The Social Test
1 John 3: 11-18
The Letters of John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . Max A Forsythe
Introduction: It always amazed me, when I worked in
the public sector, that the constant public suspicions automatically presumed
towards evangelical Christians could not be overcome by any amount of good and
decent behavior, or even declarations of genuine love for fallen man. It was always our personally held Christian presumptions
that offended the secularists. Never
mind, that the children of the tax payers were better treated, understood and
cared for under our oversight! But, it is only the Judeo-Christian heritage
that is thus treated to automatic distrust and alarm. Sadly the system is not only encouraging the
study of Muslim ethics and principles in
What kind of love is it that holds up a system of Muslim ethics that has
a history of exploitation not only of Jews and Christians, but even the people
of their own faith. What kind of love is
it that actually would prefer giving educational access to young people to
perverts and occultists of every description?
Before we begin our question on this social
question about love, perhaps we need to define the word love used in these
seven short verses. The word for love here is “agape”,
the highest type of love demonstrated by God's gracious love towards us. It is
this love that we are called to mirror in our personal relationships. In the
King's English, the word “agape” was
translated as "charity". If you have an older translation of
Paul's great love poem in the 13th chapter of his first letter to the
Corinthians, Charity is thereby celebrated as the essential, first love
demonstrated by those who belong to Jesus Christ. Now, our modern English suffers because
unlike, French, Latin and Greek, we have only one word for love. This word then has to cover four traditional
areas of meaning. C.S. Lewis in his
book The Four Loves well describes the four Greek terms that
differentiate the meaning of love. There
are: “ storge, philia, eros and agape”.
Storge, the first is
the love you might feel for a favorite sweater. Archie Bunker felt this for his
chair, now enshrined in the Smithsonian. Animals, especially mothers
demonstrate this love to their babies.
Certain species of birds even demonstrate this in the pairing of male
and female for live. Philia, the second love is the liking that you
have for your fellow humans. This is friendship, as in
The last love, the best love, the highest love of
charity is demonstrated by the emphasis of John in the context of these verses
before us today. This “agape” is how God
loves us, and how God expects us to love not only, all who belong to Christ –
but also the rest of fallen humanity as well.
We are also encouraged because of this love to respect all of those
outside of the Church who the Lord might be calling into His fellowship. Someone once asked me a long time ago, if
they had to like everyone in their Church?
They knew that they should love every member even as God loved
them. But, did they need to go out of
their way to have fellowship, and friendship with everyone. Perhaps in an
untainted world where personalities and characteristics of everyone else were
the equal of your own, we might expect this type of friendship to be common.
Perhaps in the next life when we have all by the grace of God put away the
frailties of the human flesh, then we might find eternal friendship with
brethren whom we cannot say we truly like.
But please remember, you may not be as likable as you might think of
yourself as well. So, we have to allow for some differences.
Perhaps I have shared the following experience with
you before. One of my burdensome students who sat through two years of my
English and Social Studies courses
understood the sense here exactly. At the end of two frustrating years he
observed that he got the feeling that I didn't like him. In fact after he made
the observation, he flat out asked me if I did like him. I referred back to our four Greek words that
I had shared with him a year before and said that I felt that I had
demonstrated agape
towards him. Yes, he understood and appreciated that, but did I have philia for him. I answered truthfully and said
no. Good, he said, because he didn't
feel that way either! But, he said he did appreciate the long-suffering charity
that he had been given and hoped that we could respect each other as we took
our different paths through life. Having
once been a teacher, I had an incredible number of relationships like that, and
perhaps, because we are all human - even the churches today find this kind of
relationship more common than they ought to be.
Yes, we can all say, that we love our fellow Christians, but how many of
you can truthfully say that you like each other as you might be able to at long
last in eternity?
Development: Now, this does not
mean that we do not have a higher calling to grow in grace and become more
likable! If you do not try to improve your Christian life by working at
sanctification, then this question here in this portion of John's letter should
cause you some concern. The social question before us in John's letter is
succinct and to the point. Look carefully at verse eleven: "We should love one another"! The word there is “agape”. John quickly cautions us that we should not
follow the worldly example of Cain who ended up murdering his brother Abel. Why did Cain do that, do the words jealousy -
hatred - murder come to mind in this regard.
Calvin observes on this section that in order “to stimulate us still more to love [John shows] how detestable before God is hatred.” And further he proposes: “the Apostle declares that all who hate their brethren
are murderers … It does not matter if a man keeps his hands from mischief; for
the very desire to do harm, as well as the attempt, is condemned before God.”
Now, we have to remember the Reformational context
in which Calvin wrote, the religious wars were just beginning and both
Protestant and Catholic ended in a blood letting that should have shamed every
Christian organization. However, the
spiritual stakes were incredibly high – the Reformers in order to bring peace
to
There is another phrase here in this regard that
Calvin encourages us to consider: “Let no one therefore extenuate any more so grievous an
evil. Let us learn to refer our
judgments to the tribunal of God.” Instead
of showing hatred to the world and wishing death to those who oppose the
beliefs and ministry of the Church, let us leave them to the final judgment of
God Himself.
And yet, even as I began this morning describing my
participation in the opinion of the public square, the real and true charity of
Christ is despised and within the context of our text even expected as well.
Look at verse thirteen. "Do not be surprised, brothers, that the
world hates you". Very many contemporary evangelicals want to
be loved by the world. Should the Church compromise its principles and like
those who would undercut the very foundations of social order? I think
not. But, we are still called to love
that brother. Some years ago in a rural
A few years ago, I hurriedly put together a war
sermon to be used suddenly whenever Desert Strom broke out. I gave the organists
a substitute set of hymns and waited for several weeks for the expected
occasion. One of the hymns that I selected and copied was The Battle Hymn of
the Republic. Now I did not like the modern version of that hymn, so I had
to write in the older words. In the original one of the verse phrases went this
way: "Jesus
died to make men holy, let us die to make men free." Contemporary hymnologists shudder at that
suggestion and normally rewrite that phrase in this way: "let us live to make men free." Unfortunately
the modernists miss the whole point of the Gospel and our willingness to
reflect the gospel demonstrated by our Lord Jesus Christ. We have to be willing to die for a
cause. A Communist General in
Conclusion: At the present it seems unlikely that martyrdom for
Christ or brethren is soon likely.
However, verse seventeen challenges us to be aware of one another's
needs and prepared to demonstrate the love of Christ towards one another. Now,
the critical word in that verse is "need". One spring early in our history as a church,
our service was interrupted because someone's wants were bigger than their
needs. When we unwilling to give twenty
dollars to get them to leave, they asked our elders to pray that their lottery
number might win the big money. Of course, we didn't and sometimes the hardest
part of love and disciple in the home and in the church is wrestling with the
difference between needs and wants. Even the government has a difficult time
telling the difference, so it should not be surprising that we fall short in
this matter as well. I remember a
somewhat popular country-western tune more than a few years ago where the nasal
male whine prayed for a Mercedes Benz. This is not something we go to our knees
in prayer for. Yes, if you have auto problems and need transportation to get to
work, it is okay to pray for the resources to maintain that ability. But if it
runs, we should remember that this is the minimal purpose of all motor vehicles
to get us from one place to another. That is need. Henry Ford once observed that you could have
one of his cheep models in any color so long as it was black. That color choice
involves want. The Church should not be
in the business of catering to wants.
Instead we are called in the context of love to
demonstrate the reality of our love not in words but with actions and with
truth. The actions here are the sharing of resources to care for needs and the
discipline of defining wants through truth in love. This scriptural principle
must be applied in families, churches and also in governmental programs if we
could call our selves a Christian people and nation. May God give us the
ability to discern where our hearts are in this matter and the willingness to
demonstrate the love of Christ as we grow in grace and minister to a fallen
world in His Name. Amen.
Resources Used:
Alexander, William. The
Expositor’s Bible: Epistles of St John.
Barnes, Peter. Welwyn
Commentary Series: Knowing Where We Stand.
Calvin, John. The
Comprehensive John Calvin Collection (Ages Software).
Stott, John. Tyndale
New Testament Commentaries: Epistles of John.
Good News Publishers. The
Holy Bible: English Standard Version.
Copyright (C) 2002 Christ Covenant REFORMED (Presbyterian
Church in
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