Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

1 John 4:20

1 John 4:20. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar. All the words here point, as we have seen before, to an utterly spurious Christianity, which knows nothing of the revelation of the unseen God in His Son: the first phrase and the last are used only of such false religion, the ‘hating' of chap. 1 John 2:9 became ‘not loving' in chap. 1 John 3:10; they are united as synonymous in this passage alone.

For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, cannot love God whom he hath not seen. There are two condensed arguments here. First, recalling 1 John 4:10, that the invisible God perfects His love in us by the Spirit through our brotherly love, it is simply a strong repetition: the invisible Fountain of love abides in us, and has its perfect operation in our love to its visible objects, embracing all our fellow-regenerate (chap. 1 John 5:1). But we have always noted that St. John's repetitions include something more, and here something is added which the former passage did not contain; that is, the inverted argument from the easier demonstration of love to objects before our eyes. Some copies read, ‘How can he?' which would be only a more vivid form of the argument: not ‘how or in what way can he love the unseen save as He is represented by visible objects?' for it is the glory of religion that God can be loved in Himself; but ‘it may be merely inferred that he who, supposed to be regenerate, loves not the first and most obvious claimants of his charity, cannot be a lover of the supreme source of all love.' He proves himself to be unre-generate. The more general truth that practical charity is in no case absolutely dependent upon seeing its object is not involved here, nor must the apostle's simple apostrophe be embarrassed by the consideration of it.

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Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

1 John 4:20

Old Testament

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