By the Spirit of God, the apostle who tells us “God is love” also warns us against hating our brother. In three successive chapters of 1 John, we find his strongly worded admonitions.

The one who hates his brother walks in darkness (2:9–11) and is a murderer (3:11–15). Further, he who claims to love God is called a liar if he also hates his brother (4:20–21). These passages even imply that the one who hates his brother might not be a true believer, since “no murderer has eternal life abiding in him”; and “he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?” (3:15; 4:20).

Yet the one who is hated is called a brother, and thus we must pause to consider whether we ourselves are implicated by these warnings. Hatred is the unbelieving world’s attitude toward the Christian (3:13), so how terrible that true believers might join with the world to express hatred against their brethren!

But perhaps most Christians would know better than to use the word “hate,” admitting only to fervent displeasure about someone’s behavior or doctrine. However, the Scriptures expose our hypocrisy by explaining what hatred looks like. In 2 Chronicles 18:7, Ahab declared his hatred for Micaiah because that man of God always spoke against him. And in Genesis 37:4, the brothers of Joseph hated him and thus could not even speak to him peacefully. If I dislike a fellow believer because I feel he always disagrees with me; or if I clash so strongly with certain brothers or sisters that I can’t even greet them kindly; then I am in the company of Ahab and of Joseph’s brothers. God forbid! In the blindness of hate we will always lose our way; but we know we have passed from death to life when we love our brethren (1 Jn. 2:11; 3:14).