SECTION 2
Verse 10 “In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.”
In this sort of Christianity the children of God are manifested according to their true nature and worth. It is a purposeful system for continued divine activity on earth. It is not merely a means of creating or begetting divine life in man, having far more to accomplish than getting man to heaven ultimately. True Christianity manifests the children of God in their present possession and enjoyment of eternal life.
Just as the Son of God was manifested in flesh for a divine purpose, so also is it with the children of God. They have received eternal life as an effect and result of that manifestation of Christ and ideal Christianity manifests them in their participation of His life.
In this form of Christianity which John desires his hearers to practise, is manifested the children of God and the children of the devil. A new order of humanity has been manifest in the midst of an old order, which it is destined to replace as the ultimate form of life that will inhabit God’s creation eternally. Christianity is, so to speak, the ideal breeding and developing ground of such life. It is the present kingdom of God on earth while evil also still pursues its course.
John deals with the practice of the children of God in such a purposeful system. The character of evil is shown by John insofar as they are likely to become involved with it in their practical Christianity. It is still possible for the children of God to be overcome by evil’s power if, because of its activity, their spiritual development is frustrated. ‘Everyone that does not go on practising righteousness is not of God, neither he that loves not his brother’. The practice of righteousness is what is to be followed after by those who are alive in His life, and so should act like Him on earth.
It is obvious that John is speaking to true christians in this letter and particularly in verses 10-15. He addresses those who are brethren and who are therefore to love the brethren. Those who are not doers of righteousness and lovers of their brethren are not “of God”, that is, in their practice of Christianity. There is the possibility of failure on the part of the people of God to act in a God-like manner. The question is that of manifesting divine life while still in the world. A Christianity which is naturalistic, which values and develops natural rather than spiritual good in its adherents, is not of God.
It is possible for the adherents and exponents of Christianity to err spiritually in two ways – not to practise righteousness, and not to love the brethren in the spiritual way they ought to. The righteousness of the saints has to be done toward the brethren in love if they are to be manifestly “of God” in the world. To be practical christians and be effective and purposeful to God, dedication to the things of God and the people of God – that is, the Word of God and the family of God, the local assembly – is demanded of us. The Word of God and what it has already produced on earth – a people of God in effective, or potentially effective, family ties – is our concern. Christ’s righteousness on earth lay in His revealing the Father fully and in His own perfect response to the revelation He brought. He did not use His own power and wisdom to substantiate His own importance in the flesh, even though He was the Christ, the Son of God. So our practical righteousness lies in getting to know the Father, now fully revealed by the Son through the Holy Spirit, and to respond perfectly to receiving such truth. Ideal Christianity is capable of eliciting this perfect response from the people of God. “In this the children of God are manifested”.
Verse 11 “For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.”
In the christian system we have received the message of God, the Word from the beginning. The revelation concerning the Lord Jesus in the flesh has been completed and delivered up to us in Christianity, that we might hear the message and respond. Our response is that we should go on loving one another. This love has nothing to do with nature, natural affection. It is the product of our receiving the gospel message. It is God’s love, present and active in man as a spiritual effect produced by the Word of God. The seed of the divine nature produces the fruit in us as it grows.
Verse 12 “Not as Cain, who was that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.”
Our spiritual obligations to the members of the family of God in which we live do not lie in acting in natural affection toward them. This was the sort of affection Cain had. The Word of God tells us how far wrong this went when tested by the truth of God, which his brother possessed. Cain was (went on being) “of the wicked one”. He valued the things of this world and natural human endeavour as being important to man for finding acceptance with God and access into His presence. When their unprofitability became manifest, the same spiritual evil which governed him in his religious sensibilities continued to act and caused him to slay the brother he had previously not loved in the proper way. God judged them both according to how He appreciated their response to the Word of God, which they had both received.
After Adam, because of Adam’s disobedience, man has become involved in the conflict between good and evil which goes on in creation. It was of course already going on before man was created in God’s image. The characteristic thing about the two brothers, who symbolise the carnal and the spiritual approach to the Word of God, was that they received the divine communications, given to Adam both before and consequent to his act of disobedience. In parable, as well as in fact, they received the Word of God and were judged by their response to it rather than by their possessing a sinful nature. God had even then made provision for man whereby his sin need not keep him from Himself.
Cain’s appreciation of divine truth was naturalistic. As a consequence of this spiritual failure, rather than moral failure in the first instance, the works he did in an attempt to be acceptable and profitable to God were evil. He succumbed to the power of evil even after receiving God’s truth. God’s provision for man was that he might avoid the power of evil which had previously succeeded in separating him from God. This succumbing to evil was because he had become proud before God, proud of human ability to till the earth in an effective, purposeful manner. He acted in pride, as Satan did originally, valuing the natural after receiving the spiritual and supernatural, divine communication.
Abel’s appreciation of the Word of God was spiritual. He realised that after humanity had become involved in the conflict between good and evil, contrary to God’s command to Adam, he was not equipped by nature to deal effectively with its power. The place and function God gave Adam originally in Eden no longer applied in this present world. There Adam was commanded to be fruitful and multiply, replenish the earth and subdue it. He was asked to perform the service God sought of him and populate the earth with a race capable of establishing a godly order in nature. He had to leave the issue of good and evil to God by not partaking of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Man, however, had become involved and Abel realised that the way back to God and purposefulness was not by natural methods. God had, however, intervened in the course of nature in the form of these divine communications. By receiving them and responding to them aright Abel did righteous works. In Abel, humanity was found assuming its true place and performing righteous deeds, doing the work of God. “This is the work of God that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent”, John 6:29.
Verse 13 “Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you.”
If they held such spiritual ideas as John writes of, that natural affection and intelligence is unprofitable for divine purposes, then they would be hated by the world. This will still arise when the world gets to know the knowledge we acquire of how God and His purpose is to be served, or rather how it is not to be served. Men of the world are proud of their natural abilities and consider that by them they will succeed in ultimately bringing peace and prosperity on earth. This humanity is bound to hate a Christianity which is wholly spiritual and denies any ultimate place to fleshly ability. The world signifies man generally, separated from God, particularly the God of revelation, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus. It is governed by the conception that it remains a purposeful place because of supposed human potentiality to control and command the forces acting in nature and to organise these for peaceful purposes.
Christians have, of course, a secular life to live like everyone else in the world. They must beware, however, of seeking to outwork their Christianity at this level. The idea of there being such things as a christian country, christian teachers, politicians, doctors, lawyers, etc. is rank worldliness. Christians may indeed be many of these but their deeds at that natural level are not the good works of Abel by which effective, acceptable service is rendered to God and His provisions. If this is presented for God’s acceptance it becomes the work of Cain.
In our day, as with the naturalistic exponents of Judaism in the days of the Lord Jesus in the flesh, we tend to be blinded by centuries of tradition. The emphasis has been put upon worldly, naturally good works, the freeing of slaves, the emancipation of women, the building of hospitals, the welfare of the backward, etc. This is the sort of ‘Christianity’ which the world accepts and indeed welcomes. It is not of God. These sort of good works are the works which Cain offered to God for his acceptance. Though they are naturally good, as Cain’s effective tilling of the ground was, they are spiritually evil if those who are concerned with the realising of God’s intentions are offering them to Him as their effective response to receiving His Word. Agnostics, atheists and humanists can perform such works just as effectively and often more effectively than the humanity of God’s choosing can. This is because God has deliberately chosen for His purpose those who are insignificant and ignoble in the flesh. This is so that no flesh will glory before God. ‘Consider your calling brethren, not many noble, etc. are called. God has chosen those that are not, to bring to nought the things that are’, 1 Cor.1:26-29.
Verse 14 “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.”
We know that we are practising Christianity in truth when, by it, there is begotten in us a love for the brethren. God has already caused us to pass out of death, the state of spiritual ineffectiveness we were found in by nature in the world. We have passed out of man’s natural state before God into the life which is God’s life. It is now present and active in us by the work of God and the response invoked in us by that work. Our possession of eternal life manifests itself consciously to us in begetting love toward the brethren. This love, when active, delights to give to the brethren the things of God which it appreciates in His Word. It supplies the spiritual food which the members of the family require for their spiritual growth in the knowledge of God. The active love of God for the things of God is produced in us by effective membership in God’s family. This makes us effective in developing the fellowship even more. Thereby love abounds yet more and more unto every good work.
It is, however, possible to possess divine life and be brethren without this love being active. A spiritual capacity has to be developed before love can flow out. A possessor of eternal life who is content merely to possess it in its undeveloped state is abiding in spiritual deadness. He is dead while he lives. He is not an effective member of God’s family.
Verse 15 “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.”
This is an even worse spiritual possibility, to be in the family of God and hate one’s fellow brethren. This would arise in the case of one who acted like the original murderer Cain did toward his brother when his spiritual deficiencies came to light. Such value the things of the flesh and the world in their concept and practice of Christianity. This is a destructive thing in the divine community on earth, which is ideally a spiritual entity. Such a man is a spiritual manslayer. He is slaying what is the most significant thing for God and His people: his naturalistic activity is ruining the development of the new nature in them, the very spiritual purpose for which the people of God are being brought together as a family of God. In Abel, God had a man with true thoughts and activities. But by Cain, evil triumphed over good outwardly. It is possible for evil to triumph over good in God’s community. It will do so if fleshly, naturalistic, worldly powers operate in its midst.
They knew that no murderer or manslayer has eternal life abiding in him. It does not say that he has not eternal life. He is not acting as being in possession of the divine nature toward the members of the assembly. His spiritual life is not characterised by its abiding in him, as in 2:24. The family of God knew the character of evil as it might come to act in their midst.
Verse 16 “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He lay down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”
‘In this we have known love’ (Newberry). The previous “in this” set forth the manifestation of the children of God in the world during the present time. Now John is setting forth the spiritual reality that characterises the christian system internally, loving one another in deed and in truth. Christianity has resulted from the work which the Lord Jesus has already completed. He has laid down his life for us. In this which has resulted, true Christianity, we have known love, the unrestrained overflowing of God’s love.
The Lord Jesus not only laid down his life to procure the forgiveness of our sins. He also laid it down “for us”, to procure a present people for God in the world. By incarnation, God assumed a soulish form of life: before the incarnation He was Spirit only and absolutely. In this new form of life, God in fashion as a Man, He was both divine and human, spirit and soul. This set two possible alternatives before Him to pursue. He might have used His divinity to make Himself the greatest and most important Being there could possibly be in nature and remained in that sort of existence forever. He could have used His miraculous, supernatural power to assume the greatest place this world could afford and have remained thus in nature eternally. He could have become the most knowledgeable scientist, the most powerful politician, the greatest physician and so on. He had, of course, by His own power and wisdom framed the whole creation and man in it. He could readily have taken the world for Himself by the use of His powers.
Christ deliberately refused to do this, refused to have a kingdom which is of this world, despite Satan’s offer to Him in His earthly humiliation. If Christ had accepted it, then we could not have known love. We might have known power and wisdom by seeing it with our natural eyes, in the limited conception of it which this can afford. We could have known earthly peace and prosperity, for no power which now acts in creation could have overcome the power of God-in-flesh to bless in a natural way. He could have lived in the flesh as God to this day, healing the sick, raising the dead, etc. But then we could never have known what God is in Himself, the extent of His love. The natural blessings and God in nature perceived naturalistically (handled and touched as in 1:4) would have been the only extent and effect of divine activity.
In his life on earth God had earthly associates with all the limitations this implied. He sought after heavenly, spiritual associates, men who lived in possession of His life, bone of His bone, flesh of His flesh. This soulish form of life which He assumed, with all it might have meant for him in the present world, He deliberately gave up so as to achieve deeper purposes and greater blessing than could be attained in the old creation. He desired to produce His divine nature in others. The death of God-in-flesh was a spiritual necessity for divine purpose. This reproduction of divine life is what the death of Christ and the establishment of Christianity subsequently is destined to bring about. Thereby we have known the love of God pouring itself forth in all its fulness to produce the objective God desires, a people like His son who come to know Him fully.
So now also, as a result, the people of God are alive in the possession of two natures. The old nature is of Adam and has to do with natural life in the old creation. In God’s sight and in practical Christianity, it has died in Christ. The new nature, man in Christ, has to do with life in the new creation. ”If any man be in Christ, it is new creation”, 2 Cor.5:17. This also presents us with two alternatives in life. As the people of God whom Christ died to procure, we are involved in the outworking of divine purpose. We have the option of living after the flesh or after the Spirit in our response to the death of Christ. We can seek to dedicate our fleshly, natural powers to God, as Christendom fatally does, or we can realise that God has set aside what we are by nature and serve by the Spirit of Christ in us. Our Christianity in the former case would be a matter of demonstrating how good God can make human nature, how much better He can make the flesh, the human nature of christians, compared with the unregenerate. In the latter case our Christianity will have to do with demonstrating the greatness of God’s Christ and causing Him, Christ in us, to grow to full stature.
We ought, as our response to God, to lay down our lives, our soulish lives, for the brethren. Our spiritual responsibility to the brethren in this collective fellowship is being set forth. We continue to live in secular life in the world while, in God’s estimation, we are alive for His purpose only in possession of His life and nature. It is in this also that we should be alive and active toward the brotherhood. We ought to lay down our soulish lives for the brethren. Martyrdom is not in view. It is a continual laying down of this form of life. If the true implications of our being alive in collective fellowship for the realising of God’s ultimate intentions is known, then the relative importance of the two natures will be appreciated.
Laying down our lives is really a negative thing but the positive spiritual profit of the brethren is in view. A non-naturalistic, non-fleshly, non-worldly Christianity is the true sort that has to be practised by the people of God. The Lord Jesus, in order to establish Christianity, laid down His life in flesh. He did not use His natural powers to establish Himself in the present world order as its Christ. The work He did was done with God’s eternal purpose in mind. So instead of using our natural powers to make the brethren strong and influential and wise in this present evil world, we should give up these natural objectives for spiritual ones. Our love toward one another in the family is to be devoted to furthering the spiritual growth of the new man. The mature child of God realises that the things of this life are ultimately unimportant for divine purpose and for the brethren’s spiritual welfare.
Verse 17 “But whoso hath this world’s goods, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?”
It is true, however, that these things of the present life can be used for the benefit of the brethren at a natural level. There are brethren who, because of the inequalities of ability and opportunity in the present world, are in need of such things. These things, called by John ‘the world’s substance’ (JND), do not sustain the divine life but they remain necessary for the sustenance of the life into which the divine nature has been implanted.
In the prevailing conditions in which our lives are lived in the present world, natural deficiencies and needs are bound to be felt and known. In such circumstances, a brother who possesses the world’s substance may use it to the profit of those who are fellow-members of God’s family with him. Such a wealthy brother is put to the test as to what sort of substance he values most highly. He is tested by seeing his brother having need. He does not require to go about in the world looking for this sort of need to fulfil the obligations put upon him by membership of God’s community on earth. If he sees a member, to whom he is spiritually related, in need, then if he is himself spiritual he will not shut up “his bowels” from him. “His bowels” would signify his natural affections as well as his spiritual.
God has dignified poor mortal man in bringing him into a crucial place in the outworking of divine purpose. He does so in giving him present possession of eternal life even while he still remains compassed about by infirmities and weakness. Those who possess riches ought to use the things of ‘the old life’ to meet the need of others in it. Thereby such will not be choked with the cares of this world. By the material help received he will be enabled to give himself the more fully to the things of God with which membership of God’s family causes him to be concerned. So spiritual profit may redound to the people of God by the use of natural wealth. Thus we have to make friends with the mammon of unrighteousness, that after it shall fail, we shall be received into everlasting tabernacles, Luke 16:9.
The love of God does not go on abiding in those who do not realise the true relative significance and importance of life in the flesh and life in the Spirit. The children of God are called upon to live in the present in the light of the future. The spiritual profit of the company is the important thing that has to be followed after. It is at this, the spiritual level of life in Christ, rather than at the natural level of life in Adam, that God having a present people for Himself is of eternal validity and effectiveness.
Verse 18 “My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth.”
John then exhorts them to go on to perfection, not loving in word or in tongue but in deed and in truth. Christianity is not a matter of words, natural words spoken by nature’s tongue, nor is it a religion for the bettering of human life in the present age. It has of course to do with words but only with God’s words. A response is sought by God, in them and from them, to the reception of His Word. This is the deed and the truth in which they are to go on abiding in the love of God. The love of God has resulted in His Word being given to man. Its expression takes the form of words which men can read and speak. The truth of the Word of God is not in the letter which kills but in the Spirit which gives life. The literal interpretation of the Word of God is relatively unimportant to the people of God. The letter can be received by any man, even by the unregenerate and applied by such to earthly life in the world. He can use it moralistically. This is spiritual death. The people of God are being warned that they can fall into the same error. God demands that His people see Christ and life-in-Christ, the Spirit of the letter, in His Word. So often it is the case that we fail to see beyond Adam and life in Adam. The Word of God is then misused, for the letter alone results in spiritual deadness. There is then no effective involvement in divine purpose by His people. This is merely loving in word and in tongue.
There is a danger of our going on loving, going on acting in Christianity, out of mere natural regard for ourselves or others in the family. It is possible to be a reputable preacher of the letter and literal interpretation because it satisfies some subconscious urge in ourselves to assume a public role. Those who do so, merely minister to Adam in the people of God. They are loving God and His family only in word, in the letter and tongue, out of natural, emotional or religious feelings. They exhort the family of God to be better men and women in the flesh in this present world. We must not love one another in such a way. It robs both God and His people of what is possible in Christianity.
We should love in deed and in truth. This is in God’s deed and His truth and not Adam’s, just as the love spoken of is divine love made active in His people by a true response evoked in them by the work of God in love. God’s deed is His saving deed in Christ and the truth is the revealed truth which has resulted from this. We have now received eternal salvation, which takes the form of our present possession of divine life in Christ. This brings us into a new place before God, as distinct from that which we occupied by nature. We have now to act, to love, as being in possession spiritually of the life in which Christ Himself lived and acted on earth.
God’s love for us has produced His life in us that it might now be effective. It has also resulted in the completion of revealed truth. Our spiritual activity in Christianity has to do with a completed revelation of God. As being in possession of eternal life, God’s life, we are to give ourselves up spiritually to lay hold upon the Spirit contained in the letter. This demands that the new life in us reach full maturity, for only thereby will we have a great enough spiritual capacity to know God fully. This can be done by devoting ourselves to the spiritual welfare and development of the family. Only in the collective can the ideal be realised and this only by the power of divine love operating in each member for the good of the whole
Verse 19 “And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him.”
Christianity is the means whereby revealed truth produces present effects on earth. If our practice of it is according to God then we shall know that we are of the truth. Divine truth in all its fulness has come into the world in the form of the Word of God. “Thy Word is truth”. Its coming is destined by God to produce the present effects which God desires to produce, a people who are “of the truth”. God’s Word will not return to Him void but will accomplish that whereunto He has sent it, Isaiah 55:11. God has chosen to realise divine purpose by giving his truth to man. He has intervened in the course of nature at this level. He has also determined to have a present people who will be “of the truth” by the effect produced in them collectively by their response to receiving it. God has chosen those who were natural failures and is causing them thus to be effectively associated with Him in the realising of His intentions.
Christianity, rightly practised, gives knowledge, not only the knowledge of God but also of what His people are in the spiritual ideal as He sees them. “How beautiful are thy tents, O Jacob”. The perfect, ideal family is set forth in the Scriptures. It has to be built up on earth experientially by the people of God as their true response to receiving His Word. Knowing, in Christianity, is more than the mere natural awareness of certain facts: it is the enjoyment of spiritual reality. Knowing we are collectively of the truth is not simply ours by birthright because we have the divine nature. It comes from an effective response to our possessing both eternal life and the Word of God in its present completeness. Divine truth forms us collectively into a spiritual entity and unity which is “of the truth” on earth. The family of God is what revealed truth now forms on earth, a sphere which is of the God of revelation in which His people can live and act profitably; in which they know they are of the truth.
Our being in this is no mere theoretical thing. It is a practical means whereby we can persuade our hearts before God. Our being of the truth brings us into a sphere in which we are described as being effectively “before” God. We are, in the spiritual sense, in the very presence of God come forth in revelation of Himself when we dwell in such a sphere. A new system of revelation and a new means for the appreciation of this revelation by its exponents has been established on earth. In it we know we are of God and before God and so can persuade our hearts. Our confidence comes from knowing we are of the truth, as God’s family, in connection with His present purpose and activity in a system which is of His own framing.
We are set into a place and relationship before Him – as children in His family – who is now fully revealed as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We can assume our God-given place confidently and effectively because God has by His work fitted us for it. Herein lies perfection of the greatest potential.
Verse 20 “For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.”
Nevertheless, when we look within ourselves we see gross imperfection. The question then arises as to how this is accounted for and dealt with. How can perfection be arrived at in the family when each member is inherently imperfect? God deals with this in His system. If we look within and see a nature that sins, then our heart condemns us. No moral perfection is possible in the individual members of God’s assembly. Personal holiness, apart from the new nature, Christ in us, is unattainable and deliberately so on God’s part. He has finished altogether with Adam and is not improving or perfecting him by His system. Adam remains in us, even though in God’s sight we do not remain in Adam.
Our heart is our natural conscience and reasoning by which we are ever aware of imperfection and condemnation. Self-examination by our natural heart is a condemnatory business widely practised in guilt-ridden, naturalistic ‘Christianity’. The people of God, who so act, make the heart of man the arbiter of good and evil. They are judging, assessing and condemning themselves by an infinitely less power and authority than God’s. God is greater than our heart. We are alive to God in Christianity, which is of the truth and this sets aside natural or carnal appreciation and authority. We are constitutionally, and in practice, God’s people according to His ability to make us so and thus acceptable to Himself.
God knows all things and despite all our heart, in such a state of introspection, tells us about ourselves – and He is fully aware of this – He still owns us as His children. It is what God has made us by His perfect work and not what we are by nature that is determinative in Christianity. God has perfect knowledge of good and evil and has made this knowledge available to His people by revelation. They are to look upon themselves and to act as God appreciates and views them. He has made it possible for His family to be governed by His knowledge of good and evil, which He makes them capable of possessing and using. It is not a life of innocence which He calls upon them to live but to be fully alive to their true place and state before Him, the fruit of His work, and act accordingly.
Verse 21 “Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.”
John then addresses them as beloved ones to assure them. They are objects of divine love who are themselves in possession of divine life. If our heart condemn us not, then we are displaying a greater knowledge of good than if we were constantly alive in a form of Christianity governed by a natural conscience that constantly tells us of sin in ourselves individually. Then we know that the nature in us that sins, Adam, is not the nature in which we are alive to God in His family. We are then confident toward God, knowing He sees us alive and active toward Him only in possession of the new nature. We are of the truth. We are before God. Now we are viewed as being or acting toward God. Here it is our response to the work He has done for us and in us that is in view. A proper response can only be forthcoming if we know the true basis of the place God has caused us to occupy toward Him. Confidence toward God flows from such a knowledge. He has opened up the possibility of His family rendering perfect service to Him in the things He has given them of Himself.
Verse 22 “And whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.”
When this true and full christian position is entered into by the family of God, then whatsoever they ask they shall receive from Him. In this position, they are aware of God’s desire that they perform service toward Himself. For this, they realise they will require enabling wisdom and grace. Then the significance of their present possession of eternal life in collective fellowship for its growth and development is realised. So they will ask only for the things connected with this life and work from God. They desire and ask from God the things that will make them profitable to Him in this place of service into which His work has brought them.
We also go on receiving these things because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight. Two things are involved in our eliciting from God the necessary response on His part, whereby we might continue to be of spiritual profit as His chosen servant collectively. Keeping His commandments would signify our keeping the laws of God, the teachings of Christ mediated by the apostles. By obedience to the apostle’s teaching, the family is kept in a good spiritual state according to divine intention. The essential truths of Christianity are maintained and we rest and build upon these foundations as a family. Godly order is thereby continually kept amongst the people of God.
Doing things that are pleasing in His sight would proceed from this. By obedience, we are made and kept as God’s people effectively to do His pleasure. We receive and become governed by God’s revealed truth ideally. A company so constituted becomes a company capable of doing the things that are pleasing to Him. It is the depository of the truth in the world, the pillar and support of the truth. Our work, the means whereby we can afford pleasure to God, is in so devoting ourselves to the Word of God in our lives in God’s family that we get to know His revelation fully. So, we are of the truth, are before God, are toward God and are in the sight of God when we are in this spiritual state as His family. If we do this, then we can expect a full response from God, whereby He will acknowledge and honour the service we render to Him.
Verse 23 “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.”
In verse 22 it is commandments that have to be kept in order that we may arrive at the state of spiritual development in which we can do this commandment, singular. We have a christian obligation toward the Son of God, toward one another and to the many sons resulting from His work. In this lies the positive fulfilment of the place which God has set us into before Him as His acknowledged and responsible people. God has enjoined it upon us that we should believe in His Son. The knowing and glorifying of the Sonship of Christ on earth in the present time has been entrusted to His people by the Father. What the Son of God in His earthly service performed for the Fatherhood of God, the people of God are now commanded to perform for the Sonship of Christ. He will have all men honour the Son even as the Son honoured the Father in His service. Now God has, by means of Christianity, a people who can act in this God-pleasing and Christ-honouring way.
The commandment is that we believe (aorist) on the Name of His Son. As a result of His service, God has given to Him the Name which is above every name that every knee should bow to it, Phil.2:10. It is the prerogative of the people of God to do so now in complete, God-given intelligence. No man knoweth the Son save the Father. Now, however, God is conferring this knowledge upon His responsible servant, the family, whose concern it is to uphold the honour of His Son. Now He is thus glorified as Son on earth in and by His people, as in John 17:10.
The second part of the commandment is then given by John, as the Lord Jesus gave it to him personally on earth. We can only do this command, and so discharge our christian duty and obligations, collectively. It is only as a company, formed by revealed truth, that we will be able to do what God has commanded of us. Divine love must be developed in us and become active toward one another in the fellowship before divine work can be done by it. Thereby the necessary spiritual ability and capacity for service is built up in the whole.
This is just what the Lord Jesus commanded His apostles to do when He commissioned them before He ascended as a Man into heaven to fill His present place there. The love which acts in the members of the family to cause them to perform divine service is of course divine and not natural love. It is the activity of Christ and not Adam in the family. The apostles were to make disciples and teach them to observe all things that the Lord Jesus had commanded them. We have been given the basic teachings of God’s system to be obedient to and within this framework the commandment has to be kept. If we are obedient to the form of doctrine unto which we have been delivered, Rom.6:17, we will be enabled to love one another fully with divine love.
Verse 24 “And he that keepeth His commandments dwelleth in Him, and He in him. And hereby we know that He abideth in us, by the Spirit which He hath given us.”
“In this” we know He abides in us. The people of God are viewed as having entered fully into the christian position on earth in order to be an effective servant of God for the realising of His present purpose. When they arrive at the state and stage in which they keep the commandments (plural again) of the Lord Jesus, then they abide in Him and He in them. John uses the word “we” in verse 23 and “he” in verse 24. “He” sets forth the character of God’s servant, the embodiment of the spiritual ideal. It is not merely that an individual believer on his own attains to this. The people of God collectively arrive at a state of effective spiritual unity in which they become, as the Lord Jesus became on earth, the acknowledged servant of God for the realising of His ultimate intentions. For an individual to be this on his own would necessitate his being as great as the Lord Jesus Himself! He would be another Christ and this is of course impossible. The attainment to and embodiment of the spiritual ideal is now collective, as shown in 1 Cor.12:12 by Paul. Speaking of the local assembly as a functional unity, a body, he calls it the Christ, “so also is the Christ”, meaning the body or embodiment of the Christ in a church spiritually.
Such a servant is said here to keep His commandments, just as He was Himself on earth great enough spiritually in His humanity to keep the Father’s commandments. Such a servant abides in the Son of God, Jesus Christ. He goes on abiding in God in experiential reality. Man continuing to live effectively in Deity is what is then realised. He enjoys life in perfect union and communion with God now fully revealed, as in John 17:21, “that they may be one in Us”.
God approaches man in the Person of His Son in humanity on earth. His completed work in that form has resulted in the establishing of Christianity. This is to enable man to approach to and dwell in God in the full enjoyment of His perfect provision. In His life on earth, the Son Jesus Christ continued to live in God. While in humanity He still remained alive in Deity in the unique relation He had ever occupied as Son with the Father. Such fellowship, man abiding in God, is now opened up for God’s servant, His people, by means of Christianity.
The second part of the fulness of the christian position is that God abides in Him who fills this place. Again it is a question of His going on abiding in us in practice. John is setting forth the sort of Christianity in which God manifestly goes on abiding. The divine Presence in effective activity is consciously known to exist in the midst of the people of God gathered together in constitutional unity in true practice of Christianity. Divine effects and results are being produced within a family which abides in the truth of God. Ideally the family gets out of the system what God has put into it. Devoted obedience to divine commandments brings about a spiritual state of affairs which is of God and in which God’s presence dwells.
The presence of God in the midst of those who are governed by revealed truth – this makes them the house of God on earth – is the realisable ideal set before God’s present people. The presence of a God fully revealed abides in effective reality only if they go on keeping His commandments. It is by this means, at this spiritual level, that the full knowledge of God is being mediated to the people of God. A suitable spiritual climate in which God can dwell complacently is brought about by the obedience of God’s people to His Word.
“In this”, that is in the presence of God, we know that He abides in us. Knowledge of the Person and work of God comes to such a spiritual servant. Again, it is “we” rather than “he”. John now speaks of the spiritual ideal as being realised by the people of God. This is because at this stage in his letter he introduces the Person of the Holy Spirit, who causes the ideal to be realised on earth.
The present time for the people of God is characterised by the giving of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has been sent from heaven by the glorified Christ consequent to His entry into heaven in humanity. Thereby, a Man has been made supreme in heaven and men are made the ultimately supreme beings on earth for divine purpose. Such is the greatness of the Man-God that He gives to His present people the gift of God Himself in the Person of the Holy Spirit. (The giving is in the aorist tense, signifying a completed act). God has determined that by this means He will accomplish the objective for which He has a people on earth in Christianity. We have the knowledge of a God who goes on abiding in us as a result of our response to having received the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit has also come to presence Himself with a people to produce effects on earth from Christ’s finished work and session in glory. The Holy Spirit has been given to us by God not only to form divine life in us but to produce effects from our present possession of it. The importance of the acquisition of the full knowledge of God by His people cannot be over-emphasised. God has fully revealed Himself in such a way that those who possess the gift of the Holy Spirit and so have the mind of Christ can arrive at the full significance of the revelation. They are, by the presence and work of the Holy Spirit, potentially at least, rendered capable of interpreting all the complete Word of God.