Is John the Beloved presenting a tautology here?
New International Version (©1984)
If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.
So can a true Christian ever hate his brother?
People say forgiveness is hard, and I’d agree with that, but if someone truly believes in the message of Christ, and truly follows His teachings, I can’t believe they’d find “hate” easy.
All of us are so tainted by our own sins we cannot ever be trusted to be objective about the sins of others. If any of us point endlessly at one kind of sin and saying it’s worse than any other, or keeping count, then we are doing it simply to divert attention away from our own sins! It might fool other people but it doesn’t fool God.
The LORD doesn’t expect any of us to live a full three score and ten without racking up a rap sheet a mile long! We all sin! Every single day!
But we’re all so arrogant and flawed and sinful that we have to convince ourselves that some sins are worse than others. And which sins are the least bad of all? The ones we commit, obviously...
That’s the hypocrisy Jesus kept on talking about. That’s why Jesus invited those without sin to cast the first stone.
It’s a lot more difficult to really feel a visceral hatred for anybody, if you’ve come to terms with that uncomfortable truth. To God, their sins are no worse than your own sins.