The eternal life which was {toward} the Father…was revealed to us... ·so that YOU[i] also may have fellowship with us…, with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ; ·…so that our joy may be complete. ·…God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. ·If we say we have fellowship with him while…walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true. ·But if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. ·If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins… ·I am writing…that YOU may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate[ii] {toward} the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; ·and he is the Atoning Sacrifice[ii] for our sins, and…also for the sins of the whole world. …·Whoever obeys his word, in this person the love of God has {been matured}. ·Whoever says, "I abide in him," ought {to be walking} just as he walked. (1 John 1:2-7,9; 2:1-2,5a,6 NRSV {S4A})

I am writing YOU no new commandment, but an old commandment that YOU have had from the beginning..., ·yet…a new commandment that is true in him and in YOU, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. …·Whoever loves a brother or sister lives in the light. In such a person there is no cause for stumbling. ·But whoever hates a brother or sister… walks in darkness and does not know the way to go, because the darkness has brought on blindness. …·No one who abides in him [keeps on sinning]… ·The children [Gr. tekna][iii] …of the devil are revealed in this way: all who do not do what is right are not from God, nor are those who do not love their brothers and sisters. …·We must not be like Cain who…murdered his brother, because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. …·All who hate a brother or sister are murderers, and… murderers do not have eternal life abiding in them. (1 Jn.2:7-8,10-11; 3:6a,10,12,15 NRSV {S4A} [ESV])

We know love by this: that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. ·How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need, yet [closes his heart]? ·Let us love not in word or speech, but in truth and action. ·By this we…reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts and he knows everything. …·No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God [abides] in us and his love is {matured} in us. …·So we have known and believe the love that God {is having in} us. …·We love because he first loved us. ·Those who say, ‘I love God’ and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. ·The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also. …·Everyone who loves the {One begetting} loves the {one having been begotten of him}. (1 Jn.3:16-20; 4:12,16a,18-21; 5:1b NRSV {S4A} [ESV])

Jesus has gone into heaven to facilitate our ongoing fellowship with our Father. Yet walking in the light means maintaining fellowship not only with the Father and with Jesus, but also with our brothers and sisters. God's love cannot come to full maturity in me unless I love them according to a new commandment, which is really only a new version of the old commandment in the Torah: love your neighbor as yourself (Lev.19:18). As disciples of Jesus we may no longer love our fellow disciples as only our ‘neighbors’, and not even just as we love ourselves. We must love each other as Jesus loved us (Med.#22)—and as fellow ‘adults’ who have also been ‘begotten’ by the Father (Med.#58) as adult sons and daughters (Med.#53). And such unconditional, self-giving love [Gr. agape] includes a willingness to ‘lay down our lives’ for each other just as Jesus did for us. This Greek word for ‘love’ appears 51 times in John's letter! By using it four times in the negative, John associates ‘not unconditionally loving’ a brother or sister with a third dark path we must avoid: of hating a brother or a sister.

In modern Western cultures, however, ‘hate’ and ‘love’ are more used as mental concepts—as mere words that describe emotions. And they aren’t necessarily opposites; for if you don’t feel ‘love’ for someone, it does not mean you ‘hate’ them. But according to John, ‘hating’ is an action that begins with an internal choice to ‘close your heart’ to a brother or sister—something that often still happens today when one disciple of Jesus with sufficient resources sees another disciple in financial need and does not help him or her. In John's other example (of Cain), we can also see how heart choices and attitudes eventually led to the act of murder. Cain was initially angry with God for not accepting his sacrifice. Not offended by this emotion, God comes and challenges him to ‘do right’ (Gen.4:3-6a). John takes this to mean that Cain had yet to repent of certain ‘evil deeds’, and an evil attitude of comparing himself to his brother (1 Jn.3:12). Cain must choose to master an even more powerful sinful attitude threatening to take hold of him—blaming his brother for his own problems. It was an attitude resulting from Cain’s internal choices, not the emotion of anger, that led him to murder his brother (Gen.4:6b-8). Christians who ‘keep on sinning’ (1 Jn.3:6), by walking like Cain along the dark path of ‘hating’, are living a lie. If they don’t practice quick repentance, they are choosing to be ‘of the devil and not of God’, and they have already committed murder in their hearts (Med.#12; Med.#64). And even if they don’t actually kill anyone, they will soon ‘stumble’ into other sins and eventually lose their way completely.

To avoid this dark path, or any other dark path (like that of ‘fear’, Med.#52), we need to look to Jesus, the righteous one, as our Advocate in our relationship with the Father and as our Atoning Sacrifice—especially ‘if anyone’ sins. In other words: if I sin or if someone I know has sinned, either against me or against others close to me. As our ‘Advocate’, Jesus reminds me that by his life, resurrection and ascension, he has changed the standard of what it means to be human. The familiar English saying, ‘to err is human, to forgive is divine’ is actually false for all who are in Christ. For through his sinless life ‘in the likeness of sinful flesh, God condemned sin in the flesh’ (Rom.8:3). If I really believe this and I am the one who sinned, then I will want to be truly human by returning as quickly as possible to walking in the light like Jesus did. And by looking to him as the Atoning Sacrifice for my sin, I will have no problem confessing it—either to the one(s) I offended or to my Father, since it was his idea to send Jesus to deal once and for all with my sin by his death on the cross.

If a brother or sister has sinned against me, I remember that Jesus is the Atoning Sacrifice for his or her sin too. And because he has set a new standard as our Advocate, the above English saying must also now read: ‘to forgive is to be truly human like Jesus’—for he even forgave those who carried out his crucifixion (Med.#41). One thing that will most surely take me down the dark path of ‘hating’ is withholding forgiveness towards a brother or sister. But since Jesus is also a righteous Advocate for the one who offended me, looking to him and wanting to be like him should also motivate me to do more than just forgive. As a human being he also challenged those who had been sinning, against God or against him, to stop their sinful behavior (Jn.18:22-23; 8:11; 5:14). Loving a brother or sister who has been sinning also means wanting them to become more like Jesus too—even if I must enlist the help of one or two others to encourage the one sinning to repent (Med.#19).

Finally, since Jesus is the ‘Atoning Sacrifice…for the sins of the whole world’, obeying Jesus' new commandment does not excuse us from keeping the old version of it. While learning to love one another as Jesus loved us, we must continue to love our neighbors—including foreigners—as ourselves (Lev.19:18,34; Lk.10:25-37). Classifying some of these as ‘sinners’ or as a ‘threat’ is not loving them the way Jesus did. Since he laid down his life for them too, we as his followers must also extend forgiveness to them when they sin against us. And we must be prepared to lovingly challenge them to consider putting their faith in Jesus too: not only as the Atoning Sacrifice for their sins, but also as their Advocate—the model and the way for them to become truly human as well.

Is there a brother or sister who has hurt you, or whom you have hurt? Perhaps it is your spouse or one of your children. Are you angry or annoyed with a brother or sister, maybe because you are unconsciously comparing yourself to him or her? Are you withholding love from anyone ‘in the world’—like at work, at school or on the street, or because they are foreigners or from a different social class? Then it's time to look to Jesus as Advocate and ‘Atoning Sacrifice’, and then take the steps—to repent and ask forgiveness, or to forgive and challenge—in order to stay in the light of family fellowship with the Father, with Jesus, and with each other.

Jesus, you have gone through the barrier into the heavens for me; yet you are able to sympathize with my weakness, having experienced all the same temptations on earth as me. (Heb.4:14-15)

So Father, I approach your throne of grace with confidence that I will receive mercy and find the grace I need to help me now. I boldly confess my sin, because I know you will forgive my sin and cleanse me of all unrighteousness; I know you are faithful and just, because I see Jesus at your side, as my Advocate and Atoning Sacrifice. And I choose to walk in the light by loving ____________ as you have loved me. (Heb.4:16; Jn.1:9,7; 2:1-2; Jn.13:34)

[i] As in my own translations, I also render the 2^nd person pronoun here in caps (‘YOU’) if the Greek form is plural—to show when John is addressing members of the church as a group.

[ii] Though the NRSV does not capitalize ‘Advocate’ in this text, it does do so with the same Greek word [parakleetos] in Jn.14:16 to describe the role that both Jesus and the Holy Spirit play in our lives (Med.#51). So I choose to capitalize it here as well. And I do the same with ‘Atoning Sacrifice’—to show the equally great significance of both roles that Jesus plays in our lives.   

[iii] On why I render the Greek plural word tekna as ‘sons and daughters’ in my translations, see Med.#5, paragraph 6 and footnote ii.