1 John 3:14

LOVE TO CHRIST’S BRETHREN

‘We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.’

1 John 3:14

In the Revised Version our text reads: ‘We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren.’ ‘Out of death into life.’

I. Note first the mighty change described.—Spiritual death is a terrible reality. And that is the state of all men by nature. Very often spiritual death is linked with the highest bodily and mental life. But the eye of the dead soul is closed, it only sees earthly things. Its ear is closed, Christ and His Apostles are only like other teachers or preachers. It lies in darkness, and walks in darkness and in the shadow of death, and stumbles on the dark mountains. If you once realise all this, then it will be clear to you that God alone can awaken the dead soul and bid it live and work and watch and pray. Other illustrations are given in Holy Scripture of the mighty change, without which none can enter into the Kingdom of God. But the illustration in the text is particularly striking and full of force. And it is to be noted our Lord uses it as well as St. John. Let me read John 5:24 in Revised Version, ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My word, and believeth Him that sent Me, hath eternal life, and cometh not into judgement, but hath passed out of death into life.’ Christianity is not a matter of opinion, it is a matter of vital experience. When a man is regenerated he receives a new life.

II. The knowledge of this mighty change.—‘We know …’ I need not linger on this point, because in 1 John 5:13 the Apostle says, ‘These things have I written unto you, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, even unto you that believe on the Name of the Son of God’ (R.V.).

III. The ground of that knowledge.—‘Because we love the brethren,’ i.e. those who truly believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. They are the household of faith, and in a very real sense the brethren of Christ (St. Mark 3:35; Mark 9:41). True believers form a brotherhood. They differ in the colour of their skin, in their nationality, in their language, and in a multitude of other ways, but they are all one in Christ Jesus.

Rev. F. Harper.

Illustration

‘There is a well-worn story of St. John at Ephesus. When too old to walk they carried him into the midst of the church. But all his sermon was only—“Little children, love one another.” St. John preached the shortest sermon on record in the annals of Christianity. But the story goes on: when some asked, “Why are you always saying this?” the Apostle is said to have replied, “Because it is the commandment of the Lord, and sufficient, if it only be fulfilled in deed.” ’

(SECOND OUTLINE)

A TEST FOR SELF-EXAMINATION

We thank God that for a guide He has given us in our text one plain criterion. There are many other passages in the Bible which might be employed as tests. For instance, ‘If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new’—but then this, and many other passages like it, seem only to shift the difficulty—the eye of the mind is still too extensively cast in upon itself; and I can no more determine whether I am a ‘new creature,’ and ‘old things are passed away,’ and ‘all things are become new,’ than I can determine whether I am a converted man. But the text has to do with an outward object—a relative duty of life. And, happily, it is easier for many persons to say whether they love the brethren, whom they can see, than God, whom they cannot see. For, in fact, here we are not so entirely in the province of faith; therefore it is easier—therefore we hold it most mercifully provided by God for the solving of the greatest problem ever presented to the mind of a man—to say, ‘We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.’

I. Who are the ‘ brethren’?—The brethren are those who have the love of the Lord Jesus Christ in their hearts, even though there be much clinging to them that is unrefined, and unintellectual, and unpleasing—yea, even though there be much that is really very inconsistent in them. And observe, it does not say, ‘We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love a brother’—or because ‘we love some of the brethren’—but all ‘the brethren’—all whom Christ owns—whatever their station in society, whatever their education, whatever their natural tastes, whatever their habits of thought and speech, whatever they be, if so be they are in God’s family. And this very comprehensiveness of a catholic spirit is a mark of a mind that has had to do with the largeness of an Almighty God.

II. Let us see what the text involves.—I pray you deal faithfully with your own selves.

(a) If you have ‘passed from death unto life,’ the friendships that you choose for yourselves and the relationships that you form will be all made upon one principle—that you keep within the family of grace. It is not now worldly considerations which determine your choice of friends—but you are always fond of the image of Christ, wherever you see it. As far as you can, therefore, you are to love only in such circles as those in which He is loved and honoured; and you prize and cultivate in every circle in which you move those most to whom you believe that Christ is dearest.

(b) Hence it follows that the conversation which you prefer is that which is the most spiritual; for how can you love the brethren, unless you really delight in their themes? So that the world of fashion, and the world of pleasure, and the world of commonplace, has become insipid, and there is only one atmosphere in which you love to breathe, and that is the atmosphere of Jesus Christ. Suppose then that you find yourselves in some company—the company of the world—you will not be afraid nor ashamed to confess as your friend, and to defend, and to commend, any child of God, whatever remarks may be passed upon him; and the faults and weaknesses of a child of God you will always deal tenderly with, and you will hide them, as we always do with those we love. The fellowships of the Church—the gathering together of God’s people—and especially the Holy Communion—will be the things you love: because it is communion, it will be pleasing and refreshing. In distant lands, too, the cause of God, the mission work, the extension of Christ’s kingdom, will be matters of intrinsic interest to your minds—for the brethren unseen will be brethren that you love.

—Rev. James Vaughan.

Illustration

‘Few who have visited Florence have failed to go to the old Dominican Convent of St. Marc, there to gaze upon what has been called one of the three great picture shows of the world, viz. the frescoes with which Fra Angelico has immortalised the walls of the cells of his former convent home. As one wanders on from fresco to fresco, from cloister to corridor, and from corridor to cell, one gazes upon Annunciations and Nativities, and Adorations of the Magi, and Transfigurations and Crucifixions, and Resurrections and Ascensions, all delineated by a man, the greatness and brilliancy of whose genius were exceeded only by the purity and holiness of his life; a man who is said never to have taken up his brush without previous prayer to God, and never to have painted the Crucifixion without bathing his cheeks with tears. All are wonderful, all are surprisingly beautiful; but it is admitted there is one more wonderful and more beautiful than all the rest; one into which the painter has thrown more heart and in which he has exhibited more pathos than perhaps in any other which he ever painted. Opening out of the cloister at one corner of the first courtyard there is a door which leads into what was once the foresteria of the convent, or the apartments in which pilgrims and strangers were received by the brothers. Over this Fra Angelico has depicted two of the confraternity welcoming a pilgrim to the shelter and hospitality of their home. The pilgrim is worn and weary; with his right hand he leans heavily on his pilgrim’s staff, and the left, which had evidently hung languidly by his side, has been raised by one of the brothers, who now holds it lovingly in his own. The other brother supports the right arm of the wayfarer, placing one hand firmly underneath the elbow, laying the other gently above it, whilst both welcome their guest with looks of inexpressible tenderness and sympathy. The pilgrim is to them nothing more than a poor wayworn brother. Had they suspected his real personality they would not have received him erect with outstretched hands, but on bended knee, and with the humblest adoration; for the conventional halo which surrounds the Stranger’s head in the fresco tells us that He Whom the brothers have received in the guise of a wayfarer is none other than their Lord and their God.’

(THIRD OUTLINE)

FROM DEATH TO LIFE

Often do we see persons pass from life to death; it is the common lot. But never do we see any pass literally from death to life. Yet, spiritually, this is the necessary and indispensable process experienced by all those who know the power of the truth of Christ, the power of the Spirit of God. The message from heaven is, ‘Why will ye die?’ The promise of God is ‘eternal life.’

I. The description given of a great spiritual change.

(a) The previous condition, out of which St. John claims that he and his brother Christians have emerged, is one of death. By this must be understood moral insensibility, inactivity, and repulsiveness.

(b) The new state, which is distinctly Christian, is described as life. This is a condition of spiritual sensitiveness, activity, service. He who lives thus is ‘alive unto God.’

(c) The process of transition is one of great interest. The power by which it is effected is the power of the Holy Spirit, ‘the Lord and giver of life.’ ‘Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’ The means by which it is effected is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, proclaimed, believed, and practically acted upon.

II. The evidence required to prove a great spiritual change.

(a) Hatred is an evidence of spiritual death. Sinners are separated from God, and therefore separated from one another, estranged, and at enmity among themselves. Scripture describes those sunk in spiritual death as hateful and hating one another.

(b) Love is a fruit of the Spirit, and evidence of newness of heart and of life. (i) Who are loved? ‘The brethren.’ (ii) Why are they to be loved? As God’s children. (iii) How is the love to be shown? By the daily spirit and demeanour.