1 John 3:14 - Meaning and Application

The apostle can hardly mention sacred love without pressing us to practice it. Here he does that with several strong reasons and motives. One reason is this: love is a sign of our gospel justification, that is, our being counted right with God, and of our passing into life. “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brothers and sisters” (1 John 3:14).

By nature, we are children of wrath and heirs of death. But through the gospel promise, our standing before the coming world is changed. We pass from death to life, from guilt that leads to death into the right to life, and this happens when we believe in the Lord Jesus. “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever does not obey the Son will not see life, and God’s wrath remains on him” (John 3:36). This happy change can be known, and one clear evidence of it is love for fellow believers.

This love is not just party spirit in religion, nor a warm feeling for people who share our own label or minor views. It first assumes a general love for all people. The law of Christian love inside the church rests on the broader rule for all human life: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” People should be loved mainly for two reasons. First, they are God’s excellent workmanship, made by him and made in a striking likeness to him. God’s reason for punishing murder is also a reason against our hatred of any fellow human being: “for God made man in his own image” (Genesis 9:6). Second, in some measure they are loved in Christ. The whole human race should be seen, unlike fallen angels, as a redeemed race, with a divine Redeemer planned, prepared, and given for them. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). A world so loved by God should be loved by us too.

This love will show itself in earnest desires, prayers, and efforts for the conversion and salvation of the still blinded world. “My heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved” (Romans 10:1). It also includes proper love even for enemies. More specially, it includes a unique love for the Christian community, the catholic church, meaning the whole body of believers, because it is Christ’s body and has been redeemed, justified, and sanctified in him. This love especially reaches those believers we know personally, or about whom we have reliable information. We do not love them mainly for their own sake, but for God and Christ’s sake, because God and Christ have loved them. So this is the fruit of faith in Christ, and therefore a mark that we have passed from death to life.

On the other hand, hating our brothers and sisters is a sign of a deadly state, of still living under the law’s sentence of death. “Whoever does not love abides in death” (1 John 3:14). That person still stands under the curse and condemnation of the law. The apostle proves this plainly: “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him” (1 John 3:15). Hatred of the person is, as far as it takes hold, hatred of that person’s life and good, and it naturally tends toward wanting that life ended. Cain hated his brother, and then he killed him.

Hatred shuts up compassion toward needy brothers and sisters, and so leaves them open to sorrow and death. Through all ages, hatred has also dressed believers in bad names, ugly accusations, and slander, and has exposed them to persecution and the sword. So it is no surprise that one who knows the human heart, and who knows the full reach of God’s law, says that the one who hates his brother is a murderer. A person with a murderous heart cannot have eternal life living in him. Such a person must be controlled by the flesh, and “to set the mind on the flesh is death” (Romans 8:6).

When the apostle speaks of eternal life “abiding” in us, he may mean an inward principle of endless life. That agrees with the Savior’s words: “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst,” meaning he will never be left without it altogether, “but the water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14). Because of that, some may think that “passed from death to life” in 1 John 3:14 does not mean a change in our legal standing before God, but only the real change of new birth. And they may think that “abides in death” means remaining in spiritual death, or staying in the corrupt, deadly condition of human nature.

Yet these words more naturally point to the person’s state, whether judged to life or to death. And the outward change from death to life can indeed be proved or disproved by whether the inward principle of eternal life is present. Washing away sin’s guilt is inseparably joined with washing away sin’s stain and power. “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11).

The example of God and Christ should also fill our hearts with this holy love. “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers” (1 John 3:16). God has given his Son to die for us. Since this apostle has said that the Word was God, and that he became flesh for us, there is good reason to understand this as speaking of God the Word, the Son himself. Here is the love of God, of the one who is truly God in his own person, though not the Father, who took on life so that he could lay it down for us. Here is the humility, wonder, and mystery of divine love, that God would redeem the church with his own blood. Surely we should love those whom God has loved, and loved in this way. And if we truly love God, we will surely do so.

The apostle has already set before us this strong and burning example of love, and the reason for it. He now shows what Christian love should look like in practice. At its highest level, it should be so strong that we are willing to suffer even death for the good of the church, for the safety and salvation of our dear brothers and sisters. “We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (1 John 3:16). This can happen in our service to them, as Paul speaks of being poured out like an offering on the service and sacrifice of their faith and still rejoicing with them (Philippians 2:17). It can also mean putting ourselves in danger when we are called to do so for the sake of those who are more useful to God’s glory and the church’s growth than we are. Paul speaks of people who risked their own necks for his life, and for whom he and all the Gentile churches gave thanks (Romans 16:4). How little hold the Christian should have on this life, how ready to let it go, and how fully sure of a better one.

At the next level, this love must be kind, generous, and ready to share with the needs of other believers. “If anyone has this world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love live in him?” (1 John 3:17). God is pleased that some believers are poor, so that the love of those who are rich can be tested and grown. He is also pleased to give some believers this world’s goods so they can use them in helping poor saints. Those who have material wealth should love God more than their wealth, and love their fellow believers too, and be ready to give for their sake. This shows that love for the brethren rests on love for God, because the apostle calls it God’s love. Love for other believers is love for God shown in them, and where there is no such love for them, there is no true love for God.

The apostle was about to mention a third and lower form of this love in the next verse, but he has already made plain that this charitable and giving love, in those who are able, is the least that can fit with love for God. Still, there are other fruits of this love, so he asks that it be sincere and active in every way that circumstances allow. “My little children,” that is, my dear children in Christ, “let us not love in word or speech, but in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:18). Empty compliments and flattering words do not fit Christians. What does fit them are honest words of sacred affection, and acts of love that cost something.

This love also proves that our religion is real and gives us confidence before God. “By this we know that we are of the truth and will reassure our hearts before him” (1 John 3:19). It is a great blessing to be sure that our religion is sincere. Those who have that assurance can have holy confidence toward God, and they can appeal to him even when the world criticizes and condemns them. The way to come to know that we are truly living in the truth of Christianity, and to keep inward peace, is to grow in love and in works of love toward fellow believers.