SECTION 3
In this third and last division of the epistle, John sets forth what God is achieving by means of Christianity on earth. It is the system established by God to bear witness to His truth. “This is” is the characteristic phrase in this final section:
- This is the love of God (verse 3)
- This is the victory (verse 4)
- This is He that came (verse 6)
- This is the testimony concerning His Son (verse 9)
- This is the testimony (as to His life in us) (verse 11)
- This is the confidence (verse 14)
- This is the true God and eternal life (verse 20)
Verse 3 “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not grievous.”
John is setting forth the present expression of the love of God on earth. It was perfectly manifested and expressed in Christ. Such is the greatness of Christianity that divine love can be fully and incorruptibly expressed on earth by its exponents. For them, this demands that they continue to keep His commandments. Christianity is not merely concerned with men being born-again but that this life might be purposeful in the present. For His purpose, God requires a people willing and able to keep His commandments.
God gave His original people Israel the commandments to keep, that by doing so they might become His people effectively. In this they failed, as was shown when they were put to the test by Jehovah Himself coming into their midst in the flesh. They did not recognise their God when He came to them in this form. They were unprepared for Him (prepare ye the way of Jehovah!) because of their previous national failure to keep His commandments in the right way. They failed to realise their true spiritual constitution and to live up to it. To them Judaism had become a fleshly religion and God was edged out of it, in truth. We also in Christianity may be in danger of committing the same spiritual error.
We must keep His commandments if we are to express this love of God. His commandments, like the law, Rom.7:14, are spiritual. They are not an ethic for the flesh, a code of moral rules to be kept, any more than the ten commandments were, according to divine intention. The commandments of Christianity are the apostolic doctrines upon which the family of God is built – “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ being the chief cornerstone” Eph.2:20. These commandments are obeyed by the new man, also referred to in Eph.2, rather than by the old nature in believers. The present expression of the love of God on earth is thereby realised.
God’s commandments are not burdensome. Fleshly rules are burdensome, those which Phariseeism, Matt.23:4, and nowadays Puritanism, impose on its disciples. Religion which is intended to tame the socially bad part of human nature and encourage social good is a burdensome imposition upon human life. This sort of interpretation of the Word of God has led to untold suffering and wholesale spiritual wreckage in the lives of many believers. God’s commandments in Christianity have nothing to do with human nature and natural life. They are spiritual and are given to develop and direct the new life God has begotten by His love. This is the light in which we are to walk in this life if the love of God is to be expressed by us.
Verse 4 “For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.”
Whatsoever, not whosoever, has been born of God overcomes the world. What God has done and is doing continues to overcome the world. This isChristianity, established by God and practised by His people when the spiritual ideal has been realised. This is what God has already succeeded in doing as a result of the life, death and glorification of the Lord Jesus and the work of the Spirit. He has entrusted the furtherance of His work to a people He has acquired for Himself, that by them the world might continue to be overcome. This is of course in their reception of the completed Scriptures and of the spiritual ability to interpret them, rather than in any natural ability to overcome the world. God has, for His purpose, chosen the things that are not to bring to nought the things that are. God’s work has produced in the world that which is wholly of Himself and is greater than the world. This is the Word of God and the people of God embodying the spiritual ideal.
Thereby divine purpose is being completed and the opposition being overcome. God’s Word will not return to Him void but will accomplish that whereunto He has sent it, Isa.55:11. Outwardly the world remains unchanged as a result of God’s intervention but spiritually the world is being overcome. The world is the natural sphere God created for
the realising of eternal purpose. Herein the fulness of divine activity was to take place. The world of nature, that which can be seen by man and assessed by his natural intelligence and abilities, is his greatest enemy. He looks upon the temporal things that are seen but does not look upon the unseen eternal things, that which the Word of God contains.
In the outworking of divine purpose the world has come under the influence of the power of evil. “The whole world lieth in the wicked one” verse 19. Creation has been subjected to vanity – in hope, Rom.8:20. Nature, including human nature, was made meaningless and purposeless in itself by God. There is no power in nature great enough to make it blessed, to fill it with divine peace and prosperity. God allowed evil to take it in order to manifest its present inherent purposelessness. Evil, i.e. anti-purpose, has as a result built up its kingdom in this world. Christ’s kingdom is not of this world, else would His servants fight to get it for Him.
God has, however, introduced into such a world order His supremely purposeful power to overcome the world. This is the power of revealed truth which can become exercised by spiritual men. It forms and activates those who are called according to His purpose. This is the “whatsoever” that overcomes the world in the present spiritual conflict between good and evil. It is contained and practised only in Christianity as yet.
John then proceeds to show how we are involved in this purposeful divine activity. “This is the victory that overcometh (aorist participle) the world, even our faith”. God has succeeded in conferring upon us that by which the world is overcome. God has overcome all the powers acting in creation contrary to His purpose and by His victory has produced faith in us. He has implanted in us that which is of Himself. It is the power by which He is bringing about His ultimate intentions. The Word of God produces faith in us, the present effect God desires from having given it. Faith is in us. The faith, the body of doctrine, is in the Word of God. One lays hold upon the other; the new nature and its intelligence lays hold upon the fulness of truth. In this is the overcoming of the world.
God has gained the victory, the overcoming being complete in that He has, by His finished work, broken through the ranks of the Philistines for us. The faith that we possess and live by spiritually and that which we believe and build upon, the faith is the present victory. By what results from it will be brought about the ultimate triumph of good over evil in creation.
The spiritual character of him who goes on overcoming the world in Christianity is then presented. Firstly, it is “whatsoever” that overcomes the world. Then secondly, there is presented the accomplished victory we share, the victory that overcomes the world.
Verse 5 “Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?”
Christian life is really a question of sharing the fruits of God’s victory. The world is overcome in the sense that there is now nothing that can prevent divine peace and prosperity being ultimately established on earth. The overcoming consists firstly in divine ability to beget a new sort of life. Secondly, that form of life has been conferred upon men by the Word which has come from God to him. Thirdly, he lives that life in spiritually fruitful conditions.
John sets forth the character of the perpetually victorious in the form of a question, as if to indicate that God is seeking such a people to share the spoils of His victory now. God is looking for world-overcomers as a result of having Himself overcome the world. He has brought them into a sphere of victory suitably equipped to benefit from it. Such truth is referred to in many parts of Scripture. For example, in Col.2:15 Paul speaks of God spoiling principalities and authorities, triumphing over them. Then again in Eph.6:12 he speaks of us wrestling against principalities and authorities, etc.
The greatest and most powerful created beings are spirit beings, the angels. Even though some of these beings rebelled against God primordially, they have lost none of their greatness and wisdom. In begetting divine life in man, God has formed the supreme form of life for the revelation of His purpose. Those who possess it, ideally are brought into a sphere, Christianity, in which this life grows into spiritual perfection. Then they can overcome the spiritual hosts of wickedness and possess the inheritance of the full knowledge of God. Evil, by its false prophets, has converted the world to a false appreciation of the God of nature and now also of the God of the Word of God. Yet divine provision – His Word understood by His system – has opened up supreme good for His people to enter into. Thereby they can understand the things that angels desire to look into, 1 Pet.1:12. The people of God now strive to enter into the Kingdom of God and so arrive at the full knowledge of the truth. This is that they may fill this sphere now and ultimately administer its blessing to all when the victory is universally enjoyed, i.e. in the millennial age.
He who continues to overcome is he who continues to believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Christianity is above all a system of God’s establishing on earth which contains and mediates all the truth involved in Jesus being the Son of God. It is not just that Jesus, His human name, was the Son of God on earth or that He is still the Christ in heaven as in verse 1. He continues to be Jesus the Son of God in heaven for present benefit to us on earth. Humanity now goes on existing in Deity. This again is what is found in John 17. In response to that prayer God has glorified Jesus with the glory He had with Him before time began. This is what Christianity causes us to believe in our new-found spiritual intelligence. The glory which God gave to Christ as a result of His coming into the world, Christ has given to us.
True knowledge comes from the spiritual ability given men by their possessing divine life and continuing in divine love. God enables them to understand the true significance of His Word and to believe in that. Faith is not the acceptance of unprovable facts by men just because God states them in a literally authoritative way. The overcoming of the world is through God conferring understanding upon His people of the things which are eternal. ‘Through faith we understand God’, Heb.11:3. They see beyond the world into the uncreated heavenly sphere and so natural things do not hinder their spiritual progress to perfection of growth and occupation of the heavenlies.
The heavenly places they thus enter into in spirit are characterised for them by their seeing and knowing Jesus as the Son of God, the Supreme Being therein. Successful Christianity on earth, the overcoming of the world, comes from living spiritually in the heavens. We come to see Christ in the Word of God as God sees Him. The heavenly places have changed their spiritual character in that this Man has been glorified in Deity therein, above every principality and authority. Christian belief shows us that we have been raised with Him and sit with Him there. A ‘Christianity’ in which there is no necessity to believe about a glorified Man who is the Son of God, does not overcome the world. It is fleshly and worldly.
Verse 6 “This is He that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ: not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.”
Verse 5 sets forth the new truth in heaven which characterises Christianity. There is a Man in heaven who is God. Verses 6-9 set forth the new truth on earth which also characterises Christianity. The Spirit of truth is here. Verse 6 sets forth basic spiritual facts involved in the Lord Jesus’ life on earth which came to characterise Christianity. This is He that came. His pre-incarnate life in Deity is being presented as having come into humanity. He came in flesh, in ordinary human nature, sin apart. Here, however, more is involved than that. He came not in but through water and blood. John is speaking of the new sphere He entered and so opened up for the people of God. Jesus the Christ entered into the heavenlies through coming by this way – through the water and the blood. He came through the old sphere in such a way that others might come to Him in the new.
Water and blood are earthly, natural things which symbolise that which is heavenly. They would set forth the love and righteousness of God in action toward humanity in its natural state of failure. God is loving and righteous and insists upon being so to humanity for its judgment and then blessing. This brought the Son into the world. In human terms, viewing the coming and work of Christ from the manward aspect, water would symbolise death and judgment. That is, death and judgment to men – representatively or vicariously descending upon Jesus the Christ – is the activity of God for the removal of the sin against which His judgment is directed. Blood symbolises life, the divine life conferred by Christ upon man when his sin has been judged and removed by Christ’s sin-bearing act.
In the spiritual history of the Lord Jesus on earth, the water sets forth His baptism and what was involved in it for Himself and so for us in Christianity. The blood sets forth the death, particularly as the means of opening up glory for Himself in humanity and so for us also. He entered into heaven by, in virtue of, His own blood, Heb.9:12. Had He so chosen, He could have come to earth as a glorious Messiah, subjecting the present world to Himself by the exercise of His miraculous powers without reforming it spiritually and without regenerating man. This would have been a denial of the love and righteousness of God, which insists on accomplishing both these things for eternal blessing.
Instead, however, He came through the water and blood at the cost to Himself of His humiliation, suffering and dying in the flesh. At the outset of His public ministry He identified Himself with a humble, repentant remnant who had confessed their sin and were waiting for God to deal with it and so lay the basis for blessing. Through His baptism He publicly undertook their cause and so removed the effects of their previous spiritual failure. This was the way the Saviour deliberately and voluntarily took, thereby procuring a purified people for divine purpose. He did not exercise His divine ability directly to bring natural peace and prosperity to earth, except in token to demonstrate that He might have done so if He had willed. Yet in His life in the flesh He remained among the lost sheep of Israel, straitening Himself thereby, limiting Himself to procure that which the Father desired. So He came through water.
This spiritual state of affairs lasted right up to the cross. At this point, again deliberately and voluntarily, He ended His life in flesh that thereby He might enter into glorified Humanity in the supreme sphere. He did so through blood. Life in the heavenly sphere for Himself, in continued, albeit glorified humanity, involved death for Him in the old sphere. He shed His fleshly life to open up glory eternally for those who came under the virtue of its sacrifice.
He came into the new sphere, the sphere into which Christianity now introduces us spiritually, not through the water only but by the water and the blood. In virtue of refusing to continue a ministry by which He might have bettered the world in a natural, earthly way – refusing an earthly people to procure a heavenly one – He came through the world so as to enter into the place of glory He now fills. This was how He overcame the world and the forces of evil He found in it, for divine purpose. This is the sort of Christ we have in Christianity.
Along with these two spiritual events on earth, which characterise Christianity, there is also a third which completes the triad. This is the coming of the Spirit who testified, because He is the Truth in this present day and age. Christianity is characterised by a God who came into humanity to purify a people by the truth He brought with Him. In that humanity He then accomplished a work which would open up divine glory for man. This Man, who was God in flesh, then returned in His new humanity into heaven, from whence He sent the Holy Spirit, testimony to the fact that He had been glorified in heaven. The Holy Spirit, the God of Christianity come forth in divine procession, comes to produce desired effects on earth from this completed work of Christ.
Just as the Lord Jesus was the Truth on earth, John 14:16, so the Holy Spirit is now the Truth on earth. God is absolutely true to Himself and He is this for man in blessing. The form which this truth now takes on earth is not the fleshly form of the Lord Jesus but the testimony being borne by the Holy Spirit. This, in spiritual history, is the event which occurred at Pentecost and the work which continued thereafter, whereby the Scriptures of truth were completed. It also includes His present work, whereby He causes the completed revelation of God to be understood aright by His people on earth.
The Holy Spirit, like Jesus, is God Himself. He has proceeded forth into earth so that the work initiated by God might be completed therein. He has not as yet come to exercise His Divinity for the earthly benefit of humanity at a natural level. He has not come to improve human nature by exercising His beneficient influence upon it. It is true that one day the Holy Spirit will be poured upon all flesh. The present time, however, is characterised by His testifying of the Person and work of the Son, who preceded Him in manifestation on earth as the Truth to a people capable of receiving the testimony.
Verses 7/8 “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear record in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.” (This is the text according to the best manuscript authority).
It is not three Persons but three things that agree in one (neuter) – the three spiritual events which have occurred on earth that characterise Christianity.
First the Christ came by water, second by blood and then thirdly the Spirit came as witness-bearer to the character and work of God. Christianity is characterised by a Christ who was baptised, a Christ crucified and by a completed Bible.
There are three who continue to bear witness in the earth; the Spirit, the water and the blood. The order is now different. The Spirit’s work is put first as to the bearing of witness. Here it is not the internal spiritual character of Christianity but the external testimony, the present witness borne to revealed truth, the present work of God on earth. The Holy Spirit has been sent forth into creation to bear testimony. He did so by coming into the midst of the people whom the Lord had gathered to Him on earth and purified by the Word He gave them. This is what is set forth in the upper room, John 13. In the discussion about feet-washing He declared that they had been washed once-for-all. This is the water, the people cleansed and sanctified, fit for the Master’s use for effective witness-bearing. The blood would set forth the newly-revealed divine truth connected with the death of the Messiah, which is presented in the world in the form of the preaching of the gospel.
These three, a completed Bible, a perfected company and the gospel of divine grace, agree in one thing. They agree in glorifying God’s Son as to His life, death and present glorification in heaven as a Man. The life of the Lord Jesus on earth had to do with the Son glorifying the Father. The present time has to do with the Holy Spirit glorifying the Son as to His Sonship by this threefold means – completing the Word of God, perfecting man to know it and producing divine life in sinners by the preaching of the gospel.
Verse 9 “If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which He hath testified of His Son.”
‘The testimony of men’: this would be the preaching and doctrine of the disciples who became the apostles of Christianity. At the beginning of Christianity there was of course no written, authoritative Word. The men spoken of here became the official testimony-bearers of the new truth of God revealed by Christ in the flesh, His words and His works. This is presented in John 15:27 and Acts 1:8. God established Christianity by this means. The original churches of God were dependent upon receiving the spoken word of the apostles for their constitution as churches and for the truth of the Christ they possessed. They had the commission of Christ in resurrection to do this, as in Matt.28:18-20. Their apostolic ministry was received as authoritative.
Fully developed Christianity, however, came to be characterised by a greater testimony than this: here it is called the testimony of God. In the transitional period of the establishing of Christianity, its exponents were dependent upon the Holy Spirit acting by human agency, the revelatory gifts. Holy oracles were delivered to the churches in spoken form, whether by apostles, prophets or by those who spoke in tongues. This was the period described by John as the time when ‘we received the testimony of men’. Paul describes it in 1 Cor.13 as the time when ‘we see as in a mirror, obscurely’, before the time of ‘perfection’ would come.
When the churches thereby became established throughout the world, God used this as the means whereby the Word of God would be completed. The apostles wrote the epistles to them and then the gospels came to be written. Last of all the apocalypse, which God gave to Jesus Christ, was given by John to the churches. God was then working in the world by special human agency to complete divine revelation once-for-all. This is the testimony of God which He has testified concerning His Son.
After that spiritually necessary phase was completed, God ceased to act by special ecclesiastical authority invested in particular chosen men. Now that the Word of God has been completed in written form, the testimony of God, He acts directly in His people by this authority. The content and virtue of the Word of God is no longer mediated by ecclesiastical authority, the testimony of men. The work of revelation is complete and the work of interpreting that revelation is the prerogative of all God’s people now. Ideally, there is now no hierarchy in Christianity. Men do not mediate the new life in Christ to others. God does it Himself. Having completed His revelation, God acts toward men on the basis of this. This is fully developed Christianity, rather than the preaching of the Word by the apostles or those who claim for themselves apostolic succession, as in its pristine days.
Verse 10 “He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believed not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of His Son.”
Divine life begotten in humanity by the reception of the Word of God and its life-giving power, is the testimony of God. The testimony of God concerning His Son is the written Word which becomes the living and effectual testimony in those who receive it. This is what God effectively does to substantiate and glorify the Sonship of Christ on earth. He glorifies the Son by conferring sonship upon those who receive the Word of God. “I am glorified in them” John 17:10. God can produce faith, that which is of Himself, in man by His Word whereby the Son of God is believed in. “Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God”. By the Word of God men can come to realise that they cannot attain to any merit or effective standing before God by their own nature and its works. They realise that they obtain it by the work of God which produces belief in the Son of God. The life and merit of the Son of God is in man by the faith which the Word of God produces in him.
The Word of God and His effective testimony concerning His Son, His proven ability to produce eternal life in man, now judges men on earth. The work God does in His people – and the work His people do in interpreting His Word – has become the present testimony of God on earth. The testimony is not by any natural change which men undergo upon receiving God’s salvation. Frequently, in what passes for Christianity, this social, emotional improvement is presented as being that which God can do for men if they believe the gospel. God is frequently declared to be able to change drunkards, gamblers, drug addicts, psychopaths, etc. In fact God is unable to change the nature which leads some into such excesses. Rather, God is doing something exceedingly greater than this. He is giving His own eternal life to men. This life is now resident in man and the positive, spiritual, demonstrable effects it produces – the presentation of the true meaning of the Word of God which the best brains and success of natural man cannot give – is the witness of God to man on earth concerning His Son. Certain men possess His life and its power to make God known.
Humanity is being presented with such a testimony. Those who do not believe in such a God – whose testimony to His Son is being manifestly presented by those who believe – make Him a liar. The truth of God, testified concerning His Son, comes forth into the world now by the service of such a people. When the Lord Jesus was on earth, as set forth in chapter 1:1, the disciples heard, handled and saw eternal life manifested in such a form. Now the world is being presented with God’s present testimony, invested in a people who possess His life and spiritual abilities. In that life, Christ fully revealed God. In our present possession of it we should come to possess the fulness of the knowledge of God now contained in the letter of the Word of God. The light of divine revelation came into the world in Christ and remains in the world in the Word of God. The truth of the Word of God shines forth amidst the world’s spiritual darkness to manifest the savour of His knowledge in every place, 2 Cor.2:14.
Men by nature, however, love the darkness rather than this sort of light. This is their condemnation, that they make God a liar. Men of the world, who value natural things in a spiritual or religious way, are condemning themselves by not believing in the testimony of God thus presented. This is the truth also set forth by John in his gospel, chapter 16:8-11 concerning the manifesting of the Holy Spirit. The fact that the Holy Spirit is now conferring the full knowledge of God upon His people, is a condemnation of the old human nature which does not believe and knows not the God of revelation. In His gospel, God is declaring what He is capable of performing.
Verse 11 “And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.”
The present testimony is that God has given to the present people of His purpose, eternal life as a free gift. Testimony is thereby being borne by God to such life being in His Son even if He is no longer personally present on earth. What is shown to be true in us on earth is declared to be true because the life of the Son of God is now communicable. He is the source and supply of the eternal life resident in us on earth.
God is thereby declaring on earth that He has in His Son, now a Man in His presence, One who is accomplishing divine purpose. The declared intention of God is to cause humanity, ultimately all humanity, to be alive in creation in the supreme form of life, i.e. divine life resident in created life. God has already caused this to be effectively the case in the people He has selectively acquired (‘‘given’ is in the aorist tense). This present acquisition by God of what He desires is a means to an end. He now uses this accomplished and demonstrable fact, that we have eternal life, to bear witness to Christ’s Sonship in humanity in glory. The Son has already become the begetter of many other sons. This is an evident proof that God will by this means accomplish all that He purposed in Himself before time began. He is bringing many sons to glory.
Verse 12 “He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.”
This is the supreme form of life by which the heavens and the earth will ultimately be populated. The present stage in the evolution of divine purpose is characterised by certain men having the Son and so already having the life. Others do not yet have it. Good and evil now co-exist in creation but the supremacy of good, of the power by which God is realising His purpose, is now being declared. Evil does not prevent God doing the work He has committed Himself to and He is doing this work in us in humanity. We go on having the life.
Meanwhile, ordinary human life goes on in the world also. Men still continue to live merely in nature, apart from the Son of God. He that has not the Son of God has not the life. The outworking of divine purpose is not in the natural realm. The only ultimate purpose served, Godwardly, in man continuing to live in nature is that the work of a new lifegiving God is appropriate to the state of spiritual darkness man is found in by nature. God is bringing His sons out of it as the ultimate means of blessing all creation. There is no power in creation, apart from the life and power of the Son, by which eternal peace and prosperity can be established in creation.
Verse 13 “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.”
John then declares that he had written these things to this family of God purposefully. These holy oracles were written in connection with the divine purpose for which they were constituted a family. They should continue to exist and act as a divine family on earth. He was of course knowingly writing the Word of God, referrable to every such family on earth, every such company of God’s people. This was written that they might know that they have eternal life who believe in the Name of the Son of God (JND).
The Name of the Son of God would signify all the truth concerning Him now made known to man on earth. He Himself is in heaven but His Name is on earth. His people are to afford Him His rightful place in their midst, whose Name is believed in. The Name is the revealed truth of the Son of God, given to us by the Holy Spirit, around which we are gathered. We are ideally believers gathered unto, or into, the Name of the Son of God that we might magnify His Name on earth as a result.
John wrote that such might know that they have eternal life as a present possession and be in present effective enjoyment of it. ‘Ye know’ and ‘we know’ are phrases which are used several times in the final verses of the epistle. The true practice of Christianity, the true service of the family, comes from right christian knowledge. Such knowledge does not come just as a matter of birthright but from working to gain possession of all the blessings which God has made available for us in the heavenlies. We have writings from the apostles which we, in contrast to the world, are capable of appreciating in all their true fulness. Therein we see the Son of God rather than the sons of Adam, man in the flesh. Thereby we gain a spirititual mind which intelligently appreciates the truth. This is the way by which all the Scriptures may be interpreted and a fully revealed God is perfectly known.
Verses 14/15 “And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us. And if we know that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him.”
John is setting forth the greatness of the place we occupy in Christianity. It determines our place and service toward the God of revelation while we are still on earth and yet also alive in the spiritual sphere in which God is fulfilling His purpose in creation. It is of God and so we are confident that it can – and that we will by it – achieve that for which God established it on earth to accomplish. Our being made His family has to do with God realising His ultimate intentions. Our work is really His work. So we have confidence that all our requirements will be met by God upon demand.
Though we are called and constituted so as to be purposeful to God as a family, yet at the same time we remain alive in fleshly weakness and susceptibility to error. God does not achieve His purpose by making us supermen in the flesh. In ourselves we remain frail, particularly in relation to the powerful spiritual forces that act upon us, and the greatness of the issues with which we are involved. Divine intervention which favours us, albeit in perfect righteousness in the function we are given to perform, is such that we can legitimately make demands upon God.
In a negative sense, if we ask God for the restraining of natural forces and circumstances, He will intervene. More importantly, in a positive way, we can take God’s spiritual help for granted upon request. We are required first of all to know what is the revealed will of God for His people. This is the true response demanded of us from having received His life and His Word. If such a spiritual response is forthcoming from us then it will elicit further response from God, who will then give us what we ask for.
God is now bringing His intentions into being on earth. He has brought life and incorruptibility to light in the gospel. He has chosen to realise His purpose through His people. He can now, in righteousness, act for a people who know His revealed will and respond accordingly. They do not develop within themselves the power to act directly in present earthly circumstances to alter these for their own spiritual success. Greater than this, however, they have access to God’s ear when they thus respond to Him and, as a result, find themselves in need of His intervention. Ours is a God of hearing, who effectively acts for us when the necessary spiritual conditions are fulfilled by us.
This spiritual situation, known to exist between an enlightened, responsive people and a hearing and active God, creates boldness in us toward Him. It also creates further knowledge in us concerning ensuing spiritual events. We have the assurance that God hears and responds to every request made concerning the circumstances here spoken of. This is basic christian knowledge upon which we are called to rely, despite outward appearances which might cause us to feel that God is not responding. We are to walk by faith and not by sight. We know that every circumstance that we become involved in as a family of God results from the determining hand of a God who works all things together for good to those who are called according to His purpose. Everything then that happens to us is according to divine intention. What happens to us as a result of our involvement in divine purpose and what comes from our asking according to God’s known will for us is determined by God’s supreme intelligence and ability to respond to our good. We know we can elicit the optimum spiritualresponse from God. The form His intervention takes must be for the spiritual benefit of the company and for the realising of divine intention.
Verse 16 “If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.”
Trouble, the power of evil, is seen here as having assailed the family of God, apparently successfully. As a result of the onslaught of evil, a brother is seen to be sinning. Active evil produces both things – the perception by one brother of another brother sinning. The first brother has a true perception of evil, acquired in the spiritual sphere of assembly life. The other brother has spiritual evil manifestly acting in him. He goes on sinning.
The resources of God’s family to deal with evil in such circumstances are then revealed. God does not cause His family to succeed by so constituting them that they are impervious to evil and spiritually infallible. He introduces them into the sphere of conflict between good and evil so they are taught to war. Thereby they acquire spiritual power. His resources and the provision of His system are brought out for them.
The family are to know how to react toward this apparent defeat by the knowledge already possessed by them. The spiritual benefit of the company and of the brother who was sinning is involved. The matter has to be dealt with in perfect righteousness therefore. They must decide first of all, by the basic knowledge they possess, whether the sin of the brother is unto death or not unto death. Death is not of course physical death or there could be no problem. Because of the sin this brother was committing he was in a state of spiritual deadness. Evil had overcome him and he was a source of spiritual liability to the company, rather than being alive for its profit. Yet his sins were perceived by the spiritual man to be not unto death.
Death would signify the excommunication of the sinning brother from the family. The same sort of language is used by Paul in 1 Cor.5:5 to set forth the spiritual significance and purpose of excommunication. It is for the death or destruction of the fleshly nature and tendency in the brother, which caused him to sin so grievously. Sinning a sin not unto death would be committing the sort of sin which can be dealt with by forgiveness rather than by excommunication. The Lord Jesus Himself spoke of this, e.g. in Matt.16:19. The apostles, John 20:23 and subsequently the churches, 2 Cor.2:10 had the authority to bind or unloose sin, to excommunicate or to forgive. In the Old Testament there were wilful sins and sins of ignorance. These would on the one hand be sin against God’s revealed truth, sin which is satanic in origin and character, or on the other hand moral sin arising from a fallen nature.
Sin when it conceives brings forth death. Spiritual death, purposeless spiritual existence in fact, occurs when a brother acts in the family under the governing influence of evil. Such sin, the power of evil acting within the company, would cause the brother and even the company to cease to be purposeful if it continued. God has in His wisdom, however, created provision in Christianity to deal with evil when it produces effects within the company. The people of God individually are not greater than, or insusceptible to, evil’s power. But collectively, by means of the truth which forms and governs them, they can deal with evil’s forces. Evil need not destroy the system of Christianity, and even their exposition of it, despite human frailty.
They are held responsible to deal with sin as they see it being committed within. Judgment must begin at the house of God, 1 Pet.4:17. If divine truth remains uncorrupted in their handling of it, they will retain their spiritual purity, increase their spiritual ability and so continue to be effective for God. Thereby they can overcome in the conflict going on between good and evil in creation.
It is the mature spiritual man who has his senses exercised to discern both good and evil, Heb. 5:14, who can bring about recovery and cause the company to be effective and successful. He assesses the spiritual character and nature of the sin and asks. “The prayer of a righteous man availeth much”. He asks heaven to intervene in what goes on in earth. The truth is similar to that which the Lord Jesus speaks of in Matt.18:15-20. This verse is equivalent to verses 18 and 19 there. Sin breaks forth in the midst of the company. It is perceived to be sin, yet to be sin not unto death in this first instance. It is not such sin as would overthrow the essential doctrines of Christianity. The brother who is committing it is made aware that it is sin and he repents. The brother is gained. The question of his unrighteousness, and then the righteousness of the company in forgiving him, is resolved. The spiritual man of insight is seen here as standing before God on behalf of the sinning brother and of the company to ask God. He is the arbiter for life. Such a man is able to lay hold upon God in righteousness regarding what is sinful in His sight, that the company be not held spiritually responsible and suffer for the failure. He shall ask and God will give him, not them, life. In the previous verse the asking has to do with what is according to the known will of God. In this verse it has to do with a spiritual state of affairs contrary to the revealed will of God within the company. Failure resulted from spiritual immaturity and weakness but this need not overcome them.
God’s righteous system, whereby He deals with the present people of His purpose, gives to the spiritual man the means of effectively restoring spiritually purposeful life to those who would otherwise perish from the sphere of divine purpose. The life spoken of here is not natural fleshly life any more than the death is physical death. God has not miraculous healing in mind but something much greater. God has in Christianity conferred His life on every born-again child. They are called to live this life now in such a way that they will overcome (spiritual) evil and subsequently realise and establish (spiritual) good. It is, however, still possible for the power of evil to prevent any particular generation from realising these purposes to which they are called. This need not be so, even if, for the realising of His intentions, God allows evil to act upon them and even within them.
In fact God is really confronting the power of evil with this new spiritual force His Word has formed, the human exponents of the power of revealed truth. God has introduced men, in giving them His life and His light, into the sphere in which good and evil are already in conflict, that the ultimate issues might be resolved. It is not that any power can take eternal life from anyone to whom God has given it. It would take a stronger power than God to do this. If, however, the spiritually immature act in the power of the flesh within the family, they will in the nature of things come under evil’s influence. Its superior power will then render them spiritually ineffective.
God can then act through the power of the spiritual man and give him the life to minister to those found in need of it. God desires that His people not only have His life but have it more abundantly. By conflict, opportunity is afforded to them to gain the power to prevail. The sinning brother must be treated as a brother for whom Christ died. This needed life and power is of course in the Word of God. Man, particularly the people of His purpose, lives not by bread alone but by every word that proceeds forth from the mouth of God.
The function of God’s people is to be concerned with every word God has ever uttered, with the whole of completed divine revelation. In this regard there had been failure, errors of commission. Spiritual deficiency has resulted in the sin now requiring to be dealt with. God had really used the power of evil to bring this to light, to bring it to the attention of spiritual man. Life, a renewal of effective spiritual activity, is given by God from His Word to the spiritual brother for the sinning brother. He is given, because of His asking of God, the appropriate word of recovery to unfold from the Scriptures for the enlightenment and recovery of his brother. In fact it is for them that sin not unto death. However great numerically is the departure into this kind of sin, God will give life for all if such a brother acts, as in Gal.6:1.
On the other hand there is sin unto death. A brother might become so affected by evil that he gives himself up spiritually to it and becomes dead while he yet lives. Serious constitutional doctrinal error might come to be held by him as a result of his contact with the seducing powers of evil that are active in creation. If he comes to imbibe error concerning the God of revelation, or concerning the constitution of the local assembly, he is sinning unto death. He is denying the Person and work of God. These would be sins of commission held onto in the face of ministry of the spiritual brother. If a brother holds such error and wields the power of evil unrestrainedly in the family, he may break it up spiritually. This is sin unto death. It demands his excommunication. “Let him be unto you as a heathen and a publican” Matt.18:17. “Deliver such a one unto Satan” 1 Cor.5:5. This family will not fulfil its true function under the influence of such a power. It is the family and the spiritual truth that forms it which is significant to God. Its purity must be the most significant thing for them.
Apostacy from the truth is confronting them in such a situation. Then the preservation of the family itself from such a great power of evil has to be striven after, rather than the brother who is in a hopeless spiritual state. There is no requirement for the spiritual brother to ask regarding this sin. The assessment has been made, the character of the sin established and divine revelation brought to bear, but to no avail. The erring brother must be put away. This discipline is with the view to the activity of the flesh, which caused the sin, being destroyed. This desirable outcome can only be achieved by the sinning brother reflecting on the corrective ministry of the spiritual brother, hitherto rejected. Should he subsequently come to a right appreciation of his error, then he could be restored to the family. Such a possibility is advanced in 2 Tim.25:26.
Verse 17 “All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death.”
Every unrighteousness is sin. It is an act of unrighteousness, rather than a state, that is spoken of here. Believers are constituted righteous by God. It comes about by God conferring His own life and nature upon us by His redemptive work. He justifies sinners. We are then called upon to act righteously. This is the activity of the new life in each member acting for the benefit of the family. The activity of the old nature in the company is sin. It is destructive of what God is seeking to accomplish, i.e. the growth of the new man by His continued spiritual exercise.
Members of the divine community on earth have two natures, the flesh and the Spirit. In the present spiritual state of affairs, either or both may act in the company, i.e. in the realm that is ideally spiritual. On the one hand, every unrighteousness is sin. On the other, whosoever is born of God sinneth not. Evil and good now co-exist and this is according to God’s intentions. In knowing this we have confidence toward God.
There is no perfecting of the old nature. That which is born of the flesh continues to be flesh. Despite the continued imperfections in the old nature, there is no deficiency in the new nature – Christ in us. Perfection is possible in the new life. By the new birth, Christ’s life is produced in us, Gal.2:20. This life is capable of growing in us unto perfection or full growth, Eph.4:13. Our continuing to possess a sinful nature need not prevent us arriving at spiritual perfection in the family. This is what God seeks and what He will ultimately get by means of His Word. Every act of unrighteousness is sin but, provided God’s provision is availed of by the company, it need not hinder progress. There is sin not unto death. Providing it is not heinous, it can be overcome as a result of the spiritual ability of the strong.
Verse 18 “We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.”
In Christianity we know the basic truth that everyone that is born of God sinneth not. This is the truth already presented by John in chapter 3:9. We are given eternal life, God’s life, which does not sin. We know, or should know, that from our present possession of eternal life the perfect spiritual state can be arrived at. We are perfected to begin with by God’s work in us and should continue to practise perfectly so as to arrive at spiritual perfection together. Everyone is involved.
Negatively, everyone begotten of God sins not and positively he keeps himself. A new seed has been begotten by God’s present work in the world. It does not act like the fleshly seed which sins. When the divine life in us acts it does not act contrarily to revealed truth. When we see the people of God acting according to the Word we know that the new nature is active and there is none of the sin, previously referred to, going on in the fellowship. “Begotten” in the first phrase is a perfect participle, having been and being. The permanent result of divine intervention is being set forth. It is a spiritually infallible naturewhich God gives His people in order that divine purpose might be realised.
Further, he that is begotten (aorist participle) of God keepeth himself. Here God is viewed as having completed a work, forming a nature in His people by which they acquire the ability to keep themselves. God has wrought and His people continue to work in the face of every possible opposition. He goes on keeping himself for the spiritual profit for which God has begotten him. The people of God have the power to do ultimate service even while they are still men on earth compassed about with natural infirmities.
“The wicked one touches him not”. Previously, Satan had been the most powerful influence in creation, preventing any man from performing perfect service for God. Even Satan cannot bring down the new man, or particularly the people, of God’s begetting. So great and perfect is the work of God in His people that, if they act in the family only in the power of the new life, they will prove superior to the greatest natural powers. They have been made great enough to perform the work God has given them to do unhinderedly and uncorruptedly. They can now glorify God through the provision God has given them for service, His Word and His nature within them.
The phrase ‘we know’ or ‘we have knowledge’ occurs here in three consecutive verses. Each sets forth basic christian truth from which we have to proceed in service to God. First, we have to know that the new life in us, Christ in us, is begotten of God and is infallible and invincible if it continues to act. Secondly, we have to take knowledge of the fact that, spiritually, we are of God and so are the present power for ultimate good in the face of ubiquitous evil. Thirdly, we have knowledge that the Son of God is come and realise all that follows from this. The effects God desires and will obtain from His people in Christianity, the ideals we should strive after, are being set forth.
Verse 19 “And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wicknedness.”
This spiritual certainty is produced in the minds of those who appreciate what Christianity really is – the present work being done by God, the means whereby all His ultimate intentions to bless creation will be realised. To say that it is spiritual pride and presumption to be able to know that we continue to be of God, is in fact unbelief. That is complete spiritual failure in God’s service. Our work begins with this assurance from God that we are of God. We know we are, collectively in particular, of God. The people of God are called to realise their true significance, what they are by divine constitution and what they do within the framework of this constitution. God’s present work, when it has free course among us, results in a people who are of Himself and are successfully engaged in His service. We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, Eph.2:10. God is doing His work, in secret so far as the world goes, by which His purpose in having a people is being accomplished.
We also know that the whole world lieth in the wicked one. The world is not yet of God. He has not as yet reconciled all things to Himself. The world as presented here is the world of nature, the cosmos which was originally of God’s creating. The original form of government God established in creation (man living and working for natural order and prosperity under divine providence) was rendered ineffective, in the purpose of God, by the wicked one. Instead of being fruitful and multiplying and subduing creation, man was himself subdued by evil. So the whole world lies in the wicked one. Men of the world, using their natural abilities, are in fact building up Satan’s world and making it prosperous naturally.
True christian knowledge confers a true appreciation of good and evil. The world is in a state of spiritual evil, condemned by its lack of the knowledge of God. If true knowledge is possessed and acted upon by the people of God they will become profitably involved in true good, that which is of the God of revelation, and will be preserved from spiritual evil. Despite the fact that God has begotten a people who are of Himself in the world, the world itself has not become any different. The purpose of Christianity is not to make the present evil world God’s world. We must know this if our Christianity is to produce meaningful results. Otherwise, our christian practice will be involved in the world and its evil, as is the fashion nowadays. The danger lies in secularising Christianity, in applying christian doctrine to natural life and the intractable world problems which face man.
Verse 20 “And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.”
‘This is’ the true God and eternal life.” John is summing up what Christianity basically is and what it accomplishes for God and His purpose. The full revelation of the true God is mediated to men so that they can come to appreciate it fully. “This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou didst send”, John 17:3. We are concerned with the truth that came into the world in the coming of the Son of God. Upon these christian foundations we are to build so as to perform service of ultimate profit for God and for creation. Thereby we know God and that we have come to be in Him in being in His Son.
The Son of God came into humanity in the world. Christianity causes us to know the full significance of the life lived and the work then done by God Himself in creation. The system of Judaism could not contain and mediate this full and final revelation of God. Even His earthly companions could not realise the full significance of His words and works when they heard and saw them in their fleshly association with Him. It took the giving of the Holy Spirit to men to confer the highest possible knowledge upon them. This is the essence of Christianity. John, in his gospel, presents the Lord Jesus as the Son of God. In this epistle he shows how the people of God can acquire the spiritual ability to interpret the gospel, so that they will know that the Son of God has come.
By His coming as the Son of God in flesh and what has been established on earth as a result, He has given us an understanding. This is something that man does not have by nature, a mind capable of appreciating God in His procession into creation. “We have the mind of Christ”, 1 Cor.2:16. Here the Son of God is seen in His activity for the accomplishing of divine purpose. He came Himself into creation. Then, departing from the world, He gave the Holy Spirit to be the Understanding of His people. He is the Spirit of Christ, dwelling in us. He takes of the things that are Christ’s and reveals them to us. So God is now at work in man, in His people, that they might know Him as He was fully declared in His Son, John 1:18.
We have been set into God’s present system of truth that we may know Him that is true. “That we may know Him” is the highest spiritual possibility we may now attain to as a result of divine activity for us (the coming of the Son of God) and divine activity in us (the understanding He has given us). For this knowledge Paul left Judaism, forgetting the things that are behind, as set forth in Phil.3.
Matthew records the Lord Jesus as saying, “No-one knows the Son but the Father, nor does anyone know the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son may be pleased to reveal Him”, Matt.11:27 (JND). Christianity makes it possible for men to possess this full knowledge. As we grow to spiritual maturity we develop a mind great enough to know God, for it is of God’s forming in us. We know Him that is true. God has become effectively the true God in creation in becoming the God of the Word of God. In discerning the Word of God spiritually, we know Him in truth. We will never be able to know more of God than has been revealed in the completed Scriptures, for it is a total revelation. Our present service and eternal joy is to rejoice in this knowledge.
We are in Him that is true. This is our official place before God, or rather in God, in Christianity. To be in Him who is true is to dwell in the truth that is in Jesus, Eph.4:21. We are in the sphere that the Son of God has opened up for us in Deity and should be in the present enjoyment of it. God has elevated His family spiritually out of nature into the sphere in which He, Father, Son and Holy Spirit live and act. The Son of God took His humanity back with Him into glory, making this sphere of glory and truth accessible to us, even while we still live on earth. Deity came forth to bring man into Deity. We are of ultimate significance and are to live purposefully spiritual lives in this realm, enjoying all the benefits of unlimited fellowship with divine Persons.
We are in His Son, Jesus Christ. The name which sets forth His humanity, Jesus, in which He was anointed by God as the Christ of His purpose, is introduced here. Even though He has retained humanity, He occupies no less a place in Deity than He did originally before He humbled Himself to become flesh. He is the Son of God, Jesus Christ, and He is so for us. Spiritually, we are in Him. When He was in flesh He subjected His Sonship unto obedience to the Father’s will to realise His Father’s declared intentions. In such humiliation He declared that the Father was greater than He. In fact He became lower than the angels for the suffering of a death which He could not have suffered had He remained in the form of God. Now, for the realising of divine purpose, He remains a Man but no longer a Man in the flesh, 2 Cor.5:16. In that glorified humanity He occupies a place of co-equality with the Father. He has been glorified with the Father with the glory He had before time began, John 17:5. We are to know that we are alive in Him in that glory. This is not of theoretical or academic significance. It is only by knowing where the completed work of God sets us that we will be able to serve God intelligently.
So, recapitulating from verse 18, in Christianity we know that we are begotten of God and sin not. We know we are of God. We know that the Son of God has come. We know we are in God. Unless we come to know these things, the true basis of our new standing and state before God, we will not be able to serve God intelligently in the purpose for which He has constituted us His people.
“This is the true God and eternal life”. John is setting forth what we possess and should be concerned with in Christianity. To repeat, the Word of God contains the true God, or the knowledge of the true God, God insofar as He is knowable and insofar as this knowledge is communicable. The Word of God also produces a new order of humanity, 1 Pet.1:23, and is capable of building it up to be filled unto all the fulness of God. Divine life is communicated and divine light is being fully appreciated by the life thereby received. ‘In Him was life and the life was, and now is, the light of man’, John 1:4.
God is the true God and ever was and will be. He is, however, now to be known as such by His people in the completed revelation of Himself. Only in Christianity can man know Him fully now. It is possible for natural man to have some conception of the God of nature but he cannot by his natural abilities arrive at the knowledge of the true God given by revelation. Modern theology approaches the Word of God critically. It uses natural wisdom and knowledge to assess the death-producing letter critically and so fails to apprehend the Spirit of truth. The light still shines in the darkness and the darkness comprehends it not, as in John 1:5.
Verse 21 “Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.”
John closes the epistle with a warning. Despite all that God has wrought and the potentialities He has opened up for His people, spiritual failure is still possible on their part even though they are His dear children. The potential danger lies in their introducing idols into the system which is of God. Thereby their conception of revealed truth would be corrupted. It is absolutely essential that they gather in the spiritual conditions determined by the apostles’ teachings. In such a spiritual edifice, God will be fully active in their midst to mediate true knowledge to them.
They are to keep (aorist) themselves from idols. It is a once-for-all guarding of themselves from evil that is demanded for the retention of spiritual purity within. They had, and we have in response to receiving such an epistle as this, to get the basic essentials of Christianity right. John is not exhorting them to go on keeping themselves from idols. That is dealt with in verse 18 in relation to the wicked one. Here command is given to have done with idols. Only if their christian practice is founded upon the sure foundation, the doctrines of the apostles, will they be true and pure spiritually within the family.
They have to guard themselves as with a sentinel (Newberry), the sentinel of the faith once-for-all delivered to the saints, Jude 3. The truth is concerning the family, the truth of the local assembly, and that alone will guard them from idols.
Idols are objects or powers which, reputedly, make God more accessible to and approachable by man. They govern the conception of God which men have who accept their ‘spiritual’ authority. If any human idea or authority plays any part in the spiritual life and practice of the family of God, then to that extent God is not known as the true God in that family. To add anything to what God has set forth as being the true constitution of the family, to accept any spiritual authority but the Word of God, is idolatry. The danger lies in human, religious tradition which accepts the flesh and the world as being relevant to Christianity. That which is of nature is a snare. A family which is effective for divine purpose is one which is concerned only with spiritual things, rather than with that which is virtuous naturally.
(From Assembly Bible Reading notes)