WHEN I WAS a kid, I owned a pocket-sized New Testament given to me by my grandmother. It was the kind that people in the military could carry with them on active duty. I didn’t grow up in a Christian or church-going family, but at some point decided it might a good idea to see what this little book actually said, and started from the beginning with Matthew 1.

Being young, I couldn’t really relate to its King James English: so-and-so with an unpronounceable name “begat” so-and-so, and on it went. The text seemed so stuffy and antiquated. But I persisted, and five chapters into the story ran headlong into the Sermon on the Mount. I didn’t really understand it, of course, but something about it had the ring of divinity; something told me that these words of Jesus needed to be taken seriously.

They are difficult and challenging words, however, words that skewer any pretensions to righteousness. Jesus takes what his hearers had been taught and says, “But I tell you…,” shocking his listeners with the demands of a righteousness that goes well beyond that of their religious experts, the Pharisees and the teachers of the Mosaic law. Here’s one famous example:

You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, “You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.” But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, “Raca,” is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, “You fool!” will be in danger of the fire of hell. (Matt 5:21-22, NIV)

Most people, Christian or otherwise, could honestly say that they had never violated the commandment against murder: “Who me? Commit murder? Of course not!” But can we then take comfort in our righteousness? No, Jesus suggests, because even just being angry enough to call a brother or sister a nasty name — you empty-headed fool! — makes you just as guilty in the eyes of God. Similarly, he continues, you might never have had an adulterous affair with someone else, but lusting after that someone makes you just as guilty.

Strong words. Some would say impossible words, an impossible ethic for real people in the real world.

But as you might expect, the apostle John agrees with his master.

JOHN, AS WE’VE seen repeatedly, likes using black-and-white contrasts to make his point. On one side is light, righteousness, truth, God, and the children of God; on the other is darkness, sin, lies, the devil, and the children of the devil. And now, he adds life and death to the list, simultaneously linking them to the contrast between love and hate:

We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him. (1 John 3:14-15)

He’s already said in verse 10 that anyone who fails to love their brother and sister is not a child of God; here he suggests that they remain spiritually dead and don’t have eternal life. Moreover, he calls such people murderers, as Cain himself murdered his brother Abel. Is that an extreme way of putting it? Yes, but no more extreme than Jesus himself had taught.

Note that he doesn’t say that “no murderer will live eternally after they die.” He says that no murderer — that is, no one who hates their brother or sister — has eternal life residing in them now. As you may have already anticipated, that word “residing” is our old friend “abiding,” a verb John uses seven times in this chapter alone. Indeed, he just used it in the previous verse, though you can’t tell by reading the New International Version: “Anyone who does not love remains — abides — in death.” In other words, because they don’t have eternal life abiding in them now, they abide in a state of spiritual death instead.

These words are meant to make us sit up and take notice. Yes, John knows that his readers have been under the gun. Yes, he knows that they have experienced the hatred of others and will continue to do so as long as they continue to live as light in a darkened world.

But then what? How will they respond? What kind of people will they be? The temptation is to return hate for hate, and to do so with the self-righteous rationalization that God is on their side. As noted in a previous post, that is precisely what Jesus taught against when he said that those who follow him are to love their enemies and even those who persecute them, no matter what they’ve been taught (Matt 5:43-48). That’s how they show that they’re children of God; that’s how they show the family resemblance.

And as John will suggest next, love has to be more than just a sentimental feeling or flowery words; true love demonstrates the truth of the gospel through real action.