Is My Brother Common to Me?

At the outset of this I will place a limit on this writing. This is exclusively about the relationship between one Christian and another.

I was told something the other day about someone that I care deeply about. It, after a manner, shattered this one part of my heart. It made me feel wrathful in my heart towards my brother in Christ. I recognized this, shortly after the emotion emerged, as something that I did not wish in my heart. In fact, it is something that I have fought in my soul for some time now. The emotion, or premeditation, could best be described as a strong dislike for reasons of past conflicts of interest, personality contrasts, and ongoing lack of effort to resolve the abrasion. Distance and lack of interaction has caused this relationship to persist in its irritated state. As any allergy, when the two sides are not in close proximity there is no reaction. But there is something in the heart that belongs to God that draws out these things that are deep beneath the surface. Perhaps it is a plain desire of God to see us holy through and through. Perhaps, as it is when metal enters flame deeper and deeper. That which is impure is drawn out.

We are told by John, the Beloved of our Lord, " Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes." (1)

This truth has always been brought to my attention by the Spirit. I am thankful for that. The question that has seemed to burn its way through all attempts to obey this was, "How can I choose to love someone in a manner that burrows deep beneath the surface if I am compelled by emotions I cannot see to not like, appreciate, or love someone."

There are two mutually exclusive states in which the heart of a Christian can exist. It can be in a state of loving God, His truth, and His righteous goodness. Contrarily, it can be in a state of hating its brother. The words of John leave no amalgamation of the two. John, in his very either or manner, also states, "Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him."

So how could I, a child of God without question in his heart, hate his brother? So I struggled throughout the night upon my pillow. I struggled in the morning while I began my work when God, in his infinite mercy placed an unlikely recollection in my head.

So a strange situation out of the book of Acts came to my attention. It is not as if I heard a literal voice. Concurrently, it is not as if I had been recently reading this passage. There was a situation where Peter, the good Jew that he was, knew he was to avoid interaction with Gentiles (those who were not Jewish). So God sends him a vision where animals considered unclean are put before him to eat. Peter, in his effort to keep the law, refuses. God's response is as follows, ""What God has made clean, do not call common." (3) To Peter, these common things were unclean, just as those who were not circumcised according to the covenant with Abraham were unclean. Shortly after the vision, Peter pondering it, God sends the servants of Cornelius. God made equivalence of common foods, and common peoples. Simple story.

So how does that apply to the struggle a Christian may have with feelings towards a brother? A Christian is not saved by his own works. Salvation is the sovereign work of God. He has made clean what was unclean. Read the words Paul wrote to the believers at Ephesus,

" And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience-- among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved-- and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called "the uncircumcision" by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands-- remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ." (4)

Whether one is inclined to believe in the reformed perspective of this salvation, or the Armenian perspective, there is a clear statement. Those who are God's children have been called by Him. He has chosen to make them clean.

So the attitude and pondering of the Christian heart concerning his brother must be this. His brother has been made clean by the blood of that same Lamb that has saved the Christian. In hating what God has chosen to love, his heart becomes at enmity with God. The Christian must see as God sees. He who is his brother is clean, not by his actions, but by the blood of His Lord. The Spirit has sealed him unto the Day of Redemption (5). If God has chosen to call him clean, who are we in heart, deed, or word to call him unclean?

1) I John 2:9-11
2) I John 3:15
3) Act 10:15
4) Ephesians 2:1-13
5) See Ephesians 4:30