Today, we are considering 1 John 3:11 which introduces a new theme in this first epistle of John. The new theme can be seen in v.11 which reads, "For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another." The new theme is love. As you know, there are four different Greek words used in the New Testament for the word "love". The word that John uses here is "agape", which is commitment love. Agape is the type of love that enables us to love those who do not love us in return. Not like "because of" love or "if" love, agape is "in spite of" love. I love you, in spite of the fact that you do not love me.
The Apostle John has already written about light and darkness, death and life, truth and error, God and the
devil. Now he ties together two new themes: love and hate. The contrasts of this life give us points of reference. These points of reference enable us to determine whether something is true, and substantive enough to believe in.
The Bible never claims that Christians have a monopoly on love. But it
does claim that there is a
difference between the love of a Christian and the love of a
non-Christian, and it is a difference which is described in this very
letter as the difference between death and life.
Recently, I was meeting with a young man who claimed to be an atheist. The conversation came to the place where I asked him, "what is love?" His answer was weak: "a chemical reaction in the brain." Love is the greatest motivation in the world. It is more than an emotion, as the word that John uses here indicates. Agape is a love which not only loves those who love you, but which loves
those who do not love you. It is a love which does not depend upon a
reciprocal relationship, but loves anyhow, loving the unlovely, the unqualified, the ungrateful, the selfish, and the
difficult.
John writes "love one another". Love is a relational word. I am reminded that the first negative idea in the Bible is that man was alone (Genesis 2:18). I find it interesting that this first negative was not a product of the Fall which takes place in Genesis 3. So, loneliness, not a product a product of sin, is a good thing. It is often the impetus of people turning to God.
Isaiah 53:8 reads, "By oppression and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished." This verse is clear, the Lord Jesus embraced the loneliness on our behalf, so that we could know eternal life. The law of entropy, the second law of thermodynamics, states that anything left in isolation, deteriorates. Jesus embraced, to its fullness, spiritual entropy, so that you and I can live from this moment onward, know what eternal life is, the type of life that has the influence of eternity on it. The products of eternal life shows up in our lives in a variety of ways: wisdom, joy, peace, are just a few.
