If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? Loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? It is easier for us, influenced as we are by sense, to love one within the range of our sense, than One unseen, appreciable only by faith. 'Nature is prior to grace: we by, nature love things seen before things unseen' (Estius). The eyes are our leaders in love. 'Seeing is its incentive' (OEcumenius). If we do not love the brethren, God's visible representatives, how can we love the invisible One, whose children they are? Man's true ideal (as made in God's image), lost in Adam, is realized in Christ, in whom God is revealed as He is, and man as he ought to be. Until Christ came we had lost the knowledge of MAN as well as of GOD. Thus, by faith in Christ, we learn to love both the true God and the true man: so to love the brethren as bearing His image. "Hath seen:" and continually sees.
Related Commentaries of 1 John 4:20
1 John 4:20
20 If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?