Introduction
In our study thus far in First John we have seen multiple themes over and over again. We have seen that righteousness is a dominant theme in the life of the believer. We have seen that a correct confession of who Jesus is, is ESSENTIAL to becoming a Christian. We have seen that love is a major theme in this letter. In our last lesson we focused upon 4:7-12. We noticed many things from these five verses. We saw that believers will love other believers because the source of all love is God because God is love. Those who love give evidence that they have been born of God and that they know God. Those who love have God abiding in them and love is perfected in them.
In v. 12 John mentioned two things at the end of the verse. He mentioned God abiding in us and perfected love. This last phrase of v. 12 gives an outline of what is to follow in vs. 13-21. In vs. 13-16 we see God abiding in us. Then in vs. 17-21 we see the effects of perfected love ( See James Montgomery Boice, The Epistles of John, 117).
Before we dive into vs. 13-21 lets review quickly some important things to keep in mind when looking at the book of First John.
1. The theme of First John is Assurance. John writes to this community of believers because there were false teachers who came in and attempted to turn their worldview upside down. Assurance is objective. We know we are believers not so much by something subjective within us, but by how we live. Do we live righteously? Do we love other believers? Do we have a biblical view of who Jesus is? We cold really sum the source of assurance up in one word: obedience.
2. The heresy The Apostle John was refuting was an early form of Gnosticism. These false teachers taught that salvation was found through knowledge, and this knowledge was given to only a special group of people, whoever they chose to give the knowledge to. This teaching believed that Jesus was not God. They believed matter was evil and the spirit is good. God is Spirit therefore Jesus could not be God and Man because man is evil and God cannot have anything to do with something that was evil. Therefore Jesus was not God and salvation is not found in Him.
God Abiding in Us, vs. 13-16
John in v. 13 says by this we know that we abide in Him and he in us, referring to God the Father, we know this because of the Spirit He has given to us. This very much echoes what John has written already in 3:24. Except whereas in 3:24 John just said by this we know that He abides in us, here he says by this we know we abide in him and he in us. How do we know this? We know this because of the Spirit. The Spirit is the one within us who assures us that we are abiding in God and that God is abiding in us.
The emphasis in this passage is on the Holy Spirit and what he does (Stott, 168). James Montgomery Boice says about this passage that one of the first things we notice is that the Spirit is always first in spiritual things (Boice, 117). The Spirit is first in salvation. We saw in our last lesson that we are born of the Spirit. The Spirit changes our hearts so that we are now changed and we can become believers.
John moves on to v. 14 and says we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His son into the world to be the Savior.
First off who is the we in this verse? There are a few ideas here. We will look at two. First C.H. Dodd in his commentary on First John says the we here is “the church and its continuing apostolic witness to the gospel.” (Dodd, The Johannine Epistles, (Harpers & Brothers, New York and London, 1946), 115). The next view is the we is the Apostles. This view holds more water because John has already alluded to this already in vs. 1-4. The Apostles were eyewitnesses to what Jesus did. They saw the miracles that Jesus did, they saw Jesus dying on the cross, and they saw the resurrected Christ. The we here in this verse also refers to the Apostles.
We also see in v. 14 the mission of Jesus Christ. Jesus was sent into the world by the Father to be the Savior. Notice a few things. First this is why the Father sent the Son into the world. God the Father sent God the Son, His one and only Son, to be the Savior of the world. In other words God the Father sent the Son to die. I do not think we think about this enough. God sent His Son to die. That was the mission of Jesus. If Jesus did not die then there is no forgiveness. If Jesus did not die there is no Christianity. There is no way to be made right with God. There is no way for sins to be wiped away. There is no way for justification. There is no way we can go through a process of Sanctification.
Secondly in v. 14 we see that Jesus is THE Savior. John does not say that Jesus is a Savior among a choice of many. John says Jesus is THE Savior. Jesus is the one and only option for a Savior. If you want a Savior Jesus is your one and only option. Jesus Himself said I AM THE WAY THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE, NO ONE COMES TO THE FATHER BUT BY ME. How exclusive of a claim is that? It is very exclusive. It is very exclusive. John was no doubt there when Jesus said this. John heard Jesus say this. Jesus is the one and only Savior. Do you wish to be saved? The run to Jesus He is your only hope.
The Spirit leads people into the truth of Jesus Christ. This is what John is driving at in v. 15. The Spirit leads people into the truth of Jesus Christ. John says whoever confesses Jesus Christ as the Son of God, God abides in Him, and he in God. Notice once again those who have a correct view of Jesus are those who have a relationship with God. The Spirit is the one who shows to people who Jesus is. The Spirit reveals the person of Jesus to people. This is what the Spirit is doing here in this text. One commentator said the role of the Spirit in this text is to lead to charismatic experiences (I. Howard Marshall, 219).
In v. 16 we yet see another statement of God as love. John says God is love, whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in Him. Once again we see here that those who are believers will love because God is love. The one who claims to know God yet does not love cannot know God because they are not living as God acts, or as God is. God is Love. If we want to know love look to God. Do you want to know true love? Look to God. God is the only place where we can find true love because God is Love.
We see three distinct characteristics of a Christian in these three verses. We see that Christians will posses the Spirit, confess Jesus as the Son of God, and living in the love of God (ibid, 222). All people everywhere who are true Christians, who are true believers posses the Spirit. It is a gift that is given to all who believe in Jesus name. A true believer can never lose the Spirit. It is something that God gives to them and will never take it away from them. I have been told for years by some people who are from the holiness movement that I do not have the Spirit, because I do not speak in tongues or prophesy or something like that. But my response has always been that I do have the Spirit, because I am a believer in Jesus Christ. God has given it to me, and to all people who have believed in the name of Jesus Christ for their salvation from sin and the wrath of God the Father. A Christian will confess Jesus as the Son of God. The Christian can only do this because of the Spirit. The Spirit leads us into all truth about the Person of Jesus Christ. Any person who claims to have the Spirit yet they do not know who Jesus is prove they do not have the Spirit. They cannot because the Spirit will lead them into the truth about Jesus. It is impossible for someone to be a Christian and not know who Jesus Christ is. The believer will also live in love. The believer will love because God is love. The believer who does not love is antithetical to what God is. They are doing what is opposite of the character of God. Love is not merely a duty but a “striking evidence of the Spirit’s activity.” (Boice, 118). Believing in Christ and loving are evidences of the Spirit at work within us (Stott, 171).
Perfected Love, vs. 17-21
As we begin this section we need to understand what perfected love is. It simply means completed or mature love. So by this love is completed or matured within us.
There are two mark of complete love here according to John Stott, confidence before God and love for our brothers and sisters in Christ (ibid, 171).
Because of perfected or complete love we can have confidence on the day of judgment. The day of judgment is the day of final reckoning (MacArthur, 170). Those who have been perfected in love can and should have confidence before Christ on the day of judgment. Confidence means boldness. We can be bold on the day of judgment because of love, and because we are in this world as Christ was in the world. This means the Father “treats the saints in the same way He does His Son Jesus Christ.” (ibid, 171). I. Howard Marshall says of this verse that “We stand in the same relationship to God as that of Jesus to His Father and we live as Jesus lived.” (Marshall, 223). As believers today we have the same relationship that Jesus and the Father has. The same love the Father had for the Son we have. The same confidence Jesus had in the Father we are to have.
John in v. 18 shows to us how love and fear are incompatible. John makes the claim that there is no fear in love. Perfect or complete love casts out fear. Fear has to do with punishment. Therefore if any one fears has not been perfected in love. In other words those who fear God, and God’s punishment have not been perfected in the love of God. Those who are in the love of God have NO NEED TO FEAR the judgment of God, but should have confidence before God on the judgment day. WHY? Is it something that is within us? Is it something that we did? NO NO NO NO AND NO. It is not because of anything that we did. We can be confident only because of what Jesus Christ has done on our behalf. It is only because of the completed work of Christ that we have no need to fear. It is all because of Jesus Christ.
There is another aspect here. Some people fear God and His judgment horribly. This would be foreign to John. John would not understand this. John would ask this person why are you fearing? You have no need to fear. This person may reply, but I see in the Bible all over that I am to fear God. What does that mean? What does that fear mean? True they are right the Bible does say we are to fear God. But the fear that is talking about is different than the fear we are looking at hear. When the Bible says we are to fear God it is saying we are to revere God. We are to stand in awe of God. This fear of God is good, the fear of God’s judgment is damning. The person who fears the judgment of God has not been perfected in the love of God. They do not know the love of God. They have not experienced the love of God in their lives. There is no fear in love. Love drives out fear. It has been thrown out. Fear of judgment does not have a place in the believers life because Christ paid that penalty already.
John moves on from here to say We love because HE firs loved us. God takes the initiative in all things that are spiritual. We love God and we love others because God first loved us. God loved us first and sent Christ to pay the penalty for our sin. It is not because we were begging God for a way to be saved, but it is because of His love that he sent His Son Jesus Christ.
The one who claims to love God and hates his brother is a liar. Why is this? John says if we cannot love someone who we can see we cannot love God who we cannot see. God cannot be seen to our eyes. John says it is easier to love someone or something that we can see than something we cannot see.
The commandment we have is that if we love God we must also love our brother.
To close our discussion on vs. 17-21 I would like to go through quite a length quote from Charles Spurgeon. He sums up everything very well and does better than I could ever come close to.
“ Children of God, if Christ were here on earth, what would you do for him? If it should be rumored tomorrow that the Son of Man had come down from heaven, as he came at first, what would you do for him? If there should be an infallible witness that the feet that trod the holy acres of Palestine were actually treading the streets of this land, what would you do for him? Oh, I can conceive that there would be a tumult of delighted hearts- a superabundance of liberal hands- that there would be a sea of streaming eyes to behold him. “Do for him!” says one. “Do for Him! Did he hunger, I would give him meat, though it were my last crust. Did he thirst, I would give him drink, though my own lips were parched with fire. Was he naked, I would strip myself and shiver in the cold to clothe him. Do for him! I should scarcely know what to do. I would hurry away, and I would beseech him, if it would but honor him, that he would tread upon me, and crush me in the dust, if he would but be raised one inch the higher thereby. Did he want a soldier, I would enlist in his army; did he need that someone should die, I would give my body to be burned, if he stood by to see the sacrifice and cheer me in the flames.”… Ah! We think we love him so much that we should do all that; but there is a grave question about the truth of this matter after all. Do you know that Christ’s wife and daughter are here? And if ye love him, would it not follow as a natural inference that ye would love his bride and his offspring? “Ah!” says one, “Christ has no bride upon the earth.” Has he not? Has he not espoused unto himself his church? Is not his church, the mother of the faithful, his own chosen wife? And did he not give his blood to be her dower? And has he not declared that he never will be divorced from her, for he hates to put away, and that he will consummate the marriage in the last great day, when he shall come to reign with his people upon the earth. And has he no children here? The daughters of Jerusalem and the sons of Zion, who hath begotten me these? Are not they the offspring of the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, the child born the son given? Surely they are; and if we love Christ as we think we do, as we pretend we do, we shall love his church and his people. And do you love his church? Perhaps you love the part to which you belong. You love the hand. It may be a hand which is garnished with many a brilliant ring of noble ceremonies, and you love that. You may belong to some poor, poverty-stricken denomination- it may be the foot- and you love the foot; but you speak contemptuously of the hand, because it is garnished with greater honors. Whilst ye of the hand are speaking lightly of those who are of the foot. Brethren, it is a common thing with us all to love only a part of Christ’s body, and not to love the whole; but if we love him we should love all his people.” (Charles Spurgeon, Spurgeon’ Sermons Vol. 5, (Baker, Grand Rapids MI, 2004), 329-330).
Spurgeon sums up for us exactly what John is talking about here. If we claim that we love God, we love Christ, we love the Holy Spirit, then we will love the people of God, the church. We will love the people who are of God. We will love the people for whom Christ died, THE CHURCH. If there is no evidence of love for the church, then there is no evidence of love for God.
Tying it all Together
How can we relate these verses to the theme of Assurance?
1. Assurance comes from the Holy Spirit. We know that God abides in us and we abide in God because of the Spirit that was given to us.
2. Assurance comes from the correct confession of Jesus Christ. That Jesus is the Son of God, and indeed is God. This Confession can only happen because the Spirit has revealed this truth to us.
3. Assurance comes from God perfected love in us. God’s perfect love for us makes us confident and we have no need to fear judgment because God in His love sent Christ to pay the judgment for the sins of those who believe in Him.
4. Assurance comes from loving other believers, the church, the people of God. If we do not love our bothers and sisters who we can see we cannot love God who we cannot see.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
1 John 4:7-12
Introduction
Before we resume our study of First John a review is in order because of the long delay we have had in between our studies.
1. The theme of First John is found in 5:13. John writes to those who are believers so they may know they have eternal life. In other words John writes to ASSURE these readers that they were of the truth. They were the real believers and not the heretics who came into the church to confuse the church.
2. John was fighting against a false teaching which was an early form of Gnosticism. They believed that Jesus was not God. God could not have come in the flesh because the flesh is evil and the spirit is good. No doubt they thought of John’s gospel where John records Jesus saying God is Spirit. They took this truth and ran with it and took it to far. They denied the person of Jesus. They believed that salvation was found through a special knowledge and not through Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone.
3. Assurance is Objective. That is as believers we have assurance when we are obedient to what the word of God teaches. It is the times when we are not obeying when we feel the most like we are not believers. Assurance comes from doing something, and it is always to be based in the here and now. In other words am I living a Christ like life of obedience in the here an now. We are not to look back at some event we may have had and base our assurance off of walking down an aisle or praying a prayer. Are we obedient now?
John in 4:1-6 pointed to the importance to be discerning believers. Many people try to distort the truth of who Jesus is. They want to come up with a Jesus of their own making. They want a Jesus that is to their liking. This section seems kind of out of place if you do not read it in light of the thought of 3:24. Where John said the Holy Spirit dwells within believers.
John’s thought in 3:11-24 was that of love, John almost seems to make the comments of 4:1-6 as a parenthetical statement, and then resumes the teaching on love in 4:7-21.
In this lesson we are going to study verses 7-12. There is so much truth packed into these verses that it is hard to just breeze through them. There is no doubting that the main theme of vs. 7-21 is love. Different forms of the word love occur 26 times in this passage. No doubt this theme is a big theme with John. No doubt he though back to what Jesus said in Jn. 13:35 where the world will know we are disciples of Jesus by the way that we love each other.
Now to turn to the passage.
We are going to look at two things tonight. First John gives the reason why believers are to love and then he gives a revelation of love.
The Reason For Love (7-8)
John is exhorting his readers, and us today, to love one another. It is important to remember that here, as also in 3:11-24, the love John is speaking of is love for other believers. Let us love one another is an exhortation. It is not a command, but is an exhortation. It is an admonishment or and encouragement to love other believers.
The first reason that John gives that we are to love one another is because love is from God. Love finds its source in God. No one can truly know what love is unless they look to God. If we are Christians we will love other believers because God is our source of love.
The second reason John gives for believers to love one another is it shows or proves, or validates that a person has been born of God. The verb has been born is in the Perfect Passive Indicative, which means that the believer was born of God in the past and this new birth has implications on the present. The passive part of the verb signifies that someone from the outside caused this birth. It was GOD who caused this birth, believers do not make themselves born again.
In our study so far we have seen this phrase born of God two times already and we will see it two more times in chapter five after this occurrence. This is an important truth to John. It is seen in all of his writing. We see this teaching of being born in God in this letter and also in the Gospel of John. Since this phrase and truth is important to John I want to park here for a little while and try to understand what it means to be born of God. We will look at the pertinent passages in John, but we will also get a biblical perspective in being born of God.
The doctrinal name for being born of God is often times referred to as regeneration, the meaning of this word should become apparent as we look at the pertinent biblical passages.
The Old Testament
• Deut. 30:6 And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.
o There is a change here in this circumcision. The peoples heart and soul will be changed so that they may live.
• Jer. 31:33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it ton their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
o This passage is commonly referred to as the New Covenant passage. What we see here is the law will be written upon the heart of God’s people. It was not there before. Notice again there is some kind of change going on here.
• Ezek. 11:19 And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh,
• Ezek. 11:20 that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.
• Ezek. 11:21 But as for those whose heart goes after their detestable things and their abominations,* I will bring their deeds upon their own heads, declares the Lord GOD.”
o The heart of stone will be made into a heart of flesh. Once again there is a change that is occurring here.
• Ezek. 36:25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from fall your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.
• Ezek. 36:26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
• Ezek. 36:27jAnd I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
o This verse is the same as the one we just read. The heart of stone will be replaced with a heart of flesh.
• Take note here that the changes that have occurred here result in obedience. Most of these passages, especially in Jeremiah and Ezekiel, were written to the people of Israel who were about to be exiled because of their disobedience to God. A person was changed and they now obey. Those who are born of God, who have been regenerated, will obey God. This is pretty cut and dry even from the Old Testament. If anyone claims to be a Christian, yet they do not obey, they have not been born of God. The first thing we then learn is to be born of God, to be regenerated, involves a change towards obedience.
The New Testament
In the New Testament the same thing is seen. What we will notice here is that being born of God, being regenerated by God, is the passive verbs, as we see in 1 John 4:7, something from the outside affected this.
• Titus 3:5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
o God saved us and regenerated us according to HIS own mercy. He saved us by the washing of the regeneration.
• 1Pet. 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
o God has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
• Col. 2:13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,
o We were dead in our trespasses and sins and God made us alive. We were dead and we were born again. We were regenerated, we were changed.
• 2Cor. 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.* The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
o Those who are in Christ are a new creation. The old has passed away and new has come. Notice the change once again.
• The Writings of John
o John 1:12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, the gave the right to become children of God,
o John 1:13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
o See the encounter with Nicodemus in John 3 where Jesus says one must be born again to see the kingdom of God.
o In First John
• 2:29
• 3:9
• 4:7-8
• 5:1-4
• 5:18
Definition of Regeneration
Here is then a biblical definition of what it means to be born of God. Regeneration is the work of the Holy Spirit whereby he initially brings persons into living union with Christ, changing their hearts so that they who were spiritually dead become spiritually alive. When a person is born of God they are now spiritually alive, those who were once dead. Those who are born of God have been changed by God therefore they are now eternally saved because of the work of Christ on our behalf, and now through our lives being changed we are now enabled to obey God’s commandments.
Back to the passage at hand. A Christian will love because love is from God and the Christian who loves show they have been born of God. The next reason we find in verse 7 is the one who love knows God. The word know here is not just some typical or intellectual knowledge. This knowledge here is a relational knowledge. The person who loves shows that they have a relationship with God, they have a relational knowledge of God.
John seeks to prove his point of what he is saying in v.7 in v.8 by stating the negative. This is something we have seen John do throughout this letter. John makes a blanket statement. Whoever does not love does not know God. John might have been thinking I want to make sure that his readers get this. John is black and white. He says if you do not love you do not know God. Once again this is in the context of loving other believers. Those who claim to be a Christian and yet do not love other believers do not know God because God is LOVE. John says God is love. John bases what he has just said that anyone who does not love does not know God on the character of God. John is not saying here that God is a loving God. John is saying rather that God is love. John would say if you want to know what love is like look to God. John says friends do you want to know what love is? Look to God. God is love. This is the second time John has made an explicit reference to the character of God, each time he has done this to prove an ethical point. Here once again, as in 1:5, John says to not love other believers is to say I do not know God, because God is love. The Christian will love because God is love.
The question that naturally arises in my mind when someone makes tough statements like these that John is making here okay I am supposed to love other believers, and you tell me that God is love, but what does this look like? How can I apply this to my life? John does not leave us hanging and in vs. 9-12 he gives us the revelation of love.
The Revelation of Love, 9-12
John does not leave his readers or us today hanging as we read this passage. It would be easy to exhort people to do something without making it practical or without giving them an example of what you are talking about.
John says love was made manifest among us. Love has been revealed to us. The word manifest here is the same word as in 1:2. It simply means to show or to reveal something. Love was made manifest to us by God by sending His only Son into the world that we might love through Him. All of what John says here no doubt is launched from what John said at the end of v. 8 that God is Love. God’s love is an active love.
What God did out of His love was to send His only Son into the world to be our Savior so that we can be made right with Him. This shows the extent of the love of God. God’s love went to great lengths, to such great lengths that He sent His only Son into the world to die for us. Do you realize that God the Father sent His only Son into this world so that He could die. The Love of God sacrificed something precious to Him, His only Son. Imagine what this would be like. It is hard for us to think of this.
John does not stop here. He says in this is love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us and sent Jesus to be the propitiation or atoning sacrifice for our sins. Notice John is not saying here that because we loved God so much that He sent Jesus. It was out of His love for us that God sent Jesus. He sent Jesus to pay the penalty for our sin because He loved us. There was no way we could be made right with Him. There was nothing we could ever do. Humans, all humans everywhere, do not love God. In fact John portrays everyone who is not a child of God as a child of the devil. We love everything that is opposite to God. We want nothing to do with God. We want everything to be about us. God sent His only Son to be the atoning sacrifice for the sins of people like this. He loved people like this so much that He sent His only Son to pay the price for sin.
In our study in 3:11-24 we talked about the importance that our love be active. John proves the point here by teaching us that the love of God is active. God acted upon His love so that people could be made right with Him.
John’s thought continues in v.11 uses what he has just said about the love of God to urge his readers onto love for one another. He says if God so loved us we also ought to love one another. You could translate if God so loved us and if God loved us in this manner we ought to love one another. If God loved us in this way we ought to love one another. John is talking about loving other believers here. If God so loved people to the extent that He did, we should love other believers as God loved us. In other words the love we have for other believers should cost us something. Maybe its not material cost. But loving other believers will hurt at time. It will take time sometimes. It is against our nature many times. Even though a person may be a believer does not mean we are exactly the same.
If as believers we know the extent to which God loved us it should grieve us even more when believers do not show love for one another. When a church, a community of Christians, believers, are not characterized by the love they have for one another, we are ceasing to imitate the character of God. John says God is love and when we backbite and slander and complain about each other we are living in opposition to the character of God. Jesus said the world will know we are disciples of Jesus by the way that we love each other. There is something wrong with a person who claims to be a believer, yet they do not love other believers.
Verse 12 John strives to show why love is important. There are three reasons for this.
The first reason is no one has ever seen God. This phrase seems a little out of place if we just read through it casually. Think of this though. No one can see God, the God who is love. But His followers are commanded to love one another because God is love. Therefore people may not be able to physically see God, but they should see God through the way we as believers interact with each other. By the way we love one another we are being a witness to God.
Secondly when we love one another we are showing that God abides in us. John is not saying here that because we love God abides in us. “Our love for one another is evidence to God’s indwelling presence.” (Stott, 167). Our love for other believers is an evidence that God abides or remains in us. God does not abide in us because we love one another, we love one another because God abides in us. To not to love, while claiming to be a Christian, shows that God does not abide in that person. An evidence that God abides in us is our love for other believers.
Lastly when we love one another we show that God’s love has been perfected in us. What in the world does this mean? The views on this passage are all over the place. First remember the context in which John is writing. He is writing in a context where he has been speaking of God’s love shown to us in Christ. Second this is talking about God’s love for us. Not our love for God. The word perfected here can also mean complete. God’s love has been completed within us? It is full there is nothing lacking in it? Why is this? It is not because we love one another. The love of God can only be complete in us because of Christ. Because of Christ God’s love can be completed in us. Our love for other believers is an evidence that God’s love has been perfected in us.
Tying it All Together
The final thing to look at in our study is how do these five verses fit into the overall theme of this First letter of John. Here is how it all fits together. First God is love. Therefore those who love other believers show evidence that they are born of God, they know God, that God abides in them, and that God’s love has been perfected in us. How assuring is this? When we are obedient and we love other believers we are showing that we are a true child of God.
What does love imply then? First it implies that in order to love other believers, as God intended it, we must be in a body of believers. We need to be in a church. If we are not in a church it is IMPOSSIBLE for us to fulfill this and show that we are born of God. We cannot do it. Second it implies that we need to be loving people. How are we loving other believers? Are we serving them? Or are we slandering them? Are we helping them? Or are we hurting them? What have we done for another believer lately? Do we focus more on our spiritual walk or are we focused on other believers and their walk? Are we loving to the extent God loved?
1 John 4:1-6
Introduction
Imagine this with me if you will. It is Sunday Morning and you are in church. The service has just concluded and on this particular Sunday the pastor asks if anyone has anything they would like to share, maybe something God has taught them this week. There are a few moments of silence then one brave soul stands and says “Pastor I have something I would like to share.” Everyone is excited because this person knows their stuff; they are so good with the scripture. Then the person stands up and says:
• “God has taught me something wonderful this week. In fact I believe this is pretty revolutionary and I have been dying to share it with someone this week. I was reading the Bible and all of the sudden this wonderful thought came to me from God. I just know it must be from God because it happened while I was reading the Bible. God taught me this week that Jesus did not come in the flesh. People have missed this for centuries but finally God ahs revealed this to me and I want you all to know. Is God good or what He revealed this truth to me.”
Many of us here this morning I hope would be utterly floored if someone who we thought to be a believer stood up in front of the church and made this confession. But this is basically what was happening to the community of believer to whom John wrote this letter. There were people in the church who had started to follow a false teaching. This teaching said that Jesus had not come in the flesh. Jesus was not who He said he was. He was a good man, and may have possessed a divine nature for a while, but that divine nature left Him shortly before the cross.
As we turn our attention to the passage this morning we notice that John is calling believers to be a discerning people. J. Ligon Duncan in a sermon on this passage said there are two things that come to his mind when he thinks of what believers are to be. The first one is they are to be holy, which if you read the book of First John closely you will notice that this is at the heart of what John says to the people to whom he is writing. He, being J. Ligon Duncan, said that another thing that must characterize believers is they MUST be a people of discernment. Believers must be a people of discernment.
When we look at this passage we notice there is some weird language in here, such as test the spirits. We must not let phrases like this to under us from learning what God is teaching His people in this passage.
There is a great need for believers everywhere to be discerning. There are many people who masquerade as believers when in reality that could not be further from the truth. Therefore it would be good for everyone, including myself, to listen to what God has to say to us in this passage.
The REASON for discernment, v.1
Why does John say we, as believers must test the spirits, test what people say? There are two reasons I believe. The first one is to see whether they are from God.
What John is getting at here is who is behind what a person is saying. What is the source of the person’s inspiration? In the Old Testament the people of Israel were given ways in which they could discern whether a prophet was from God or if they were not of God. You see there were going to perhaps be instances when a prophet will prophesy something and it will come true, but they way to see if the prophet is from God is whether the prophet leads the people to serve the true God, and if they led the people to serve gods they have not known the prophet is not of God.
The second reason John says we must test the spirits is many false prophets have gone out into the world. There were people in John’s days that were claiming to be of God and they knew the truth. John says believers “test the spirits because there are those who are teaching lies and they are not from God.”
The situation has not changed today. There are people who claim they are from God but they do not teach that which is in line with what God has revealed. Is it possible then for them to be from God? We today must test the spirits. All John is getting at here is what a person believes or what someone teaches. In our day of technology there are so many ways that people can communicate what they believe. People can do it on TV, which we see used all to often to spread false teaching, there is the Internet, the radio. There seems at times there is no limits to how a person can spread what they believe. This is why we must be discerning because false teaching is everywhere and we must be discerning about who is teaching the truth and who is not teaching the truth.
The CRITERIA for discernment, vs. 2-3
So the question which naturally arises after reading verse one is okay you tell me I must be discerning and it is important then how do I discern what is true and what is false? Is there some deep thing I must do is there something I must study? To answer these questions I really just have to say one word JESUS. It all comes down to Jesus, just like the rest of Christianity.
In verses 2-3 we see two different confessions. First in vs. 2 we see the POSITIVE CONFESSION, and in vs.3 we see the NEGATIVE CONFESSION.
Let’s look at the positive confession. The positive confession is this; this is how you know if someone is from God that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. In other words the person who believes that Jesus is who the scriptures say He is. He is fully God and He is fully human. Everything hinges on Jesus. We can know today if someone is a believer, if they are a Christian or not because of what they say about Jesus. This is foundational if you miss this you have missed everything. So a question must be answered; who then is this Jesus John is talking about? Look at First John 5:20. John says in this verse that Jesus is the true God and the eternal life. This is who Jesus is. He is God. And yet at the same time He is man because we see He has come in the flesh. He was a real person. If anyone of these is denied then they have missed everything. If Jesus is not God then there is no way Jesus can perfectly obey the law of God as He did. He would not be able to sympathize with His brother in everyway, except in sin (Hebrews 4:15).
You see there are many people today who claim they are from God. Let me give you a real life illustration. There is a certain group of people from where I live in Berea, KY who claim they are believers. They say they experience all that a Christian has to experience. They believe they are really Christians. They prophesy they speak tongues they heal people. You name it they claim to do it. There is just one problem with them though, if you were to ask them who Jesus is why Jesus came many of them will not be able to give you an answer and those who can give you an answer have missed it. They believe Jesus was the Son of God but somehow He is not God. He was just some glorified man. That is all He was. Jesus was not fully God and fully man. They claim to be Christians but they are not. They do not know Jesus, they are not from God.
A person’s belief about Jesus is foundational. If a person misses this they have missed everything. There are certain things that are not available to those who do not believe in the real true Jesus. You see as a believer a Christian there are certain things we can experience because we believe in Jesus. Lets look at a few of these that we can find in chapter two of First John.
First look at verse one. For those who are believers they have an advocate before the Father. What does this mean for the believer? When we think of advocate we think of a lawyer who defends a person based on what they have done. But for the believer it looks like this. I, Ben Wilson, am standing in front of the Holy, Perfect Judge of the universe, God the Father. You see I have this big problem that I cannot do anything about. I have sinned against God and there is only one sentence the Father can hand down. The Judge is about to sentence me and the only sentence God can give me is guilty and as God begins to lay down my judgment Jesus rushes in and says Father this one is mine. I know He is a sinner and that in your eyes He is guilty. He has sinned against you, but Father look at what I have done for Him. I died for Him, I obeyed your will perfectly for Him, I rose again for Him. He is mine I did this for Him. Only those who believe in Christ have Jesus Christ the righteous as their advocate. But those who have missed the truth about Jesus they believe in a false Jesus they do not and cannot experience this.
Secondly look at verse two. Jesus is the propitiation for our sins; for those who believe in Jesus. What is John saying here? Those who believe in Jesus have had the wrath of God turned away from them. Jesus while on the cross bore the wrath of God against their sin. Those who believe in Christ will never have to face the wrath of God because Jesus bore it on the cross for them. But those who have missed who Jesus really is, as revealed in the scriptures, do not and cannot experience this.
So those who confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, those who believe in the true Jesus as revealed in the scriptures, they are from God, this is the positive confession.
The negative confession is found in vs. 3. Those who do not believe in the Jesus revealed in the scriptures they are not of God they are of the antichrist. The antichrist here is not referring to the great antichrist, which is seen in the end times. John already in this book has said that many antichrists have come already. What we see here is the already not yet tension that is found in the New Testament. Many antichrists have come already yet there is one who is yet to come. Those who deny that Jesus is who He is they are not from God but are from the antichrist. They cannot be from God. There is no way they can be from God. The reason is they have denied the clearest revelation that God has given to us, Jesus Christ.
There are those today who believe in a false Jesus. We see this everywhere and most of us may even here it everyday. A problem we will all face when we practice discernment is we will not be popular. In order for us to practice discernment we must at some point tell people they have missed the point. I. Howard Marshall puts it this way: “If a person claims to believe in Jesus, it is proper to as, ‘Is your Jesus the real Jesus?’ For it is all to easy for us to make a picture of Jesus which is congenial to our taste but leaves out vital aspects of the New Testament presentation of Him.” We must in order to be discerning do this. You see eternity is on the line here. We can not question people and let them keep there view of Jesus or we can present the truth in love because the eternal destiny of their soul is at line. Being a discerning believer should lead us to witness more to those who have a wrong view of who Jesus is.
We must keep in mind the culture in which we live. We live in a time when people believe your truth is your truth and my truth is my truth, you believe what you want and I will believe what I want and there is no absolute truth so we can believe whatever we want. Therefore we must be discerning because this is the mindset of the day in which we live.
The ENABLING of discernment, vs. 4-6
How can we as believers be discerning? Why can we be discerning in a day like ours? John answers this in verses 4-6.
The first reason is because who is in us. John says little children, John uses this when he wants to drive home his point, he says little children you are from God and have overcome them. Why John, how? Because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world? Who is in believers? In chapter 3:24 we learn that believers have been given the Spirit. In 2:27 believers have been given an anointing which is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit indwells believers.
What does John mean here by overcome them? He means that those to whom he is writing have overcome the false teachers because they have stayed in the truth and have not fallen into their false teaching about who Jesus is. They have done this because the Holy Spirit dwells in the believer. This has to what happened. The people who were spreading the false teaching in the community to whom John is writing the false teachers they were the intellectual giants. They had received the special knowledge from God. They were smarter. But the believers have someone who is smarter than the false teachers. They have the Spirit of God living within them and He will lead them into all truth. The Holy Spirit bears witness to the truth about Jesus Christ and those who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit cannot succumb to false teachings about Jesus.
We today are in this same state. As believers the Holy Spirit dwells in us. God lives within us. The same way the people in John’s day overcame the false teachers is the same way we will because the Holy Spirit has taught us the truth about Jesus. Therefore we can know that even if a person claims that something is from the Holy Spirit yet they miss who Jesus is, they are not of God. They are of the antichrist.
Friends we can be discerning as believers and be victorious because the Holy Spirit is in us. He will lead us in the truth.
John in verse five presents the negative side. Those who are not of God they speak from the world and when they do the world listens to them. They are not of God. The source of what they say is of the world not of God. This is another way we can see if a person is from God. Who is listening to them and following them? Is it the world or is it true believers? This will show if a person is from God or if they are not.
John concludes this passage in verse six. The key to understanding this verse is understanding who “us” is. It seems it would be arrogant for John to be referring only to himself or to any one individual. It seems that John here is referring to the Apostles. Does someone listen to our teaching? If the answer is yes than they are from God. John is saying are these people rejecting the teaching about Christ from those who were with Christ? If so they are not from God. But those who are from God they will listen to us. By this we will know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
We can discern if someone is from God if they affirm what the scriptures say about Jesus. A person’s view of Jesus must be a big glorious view. Why? Because this is how the scriptures present Jesus. He is glorious. He is almighty. He is sovereign. He is the Creator. He is the Savior. He is our righteousness. He is the Judge. He rose from the dead. He existed in the beginning with Father. Jesus is God. This is the view of the Apostles, which we found in the scriptures. Those who do not listen to their teaching but reject it they are not of God but are of the world.
How can we as believers apply this in our lives even today? You might be thinking I am not very smart. I do not understand the Bible. I do not have a degree from Seminary. I did not graduate high school even. Let me tell you my friends if you are a believer in Jesus then you can be discerning because of the Holy Spirit who is in you. You can understand what the Bible says about who Jesus is and defend from the Bible who Jesus is because of the Holy Spirit who is in you.
So there is one implication. If we are to be discerning we must be a people of the Book. We must be in the scriptures because it is in the scriptures where we learn of Jesus as He truly is. There is no other source and no other book where we as believers can find the true Jesus. Jesus has been revealed in the scriptures and it is the scriptures, which must shape our belief of who Jesus is. Have you ever wondered why all of the scriptures point to Christ? It is because everything hinges on Jesus. Everything is all about Jesus.
Conclusion
Paul teaches us in 1 Corinthians 1 that when God called us to himself not many of us was wise. In fact he calls us foolish. So then how can these foolish people shame the wise? How can we be discerning and tell when those who we think are smarter than us have missed it? Because of the Holy Spirit. He will lead us into all truth. He has taught us the truth about Jesus and we have no need for any of us to be taught by anyone the truth about Jesus (2:27). He has taught us the truth. We know it. We can discern that if someone confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh Jesus is who the scriptures reveal Him to be, they can only confess that because of the Holy Spirit, they are from God. We know that if anyone denies the truth about Jesus they are not from God. May we be like the Bereans in Acts who took everything Paul said and compared them to what the scriptures say. May we test what people say even when it will be unpopular, and it will be. May we love people enough to be able to lovingly yet boldly present the truth to people about who the true Jesus is. We can and NEED and dare I say it is imperative that we MUST be a people of discernment all to the Glory of God and to the exaltation of Jesus Christ the true God and Eternal Life.
Imagine this with me if you will. It is Sunday Morning and you are in church. The service has just concluded and on this particular Sunday the pastor asks if anyone has anything they would like to share, maybe something God has taught them this week. There are a few moments of silence then one brave soul stands and says “Pastor I have something I would like to share.” Everyone is excited because this person knows their stuff; they are so good with the scripture. Then the person stands up and says:
• “God has taught me something wonderful this week. In fact I believe this is pretty revolutionary and I have been dying to share it with someone this week. I was reading the Bible and all of the sudden this wonderful thought came to me from God. I just know it must be from God because it happened while I was reading the Bible. God taught me this week that Jesus did not come in the flesh. People have missed this for centuries but finally God ahs revealed this to me and I want you all to know. Is God good or what He revealed this truth to me.”
Many of us here this morning I hope would be utterly floored if someone who we thought to be a believer stood up in front of the church and made this confession. But this is basically what was happening to the community of believer to whom John wrote this letter. There were people in the church who had started to follow a false teaching. This teaching said that Jesus had not come in the flesh. Jesus was not who He said he was. He was a good man, and may have possessed a divine nature for a while, but that divine nature left Him shortly before the cross.
As we turn our attention to the passage this morning we notice that John is calling believers to be a discerning people. J. Ligon Duncan in a sermon on this passage said there are two things that come to his mind when he thinks of what believers are to be. The first one is they are to be holy, which if you read the book of First John closely you will notice that this is at the heart of what John says to the people to whom he is writing. He, being J. Ligon Duncan, said that another thing that must characterize believers is they MUST be a people of discernment. Believers must be a people of discernment.
When we look at this passage we notice there is some weird language in here, such as test the spirits. We must not let phrases like this to under us from learning what God is teaching His people in this passage.
There is a great need for believers everywhere to be discerning. There are many people who masquerade as believers when in reality that could not be further from the truth. Therefore it would be good for everyone, including myself, to listen to what God has to say to us in this passage.
The REASON for discernment, v.1
Why does John say we, as believers must test the spirits, test what people say? There are two reasons I believe. The first one is to see whether they are from God.
What John is getting at here is who is behind what a person is saying. What is the source of the person’s inspiration? In the Old Testament the people of Israel were given ways in which they could discern whether a prophet was from God or if they were not of God. You see there were going to perhaps be instances when a prophet will prophesy something and it will come true, but they way to see if the prophet is from God is whether the prophet leads the people to serve the true God, and if they led the people to serve gods they have not known the prophet is not of God.
The second reason John says we must test the spirits is many false prophets have gone out into the world. There were people in John’s days that were claiming to be of God and they knew the truth. John says believers “test the spirits because there are those who are teaching lies and they are not from God.”
The situation has not changed today. There are people who claim they are from God but they do not teach that which is in line with what God has revealed. Is it possible then for them to be from God? We today must test the spirits. All John is getting at here is what a person believes or what someone teaches. In our day of technology there are so many ways that people can communicate what they believe. People can do it on TV, which we see used all to often to spread false teaching, there is the Internet, the radio. There seems at times there is no limits to how a person can spread what they believe. This is why we must be discerning because false teaching is everywhere and we must be discerning about who is teaching the truth and who is not teaching the truth.
The CRITERIA for discernment, vs. 2-3
So the question which naturally arises after reading verse one is okay you tell me I must be discerning and it is important then how do I discern what is true and what is false? Is there some deep thing I must do is there something I must study? To answer these questions I really just have to say one word JESUS. It all comes down to Jesus, just like the rest of Christianity.
In verses 2-3 we see two different confessions. First in vs. 2 we see the POSITIVE CONFESSION, and in vs.3 we see the NEGATIVE CONFESSION.
Let’s look at the positive confession. The positive confession is this; this is how you know if someone is from God that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. In other words the person who believes that Jesus is who the scriptures say He is. He is fully God and He is fully human. Everything hinges on Jesus. We can know today if someone is a believer, if they are a Christian or not because of what they say about Jesus. This is foundational if you miss this you have missed everything. So a question must be answered; who then is this Jesus John is talking about? Look at First John 5:20. John says in this verse that Jesus is the true God and the eternal life. This is who Jesus is. He is God. And yet at the same time He is man because we see He has come in the flesh. He was a real person. If anyone of these is denied then they have missed everything. If Jesus is not God then there is no way Jesus can perfectly obey the law of God as He did. He would not be able to sympathize with His brother in everyway, except in sin (Hebrews 4:15).
You see there are many people today who claim they are from God. Let me give you a real life illustration. There is a certain group of people from where I live in Berea, KY who claim they are believers. They say they experience all that a Christian has to experience. They believe they are really Christians. They prophesy they speak tongues they heal people. You name it they claim to do it. There is just one problem with them though, if you were to ask them who Jesus is why Jesus came many of them will not be able to give you an answer and those who can give you an answer have missed it. They believe Jesus was the Son of God but somehow He is not God. He was just some glorified man. That is all He was. Jesus was not fully God and fully man. They claim to be Christians but they are not. They do not know Jesus, they are not from God.
A person’s belief about Jesus is foundational. If a person misses this they have missed everything. There are certain things that are not available to those who do not believe in the real true Jesus. You see as a believer a Christian there are certain things we can experience because we believe in Jesus. Lets look at a few of these that we can find in chapter two of First John.
First look at verse one. For those who are believers they have an advocate before the Father. What does this mean for the believer? When we think of advocate we think of a lawyer who defends a person based on what they have done. But for the believer it looks like this. I, Ben Wilson, am standing in front of the Holy, Perfect Judge of the universe, God the Father. You see I have this big problem that I cannot do anything about. I have sinned against God and there is only one sentence the Father can hand down. The Judge is about to sentence me and the only sentence God can give me is guilty and as God begins to lay down my judgment Jesus rushes in and says Father this one is mine. I know He is a sinner and that in your eyes He is guilty. He has sinned against you, but Father look at what I have done for Him. I died for Him, I obeyed your will perfectly for Him, I rose again for Him. He is mine I did this for Him. Only those who believe in Christ have Jesus Christ the righteous as their advocate. But those who have missed the truth about Jesus they believe in a false Jesus they do not and cannot experience this.
Secondly look at verse two. Jesus is the propitiation for our sins; for those who believe in Jesus. What is John saying here? Those who believe in Jesus have had the wrath of God turned away from them. Jesus while on the cross bore the wrath of God against their sin. Those who believe in Christ will never have to face the wrath of God because Jesus bore it on the cross for them. But those who have missed who Jesus really is, as revealed in the scriptures, do not and cannot experience this.
So those who confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, those who believe in the true Jesus as revealed in the scriptures, they are from God, this is the positive confession.
The negative confession is found in vs. 3. Those who do not believe in the Jesus revealed in the scriptures they are not of God they are of the antichrist. The antichrist here is not referring to the great antichrist, which is seen in the end times. John already in this book has said that many antichrists have come already. What we see here is the already not yet tension that is found in the New Testament. Many antichrists have come already yet there is one who is yet to come. Those who deny that Jesus is who He is they are not from God but are from the antichrist. They cannot be from God. There is no way they can be from God. The reason is they have denied the clearest revelation that God has given to us, Jesus Christ.
There are those today who believe in a false Jesus. We see this everywhere and most of us may even here it everyday. A problem we will all face when we practice discernment is we will not be popular. In order for us to practice discernment we must at some point tell people they have missed the point. I. Howard Marshall puts it this way: “If a person claims to believe in Jesus, it is proper to as, ‘Is your Jesus the real Jesus?’ For it is all to easy for us to make a picture of Jesus which is congenial to our taste but leaves out vital aspects of the New Testament presentation of Him.” We must in order to be discerning do this. You see eternity is on the line here. We can not question people and let them keep there view of Jesus or we can present the truth in love because the eternal destiny of their soul is at line. Being a discerning believer should lead us to witness more to those who have a wrong view of who Jesus is.
We must keep in mind the culture in which we live. We live in a time when people believe your truth is your truth and my truth is my truth, you believe what you want and I will believe what I want and there is no absolute truth so we can believe whatever we want. Therefore we must be discerning because this is the mindset of the day in which we live.
The ENABLING of discernment, vs. 4-6
How can we as believers be discerning? Why can we be discerning in a day like ours? John answers this in verses 4-6.
The first reason is because who is in us. John says little children, John uses this when he wants to drive home his point, he says little children you are from God and have overcome them. Why John, how? Because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world? Who is in believers? In chapter 3:24 we learn that believers have been given the Spirit. In 2:27 believers have been given an anointing which is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit indwells believers.
What does John mean here by overcome them? He means that those to whom he is writing have overcome the false teachers because they have stayed in the truth and have not fallen into their false teaching about who Jesus is. They have done this because the Holy Spirit dwells in the believer. This has to what happened. The people who were spreading the false teaching in the community to whom John is writing the false teachers they were the intellectual giants. They had received the special knowledge from God. They were smarter. But the believers have someone who is smarter than the false teachers. They have the Spirit of God living within them and He will lead them into all truth. The Holy Spirit bears witness to the truth about Jesus Christ and those who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit cannot succumb to false teachings about Jesus.
We today are in this same state. As believers the Holy Spirit dwells in us. God lives within us. The same way the people in John’s day overcame the false teachers is the same way we will because the Holy Spirit has taught us the truth about Jesus. Therefore we can know that even if a person claims that something is from the Holy Spirit yet they miss who Jesus is, they are not of God. They are of the antichrist.
Friends we can be discerning as believers and be victorious because the Holy Spirit is in us. He will lead us in the truth.
John in verse five presents the negative side. Those who are not of God they speak from the world and when they do the world listens to them. They are not of God. The source of what they say is of the world not of God. This is another way we can see if a person is from God. Who is listening to them and following them? Is it the world or is it true believers? This will show if a person is from God or if they are not.
John concludes this passage in verse six. The key to understanding this verse is understanding who “us” is. It seems it would be arrogant for John to be referring only to himself or to any one individual. It seems that John here is referring to the Apostles. Does someone listen to our teaching? If the answer is yes than they are from God. John is saying are these people rejecting the teaching about Christ from those who were with Christ? If so they are not from God. But those who are from God they will listen to us. By this we will know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
We can discern if someone is from God if they affirm what the scriptures say about Jesus. A person’s view of Jesus must be a big glorious view. Why? Because this is how the scriptures present Jesus. He is glorious. He is almighty. He is sovereign. He is the Creator. He is the Savior. He is our righteousness. He is the Judge. He rose from the dead. He existed in the beginning with Father. Jesus is God. This is the view of the Apostles, which we found in the scriptures. Those who do not listen to their teaching but reject it they are not of God but are of the world.
How can we as believers apply this in our lives even today? You might be thinking I am not very smart. I do not understand the Bible. I do not have a degree from Seminary. I did not graduate high school even. Let me tell you my friends if you are a believer in Jesus then you can be discerning because of the Holy Spirit who is in you. You can understand what the Bible says about who Jesus is and defend from the Bible who Jesus is because of the Holy Spirit who is in you.
So there is one implication. If we are to be discerning we must be a people of the Book. We must be in the scriptures because it is in the scriptures where we learn of Jesus as He truly is. There is no other source and no other book where we as believers can find the true Jesus. Jesus has been revealed in the scriptures and it is the scriptures, which must shape our belief of who Jesus is. Have you ever wondered why all of the scriptures point to Christ? It is because everything hinges on Jesus. Everything is all about Jesus.
Conclusion
Paul teaches us in 1 Corinthians 1 that when God called us to himself not many of us was wise. In fact he calls us foolish. So then how can these foolish people shame the wise? How can we be discerning and tell when those who we think are smarter than us have missed it? Because of the Holy Spirit. He will lead us into all truth. He has taught us the truth about Jesus and we have no need for any of us to be taught by anyone the truth about Jesus (2:27). He has taught us the truth. We know it. We can discern that if someone confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh Jesus is who the scriptures reveal Him to be, they can only confess that because of the Holy Spirit, they are from God. We know that if anyone denies the truth about Jesus they are not from God. May we be like the Bereans in Acts who took everything Paul said and compared them to what the scriptures say. May we test what people say even when it will be unpopular, and it will be. May we love people enough to be able to lovingly yet boldly present the truth to people about who the true Jesus is. We can and NEED and dare I say it is imperative that we MUST be a people of discernment all to the Glory of God and to the exaltation of Jesus Christ the true God and Eternal Life.
1 John 3:11-24
Introduction
Quickly let’s review a few important things to remember which will aid in the study of First John:
• The theme of First John is Assurance. John was writing to a community of believers who were doubting whether or not they were believers or not. They were doubting if they were ever saved in the first place.
• The theme or purpose for writing is found in 5:13: I write these things to you who BELIEVE in the name of the Son of God that you may KNOW that you have eternal life. To sum this verse up in one word: ASSURANCE.
• The heresy John was fighting was a early form of Gnosticism. They had a flawed view of Jesus Christ and believed Salvation was not found in Christ but through a special knowledge that God gave them, and only a select few could have this knowledge. Their false views of Jesus led to unrighteous ways of living, which John combats throughout the letter.
In our last lesson as we looked at 2:28-3:10 we noticed ONE dominate theme, mainly that those who are Christians, believers, those who have been adopted by God will be characterized by righteousness. The children of God will not continually sin, as the children of the devil do, but they will continually practice righteousness: obedience to the commands of God.
John in verse 3:10 says whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. John uses this last phrase nor is the one who does not love his brother to launch into another main characteristic of Children of God: LOVE.
John in his gospel records for us where Jesus said the way the world will know we are his disciples is by our love for one another (Jn. 13:35). The world will know we are the people of God, we are followers of Jesus Christ by the way we interact with each other. They will know us by our love. How sad is it then when people see the church and all they see is backbiting and power struggles. A church like this has ceased to be the church that God intended it to be. They are not characterized by love which is a chief characteristic of a Christian. Because Christians are to love one another they should be unified. They should be able to lovingly disagree with one another over certain issues. They should be able to not argue about stupid things like carpet and paint. Out of the command to love we should be different, the world will know us by our love.
Love and Hate Contrasted vs. 11-18
John says this is the message you have had from the beginning. In this verse from the beginning refers to when they first heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ. What John is about to say is not something new, but something these believers had from their earliest days in the Christian life. The message they had from the beginning is they should love one another.
John proves his point by giving them a contrast with love and hate in verses 12-15. John starts in v. 12 and says believers should not be like Cain. I am sure most everyone knows the story of Cain and Abel in Gen. 4. John does not want believers to be like Cain, and with good reason. Why does John say this? Because Cain was of the evil one, he was a child of the devil and he murdered his brother, and why did he murder Abel. If you remember the story Cain and Abel offered sacrifices to God. Cain offered the best fruit from the field and Abel offered the best from his flock. Abel’s sacrifice was accepted while Cain’s was rejected. God did not accept Cain’s sacrifice and this enraged Cain. In fact God accepts Abel’s sacrifice which enraged Cain even more. Cain was jealous of the situation he found himself in. Out of this jealousy he murdered his brother Abel. He murdered Abel because Abel’s deeds were righteous while Cain’s were evil, because he was of the evil one.
John goes on to warn believers in v. 13 to no be surprised if the world hates us. This word here surprised connotes the idea of being shocked or in amazement by the world (MacArthur, 134). The believer should expect to be hated by the world, WHY? For the same reason that Cain hated Abel, are deeds are righteous and theirs are evil. This is why as believers, and as a church, there should be some introspection and stepping back and looking at things when the world ALWAYS thinks well of us. This does not mean as a church that we need to go out of our way to purposefully tick people off, but our deeds will. The world will hate us because we are righteous and they are not.
John in v. 14 says we know we have passed from death into life because we love the brothers. The NEB translates this as crossing over. We were on the side of death and now we are on the side of life. The evidence that we have been saved from death is our love for other believers. How we love others generally. The love we have DOES NOT save us, but it shows, it proves, that we have passed out of death into life.
If you will allow me for a moment to talk about the importance of the church here. This verse right here, showing that we prove we have been saved, we have been born of God, points to the importance of being actively involved in a church. Some think it is possible to be a Christian and NEVER be a part of the church. This is not so. For how can we love other believers if we are not around other believers? The answer is we cannot do it. They only way to fulfill the command to love our fellow Christians is by being involved in the church. There are scores of passages in the Bible which are called “one-another” passages. The only way we can fulfill these is by being a part of the church. Anyone who says they are a Christian yet they never join the body to worship and glorify God something is amiss here and they MUST examine themselves to see whether they are in the faith or not.
A believer will love, which evidences they have passed from death into life, but those who do not love remain in death. Those who do not love believers are still in death. They have not been brought to life yet. John says they abide in death. They stay there they remain there, in death.
V. 15 is a tough verse, John says everyone who hates is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. John echoes the teaching of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5. Jesus says you have heard that you shall not commit murder, but I tell you whoever hates in his heart has committed murder already, in his heart. Those who hate are murders. Not in the sense of physically killing someone, but in our attitude towards that person. When someone hates someone we wish nothing but bad on them. If they were to die it would be no skin off our back. We would be alright if this person were to die. We hate them. We do not seek their good. We murder them in our hearts when we hate them. No murderer has eternal life abiding in them. So what is John saying here. It seems as if he is changing his topic. He said everyone that hates is a murderer and now he is talking about murder, what is going on here? John is saying that hate=murder therefore murderers do not have eternal life abiding in them, therefore also those who hate do not have eternal life abiding in them. Their attitude is murderous. Their thoughts towards the one they hate are murderous. We wish them nothing but ill. People such as this do not have eternal life abiding in them, they are abiding in death, they have not crossed over into life.
As a side not this is not to say that a true Christian may or may not be involved in a murder and lose their salvation. Look at David he was involved in the murder of Uriah, yet God said David was a man after his own heart. Paul was a murderer and persecutor of the church, yet he was greatly used by God.
John so far has focused on the negative side. We have been given a clear picture of what a believer is not to do now in vs. 16-18 John gives a picture of what the believer is supposed to do.
John first gives an example of Supreme love, Jesus Christ, in v. 16. He says by this we know love, by this is referring here to what comes next, that he, being Jesus, laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. The Supreme example of love that John can give is that of Jesus Christ. Jesus loved therefore He died. The love that Jesus has for His followers led Him to the cross so He could die and make us right with the Holy and Wrathful Father. Jesus did this out of love. As believers we are to use Jesus as an example. We are to lay down our lives for the brothers. We know that there will probably not be times when we literally have to die for another believer. That is not just the time in which we live although one day it may be, only God knows. So what is John saying here?
V. 17 answers the question for us, and John goes about it by stating the negative. John says if anyone has the world’s goods and sees their brother in need, and yet closes their heart against them, how can the love of God abide in them? This is how we are NOT to lay down our lives for the brothers? Why? Because this is selfish and love is not selfish (1Cor. 13). What good does it do if we have the world’s goods and do nothing to help those who are in need. The poorest here is the room is richer than most people in the world. How do we act toward fellow believers many times? We see they have a need and what do we tell them? I will pray for you, which is well and good, but many times it needs to go farther. We sometimes need to sacrifice what we have in order to help others. Love is costly. To truly love another person will cost us something. We can do this it is possible. I heard a story not to long ago about people who live in Africa. And these people are poor, more poor than we can probably imagine. But these people are honored when people will come to where they live and visit them. SO honored in fact that they will use their whole food ration for the week just to show you how honored they are. They can do this because they feel honored how much more can we do out of love for fellow believers.
John drives home his point about love in v. 18. John says we are not to love in word or talk, but in deed and truth. What is he saying here, two things.
First off we are to love in deed. Love is not mere lip service. How many times did God chastise the Israelites because they merely paid Him lip service but there was never any obedience attached to it. We do not do this in relationships we have. If I were to date a girl, and fat chance of that happening apparently because I will not shave, but hypothetically speaking, if I were to date a girl and I were to love this girl and all II ever did was TELL her that I loved her, but that love never was acted upon. If I never did anything loving for her. I was never loving to her. If I never did those things, what kind of love would I have for her? I would have no love for her at all. As believers we are to put love into action. It is like the old DC Talk song Love is a Verb. We show are love for fellow believers by what we do NOT by what we say. Love is not talking, love is doing something. Our deeds back up our claim that we love someone. If gives that love content (Boice, 97).
Second we are to love in truth. What does this mean? It means that our love is genuine (Stott, 148). We genuinely love that person. We do not fake as if we love this person but it is a real love.
One last note about this section. Our love is to be active, and here is why. God’s love is active. God’s love is active and it is manifested in Jesus Christ on the cross (1 John 4:10). God in His love sent Jesus to die for our sins. God did not sit in heaven and be like oh look at those poor sinners down on earth. How I love them so. I love them so much, but His love never acts. He did not say oh how I love them so, it was active. He loved sinners so much that He sent His Only Son Jesus Christ to die for these sinners, because of His love.
Assurance vs. 19-24
IN v. 19 John says by this we know we are of the truth and our hearts are reassured before God. What does by this refer t here? It refers to our love for fellow believers what John has just covered in vs. 11-18 (See, MacArthur, 143, Stott, 148, Marshall, 196). By our love for other believers we can reassure our hearts before God.
The believers that John was writing to do, as we have stated many times were dealing with doubts and having assurance of salvation. They were not sure. They were doubting whether they were believers or not. John knows this and in v. 20 he point them to God. John says whenever our hearts condemn us, heart more than likely meaning conscience here, God is greater than our hearts and He knows all things. There will be times when the believers conscience will try to condemn it. But we must remember how we are viewed in God’s eyes. We must look to God. Why? Because God is greater than our hearts our consciences and He knows all things. For the believer there is no more condemnation (Rom. 8:1). We do not have to feel condemned. We are justified, and God did this, and if we have truly been justified we can never lose that because we did nothing to gain it. We are justified based upon what CHRIST did for us, and not anything we did. God knows who we are . He knows ourselves better than we know ourselves. He knows our hearts better than we know our hearts. He knows all things.
By looking to God our hearts do not condemn us, v. 21, and if our hearts do not condemn us we have confidence before God. The word confidence here conveys they idea of: “The word rendered confidence means “boldness” and “freedom of speech.” It describes the privilege of coming before someone of importance, power, and authority and feeling free to express whatever is on one’s mind. For believers it means coming into the presence of our loving heavenly Father without fear.” (MacArthur, 145). The believer can come boldly before the throne of Grace (See Heb. 4:16). We are free to come. As believers we have confidence before God. And whatever we ask we receive from him, v. 22.
We receive whatever was ask from Him for two reasons.
First we keep His commandments. We are obedient to what the Father has commanded us to do.
Secondly we do what is pleasing to Him.
The people who do this our living in God’s will. They desire to see God’s will done and therefore that prayer will be answered. John is not saying here that if we obey we can ask for whatever we want as if God were some genie in the sky and we obey and we get a brand new car. This is not the idea. We ask and pray for only that which is in line with the will of God. Those who are obeying will desire to see God’s will and God’s will only done and this will be their plea and cry.
This is His, commandment, the Father, that we believe in the name of Jesus Christ and love one another as He commanded us. In Greek the word name has to do with who a person is. We are called to believe in WHO Jesus is, that is what John means here by believing in Jesus Name. Those who believe will obey the command to love one another. Jesus Himself commanded this. This is how the world knows that we are followers of Jesus by our love for one another.
John concludes the section by saying in v. 24 Whoever keeps His commandments abides in God and He in them. Those who are obedient to what God has commanded abide in Him, and God abides in them. And by this we know that God abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us. The Spirit living within us assures us that we are believers. He prays for us when we do not know what to pray. He opens up the scripture to us.
Conclusion
In our last two lessons we have really seen the rubber meet the road, if you will. We have been contending throughout this study that assurance is OBJECTIVE. And this is true. We know we are believers, we are assured we are believers because of how we presently live, not how we lived in the past but by how we live now.
Last we week John pointed us to the practice of righteousness to assure us. The believer, the adopted child of God, will OBEY. They will continually obey. Their life will be characterized by obedience, whereas the children of the devil, their life is characterized by sinning and disobedience to what God has revealed.
In this lesson John pointed us to love as another measure of obedience. How are we loving at this moment? Are we loving as we should? Or are we hating like Cain did which led him to murder his brother Abel? Are love is to be active, as the love of God is active. We should love in deed and truth. We can be assured before God because of our love for fellow believers. This will give us confidence before God because we obey Him and do what pleases Him and therefore our prayers are answered because we desire to see His will done. Those who obey abide in God and God abides in them, and we know God abides in us by the Holy Spirit whom He has given to us.
Quickly let’s review a few important things to remember which will aid in the study of First John:
• The theme of First John is Assurance. John was writing to a community of believers who were doubting whether or not they were believers or not. They were doubting if they were ever saved in the first place.
• The theme or purpose for writing is found in 5:13: I write these things to you who BELIEVE in the name of the Son of God that you may KNOW that you have eternal life. To sum this verse up in one word: ASSURANCE.
• The heresy John was fighting was a early form of Gnosticism. They had a flawed view of Jesus Christ and believed Salvation was not found in Christ but through a special knowledge that God gave them, and only a select few could have this knowledge. Their false views of Jesus led to unrighteous ways of living, which John combats throughout the letter.
In our last lesson as we looked at 2:28-3:10 we noticed ONE dominate theme, mainly that those who are Christians, believers, those who have been adopted by God will be characterized by righteousness. The children of God will not continually sin, as the children of the devil do, but they will continually practice righteousness: obedience to the commands of God.
John in verse 3:10 says whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. John uses this last phrase nor is the one who does not love his brother to launch into another main characteristic of Children of God: LOVE.
John in his gospel records for us where Jesus said the way the world will know we are his disciples is by our love for one another (Jn. 13:35). The world will know we are the people of God, we are followers of Jesus Christ by the way we interact with each other. They will know us by our love. How sad is it then when people see the church and all they see is backbiting and power struggles. A church like this has ceased to be the church that God intended it to be. They are not characterized by love which is a chief characteristic of a Christian. Because Christians are to love one another they should be unified. They should be able to lovingly disagree with one another over certain issues. They should be able to not argue about stupid things like carpet and paint. Out of the command to love we should be different, the world will know us by our love.
Love and Hate Contrasted vs. 11-18
John says this is the message you have had from the beginning. In this verse from the beginning refers to when they first heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ. What John is about to say is not something new, but something these believers had from their earliest days in the Christian life. The message they had from the beginning is they should love one another.
John proves his point by giving them a contrast with love and hate in verses 12-15. John starts in v. 12 and says believers should not be like Cain. I am sure most everyone knows the story of Cain and Abel in Gen. 4. John does not want believers to be like Cain, and with good reason. Why does John say this? Because Cain was of the evil one, he was a child of the devil and he murdered his brother, and why did he murder Abel. If you remember the story Cain and Abel offered sacrifices to God. Cain offered the best fruit from the field and Abel offered the best from his flock. Abel’s sacrifice was accepted while Cain’s was rejected. God did not accept Cain’s sacrifice and this enraged Cain. In fact God accepts Abel’s sacrifice which enraged Cain even more. Cain was jealous of the situation he found himself in. Out of this jealousy he murdered his brother Abel. He murdered Abel because Abel’s deeds were righteous while Cain’s were evil, because he was of the evil one.
John goes on to warn believers in v. 13 to no be surprised if the world hates us. This word here surprised connotes the idea of being shocked or in amazement by the world (MacArthur, 134). The believer should expect to be hated by the world, WHY? For the same reason that Cain hated Abel, are deeds are righteous and theirs are evil. This is why as believers, and as a church, there should be some introspection and stepping back and looking at things when the world ALWAYS thinks well of us. This does not mean as a church that we need to go out of our way to purposefully tick people off, but our deeds will. The world will hate us because we are righteous and they are not.
John in v. 14 says we know we have passed from death into life because we love the brothers. The NEB translates this as crossing over. We were on the side of death and now we are on the side of life. The evidence that we have been saved from death is our love for other believers. How we love others generally. The love we have DOES NOT save us, but it shows, it proves, that we have passed out of death into life.
If you will allow me for a moment to talk about the importance of the church here. This verse right here, showing that we prove we have been saved, we have been born of God, points to the importance of being actively involved in a church. Some think it is possible to be a Christian and NEVER be a part of the church. This is not so. For how can we love other believers if we are not around other believers? The answer is we cannot do it. They only way to fulfill the command to love our fellow Christians is by being involved in the church. There are scores of passages in the Bible which are called “one-another” passages. The only way we can fulfill these is by being a part of the church. Anyone who says they are a Christian yet they never join the body to worship and glorify God something is amiss here and they MUST examine themselves to see whether they are in the faith or not.
A believer will love, which evidences they have passed from death into life, but those who do not love remain in death. Those who do not love believers are still in death. They have not been brought to life yet. John says they abide in death. They stay there they remain there, in death.
V. 15 is a tough verse, John says everyone who hates is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. John echoes the teaching of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5. Jesus says you have heard that you shall not commit murder, but I tell you whoever hates in his heart has committed murder already, in his heart. Those who hate are murders. Not in the sense of physically killing someone, but in our attitude towards that person. When someone hates someone we wish nothing but bad on them. If they were to die it would be no skin off our back. We would be alright if this person were to die. We hate them. We do not seek their good. We murder them in our hearts when we hate them. No murderer has eternal life abiding in them. So what is John saying here. It seems as if he is changing his topic. He said everyone that hates is a murderer and now he is talking about murder, what is going on here? John is saying that hate=murder therefore murderers do not have eternal life abiding in them, therefore also those who hate do not have eternal life abiding in them. Their attitude is murderous. Their thoughts towards the one they hate are murderous. We wish them nothing but ill. People such as this do not have eternal life abiding in them, they are abiding in death, they have not crossed over into life.
As a side not this is not to say that a true Christian may or may not be involved in a murder and lose their salvation. Look at David he was involved in the murder of Uriah, yet God said David was a man after his own heart. Paul was a murderer and persecutor of the church, yet he was greatly used by God.
John so far has focused on the negative side. We have been given a clear picture of what a believer is not to do now in vs. 16-18 John gives a picture of what the believer is supposed to do.
John first gives an example of Supreme love, Jesus Christ, in v. 16. He says by this we know love, by this is referring here to what comes next, that he, being Jesus, laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. The Supreme example of love that John can give is that of Jesus Christ. Jesus loved therefore He died. The love that Jesus has for His followers led Him to the cross so He could die and make us right with the Holy and Wrathful Father. Jesus did this out of love. As believers we are to use Jesus as an example. We are to lay down our lives for the brothers. We know that there will probably not be times when we literally have to die for another believer. That is not just the time in which we live although one day it may be, only God knows. So what is John saying here?
V. 17 answers the question for us, and John goes about it by stating the negative. John says if anyone has the world’s goods and sees their brother in need, and yet closes their heart against them, how can the love of God abide in them? This is how we are NOT to lay down our lives for the brothers? Why? Because this is selfish and love is not selfish (1Cor. 13). What good does it do if we have the world’s goods and do nothing to help those who are in need. The poorest here is the room is richer than most people in the world. How do we act toward fellow believers many times? We see they have a need and what do we tell them? I will pray for you, which is well and good, but many times it needs to go farther. We sometimes need to sacrifice what we have in order to help others. Love is costly. To truly love another person will cost us something. We can do this it is possible. I heard a story not to long ago about people who live in Africa. And these people are poor, more poor than we can probably imagine. But these people are honored when people will come to where they live and visit them. SO honored in fact that they will use their whole food ration for the week just to show you how honored they are. They can do this because they feel honored how much more can we do out of love for fellow believers.
John drives home his point about love in v. 18. John says we are not to love in word or talk, but in deed and truth. What is he saying here, two things.
First off we are to love in deed. Love is not mere lip service. How many times did God chastise the Israelites because they merely paid Him lip service but there was never any obedience attached to it. We do not do this in relationships we have. If I were to date a girl, and fat chance of that happening apparently because I will not shave, but hypothetically speaking, if I were to date a girl and I were to love this girl and all II ever did was TELL her that I loved her, but that love never was acted upon. If I never did anything loving for her. I was never loving to her. If I never did those things, what kind of love would I have for her? I would have no love for her at all. As believers we are to put love into action. It is like the old DC Talk song Love is a Verb. We show are love for fellow believers by what we do NOT by what we say. Love is not talking, love is doing something. Our deeds back up our claim that we love someone. If gives that love content (Boice, 97).
Second we are to love in truth. What does this mean? It means that our love is genuine (Stott, 148). We genuinely love that person. We do not fake as if we love this person but it is a real love.
One last note about this section. Our love is to be active, and here is why. God’s love is active. God’s love is active and it is manifested in Jesus Christ on the cross (1 John 4:10). God in His love sent Jesus to die for our sins. God did not sit in heaven and be like oh look at those poor sinners down on earth. How I love them so. I love them so much, but His love never acts. He did not say oh how I love them so, it was active. He loved sinners so much that He sent His Only Son Jesus Christ to die for these sinners, because of His love.
Assurance vs. 19-24
IN v. 19 John says by this we know we are of the truth and our hearts are reassured before God. What does by this refer t here? It refers to our love for fellow believers what John has just covered in vs. 11-18 (See, MacArthur, 143, Stott, 148, Marshall, 196). By our love for other believers we can reassure our hearts before God.
The believers that John was writing to do, as we have stated many times were dealing with doubts and having assurance of salvation. They were not sure. They were doubting whether they were believers or not. John knows this and in v. 20 he point them to God. John says whenever our hearts condemn us, heart more than likely meaning conscience here, God is greater than our hearts and He knows all things. There will be times when the believers conscience will try to condemn it. But we must remember how we are viewed in God’s eyes. We must look to God. Why? Because God is greater than our hearts our consciences and He knows all things. For the believer there is no more condemnation (Rom. 8:1). We do not have to feel condemned. We are justified, and God did this, and if we have truly been justified we can never lose that because we did nothing to gain it. We are justified based upon what CHRIST did for us, and not anything we did. God knows who we are . He knows ourselves better than we know ourselves. He knows our hearts better than we know our hearts. He knows all things.
By looking to God our hearts do not condemn us, v. 21, and if our hearts do not condemn us we have confidence before God. The word confidence here conveys they idea of: “The word rendered confidence means “boldness” and “freedom of speech.” It describes the privilege of coming before someone of importance, power, and authority and feeling free to express whatever is on one’s mind. For believers it means coming into the presence of our loving heavenly Father without fear.” (MacArthur, 145). The believer can come boldly before the throne of Grace (See Heb. 4:16). We are free to come. As believers we have confidence before God. And whatever we ask we receive from him, v. 22.
We receive whatever was ask from Him for two reasons.
First we keep His commandments. We are obedient to what the Father has commanded us to do.
Secondly we do what is pleasing to Him.
The people who do this our living in God’s will. They desire to see God’s will done and therefore that prayer will be answered. John is not saying here that if we obey we can ask for whatever we want as if God were some genie in the sky and we obey and we get a brand new car. This is not the idea. We ask and pray for only that which is in line with the will of God. Those who are obeying will desire to see God’s will and God’s will only done and this will be their plea and cry.
This is His, commandment, the Father, that we believe in the name of Jesus Christ and love one another as He commanded us. In Greek the word name has to do with who a person is. We are called to believe in WHO Jesus is, that is what John means here by believing in Jesus Name. Those who believe will obey the command to love one another. Jesus Himself commanded this. This is how the world knows that we are followers of Jesus by our love for one another.
John concludes the section by saying in v. 24 Whoever keeps His commandments abides in God and He in them. Those who are obedient to what God has commanded abide in Him, and God abides in them. And by this we know that God abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us. The Spirit living within us assures us that we are believers. He prays for us when we do not know what to pray. He opens up the scripture to us.
Conclusion
In our last two lessons we have really seen the rubber meet the road, if you will. We have been contending throughout this study that assurance is OBJECTIVE. And this is true. We know we are believers, we are assured we are believers because of how we presently live, not how we lived in the past but by how we live now.
Last we week John pointed us to the practice of righteousness to assure us. The believer, the adopted child of God, will OBEY. They will continually obey. Their life will be characterized by obedience, whereas the children of the devil, their life is characterized by sinning and disobedience to what God has revealed.
In this lesson John pointed us to love as another measure of obedience. How are we loving at this moment? Are we loving as we should? Or are we hating like Cain did which led him to murder his brother Abel? Are love is to be active, as the love of God is active. We should love in deed and truth. We can be assured before God because of our love for fellow believers. This will give us confidence before God because we obey Him and do what pleases Him and therefore our prayers are answered because we desire to see His will done. Those who obey abide in God and God abides in them, and we know God abides in us by the Holy Spirit whom He has given to us.
1 John 2:28-3:10
1 John 2 :28-3:10 Adoption to Righteousness
1 John 2:28-3:10 is one whole unit. Some think 2:28-29 belong with 2:26-27 but this is not the case. 2:28-29 introduce what John is going to say in 3:1-3. What is key to remember about these verses is that 3:1-3 is sandwiched between verses which have a them of righteousness. This is key because 3:1-3 will seem out of place if we do not keep this in mind.
1. Confidence and assurance before the Lord at His second coming. (2:28-29)
John calls believers to abide in Him, Christ, so that when He returns we may have confidence before Him. Those who abide in Him will have no need to shrink from Him in shame at His coming. Confidence here “indicates an assurance derived form a holy life of abiding in Christ.” (MacArthur, 113) What does it mean that He is coming? The Greek conveys the idea of someone returning who is not now physically present (Stott, 121). Christ is coming to take home those who abide in Him.
What does it mean for a believer to abide in Christ? It means they will be bearing spiritual fruit, there will be growth (Jn 15:4). Abiding in Christ means we are obedient to what He teaches, to His commands (Jn 15:10,14). I think John really answers the question for us in verse 29. Those who practice righteousness are those who abide in Him.
Why is this? Because if God is righteous you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of Him. This righteousness is evidence that a person is a believer, not the way they are saved (Stott 122).
Here is a good question to ask of this verse. What does it mean to be born of God? Let’s look at two verses from John’s gospel for a clear picture of what it means to be born of God.
• John 1:12-13. Verse 12 says those who believed were given the right to become children of God. The Greek word here for “right” literally means “capability, might or power.” CBDAG, 352). In other words, this was not something that was within them, which gave the right to become children of God, but it was given to them. Notice in verse 13 that those who believed were not born of blood, the will of the flesh, or the will of man, but of God. Their new birth was caused by God and God alone.
• John 3:3,5-6. Jesus here is talking to Nicodemus and in verse 3 says you must be born again, and without being born again no one can see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus did not understand what Jesus was saying. Jesus answered a person must be born of the Spirit. That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of Spirit is Spirit.
2. Children of God (Adoption) vs. 3:1-2
What comes to your mind when you hear the word ADOPTION? Some have positive thoughts, some negative. What comes to your mind when you hear the Doctrine of Adoption? Some here, no doubt, do not have any clue. Some are thinking I love that doctrine. It is great. In verse 1-3 John bursts forth in praise because of the great love which God has given us. No doubt this happens to any believer as they think of being born of God.
First a definition of the doctrine of adoption: “Explains the nature of God’s relationship to His people.”(NDBT 376). God takes people who are not His children and makes them His children (Boyce 405).
The source of our adoption, v. 1
The source of the believer’s adoption, being made a child of God, is God’s love. God has given us His love so we can be children of God. “Children of God is no mere title; it is a fact.” (Stott, 123). God in His love adopted us. A great love which God has given us (NASB).
The extent of the believer’s adoption, v. 2
We are God’s children now. And we will be God’s adopted children for all eternity. We do not know now what we will be like, but we do know we will be like Him when He appears. We will be children of God forever, if we have been born of Him.
This should bring us assurance as we think on these things. God in His love has made us His children. Why should this bring us assurance? Because the world will not know us because we are children of God. This can and will bring doubt into our lives. We will be made fun of for being a Christian. We will be left out because we are a Christian. But be assured you are a child of God and the reason the world does not know you is it does not know Him.
Righteousness: the life of the child of God vs. 3-10
An adopted child of God will seek to live a certain way. The chief characteristic of the adopted child of God is righteousness. Remember we said at the beginning of the lesson that 3:1-3 was sandwiched in between verses that are DOMINATED by the theme of righteousness.
Let’s go through vs. 3-10 and look at what John says a child of God will look like.
The believer purifies himself as He is pure. The Greek word here (purify) is a present active indicative, which means it is a continuous real action. The word purify here signifies a moral purity (BDAG, 12). The believer will be morally pure as He is pure.
Next in vs. 4-6 we see 3 things.
A definition of sin (v.4). Sin is lawlessness. Those who practice sin practice lawlessness. “Lawlessness is the essence, not result, of sin.” (Stott, 126). In other words, those who practice sin practice disobedience to what God has commanded in His word.
Secondly, Christ appeared to take away sins (v.5). What makes Jesus Christ eligible for this? Because there is no sin in Him. Because Jesus is without sin He can take away sin.
Thirdly, no one who abides in Christ keeps on sinning (v.6). Those who abide in Christ cannot continually sin. The word sinning here is a present active indicative, which represents a real action that is continuous. The believer can continually sin. Why is this? Because of who they abide in. They abide in Christ who came to take away sins so they cannot continue in it. They cannot continue in sin because of whose they are. They are Christ’s and there is no sin in Him, therefore His followers are to be like Him. No one who keeps on sinning knows Jesus Christ; they have not been adopted by God! OUCH! What a warning from John. Anyone who continually lives in sin is not a believer. They have never been saved. Those who have been adopted by God to be His children cannot continue in sin.
Those who practice righteousness, those who obey, are righteous as He is righteous (v.7). Those who obey, those who practice righteousness, which is obedience, are of God. John wants his readers to not be deceived. The Gnostics claimed they knew the righteous one, but they lived unrighteous lives. So John says those who practice righteousness they are of the Father, they are the true believers, they are children of God. The way we live should back up our claims.
In vs. 8-10 John gives a comparison. He says whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil. Those who sin continually are not of God, but the devil. The devil has been sinning from the beginning. Sin has its origin in the devil not God. A reason the child of God cannot continue in sin is Jesus appeared to destroy the works of the devil. The believer cannot be in bondage to sin because Jesus destroyed the works of the devil, sin, for them. In v. 9 John says no one born of God keeps sinning because God’s seed abides in him. What does seed refer to? What does it mean? Colin Kruse says “The Holy Spirit is the most satisfactory option, in light of the fact that the new birth is effected by God through the Spirit, and it is the Spirit who in Johannine theology remains with and in believers.” (Kruse, 125). A believer cannot continually sin because the Holy Spirit abides in them. He, the believer, cannot continually sin because he has been born of God. John ends the section in v. 10 with a negative statement. John says this is how we tell who the children of God are, and who the children of the devil are. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God. Those who continually live in sin are not children of God.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Sovereignty in Robbery???
Do you believe in the sovereignty of God? Grace Community does. And our belief in sovereignty extends to ALL areas of life.
For those who do not know, because of Spring Break and what not, the building was broken into early Saturday Morning. All guitars on the stage were taken, all the mics were taken, all of the guitar amps were taken, every bass was taken, the piano was taken, every power strip was taken. A thief came in and stole our property. He stole what we use to glorify God through music.
Here is a timeline of the events yesterday. We had Straight Talk for Men at 7:00. Me and dad made it to the church by 6:15. We had our group up in the Crossroads room and after that we went to the auditorium to listen to a song Dad wants us to do. As we were listening to the song someone looked at the stage and said where is the Piano. Then someone asked where is Matt's bass equipment, the someone asked where is the guitars and the mics and the floor monitor. It was gone. The police were called and were there by 9:00. They looked at things and to be honest they did not give us any hope that we would see any of the stuff that was stolen ever again.
We were upset. I am not going to lie. The things we had worked so hard for and spent all the money on were gone. Not to mention the sentimental value that was attached to them as well.
In the midst of this though God is still in control. This was not out of the scope of God's sovereignty. This happened for a reason. It was not a random act. God could have allowed this to not happen, but He did allow it. I believe it was to test us as a church. We are still young. We are still starting to get off the ground. I believe God was asking us as a church, Are You willing to keep going and be faithful in the midst of our stuff being stolen. The answer was up to us. Will this distract us? Or will it be business as usual and seek to glorify God?
The day keeps going on though. At around 5:00 Rhea and Kim came to the church and wanted to help. They wanted to do something. So they went to all of the people who lived around the church and asked if they saw anything the night before or if they just knew anything. Keep this in mind, God worked through this.
At 7:00 the church had a corporate prayer meeting. The tone was very positive over all. The thought was NOTHING can separate us from the love of Christ. The thief may have stolen our musical equipment but what they cannot rob us of is our desire to Glorify God as a church. At the prayer meeting we just prayed that God would accomplish His will throughout this situation.
The meeting was over. We left. I went to the house because me and Matt and Todd were going to stay at the church just in case someone tried to break in again Saturday night. We were eating Pizza and watching the basketball game and Ashley all of the sudden yelled "THE POLICE ARE HERE." The officer came to the door and asked if we had stolen musical equipment. They needed someone to ID the equipment. Me and Matt went to one of the neighbors house and low and behold in one of the bedrooms was ALL of our musical equipment. It was there. It was stolen and it was back.
Why did this happen? To test us as a church. At the prayer meeting we had we were not praying to God to bring our equipment back to us. We prayed that we would glorify God even through this and God would work even in this situation. And that He did. It started with Rhea and Kim going to the neighbors house and the neighbor getting nervous about the equipment being there. They called a friend and asked the friend to come and get the stuff out of their house. The friend instead of getting the stuff called the Police. God worked through this for His glory. He was saying to us as a church, what is more important to you? Musical equipment or my Glory? As a church we answered your glory is more important to us.
God brings all things into the lives of believers for their good (Rom. 8:28). Even the church being robbed and our stuff being stolen.
Do you believe in the sovereignty of God? Grace Community does even in the midst of robbery.
What do we do now? We pray for the one who stole this. We should not be angry at them or wish they would burn in hell. WE should pray that God would save them. God would prick their conscience and bring them to Himself and maybe one day they will become members of Grace Community church. Only God knows what will happen and HIS WILL. IT WILL BE DONE nothing can turn away God's purpose (Job 42). God will be gloirifed in ALL THINGS, even in the midst of a thief stealing from a church.
For those who do not know, because of Spring Break and what not, the building was broken into early Saturday Morning. All guitars on the stage were taken, all the mics were taken, all of the guitar amps were taken, every bass was taken, the piano was taken, every power strip was taken. A thief came in and stole our property. He stole what we use to glorify God through music.
Here is a timeline of the events yesterday. We had Straight Talk for Men at 7:00. Me and dad made it to the church by 6:15. We had our group up in the Crossroads room and after that we went to the auditorium to listen to a song Dad wants us to do. As we were listening to the song someone looked at the stage and said where is the Piano. Then someone asked where is Matt's bass equipment, the someone asked where is the guitars and the mics and the floor monitor. It was gone. The police were called and were there by 9:00. They looked at things and to be honest they did not give us any hope that we would see any of the stuff that was stolen ever again.
We were upset. I am not going to lie. The things we had worked so hard for and spent all the money on were gone. Not to mention the sentimental value that was attached to them as well.
In the midst of this though God is still in control. This was not out of the scope of God's sovereignty. This happened for a reason. It was not a random act. God could have allowed this to not happen, but He did allow it. I believe it was to test us as a church. We are still young. We are still starting to get off the ground. I believe God was asking us as a church, Are You willing to keep going and be faithful in the midst of our stuff being stolen. The answer was up to us. Will this distract us? Or will it be business as usual and seek to glorify God?
The day keeps going on though. At around 5:00 Rhea and Kim came to the church and wanted to help. They wanted to do something. So they went to all of the people who lived around the church and asked if they saw anything the night before or if they just knew anything. Keep this in mind, God worked through this.
At 7:00 the church had a corporate prayer meeting. The tone was very positive over all. The thought was NOTHING can separate us from the love of Christ. The thief may have stolen our musical equipment but what they cannot rob us of is our desire to Glorify God as a church. At the prayer meeting we just prayed that God would accomplish His will throughout this situation.
The meeting was over. We left. I went to the house because me and Matt and Todd were going to stay at the church just in case someone tried to break in again Saturday night. We were eating Pizza and watching the basketball game and Ashley all of the sudden yelled "THE POLICE ARE HERE." The officer came to the door and asked if we had stolen musical equipment. They needed someone to ID the equipment. Me and Matt went to one of the neighbors house and low and behold in one of the bedrooms was ALL of our musical equipment. It was there. It was stolen and it was back.
Why did this happen? To test us as a church. At the prayer meeting we had we were not praying to God to bring our equipment back to us. We prayed that we would glorify God even through this and God would work even in this situation. And that He did. It started with Rhea and Kim going to the neighbors house and the neighbor getting nervous about the equipment being there. They called a friend and asked the friend to come and get the stuff out of their house. The friend instead of getting the stuff called the Police. God worked through this for His glory. He was saying to us as a church, what is more important to you? Musical equipment or my Glory? As a church we answered your glory is more important to us.
God brings all things into the lives of believers for their good (Rom. 8:28). Even the church being robbed and our stuff being stolen.
Do you believe in the sovereignty of God? Grace Community does even in the midst of robbery.
What do we do now? We pray for the one who stole this. We should not be angry at them or wish they would burn in hell. WE should pray that God would save them. God would prick their conscience and bring them to Himself and maybe one day they will become members of Grace Community church. Only God knows what will happen and HIS WILL. IT WILL BE DONE nothing can turn away God's purpose (Job 42). God will be gloirifed in ALL THINGS, even in the midst of a thief stealing from a church.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
First John 2:3-27
Introduction
In this lesson we are going to move pretty fast because we must cover 24 verses in order to stay on schedule.
In our last lesson we learned about the work of Jesus Christ as our Advocate and our Atoning Sacrifice. Something I want you to think about, we did not cover this to much. But it is only possible for Jesus to be our Advocate and our Atoning Sacrifice because of who He is. Mainly He is the Righteous one. He is God. If Jesus is not God then He is not able to be our advocate. But Jesus must also be fully human. Because if He is not human He cannot be our advocate before the Father, and if He is not God, He is not perfect He cannot be our Atoning Sacrifice because a mere man died which is good for nothing. But If Jesus is Fully God and Fully man, which He is fully both, then His work is amazing and effective.
John uses these two things to launch into a discussion which centers around obedience in vs. 3-6 then John just keeps going.
We are going to move at warp speed so feel free to ask questions if there is anything I am not making clear, or if there is a place where you want us to go further, since we are just going to get a survey of most of the verses in this lesson.
My Assurance comes from obeying God’s Commandments (vs. 3-6)
We as believers know that we have come to know God when we obey. The first theme of assurance in these verses is my assurance come from obeying God’s commandments. John in verse three uses an absolute statement and says by this we know. This is not a mere possibility that John is talking about, but rather by this one can know that they are a true believer. John uses this phrase by this we know eight times in the book. John contrasts a true believer with an unbeliever in this passage. In verse three the true believer is shown, and in verse four the unbeliever is shown. The person that claims to know God, but they do not keep His word, they are not obedient, these people are liars and the truth is not in them. In verse five the contrast between the believer and unbeliever continues. John says BUT whoever keeps His word in him truly the love of God is perfected. The meaning here is that if a man loves God, he will seek to please him and keep his commandments.
So the man that loves God will seek to please God by being obedient. And by this we may be sure that we are in Him. In verse six again we see that the person who says that they abide in God, this person will walk in the same way that He walked. Who exactly is the He in this verse? The He that John is talking about here Jesus. We see this in John fifteen where we are told to abide in the vine and the vine is Jesus. We will walk like He walked, we seek to do the will of the Father in everything that we do, if we are true believers.
My Assurance comes from loving other believers (vs. 9-11)
Those who obey God will also love their fellow brothers. Once again in verses nine through eleven John contrasts a true believer with the way that an unbeliever will live. In these verses we see the second theme of assurance in these verses which is my assurance comes from loving other believers.
Verse nine John says that anyone who claims to walk in the light, those who claim to lead a righteous life, yet this person hates their brother; they are still in the darkness. Love for other people, and more particular in this verse, love for other Christians is a sign of one who is a believer. After stating that those who claim to be in the light yet hate in verse nine John in verse ten tells us what a true believer will do. Whoever loves his brother this is the person who abides or walks and continues in the light. No only is that person in the light and walking in the light but in that person there is no cause for stumbling.
What exactly does John mean by there is no cause of stumbling in this person? The context demands that it applies to the individual believer, if he loves; he walks in the light and therefore does not himself stumble. So the person that is in the light will not stumble. Or as John says there is no cause for stumbling in Him.
Just think of it this way. You are in a dark building. While you are in that dark building you decide to find a way out. What you do not know is that there is a chair in that building. You are walking to find a way out you stumble upon this chair and you trip over it. Now why did you trip over this chair? It was dark you could not see it. Now reverse the situation. You are in the same building but it is well lit. You walk and you see the door and you head towards it. This time as you walk and get near the chair you see it and you avoid it. Just as the person who is walking in the light will be able to see the temptation to sin and you will know how to avoid sin. But those who are in the darkness can not see there sin, because they walk in sin. They are blinded by the darkness as John points it in verse eleven. So those who walk in the light will avoid the chair in the building because the blindness has been removed.
One implication that we see in this verse is that those who walk in the light will not cause other believers to stumble. The meaning of the verse is that they will not personally stumble. But those who walk in the light will live in such a way that they will not cause other people to stumble, because they are on guard and avoid stumbling themselves. Another implication is if we are to love fellow believers we must be a part of the church. In order to love other believers we need to be round other believers, and this takes place within the context of the church.
Different Levels of Maturity in the Church (v. 12-14)
Verses 12-14 are sometimes hard to interpret. Some people see the fathers, young men, and little children as being either physical or spiritual. In other words if it is physical it is a literal fathers or older age, and young children are actually little children and young men are actually young men.
What is actually going on here? Why does John write this? This here is referring to a spiritual age or to spiritual maturity. John addresses three different groups. John addresses all of these groups twice and each time it is a little different.
The Little Children
John addresses the little children first. He says I write to you little children because your sins have been forgiven. What does little children mean here? This is talking about a person who has just become a Christian. They are new believers. John writes to reassure that they are believers. So they will not be confused by what John has written.
He says they have been forgiven, but it was nothing that they had done. Instead it had everything to do with what God had done through Jesus Christ. They were forgiven for His Names Sake. It was not for our sake, it was for God’s glory that we were forgiven. God saved us for His glory. We had nothing to do with it, but God alone did.
The second thing John says to the little children is you know the Father. They have come to the Father. They are infatuated with knowing the Father. They are enjoying their prayer life. They are exuberant about their new life and relationship with God.
Fathers
John now addresses the Fathers. Each time he says the same thing to them. They Fathers here refers to the spiritually mature. They know Him who was from the beginning. That is God the Father. They have an intimate knowledge of the Father. They have been through the good times and the bad and throughout all they have continued with the Father. They know the Father.
Young Men
John writes to the young men. These are the people who are growing in their Christian life. They are fighting against the evil one and they have overcome the evil one. But they have not overcome the evil one on their own. They have overcome the evil one because the word of God abides in them. What does this imply then? This implies that these people have been in the word of God. In order for the word of God to abide in them they must be studying the word of God. They must be reading the word of God.
If you think about it this is the way the church is set up. Some are more mature than others and they can help those who are not as mature. But their will be spiritual growth.
My Assurance comes from not loving the world (vs. 15-17)
John in verses nine through eleven showed us who a true believer will love. As we move on to verses fifteen through seventeen we see what a true believer will not love. The true believer will not love the world. This is the third theme of assurance in these verses. My assurance comes from not loving the world.
Verse fifteen is a warning. It is a warning from John that if anyone loves the world the love of the Father is not in them. The love that he is talking about here is an ongoing love. By contrast a true believer will have an ongoing love for the Father. The verse is in the form of an if then statement. If you love the things of the world, then you do not love the Father. We need to define here what John means by the world. It is important to remember as you study your Bible that the term world is usually a generic term and can mean many different things. John does not have in mind here so much the physical place in where we live, but rather the attitudes of the people in this world that we live. Danny Akin says that the world here is, “An evil organized system controlled by the power of the evil one that has aligned itself against God and His Kingdom.” We are not to love the things that are in opposition to God and to the advancement of His Kingdom. But what specifically should we avoid as believers? Well the scriptures have the answer for us in verse sixteen.
In verse sixteen we are told about three desires in the world that are going to pass away. The first is the desire of the flesh. This here is a general term that denotes those things that are for self, and things that are temporal. This first term, desires of the flesh encompass the next two which are more specific. The word desire is used in a negative sense.
The second desire is the desire or the lust of the eyes. This in a word is covetousness. You see what someone else has and you think I have to have that. This is the desire to keep up with the Joneses. If someone gets a promotion at work you want to one up them and you have to get a better promotion. We have to be the best at everything.
The third and final desire that the Christian is to not love of the world is the pride of possessions. What happens in this desire is the person fails to give the glory to God. They fail to recognize that everything that they have is a gift from the hand of God. This attitude proclaims look at what I have done. I have done all of this by myself, me me me me me. The Christian is to not say “look at what I have done.” The Christian is to give God the glory and to thank Him for everything that they have.
These attitudes are passing away, the desires and the attitudes of this world are passing away, but we see in verse seventeen John says that the person who does the will of God will abide forever. The will of God is to be obedient in what he has revealed to us.
The Church (vs.18-19)
Just a quick note on verses 18-19. John says it is the last hour and the antichrist is coming and even now many antichrists have come already. The antichrists that have come are those who are against Christ. They do not want anything to do with Christ, they do not want anything to do with the body of Christ the church.
John is thinking here of the heretics, more than likely. The reason is of what comes next. The heretics went out from the believing community. They did not want anything to do with the church. If they would have been a true believer they would not have left the church. Those who are true believers will be tied to a local church. If someone says they are a Christian and yet they want nothing to do with the body of Christ, for which he shed His blood, they are more than likely not a Christian. It is within the church where we are taught the word of God. It is within the church where discipleship takes place. The church is the place where we are held accountable for how we live. A believer will be committed to the local church, and those who neglect the church or deny the importance of the truth may not or are not true believers.
My Assurance comes from knowing the truth (vs. 20-21)
John’s readers have an anointing that teaches them all things. Now don’t get freaked out by the word anointing. It is not some mystical thing that just happens and then we have knowledge. The anointing that they have received is from the holy one. This anointing that all believers’ posses gives them all knowledge. So the theme of assurance we see is my assurance comes from knowing the truth.
There are a couple of questions that need to be answered to know how we have assurance from knowing the truth. First off what is the anointing that we have received? Colin Kruse says, “In this verse anointing is used to describe the anointing that the readers have from the Holy one is best interpreted as a reference to the Holy Spirit with whom they have been endowed by God (when they first believed), and who confirms to them the truth of the message that they heard at that time.” The Holy Spirit is the anointing that John is referring to here in this verse. This is one thing that is given to all believers when they believe and He is the Spirit of truth, and will lead all believers in the truth and not into falsehood.
The second question to answer is what does all knowledge mean? To answer this we will start with the negative aspect of it. This does not mean that John’s readers know everything that there is to know. As Christians we should not be know it alls. Those people who know everything there is to know about everything. That is what it does not mean. The positive side of it is the have full knowledge of who Jesus is, and the reason this is so is because of the anointing or the Holy Spirit that dwells within the believer. The Spirit leads them into all truth and therefore they know all things as pertaining to Jesus Christ. The knowledge of Jesus fits with the context, as we see in verse twenty-two John now moves on to the topic of a correct confession of Jesus.
So we have assurance because a true believer will know the truth about Jesus. The true believer will be able to spot falsehoods because of the Spirit that dwells within them. Christians have a built in lie detector. The true believer will know the truth and they will spot falsehoods. How will a believer spot falsehoods? There are two ways. The first one is what John says in this verse. They have an anointing, and because of this anointing they have all knowledge. The second way a believer will be able to spot falsehoods is by studying the truth. People who work in counterfeit bills do not hone their skill by studying counterfeit bills. They can spot the false one because they have studied the real McCoy. Just like people who work in spotting counterfeit bills believers must study the truth. We do not need to devote our time to studying false religions, although that has its place, but we should spend the majority of our time studying the truth, that way we can spot the lies that other religions tell us and what people believe.
My Assurance comes from a correct confession of Jesus and the Father (vs. 22-23)
Not only will a true believer know the truth about Jesus, because the Holy Spirit dwells within them, but they will also have a correct confession of Jesus and the Father. That is the theme of assurance that John writes about in verses twenty-two and twenty-three. Now once again here John is stating what the Gnostics believed. They denied that Jesus is the Christ. John says here that anyone who denies that Jesus is the Christ is two things. First off they are a liar. Second off they are antichrists. This means that any person who tries to separate the two natures of Jesus, His physical nature and His divine nature, they are actually against Christ. They are against Jesus. They really do not have anything to do with Jesus, even if they claim to have fellowship with Him. They are against Him because they deny the very essence of who He is. They deny what holds Christianity together, mainly that God took the form of a man in Jesus Christ, while remaining God, and lived a perfect life, and died to atone for sin. Those who deny this do not have fellowship with Jesus but are actually against Him.
But not only do these people deny Jesus, but John also calls them antichrists because they deny the Father as well. These people have missed it totally. By denying that Jesus was the Christ, they deny the Father as well. Since it was the Father who planned from the foundation of the world that he would send His Son Jesus Christ to earth, and His Son would be the God man, He would be God in the Flesh. By denying that Jesus was the Christ they are now against the Father and the Son. So what exactly is John teaching us here? This is where our theme of assurance comes into play. John is making sure that we get things right.
John is teaching us here that you cannot have the Son and have the Father, and you cannot have the Father and have the Son. If we claim to be in a relationship with Jesus we cannot say that we do not want the Father. The true believer will have a true confession of Jesus and the Father that is they will confess both of them and will want both of them. You cannot separate the two; they are one in the same. Two different people, but they are still in the Godhead. It is a package deal. In fact true believers will confess and want all three members of the trinity. There are some people, and this is becoming a popular view, who are Jesus only. In other words Jesus is all three persons of the godhead. At one time Jesus was the Father, then while on earth Jesus was actually Jesus Christ, and now Jesus is in the role of the Spirit. This view does serious damage to Christianity, and is unbiblical.
My Assurance comes from the gospel (vs. 24-25)
Another theme of assurance that John writes in this chapter is that the true believers assurance comes from the gospel. In verse twenty-four when John says let what you heard from the beginning abide in you, he is talking about the gospel. This would have been the first thing that they would have learned to begin their relationship with Jesus Christ. We are to abide in the gospel; we are to continue in the gospel. This is why it is so important for believers to still think and meditate on what God has done for sinners in the gospel. It is so easy to forget and become numb to what God has done for sinners, and the depth to which He has done it. He did it ALL. There is nothing that God missed when he set His redemptive plan in motion. He was not in heaven thinking oh I hope this works, I don’t know what else to do if it fails. God knew exactly what he was doing in the gospel.
John goes on to say that if we as believers abide or continue in the gospel then we will abide in the Son and the Father. If we remember the gospel and what God did for us in the gospel then we will continue with the Son and the Father because we know and meditate on what was accomplished for us.
In verse twenty-five we see a promise that was made to believers. The and in this verse indicates that John is going to relate further blessing from abiding in the gospel, and abiding in Christ. The further blessing that we see is that those who abide in the gospel, those who abide in the Son and the Father these people have eternal life. We as believers can be assured that we have eternal life because we abide in the gospel and we abide in the Son and the Father. This is a promise that we have from God. The great thing about abiding though is we do not do it alone. God is there with us and His Holy Spirit is giving us the strength to keep going to persevere in the gospel of grace and to continue to walk with the Father and the Son and the Spirit. The believer can be assured by the gospel, and by abiding in it, because those who do posses eternal life.
Do we not need any Teachers as Believers? (vs.26-27)
John writes to these believers about those who are trying to deceive them.
John points out two things about believers in this verse. First the anointing that believers have is the Holy Spirit (See 3:24). The anointing believers have received abides in them.
Second this anointing, the Holy Spirit, as stated above, teaches believers all things and therefore believers have no need for anyone to teach them. But is John saying here that teachers in and of themselves are not essential? John is saying here that as believers we have NO NEED for anyone to teach us the truth about Jesus Christ. These heretics came into the church and were trying to teach them false things about Jesus. Believers know the truth about Jesus. They know who Jesus is and therefore they have no need for anyone to teach them about Jesus. If John were saying there was no need for teachers at all then he would not have written this letter. But these believers know who Jesus is and they have no need for anyone to teach them the truth about Jesus because they have an anointing which abides in them, The Holy Spirit.
Conclusion
Here is a summary of the ways John Assures believers in these verses.
• As we obey God and we are assured,
• When we love other believers we our assured and also we see what we are not to love, which is the world with its desires.
• Next we are assured as believers because we know the truth because the Holy Spirit dwells within us.
• Next we can be assured because we have a correct confession of the Father and the Son, that is to say that we do not claim one and do not want the other.
• And lastly our assurance as believers comes from abiding in the gospel and the Father and the Son, and assuring us that we have eternal life.
In this lesson we are going to move pretty fast because we must cover 24 verses in order to stay on schedule.
In our last lesson we learned about the work of Jesus Christ as our Advocate and our Atoning Sacrifice. Something I want you to think about, we did not cover this to much. But it is only possible for Jesus to be our Advocate and our Atoning Sacrifice because of who He is. Mainly He is the Righteous one. He is God. If Jesus is not God then He is not able to be our advocate. But Jesus must also be fully human. Because if He is not human He cannot be our advocate before the Father, and if He is not God, He is not perfect He cannot be our Atoning Sacrifice because a mere man died which is good for nothing. But If Jesus is Fully God and Fully man, which He is fully both, then His work is amazing and effective.
John uses these two things to launch into a discussion which centers around obedience in vs. 3-6 then John just keeps going.
We are going to move at warp speed so feel free to ask questions if there is anything I am not making clear, or if there is a place where you want us to go further, since we are just going to get a survey of most of the verses in this lesson.
My Assurance comes from obeying God’s Commandments (vs. 3-6)
We as believers know that we have come to know God when we obey. The first theme of assurance in these verses is my assurance come from obeying God’s commandments. John in verse three uses an absolute statement and says by this we know. This is not a mere possibility that John is talking about, but rather by this one can know that they are a true believer. John uses this phrase by this we know eight times in the book. John contrasts a true believer with an unbeliever in this passage. In verse three the true believer is shown, and in verse four the unbeliever is shown. The person that claims to know God, but they do not keep His word, they are not obedient, these people are liars and the truth is not in them. In verse five the contrast between the believer and unbeliever continues. John says BUT whoever keeps His word in him truly the love of God is perfected. The meaning here is that if a man loves God, he will seek to please him and keep his commandments.
So the man that loves God will seek to please God by being obedient. And by this we may be sure that we are in Him. In verse six again we see that the person who says that they abide in God, this person will walk in the same way that He walked. Who exactly is the He in this verse? The He that John is talking about here Jesus. We see this in John fifteen where we are told to abide in the vine and the vine is Jesus. We will walk like He walked, we seek to do the will of the Father in everything that we do, if we are true believers.
My Assurance comes from loving other believers (vs. 9-11)
Those who obey God will also love their fellow brothers. Once again in verses nine through eleven John contrasts a true believer with the way that an unbeliever will live. In these verses we see the second theme of assurance in these verses which is my assurance comes from loving other believers.
Verse nine John says that anyone who claims to walk in the light, those who claim to lead a righteous life, yet this person hates their brother; they are still in the darkness. Love for other people, and more particular in this verse, love for other Christians is a sign of one who is a believer. After stating that those who claim to be in the light yet hate in verse nine John in verse ten tells us what a true believer will do. Whoever loves his brother this is the person who abides or walks and continues in the light. No only is that person in the light and walking in the light but in that person there is no cause for stumbling.
What exactly does John mean by there is no cause of stumbling in this person? The context demands that it applies to the individual believer, if he loves; he walks in the light and therefore does not himself stumble. So the person that is in the light will not stumble. Or as John says there is no cause for stumbling in Him.
Just think of it this way. You are in a dark building. While you are in that dark building you decide to find a way out. What you do not know is that there is a chair in that building. You are walking to find a way out you stumble upon this chair and you trip over it. Now why did you trip over this chair? It was dark you could not see it. Now reverse the situation. You are in the same building but it is well lit. You walk and you see the door and you head towards it. This time as you walk and get near the chair you see it and you avoid it. Just as the person who is walking in the light will be able to see the temptation to sin and you will know how to avoid sin. But those who are in the darkness can not see there sin, because they walk in sin. They are blinded by the darkness as John points it in verse eleven. So those who walk in the light will avoid the chair in the building because the blindness has been removed.
One implication that we see in this verse is that those who walk in the light will not cause other believers to stumble. The meaning of the verse is that they will not personally stumble. But those who walk in the light will live in such a way that they will not cause other people to stumble, because they are on guard and avoid stumbling themselves. Another implication is if we are to love fellow believers we must be a part of the church. In order to love other believers we need to be round other believers, and this takes place within the context of the church.
Different Levels of Maturity in the Church (v. 12-14)
Verses 12-14 are sometimes hard to interpret. Some people see the fathers, young men, and little children as being either physical or spiritual. In other words if it is physical it is a literal fathers or older age, and young children are actually little children and young men are actually young men.
What is actually going on here? Why does John write this? This here is referring to a spiritual age or to spiritual maturity. John addresses three different groups. John addresses all of these groups twice and each time it is a little different.
The Little Children
John addresses the little children first. He says I write to you little children because your sins have been forgiven. What does little children mean here? This is talking about a person who has just become a Christian. They are new believers. John writes to reassure that they are believers. So they will not be confused by what John has written.
He says they have been forgiven, but it was nothing that they had done. Instead it had everything to do with what God had done through Jesus Christ. They were forgiven for His Names Sake. It was not for our sake, it was for God’s glory that we were forgiven. God saved us for His glory. We had nothing to do with it, but God alone did.
The second thing John says to the little children is you know the Father. They have come to the Father. They are infatuated with knowing the Father. They are enjoying their prayer life. They are exuberant about their new life and relationship with God.
Fathers
John now addresses the Fathers. Each time he says the same thing to them. They Fathers here refers to the spiritually mature. They know Him who was from the beginning. That is God the Father. They have an intimate knowledge of the Father. They have been through the good times and the bad and throughout all they have continued with the Father. They know the Father.
Young Men
John writes to the young men. These are the people who are growing in their Christian life. They are fighting against the evil one and they have overcome the evil one. But they have not overcome the evil one on their own. They have overcome the evil one because the word of God abides in them. What does this imply then? This implies that these people have been in the word of God. In order for the word of God to abide in them they must be studying the word of God. They must be reading the word of God.
If you think about it this is the way the church is set up. Some are more mature than others and they can help those who are not as mature. But their will be spiritual growth.
My Assurance comes from not loving the world (vs. 15-17)
John in verses nine through eleven showed us who a true believer will love. As we move on to verses fifteen through seventeen we see what a true believer will not love. The true believer will not love the world. This is the third theme of assurance in these verses. My assurance comes from not loving the world.
Verse fifteen is a warning. It is a warning from John that if anyone loves the world the love of the Father is not in them. The love that he is talking about here is an ongoing love. By contrast a true believer will have an ongoing love for the Father. The verse is in the form of an if then statement. If you love the things of the world, then you do not love the Father. We need to define here what John means by the world. It is important to remember as you study your Bible that the term world is usually a generic term and can mean many different things. John does not have in mind here so much the physical place in where we live, but rather the attitudes of the people in this world that we live. Danny Akin says that the world here is, “An evil organized system controlled by the power of the evil one that has aligned itself against God and His Kingdom.” We are not to love the things that are in opposition to God and to the advancement of His Kingdom. But what specifically should we avoid as believers? Well the scriptures have the answer for us in verse sixteen.
In verse sixteen we are told about three desires in the world that are going to pass away. The first is the desire of the flesh. This here is a general term that denotes those things that are for self, and things that are temporal. This first term, desires of the flesh encompass the next two which are more specific. The word desire is used in a negative sense.
The second desire is the desire or the lust of the eyes. This in a word is covetousness. You see what someone else has and you think I have to have that. This is the desire to keep up with the Joneses. If someone gets a promotion at work you want to one up them and you have to get a better promotion. We have to be the best at everything.
The third and final desire that the Christian is to not love of the world is the pride of possessions. What happens in this desire is the person fails to give the glory to God. They fail to recognize that everything that they have is a gift from the hand of God. This attitude proclaims look at what I have done. I have done all of this by myself, me me me me me. The Christian is to not say “look at what I have done.” The Christian is to give God the glory and to thank Him for everything that they have.
These attitudes are passing away, the desires and the attitudes of this world are passing away, but we see in verse seventeen John says that the person who does the will of God will abide forever. The will of God is to be obedient in what he has revealed to us.
The Church (vs.18-19)
Just a quick note on verses 18-19. John says it is the last hour and the antichrist is coming and even now many antichrists have come already. The antichrists that have come are those who are against Christ. They do not want anything to do with Christ, they do not want anything to do with the body of Christ the church.
John is thinking here of the heretics, more than likely. The reason is of what comes next. The heretics went out from the believing community. They did not want anything to do with the church. If they would have been a true believer they would not have left the church. Those who are true believers will be tied to a local church. If someone says they are a Christian and yet they want nothing to do with the body of Christ, for which he shed His blood, they are more than likely not a Christian. It is within the church where we are taught the word of God. It is within the church where discipleship takes place. The church is the place where we are held accountable for how we live. A believer will be committed to the local church, and those who neglect the church or deny the importance of the truth may not or are not true believers.
My Assurance comes from knowing the truth (vs. 20-21)
John’s readers have an anointing that teaches them all things. Now don’t get freaked out by the word anointing. It is not some mystical thing that just happens and then we have knowledge. The anointing that they have received is from the holy one. This anointing that all believers’ posses gives them all knowledge. So the theme of assurance we see is my assurance comes from knowing the truth.
There are a couple of questions that need to be answered to know how we have assurance from knowing the truth. First off what is the anointing that we have received? Colin Kruse says, “In this verse anointing is used to describe the anointing that the readers have from the Holy one is best interpreted as a reference to the Holy Spirit with whom they have been endowed by God (when they first believed), and who confirms to them the truth of the message that they heard at that time.” The Holy Spirit is the anointing that John is referring to here in this verse. This is one thing that is given to all believers when they believe and He is the Spirit of truth, and will lead all believers in the truth and not into falsehood.
The second question to answer is what does all knowledge mean? To answer this we will start with the negative aspect of it. This does not mean that John’s readers know everything that there is to know. As Christians we should not be know it alls. Those people who know everything there is to know about everything. That is what it does not mean. The positive side of it is the have full knowledge of who Jesus is, and the reason this is so is because of the anointing or the Holy Spirit that dwells within the believer. The Spirit leads them into all truth and therefore they know all things as pertaining to Jesus Christ. The knowledge of Jesus fits with the context, as we see in verse twenty-two John now moves on to the topic of a correct confession of Jesus.
So we have assurance because a true believer will know the truth about Jesus. The true believer will be able to spot falsehoods because of the Spirit that dwells within them. Christians have a built in lie detector. The true believer will know the truth and they will spot falsehoods. How will a believer spot falsehoods? There are two ways. The first one is what John says in this verse. They have an anointing, and because of this anointing they have all knowledge. The second way a believer will be able to spot falsehoods is by studying the truth. People who work in counterfeit bills do not hone their skill by studying counterfeit bills. They can spot the false one because they have studied the real McCoy. Just like people who work in spotting counterfeit bills believers must study the truth. We do not need to devote our time to studying false religions, although that has its place, but we should spend the majority of our time studying the truth, that way we can spot the lies that other religions tell us and what people believe.
My Assurance comes from a correct confession of Jesus and the Father (vs. 22-23)
Not only will a true believer know the truth about Jesus, because the Holy Spirit dwells within them, but they will also have a correct confession of Jesus and the Father. That is the theme of assurance that John writes about in verses twenty-two and twenty-three. Now once again here John is stating what the Gnostics believed. They denied that Jesus is the Christ. John says here that anyone who denies that Jesus is the Christ is two things. First off they are a liar. Second off they are antichrists. This means that any person who tries to separate the two natures of Jesus, His physical nature and His divine nature, they are actually against Christ. They are against Jesus. They really do not have anything to do with Jesus, even if they claim to have fellowship with Him. They are against Him because they deny the very essence of who He is. They deny what holds Christianity together, mainly that God took the form of a man in Jesus Christ, while remaining God, and lived a perfect life, and died to atone for sin. Those who deny this do not have fellowship with Jesus but are actually against Him.
But not only do these people deny Jesus, but John also calls them antichrists because they deny the Father as well. These people have missed it totally. By denying that Jesus was the Christ, they deny the Father as well. Since it was the Father who planned from the foundation of the world that he would send His Son Jesus Christ to earth, and His Son would be the God man, He would be God in the Flesh. By denying that Jesus was the Christ they are now against the Father and the Son. So what exactly is John teaching us here? This is where our theme of assurance comes into play. John is making sure that we get things right.
John is teaching us here that you cannot have the Son and have the Father, and you cannot have the Father and have the Son. If we claim to be in a relationship with Jesus we cannot say that we do not want the Father. The true believer will have a true confession of Jesus and the Father that is they will confess both of them and will want both of them. You cannot separate the two; they are one in the same. Two different people, but they are still in the Godhead. It is a package deal. In fact true believers will confess and want all three members of the trinity. There are some people, and this is becoming a popular view, who are Jesus only. In other words Jesus is all three persons of the godhead. At one time Jesus was the Father, then while on earth Jesus was actually Jesus Christ, and now Jesus is in the role of the Spirit. This view does serious damage to Christianity, and is unbiblical.
My Assurance comes from the gospel (vs. 24-25)
Another theme of assurance that John writes in this chapter is that the true believers assurance comes from the gospel. In verse twenty-four when John says let what you heard from the beginning abide in you, he is talking about the gospel. This would have been the first thing that they would have learned to begin their relationship with Jesus Christ. We are to abide in the gospel; we are to continue in the gospel. This is why it is so important for believers to still think and meditate on what God has done for sinners in the gospel. It is so easy to forget and become numb to what God has done for sinners, and the depth to which He has done it. He did it ALL. There is nothing that God missed when he set His redemptive plan in motion. He was not in heaven thinking oh I hope this works, I don’t know what else to do if it fails. God knew exactly what he was doing in the gospel.
John goes on to say that if we as believers abide or continue in the gospel then we will abide in the Son and the Father. If we remember the gospel and what God did for us in the gospel then we will continue with the Son and the Father because we know and meditate on what was accomplished for us.
In verse twenty-five we see a promise that was made to believers. The and in this verse indicates that John is going to relate further blessing from abiding in the gospel, and abiding in Christ. The further blessing that we see is that those who abide in the gospel, those who abide in the Son and the Father these people have eternal life. We as believers can be assured that we have eternal life because we abide in the gospel and we abide in the Son and the Father. This is a promise that we have from God. The great thing about abiding though is we do not do it alone. God is there with us and His Holy Spirit is giving us the strength to keep going to persevere in the gospel of grace and to continue to walk with the Father and the Son and the Spirit. The believer can be assured by the gospel, and by abiding in it, because those who do posses eternal life.
Do we not need any Teachers as Believers? (vs.26-27)
John writes to these believers about those who are trying to deceive them.
John points out two things about believers in this verse. First the anointing that believers have is the Holy Spirit (See 3:24). The anointing believers have received abides in them.
Second this anointing, the Holy Spirit, as stated above, teaches believers all things and therefore believers have no need for anyone to teach them. But is John saying here that teachers in and of themselves are not essential? John is saying here that as believers we have NO NEED for anyone to teach us the truth about Jesus Christ. These heretics came into the church and were trying to teach them false things about Jesus. Believers know the truth about Jesus. They know who Jesus is and therefore they have no need for anyone to teach them about Jesus. If John were saying there was no need for teachers at all then he would not have written this letter. But these believers know who Jesus is and they have no need for anyone to teach them the truth about Jesus because they have an anointing which abides in them, The Holy Spirit.
Conclusion
Here is a summary of the ways John Assures believers in these verses.
• As we obey God and we are assured,
• When we love other believers we our assured and also we see what we are not to love, which is the world with its desires.
• Next we are assured as believers because we know the truth because the Holy Spirit dwells within us.
• Next we can be assured because we have a correct confession of the Father and the Son, that is to say that we do not claim one and do not want the other.
• And lastly our assurance as believers comes from abiding in the gospel and the Father and the Son, and assuring us that we have eternal life.
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