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1 John 3:16–18
“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”
Love is a mark of all true believers, and we as Christians understand that love best by considering its highest example, the self-giving love of Christ. That love then works itself out in the practical demands of daily Christian fellowship, as the Apostle John explains in today’s passage.
The Christian’s understanding of love is not derived from sentimental notions of warm affection or romantic attachment. It is drawn from the cross of Christ, as John says: “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16). At the cross, in the laying down of the Son’s life for those who deserved no such kindness, the church learned what love truly is. Love is not merely a feeling but a costly action on behalf of another, accomplished even at the price of one’s own life. The cross defines this love.
From this definition John draws a remarkable conclusion: “And we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers” (v. 16). The love that the Son has shown us is to become the love that we show one another. This is no small charge. To lay down one’s life is to subordinate one’s own interests, comforts, and even survival to the genuine needs of fellow believers. In times of persecution, this has meant literal martyrdom or other physical suffering. In every age, it means a daily willingness to expend ourselves for one another.
Lest we imagine that such love can remain a noble abstraction, John brings it to earth in verse 17: “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” The example is deliberately ordinary. A fellow believer is in genuine need, and we have the means to help, yet we close our hearts and pass by. John asks the question with biting force: How does the love of God abide in such a person? The answer is implied: It does not. The willingness to share what we have with brothers and sisters in need is one of the surest tests whether the love of God has truly taken root in our hearts.
John concludes with a tender exhortation: “Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth” (v. 18). Christian love must reach beyond the lips and into the hands. It must be active, costly, and real, not a comfortable rhetoric that we offer at a safe distance. Such love is the natural outflow of fellowship with the One who laid down His life for us, and its presence among the people of God is one of the surest evidences that the gospel is at work in them.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
The cross defines love for us, and the everyday needs of fellow believers test whether we have truly received that definition into our hearts. Let us examine our own giving, our own use of time, our own relationships, and pray for grace to love not only in word but in deed and in truth.
For further study
- Deuteronomy 15:7–11
- Matthew 25:31–40
The bible in a year
- Jeremiah 12–13
- 1 Timothy 6:2b–21
- Jeremiah 14–17
- 2 Timothy 1–2