16 Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
16 This is how we've come to understand and experience love: Christ sacrificed his life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves.
16 By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
16 We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on 1 John 3:16
Commentary on 1 John 3:16-21
(Read 1 John 3:16-21)
Here is the condescension, the miracle, the mystery of Divine love, that God would redeem the church with his own blood. Surely we should love those whom God has loved, and so loved. The Holy Spirit, grieved at selfishness, will leave the selfish heart without comfort, and full of darkness and terror. By what can it be known that a man has a true sense of the love of Christ for perishing sinners, or that the love of God has been planted in his heart by the Holy Spirit, if the love of the world and its good overcomes the feelings of compassion to a perishing brother? Every instance of this selfishness must weaken the evidences of a man's conversion; when habitual and allowed, it must decide against him. If conscience condemn us in known sin, or the neglect of known duty, God does so too. Let conscience therefore be well-informed, be heard, and diligently attended to.