The Proof of Love

1 John 2:7-11
P. G. Mathew | Sunday, February 25, 2001
Copyright © 2001, P. G. Mathew

Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining. Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.

1 John 2:7-11

How can we know that we are Christians and saved forever? In this study we want to address this vital subject of having assurance of salvation.

In our previous study we asked, “How can we know that we have fellowship with God?” The proof John gave was keeping his commandments. Jesus Christ saves us from our sins, so if we are saved by Christ, we will love God and obey his commandments. A person who claims to be a Christian yet lives in continuing, ongoing sin has nothing to do with Christianity. But if we are living in obedience to God, our hearts will be flooded with the knowledge that we are children of God. And if we are Christians, we have been given divine nature, and, therefore, we will with great delight keep God’s commandments.

The Test of Loving the Brethren

In this passage, 1 John 2:7-11, we find a particular test by which we can know we are Christians: It is love of the brethren.

After telling us that we know that we are in Christ if we walk as Jesus did, now the apostle tells us more specifically that we can know that we are in the light if we love our brothers. So in verse 10 John writes, “Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble.” God is light, so whoever loves his brother lives in the sphere of God. Love of the brethren, then, is the specific test John gives.

Why is love the specific test? Because all commandments are comprehended in this one thing called love. Throughout the Pentateuch we are told that we should love the Lord with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, as we read in Deuteronomy 6:4-5 and Leviticus 19:17-18. When Jesus Christ was asked what the most important commandment was, he replied, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments (Matthew 22: 37-40).

In the gospel of John, Jesus calls this command to love the brethren a new commandment. In John 13:34 Jesus said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” In John 15:12 Jesus said, “My commandment is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” In John 15:17 Jesus said, “This is my command: Love each other.” And in 1 John 3:23 the apostle gives us two commandments: “And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.” In other words, faith in Jesus Christ must manifest in love for one another.

Paul speaks about this command as well. In Galatians 5:6 he writes, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself in love.” Paul is saying that, for Christians, neither cold orthodoxy nor cold intellectualism nor solo Christianity count for ought, but only “faith expressing itself in love.” Then, in Galatians 5:14 Paul writes, “The entire law,” meaning the entire will of God, “is summed up in a single command: Love your neighbor as yourself.” Interestingly, Paul does not mention loving God; instead, he is telling his readers that the entire will of God is subsumed under this one command to love our neighbor as ourselves. Paul’s rationale here is that love for God and love for neighbor are two sides of the same coin. One cannot exist without the other.

Notice, then, the test is not that we should love God, who is unseen. The reality of our love to God will be evident in our love for God’s people. It is understood that those who love the people of God, whom they can see, truly do love God, who is invisible. Therefore, Paul says, the whole law is comprehended in this one command: Love your neighbor as yourself.

What Is This Love?

What type of love is John speaking about when he tells us to love our brethren? He used a word in the secular Greek, agapaô, agape, agapeitoi. This word represented a type of love in which the mind analyzes and the will chooses the object to be loved. So agapê is not a term to describe love as it is understood today. Today’s definition of love speaks of being given over entirely to an emotion or feeling. But agapê involves the whole man-his intellect and will as well as his emotions. To show agapê is not to “fall in love” in the modern sense. To love the agapê way is to decide to act in a deliberate and free way rather than being overwhelmed by feelings.

Thus, Christian love is not simply a wave of blind emotion, but a deliberate conviction of the mind, issuing in a deliberate policy of life. Intellect and will are primarily involved in this love, and that is why God can command us to love. If Christian love was only the result of a wave of emotion, it could not be commanded. When God commands us to love another person, it means we can choose to show love by performing deeds that benefit the other person. By the power of the Holy Spirit, the regenerate Christian can set his mind and will to love his brothers and sisters. We demonstrate this love by performing deeds for the benefit of others. So feeling is not the determining element in Christian love.

This agapê seeks the highest good for the beloved, which, for a Christian, is the will of God. So love is the doing of the will of God.

Who Were the Heretics? The Teachings of the Heretics

In this epistle the apostle John was not only instructing God’s people, but he was also dealing with the heretics called Gnostics. It is good, therefore, to take another look at these Gnostics.

Gnostics threw away the historical revelation in Jesus Christ in favor of what they manufactured in their heads. These errorists made many false claims just as people make claims in the church today. They claimed that they were Christians. They claimed that they were born again. They claimed that they were on their way to heaven. In fact, in their great hollow assurance, these Gnostics looked down upon everybody else.

John records six claims the Gnostics were making. In 1 John 1:6 we read, “If we claim to have fellowship with him, yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.” They said, “We have fellowship with God,” but they kept on sinning. In 1 John 1:10 we read that these people claimed to have never sinned, and in 1 John 1:8 they said they were without sin. In 1 John 2:4 they said, “We know God,” and yet they did not obey God. In 1 John 2:9 the errorists claimed, “We are in the light,” but they hated the brothers. In 1 John 4:20 they said, “I love God,” but they hated the brothers.

These six claims speak about the errorists’ view of their salvation and relationship with God. But the apostle John was pointing out that these claims were false. Thinking they were going to heaven, these heretics were, in fact, on their way to hell.

There were several groups of heretics that John addressed in his epistles. First, there were Gnostics like Cerinthus, who was a contemporary of John. We are told that Cerinthus devoted his life to pleasures of the body. Taken up with every form of sexual immorality, Cerinthus counseled that his followers practice multiple marriages and pointed them toward a future kingdom which consisted of further delights of the belly and sexual passion.

Later, there were men like Carpocrates, who taught that the creation was not the work of the absolute, primary God, but rather, was the work of an emanation far removed from God called demiurge. This demiurge, according to Carpocrates, was responsible for matter, and since these people said matter was evil, demiurge was, therefore, responsible for evil.

These people also said the demiurge was responsible for the Ten Commandments, so Christians should oppose the Ten Commandments by doing the opposite of what they tell us to do. They were defining biblical sin not as sin but as something good in other words-calling good evil and evil good. They delighted in violating the Ten Commandments and taught, for example, that it is good to commit adultery. They said, “By committing adultery we are opposing the demiurge, who created matter and gave us the Ten Commandments.” Thus they canonized autonomy and antinomianism. They taught that committing sin is the way to perfect knowledge. Additionally, they redefined sin as ignorance-ignorance of where men came from, or who men are, and what they would become. Of course, these Gnostics had the answers and were themselves saved!

Our time is no different from the time of the apostle John at the end of the first century. The new morality teaches that it is all right to commit adultery. Our political leaders tell us it is all right to commit adultery. But God still opposes it.

Later on, in the second century, a man named Valentinus built upon the teaching of these Gnostics and taught that there are three types of people. The first type are material people, who are lost and cannot be saved. The second type are animal people who, Valentinus said, could be saved, but only through serious choice and effort. The third type of people are the spiritual ones, the pneumatikoi. These people do not have to do anything; they are already saved. And not only were such people saved, Valentinus said, but they could sin to their heart’s content without consequence. Their sin did not affect their salvation, in other words..

Such were the type of people John was dealing with in his epistles. He was addressing a certain incipient Gnosticism taught by people who were arrogant, who had divorced themselves from teachings of the Bible as well as from Jesus Christ and his apostles. These people were promoting the new, strange and “noble” teachings of antinomianism and salvation outside of the person and work of Jesus Christ of history.

The cults of today do the same thing as these Gnostic teachers did. For example, Christian Scientists say that sin is unreal, an illusion. If you examine any cult, you will find that they are opposed to the biblical view of sin, the biblical view of salvation, and the biblical view of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

The Gnostics of John’s day hated true Christians. They mocked them, even as they were trying to infect them with their erroneous denial of the biblical, ethical standards. We find the same thing happening in liberal churches as well as in superficial evangelical churches today. Such churches promote antinomianism and autonomy even while assuring salvation to people, no matter how they live. “You are in, because you invited Jesus to come in! Go ahead, sin to your heart’s content. Your salvation is assured.” This is the legacy of Gnosticism.

The True Gospel The Authentic Christian Life

Even as the Gnostics were perpetrating their false teachings, John was teaching true Christians how they must live the authentic Christian life. “The message you heard from the beginning” is a message which spoke about biblical ethics, especially about Christians loving one another. When John and others preached the gospel, they taught the catechumens that they should believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and keep his commandments, including the command to love their brothers. This was the apostolic preaching of the first century. So John was not promulgating a strange new teaching; he was pointing his readers to the same old message they had already received.

In 1 John 2:7 John begins, “Dear friends,” but in the Greek the word is Agapêtoi, meaning “Beloved.” This is a more accurate translation, in view of the love that is being taught in that passage.

Oh, it gives us great joy to be addressed as “Beloved”! But of whom are we beloved? We are beloved of the Father from before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4). Additionally, we are beloved of the Son, of whom Paul writes, “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us” (Ephesians 5:2), and “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25). Additionally, we are beloved of the apostles and beloved of every Christian in the family of God. That is why we must translate that greeting as “Beloved,” not “Dear friends.”

Let me tell you, being “beloved” is a state we are in as Christians and we can never become unbeloved. We are always beloved because we can never come unglued from God’s love. In Ephesians 1:6 we read that we are accepted “in the beloved. . . .” The Greek word hêgapêmenô means “one who always remains to be beloved.” We are accepted in the Beloved-Jesus Christ-and so we also must remain forever beloved.

An Old/New Commandment

In 1 John 2:7 John writes, “I am not writing you a new command, but an old one.” Here John is denying that he is teaching novel doctrines, such as the teachings of the Gnostics. People naturally have itching ears and they tend to want to hear something new. We encounter this type of thinking today. I myself am preaching the same old thing-Jesus Christ and him crucified-I have been preaching for more than a quarter of a century. I am preaching nothing new. Some people will come to our church and sit at the back, looking for something that will cause itching to take place in their ears.

This desire to hear something new is an old problem. The Gnostics were people who majored in new things. They despised anything that was old, authentic, orthodox, and historically revealed.

But John denied that he was teaching novel, strange things. This is what Paul also said in 1 Corinthians 11:23 when he wrote, “For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you. . . .” In other words, Paul was saying, “I didn’t make up the gospel I preached to you. I received it from God himself and I gave it to you.” In the same way, when I preach the gospel, I am preaching the orthodox teaching handed down to me. It is the old teaching coming to us from Jesus Christ himself. It is the teaching you received in the beginning of your Christian experience.

Fulfilled in Christ

What is this new teaching, which is not new at all? That Christians should love one another. Now, this command was revealed already in the Old Testament. So why does John say it is new? Because no one in the history of humanity ever fulfilled the commandment that we should love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves until the Son of God became incarnate.

It is in the life and death of Jesus Christ that we find this teaching fulfilled. Thus, there is a newness to it because Jesus Christ was the first to fulfill all commandments when he showed his love for God and us by dying on the cross. PGM As we said before, Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. This is agapê demonstrated by the Lord Jesus Christ. It was love based on intelligent understanding of the Father’s will, not on some irrational, blind emotion coming over Jesus Christ and causing him to say, “I want to go and die on the cross.”

Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. In John 10: 14-18, Jesus tells us something about the fulfilling of this new command:

I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me-just as the Father knows me and I know the Father-and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life-only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. . . .

This is what love is all about. It is old love, the love God spoke of in the Old Testament, and yet it is also new love, because Jesus Christ exemplified it perfectly by loving us and laying down his life for us.

A New Standard

In John 13:34 Jesus Christ told his disciples, “A new command I give you: Love one another.” Jesus gave a new standard. Before, it was, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” But after the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ the standard changed. So Jesus continued, “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” He repeated this in John 15:12, saying, “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” The new standard is to love others as Jesus Christ loved us.

In 1 John 2:6 John writes, “Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.” Jesus is our standard. How did Paul say husbands should love their wives? “As Christ loved the church and gave himself for her.” There is a new standard.

Fulfilled in the Church

The command to love others is old, but it is also new, because Christ exemplified it perfectly and because there is a new standard coming to us in this command to love. Additionally, it is new because this commandment is being fulfilled afresh daily in the lives of true Christians who are born of God and indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

The truth of this commandment is seen in Jesus Christ, who alone kept the commandment perfectly as the Messiah. But in 1 John 2:8 John writes, “Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.”

The truth of the new commandment that we love one another is seen in Jesus Christ, but it is also seen in us, John is saying. Wonder of wonders! Self-centered human beings, when transformed by the mighty power of God, are enabled to love one another. The new commandment was not only fulfilled in Jesus Christ, but it is also being fulfilled in the church of Jesus Christ, though not perfectly.

We find this truth demonstrated in Acts 2:42-47, where we read,

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

And in Acts 4:32-35 we read,

All the believers were one in heart and mind. No-one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sale and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.

The Gospel Light Defeats Darkness

When John wrote, “Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and in you. . .” how did he know that this command was being fulfilled in Jesus Christ and his church? Here is the reason John gives: “because darkness is passing away and true light is already shining.”

Since the coming of Jesus Christ, the true light of the gospel has been shining, intruding into this evil age, causing darkness and evil to retreat. Because of the victory of Jesus over the powers of darkness, we can successfully fight against the devil. James instructed us, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). The strong man is bound by the stronger One, the eternal Son, who defeated him by his death on the cross.

The gospel light is making great progress as the word of God is multiplied in human hearts. By applying the redemption which Jesus Christ accomplished by his death on the cross into human hearts through the mighty power of the Spirit, people who were anchored to themselves, their desires, and Satan are unentangled. Liberated from the shackles of sin and self-centeredness, they are now centered in God. As they are regenerated, and as they repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, they, by the power of the Holy Spirit, will live out their Christian lives of love. That is why John can say that the true light is already shining. It is shining in the church of Jesus Christ. Jesus himself said of his disciples, “You are the light of the world.”

The whole world is in deep darkness. People may look to worldly philosophers for answers, but the Bible says all human philosophies are hollow, hopeless, meaningless cogitations of sinners. They are darkness, in other words, but the darkness of evil shall not triumph. This is what John is saying: it is on the retreat. It has been defeated by Christ on the cross and its complete defeat is going to come. In 1 John 2:28 we read, “And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming.” Jesus is coming again, and at that time, darkness will be completely driven out from his world, and there will be a new heaven and a new earth. But it is already happening in the lives of God’s people.

Why should a Christian marriage thrive? It should thrive because there is love in that marriage. In the same way, a Christian family should thrive because there is love in that family. A Christian church should thrive because there is love in that church.

If your marriage is not thriving, you ought to be ashamed. It means there is still a lot of sin, a lot of darkness, a lot of selfishness, a lot of denial of Christian truth. You must repent and ask God to forgive your sins and flood your heart and home with great fullness of love. Let your light shine so that the world can see that you are Christ’s disciples. You are the light of the world, and you have an obligation to the world to live in it as light. Your marriage should work and your family should thrive.

Living in the Light

In 1 John 2:10 John writes, “Whoever loves his brother lives in the light. . . .” Notice, we are not put in the light because we love our brothers. Salvation is by grace; it is given freely by divine initiation. But our love of the brethren-our love of our wives or our husbands, our love of our children, our love of our brothers and sisters in the church-reveals, manifests, and shows clearly that we are in the light, and born of God.

How, then, do we know a person is a Christian? “Whoever loves his brother lives in the light.” Then John adds, “There is nothing in him to make him stumble.” His salvation is secure, in other words. He is not going to fall away. He is in the light and will continue to walk in the light throughout his life.

In Proverbs 4:18-19 we find a clear contrast between the life of a believer and that of an unbeliever: “The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of the dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day. But the way of the wicked is like deep darkness; they do not know what makes them stumble.”

In John 11:9-10 Jesus himself said, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? A man who walks by day will not stumble, for he sees by this world’s light. It is when he walks by night that he stumbles, for he has no light.” In John 8:12 Jesus declared, “I am the light of the world. He who follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” That is why John could write that he who loves his brother lives in the light and is secure in the Lord.

The apostle John is not speaking about cold orthodoxy or intellectualism, where everything is discussed and agreed upon, but there is no practicing of love; neither is he talking about solo Christianity. There are people who go from one church to another church over and over again. They don’t want to stay in a church for any length of time and build any serious relationships, because then they will be seen and known by others. So they hop from place to place. That is called solo Christianity. Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with authentic Christianity. Authentic Christianity means that we love our brothers, and in order to do that, we must belong to a community of God’s people and have a serious relationship with people who may come to us and love us, rebuke us, correct us, adjust us, or whatever else is needed.

Why should we love others in the church of Jesus Christ? There is a simple answer found in 1 John 5:1: “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.” If we are truly from the same Father, we must love all of his children.

In 1 John 3:10 we read, “This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are. . . .” Now it is very clear. If you don’t love one another, you are the children of the devil, because these people claimed to live in the light but hated their brothers. So John writes, “This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.”

I pray that we will think seriously about these things. “Whoever loves his brother lives in the light.” John uses the word menô, which means to live or abide. The idea is to live somewhere permanently. I travel quite a bit and was recently in Frankfurt for a few hours. But although I was staying in Frankfurt for a few hours, I was not residing there permanently; I was in transit. John is saying that the one who loves his brother is a permanent resident of the realm of light.

We read the same thing in Colossians 1:13, where Paul writes, “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.” God is our dwelling place; in him we live and move and have our being. So Paul writes that God rescued us from this evil age and placed us in his kingdom, permanently.

Remaining in Darkness

John makes one more point in 1 John 2:11: “But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.” In other words, the person who hates his brother, despite his claim to be a Christian, is in darkness. In spite of all the claims we may make, if we do not love one another, we are, first of all, unregenerate; second, we walk about in darkness; and, third, we do not know where we are going. Oh, we may write philosophy books and tell everyone what to do, but the truth is, we have no idea what we ourselves are doing. We do not even know where we are heading. We are always traveling in circles, never arriving at a destination. And, finally, John says such people are blinded by the darkness in them.

In the Mammoth Caves of Kentucky there is a river called the Echo River which has some interesting fish in it. If you take one of the fish out of this river, you will notice that it has eye sockets, but no eyes. Those who claim to know Christ yet walk in darkness are like these fish. Such people teach in universities and seminaries. They preach in churches all over the world. But if you speak about the Lord Jesus Christ being the virgin-born, second Person of the Trinity, the God/man, these professors will get angry.

John says such people are in darkness, they walk about in darkness, they do not know where they are going, and they are blind. When you take a close look at them, you will see big eye sockets, but no eyes. Such false professors are the blind leading the blind as they tell everyone else how to live but know nothing of the true and living God.

What About You?

What about you? Has God opened your eyes? Has he translated you out of the realm of darkness into the realm of his dear Son? Have you been born of God? Are you on your way to heaven? Are you a child of God? Are you walking in the light? Do you love the heavenly Father and his children?

May God have mercy on us and help us to think seriously about these things. May we examine ourselves in the light of his infallible word and see if we are in the darkness or in the light. May we cry out to him even this day, knowing that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. Amen.