I John 5 – Part 7

“And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.” I John 5:20.

This will be our last lesson on the book of I John. As we have stated several times before, this book is about fellowship with God (1:3-4). Being in fellowship with God depends on walking in the light as He is in the light (1:7), confessing our sins (1:9), keeping God’s commandments (2:3-5; 3:24), loving one another (2:9-11; 3:11-23; 4:7-5:3), hating the world (2:15-17), acknowledging Jesus is God’s Son (2:23; 4:2-3, 4:15), practicing righteousness (2:29-3:10), listening to and obeying apostolic teaching (4:6), and avoiding idolatry (5:21).

As the apostle John concludes his letter, he is seeking to encourage his Christian readers (2:12-14; 5:13) who may be moving deeper into darkness along the path of sin or they may know of other Christians who are, and therefore, may be in danger of a premature physical death (5:16-17; cf. Acts 5:5-10; I Cor. 3:16-17; 5:5; 11:30). John already presented two unchanging certainties in 5:18-19 beginning with the phrase “we know that…” (oidamen hoti). He wants his readers to know that no matter how far down into darkness a Christian brother or sister has traveled, they are still God’s child at the core of their being because His sinless seed remains in them (5:18; cf. 3:9) and he or she is on God’s side whether they consciously sense that or not, and will therefore feel like a foreigner in this Satanically controlled world (5:19; 2:16-17). 1

We are now ready to look at the third encouragement from the apostle in 5:20. This is one of the clearest verses in the Bible concerning the deity of Jesus Christ. “And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.” (I John 5:20). Again, we see the phrase, “we know that…” which reminds us that what John is about to say is absolute truth from God the Holy Spirit.

What is it we can know with certainty? “That the Son of God has come…” (5:20a). John and the other apostles were eyewitnesses to the coming of God’s Son in the first century (cf. 1:1-5; 2:7; 4:14). Jesus is not some mythical person. History attests to the fact that Jesus Christ was a real Person Who was born before King Herod’s death.

Luke 2:1 states that Jesus was born in the reign of Caesar Augustus (who reigned from March 15, 44 B.C. to August 19, A.D 14). Matthew 2:1 and Luke 1:5 inform us that Christ’s birth came before King Herod’s death. Herod’s death can be determined with certainty. According to the Jewish historian, Josephus (Antiquities 17.6.4), an eclipse of the moon occurred on March 12/13, 4 B.C. before Herod’s death. 2 Josephus also records (Antiquities 17.9.3; The Jewish War 2.1.30) that the Passover celebration that took place after King Herod’s death occurred on April 11, 4 B.C. 3 Hence, Herod must have died between March 12 and April 11, 4 B.C. Therefore, for these reasons Christ could not have been born later than March/April of 4 B.C.

Every time we write down today’s date, it goes back to Jesus. Today is May 11, 2023. Two thousand twenty-three years from what? From A.D. which stands for Anno Domini, which is Latin for “year of our Lord,” and it means the number of years since the birth of Jesus Christ.

“It might sound strange to suggest that Jesus Christ was born no later than 4 B.C. since B.C. means ‘before Christ.’ But our modern calendar which splits time between B.C. and A.D. was not invented until A.D. 525. At that time, Pope John the First asked a monk named Dionysius to prepare a standardized calendar for the western Church. Unfortunately, poor Dionysius missed the real B.C./A.D. division by at least four years!” 4

In addition to the historicity of Christ’s birth, there is also ample historical evidence for the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Josephus also wrote of Jesus’ death, “Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross.” 5 Roman historian, Cornelius Tacitus, wrote, “a wise man who was called Jesus…. Pilate condemned Him to be condemned and to die.” In addition, he said that Jesus’ disciples “reported that He had appeared to them three days after His crucifixion and that He was alive.” 6  

A Roman writer, Phlegon, referred to Christ’s death and resurrection in his Chronicles, saying, “Jesus, while alive, was of no assistance to himself, but that he arose after death, and exhibited the marks of his punishment, and showed how his hands had been pierced by nails.” 7

In addition, Phlegon spoke of “the eclipse in the time of Tiberius Caesar, in whose reign Jesus appears to have been crucified, and the great earthquakes which then took place.” 8

The historical evidence for Jesus’ death is so overwhelming that even a Muslim scholar, Reza Aslan, who wrote the book, Zealot, was persuaded to conclude Jesus “was most definitely crucified.” 9 Despite the fact that the Quran denies Christ’s death (Sura 4:157),the historical evidence persuaded Aslan to conclude that Christ truly did die on the cross. “He believes so strongly in Jesus’ death by crucifixion that he uses it as the foundation for his entire theory of Jesus’ life.” 10

Just as history proclaims that George Washington was the first President of the USA, so history proclaims that Jesus Christ was born in 4 B.C., and thirty-three years later died and rose from the dead. The resurrection of Christ is the most attested fact of ancient history. Thomas Arnold authored a three-volume history of Rome and was appointed to Oxford’s Chair of Modern History. Concerning the evidence behind the resurrection of Jesus Christ, he said, “I have been used for years to study the histories of other times, and to examine and weigh the evidence of those who have written about them, and I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair inquirer, than that Christ died and rose from the dead.” 11

Frank Morison, a British trial lawyer, vowed to write a book disproving Christianity and committed to base his book on a collection of facts. Using a critical method of evaluation and despite his initial beliefs, he concluded that Christianity is true. The resurrection convinced him, and he wrote a book entitled, Who Moved the Stone? which begins with the chapter, “The Book that Refused to Be Written.”

Former atheists Josh McDowell and Lee Strobel set out to disprove the resurrection of Christ only to be persuaded by the historical evidence that Jesus did indeed rise from the dead. You can read about the evidence that persuaded them to believe in Jesus in their books: McDowell ‘s The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict (1999) and The Resurrection Factor (1981); Strobel’s The Case for Christ Revised (2013) and The Case for Easter (2004).

John states that Christ came “and has given us an understanding” (5:20b). The Greek word for “understanding” (dianoian) refers to “comprehending,” or “insight, intelligence.” 12 This is the only time John uses this word in his epistle. Christ’s coming provided the giving of the Holy Spirit or “the anointing” (2:21-20, 27) to all who believe in Jesus (John 7:37-39; Acts 10:43-48; 11:15-17; 15:7-11; Rom. 5:5; 8:9; I Cor. 12:13; Gal. 3:2-3; Ephes. 1:13-14; et al.).

In his gospel, John records that the night before His crucifixion, Jesus promised His disciples that the Holy Spirit would “dwell… in” them (John 14:16-17; cf. I Cor. 3:16; 6:19), “teach” them and bring to “remembrance all” that He taught (John 14:26), and “guide” them into “all truth” to “glorify” Jesus (John 16:13-14).

John informs us that this “understanding” the Holy Spirit gives believers (cf. I Cor. 2:9-16) enables them to “know Him who is true” (5:20c). The word “know” (ginōskōmen) refers to experiential knowledge (see comments on 2:3-4, 12-14). The coming of the Son of God has given believers the comprehension or intelligence necessary to “know Him” experientially “who is true.” This experiential knowledge is the result of obedience to God’s commands (2:3-4; c. John 14:21, 23). 13

“Christian love (obedience) is never absent where God is truly known (cf. comments on 4:7-8). There could be no true understanding of love or of God had not the Son of God come and died to reveal God’s love. Through His death the Son has given us an understanding (an intelligence) by means of which we may know God. The obedient Christian possesses the necessary spiritual capacity to know God.” 14

When John states “and we are in Him who is true” (5:20d), we are reminded that he equated being “in Him” (God) to “abiding” in Him (cf. 2:5-6), just as Jesus taught the branch is to abide in the vine (cf. John 15:1-8).Christ said that “abiding” is necessary to be a “disciple” who “bears fruit,” experiences answered prayer and “joy,” and glorifies “the Father” (John 15:1-11). To be “in Him” is equated to having fellowship with God. 15 Hence, John is not talking about our position or salvation in I John 5:20 when he speaks of being “in Him,” he is talking about our condition or fellowship with God. Being “in Him” refers to “abiding” in Him. 16

John then identifies the One “who is true” when he writes, “in His Son Jesus Christ” (5:20e). John heard Christ say the night before His crucifixion, “I am… the truth” (John 14:6). There is nothing false or misleading about Jesus Christ. He is the truth.Some suggest that the first “Him” in 5:20 refers to God the Father (“that we know Him who is true”) and the second “Him” refers to Christ(“and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ”).

“But to be in Him, that is, to abide in Him, is not only to abide in Him who is true (as John has just described God), but it is also to be in His Son Jesus Christ. There is no and between the phrases in Him and in His Son. To abide in God and to abide in Christ are the same thing.” 17

John then makes one of the clearest proclamations of the deity of Christ in all the Bible in the last part of the verse. “This is the true God and eternal life.” (5:20f). Clearly the nearest antecedent in 5:20 for the pronoun “this” (houtos) is Jesus Christ (Iēsou Christō) which agrees in gender (masculine) and number (singular). Christ is the main focus of this verse. John clearly states that Jesus Christ is “the true God and eternal life.” There is no other possible antecedent in this verse.

Someone might ask, “Didn’t Jesus deny that He was the true God when He prayed to His Father in heaven and addressed Him as the only true God in John 17:3?” Christ prayed to His Father in heaven, “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” (John 17:3). Jesus was not denying He was the “true God,” but was praising His Father as such.

The very next words after this verse are: “I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.” (John 17:4-5). Jesus said He shared the glory of God the Father before the world was. But the Yahweh of the Old Testament says, “I am the Lord, that is My name; and My glory I will not give to another.” (Isaiah 42:8). How can Jesus claim to have the glory of His Father before the world was if Yahweh says He will not give His glory to another?

Because Jesus is the Yahweh of the Old Testament. He has the same divine nature as His Father. Jesus identifies Himself with the Father. Jesus “is in” the Father, and the Father “is in” Jesus (John 10:38). Jesus is “one” with the Father (John 10:30). They are not divided in essence. So, in one sense Jesus is in the Father; and if the Father is the only true God, then Jesus is also the true God.

The Greek word translated “only” (monos) in John 17:3 does not always refer to absolute exclusivity. For example, monos is used in Jude 1:4 of “the only” Lordship of Jesus Christ, “For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only [monos] Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.” Jude is not excluding God the Father when he refers to “the only” Lordship of Jesus Christ. Other verses in the Bible confirm the Lordship of God the Father (Psalm 2:7; 110:1; Isaiah 63:16; Mark 13:20; Luke 10:21-22) and God the Son, Jesus Christ (Psalm 110:2; Luke 6:5; 19:31; John 13:13; 20:28; Acts 2:36; 10:36; 16:31; Romans 10:9; Philippians 2:11; Revelation 17:14).

To say that Jesus denies He is God in John 17:3 would contradict the entire message of the gospel of John which begins (John 1:1-18) and ends (John 20:28-31) with the fact that Jesus is God.

In John 17:3, Jesus was not creating a point of distinction between Himself and the Father in the expression, “only true God”, but between the Father and any other “so called god” such as idols. Christ had lived among the Romans with their many competing gods and Jesus was addressing the Father with these idols in mind.

This understanding is substantiated further by John in his epistle when he identifies Christ as “the true God” (5:20f). John clearly states that Jesus Christ is the true God. He then writes, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.” (I John 5:21). John affirms that Jesus “is the true God” and then immediately warns his readers to guard themselves “from idols” or false gods.

In I John 5:20 the apostle also declares that Jesus Christ is “eternal life,” which connects back to the prologue (1:1-4) where the subject matter of John’s epistle was identified as “that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us.” (1:2b). This supports the final statement in verse 20 as a reference to Jesus Christ. Taken together, 1:2 and 5:20 provide bookends for what John wrote. By saying Jesus is the “eternal life,” John has fulfilled his intention to “declare” to his readers this “eternal life” (1:2). 18

He has shown them that by ‘abiding’ in Him who is true (which is also to abide in His Son Jesus Christ), they can experience eternal life. That life, expressed in love toward their Christian brothers and sisters, springs out of the sinless inner self (5:18). It marks their life and experience as being of God rather than of the world (5:19), and expresses the spiritual understanding that the Son of God came to give them (5:20a).” 19

As we mentioned in our previous lesson, some of you may have a Christian spouse or child who has pursued the lusts of this passing world (2:16-17). They have been so twisted by the godless values of this world system that they are doing things that are contrary to their Christian beliefs and values. Because of their prolonged plunge into the deep darkness of sin, you have lost hope that they will ever return to fellowship with God and His people.

John wants to encourage us in 5:20 with this “spiritual radar system or search light the Holy Spirit uses to direct us to the true God. There are many false gods in the world (as the next verse warns), which can lead us far from the path of God. This internal guidance system can help bring us home. It’s what Paul would call the ‘mind of Christ’ (1 Cor 2:15-16).” 20

In stark contrast to the Lord Jesus Christ who is “the true God and eternal life” (5:20), John concludes his epistle with a final admonition to avoid false gods: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.” (I John 5:21). John begins this verse with “Little children” (teknia, “born-ones”; cf. 2:1, 12, 28; 3:7, 18; 4:4) 21 which expresses his fatherly love and concern for these believers.

This concluding verse may seem out of place to us at first, but in view of John’s previous discussion on prayer for a sinning believer (5:16-17) and his three encouragements (5:18-20), the last of which uses the word “true” three times to describe our “God” (5:20), this is a very pertinent conclusion to the apostle’s epistle on fellowship with God and other believers.

The opposite of true is false. Our God is true (5:20), but “idols” are false gods (5:21). “There is no need to take ‘idols’ in a figurative sense. In the Greco-Roman world of John’s day, any moral compromise with worldly perspectives was likely to lead to some involvement with idolatry, since idolatry permeated pagan life at every level.” 22

Our spiritual radar system (intelligence given to us by the Holy Spirit – 5:20), can help us recognize the true God (Jesus Christ) in contrast to the false gods of this world. False gods can destroy our fellowship or closeness with God and other Christians. 23

Anderson observes that “we don’t have to study the Old Testament long to see that while kings ruled in Israel, idolatry reigned in the temple more years than Yahweh. God used the Assyrians and the Babylonians to purify His people from their idols. And since it was King Solomon who introduced idolatry into Israel through his intermarriage with foreign wives, we see how easily idolatry can creep into the life of a wise man who was even used by God to write inspired revelation.

“Idols are usually good things. The bronze serpent (Num. 21:4-9) was initially used by God to heal the Israelites from snake bites. But eight centuries later (2 Kgs. 18:4) Hezekiah had to destroy the bronze serpent, for it had become an idol called Nehushtan (piece of bronze) to which they burned incense. Our idols are usually not evil things, but rather good things: our possessions (cars, houses, even yards), our retirement accounts, our bodies, our success—you name it.” 24

How do we identify an idol? It has been said that “an idol is like an eclipse of the sun— the moon gets in the way. When something gets between us and God’s light, then darkness creeps in and whatever is blocking that light is an idol. Beware! Solomon was no dummy. He thought he was doing something good by expanding the land of Israel out to the borders promised by God to Abraham. But he had to compromise the guidelines laid down by God for a king (Deut. 17:17) in order to do it.” 25

Ask yourself the following questions:

  • Is it taking the place of God in my life? Is it becoming more important to me than spending time with the Lord Jesus?
  • Is it more important to me than my family, my Christian friends, and my ministry?
  • What do I turn to other than God to medicate my feelings of anxiety, boredom, depression, exhaustion, loneliness, self-doubts, or stress?
  • What do I turn to other than God to celebrate or reward myself for an accomplishment or achievement?

If you answered these questions honestly, you probably have a good idea of some idols in your life. An idol could be alcohol, your cell phone, drugs, entertainment, fame, feelings, intellectualism, novels, pleasure, possessions, power, sex, social media, sports, success, work, etc.

I believe one of the most dangerous and destructive idols for believers of all ages in the church today is pornography. 26 Yet most churches do not know how to address it in a way that offers hope and healing for those enslaved to it. 27 Churches often preach against the problem of pornography without providing a safe environment to address the real problem which is a deeper hurt in the hearts of those hooked on porn. Pornography is simply a surface coping mechanism for a deeper wound. Unresolved pain or trauma from our past is often what drives addictions of any kind.

The solution to overcoming pornography or any addiction for that matter, is to look to Jesus Christ, the true God and eternal life, to heal the pain that drives the addiction (I John 5:20). This is done through the discipleship process whereby a believer in Jesus learns to abide in Jesus’ word along with other believers so they can know the truth that sets them free from the lies that drive their bondage to sin and shame (John 8:31-36). As a believer identifies the lies that drive their addiction, they can learn to replace those lies in the power of the Holy Spirit with the truth of God’s Word that brings freedom from bondage to sin (cf. Psalm 119:28-29). This is to be done in the context of a loving community of like-minded believers who can encourage and empower each other on their journey to freedom (2 Tim. 2:22).

If you do not know for sure you have eternal life and a future home in Jesus’ heaven, you need to start with understanding that Jesus Christ is the only source of eternal life. The bookends of I John (1:1-3; 5:20) have informed us of this. To have eternal life in one’s life, you must have Jesus Christ, Who is eternal life (5:20), in your life (5:11-12). How do you get Christ in your life? John wrote, “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.” (I John 5:13). To “know” with absolute certainty, not guess, or hope that you “have eternal life,” you must “believe in the name of the Son of God.” There is no mention of having fruit, obedience, or a changed life to know you have eternal life. The only condition is to “believe in the name of the Son of God.” This is so simple that many adults miss it.

In this context, to “believe in” (pisteúō eis) the name of the Son of God means to be convinced or persuaded that Jesus Christ is the true God and eternal life (5:20) Who will give you eternal life as a free gift the moment you believe in His name. 28 Are you convinced or persuaded that this promise of God is true?  If so, then you can “know” with absolutely certainty that you now have eternal life. And you can be just as certain of heaven as the people who are already there. Knowing we are going to heaven is not a guess; it is a guarantee from Jesus Christ Who is the true God and eternal life (I John 5:1, 13, 20; cf. John 14:1-6). Christ cannot lie (Titus 1:2; Heb. 6:18). His promise is as true as He is true.

If you or a fellow believer close to you find yourselves moving deeper into darkness on the pathway of sin and there seems to be no hope of returning to fellowship with God and His people, I pray that God’s encouraging promises in John’s final words in his letter (5:18-21) will give you the assurance and guidance you need. These promises include… 29

1. God’s sinless seed (divine nature) remains in you or your loved one so that you (or he/she) are still the same holy child of God who remains untouched or harmed by evil or the evil one no matter how badly or long you (or he/she) have sinned (5:18; 3:9). This unchanged seed remains a base from which the Holy Spirit can work within you (or him/her) to bring healing to you (or him/her) so you can return to fellowship with God and His people.

2. You (or he/she) are on God’s side and will never be completely comfortable living for this world (5:19). As a child of God, you (or he/she) are totally separate from the whole world that lies under the influence of Satan, and to some degree you will never feel completely comfortable in this sin sick world. God can turn your (or his/her) discomfort into disgust so you (or he/she) will turn towards home (God).

3. God’s search light (inner, spiritual intelligence) within you (or him/her) can be used by the Holy Spirit to guide you (or him/her) back to the true God and eternal life, Jesus Christ (5:20-21). God’s Spirit can whisper what is right in the ear of a wayward believer whose fellowship with God and other Christians has been cut off by their focus on the idols of this world, so he or she will return to the only true God Who alone can give them fullness of joy as they resume fellowship with Him and His people.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank You for the book of I John which was written to help believers experience the joy of close fellowship with You and Your eternal Son, Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, there are many false gods or idols in the world that seek to draw us away from You and Your Word. Some of us or those we love, have become enslaved to these idols and we are in desperate need of Your Spirit to turn our discomfort in this sin sick world into disgust so we may return to the true God and eternal life, Jesus Christ. Forgive us Father for turning to the things of this world to medicate our pain instead of looking to Jesus, Who can heal us and satisfy our deepest needs. Thank You for the encouraging promises You have given us at the end of John’s epistle which offer us assurance and guidance. Help us to express our new nature and separateness from this Satanically controlled world system by guarding ourselves from the false gods of this world. Rescue us, restore us, and renew us, we pray. In the mighty name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

ENDNOTES:

1. David R. Anderson, Maximum Joy: I John – Relationship or Fellowship? (Grace Theology Press, 2013 Kindle Edition), pg. 265.

2. Retrieved on May 11, 2023, from Daniel B. Wallace’s article entitled “The Birth of Jesus Christ,” at bible.org and from the Biblical Archaeology Society Staff’s December 15, 2022, article entitled “Herod’s Death, Jesus’ Birth, and a Lunar Eclipse at biblicalarchaeology.org.

3. Ibid.

4. Wallace, “The Birth of Jesus Christ,” at bible.org.

5. Norman L. Geisler and Abdul Saleeb, Answering Islam: The Crescent in Light of the Cross, Second Edition (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2002), pg. 236 cites Flavius Josephus, “Antiquities of the Jews,” 18:3; trans. William Whiston, Josephus: Complete Works (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1963), pg. 379.

6. Ibid. cites Cornelius Tacitus (A.D. 55? – after 117), Annals, 15.44.

7. Ibid., cites Phlegon, “Chronicles,” as cited by Origen, “Against Celsus” from The Ante-Nicene Fathers, trans. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976), vol. 4, pg. 455.

8. Ibid.

9. Nabeel Qureshi, No God but One: Allah or Jesus? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016 Kindle Edition), pg. 179 cites interview with Lauren Green.

10. Ibid.

11. Thomas Arnold, Christian Life, Its Hopes, Its Fears, and Its Close, 6th ed. (London: T. Fellowes, 1859), pp. 14-16.

12. Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature: Third Edition (BDAG) revised and edited by Frederick William Danker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000 Kindle Edition), pg. 234.

13. Zane C. Hodges; Robert Wilkin; J. Bond; Gary Derickson; Brad Doskocil; Dwight Hunt; Shawn Leach; The Grace New Testament Commentary: Revised Edition (Grace Evangelical Society, Kindle Edition, 2019), pg. 604.

14. Ibid., pg. 606.

15. See Dillow’s thorough discussion of John 15 in Joseph Dillow, Final Destiny: The Future Reign of The Servant Kings: Fourth Revised Edition (Grace Theology Press, 2018 Kindle Edition), pp. 611-626.

16. Anderson, Maximum Joy, pg. 265.

17. Hodges, The Grace New Testament Commentary, pg. 606.

18. Ibid.

19. Ibid.

20. Anderson, Maximum Joy, pg. 265.

21. Zane C. Hodges, The Bible Knowledge Commentary Epistles and Prophecy, Editors John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck (David C. Cook, 2018 Kindle Edition), Kindle Location 4130.

22. Ibid., Kindle Location 4130 to 4135.

23. Anderson, Maximum Joy, pg. 266.

24. Ibid.

25. Ibid., pp. 266-267.

26. Statistics indicate that 60-70 percent of men, 50-58 percent of pastors, and 20-30 percent of women in evangelical churches are sexually addicted – see Jeremy & Tiana Wiles, Conquer Series: The Battle Plan For Purity Study Guide, Vol. 1 (Stuart FL: KingdomWorks Studio, 2017), pg. 21; young people are also struggling with watching pornography online as young as four years of age and older because it is so accessible, addictive, aggressive, anonymous, and appealing (see Christian apologist and author Josh McDowell’s very informative and staggering videos on October 7, 2018 at Denton Bible Church entitled, “Breaking Free from the Porn Epidemic w/ Josh McDowell” at https://vimeo.com/294241982 and on August 3, 2021 with Pure Desire Ministries entitled, “The Effects of Pornography with Josh McDowell” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3sRmLFarZc .” Christians who are hooked on pornography have less spiritual interest in attending church, reading their Bibles, prayer, and hanging out with other Christians.

27. Less than 7% of pastors in America provide solutions to help their people break free from porn (see Ted Shimer, The Freedom Fight: The New Drug and the Truths that Set Us Free (Houston: High Bridge Books, 2020), pg. 89 cites Barna Survey at  https://www.charismnews.com/us/73208-15-statistics-about-the-church-and-pornography-that-will-blow-your-mind. However, Shimer also provides practical suggestions in his book on how churches can overcome the obstacles that keep them from addressing pornography in helpful and healthy ways (pp. 91-99).

28. The phrase to “believe in” (pisteúō eis) basically means to be convinced or persuaded that something is true and therefore is worthy of your trust – see Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, pp. 816-817.

29. Adapted from Anderson, Maximum Joy, pg. 267.

I John 5 – Part 6

“We know that whoever is born of God does not sin; but he who has been born of God keeps himself, and the wicked one does not touch him.” I John 5:18

As the apostle John concludes his letter, he reviews and reinforces truths he has shared throughout his epistle. John just focused on praying for Christian brothers and sisters who had wandered far away from God and His people on the path of sin (5:16-17). Some of these sinning believers may be close to departing from this world through a premature death (cf. Acts 5:5-10; I Cor. 3:16-17; 5:5; 11:30). 1

John’s readers (including you and me) may have wondered, “Is there any hope that these sinning believers can be restored to fellowship with God and us? Is it still possible for them to resume walking in the light of fellowship with the Lord and His people after wandering so far into darkness?”

Or maybe some of his readers were asking, “Is there any hope that I can be restored to fellowship with God after wandering aimlessly for so long in the depths of darkness? Does God still love me and want to be close to me?”

I believe the apostle John would say, “Yes, a thousand times, Yes!!!” In the next three verses John will focus on three certainties. Each of the verses in 5:18-20 begins with “We know that …” (oidamen hoti). In the New Testament the Greek word oida almost always refers to “direct insight into spiritual or divine truth” although it may not be truth that has been experienced yet. 2 This truth is the result of the teaching and convicting ministry of the Holy Spirit.” 3 It is also important to observe that this Greek verb is in the perfect tense (oidamen) which means John and his readers knew these truths in the past and they continue to know them to the present. These are not guesses or mere human opinions, they are absolute unchanging truths from God that the apostle and his readers can be sure of no matter what they or other believers are facing or feeling.

“We know that whoever is born of God does not sin; but he who has been born of God keeps himself, and the wicked one does not touch him.” (I John 5:18). We have already learned that the phrase “whoever is born of God” refers to the divine or born-again nature we receive from God when we believe in Jesus as the Christ for everlasting life (cf. 3:9; 5:1, 13). The Greek participle translated “is born” (ho gegennēmenos) is in the perfect tense which means the new birth took place in the past and continues to the present. Since God cannot sin, the divine nature He places inside His child “does not sin” either (5:18b). A sinless Parent cannot beget a sinful child. So, sin is never an act of the born-again nature inside the believer because it is incapable of sinning (cf. 3:9).

“This divine nature is portrayed as a person (a figure of speech known as personification, that is, to treat something which is not a person as though it were, like calling a ship ‘she’). That’s why this nature is called ‘whoever,’ ‘he,’ ‘himself,’ and ‘him.’” 4

The apostle Paul spoke of this new nature as the “new man” when he writes, “And that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephes. 4:24; cf. Col. 3:10). This new nature or “inner man” is strengthened by the Spirit of God (Ephes. 3:16) and has the capacity to resist the corruption and sinful lusts of this passing world which is under the control of Satan (I John 2:16-17; 5:18-19; cf. John 12:31; 16:11; 2 Cor. 4:4; Eph. 2:2; Col. 1:13a). 5

Hence, John says, “he who has been born of God keeps himself, and the wicked one does not touch him.” The word “keeps” (tēreō) means to “watch over, guard, protect, or keep unharmed.” 6 The recipient of this protection is the born-again person (“himself”).

“In saying that the regenerate inward person (cf. Rom 7:22) ‘keeps himself,’ John is not saying that one’s inner self can somehow prevent all sin in the Christian life (cf. 1:5-10). What John means is that God’s ‘seed remains in’ the regenerate inner self (cf. 3:9) as the controlling element of his born-again nature and is impervious to even the slightest contamination from the wicked one. Believers’ failures are due to the sinful ‘programming’ of their earthly bodies, as Paul himself taught in Rom 7:7-25.” 7

Even though Satan uses the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life to sway believers away from God (2:16; 5:19), John assures us “the wicked one does not touch him,” that is, the born-again self (5:18c). The word “touch” (haptetai) means “to touch with the purpose of harming, to injure.” 8 Satan and the world he controls, cannot harm the born-again self.

This is important for all of us to remember about ourselves or other believers when humbled by sinful failures. The evil one would like to trick us into thinking that a Christian who continually walks in the darkness or repeatedly struggles with the same sin is not really God’s child which can lead them to more sinful failures. The Bible tells us we act in the way we perceive ourselves to be. “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.” (Prov. 23:7). If I am convinced I am not really saved because of my repeated failures, then I will be more inclined to live like a nonbeliever.

But if we know and embrace the truth found in I John 5:18, we can avoid the devil’s deception, and rise from our confession of sin to the Lord (I John 1:9), knowing we are the same inwardly holy children of God we were before we sinned. So, whatever we or another Christian have succumbed to in the world, John wants us to know that who we are at the core of our being has not changed. We are still a holy child of God because God’s sinless seed remains in us (3:9).

Zane Hodges says it like this: “At the very moment we are most humbled by our sinful failures, and when we confess them, it is helpful to be confident that those failures have not really changed what we are as children of God. The enemy, try as he might, cannot really touch us. He can only attempt to persuade us that he can or has. But if we know the truth stated in this verse, he will not be able to deceive us. For if we let him, Satan will use our failures to lead us to further failure. So, after every sin, deeply though we may and should regret it, we ought to rise from our confession to God knowing that we are the same inwardly holy persons we were before we failed!” 9

Some of you reading this may have a Christian spouse or child who has pursued the lusts of this passing world (2:16-17). They have been so twisted by the godless values of this world system that they are doing things that violate their Christian beliefs and values. Perhaps they have succumbed to the allurement of alcohol, drugs, gambling, materialism, pornography, or sex. Or maybe they have developed an acute mental condition such as severe depression or a phobia. They are in bondage to such things. Please do not give up or lose hope.

If your spouse or child is a believer in Jesus Christ, he or she is still a child of God at the core of his or her being and cannot be touched or harmed by evil or the evil one (I John 5:18; cf. 3:6-9). The “seed” or divine nature of God within him or her remains unchanged. It cannot be altered or even tempted. It remains a base from which the Holy Spirit can work within this loved one to bring healing to him or her, and to bring them back to fellowship with God and His people. 10 As long as that seed remains (and it will), “it can be watered by your prayers. As long as that seed remains, it can still grow. As long as that seed remains, it can blossom, and eternal fruit can be born. Do not give up.” 11

The restoration of fellowship for wayward Christians is based on walking in the Spirit, relying on Him to express God’s sinless born-again nature in them (I John 3:6-9; 5:18; cf. Gal. 5:16-25). It is not based on willful determination, on keeping New Year’s resolutions, or the power of positive thinking. 12

But it doesn’t stop there. Not only does a child of God have God’s sinless seed that remains in him or her, but he or she is also on God’s side and God is on their side. 13 He has not given up on them. “We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.” (I John 5:19). Again, John begins with “we know that…” (oidamen hoti) to convey the absolute certainty of what he is about to say. This is not mere speculation; it is absolute truth.

The phrase “of God” (ek tou Theou) refers to being on God’s side in I John. 14

“To be ‘of’ something in 1 John is to be on the side of the something. We saw this in 1 John 3:10b, 19 and 4:4. In reference to believers it means to have a dynamic, spiritual link to God, Who is obviously capable of giving us victory over the world. To be ‘of God’ means we are on His side, and He is on our side. The world lies like a limp puppet in the lap of the evil one, ready to be filled with his power. On the other side, we lie in the lap of the Lord, ready to be filled with His power.” 15

The phrase “the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one” (ho kosmos holos en tō ponerō keitai) “suggests that the world passively rests within Satan’s operative sphere. By contrast, the phrase ek Theou (‘of God’) means being ‘from’ God. The Christian should be aware of his own sinless inward man (5:18), and he should also be aware of his utter separateness from the whole world that lives under Satan’s sway. Believers, whom the enemy cannot ‘touch’ (5:18), are not a part of the world, which lies passively in the wicked one. Thus, believers must not ‘love the world or the things in the world’ (2:15-17) and they must resist the ideas that the world promotes (cf. 2:18-19).” 16

John wants to “reinforce the readers’ consciousness that they are distinct from the satanically controlled world system and basically free from its power. They need not listen to the worldly ideas advanced by the antichrists (3:7-8). Nor need they succumb to worldly desires (cf. 2:15-17).” 17

Since a believer’s regenerate self (3:9; 5:18) and conduct is sourced in God and is free from the power of Satan and his world system (5:19), there is still hope for a Christian who has been in bondage to sin for a prolonged time. Hence, if your Christian spouse or child has been living like the devil, please know that they do not belong to the evil one nor his world system.

What this means is your sinning Christian spouse or child does not belong to Satan’s world, and he or she will always to some degree feel like a foreigner in this world system. Your loved one will never feel completely comfortable in this sin-sick world. This world is not a Christian’s home, we are just passing through; our home is way out there, somewhere beyond the blue. The child of God who wanders about aimlessly in darkness will always have a degree of discomfort. They will always know something is wrong, something just isn’t right. This is not who I am in Christ.

The good news is God can turn discomfort into disgust. When your loved one’s discomfort turns to disgust, he or she will turn towards home (God). Regardless of what this person tells you, if he or she gets sucked into the sewer of this world system, they are acting out of character, and they will never be completely comfortable. Don’t listen to their lies. Keep praying that their discomfort will turn to disgust, and God will restore them back to fellowship with Him. When they finally realize that they are wasting their life eating slop with the pigs in the pig sty, they will turn their eyes toward home (cf. Luke 15:13-17).

Because of God’s seed within your believing spouse or child, he or she is on God’s side whether they consciously sense that or not, and they will feel like a foreigner in this world. God can turn this discomfort into disgust so that they will want to come home to fellowship with Him and His family. Next time, Lord willing, we will discover how to get there. 18

Prayer: Gracious Father in heaven, oh how we needed to hear these encouraging words about Christians who are living in the depths of darkness and appear to have no hope of returning to fellowship with You and Your people. Thank You for reminding us that no matter how much we or our loved ones have embraced the lusts of this passing world, if we or they are a believer in Jesus, Your sinless nature remains inside us and is not touched by evil or the evil one. We are still children of God at the core of our being, and to some degree there will be discomfort with our sinful lifestyle and choices. Please oh Lord, turn this discomfort to disgust so all of us living in the darkness will return home to fellowship with You and Your people. Help us to rely on Your Holy Spirit for the power to live out these unchanging truths in our daily Christian lives. In the mighty name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.

ENDNOTES:

1. David R. Anderson, Maximum Joy: I John – Relationship or Fellowship? (Grace Theology Press, 2013 Kindle Edition), pp. 261-262.

2. Ibid., pg. 124.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid., pg. 263.

5. Ibid.

6. Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature: Third Edition (BDAG) revised and edited by Frederick William Danker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000 Kindle Edition), pg. 1002.

7. Zane C. Hodges; Robert Wilkin; J. Bond; Gary Derickson; Brad Doskocil; Dwight Hunt; Shawn Leach; The Grace New Testament Commentary: Revised Edition (Grace Evangelical Society, Kindle Edition, 2019), pg. 604.

8. Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon, pg. 126.

9. Anderson, Maximum Joy, pp. 263-264 cites Zane C. Hodges, The Epistles of John: Walking in the Light of God’s Love (Irving, TX: Grace Evangelical Society, 1999), pp. 242-243.

10. Anderson, Maximum Joy, pg. 264.

11. Ibid.

12. Tony Evans, CSB Bibles by Holman, The Tony Evans Bible Commentary (B & H Publishing Group, Kindle Edition, 2019), pg. 2953.

13. Anderson, Maximum Joy, pg. 264.

14. Hodges, The Grace New Testament Commentary, pg. 604.

15. Anderson, Maximum Joy, pp. 264-265.

16. Hodges, The Grace New Testament Commentary, pg. 604.

17. Zane C. Hodges, The Bible Knowledge Commentary Epistles and Prophecy, Editors John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck (David C. Cook, 2018 Kindle Edition), Kindle Location 4126.

18. The last three paragraphs are adapted from Anderson, Maximum Joy, pg. 265.

I John 5 – Part 5

“If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin which does not lead to death, he will ask, and He will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to death. There is sin leading to death. I do not say that he should pray about that.” I John 5:16

As the apostle John approached the end of his letter, he resumed talking about prayer that expresses faith in the name of God’s Son (I John 5:13b -15). John spoke of praying for our own needs especially as it relates to God’s will which is revealed in His commandments. God has commanded us to love one another (I John 3:11, 23; 4:7, 11-12; cf. John 13:34-35). When we ask God to help us do this, we can be confident He hears this request favorably because we know this is according to His revealed will (5:14-15).

But John does not want us to stop with praying for our own needs (5:14-15), he also wants us to pray for the needs of others (5:16-17). When other Christians love us, we may not see our need to ask God for help to love them back. But when a Christian sins against us we may recognize our need for God’s help. Jesus taught that praying for someone who has sinned against us is an act of love (cf. Matt. 5:44). 1

Hence, John writes, “If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin which does not lead to death, he will ask, and He will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to death. There is sin leading to death. I do not say that he should pray about that.” (I John 5:16). We can pray with confidence for a “brother sinning a sin which does not lead to death” that God will answer our prayer favorably. God will give us “life” to give to our brothers “who commit sin not leading to death” (5:16a). 2

Hence, “the name of the Son of God” (5:13b) becomes “life” “for the sinning believer who gets a longer life plus joy when he repents and for the praying brother when he receives a positive answer for his prayer. We get joy from answered prayer, and the sinning brother gets restored joy when he returns to fellowship (and potentially a longer life).” 3

“John offers a specific example of confident prayer that is according to God’s will and that involves a horizontal expression of love. If you see a brother committing a sin, he needs a believer who is intimate with God to intercede for him (5:16). As a result of his own intimacy intimacy with God, Moses intervened on behalf of Israel (Exod. 32:7-14). When the four men who carried the paralytic took him to Jesus, He forgave and healed when He saw their faith (Mark 2:5). When we reach out in love to a brother or sister who is being defeated, God can allow that believer to piggyback on our faith to receive deliverance. That’s what the family of God is about.” 4

However, this promise does not apply to Christians who commit sin leading directly or immediately to a premature physical death. 5 John writes, “There is sin leading to death. I do not say that he should pray about that.” (5:16b). A Christian brother is not encouraged to pray for another believer who is committing a sin that leads immediately to a swift physical death. Nor is he instructed not to pray for him.

“In other words, if a Christian suspects that a sin leading directly to death is being committed, he is free to pray for the sinning believer, but without any certainty about the outcome of his prayer. Although there is no guarantee, it is always possible that God may ‘relent’ from His judgment.” 6

“All unrighteousness is sin, and there is sin not leading to death.” (I John 5:17). All “unrighteousness” (adikia) or wrongdoing in God’s eyes “is sin” but out of this broad spectrum “there is sin not leading to death.” This last phrase sin “not leading to death” (mē pros thanaton/ou pros thanaton) occurs three times in 5:16-17 and should be understood to mean “not punished by death.” 7

The distinction in I John 5:16-17 is between sins for which death is a rapid consequence and sins for which it is not. Obviously, all Christians still sin (I John 1:8, 10). But God makes a distinction between sins that result in premature death and those that do not such as envy, lying, slander, gossip, pride, manipulation, anger, deception, lust, or hypocrisy. 8

This is also not a reference to eternal “death” as some teach. 9 John is speaking here of a believer’s Christian “brother” who has eternal life which can never be lost (5:1, 13; cf. John 6:35-30; 10:28-29).

Examples of sin leading to a premature or swift physical death among Christians is seen in Acts 5:1-11 and I Corinthians 3:16-17; 5:5; 11:30. 10 Ananias and Sapphira “lied … to God” the Holy Spirit about the amount of money they obtained when they sold their property and gave only “part” of the proceeds to the apostles to distribute to other believers (Acts 4:34-5:4). They wanted God and other believers to think they were more generous than they actually were. As a result of not allowing the Holy Spirit to control them, both Ananias and Sapphira “immediately” died (Acts 5:5-10).

The Christians at Corinth also committed sins which could lead to premature death. These included:

  • Exalting God’s servants instead of God will “destroy” (phtheiro) or “defile” the local church (“you” = plural) which is “the temple of God” in whom “the Spirit of God dwells” (I Cor. 3:16-17). Bringing harm to the local church through illegitimate divisions or false doctrine could result in a premature physical death. 11
  • Continuing in sexual immorality as a Corinthian believer did with “his father’s wife” (I Cor. 5:1) or the sinning believer’s stepmother. Paul instructed the church to “deliver such a one to Satan” by excommunicating him from the church so God’s protective covering is removed from his life. 12 Then Satan can use the world which he controls (John 12:31; 16:11; 2 Cor. 4:4; Eph. 2:12; Col. 1:13; 1 John 5:19) 13  “for the destruction of the flesh” of this wayward believer so “that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (I Cor. 5:5). The word “flesh” is not likely to refer to the man’s sinful desires because Satan is not likely to destroy them. It is better to understand the “flesh” to be his physical life which when destroyed would “save” this Christian from the additional loss of eternal rewards before he faces Jesus at the Judgment Seat (cf. I Cor. 3:8-15). A similar view is that the word “save” (sōzō) is often used in the New Testament to mean being healed or being healthy (cf. Matt. 9:21-22; Mark 5:23, 28, 34; 6:56; 10:52; Luke 7:50; 8:36, 48, 50; 17:19; 18:42; Acts 4:9; 14:9; Jas. 5:15). According to this view, Paul’s desire is that this man’s spirit will be healthy in the day of the Lord Jesus through his repentant response to church discipline. 14 “The day of the Lord Jesus” is a reference to the Judgment Seat of Christ (cf. I Cor. 1:8; 3:13; 2 Cor. 5:10; Phil. 2:16; 2 Thess. 2:2). 15
  • The misuse of the Lord’s Supper to fulfill fleshly desires left “many” Corinthian believers weak and sick among you, and many sleep.” (I Cor. 11:30). The word “sleep” refers to physical death (cf. John 11:11-13).

God wants His children to take sin seriously. The Bible tells us that believers who take sin lightly are flirting with death:

Proverbs 10:27: “The fear of the Lord prolongs days, but the years of the wicked will be shortened.”

Proverbs 11:19: “As righteousness leads to life, so he who pursues evil pursues it to his own death.”

Proverbs 13:14: “The law of the wise is a fountain of life, to turn one away from the snares of death.”

Proverbs 19:16: “He who keeps the commandment keeps his soul, but he who is careless of his ways will die.”

All sin if practiced long and hard enough will lead to physical death (James 1:14-15). Believers who understand this will pray for their fellow Christians who are sinning (I John 5:16). James writes, 19 Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, 20 let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.” (James 5:19-20). When Christians (“Brethren”) are aware of another believer (“anyone among you”) who “wanders from the truth” and “turns him back” primarily through prayer (cf. James 5:13-18), the one who prays saves the sinning believer’s “soul from death” (premature physical death) “and covers a multitude of sins.” This last phrase alludes to Proverbs 10:12 which says, But love covers all sins.” There may have been a vast number of decisions and choices that led a particular believer away from the Lord. But with the sacrificial love of Christ, James says praying Christians can be used of God to provide a covering for past sins and lead an astray brother or sister to restoration. 16

James 5:19-20 is speaking as much to the Christian who prays as he is to the Christian who strays. Evans writes, “Some believers aid the spiritual regression of fellow Christians by assuming it’s none of their business. But if your child darted into the street in front of a car, would you say it’s none of your business? Of course not! Though many believers fail to comprehend their responsibility to the family of faith, your Christianity is real when you see a brother in Christ backsliding and act in love. You cannot be a passive Christian.” 17

I believe the apostle John would agree with this. While God gives us eternal life as a free gift the moment we believe in the name of the Son of God (cf. 5:1, 13), we who are believers can give extended physical “life” to sinning believers, in some cases, when we pray in the name of the Son of God to be merciful to them (5:16-17). 18

However, it is important to remember that if a believer hardens his or her heart and refuses to confess and forsake their sins, he or she cannot expect mercy from God. Proverbs 28:13 says, “He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.” It never benefits a Christian to harden his heart and cover up or hide his sins. God’s promises that if a sinning believer “confesses and forsakes” his sins, he “will have mercy.”

One of the greatest ways we can show God’s love to a sinning believer is to pray for him or her that God would bring them to repentance so the joy of fellowship with God and other Christians can be restored. We might not know if God will judge the sinning believer with premature physical death. In such cases we can pray that God will bring His will to pass for them. 19

Prayer:  O Father, forgive us for failing to take sin seriously in our own lives and in the lives of fellow believers in Jesus. It can be easy for us to justify our apathy or lack of love for a sinning Christian by telling ourselves it is none of our business. Thank You for reminding us that if we love You, we are also to love a sinning brother or sister in Christ by praying for them in the name of the Son of God so they can be given a longer life and greater joy when they repent and return to fellowship with You and other Christians. Even though we do not know if You will judge a sinning believer with a premature physical death, we can still pray that You will bring Your will to pass in their lives. Right now, we pray for so and so, that You would turn him from the error of his way and restore him to close fellowship with You and Your children. Have mercy on us all heavenly Father. Thank You for hearing our prayers. In the matchless name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.

ENDNOTES:

1. David R. Anderson, Maximum Joy: I John – Relationship or Fellowship? (Grace Theology Press, 2013 Kindle Edition), pg. 253.

2. In the phrase “he will ask [aitēsei], and He will give [dōsei] him [auton] life” —the first “he” (singular)in the text is the antecedent to the “him” (singular)because the second “He” refers to God who answers the prayer, and “life” is given to “him” (singular) to pass on “to those” [toise – plural] who are committing sin that does not lead to death (Anderson, Maximum Joy, pg. 253).

3. Ibid.

4. Tony Evans, CSB Bibles by Holman, The Tony Evans Bible Commentary (B & H Publishing Group, Kindle Edition, 2019), pg. 2952.

5. Zane C. Hodges; Robert Wilkin; J. Bond; Gary Derickson; Brad Doskocil; Dwight Hunt; Shawn Leach; The Grace New Testament Commentary: Revised Edition (Grace Evangelical Society, Kindle Edition, 2019), pg. 604; Tom Constable, Dr. Constable’s Notes on I John, 2022 Edition, pg. 116;

6. Hodges, The Grace New Testament Commentary, pg. 604.  

7. Zane C. Hodges, The Bible Knowledge Commentary Epistles and Prophecy, Editors John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck (David C. Cook, 2018 Kindle Edition), Kindle Location 4095.

8. Anderson, Maximum Joy, pg. 253.

9. Constable, Dr. Constable’s Notes on I John, pp. 116-117, 119 cites Randall K. J. Tan, “Should We Pray for Straying Brethren? John’s Confidence in 1 John 5:16-17,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 45:4 (December 2002), pp. 599-609; Robert W. Yarbrough, 1—3 John, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament series (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), pp. 306-313; Rudolf Schnachenburg, The Johannine Epistles, translated from the 7th ed. of Die Johannesbriefe (1984) by Reginald and Ilse Fuller (New York: Crossroad Publishing Co., 1992), pg. 249; and John R. W. Stott, The Epistles of John, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries series (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1964), pp. 186-191.

10. Constable, Dr. Constable’s Notes on I John, pg. 116; Evans, The Tony Evans Bible Commentary, pp. 2952-2953; Hodges, The Grace New Testament Commentary, pg. 604; Hodges, The Bible Knowledge Commentary Epistles and Prophecy, Kindle Location 4092 to 4097; Anderson, Maximum Joy, pg. 253.

11. Evans, The Tony Evans Bible Commentary, pg. 2490.

12. Dwight Hunt, Robert Wilkin; J. Bond; Gary Derickson; Brad Doskocil; Zane Hodges; Shawn Leach; The Grace New Testament Commentary: Revised Edition (Grace Evangelical Society, Kindle Edition, 2019), pg. 357.

13. Ibid. pp. 355, 357.

14. Ibid., pg. 357.

15. Robert Wilkin, The Grace New Testament Commentary, pg. 469.

16. Evans, Evans, The Tony Evans Bible Commentary, pg. 2890.

17. Ibid., pp. 2889-2890.

18. Constable, Dr. Constable’s Notes on I John, pg. 121.

19. Ibid., pg. 118 cites Robert W. Cook, “Hamartiological Problems in First John,” Bibliotheca Sacra 123; 491 (July-September 1966), pp. 257-59; and Samuel C. Storms, Reaching God’s Ear (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, 1988), pp. 241-53.

I John 5 – Part 4

“Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” I John 5:14

As John approaches the end of his letter, he wants to focus on a topic he introduced at the beginning of this epistle: 3 that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. 4 And these things we write to you that your joy may be full.” (I John 1:3-4). John wrote about intimacy or fellowship with God and one another so his readers’ “joy may be full” (1:4). When believers in Jesus walk in the light (1:7), confess their sins (1:9), keep God’s commandments (2:3-5; 3:24), abide in Christ (2:6, 24, 27-28), love one another (2:9-11; 3:11-23; 4:7-5:3), hate the world (2:15-17), acknowledge Jesus is God’s Son (2:23; 4:2-3, 4:15), practice righteousness (2:29-3:10), listen to and obey apostolic teaching (2:18-19; 4:6), and avoid idolatry (5:21), they can experience this fullness of joy.

In his epistle, John introduced the truth that answered prayer is based on a twofold commandment: “And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment.” (I John 3:23). John connects faith and love in this single commandment.Hence, this commandment is one that only Christians can keep because it includes believing “on the name of His Son Jesus Christ” which gives eternal life to all who believe in Jesus (5:1,13) and views other believers as their Christian brothers and sisters so they can know whom to love.

Since prayer is also an expression of faith in “the name of His Son Jesus Christ” (5:13b), John resumes his focus on prayer in 5:14-17. “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” (I John 5:14). In the context, John began to focus on the truth that God’s commands are not a burden because faith in God’s Son is the secret of spiritual victory over the world (5:3-5). It is natural then to suppose that John was thinking especially, though not exclusively, of a Christian’s right to ask God for help in keeping His commands when John speaks of askinganything according to His will” (5:14). 1

Anderson writes, “The entire prayer discussion comes out of the ‘life’ discussion in 1 John 5:11-13. There he indicates that our initial experience of faith (‘who believe’ = believers; the Greek construction here does not refer to present, on-going faith, but rather the initial, one-time faith that gave us eternal life) can be followed by subsequent experiences of faith ‘in the name of the Son of God’ (it is this phrase that reminds him of Christ’s prayer promises in the Upper Room).

“Another way of saying it would be this. After our initial faith in the name of Jesus, which gave us our first experience of eternal life, our subsequent expressions of faith in His name (when we pray) will bring new experiences of eternal life (joy). We need to keep before us the understanding that the primary emphasis in ‘eternal life’ is quality, not quantity. Remember, unbelievers exist forever. It’s their quality of existence which differs so from the believer who dwells in the presence of the Lord.” 2

John’s wording in 5:14-15 is reminiscent of the joy Jesus spoke of the night before His crucifixion: 22 Therefore you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you. 23 And in that day you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. 24 Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” (John 16:22-24). Jesus is speaking of a full joy that is based on prayer in His name. Praying in Jesus’ name is not a magical formula that we add at the end of our prayers. To pray in Jesus’ name means we pray what Jesus would pray to accomplish God’s will and bring Him maximum glory.

This brings us back to I John 5:14 which speaks of praying anything according to His will” (5:14). “To do something in someone’s name means to act on his authority (cf. John 5:43; 10:25). It has nothing to do with simply tacking onto our prayers a phrase like ‘in Jesus’ name’. Praying in Jesus’ name means to ask… according to His (God’s or Christ’s) will. If this is done, believers can have confidence that…He hears3 them favorably “because we are His children asking for help to do His will. He will always grant that kind of request.” 4

Contextually, John is thinking of God’s revealed “will” as it pertains to His commandments (5:3-13; cf. 3:23). God’s commandments reveal His will. For example, God commands us to love one another (I John 3:11, 23; 4:7, 11-12; cf. John 13:34-35). When a believer asks God to help him love another Christian, he can have “confidence” God favorably “hears” this request because this is “His will” (5:14). “And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.” (I Joh. 5:15). Furthermore, John says we can also “know that we have the petitions” or requests “that we have asked of Him” for assistance to do His will by loving other Christian brothers or sisters. These requests will be granted because they are according to His revealed will. 5

When we pray according to God’s revealed will in the Bible, we can have the confidence that He hears us favorably. This would include praying…

  • For abstinence from fleshly lusts that war against the soul (I Pet. 2:11)
  • For abstinence from sexual immorality of any kind (I Thess. 4:3)
  • For deliverance from this present evil age (Gal. 1:4)
  • For the giving of thanks in everything (I Thess. 4:8)
  • That we silence the ignorance of foolish men by doing good (I Pet. 2:15)
  • That if we suffer it is for doing good and not for doing evil (I Pet. 3:17)
  • For the power to share the gospel of Christ starting at your current location and moving out to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8; Mark 16:15)
  • For clarity, courage, opportunities, and protection to share the gospel of Christ (Acts 4:29, 31; Col. 4:3-4; 2 Thess. 3:2-3)
  • For the making of disciples of Christ (Matt. 28:19-20)
  • For personal holiness that progressively reflects God’s holiness (I Pet. 1:15-16)
  • For living in an understanding way with one’s spouse (I Pet. 3:1-6)

“God wants his Word to be done, so pray for it to be done in your life and in the lives of others. Prayer is a toll-free number; the tab is picked up at the other end.” 6

Anderson gives us an illustration of praying in Jesus’ name: “During the Civil War two friends found themselves under heavy fire. One of them was wounded. When his friend came to his aid, the wounded soldier pulled a small card out of his pocket and painstakingly wrote a note on the back of it. Then he looked at this friend and said, ‘If I don’t make it out alive, and you ever have a need, please go to my father. He’s a wealthy man, and I’m sure he would be willing to help you.’

“Unfortunately, the wounded soldier did die. His friend survived, and years later lost everything he had. In desperate straits, he remembered the card his friend had given him. He pulled it out of wallet and saw that it was the business card of his dead friend’s father. He looked him up and gave his name to the secretary. She went into the busy man’s office and came out with bad news, ‘I’m afraid Mr. Billings will be tied up in meetings most of the day.’ ‘That’s OK,’ said the desperate man, ‘I’ll just wait here.’ The day wore on. This former soldier was desperate, so he gave the secretary his card again and asked to see her boss for only five minutes. She took the request into her employer but came out with the same bad news. ‘Mr. Billings will be tied up all day. He simply doesn’t have time to see you.’

“Completely defeated and discouraged, the young man got up to leave, and then he remembered the card in his wallet from his friend. He pulled it out and read the back of the card to see what his friend had written. There in faded script was a note to Mr. Billings: ‘Dad, if this card every gets to you, please help the bearer. He’s my best friend and stayed with me until I died. Signed, Your son, Charlie.’ With new hope, he handed the card to the secretary and asked her if she would give this to her boss. Within seconds, Mr. Billings bounced out of his office and said, ‘Why didn’t you send this card in hours ago. I would do anything, for Charlie’s sake.’

“The Father’s infinite love for His Son has been transferred over to us. He is especially touched by those who are His Son’s best friends because they keep His commandments. And He wants to manifest His love for them for the sake of His Son. That’s the spirit of the promise to answer prayer requests in Jesus’ name. Our heavenly Father is willing to do most anything for Jesus’ sake.” 7

Our heavenly Father is eager to answer His children’s prayers when they align with what Jesus would pray. It is a top priority for the Godhead that God’s children love one another as Jesus has loved them. When we pray for God’s help to enable us to love our Christian brothers and sisters, we can be confident that He hears us and will grant us the assistance we need to obey His commandment.

Some Christians are easier to love than others. If a brother or sister in Christ has deeply hurt us, we will probably be more inclined to ask God to help us love that person. We might pray in this way:

Prayer:  Father God, I know it is Your revealed will that I love so and so. But the pain they have caused me is too great for me to overcome on my own. I know You live in me, Lord Jesus. And I know it is Your will for me to love this person as You have loved me. Therefore, I pray that You would love them through me. I know You hear this prayer favorably, and I am confident that You will answer. Thank You for how You will work in and through me to show this person Your love. In the mighty name of Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen.

ENDNOTES:

1. Zane C. Hodges, The Bible Knowledge Commentary Epistles and Prophecy, Editors John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck (David C. Cook, 2018 Kindle Edition), Kindle Location 4078 to 4083.

2. David R. Anderson, Maximum Joy: I John – Relationship or Fellowship? (Grace Theology Press, 2013 Kindle Edition), pg. 249.

3. See Zane C. Hodges; Robert Wilkin; J. Bond; Gary Derickson; Brad Doskocil; Dwight Hunt; Shawn Leach; The Grace New Testament Commentary: Revised Edition (Grace Evangelical Society, Kindle Edition, 2019), pg. 603.

4. Tom Constable, Dr. Constable’s Notes on I John, 2022 Edition, pg. 114 cites Thomas L. Constable, “What Prayer Will and Will Not Change,” in Essays in Honor of J. Dwight Pentecost, Edited by Stanley D. Toussaint and Charles H. Dyer (Chicago: Moody Press, 1986), pp. 99-113; and idem, Talking to God: What the Bible Teaches about Prayer (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1995; reprint ed., Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2005), pg. 170.

5. Hodges, The Grace New Testament Commentary, pg. 604.

6. Tony Evans, CSB Bibles by Holman, The Tony Evans Bible Commentary (B & H Publishing Group, Kindle Edition, 2019), pg. 2952.

7. Anderson, Maximum Joy, pp. 251-252.

I John 5 – Part 3

“And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.” I John 5:11

Assurance of salvation is very dear to the heart of God. He wants His children to be absolutely certain that they have eternal life the moment they believe His testimony about His Son, Jesus Christ.

Imagine a child doubting that he or she was truly their parents’ son or daughter based on their behavior!?! Think of the insecurities and fear that child would have. Instead of drawing near to his or her parents when struggling with sin or shame, he or she would hide their struggles and try harder and harder to overcome them, only to experience more defeat, fear, and shame. This is a terrible cycle of shame that God never intended His children to endure. Yet Christians are being taught this at many different levels within evangelical Christianity today.

Christians are also being told that assurance of salvation keeps believers from living holy lives. In other words, if I can know I have everlasting life which can never be lost, then what is to keep me from living like the Devil the rest of my life? Doesn’t assurance of salvation give me a license to sin? The apostle John would say, “No! A thousand times, No!”

Knowing we have eternal life is based on the testimony of God, not the testimony of men. Yet various human teachers throughout church history have undermined assurance of salvation by saying it is based both on the objective promises of God and on the subjective evidence of the professing believer’s works. 1 In essence they are teaching that believing in the promises of God is not enough. There must be faith plus fruit. One popular Bible commentator seems to base our assurance of salvation on the subjective evidence of holiness or purity:

“Those who cling to the promise of eternal life but care nothing for Christ’s holiness have nothing to be assured of. Such people do not really believe. Either their professed ‘faith’ in Christ is an utter sham, or they are simply deluded. If they did truly have their hope fixed on Christ, they would purify themselves, just as He is pure (3:3).” 2

As mentioned previously, there are two primary areas where the enemies of Christ or antichrists have attacked the body of Christ: God’s Work (I John 5:6-9) and God’s Word (I John 5:10-13). Through Christ’s baptism (“the water”) and His sacrificial death on the cross (“the blood”),God’s “Spirit” bore witness to the identity and work of God’s Son, Jesus Christ (5:6-8). This “witness of God” concerning “His Son” is far “greater” than “the witness of men” (5:9).

Before stating what God’s witness of His Son is, John draws a contrast between believing and not believing the testimony of God concerning His Son: “He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son.” (I John 5:10). The phrase “believes in” (pisteueō eis) is commonly used in John’s gospel (cf. John 1:12, 2:11, 23; 3:15-16, 18, 36) and is identical in meaning to “believes that” (pisteueō hoti) (cf. John 11:27; 20:31; cf. 8:24; 13:19). Both Greek constructions express the means of receiving eternal life (cf. John 20:30-31 with John 3:15-16, 18, etc. and cf. 1 John 5:1). 3

Dr. Charlie Bing states that “after noting every use of pisteuō in the gospel of John (pisteuō eis with accusative –  John 1:12; 2:11, 23; 3:15,16, 18a, 18c, 36; 4:39; 6:29, 35, 40, 47; 7:5, 31, 38, 39, 48; 8:30; 9:35, 36; 10:42; 11:25, 26a, 45,48; 12:11, 36,  37, 42,44 [twice], 46; 14:12; 16:9; 17:20), pisteuō with dative – John 2:22; 4:21, 50; 5:24, 38, 46 [twice], 47 [twice]; 6:30; 8:31, 45, 46; 10:37, 38 [twice]; 12:38; 14:11a), pisteuō hoti – John 4:21; 6:69; 8:24; 11:27, 42; 13:19; 14:10; 11a; 16:27, 30; 17:8, 21; 20:31a, pisteuō absolutely – John 1:7, 50; 3:12 [twice], 15, 18b 4:41, 42, 48, 53; 5:44; 6:36,47, 64 [twice]; 9:38; 10:25, 26; 11:15, 40; 12:39; 14:11b, 29; 16:31; 19:35; 20:8, 25, 29 [twice], 31b), pisteuō with neuter accusative (John 11:26b), Schnackenburg concludes, ‘In many texts, pisteuō eis is on the same footing as a hoti-clause…’ and ‘Often the absolute pisteuein means the Johannine faith in the fullest sense…’ Thus one should not so easily delete the soteriological significance of pisteuō plus hoti – in John. This is the construction found in clear salvation verses like John 8:24, ‘believe that I am He,’ and 20:31, ‘believe that Jesus is the Christ’. Likewise, pisteuō plus the dative without a preposition is used in a clear salvation verse, John 5:24, “believes him who sent me” (NIV).’”

The Biblical evidence shows that to“believe in” and to “believe that” are used interchangeably by the apostle John in his gospel for saving faith. John would not contradict in I John would he had already written in his gospel.

John notes that when a person “believes in the Son of God,” he has “the witness in himself” (I John 5:10a). When an individual believes in Jesus for eternal life, God’s witness about His Son becomes real to him or her. God’s Spirit gives them the assurance that they were right to believe in Christ for eternal life. However, if a person “does not believe … the testimony that God has given of His Son,” he or she is calling God “a liar” (5:10b).

“The writer, then, cannot allow that one can profess belief in God, as did his opponents, and yet reject God’s testimony to His own Son. Such rejection cannot be excused on the basis of ignorance. The evidence is too clear and too weighty. Rather, it is deliberate unbelief, the character of which in the end impugns the very being and character of God. If Jesus is not God’s own Son in the flesh, then God is no longer the truth. He is the liar.” 5

For John, there is no middle ground. “There is nothing here about ‘head or heart belief,’ or about a ‘faith that yields to God as over against mere intellectual assent,’ etc. The Bible does not complicate faith like that. Once we have understood the message, the issue is: Is it true or false? Do we believe it, or do we not?” 6

Nowhere in the Bible does God distinguish head belief from heart belief. All belief is belief. A person either “believes in the Son of God” or he “does not believe…” (5:10). If we believe in Christ for eternal life, then we know we have eternal life because Jesus guarantees, “He who believes in Me has everlasting life” (John 6:47). To doubt that we “truly believe” is to disbelieve Jesus’ promise. Either I believe Christ’s promise, or I do not. If I do, I have eternal life. If I do not, I stand condemned as one who “has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:18). The book of I John and the gospel of John do not condition eternal life on whether one has “heart belief” instead of “head belief.”

Having drawn a contrast between believing and not believing the testimony God has given about His Son (5:10), John now states the content of God’s testimony: 11 And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” (I John 5:11-12). The phrase “And this is the testimony of God” refers to verses 11 and 12 which taken together state “the testimony of God” about “His Son.”  Verse 11 states what God has bestowed and verse 12 states the exclusive character of this bestowal. 7

According to this divine testimony, “God has given us eternal life” (5:11a). Eternal life is a gift from God, and it is inseparable from the Person of “His Son.” Salvation is not giving God your life as so many Christians invite non-Christians to do. It is God giving us His “eternal life.”

In John’s gospel Jesus defined eternal life: “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” (John 17:3). The word “know” (ginōskō) refers to an intimate or experiencial knowledge of God, not just an awareness of certain facts. 8 Notice that the primary focus is on one’s relationship with God (“life”),not the duration (“eternal”).This is not just a future promise, it is a present reality for all believers in Jesus. Eternal life is knowing the true God personally in one’s experience forever.

This knowledge of God begins the moment we believe in Jesus for His gift of eternal life. “But that’s only the beginning. You must grow in your knowledge and understanding, as sure as an infant must progress toward childhood. God wants us to grow in our knowledge of Him—He wants us to deepen in our experience of eternal life. To do that, you must have intimacy with His Son, because” 9 ”this life is in His Son” (I John 5:11b).

Eternal “life is in His Son” (5:11b), since Jesus is “eternal life” (I John 5:20). Hence, eternal “life” and God’s “Son” are one gift together given from God. 10 Therefore, “He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” (5:12). There is no one or nothing else where this “life” can be found. It is not found in a church or in a pastor. Neither is it found in a lifestyle or an act of obedience.

The antichrists or false teachers seem to have questioned John’s readers’ belief that they possessed eternal life (cf. 2:25). And since the antichrists also denied that Jesus is the Christ (cf. 2:22), they would have affirmed that there was no eternal life available in Jesus. Thus, in the eyes of these false teachers, John’s readers did not really have eternal life. 11

The apostle John counters this false teaching by asserting that he and his readers do have eternal life because God has given it to them in His Son and that this life is to be found in Him and nowhere else. 12

“Since this eternal life is in His Son, it follows that if a person has the Son, he also has life (eternal life); and if a person does not have the Son, he does not have life.” (5:12).  13 What must a person do to “have the Son” (5:12)?

The only requirement to “have the Son” in I John or the entire New Testament for that matter is to believe. The apostle writes, “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.” (I John 5:13). What must a person do to “know” (not guess, hope, or think) he or she “have eternal life”? “Believe in the name of the Son of God.” There is no mention of having fruit, obedience, or a changed life to know one has eternal life. The only condition is to “believe in the name of the Son of God.” This is so simple that many adults miss it.

“Assurance is part of the essence of saving faith. If eternal life can be lost, it can’t be eternal. God wants you to know that you have eternal life—not based on your fluctuating faith—but based on the object of your faith, Jesus.” 14

“Every believer knows at the point of saving faith that he has eternal life, because the promises he believes guarantee it (cf. John 11:25-26). But the believer is not immune to doubts after he is saved (cf. John the Baptist; Luke 7:18-19). The antidote to such doubts is always God’s promises. These promises can be referred to repeatedly as a fresh source of assurance. No book of the Bible contains more of these straight-forward guarantees than John’s Gospel itself (John 3:16, 18, 36; 5:24; 6:35-40, 47; etc.). First John 5:11-12 reminds the readers of God’s testimony they have already believed.

“Since the believers he writes to have believed in the name of the Son of God (whose identity is attested by ‘the Spirit, the water, and the blood,’ v. 8), then they should rest securely on the testimony that God has given about and through His Son. This testimony assures believers that they do have eternal life.

“All true assurance of salvation and eternal life must rest on the ‘testimony of God,’ for only that testimony has full reliability. Ironically once one’s Christian experience is made the grounds for assurance, John’s statement in v 13 about knowing becomes a complete impossibility!

“The apostle here seeks to reaffirm the assurance of his readers which was to question the antichrists.” 15

What about the phrase “these thing?” Doesn’t that refer to the entire book of I John? Some will argue that I John 5:13 is the purpose statement for John’s epistle since the apostle’s purpose statement in his gospel was near the end of the gospel of John (John 20:31).They conclude that I John was written to provide tests for professing believers in Jesus so they could know for sure they have eternal life. According to this view, one not only needs to believe in the name of the Son of God to know they have eternal life, but they must also walk in the light (1:7), confess their sins (1:9), keep God’s commandments (2:3-5; 3:24), abide in Christ (2:6, 24, 27-28), love one another (2:9-11; 3:11-23; 4:7-5:3), hate the world (2:15-17), acknowledge Jesus is God’s Son (2:23; 4:2-3, 4:15), practice righteousness (2:29-3:10), listen to and obey apostolic teaching (2:18-19; 4:6), and avoid idolatry (5:21). 16

But this view fails to understand that “there are five purpose statements in I John (1:3, 4; 2:1, 26; 5:13) plus ten imperatives (2:15, 24, 27, 28; 3:1, 7, 13; 4:1 [twice]; 5:21), any of which could possibly provide John’s purpose for writing.” 17 First John 1:3-4 provides the most comprehensive primary and secondary purposes in writing this epistle. 18

Hodges notes that the words, “These things” in I John 5:13 do not refer to the entire book of I John, but to the verses immediately preceding it (5:6-12), observing that this near reference is consistent with John’s style throughout his epistle: 19

  • The statement “these things we write to you” (1:4) refers to what was just stated in verses 1:1-3.
  • The words, “these things I write to you, so that you may not sin” (2:1) refer to the teaching on sin in 1:5-10.
  • The statement, “These things I have written to you concerning those who try to deceive you” (2:26) refers to the preceding discussion about antichrists (2:18-25).

In 1 John 5:13 the “these things” points to “the testimony” or “witness” (martyria, the noun, or martyrēo, the verb) which has been mentioned seven times in 1 John 5:9-12: 20

If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is the witness of God which He has testified of His Son. 10 He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son. 11 And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” (emphasis added)

“What John is arguing for in this passage is the credibility of God’s testimony (witness). It is greater than that of men. And this witness or testimony is that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. We can either accept or reject this testimony.

“Notice that we are not called upon to search our faith to see if it is real. We do not have to have faith in our faith.’ We are called upon to have faith in what God says about His Son. Our assurance is at stake here, yes, but more important than that is the credibility of God. It is His witness that is at stake. We either believe it or reject it. In fact, in 1 John 5:13 we find echoes of John 5:24 where it says, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.’” 21

After the words “know that you have eternal life” (5:13a), most Greek manuscripts add the words: “and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God” (5:13b). Perhaps this statement seemed redundant to some early scribe or editor and for that reason was eliminated from his manuscript. But this part of verse 13 actually prepares the ground for the discussion about prayer which follows (5:14-17) by inviting continued faith in God’s Son on the part of those who already have received eternal life through Him. Prayer also is an expression of faith in the name of God’s Son. 22

After we believe in Jesus Christ for eternal life, we may have doubts about our salvation. Some days we may feel saved, and others we may not. Our assurance of salvation is not based upon what we feel and do, or what other people say, which can all change, but is based upon the promises of God, which never change (Luke 21:33; I Pet. 1:24-25).

You may ask, “If I doubt my salvation, does that mean I am not saved?” Possibly. Those who doubt their salvation fall into one of two categories:

1. You may not understand the gospel and are not saved. Perhaps you are believing in Christ plus your works or just your works alone, and therefore you don’t have any certainty of going to heaven because your faith does not rest in the finished work of Christ on the cross (John 3:14-16; 19:30).

2. You have believed in Christ and are saved, but you have confused entering the Christian life (I John 5:13; cr. John 3:16; 5:24) with living it (I John 1:4-10; 2:3-6; 3:6-15; 4:20-21). When a believer takes his or her focus off Christ and His promise of eternal life, he or she may begin to doubt their salvation. Losing your assurance of salvation is not the same as losing your salvation. As we have seen, when you believe in Christ for eternal life, you are eternally secure at the moment of faith because of Christ’s performance and promise, not your performance or feelings.

However, being certain of your salvation can waver if you start looking to someone or something else other that Christ and His promise of eternal life. If you doubt your salvation, ask yourself:

A. Do I understand the simplicity of the gospel? Since Christ paid the full penalty for my sins when He died on the cross and rose from the dead (John 19:30; I Cor. 15:3-6), God can now forgive me based on what He has done for me, not what I do for Him.

B. Have I believed or trusted Christ alone for my salvation? We appropriate Christ’s death on the cross by coming to Him as sinners, recognizing that He made the full payment for sin on our behalf, and “believing.” Jesus promised, “He who believes in Me has everlasting life” (John 6:47). Believe means to be convinced Jesus was speaking the truth and is therefore worthy of our trust in Him alone as our only basis for living eternally with God. If you are believing in Christ alone to get you to heaven, you are forever God’s child regardless of when or where that occurred.

C. Am I taking God at His Word? Once you believe in Christ alone, you must trust His Word. That means accepting God’s promise that, having trusted Christ, we are forever His. Jesus assures us: “And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.” (John 10:28). If I were to ask you whose child you are, you would say, “I am the child of …” You have proof that would stand up in a court of law – a birth certificate. A piece of paper assures you that you are your parents’ child. God has given us a piece of paper – the inspired Word of God, the Bible. It assures us that once we’ve believed in Christ, we have everlasting life. We are His forever. If you could lose your salvation, then Jesus lied to us in John. 3:16. Our salvation is based upon a promise that cannot be broken. It comes from a God who cannot lie.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank You for Your testimony which is far greater than the witness of people. Your testimony clearly states You have given us eternal life, and this life is in Your Son, Jesus Christ; not in our performance, our lifestyle, or our obedience. Thank You for the internal witness of the Holy Spirit Who assures us it was right for us to believe in Your Son for His gift of eternal life. Knowing we have eternal life is based on Your unwavering testimony concerning Your Son, not the testimony of people which can easily change.We can know we have eternal life when we believe in the name of the Son of God because Your Word guarantees it. Please help Your children who doubt their salvation right now to come back to Your promises which guarantee those who believe in the name of the Son of God that they can know for certain they have eternal life. In Jesus’ mighty name, we pray. Amen.

ENDNOTES:

1. Tom Constable, Dr. Constable’s notes on I John, 2022 Edition, pg. 113 cites John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, The Library of Christian Classics series, Volumes 20 and 21, Edited by John T. McNeill, Translated by Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), 3:24:4 and John F. MacArthur Jr., Faith Works: The Gospel According to the Apostles (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1993), pp. 162-166.

2. Constable, Dr. Constable’s notes on I John, pg. 113 cites MacArthur, Faith Works, pg. 171.

3. See Zane C. Hodges; Robert Wilkin; J. Bond; Gary Derickson; Brad Doskocil; Dwight Hunt; Shawn Leach; The Grace New Testament Commentary: Revised Edition (Grace Evangelical Society, Kindle Edition, 2019), pg. 603.

4. Dr. Charlie Bing, “Lordship Salvation: A Biblical Evaluation and Response,” GraceLife Edition, 1992, pp. 18-19.

5. Constable, Dr. Constable’s notes on I John, pg. 111 cites Glenn W. Barker, “1 John,” in Hebrews-Revelation, Vol. 12 of The Expositor’s Bible Commentary 12 vols., edited by Frank E. Gaebelein and J. D. Douglas (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1981), pg. 352.

6. Ibid., cites Zane C. Hodges, The Epistles of John: Walking in the Light of God’s Love (Irving, Tex.: Grace Evangelical Society, 1999), pg. 224.

7. Hodges, The Grace New Testament Commentary, pg. 603.

8. J. Carl Laney, Moody Gospel John Commentary (Chicago: Moody Press, 1992), pg. 301; David R. Anderson, Maximum Joy: I John – Relationship or Fellowship? (Grace Theology Press, 2013 Kindle Edition), pg. 74.

9. Tony Evans, CSB Bibles by Holman, The Tony Evans Bible Commentary (B & H Publishing Group, Kindle Edition, 2019), pg. 2951.

10. Constable, Constable, Dr. Constable’s notes on I John, pp. 111-112.

11. Hodges, The Grace New Testament Commentary, pg. 603.

12. Ibid.

13. Anderson, Maximum Joy, pg. 241.

14. Evans, The Tony Evans Bible Commentary, pp. 2951-2952.

15. Hodges, The Grace New Testament Commentary, pg. 603.

16. Those holding to this view are mentioned in the following commentaries: Anderson in Maximum Joy, pg. 15 cites John MacArthur, Jr., Saved without a Doubt (Colorado Springs: Cook Communications, 1992), pp. 67-91; Constable, Dr. Constable’s notes on I John, pg. 46 cites James Montgomery Boice, The Epistles of John (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1979); Raymond Brown, The Epistles of John, Anchor Bible series(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1982); F.F. Bruce, The Epistles of John (London: Pickering & Inglis Ltd., 1970; reprint ed., Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1986); John Calvin, The First Epistle of John, Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries series, Translated by T. H. L. Parker. Reprint ed. (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1959-61); John F. MacArthur Jr., The Gospel according to Jesus (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1988); John R. W. Stott, Basic Introduction to the New Testament, 1st American ed. (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1964); Brooke Foss Westcott, The Epistles of St. John (1883. Reprint ed. England: Marcham Manor Press, 1966); and Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, 2 vols. (Wheaton: Scripture Press Publications, Victor Books, 1989).

17. Constable, Dr. Constable’s notes on I John, pg. 17.

18. Ibid., cites Robert W. Yarbrough, 1-3 John, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament series(Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), pg. 46; Stephen S. Smalley, 1, 2, 3 John, Word Biblical Commentary series (Waco: Word Books, 1984), pg. 15; Gary W Derickson, “What is the Message of I John?” Bibliotheca Sacra 150:597 (January-March 1993), pp. 89-105.

19. Hodges, The Grace New Testament Commentary, pg. 603; cf. Robert N. Wilkin, “‘Assurance: That You May Know’ (1 John 5:11-13a),” Grace Evangelical Society News 5:12 (December 1990), pp. 2, 4; Anderson, Maximum Joy, pg. 241; Zane C. Hodges, The Bible Knowledge Commentary Epistles and Prophecy, Editors John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck (David C. Cook, 2018 Kindle Edition), Kindle Location 4070.

20. Anderson, Maximum Joy, pg. 241.

21. Ibid., pp. 241-242.

22. Hodges, The Bible Knowledge Commentary Epistles and Prophecy, Kindle Location 4075 to 4079.

I John 5 – Part 2

“This is He who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not only by water, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who bears witness because the Spirit is truth.” I John 5:6

Like lung cancer which attacks the body’s air supply, the two primary lungs that the enemies of Christ or antichrists have attacked in the body of Christ are God’s Work (I John 5:6-9) and God’s Word (I John 5:10-13). 1 Today in our study of I John we will look at the attack on God’s Work.

Last time in our study we looked at the single act of faith in Christ at the moment of our salvation which is the victory that has overcome the world that is blinded to the gospel and opposed to people getting saved (I John 5:1-5; cf. 2 Cor. 4:3-6; 11:2-3). Just as faith provided our first victory over the world at our conversion, it can also continue to provide victory in our daily Christian lives as we rely on Christ Who lives in us through His Spirit (Gal. 2:20).

John then expounds upon the object of saving faith, namely “Jesus… the Son of God” (5:5b). The Person and Work of Jesus was vehemently attacked by false teachers during the time of John’s writings. One of those false teachings that the apostle John had to deal with was spread by Cerinthus who taught that Jesus was merely a man and the divine Christ descended on the human Jesus at His baptism but left Him when He hung on the cross to die. Thus, according to Cerinthus, only the human Jesus died and rose from the dead, not the divine Christ. 2

The apostle John refers to “Jesus… the Son of God“ (5:5b) in verse 6: This is He who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not only by water, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who bears witness because the Spirit is truth.” (I John 5:6). The “water” refers to the baptism of Jesus Christ by John the Baptist in the Jordan River which inaugurated the public ministry of the Messiah-God (cf. Matt. 3:13-17; Mark 1:9-11; Luke 3:21-22). 3 The “blood” represents the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross when darkness covered the land, the earth quaked, and the temple veil split in two (Matt. 27:45, 51). 4

When John says, “it is the Spirit who bears witness” he is referring to the role that God the Holy Spirit had at Christ’s baptism. Matthew informs us that when Jesus came up out of the water, John the Baptist saw “the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon” Jesus (Matt. 3:16). John wants his readers to understand that the Spirit of God is not the same as the divine Christ. The Holy Spirit was a “witness” to Jesus at His baptism (I John 5:6b), but He remains a distinct Person not to be identified as the Christ. 5

In addition, the Holy Spirit’s “witness” is reliable “because the Spirit is truth”(5:6c), much like the statement, “God is love.” The very nature and character of the Spirit is to be truthful so His testimony can be trusted. 6 John affirms that the Spirit is reliable—He “is truth” – and this is because His testimony follows the Biblical law of verification which required two or three witnesses (cf. Deut. 17:6; 19:15; Matt. 18:16; John 8:17-18). 7

We also know from Matthew’s account of Jesus’ baptism that God the Father spoke from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” (3:16-17). Not only did the God the Holy Spirit testify at Christ’s baptism, but so did God the Father.

“The Holy Spirit was not the divine Christ coming upon Jesus, the man. The Spirit was distinct from Christ and came upon the God-Man, Jesus Christ.” 8

Considering I John 5:6 and other verses in I John, we can ascertain what the antichrists believed about Jesus. They claimed that Jesus was not the “Christ,” the Messiah-God (cf. I John 2:22). They may have taught that He was a spirit being, rather than fully God and fully human, who descended upon Jesus at His baptism but abandoned Him to die alone on the cross (I John 5:6). Hence, according to these false teachers, the work of the Cross was not a sufficient sacrifice offered up by God’s Son, but the death of a mere man which had no saving value. 9

According to this false teaching, those who believed that Jesus is the Christ would then be believing a falsehood. Hence, they were not born of God, as the apostles taught that they were (I John 5:1). This was a serious challenge to Christianity. If the false teachers believed Jesus is not the Son of God (cf. 5:5), then there was no victory over the world through faith at conversion (cf. 5:4-5). Nor was there any hope of continued victory over the world in their Christian lives. 10

John refutes such false notions and establishes that saving faith is found in one Person, “Jesus Christ,” Whose public ministry began at His “water” baptism and ended when His “blood” was shed on a cross for all the sins of the world. The apostle then writes, “For there are three that bear witness: 8 the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree as one.” (I John 5:7-8). 11 Through Christ’s baptism (“the water”) and His death on the cross (“the blood”),God gave testimony to the truthfulness of His Son and His mission. The third witness is “the Spirit,” Who confirms on the inside what God does on the outside. 12

The Spirit’s witness may be thought of as coming through the prophets (including John the Baptist). The Spirit’s witness, then, was augmented by the historical realities involved in ‘the water’ and ‘the blood.’ Both the baptism and the crucifixion of Jesus are strongly attested historical facts (cf. John 1:32-34; 19:33-37). All three witnesses (‘water’ and ‘blood’ are personified) ‘are in agreement’ that a single divine Person, Jesus Christ, was involved in these events.” 13

“Behind John’s words stands the fact that at the baptism God declared, ‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased’ (Matt. 3:17). John the Baptist personally ‘bore witness’ to this event (cf. John 1:32-34). In addition, the crucifixion was foreseen by the Scriptures (cf. John 13:18; 19:24, 28, 36, 37) and was attested by apostolic witnesses (John 19:35; 21:24, note the words ‘we know). Thus, the water and the blood are fully attested in their own right, both by divine testimony and by witnesses.” 14

“In a court of law, the Holy Spirit would be put on the stand as a character witness; the water and the blood would be entered as Exhibit A and Exhibit B. All three gave credibility to the Person and Work of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. If a case among men is established by the word of two or three witnesses (Matt. 18:16), then two or three divine witnesses should be even more reliable: the Spirit, the water, and the blood.” 15

In the next verse John will look back at the testimony mentioned in 5:7-8 and forward to the witness of God in 5:11-12: “If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is the witness of God which He has testified of His Son.” (I John 5:9). The phrase, “If we receive the witness of men,” refers back to the requirement of two or three witnesses for the statement to be considered valid (5:7-8). The idea is since we do receive human testimony as valid under certain conditions, how much more are we to receive “the witness of God” which is far “greater.” 16

“A basic principle of God’s Word is that a ‘matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses’ (2 Cor. 13:1; see Deut. 19:15). The tragic truth is that in spite of the threefold testimony God has provided (5:6-8), too many believe man rather than God.” 17

In John’s day (and ours) many people believe the false teachers’ witness (man’s) instead of God’s witness (the Spirit, water, and blood) concerning the Person and Work of Jesus Christ. Through Christ’s baptism (“the water”) and His death on the cross (“the blood”),God’s “Spirit” bore witness to the identity of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, so that whoever believes in Him may have everlasting life and complete forgiveness of their sins (I John 5:10-13; cf. John 3:14-16; 20:31; Acts 10:43; Ephes. 1:7; Col. 2:13-14).

Unfortunately, today we have many teachers who deny that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God (I John 2:22; 5:5-8) or they deny He paid the full penalty for all our sins (John 19:30). Regarding the latter, there are people who trust their good works alone to get them to heaven and basically are saying that Christ failed to pay any of their sin debt when He died on the cross, so they must pay it all with their good works. There are others who trust Christ plus their good works who are saying that Jesus only paid part of their sin debt, but they must pay the remainder. Those who fall in these two categories are listening to the testimonies of humans instead of the testimony of God.

God testifies that Christ paid our sin debt in full so all we must do is believe or trust in Jesus alone (not our good works, good life, or religion) for His gift of eternal life (I John 5:1, 9-13; cf. John 3:14-16; 19:30; 20:31). John writes, “And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.” (I John 2:2). The word “propitiation” refers to the satisfaction God the Father felt when Jesus paid the penalty for all our sins (John 19:30). God’s holy demands were satisfied when He looked at the “Righteous” One’s nail-pierced hands on the cross. Jesus paid the penalty we deserved (“death” – Rom. 6:23b) in full when He took our place on the cross.

Those who are trusting in their good works or in Christ plus their good works to get them to heaven, are telling God the Father that Jesus’ death on the cross failed to pay their sin debt in full. However, since God was forever satisfied with His perfect Son’s payment for the sin of the world (Isaiah 53:11; John 19:30; I John 2:2), we must also be satisfied with what satisfies God. God cannot accept anything we do as payment for our sins because He has already accepted His Son’s payment for all our sins when He died in our place on the cross.

Please understand that although Jesus Christ died for all people (I John 2:2; I Tim. 2:5-6), not all people will be saved and go to heaven. We must believe the gospel of Jesus Christ which says Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose from the dead so that “whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16b; I Cor. 15:3-6). If you are not sure you have eternal life and a future home in Jesus’ heaven, Christ invites you right now to believe in Him alone for His free gift of eternal life.

To “believe in” (pisteuōn eis) Jesus means to be persuaded that He is speaking the truth and is therefore worthy of your trust. 18 If you are convinced Jesus is telling truth in John 3:16 and is therefore worthy of your trust, then believe or trust Christ alone (not your good life, prayers, or religion) to give you His gift of everlasting life. When you believe in Christ for His free gift of eternal life, you can be just as certain of heaven as the people who are already there. Knowing we are going to heaven is not a guess; it is a guarantee from Jesus Christ (John 14:1-3).

Another way the enemies of Christ attack God’s work is seen in its assault on God’s work in creation. The world teaches that we arrived by chance into this world and only the evolutionary forces of the natural world created human beings.

Anderson writes, “It’s interesting, but the Ph.D.’s in biology on our university campuses won’t even come to the debates on evolution anymore because they realize their theory is more religion than science.” 19

“It always amused me that they call evolution a theory and treat it like a fact. According to the scientific method, it doesn’t even qualify as a good hypothesis. Why? Because in the scientific method we must begin with an observation. And the most important observation for evolutionary theory has never been made—a positive mutation from a lower species to a higher. Of course, for evolution from the primordial mess to human mass we need tentontrillion positive mutations going from lower to higher. We have never observed even one. For Newton to come up with his law of gravity, he first observed the apple falling from the tree. Positive mutations, which are very rare, within a species do not count.” 20

But the Bible is clear that God created the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1:1), including human beings (Gen. 1:26-27). We know that Jesus believed in the Genesis creation account (Matt. 19:4-5) and so did the prophet Malachi (Mal. 2:15) and the apostle Peter (2 Pet. 3:4-5).

The day is coming when there will be an unprecedented judgment by God upon the world known as the Tribulation period (Rev. 6-19). Prior to John’s description of this severe judgment, there is a parenthetical break in heaven where we discover why the Lord will judge the earth. “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and by Your will they existed and were created.” (Rev. 4:11). God’s severe judgment of the earth will be just because everything belongs to the Lord Who created the earth and all its inhabitants. The Creator has every right to do with His creation as He desires, especially if it has rejected Him. 21

You do not have to face this severe judgment on the earth. God promises to remove His church consisting of all who believed in Christ for eternal life prior to the Tribulation period (Rev. 4:1-4; cf. I Thess. 1:10; 4:13-5:11; John 14:1-3; et al.).

If you do not know for sure you have eternal life, take God at His Word when He says, “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.” (I John 5:13). This one verse is written to “you who believe in the name of the Son of God.” Do you believe in the name of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, Who died for all your sins and rose from the dead, proving His claims to be God are true (cf. John 20:31; Romans 1:3-4; I Corinthians 15:3-6)? If you do, the Bible guarantees “you may know that you have eternal life.” It does not say you may “think” or “hope” or “guess” you have eternal life. It says you may “know” with absolute certainty that eternal life is yours. Because Jesus Christ is “the truth” (John 14:6) and cannot lie (Titus 1:2; Hebrews 6:18), you can be confident He will keep His promise of eternal life to all who believe in Him (cf. John 3:15-16).

Do you now know for sure you have eternal life and a future home in Jesus’ heaven? If you do, you can tell God this through prayer.

Prayer: Dear Lord God, thank You so much for providing a threefold witness to Your Son, Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, Christ’s water baptism, and His shed blood on the cross for all my sins. I acknowledge that I have been deceived by false teachers in the past regarding Jesus’ true identity and the way to heaven. Thank You for revealing the truth to me about Your Son. I now come to You as a sinner who cannot save himself. I believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, Who died in my place on the cross and rose from the dead. As best I know how, I am now believing or trusting in the Son of God, Jesus Christ alone (not my good life, my religion, or my prayers), to give me everlasting life and a future home in His heaven. Thank You for the everlasting life I now have and that I will not have to face the terrible judgment that is coming upon the world during the Tribulation period. Please use me now to tell others about Jesus and His free offer of everlasting life so they may also escape the coming Tribulation judgment and the horrific eternal judgment that will follow. In the mighty name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen.

ENDNOTES:

1. David R. Anderson, Maximum Joy: I John – Relationship or Fellowship? (Grace Theology Press, 2013 Kindle Edition), pg. 238.

2. See Zane C. Hodges; Robert Wilkin; J. Bond; Gary Derickson; Brad Doskocil; Dwight Hunt; Shawn Leach; The Grace New Testament Commentary: Revised Edition (Grace Evangelical Society, Kindle Edition, 2019), pg. 602; Tom Constable, Dr. Constable’s Notes on 1 John, 2022 Edition, pg. 109 cites Zane C. Hodges, The Epistles of John: Walking in the Light of God’s Love (Irving, Tex.: Grace Evangelical Society, 1999), pg. 219, footnote 10.

3. Hodges, The Grace New Testament Commentary, pg. 602; Zane C. Hodges, The Bible Knowledge Commentary Epistles and Prophecy, Editors John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck (David C. Cook, 2018 Kindle Edition), Kindle Location 4045 to 4050.

4. Tony Evans, CSB Bibles by Holman, The Tony Evans Bible Commentary (B & H Publishing Group, Kindle Edition, 2019, pg. 2951.

5. Hodges, The Grace New Testament Commentary, pg. 602.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. Anderson, Maximum Joy, pg. 238.

9. Hodges, The Grace New Testament Commentary, pg. 602.

10. Ibid.

11. The NKJV of I John 5:7-8 reads, For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness on earth: the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree as one.It is important to acknowledge that the words from “in heaven” (5:7) to “on earth” (5:8) are “well known because they were first introduced into an early printed edition of the Greek New Testament by Erasmus. They then became part of the KJV, but they are not found in the vast majority of the surviving Greek manuscripts of 1 John,” (Hodges, The Grace New Testament Commentary, pg. 602). Hence, these words are omitted in the text.

12. Evans, The Tony Evans Bible Commentary, pg. 2951.

13. Hodges, The Bible Knowledge Commentary Epistles and Prophecy, Kindle Location 4054 to 4059.

14. Hodges, The Grace New Testament Commentary, pg. 603.

15. Anderson, Maximum Joy, pg. 239.

16. Hodges, The Grace New Testament Commentary, pg. 603.

17. Evans, The Tony Evans Bible Commentary, pg. 2951.

18. Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature: Third Edition (BDAG) revised and edited by Frederick William Danker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000 Kindle Edition), pg. 816.

19. Anderson, Maximum Joy, pg. 239 cites personal interview with Kirby Anderson, Trinity Pines, TX, November 17, 2001.

20. Anderson, Maximum Joy, pg. 239. 21. Ibid., pp. 239-240.

I John 5 – Part 1

4For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world — your faith. 5 Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” I John 5:4-5

In the book of I John, the apostle John has made it clear that love is more than mere sentiment or words; it is an act of obedience (I John 2:3-11; 3:10b-23; 4:7-16). Love (agapē) is doing what is best for another person. Christ did what was best for us when He came to earth and died in our place on a cross to pay the full penalty for our sins so whoever believes in Him may have everlasting life (3:16; 4:9-10; 5:13).Hence, if a believer claims to love God Whom he has not seen and hates his Christian brother whom he has seen, he is a liar and is deceiving himself (4:20). God’s commandment to love has interwoven loving Him and loving His children (4:21). We cannot disconnect them.

John anticipated his readers asking, “Who then is my Christian brother or sister?” John identified one’s Christian brother or sister as, “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God…” (5:1a). There is no mention of one’s good works, lifestyle, or obedience. Only believing that “Jesus is the Christ,” the promised Messiah-God (2:22-23; 4:2-3; 5:20; cf. John 11:25-27; 20:31; Isaiah 9:6-7), results in being “born of God.” John then explains that our love for God’s children is not based on their lifestyle or performance, but on our love for the Father of these children (5:1b). If we love God the Father, then we must love His children.

Someone may then ask, “How do I know when I am loving God’s children?” John replies, “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments.” (I John 5:2). Christians can know they are loving God’s children when they “love God and keep His commandments.” Keeping God’s “commandments” is the way to show that a believer loves his brother, since loving a fellow believer is one of those commandments. 1

A Christian is not an only child in the family of God. To ignore a brother in Christ is to cut ourselves off from intimacy with God. 2 God created us for relationships. He never intended for His children to live the Christian life all alone. He meant for us to live life in close fellowship with Him and other believers in Jesus.

In 5:2, it is important to observe that John has moved from keeping God’s single “commandment” (3:23; 4:21), a reference to loving our Christian brothers and sisters, to keeping His “commandments” (plural). 3

“Even if we think of the ten commandments, the last six deal with loving other people. You’ve heard it said to fathers, ‘The best way to love a child is to love his/her mother.’ It is loving other believers when we model the Christian life for them. This is even more important than meeting their physical needs; it points them toward the kind of life that can meet their spiritual needs.” 4

A Christian’s love for other believers can be measured by the degree to which he or she keeps the commandments of God. This may sound like John is putting us under performance, legalism, and relativism (our obedience compared to other Christians around me). But this is not the case. 5

John explains what it means to love God when he writes, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.” (I John 5:3). The phrase “the love of God” (hē agapē tou Theou) refers to our love for God (objective genitive), not God’s love for us (subjective genitive). 6 Our love for God is measured by the degree to which we “keep His commandments.”

According to the Pharisees, there were at least 613 commandments the Jews were responsible to obey. And in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus raised the bar even more when He said, “Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 5:20). Christ’s audience were taught it was wrong to murder someone (5:21), but Jesus went further when He stated it was sinful to be, angry with his brother without a cause” (Matt. 5:22). Jesus’ listeners had been taught it was wrong to commit adultery (5:27), but Jesus took it further when He said, “whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matt. 5:28). Christ’s audience had heard they were to love their neighbor and hate their enemies (5:43), but now Jesus says, “love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you” (Matt. 5:44). Christ took the interpretation the Pharisees had given of the Law and took it to a whole other level. 7

All of this may sound overwhelming to us. You may be saying to yourself, “How can I keep God’s commandments? It seems too difficult. It is beyond my reach. It is impossible!”

John responds by saying that God’s “commandments are not burdensome” (I John 5:3b). What does he mean by this? The word translated “burdensome” (barus) means to be “heavy, oppressive, unbearable, or weighty.” 8 If we try to live up to the standards of God’s Law in our own strength, we will experience an overwhelming weight of oppression and defeat. There will be no joy or peace in our lives.

The issue here is the source for keeping God’s commandments, not the standard of God’s commandments themselves. John explains why God’s commandments are not burdensome when he writes, “For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—your faith.” (I John 5:4). The word translated “For” (hoti) means “because.” 9 Hence, I John 5:3b-5:4a would read, “And His commandments are not burdensome because whatever is born of God overcomes the world.”

Since we are talking about people, we would expect this to say, “Whoever is born of God.” But instead, it says, “whatever [pan] is born of God.” The phrase “is born” (gegennēmenon) translates a perfect tense participle. The Greek perfect tense refers to a completed action in the past with continuing results to the present. Our new birth was completed in the past but has a continuing impact on us to the present. This is very significant.

John is emphasizing our ultimate source of victory over the world which he identifies in the last half of verse 4: “And this is the victory that has overcome the world—your faith.“ (I John 5:4b). The word translated “faith” (pistis) is a singular neuter gender. This connects back to the singular neuter genders in this verse: “whatever” (pan), “born of” (gegennēmenon), and “this” (hautē). Our single act of “faith” in Christ alone for new birth (“born of God”) is the source of our permanent victory over the world system which was satanically opposed to us being born into God’s family (5:4b) and is satanically blinded to the gospel (2 Cor. 4:3-4).

“What the Apostle clearly wishes to affirm in 1 John is that the very act of believing in Christ is a singular—and permanent—victory over the unbelieving world around us. Moreover, this victory is the reason why obedience to God’s commands is not a burden to the believer (1 John 5:3-4; see Matt 11:28-30).” 10

Before we became Christians, Satan used the world system to oppose us from being born into God’s family. This is why John writes, “Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” (I John 5:5). The moment an unsaved person believes that Jesus is the Son of God, he overcomes the world which did all it could to keep him or her from believing this truth for salvation. Since the antichrists or false teachers deny “that Jesus is the Christ” (I John 2:22), it is a great victory when a person believes this truth and is born into God’s forever family.

Satan is actively engaged in blinding people’s minds to prevent them from believing in the gospel of God’s Son (2 Cor. 4:3-6; 11:3-4; Ephes. 2:2). He uses the world system including educational systems, various religions, economical systems, political systems, entertainment, and recreational systems to name a few, that teach many false views which desensitize people to their urgent need for a Savior including such things as:

  • Humanity is basically good, so people do not need to be saved from sin.
  • Since God is love, all people will go to heaven.
  • Jesus was just a good moral teacher or prophet who provided a good example to follow.
  • God and the Bible cannot be trusted.
  • Sin has no consequences.
  • God does not exist.
  • You can decide tomorrow.  

But when God breaks through these (and other) lies and a lost sinner “believes that Jesus is the Son of God” to be “born of God” (I John 5:4-5), then Satan is directly defeated. And since the effects of new birth can never be reversed by Satan, this defeat is decisive and permanent (Luke 8:12; Col. 2:15).

However, this initial victory does not guarantee victory in living the Christian life. Rather, the victory achieved by the new birth makes obedience to God’s commands an achievable goal. The Greek constructions in I John 5:4 translated “he who overcomes” (ho nikōn) and “he who believes” (ho pisteuōn) are present participles preceded by the Greek article. 11

“This construction in Greek is essentially timeless and characterizes an individual (or individuals) by some act or acts he has (or they have) performed. Such statements have their closest analogy to many English nouns (often ending in–er) that express completed and/or ongoing action. For example, ‘He is a murderer.’ In this case the person may be described this way based on one instance of murder or because of many such acts.

“John is thus saying that ‘the overcomer of the world’ is one and the same as ‘the believer in Jesus Christ, God’s Son.’ As is made clear by the past tense of verse 4 (‘has overcome’) this is already true! But since John is discussing the fact that keeping God’s commandments is not ‘burdensome’ (5:3b), the implication is that such victory can continue and that the key to it is faith! Just as the Christian life begins at the moment of saving faith in Christ, so also that life is lived by faith in Him.” 12

“With these words, the writer affirmed that a believer is a world-conqueror by means of his faith in Christ. This suggests that such faith is the secret of his continuing victory and, for that reason, obedience to God’s commands need not be burdensome.” 13

“If your Christian life is weighing you down, you’re not living the real Christian life. How do I know? Because God’s commands are not a burden. When obedience is driven by love, it loses its burden. Ask any mother of a newborn. A mother doesn’t feed, change, clean, and comfort her baby because of a command—but because of love. Does she become tired and dirty? Of course. But the work isn’t a burden per se because it’s her baby she’s attending. When you love others based on your love for Jesus, He says in effect, ‘Hitch up to me, and I’ll do the pulling’” (Matt 11:30).” 14

Since our first victory (new birth) was by faith in Christ (5:1, 4-5), then it is by faith in Christ that we may continue to experience victory in the Christian life. Since Christ was our Substitute in death; He must also be our Substitute in life. This is what the apostle Paul was trying to say when he wrote, 15 “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Gal. 2:20; cf. Rom. 5:10).

“It has been said that the hardest thing in the world for a non-Christian to believe is in the substitutionary death of Christ, but the hardest thing in the world for a Christian to believe is in the substitutionary life of Christ. We got victory over death by His death; we shall have victory in life by His life. This is what it means when it says, ‘Christ lives in me.’ 16

Prayer: Gracious Father in heaven, thank You for saving us from eternal death the moment we believed in Jesus and His substitutionary death for all our sins. This single act of faith in Christ overcame Satan and his world system which had blinded us to the gospel and opposed us from being born into Your forever family. Since this first victory was by faith in Christ, we cannot continue to experience victory in our Christian lives apart from faith in Jesus and His substitutionary life. When our faith is in Christ, keeping His commandments is not burdensome because Jesus is our source of power. Thank You Lord Jesus for living in and through us. Please use us to share this life-changing message with those who are blinded to the gospel so they may experience permanent victory over the Devil and his world system. In the matchless name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.

ENDNOTES:

1. See Zane C. Hodges; Robert Wilkin; J. Bond; Gary Derickson; Brad Doskocil; Dwight Hunt; Shawn Leach; The Grace New Testament Commentary: Revised Edition (Grace Evangelical Society, Kindle Edition, 2019), pp. 601.

2. Tony Evans, CSB Bibles by Holman, The Tony Evans Bible Commentary (B & H Publishing Group, Kindle Edition, 2019), pg. 2950.

3. Hodges, The Grace New Testament Commentary, pg. 602.

4. David R. Anderson, Maximum Joy: I John – Relationship or Fellowship? (Grace Theology Press, 2013 Kindle Edition), pp. 227-228.

5. Ibid., pg. 228.

6. Archibald Thomas Robertson, A. T. Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament [with Bible and Strong’s Numbers Added!], 6 Volumes (E4 Group, 2014 Kindle Edition), Kindle Location 207464; cf. Tom Constable, Dr. Constable’s Notes on 1 John, 2022 Edition, pg. 107; Hodges, The Grace New Testament Commentary, pg. 602.

7. Anderson, Maximum Joy, pg. 228.

8. Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature: Third Edition (BDAG) revised and edited by Frederick William Danker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000 Kindle Edition), pp. 167-168.

9. Robertson, A. T. Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament, Kindle Location 207484; Hodges, The Grace New Testament Commentary, pg. 602.

10. Zane C. Hodges, Grace in Eclipse: A Study on Eternal Rewards (Grace Evangelical Society, Kindle Edition, 2016), pg. 152.

11. Hodges, The Grace New Testament Commentary, pg. 602.

12. Ibid.

13. Zane C. Hodges, The Bible Knowledge Commentary Epistles and Prophecy, Editors John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck (David C. Cook, 2018 Kindle Edition), Kindle Location 4043 to 4048.

14. Evans, The Tony Evans Bible Commentary, pg. 2950.

15. Anderson, Maximum Joy, pg. 229.

16. Ibid., pg. 230.

I John 4 – Part 5

4:21 And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also. 5:1a Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.” I John 4:21-5:1a

When I was conducting discipleship training seminars in the Philippines, I would sometimes be asked by participants, “What if a person professes faith in Christ but does not go on to grow spiritually or produce fruit in their Christian life, are they truly saved?” This question assumes that a genuine Christian will grow spiritually or produce good works, and if he or she does not, then they are not saved. This kind of thinking is common among those who believe the book of I John was written to provide tests to see if you are genuinely saved and going to heaven when you die. 1 Those who hold this position would say if a professing Christian does not love his Christian brother, then he or she is not truly saved.

When I was asked this kind of question, I would encourage our seminar participants not to judge the professing Christian who doesn’t go on to grow in the Christian life. Instead, I encouraged them to ask the professing Christian three questions to help that person discern their own spiritual condition. 2

Does the professing believer believe the simplicity of the gospel? That is, do they believe that Christ paid the full penalty for their sins when He died on the cross and rose from the dead, so that God can now forgive them based on what He has done for them, not what they do for Him? A professing believer may not grow because they have not understood the gospel and believed in Christ alone for salvation and therefore do not have the Holy Spirit inside them to empower them to become more like Christ. If they do not understand the gospel, it is essential that we share the clear gospel of Christ with them so they may believe in Christ alone who died for their sin and rose from the dead to receive His gift of eternal life and the Holy Spirit to help them begin growing in the Christian life (cf. John 3:14-16; 7:37-39; I Cor. 15:3-6).

Have they been trained by a disciple of Christ since professing faith in Jesus? Too often the reason a new believer does not grow is because the church has neglected to come alongside of them to teach them how to live the Christian life. It is much easier to say a struggling new believer is not saved and evangelize him or her than it is to get more involved in their lives and disciple them. Also, it is unrealistic to expect new believers to be where we are at in a few weeks when it has taken us several years to grow to where we are at now.

Has the professing believer believed in Christ and then fallen away from the Lord? The Bible makes it clear that believers can fall away from the Lord and live contrary to His will. Examples include King Saul (I Samuel 28:4-19), King David (2 Samuel 11), King Solomon (I Kings 11:1-13), Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11), the Corinthian believers who were factious, immoral, and prone to drunkenness (I Corinthians 3:1-6:20; 11:29-32), the Galatians who lapsed into the worst form of legalism (Galatians 1:6-9; 2:11-3:4; 4:16-5:4; 6:12-13), the Ephesians who engaged in Satanic arts for up to two years after their conversion (Acts 19:1-20), the readers of James who were arrogant, argumentative, slanderous and temperamental (James 2:1-13; 3:1-18; 5:1-6), and Demas (2 Timothy 4:10; cf. John 15:6; I Corinthians 3:15; Hebrews 6:4-8).

It is important to warn the Christian who has fallen away from God of the painful discipline of God now (cf. John 15:6; Heb. 6:7-8; 10:26-31; 12:5-11, 28-29) and the painful loss of eternal rewards in the future at the Judgment Seat of Christ (Matt. 8:12; 22:11-13; 24:48-51; 25:24-30; Luke 19:20-26; Rom. 14:10-12; I Cor. 3:8-15; 4:5; 9:24-27; 2 Cor. 5:9-11; I John 2:28; 2 John 1:8; et al. ).

Asking these three questions will help you discern what the professing believer needs. Don’t just assume they are unsaved because they are not manifesting enough fruit. Meet them where they are at so you can more effectively impact their lives.

The book of I John informs us that the reason a believer is not growing is because he or she is out of fellowship with God (1:1-4ff). This may include having unconfessed sin (I John 1:7-10), disobedience to God’s commands (I John 2:3-6; 3:24), hatred toward other believers (I John 2:7-11; 3:10-15; 4:7-21), love for the world and the things of the world (I John 2:15-16), deception by false teachers concerning assurance of salvation and the identity of Christ (I John 2:18-27; 4:1-6; 5:6-13), misunderstanding one’s true identity in Christ (I John 3:1-9), not practicing righteousness which includes failure to love other Christians (I John 3:10-18), and not confessing that Jesus is the Son of God (I John 4:14-15).

In our study of I John, we finished the body of the epistle (2:28-4:19) which ended with the words, We love Him because He first loved us.” (4:19). 3 The way we make our love for God visible is by loving other Christians (I John 4:12-16). Some Christians may read 4:19 and say, “It is easy for me to love God because He does not have any faults or imperfections. But loving my Christian brother or sister is another story because I have seen them up close and they are full of faults.” 4

John responds to this type of thinking when he writes, “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?” (I John 4:20). John reminds his readers (including us) that a Christian cannot claim to “love God” and at the same time he “hates his brother.” Such a claim is false (“he is a liar”). However, it is understandable for a believer to think it is easier to “love God whom he has not seen” than to “love his” Christian “brother whom he has seen,” especially when he does not like what he sees in a fellow Christian. 

“If I can see a physical being and am not willing to meet his physical needs, how can I possibly love a spiritual being whose needs I cannot see? That’s his reasoning. God’s commands draw our love for God and our brothers together. If we don’t keep His commands, we don’t love Him. And He commands us to love other believers. So, if we don’t love other believers, we don’t love God. Thus, to claim to love God when I don’t love my brother/sister makes me a liar.” 5

It is important to know that our love for God is not measured by what we say (“I love God”), but by what we do 6 (“let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth” – 3:18). Nor is Christian love an emotion.

“The word for love throughout John is agapē, a word found only once in all of secular Greek, that is, Greek outside the Bible. And the amount of non-biblical Greek literature we have must be a thousand times more than the amount of Greek we have in the Bible, but this word agapē occurs in that literature only once. That should be a clue to us that this kind of love is only from God. And the issue here is not whether we feel warm and fuzzy toward God, but cold and callous toward our Christian brother/sister. The issue is action.” 7

John has made it clear that loving God involves obeying His commandments, especially the command to love one another (I John 2:3-11; 3:16-24; 4:7-21; cf. John 14:15, 21, 23-24; 15:10-14). If a believer does not obey God’s commands, He does not love God no matter what he says or feels. Hence, a Christian who says, “I love God,” but does not obey God’s command to love his Christian brother, “is a liar” (4:20).8

In addition, God commands us to love both Himself and our fellow Christian brothers and sisters: “And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.” (I John 4:21). Notice the word “commandment” is singular and includes loving God and one’s Christian “brother” or sister. We cannot claim to love our invisible God if we do not love our fellow believer standing in front of us (4:20). We must not deceive ourselves. God’s commandment has interwoven loving Him and loving His children (4:21). We cannot disconnect them. 9

Imagine someone telling you that he or she loved your head, but they hated your body. How would you feel? It would be hurtful, would it not!?! The Bible tells us that Jesus Christ is the head of the body, the church…” (Col. 1:18; cf. Col. 1:24; Ephes. 1:22-23; 4:15; 5:23, 30). Christ is our head, and His church is His body. How would Jesus feel if we said we love Him, but we detest His body? This would deeply hurt our Lord. When we are unloving toward other Christians, we are unloving toward our head, the Lord Jesus Christ.

John anticipated his readers (including you and me) asking, “Who then is my Christian brother or sister?” John writes, “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God…” (I John 5:1a). John defines a Christian brother or sister as “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ.” The word “whoever” includes everyone with no exceptions. When the apostle uses the word “whoever,” he is inviting every person to become a Christian regardless of their country, culture, color, good works, lifestyle, or obedience. This includes the worst of people and best of people and everyone in between.

What does John invite every person to do to become a Christian? BELIEVE. In fact, the words God uses most in evangelism in the New Testament are the words “believe” 10and “faith.” 11 Often times, however, Christians substitute other words or clichés to communicate the most important message given to humanity. Instead of using the words God uses most, they tell a non-Christian to accept Christ, be baptized, turn from your sins or be sorry for your sins, confess your sins, pray the sinner’s prayer, give your life or your heart to Jesus, ask Jesus into your heart, confess Jesus is Lord, follow or obey Jesus, commit your life to Christ, submit to Jesus as your Lord and Master, or surrender your life to Christ.

I am not suggesting that no one has been born again when these clichés are included in a gospel presentation. In fact, there have been times in my own life when I have used some of these phrases. I like what evangelist Larry Moyer has said, “God can still use a crooked arrow to hit a target.” God can still use our unclear gospel presentations to help people come to Christ. But why use an unclear phrase or cliché which will do more to confuse a lost person than clarify what he must do to obtain eternal life? Would it not be better to use the clearest presentation possible so that the unsaved person has the best opportunity to respond to the gospel the way God wants him to respond?

The word translated “believes” (pisteuōn) in I John 5:1 means to be persuaded that Jesus is the Christ and is therefore worthy of your trust. 12 To believe “Jesus is the Christ” is to believe that He is the promised Messiah-God (“Christ”) Who guarantees a future resurrection and never-ending life to all who believe in Him (cf. John 11:25-27). The one who believes Jesus is the Christ “is born of God.” The phrase “born of God” refers to new birth.

Some theologians or Bible students will respond, “Oh, yes, there needs to be a confession of faith in Christ, but the person also needs to manifest fruit or good works or his or her profession of faith is false. A good root produces good fruit.“

There is a problem with this response which I will now illustrate. I live in the Midwest where deciduous trees lose their leaves in the fall. Our state’s tree is the oak tree. During the winter, you could not tell if an oak tree was dead or alive simply by looking at its outward appearance. No one could tell if an oak tree is dead or alive in the middle of winter here … except God. Since God knows everything, He can see the root when all we can see is the fruit. Just because there is no fruit for a period of time does not prove there is no root. 13

Since God can see faith alone with no accompanying outward manifestation, he only requires faith alone in Christ alone to be justified before Him (Rom. 4:5; Gal. 2:16) or have eternal life (John 3:15-16; 6:40, 47; et al.). But for people to see another person’s faith, it must be accompanied by works. This is why the Bible distinguishes justification before God (faith alone – Rom. 4:5; Ephes. 2:8-9) from justification before man (faith plus works – James 2:14-26). Justification before God is necessary to get to heaven. Justification before people is necessary to bring heaven down to earth (i.e., discipleship or spiritual growth).

Since Christians are not all-knowing like God, we are to take a person’s confession of faith in Christ as true. This is what Jesus did in John 11. After Jesus claimed to be the resurrection and the life, and He guaranteed a physical resurrection and never-ending life to those who believe in Him (John 11:25-26a), He asks Martha, “Do you believe this?” (John 11:26b). Christ is seeking a confession from her. He is not asking her to change her life or produce good works. Martha replies, “Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.” (John 11:27). Neither she nor Jesus analyzes her faith to distinguish head faith from heart faith. Martha confidently affirms that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.” What Martha believes about Jesus is exactly what John says in His purpose statement is all that a person must believe to have everlasting life (John 20:31). She knows she has believed in Christ, the Son of God, and therefore she is certain she has eternal life.

Does Jesus correct Martha’s response? Does He caution her to wait and see if her faith is real (as so many do today) through the manifestation of good works or fruit first before making such a confession? Does He ask her if she believes in her “heart” and not merely in her “head”? He does not because as long as any sinner comes to believe that Jesus is “the resurrection and the life,” that is, “the Christ, the Son of God,” he or she knows they have everlasting life.

John then writes, And everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is begotten of Him.” (I John 5:1b). The apostle is telling us that our love for God’s children is not based on their lifestyle or performance. It has nothing to do with their worthiness or deservedness. Our love for God’s children is based on our love for the Father of these children.

“If we love the ‘Begetter,’ we should love the ‘begotten.’ If we love the Father, we should love His children. No love for the children? Then, no love for the Father.” 14

As I read David Anderson’s commentary recently on I John, I was reminded of people who prayed for our family while all of us were living overseas in the Philippines. Even though some of these prayer partners had never met our children, they still cared enough and loved them enough to ask how they were doing and how they could pray for them. The reason they cared enough to pray for our children and ask about them was because for some unknown reason they loved their father. My children were an extension of me. It did not matter how well my kids behaved or how deserving they were. These prayer warriors simply loved my children because they loved their father. To love the father is to love his children. 15

This is what the apostle John is saying in I John 5:1b. We are to love God’s children because we love the Father Who has begotten them. When we love God the Father, we love those who are born of Him. Whoever believes Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the Begetter also loves all who are His begotten.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, we praise You for Your amazing love for us that sent Your only perfect Son, Jesus Christ, to the cross to pay the full penalty for all our sins so we may be born into Your forever family the moment we believe Jesus is the Christ. Although You are unseen, we can make Your love visible by loving one another. Loving You involves obeying Your commands, especially the command to love one another. If we claim to love You Whom we cannot see and disobey Your command to love Your children whom we can see, we are deceiving ourselves. Loving other Christians is not based on their performance or worthiness, but on our love for You, the Father of those You have begotten. Forgive us for thinking more of ourselves than You and Your begotten children. And please help us show Your love to one another as You have shown to us through the Lord Jesus. In His mighty name we pray. Amen.

ENDNOTES:

1. David R. Anderson, Maximum Joy: I John – Relationship or Fellowship? (Grace Theology Press, 2013 Kindle Edition), pg. 15 cites John MacArthur, Jr., Saved without a Doubt (Colorado Springs: Cook Communications, 1992), pp. 67-91.

2. Jeff Ropp, The Greatest Need in Evangelism Today is One Word: BELIEVE (Jeff Ropp, 2014), pp. 35-36 cites Larry Moyer, You Can Tell It! Seminar On Personal Evangelism Instructor Manual (EvanTell, Inc., 2003), pp. 46-47; cf. Larry Moyer, Free and Clear: Understanding & Communicating God’s Offer of Eternal Life, (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1997), pp. 108-113.

3. The majority of Greek manuscripts contain the word “Him” (Auton) in 4:19. See Zane C. Hodges; Robert Wilkin; J. Bond; Gary Derickson; Brad Doskocil; Dwight Hunt; Shawn Leach; The Grace New Testament Commentary: Revised Edition (Grace Evangelical Society, Kindle Edition, 2019), pg. 601.

4. Anderson, Maximum Joy, pg. 225.

5. Ibid., pp. 225-226.

6. Tony Evans, CSB Bibles by Holman, The Tony Evans Bible Commentary (B & H Publishing Group, Kindle Edition, 2019), pg. 2949.

7. Anderson, Maximum Joy, pg. 225.

8. Hodges, The Grace New Testament Commentary, pg. 601.

9. Evans, The Tony Evans Bible Commentary, pg. 2949.

10 Matt. 18:6; 21: 32(3); 24:23, 26; 27:42; Mark 1:15, 9:42; 15:32;16:16(2), 17; Luke 8:12, 13; 22:67; John 1:7, 12, 50; 2:11, 23; 3:12(2), 15, 16, 18(3), 36(2); 4:39, 41, 42, 48, 53; 5:24, 38, 44, 45, 46, 47(2); 6:29, 30, 35, 36, 40, 47, 64, 69; 7:5, 31, 38(2), 39, 48; 8:24, 30, 31, 45, 46; 9:35, 36, 38; 10:25, 26, 37, 38(3), 42; 11:25, 26, 27(2), 42, 45, 48; 12:11, 36, 37, 38, 39, 42, 44(2), 46, 47; 13:19; 14:12; 16:9, 27; 17:8, 20, 21; 19:35; 20:29, 31(2); Acts 2:44; 4:4, 32; 5:14; 8:12, 13, 37(2); 9:42; 10:43, 45; 11:17, 21; 13:12, 39, 41, 48; 14:1, 23, 27; 15:5, 7; 16:1, 31, 34; 17:4, 5, 12, 34; 18:8, 27; 19:2, 4, 9, 18; 21:20, 25; 22:19; 26:27(2); 28:24(2); Rom. 1:16; 3:3, 22, 4:3, 5, 11, 17, 24; 9:33; 10:4, 9, 10, 11, 14(2), 16; 13:11; 15:31; I Cor. 1:21; 3:5; 7:12, 13; 9:5; 10:27; 14:22(2); 15:2, 11; 2 Cor. 4:4; Gal. 2:16; 3:6, 9, 22; Eph. 1:13, 19; Phil. 1:29; I Thess. 1:7; 2:10; 4:14; 2 Thess. 1:10; 2:12,13; I Tim. 1:16; 3:16; 4:3, 10; 6:2(2); 2 Tim. 1:12; Tit. 3:8; Heb. 11:31; I Pet. 1:21;2:6, 7; I John 3:23; 5:1, 5, 10(3), 13.

11. Matt. 9:2; Mark 2:5; Luke 7:50; 17:19; 18:42; Acts 6:7; 14:22, 27; 15:9; 16:5; 20:21; 24:24; 26:18; Rom. 1:17; 3:3, 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30(2), 31; 4:5, 9, 11, 13, 14, 16 (2); 5:1, 2; 9:30, 32; 10:6, 8, 17; 11:20; 16:26; I Cor. 15:14, 17; Gal. 2:16 (2); 3:2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 14, 22, 24, 26; 5:5; Ephes. 2:8; Phil. 3:9(2); Col. 1:4; 2 Thess. 3:2; 2 Tim. 3:15; Tit. 1:4; Heb. 6:1;11:31; James 2:1, 23, 24; I Pet. 1:21; 2 Pet. 1:5; I John 5:4.

12. Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature: Third Edition (BDAG) revised and edited by Frederick William Danker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000 Kindle Edition), pp. 816-817.

13. Adapted from Anderson, Maximum Joy, pg. 226.

14. Ibid., pg. 227.

15. Ibid.

I John 4 – Part 4

“Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.” I John 4:17

It is important to understand that the New Testament speaks of two different judgments separated by the Millennium or one-thousand-year reign of Jesus Christ on earth. The first judgment is for believers in Jesus at the Judgment Seat of Christ which takes place in heaven after the Rapture of the Church (Rev. 4:1-4; cf. Rev. 22:12; John 14:1-3; I Cor. 3:8-15; 15:51-52; 2 Cor. 5:10-11; I Thess.1:10; 4:13-5:11). The second judgment is for nonbelievers after the Millennium (Rev. 20:1-10), and it is called the Great White Throne Judgment (Rev. 20:11-15).

Those who appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ (I Cor. 3:8-15; 2 Cor. 5:10; Rev. 22:12) and the Great White Throne Judgment (Rev. 20:11-15) are judged “according to their works,” not according to their faith or the lack thereof. Since every person is judged “according to their works” at both these judgments, there will be differing degrees of punishment for nonbelievers in the lake of fire as determined by the Great White Throne Judgment (Rev. 20:11-15; cf. Matt. 11:20-24; 23:14; Mark 12:40; Luke 20:47), just as there will be varying degrees of rewards for believers as determined at the Judgment Seat of Christ (I Cor. 3:8-15; 2 Cor. 5:10; Rev. 2:25-27; 4:1-4; 22:12).

The apostle John began the body of his epistle in I John 2:28. It was there that he introduced a new theme of having “confidence” instead of shame before the Lord Jesus “at His coming” to motivate his readers to continue to cultivate fellowship or intimacy with Christ despite the increase in false teachers or “antichrists” (2:18-27). 1 The Greek word translated “confidence” (parrēsia) there refers to a state of boldness and confidence, courage, confidence, boldness, fearlessness, especially in the presence of persons of high rank.” 2 Throughout the body of his epistle, John has focused on how to have more “boldness” or “confidence” both when the Lord Jesus returns (2:28) and when we pray (3:21-22).

Some Christians assume that they could not possibly experience shame at the Judgment Seat of Christ because all their sins were forgiven the moment they believed in Christ for His gift of salvation (Acts 10:43; Col. 2:13-14). But the apostle John reminds us it will be possible for transformed Christians (I John 3:2-3) to experience shame before the Lord Jesus (I John 2:28) when He evaluates both the “good or bad” things they have done in their Christian lives (2 Cor. 5:10). Keep in mind that Revelation 21:3-6, which speaks of there being no more death, nor sorrow, nor pain, takes place after the Judgment Seat of Christ (Rev. 4:1-4) and the Millennium (Rev. 20:1-10). In our transformed bodies (Phil. 3:20-21; I John 3:2), we will probably be more sensitive to sin because our sin nature will be gone along with its excuses and rationalizations for sin (I John 3:2-3). We will have a greater capacity to feel holy shame over sins that we committed on earth.

“It is true, of course, that the Lord Jesus by His death on the cross took away all of our sins, past, present, and future (John 1:29; 1 John 2:2). Sin is no longer a barrier to anyone having eternal salvation. The moment we believe in Jesus for eternal life, He gives it to us. Eternal life, however, does not exclude accountability. Believers still need fellowship forgiveness (1 John 1:9). And if a believer is out of fellowship with God when his life is over, he will experience shame at the Bema.” 3

John now concludes the body of his epistle (I John 4:17-19). “Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.” (I John 4:17). John uses the same Greek word translated “boldness” (parrēsia) that he used in 2:28 and 3:21 where it was translated as “confidence” in the New King James Version.

In I John 4:12, John spoke of perfecting God’s love “in us” (en hēmin) when we love one another with the same sacrificial and selfless love that Christ extended to us (4:12-16; cf. 4:9-10). When God’s love reaches completion “in us,” there is no hate in our relationships with other believers. In 4:17 when John speaks of perfecting God’s love “among us” (meth’ hēmōn), there is no fear in our relationship with God, especially as it relates to “the day of judgment” (4:17-19). 4

When John refers to “the day of judgment” (4:17), he does not mean the final judgment of the unsaved which determines the degree of their punishment in the lake of fire (Rev. 20:11-15). He is speaking here of Christians appearing before the Judgment Seat of Christ which will take place in heaven after the sudden removal of the church from the earth (cf. Rom. 14:10-12; I Cor. 3:8-15; 2 Cor. 5:10-11; I John 4:17-19; Rev. 4:1-4).

A believer may have “boldness” that Christ will approve of his or her Christian life if he or she has entered a mature experience of God’s love (“love has been perfected among us”) by loving other brothers and sisters in Christ. Our “boldness” arises from doing what we know Christ wants us to do – namely love one another (cf. John 13:34-35).

The reason a loving Christian will have no fear before Christ at this time is “because as He is” loving, “so” we can be loving “in this world” as well (4:17b). The more loving we become in our relationships with God’s people, the more we will become like our Judge, Who “is love” (4:8, 16). An unloving believer is not like his Judge so he may be afraid of rebuke or loss of reward as he anticipates standing before Christ at the Judgment Seat (cf. Matt. 24:48-51; 25:24-30; Luke 19:20-26). But a loving believer is one in whom the work of God’s love has been “perfected” or made complete, and the benefit of that is boldness before the One Who will judge him. 5 Mature love expels fear when moral likeness exists between the Judge and the one being judged.

“God’s love is not perfected in a Christian whose heart is simply a reservoir in which to receive it, but only in a Christian whose heart furnishes an aqueduct to convey it to others.” 6

“Every believer will stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Don’t think of it as a trial to determine your salvation but as the Judge’s opportunity to evaluate the Christian life you lived (see 2 Cor. 5:10). In spite of your sins and failures, if you actively sought to minister in love to members of God’s family, you will be able to stand with confidence on that day because ‘love covers a multitude of’ offenses (1 Pet 4:8).” 7

“The idea of having boldness in the day of judgment is stunning. Reasonable Christians, even though fully assured of their salvation, will realize ‘the terror of the Lord’ (2 Cor. 5:11). The possibility of triumphing over that ‘terror’ is challenging indeed. Yet this is possible if believers ‘abide in love’ (1 John 4:16).” 8

I realize that some believers are opposed to the possibility of experiencing fear in heaven at the Judgment Seat of Christ. But we must remember that fear is sometimes appropriate in relationships.

“A child raised in a good home need not fear rebuke if he is doing what his parents ask. A student in school who is obeying the teacher’s rules need not fear detention. A hardworking employee who is abiding by the office regulations has no reason to fear being put on probation.

“The knowledge that actions have consequences motivates us to do right. Many Christians don’t stop to think that the same is true in our relationship with God. If we are busy doing what He wants us to do, manifesting His love to others, we need not fear discipline now or rebuke at the Judgment Seat of Christ.” 9

Like obedient children of good parents, we have nothing to fear at the Judgement Seat of Christ. We can and should be confident, for our Lord is a Judge Who is loving, gracious, and fair. He will reward believers in whom His love has matured. 10

The apostle John continues by saying, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.” (I John 4:18). LovingChristians can anticipate standing with “no fear” before Christ at His Judgment Seat because fear cannot exist with God’s agapē “love.” As believers grow in their love for God and other Christians, God’s “perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment.” The more loving we become on earth now the less fear we will have as we anticipate the Judgment Seat of Christ in the future.

When John says, “fear involves torment,” the word for “torment” (kolasis) occurs only two times in the New Testament. The first time is in Matthew 25:46 where Jesus speaks of the eternal punishment of nonbelievers. Clearly the meaning of the word is “punishment” in that verse.11 In I John 4:18, it seems to speak of a temporal form of punishment. 

Hodges explains, “Fear carries with it a kind of torment that is its own punishment. Ironically, an unloving believer experiences punishment precisely because he feels guilty and is afraid to meet his Judge. Such fear prohibits a completed love (one who fears is not made perfect in love). But a Christian who loves has nothing to fear and thus escapes the inner torment which a failure to love can bring.” 12

Hodges also says, “John likely has in mind the truth that ‘whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives’ (Heb 12:6). In fact, this NT truth is found on the lips of the Lord Jesus in Rev 3:19, ‘As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten.’

“If a Christian experiences fear as he anticipates being evaluated at the Judgment Seat, then this fear can be regarded as a punishment intended to awaken him to his need to correct his behavior. Unpleasant as it is, like all divine discipline (Heb 12:11), it is nevertheless a signal of God’s love and of His desire to see believers made perfect in love. If the Christian responds to this kind of discipline, the discipline is effective and ‘yields the peaceable fruits of righteousness’ (Heb. 12:11), which for John are inseparable from love.” 13

Anderson suggests that the Greek word translated “torment” (kolasin) means restraint. It “is also used of pruning a fruit tree to stunt its growth. So, fear keeps our love from growing up. Fear of what? That which we all fear in relationships, whether it’s with God or men— rejection. Most of us are afraid of rejection from other people. Those who aren’t have felt the sting of rejection so much they have lost their ability to consciously feel at all. This fear of rejection stunts the growth of perfect love…  

“… So I agree with three of my favorite dictionaries of NT Greek, which suggest ‘restraint’ as the best English translation of kolasin. In other words, fear holds us back; it restrains us. It keeps or prevents us from reaching out in sacrificial, selfless, unconditional love. But when we release the Spirit, He can and will produce the fruit of agapē love in our lives. He will cast out the fear which retrains us.” 14

The key to preparing for the Judgment Seat of Christ is underscored in verse 19. “We love Him because He first loved us.” (I John 4:19). The majority of Greek manuscripts contain the word “Him” (Auton) in this verse. It should be mentioned that the standard critical editions of the Greek New Testament omit “Him” and so do the translations based on them [e.g., JB, NASB, NIV, etc.]. This omission is unfortunate because verse 19 is critical to what follows in 4:20-21. 15

Up to this point in John’s epistle, he has been focusing on directing our love toward other Christians (“one another” – 3:11, 23; 4:7, 11-12). Now the apostle speaks directly for the first time in his letter about loving God. A Christian’s love for God originates from His love for us. If we are maturing in our love for one another and for God, there can only be one reason for this. It is “because He first loved us.” 16

As Anderson suggests, the primary reason Christians fail to love one another or God, is because of the fear of rejection. But Christ’s perfect love for us contains no such fear.

Anderson writes, “We get a real clue from the statement that we love God because He first loved us. He was the initiator. We were His sinful enemies. Time and time again He had felt the sting of rejection from us. Even after He came to earth and began to display His wonderful acts of mercy, compassion, and healing, Jesus was rejected by men. We built a high wall of rejection between us and Him. But because ‘God is love,’ perfect love, He is not afraid of rejection. It hurts. It grieves Him deeply. But He is not afraid. So, He set His cross down next to that wall of rejection built by our sins … and He climbed that wall, for you and me. We love Him because He first loved us. Fear of rejection is what keeps us from making the first move, especially if we have already been hurt a number of times by someone who means a lot to us.

“What we are saying here is that only God’s love (mature agapē) can bust through the sinful layers of self-protection which keep us from experiencing oneness with Him and other believers (intimacy/fellowship). We all enjoy the feelings of philē love in marriage, friendships, families, even church. But without growing agapē we will lose those feelings and never get them back. The mistakes we make in relationships because of our sinfulness can create enough pain to destroy all positive feelings of one toward another. But growing agapē can cast out fear. We can reach out again.” 17

No matter how much rejection we have received in the past, God’s perfect love for us can cast out our fear so we can risk loving others again. We love God because He first loved us. We cannot give what we do not have, but once we have received God’s love through faith in Jesus Christ, if we stay close to Him in fellowship, we just get better and better at loving people so we become more like our Judge Who will evaluate our Christian lives at His Judgment Seat. This is God’s climatic message to us in the body of I John (2:28-4:19).

Years ago, Princess Diana made a very interesting observation: “The biggest disease this world suffers from is people feeling unloved.” 18

If you find yourself suffering from the absence of love, there is only one lasting remedy. It is not found in a bottle, a hotel room, money, a pill, or in a syringe. It is found in the Person of Jesus Christ Who loved us without measure.

If you do not know for sure you have eternal life and a future home in Christ’s heaven, please understand that Jesus offers eternal life freely to all who believe in Him. Christ said, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16). Jesus did not say, “God knows how to love.” It is saying something five hundred times greater. “For God so loved the world.” To help us understand the love of God, take the word “so” and let the “S” stand for “something” and the “O” for “other.” God’s love is SOMETHING OTHER than we have ever known.

God does not love us with the love of a two-year old who says, “I’ll love you as long as you do things my way.” God does not love us with the love of a twelve-year old who says, “I’ll love you for what I can get out of you.” Nor does God love us with the love of a twenty-two-year-old who says, “I’ll love you as long as you love me in return.” Instead, He loves us with the kind of love that says, “I love you. Period.” 

God’s love is a deep and unselfish love. It is not based on who you are or what you do. It does not matter if you are a great athlete, the President of the United States, or a person who pushes a broom in an office where everybody else pushes a pen. God knows where you live, He knows everything about you, and He says, “I love you!”

You have lied, and God still loves you. You have been unfaithful to your spouse, yet He loves you. You have entertained a lot of thoughts you should not have, yet He loves you. You take His name and use it as a curse word, and yet He loves you. You have tried to medicate unwanted feelings and memories in immoral ways, yet He loves you. You have harbored hatred in your heart toward those who have offended you, yet God still loves you.

Think about your friends for a minute. Some of them will love you if you are on your best behavior, but God will love you even when you are at your worst. Some of them will love you if you speak well of them, but God will love you even when you curse His name. Some of them will love you as long as you take what you have and give it to them, but God will love you even if you take everything He has given you, and never give Him a thank You. There is nothing you can do to cause God to love you any less.

When Jesus said, “For God so loves the world that He gave His only begotten Son…”, we learn that God’s love gives, it does not take. God gave His best (His Son) when we were at our worst (ungodly sinners). Our hope is based on the fact that “God gave His only begotten Son,” so that instead of you and me dying on the cross for our sins, Jesus Christ died in our place. Instead of us paying for what we have done by our own death, Christ paid for what we have done by His death.

Could you kill your only child to save others? No. Our love is pale compared to God’s love for us. When God says, “I love you. Here’s My perfect and only Son,” that is love. The greatest proof of His love is that He would allow His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ to die for our sins and rise from the dead (I John 4:9-10; cf. Rom. 5:8).

Why did Jesus do this? “…That whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” What does it mean to believe? The phrase “believes in Him” (pisteuōn eis Auton) means to be persuaded that Christ is speaking the truth here and is therefore worthy of your trust. 19

Will you take Jesus at His Word and believe He is speaking the truth when He says, “whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life”? Christ says you “believe” and “have.” Contrary to many evangelistic invitations today, Jesus does not say you “follow” or “obey” and “have.” He never says you “pray” or “surrender” and “have.” Nor does He say you “give” or “confess” and “have.” Christ invites you to take by faith the eternal life that He is freely offering to you. If you just did that, you can tell Him through prayer.

Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, I need Your love in my life. I understand now that You loved me by taking my place and punishment when You died on the cross for all my past, present, and future sins and rose from the dead. I am now believing or trusting in You, Jesus (not my good life, religion, or prayers) to give me Your free gift of eternal life. Thank You for the everlasting life I just received. In Your holy name, I pray Lord Jesus. Amen.

When you believed in Jesus alone for everlasting life, He gave you eternal life which can never be lost (John 6:35-40; 10:28-29). Christ has come to live inside you through His Holy Spirit (John 7:37-39; Ephes. 1:13-14). As you learn to abide in Him and His Word with other believers, His love will be poured out into your heart so you can share it with others (I John 2:3-6, 28; 3:14-4:16; cf. John 15:4-17; Rom. 5:5). The more loving you become in your relationships with God and other Christians, the less fear you will have as you anticipate the Judgement Seat of Christ because you are becoming more like the Judge (I John 4:8, 16) Who will evaluate your Christian life.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, if we are honest, there are times in our lives when we are afraid to love others because of the rejection we have experienced from people in the past. Our fears keep us from initiating contact with others. Thank You, Jesus, for showing us that Your perfect love is not afraid of rejection. It hurts You deeply when we reject You, but out of love for each of us You still endured the cross so we may be in a loving relationship with You. Please help us grow in Your perfect love so we can break out of the many layers of self-protection and experience deeper fellowship with You and other Christians. We invite You to love others through us so we may have more confidence and less shame when we stand before You at the Judgment Seat of Christ. In the mighty name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.

ENDNOTES:

1. Tom Constable, Dr. Constable’s Notes on I John, 2022 Edition, pg. 65.

2. Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature: Third Edition (BDAG) revised and edited by Frederick William Danker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000 Kindle Edition), pp. 781-782.

3. Robert N. Wilkin, The Road to Reward: A Biblical Theology of Eternal Rewards Second Edition (Corinth, TX: Grace Evangelical Society, 2014 Kindle Edition), pg. 21.

4. Constable, Dr. Constable’s Notes on I John, pp. 101-102.

5. Zane C. Hodges, The Bible Knowledge Commentary Epistles and Prophecy, Editors John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck (David C. Cook, 2018 Kindle Edition), Kindle Location 4000 to 4006.

6. Wilkin, The Road to Reward, pg. 22 cites Zane C. Hodges, The Epistles of John: Walking in the Light of God’s Love (Denton, TX: Grace Evangelical Society, 1999), pp. 198-199.

7. Tony Evans, CSB Bibles by Holman, The Tony Evans Bible Commentary (B & H Publishing Group, Kindle Edition, 2019), pg. 2949.

8. Zane C. Hodges; Robert Wilkin; J. Bond; Gary Derickson; Brad Doskocil; Dwight Hunt; Shawn Leach; The Grace New Testament Commentary: Revised Edition (Grace Evangelical Society, Kindle Edition, 2019), pg. 601.

9. Wilkin, The Road to Reward, pg. 21.

10. Ibid., pg. 22.

11. Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, pg. 555.

12. Hodges, The Bible Knowledge Commentary Epistles and Prophecy, Kindle Location 4013 to 4018.

13. Hodges, The Grace New Testament Commentary, pg. 601.

14. David R. Anderson, Maximum Joy: I John – Relationship or Fellowship? (Grace Theology Press, 2013 Kindle Edition), pp. 218-219.

15. Hodges, The Grace New Testament Commentary, pg. 601.

16. Ibid.

17. Anderson, Maximum Joy, pp. 218-219.

18. R. Larry Moyer, Show Me How To Illustrate Evangelistic Sermons (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2012), pg. 209 cites Princess Diana in Time, September 8, 1997.

19. Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, pp. 816-817.

I John 4 – Part 3

“No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us.” I John 4:12

When people go through severe trials, they may ask themselves, “How can a God of love permit me to go through such a horrible experience? I feel abandoned by God, not loved by Him.” Even Christians who have spent their lives loving and serving the Lord have felt this way when they are blindsided by a debilitating disease, a financial collapse, children who have rebelled against God and have no contact with them… you name it. 1

Several years ago, my wife and I felt called by God to start a new church on the south side of Des Moines, Iowa. We resigned from our current church outside of Des Moines to live in an apartment with our three daughters in a nearby town for fifteen months while we received training from the mother church of the church start. Near the end of the training, we bought a new home on the south side of Des Moines with the intent of living there the remainder of our lives if God permitted. At our grand opening in an elementary school, we had over 160 people attend, and several people professed faith in Christ. We were off and running! It was a dream come true.

Fast forward three years. The church had shrunk to about thirty people. We announced to our church family that we were going to resign from the ministry. My wife and I were burned out emotionally and spiritually. For the past year I had been crying out to God for additional Christian leaders to help us in the work of the ministry. When nothing happened, I felt abandoned by God. “Lord,“ I cried out to Him, “We left everything to serve You, and now we are having to step away from the ministry. Where are You in all of this? Don’t You love us anymore?” I knew intellectually that God loved us, but I didn’t feel it. I didn’t experience it.

I share this with you because the apostle John is going to share some important truths that relate to that situation and any situation for that matter where Christians are prone to doubt God’s love for them. John emphasizes seeing God’s love through our relationships with His people (4:12-16). You may recall that in 4:7-11 John exhorted his readers to love one another the way Christ had sacrificially and selflessly loved them. Now he is going to talk about perfecting that love in our relationships with one another.

John writes, No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us.” (I John 4:12). You may wonder, “How can John say no one has seen God when the Bible speaks of people seeing God?”(e.g., Exod. 33:21-23; Isaiah 6:1-5; Rev. 1:10-18). Those encounters with God did not reveal the fullness of His glory or His unveiled divine essence. If people saw God’s unveiled glory or divine essence, they would not live (cf. Exod. 33:20).

This invisible God, Whom no one has seen, “abides” (menei) in believers who “love one another” (4:12b). 2 Loving one another is a condition for fellowship or closeness with God, not salvation. Jesus never said, “Whoever loves one another should not perish but have everlasting life.” He said, “Whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16b). Belief in Christ alone results in eternal life. Loving one another results in God abiding in fellowship with Christians and being Christ’s disciple (cf. John 13:34-35). The Lord is at home in the believer who shares God’s love with other brothers and sisters in Christ.

Furthermore, when we “love one another,” God’s “love has been perfected in us” (4:12c). The Greek words translated “has been perfected” (teteleiōmenē estin) “are in a form (perfect tense) that suggests His love resulting in Christian love. God’s love achieves its goal and reaches its full measure in believers when that love is reproduced in them and reflected through them by loving one another.” 3

God’s (agapē) love is produced by God the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5). It is not something we can create on our own. It is a fruit of God’s Spirit (Gal. 5:21). The moment a person believes in Christ for His gift of eternal life, He receives the Holy Spirit (John 7:37-39; Gal. 3:2; Ephes. 1:13-14) and can begin to enjoy and share this agapē love.

John reminds us, however, that God’s agapē love is not static. It can be “perfected” or reach completeness 4 in a believer which suggests a deeper and fuller experience of that love (4:12; cf. 4:17). 5 God’s love can mature or grow up. For this to happen, we must be in community with other Christians. 6

“We might parallel this to what James tells us about sin in James 1:14-15. He says sin begins as a temptation in the mind. Then when our own lust of our heart merges with the temptation in our mind, Sin is conceived in the womb of our soul. After a gestation period, baby Sin is born into the world of our actions. With exercise and food, baby Sin grows up. When Sin becomes a full-grown adult (mature), she produces death. The point is that for Sin to mature, it must be born into the world of action. With repetition it grows up to maturity.

“Divine love is the same way. It may begin with a good intention in the womb of our spirit, but at this point it is only an embryo of love. For this love to be fully developed, it must be born into the world of our deeds, our actions. Properly nurtured and exercised, love becomes a full-grown, mature, and attractive young woman. And the world takes a look.

“So, this kind of love needs external expression to become mature. That’s why Jesus said He gives His disciples a new commandment to ‘love one another as I have loved you.’ That commandment is like a golden parrot hopping from branch to branch in this book, repeating itself over and over. Jesus says when we learn to love each other this way, then the whole world will know that we are His disciples (His fully-devoted followers). This is mature, perfect love.” 7

Even though a devastating trial can overwhelm a Christian and cause them to doubt God’s love for them, it is in the context of a community of believers who sacrificially and selflessly love one another that their confidence in God’s love for them can be restored (4:13-16). John writes, “By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.” (I John 4:13). The words “By this” refer to the previous verse and means we can “know that we abide in Him, and He in us” when we love one another in Christian community. That is, we can know we are having close, intimate fellowship with God when we are loving one another.

When John states “because He has given us of His Spirit” (4:13b), this reminds us of his words in 3:24, And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.” The Greek construction translated “of His Spirit” (ek tou Pneumatos) in 4:13 is the same for the words translated “by the Spirit” (ek tou Pneumatos) in 3:24. This “suggests participation in the Spirit of God, literally, ‘He has given us out of His Spirit…’ When a believer loves, he is drawing that love from God’s Spirit (cf. Rom. 5:5), Who is also the Source of his confession of Christ (1 John 4:2). Thus, both the faith and the love enjoined in the dual ‘command’ of 3:23 are products of the Spirit’s operation in a believer. A believer’s Spirit-led obedience becomes the evidence that he is enjoying the mutual abiding relationship with God that John wrote about.” 8

John has just told us “if we love one another,” then the God Whom “no one has seen… abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us” through “His Spirit” (4:12-13). As a result of this experience, John writes, “And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world.” (I John 4:14). This is considered by some to be the most important verse in all of I John to understand. 9

The “we” in 4:14 does not refer only to the apostles as it did earlier in the epistle (1:1-5; 2:19; 3:14; 4:6). In all those places there was a contrasting “you” (1:2-4; 2:20; 3:13; 4:4; et al.). But in 4:7-14, there is no contrasting “you,” so the first-person plural (“we” or “us”) includes the apostles and the readers. 10

This is significant because in the first verses of the epistle, John said that he and the other apostles (“we”) have “seen” (heōrakamen), “looked upon” (etheasametha), and “handled” the “Word of Life” physically (1:1). They have “seen” (heōrakamen) and “bear witness” (martyroumen) to his readers about that “eternal life,” Jesus Christ (5:20), Who “was with the Father and was manifested to” them physically (1:2). John wrote of what they have “seen” (heōrakamen) so his readers “also may have fellowship with” the apostles and “with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ” (1:3).

While John’s readers could not see and touch the physical Jesus as the apostles had, when they love one another, John could say have they “seen” (tetheametha)and “testify” (martyroumen) “that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world” (4:14). When we observe sacrificial and selfless love in the community of Christians, John seems to be saying that we can see the Father’s love which was a perfect love, a love that sent His only begotten Son into the world to save the world through His own sacrificial and selfless love on the cross. 11

“The Church has no more effective way to testify to the world about the Saviorhood of Jesus than by the re-display of the Savior’s love in the fellowship of His disciples.” 12

Let’s summarize what John is saying: Although no one “has seen” (tetheatai) God (4:12), Christians who “abide” in Him (4:13) “have seen” (tetheametha)the Son spiritually as His life is manifested among loving Christians.Believers who observe this manifestation have in fact “seen” and can “testify” to the Saviorhood of Jesus (4:14). 13

By loving one another, John’s readers could enjoy fellowship with the apostles in what the apostles “have seen” (heōrakamen) which is exactly why John wrote his epistle (1:1-3a). This is equivalent to having fellowship “with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ” (1:3b). 14

But John also desired that his readers not only have fellowship with him and the other apostles in what the apostles had “seen,” but also in what they had “heard” (akēkoamen) about Jesus Christ (1:1-3a). 15 John writes, “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.” (I John 4:15). Once again John uses the word “confesses” (homologēsē) which means to “to speak the same,” “to agree, confess, acknowledge… in public.” 16 Confessing “that Jesus is the Son of God,” is also another condition for fellowship or intimacy with God (“God abides in him, and he in God”). When Jesus is confessed as “the Son of God,” He is also confessed as “Christ come in the flesh” (4:2) and as the One Who guarantees a future resurrection and never-ending life to all who believe in Him (cf. John 11:25-27). 17

The wording of 4:14 (“we have seen and testify”) reflects the words of John the Baptist when he said of Jesus, “I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God” (John 1:34). So, in the context of the Christian community, John is speaking of the visible manifestation of Christian love accompanied by the verbal confession of Jesus as the Son of God (4:12-15). Both these fundamental expressions among God’s people reproduce what the apostles themselves had “seen” in Jesus and what they had “heard” about Him from His forerunner, John the Baptist (cf. John 1:32-34). 18

Regarding John the Baptist’s testimony in John 1:32-34, Yarbrough states: God’s Spirit descended and ‘remained’ on Jesus, according to John the Baptist (1:32, 33). The Spirit was Jesus’s constant companion. To ‘remain’ or ‘abide’ in Jesus’s teaching is to be His true disciple (8:31). A disciple will be informed and steered by all that Jesus commanded and taught. God the Father ‘remained’ or ‘abode’ with Jesus during His earthly days (14:10). The Father was the source of the very words He spoke, and Jesus ‘remained’ continually in the Father’s love (15:10b. ‘Abiding’ describes a reality involving Father, Son, and Spirit.” 19

When believers live in an atmosphere of mutual Christian love (4:12-15), they can say along with the apostle John, And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.” (I John 4:16). The Greek words translated “have known” (egnōkamen) and “believed” (pepisteukamen) are in the perfect tense. Since these are stative verbs in the perfect tense, they refer to a state of intimate knowledge and total trust that God loves us (see comments on 2:3). 20 Since “God is love,” the Christian “who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.”

When Christians face painful circumstances, it can be easy for us to doubt God’s love for us. The apostle John says the best way to restore our confidence in God’s love for us is to see and hear His love expressed in a Christian community.  

Let me return to my opening testimony. After the closure of the new church in south Des Moines, I was devastated. I doubted that God truly loved me. I felt like a total failure and that God would never use me again to advance His gospel. I had given up on God’s love for me and I assumed He had given up on me as well.

A few months after the church closed, God led my family and I to a church where we encountered His amazing love. The people welcomed us with open arms and came alongside us to help us see ourselves as God’s beloved children. The pastor there had been through a similar church planting experience, and he understood how we felt. He knew how to minister God’s love to us in practical ways that were meaningful to us. Instead of exhorting us with Scriptures, he listened to us and spent time with us. We also got plugged into a small group of believers who loved on us and accepted us as we were.

As we saw and heard the amazing love of Jesus Christ in this Christian community, gradually our confidence in God’s love for us was not only restored, but it was deepened and intensified. We were able to experience the kind of intimate fellowship with God that the apostles experienced.

I don’t know what you are facing right now, but I would guess that some of you are where I was at a few years ago. Perhaps you doubt God’s love for you because you or someone close to you has a debilitating disease or the loss of a job. Maybe after serving God sacrificially and selflessly for years, you were deeply hurt by an unloving Christian. As a result, God’s love seems very distant and invisible to you.

Whatever pain you are carrying, please know that God wants to reveal His love to you through His people. Just as we cannot see the wind, we can see its effects. We cannot see God, but we can see His love operating through Christians when they love one another. 21 His children are not perfect. But if they are enjoying intimate fellowship with the God of love, they will be able to share that love with you. And if you will let them do that, your knowledge and faith in God’s love for you will be restored and deepened.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank You for making Your sacrificial and selfless love visible to us through Your only begotten Son Whom You sent to die on a cross for all our sins. Such love may be difficult for us to believe when we encounter severe trials and disappointments in life. We may doubt Your love for us when we experience suffering and pain. But You never intended for us to face that pain and suffering alone. Thank You for providing an atmosphere of mutual Christian love in churches that abide in You and Your Holy Spirit. Use us to be a channel of Your love to those who doubt Your love for them. May each of our churches reflect the love of the Savior as we love one another. In the mighty name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.

ENDNOTES:

1. Adapted from David R. Anderson, Maximum Joy: I John – Relationship or Fellowship? (Grace Theology Press, 2013 Kindle Edition), pg. 212.

2. The phrase, “If we love one another” (ean agapōmen allēlous) is a third-class condition and refers to a general truth at the present time. See Archibald Thomas Robertson, A. T. Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament [with Bible and Strong’s Numbers Added!], 6 Volumes (E4 Group, 2014 Kindle Edition), Kindle Location 207051.

3. Zane C. Hodges; Robert Wilkin; J. Bond; Gary Derickson; Brad Doskocil; Dwight Hunt; Shawn Leach; The Grace New Testament Commentary: Revised Edition (Grace Evangelical Society, Kindle Edition, 2019), pg. 600.

4. Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature: Third Edition (BDAG) revised and edited by Frederick William Danker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000 Kindle Edition), pg. 996.

5. Zane C. Hodges, The Bible Knowledge Commentary Epistles and Prophecy, Editors John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck (David C. Cook, 2018 Kindle Edition), Kindle Location 3973.

6. Anderson, Maximum Joy, pg. 212.

7. Ibid.

8. Hodges, The Bible Knowledge Commentary Epistles and Prophecy, Kindle Location 3974 to 3979.

9. Tom Constable, Dr. Constable’s Notes on 1 John, 2022 Edition, pg. 99 cites Zane C. Hodges, The Epistles of John: Walking in the Light of God’s Love (Irving, Tex.: Grace Evangelical Society, 1999), pg. 192; Hodges, The Grace New Testament Commentary, pg. 600.

10. Hodges, The Grace New Testament Commentary, pg. 600.

11. Anderson, Maximum Joy, pg. 214.

12. Constable, Dr. Constable’s Notes on 1 John, pg. 99 cites Hodges, The Epistles of John, pg. 192.

13. Hodges, The Bible Knowledge Commentary Epistles and Prophecy, Kindle Location 3985 to 3990.

14. Hodges, The Grace New Testament Commentary, pg. 600.

15. Ibid.

16. Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, pg. 708.

17. Hodges, The Grace New Testament Commentary, pg. 600.

18. Ibid.

19. Constable, Dr. Constable’s Notes on 1 John, pg. 100 cites Robert W. Yarbrough, 1—3 John, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament series (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), pg. 252.

20. Anderson, Maximum Joy, pg. 216.

21. Tony Evans, CSB Bibles by Holman, The Tony Evans Bible Commentary (B & H Publishing Group, Kindle Edition, 2019), pg. 2948.