By This We Know Love
by Michael Sullivan
via Biblical Insights, Vol. 15 No. 1, January 2015
“I love you.” We live in a world that drains these words of their power. Even for many who claim to follow Christ, “love” has come to represent strong emotion and warm feelings toward those who are likeable, those with something to offer. Christians should certainly grow to have affection for one another, but when Jesus commands us to “love one another,” He calls us to something much greater than self-centered emotion. He calls us to selfless action. To know true love, we must turn to the source of love, Jesus. Specifically, the writings of the apostle John help us understand the love of Christ unlike any other New Testament document.
The night before His death, “Jesus knowing that His hour had come” instructed His disciples with these words:
“A new command I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).
and,
“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:12-13; cf. 13:34-35).
Can you imagine how these words impacted John over the next decades? The following morning, John, “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” stood “nearby” as an eyewitness of the death of Jesus (cf. John 19:26-27, 35). He saw love firsthand.
John's writings reveal that what he “heard” and “saw with his eyes” (I John 1:1) deepened his love of God and Christ. John knew Christ's love personally and intimately, which developed his deep and abiding love for the brethren. He then commanded all other disciples to do the same.
John writes, “By this we know love, that He laid down His life for us” (I John 3:16). “The disciple whom Jesus loved” is convinced we, too, can know the love of Christ when we see the cross through the gospel. Allow these words to sink in: “by this we know love, that He laid down His life for us.” Here we see selflessness, here we see sacrifice, and here we see action for the good of others.
When we see the cross, the love of Jesus instructs us, inspires us, and develops the same virtue within us. John continues, “and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (I John 3:16). This knowledge is not academic but is personal and intimate. This knowledge inspires imitation and action. We ought to lay down our lives as Jesus did. Yet few of us have the opportunity to imitate the love of Christ in such a way. However, we are frequently given opportunities to show the same love, not in death, but in life.
John continues, “But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?” In the immediate context, to close your heart against a brother in need is to “abide in death” (I John 3:14), “hate,” and be regarded by God as “a murderer” (I John 3:15), and rightly so. What utter disregard for the death of Christ and the “life” we’ve been given (cf. I John 4:9-10). Do you see your brother in need? Do you have the ability to meet your brother’s need? Do you choose to meet that need? If you close your heart against your brother in need, most certainly the love of God does not abide in you.
However, it is not enough to say, “I love you.” Though our speech should reflect the love of Christ, true love imitates Christ in “deed and truth.” John continues, “Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth” (I John 3:18). Love is proven not by what we say but by what we do. This is the love of Jesus, selflessness, sacrifice, and action for the good of others.
Again, John knew the love of Christ personally and intimately; his writing is saturated with this conviction. Do you know the love of Christ? Will you die for your brother? Will you live for your brother? Meditate on the cross, drive the gospel's truth deep within you, and open your heart to the brethren, obeying Jesus' commandment to “love one another, even as I have loved you.”
