He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now.
To say one is in the light while hating his brother is to be in darkness even until now, for the profession is false and cannot stand together with hatred. He who loves his brother abides in the light with no occasion of stumbling in him, but he who hates his brother remains in darkness and walks in darkness, with his eyes blinded so that he does not know where he goes. This is the old commandment heard from the beginning, made new and true in Christ and in believers because the darkness is past and the true light now shines. To know Him is proved by keeping His commandments, for to claim knowledge without keeping them is to lie without the truth, while keeping His word perfects the love of God and abiding in Him means walking even as He walked in pity and compassion. Hatred denies the faith professed and proves one is not a child of the day, and it shows itself in hard speeches, evil speaking, suspicion, faultfinding, and disunion, so brethren must be reconciled by confessing and forsaking their own sins and learning to love one another as Christ loved as the proof of discipleship.
Meaning and Context
To claim to live in the light while hating a brother or sister is to remain in darkness even until now, for the profession is false and incompatible with hatred. Such hatred reveals selfishness in words and works, while love for brethren shows the love of God abiding in the heart. Hatred blinds a person and leads to stumbling, whereas love for a brother marks abiding in the light. Brothers in hatred and disunion dishonor God and must be reconciled before the reproach their conflict brings on His cause can be removed. Walking as Christ walked means being full of pity, tenderness, and compassion.
The saying belongs to the old commandment heard from the beginning, which is the word heard from the beginning, yet it is also new and true in Christ and in believers because the darkness is past, or passing, and the true light now shines. It is part of the truth received from Christ in simplicity, a science above all human science, to be held in communion with God and thought upon continually. So held it keeps from being led astray by new and strange words from human lips and by false science taught as truth.
He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no occasion of stumbling in him. He who hates his brother is and remains in darkness and walks in darkness, with darkness blinding his eyes so that he does not know where he goes and cannot find clear direction. By contrast, loving one's brother avoids becoming a cause of stumbling.
The verse continues the message that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all, and it is to be read together with 1 John 1 to gain the true understanding of what Christ teaches. The whole second chapter is plain truth for those living in the last days to read and study. Its verses on love and hatred plainly depict the characteristics that mark those who become members of the Lord's family, showing that true conversion always manifests itself in the character of the converted one.
Obedience and Knowing God
To know Him is proved by keeping His commandments, which are the old commandment heard from the beginning, and to say I know Him without keeping them is to lie without the truth in him. Keeping His word perfects the love of God in him and proves being in Him, and abiding in Him requires walking even as He walked, full of pity, tenderness, and compassion. The commandment of love is old from the beginning yet new and true in Him and in believers because the darkness is past and the true light now shines.
Christ is advocate with the Father and propitiation for the sins of the whole world, yet forgiveness does not abolish the law. Obedience to the law of God is the condition of salvation, and the death of Christ proves the law is immutable and will endure throughout eternity. That claim to be in the light was made by the Jewish church, and crying away with the commandments of God repeats the cry of away with Christ, because the law condemns iniquities and crooked practices.
The love required is not a love that compromises with sin, but a love that proceeds from a heart loving God supremely and neighbor as self, revealing the love of God in love to brethren and sisters. To hate a brother proves the bright beams of the Sun of Righteousness have never shone into the heart and the chambers of the mind. It is the greatest and most fatal deception to suppose a man can have faith unto eternal life without Christlike love for his brethren, for he who loves God and his neighbor is filled with light and love, with God in him and all around him. There is no such thing as a loveless Christian, for God is love, and Christians love those around them as precious souls for whom Christ died. Love for fellow believers is evidence of living in the light and knowing God, and Christlike love is necessary for genuine faith and sanctification, so its absence reveals that a person does not love God as supposed.
The verse belongs with forgiveness of sins for His name's sake, holding fast the truth heard from the beginning, continuing in the Son and in the Father for the promise of eternal life, and abiding in Him so as to have confidence and not be ashamed before Him at His coming. Claiming to be in the light requires walking in the knowledge of the truth and partaking of the divine nature, keeping singleness of purpose, and obtaining a genuine experience that is of great value. It means walking humbly with God without crowding the mind with a variety of things, so that the life is faithful in that which is least. It belongs with walking in the light as God is in the light and having fellowship one with another, and with speaking the truth in love and growing up into Christ with the whole body edified in love. Presenting beautiful theories is not enough unless the love of Christ is in the heart to give fragrance to words and works, and loss of this first love is loss of all things, calling for remembering, repenting, and doing the first works.
How Hatred Shows Itself
Many deny hatred because they do not know their own hearts, mistaking opposition to a brother whose ideas conflict with their own for zeal for God. Such hatred includes feelings that have no kinship with love, showing no disposition to harmonize, and being as ready to be at swords' point as not. It allows prejudice and passion to bar mind and heart against truth. It is shown by a hard spirit leading to hard speeches, evil thoughts, evil speaking, evil doings, and bitter words against brethren, even against those more righteous, proving lack of control by the Spirit of God. It is shown by exalting self and disparaging others, requiring criticizing self instead of others, confessing and forsaking personal sins, and setting the heart in order at once with no time to lose. It is jealousy, suspicions, imagining evil, and creating evil by unbelief and imagination, coming when confidence is placed in human agencies and not on the divine, whose portion is bitter disappointment.
Hatred is shown by suspicion, faultfinding, severe criticism, unkind criticism, ridicule, misrepresentation, and condemnation, contradicting any claim to live in the light. It looks for others' faults and condemns them while forgetting one's own errors, thereby losing sight of Christ's love and shutting brotherly love and God's love out of the heart, losing happiness and joy and walking in darkness often without realizing the loss. It collects mistakes and reports about a fellow worker to stone him with them and destroy his reputation and life, even when defended as self-defense and disagreeable necessity, which takes up the work of Satan as accuser of the brethren and proves Jesus is not enthroned in the citadel of the soul. It is shown by disunion that dishonors God, requiring reconciliation before the reproach on God's cause can be removed. It works by prejudice, dissension, and tattling that give Satan a way to divide the church. It condemns brethren because they do not follow one's own leading when God never commanded following any man's leading, for those claiming to believe truth must obey the Word as it reads by practicing brotherly love.
It makes a tirade against God's commandment-keeping people because they believe the Word just as it reads and their godly life condemns the haters' course, wresting the Scriptures to suit disobedience and, inspired by the great deceiver, reproaching God's messengers sent to show sin in walking contrary to God's Word. This darkness is most dangerous when the hated brother is bearing a message from God that is just the light needed for this time. In every age when the Lord sends a special message the confederacy of evil works to prevent it from reaching those who should receive it, and Satan stirs the passions of professed believers to unite them with evil, leading them step by step in the false way in bitterness toward their brethren as in his own disaffection in heaven, so that the most precious things appear distorted and are repudiated without Christlike searching of the Scriptures. Those who have resisted light and evidence walk as blind men not knowing at what they stumble and make crooked paths that turn the lame out of the way. In the church in Battle Creek this darkness came because the Holy Spirit was resisted after being proffered again and again, because love for heavenly things was not cultivated by beholding Jesus, and because pity and faith were scarcely exercised while men handling sacred things were sharp, critical, and censorious toward souls for whom Christ died, so that the heavenly anointing departed.
Call to Love and Unity
To claim to be in the light while hating a brother is to be in darkness even until now, denying the faith professed and contradicting knowing and following God. Such hatred proves a person is not a child of the day but reveals selfishness that mars the character by failure to love neighbor as self. It requires most earnest individual work and constant growing in the Lord, learning the hard lesson of yielding self to Christ. The heart must be cleansed from all defilement and deformity and receive entire transformation of character through perfect self-surrender, without which no one can enter the holy city to live the life that measures with the life of God or see the kingdom of God. To be at variance through hatred toward brethren because they do not follow one's own leading is condemned, for God never commanded following the leading of any man, and those who claim to believe the truth must obey the Word as it reads by practicing brotherly love, which is the light of Christ contained in the great commandment of love.
Those who take the position of teacher yet fail to manifest tender regard for their brethren should cease their labors until converted in spirit, word, and deportment, because otherwise they exert a harmful influence in the church. They must submit to God's molding and polishing until all roughness vanishes to become a vessel unto honor. Especially those in positions of responsibility must treat others with Christlike courtesy, forbearance, and kindness at all times and under all circumstances, since their words, spirit, deportment, and manner of treating brethren sow seeds for good or evil as an example for others to follow. Bible Christians must have as great an interest for a brother workman as for self, keeping hearts kind and tender to one another while giving the bread of life to perishing souls. This requires cultivating true Christian courtesy and unselfish interest in every fellow laborer by an educated mind and heart expressing itself in deeds of thoughtful kindness, while hatred reveals selfishness in words and works and love for brethren shows the love of God abides in the heart as Christ expressly commands His followers to love and respect their brethren.
Brethren in hatred and disunion dishonor God and must be reconciled before the reproach their conflict has brought on God's cause can be removed. The wrong must be put away not by charging guilt upon others but by confessing one's own sins. This means criticizing self instead of others, confessing and forsaking personal sins, and setting the heart in order at once with no time to lose. Such diligent repentance cleanses from sin and makes ready for the Lord's appearing, because souls are in peril in the great day of atonement. A hard spirit leading to hard speeches, evil thoughts, evil speaking, evil doings, and bitter words against brethren, even against those more righteous, proves a person does not know what manner of spirit possesses him and is not under the control of the Spirit of God.
Speech should be used for counsel, encouragement, and reproof, not to criticize, and the claim to live in the light is contradicted by how one treats those who differ through unkindness, ridicule, misrepresentation, and condemnation. Avoiding fault-finding does not mean ignoring wrongdoing, but addressing the wrong directly and meekly and telling the truth in order to help save the wrongdoer. Concealing mistakes and leaving the person unaware of them is unfaithful and brings shared responsibility for the resulting punishment. Even if another's views are questionable, harsh treatment of him is not excusable, and brethren must not crowd and push one another because others do not see as they see.
Looking for others' faults and condemning them while forgetting one's own errors means losing sight of Christ's love. Those who shut brotherly love and God's love out of their hearts lose happiness and joy and walk in darkness, often without realizing what they have lost. Suspicion, faultfinding, severe criticism, and unkind criticism toward fellow believers are inconsistent with brotherly love and leave a person in darkness. Bitterness toward a brother is contrary to the light and can make a person's influence oppose God's work and put its cause at risk, proving Jesus Christ is not enthroned in the citadel of the soul and taking up the work of Satan as accuser of the brethren instead of the higher calling God gives.
Those in this condition are called to listen to God, be watchful, strengthen the things that remain, hold fast what was received and heard, repent, honor God, cultivate love for heavenly things, and behold Jesus until His likeness is reflected. Resisting light and evidence, lacking pity, having scarcely any faith, and being sharp, critical, and censorious toward souls for whom Christ died are proof of darkness, and loving the world and the things in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, shows the love of the Father is not present. Charity out of a pure heart is what Christ values most as the fruit of the Christian tree. Love for one another as Christ loved is the proof of discipleship by which all men know true followers and is evidence of living in the light and knowing God, and Christlike love is necessary for genuine faith and sanctification so that its absence reveals a person does not love God as supposed.
To say one is in the light while hating his brother is to be in darkness even until now, for the profession is false and cannot stand together with hatred. He who loves his brother abides in the light with no occasion of stumbling in him, but he who hates his brother remains in darkness and walks in darkness, with his eyes blinded so that he does not know where he goes. This is the old commandment heard from the beginning, made new and true in Christ and in believers because the darkness is past and the true light now shines. To know Him is proved by keeping His commandments, for to claim knowledge without keeping them is to lie without the truth, while keeping His word perfects the love of God and abiding in Him means walking even as He walked in pity and compassion. Hatred denies the faith professed and proves one is not a child of the day, and it shows itself in hard speeches, evil speaking, suspicion, faultfinding, and disunion, so brethren must be reconciled by confessing and forsaking their own sins and learning to love one another as Christ loved as the proof of discipleship.
Meaning and Context
To claim to live in the light while hating a brother or sister is to remain in darkness even until now, for the profession is false and incompatible with hatred. Such hatred reveals selfishness in words and works, while love for brethren shows the love of God abiding in the heart. Hatred blinds a person and leads to stumbling, whereas love for a brother marks abiding in the light. Brothers in hatred and disunion dishonor God and must be reconciled before the reproach their conflict brings on His cause can be removed. Walking as Christ walked means being full of pity, tenderness, and compassion.
The saying belongs to the old commandment heard from the beginning, which is the word heard from the beginning, yet it is also new and true in Christ and in believers because the darkness is past, or passing, and the true light now shines. It is part of the truth received from Christ in simplicity, a science above all human science, to be held in communion with God and thought upon continually. So held it keeps from being led astray by new and strange words from human lips and by false science taught as truth.
He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no occasion of stumbling in him. He who hates his brother is and remains in darkness and walks in darkness, with darkness blinding his eyes so that he does not know where he goes and cannot find clear direction. By contrast, loving one's brother avoids becoming a cause of stumbling.
The verse continues the message that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all, and it is to be read together with 1 John 1 to gain the true understanding of what Christ teaches. The whole second chapter is plain truth for those living in the last days to read and study. Its verses on love and hatred plainly depict the characteristics that mark those who become members of the Lord's family, showing that true conversion always manifests itself in the character of the converted one.
Obedience and Knowing God
To know Him is proved by keeping His commandments, which are the old commandment heard from the beginning, and to say I know Him without keeping them is to lie without the truth in him. Keeping His word perfects the love of God in him and proves being in Him, and abiding in Him requires walking even as He walked, full of pity, tenderness, and compassion. The commandment of love is old from the beginning yet new and true in Him and in believers because the darkness is past and the true light now shines.
Christ is advocate with the Father and propitiation for the sins of the whole world, yet forgiveness does not abolish the law. Obedience to the law of God is the condition of salvation, and the death of Christ proves the law is immutable and will endure throughout eternity. That claim to be in the light was made by the Jewish church, and crying away with the commandments of God repeats the cry of away with Christ, because the law condemns iniquities and crooked practices.
The love required is not a love that compromises with sin, but a love that proceeds from a heart loving God supremely and neighbor as self, revealing the love of God in love to brethren and sisters. To hate a brother proves the bright beams of the Sun of Righteousness have never shone into the heart and the chambers of the mind. It is the greatest and most fatal deception to suppose a man can have faith unto eternal life without Christlike love for his brethren, for he who loves God and his neighbor is filled with light and love, with God in him and all around him. There is no such thing as a loveless Christian, for God is love, and Christians love those around them as precious souls for whom Christ died. Love for fellow believers is evidence of living in the light and knowing God, and Christlike love is necessary for genuine faith and sanctification, so its absence reveals that a person does not love God as supposed.
The verse belongs with forgiveness of sins for His name's sake, holding fast the truth heard from the beginning, continuing in the Son and in the Father for the promise of eternal life, and abiding in Him so as to have confidence and not be ashamed before Him at His coming. Claiming to be in the light requires walking in the knowledge of the truth and partaking of the divine nature, keeping singleness of purpose, and obtaining a genuine experience that is of great value. It means walking humbly with God without crowding the mind with a variety of things, so that the life is faithful in that which is least. It belongs with walking in the light as God is in the light and having fellowship one with another, and with speaking the truth in love and growing up into Christ with the whole body edified in love. Presenting beautiful theories is not enough unless the love of Christ is in the heart to give fragrance to words and works, and loss of this first love is loss of all things, calling for remembering, repenting, and doing the first works.
How Hatred Shows Itself
Many deny hatred because they do not know their own hearts, mistaking opposition to a brother whose ideas conflict with their own for zeal for God. Such hatred includes feelings that have no kinship with love, showing no disposition to harmonize, and being as ready to be at swords' point as not. It allows prejudice and passion to bar mind and heart against truth. It is shown by a hard spirit leading to hard speeches, evil thoughts, evil speaking, evil doings, and bitter words against brethren, even against those more righteous, proving lack of control by the Spirit of God. It is shown by exalting self and disparaging others, requiring criticizing self instead of others, confessing and forsaking personal sins, and setting the heart in order at once with no time to lose. It is jealousy, suspicions, imagining evil, and creating evil by unbelief and imagination, coming when confidence is placed in human agencies and not on the divine, whose portion is bitter disappointment.
Hatred is shown by suspicion, faultfinding, severe criticism, unkind criticism, ridicule, misrepresentation, and condemnation, contradicting any claim to live in the light. It looks for others' faults and condemns them while forgetting one's own errors, thereby losing sight of Christ's love and shutting brotherly love and God's love out of the heart, losing happiness and joy and walking in darkness often without realizing the loss. It collects mistakes and reports about a fellow worker to stone him with them and destroy his reputation and life, even when defended as self-defense and disagreeable necessity, which takes up the work of Satan as accuser of the brethren and proves Jesus is not enthroned in the citadel of the soul. It is shown by disunion that dishonors God, requiring reconciliation before the reproach on God's cause can be removed. It works by prejudice, dissension, and tattling that give Satan a way to divide the church. It condemns brethren because they do not follow one's own leading when God never commanded following any man's leading, for those claiming to believe truth must obey the Word as it reads by practicing brotherly love.
It makes a tirade against God's commandment-keeping people because they believe the Word just as it reads and their godly life condemns the haters' course, wresting the Scriptures to suit disobedience and, inspired by the great deceiver, reproaching God's messengers sent to show sin in walking contrary to God's Word. This darkness is most dangerous when the hated brother is bearing a message from God that is just the light needed for this time. In every age when the Lord sends a special message the confederacy of evil works to prevent it from reaching those who should receive it, and Satan stirs the passions of professed believers to unite them with evil, leading them step by step in the false way in bitterness toward their brethren as in his own disaffection in heaven, so that the most precious things appear distorted and are repudiated without Christlike searching of the Scriptures. Those who have resisted light and evidence walk as blind men not knowing at what they stumble and make crooked paths that turn the lame out of the way. In the church in Battle Creek this darkness came because the Holy Spirit was resisted after being proffered again and again, because love for heavenly things was not cultivated by beholding Jesus, and because pity and faith were scarcely exercised while men handling sacred things were sharp, critical, and censorious toward souls for whom Christ died, so that the heavenly anointing departed.
Call to Love and Unity
To claim to be in the light while hating a brother is to be in darkness even until now, denying the faith professed and contradicting knowing and following God. Such hatred proves a person is not a child of the day but reveals selfishness that mars the character by failure to love neighbor as self. It requires most earnest individual work and constant growing in the Lord, learning the hard lesson of yielding self to Christ. The heart must be cleansed from all defilement and deformity and receive entire transformation of character through perfect self-surrender, without which no one can enter the holy city to live the life that measures with the life of God or see the kingdom of God. To be at variance through hatred toward brethren because they do not follow one's own leading is condemned, for God never commanded following the leading of any man, and those who claim to believe the truth must obey the Word as it reads by practicing brotherly love, which is the light of Christ contained in the great commandment of love.
Those who take the position of teacher yet fail to manifest tender regard for their brethren should cease their labors until converted in spirit, word, and deportment, because otherwise they exert a harmful influence in the church. They must submit to God's molding and polishing until all roughness vanishes to become a vessel unto honor. Especially those in positions of responsibility must treat others with Christlike courtesy, forbearance, and kindness at all times and under all circumstances, since their words, spirit, deportment, and manner of treating brethren sow seeds for good or evil as an example for others to follow. Bible Christians must have as great an interest for a brother workman as for self, keeping hearts kind and tender to one another while giving the bread of life to perishing souls. This requires cultivating true Christian courtesy and unselfish interest in every fellow laborer by an educated mind and heart expressing itself in deeds of thoughtful kindness, while hatred reveals selfishness in words and works and love for brethren shows the love of God abides in the heart as Christ expressly commands His followers to love and respect their brethren.
Brethren in hatred and disunion dishonor God and must be reconciled before the reproach their conflict has brought on God's cause can be removed. The wrong must be put away not by charging guilt upon others but by confessing one's own sins. This means criticizing self instead of others, confessing and forsaking personal sins, and setting the heart in order at once with no time to lose. Such diligent repentance cleanses from sin and makes ready for the Lord's appearing, because souls are in peril in the great day of atonement. A hard spirit leading to hard speeches, evil thoughts, evil speaking, evil doings, and bitter words against brethren, even against those more righteous, proves a person does not know what manner of spirit possesses him and is not under the control of the Spirit of God.
Speech should be used for counsel, encouragement, and reproof, not to criticize, and the claim to live in the light is contradicted by how one treats those who differ through unkindness, ridicule, misrepresentation, and condemnation. Avoiding fault-finding does not mean ignoring wrongdoing, but addressing the wrong directly and meekly and telling the truth in order to help save the wrongdoer. Concealing mistakes and leaving the person unaware of them is unfaithful and brings shared responsibility for the resulting punishment. Even if another's views are questionable, harsh treatment of him is not excusable, and brethren must not crowd and push one another because others do not see as they see.
Looking for others' faults and condemning them while forgetting one's own errors means losing sight of Christ's love. Those who shut brotherly love and God's love out of their hearts lose happiness and joy and walk in darkness, often without realizing what they have lost. Suspicion, faultfinding, severe criticism, and unkind criticism toward fellow believers are inconsistent with brotherly love and leave a person in darkness. Bitterness toward a brother is contrary to the light and can make a person's influence oppose God's work and put its cause at risk, proving Jesus Christ is not enthroned in the citadel of the soul and taking up the work of Satan as accuser of the brethren instead of the higher calling God gives.
Those in this condition are called to listen to God, be watchful, strengthen the things that remain, hold fast what was received and heard, repent, honor God, cultivate love for heavenly things, and behold Jesus until His likeness is reflected. Resisting light and evidence, lacking pity, having scarcely any faith, and being sharp, critical, and censorious toward souls for whom Christ died are proof of darkness, and loving the world and the things in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, shows the love of the Father is not present. Charity out of a pure heart is what Christ values most as the fruit of the Christian tree. Love for one another as Christ loved is the proof of discipleship by which all men know true followers and is evidence of living in the light and knowing God, and Christlike love is necessary for genuine faith and sanctification so that its absence reveals a person does not love God as supposed.