1 John 4:20

1Jn_4:20-21

If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar

I.

The lesson is taught with peculiar force which is deserving of attention. The several clauses of the text are so constructed as to cast light upon it. A man may say, I love God. He may say it and think it, and yet not do it. In that case he is self-deceived. Or he may say it and not think it. In such a case he is a hypocrite. In the midst of such self-deception or hypocritical profession the man may hate his brother. The man who so speaks and acts is pronounced to be a liar. There is an entire inconsistency between what he says and does. His conduct towards men is a contradiction to his profession toward God. An argument is next used to prove the inconsistency of professing love to God, while hatred is indulged to men. He that loveth not his brother, whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? This is assumed to be an impossibility. And it really is so. His brother is the child of God. Can I love a man and hate his child? My brother is to me the representative of God, and in hating him I hate God. To confirm the argument, it is added, and this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also. We say we love God. Of that love the great proof is that we keep His commandments. But one of His commandments is, that we love one another.

II. The incompatibility of the love of God with the hatred of men. It is to be feared that, in this matter, a widespread delusion prevails among men. Many say they love God who are seen to hate men. It may be well, therefore, to notice some of the principal forms under which this incongruity has appeared in both past times and the present.

1. A remarkable example of it may be seen in the national spirit that prevailed among the Jews in the time of our Lord and His apostles. The Jew said he loved God, and yet he was injurious to men. And so far did this spirit prevail that it formed the national character in the time of our Lord.

2. This habit, however, did not arise out of anything peculiar to Judaism; for, it may be observed next, that it is found to prevail in all unenlightened nations. The Mussulman, out of zeal for God, as he alleges, goes forth with his sword to demand subjection from all men; and, when he has the power, to plunge it into the bosom of anyone who dares to resist him. It is the same under other and more aggravated forms in nations that are purely heathen. The Hindoo, out of zeal for God, refuses to eat with his brother of another caste, lest he should be defiled. The Chinaman has been taught from his infancy to reckon all men barbarians beyond the boundaries of his own land. All heathen people entertain the same idea of religion. They regard it as a service of certain forms due to God; but which, it never occurs to them, is designed to regulate their deportment toward one another. The love of God, prompting love to mankind, is nowhere to be found, even as a theory, among men devoid of revelation. Greece and Rome, at the height of their enlightenment, made no such discovery. It is humiliating to see the vanity of their worship, which was neither intended riot fitted to influence their conduct toward men. We may suppose it to be an easy thing to see the connection between the love of God and the love of man. But we should remember we are indebted for the knowledge of it entirely to the Divine Word.

3. But alas! even where the light of revelation shines, this simple truth has been sadly obscured. Men have thought that, because they had been born and lived within certain geographical boundaries, they were not required to seek the good, but rather the injury of those beyond them. They have engaged in the most savage attacks upon one another in the name of religion. How necessary it is that the nations should learn the lesson of the text--that he who loveth God love his brother also.

4. We may go for another illustration beyond the nations of the earth, and fix upon the Christian churches themselves. In some we discover the most uncharitable zeal for their doctrines. They construct a system which they hold is founded on the Word of God, and agreeable to it. Admit that it is so. Its views, they maintain, are essential to salvation. Admit that they are so. Forthwith they proceed to denounce all who do not see with them eye to eye. We have need to be watchful lest our love for God, in maintaining His truth, should degenerate into bitterness against men. In others, again, we discern the uncharitableness of sect. We may go further, and find an example even among those who hold the same truths, and worship in the same sanctuary. We may profess love to God in His ordinance, and yet be indulging ill-will to our brother. Worse than that, we may do him much injury. We may injure him in his good name, in his property, in his peace, and still maintain the profession of love for God. (J. Morgan, D. D.)

Love to God promotive of love to man

There is an element of Christian ethics present in the Gospels, and everywhere attributed to Jesus, which we scarcely find at all in the Epistles. It is the setting up of an antagonism between duty to God and the claims of natural affection. It will, I think, be profitable to inquire whether our duty to God and our love of Him ought ever to override our duty to our families and our natural affection for our nearest and dearest relations. Turning over the leaves of that flesh-bound revelation, we find our home love to be the most precious, most redeeming, most sanctifying of all our spiritual treasures. According to our possession of family love our home is either our heaven or our hell. But love is much more than this--it is our real moral teacher. It is at home that our characters are formed for fatherly, motherly, sisterly, and brotherly lives in the outer world. And how love purifies and restrains! Who, looking back on his past life, cannot remember the many times when he would have fallen before temptation but for the love he bore to his father or mother, or wife or children? Last of all, our actual possession and exercise of love is our only key to the knowledge of the love of God. From this springs all true religion, all true worship of the Father in heaven, and all service acceptable to Him. So I read in our poor human hearts this sublime truth. Love is our highest bliss, our best guide to duty, our strongest impulse to perform it, the most efficient cultivator of a noble character, our surest defence in the face of temptation, and the highest revelation of God Himself. And now I venture to affirm that our duty to God never does conflict with our duty to each other. And why? It needs no argument. It is the very principle of religious morality that our duty to God consists mainly in our duty to each other. We can render to Him no service at all but in and through the service of our brethren who are His children. Our love to God never yet weakened--nay, it has evermore strengthened--our family love. The more conscientious we have become in the discharge of what we thought to be our duty to God, the more loving and faithful we have been to our dear ones at home. (C. Voysey.)

The great commandment

We enter the family circle now. It has become a very large family, and is destined to become still larger, till it includes all the families of the earth. Whether large or small, there is one grand principle which is to flow through the hearts of all its members, and to constitute a bond which neither time nor eternity can dissolve. That one principle is mutual love. Nothing else can take its place. Nothing else can do its work.

I. It will be well for us to look a little carefully at the person for whom this love is claimed--our brother. Our brother, in the New Testament, has a new and definite meaning. It is not our neighbour, as such. To a Jew, it was not his fellow Jew. Nor is it necessarily the son of our own father and mother. There may be many such sons whom, alas! we cannot regard in this high sense as our brothers. There are those who come nearer to us as Christians, and are endeared to us by stronger ties. The elements of the union between us, and which constitute them our brethren, are altogether peculiar. The first of these is faith in our common Saviour. From the moment that faith is exercised a new set of conditions spring up. We have parted company with the world, and shall soon find that we have forfeited its love and its sympathy. Then the faith which unites us to Christ unites us to all who are thus united to Him. And that irrespective of all external differences. Another of these elements is regeneration by the same Spirit. And now there opens before us another view of our subject, although necessarily glanced at already. Our Creator has become not only our God, but our Father. Further, our heavenly Father has embraced us all alike in the arms of His adopting grace.

II. We shall next have to enter into some of the reasons why this love is required. And we need hardly insist on the fact that all the reasons why we are called upon to love our neighbour obtain, and obtain with redoubled force, here. The ethics of the Second Table are not abrogated by the great law of brotherly love. Nay, those ethics are carried up to a higher plane, and enforced by sanctions of a higher order. Then He bases this precept on the deep ground of His own love to us. As I have loved you. We can understand how He can have loved others. But us? There is the difficulty. Yet we have tits own word for it, and that ought to be enough; and most persuasive in its eloquence. Learn from this unique example of My love to you to love one another. My love to you has been unmerited, disinterested, self-sacrificing, all-enduring. Let your love to each other take this as its pattern. Love one another as I have loved you. It will also be seen that the claim of our brother to our love is founded on our love to God. And this commandment have we from Him, that He who loveth God, love his brother also. John, however, touches the deepest foundations of all for this demand in the tenth and eleventh verses of this same chapter. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

III. There must be some practical methods available for the unequivocal manifestation of this brotherly love. Love to our brother is not a mere profession. Nor will this association be a mere formal and external thing; but we shall be led into real and intimate fellowship of heart and spirit with our brother. Readiness to sympathise with and help will, in like manner, present itself as an evidence and display of this love. Love can withhold nothing from its object. The love in question will at the same time lead to mutual charity and forbearance.

IV. A cursory glance at the great importance of the principle which it has been our earnest desire to inculcate. And let us begin at home. We have a deep personal interest in this matter. Nothing tends more to promote our own happiness, profit, and usefulness than that love which we owe to our fellow Christians. It fills the heart with sunshine, if the Church is ever to become the power for good in the world which she was intended to be, this will be the secret and fountain of her strength. Beside and above all these considerations, the honour of our Divine Lord and Head is bound up with this matter. Nothing pleases Him so much as the love which should unite all His disciples together in one close but grand confraternity. Nothing can furnish so powerful a demonstration of the might and benignity of His truth. Nothing can present so worthy and influential an exhibition of His character. (J. Drew.)

Love to God produces love to man

When God comes to man, man looks round for his neighbour. (Geo. Macdonald, LL. D.)

Hes my brother

Dr. Macgregor met in a great Scotch city a little girl carrying in her arms a baby, so bonny that she fairly staggered under its weight. Babys heavy, isnt he, dear? said the doctor. No, replied the winsome bairn, hes not heavy; hes my brother. (U. R. Thomas, B. A.)

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The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Jn 4:20-21. If any man say, I love God — And even say it with the utmost confidence; and hateth his brother — Which he will do more or less, if he do not love him; he is a liar — He affirms what is false, although, perhaps, he may not know it to be so; for he that loveth not his brother, whom he hath seen — Who is daily presented to his senses to raise his esteem, or move his kindness or compassion toward him; how can he love God, whom he hath not seen? — Whose excellences are not the objects of his senses, but are discovered imperfectly from his works of creation, providence, and grace, or from the declarations and promises of his word; his invisible nature being an obstacle to our loving him, which our weak and carnal minds cannot be expected easily to conquer. Indeed, we never could love him unless, as the apostle observes, his love were shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given to us. And this commandment have we from him — Both from God and Christ; that he who loveth God, love his brother in Christ also — That is, every one, whatever his opinions or modes of worship may be, purely because he is the child and bears the image of God. Bigotry is properly the want of this pure and universal love. A bigot only loves those who embrace his opinions, and he loves them for that, not for Christ’s sake.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Jn 4:20. Ὅν ἑώρακε, whom he hath seen) In this life we are held enthralled by the external senses.—πῶς δύναται, how can he) A modal expression [See Append. on MODALIS SERMO): It is impossible that such a man should love God, in the present.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

to 1Jn_5:1

1Jn_4:20 to 1Jn_5:1. Proof of the necessary co-existence of love to God and love to the brethren. The absence of the latter is evidence of the absence of the former; where love to God is, brotherly love also cannot be wanting.

1Jn_4:20. This verse divides itself into two parts, the second part confirming the thought of the first.

ἐάν τις εἴπῃ] The same form of thought as in chap. 1Jn_1:6 ff.

ὅτι ἀγαπῶ τὸν Θεόν] ὅτι is used, as frequently, at the commencement of the direct oration.

καὶ τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὑτοῦ μισῇ] With μισῇ corresponds the subsequent ὁ μὴ ἀγαπῶν, comp. chap. 1Jn_3:14-15. Spener: not only with actual hatred towards him, but even not loving him in perfect truth. To hate is the positive expression for not to love (so also Braune).

ψεύστης ἐστίν] see chap. 1Jn_1:6. The truth that he who hates (or, does not love) his brother, also does not love God, the apostle confirms by the contrast between ὃν ἑώρακε and ὃν οὐχ ἑώρακεν, in which the visibility of the brother is contrasted with the invisibility of God. The perfect indicates the permanent state; comp. 1Jn_4:12, Gospel of Joh_1:18. Lücke: ἑωρακέναι = to have before ones eyes; a Lapide: vidit et assidue videt. Socinus incorrectly lays a certain emphasis on the preterite when he says: quandoquidem satis est ad amorem per cognitionem alicujus erga illum excitandum, quod quis ipsum aliquando viderit; nee necesse est, ut etiam nunc illum videat. The premiss for the conclusion of the apostle is, that the visibleas the object directly presented to the sightis more easily loved than the invisible. Even the natural man turns with love to the visible,[285] whereas love to God, as the Unseen, requires an elevation of the heart of which only the saved are capable. Hence brotherly love is the easier, love to God is the more difficult. In him who rejects the former, the latter has certainly no place. The truth that love to God is the condition of Christian brotherly love, is not in contradiction with this; for that love, as the glorification of natural love, has its necessary basis in the natural inclination which we have to our visible brother, who is like us. It is therefore unnecessary to attach any importance to elements which the apostle here leaves quite untouched, as is the case with Calvin (with whom Sander, Ebrard, etc., agree) when he says: Apostolus hic pro confesso sumit, Deum se nobis in hominibus offerre, qui insculptam gerunt ejus imaginem; Joannes nil aliud voluit, quam fallacem esse jactantiam, si quis Deum se amare dicat, et ejus imaginem, quae ante oculos est, negligat;[286] and with de Wette in his interpretation: the brother is the visible empiric object of love; whereas God, the ideal invisible object, can really be loved only in him. By the interrogative: πῶς δύναται ἀγαπᾷν (comp. chap. 1Jn_3:17), and by placing the object τὸν Θεόν first, the expression gains in vivacity and point.

πῶς δύναται must not be taken: how can he attain to that? but: how can we suppose that he loves? (Baumgarten-Crusius). Bengel: sermo modalis: impossibile est, ut talis sit amans Dei, in praesenti.

[285] Oecumenius: ἐφελκυστικὸν γὰρ ὅρασις ἀγάπην. Hornejus: Sicut omnis cognitio nostra communiter a sensu incipit, ita amor quoque, unde facilius et prius amatur, quod facilius et promptius cognoscitur. Similarly Luther, Calovius, etc. Compare also the statement of Gregory (Homil. XI. in Evang.): Oculi sunt in amore duces; and Philo (ad Decalog.): ἀμήχανον εὐσεβεῖσθαι τὸν ἀόρατον ὑπὸ τῶν εἰς τοὺς ἐμφανεῖς καὶ ἐγγὺς ἀσεβούντων.

[286] The objection of Ebrard, that it is not easier to love a person who stands visibly before me, and has, for instance, injured me, than a person whom I have not seen at all, is overthrown by the fact that the apostle does not here make the slightest reference to the conduct of persons standing in visible opposition to us, by whom the natural feeling of love towards our equals is destroyed and turned into hate. As the apostle is contrasting the elements of visibility and invisibility, it is so much the more arbitrary to introduce here a reference to the imago Dei, as this is not something visible, but something invisible,the object, not of sight, but of faith.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Jn 4:20 . Lest the vagueness of the objectless ἀγαπῶμεν encourage false security, St. John reiterates the old test: Love for the invisible Father is manifested in love for the brother by our side, the image of the Father. Cf. Whittier:

“Not thine the bigot’s partial plea,

Nor thine the zealot’s ban;

Thou well canst spare a love of thee

Which ends in hate of man”.

ψεύστης , see note on 1Jn 1:6 .

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The first reason taken of comparison, why we cannot hate our neighbor and love God, to wit, because that he that cannot love his brother, whom he seeth, how can he love God whom he seeth not?

As he showed that the love of our neighbor cannot be separate from the love wherewith God loveth us, because this last engendereth the other: so he denieth that the other kind of love wherewith we love God, can be separate from the love of our neighbor: whereof it followeth, that they lie impudently which say they worship God, and yet regard not their neighbor.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

loveth not . . . brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen--It is easier for us, influenced as we are here by sense, to direct love towards one within the range of our senses than towards One unseen, appreciable only by faith. "Nature is prior to grace; and we by nature love things seen, before we love things unseen" [ESTIUS]. The eyes are our leaders in love. "Seeing is an incentive to love" [Å“CUMENIUS]. If we do not love the brethren, the visible representatives of God, how can we love God, the invisible One, whose children they are? The true ideal of man, lost in Adam, is realized in Christ, in whom God is revealed as He is, and man as he ought to be. Thus, by faith in Christ, we learn to love both the true God, and the true man, and so to love the brethren as bearing His image.

hath seen--and continually sees.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 20. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother] This, as well as many other parts of this epistle, seems levelled against the Jews, who pretended much love to God while they hated the Gentiles; and even some of them who were brought into the Christian Church brought this leaven with them. It required a miracle to redeem St. Peter's mind from the influence of this principle. See Acts 10.

Whom he hath seen] We may have our love excited towards our brother, 1. By a consideration of his excellences or amiable qualities. 2. By a view of his miseries and distresses. The first will excite a love of complacency and delight; the second, a love of compassion and pity.

Whom he hath not seen?] If he love not his brother, it is a proof that the love of God is not in him; and if he have not the love of God, he cannot love God, for God can be loved only through the influence of his own love. See note on 1Jo 4:19. The man who hates his fellow does not love God. He who does not love God has not the love of God in him, and he who has not the love of God in him can neither love God nor man.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

But this love cannot exist, except it generates brotherly love. Hence he says, that they are liars who boast that they love God, when they hate their brethren.

But the reason he subjoins seems not sufficiently valid, for it is a comparison between the less and the greater: If, he says, we love not our brethren whom we see, much less can we love God who is invisible. Now there are obviously two exceptions; for the love which God has to us is from faith and does not flow from sight, as we find in 1 Peter 1:8; and secondly, far different is the love of God from the love of men; for while God leads his people to love him through his infinite goodness, men are often worthy of hatred. To this I answer, that the Apostle takes here as granted what ought no doubt to appear evident to us, that God offers himself to us in those men who bear his image, and that he requires the duties, which he does not want himself, to be performed to them, according to Psalm 16:2, where we read,

“My goodness reaches not to thee, O Lord; towards the saints who are on the earth is my love.”

And surely the participation of the same nature, the need of so many things, and mutual intercourse, must allure us to mutual love, except; we are harder than iron. But John meant another thing: he meant to shew how fallacious is the boast of every one who says that he loves God, and yet loves not God’s image which is before his eyes.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

20. If a man say] We return to the form of statement which was so common at the beginning of the Epistle (1Jn_1:6; 1Jn_1:8; 1Jn_1:10). The case here contemplated is one form of the man that feareth not. His freedom from fear is caused, however, not by the perfection of love, but by presumption. He is either morally blind or a conscious hypocrite. Comp. 1Jn_2:4; 1Jn_2:9.

loveth not] As we have seen already (1Jn_3:14-15), S. John treats not loving as equivalent to hating.

whom he hath seen] S. John does not say ‘whom he can see’, but ‘whom he has continually before his eyes’. The perfect tense, as so often, expresses a permanent state continuing from the past. His brother has been and remains in sight, God has been and remains out of sight. ‘Out of sight, out of mind’ is a saying which holds good in morals and religion as well as in society. And if a man fails in duties which are ever before his eyes and are easy, how can we credit him with performing duties which require an effort to bear in mind and are difficult? And in this case the seen would necessarily suggest the unseen: for the brother on earth implies the Father in heaven. If therefore even the seen is not loved, what must we infer as to the unseen? The seen brother and the unseen God are put in striking juxtaposition in the Greek; ‘He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, the God whom he hath not seen cannot love’. But in English this would be misunderstood.

how can he love] With אB against AKL we should probably read cannot love: the ‘how’ is perhaps a reminiscence of 1Jn_3:17; comp. Joh_3:4; Joh_3:9; Joh_5:44; Joh_6:52; Joh_9:16; Joh_14:5. In a similar spirit Philo says parents may be regarded as ‘visible gods’, and ‘it is impossible that the Invisible should be revered by those who have no reverence for the visible’.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And this commandment have we from him,.... Either "from God", as the Alexandrian copy and the Vulgate Latin version read; and that to love the brethren is a commandment of God, is clear from Jo1 3:23; or from Christ, for it is also a command of his, even his new commandment, which he has given, and his people have received from him:

that he who loveth God, love his brother also; see Joh 13:34; which is an argument persuading to attend to the one as well as to the other; for the same command that requires the one, requires the other: and he that transgresses it in one case, is a transgressor of it, as well as in the other.

Next: 1 John Chapter 5

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

20 If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?

Ver. 20. If a man say, I love God] If he did so, he would hardly say so in a vaunting way howsoever. "Charity vaunteth not itself; is not puffed up," 1Co 13:4. Christ loves secret service, Son 2:14. They that bear him greatest love make least show thereof before others. Master Bartlet Green, when he had been beaten and scourged with rods by Bishop Bonner, and he greatly rejoiced in the same (saith Master Fox), yet his shamefaced modesty was such that he would never express any mention thereof (lest he should seem to glory too much in himself), save that only he opened the same to one Mr Cotton of the Temple (a friend of his) a little before he suffered martyrdom. (Acts and Mon. 1684.) Vasa quae magis continent, minus sonant. (Seneca.) But empty casks sound loudest: and baser metals ring shrillest.

Whom he hath seen] Sight usually maketh love. Juvenal greatly wondereth at one, Qui nunquam visae flagrabat amore puellae, who loved a party whom he had never seen.

How can he love God] That is, saith Dr Rainolds, He that cannot endure to look on that little glimpse and ray of holiness which is in his brother, in one of the same infirmities and corruptions with himself, will much less be able to abide the light of the Sun of righteousness, and the most orient, spotless, and vast holiness that is in him.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother - His Christian brother; or, in a larger sense, any man. The sense is, that no man, whatever may be his professions and pretensions, can have any true love to God, unless he loves his brethren.

He is a liar - Compare the notes at 1Jo 1:6. It is not necessary, in order to a proper interpretation of this passage, to suppose that he “intentionally” deceives. The sense is, that this must be a false profession.

For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen ... - It is more reasonable to expect that we should love one whom we have seen and known personally, than that we should love one whom we have not seen. The apostle is arguing from human nature as it is, and everyone feels that we are more likely to love one with whom we are familiar than one who is a stranger. If a professed Christian, therefore, does not love one who bears the divine image, whom he sees and knows, how can he love that God whose image he bears, whom he has not seen? Compare the notes at 1Jo 3:17.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

He that loveth not his brother, whom he seeth, how can he love God, whom he seeth not? By this is signified, that it is more easy and natural to love the things that we see, and that enter by the senses. Pretend not then to love the invisible God, whose perfections are hidden from you in this life, unless you love your brother whom you see. But he adds another reason to prove that no man can love God unless he love his brother; because saith he, (ver. 21.) this is God’s express command, that he who loveth God love also his brother: so that a man cannot love God unless he also love his neighbour. (Witham)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

The greater difficulty here is implied, through our present dependence upon sense, of loving the invisible God, than men that we daily see and converse familiarly with. Hence, considering the comprehensiveness of these two things, the love of God, and of our brother, that they are the roots of all that duty we owe to God and man, the fulfilling of the whole law, Mat 22:37-39, he lets us see the falsehood and absurdity of their pretence to eminent piety and sanctity, who neglect the duties of the second table.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

20. And this love is circumfused around us, encompassing our brother.

Hath seen… hath not seen—We can love those we have not seen—our invisible benefactors. The Americans love Washington. But it is a higher effort, depending on faith and not sight, to love a person of past history. But as said on 1Jn_4:12, we know the unseen God as love only through the blessed atmosphere of love encompassing our seen brethren with ourselves. Without love to the seen, he is a liar who claims to love the unseen God.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ebrard and others make a new section begin here; but verses 21, 22 are in intimate connexion with what precedes. What is this love of which the apostle has been speaking? Is it the love of" God or of our fellow-men? Both; love of our brethren is organically bound up with love of God. To love God and hate one"s brother is impossible. Sight, though not necessary to affection, aids it; and it is therefore easier to love men than God. If a man fails in the easier, will he succeed in the harder? Moreover, to hate one"s brother is to hate God. "Whoso rejecteth you rejecteth me, and whoso rejecteth me rejecteth him that sent me." Note the negative, mh not ouj. St. John has no definite person in view as oJ oujk ajgapwn, but any one who may happen to be of such a character, oJ mh ajgaphn. As before, oJ mh ajgapwn and oJ miswn are treated as equivalent; there is no neutral term between "love" and "hate.

Vers. 20, 21.

Love to man the expression of love to God.

Connecting link: The apostle has just declared that the love which pervades believers is owing to God"s love to them. He now advances to another and, indeed, to the final step in this paragraph on love, in which he sets forth more powerfully than ever the truth which he has thrice before (1Jn_3:10, 17 4:8) indicated, that love to God and love to man are inseparably connected together; that if any man declares that he loves God, while yet he is unconcerned about his brother, "he is a liar;" for adds the apostle, "He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, cannot love God whom he hath not seen." Hence our topicLove to God and love to man inseparable. Three lines of remark are suggested by the verses before us.

I HERE IS A DIFFICULTY WHICH WE WILL ENDEAVOUR TO REMOVE. What, indeed, may seem a difficulty to A may net prove so to B, and vice versa. To some, at any rate, there lies a difficulty here. The apostle says, "He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, etc.; as if it were so much easier and simpler to do that, and as if his meaning were, "If he cannot do the easier, he cannot do the harder; if he does not love him who is nearest, he cannot love him who is further removed; if he does not love one whom he sees, he cannot love one whom he cannot see," etc. On this Canon Westcott remarks, "It is necessarily easier to love that which is like ourselves than that which we cannot grasp in finite form." True, on the supposition that our brother possessed all moral and spiritual excellences, and that his kindness towards us were at all the counterpart of the love of God; then it would obviously be easier to love the nearer than the more remote. But supposing (as is too often the case) that our "brother" is the reverse of lovable is hard, cruel, selfish, lustful, bitter; it is very much harder to love him with all his visible vices than to love God with all his glorious perfections, unseen though he is. Is it true in such an ease, if a man love not a vicious brother he cannot love an unseen Being who is Love? We answer, Undoubtedly; for:

(1) We are not right if we set the question only thus Whether is easier per se? but Is it possible, looking at the matter all round?

(2) The question is not that of the love indicated by the word filov, but rather that of ajgaph.

(3) Seeing that God commands us to love our brother (verse 21), and that love to God is nothing if it be not loyalty, then if we do not in such a case love ajgapan our brother, it is certain that we cannot be loving God. (Note the change of rendering in the Revised Version and a corresponding change in the Greek.)

II HERE IS A STATEMENT WHICH IT BEHOVES US CAREFULLY TO PONDER, viz. that God"s command to love our brother is so emphatically th e command of the gospel that, if it is neglected, God is not loved at all, however profuse the verbal declaration of love may be. "My love must go forth towards those whom I see, as God saw me when he first loved me. And my love must be what his love is no idle sentiment or barren sympathy, but a love that seeks them, and hears long with them, and waits and longs and prays for their salvation; a love that gives freely and without upbraiding; a love self-sacrificing, self-denying; a love that will lay down life itself to save them. And when they become by grace what by grace I am, I must love them as God loves me, for what I see in them; yes, and in spite of what I see in them, too." The love of God is that we keep his commandments; (1Jn_5:3) but his command is that we love as he loved us. The only being, however, whom we can love with such a love is our brother, whom God has placed before us; one whom we have seen. "And the title "brother" brings out the idea of that which is God-like in man to which love can be directed. He, therefore, who fails to recognize God as he reveals himself through Christ in man (Mat_25:40) cannot love God. He has refused the help which God has provided for the expression of love in action" (Westcott, "Commentary," in loc. ). Let us, then, formulate the statement of the text thus:

1. The love which has God for its supreme Object is an element pervadingthe whole being, and radiating towards surrounding objects. It is not a capricious sentimentalism; it is a love which is not only towards God, but from him, and like his own.

2. I am to love compassionately and with a view to redeem another, asGod has loved me. But the only being whom I can thus love is he who is before me my brother.

3. It is a command from God that my love to him, the great Unseen, shouldbe shown in this way by loving the brother who is seen.

4. Therefore there is no other way of practicing love to God than this loving the seen brother; i.e., not simply our natural brother in the home, nor even our redeemed brother in the Church, but our fallen, sinking, perishing brethren in the "wide, wide world.

III HERE IS, CONSEQUENTLY, A DUTY SPECIFIED, WHICH WE ARE BOUND TO DISCHARGE. "That he who loveth God love his brother also." And, lest we should be content with vague generalities, we are supplied elsewhere with two other specific directions to the working of this love in 1Jn_3:18 and in 1Jn_3:16. According to the first, our love to man ought to be an intensely practical one. According to the second, we should be such enthusiasts therein as to be willing to lay down our lives for the brethren. Now, if any one earnestly desired to fulfill all this in his own life, he would go very far towards succeeding if he adopted and carried out the following principles of action:

1. "I will, by God"s help, for God"s sake, lay out myself to be the helper ofmankind in any way in which I can advance their interests; and this plan in life shall take precedence of my own ease, comfort, and wealth; desiring to carry out the apostolic motto, "As poor, yet making many rich.

2. The most truly Christ-like way to help others is to lead them to gain thepower of so helping themselves that they no more may need another"s aid, but may become themselves, in their turn, helpers of others. (Act_3:6) That is not true love which so doles out charities as to keep the recipients in a perpetual state of dependence, if by wiser methods they could be raised above it.

3. In pursuing this method diligent inquiry must be made as to what evilsafflict the people and retard their progress. We must ascertain whether they come from within or from without, and, in either case, what they are and how they come.

4. These causes of ill being ascertained, they must be traced to their source; whether health, or wealth, or morals, or religion be imperiled: whether they are traceable to the covetousness, greed, and love of power on the part of men in the higher ranks, or to lack of self-respect, of aim, of hope, of faith, and of a sense of right in the lower ranks.

5. Some specific external ills require an equally specific and special remedy,such as sanitary ills, overcrowding, etc.

6. In every case Christian philosophy requires that we attack the evils attheir root, which is sin, however varied the forms in which it may rear its head.

1. Hence the supreme work of the Christian philanthropist who would layhimself out to help his brother man is to bring the love of God in Christ to bear upon his heart and conscience. In God"s love the desolate soul

1. finds a home;

2. learns its own worth;

3. begins to love others;

4. lives to help others.

And thus thus, in letting God"s love in us work out effectively, Christian people have the one and only cure for all the ills of our race. In this direction much more remains to be done than Christians have ever yet attempted. May God make us loving and wise enough to work with him in blessing our age and race!

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Whom he hath seen - Who is daily presented to his senses, to raise his esteem, and move his kindness or compassion toward him.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Our apostle in these words prevents an objection. Some might be ready to say, "Who is it that doth not love God? is there any that live who doth not love him?" The apostle replies, That whosoever says he loves God, and yet hateth his brother, is plainly a liar; for it is impossible truly to love God, and not to do what God commands: and if we do not exercise love to our brethren, whom we daily see and converse with, how can it be imagined that we love God, whom we never saw?

Learn hence, first, That as God is infinitely above us, so he needeth not our love, but it is wonderful condescension in God to give us leave to love him, and to suffer himself to be embraced by those arms which have embraced sin and lust before him.

Learn, 2. That though God needs not us, or our love, yet we need him, and stand in need of one another, and for that reason must and ought to love each other.

Learn, 3. That if we love not God’s visible image, it is certain we never loved the invisible God; if when we have our Christian brethren in our daily view, and the objects of our senses are their miseries and wants, and yet we shut up the bowels of compassion from them, can we, or dare we, pretend at the same time to love God whom we have not seen, and who is only present to our minds by raised expectations; as the sight of our brother is a strong inducement to love him, so the not loving him at sight, is a strong argument that we love not God himself; For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

20. If a man say. Yet no one can claim to love God who hates his brother. We cannot love the unseen God when we hate the brother who is in God's image.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

20. For πῶς δύναται ([749][750][751], Peschito, Vulgate) read οὐ δύναται ([752][753], Thebaic).

[749] 5th century. Brought by Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople, from Alexandria, and afterwards presented by him to Charles I. in 1628. In the British Museum. All three Epistles.

[750] 9th century. All three Epistles.

[751] 9th century. All three Epistles.

[752] 4th century. Discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 at the monastery of S. Catherine on Mount Sinai, and now at Petersburg. All three Epistles.

[753] 4th century. Brought to Rome about 1460. It is entered in the earliest catalogue of the Vatican Library, 1475. All three Epistles.

20. ἐάν τις εἴπῃ. We return to the form of statement which was so common at the beginning of the Epistle (1Jn 1:6; 1Jn 1:8; 1Jn 1:10). The case here contemplated is one form of the man that feareth not. His freedom from fear is caused, however, not by the perfection of love, but by presumption. He is either morally blind or a conscious hypocrite. Comp. 1Jn 2:4; 1Jn 2:9.

ὁ γὰρ μὴ ἀγαπῶν. As we have seen already (1Jn 3:14-15), S. John treats not loving as equivalent to hating. For μή see on 1Jn 2:4; 1Jn 3:10; 1Jn 3:14.

ὃν ἑώρακεν. S. John does not say ‘whom he can see’, but ‘whom he has continually before his eyes’. The perfect tense, as so often, expresses a permanent state continuing from the past. His brother has been and remains in sight, God has been and remains out of sight. ‘Out of sight, out of mind’ is a saying which holds good in morals and religion as well as in society. And if a man fails in duties which are ever before his eyes and are easy, how can we credit him with performing duties which require an effort to bear in mind and are difficult? And in this case the seen would necessarily suggest the unseen: for the brother on earth implies the Father in heaven. If therefore even the seen is not loved, what must we infer as to the unseen? The seen brother and unseen God are put in striking juxtaposition in the Greek; ‘He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, the God whom he hath not seen cannot love’. But in English this would be misunderstood.

οὐ δύναται. It is a moral impossibility: comp. 1Jn 3:9; Joh 3:3; Joh 3:5; Joh 3:27; Joh 5:19; Joh 5:30; Joh 7:7; Joh 7:34; Joh 8:21; Joh 8:43; Joh 12:39; Joh 14:17. The reading πῶς δύναται is perhaps a reminiscence of 1Jn 3:17 or Joh 3:4; Joh 3:9; Joh 5:44; Joh 6:52; Joh 9:16. See critical notes.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

20.] The connexion is most close: and the error great of those who, as e. g. Erdmann, have made a new section begin here. This ἀγάπη is universal, necessarily manifested in both of the two great departments of its exercise. Love, living and working in the heart as a principle, will fix first upon objects at hand and seen: those objects being natural objects for it to fix on. How then can a man love God, the highest object of love, who is removed from his sight, and at the same time refuse to love his brother, bearing the mark of a child of God, before his eyes from day to day? Put in a brief form, the argument, as connected with the last verse, is this: His love has begotten us anew in love: in this us are included our brethren; objects of our daily sight: if therefore we do not love them, we do not love Him. If any say (aor. “have said;” i. e. at any time: the saying once, rather than the habit, is the hypothesis) I love God, and hate (pres. of habit) his brother, he is a liar: for (here again the argument is enthymematic, and we must supply from our common sense ἐφελκυστικὸν γὰρ ὅρασις πρὸς ἀγάπην, Œc.: “oculi sunt in amore duces,” &c.) he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen (perf.: and continues to feel the influence of that sight. We do not say “I have seen him” of the dead, but of the living only), cannot love God whom he hath not seen (St. John does not say that there is no love without sight; nor that we love all we see better than any thing we do not see: his argument rests on a deeper and truer position: viz. on that assumed in the word ἀδελφόν, which carries with it the consideration that he of whom it is said is begotten of God. Both ὁ ἀδελφός and ὁ θεός are used within the limits of the Christian life, of which that is true, which is unfolded ch. 5:1, that this ἀδελφός as begotten of God is a necessary object of love to one that loves Him that begat him. Here, a lower step of the same argument is taken; but without this great truth, lying beneath the word ἀδελφός, it would carry no conviction with it).

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

20. ἐάν τις εἴπῃ] Cf. 1:6, ἐὰν εἴπωμεν, and the more definite ὁ λέγων (2:4). The false claim is mentioned quite generally. At the same time, it is not improbable that the false teachers, who claimed to possess a superior knowledge of the true God, may also have laid claim to a superior love of the Father, who was “good,” and not merely “just,” as the God of the Old Testament. And the emphasis laid throughout the Epistle on the duty of mutual love makes it clear that their “superior” love had been more or less conspicuous in its failure to begin at home, or to master the import of the Lord’s verdict, ἐφʼ ὅσον οὐκἐποιήσατε ἑνὶ τούτων τῶν ἐλαχίστων, οὐδὲ ἐμοὶ ἐποιήσατε.

μισῇ] Cf. 2:9.

ψεύστης ἐστίν] He not only states what is false (ψεύδεται), but reveals by his false claim a real falseness of character, if the difference between two possible forms of expression is to be pressed.

ὁ γὰρ κ.τ.λ.] Love must express itself in action. He who refuses to make use of the obvious opportunities, which his position in this world affords him, cannot entertain the highest love.

ὃν ἑώρακεν] Cf. Oec. ἐφελκυστικὸν γὰρ ὅρασις πρὸς ἀγάπην, and the saying of Philo, de Decalogo, 23 (Cohn, 4:296), ἀμήχανονδὲ εὐσεβεῖσθαι τὸν ἀόρατον ὑπὸ τῶν εἰς τοὺς ἐμφανεῖς καὶ ἐγγὺς ὄντας ἀσεβούντων.

οὐ δύναται] The reading of א B, etc., is perhaps more impressive and more in agreement with the writer’s love of absolute statement than the variant which Westcott condemns as “the rhetorical phrase of the common text” (πῶς δύναται). At the same time the latter reading suggests a new point. The man who rejects the obvious method of giving expression to love in the case of those whom he has seen, has no way left by which he can attempt the harder task of reaching out to that which is invisible.

οτι] om. א Aug. (bis).

αγαπω] post θεον1:0 Ia 70 (505): αγαπα Ic 551 (216): ηγαπηκεν H δ48 (33).

μιση] μισει Κh al.25 cat. Dam. Thphyl.

γαρ] om. Ia 158 (395) Ib 157 (29).

ου δυναται] א B 27. 29. 66**. 68. 69 ascr sah. syr. Lcif.] πως δυναται A K L al. pler. cat. vg. syr. cop. arm. aeth. Dam. Thphyl. Oec. Cyp. Aug.

αγαπαν] αγαπησαι13 Rev_2.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

He that loveth not his brother, etc. Note the striking inversion of the clauses : He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, God whom he hath not seen cannot love.

How. The best tests omit, and give the direct statement cannot love. So Rev.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

20. ἐάν τις εἴπῃ] The form of expression differs slightly from that in i. 6 ff. (ἐὰν εἴπωμεν). There a view was given of the general position of Christians: here a particular case is taken, involving personal feeling. Contrast also “he that [saith] and ‘every one that [saith], c. iii. 3 note; ii. 4 note.

εἴπῃ ὅτι ᾿Αγαπώ...] For the use of the recitative dr: see i.6 note. The claim is like those which have been noticed in ii. 4, 9; i. 6 ff, by which the faith is taken out of the sphere of practical life.

It is worthy of notice that in the Gospel of St John ἀγαπᾶν is not used of the feeling of man for God (the Father). It is so used in the other Gospels in a quotation from the Lxx.

μισῇ] hate. St John admits no position of indifference. See ii. 9 note.

ψεύστης ἐστίν] Comp. ii. 4 ὁ λέγων ὅτι Eyveoxa αὐτὸν καὶ τὰς ἐντολὰς αὐτοῦ μὴ τηρῶν ψεύστης ἐστίν... The claim to the knowledge of God without obedience, and the claim to the love of God without action, involve not only the denial of what is known to be true (ψεύδεσθαι), but falseness of character. Comp. i. ro note, and ν. 10. See also John viii. 44, 55; and 6. li, 22.

ὁ yap μὴ ἀγαπῶν... for he that loveth not... The particular statement (ἐάν ris εἴπῃ) is refuted by a general principle. Sight is taken as the sign of that kind of limitation which brings objects within’ the range of our present powers. It is necessarily easier to love that which is like ourselves

be clouded but he has been seen, and the idea of brotherhood abides for constant use.

Brooke Foss Westcott (1825–1901), The Epistle to the Hebrews (1889) and The Epistles of St John (1883) — public domain (pre-1929). Text recovered from Internet Archive / Google Books OCR scans. Westcott’s Gospel of John commentary is not included (its OCR lost the chapter running-heads required for reliable verse-keying). Some Greek quoted in the Hebrews volume is imperfectly rendered by the OCR.