1 See what great love the Father has given us that we should be called God’s children—and we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it didn’t know him. 2 Dear friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. l We know that when he appears, we will be like him m because we will see him as he is. n 3 And everyone who has this hope o in him purifies himself just as he is pure. p
4 Everyone who commits sin practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. 5 You know that he was revealed so that he might take away sins, ,q and there is no sin in him. r 6 Everyone who remains in him s does not sin; ,t everyone who sins has not seen him or known him.
7 Children, let no one deceive you. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. 8 The one who commits sin is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God u was revealed v for this purpose: to destroy the devil’s works. 9 Everyone who has been born of God w does not sin, because his seed x remains in him; he is not able to sin, because he has been born of God. 10 This is how God’s children and the devil’s children become obvious. Whoever does not do what is right is not of God, especially the one who does not love his brother or sister. y
Love in Action
11 For this is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another, 12 unlike Cain, z who was of the evil one a and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous.
13 Do not be surprised, brothers and sisters, if the world hates b you. 14 We know that we have passed from death to life because we love our brothers and sisters. The one who does not love remains in death. c 15 Everyone who hates his brother or sister d is a murderer, e and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him. 16 This is how we have come to know love: He laid down his life f for us. g We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. h 17 If anyone has this world’s goods i and sees a fellow believer in need j but withholds compassion k from him—how does God’s love reside in him? l 18 Little children, let us not love in word or speech, but in action and in truth. m
19 This is how we will know that we belong to the truth n and will reassure our hearts before him 20 whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows all things. o
21 Dear friends, if our hearts don’t condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive whatever we ask from him because we keep his commands p and do what is pleasing in his sight. 23 Now this is his command: that we believe in the name q of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another as he commanded us. 24 The one who keeps his commands remains in him, r and he in him. And the way we know that he remains in us s is from the Spirit t he has given us.
A. Christ removes our sins . . . and our sinning (3:1–6). 3:1–3. Now the elder emphasizes the benefits of faith in Christ, leading with the privilege of being called the children of God (3:1). The community hymn celebrating the conviction that as many as received him received the power to become the children of God (Jn 1:12–13) is here developed as a benefit of abiding in Christ and his community. From the perspective of this-worldly existence, however, the prospect of next-worldly glory is extolled. We see now only in part, but when the fullness of God is revealed, believers shall be like him and will see him as he really is (3:2). This hope in God’s glory in the future emboldens faithfulness to his ways in the present.
3:4–6. A vision of God’s purity therefore becomes the motivator of purified living in the present (3:4). Finally, the elder emphasizes Christ’s taking away the sins of believers, implying both the power of his sacrifice and the capacity of his work to deliver the one abiding in him from the power of sin (3:5). Relationship with Christ involves transformation and deliverance from sin; this is central to the power of the gospel (3:6).
B. Those who sin, not loving brothers and sisters, are not from God (3:7–10). Now the elder moves back to countering the seditious influence of those who would deceive them or lead them astray (3:7). Motivating his audience to live in righteous ways if they hope to be righteous, he also links the committing of sin to being a child of the devil (3:8). With this polarizing of options, he seeks to bolster believers’ commitments to right living commensurate with their right believing. Those who are born of God do not sin because the “seed” of God abides in them (3:9). To be born of God is to eradicate the human bent toward sinning. More specifically, to not love one’s brothers and sisters betrays a lack of rootedness in God (3:10).
C. The party of Cain—the brother killers—includes the indifferent (3:11–17). 3:11–15. Appealing again to the original teachings of Jesus, commanding his followers to love one another (3:11; see Jn 13:34–35), the elder leverages the worst of fratricidal archetypes: Cain, the brother killer (3:12; see Gn 4). The threat of being labeled a brother killer becomes a negative incentive used to motivate the opposite: loving regard for members of the community. This ploy is followed by a positive reference to loving one another as the true measure of having passed from death to life (3:14). Back to negative intensification in 3:15, to hate a brother or sister in the community is to be guilty of murder (Mt 5:21–22), and to be guilty of murder is to forfeit eternal life. By veering back and forth between negative and positive means of motivation, the elder seeks to steer his audience toward right practice as well as righteous faith.
3:16. The example of Jesus is used climactically as the one who laid down his life for others as the ultimate example of love. Here the teaching of Jesus in Jn 15:13 becomes an example for others to emulate. If Jesus was willing to lay down his life for his friends, and if the Johannine community is indeed inhabited by friends of Jesus, they ought also to be willing readily to lay down their lives for one another. The willingness to suffer for Christ may have been more than an abstract consideration, if some believers were being martyred for their refusal to worship the emperor (see “Historical Context” in the introduction to 1 John). Suffering for Christ therefore may indeed have been a measure of one’s ultimate love and dedication to the Lord and his community.
3:17. Next the elder emphasizes the issue of those having physical means and refusing to share with brothers and sisters in need. Perhaps the appeal to love one another as motivated by the love of Christ simply had to do with caring for the sustenance of fellow believers—sharing. After all, if this was the mark of the true fellowship of believers after the Holy Spirit had come upon them (Ac 2:42–47; 4:32–37), why was it not more evident within this community? The love of Christ also delivers us from the most insidious of sins: indifference.
D. On loving in truth and in deed (3:18–24). The elder concludes his exhortation to love others with an appeal to integrity. Love should be not in word only but also in truth and in action (3:18). Congruity between word and deed reassures the believer’s heart, but even if one’s heart feels condemning, the good news is that God is greater than one’s heart (3:19–20). Better yet, if one’s heart is not condemning but confirming, the believer has boldness before God and receives what is asked for because of obeying God’s commandments and doing what is pleasing to him (3:21–22; cf. Jn 14:13–17; 15:7, 16; 16:23–27; Jms 4:2–3).