For an explanation of this layout and the key to the books referenced, read here.
The Imperative of Love, 3:10-14 NKJV
v. 10, By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.
(Bible Knowl Comm NT) “3:10a. … Because a child of God is sinless at the core of his being, he can never be ‘manifest’ through sin as can a child of the devil. While an unsaved person can display his true nature through sin, a child of God cannot. When a Christan sins, he conceals who he really is rather than making it manifest.” (Bible Knowl Comm NT) “3:10b. Rather than taking verse 10a as introductory to verse 10b, it is better to regard 10a as the conclusion of the previous paragraph.” “ ‘of God’ … a person so described does not find the source of his actions in God. … By joining together the idea of righteousness … with love .. John formed a ridge to a new discussion. … Love is righteousness in action.”
(Moody) “3:9-10. There is a reason believers no longer sin incessantly as the devil does. It is because His seed—the divine principle of life in the Holy Spirit—abides in him.”
(ESV) “3:9-10 … because the Word is present in the believer’s heart through the work of the Spirit, the believer cannot keep on sinning.” Their hearts “have been so transformed that they cannot live in a pattern of continual sin.”
(Recovery) “Whether one is a child of God or a child of the devil is manifested by what he practices, righteousness or sin.” “What God is, is love; what God does is righteousness. Love is inward; righteousness is outward.”
v. 11, For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
(Moody) “3:11-14. … ‘Because you love fellow Christians, this is one of the reassurances that you are saved.’ The person who does not love other believers abides in spiritual death—i.e., is still unsaved (v. 14).”
(ESV) “3:11-4:6 … how to avoid the ‘practice of sinning’ and ‘lawlessness’ (3:4).”
(Wiersbe) “he kept returning to the same three topics: love, obedience, and truth. … Each time we return to a topic, we look at it from a different point of view and are taken more deeply into it.”
v. 12, We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous.
(Bible Knowl Comm NT) “before telling his audience precisely what love is, he first told them what it is not. … Cain’s jealous resentment. … hatred toward another Christian is often prompted by a feeling of guilt about one’s own life” in comparison.
(Life) “3:12-13 … If we live for God, the world will often hate us, because we make them painfully aware of their immoral way of living.”
(Wiersbe) “The real test is that person’s love for the brothers and sisters—and here Cain failed.”
(Vincent’s II) “Slew … Originally, to slay by cutting the throat; so in Homer, of cattle”
v. 13, Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you.
(Bible Knowl Comm NT) “It is hatred among believers that is so abnormal, and against which John was fundamentally warning.”
(ESV) “John knows this dynamic [hatred of others] is at work in every age (see John 16:2-3, 33).”
(Vincent’s II) “Hate. Indicative mood, … if the world hate you, as it does.”
v. 14, We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.
(Bible Knowl Comm NT) “Love for one’s brothers is evidence that he has entered God’s sphere of life.”
(ESV) “An assurance of salvation is the inner drive that leads one to care for fellow believers.”
(Wiersbe) “3:14, 15 These verses, … concern a settled habit of life: Believers are in he practice of loving the ‘brethren,’ even though on occasion they may be angry with someone.”
(Vincent’s II) “From death Lit., out of the death. The article marks it as one of the two spheres in which men must be; death or life.” “Unto life. Rev., better, into.” “Because. The sign of having passed into life; not the ground.”
(Recovery) “Faith in the Lord is the way for us to pass out of death into life; love toward the brothers is the evidence that we have passed out of death into life. To have faith is to receive the eternal life; to love is to live by the eternal life and express it.”
v. 15, Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
(Bible Knowl Comm NT) A true Christian can hate a fellow Christian. “He does not have eternal life abiding in him. … the experience of ‘abiding’ is what John had in view. Hatred on the part of one Christian toward another is thus an experience of moral murder. … Because he is a murderer in heart he can make no real claim to the kind of intimate fellowship with God and Christ which the word ‘abide’ suggests.” This Christian experiences death, Rom. 8:13.
(Moody) “A lack of love for the children of God is evidence of spiritual death.”
(Life) “John echoes Jesus’ teaching that whoever hates another person is a murderer at heart (Matthew 5:21-22). Christianity is a religion of the heart; outward compliance alone is not enough.”
FIRST JOHN 3 MEDITATION vv. 10-14.
We Christians frequently look at life from a saved/unsaved paradigm. John forces us to see things from a different perspective: Manifesting God or the devil by the principle of abiding. When we are abiding in the God of love, we are manifesting God’s love to others. We know we are not abiding in the God who is love because we do not love our brethren, which shows we are living as children of the devil (v. 10).
We should love one another (v. 11) because that is our new creation, our new identity in Christ. We should be gentle and humble, content to be a rear molar in the body of Christ. If we are arrogant and unloving, we are an inflamed tooth that draws attention to itself and disrupts the body and mind. Cain’s hatred of his brother poisoned his being, broke his family, and destroyed his brother (v. 12). The opposite happens when we love; we flourish in life and bless others.
Whatever is of God is life; whatever is not of God is death. The Spirit brings life; the flesh results in death. Jesus said to come to Him and learn from Him, that He is gentle and humble. When we learn about Christ and His life, which happens as we trust and obey, led by the Spirit’s training, then we’ll put on those traits of His life. When they are consistent, then we have passed out of death and into the life, the life of Christ abiding in us, displaying Himself through us (v. 14). Our goal isn’t simply to be nice and try to be good, but to get out of the way, to die to the flesh that God’s nature may move through us. We are to be partakers of the divine nature, and that happens when we can love with God’s love. The life of faith is that of believing God in such a way that we mistrust the flesh, the world, and the devil. So much so that we do not lean on our own understanding, our own heart, or be wise in our own eyes. The progression of our faith is to disengage the faith in other things to point it all to Christ. The more we are convinced of His grace, the more we can do this. With more grace (having expectation that God will supply all our needs), we can let go of whatever we are clinging to and rest in Him. Along the way we’ll let go of faulty character traits, because many of them were based on mistrust. (“I have to behave like this, or I won’t be able to get what I want!”)
