Down an Unfamiliar Road

Today in the news and on social media, we hear more and more about equality. Equality between men and women, between blacks and whites, salaries, appointments to government positions, etc. They are not talking about justice equality “under the law,” which already seems forgotten in politics. Psychology describes inequality as an obvious or hidden disparity between individuals for various reasons.

Psychologist Christopher Dwyer, a lecturer at the Technological University of the Shannon in Athlone, Ireland, says, despite the American Constitution, that “No one is created equal.” For example, some people are more intelligent than others; some are more attractive, some are healthier and happier, some are more conscientious and kinder, some make more money, etc. If we can quantify differences among people, then we can readily observe that people are not equal.

So, is that to say that some people are more important than others? A politically correct answer would be “no,” and everyone is equally important. But I also would argue, says Dwyer, not because people are equally important, but rather because of how hard it would be to decipher what is “important.” For example, if facing an ethical dilemma or philosophical puzzle in which you must choose between two people as to who lives and who dies, wouldn’t the decision boil down to who you viewed as more important? But, what is “important?’ For example, person X is more competent than Person Y, but Person Y makes more money (and pays more taxes) and is healthier than X, but then Person X has a family and is more crucial than Person Y. This could go on forever.

So, where do we draw the line? It’s likely to come down to what the “decision-maker” values. The importance of persons X and Y’s significance will likely differ across perspectives. Of course, kinship issues will affect some decisions, but outside of kinship, each person is likely to judge according to their criteria of “importance.” So, this should never be left to one individual’s decision, but like in voting, to the majority.

Psychologist E. J. R. David, an associate professor of Psychology at the University of Alaska Anchorage, suggests that we may have seen the widespread problem of equality played out. Whether intentional or not, this image presents inequality as existing because of physical or biological differences between people. But in reality, the inequalities that exist in our world are not because of some inherent characteristic. Instead, we must remember that inequality results from hundreds of years of exploitation and oppression. The reality is that there are inequalities in our world. However, these inequalities are not because of some inherently inferior characteristics that some people have. Further, systems and institutions created and maintained these inequalities to benefit some people while keeping others down.

As we collectively attempt to address inequality, we must remember that equality is the goal, not the method. An equality approach may look good and project fairness, but it cannot lead to equality. On the contrary, an unequal system will only maintain (maybe even worsen) inequality in an unequal world. Instead, we need to use an equity approach to drive our solutions. An equity approach is risky and may not produce good “optics,” but it is what is necessary. To be a faithful ally and an accomplice in addressing inequality, we must take risks and do what is required. To address disparities, we need to be willing to take risks, have bad “optics,” and potentially get in trouble – we need to use our power and privileges – to do the right and necessary thing.

In the “Good Therapy Blog,” we read that Equality is a concept in law, politics, philosophy, sociology, psychology, and many other fields based upon the notions of equal treatment, equal access to resources, and similar concepts. Philosophers and political scientists have debated the meaning of equality for generations, and the definition of equality tends to change with each age. For example, the United States Declaration of Independence declared that all men are created equal when many could not vote, and slavery was a significant force. However, notions of equality in the United States are often based upon this original declaration of equality, though they have evolved significantly.

Equality is sometimes used synonymously with fair treatment, and popular notions of equality do not necessarily require equal outcomes. For example, the fact that one person is a manager while another is a CEO does not necessarily indicate unequal treatment but refusing to promote a manager due to their race, sex, or religion would be an example of inequality. Similarly, institutional policies that make it difficult for people who are members of historically oppressed groups to advance are commonly used as indicators of inequality.

Standard definitions of equality include:

• Presuming that all people are equal

• Treating people as equals

• Providing equal access to opportunities

• Combating inequality without stereotypical and prejudicial treatment

• Compensating for the losses associated with inequality – for example, by using affirmative action measures

The presumption of equality is of significance in contemporary mental health settings. Measures designed to increase cultural competence, for example, increase the likelihood that minority groups will be treated fairly and equally. Many mental health advocates have pushed for equal treatment of people diagnosed with mental conditions, including participation in treatment decisions and an end to discrimination against those with mental health circumstances. Some mental health professionals have worked to be aware of how subtle biases can affect treatment. For example, a therapist engaged in marriage counseling might be influenced by racial stereotypes when advising a mixed-race couple.

But what does the Bible say about equality? Moses tells us that God created humans in His image. He created them to be like Himself. He made males and females equal (Genesis 1:27). Again, Moses expressed that we must be fair in judgment. We must not show special favor to the poor. And we must not show special favor to well-known people. It would be best if you were equal when you judge your neighbor. Also, do not do bad things to foreigners living in your country. You must treat them equally as you treat your fellow citizens. Love them as you loved yourselves in Egypt [Leviticus (9:15, 33-34). King David has the same idea. He declared, “Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity” (Psalm 67:4). Then Solomon continued this theme when he said unequal weights and unequal measures are both alike an abomination to the Lord (Proverbs 20:10).

Jesus went even further. “He instructed that when we give a feast, invite the poor, the disabled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous” (Luke 14:13-14). To this, our Lord adds: “Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him” (John 13:16). This no doubt caused the Apostle Peter to preach to Gentiles, “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation, anyone who reverences Him and does what is right is acceptable to Him” (Acts of the Apostles 10:10:34-35).

The Apostle Paul takes up this same crusade for equality when he mentions that “God shows no partiality” (Romans 2:11). Consequently, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Further, says Paul, Jesus is our peacemaker. He also made us both one and has broken down in His flesh the dividing wall of inequality (Ephesians 2:14). For example, Paul reveals that “Though Jesus was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be held onto” (Philippians 2:6).

Then our Lord’s brother, the Apostle James, told everyone to “show no partiality as you practice faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, ‘You sit here in a good place, while you say to the poor man, ‘You stand over there,’ or, ‘Sit down at my feet,’ have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which He has promised to those who love Him?” (James 1, 26).

So, what is your standard for equality? Do you just equality based on what you see, how you feel, what you know, common morals and virtues, or on what God’s Word says about it? If we are all equal in God’s family, that is the norm for the Church. Since we were all created equal by our Creator, that is America’s standard. When God created men and women as equals, He settled the gender question. So, what’s left? Only our personal biases, prejudices, preconceptions, bigotries, racism, moral code, and popular thinking.

I remember a hit song called “What the World Needs Now is Love, Sweet Love,” sung in 1966 by Dionne Warwick. Unfortunately, her plea has gone unnoticed in today’s world. However, the Bible has much to say about human love and God’s Love. The word love appears in the Bible as a noun, verb, or adjective between 310 times and 801 times. Within its pages, you will find cataloged comments on the full extent of human love: family love, friendly love, neighborly love, romantic love, sexual love, and dysfunctional love.

Perhaps the best way to understand what the Bible says about love is to study the various Hebrew and Greek words translated as love. Most of those are three words: two Hebrew and one Greek. But, first, of the two in Hebrew, one is ahavah, whose definition most closely matches the English word love. Ahavah generally refers to the affection or care one person shows another.

Ahavah can be used to describe a wide variety of loving human relationships. For instance: The King of Persia had ahavah for beautiful Esther. Abraham had ahavah for his son Isaac. Jonathan had ahavah for his friend David. The Israelites had ahavah for their King David. The foreign King of Tyre also had ahavah for King David, so he wanted to help David’s son Solomon build the temple.

Thus, ahavah is not just a term to describe our love for others; it’s also God’s ahavah for us! For example, Moses tells the Israelites: “Adonai didn’t set His ahavah on you or choose you because you numbered more than any other people.”[1] God’s ahavah isn’t a response to goodness; it originates from God’s character.

This is why the prophet Jeremiah says God’s love is “everlasting.”[2] God’s love is just an eternal fact of the universe. In the scriptures, we also discover God’s ahavah is more than an emotion. It’s something that God expresses through action. For instance, Moses says, “because of His ahavah for your ancestors, He brought you out of Egypt with great power.”[3] God’s love isn’t just a nice sentiment but expressed through action.

And how are we supposed to respond to God’s active, everlasting ahavah for us? With our ahavah towards God and others. That’s why Moses offers this famous command, “You are to ahavah Adonai your God with all your heart, all your being, and all your resources.”[4] God wants us to love others as He loves us! Similarly, we read, “He secures justice for the orphan and the widow; He has ahavah for foreigners, giving them food and clothing. Therefore, you are to ahavah foreigners since you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.”[5] And so, at the end of the day, this whole web of loving relationships – God to us, us to God, us to each other – is rooted in God’s eternal, active ahavah.

The second Hebrew word translated as love in our English Bible is khesed. Unfortunately, this is one of those words that is difficult to translate because it combines several ideas into one: love, generosity, and enduring commitment. As the Bible Project translators explain it, “Khesed describes an act of promise-keeping loyalty motivated by deep personal care.” More succinctly, one could describe khesed as “loyal love.”

The Jewish Rabbis wrote in the Midrash and Talmud that the Book of Ruth is the Bible’s most profound illustration of human khesed. Naomi told Ruth that she should go back to her people. Ruth refused, promising to stay by Naomi’s side and take care of her. As people observed Ruth keep this promise through thick and thin, they called Ruth’s faithfulness an act of khesed – loyal love.

Khesed is more than just something humans can show each other. It’s also something that God reveals to us. The Book of Exodus recounted when Pharaoh enslaved the Israelites in Egypt. He made good on a promise to Abraham’s generations – as a contract with his family, God would restore his blessing to the nations – God raised Moses to liberate the Israelites and lead them into the promised land. And in the story, this is called an act of khesed because it was about God keeping his word.

The journey to the promised land was not easy. Enemies on every side beset the Israelites, and they grew weary of eating the mana God provided each day. Their anger eventually explodes, and they threaten to kill Moses and appoint a new leader to take them back to Egypt. God is understandably angry. But Moses steps in and says, “Please! Forgive the offense of this people according to the greatness of your khesed.”[6] Notice that Moses asks God to forgive not because the people deserve it but because it’s consistent with God’s character.

Last, we arrive at the Greek word most often translated as love in the New Testament: agápē. Fascinatingly, the earliest followers of Jesus who wrote in Greek didn’t learn the meaning of agape by looking it up in ancient dictionaries. Instead, they observed Jesus’ teachings and His life to redefine their concept of love! First, Jesus was asked about the foremost commandment in Torah. In response, Jesus quoted:[7] “You must agapaō the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”[8] Jesus then quickly appended another commandment, “Agapaō your neighbor as yourself.”[9] Which of these two commandments is the most important – loving God or loving your neighbor? For Jesus, they’re two sides of the same coin. Your love for God will be expressed by your love for people and vice versa. They are inseparable.

So, unlike ahavah, agápē is not a feeling; it’s an act of our will. It’s choosing to seek the well-being of others with no expectation of anything in return. According to Jesus, this kind of generous, self-give love reflects the very heartbeat of God: “Love your enemies and do good to them. Lend to people without expecting to get anything back. If you do this, you will have a great reward. You will be children of the Most-High God. Yes, because God is good even to the people full of sin and not thankful.”[10]

This is how Jesus lived. Jesus was constantly helping and serving the people around Him in practical and tangible ways. And He consistently moved towards poor and hurting people who couldn’t benefit Him in return. And when Jesus eventually marched into Jerusalem, He made Himself an enemy of the leaders of God’s people by accusing them of hypocrisy and corruption. But then, instead of attacking His enemies to overthrow them, He allowed them to kill Him. Jesus died for the selfishness and depravity of His enemies because He loved them.

Following Easter, Jesus and His followers claimed that God’s love for the world was revealed in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. As the Apostle Paul put it, “God showed His agápē to us. While we were still sinners, the Anointed One [Messiah] died for us.”[11] Or, in the words of the Apostle John, “God so agapaō the world that He did not send His only begotten Son into the world to find everyone guilty but to save the world from sin’s punishment.”[12] And for John then, this naturally leads to the conclusion, “That is how much God loved us, dear friends! So, we also must love each other.”[13]

Thus, Christian faith involves trusting that at the center of the universe is a Divine Being overflowing with love for His creation, which means that the purpose of human existence is to receive this agápē that has come to us in Jesus and then to give it out to others, creating an ecosystem of others-focused, self-giving agápē. (Courtesy of a sermon preached at Hillside Community Church Enumclaw. WA)

So, the next time you say you “love” God or someone else in its Hebrew or Greek meaning, think twice about whether that’s exactly how you love them or Him. Remember what the Apostle John said, “If you say something you know is not true, it makes you a liar.”[14]

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[1] Deuteronomy 7:7 – Complete Jewish Version

[2] Jeremiah 31:3

[3] Deuteronomy 4:37

[4] Ibid. 6:5 – Complete Jewish Bible

[5] Ibid. 10:18-19 – Complete Jewish Bible

[6] Numbers 14:19 – Complete Jewish Bible

[7] Mark 12:30-31

[8] Cf. Deuteronomy 6:5 – New Life Version [NLV]

[9] Leviticus 18:19

[10] Luke 6:35 – Easy to Read Version [ERV]

[11] Romans 5:8

[12] John 3:16a-17 – Seyda Paraphrase

[13] 1 John 4:11

[14] Ibid. 4:20

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson CXLIII) 08/19/22

^4:20If anyone says, “I love God,” but keeps hating their brother or sister, they are lying; for if they don’t love their brother or sister who is right in front of them, how can they love God whom they have never seen?

How odd and incoherent when people argue or refuse to speak because of hurt feelings but then walk into a church sanctuary, and both raise their hands as they sing, “I love you, Lord, and I lift my voice to worship You oh, my soul rejoice! Take joy, my King, in what You hear; let it be a sweet, sweet sound in your ear.” Why should the Lord enjoy listening to the screaming argument in your heart and mind?  It’s John’s way of saying, don’t bother to tell God that you love Him until you can genuinely say you love every one of your Christian brothers and sisters. Then, he won’t believe you.  But we must understand that love is possible even though we may not like someone or something.

The idea of a “commandment” is that it represents an injunction, warning, ban, embargo, mandate, prohibition, etc. A “commandment” is equivalent to a principle or teaching of God’s Word. It is a prescribed rule in accord with God’s standards. Love for God and love for fellow Christians form one single commandment.  John explains “commandment” in the following clause – “he who loves God must love his brother in the Lord also.”  God orders the Christian to love His people. Jesus taught the two-fold commandment of loving both God and others.[1] We cannot separate love for God and love for Christians. Those two loves operate as one in God’s economy. This idea is a summary of chapter four. Love for other Christians is a binding principle for those who walk with God.[2]

Whatever we may think of the relation between seeing and loving, there is still the Divine command to love the invisible God and the visible Christian brother or sister in whom God dwells. Sight may hinder as well as help; it is hard to love what is filthy and hideous. In such cases, let us remember that even the most debased form of humanity contains God’s creative fingerprints. Love for fellow believers is a binding principle for those who walk with God; they are not suggestions. There is no room for debate. We have no choice. God’s will prompt His children to correlate love for others with love for God. To violate the precept is not to love God. It is easy to pretend to love God, whom we cannot see, since it is a feeling only God can verify.

Therefore, the only way we can prove to others that we have faith in Jesus is to love God’s people. If we were as careful to demonstrate our love for one another as we are to criticize one another, people would soon get the idea that we loved them. We do not have to agree with them, but we are to love them. We do not have to see eye to eye with all God’s people, but we do have to love them unconditionally. A Christian who loves God expresses that love to others concretely, not just by promises or intentions. True love for God shows itself in more than emotions. It is an objective love as well as a subjective love. Active love convinces our condemning hearts that we are in tune with God. It assures us that we are right with God.

COMMENTARY

Medieval scholar Andreas says: “The person who loves God keeps His commandments and loving one’s brother fulfills those commandments. The person who does not love their believing brother or sister has not kept the commandments and, by not keeping them, has no love for God. Therefore, the one who says they love but does not do so is a liar.”[3] Saying it is not enough. Doing it proves that your claim about loving God is a reality.

William Tyndale (1494-1536) addresses the end of John’s epistle about love. He says that love cannot be seen without the flames of love and in the fire of temptation. Consequently, if someone says, I love God and still hate fellow Christian brothers or sisters; they are lying. How can it be that they don’t love their brother or sister they can see and love God whom they cannot see? Therefore, we have this commandment that they who love God also love their brother and sister. To love a person’s neighbor with God’s agápē is a sure sign that we know we love God. Not to love them is a specific token that we do not love God. To hate our neighbor is the same as hating God. Loving God means obeying His commandments, as the Anointed One tells us.[4] And the commandment is to love our neighbors because if we don’t love our neighbors cannot love God. And likewise, to hate this commandment is the same as hating the God who commanded it.[5]

John Calvin (1509-1564) looks at the phrase “and this commandment” and concludes it is a strong argument drawn from the authority and Gospel of the Anointed One. He not only gave a commandment respecting God’s agápē but told us also to love our brethren. We must, therefore, immediately commit to God’s will since some may do it their way instead of God’s way.[6]

John Trapp (1601-1669) sees singular evidence of God’s great love for us that He directed we love our neighbor as ourselves, says Benedictus Aretius.[7] Our Savior merged those two precepts to sum up the Law, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”[8] Yes, God prefers mercy before sacrifice; and is content that his immediate service should be intermitted, rather than leaving out loving our fellow man. So, Jesus said, “Leave your gift there in front of the altar. First, go and be reconciled to them.”[9] [10]

John Bunyan (1628-1688) combines verses seven, sixteen, and twenty-one to show that God’s agápē is another of those great and principal graces, which the Holy Spirit works in the heart. No matter how convincing our proclamation of faith, if love is missing,[11] such professors and not possessors are to be abandoned because they “did not depart from iniquity.”[12] Hence all pretending means nothing, whereas love is priceless. Love is measured as an infallible sign that a person is in a state of salvation. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.[13] Love divides itself between God and our neighbors. Love for God is that we keep His sayings, commandments, and laws. “Those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me,”[14] and “Anyone who doesn’t love me will not obey me.” And remember, my words are not my own. What I am telling you is from My Father who sent Me. [15] [16]

So, says Bunyan, the heart is united in affection and love to the Father and the Son, for their love can be shone on wretched sinners. It will help in delivering them from the wrath to come. So, does this God’s agápē cause the unregenerated person to work it out themselves? No! By this agápē, faith works, in sweet passions and pangs of love, to all that are thus reconciled, as sinners see they are. The motive, then, by which faith does His work is justification and sanctification. So, likewise, the significant reason for them, I say, is love, God’s agápē, and the love of the Anointed One. That is, when our faith tells us so, for so are the words above, “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.”[17] And then, “We love because He first loved us.”[18]

John Howe (1630-1705) sees loving God and loving each other are also connected in the same law. Indeed, the whole law of God is summed up in love. The Apostle Paul tells us, “Love does no wrong to others, so love fulfills the requirements of God’s law.”[19] And you see what the Apostle John means by “law” from the occasion of this discourse. “And He has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.”[20] He laid this law upon us to show how we should share our love. If we pretend to exercise our love for Him, we must do it to our brother and sister. Otherwise, He will never add us to the list of lovers of Himself.[21]

William Burkitt (1650-1703) states that this most important commandment, above the rest, this summary and comprehensive principle, including all the rest, namely, to love God above all, for Jesus’ sake, and to love our brothers and sisters as ourselves, for God’s sake. This command, which we received from God so full of wisdom, so agreeable to right reason, and so much our duty and interest to comply with, is dependent upon our love for Him. So, if we don’t keep it, John clarifies, “Those who love God must also love their fellow believers.”[22]

Matthew Henry (1662-1714) summarizes these last seven verses by beginning with the fact that the Father sent the Son; it was His will to send Him into this world. The Apostle John attests to this: “All who declare that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God.”[23] This confession includes faith in the heart as the foundation; acknowledges with the mouth bring glory to God and the Anointed One. It can be proclaimed in life and conduct, despite the flatteries and frowns of the world. There must be a day of universal judgment.

Happy are those with holy boldness before the great Judge, says Henry, knowing He is their Friend and Advocate! Happy are those who have holy boldness with the possibility of being there on that day, who look and wait for it and the Judge’s appearance! True love for God assures believers of God’s agápē to them. Love teaches us to suffer for Him and with Him. Therefore, we may trust that we will also share in His glory.[24]

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[1] Matthew 22:37-40; John 13:34; Mark 12:29-31

[2] Ibid. 12:37, 39; Luke 10:27; John 13:34

[3]Andreas: (Bray Ed.), James, 1-2 Peter, 1-3 John, Jude, op. cit., loc. cit.

[4] See John 13:35; 14:15; 15:12, 17

[5] Tyndale, William, op. cit., pp. 204-205

[6] Calvin, John: Commentary on the Catholic Epistles, op. cit., loc. cit.

[7] Aretius (1522-1574) was a Swiss Protestant theologian

[8] Matthew 22:37-39

[9] Ibid. 5:24

[10] Trapp, John: Commentary upon all books of New Testament (1647), op. cit., p. 478

[11] 1 Corinthians 13:1-7

[12] 2 Timothy 2:19

[13] 1 John 4:16

[14] Ibid. 14:21, 24

[15] 1 John 5:3

[16] Bunyan, John: Practical Works, Vol. 4, Why the Christian Profession is so Extensively Disgraced, p. 93

[17] 1 John 4:16

[18] Ibid. 4:19

[19] Romans 13:10

[20] 1 John 4:21

[21] Howe, John: op. cit., (Kindle Locations 2747-2751)

[22] Burkitt, William: Notes on N. T., op. cit., p. 733

[23] 1 John 4:15

[24] 2 Timothy 2:12

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson CXLII) 08/18/22

^4:20If anyone says, “I love God,” but keeps hating their brother or sister, they are lying; for if they don’t love their brother or sister who is right in front of them, how can they love God whom they have never seen?

Of these six claims, says Painter, the first three are seemingly given in the words of the claimants. The quotation is signaled by the Greek hoti (“For”) followed by the words quoted in the first person, “I” or “we.” So, what’s the difference? It seems that John is distinguishing between those still in the community and those from the outside. [1]

Michael Eaton (1942-2017) says that the Apostle John’s point is not that God’s agápē is more complex than loving people. It raises the question, “If you cannot do something easy, how can you handle something complex?” The point is that loving people is more objective, prominent, and observable by others. A person might say, “Ί love God.” How can that statement be proven? Yet if the same person says, “I love people,” the evidence is right in front of our eyes! God is Spirit. To love Him might seem “spiritual” and “devotional.” It might appear to be a matter of prayer, singing, and attending meetings. “I love God!” we might say, but God is invisible, and our love expresses itself mainly in acts of worshipful devotion. There is something more tangible about loving people! We cannot fool ourselves as quickly when it comes to loving people. The criterion of loving God is not what we feel in worship but what we experience with our Christian brother or sister, who is a physical reality.[2]

William Loader (1944) notes that in verse twelve, the Apostle John argued that our invisible God is made visible in concrete, not abstract, acts of love. Here in verse twenty, John turns this thought around and goes back the other way, thinking this time from the perspective of the loved one. If we cannot love a visible human being, we will not be able to love the invisible God. It is much more than a neat play with ideas. Loving another human being means being open and vulnerable. It means meeting them and taking them seriously. It is not simply giving; it is also receiving. If we cannot do that with another human, we will not be able to do that with God. We will block out God’s agápē and remain satisfied with something comfortable in our projection and imagination that does not disturb us. We will be practicing a form of idolatry. Usually, we have reduced God to a manageable concept like an icon or statue in such cases. Then, God is no longer the invisible and unknown but a carefully defined image designed to suit ourselves.[3]

Colin G. Kruse (1950) notes that the words, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates their brother, is a liar,” is an a fortiori statement – arguing from the lesser to the greater. If people cannot fulfill the secondary requirement (to love their fellow believers whom they have seen), they cannot accomplish the primary obligation (to love God whom they have not seen). When the Apostle John speaks of God as the one we have not seen, he is picking up an important theme from his Gospel, where the invisibility of God is mentioned again and again.[4] Here the author repeats the point he made in verse twelve that claims to know the unseen God must be validated by love for fellow believers who can be seen. The nature of an experience of God’s presence is such that it cannot exist without manifesting itself in love for God’s people. Already John has shown that God is agápē,[5] that all those born of God are loving, and that those who do not love do not know God.[6]

Bruce G. Schuchard (1958) notes that again, the Apostle John’s language recalls his letter’s beginning, mainly “we lie,’’[7] “we deceive ourselves,”[8] and “we act as if He were a liar.”[9] There, John was thinking of the secessionists. He accuses them of hating rather than loving. Instead of loving, they hated the brothers for departing from the fellowship of the beloved. Unwittingly they have preferred belonging to the realm of Satan, where the lie is the native language. If God is present in love, the father of all lies is in hate.[10] [11] But here, in verse twenty, John is talking to believers and using the secessionist as an example.  In other words, if hating a fellow Christian was the attitude of these traitors, then if we believers develop the same attitude, we are no better than they are.

Marianne Meye Thompson (1964) states that if God’s agápē empowers our love, no one can claim to love God while hating a fellow Christian. So often, the words anyone who does not love their fellow believer, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. Both mean that it is much harder to love an invisible God than a brother or sister whom one can see. However, John does not say that loving God is more complicated than loving others. Instead, love for God without love for others is impossible to imagine since God is agápē.[12]

Peter Pett (1966) says that the result of what the Apostle John has just said is that we will love all who are faithful in serving the Anointed One, those who are of and speak the truth. For they share the agápē that we enjoy, and they too are in His agápē. And they minister to us of the Anointed One, as we should minister to them. Must they not be within our love, which He has produced within us? It would be an impossible contradiction to be filled with God’s agápē and not to love those whom God loves. Thus, if a person says, “I love God,” but hates their fellow believer is a liar. That is, they do not love God. This is the test of antichrist and false teaching. They do not love the brethren because the brethren expose their false teaching for what it is and refuse to countenance their fantasies.[13]

Duncan Heaster (1967) points out that the Apostle John again refers to his Gospel,[14] where the Jewish opposition is likened to Cain, the first liar and murderer. His first lie was covering up his hatred for his brother, Abel. It fits the Judaist infiltrators exactly; their religion had slain their brother, the Lord Jesus, and they were out to kill His brothers and sisters. Yet they tried hiding that fact by slipping into the churches as false teachers.[15] The “liar” is the antichrist, which in John’s first context was the Jewish system.[16] For he that does not love his fellow believers whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. We cannot literally see God, but we can “see” Him insofar as we “see” His Son. For the Son alone has fully “seen” the Father.[17] To love the Father is to have His Spirit abiding in us, which elicits sacrificial love for His children, our fellow believers. Any hatred of those begotten by His Spirit reveals that we lack His Spirit and do not love Him.[18]

Karen H. Jobes (1968) points out that the command to love God was long-standing in the Jewish faith from which Christianity emerged. Israel’s motto is the Shema.[19] Such love for God was coupled with obedience to the covenant, which included treating others right. John’s argument is similar: love for God must be constituted by love for others, particularly fellow believers.[20]

David Guzik (1984) notes that someone might say or sing, “I want to love God more; I want to grow in my love for Him.” The first question is, how can you love a God who is invisible? God might say to us, “So, you want to learn how to love Me more, the One you can’t see? Well, you can start by loving My children, whom you can see.” Jesus’ words are loud and clear; this is how I want you to conduct yourself in these matters. If you enter your place of worship and are about to go to the altar to rededicate yourself to His service, leave immediately, go to this friend and make things right. Then and only then, come back and work things out with God. That is how you can love me more.[21]

4:21     God gave us this commandment: If we love Him, we must also love each other as brothers and sisters.

EXPOSITION

God instructed the Israelites: “Forget about the wrong things people do to you. Don’t try to get even. Love your neighbor as you want to be loved.”[22] Jesus quotes from this when He says: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.  This is the first and most important command. And the second is like the first: Love your neighbor the same as you love yourself.”[23]

And just before His trial and crucifixion, He reiterates this same thought: “I give you a new command: Love each other. You must love each other just as I loved you. All people will know you are my followers if you love each other.”[24]  Now John brings his point to a un fait accompli.[25]  Without God, there would be no such thing as love. We became aware of love because God expressed it to us first before we knew how to express it to anyone.  In John’s way of thinking, it is love completed by love. When love is that noticeable based on an impeccable standard, it is easy to see any flaws and inconsistencies.  For instance, John points out that if we cannot love those we see and fellowship with daily, how can we claim to love a God we’ve never seen? Especially when the God who gave us Love said that if you want to keep it fresh and growing, you must pass it on to your fellow believers.

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[1] Painter, John. Sacra Pagina: 1, 2, and 3 John: Vol. 18, loc. cit.

[2] Eaton, Michael: Focus on the Bible, 1,2,3 John, op. cit., pp. 169-170

[3] Loader, William: Epworth Commentary, op. cit., p. 59

[4] John 1:18; 5:37; 6:46

[5] 1 John 4:7-8

[6] Kruse, Colin G., The Letters of John (The Pillar New Testament Commentary (PNTC)), op. cit., loc. cit., Kindle Edition

[7] 1 John 1:6

[8] Ibid. 1:8

[9] Ibid. 1:10

[10] Ibid. 8:44

[11] Schuchard, Bruce G., Concordia Commentary, op. cit., pp. 492-493

[12] Thompson, Marianne M., The IVP New Testament Commentary, op. cit., p. 129

[13] Pett, Peter: Commentary on the Bible, op. cit., PDF, loc. cit.

[14] John 8:44

[15] Galatians 2:4

[16] 1 John 2:22

[17] John 6:46

[18] Heaster, Duncan: New European Commentary, op. cit., 1 John, pp.36-37

[19] Deuteronomy 6:5

[20] Jobes, Karen H., 1, 2, and 3 John (Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, Book 18), p. 206

[21] Matthew 5:23-24

[22] Leviticus 19:18

[23] Matthew 22:37-39

[24] John 13:34-35

[25] Un fait accompli, French, meaning “an accomplished fact.”

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson CXLI) 08/17/22

^4:20If anyone says, “I love God” but keeps hating their brother or sister, they are lying; for if they don’t love their brother or sister who is right in front of their eyes, can they claim to love God whom they have never seen?

Rudolf Schnackenburg (1914-2002) says the argument is clear: only those who love their brother or sister can see and be able to love an invisible God.[1] But this conviction does not, as Jewish/Greek historian Philo said, “For we must not share everything with everyone, but restrict our gifts to what is suitable to the recipient. Otherwise, the most excellent and valuable thing which life possesses will destroy order and suffer defeat by its most mischievous foe, confusion,”[2] stem from general religious considerations, but specific thought. The way to fellowship with God is not through a visionary experience but active love. Now, some exploit this basic proposition in the name of love. That idea is implied in verse eleven, so those who follow it can rest assured of their love for brother and sister.[3]

Donald W. Burdick (1917-1996) says that the Apostle John should convince all of us that brotherly love is demanded by logic.[4] The hypothetical case John proposes is stated in the strongest terms: “If a person says, I love God and hate their Christian brother or sister, are lying.” They are not lying about hating some fellow believers but about their loving God. It indicates that the claim is manifestly self-contradictory. Love for God and hatred for a brother or sister cannot possibly coexist in the same heart. Thus, with typical Johannine sharp words, the claim is dismissed as an out-and-out lie.[5] Can you envision a pastor asking a believer who comes to them for counseling about their quarrel with another believer, “Do you love God?” If their response is “yes,” we wonder what the reaction would be when the pastor tells them they are a liar.

Raymond E. Brown (1928-1998) says that some today might have expected the Apostle John to contrast the claim to love God with indifference toward one’s brother or sister. However, in Johannine dualism, neither indifference nor insufficient love is the opposite of loving – that opposite is described here in verse twenty as not love or hate. Again, one might have expected John to charge any person who claims to love God and still hates their Christian brother or sister guilty of misunderstanding or incompleteness, but Johannine dualism is harsher. Just as hate is opposed to love (and God is Love).so lying is opposed to truth (and Jesus is Truth). As a result, John accuses such a person of belonging to Satan’s regime, for whom lying is part of everyday language.[6] If Father God is present in love, “the originator of lies” is in hate.[7]

John R. W. Stott (1921-2010) notes that love for God expresses a confident attitude towards Him, devoid of fear and loving concern for our brothers and sisters.[8] Perfect agápē that drives fear out of hatred also. If God’s agápē for us is made complete when we love one another,[9] so is our love for God. John does not mince his words. If a person’s behavior contradicts what they say, they are liars. To claim to know God and have fellowship with God while we walk in the darkness of disobedience is to lie.[10] To claim to possess the Father while denying the deity of the Son is to lie.[11] To claim to love God while hating our brothers or sister is also to lie.[12]

John Phillips (1927-2010) says that John now turns to the logic of love: “If we say we love God but hate any of our brothers or sisters in His family, we are liars. If we don’t love someone we have seen, how can we love God? We have never even seen Him.” Very blunt! Love and hate are opposites. Love for God should expel all hate, even toward the most cranky, critical, and contradictory of the Lord’s people. No one ever loved God like Jesus. “He went about doing good” was Peter s one-line summary of the Lord’s attitude toward people.[13] The Lord had His enemies, but He loved them. At times He had to expose and condemn them,[14] but He never stopped loving them.

Furthermore, He loved poor, lost, pagan Pilate just as much as He loved beloved, blundering Peter; it is also true that He died for the crafty, unscrupulous Caiaphas[15] for generous, open-minded Cornelius.[16] He had as big a heart of love for Barabbas[17] as He had for Bartholomew.[18] He wept as brokenly for Jerusalem – which killed the prophets and stoned them who were sent to her[19] – as He did for the bereaved and beloved Martha and Mary.[20] He was as eager to save Saul – who “was uttering threats with every breath and was eager to kill the Lord’s followers”[21] – as He was to protect the earnestly seeking Ethiopian[22] or anyone who belonged to, however unworthily, the family of God.[23]

David E. Hiebert (1928-1995) hears the Apostle John asserting that God-induced love involves the love for fellow believers. So, the Apostle asks a hypothetical question: “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and yet hates their Christian brother or sister, what does that make them?” The clear verdict is, “they are liars!” They are either blind or a conscious hypocrite. There is an apparent contradiction between the individual’s explicit claim to love God while they continue to hate their fellow believers. The Greek text places “God” and “brother” side by side,[24] suggesting that the two cannot be the objects of opposite inward feelings. As British Bible scholar John Miller (1919-1895) stated: “One’s inward condition is easily measured by outward behavior.”[25] [26]

Stephen S. Smalley (1931-2018) says that when the Apostle John discusses the “tests by which our love for God may be discerned,” rather than by stages “learning to love Him,” it may well be that this second interpretation should be adopted unless we combine the two views. But in any case, John’s point is clear. As John stated in verse twelve, love for God is expressed in love for others. To withhold the one is to render the other impossible. Therefore, we are to love God in others and others in Him. Such is the meaning of “living in love.”[27] [28]

Edward J. Malatesta (1932-2018) notices that verse twenty is built around one core. It portrays and brands anyone who claims to know God while hating a fellow believer as a “liar.” God’s agápē occurs in this verse’s first and last lines so that it repeats itself with different words. For instance, “hates a brother or sister” and “does not love their brother or sister.” At the center of this is a devasting accusation and gives a reason for this accusation. The person who does not love their brother or sister whom they can see cannot possibly love God whom they cannot see.[29] It is as ridiculous as a blind person claiming they can see with their eyes closed when they cannot see with their eyes open.

Ian Howard Marshall (1934-2015) points out that a person may deceive others by declaring that they love God, but since God cannot be seen, there is no direct way of telling whether they truly love God. Even if they go through the outward motions of devotion to God, prayer, worship attendance, and so on, it may still be all empty show. But a person cannot so easily deceive others regarding their love for fellow Christians; since they can be seen, the person’s relation with them is also visible. (Admittedly, deception is still possible since loving acts may arise from false motives, but the opportunity is not as great as love for the unseen God.) It follows that if a person is seen not loving their brothers and sisters, they are unlikely to love God. Indeed, they cannot love God since one part of love for God is love for one’s fellow believers.[30]

John Painter (1935) notes that there have been six claims (NIV) up to this point in the Apostle John’s First Epistle made by the hypocrite opposition up to this point. They are:

1. If we claim to have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth – 1 John 1:6

• If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us – 1 John 1:8

• If we claim we have not sinned, we make Him out to be a liar, and his word is not in us – 1 John 1:10

• Whoever claims to live in Him must live as Jesus did – 1 John 2:6

• Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness – 1 John 2:9

• Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar – 1 John 4:20

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[1] 1 John 4:12

[2] The Works of Philo, The Special Laws, Loeb Classical Library, Vol. VII, translated by F. H. Colson, p. 169 (#120)

[3] Schnackenburg, Rudolf: The Johannine Epistles, op. cit., p. 226

[4] 1 John 4:20

[5] Burdick, Donald W., The Epistles of John, op. cit., p. 81

[6] John 8:44

[7] Brown, Raymond E., The Anchor Bible, op. cit., Vol. 30, p. 533

[8] Cf. 1 John 3:14

[9] Ibid. 4:12

[10] Ibid. 1:6; 2:4

[11] Ibid. 12:22-23

[12] Stott, John. The Letters of John (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries), op. cit., p. 170

[13] Acts of the Apostles 10:38

[14] Matthew 23:13-39

[15] Matthew 26:57, 63-65; John 11:49-51

[16] Acts of the Apostles 10:1-3 3

[17] Matthew 27:16; Mark 15:7

[18] Acts of the Apostles 1:3

[19] Matthew 23:37; Luke 19:41-44

[20] John 11:18-21

[21] Acts of the Apostles 9:1

[22] Ibid. 8:26-39

[23] Phillips, John: Exploring the First Epistle of John, op. cit., p. 156

[24] The Greek text reads: “God and the brother….”

[25] Miller, John, Notes on James, 1 and 11 Peter, 1, 11 and Ill John, Jude, Revelation (Bradford, Eng.: Needed Truth Publishing Office, n.d.), p. 90

[26] Hiebert, David E., Bibliotheca Sacra, op. cit., January-March 1990, pp. 86-87

[27] See 1 John 4:16

[28] Smalley, Stephen S., Word Biblical Commentary, Vol. 51, op. cit., p. 264

[29] Malatesta, Edward J., Interiority and Covenant, op. cit., p. 297

[30] Marshall, I. Howard. The Epistles of John (The New International Commentary on the New Testament), op. cit., pp. 225-226)

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson CXL) 08/16/22

^4:20If anyone says, “I love God,” but keeps hating their brother or sister, they are lying; for if they don’t love their brother or sister who is right in front of them, how can they love God whom they have never seen?

Benjamin B. Warfield (1851-1921) examines the controversy between Augustine and Pelagius and says we must seek two roots in our dispositions for such mixed results – greediness for evil and love for good. There is not a single root for both in nature. Humanity’s “ability” is the root of nothing. Still, it is capable of both good and evil according to the motivating cause, which, in the case of evil, is human-originated, while, in the case of good, it is from God. Pelagius’[1] assertion that grace is given according to our merits took such an extreme form as to openly proclaim that individuals can come and hold onto God by their free will alone without God’s help. Augustine shows that the Scriptures teach just the opposite and then points out how Pelagius has confounded the functions of knowledge and love and how he forgets that we cannot earn merits until we love God. At the same time, the Apostle John asserts that God loved us first.[2] [3]

Bishop Arthur Temple Lyttelton (1852-1903), Suffragan Bishop of Southampton, states: We cannot love God whom we do not see, and then comprehend the tremendous invisible influence in which we live and move and have our being, to appreciate the person who is watching over and directing us and guiding all this complicated scheme of things. That is more complex and harder to do. And the world comes close around us and absorbs us. If that is our difficulty, we may take verse twenty to say, there is training for God’s children in agápē.

So, offers Lyttelton, if we accept that love of others is training for God’s agápē; for, though it is hard to grasp the invisible, we have the visible. We have people; we have a love of others, which is natural to us, and easy for us in a sense. And I think that is what the Apostle means for us to become sufficient using God’s agápē – the love of our brother and sister whom we see; this familiar friend, who is with us at every turn of our life, with whom we are continually in contact. And in our natural life in the world, this familiar friend is the means to train and draw out this outstanding faculty in us – the love of our friend and our fellowman. So, we are to train and exercise God’s agápē. And that simple, natural human affection we feel for our friends is the same faculty as that required for God’s agápē.

We must not think of this agápē as something extraordinary, says Lyttelton, some new and unknown faculty to be given to us. No doubt all God’s love is a gift: but all love is similar to the same affection. Although it is essentially going out of ourselves, loving another, and living for another, whether that other is our fellowman or God, still, the impulse is the same – the putting aside of all selfish motivations and living in and for God or those around us. That is love. So, the love of others is training for expressing God’s agápē because it is the same faculty needed for both. And in our weakness, when we cannot rise to God’s agápē, let us remember that we have our Lord’s warrant that “whatever we do for the least important of our brothers and sisters, we do for Him.”[4] And when we love our fellow believers, it is the first step to God’s agápē. We cannot pass it over; we cannot rise to the level of God’s agápē; we cannot see unless we love “those whom we have seen.”[5]

Alonzo R. Cocke (1858-1901) says it is easy to say, “I love God,” but the evidence supporting a claim of having love must be tested. The witness to the presence of God’s agápē in our hearts is love for our fellow Christians. One who claims to love God and yet hates their Christian brother or sister proves their assertions are lies. Hatred and love mutually exclude each other. Our fellow believers are visible, but God is invisible. Love for God is the primary, and love for fellow Christians is a copy of God’s agápē. Love for God causes love for His children.

Cocke continues: Love for God is invisible unless manifested with visible effects. A person’s profession of love to God is an incredible lie when there is no visual evidence. Likewise, the invisible God is not loved if the visible brother or sister is not loved. Such is the necessary connection between these two exhibits of the divine life as it flows in the agápē channel. From one fountain, the waters ever flow into these two streams: Love for God and love for our fellow Christians.[6]

Alan E. Brooke (1863-1939) states that since God is love, they who abide in His agápē remain in God and God in them. Thus, the test of love can give full assurance concerning the reality of our fellowship with God. It is a logical deduction from the very nature of God. Love has been made perfect in us when, and only when, we can look forward with entire confidence to the great day of God’s judgment, knowing that as the exalted Anointed One abides in the Father’s love, so we remain in it so far as that is possible under the condition of our present existence. Where complete confidence is not yet likely, love fails to reach perfection, for fear and dread have no place in true love. It drives them out entirely from the sphere of its activity. Love is not merely an attribute of God but His attitude. Love expresses the highest conception we can form of God’s very Being.[7]

Brooke goes on to say that fear is something of the nature of punishment, and they who experience it have not yet been made perfect in love. How then can they say that they have compassion? Because love, in whatever degree it is exercised, originates in something above and beyond us. It has its origin in God. It is in response to God’s love for us. But our claim to love can be put to an obvious test. Love is active and must go out to those who need it if it is genuine. If anyone claims to love God and does not show love to their fellow believers, their claim is not only false but reveals a deceptive character. Love will show itself wherever an object of love is to be found.

Those who will not take the first step can never reach the goal. If the sight of one’s brother or sister in the Lord does not call out their love, it shows they cannot have enough love to reach God. And for us, the matter is determined, once and for all, by the Master’s command. He has said, the first commandment is: “You will love the Lord your God with all your heart,”[8] and the second is, “You will love your neighbor as yourself.”[9] [10]

Harry A., Ironside (1876-1951) tells us to notice the Apostle John’s strong language in verse twenty. Listen to what he said earlier in this epistle, “If someone claims, ‘I know God,’ but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth.”[11] Then John asks this stabbing question, “Who is lying? Anyone who says that Jesus is not the Anointed One.”[12] Now John spells it out, “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see?” In other words, how you treat your Christian brother and sister is a test as to whether you really love God.[13]

Charles H. Dodd (1884-1973) tells us that the meaning of the last part of verse twenty is not entirely clear. The words “loveth not” (KJV) and “cannot” (NIV) might bear either of two meanings, which may be illustrated as follows. A schoolmaster might warn a lazy pupil, “Unless you start doing your lessons, you cannot become educated,” and, on the other hand, the recipient of an anonymous letter might remark, “A person who writes like that cannot be educated.” Similarly, here the meaning might be either that, unless a believer practices loving their fellowman, they are incapable of the more difficult task of loving God.

It could also be that the absence of practical charity proves that a person does not love God. The context seems to demand this latter meaning. John is not concerned with the stages by which we may learn to love God but with the tests by which it may be known whether we love Him. However, the most straightforward and convincing test is that of assistance towards our neighbors. In effect, we have a fresh interpretation and application of the evangelical commandment of love for God and neighbor. For the “first and greatest commandment” and the second, which is “like unto it,”[14] are in summation one commandment. Being the objects of God’s agápē, we are to love our neighbor in Him and Him in our neighbor; and that is what it means to “remain in His agápē.”[15]

Greville P. Lewis (1891-1976) is nothing between white and black, love and hate, in the Apostle John’s vocabulary. There is no grey area or fence to sit on. He is thinking of a professing Christian who is indifferent to the needs of their fellow Christians and may even positively dislike – or hate – a member of the Church to which they belong. He says that a person who says proudly, “I love God,” but fails to love any one of their fellow believers, is in plain words, “a liar.” Since John has just said in verse nineteen, “We love because He first loved us,” our capacity to love is our grateful and self-giving response to the undeserved and amazing God’s agápē for us. If, as a result of our love for God, we live in such intimate union with Him that we share His very nature, then love should become “second nature” to us. If this proves true, it follows that a person who says, “I have no feelings of love for this particular brother or that specific sister, and have no interest in their needs,” shows that love is not their “second nature.” Therefore, they do not love or belong to God.[16]

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[1] Pelagius (born c. 354 AD, probably Britain—died after 418 AD (possibly in Palestine), monk and theologian whose non- orthodox theological system known as Pelagianism emphasized the primacy of human effort in spiritual salvation.

[2] 1 John 4:10

[3] Warfield, Benjamin B., The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 5, Trans. Peter Holmes, Part 2, Introductory Essay on Augustine and the Pelagian Controversy, the External History, p. 62

[4] Matthew 25:40, 45

[5] Lyttelton, Arthur Temple: Church Pulpit Commentary, op. cit., loc. cit.

[6] Cocke, Alonzo R., Studies in the Epistles of John, op. cit., loc. cit., Logos

[7] Brooke, Alan E., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary, op. cit., p. 118

[8] Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22:37

[9] Leviticus 19:18; Matthew 22:39

[10] Brooke, Alan E., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary, op. cit., p. 123

[11] 1 John 2:4

[12] Ibid. 2:20

[13] Ironside, Harry A., The Epistles of John and Jude, op. cit., p. 181

[14] Matthew 22:38-39

[15] Dodd, Charles H., The Moffatt Commentary, Johannian Epistles, op. cit., p. 124

[16] Lewis, Greville P., The Epworth Commentary, Johannine Epistles, op. cit., p. 111

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson CXXXIX) 08/15/22

^4:20If anyone says, “I love God,” but keeps hating their brother or sister, they are lying; for if they don’t love their brother or sister who is right in front of them, how can they love God whom they have never seen?

Johannes H. A. Ebrard (1818-1888) notes that by a subtle distinction, the Apostle John writes in the former half of this verse “love” but in the latter “loving.” [1] In the former case, he would describe the actual position of one who says they love God and nevertheless blunders so far as to allow themselves to hate their fellow citizen. That’s no doubt why John felt it was necessary to illuminate the sharp contrast and, therefore, to show the furthest point to which an error-prone conscience may be misled. The Apostle speaks in the presence of the experienced fact that a person sometimes does utter their assurance that they love God while nourishing hatred against their neighbor. But in the latter case, where the Apostle is laying down a doctrinal position that merely not-hating is insufficient, he must enforce the positive requirement that Christians should love their brothers and sisters. Hence, he writes: “The person that does not love their fellow believer, etc.” [2]

Charles Ellicott (1819-1904) says that these last three verses summarize the truth, and the duty in verses ten and eleven is vivid. God made it possible for us to love Him, and the first result of our feeling this power within us and allowing it to put itself into force will be seen in pure and devout care for all whom we can help. As usual, hating and not loving are interchangeable members of the class of misbehavior. John argues on the ground that it is much easier for human nature to be interested in what comes before its eyes than the things it imagines.” [3] 

This is so true of Jesus. We would be able to love Him more if we could see Him than simply imagine Him as He sits in heaven. But our Lord told us, “You believe because you have seen Me. So blessed are those who believe without seeing Me.” [4] In other words, the Anointed One could say, “O yes, you’ll love Me as long as you can see me being with you in person, but those who will love Me even after I’m gone are the ones who will receive My blessing.”

William Kelly (1822-1888), we see here in verse twenty, we have the last of the false professions, as individualized in chapter two, as liars. Such language and conduct betray delusion, and the Apostle John does not hesitate to stigmatize that person as a liar. Our feeling toward a brother tests the truth or falsehood of our profession Godward. It is a present and tangible case. Here is my brother at my door, endowed with life in the Anointed One, and cleansed from their sins by the Anointed One’s blood; and do I allow on any pretext hatred in the heart and talk of loving the unseen God? It is a falsehood: Satan has closed our eyes.

If living faith exists, says Kelly, life would attract, and God’s agápē draw out love from us. Nor does the Holy Spirit of God abide in the saint for nothing; and where the heart treats Him as nothing in another, is it not the plain evidence that He cannot be there to give the enjoyment of fellowship one with another through the Son, by whom all the blessing comes? If “liar” is a character most embarrassing among humans, what is it in the mouth of an Apostle John and the eternal things of God? Thus, the only wise God in the evil day provides means that His children should not be deceived. For the more blessed is the love that is inspired by divine grace, the more critical it is that we should not be imposed on by what is untrue. It is a part of God’s moral government of His children that they are tried here below in various ways. But the love that is of God confides in God, abides in love whether others do or not, and has the Spirit’s enduring power to make God’s presence in our souls so that we may be calm and subject to whatever happens.[5]

William Burt Pope (1822-1903) points out two condensed arguments here. First, recalling verse ten that the invisible God perfects His agápē in us by the Spirit through our brotherly love, it is simply an intense repetition: the invisible Fountain of Love abides in us. It has its perfect operation in our devotion to its visible objects, embracing all our fellow-regenerate brothers and sisters. This is carried over into the next chapter, verse one, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Anointed One has become a child of God. And everyone who loves the Father loves His children, too.” [6]

Brooke F. Westcott (1825-1901) makes it clear that the claim to God’s knowledge without obedience and the claim to God’s agápē without action involves not only the denial of what is known to be accurate but the falseness of a believer’s character.[7] Sight is taken as a sign of limitation, which brings objects within the range of our present powers. It is necessarily easier to love that which is like our finite selves than that infinite form we cannot grasp. And the title “brother” brings out the idea of that which is godlike in mankind to which love can be directed. They, therefore, who fail to recognize God as He reveals Himself through the Anointed One dwelling in His people [8] cannot love God. They have refused God’s help for the expression of love in action.

The other day I saw a video of a man stepping onto a manual treadmill to walk for exercise. He stood there for a while, then grabbed the handles, but the tread did not move. So, he asked a friend standing close by, “How do I turn this thing on?” His friend replied in a monotone, “Start walking.” It’s the same with God’s agápē placed in our hearts. It doesn’t do a thing until we start using it. It’s the difference between love in mind and love in action.

Henry A. Sawtelle (1832-1913) sees “hating” as opposing “loving.” In other words, unlike darkness, which is the absence of light, hate is an ever-present enemy of loving. However, like light and darkness, hate and love cannot exist together in one heart. When one moves in, the other moves out. So, in not loving, there is the condition of hating when the occasion comes. Sawtelle also points out that those who do not believe this and claim otherwise falsely profess and deny love’s very nature. That’s why the Apostle John calls them “liars.” Our love is the production (verse nineteen) of God’s agápē. But God’s agápē goes out to us to the brotherhood. Therefore, our love must embrace the same company. If it does not, it is not true love from God.[9]

Erich Haupt (1841-1910) says that the Apostle John has now unfolded that God’s agápē without the love of the brethren is impossible. Up to this point, John has not spoken a word about our love for God, only of the divine love infused into us and must approve itself as brotherly love. That we must love God enters here as a new thought, which, however, is so self-explanatory that it is introduced simply as a matter taken for granted. The emphasis lies only on the evidence that we cannot conceive of having God’s agápē without loving our family of believers. The form of the exposition has been made familiar to us in chapters one and two, but here in verse twenty, we have “if a man says” there it was “if we say;” [10] we may also compare “If one of you say,” [11] and “Some man will say,” [12] So, by saying that those who claim to love God but hate their brother or sister is a “liar,” it does not violate apostolical doctrine, but asserts that they have made a deceptive assertion of being in the actual state of God’s agápē.[13]

Alfred Plummer (1841-1926) points out that the Apostle John does not say “whom he can see” but “whom he has continually before his eyes.” The perfect tense, as so often, expresses a permanent state continuing from the past. So, his brother has been and remains in sight; God has been and stays out of sight. “Out of sight, out of mind” is an old saying that holds good in morals, religion, and society. And if a person fails to carry out easy duties before their eyes, how can we trust them to perform tasks that require an effort to remember and are difficult? And in this case, the seen would necessarily suggest the unseen: the child on earth implies the Father in heaven.

If, therefore, notes Plummer, if the ones we see are not loved, what must we think about those we cannot see? The visible brother or sister and the invisible God are put in striking juxtaposition. When we read what John says here in verse twenty, “For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen,” when read in Greek goes; “For the one not loving his brother, whom he has seen, God whom he has not seen how is he able to love?” would be misunderstood in English if left that way.[14]

William Lincoln (1841-1926) observes that two Final Covenant commands are put in the opposite order from what they were in chapter three, where it says. “We love Him because He loved us first.” That is balanced: “If a man says, I love God, and hate his brother, he is a liar; if he doesn’t love his brother whom he can see, how can he love God whom he has not seen?” And we have this commandment from Him, that he who loves God, loves His brother also. We have it already as a command in the third chapter. Then in the two first verses of the fifth chapter, the sentiment is put in a two-fold form, as is frequent in Holy Scripture. What I mean is this, if a man says he loves God, God says, you will love My people then; or if a man says, he loves His people, God says, you will love Me then.[15] In other words, don’t even think about loving God until you love your fellow man because that is the way to love Him. After all, He has already put His agápē into our hearts so we can use it for that purpose.[16]

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[1] See 1 John 4:20-21 – Berean Literal Bible (BLB); Young’s Literal Translation (YLT); Smith’s Literal Translation (SLT); and Godbey New Testament (GNT)

[2] Ebrard, Johannes: Biblical Commentary on the First Epistle of St. John, op. cit., p. 309

[3] Cf. 1 John 2:4; 3:17; 4:12

[4] John 20:29

[5] Kelly, William: An Exposition of the Epistles of John the Apostle, op. cit., Logos, loc. cit.

[6] Pope, William B., Popular Commentary, op. cit., p. 316

[7] See also John 8:44, 55; and 1 John 2:22

[8] Matthew 25:49

[9] Sawtelle, Henry A., An American Commentary, Alvah Hovey Ed., op. cit., p. 53

[10] 1 John 1:6, 8

[11] James 2:16

[12] 1 Corinthians 15:35

[13] Haupt, Erich: The First Epistle of John, op. cit., pp. 281-282

[14] Plummer, Alfred: Cambridge Commentary, op. cit., pp. 153-154

[15] Lincoln, William: Lectures on 1 John, op. cit., Lecture VIII, pp 136-137

[16] See Romans 5:5

SKEPTICS may ask, why don’t people follow the advice of numerous proverbs and maxims of forethought available for centuries? Instead, they conclude that these apply only after some rightful venture has gone “horribly wrong.” When, for instance, a person gambles and loses all they have, including their house, why didn’t they remember the old Scottish proverb, “willful waste leads to woeful want?” But didn’t the gambler know this well-worn saying from earlier years? However, it wouldn’t have done much good. So, are the maxims of morality useless because people disregard them? For Christians and Jews, the Book of Proverbs is a great example. Yet, what about other religions and philosophers?

For instance, Panchatantra stories were written in Sanskrit. Later they were translated into several languages and widely distributed. Panchatantra combines the words Pancha – meaning five, and Tantra – meaning weave. Translated, it represents interweaving five traditions and teaching threads of yarn into one text.

Here’s one to think about:

HIS action, no applause invites

Who simply good with good repays.

He only justly merits praise

Who wrongful deeds with a kind response.

It reminds us of the words of Jesus, “Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, offer the other cheek also. If someone demands your coat, offer your shirt also. Give to anyone who asks, and when things are taken away from you, don’t try to get them back.” (Luke 6:28-30 – NLT)

For you or anyone who may be dealing with a handicap, this story should inspire you. Glenn Cunningham was just seven years old when he nearly died in an explosion that killed his brother. He had gone to his one-room school with several siblings on a January morning. Finding the school empty and cold, Glenn’s brother Floyd started to light a fire in the small coal stove. Floyd didn’t know the stove had some hot coals from the previous night’s community meeting or that the Kerosine labeled can contained gasoline. Fire exploded out of the stove as soon as Floyd poured the fuel. Flames burned Floyd terribly and reached Glenn’s legs as he stood nearby. They ran the two miles home through the snow and were put to bed while the children went to find their mother. 

The doctor that attended Glenn and Floyd told their parents that Floyd would not live – the burns were too severe. But Glenn would probably live unless infection set in. Either way, the doctor warned the family that Glenn would never walk again. His legs were useless now. But Glenn didn’t want to be a burden on his family. So, after overhearing a neighbor tell his mother to face the fact that he would have a disability for the rest of his life, Glenn made an important decision to walk again. Fortunately, his mother believed him when he tearfully told her this. And Glenn resolved to walk again, no matter how much it hurts or how hard it was to do. He would repeat, “I’ll walk! I’ll walk,” when he lost courage. 

Glenn remembered his wonderful family. He recalled, “I can’t even imagine how horrible it must have been with all the smells and the sight of my rotting flesh. I lost all the flesh on my knees, shins, and toes on my left foot. My transverse arch was mostly gone. Yet my family kept changing the dressings and massaging my legs, though there was little muscle and sinew left to massage.”

After his legs healed, Glenn started to work on walking. His first hurdle was standing, then moving. He would stand up, holding onto a kitchen chair, pushing it slowly before him. He called that ‘walking’ and practiced until he was too tired to continue. Later he got outside and walked along the fence, holding on, so he didn’t fall. His legs were twisted, and he seemed to walk ‘crooked.’ He was just glad he was walking!   His favorite scripture was Isaiah 40:31: “But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”  

Soon he was grabbing the tail of the family mule when they went for water. He’d try to stay up with the mule as he strolled along. And he’d play with his siblings however he could. When he could go outdoors, his dad assigned him chores again. It was great for Glenn to be helpful! Glenn was walking! Now he set his sights on running. After all, he wasn’t yet ten years old, and running was part of being a kid and playing with friends. Besides, it hurt less to run than walk. Glenn said that walking felt like daggers in his feet, and running felt better. All the while, Glenn kept massaging his scarred, twisted legs and continued to try to run. He could run well if his legs were stretched out by rubbing first. His legs didn’t seem so convoluted; only infrequently would they give out from under him.

Glenn’s family moved a lot as they tried to make a living as farmers. After moving to another small town, he found himself a mile from the school. Most kids that lived that far brought lunch, but Glenn ran home to eat. That was good for his legs.

One day he saw a race advertised in the downtown store window. He quietly entered the race and won. He said, “I showed up at the track meet in my work clothes and thick-soled canvas sneakers. I was a fourth grader, and most others were high school athletes. All of them wore running shorts and spiked running shoes. I must have looked like David lined up against all the giants, but I won going away!” Glenn was officially a runner!

Glenn cemented in his mind that he wanted to become a doctor like his grandfather and that he wanted to run in the Olympics. Unfortunately, he had trouble with his schoolwork and getting credit for fourth grade and missed all fifth grade in Colorado. His hopes of going to college to become a doctor were a longshot. But so had been walking, and now he was running! He kept his hopes alive, and when they moved back to Elkhart, Indiana, he got back into his studies even while working. 

Amazingly, with no toes on his left foot and scarred legs, Glenn also played on his high school football team! He enjoyed all sports, knowing that with some massage and stretching, he could now do what most other kids did—run and play! His rehabilitation amazes us today, but Glenn didn’t make a big deal about it. Most people didn’t even realize he had conquered so much to be there.

Glenn made it to college, refusing to accept a scholarship to attend. Instead, he worked his way through. Glenn didn’t want to owe anyone anything. So, he ran on the track team, gaining the coach’s attention. Glenn ran so fast that they thought he’d be able to break the 4-minute mark. His best time was 4:04, set in 1938. Remember that Roger Bannister finally broke the 4-minute mile in 1954.

Glenn ran in the 1932 Los Angeles and 1936 Berlin Olympics, as he had dreamed of as a boy. He won Silver in the 1500-meter race in Berlin. He retired from running in 1940 after the war canceled the Olympics. However, many still consider him America’s most outstanding miler. 

Eventually, he became a doctor, married, and raised a family of ten children. He and his wife created a home for wayward boys that helped thousands with dashed dreams reach them. For years he was a motivational speaker. When people asked him about his burns, he said, “My mother and father always brought us up never to complain. I was asked to do a lot of speeches through the years, and I often talked about overcoming challenges, but I always figured I needed to do my best and never quit. Complaining about something I had no control over would have diminished what I was trying to do. I just wanted to let my running speak for itself.”

Glenn shows us that we can do anything if determined to back our dreams with hard work. And rely on the Lord to help us. So, hang in there and keep working hard to beat your challenges.  

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson CXXXIII) 08/12/22

^4:20If anyone says “I love God” but keeps hating their brother or sister, they are lying; if they don’t love their brother or sister who is right in front of them, how can they love God whom they have never seen?

Bishop Arthur Temple Lyttelton (1852-1903), Suffragan Bishop of Southampton, states: We cannot love Him whom we do not see, and to comprehend the tremendous invisible influence in which we live and move and have our being, to appreciate the person who is watching over and directing us and directing all this complicated scheme of things, is more complex and harder to do. And the world comes close around us and absorbs us. If that is our difficulty, we may take verse twenty as teaching us that there is training in God’s agápē.

So, offers Lyttelton, if we accept that love of others is training for God’s agápē; for, though it is hard to grasp the invisible, we have the visible. We have people; we have a love for others, which is natural to us, and easy for us in a sense. And I think that is what the Apostle implies as training for God’s agápē – the love of our brother and sister whom we see; this familiar friend, who is with us at every turn of our life, with whom we are continually in contact. And in our natural life in the world, this familiar friend is the means to train and draw out this excellent talent in us – the love of our friend and our fellowman. So we are to train and exercise ourselves in God’s agápē. And that simple, natural human affection we feel for our friends is the same faculty as that required for God’s agápē.

We must not think of this agápē as something extraordinary, says Lyttelton, some new and unknown faculty to be given to us. No doubt all love of God is a gift: but all love is similar to the same affection. It is essentially going out of ourselves, loving another, and living for another. And whether that other be a fellowman, or God Himself, still the impulse is the same – the putting aside of all selfish motivations and living in and for God or men. That is love. So, the love of others is, as I said, training for God’s agápē because it is the same faculty that is needed for both. And in our weakness, when we cannot rise to God’s agápē, let us remember that we have our Lord’s warrant that whatsoever “we do to the least of these His brethren we do unto Him.” [1] And when we love our brethren, it is the first step to God’s agápē. We cannot pass it over; we cannot rise to God’s agápē; we cannot see unless we love “our brethren whom we have seen.” [2]

James Macknight (1721-1800) cautions that we should let no one deceive us concerning the love people owe to God. If anyone says, of course, I love God and yet hate Christians, they are liars; They are deceivers if they are a teacher; or, if they are private individuals, they are hypocrites. For those who do not love their brother or sister, whose good qualities and various distress they have seen, how can they love God, whose excellencies are not detected by physical senses but by human reasoning based on their good works?[3] This is what Luther, Calvin, John Wesley, and other Reformers found objectional in the doctrine and practices of the Roman church. If you cannot work your way into God’s agápē, you cannot work your way into God’s heaven.

John Brown of Haddington (1722-1787) claims that our unbeatable love for God is connected with a sincere love for all His children. To pretend to love God and yet to indulge in an unkind, incompatible, and hateful attitude toward our fellow Christians is to expose us as lying about our profession, the Anointed One as our Savior, and to all the declarations in the Scripture concerning true love to Him. For if we do not show love to our fellow believers in the faith and fellowship of the Gospel, we can see and in whom we discern the image of God, how can we ever love an invisible God?[4]  

Augustus Neander (1789-1850) feels that to impress on Christians the obligation of brotherly love, the Apostle John again reminds them that through God’s agápē to them, their love was first kindled; and then goes on to show that devotion to God necessarily involves love to our fellow man. John makes it clear that our love for Him comes from His loving us first. If anyone says “I love God” but keeps on hating their brother or sister, they are telling a lie, for if they don’t love their brother or sister who is right there in front of them, how can they love God whom they have never seen?[5]

Albert Barnes (1798-1870) says it is unnecessary to correctly interpret this passage to suppose that someone[6] not loving their brother or sister but still contending that they love God is intentionally deceiving anyone. The sense is that this must be a false profession. It is more reasonable to expect that we should love someone we have seen and know personally than someone we have not seen. The Apostle John is arguing about human nature as it is, and everyone feels that we are more likely to love one with whom we are familiar than a stranger. If a professed Christian, therefore, does not love one who bears the Divine image, whom they see and know, how can they claim to love the unseen God in whose image they were created?

Richard Rothe (1799-1867) says that now the Apostle John calls our attention to the self-deception into which we are apt to fall concerning our love. Because between Him and us, there is such a vast space. The coldness of our love measures the greatness of the distance. Therefore, when we regard love for God as something which must be essentially different from ordinary love, we readily agree on the simplest form of showing our love for God. We admit the rationality of the summons to love God but conclude that it does not require any special effort on our part other than just to tell Him we love Him. That way, it is not such a burden to us.

Thus, we are inclined to regard them as distant requirements rather than those near at hand because there seems to be no immediate need to fulfill them, and they are presented to us only as an idea.[7] In other words, we accept that when we see someone suffering without a home, clothing, or food, we pity them. But for heaven’s sake, don’t ask us to find shelter, clothing, or food for them. Especially if it’s our home, our clothing we must give, or food we must prepare and then feed them.[8] For some, that’s taking love too far.

Irish pastor of the Fisherwick Presbyterian Church, Belfast, Dr. James Morgan (1799-1873), points out that several text clauses are constructed to light up their meaning. “A person may say, ‘I love God.'” They may say it and think it and yet not do it. In that case, they are playing a game with themselves. On the other hand, they may say it and not think it. In such a case, they are hypocrites. In the middle of such self-deception or hypocritical profession, a person “may hate their Christian brother or sister.” The person who so speaks and acts that way is to be pronounced as “a liar.” There is a total inconsistency between what they say and do. Their conduct towards others contradicts their profession of being in God and He in them.

An argument, says Morgan, is next used to prove the inconsistency of professing love to God while others are treated with hate. This is the Apostle John’s message here in verse twenty. This is assumed to be an impossibility. And it should be. Their brother and sister are God’s children. Can anyone love a person and hate their child? Our brothers and sisters are representatives of God, and in hating them, we hate God. For John to confirm the argument, he adds, “God gave us this command: “If we love God, we must also love each other as brothers and sisters.” [9] We say we love God. Of that love, the great proof is that “we keep His commandments.” But one of His commandments is that we love one another. [10]

William E. Jelf (1811-1875) states that the form of the question in the Greek text pōs dynamai, “how can” a person love God whom they have not seen, refers to the reader’s reasons. It is absurd to suppose that they could do so. As the love of the invisible God requires more incredible mental energy than the love of the visible creature, it is contrary to reason that an individual would claim the firmer mental energy while the easier is still out of their reach. It doesn’t matter if it’s because of their will or their power, for the force depends on the choice and the will up to a certain point of control. God’s agápē is indeed the source and necessary condition of a Christian’s love for others, and yet this has its basis in the natural tendency of human-to-human love, though this being stifled by sin and requires God’s agápē to develop and perfect it.

No person can rise to God’s agápē, insists Jelf, unless they first have such agápē for their fellowman, but this does not rise to the dignity and purity of Christian grace until it is elevated and purified by the former. A person with no affection towards those they see can have no fondness for one they have not seen. There are two reasons why the absence of God’s agápē argues the lack of love for others. 1. The love of others is the foundation, the root of God’s agápē; therefore, the latter cannot exist without the former. 2. Mankind’s love flows from God’s agápē; therefore, if the former does not exist, neither does the latter.^[11]

John Stock (1817-1884) urges Christians to love one another; in this agápē stands the sign that they have passed from death unto life.[12] The more this agápē abounds, the clearer is the manifestation that we believers are not predestined to God’s harsh judgment but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus the Anointed One[13] for His sake only and not for our most imperfect love. We are of the Father of all mercies and the God of all comfort,[14] accredited as being right in God’s eyes and having eternal life.[15]

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[1] Matthew 25:40, 45

[2] Lyttelton, Arthur Temple: The Church Pulpit Commentary, op. cit., Vol. 12, Love to Men, pp. 308-310

[3] Macknight, James: Literal Paraphrase, op. cit., p. 97

[4] Brown, John Haddington: Self-Interpreting Bible, op. cit., p. 1328

[5] Neander, William: First Epistle of John, op. cit., Chapters IV, V, p. 272

[6] Barnes, Albert: Notes on the N.T., op. cit., p. 4870

[7] Rothe, Richard: The Expository Times, op. cit., November 1894, p. 87

[8] See Matthew 25:36-40

[9] 1 John 4:21

[10] Morgan, James: An Exposition of the First Epistle of John, Second Edition, T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1866. 375

[11] Jelf, William E., First Epistle of St. John, op. cit., pp. 67-68

[12] 1 John 3:14

[13] 1 Thessalonians 5:9

[14] 2 Corinthians 1:3

[15] Stock, John: Exposition of First Epistle of John, op. cit., p. 392