One of the most exciting books you can read is The Count Of
Monte Cristo. The hero of the book, Edmund Dantes, had been
unjustly cast into a dungeon. Fortunately, by means of a tunnel he
met an old man in another nearby dungeon. The old man told him
of a great treasure that was hidden on the island of Monte Cristo. It
seemed to be a worthless bit of knowledge, for he was just as
trapped as the old man. His chance for escape, however, did come
when the old man died. His body was put into a sack and was to be
thrown over the cliff into the sea. Edmund Dantes saw his chance
for escape. He managed to drag the body of the old man through
the tunnel into his dungeon, and then he returned and got into the
sack himself. He, of course, was thrown into the sea, and thereby
became a free man.
He was far from free, however, for he so despised those who put
him into the dungeon that he was a slave to hate. He spent the rest
of his days, and his great wealth in tracking down, one by one, those
who were responsible. He was clever enough to escape the bondage
of the dungeon, but he remained a prisoner of the chains of hate.
When one is intoxicated with hatred, he is not even free to chose to
how to respond to persons, but is compelled to be hateful, and therefore,
is among the least free of all men. None are so bound as
those who are wrapped in the chains of hate.
Catallus, the Roman said, "I hate and I love. Perhaps you ask
why I do so. I do not know, but I feel it, and I am in torment." He
was a victim of his own depravity, and though he hated to hate, he
knew of no way to escape. Hatred is just a part of the very being of
unregenerate man. John says if a man hates, you can be sure he is
still in the darkness. Even Freud, who was no great friend of
Christianity, recognized the truth of man's depravity. He said,
"Those who love fairytales do not like it when people speak of innate
tendencies in mankind toward aggression, destruction, and in
addition cruelty." Everyone who has their eyes open to the facts are
compelled to believe that hatred and hostility are basic problems of
our world. In the United States alone there are on the average every
hour 15 persons who are stabbed, clubbed, or shot. The daily news
could appropriately be titled-who's hating who.
The big question is what can be done? Is there any escape, or will
man's hatred eventually be the force that brings down the curtain on
the stage of history, and then blows up the stage to boot. Bombs and
missiles are not the problem, for it is the hatred of men that makes
them so dangerous. The most popular panacea for overcoming
man's hatred is education. Herbert Hoover once said, "If we had
just one generation of properly born, adequately educated, healthy
children, developed in character, we would have Utopia itself." This
is the view of numerous leaders, but it is unrealistic. Even though it
is known that hostility is not inherited, and, therefore,
you could presumably begin with a generation of unhateful babies.
But there is no way to raise them without them learning to hate, for
they must grow up in a world where hate is always on the loose.
Their parents hate; their relatives hate, and their neighbors hate. It
would not be long before these potential utopianites would be
responding as J. Petit-Senn who said, "We are told to walk
noiselessly through the world, that we waken neither hatred nor
envy; but, alas! what can we do when they never sleep?"
You cannot educate men out of hatred when the most powerful
influences in their lives are teaching them to hate. Men are born
with the tendency to hate, but the actual hatreds they acquire are
learned from their parents, relatives, and associates. Dr. Leon J.
Saul a professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the University of
Pennsylvania School of Medicine says in his book, The Hostile Mind,
that studies indicate that very definitely that hostility begins in the
home. Man is depraved, but the expression of that depravity in hate
and prejudice are not in the child. These things have to be taught,
and so the very cause of man's hatred is evil education. Oscar
Hammerstein II captured this truth in poetry:
You've got to be taught to hate and fear,
You've got to be taught from year to year,
It's got to be drummed in your dear little ear,
You've got to be carefully taught.
You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a different shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.
You've got to be taught before its too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught.
The Christian recognizes that education is essential, but it is
inadequate to solve man's hate problem. Hate is more a matter of
the heart, and so man needs his heart change before education will
be of any profit. Man needs to know God through Christ, and he
needs to know the commands of Christ, and live in obedience to
them, for only then can the love of God be perfected in him, and only
then can he have the power to snap the chains of hate that bind his
heart. Education can help get men out of bondage, as Edmund
Dantes clever thinking got him out of the dungeon, but only the love
of Christ can get men free from the chains of hate. The most
brilliant of men are still slaves of hatred if their education has not
included a knowledge of God through Christ.
For example, take Joseph Goebbles of Hitler's Germany. He was
a smart man, and he earned his PH.D. from Heidelberg. He rejected
the Gospel, however, and he wrote in his diary just before his 28th
birthday: "I have learned to despise the human being from the
bottom of my soul. He makes me sick at my stomach." His
brilliance only enabled him to hate with greater power and cruelty.
We have spent a lot of time setting the stage. We have seen that
the problem of hate is great. We have seen that man's solutions to it
just do not work, for these very solutions are infiltrated by the forces
of hate. We have arrived then to where man has always been. The
stage is set the same as in John today. Only the actors are different.
The Gnostics said knowledge is the cure-all. You can just attain
unto full knowledge, then you will be in the light. They, of course,
despise and hated those who were ignorant. There knowledge did
not free them from hate. John warned the Christians of his day that
they ought not to be duped into thinking that brilliance is the key to
the realm of light. Love alone can get you in. If a genius says he is
in the light, yet hates his brother, John says he is still in the
darkness. He is not a free man, but is bound and blind, and like
captured Samson, he is a slave to the Philistines of hate.
There is only one way out of the darkness of hate says John. We
must hit hate hard with the only weapon that can snap its heavy
chains, and that weapon is obedience to the supreme commandment
of love. John had just said in verse 3 that assurance grows out of
obedience to God's commands, and now he explains the
commandment which is the essence of them all. He begins in verse 7
where he addressed them as brethren, or beloved, as the modern
versions have it. He assures them that he is not introducing any new
idea like the Gnostics were doing. He is only writing of the old
commandment which they had from the beginning. Cults and
heretics always stress the fact that what they have is new and
different. This is even more so with those who want to exploit the
masses who crave for the novel in religion. The faith once for all
delivered to the saints is often labeled as old hash, and discarded,
but John, and all of Scripture, says it is this old hash alone that can
nourish the soul and give it life and strength.
John says the commandment you need to obey is the old one you
heard, and he is referring to the words of Jesus in his Gospel in
13:34, "A new commandment I give you that you love one another;
even as I have loved you, that you also love one another." John has
just said in verse 6 that we are to walk as Jesus walked, and He
walked in love, and commanded us to also walk in love. This
command is the foundation stone of the Christian life. Then in verse
8 John seems to deliberately contradict himself, for he says it is a
new commandment he is writing. It is not hard to see how it can be
both old and new. The old songs are often the new songs, and old
subjects dealt with in a new approach become fresh and new. John
is simply saying, the Christian answer to the problem of hate, and all
other problems is an old answer that goes back to the author of
truth-Jesus Christ. Yet, it is ever new and fresh. The message is old,
but the experience of it is always new in the lives of those who obey
it.
The commandment to love thy neighbor as thyself goes back to
the early days of Israel, but it became new in Christ, for he did not
just repeat it, he lived it. It was an old truth made new and fresh by
being exhibited in life. John says it is true also in you, for in
following Christ the old commandment of love becomes new because
it is experienced and exhibited. This is so says John because the
darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.
Darkness is not past, for if that was the case John would not even
need to write. The Gnostics were still a force of darkness, but they
would be conquered. John was optimistic and says the light will
continue to shine until the forces of darkness are destroyed. The
speed of the process will depend upon believers obedience to the
command of love.
John says even Judaism was darkness in comparison to
Christianity, for the true light was not shining in the Old Testament.
The Jews despised the Gentiles. One Rabbi said, "The Gentiles were
created by God to be fuel for the fires of hell." The true light in
Christ, however, came to shine upon the Gentiles, and they became
children of God. Jesus came, not as a light of Israel only, but as the
light of the world. All walls were broken down, and all hate and
prejudice were excluded from His kingdom. John Paul Wheelock
wrote,
I lift my gaze beyond the night, and see,
Above the banner of man's hate unfurled,
The holy figure that on Calvary
Stretched out wide enough for all the world.
God's new age of grace and light has begun says John. The
message supreme is that God is light and in Him is no darkness at
all. He goes on to say in verse 9 that this makes hate incompatible
with the Christian life and fellowship with God. John hits hatred
hard. It is a black and white area. Regardless of what you say, if
you hate your brother you are not a part of this new age of life. You
are still free-Christian, and you are yet in darkness. We do not
judge the hater when we say he cannot be a Christian. It will be of
no avail to tell us we cannot judge, for God has given us this
revelation that the man who hates his brother is still in darkness.
Hatred hurts the hater far more than the hated for it excludes
him from the fellowship of God. It is he who obeys and follows
Christ, who loves as He loved that becomes the recipient of God's
blessings, and in turn becomes the greatest blessing to society. The
only answer to man's hate is love, and not just natural love, but the
love that God imparts into the hearts of all who receive His Son as
Savior. This is the Christian message to the world, and it is our
responsibility to exhibit the love of Christ to the world. Henry
Longfellow wrote,
The sole thing I hate is hate; for hate is death and love is life,
A piece, a splendor from above; and hate, a never ending strife,
A smoke, a blackness from the abyss.
Where unclean serpents coil and hiss.
Love is the Holy Ghost within;
Hate the unpardonable sin!
Who preaches otherwise than this,
betrays his Master with a kiss.
Let us neither betray Christ by word or deed, but obey the great
commandment of love and be free from the chains of hate. Only
then can we be living examples that give the prisoners of hate the
hope that they too can be delivered by putting their trust in Christ.
