1 John 3:11

For this is the message which we heard from the beginning, that we should love one another:

We heard from the beginning ... The unchanging nature of the Christian revelation is inherent in this. Not even the apostles busied themselves with the production of "new ideas" regarding man's redemption. The great basics of Christianity are unchanging, fixed and permanent. "When false teachers brought forth new and esoteric (secret) doctrines about faith and morals, their very newness refuted them."[26]

That we should love one another ... The mutuality of the love mentioned here is a denial that John is speaking of the Christians unilaterally loving all people. This distinction is important, because much of the current theology tends alarmingly toward mere "humanism" as the one and all of Christian teaching. Such a statement as that of Smith, while true enough in a limited sense, actually falls short of New Testament truth:

The righteousness of the Pharisees consisted in ritual observance, that of Jesus in love ... meaning "kind" or "sweetly reasonable,"[27]

True Christianity, and the righteousness of Christians in any adequate sense, cannot mean merely the manifestation of an attitude of sweet reasonableness toward the human race. As John will point out before the chapter ends, it is the acceptance of all that Jesus taught which must characterize the response of Christians.

[26] J. W. Roberts, op. cit., p. 88.

[27] David Smith, op. cit., p. 185.