Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 John · About this commentary
Not as Cain
1 John 3:11-12
11 For this is the message which you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another— · WEB
The letter's only example is a murder, and the motive it identifies is not hatred of the victim but the contrast the victim created.
Verse 11 anchors the command in age rather than novelty — the message you heard from the beginning — which is the same defense used earlier in the letter 1 John 2:7. Nothing being asked here is an innovation of the writer's.
Verse 12 is the only illustration from Israel's history in the entire letter, and it is the first murder. Not as Cain, who was of the evil one and killed his brother. The phrase of the evil one picks up the division just drawn 1 John 3:10, so Cain is functioning as a case rather than as an anecdote.
The letter then asks its own question — and why did he kill him? — and answers it, which is more than the account in Genesis does. The reason given is that his own works were evil and his brother's righteous.
That diagnosis is worth sitting with. The murder is not traced to a quarrel, an injury, or a rivalry over inheritance. It is traced to a comparison. Cain's brother had done nothing to him; the offense was that his existence made something visible.
This is why the example is here rather than a gentler one. A congregation whose departed members had claimed a higher standing needed to see that hatred between believers does not require an injury to explain it. The next verse follows immediately and applies the same logic outward: do not be surprised if the world hates you 1 John 3:13.
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