1 John 4:20-21 - Homiletics

Love to man the expression of love to God.

Connecting link: The apostle has just declared that the love which pervades believers is owing to God's love to them. He now advances to another and, indeed, to the final step in this paragraph on love, in which he sets forth more powerfully than ever the truth which he has thrice before ( 1 John 3:10 , 1 John 3:17 ; 1 John 4:8 £ ) indicated, that love to God and love to man are inseparably connected together; that if any man declares that he loves God, while yet he is unconcerned about his brother, "he is a liar;" for adds the apostle, "He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, cannot love God whom he hath not seen." Hence our topic— Love to God and love to man inseparable. Three lines of remark are suggested by the verses before us.

I. HERE IS A DIFFICULTY WHICH WE WILL ENDEAVOUR TO REMOVE . What, indeed, may seem a difficulty to A may net prove so to B, and vice versa. To some, at any rate, there lies a difficulty here. The apostle says, "He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen," etc.; as if it were so much easier and simpler to do that, and as if his meaning were, "If he cannot do the easier, he cannot do the harder; if he does not love him who is nearest, he cannot love him who is further removed; if he does not love one whom he sees, he cannot love one whom he cannot see," etc. On this Canon Westcott remarks, "It is necessarily easier to love that which is like ourselves than that which we cannot grasp in finite form." True, on the supposition that our brother possessed all moral and spiritual excellences, and that his kindness towards us were at all the counterpart of the love of God; then it would obviously be easier to love the nearer than the more remote. But supposing (as is too often the case) that our "brother" is the reverse of lovable—is hard, cruel, selfish, lustful, bitter; it is very much harder to love him with all his visible vices than to love God with all his glorious perfections, unseen though he is. Is it true in such a ease, if a man love not a vicious brother he cannot love an unseen Being who is Love? We answer, Undoubtedly; for:

II. HERE IS A STATEMENT WHICH IT BEHOVES US CAREFULLY TO PONDER , viz. that God's command to love our brother is so emphatically the command of the gospel that, if it is neglected, God is not loved at all, however profuse the verbal declaration of love may be. "My love must go forth towards those whom I see, as God saw me when he first loved me. And my love must be what his love is—no idle sentiment or barren sympathy, but a love that seeks them, and hears long with them, and waits and longs and prays for their salvation; a love that gives freely and without upbraiding; a love self-sacrificing, self-denying; a love that will lay down life itself to save them. And when they become by grace what by grace I am, I must love them as God loves me, for what I see in them; yes, and in spite of what I see in them, £ too." The love of God is that we keep his commandments ( 1 John 5:3 ); but his command is that we love as he loved us. The only being, however, whom we can love with such a love is our brother, whom God has placed before us; one whom we have seen. "And the title 'brother' brings out the idea of that which is God-like in man to which love can be directed. He, therefore, who fails to recognize God as he reveals himself through Christ in man ( Matthew 25:40 ) cannot love God. He has refused the help which God has provided for the expression of love in action" (Westcott, 'Commentary,' in loc. ) . Let us, then, formulate the statement of the text thus:

1 . The love which has God for its supreme Object is an element pervading the whole being, and radiating towards surrounding objects. It is not a capricious sentimentalism; it is a love which is not only towards God, but from him, and like his own.

2 . I am to love compassionately and with a view to redeem another, as God has loved me. But the only being whom I can thus love is he who is before me—my brother.

3 . It is a command from God that my love to him, the great Unseen, should be shown in this way—by loving the brother who is seen.

4 . Therefore there is no other way of practicing love to God than this—loving the seen brother; i.e., not simply our natural brother in the home, nor even our redeemed brother in the Church, but our fallen, sinking, perishing brethren in the "wide, wide world."

III. HERE IS , CONSEQUENTLY , A DUTY SPECIFIED , WHICH WE ARE BOUND TO DISCHARGE . "That he who loveth God love his brother also." And, lest we should be content with vague generalities, we are supplied elsewhere with two other specific directions to the working of this love—in 1 John 3:18 and in 1 John 3:16 . According to the first, our love to man ought to be an intensely practical one. According to the second, we should be such enthusiasts therein as to be willing to lay down our lives for the brethren. Now, if any one earnestly desired to fulfill all this in his own life, he would go very far towards succeeding if he adopted and carried out the following principles of action:

1 . "I will, by God's help, for God's sake, lay out myself to be the helper of mankind in any way in which I can advance their interests; and this plan in life shall take precedence of my own ease, comfort, and wealth; desiring to carry out the apostolic motto, 'As poor, yet making many rich.'"

2 . The most truly Christ-like way to help others is to lead them to gain the power of so helping themselves that they no more may need another's aid, but may become themselves, in their turn, helpers of others ( Acts 3:6 ). That is not true love which so doles out charities as to keep the recipients in a perpetual state of dependence, if by wiser methods they could be raised above it.

3 . In pursuing this method diligent inquiry must be made as to what evils afflict the people and retard their progress. We must ascertain whether they come from within or from without, and, in either case, what they are and how they come.

4 . These causes of ill being ascertained, they must be traced to their source; whether health, or wealth, or morals, or religion be imperiled: whether they are traceable to the covetousness, greed, and love of power on the part of men in the higher ranks, or to lack of self-respect, of aim, of hope, of faith, and of a sense of right in the lower ranks.

5 . Some specific external ills require an equally specific and special remedy, such as sanitary ills, overcrowding, etc.

6 . In every case Christian philosophy requires that we attack the evils at their root, which is sin, however varied the forms in which it may rear its head.

7 . Hence the supreme work of the Christian philanthropist who would lay himself out to help his brother man is to bring the love of God in Christ to bear upon his heart and conscience. In God's love the desolate soul

And thus—thus, in letting God's love in us work out effectively, Christian people have the one and only cure for all the ills of our race. In this direction much more remains to be done than Christians have ever yet attempted. May God make us loving and wise enough to work with him in blessing our age and race!