LOVE AMONGST CHRISTIANS (2:7-11)

PREPARATORY QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

• What is the old commandment? And the new? How is it new? And how is it not new?

• How is this commandment operating in our lives?

• How does being unloving affect ourselves, our fellowship with God, and others?

• What is stumbling? What scriptural and personal examples can you think of?

Review John's teachings on love. (read John 13:1-17, 34-35; 15:9-13,17; 17:20-21,25-26 and then 1 John 2:7-11; 3:1-2, 10-19; 4:7-5:1). How is his emphasis different from Paul's? (e.g. 1 Cor 13, Eph 4:25-5:4, Col 3:12-14). And from James's? (Jas 1:27; 2:1-10,14-16; 3:1-12; 4:11,12; 5:19-20)

• Why is John's emphasis so different?

NOTES ON THE PASSAGE

John’s first test of genuine spiritual experience, was theological: about walking in the light. Do they believe that Jesus is the light of the world, the manifestation of the God who is Light? Do they accept His definition of sin, as being ultimately about whether they accept Him as the Son of God? Do they deny or condone their own sin sin, or do they deal with it by ongoing genuine confession and repentance?

His second test was moral: are they obeying Christ's commands?

This, his third test, is relational: do they love the brethren?

Those who had left the fellowship had spread division and hatred. Their claims were completely undermined by their behaviour, and the breach of fellowship which it created. We can see this very clearly in John’s subsequent letters, first to a church that was thinking of withdrawing from John’s oversight (Second letter of John) and then to an individual whose church leadership were pressuring him to break fellowship (Third John).

But this is not just a test for the first century believers. Jesus made very clear in the Sermon on the Mount, that anyone who hates his brother is in danger of hell. We must love even those who are horrible to us, blessing and doing good to them just as God does to us. For God's agape love to be perfected in us, it must mirror His Father heart (Matt 5:43-48).

John is beginning a gradual pivot from 'God is Light' (1:5), to 'God is Love' (4:8).

Having grasped Jesus's message of purity of heart at the Sermon on the Mount, John came to know the love of Christ through his three years' discipleship. - A fiery character known as 'Son of thunder', he had assumed that it would be Christ's will to call down lightning on an inhospitable Samaritan village. He was shocked when Jesus told him, 'You don't know what manner of spirit you are of'. - His ambition to be the greatest when Christ's Kingdom materialised, had been repeatedly rebuked by Christ's teaching that to be greatest of all, you had to be servant of all. He began to think of himself as 'the disciple whom Jesus loved', and seems to have been specially close to Jesus at the Last Supper. - When Jesus went to wash his feet, he did not demur like Peter. And though he fled with the others after Jesus's arrest, unlike them he returned to keep vigil throughout those terrible hours of the crucifixion.

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John addresses the believers as brethren. He doesn't claim any moral superiority or spiritual authority, but writes to them as equals.

What he is about to say about loving one's fellow believers, is nothing new. He says it's a commandment they'd had from the beginning. Moses had taught that 'loving your neighbour as yourself' was a corollary of God's nature (Lev 19:18).

From the start of His ministry, Jesus taught that good-neighbourliness could not be confined to those with whom one had a natural affinity, but was a commandment that applied across the board (Lk 10:25-37). In fact, loving your enemy was what distinguished 'sons of the Father' from tax collectors, and displayed the thorough-going, perfect love of God (Mt 5:38-48).

Then at the Last Supper, He had stripped down to His loin-cloth and humbled Himself to the status of a gentile slave, in order to wash their feet! Having loved His own while they and He were in the world, He loved them to the end (Jn 13:1). It's that same Greek word again; telos, or perfection. Perfect love stooped, to conquer their pride.

He raised the bar from loving others as we love ourselves, to 'loving one another as I have loved you' (Jn 13:34,35). This, and nothing less, is the standard of love that tells others we are Jesus's disciples. He called it 'a new commandment' because it goes much further than Moses's law. So for example, whereas marriages can often be seen even amongst Christians as a battle of the sexes, Paul tells us to 'submit to one another out of reverence for Christ'; having the same humble-mindedness that Christ displayed in His surrender and obedience to God's purposes.

Very few people, if any, naturally love themselves as much as Jesus loves us. We may dislike our bodies and the way we look, and spend thousands on physical fitness or cosmetic surgery. We may berate ourselves and envy others we see as more intelligent, or decisive, or sympathetic. We may even berate ourselves for not being as spiritual or holy as someone else! Usually the way we treat others, is an expression of the way we see ourselves. Those who are routinely judgemental for example, are often very hard on themselves too. Until we have believed and experienced deeply how Jesus loves us, we cannot love others 'as I have loved you'.

He told them a second time, 'This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you' (Jn 15:12). But He went even further; 'Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends' (Jn 15:13). The good Samaritan had risked his own life, to save an enemy. But Christ Himself would go even further within hours of saying this, in that 'while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us' (Rom 5:6-8). He 'set His face towards Jerusalem' and deliberately determined the time and manner of His own horrendous death - for you and me.

Who can of themselves bear the suffering involved in obeying this new commandment? There are very few Mother Theresas amongst us.

‘Love is the fulfilling of the law’ (Rom 13:8). Every one of the detailed laws of Moses was a practical application of ‘loving your neighbour as yourself’. In that sense, you might ask, how is this different from what John has just said about keeping Christ’s commandments. But love goes beyond keeping the law. There is no law, for example, that commands husbands to honour their wives. Yet Peter says, ‘Husbands, live considerately with your wives, bestowing honour on the woman as the weaker sex and as joint heirs of the grace of life’ (1 Pet 3:7,8). And Paul says, ‘Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her’ (Eph 5:25). Anything that causes your wife to stumble, to take offence or to become trapped in bitterness, is sin. 'Love does no harm to a neighbour!'

But nevertheless, John says, it is coming true in us as it did in Him, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining - in us. This commandment is akin to Creation, when "God said 'Let there be light', and there was light" (Gen 1:3). The word of God is alive and active within us. 'As the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and bud that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth. It shall not return to me void, but shall accomplish what I please' (Is 55:10,11). The darkness in our hearts is passing away, as we walk in the light of Christ. We are becoming 'sons of light', by faith (Jn 12:36).

The heretics were claiming to have greater illumination than the true believers. But the way they were behaving expressed hatred. Diotrephes for example, who was the self-appointed leader of one of the churches (3 Jn 9,10), was ostracising John and maliciously poisoning his members' minds against him. 'Anyone who says he is in the light but hates his brother, is in the darkness still'.

Anyone who loves his brother - for example, by offering hospitality to itinerant teachers like Demetrius (3 Jn 5-8,12) - shows they are abiding in the light. And there is no cause for stumbling in them: nothing to trip either themselves or others up in their spiritual walk.

The Greek word for stumbling is 'skandalizo', from where we get our English word 'scandalise'. It is also translated as 'offense' as in 'taking offense'. For example when John the Baptist can't understand why Jesus hasn't rescued him from Herod's dungeon, Jesus tells his messengers, 'Blessed is he who does not take offense'. And when Jesus uses a little child to illustrate simple faith, he warns that anyone who causes such a young believer to sin would be better off being dumped overboard with a millstone round his neck. 'Woe to the world because of offences! For offences must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes!' (Mt 18:1-7).

When a scandal hits the headlines, someone famous or important is shown to be an adulterer, hypocrite, or whatever. Their reputation is shredded, they are ostracised, charities disown them etc etc. Someone we believed in is now seen as a fraud. That is what John is referring to here; something which destroys someone else's faith in Christ.

I have seen a whole group of teenagers who had come to faith, destroyed by discovering their pastor's adultery. Paul was aware that eating meat offered to idols was a stumbling block for some believers even though it meant nothing in his eyes, and vowed never to eat meat if it made another stumble (1 Cor 8:9-13). An African pastor's ministry can be destroyed overnight if he is seen drinking alcohol, because in that culture it is taboo. To bring it closer to home, how many Christian children have abandoned their faith because their parents' examples - arguing, drinking, cheating etc - have caused them to stumble? Which of us can say we have never given anyone cause to stumble?

When we walk in darkness, not only do we risk severe judgement if we cause another believer to stumble, but we also lose our way even further. The darkness blinds our eyes and we can't see that we are walking towards a cliff edge of God's judgement.

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John is known as 'the apostle of love' because there is so much about love in his gospel and letters. (See John 13:1-17, 34-35; 15:9-13,17; 17:20-21,25-26. 1 John 2:7-11; 3:1-2, 10-19; 4:7-5:1). But when you compare it with Paul's teaching (e.g. 1 Cor 13, Eph 4:25-5:4, Col 3:12-14), or James's (Jas 1:27; 2:1-10,14-16; 3:1-12; 4:11,12; 5:19-20) they are totally different.

James is very practical, labelling true religion as caring for widows, providing for the poor, paying your workers properly, or caring pastorally for those who have sinned. Paul is predominantly relational, centred on the fruits of the Spirit such as love, patience, grace etc. John however offers almost no application other than stumbling others, and nothing about the fruits of the Spirit beyond loving and hating.

His focus is on the outworking of the Upper Room discourse: that the love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, and that we are to grow in our knowledge of the love of God until it has been perfected in us. Whereas James addresses the practical or bodily aspects, and Paul the relational or soul-related aspects, John is about the spiritual dimension of love.

This is the dimension of love, which modern Evangelicalism has lost. And it was the dimension that the church at Ephesus had lost, while their bishop John was imprisoned on Patmos (Rev 1:9, 2:1-7). The church exhibited holiness, doctrinal purity, and unflagging zeal: but they had forsaken their first love. Forsaken means divorced, abandoned.

What (or who) is our first love, as believers? Surely it is our fellowship with Christ?!