Love and Hate.

For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. – 1 John 3:11 ESV 1 John 3:11-24

Love and hate. God and Satan. Dark and light. Faith and doubt. Belief and disbelief. Children of God and children of the devil. John paints a black and white portrait of life in this world. There are two systems at work and at war with one another. As children of God, we have been placed in the middle of an environment that is opposed to our very existence. The world, as a result of sin, is in rebellion against God. Many in the world reject that very existence of God. Others, unable to explain their own existence and desperate to find meaning for life, have concocted their own versions of God. But to make your own god is nothing short of the rejection of the one true God. The point that John seems to be trying to make is that those who have a relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ are going to find this world a place of conflict and contrasts. The very fact that we are His children puts us at odds with those who refuse to accept Jesus as the Son of God and the only way to be restored to a right relationship with God. The result is that the world hates us. John confirms that reality. “Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you” (1 John 3:13 ESV). Jesus gave us a similar warning. “This is my command: Love each other. If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world. I chose you to come out of the world, so it hates you” (John 15:17-19 NLT). “You will be hated by everyone because of me” (Matthew 10:22 NIV).

John used the example of Cain and Abel – two brothers who should have naturally loved one another – to drive home his message of contrasts. Cain brutally murdered his brother. His act was an outflow of his anger toward and hatred for Abel. But it stemmed from his disbelief in God. He lacked the capacity to love Abel because he was devoid of a love for God. Cain's sacrifice was unacceptable to God because Cain lacked faith in God. “By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain” (Hebrews 11:4 ESV). Abel was motivated by faith in God. He believed in God. “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Hebrews 11:6 ESV). John makes it clear a little bit later in his letter that God is love. “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:8 ESV). Love is essence of God. But this is not some kind of sentimental, Hallmark-greeting-card kind of love. This is a selfless, sacrificial, lay-it-all-on-the-line kind of love that is not of this world. Without God, Cain couldn't manufacture this kind of love. But this kind of love is what sets the children of God apart from one another. It was what caused the early church to stand out from the crowd and set it apart as distinctively different. In the book of Acts, we read of the early days of the church as thousands of people from all walks of life and a variety of ethnic backgrounds are coming to faith in Jesus. “And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need” (Acts 2:44-45 ESV). That day, there were people from all over the world who heard the good news regarding Jesus Christ. “Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians” (Acts 2:9-11 ESV). And many of them came to faith and became part of a unique organism called the body of Christ. At that point, they became one in Christ. Their ethnic, economic, cultural, and idealogical differences were overshadowed by the love of God. Paul described the believers in Galatia in similar terms. “For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:26-28 NLT). 

Our adoption as sons and daughters by God have placed us all into one new family. God's love for us manifests itself in a love for one another that is unique and distinctive. No longer is our love based on earthly standards. Our commonality and community is not based on ethnicity, language, economic status, country of origin or level of education. Our unity is based on our relationship with Jesus Christ. So Jews who love Jesus can love Arabs who love Jesus. Muslims who have come to know Jesus as their Savior can call Christians their brothers. Blacks and whites can love one another. Individuals who were once enemies can now worship together because of the transformative power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. “The way we know we’ve been transferred from death to life is that we love our brothers and sisters” (1 John 3:14 NLT). Our capacity to love is our calling card. It is what sets us apart. And in this world, it is what sets us up for hatred. This world can't comprehend that kind of love. It makes no sense. It sees it as a threat. It views it as a weakness. The enemy can't stand it, because he knows its origin. It is of God. And anything of God is repulsive to him. But God is love and we are God's children. Love is the greatest expression of our God-likeness. Which is why Paul wrote: “Three things will last forever--faith, hope, and love--and the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13 NLT).

A Matter of Death and Life.

We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. – 1 John 3:14-15 ESV 1 John 3:11-24

Life and death. These two ideas are just one more pair of contrasting topics that John has raised in his very short letter. But they are probably the most basic and fundamental ideas he has addressed so far. For John, death represents the fate of all those who have not believed in Jesus Christ or who believe in a different Christ than the one taught by the apostles. But not only is death their fate, it is their very existence at the time of his writing of this letter. They abide in death. The apostle Paul, comparing the first Adam with the second Adam, Jesus, wrote, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned…” (Romans 5:12 ESV). In other words, the sin of Adam and Eve resulted in the sin of their offspring, as illustrated in Cain's murder of his brother, Abel. And with the sin came the penalty of death. Sin and death became the norm for mankind. But with the arrival of Jesus, that all changed. We read in the gospel of Matthew, “the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. And for those who lived in the land where death casts its shadow, a light has shined” (Matthew 4:16 NLT). The Light shone in the darkness. The Life appeared in the midst of death. The writer of Hebrews gives us a clear explanation of what Jesus' arrival on the scene accomplished. “Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death. Only in this way could he set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying” (Hebrews 2:14-15 NLT).

Because of Jesus' life, death and resurrection, we can have new life. By believing in who He claimed to be, the Son of God and the Savior of the world, we can move from darkness into the light and from the shadow of death to life. Our new life is God's doing, and Paul reminds us that not all will understand or even like the change the see in us. “Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing. To those who are perishing, we are a dreadful smell of death and doom. But to those who are being saved, we are a life-giving perfume” (2 Corinthians 2:15-16 NLT). Even John says, “Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you” (1 John 3:13 ESV). They can't comprehend what has happened in our lives. Our transformation is a reminder to them of their own sad state. They hate the light and love the dark. Our very existence exposed the darkness of which they are so fond. They abide in death. We abide in life. The fruit of their lives is evident. The Message paraphrases Galatians 5:19-23 in this very stark way: “It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community.” Their lifestyle is open for all to see. But so is that of the one who lives in the light. Our fruit is different because we have the Spirit of God residing within us. “He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely” (Galatians 5:21-23 MSG).

Because we have passed out of death into life, we can and should live differently. Our behavior changes because our natures have changed. We are no longer of this world. We no longer abide in death. We have eternal life and that new life allows us to live and walk in the light as He is in the light. We become beacons of light in the midst of the darkness, shining forth the glory of God in a world that is trapped in death and living without hope. But as we live and shine, we will be hated. We will find ourselves despised, because our righteousness exposes their unrighteousness. Our joy reveals their despair. Our faith shines the light on their hopelessness. “For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light! For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true” (Ephesians 5:8-9 NLT).

The Cain Mutiny.

We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous. – 1 John 3:12 ESV

John has a tendency to use terms and images that portray striking opposites. He loves the use of contrasts. Darkness and light. Sin and righteousness. Lies and truth. Old and new. Love and hate. The temporal and the eternal. Death and life. Abiding and forsaking. Then right in the middle of chapter three, he uses what appears to be a contrast between two Old Testament figures, Cain and Abel. At first glance, this is a very perplexing and difficult to understand passage. Seemingly, out of the blue, John brings up an event that happened all the way back in the story of beginning of the earth, recorded in the book of Genesis. The context is Jesus' command that we love one another. Then, all of the sudden, John tells us, “We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother” (1 John 3:12 ESV). That's quite a contrast. John goes from talking about love to warning about murder. In the well-known story of Cain and Abel, Cain killed his own brother. But why? John says it was “because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous” (1 John 3:12 ESV). So is John saying that Cain killed Abel because Abel was a righteous person? Did he murder his brother out of some form of jealousy or resentment? That was probably the surface cause. But there is something far deeper going on in this story, and we need to go back and look at the actual event to get a better handle on what actually happened and in order to see why John is using this story as an object lesson about love. Back in Genesis 4, we read, “Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering,  but for Cain and his offering he had no regard” (Genesis 4:3-5 ESV). Both brothers brought offerings to the Lord. There is no indication that God had indicated the type of offering that was to be given, so God's rejection of Cain's offering does not appear to be about what he brought. But it clearly says, “but for Cain and his offering he [God] had no regard.” The word “regard” in the Hebrew means “to look on with favor.” So when it says God had “no regard” for Cain, it means He did NOT look on him with favor. Cain's offering was an extension of his heart. The offering was not the issue, Cain was. There was something wrong with Cain that caused God to reject him and his offering. You have to go all the way to Hebrews 11 to discover what was going on behind the scenes. There we read, “By faith, Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts” (Hebrews 11:4 ESV). Notice those two words, “by faith.” They are key to understanding the story and getting the point of John's inclusion of this event in his discussion about love. The motivation behind Abel's gift was faith. He believed in God. And his gift was directed at a God he had never seen. That is an important point. You have to remember that neither Cain or Abel had ever seen or heard God as their parents had. After the sin of Adam and Eve, they were banned from the garden and from God's presence. Their sons had never seen Eden or had the joy of intimacy with God. What they knew about God they had been told by their parents. Both had heard the same stories, but it would appear that only Abel believed what he heard.

What is interesting is that the writer of Hebrews goes on to say, “without faith it is impossible to please him” (Hebrews 11:6 ESV). Abel had faith and his offering was pleasing to God. Cain did not have faith and his offering was displeasing to God. Cain did not believe in God. When it says that Abel offered a “more acceptable sacrifice than Cain,” the word “acceptable” in the Hebrew refers to “greater in quantity, greater in quality.” But it was not the sacrifice that was the issue. It was Abel's faith. His faith gave his sacrifice its value. His belief and trust in God was what made his sacrifice acceptable. And according the writer of Hebrews, “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1 ESV). Abel had faith in a God he had never seen. He had hope and assurance in God and gave his sacrifice out of love and gratitude. Verse 6 of chapter 11 of Hebrews says, “without faith it is impossible to please him,” but there is more, “for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” Abel believed God existed. Cain did not. Oh, he gave a sacrifice, but it was not from the heart, and it was given in a spirit of doubt and disbelief. Interestingly, in early Jewish and Christian writings, Cain is used as a model for those who deliberately disbelieve in God. Cain lacked faith in God. Cain didn't love God. He didn't abide in God. Cain loved Cain. His inability to love God made it impossible for him to love his own brother. And John warns that we should not be like Cain. We need to abide in Christ. We need to remain dependent upon Him and believe that He exists and that he rewards those who seek him. Our faith in God will produce fruit. Our love for God will produce love for others. Cain didn't love God. Cain loved Cain. And Cain was incapable of loving Abel. The lack of love is hate. Love is saying “No” to one's own life so that others may live. The to key loving others is faith in God. It is when we believe in Him and know that He loves us that we will be able to love others more than we love ourselves.

Believe and Love.

And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. – 1 John 3:23 ESV

Two simple things: Believe in Jesus and love one another. But oh, how difficult those two things can be to do. The first one seems so easy. In fact, all of us who have placed our faith in Christ as our Savior have already done it. We have already believed in Jesus. But there is a sense in which we must continue to believe in Jesus. The word “believe” that John uses is in the aorist tense. Typically, we end up translating aorist verbs as past tense, but in the Greek the concept of an aorist verb is considered without regard for past, present, or future time. We don't have an equivalent tense in English. So in reality, our belief in Jesus is to be past, present and future. It is non-ending. One of the reasons John put so much emphasis on abiding in Christ is that it is the key to our fruitfulness and without abiding we can do nothing. “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.  I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:4-5 ESV). To abide in Him is to believe in Him. We must continue to rely upon Him for our sanctification just as we did for our salvation. Without Christ, we cannot be fruitful. Without Christ, we cannot grow in Christ-likeness. Without Christ, we cannot love others. Without Christ, we cannot do anything.

Which brings us to the second simple statement we find so hard to do: Love one another. It would seem that our struggle with loving one another is directly linked to our unwillingness to believe in Christ. Yes, we believed in Him for our salvation, but we sometimes fail to believe in Him for all that follows after that. When Jesus said that He would send us the Holy Spirit, we must believe that what He said was true. We must believe the promise of Jesus even when we don't feel the Holy Spirit's presence in our lives. We must also believe that the Holy Spirit is our helper, comforter and guide just as Jesus said He would be. We must believe that He, the Spirit, is the Spirit of truth just as Jesus said He would be. We must believe that the Holy Spirit will teach us “about everything, and is true, and is no lie” (1 John 2:27 ESV). Our capacity to love one another is not some self-manufactured, man-made kind of love we conjure up out of our own will power. It is a fruit of abiding in Christ and relying upon the Spirit of God. Believing and loving go hand in hand. We love because He first loved us. Without Christ, we will find it impossible to love others. In the very next chapter, John tells us, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God, and knows God” (1 John 4:7 ESV). Our capacity to love comes from the love of God for us. But we must believe that. We must rely upon that. We must understand that all of our righteous deeds, apart from Christ, are like filthy rags. Even on our best day, our best efforts don't measure up. We are completely dependent upon Christ for all that we need to walk as He walked (1 John 1:6) and love like He loved ( John 15:12).

To believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ is to believe that Jesus is who God claimed Him to be. He is the Son of God. He is the Messiah, the Savior of the world. He is the sinless Lamb of God who died on the cross in order to satisfy the just demands of a righteous God. He is the risen Lord of lords. He is our advocate, our mediator, who sits at the right hand of God interceding on our behalf. He is our source of strength, hope, salvation, mercy, grace, and love each and every day of our lives. He is the vine and we are the branches. Without Him we can do nothing. We can't live without Him. We can't love without Him. But we must believe that. We must abide in that. We must remain totally dependent upon Him for all that we need, from our salvation all the way to our ultimate glorification, and everything in between.

Walk the Talk.

Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. – 1 John 3:18 ESV

Life change. That's really a big part of what John seems to be stressing in his letter. What we believe should impact how we behave. Who we are (children of God) should significantly alter what we do. And John focuses on one specific outcome of our relationship with Christ: our love for one another. After all, the world goes out of its way to hate us, just as it hated Jesus. But we are to love one another. We have passed from life to death, from being dead in our trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1) to new life in Christ (Ephesians 2:5). If we fail to love, it is as if we are still dead, exhibiting the characteristics of our former spiritual lifelessness. The dead don't love. The dead can't love. But we are alive in Christ because “he laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16 ESV). And as a result of that life-giving, new-creation kind of love, we have the capacity to love others – even to the point of laying down our lives for them just as Jesus laid down His life for us. Christ's love for us was tangible and visible. He gave His life. He laid it all on the line. So for us to claim to love one another, we will have to give proof of that love in tangible, visible ways. John says, “if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” (1 John 3:17 ESV). In other words, how can you claim to have the love of God abiding in you if you can't seem to express love to someone else whose need could be met by your surplus? James points out the absurdity of that kind of lifestyle when he writes, “If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?” (James 2:15-16 ESV). The old saying, “talk is cheap” is so true. Words that aren't backed up by action are meaningless. John gives us two pairs of words. He says, we are not to love in word or talk. The word for “talk” can actually be translated “tongue”, as in the muscle inside our mouth. It is out tongue that produces words. In the same way, it is truth that produces deeds. The truth concerning Jesus and His transforming power in our lives shows up as actions that reflect our new nature. We are able to love others because we have been loved by Him.

John reminds us that our belief in the name of Jesus, as the Son of God and our Savior from sin, coupled with our love for one another provide evidence of our relationship with God. We abide in Him and He abides in us. It is His Spirit within us that enables us to walk the talk. He helps us turn truth into action, and we get to see the love of God perfected or completed (1 John 2:5). As the Spirit enables us to love our brothers and sisters in Christ, it reflects God’s love flowing to us and through us to others. It doesn't dead end with us, but continues on to others as we act as conduits through whom His love flows.

But the love we are to share is far more than some kind of emotional or sentimental feeling. It is not to be self-seeking or reciprocal in nature, demanding payback or expecting love in return. The kind of love we are called to show others is radical and not like anything this world has ever seen. Paul describes it this way: “

Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. Love doesn’t strut, Doesn’t have a swelled head, Doesn’t force itself on others, Isn’t always “me first,” Doesn’t fly off the handle, Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, Doesn’t revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end.

– 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 NLT

We are to love in the same way that He loved us. And when we do, others will see it and know that we are His disciples. Why? Because that kind of love can't be faked. It isn't natural or normal. It's not of this world. It comes from a different source. It's full of life, not death. It builds up, instead of tearing down. It it other-focused rather than me-centered. It’s measurable, meaningful, tangible, helpful, and incredibly hopeful. When we walk the talk and love as He loved, we can know that He lives within us and He is in the process of transforming us, through His power and in His timing.

.

We Shall Be Like Him.

Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. – 1 John 3:2 ESV

We are already God's children. Right here. Right now. But we are in the process of transformation, what theologians refer to as our sanctification. We are being made into the likeness of Christ. Paul says that we “are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18 ESV). It is a spiritual transformation, an inner action that is taking place while we live in these earthly bodies. As our bodies grow older and suffer from the impact of sin, our inner spirits are slowly, but steadily going through a make-over, a renovation and renewal that is totally God's handiwork. But John gives us the assurance that there is a day coming when we will be like Jesus, not only in terms of our sinlessness, but also our outward appearance. Paul describes it in this way:  “For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing. For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spirits without bodies. While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life. God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit” (2 Corinthians 5:1-5 NLT).

So John reminds us that “what we will be has not yet appeared.” Our transformation is not yet complete. And it will not be complete until we see the Lord again. And at that moment, when we see Jesus, we will undergo a radical and revolutionary change that will leave us totally transformed into His likeness. Our process of sanctification will be complete. Our slow journey toward glorification (from one degree of glory to another) will be over. We will be glorified and receive new bodies. We will see Him like He is and we will be like He is. Again, we turn to Paul for some helpful insights into how all this works. He uses the imagery of a seed being planted in the ground and dying, only to transform into something new and life-giving. “What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being’; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven” (1 Corinthians 15:42-49 ESV).

We will bear the image of the man of heaven. We shall be like Him. We will receive new bodies, heavenly bodies that are free from sin, no longer susceptible to pain, and totally death-resistant. What will they look like? John doesn't tell us. Will we be able to recognize one another? I would certainly think so. The disciples had no trouble recognizing Jesus in His transfigured state on the mountain. But rather than worry about things we have not been told, we would probably do well to think about what John has made clear to us. “And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure” (1 John 3:3 ESV). Because we know that there is a day coming when we will be totally transformed into His likeness and we will see Him as He is and bear His image, we should make our inner transformation our highest priority. After all, it is God's highest priority. Our transformation from sinfulness to sinlessness was why Jesus came. “You know that he appeared in order to take away sins” (1 John 3:5 ESV). “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8 ESV). Jesus died so that we might be freed from having to sin. He has made it possible for us to live sin-less lives, even in these earthly bodies. So as we await His appearing, we need to make our pursuit of holiness job number one. We do that by abiding in Him and remembering our status as God's children. God has made us His own, and “that’s only the beginning. Who knows how we’ll end up!” (1 John 3:2 NLT). All we know is that the end result is a complete transformation into the likeness of Jesus Christ. And we are works in process at this very moment. So let's live with the end in mind. Let's make our holiness our highest priority – with God's help.

The Lure of Lawlessness.

Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. – 1 John 3:4 ESV

This section of John's letter can be very confusing and seemingly contradictory to what he has written earlier. In chapter one, John addressed the false assertions of those who had claimed “we have no sin” or “we have not sinned.” Not exposed them as liars who were devoid of the truth. Then he encouraged his readers, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9 ESV). Just a few lines later, he wrote, “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin,. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1 ESV). So it is clear than John believes sin is constant threat for the believer. But then we read these words in chapter three: “No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him” (1 John 3:6 ESV). But wait, there's more. “No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God” (1 John 3:9 ESV). Is John suggesting that believers can and should live in some kind of sinless state? Is he saying that the presence of sin in our lives evidence that we are not truly believers? What complicates the matter is verse eight. “Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning” (1 John 3:8 ESV). This seems to stand in direct opposition to John's earlier assertion that “we are God's children now” (1 John 3:2 ESV).

So what is John saying? What is his point? Are those who are born of God to live in sinlessness? If we sin, is it an indication that we are of the devil? I think one of the keys to understanding this entire section of First John is found in a little used Greek word found in verse four. It is the word “lawlessness” (anomia) and it means “contempt and violation of law.” This word is used here in John's epistle and is found also in Paul's second letter to the Thessalonians, to describe “the man of lawlessness” who will oppose Christ at His second coming. “Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God” (2 Thessalonians 3:3-4 ESV). “For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed” (2 Thessalonians 3:7-8 ESV). It would seem that John's use of this particular word fits in with his earlier reference to the antichrist in chapter two, verse 18. John would appear to be making the point that sin is lawlessness, or rebellion against the will of God. To commit sin is to inadvertently take sides with Satan in his opposition of God and His Son. It is to stand in opposition to Christ. With this in mind, the meaning of John's reference to sinning has less to do with specific immoral actions than it does with the attitude of opposition to God and Christ. One can't help but recall the startling words of Jesus spoken to Peter just after he had rebuked the Lord for saying He was going to Jerusalem where He would be suffer, die and rise again. Jesus said, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me” (Matthew 16:23 ESV). At that moment, Peter had stood in opposition to the will of God and the words of Jesus. Upon hearing what Jesus planned to do, Peter had said, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you!” (Matthew 16:22 ESV). 

Peter was refusing to accept God's plan for the salvation of the world. He had other expectations of Jesus. He wanted Jesus to rule and reign, not suffer and die. He wanted a human Messiah who would set up earthly kingdom, not a divine Savior whose Kingdom was spiritual in nature and somewhere out there in the future. So Peter opposed Jesus. And when we sin, we do the same thing. It is so easy to get hung up on the particular sin we commit. We see one sin as greater than another. We stop doing one and count it a victory, only to commit another one of a different variety. But John would have us see sin as lawlessness – as rebellion against God. And as children of God, born again by His regenerating power and possessed of His Spirit, the very idea of lawlessness or rebellion against the One who loved us enough to send His Son to die for us should be the farthest thing from our minds. John reminds us, “You know that he appeared in order to take away sins and in him there is no sin” (1 John 3:5 ESV). Jesus was anything but rebellious. He was perfectly obedient to the will of the Father. And no one who abides in Him keeps on sinning against God. The key is abiding. The more we remain attached to and dependent upon Jesus, the less we will sin. When we come unmoored from Him, we fall prey to our own sin nature and the attacks of the enemy. And like Peter, we become guilty of setting our minds on the things of man, rather than the things of God (Matthew 16:23). John is not offering us a life of sinlessness, but a key to sinning less. And just as in our salvation, the answer is Jesus. “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:3-4 ESV).

Abide and Accept.

And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. – 1 John 2:27 ESV

According to John, there appear to be two significant things that contribute to a believer's inability to live as Jesus lived and walk as He walked. The first is that we do not abide in Him. The word for abide is menō and it means “to remain, tarry, not to depart, to be held, kept, continually.” It is the same word Jesus used when He said, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me” (John 15:4 ESV). Jesus gave us an image of connectedness and oneness. He was illustrating a unity and spirit of dependency that is essential to our fruitfulness as believers. You have to remember that the context in which John writes involves a group of individuals who had left the local fellowship. They had failed to remain. Not only had they departed from fellowship with the people who made up the church there in Ephesus, they had walked away from the Christ that the apostles had preached. Either they had never believed that Jesus was the Son of God and the Savior of the world, or they had changed their opinions about Him somewhere along the way. So John was reminding those who were left behind to “remain.” He wanted them to stay connected to Christ, but not a Christ of their own choosing. They must continue believing in the Christ Jesus claimed to be, the apostles taught Him to be, and the Spirit confirmed Him to be. “But you have received the Holy Spirit, and he lives within you, so you don’t need anyone to teach you what is true. For the Spirit teaches you everything you need to know, and what he teaches is true—it is not a lie. So just as he has taught you, remain in fellowship with Christ” (1 John 2:27 NLT).

There is a time when Jesus will return. And while we don't know when it will happen, we are to live with that moment in mind. His eventual coming is to have an impact on our conduct. And our conduct is directly linked to our willingness to abide in Him. Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5 ESV). Our fruitfulness is directly linked to our abiding. And our fruitfulness glorifies God because it gives evidence to His power operating in us and through us. “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples” (John 15:8 ESV).

There is a second thing that makes it extremely difficult for us to live abundant, powerful and fruitful lives while we wait for the Lord's return. We refuse to accept or acknowledge who we really are. John reminds us that we are children of God. This incredible reality seems to never really sink in with most believers. And John would have us know that our new designation as God's children is the direct result of His incredible, marvelous, undeserved love for us. He has made us His children. Not because we deserved it, but because He chose to extend His love to us through the death of His Son on our behalf. We are His children and yet, most of us fail to ever recognize the immense significance of that reality. We tend to live as paupers rather than princes. We have been adopted by the God of the universe, but live as though we are orphans left to defend for and care for ourselves. The apostle Paul reminds us, “God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure” (Ephesians 1:5 NLT). And one of the most significant things about our adoption is that it comes with rights. Paul tells us that the full impact of our adoptions as sons is “that we might receive the full rights of sons” (Galatians 4:5 NIV). We're not third-class citizens, but fully legal children of God with all the rights and privileges that come with being His sons and daughters. God is our Father and we can come to Him at any time. We can make requests of Him. We can cry out to Him. But many of us fail to accept our new status as God's children. We live as if we belong to this world. We tend to seek for satisfaction and comfort from this place rather than turning to our heavenly Father. C. S. Lewis put it well when he said, “It would see that our Lord fins our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

If we want to be fruitful, faithful and experience the full life Jesus offered, we must remain in Him. We must not depart from Him, but remain attached to Him – at all times and at all costs. We can do nothing without Him. And we must constantly remind ourselves that we are children of God, with all the rights and privileges that come with that designation. We are no longer citizens of this world. Which is why John said, “The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him” (1 John 3:1 ESV). And why Jesus prayed on our behalf, “I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one” (John 17:14-15 ESV). Abide in Him. Accept who you are. And you will see God work in ways that transform you and glorify Him.

Seek and Destroy.

Little children, let no one deceive you: The one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as Jesus is righteous. The one who practices sin is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was revealed: to destroy the works of the devil. – 1 John 3:7-8 NET

Sin is an ever-present reality for every human being – including Christians. Ever since Adam and Eve listened to the lies of Satan in the garden, and put their own self-interests ahead of God's will, mankind has been enslaved to the enemy's wishes, acting according to his rebellious, anti-God agenda. And yet, John would have us remember that the reason Jesus came into the world, lived a sinless life, died on the cross in man's place, and rose again from the grave, was to put an end to Satan's rebellion and sin's dominion in our lives once and for all. “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8 ESV). Then why do we still struggle with sin? Why do we, as believers, still have to put up with our old sin nature that makes life so difficult and living righteously so seemingly impossible? The answer lies in the now-not-yet nature of our current status. John makes it clear that we are “called children of God, and so we are” (1 John 3:1 ESV). Just in case we didn't get his point, he repeats it. “Beloved, we are God's children now” (1 John 3:2 ESV). We have been born of God and have His seed abiding in us (1 John 3:9 ESV). According to John, this is a present reality. We are God's children right here, right now. It is not something that is reserved for us at some future date. But there is a “not yet” nature to our status as God's children. We are citizens of heaven living in a strange place. We are not where we belong. We are strangers and aliens living in a place that is foreign and hostile to us. John even tells us, “The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him” (1 John 3:1 ESV). Not only does the world not know us, it hates us. Because it is under the dominion and control of Satan, the world despises anything and anyone who represents God's Kingdom. So he has us in his sights and constantly seeks to attack us and defeat us. And to make matters worse, we still have our old natures, what Paul refers to as the flesh, living within us and causing us all kinds of problems. We have our new righteous nature, provided for us by Christ. And we have our old sinful nature, inherited from Adam. But John wants us to remember that “the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8 ESV). Part of the process in which we find ourselves is the ongoing mortification or putting to death of our old nature. This will continue until the Lord returns and we receive our glorified, sinless bodies. “But we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2 ESV). There is a day coming when we shall be completely sinless just as He is sinless. But in the meantime, we must do battle with our old natures. and “put to death the deeds of the body” (Romans 8:13 ESV). God has given us His Spirit to make it all possible. We have the strength to resist the enemy, and do what is right and righteous.

What we need to constantly realize is that Jesus, through the Spirit of God, is constantly seeking out those areas of our lives that remain in rebellion against the Kingdom of God. He is out to seek and destroy the vestiges of our rebellions sin nature and put them to death. Through exposure to the Word of God and with the help of the Spirit of God, we can have the remaining darkness in our lives exposed by the light. We can have the falsehood and lies that still linger in our hearts destroyed by the truth of God's Word. The presence of sin should not surprise us. But John would warn us that a Christian who sins is still living in subjection to the enemy. He has been set free, but is willingly allowing himself to be enslaved again. As Christians, when we sin, we are not living in the reality of who we are. We are hiding our true nature. “A sinning Christian conceals his true character when he sins and reveals it only through holiness. On the other hand, a child of Satan reveals his true character by sin” (Zane C. Hodges, The Epistles of John). Christians can and do sin. But it is NOT our nature. It is not who we are. Our capacity to live righteously is what shows that we are His children. Claiming to be a child of God, but living like a slave of Satan, hides our true character. But because we know who we are and what we will one day be, we purity ourselves as He is pure. We seek to be like Him who died so that we might live. John knows we will sin. Which is why he reminded us, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9 ESV). Sin is inevitable, but it is not irresistible. We can say no to sin. We can live righteously, even in this life. And when we do, it proves the reality of who we are. It gives evidence to the world that we are children of God and that Jesus Christ is still actively destroying the works of the devil, in our lives and in this world.

 

.

The Best Is Yet To Come.

Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. – 1 John 3:2 ESV

John went out of his way to let his readers know that they were God's children. It wasn't some future hope reserved for them in heaven, but a present reality that was to set them apart from the rest of the world. John could think of no greater expression of God's love than that He would call people who had once been His enemy, His children. And that new relationship had been made possible by Him sending His own Son to take on human flesh and die for the sins of mankind. John puts it this way a little bit later in his letter: “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9 ESV). And John's statement, “that we might live through him” is not just a reference to the eternal life reserved for us after Jesus returns. John had heard Jesus Himself say, “ I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10 ESV). So as believers, we have the amazing privilege of being children of God. Which means we are loved by God. Not only that, we have the Spirit of God, the Spirit of truth, living within us, providing us with an abiding awareness and constant proof that Jesus was exactly who He claimed to be and that all He promised and that the apostles taught was true. Which includes the promise of Jesus, “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20 ESV). He is with us now. John referred to Him as our “advocate with the Father” (1 John 2:1 ESV). He intercedes on our behalf before the very throne of God. And the Spirit of God lives within us, providing us with divine insight and incentive to live godly lives in the midst of a godless world.

But a big part of our motivation to live righteously in this life has to do with the life to come. At this point, we have residing within us our new nature, our sinless nature, given to us by Jesus. Because of His death, we were given His righteousness. We received new natures, that like His, are sinless. Our new natures are incapable of sin. John says, “You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin” (1 John 3:5 ESV). “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning; for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God” (1 John 3:8-9 ESV). Jesus died in order to put an end to sin, to destroy the works of the devil, and to eliminate the spirit of the antichrist that pervades this world. And while we still struggle with the ever-present reality of sin, we must never forget that Jesus Christ has already done all that needs to be done to put an end to sin and death. His crucifixion settled it. His death paid the price for man's sins and satisfied the wrath of God. His resurrection was proof that His death was worthy and that His Father was satisfied. It also proved His power over death. The apostle Paul said it so well. “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:54-57 ESV).

John wants us to know that there is a day coming when our sinless nature will be our only nature. Right now, we struggle with our residual, clinging, hard-to-kill sin nature that is constantly doing battle with our new nature. But there is a day coming when He will return, and “when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2 ESV). His sanctifying work in us will be completed once and for all. Our old natures will be eliminated and we will be like Him. Which is why John says, “everyone who thus hopes in him, purifies himself as he is pure” (1 John 3:3 ESV). It is our hope of future holiness that motivates our desire for present holiness. Because we are children of God NOW, and our future inheritance is reserved for us, we should want to live like who we are. We should desire to see our new nature increasingly become our only nature. Our future hope should instill in us a present passion to be sinless and righteous even now. The best is yet to come, but Jesus provides abundant, overflowing, righteous life even now. No one states this reality better than the apostle Paul. “We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him. We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him. When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God. So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:6-11).

The Sinless Sin Less.

Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. – 1 John 3:8 ESV

When one accepts Jesus Christ as their Savior, they receive a new nature. Jesus told Nicodemus, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:4 ESV). Nicodemus was a bit confused by this statement and wondered out loud about just how ridiculous and impossible it sounded. But Jesus responded, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6 ESV). Jesus was letting Nicodemus in on the exciting news that men were going to be able to receive new natures – spiritual natures – made possible when His atoning work on the cross had been completed. To drive home his point, Jesus used an event from the history of the Israelites. Having sinned and rebelled against God, the people of God found themselves under His wrath. They were being attacked by serpents and many were dying as a result. God instructed Moses to create a bronze serpent, put it on a staff and command the people to look at it – when they did, they would be healed. In essence, they had to look at their sin and their punishment in order to receive healing. And Jesus said, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14-15 ESV). This statement is followed by the familiar words of Jesus: “For God so loved the world,i that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 ESV). When an individual looks on the crucified Christ, bearing his sins on the cross and suffering the punishment for his rebellion against God, and believes that His sacrifice satisfied God, he is born again. He receives new life and a new nature. At that point he becomes a child of God. He not only receives healing from and forgiveness for his sins, he receives the righteousness of Christ. His new nature is a sinless nature. But the problem is that he also maintains his old nature – his sin nature. These two natures are at war within us. But the apostle Paul gives us the key to “making our sinless nature our dominant nature. “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do” (Galatians 5:16-17 ESV). Walk by the Spirit. John tells us the very same thing. “But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him” (1 John 2:27 ESV). We not only have new natures, we have the Holy Spirit living within us. And the key to sinning less is abiding more.

John reminds us that we are children of God – NOW! It is who we are. And as children of God, we have been given the very nature of God that allows us to live righteously and rightly. But the key is abiding or remaining in Him. We must walk in the light. We must stay attached to and dependent upon the source of our righteousness. Jesus' analogy of the vine and the branches teaches us the undeniable necessity of living constantly attached to and reliant upon Him. “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5 ESV). Our sin nature sins. That is what it does. But our sinless nature, the one we inherited from Christ, cannot sin. John puts it this way: “You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning” (1 John 3:5-6 ESV). Jesus died so that we might become righteous, as He is righteous. But we must remain or abide in Him. We must become increasingly more dependent upon the Spirit of God within us if we want to sin less. Every time we sin, it is a reminder that we are living according to our sin nature. We are not abiding. That should drive us back to the cross where our old nature was crucified with Christ. “We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin” (Romans 6:6 NLT). We can sin less, but only if we abide in Him more. Sinlessness is not the result of sinning less. It is the other way around. We sin less because our new nature is sinless. Paul tells us, “Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God” (Romans 6:13 NLT). We have new life and a new nature. We have a new capacity to sin less because our new nature is from God and is sinless. We sin when we give in to our old nature. We sin when we stop abiding in and relying on the Spirit within us. We are children of God and we can live like children of God. But we must rely on the power of God.

Practice Does NOT Make Perfect.

Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. – 1 John 3:7 ESV

There is a dangerous misconception within the church today that seems to believe that if we can increase the amount of good things we do while we eliminate our bad behaviors, we will become more holy. It works out something like this:

More good behavior – bad behavior = Holiness

It sounds so logical. It seems to make sense. But is it biblical? There is no doubt that believers in Jesus Christ are expected to live lives that are markedly different than those of the lost. The writer of Hebrews tells us to “Strive for … the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14 ESV). Paul told Timothy to “flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness” (2 Timothy 2:22 ESV). This was a recurring theme for Paul. “Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness” (1 Timothy 6:11 ESV). Peter wrote: “be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish” (2 Peter 3:14 ESV). He also said, regarding himself, “ I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me” (2 Peter 3:12 NLT). Paul encouraged the believers in Philippi, “Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear” (Philippians 2:12 NLT). But the danger comes when we think that our growth in spiritual maturity is somehow up to us. Yes, we have a role to play, but ultimately, our holiness is the work of God, just as our salvation was.

The key is dependence. John writes, “And now, little children, abide in him” (1 John 2:28 ESV). That word “abide” means to remain or be kept. John is echoing the words of Jesus Himself. Over in his gospel, John recorded a lesson from the lips of Jesus where he taught about the vine and the branches. He used horticultural imagery to drive home a point about our need for dependency on Him. “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:4-5 ESV). A branch abide in or remains attached to the vine. It is kept by or maintained by the vine. In and of itself, the branch can do nothing. Apart from the vine, the branch is useless and, ultimately, fruitless. The same thing is true of us. We can do nothing apart from Jesus. He is the one who produces fruit in us and through us. The branch cannot bear fruit apart from the vine. We cannot bear fruit apart from Jesus and the Spirit that lives within us. When Jesus says, “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples” (John 15:8 ESV), He is letting us know that fruitfulness is a sign that we belong to Him. The very fact that our lives produce fruit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control – is evidence of our abiding relationship with God. John puts it this way: “everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him” (1 John 2:29 ESV). We are children of God, therefore, we should act like children of God. It is part of our spiritual DNA. We have His Spirit within us. And while “what we will be has not yet appeared” (1 John 3:2 ESV), we are His children right here, right now. That's why we don't practice sinning. That's why John wrote, “No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him” (1 John 3:6 ESV). Continual, habitual sinning is anti-Christ. It is abnormal for someone who claims to be a child of God and has the Spirit of God living inside him. Which is why John says, “No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God” (1 John 3:9 ESV). He doesn't say we DON’T sin. He says we can't keep on sinning. It is against our nature. But the key is abiding. It is an attitude and lifestyle of constant dependence upon God. Our future perfection has nothing to do with self-effort. But it has everything to do with Spirit-dependence. Peter reminds us, “By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence” (2 Peter 1:3 NLT). Our very ability to “practice” or do righteousness is proof that we are children of God. Our good deeds are like a spiritual paternity test that reveals who our true Father really is. Jesus said of the Pharisees, “For you are the children of your father the devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the beginning. He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44 NLT). Their actions revealed their real father. And the same thing will be true of us. But we must abide. We must remain attached to and dependent upon Christ for all that we need. He not only saved us, He is sanctifying us, and “we know that when he appears we shall be like him because we shall see him like he is” (1 John 3:2 ESV).

When Love Gets Lost.

They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. – 1 John 2:19 ESV

They had left, vacated the premises, taken their football and gone home. An undetermined number of members of the local church there in Ephesus had walked out and their departure had left those who remained behind confused and hurt. But John wanted them to know that these so-called brothers and sisters in Christ were not what they had appeared to be. There was one very important ingredient missing: Love. Oh, they loved their opinions and had a strong affection for their beliefs about Jesus. So much so, that they were willing to walk out on the rest of the fellowship when they refused to see things their way. John made it very clear that they had never really been a part of the body of Christ there in Ephesus. But no one had known it until they finally decided to part ways. Their departure had been the thing that exposed their true nature. By leaving they had exposed their lack of love. There is no doubt that their doctrinal beliefs concerning the deity of Christ, their refusal to accept that He was the Son of God, and their denial of their own personal sins were major factors in the split, but it was their willingness to walk away from the family of God that exposed their real problem. They did not have the love of God within them. John made this point perfectly clear when he raised the issue regarding the new commandment. This was a not-so-subtle reminder of the words of Jesus Himself. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” (John 13:34 ESV). But John accused the recently departed faction of failing to keep this commandment. “Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness” (1 John 2:9 ESV). “But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes” (1 John 2:11 ESV). These people had allowed their false doctrine to turn into hate. It wasn't enough to claim to know God and have a relationship with Him. “Whoever says ‘I know him’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected” (1 John 2:4-5 ESV). They had failed to love one another. But their problem was that they did not have the capacity to love. The love of God could not be perfected or completed in them because it did not reside in them. By rejecting the deity of Jesus and refusing to accept Him as God in human flesh and their Savior from sin, they had rejected the love of God altogether. God's love for the world had been expressed through the giving of His own Son as the sacrifice for the sins of man (John 3:16). But that love must be accepted by receiving His Son as Savior. By denying that Jesus was the Christ, they had refused God's gift of love. And without it, they were incapable of keeping Jesus' command to love others as He had loved them.

John had made it clear that “if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7 ESV). God is light, and to walk in the light is to walk in His presence. To walk in His presence we must have accepted the gift of His Son, which is the only means by which sinful man can gain access into the presence of a holy and righteous God. “And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him” (Colossians 1:21-22 ESV). One of the benefits of being able to walk in the light of God is a new capacity to live in fellowship with one another. Our capacity to get along with one another and express love to one another comes from God. His love is perfected in us and through us. But it all begins with our acceptance of His love for us. Which requires that we believe His Son was who he claimed to be. John will make this point again a little bit further into his letter. “We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother” (1 John 4:19-21 ESV). How do you love God and not accept the gift of love He gave? How do you love others unless you have allowed His love to permeate your life by accepting the gift of His Son? Our ability to love one another comes from God. It is His love being expressed through us.

By walking out, the individuals of whom John is referring, revealed their true nature. They didn't love because they had never experienced the love of God by accepting His Son as their Savior. And the absence of that love within their lives had left a vacuum of hate. They loved their false doctrine more than they loved God or others. Jesus had said, “Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples” (John 13:35 NLT). And it all begins with accepting God's love as expressed through the gift of His Son's incarnation, death, and resurrection.

Staying Power.

So you must remain faithful to what you have been taught from the beginning. If you do, you will remain in fellowship with the Son and with the Father. – 1 John 2:24 NLT

There are always going to be reasons for believers to lose hope and doubt their faith. The enemy is real, his attacks are relentless and the pressure to doubt God is ever-present. John knew that those to whom he wrote were faced with all kinds of questions regarding their beliefs. They were having the very foundation of their faith shaken by those who claimed to be their brothers and sisters in Christ. Their fellowship had been rocked by the recent departure of a group who no longer believed what they believed. They had a different view about Jesus. At first glance, their perspective probably hadn't sounded all that different, but over time it became clear that they were espousing a radically different doctrine regarding the identity and role of Jesus. Evidently, they had come to believe that Jesus was nothing more than a man. He was not the Son of God. He was not God in human flesh. In other words, they were rejecting the very idea of the incarnation. And it seems clear from John's letter, that they were even doubting their need for a Savior, because they were denying their own sinfulness. John called this “the spirit of the antichrist” (1 John 4:3 ESV). Their views regarding Jesus were more than just opinions, they were heresy, dangerous and destructive teachings that undermined the very foundation of the faith and denied the Word of God. John called them what they were: liars. “Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ?” (1 John 2:22 ESV). To deny that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah and Savior of the world, was to deny that He was God. It was to disagree with what God said about Jesus and what Jesus claimed about Himself. It was to reject the teaching of the apostles, like John, who had been eye-witnesses of not only His earthly ministry, but His death and resurrection.

So John gives his struggling flock two ways for staying strong in the face of unrelenting attacks on their faith. The first was that they must remain faithful to what they had been taught. They must consider the source. John wrote, “So you must remain faithful to what you have been taught from the beginning. If you do, you will remain in fellowship with the Son and with the Father” (1 John 2:24 NLT). The Message paraphrase puts it this way: “Stay with what you heard from the beginning, the original message. Let it sink into your life. If what you heard from the beginning lives deeply in you, you will live deeply in both Son and Father.” Where did that original message come from? The apostles. They had been the messengers sent by Jesus to spread the good news regarding the gift of eternal life made possible by His death on the cross. They had brought the message of forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God that Jesus’ death and resurrection had made possible. And their message hinged on the reality of Jesus being the sinless Son of God. He was NOT just a man who lived a good life and died a martyr’s death. He was God's own Son, and He had taken on human flesh, lived a sinless life, died a sinner’s death, as a payment to satisfy the just penalty required by a righteous and holy God. That is what the apostles had been taught. That is what they had shared. That is what the recipients of John's letter had originally believed, and it had radically changed their lives. So John was encouraging them to remain faithful to what they had heard. There would be plenty of other opinions about God. There would be other views regarding Jesus and the way of salvation. But Jesus had said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6 ESV). He had boldly claimed, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live” (John 11:25 ESV). And John, who had personally seen Jesus in His post-crucifixion, resurrected state, had written, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14 ESV).

But there was one more thing John told his readers to remember. “But you have received the Holy Spirit, and he lives within you” (1 John 2:27 NLT). They had experienced the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, just as Jesus had promised. When they had believed what the apostles had taught, it had been confirmed by the filling of the Spirit. John reminded them that because the Spirit of God lived or remained within them, they could know that what they had been taught by the apostles had been true. They didn't need any “new” teaching. “…so you don’t need anyone to teach you what is true. For the Spirit teaches you everything you need to know, and what he teaches is true—it is not a lie. So just as he has taught you, remain in fellowship with Christ” (1 John 2:27 NLT). This did not mean that they were omniscient or all-knowing. It simply meant that they already knew the truth regarding Jesus and His claim to be the Son of God. The very presence of the Holy Spirit within them was the proof. Just like those to whom John was writing, we have the Word of God and the Spirit of God. We have the testimony of the apostles and the presence of the Spirit. We know the truth. We know Jesus – the way, the truth, and the life. He is who He who claimed to be. The Word of God declares it. The apostles gave their lives to defend it. And the indwelling presence of the Spirit of God makes it impossible to deny it.

Our Spiritual Lie Detector.

But you have received the Holy Spirit, and he lives within you, so you don’t need anyone to teach you what is true. For the Spirit teaches you everything you need to know, and what he teaches is true—it is not a lie. So just as he has taught you, remain in fellowship with Christ. – 1 John 2:27 NLT

Jesus called Satan the father of lies. Paul, when confronting a Jewish false prophet named Bar-Jesus, called him “You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord?” (Acts 13:10 ESV). In the days immediately after Pentecost, Peter had to confront one of the new converts for falsely claiming to have sold land and given all the proceeds to the church. “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land?” (Acts 5:3 ESV). Paul had to warn the Colossian believers, “Don't let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ” (Colossians 2:8 NLT). Peter made it clear that false teachers would be a constant threat to the church. “But there were also false prophets in Israel, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will cleverly teach destructive heresies and even deny the Master who bought them. In this way, they will bring sudden destruction on themselves. Many will follow their evil teaching and shameful immorality. And because of these teachers, the way of truth will be slandered” (2 Peter 2:1-2 NLT). The reality is that, as Christians, we are surrounded by lies and constantly tempted to buy into the subtle deceptions of the enemy. It can become increasingly more difficult to tell the difference between what is true and what is false. But we have been given a reliable resource for determining right from wrong and truth from fiction. Jesus promised that when He left, He would not leave us alone, but would send the very Spirit of God to fill us and help us. “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13 NLT). John reminds us that the Holy Spirit lives within us, and He is not only our comforter and helper, He is our source of all truth. He can help discern what is a lie of the enemy and what we can trust as a word from God. We have not been left defenseless. We have been given the Spirit of God and therefore, we can understand the will and the mind of God. “For his Spirit searches out everything and shows us God’s deep secrets. No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit. And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us” (1 Corinthians 2:10-12 NLT). 

John reminds us that we have the very Spirit of God living within us. He indwells us. He is our resident lie detector, providing us with the ability to know what is true and what is false. But we have to listen to Him. We have to seek His help and want to hear what He has to say. But the temptation is to ignore His promptings and to refuse to listen to His voice. One of the primary tools the Spirit uses to speak to us is the Word of God, the Bible. As we read it, He helps us understand it and apply it to our lives. He gives us the capacity to hear the voice of God through the written Word of God. But if we don't read it, He can't speak to us through it. It is impossible for Him to apply the truth of God's Word if we refuse to take it in. The temptation we all face as Christians is to allow the philosophies of this world to fill our minds and deceive us with a reasonable sounding variation of the truth. Our sinful flesh, always at battle with the Spirit within us, constantly urges us to listen to its selfish demands and give in to its subtle suggestions. And unless we are filling our minds with the Word and listening to the voice of the Spirit, we will find ourselves deceived and distracted by the lies of the enemy. So Paul tells us, “let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions” (Galatians 5:16-17 NLT). As John warned earlier, we are constantly faced with the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes and the pride of our possessions and accomplishments. We need the Holy Spirit to see the danger we face and to give us the strength we need to stay in step with the truth. Left to our own devices, we will fail. But with the Spirit's help, we can live discerning and disciplined lives. “Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives” (Galatians 5:25 NLT). God didn't leave us defenseless. But we must learn to live dependent upon the Spirit if we are going to live powerfully and profitably in this life.

When Christians Become Anti-Christ.

They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. – 1 John 2:19 ESV

There was a group of former church members who had recently left the fellowship there in Ephesus. Evidently, they had stirred up a bit of controversy with their beliefs regarding Jesus. For whatever reason, they had either had a change of heart regarding the deity of Jesus, or had never fully believed it from the beginning. These people were denying that Jesus was the Son of God and rejecting His claim to have been the Messiah. In essence, they were refusing to accept Him as Savior. They even denied their own sinfulness. As you can imagine, these beliefs caused quite a bit of trouble for the church there in Ephesus. John even referred to the recently departed ones as antichrists. That's a pretty serious accusation. But his basis for that charge was sound. They were anti-Christ. They were denying the centrality of Christ as God in human form and as the Savior of the world. They were refusing to admit their own sinfulness and, therefore, their need for salvation. All the while, they were claiming to have a right relationship with God. So John called them out and called them what they were: anti-Christ.

But this incident got me thinking. While those who had left the Ephesian church were probably not believers in Jesus Christ to begin with, I began to wonder if it is possible for Christians to be anti-Christ. Can we stand opposed to Christ even if we still fully accept His deity and rest in His role as our Savior and Lord? And the somewhat surprising and disturbing answer is yes. And it is easier to do than you might think. I am reminded of an exchange between Peter and Jesus recorded in the gospel of Matthew. What is amazing about this story is that Jesus had just recently commended Peter for his answer to Jesus' question: “What do you say I am?” (Matthew 16:15 NLT). Peter's response had been, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16 NLT). And Jesus had been extremely pleased with what Peter had said. And yet, not long after this exchange, Jesus began to break the news to His disciples that He was going to be going to Jerusalem where He “would suffer many terrible things at the hands of the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but on the third day he would be raised from the dead” (Matthew 16:21 NLT). But when Peter heard this news, he “took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things. ‘Heaven forbid, Lord,’ he said. ‘This will never happen to you!’” (Matthew 16:22 NLT). And amazingly, Jesus lit Peter up, saying, “Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s” (Matthew 16:23 NLT). At that moment, Peter had become anti-Christ. He had chosen to stand opposed to what Jesus had clearly communicated as God's will and His own intention to follow it. Peter had not liked what he had heard and so he rejected it. He even called on God Himself to forbid it from happening. What struck me in this story is how easy it is for even a believer to become anti-Christ in his or her outlook. Peter's problem was that he was seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God's. He had lacked a divine, eternal perspective. He didn't like what he was hearing. He didn't agree with what Jesus was saying. It was disagreeable to his way of thinking, so he disagreed with Jesus. How often to we do the very same thing? We don't like our circumstances. We don't agree with God regarding our lot in life. We begin to see everything from our own view point, rather than God's and, at that moment, we become anti-Christ. We refuse to accept His will for our lives. We refuse to accept His sufficiency for any and all situations. We refuse to accept that “God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them” (Romans 8:28 NLT). Whether we want to admit it or not, we can become anti-Christ, and even anti-Gospel. We can refuse to believe that the gospel, the good news regarding Jesus Christ, also includes our sanctification, our ongoing transformation into His likeness. And sanctification is a process that takes time and is based on faith just as much as our salvation was. When we begin to think that our spiritual maturity is up to us, we become anti-Christ and anti-Gospel. We make it about works and not grace. That does not mean we don't play a role in the process, but at the end of the day, it is a work of the Spirit, not the flesh. As soon as I think I can make myself more holy, I stand opposed to Jesus' all-sufficient sacrifice and the Spirit's indwelling, empowering role in my life. Paul put it this way, “My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20 NLT). He lived by trusting in the Son of God. As soon as I stop doing that, I become anti-Christ. I become self-sufficient rather than Christ-dependent. I begin seeing things from my own perspective rather than God's. And at that moment, I become an ally of the enemy and opposed to the very one in whom I trusted for my salvation. Any time we become pro-self, we become anti-Christ. Which is why Jesus told His disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me” (Matthew 16:24 NLT).

The Last Hour.

Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. – 1 John 2;18 ESV

What a foreboding statement. At this point in his letter, John seems to take on a tone of seriousness and soberness. He addresses his audience as children, exposing his pastor's heart and his feelings of compassion and responsibility for them. He wanted them to know the reality of their circumstances and understand the seriousness of what they saw happening around them. What they were experiencing was NOT to be unexpected or surprising, because of the times in which they were living. It was the last hour. How does John know that? Because “many antichrists have come” (1 John 2:18 ESV). As the gospel advanced, the opposition increased and it continues to this day. And it is not just an opposition to Christians. It is an anti-Christ sentiment. It isn't even an opposition to God. There are many who, like the individual referred to in chapter one, claim to have fellowship with God. They claim to know Him. But they deny Jesus as Christ. They are anti-Christ, and therefore opposed to the good news as preached by Jesus Himself and carried on by His disciples. Like the original recipients of John's letter, we are living in the last hour, the last days. This was a common designation for the days that followed Jesus incarnation and resurrection. The writer of Hebrews tells us, “in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world” (Hebrews 1:2 ESV). Paul warned Timothy, “that in the last days there will come times of difficulty” (2 Timothy 3:1 ESV). Peter tells us, “that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires” (2 Peter 3:3 ESV). But Peter also knew that the last days would also be accompanied by a great movement of God. He had seen it and experienced it. On the day of Pentecost, he had been part of the small band of disciples who had been dramatically and miraculously transformed by the coming of the Holy Spirit. And he knew that their experience had been promised by God many years earlier through the prophet Joel. “And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams” (Acts 2:17 ESV). Peter worked this Old Testament prophesy into the message that he gave to the crowd of people who had gathered as a result of the disciples speaking in languages they didn't know. It was the last days. God was at work. He had sent His Son. He had died, was raised again and now His disciples were spreading the good news regarding the salvation made available through Him. But there was going to be opposition. There was going to be an anti-Christ sentiment rise up and spread. The world would oppose their message. Satan would stand against the gospel and its offer of a restored relationship with God. We are living in a war zone. Satan, the god of this world, has blinded the eyes of the lost. He wants to keep them in the dark regarding the hope available to them through Jesus Christ. So he offers them alternatives and seemingly viable options. But they are all anti-Christ, other than Christ. They provide options that leave out Christ.

But like the believers to whom John was writing, we have hope and we have help. We have the Holy Spirit. John wrote, “But you have received the Holy Spirit, and he lives within you, so you don’t need anyone to teach you what is true. For the Spirit teaches you everything you need to know, and what he teaches is true—it is not a lie. So just as he has taught you, remain in fellowship with Christ” (1 John 2:27 NLT). What we have to realize is that virtually everything around us is anti-Christ. The world and the things it offers us provide a constant temptation to turn from Christ to something else. Satan wants us to find our hope in the things of this world. He wants us to find our satisfaction from the things of this world. He wants us to seek our joy from the things of this world. He wants us to find our significance from the things of this world. But these things are all lies and illusions. They are poor imitations of the real thing. John reminds us, “And this is the promise that he made to us—eternal life” (1 John 2:25 ESV). That should be our focus. Everything here is temporal, not eternal. It is fading away. But our hope is sure. Our salvation is secure. Our eternal future assured. And we know that the last days will have a last day. There is an ending to this story. There is a final chapter to God's story of redemption. Jesus Himself told us, “And then at last, the sign that the Son of Man is coming will appear in the heavens, and there will be deep mourning among all the peoples of the earth. And they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.  And he will send out his angels with the mighty blast of a trumpet, and they will gather his chosen ones from all over the world—from the farthest ends of the earth and heaven” (Matthew 24:30-31 NLT). These are difficult days, but we serve a great God. We have His Spirit within us and His promise of eternal life to motivate us. We can not only survive, we can thrive. We have already overcome the evil one because of what Christ has done for us.

Truth Is NOT Relative.

I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. – 1 John 2:21 ESV

Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6 ESV). That's a rather exclusive, intolerant and non-subjective statement. Jesus claims to be THE way, THE truth, and THE life – not just one of many options or alternatives. Nobody gets to the Father without going through Jesus. And when John tells his readers that they know the truth, He is referring not only to the teaching concerning Jesus, but to the person of Jesus Himself. They know Him personally. They know Him as He who is from the beginning. He is the life. He is eternal life. He is the Son of God and the Savior of the world. He is the propitiation for their sins and their advocate before the Father. They know THE truth. And anyone who teaches anything other than that is a liar. No matter how reasonable what they say may sound. There are not variations of the truth. There is only THE truth – Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul had to deal with this problem in the early days of the church. He wrote to the believers in Galatia, warning them, “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel — not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ” (Galatians 1:6-7 ESV). There were those who were presenting a different version of the truth. They were selling a variation of the truth which was really just a lie. And Paul was very blunt in his assessment of these individuals. “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8-9 ESV). A contrary or contradictory gospel is a false gospel. Any good news that does not present Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life is ultimately bad news. And yet, we are so susceptible to subjective truth. So were the believers in Corinth. Paul had to reprimand them for their unhealthy tolerance of alternative truth narratives. “You happily put up with whatever anyone tells you, even if they preach a different Jesus than the one we preach, or a different kind of Spirit than the one you received, or a different kind of gospel than the one you believed” (2 Corinthians 11:4 NLT). Paul feared that their “pure and undivided devotion to Christ will be corrupted, just as Eve was deceived by the cunning ways of the serpent” (2 Corinthians 11:3 NLT). Rather than keep their focus on the truth about Jesus, they would allow themselves to be distracted and deceived by the lies of the enemy. If you recall, when Satan tempted Eve, he didn't totally contradict the word of God, he simply twisted the truth and turned it into a subtly deceptive lie. He got Eve to doubt God's word, not reject it. And that is what the enemy does with us regarding the truth. His goal is not to get us to reject it outright, but to simply distort it or dilute it by creating a more acceptable version. But if it denies Jesus as the way, the truth and the life, it is unacceptable. If it presents Jesus as one of many ways to God, it is a lie. Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6 ESV). So either He was a liar or He was telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And John has gone out of his way to remind his readers that they know the truth. They know Jesus. They know Him who is from the beginning. As a result, they know the Father. They have a relationship with God because of what Jesus has done. And their sins have been forgiven. They are strong. The word abides in them. And they have overcome the evil one. The lies are all around us. The enemy is constantly attempting to get us to accept false versions of the truth – distorted variations on the theme. But we know THE truth. It is Jesus. Jesus the Son of God. Jesus, God in human flesh. Jesus the sinless sacrifice. Jesus the payment for our penalty. Jesus the resurrected Christ. Jesus our advocate. Jesus our coming King. He alone is the way, the truth and the life. No one comes into a right relationship with God the Father but through Him. There is no other truth. There is no other way.

Who Do You Say That I Am?

Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. – 1 John 2:22-23 ESV

The world in which we live is diametrically opposed to God. Although it was created by Him, it vehemently resists His sovereign right to rule and reign. It rejects His Son as King and denies in any way that men are subjects of His Kingdom. In his letter, John goes out of his way to present Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah. But he wants his readers to know that Jesus was far more than just a man who lived a good life and taught strong moral truths. He was “that which was from the beginning” (1 John 1:1 ESV). He was the eternal word of life and was made manifest, made visible, so that men could see Him. Not only that, He was the propitiation for the sins of man. His death satisfied the just demands of a holy God. And now He sits at the right hand of God the Father where He intercedes on our behalf, acting as our advocate or mediator. But the world would have us believe it is all a lie. The god of this world is doing everything in his power to dissuade us of any notion as to Jesus being the Son of God or the Savior of the world. He wants us to reject the very idea that we even need a Savior. To do that, he gets us to doubt the reality of our own sin. Sinless people don't need salvation or a Savior. Rather than confess our sins, Satan would have us deny them. Rather than recognize God's holiness our own sinfulness, Satan would prefer that we measure our righteousness by a more subjective standard. Morality becomes relative and unenforceable. Goodness becomes a personal matter. Right and wrong become totally subjective and subject to interpretation. Isaiah warned about this kind of attitude. “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight!” (Isaiah 5:20-21 ESV). This is the spirit of the antichrist. It is the antithesis of everything for which God stands. No rules. No law. No judgment. No sin. No savior. No hell. And it is all a lie.

John tells his readers, “I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth” (1 John 2:21 ESV). Those to whom he was writing knew the truth regarding Jesus. He was the Son of God. He had come to die on the cross on their behalf. His death had provided them with justification before God. They had enjoyed forgiveness for their sins, a restored relationship with God the Father, and were assured on eternal life. Just hours before His trials and crucifixion, while alone in the garden, Jesus had prayed, “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3 ESV). This is at the heart of eternal life. An intimate knowledge of and belief in Jesus as the Son of God and Savior of the world, and the Father as the loving source of that invaluable gift. Anyone who teaches anything other than that is not only sorely mistaken, they are deadly wrong. Jesus Himself boldly and categorically claimed, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6 ESV). There is no other way. There is no other path. There is no other option. Case closed. End of discussion.

A belief in Jesus that is accompanied by a rejection of sin is nothing less than a lie. A belief in God that does not include His Son as Savior is close, but not good enough. “No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also” (1 John 2:23 ESV). One of the most important questions Jesus ever asked His disciples is recorded in the gospels. He started out by asking them, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” (Matthew 16:13 ESV). They provided a number of options, clarifying the range of perceptions held by the common people of the day. But then Jesus posed a question for which the answer remains the most significant one any man or woman will ever have to give. He asked, “But who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15 ESV). Forget about everybody else. Don't worry about what everyone else is saying. What do you say? Who is Jesus to you? And we know by Jesus response that Peter gave the right answer. He simply stated, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mathew 16:16 ESV). Which is why John could say that anyone who denies that Jesus is the Christ is a liar. To deny Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, is to deny that He was God. It is to deny that He was sinless. It is to deny that we are sinners. It is to deny that we need saving. It is to deny that God is holy. It is to deny that punishment for sin is possible or even probable. It is to deny the resurrection. It is to deny eternal life and the reality of heaven. And it is to deny the existence of hell. That is the spirit of antichrist. And it is all around us. But we know better. We know Him. We know the truth. We have the light. And we have the life. Let us live like it and love like it. Let us walk as Jesus walked. In the truth of who He is and what He has done.

The Folly of What Is Fading.

And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. – 1 John 2:17 ESV

This world is temporary and transient. But for most of us, it has become our only perception of what is real. Here in this world we can see, touch, smell and experience what appears to be reality. We can enjoy a good meal, watch a beautiful sunset, feel the love of another human being, and experience a thousand other moments of legitimate joy and pleasure. And there is nothing wrong with any of those things, until we allow them to replace or distract us from what is truly real. John's whole point in this passage has been to warn believers of the danger of the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes and the pride we get from our possessions or positions. When we turn to those things in order to find our sense of worth and value or to feed our need for self-importance and self-indulgence, we have lost sight of reality. Those things we lust after, long for, and find satisfaction in are temporary and not timeless. John says they are fading away. Not only that, he indicates that our desire for them should be diminishing as well. As believers, we should have a growing sense of eternity, that our destiny is out ahead of us. This world is not our true home. We truly are just passing through on our way to somewhere else.

The writer of Hebrews spoke of this very attitude when he wrote about the saints of the Old Testament. “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:8-10 ESV). Abraham never got to live in a city with foundations – on this earth. But he does now. His faith was in something he couldn't see. He trusted the promises of God in spite of the fact that those promises so often appeared to be unfulfilled. The writer of Hebrews goes on to say, “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.  If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Hebrews 11:13-16 ESV). Moses, Abraham, Sarah, Abel, Isaac, and Jacob – they all lived by faith, setting their hopes on things they could not see. “Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see” (Hebrews 11:1 NLT).

The danger we all face is to confuse our present circumstances with future reality. Nothing here lasts. New cars become old ones. They lose their value as soon as you drive them off the lot. New outfits become outdated in no time at all. New homes slowly fall apart. New toys lose their novelty and appeal. Even the bodies we live in are growing old and giving out on us. But Paul would remind us that these bodies are indeed temporary. They are not built to last. But we are. We are eternal creatures. Our souls are eternal and not temporary. Paul refers to these bodies as tents – much like what Abraham lived in. They are not our permanent home. “For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands.” (2 Corinthians 5:1 NLT). We are to live in this world with a sense of expectation in what is to come. Like Abraham, we are to see ourselves as temporary residents here. Our home is elsewhere. “So we are always confident, even though we know that as long as we live in these bodies we are not at home with the Lord. For we live by believing and not by seeing. Yes, we are fully confident, and we would rather be away from these earthly bodies, for then we will be at home with the Lord. So whether we are here in this body or away from this body, our goal is to please him” (2 Corinthians 5:6-9 NLT).

Our goal is to please Him. That is exactly John's point when he says, “whoever does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:17 ESV). We are to live in this world with a determination to do what is pleasing to God, not ourselves. We are eternal creatures. We have an eternal destiny. This world is fading along with its desires. Which is why Paul warns us to live our time here wisely and carefully, with a full awareness that how we live our life in the here and now directly is directly tied to our view of the hereafter. “For we must all stand before Christ to be judged. We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in this earthly body” (2 Corinthians 5:10 NLT).