INTRODUCTION
There are three things that eternally abide: faith, hope and love, but the greatest is ‘divine’ love. The issue of love is of great essence to God. It forms the greatest commandments to all believers as indicated in Matthew 22:37-39. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”. This is the first and the greatest commandment. And the second is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself”. The love of God and love of others as indicated above, are the greatest commandments and the basis of true Christian life, responsibility and divine revelation. It is out of love that we extend help to others; it is out of love that we protect and support others. Love does not keep records of wrongs. However, in the absence of love, evil thrives. In other words, whenever a vacuum is created which is unoccupied by love, room is created for evil to exist. When we do not love, we are inclined to hurt, to steal from others and capable of murder and all manner of sin. When we do not allow ourselves to be loved, we ourselves are bereft of love and what we do not have, we cannot give; therefore, making us susceptible to evil ideas against people and all around us. And as the Bible says, “we will be dead through trespasses and sin” when we do not and cannot love. It is within this scope that I will in this paper, attempt to explain John’s statement that “whoever does not love abides in death” in the light of the doctrine of sin.
EXEGESIS OF 1 JOHN 3:14-18
In 1 John 3:14-18 John admonishes believers to love one another. In verse 14, John draws the attention of the believer to some of the things that become obvious when one comes to the saving knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. He confirms that a believer becomes aware of the new life in Christ Jesus as a result of the changes in the relationship with his fellow brother and his love for Christ and His commandments. That is the real testimony of a regenerated life. He continues in verse 15 by indicating that without love towards a brother, hatred is manifested. John then repeats Jesus saying in Matthew 5:21-22 that “whoever hates another person is a murderer at heart”. He goes on to remind the believer that Christianity is relational and is a religion of the heart. Also, the outward expression alone is not enough, it requires love towards the brethren. He explains in verse 17 that love is sharing and being generous with each other. Love seeks the welfare of others and extends a hand to the poor in the community of faith just as Christ laid down His life for us. Christians are therefore to participate in the life of others “to encourage love and good works” among the family of believers. Further in verse 18, John laid emphasis on showing of love not only in words, but “in deed and in truth” as stated in James 2:14-17 “what doth it profit, my brethren though a man say he has faith, and have not works?”. James in this passage defines true faith as faith that works and John also defines true love as love that works. As believers, when we truly appreciate God for what he has done for us, then in acknowledgment and thanksgiving we ought to share the same love with others. In the light of the above summary, I will proceed to look at the concept of sin.
WHAT IS SIN?
According to Shirley C. Guthrie, “the basic truth is not that we are sinners, but that we are human beings created in God’s image”. However, man is confronted “with self-contradictions, which make life so hard to understand and live”. There are constant contradictions of the truth, distortions, corruption; indeed sin has invaded every part of our nature our mind, will, affections, conscience imagination and disposition. But this does not mean that we cannot tell right from wrong, or do things that are pleasant and helpful. But our limitations stems from the fact that “The human heart is most deceitful of all things and desperately wicked”. We are defiled “for from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander arrogance and folly”. It is worth noting that the list includes thoughts, words and actions. This shows that before God, anything we say, think or do that is less than perfect is sin. Sin can therefore be defined as “to miss the mark” the Greek word is Harmartia. This word is used to refer to both the power of sin and its fruits as indicated in James 4:17. Sin is also defined as “not able to do God’s will” and “living in immorality”. John Blanchard also defines sin as “anything that fails to meet God’s perfect standard”. The Bible presents us with many definitions of sin. In Prov. 24:9 scripture states that “the thought of foolishness is sin”. In John 3:4, “sin is the transgression of the Law”. James 4:17 teaches that “to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not to him it is sin”. The Greek word, Parakoe, also used in the Bible to describe sin means “neglect to hear”, which displays a careless attitude towards the word of God or His commandments. There are other Hebrew translations in the Old Testament as well; for example chattah means “an offence”. Pawsah also means to break away from just authority, trespass, revolt or quarrel. All these definitions point to the self-contradictions that come about as a result of sin. To further deepen our understanding on the self-destructive nature of sin we will look at the three basic forms of sin as espoused by Shirley C. Guthrie.
THE THREE BASIC FORMS OF SIN
One of the basic forms of sin is “sin as disobedience”. It is obvious that the source of all destruction, disunity, disharmony, discomfort, disengagement, desertion, disaster, disability, disorder, discouragement, distress and disintegration, are the result of one single act of disobedience. “Sin as disobedience” is described by Shirley as disobedience to the law of God. He further explains that the law of God requires complete surrendering of self to the benefit of God and love for the neighbor. Moreover, sin as disobedience is not just doing bad things, but withholding love to God and to mankind or not doing what love requires. It can also mean that we exhibit love which we really do not mean, or worshipping ourselves though we pretend to worship God; or using the name of God in vain and pretending to love others or withholding good from others. As in some Jewish thought, withholding goods from someone in need is equivalent to starving him or her. The true Christian is to show sacrificial and unconditional love towards others daily; failure to so and depriving others of that love is murder.
The other form of sin Shirley espoused is “Sin as sensuality”. It is also interesting to note that most often; we relate the idea of sin to adultery, fornication, drunkenness among others. These are described as sin; “worldly or fleshly sin” which results in the gratification of the flesh as stated in Romans 8:13 “for if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die”. Hence, we excuse ourselves from the guilt of sin and blame it on our sinful nature. But as I have indicated above the heart is the source of all sin. The root of the act and its effect on both our fellow man and God is what makes it sinful.
Shirley Guthrie also talks about ‘Sin as the Desire to be good”. Through one man, sin came into the world. The sin of Adam and Eve reveals the guilt, disobedience, pride, weakness and rebellion of all men. Therefore we inherit sin from Adams through his position as the head of the human race and also through our generational link with him. Therefore, the desire of Adam reflects the desire of all men if placed in the same situation. Man in the Garden of Eden was not content to be dependent of God. Man had a strong urge to be like God, had the desire to know good and evil and therefore could accept the devils liars and went ahead to eat the forbidden fruit; and through this one act man fell. The desire to know good and evil is a rebellion against God; a position that frees man from God’s instructions or correction. Man fallen nature deprives him of totally eradicating sin from his life. Sin has become a ‘second nature’ which shows its head continually and habitually, though sin is contrary to the nature of one born of God.
THE JUDGMENT OF SIN
The judgment on sin is plain: sin brings death. Johns saying in 1 John 3:14 is clearly elaborated in Ezekiel 18 as well. The Bible is consistent that the punishment of sin is death both physical and spiritually. Ezekiel 18:4 states that ‘the soul who sin is the one who will die”. Sin is lawlessness; and lawlessness is disobedience to authority and the authority of God. John reflects that the resentment of Cain led to the death of his brother. Cain was consumed with jealousy because of the favour his brother received from God consequently he murdered him. There are rules for living and God has clearly indicated in his word that love of God and love of man according to Dianne Tidball is “at the heart of the Christian faith”. The litmus test is love, but the very love also promotes the hatred of those who are evil. The qualities that the people of God display; love integrity, holiness and truth, tend to incites others to be hostile and they tend to dislike those who live by a different principle. This is why Cain could decide to kill his brother because Abel did what was pleasing before God and he received favour.
Hatred of a brother by a brother leads to murder and the one who hates is himself dead. Hatred stems out of self-interest, self-will, greed, lust, pride among others. It is when one is possessed or obsessed with ensuring that his will is done; no matter what is ethical or morally right; any contrary or opposing views have to be removed to make way for his personal will to prevail. In our world today this is happening where people are not able to accommodate each other leading to strives, wars and divorce and murder. Hatred is not just an irritation and frustration with someone because they are not likeable; it is an obsessive desire to eliminate someone because of a deep-seated antagonism to them, say Dianne Tidball.
Another illustration is Judas Iscariot betrayal of Jesus Christ. Judas out of greed led the crowd to arrest Jesus. After the betrayal, he should have asked for forgiveness but since he did not extend love to his Master initially, and caused his arrest, he also stopped loving himself and that eventually led to his death by suicide. As Guthrie posits ‘sin is not just killing people but having contempt for any human being”. In short, sin is not loving and not being willing to let ourselves be loved. When man is bereft of love then life itself losses it’s meaning to him. To hate, to murder, to be in bad relationship is a characteristics of people living in death. In 1 John 3:10 the Bible tells us that “anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love the brother”. For if we are called to be like Christ, there is no place for sin in our lives. Love is derived from Christ. But no one can exercise the love called for here without learning it from Christ. Jesus love is not conditional. Our willingness to share indicates whether or not we have the love of God. Genuine love is not only by words but with action and in truth. Words and actions are instruments that can be used to express love. Words on their own are not enough; the call to love in truth indicate that our actions and our words must not simply be formalities or attempts to appear in good light but must reflect sincere concern for the one we love. In Romans 13:8 we read that the only debt a believer should owe his neighbor is the love and that love is the fulfillment of the law. He that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. The Lord is saying to us that doing does not count, loving motivates it.
Love worketh no ill against the neighbour which means that love is not abstract sentiment, it is a concrete reality that takes active form in the treatment of those around us. Love is patient, kind and does not envy, it is not self-seeking and above all does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Love shows whether we belong to the sphere of the truth or the sphere of lies. For the essence of truth is Jesus himself, who said I am the way the truth and the life and to exercise love confirms whether we live in Christ and he in us. If we live in Christ, then just as he laid down his life for us so we also have to lay down our lives for others.
CONCLUSION
It is worth noting that sin is never eradicated from the life of the believer, human beings are prone to sin. It is the Holy Spirit that is given so that the believer may not let sin reign in his body. The temptation of the world, the devil and the flesh are constant and powerful but they are not stronger than God. When we are confronted with issues that will lead us to sin, we have to utilize the power of God in our lives and God’s provision in scriptures to overcome the world. We need each other and love is very central to communal living. We need to transform our societies, meet the need of others and touch lives. If we do not love we will not be able to do any of these. If we do not love we will be depriving others of the goodness of life. The absence of self-giving, sacrificial love is an indication of someone who is separated from God and remains spiritually dead, with no hope of eternal life. Certainly, judgment awaits every act of sin according to the principle that whatever a man sows he will reap.
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