The Pulpit Commentary — 1 John — Section 121

APPL10ATION. 1. It is quite intelligihle how some men should come to hate what they call dogmR. If a mrm accepts a form of sound words, and is dead withal, he must not be surprised if his words a.re thought to be" an empty sound." Can anythin" be more unutterably offensive than a bunclle of dead creeds avowed by dead men? Men 01t9ht to hate them. But if a. mo.n says, "My religion is this-' I love God and man because God loves me;'" and if he shows it while he says it, men will not despise him or his doctrine either. He will redeem dogma from discredit by inspiring it with life. 2. Whoever expects a living Church without a creed, expects an impossibility. If we let go our faith, we put out our fire. If any Church lets go its hold on the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, its life will not be worth twenty years' purchase. 3. If God first loves, then we should consent to let God's love be first. What is the use of trying to work ourselves into favour with God? The very effort is sin. If God did not love us out of the promptings of his own nature, nothing that we can ever do would be good enough to induce him to love. 4. If God first loves us, and seeks " the love of poor souls," how ungrateful and unjust will it be on our part if we do not love in return I 5. Here is a glorious object on which we may set our gaze-Divine love. Yea, it is a staff on which we can lean, a pillow on which we may repose; nay, more, it is a vast and gorgeous cathedral in which we can worship and adore; it is the soul's home and joy and rest. Here is" the simplicity which is in Christ." Here are theology, religion, and philosophy in one sentence. Theology : God loves. Religion: we love. Philosophy : we love because he loves. Here is that which is simple enough for the child, yet so grand that not the wisest philosopher as such has found, or ever will find, aught worthy to be compared with it. Vers. 20, 21.-Love to man tl1e expression of love to God. Connecting linlc: 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, iudeed, 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 (eh. iii. 10, 17; iv. 8 1) 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 uncon- cerned 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 topic-Love to God and love to man inseparable. Three lines of remark are suggested by the verses before us. l. HERE IS A DIFF10ULTY WHICH WE WILL ENDEAVOUR TO BEMOVE. What, indeed, may seem a difficulty to A may not 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 Canou ·westcott remarks, "It is necessarily easier to love that which is like ourselves than that which we cannot grasp in fir.ite 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 a case, 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 1 but-Is it possible, looking at the matter all round? (2) 'l'he question is not that of the love indicated by the word rpl>..or, but rather that of a-y111HJ. (3) Seeing that God com- mands us to love our brother (ver. 21), and that love to God is nothing if it be not loyalty, then if we do not in such a case love (a-y,.,r,j:v) 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 DEHOVES us CAREFULLY TO PONDER, viz. that 1 Bee homilies thereon. ilS THE FIRST EPISTLE GENERAL OF JOUN. [err. rv. 1-21,