Do Right and Be Hated

In 1 John 3:16-18 the Apostle John informs us about the kind of love that indicates that one has been born of God. But before he gives us the positive example of Christ, he first wants us to think about the negative example of the Old Testament character, Cain.

For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother.

Now the reason John mentions Cain and his murder of Abel is not so much to give us a negative example of love, but rather to show how the world will respond to the love of God within us. So in verse 13 he says, in light of what Cain did to Abel, “do not be surprised that the world hates you.” As Abel was to Cain, so Christians are to the world. The world will hate Christians as wickedness hates righteousness.

Notice how illogical this hatred is. Abel did nothing wrong, certainly nothing injurious to Cain. But he was hated by Cain nonetheless. Christians will be hated, but not because of anything wrong done to the world. We are, in fact, to show love to the world and so give them no legitimate reason to despise us (Titus 2:7-8). We are to love our neighbor and do good to them. It is a good thing to be at peace with your neighbor.

But Cain hated Abel and killed him, "because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous." Every time Cain laid eyes on his brother, he was reminded of his own sinfulness. Similarly, the Christian's right standing with God will be a constant reminder to the world that they have been rejected by God.

So it will come as no surprise when we do have to bear the hostility of the world simply because of our association with Christ. If he was hated, so his followers will be. This is what Jesus predicted in John 15:18-19.

If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

Now the reason why it is important for us to know this is because it will be tempting for the believer to deny Christ when he faces the hatred of the world. After Jesus warned about the coming hatred, he said

I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. . . . Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. . . . But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you. (John 16:1-4)

Those who are coming to faith in Jesus need to know that doing so will not make their life easier. Wouldn't Jesus have had more followers if he had promised a life of ease and prosperity? Sure, but they would have followed him for his material blessings and not for his glory. Instead, Jesus set the bar high at the beginning. Following Jesus means you will be hated, but God's glory will shine brightest when we persevere in faith and love both our brothers and sisters as well as our enemies.

We need to stop suggesting to people that following Jesus is a life of ease. Jesus never hinted that that would be the case. Instead, he wanted us to know that following him would bring its share of suffering and hardship precisely because of our choice to follow him.

Still interested in following Jesus?

Why Our Hope Matters Now

This past Sunday at our church our study through 1 John took us into chapter three. There John writes about the significance of us becoming God's children. This is due to the lavish love of God toward us: "See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are."

It was quite a humbling experience for us to meditate for a while on how deep the Father's love for us must be to not just atone for our sins but also to make us his children. We observed six things that are true for all believers thanks to God's adoption of us whereby he makes us his children.

One of those observations came from the astounding words of verse three. John writes, "And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure." I struggled for some time to understand John's logic. Why does our hope in being made like Christ at his appearing cause us to "purify ourselves" right now? How is it that our hope for this future transformation makes a practical difference in our lives now?

I think the answer is indicated by those final four words: “as he is pure.” That’s the connection to verse two, where our final salvation is achieved by seeing him “as he is.” We will miss the entire force of this passage if we don’t follow John’s assumption here, namely, that those who are born of God and have his nature will yearn to become just like Jesus. And knowing that the only way we will become like Jesus is by seeing him, we, who have this hope of becoming like him, will now be purifying ourselves in order to become just as he is pure.

In other words, those who are born again are the kind of people who are moving toward perfection, though they will not be there until Christ appears. Conversely, those who are not God’s children are moving away from the purity of Christ.

The way to become like Christ, according to the implication of verse two, is by seeing him. But in verse three John refers to this process as an act of purifying. Interestingly, that word in the Bible means "to cleanse and so make acceptable for religious use." Purification, then, is what one does as preparation. So what John is saying is that those who have this hope in Jesus, the hope that his appearing will be our final salvation as we become like him, will pursue the typical Christian behavior of striving to become like him now by striving to see him. That’s what perseverance is all about. It’s about wanting to become like Christ and so striving to see him and to know him. And all of that becomes a sort of “prerequisite” to seeing him on that final day as one of his children.

Let me remind us all that our only hope of seeing Jesus now is by looking where he has revealed himself. We ignore the disciplines of Bible study, prayer, service to others, and Christian community to our peril. Let us take up these disciplines and the others so that we might catch a glimpse of Jesus and there find the full and everlasting joy of communion with him.