1 John 3:16

Hereby know we love, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

In such a verse as this the unattainability of the full Christian ideal is starkly clear. John did not here command Christians to lay down their lives for each other, but he thundered the principle that they ought to do it. Why? Because Christ did so for us. If the exhibition of such a love as this is the final test to be met before one can be saved, we must be convinced that heaven is going to be sparsely settled! Such an ethic is very much like that set forth in the parable of the good Samaritan, being simply beyond that which the vast majority of Christian people have ever dared to attempt. It is perhaps intended in such Scriptures as these that Christians shall behold the truth of their being "unprofitable servants," and utterly incapable of achieving, in any complete sense, that righteousness which alone can save. In the light of this verse, who could ever imagine that he merited salvation, or that he had earned it? We believe that John's purpose here was primarily that of illuminating this truth. Knowing human weakness and inability to survive such a test (at least in the general sense), God, in his providence, has most infrequently made it a test of Christian fidelity. There are other tests of love, however; and John will immediately turn to one of them.