Verses 1–3: Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.
These first three verses of chapter five is John’s summarization of his discussion of the believers’ love for God and fellow brothers in Christ.
The Christ
John’s opening assertion is a statement of unequivocal truth, but its significance is often missed by casual reading. The important aspect of what a person believes about Jesus is that He is the Christ—the Jewish Messiah. For He came to earth to “save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21) and accomplished His mission. By this it should be noted that John and the 1st Century Jews had not given up hope for their Messiah Who would restore the nation and fulfill the Davidic Covenant as their eternal King. In a few years from having written this epistle, John would be given the “Revelation of Jesus Christ” (Revelation 1:1), a vision which will provide believers for all generations with the fulfillment of God’s plan for His peoples, Israel and the Church: Israel will receive the Promised Land and kingdom; the Church a heavenly eternity.
John adds that the one who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. This is the rebirth which Our Lord told Nicodemus: “You must be born again” (John 3:7). When Jesus proclaimed this new birth He was alluding to Ezekiel 36:25–27 and the promised spiritual regeneration necessary to prepare the Jewish nation for the fulfillment of their covenant blessings still to come. Yet it must be clearly stated: the Church today does not replace Israel but instead shares in this blessing of spiritual regeneration by faith in Jesus Christ.
Loves the Father
Those who love the Father love their brothers, who are also born of God. But as previously discussed in 4:20, love of the Father is not merely saying “I love the Father.” Instead, it is demonstrated by the believer who resides in the love relationship with the Father, evidenced by their decision to consistently study and accurately apply of Scripture in their life. This is how personal love for God is exhibited; motivating and enabling the believer to function effectively in serving Him.
Hence, John declares a simple fact that whoever loves the Father loves fellow believers who are born of the Father—the children of God. This John stressed in 4:11, that we “ought to love one another.” To imagine the opposite is to imagine the impossible.1 It would imply that a believer is spiritually disconnected from the reality of his relationship with God.
However, we are not able to love all believers in an intimate personal way, for this is virtually impossible; nor are we to pretend to love them in a superficial manner. Scripture asserts that our love is to be genuine and sincere (Romans 12:9; 2 Corinthians 6:6; 1 Peter 1:22). Instead, we can and should exhibit impersonal love towards all believers. This type of love is not sentimental or emotional; neither does it demand that we tolerate or condone bad behavior. R.B. Thieme, Jr. provided a valuable example of impersonal love that we can emulate:
Impersonal love is a relaxed and objective mental attitude toward everyone—friend or enemy, worthy or unworthy, pleasant or obnoxious. Impersonal love solves problems in personal relationships. The believer with impersonal love is able to accept all people as they are, without demands for reciprocation, without reaction or retaliation, without incurring mental attitude sins.2
His Commandment
John doesn’t miss the opportunity to remind us of our obligation to keep His commandments. He assures us that we can know that we sincerely love the brethren without any hint of hypocrisy, when (assuming that) we love God and comply with His commandments. Vincent aptly concludes that,
Our perception of the existence of love to our brethren is developed on every occasion when we exercise love and obedience toward God.3
Observing God’s commandments places the believer in a right relationship with the Father and therefore enabling him to exhibit impersonal love towards other believers.
John further clarifies his argument in verse 3 by declaring that the demonstration of the believers’ love for God is evidenced explicitly when we consistently keep His commandments. In particular, the one commandment of love that Our Lord gave on numerous occasions: towards our neighbor (Matthew 19:19b; 22:39) and towards other believers (John 13:34; 15:12, 17). John has reiterated our obligation to keep His commandments throughout his epistle (2:3–4; 3:22, 24). But on this issue of love for fellow believers he specifically charged that we are not to “love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth” (3:18).
Therefore this love that we are commanded to carry out has a divine origin, from God the Father, Who first loved us (4:19). It follows that in order for us to love others or even to love God we must understand the essence and extent of His love for us:
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)
Never forget that Christ was willing to accomplish this on our behalf even while we were His enemies (Romans 5:10), while we were sinners in open rebellion to our Creator.
We must get this straight in our thinking, exactly how we exhibit our love towards God: by a right response to the love He demonstrated toward us, determinedly resolving to abide in His love relationship and consistently studying His Word, making application of His truth in our moment-by-moment walk of faith. This is the advance to spiritual maturity; enabling us to obey His commandments and exhibit love towards all fellow believers, regardless of those who are obnoxious or unpleasant.
No Burden to Bear
John concludes his analysis of the biblical principle of love with an encouraging footnote: His commandments are not burdensome.
The core meaning of this word burden implies a great physical weight, something that is heavy. But commands have no physical weight; instead John is referring to the psychological stress of constraining and challenging mandates. He is most likely drawing from his memory of how Our Lord reprimanded the scribes and Pharisees who “weigh men down with burdens hard to bear” (Luke 11:46), referring to the oppressive rules they had devised for the Jews to comply with.
If we consider John’s guidelines for our responsibility to love as a great burden, then we need to do some soul searching to determine if we are in fellowship with Our Lord. Being indifferent towards His command to demonstrate impersonal love for all believers is sinful and rebellious. It indicates that we are not “of the truth” (3:19). However, this can be rectified by regaining fellowship when our sin is confessed. There in His love relationship we are able to avail ourselves of the Holy Spirit’s empowerment to change our attitude towards this essential truth, and become dynamic witnesses before a lost and watching world.
“By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35)
[1] Lenski, R.C.H. (2001). Commentary on the New Testament, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 11.518.
[2] Thieme, R.B., Jr. (2022). Thieme’s Bible Doctrine Dictionary, Houston, TX: R.B. Thieme, Jr., Bible Ministries, p. 136.
[3] Vincent, Marvin R. (n/d). Word Studies in the New Testament. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2.363.
© 2025 David M. Rossi
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