God's Love to the Saints
(No. 2959)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1905.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JULY
11, 1875.
"Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for
us." 1 John 3:16.
[Also see Sermon No. 2958, Volume 51– "The Saints' Love to God"]
TRUE love cannot long be dormant. It is like fire of an active
nature–it must be at work. Love longs for expression–it cannot be
dumb. Command it to be without expression and you command it not to
live. And true love is not satisfied with expressing itself in words.
It does use words, but it is painfully conscious of their feebleness,
for the full meaning of love is not to be conveyed in any human
language. It breaks the backs of words and crushes them to atoms when
it lays upon them all that it means. Love must express itself in deeds,
as our old proverb says, "Actions speak more loudly than words." Love
delights, too, in sacrifices. She rejoices in self-denials and the more
costly the sacrifice, the better is love pleased to make it. She will
not offer that which costs her nothing–she loves to endure pain,
losses and crosses–and thus she expresses herself best.
This is a general principle which is not only applicable to men, but it
reaches even up to God, Himself, for, "God is Love," and being love, He
must display love, nor can He rest with merely speaking of His love.
His love must manifest itself in action. More than that, God could not
rest until He had made the greatest sacrifice that He could make and
had given up His only-begotten Son to die in the place of sinners. When
He had done that, then He could rest in His love. God does not come to
us and say, "Men and women, I love you and you must believe that I love
you although I do nothing for you to prove My love." He does ask us to
believe in His love and He has given us abundant proofs of it.
Therefore He has a right to claim our belief in it. The Apostle of
Love, who wrote the chapter from which our text is taken, tells us,
"Hereby we are made to know"–for that would be the real translation of
the original–"Hereby we come to know, we do know, the love of God,
because He laid down His life for us." Just as we learn the love of
others by seeing what they are prepared to sacrifice for us, so is it
even with God, Himself, we discover, discern, perceive and are made to
know the love which He bears for us by the fact that "He laid down His
life for us."
I. First, I want to show you that THERE ARE MANY ACTS OF GOD IN WHICH
HIS LOVE IS VERY CLEAR, BUT IN WHICH THE MOST OF MEN FAIL TO SEE.
There are many of His acts of which it might be said, "Hereby the love
of God is manifested," yet many men fail to perceive the love which
lies behind the actions. Let us examine ourselves to see how we stand
with regard to this matter. There are some of us who ought to have
perceived the love of God to us in the surroundings into which we were
brought at our very birth. I am addressing many who, like myself, owe
very much to Christian parents. Many of us could truly say, in the
words of the children's hymn–
"I was not born, as thousands are, Where God was never known And taught
to pray a useless prayer To blocks of wood and stone." But without
being born slaves or heathens, it might have happened that we would
have had to spend our childhood in the slums of London. Some of you
think that you have been very good, but would you have been better than
the boys that fill our reformatories–would you have been better than
those who crowd our prisons–if you had had the same
training, or lack of training, that has been their lot? If you had had
such an example as they have had–if the taste of strong drink had been
familiar to you almost from your birth–if the first thing you ever
heard was blasphemy–if you had lived in the thieves' kitchen–do you
think that you would have been any more clear from guilt than they have
been? When we look down upon others and despise them, it may be that if
we knew all their temptations and the conditions of their upbringing,
we might almost admire them for not being worse than they are! It costs
some people a great struggle to be honest. And there are many women in
this dreadful London whom we, perhaps, think ill of, who, nevertheless,
have suffered almost a martyrdom and who have fought stern battles with
temptation! If they have fallen somewhat, they are to be honored
because they have not fallen still further!
But what a blessing it was to us that when we woke up in this world, we
looked up into a face that smiled upon us and to lips that, by-and-by,
spoke to us of Jesus Christ! The first example that we had was one
that, to this day, we wish to follow. Our companions, from our youth
up, have been of a godly order and there are some who are in Heaven,
now, who had much to do with the formation of our character–and for
whom we should always thank God. Now, had we been wise–had we
understood the meaning of this gracious arrangement–we might, in the
very conditions in which we were born and brought up, have perceived
the love of God to us! Yet many of us did not. I should not wonder if
some of you thought that you were badly treated because you were placed
in such a strict family where you were checked and kept from what you
regarded as the pleasures of life. Many a young man has felt that he
has been tied to his mother's apron strings a great deal too much. He
saw other young men enjoying themselves, but he could not–his father,
like a grim jailer, was always looking after him too closely. That is
the way many of us put it in the days of our ignorance. But now that
God has opened our eyes, we can see the love of God in it all. Yet we
did not see it then and, as a general rule, young men and women who
have the high privilege of Christian parents and training do not
perceive the love of God in it, but often kick against it and wish they
had not to endure what they regard as so great a hardship!
Then, dear Friends, the love of God may be clearly seen in reference to
all of us in His giving us a wise and judicious Law. That Law of the
Ten Commandments is a gift of great kindness to the sons of men, for it
tells us the wisest and the happiest way of living. It forbids us
nothing but what would be to our injury and it withholds from us
nothing which would be a real pleasure to us. The commands which say,
"You shall," or "You shall not," are like the signs which you sometimes
see at swimming places, bearing the words, "Dangerous! Keep so many
yards away from this spot." God does not make laws denying us anything
that would really be for our good. There is a poisonous berry growing
in your garden and your child has been told that he is not to eat it.
If he is a wise child, he will understand that it is your love to him
which has told him not to eat of that poisonous berry. If you had no
care about him at all, he might eat what poison he chose. But because
you love him, you say to him, "My child, do not do this and do not do
that because it will be to your serious injury and, possibly, your
death, if you disobey." We ought to see the love of God in the gift of
His Law, but nobody ever does that till he is led to the love of God in
other ways. We cannot say of it, though we ought to do so, "Hereby
perceive we the love of God towards us."
We have also had in the daily bounties of Divine Providence, abundant
manifestations of the love of God. If our eyes were really opened,
every loaf of bread would come to us as a token of our Father's
care–and every drop we drink would come as the gift of our Father's
bounty. Are we not clothed by His love? The breath that is in our
nostrils–who gives it to us but our Creator? Who preserves us in
health but our great Benefactor? Is it not a proof of love that you are
not on a sickbed tonight? That you are not in the lunatic asylum? That
you are not do the borders of the grave? Yes, and that you are not in
Hell? We are a mass of mercies and a mass of sins–we seem to be made
of mercy and ingratitude mixed together! But if the Lord will open our
eyes, we will then perceive the boundless mercies of which we are the
recipients and we shall begin to perceive His love! But this is not the
first place where man ever sees God's love. The Cross is the window
through which the love of God is best seen, but, until that window is
opened, all the bounties of God's Providence fail to convince us of His
love. See how the mass of men reap their harvests and yet never thank
the God who gives the harvest. See how they drive the loaded wagons to
the granaries and thresh out the wheat–and send it to be sold in the
markets–but did you ever hear of a song of praise being sung in the
market when they brought the first new wheat to be sold? Did you ever
hear of such a thing? Why, they would think we were all gone mad if at
Mark Lane, on the arrival of a sample of new wheat, we were to begin to
sing–
"Praise God from whom all blessings flow!"
The probability is that there are many of them there cursing because
the wheat has gone down a shilling or two and the poor people will,
possibly, get their bread a little cheaper! Praising God seems to have
gone out of fashion and we are told by philosophers, who ought to know,
that the wheat springs up naturally and that God has nothing to do with
it. They say that whether it rains or whether the sun shines, the
processes of Nature are ruled by iron law with which God has no concern
at all–and they practically imply that He has gone for a holiday and
left the world to manage itself, or wound it up, like a watch, and put
it under His pillow and gone to sleep! That is the philosopher's
religion and, as far as I am concerned, the philosophers may keep it,
for it is not mine! My religion believes in the God of the showers, the
God of the sunshine and the God of the harvests. I believe in "the
living God, who gives us all things to enjoy" and let His name be
praised for it! Were our hearts right with Him, we would "hereby"
perceive the love of God, but we do not– that perception comes to us
through a stained glass window–the window that was stained crimson by
the precious blood of Christ! There, and only there, do we perceive the
love of God, "because He laid down His life for us."
II. That brings me to my second point which is this–IN THE LAYING DOWN
OF HIS LIFE, CHRIST'S LOVE IS BEST SEEN.
I have already said that in many acts of God, His love ought to be
seen, but, according to the text, we "hereby" perceive the love of God,
"because He laid down His life for us." It is universally admitted that
there can be no greater proof of love than for a person to lay down his
life for the object of that love. All sorts of sacrifices may be taken
as proofs of affection, but the relinquishment of life is the supreme
proof of love which nobody doubts. A man says that he loves his
country–and suppose that man should be in the condition of Curtius, in
the old Roman fable, when a great chasm opened in the Forum and it was
declared that it could only be closed by the most precious thing in
Rome being thrown into it. The story goes on to say that Curtius, fully
armed and riding his charger, leaped into the chasm, which instantly
closed. Well, nobody could doubt the love of such a man for his
country! If the question happened to be the love of humanity, we have
the story–the true story–of the surgeon at Marseilles. And if we
acted as he did, nobody could doubt our love to our fellow creatures.
The plague was raging through the city and the people were dying by
thousands. The good bishop remained among them, discharging the last
offices to the dying and cheering the living–and many of the surgeons
of the town who might have departed, lingered to wait upon the sick. At
a consultation among them, it was resolved to make a post mortem
examination of one of the worst cases of the plague and the question
was who should make it, for whoever did it must certainly die of the
disease within a few hours. One of them, to his honor, said, "My life
is of no more value than that of any other man–why should I not
sacrifice it if I can, by doing so, discover the cause of this terrible
malady and save this city?"
He finished his grim task, wrote his notes about the case and then went
to his home and died. Nobody doubted that he loved Marseilles, for he
had laid down his life for it. And you probably read, the other day,
the story of a mother's love which nobody could doubt. In the late
disastrous floods, a mother who had her two little children in a
cradle, climbed a hill, carrying them with her. She reached a tree, or
some other frail shelter with these two dear objects of her love and
held them up till she found that the support on which she was resting
was not strong enough to sustain herself and her two babies. So,
placing them out of harm's way as far as she could, she leaped into the
waters and soon sank. Nobody could doubt that mother's love when she
laid down her life for her children! This is the crowning proof of
love! Even "the devil's advocate" will not rise up to dispute this
truth! They that can die for others must surely love those for whom
they lay down their lives.
Now, our Lord Jesus Christ has proved His love to sinners by dying for
them. Do you need me to tell you the story again? O my Brothers and
Sisters, read it for yourselves. Read it often! You have it written
four times, but not once too often–the story of the Son of God, who,
for our sakes, died a felon's death, barbarously nailed to the Cross to
bleed away His life. Read that story and see how He proved His love to
us!
But there were certain points about Christ's death which are very
extraordinary and which are better proofs of love than those I
mentioned just now. The first is this–Jesus need not have died at all
When the Marseilles surgeon died, he only did what he would have to do
a few years afterwards. When the mother perished to save her children,
she did but die a few weeks, or months, or years before her appointed
time, for, being mortal, she must die. If we give our life for others,
we do not really give our life–we but pay the debt of Nature a little
while before it is due. But it was altogether different in the Lord
Jesus Christ's case. Over Him death had no power–It is of Him that
Paul writes, "who only has immortality." Who could, without His
consent, have laid his hands upon the Prince of Life, the Son of God,
and said to Him, "You shall die"? No one could have done that! It was a
purely voluntary act for Christ to die at all–not merely to die on the
Cross but everto die, was a voluntary act on His part and,
consequently, a most singular proof of His love to us.
Remember, again, that in our Lord's case, there were no claims upon Him
on the part of those for whom He died. I can understand a mother dying
for her children. "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she
should not have compassion on the son of her womb?" I can see some
reason why a noble citizen would be willing to die for his city. When
the six principal burgesses of Calais put the ropes round their necks
and went out to Edward III, to offer to die instead of their fellow
citizens, I can understand their action. Were they not the leaders of
that community? Were they not put into a position of responsibility and
honor which, if it might not exactly demand the sacrifice, yet, at
least, rendered it a most likely thing that if they were men of truly
noble spirit, they would make it? But there were no such claims upon
our Lord Jesus Christ! When Queen Eleanor sucked the poison from her
husband's wounds at the risk of her own life, I can see reasons why she
would do it. I say not that she was bound to do it, but I do say that
the relationship of a wife accounts for what she did. But Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, had no relationship to us until He chose to assume the
relationship which He did assume out of infinite compassion! There was
no more relation between Him and us then between the potter and the
clay! And if the clay upon the wheel goes amiss, what does the potter
do with it but take it and throw it into a corner? And so might the
great Creator have done with us. But instead of doing so, He shed His
blood that He may make us into vessels of honor fit for His own use! O
Son of God, how could You stoop so low as to take upon Yourself our
nature and in that nature to bleed and die, when between us and You
there was a distance infinitely greater than that between an ant and a
cherub, or a moth and an archangel? Yet with no claims upon You, of
Your own free will, You did yield Yourself to die because of Your
amazing love to us!
Another extraordinary thing about Christ's love was that there were no
appeals whatever made to Him to die. In the other cases which I have
quoted, you may remind me that there were no vocal appeals made. The
little children in the cradle did not beg their mother to die for them.
No, but the very sight of them was enough to plead with their mother.
In the case of the city dying of pestilence, could the surgeon–who
believed that by an examination he might discover the secret of the
evil–go through the streets and see the doors marked with the fatal
cross and hear the wailing of the widows and the children without
feeling that they did make most pitiful appeals to his heart? But man
made no appeal to God to die for him! Our father Adam–and he was the
representative of us all, did not fall down on his knees in the
Presence of God and say, "God be merciful to me a sinner. O God, whom I
have offended, provide for me a Savior and deliver me from Your wrath!"
No prayer came from Adam's lips, nor even a confession–only a wicked
and mean attempt to cast upon God the blame for his disobedience! "The
woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did
eat." That is all that human nature usually does–it will not
acknowledge that it needs a Savior and it will not confess that it has
sinned sufficiently to need an expiatory sacrifice and, consequently,
the sullenness of man might have paralyzed the love of Christ if
anything could have done it! You did not sue for mercy–you did not ask
for an Atonement–you did not desire expiation for your sin, yet Jesus
came, unasked, undesired, unsought–to lay down His life for sinners!
Notice, again, that Jesus Christ well knew that if He did lay down His
life, He would get no love in return from those for whom He died unless
He, Himself, created that love. This He has done in the hearts of His
own people, but, in the hearts of others who have been left to
themselves, there is no love to Jesus Christ. Here, Sabbath after
Sabbath, it is our privilege to preach a dying Savior to dying sinners,
but, of all themes in the world, it seems to make the least impression
upon some of our hearers! If we were to come here and talk of Howard's
devotion in living and dying to relieve the woes of the prisoners in
our jails, many would be moved to admiration of the philanthropist! But
how little admiration have most men for our sweet Lord and Master? It
is an old story, you say, and you have heard it so often that you care
little for it. Now, that mother, who died to save her children, felt
that they loved her. How often they had charmed her with their cooing
and smiles while they were lying on her bosom–and she felt that she
could freely give up her life for them. But our Lord Jesus Christ knew
that He was dying for stony-hearted monsters whose return for His love,
if left to themselves, would be that they would utterly reject Him!
They would not believe in Him. They would trust in their own
righteousness rather than in His–and they would try to find a way to
Heaven by sacraments and ceremonies rather than by faith in the
meritorious Sacrifice which He made when He laid down His life for
sinners!
Remember, too, that our Lord died by the hands of men as well as for
the sake of men. The surgeon at Marseilles was not to die by the act of
his fellow citizens. The mother was not to die at the hands of her
children. Curtius, leaping into the gulf, was not forced there by the
anger of his fellow citizens. On the contrary, all would have been glad
for them to continue to live. But it was this that made the death of
Christ so sadly unique, that He came to die for men who wished that He
should be made to die! "Crucify Him, crucify Him," they cried in their
mad rage, foaming at the mouth. "Oh," some of you say, "but wenever
said that." No, not then, but perhaps you are saying it now–for there
are still many who hate the Gospel of Christ–and to hate the Gospel is
to hate Christ, Himself, for that is His very essence and heart! And to
reject Christ to choose your own pleasure and to keep on delaying to
repent, as some of you do, and to die at enmity against Christ is very
much the same thing as crying, "Crucify Him!" And it comes to the same
thing in the long run. You know that if you could be quite sure that
there is no Christ and no God, and no Heaven, and no Hell, you would be
perfectly happy. That is to say, you would, if you could, crucify
Christ and put Him out of existence with everything that has to do with
Him! Well, that is the very same spirit as that which made the Jews of
old cry, "Crucify Him, crucify
Him!"
Yet once more, there was this remarkable thing about Christ's
death–that in dying for us, He was taking upon Himself an awful mass
of shame and dishonor, and also a most intimate connection with sin.
There was nothing shameful about the leap of Curtius into the chasm.
Had I been there to see him, I would have clapped my hands and cried,
"Well done, Curtius!" Who would not have said the same? But when our
Lord died, men thrust out their tongues at Him and mocked Him! His was,
indeed, a shameful death. And, I think when that mother put her babes
up in a place of safety and herself sank into the raging flood, the
angels might have smiled as well as sorrowed at such a deed of heroism.
But when Jesus sank into the raging flood to save us, even God,
Himself, did not smile at Him! Among our Savior's expiring cries was
that agonizing utterance, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"
This was because He had, as our Representative, come into contact with
human sin–and so with human shame. The just and holy Son of God was
made a curse for us! Or, as Paul tells us, God "has made Him who knew
no sin to be sin for us; that we might be made the righteousness of God
in Him."
All this helps to manifest to us Christ's amazing love, so I finish my
discourse by asking–as the text says, "Hereby perceive we the love of
God, because He laid down His life for us"–have you and I perceived
that love? Do we know it? That is a very simple question, yet I take
the liberty to press it upon you. I think it was Aristotle who
said–and he was a great master of thought–that it is impossible for a
person to know that he is loved without feeling some love in return. I
think, as a rule, that is true. So, if you do really perceive that
Christ loved you so much as to die for you, there will leap up in your
heart somewhat, at any rate, of love to Him! One Sunday night I was
reading, in Exeter Hall, the hymn beginning–
"Jesus, Lover of my soul"
And, just at that time, there strayed into the hall, a man of fashion,
a man of the world, careless of all spiritual things, but that line
caught his ear–
"Jesus, Lover of my soul."
He said to himself, "Does Jesus really love me? Is He the Lover of my
soul?" And that line was the means of begetting love in his thoughtless
heart–and then and there he surrendered himself to the love of Christ!
Oh, that such a result as that might come of my repeating the story
here–that some who have never loved the Lord Jesus Christ up till now,
would say, "Did He thus love His enemies–thus strangely love them even
to the death? Then we, though we have up to now been His enemies, can
be His enemies no longer! We will love Him in return for His great love
to us."
And you Christian people who do love Him, if you have perceived His
love somewhat, try to perceive it still more, that you may love Him
more! And if you really love Him more, try to show that you do. Notice
the rest of the verse from which my text is taken. I did not leave out
the latter part because I was afraid of it, but because I had not time
to deal with it as it deserves–"Hereby perceive we the love of God,
because He laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our
lives for the brethren." We ought to prove our love to our God by our
love to our fellow men–but especially by our love to our fellow
Christians–and to prove our love by our actions! I do not know what
the love of some
professors is worth. I suppose they do if they put down how much it
costs them in a year. I fear that it does not cost some professors
nearly as much for their religion as it does for their ribbons, or for
some foolish indulgence. They pay their shoeblacks better than they pay
their ministers and they take care to spend upon themselves in perfect
waste, a hundred times as much as they spend upon spreading the Gospel,
saving the heathen, helping the poor, or rescuing the fallen! We do not
believe in such Christianity as that! And we certainly do not wish to
practice it. If we profess to be Christians, let us be Christians in
deed and let us especially show our love to Christ by loving our fellow
Christians. If you see any of them in need, aid them to the uttermost
of your power! If they need cheering and comforting, give them good
cheer and comfort. But, if they need substantial aid–fnancialaid–let
them have that, too!
In the old days of persecution, there were always some noble souls who
tried to hide away the Christians from those who sought their lives,
although they did so at the risk of their own lives. And many a
Christian has given himself up to die in order to save the lives of his
fellow Christians. Some of the old people came tottering before the
judge because they thought that they would not be so much missed from
the Church as the younger ones would be and, possibly, some of them
also thought that they had more faith than the younger ones had–and if
they had more faith, they were more ready to die and so to let the
younger ones live on until they grew stronger in faith and hope, and
love. But, on the other hand, sometimes the young men would gently push
back the fathers and say to them, "No, you are old–you had better
linger here awhile and teach the young. We young people are strong, so
we will go and die for Christ." And there was many a contention in the
Church of God, in persecuting times, as to who should die first for
Christ! They were all willing to lay down their lives for their
Brothers and Sisters!
Where has this self-sacrificing love gone? I would like to see some of
it! I would even wear microscopes over my eyes if I thought that I
could so discover it–but I am afraid I cannot. Why, if we loved each
other, now, as Christians loved each other then, we should be the talk
of the town and even worldings would say, "Look how these Christians
love one another!" Yet this is only what we ought to do, so, Brothers
and Sisters in Christ let it be what we will do! God help you to do it
for Christ's sake! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: 1 JOHN 3.
Verse 1. Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us,
that we should be called the sons of God. Behold it, wonder at it and
never cease to admire it! Is it not one of the greatest marvels that
even God, Himself, has ever worked that we should be called the sons of
God?
1. Therefore the world knows us not, because it knew Him not I t does
not know the Father, then how should it know the children? It did not
know the elder Brother–the First-Born among many brethren–and as it
did not know Him, how should it know us?
2. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what
we shall be: but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like
Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And that vision will be
transforming and transfiguring! The pure in heart see God and they are
pure because they see God. There is both action and reaction–when God
has purified us, we shall see Christ and when we see Christ as He is,
our purification will be complete! When will that day arrive? Oh, for
the blessed vision! Meanwhile, let us be content to look at Him by
faith and to be always growing more and more prepared for that brighter
vision which is yet to be ours.
3. And every man that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as He
is pure. I t is the nature of this Divine hope– this hope of being
like Christ–that it helps us to grow day by day more like Him and so
we purify ourselves, as Christ is pure.
4. Whoever commits sin, also transgresses the Law, for sin is the
transgression of the Law. And there will never be a better definition
of sin than this. However men may philosophically try to mar it, this
simple statement will be better than any that they can give us–"Sin is
the transgression of the Law."
5. And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins; and in
Him is no sin. What a marvelous thing it was for Christ to bear sin as
He did and yet to have upon Him or within Him no taint arising from it!
You have to go into the world and you say, "How can we help sinning
while we have to mix with so much that is evil?" Well, the Lord Jesus
Christ had to mix with evil more than you will ever have to, for He not
only lived in this sinful world, but the transgression of His people
was actually laid upon Him so that He came into very close contact with
sin–"He was manifested to take away our sins; and in Him is no sin."
6. Whoever abides in Him sins not: whoever sins has not seen Him,
neither known Him. If this declaration is related to any one act of
sin, none of us could ever say that we have seen or known Him–but it
relates to the habit of sin–if we love sin and live in sin–if the
main course of our life is sinful, then we have "not seen Him, neither
known Him."
7. Little children, let no man deceive you: he that does righteousness
is righteous, even as He is righteous. You must judge a tree by its
fruit. If it brings forth good fruit, it is a good tree–and if it
brings forth evil fruit, it is an evil tree. Do not be deceived about
that matter, for there have been some who have dreamed of being
righteous and of being the children of God, yet they have lived in sin
as others do! They have been self-deceived! It has been a mere dream on
which they have relied. Practical godliness is absolutely necessary to
a true Christian character–and a man is not righteous unless he does
that which is righteous.
8. He that commits sin is of the devil; for the devil sins from the
beginning. Ever since he became a devil, he has continued to sin. It
was sin that changed the angel into a devil–and he has always remained
a sinner.
8, 9. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested; that He might
destroy the works of the devil Whoever is born of God does not commit
sin. That is to say, this is not the course, habit and tenor of his
life– there is sin in much that he does, but he hates it, loathes it
and flees from it.
9-11. For His seed remains in him: and he cannot sin because he is born
of God. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of
the devil, whoever does not righteousness is not of God, neither he
that loves not his brother For this is the message that you heard from
the beginning, that we should love one another Love is the essential
mark of the true child of God. "God is Love" and, therefore, he that is
born of God must love. Hatred, envy, malice, uncharitableness–these
are not the things to be found in the children of God! If they are
found in you, you are not one of His children.
12. Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother And
why did he slay him? Because his own works were evil and his brother's
righteous. That was the real evil at the bottom of his great crime–it
was the wickedness of Cain's character that made him hate the good that
was in Abel–and, therefore, after a while he slew his brother,
"because his own works were evil and his brother's righteous."
13. Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hates you. This hatred is too
old for you to wonder at it. If it began with the first man who was
born into the world, even with Cain, do not marvel if it should spend
some of its fury upon you!
14. 15. We know that we have passed from death unto life because we
love the brethren. He that loves not his brother abides in death.
Whoever hates his brother is a murderer: and you know that no murderer
has eternal life abiding in him. What a warning this is against the
evil spirit of hate, revenge and all that kind of feeling! These things
are not compatible with the possession of the life of God! Where hatred
lives, there is no life of God in the soul. That evil must be shot to
the very heart by the arrows of Almighty Grace, or else we are not free
from the dominion of the devil. Every man who hates another has the
venom of murder in his veins. He may never actually take the deadly
weapons into his hand and destroy life, but if he wishes that his
brother were out of the way–if he would be glad if no such person
existed–that feeling amounts to murder in the judgment of God! It is
not the lifting of the dagger, nor the mixing of the poison that is the
essence of the crime of murder! It is the hate that prompts the
commission of the deadly deed! If we never commit the crime, yet if the
hate is in our heart, we are guilty of murder in the sight of God–and
eternal life cannot be abiding in us.
16, 17. Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His
life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But
whoever has this world's goods andsees his brother has need, andshuts
up his heart of compassion from him, how dwells the love of God in
him?Indeed, it cannot be there at all! He has the love of himself and
not the love of God dwelling in him!
18, 19. My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue,
but in deed and in truth. And hereby we know that we are of the truth
and shall assure our hearts before Him. You notice how the Apostle
constantly writes about knowing. Take your pencil and underline the
word, "know," in John's Epistles and you will be surprised to find how
frequently he uses it. He is not one of those who suppose, or fancy, or
imagine, or have formed a certain hypothesis–he
knows and he tells us what he knows in order that we, also, may know!
Love has a knowledge which is peculiarly her own–a full assurance
which none can take from her!
20. For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and
knows all things. If you, with your narrow knowledge of right and
wrong–your imperfect understanding of your own motives–if you find
reason to condemn yourself, what must be your position before the bar
of the all-seeing, heart-reading God? That little flutter in your
bosom, my Friend–that trembling, that uneasiness–what does it mean?
Is not this a forewarning of the sounding of the trumpet of the Great
Assize when you will have to stand before the Judge of all the earth
and answer for yourself to Him? It is easy to deceive your fellow
man–but it is impossible to deceive your God!
21. Beloved, if our heart condemns us not, then have we confidence
toward God. Other people may condemn us, but that does not matter. They
may impute wrong motives to us and misrepresent us, but that is no
concern of ours so long as we have confidence toward God.
22. And whatever we ask, we receive of Him because we keep His
commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight Notice
the link between confidence as to our rightness and power in prayer.
When a child has done wrong and knows it, he cannot run to his father
and ask for favors as he used to do–he feels timid in his father's
presence because of the sense of his guilt. But if you and I know that
we have endeavored with all our heart to love the Lord and our fellow
men and to act righteously in all things, we have a sacred confidence
which enables us to speak with God as a man speaks with his friend! God
greatly loves this kind of confidence and He listens to those who
possess it. Such people may ask what they will of God–they have
learned to bring their minds into conformity with the will of God's so
the desire of their heart shall be granted to them.
23. 24. And this is His commandment, That we should believe on the name
of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, as He gave us
commandment And he that keeps His commandments dwells in Him, and He in
him. And hereby we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit which He
has given us. Oh, to be more and more under the sacred influence of
that blessed Spirit!