THE SECOND PART: A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
The Ministry of John
Message Five—Practicing the Divine Love
Scripture Reading: 1 John 2:3-11; 3:14-18; 4:7-12, 16-19; 2 John 5-6
I. The love of God is God Himself; love is the inward essence of God and the heart of God—1 John 4:8, 16:
A. God’s predestination of us unto the divine sonship was motivated by the divine love—Eph. 1:4-5.
B. God’s giving of His only begotten Son to us so that we may be saved from perdition judicially through His death and have the eternal life organically in His resurrection was motivated by the divine love—John 3:16; 1 John 4:9-10.
C. “I drew them with cords of a man, / With bands of love”—Hosea 11:4:
1. The phrase with cords of a man, with bands of love indicates that God loves us with His divine love not on the level of divinity but on the level of humanity; God’s love is divine, but it reaches us in the cords of a man, that is, through Christ’s humanity.
2. The cords through which God draws us include Christ’s incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension; it is by all these steps of Christ in His humanity that God’s love in. His salvation reaches us—Rom. 5:8.
3. Apart from Christ, God’s everlasting love, His unchanging, subduing love, could not be prevailing in relation to us; God’s unchanging love is prevailing because it is a love in Christ, with Christ, by Christ, and for Christ—vv. 5, 8; 8:35-39.
II. The practice of the divine love is the outcome of our enjoyment of the Triune God as the all-inclusive Spirit, the One who is moving and working within us as the anointing in the fellowship of the divine life to saturate us with all that the Triune God is, with all that He has done, and with all that He has obtained and attained— 1 John 1:3; 2:3-11, 27:
A. If we would experience and enjoy the divine love and have it become the love by which we love others, we need to know God experientially by continuously living in the divine life—vv. 3-6; Phil. 3:10a.
B. God first loved us in that He infused us with His love and generated within us the love with which we love Him and the brothers—1 John 4:19-21.
C. The life which we have received from God is a life of love; Christ lived in this world a life of God as love, and He is now our life so that we may live the same life of love in this world and be the same as He is—3:14; 5:1; 2:6; 4:17.
D. Our natural Jove must be put on the cross; one difference between God’s love and our natural love is that it is very easy for our natural love to be offended.
E. We must be persons who are flooded with and carried away by the love of Christ; the divine love should be like the rushing tide of great waters toward us, impelling us to live to Him beyond our own control—2 Cor. 5:14.
F. The commandment regarding brotherly love is both old and new; old, because the believers have had it from the beginning of their Christian life; new, because in their Christian walk it dawns with new light and shines with new enlightenment and fresh power again and again—1 John 2:7-8; 3:11, 23; cf. John 13:34.
G. Our living in which we love one another in the love of God is the perfection and completion of this love in its manifestation in us—1 John 4:11-12; 2:5.
III. The church life is a life of brotherly love—4:7-8; 2 John 5-6; John 15:12, 17; Rev. 3:7; Eph. 5:2; cf. Jude 12a:
A. The Body builds itself up in love—Eph. 4:16.
B. Our God-given, regenerated spirit is a spirit of love; we need a burning spirit of love to conquer the degradation of today’s church—2 Tim. 1:7.
C. The one who loves God and the brothers is enjoying the divine life; the one who does not love is abiding in the satanic death—1 John 3:14; cf. 2 Cor. 11:2-3.
D. “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up”—1 Cor. 8:1b; cf. 2 Cor. 3:6.
E. Loving one another is a sign that we belong to Christ—John 13:34-35.
F. Loving to be first in the church is versus loving all the brothers—3 John 9.
G. Just as the Lord Jesus laid down His soul-life so that we might have the divine life, we need to lose our soul-life and deny the self to love the brothers and minister life to them in the practice of the Body life—1 John 3:16; John 10:11, 17- 18; 15:13; Eph. 4:29-5:2; 2 Cor. 12:15; Rom. 12:9-13.
H. We need to lose our soul-life by not loving the world with its pleasure; instead, taking in God and expressing God as love in the church life of brotherly love should be our joy, amusement, entertainment, and happiness—1 John 2:15-17; Matt. 16:25-26; Psa. 36:8-9; cf. 2 Tim. 3:4.
I. Brotherly love in the church life is expressed practically in our caring for the necessities of the needy saints without any self-serving purpose or outward selfdisplay; in the sharing of material things with the needy saints, the grace of the Lord’s life with His love flows among the members of the Body of Christ and is infused into them—1 John 3:17-18; Matt. 6:1-4; Rom. 12:13; 2 Cor. 8:1-7.
IV. First John 4 tells the secret of how to stand boldly before the judgment seat of Christ—abide in love—vv. 16-18; 2 Cor. 5:10, 14:
A. To abide in love is to live a life in which we love others habitually with the love that is God Himself so that He may be expressed in us—1 John 4:16.
B. Perfect love is the love that has been perfected in us by our loving others with the love of God; such love casts out fear and has no fear of being punished by the Lord at His coming back—vv. 17-18; cf. Luke 12:46-47.
C. Love is the most excellent way for us to be anything or do anything for the building up of the church as the organic Body of Christ —1 Cor. 12:31b-13:8a.
Ministry Excerpts:
THE ONE NOT LOVING HIS BROTHER BEING NOT OF GOD
In 3:10b John says, “Everyone who does not practice righteousness is not out of God, and he who does not love his brother.” Righteousness is the nature of God’s acts; love is the nature of God’s essence. What God is, is love; what God does is righteousness. Love is inward; righteousness is outward. Hence, love is a stronger manifestation that we are the children of God than righteousness. Therefore, the apostle, from this verse through verse 24, proceeds further, from righteousness to love, in the manifestation of the children of God, as a further condition of the life that abides in the Lord.
It is a serious thing for John to say that everyone who does not love his brother is not out of God. As children of God, we certainly are of God and even out of God. Because we are out of God, we surely have God’s life and God’s Spirit in us. Spontaneously, we live a life of loving the brothers. However, if someone does not have such a love, this is an evidence that he has neither the divine life nor the divine Spirit. Hence, there is a serious question concerning whether such a one is a child of God, born of Him. Loving the brothers is a strong evidence that we are out of God, having God’s life and enjoying God’s Spirit.
LOVING ONE ANOTHER—THE MESSAGE HEARD FROM THE BEGINNING
In verse 11 John goes on to say, “Because this is the message which you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.” The message heard from the beginning was the commandment given by the Lord in John 13:34, which is the word the believers heard and had from the beginning. In verse 11 the phrase “from the beginning” is used in the relative sense. The love spoken of here is a higher condition of the life that abides in the Lord.
NOT AS CAIN
In verse 12 John continues, “Not as Cain, who was of the evil one and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his works were evil, and those of his brother righteous.” “Of the evil one” equals a child of the Devil. Cain’s brother Abel was of God, a child of God (v. 10). The Greek word rendered “evil one” here is poneros, which means pernicious, harmfully evil, affecting and influencing others to be evil and vicious. Such an evil one is Satan the Devil.
In verse 12 John uses two flesh brothers, Cain and Abel, as an illustration. Although these brothers were of the same parents, one of them became a child of God, and the other was a child of the Devil. We may find this difficult to believe. We may wonder how two brothers born of the same parents and living in the same environment could be so different, with one being the Devil’s child and the other becoming God’s child. Nevertheless, this was the fact. Here this fact is used as an illustration of what kind of person is a child of the Devil and what kind is a child of God. In order to know this, we should consider the case of Cain and Abel.
The fact that Cain was a child of the Devil is proved by his hating his brother and slaying him. This indicates that Cain did not have either the life of God or the Spirit of God. Why did Cain hate his brother? He hated him because he had the hating life of Satan in him. Why did Cain kill Abel? He killed him because he had in him the evil nature of Satan. What Cain had in him was the Devil’s life, the Devil’s nature, and an evil spirit. Abel, however, was altogether different. Today also those born of the same parents and raised in the same environment may become absolutely different. One may become a child of God and the other be a child of the Devil.
NOT MARVELING IF THE WORLD HATES US
Verse 13 says, “Do not marvel, brothers, if the world hates you.” The “world” here refers to the people of the world. The people of the world, like Cain, are the children of the Devil (v. 10) and the components of Satan’s cosmic system, the world (John 12:31). If the people of the world, which lies in the evil one, the Devil (5:19), hate the believers (the children of God), it is natural for them to do so. The situation among flesh brothers today may be the same as that between Cain and Abel. Suppose one brother is a child of Satan and the other is a child of God. Automatically, the one who is a child of the Devil will hate the one who is a child of God. Regarding this, we do not need to marvel.
Verse 13 indicates strongly that all the worldly people are children of the Devil. Only a comparatively small number, the regenerated believers, are God’s children. If we live by God’s life and by God’s Spirit, the world will hate us. Because we and they are in two different categories, they will not be happy with us.
KNOWING THAT WE HAVE PASSED OUT OF DEATH INTO LIFE
In 3:14 John says, “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. He who does not love abides in death.” Death is of the Devil, God’s enemy Satan, signified by the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which brings death. Life is of God, the source of life, signified by the tree of life, which issues in life (Gen. 2:9, 16-17). Death and life are not only of these two sources, Satan and God; they are also two essences, two elements, and two spheres. To pass out of death is to pass out of the source, the essence, the element, and the sphere of death into the source, the essence, the element, and the sphere of life. This took place in us at our regeneration. We know (oida) this, we have the inner consciousness of this, because we love the brothers. Love (agape—the love of God) toward the brothers is a strong evidence of this. 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.
Not loving the brothers is evidence of not living by the essence and element of the divine life and not remaining in its sphere. It is living in the essence and element of the satanic death and abiding in its sphere.
If someone does not love the brothers but instead hates them, this is an evidence that this one remains in the death that came into mankind through Adam’s fall. Because death entered into mankind long ago, we were born into that death. But when we repented and believed, we passed out of death into the divine life. Because we have passed out of the death of the tree of knowledge into the life of the tree of life, we have had a change and now live a life of righteousness and love.
Everyone who has been saved and regenerated can testify that he has passed out of death into life. There is no need to tell others what you were before you were saved. Simply tell them what you have become since salvation.
Love is the nature of the divine life we have received. Because the essence of God is love, the life of God has the nature of love. Love is the essence of God’s nature. When we have Him as our divine life, we have the nature of this life, which is love. We Christians, the children of God, have a life that aspires to live rightly with everyone and everything and also aspires to love others. We have such an aspiration because of the divine nature within us. As we have pointed out, if someone does not live in a way that is right with everyone, everything, and every matter and does not live a life of loving others, there is a serious question whether this one has received the divine life.
THE ONE NOT LOVING ABIDING IN DEATH
In 3:14 John says, “He who does not love abides in death.” If we do not love others, this is an evidence that we still remain in death. In other words, it is a sign that we have not yet passed out of death into life.
EVERYONE WHO HATES HIS BROTHER BEING A MURDERER
In verse 15a John goes on to say, “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer.” To the divine attributes, hatred is versus love, death versus life, darkness versus light, and lie (falsehood) versus truth. All the opposites of these divine virtues are of the evil one, the Devil.
In verse 15 murderer does not denote an actual murderer, but indicates that in spiritual ethics hating equals murdering. No actual murderer, an unsaved person, as Cain was (v. 12), has eternal life abiding in him. Since we know this, we, who have passed out of death into life and have eternal life abiding in us, should not behave as an unsaved murderer by hating our brothers in the Lord.
This section concerns the life that abides in the Lord. A believer who has eternal life, but does not abide in the Lord and let the Lord who is the eternal life abide and work in him, may hate a brother and commit other sins occasionally, but this should not be habitual.
Someone may not be an actual murderer, but he may be a murderer in principle. This means that, even though he has never murdered anyone, he may still be a murderer in principle by hating others. If we hate someone, in principle we are behaving as a murderer, even though we have not killed anyone. Therefore, we need to realize that, strictly speaking, we Christians, the children of God, should not hate anyone. On the contrary, we need to love others. The Bible even tells us to love our enemies (Matt 5:44). Because the divine life we possess is a loving life, a life that is love, we must love those who are not lovable and even those who mistreat us. There should not be anything of the element of hate in us. Love is our life and nature, and love should be our essence and living. Therefore, we must not have hatred for anyone. Today some may oppose the Lord’s recovery, but we should not hate them. Instead of hating them, we should love them. If we hate those who oppose us, then in principle we are behaving as a murderer.
NO MURDERER HAVING ETERNAL LIFE ABIDING IN HIM
In verse 15b John continues, “And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” When John says that no murderer has eternal life in him, he is not speaking of saved persons but of unsaved ones, like Cain.
We have seen that in principle hatred equals murder. It is possible for a child of God to hate someone occasionally, but no regenerated person should do this habitually. If you hate others habitually, there is a question whether you have received the divine life. This is similar to committing sin. A believer may commit sin occasionally, but he should not do this habitually. If you sin habitually, this will also raise a question as to whether you have received the divine life.
John’s intention is to show us that, through the divine birth, the divine seed has been sown into our being. This seed is the divine life, and the divine life has the divine nature. Furthermore, we have received the divine Spirit to carry out whatever is in the divine life and the divine nature. Instead of trying to answer questions that are beyond our ability to answer, we need to know that we have received the divine life, that we are enjoying the divine nature of this life, and that the divine Person, God Himself as the Spirit, is within us carrying out whatever is in this divine nature. Therefore, we should live this life, abide in this One, and maintain unbroken fellowship with Him according to the inner anointing. This is the central point of John’s writing. (Life-study of First John, msg. 27)