To Love Your Brother is to Love Christ

John gives us another test of salvation:
1st John 4:20 – “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?”

That’s some pretty strong language. We modern preachers wouldn’t be able to say such things to our congregation, and stay employed. Calling someone a liar for being a hypocrite? That just wouldn’t do.

Yet, that is exactly what John is doing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And he does it because it is true. There are a lot of liars when it comes to spiritual things.

And the sad part is, we most often lie to ourselves. “Oh, I just love God so much,” someone says, but do they really? Who knows what they really love. Maybe they just love singing worship songs and the good feeling it gives them. Maybe they love the potlucks and the fellowship of Christians. We are nice folks. Maybe they love the image of a kindly Santa Claus in heaven who doles out goodies.

But do they really love God? To love God is to love him for who He is, for who He has revealed himself to be. If many in the church really realized the radical commitment Jesus demanded, they would disappear just like the crowds did in John 6:66 which says, “From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.”

People don’t want to hear Jesus say, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” They want that warm, fuzzy Jesus spooned out as pabulum from so many churches. But real love for Jesus loves Him as He really is, not as we wish He would be. Loving some false image of Him isn’t real love, nor is not responding back in love by loving the brethren.

So, 1st John 4:20 is the 7th time John says,” If someone says,” then shows them to be a liar because they claim to be a Christian without any evidence. Because this is so prevalent in our day of “easy believism,” we need to be reminded - loving one another isn’t optional, it’s a command. 1st John 4:21 makes it quite clear, “And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.” “Must” is a pretty strong word.

This is how our love for God finds perfection – when we love the our brothers. As John twice said - in verse 17 and again in verse 18, loving God is perfected when we express that love by loving others. There’s no excuse allowed. John already made that clear in verse 20: “For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?”

John wouldn’t have said it if people didn’t feel that way. “Sure I can love God. He’s a loveable old man sitting on His cloud up in heaven. Who wouldn’t love a cosmic Santa Claus? But man, you don’t know my cantankerous neighbor. Who could love someone like that?” Sorry, you can’t separate the two.

And what makes you think loving God is all that easy? Even loving Jesus wasn’t all that easy. After all, John 1:11 says, “He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.”

James Montgomery Boice writes this:
“Our natural inclination is to think that it is easier to love God simply because He is worthy of our love and that it is different to love man because they are not loveable or lovely. Yet, this passage says exactly the opposite, implying, no doubt, that unless we are really loving our Christian brothers and sisters on the horizontal level, we are deluding ourselves in regard to what we consider to be our love for god on the vertical.”

Hmm, perhaps it’s through learning to love man that we learn to love God. After all, you can’t see God, or touch Him, but you can your neighbor. And your neighbor was created in the image of God, wasn’t he? Yes, marred, perhaps, but God’s creation none the less. Do you love him?

Look at Matthew 25:31-46. This is the sheep and goat judgment that takes place at Christ’s return as He sorts out who goes in and who stays out of His kingdom, but it sure shows what Jesus considers important:

Matthew 25:31-40
31 “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. 33 And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: 35 for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; 36 I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? 38 When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? 39 Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40 And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’

Then Jesus turns to the goats on His left hand and says pretty much the same thing in reverse:
Matthew 25:41-46
41 “Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: 42 for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; 43 I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’
44 “Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ 45 Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ 46 And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Do you see? Jesus equates our love for “the least of these” as love for Himself. He identifies with them - He feels for them. To Jesus, for us to love them is the same as loving Him. And our lack of love for them is felt by Him as a lack of love for Him.

After all, Jesus says in John 14:15, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” And isn’t this the second most important one?

Jesus told us that too in Matthew 22:37-40:
37 Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

Love God, Love people. That basically sums up the Christian life. Is it your life? If you can’t say, “Yes, I love my brother,” then you can’t really say with honesty that you love Jesus.