Hatred: A Mark of the Wicked

1 John 3:11-15

March 30, 2003

            This morning we are resuming our study of 1 John, so take your Bibles and turn with me to 1 John 3:11-15.  1 John 3:11-15.  Follow along with me as I read the text.  Read text.  Let’s pray.

            How necessary is love for Christians?  There can be no argument that a Christian must certainly love God, as that is the first and greatest commandment.  But what about love for one another?  Is it necessary for believers to have true, deep, sacrificial, brotherly love for each other?

            For the Apostle John brotherly love among believers was an absolute necessity, and it was always a result of saving faith.  For John, there is no true Christianity where there is no love for other people.  Love was one of the irreducible minimums of the Christian life.  It was not something extra.  It was not something added.  It was not a bonus to salvation.  Love for one another was the expression of salvation, the fruit of salvation, the tangible, concrete, visible results of salvation, and where there was a vacuum instead of love, there was, as far as John was concerned, no true, saving faith.

            One of the overriding themes of 1 John is love for our fellow Christians.  Fellowship with one another is something to be sought, something to be highly valued, treasured, and prized, and where there is true fellowship there must be love.  We saw a taste of John’s emphasis on brotherly love in chapter 2, verses 7-11.  In that section John dealt with what it means to be in the light, to be holy, and one mark of someone who walks in the light is that he loves his brother and does not cause his brother to stumble.  He puts no stumbling block in front of his brother.  He takes into account his brother’s needs over his own wants and desires, and is willing to sacrifice insignificant, temporal, physical desires and wants for the good of his brother.  The opposite of that is hatred.  It is selfishness.  It is not caring about your brother like you would want him to care about you.  It is not loving your neighbor as yourself.  John dealt with this theme of love in brief in those verses.

            This morning as we come to this section in 1 John 3, we see John expand upon this theme of love.  It is important that we remember the context in which we read these five verses.  You will remember from some weeks back that John is discussing the meaning of being a child of God.  He begins that theme in chapter 2 verse 28 and has continued that theme right up through chapter 3 verse 10.  And as he dealt with being a child of God in those verses, he made it unmistakably clear that holiness is the characteristic mark of the child of God.  In Hebrews 12:14 the writer of Hebrews wrote, Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification [or, holiness] without which no one will see the Lord.  There is a holiness that is required to see the Lord.  And in 1 John 2:28-3:10 we see that that type of holiness is a characteristic mark of being a child of God.  Children of God are being sanctified, made holy, and they are holy because of the righteousness of Christ. 

            This type of holiness is not something that is merely theological or abstract.  John repeatedly says that it is the one who practices righteousness that is a child of God.  It is the one who lives a holy life, a life that reflects the nature of Christ, who was the perfect example to us of holiness. 

            Yet it is at this point that John wants to be very clear in his exposition of what holiness is.  Throughout the centuries well-intentioned men have completely missed the point of holiness.  Many groups of monks throughout history have heard the message of holiness and misapplied it.  They locked themselves (and some still do) in monasteries away from the world, took a vow of silence, and had very minimal relationships with other people.  They wanted to be rid of all worldly influences and contamination, and so their response was to escape the world.  John does not picture the Christian life this way.  The Christian is not someone who avoids relationships with others, especially other believers.  Holiness cannot be pursued in a vacuum.  John expects Christian holiness to express itself in our relationships with others.  We might all testify that the reality of our holiness, the depth of our spiritual walk with Christ, is often best viewed as we relate to others.  It is often easy to act in a holy manner by yourself, but how do you act when interacting with others?  How sanctified are you when difficult people cross your path, you are mistreated, overlooked, neglected, or don’t receive what you feel you deserve?  How do you respond to the needs of others?  Our level of holiness can never be observed without reference to how we treat other people and how much we love them.  There is a direct correlation between our personal holiness and our love for others.

            John brings this to bear in 1 John 3:10.  He writes, 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.  John gives two features of the children of the devil: they are lawless and they are loveless.  They are not holy, and they are hateful.  The wicked are marked and characterized by sinfulness and hatred.  In 2:28-3:9 John made clear that the children of God are holy, and 3:10 is a summary statement, as well as an introduction to the section we are examining this morning. 

            John anticipates, as any good teacher does, the objections to his doctrine that will be put forward.  One objection of his readers that he anticipates is an objection to his teaching about love.  In verse 10 John adds the statement about loving our brothers, almost, it seems as an afterthought.  But as we read verses 11 all the way to the end of chapter three, we see that John has a very specific, tight, logical argument in mind that he is beginning to put to us in verse 10.  His argument is this: The children of God love one another.  It is a simple statement of doctrine.  The children of God love one another.  They have affections for one another.  They care for one another.  As we look at verses 11-24 we see a very closely knit section.  Verses 11-15, which we are looking at this morning, answer objections to the doctrine by way of a negative illustration, namely, Cain.  Verses 16-18 demonstrate the meaning of the doctrine by way of a positive illustration, Jesus.  Verses 19-24 show us the usefulness of this doctrine in our prayer life and our relationship with God Himself, and the usefulness of it is the confidence it produces when we live it out.  That, then, is how the passage is composed.  John is careful to answer objections, explain the meaning, and exhort us as to how we will derive benefit from this doctrine of brotherly love.

            So as we come to this section, bear in mind over the course of the next three or four weeks that John’s doctrine that he is explaining is this simple statement: The children of God love one another. 

            This morning then, we are interested in seeing John’s answers to the objector.  What do we say to one who objects to the necessity of Christian charity and love?  What is our response to one who hates another person or other people and yet claims to be a part of God’s family, dismissing this foundational doctrine?  In verses 11-15 John outlines two reasons people who do not love others, especially Christians, are children of the devil.  Two reasons why those who do not love others, especially Christians, are children of the devil, that wicked one.  Hatred is a universal mark of the wicked, and John gives us two reasons why this must be so.

Reason #1: They Violate the Gospel Message (vv. 11-14a)

            The first reason hateful people are children of the devil is because they violate the Gospel message.  They prove themselves of the devil because they violate the Gospel message.  Notice the first word in verse 11, For.  This word is a conjunction that gives us a ground or reason for the statement that has gone before.  In verse 10, which we read a moment ago, John has plainly stated that those who do not love believers are children of the devil.  This word “for” tells us that John is now about to explain why that previous statement is in fact true. 

            The one who does not love his brother is a child of the devil for this reason, or because, this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.  John appeals to the foundational message of the Gospel.  His first proof is in the Gospel message itself.  We know that the one who does not love his brother cannot be a child of God because the very Gospel itself demands that we love one another, and anyone who does not love violates the very foundation of this message.

            It is the message that they heard from the beginning, from the time they were saved.  When the apostles first came to these believers and planted a church among them, they started with this teaching of brotherly love.  It was an integral part of the first message they preached. 

            The love that John discusses is in the present tense, meaning that it is to be a constant mark of the child of God.  The Gospel message contains the command to constantly love one another.  In Romans 13, which we studied last week, we see that part of being a living sacrifice for Jesus is to love our neighbors.  Paul wrote in Romans 13:8, Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.  Love is such a dynamic principle that if we could perfectly love our neighbors, we would be perfect people.  Paul goes on in verse 9, For this, “You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  All of the commandments are practical ways of fulfilling this one command from Leviticus 19:18, You shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.  The command is love.  The reason for our obedience is because God is God and deserves our absolute obedience and allegiance.  The command of love was not new.  It was not novel.  And so John argues that true children of God love one another because the very essence and message of the Gospel is love for one another. 

            John, however, does not immediately go into what type of love this is.  He saves that for verses 16-18.  He does give us an illustration, though, of what this love is not.  Remember, he is arguing that those who do not love their brothers are children of the devil.  He is arguing the negative.  So he gives us a negative illustration to prove the point.  He shows us what our love is not like.  He shows us how the devil’s children treat their brothers.  And the illustration he gives is Cain, the eldest son of Adam.

            Look at verse12.  John writes, not as Cain.  Not as Cain what?  We should not love as Cain loved.  We should not love after his example.  What was his example?  Who was of the evil one and slew his brother.

            There are at least two important aspects to that clause.  One is Cain’s father.  Who was Cain of?  Whose descendant was he?  Physically, he was the descendent of Adam.  Spiritually, he was the descendent of the evil one.  Cain is a representation, an illustration of unbelievers.  Cain is an example of the unbeliever who has rejected Christ.  That is why he is called of the evil one.  This is a direct reference back to John’s statement in verse 10 where he said that the children of the devil were those who do not love their brothers.  “If you want proof of that,” John says, “look at  a member of that family.  Look at Cain.  He was of the evil one.” 

            The second important aspect is that he, Cain, this descendent of Satan, slew his brother.  He cut his brother’s throat.  He butchered him.  He slaughtered him.  He violently took Abel’s life.  This word, slew, is a violent, graphic word.  Is not the normal Greek word for kill.  It is a word that means to kill in a violent way.  Some translate it butchered or slaughtered.  The idea is that Cain hated his brother to such a degree that he went out and slaughtered him.  He butchered him.  He killed him out of anger and hatred and rage.  He cut his own brother’s throat. 

            This link between being a child of the devil and murder was made evident by Jesus in John 8:44 where Jesus said that the devil was a murderer from the beginning.  Jesus also made clear that those who are the devil’s children want to do the works of the devil, and one of the works of the devil is murder.  Cain, therefore, did what Jesus had taught that those of the devil wish to do, and that is to murder. 

            Why did Cain murder Abel?  What crime did Abel commit that could be so deserving of his brother’s wrath?  Notice in verse 12, And for what reason did he slay him?  Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous.  The reason Cain killed his brother was because his brother was a godly man and Cain was wicked.  Look back with me at the account in Genesis 4.  Let’s pick it up at the end of verse 2.  We read, Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.  That verse tells us the occupations of these two men.  Abel kept flocks.  He earned his income and his livelihood from keeping livestock.  Cain, on the other hand, was a farmer of produce.  He grew plants and worked the ground.  Both men had respectable occupations.  Neither occupation was to be preferred over the other in the eyes of the Lord.  Abel’s income was from animals, and Cain’s income was from the ground.  Notice, then, verse 3, So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground.  Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions.  And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard.  So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell.  What is the main difference here between Can and Abel?  I don’t think the difference is in the content of their offerings.  I have three reasons for that.  One is because this is before the Mosaic Law about sacrifices and offerings, and that law would not be in effect for these two.  They were both bringing from their source of income, neither of which was explicitly better or worse.  Secondly, even in the Mosaic Law there was a requirement of sacrifices from the fruit of the ground.  All the sacrifices in Leviticus are not blood and animal sacrifices.  So we know that God also takes pleasure in sacrifices from the fruit of the ground.  Thirdly, in the text itself we learn that the Lord did not have regard first for Cain, and then for his offering.  Notice that in verse 5.  But for Cain and for his offering He had no regard.  The Lord did not regard Cain himself.  I think it was this disregard by the Lord that caused Cain’s offering to be rejected.  The reason Cain was not regarded is in 1 John 4:12.  It was because his works were evil.  Cain was a wicked man.  Cain is not the picture of good intentions gone awry.  He is the picture of rebellion and lawlessness and being of the devil.  And Proverbs 15:8 makes clear that this type of person cannot please the Lord with any kind of offering.  Proverbs 15:8 reads, The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but He loves the one who pursues righteousness.  When the wicked come with their offerings and sacrifices, they are abominations to the Lord.  They are unacceptable.  But God loves the one pursuing righteousness.  And, we can infer, that God also accepts the sacrifice of the righteous.  Just as God rejects the sacrifice of the wicked along with the wicked, so God receives the sacrifice of the righteous along with the righteous person himself. 

            The reason that Cain slew Abel is because Abel was pleasing in the sight of God, and rather than repent, Cain decided to get rid of the cause of his conviction.  Rather than do well and serve God wholeheartedly, Cain determined it would be easier to rid himself of Abel and not have the problem of that righteous man, who, the writer of Hebrews tells us in Hebrews 11:4, though he is dead, he still speaks.  The faith of Abel echoes down the corridor of history as his righteousness is proclaimed, while the wickedness of Cain serves as an example of those descended from that wicked one.  Hatred is indeed a mark of the wicked. 

            Before John moves on from this illustration, he gives a general principle for us to understand in verse 13.  He writes, Do not be surprised, brethren, if the world hates you.  The command actually could be translated more effectively, “Stop marveling, brethren, if the world hates you!”  Don’t stand in shock and awe, to use a phrase recently coined, that the world isn’t beating down your door wanting to follow you!  Don’t marvel about that.  Don’t marvel if the world rejects you and scorns you.  Don’t be surprised if, like Cain, they rise up to kill you!

            The sense of that word, if, is, in the Greek, the idea of a condition that is true.  This is a figure of speech in the Greek used to say, Don’t marvel if the world hates you with a parenthesis afterwards saying, “And it does!”  Don’t be shocked if sinners hate you and disregard you, and in case you’re wondering if they do, they do hate you, they do disregard you, they do not like you because you testify that their deeds are evil. 

            Whenever I wake up in the middle of the night, which doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, if I go to get a drink or whatever and have to turn a light on, it hurts my eyes terribly.  And sometimes rather than deal with the uncomfortable feeling that light brings to my eyes that were in the dark for a few hours asleep, I would rather fumble around in the dark.  I’ve even turned the light off right after turning it on because my eyes weren’t adjusted to that level of light.  This is how it is for the wicked around the righteous.  We are a source of discomfort to their eyes that are only accustomed to darkness.  And it is much easier to find a way to get rid of the light than to endure the painful process of coming into the light.  This is the way of the world.  It hates the light.  Its eyes are only accustomed to darkness, and whenever the light turns on, they want to find the switch and do anything to get back where it is comfortable for them, and that is in the dark.  Songwriter Ross King sings in one of his songs, “We don’t always like the taste of living water, so we look around until we find a drink that we prefer.”  The world does not like the taste of righteousness, and whenever our righteous deeds testify to the wickedness of the world, we can be assured that we will receive nothing but derision, scorn, and contempt from the world.

            This principle, though, rather than causing us to be discouraged, ought to be a source of comfort.  It is our evidence of salvation.  Look at verse 14.  John writes, We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren.  Our clear evidence of salvation is our difference with the world.  While they hate the brethren, we love the brethren, and because we love the brethren whom the world hates, we know that we are children of God.  We know that we have passed out of death and into life. 

            The word translated have passed is a word that is used of migration, or of moving from one region to another.  It is in the perfect tense, which means that it is an action that has been completed in the past with lasting, permanent future effects that continue to the present moment.  So what John is saying is that we Christians at some point lived in death.  We were alive in our flesh but dead spiritually.  But at the point of our regeneration and salvation we passed out of death.  We left the realm of death.  It was a one-time event, not something to be repeated.  We left that realm, that region of the dead, and we traveled, as it were, to a new region, a region of life.  And that is where we now live.  We transitioned out of the state of death and into the state of life.  This event that happened to us in the past at conversion has effects that continue even today, and one of those effects is love for the brethren.  We know for a fact that this transition has occurred because of our love for other believers. 

            This statement is not to be taken to mean that our love for the brethren is what caused the transition, the migration.  Our love for the brethren did not cause us to be moved out of death into life.  John Piper in his book Future Grace said it like this, “We are not required to love others before we become people who trust in God…We do not have to perform, before faith, what faith is meant to perform” (256).  There is no condition to having saving faith.  We are not required to love others to become the children of God.  But once we are the children of God, then we are required to love the brethren.  But along with that comes the enabling that comes from having new life in Christ.

            The other side of the coin ends verse 14.  He who does not love abides in death.  This is the conclusion to his first argument.  The one who does not love abides in death.  He has not passed out of death into life.  He has not become a child of God.  This is because he violates the Gospel.  He goes against the very heart of the Gospel message.  The person who does not love cannot possibly be a child of God because his whole life is a contradiction of the very foundation of the good news of Christ.  This child of the devil abides in death.  He is spiritually dead and that is the realm in which he lives and exists, and in which he will eternally remain unless he comes to Jesus in genuine, saving faith.

            But there is a second reason why the one who does not love his brother is not a child of God.  Not only is it proved by the fact that the one lacking love violates the Gospel message, but it is alos proved by the fact that the one who does not love is a murderer.  Loveless people are murderers.

Reason #2: They Are Murderers

            Those who do not love others, especially Christians, are of the devil because they are murderers.  Look at verse 15.  Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.  John picks up on Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 5.  Jesus said in Matthew 5:21-22, You have heard that the ancients were told, “You shall not commit murder” and “whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.”  But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court.  Guilty before the court for what?  Murder.  The one who is angry with his brother shall stand guilty before God for murder.  The word used in verse 21 for liable is the same word used in verse 22 translated guilty.  So the connection is that the one who is angry with his brother is guilty, or liable, of murder.

            John says basically the same thing in 1 John 3:15.  Whoever hates his brother is a murderer.  There is no exception clause here.  If you hate another believer, or anyone according to Matthew 5, you are considered guilty of murder.  You are as sinful as the murderer in your heart.  Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones explained why this is true.  He wrote, “Listen to people’s conversations.  You do not know them, but listen to them as they are talking about somebody else.  Listen to the spite and the malice and the envy.  Look at their eyes; there is murder in them.  They may not actually commit murder, but the principle is there” (Children of God, 100-101). 

            Working in a secular environment around almost exclusively unbelievers, if not exclusively, I have had many instances to hear this kind of talk.  It is so pervasive in the world.  Those who are nice to someone’s face will say anything negative about them once they leave.  There is jealousy, enmity, hatred, and covetousness.  They are friends to everyone’s face and enemies behind their backs.  This is the spirit of murder, and it is clear that if no penalty existed for murder and anarchy governed our society, murder would exponentially increase.  Why?  Because hatred is the mark of the world, and hatred when it runs its full course ends in murder.  The one who hates has the principle of hatred abiding in him, and if he does not master sin, sin will master him (Gen 4:7).  The murderer is the one who hates his brother, who wishes that he did not exist, who is angry with him, who speaks evil of him.  We are commanded in Romans 12:15, Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.  The one who hates rejoices when someone weeps, and weeps when someone else rejoices.  Their love is full of hypocrisy and is, in its essence, hatred.

            The conclusion to draw is obvious, and John states it plainly at the end of verse 15.  He says, You know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in Him.  It is an obvious fact that no one who is a murderer has eternal life abiding in him.  Murder is contrary to God’s will and commands, and therefore the person who persists in murder, who is characterized as a murderer, cannot possible have eternal life.  They abide in death. 

            Because the person who hates his brother is a murderer, the truth is that the one who hates his brother abides in death and does not have eternal life.  He is not a child of God.  Everyone who is full of hate and spite and envy and anger proves they are not children of God. 

            There are two reasons why those who do not love prove themselves children of the devil.  They violate the Gospel message, and they are murderers.  This is the negative.  This is what not to do when trying to love your brothers.  Cain is given as the example of the worldly man, the one born of the devil, the wicked one. 

            The question remains: How are we to love our brothers?  How can we know if we truly demonstrate Christian love and charity and good will toward our brothers and sisters in the Lord?  How can I be sure my love is without hypocrisy?  There is a positive answer that John has to that question in verses 16-18, which we will see next week.

            But for this week may we examine our hearts to see if our hearts prove us to be murderers.  How is your heart this morning?  Do you find yourself loving others?  Or do you find yourself jealous of others, looking down on them, hating them, annoyed, frustrated, full of envy and spite?  Do you rejoice with those who rejoice, or is someone else’s loss your gain? 

            Those who do not love the brethren cannot possibly be children of God because they violate the Gospel message, and they are murderers, and murderers do not have eternal life. 

            And be reminded that the world will hate you if you are a child of God, and do not be surprised.  There is here in Kansas an interesting weather phenomenon that I had not previously experienced, and that is that the sun shining does not always mean there is warmth in the air.  There are many times when we are like the Kansas sun.  We shine the light of holiness, but because we do not demonstrate love the light has no heat.  It is natural for the world to hate us because we shine the light.  But may they be forced to acknowledge in their hatred that our light also brings the warmth and heat of love that is not found in the darkness.  As a child of God the world will hate you; don’t marvel at that.  But be sure that your light is full of heat, that you are righteous and full of love, and thus useful for the Master’s work.  Let’s pray.

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