The Marks of a Christian

1 John 3:11-15
“This is the message that you heard from the beginning: we should love one another. Not like Cain, who was of the wicked one and slew his brother. Why did he slay him? Because his own works were evil and his brother’s were righteous. Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hates you. We know we have passed from death into life because we love the brethren. He that loves not his brother abides in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer. No murderer has eternal life abiding in him.”

“If we want to know for certain that we are children of God, then here is the first test: we have become unlike the world. That is the first argument in verse 12: ‘not as Cain, who was of the wicked one and slew his brother.’ Cain did not hate his brother because there was something hateful about him. There was nothing to be hated in Abel. Cain hated him in spite of that. Neither does the world hate us because we are good. Let us be quite clear about that. The world does not hate good people. The world only hates Christian people. That is the subtle, vital distinction. If you are just a good person, the world, far from hating you, will admire you, will cheer you. The world likes good people because it feels they are a compliment to itself.

The world hates Christians, not because they are hateful, or because they are good, or because they do good, but because they are Christians, because they are of God, because they have Christ within them. The world feels we are condemning it because we are so different from the world. It feels lost. It hates the feeling of condemnation so it hates us.

Conversely, Christians love each other because they are “of God.” Christians see God in each other. We share the life of God. We love the brethren as an expression of our love for our Heavenly Father. Christians rejoice in the work of God within them, and they rejoice to see the same thing in others. When we see people who are born again, we want to praise God. We love them because we are in the hands of God, because they are God’s workmanship, because we see this principle of Christlikeness in them. We rejoice with them in that they have what we have.”