Impersonal Love; 1 John 3:12-15

The devil’s world system has a value system, a certain level of ethics and morality. The unbeliever can produce a certain standard of virtue and integrity. But this is far short of the virtue and integrity demanded by God which is absolute or perfect righteousness. The virtue and integrity that is produced by the world is a manifestation of whatever ethical or moral system they are espousing, so it is always a relative righteousness. So when we read through 1 John and we think in terms of cosmos [kosmoj] we need to think in terms of human culture, i.e. the every-day value system, the every-day lifestyle, the every-day views and opinions of a culture at large. We have to remember that self-righteousness is a major function of our modern culture and that self-righteousness functions through the four arrogance skills.

The first arrogance skill is self-absorption. We begin to focus on ourselves, our own feelings, our own emotions—how we feel about things. In self-absorption man focuses on his own problems.

The second arrogance skill is self-indulgence. Now that we are focusing on ourselves we are going to indulge those emotions, attention to our own problems and situations, our own opinions in thinking about those situations. And in self-indulgence man indulges in the fantasy that he can solve his problems apart from God. This, then, develops into the third arrogance skill. The third arrogance skill is self-justification. In self-justification we are going to justify our own views, our own opinions, our own attempts to solve our problems on our own. So man justifies this and says that God really doesn’t exist, He is not involved in our problems or in human history; so we must do it on our own. If we don’t do it nobody else will. That, then, produces self-deception. In self-deception man constructs his own view of reality. God is the one who defines reality, defines what the absolutes are. When man tries to reconstruct reality, leading to his own self-deception, it is a false view of reality. If wee are not operating on a true view of reality then when we solve problems we won’t solve problems. We might find a level of comfort and satisfaction with life the way it is but there is no real solution to the issues of life. We are just going to exchange one set of problems for another set of problems. So in self-deception man constructs examples of successful solutions that are usually fallacious. Many of the campaigns that we can look at in our own history to improve life and to change various social features are motivated by self-righteous arrogance to create a perfect environment. At the root of our modern cultural attempts to solve social problems is the assumption that man is perfectable and that society is perfectable. So attempts have been to solve the various social problems of the day through various human viewpoint techniques, and they have always ended up producing more problems than they solve.

As we live in a fallen world, as believers we have to take in to account three important doctrines that are foundational and really show the difference between the way the world looks at reality, the culture at large looks at reality, and the way the Bible looks at reality. The first is to take seriously the doctrine of the fall of man. This teaches that man is inherently evil, not inherently good, and that he is prone to evil. That doesn’t mean that everybody is as evil as they could be. The culture at large defines some who is evil as someone who is a serial killer or a serial rapist, or someone who gets involved in terrorist activities; but when we look at the Scriptures a person can be evil because they are promoting good in the wrong context. So there can be someone who teaches that you can be saved by your own works and, because that is going to change your eternal destiny to the lake of fire instead of heaven, that is more wicked and evil than somebody who commits mass murder. So we have to define evil not in the way the world defines evil but in the way the Bible defines evil. Man being evil doesn’t mean that he is as bad as he can be but that every aspect of his thinking is divorced from reality from birth because of sin. So when man acts in independence from God that is the essence of evil. Then, because of the failure to take into account total depravity it affects the way our human institutions operate. When we think that man is perfect and basically good what happens the move is to remove the checks and balances of government in order to increase the power of government. Then third, when we understand the doctrine of the fall we realise that we live in a fallen world that society cannot be perfected and that the environment cannot be perfected. And so instead of trying to perfect everything we change direction. It doesn’t mean we don’t try to handle problems or have some level of social righteousness of justice, but it is a different move to establish justice or righteousness than it is to have perfection. If we are not operating on an understanding of total depravity we have a completely skewed view of reality.

In contrast, the Bible offers a responsible view of government, of having problems with the environment, problems with society, but addresses them within the framework of the doctrine of total depravity. Failure to do so means that we are going to be divorced from reality and solutions based on a pseudo reality are always doomed to failure.

This is all to set a context. The context is that we are operating in a culture that has problems with understanding the sinfulness of sin and the extent of depravity. So a person who is raised in a culture is eventually saved, he is then bring that mental baggage with him into Christianity. We see evidence of that in modern trends, e.g. the idea that if you are saved you are not going to have problems with sins; that your sin nature is no longer as depraved after you are saved as it was before you were saved. In light of what we learn in 1^st John, if we take that perfectionistic view of the cosmic system with us as baggage into our Christian life then what we are doing is bringing the world’s thinking with us into our post-salvation life. The Bible calls that being a friend of the world in James chapter four where we learn that the friend of the world is the enemy of God. If we are operating in the world’s system we are of the devil, acting like a child of the devil and not like we are in the new royal family of God. When we take that perfectionistic worldly attitude into the church, then we are going to become appalled and shocked when some Christian commit some overt sins.

There are too many theologians and Christians and pastors in the church who have forgotten what total depravity is all about. They have established a false criterion for the spiritual life, for salvation, and have failed to focus on the necessity of forward advance to spiritual maturity. That is what creates the problems with understanding 1^st John 3. The issue here is not, Are they saved? The issue is, Are they manifesting their relationship with God so that they can be without shame when He is manifested at the Rapture and the judgment seat of Christ. Are we as believers manifesting our relationship with God so that we can be without shame when He is manifested at the Rapture? The doing of righteousness is a manifestation of the fact that you are a member of the royal family of God. If you don’t do righteousness it just means you are not living like a member of the family; it doesn’t mean you are not a member of the family.

1 John 3:10 ^NASB “By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.” Only a person who is regenerate can produce through the Holy Spirit perfect righteousness. If he is not in right relationship to the Holy Spirit he cannot produce perfect righteousness. Remember, perfect righteousness here is not morality. Any unbeliever can be moral. Perfect righteousness here is talking about the production of Christian virtue, the production that comes from a soul that has Christian integrity produced by God the Holy Spirit in conjunction with the Word of God. So John is saying that the way you can tell whether a person is manifesting their family relationships is whether or not there is a production of integrity. And he is going to use one example which is the highest and greatest example of Christian integrity—impersonal love, and impersonal love for all mankind. 1 John 3:11 ^NASB “For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.” This is reiterated in verse 23: “This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us.” There are two separate issues in v. 23. Believing in His Son is salvation; loving one another is a responsibility that every believer has once he is in the family.

Then John begins to gives us an illustration to understand the significance of the commandment. 1 John 3:12 ^NASB “not as Cain, {who} was of the evil one and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous.” There is nowhere in the Scripture that indicates Cain’s regeneration status. The issue in Genesis chapter four did not have anything to do with salvation. The best we can say is that it had to do with their understanding of the ceremonial observance that God laid down in order to come into His presence, which would indicate more of a sanctification issue than a salvation issue. But we can’t press that, the Scriptures are completely silent as to whether or not Cain is saved. Most people assume that Cain was not saved and if we take that with us into reading this verse in 1^st John, then we are going to end up with the wrong conclusion. John is not using this as an illustration versus non-salvation, he is using this as an illustration of how one brother deals with someone else in the same family. The emphasis as far as John is concerned the person who does and the person who doesn’t love are genuine members of the family of God. So he is not talking about evidence of not being saved. The Lordship crowd continuously import these kinds of assumptions into their understanding of the text. “Of the evil one” is operating on the sin nature, which means operating on Satan’s plan and Satan’s agenda. The reason that Cain murders Abel is because Abel’s obedience has brought to light the disobedience, the arrogance and self-absorption of Cain. That doesn’t mean necessarily that Cain wasn’t saved.

Paul recognises this same principle in 1 Corinthians 11:19 ^NASB “For there must also be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become evident among you.” There were factions in the church in Corinth but nowhere does Paul question their salvation; he questions their application of doctrine. What Paul recognises is that there will be factions, that there will be believers who are operating on arrogance.

1 John 3:13 ^NASB “Do not be surprised, brethren, if the world hates you.” If you are a believer operating on divine viewpoint and walking in relationship to God unbelievers and believers who are not operating on the standards of God’s Word are always going to look at you as if you are weird, bizarre, some kind of fanatic. They did the same with the Lord and we shouldn’t be surprised at that.

1 John 3:14 ^NASB “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death.” As soon as phrases like “death into life” are seen people often jump to everlasting life in terms of being saved. But John uses the terms “life” and “everlasting life” in both a qualitative sense and a quantitative sense. For example, in John 10:10 Jesus used it the same way ^NASB “…I came that they may have life, and have {it} abundantly.” In other words, there is the initial giving of life at salvation which is everlasting, unending life in eternity, and then as the believer advances in spiritual growth and capacity for happiness he is going to develop the abundant life, a quality of life. If the believer is disobedient and out of fellowship he is in carnal death, which Paul talks about in Romans chapters six and seven.

Romans 6:22 ^NASB “But now having been freed from sin [power of sin nature, at salvation] and enslaved to God [positional], you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.” So the end result of sanctification is everlasting life. Paul is not talking about entering heaven, acquiring everlasting life at salvation; he is talking about that quality of life that comes as a result of sanctification. [23] “For the wages of sin is death…” He is talking about the result of sin after salvation: death—not eternal death in the lake of fire but carnal death, the loss of capacity for life, making yourself miserable, and losing rewards at the judgment seat of Christ; temporal death, carnal death. “… but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Paul is saying the same thing that John is talking about in 1 John 3, i.e. that as believers we need to manifest who we are as children of God, operate on the basis of God’s Word through the power of the Holy Spirit, abiding in Christ; and as we grow and advance one manifestation of that is that righteousness is produced, and the highest form of righteousness/integrity is expressed through Christian love, either person or impersonal.

In contrast to that John says, “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” He is not talking about salvation, he is talking about the same kind of eternal life that Paul is talking about in Romans chapter six, i.e. that there is no spiritual life, no capacity for life and blessing there, but there is the consequence of self-induced misery, divine discipline and the loss of rewards at the judgment seat of Christ.

So the point of verses 10-15 is that the believer who is abiding in Christ is going to manifest his relationship to Jesus Christ, of his membership in the royal family of God. If he is not abiding he will manifest his life as a child of the devil and the result will be that instead of experiencing that abundant life that Jesus promised he will experience carnal and temporal death.