CHAPTER 5

The first two verses of this chapter complete the second division of the epistle.

Verse 1    “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth Him that begat loveth Him also that is begotten of Him.”

It is our belief that the important thing is not just to present the Word of God in an authoritative way and declare that a man is born-again if he accepts this proposition.  It is just as important to set forth what is involved in believing, what it really means to be a believer.

God is producing faith in certain men now, selectively.  One day all men will see and then believe.  In the present time some believe without seeing because of the present effective work of God in them.  By producing faith in them, God is calling out of the old order of humanity a people for Himself and His purpose.  As in Rom.10:17 faith is through hearing (through a report) and hearing (the report) through the Word of God.  The Word of God is the primary agent.  It can produce ‘hearing’ in man when it is rightly reported.  This in turn produces faith.  Faith is not something that is natural to man but is the divinely-given ability to understand the Word of God and so believe it.  Thereby man receives all the virtue of the work of God which has produced His Word.

God is begetting His own life in humanity and it can be recognised in man by the appreciable effects it produces.  It causes men to believe that Jesus is the Christ.  It is not merely that they believe that He was the Christ when He was here as a man in the flesh.  Christian belief is that He still is the Christ as a Man in glory.  This characteristic spiritual belief marks its possessors as having been born of God.  Without it man cannot realise what God has done to the Christ as a result of His life and death and what He is now doing by Him.

Belief that Jesus was the Christ, God’s anointed, that He was even the greatest of all human beings, that He went about doing supreme good and explaining what religion was about, that He died for His beliefs, is not christian insight.  A man alive in the flesh, and so still in his sins, can know about and believe in all that.  Basic characteristic christian belief is that there is a Man in heaven who is God’s Christ.  If anyone believes that God has seated such a Man in such an office in glory, then God has produced faith in Him.  It is impossible for man to believe this by nature and by natural evidence.  This God-begotten faith introduces man to His Christ and to all the benefits of His accomplished work.  He then becomes effectively the Christ for them, God’s anointed in the glory which He occupies for their sake.

If this is so, then everyone that loves Him that begat (aorist participle) loves him also that is begotten (past participle).  God has, as a result of His intervention in Christ, become a begetter of His own life in humanity.  He continues to exercise this ability He has acquired during the present course of His dealings with humanity by the offices of His Christ.  The death of the Christ in flesh was no failure on God’s part to convince humanity, particularly Israel.  It was the means of His glorification as the Christ in heaven.  Thereby God can beget the ultimate form of human life for His purpose in creation.  “God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye crucified, both Lord and Christ” Acts 2:36.

Those who love the God who acted upon them to produce His life in them also go on loving others in whom this operation of God has taken place.  Divine activity begets divine life in man as an act complete in itself.  This activity goes on to produce love for such a God in them.  It also causes them to go on loving their fellow brethren.  Thereby the life-begetting and love-producing work of God is furthered in the fellowship thus formed.

Verse 2    “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.”

In this, in apostolic Christianity, we know that we love the children of God.  If properly served by us, God’s system on earth will cause us to know the spiritual reality involved in loving those begotten by God.  God has so constituted this family that the work He has done to form it is itself continued in and by them.  This is in the continued activity on earth of divine life in each member for its growth in the other members of the community of God.

It is absolutely essential, however, that certain spiritual conditions be fulfilled by us before divine life and love can be fully active in the fellowship.  These spiritual conditions are our continuing to love God, the God of revelation, and our continuing to keep His commandments.  Only if we continue to do so will we come to know that we are loving the children of God in truth.  These two things are fundamentally involved in Christianity.  Firstly, a completed revelation of God is given in it.  Secondly, this revelation can be perfectly comprehended by its adherents who obey His commandments.  We go on loving the God of the Word of God if our practice of Christianity is activated by the divine love which resulted in the revelation of God.  We go on obeying His commandments if we are obedient and subservient to the essential doctrines which form and govern the family of God as such, the doctrines of the apostles.

We are called by God to be involved in the work He is now doing on earth.  This causes men to comprehend Him by building up the spiritual ideal involved in His having a people perfected for His pleasure and purpose.

This completes the second section of the epistle.

—–ooOoo—–