Love One Another

John reminds the church that the command to love one another belongs to the message they have heard from the beginning. Cain serves as the opposite pattern: he belonged to the evil one, hated his righteous brother, and murdered him. The world's hatred of believers should therefore not be surprising. Love, however, shows that believers have passed from death to life, while hatred reveals murderous death still at work. John then defines love positively by pointing to Jesus, who laid down His life for them, and he draws the necessary implication that believers ought to lay down their lives for one another. Even ordinary material generosity toward a needy brother or sister becomes a test case for whether God's love truly abides. The paragraph ends by insisting that love must be expressed in action and truth, not merely in speech.

T¹¹his is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another. ¹²Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did Cain slay him? Because his own deeds were evil, while those of his brother were righteous. ¹³So do not be surprised, brothers, if the world hates you. ¹⁴We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. The one who does not love remains in death. ¹⁵Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that eternal life does not reside in a murderer. ¹⁶By this we know what love is: Jesus laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. ¹⁷If anyone with earthly possessions sees his brother in need, but withholds his compassion from him, how can the love of God abide in him? ¹⁸Little children, let us love not in word and speech, but in action and truth.

John next explains that enacted love helps believers know that they belong to the truth and enables them to assure their hearts before God. Even when the heart condemns, God is greater than the heart and knows all things. If the heart does not condemn, believers enjoy confidence before God and receive from Him what they ask because they keep His commandments and do what pleases Him. John then compresses God's command into its essential shape: believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another. The one who keeps God's commandments remains in God, and God remains in that person, and the Spirit given by God confirms this abiding reality. The paragraph closes the chapter by joining assurance, obedience, prayer, faith, love, and the Spirit into one integrated vision of Christian life.

¹⁹And by this we will know that we belong to the truth, and will assure our hearts in His presence: ²⁰Even if our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts, and He knows all things. ²¹Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God, ²²and we will receive from Him whatever we ask, because we keep His commandments and do what is pleasing in His sight. ²³And this is His commandment: that we should believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and we should love one another just as He commanded us. ²⁴Whoever keeps His commandments remains in God, and God in him. And by this we know that He remains in us: by the Spirit He has given us.