Leviticus 19:18 -NASB That is why this is an old commandment. The reason that John says that it is old and new is because of the intensity in which Christ calls us to love. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” –John 13:34-NASB This is not the superficial love we see all over the place today. This is true love. This is not, “I love you like a fat kid loves cake love” This is real sacrificial I would die for you love. Notice who this love is for. It is for, it is for “one another”. And not only do we love our brothers and sisters in Christ, but Jesus calls us to more. What kind of intensity are we to love our brothers and sisters in Christ? Here it is “even as I have loved you”. Wow. That is amazing and seemingly impossible, except by the power of God changing the believer to his very core. How much did Christ love the church? He loved her enough to die for her. Oddly enough this is the same calling that husbands have for their wives. “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands(this we hear often, but next we do not)Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her”-Ephesians 5:22-25 –NASB The love a husband has for his wife is so strong that there is a willingness to die for her, the same as Christ had for the church. This type of love is the same type of love that we are to have for our brothers and sisters in Christ. Notice again what Jesus said, “love one another, even as I have loved you”
Not only does Jesus intensify the love that we should have for our brothers and sisters in Christ, but here John says that “if we say we are in the light and hate our brother we are still in darkness”. This is the truth of what John is saying. Anyone who claims that they are a born again believer and hates their brothers and sisters in Christ is not really a born again believer. In other words, if this person had actually been changed by the power of God then they would actually have love for their brothers and sisters in Christ. “Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. “Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.”-I John 1:9-11-NASB Habitual hatred of Christians is actually a mark that you may not truly be born again. This is because there is a special connection between believers. We have been adopted into the family of God, we have been rescued out of the darkness, we are all thankful to God for these things, and not only that but His seed abides in us(I John 3:9) and we have been born again. We talk about things the world does not understand and live in a way that the world does not understand. We are different and we are different together, as we work together against the evils of this world. Every Christian has a special purpose for their life. We have all been saved for His name’s sake.(Ezekiel 36:22-27, I John 2:12) We have a common goal of glorifying God, but we have not all been gifted with the same abilities.
Every Christian has gone through what is called regeneration/being born again as mentioned in John 3:3-15 and II Corinthians 5:17. Every Christian who is still alive is going through the process of sanctification. We are being made holy and we are set apart for the purposes of God this is mentioned in I Thessalonians 4:3, I Corinthians 1:30, and Romans 6:17-23. We are all made new(regeneration) and are being made more and more holy(sanctification) so that we can achieve our common goal; to glorify God. “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.” –Titus 2:12-14-NASB With all of this being said, even though we have these many commonalities amongst us we have not all been gifted with the same abilities, but all Christians are equal playing different roles in the kingdom. “I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you , children, because you know the Father. I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.” –I John 1:13-14-NASB Every Christian is a branch of the same vine and we all find our value in that vine. God has blessed us all with different and varying degrees of abilities and He has done this so that we can use it to glorify Him. “I am the vine, you are the branches he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” –John 15:5-NASB We together love each other and work together for the glorification of our Father who is in heaven.
Dwain Minor