(Chapters 1–3.)
There is no uncertainty in divine things for those who, in faith, rest upon the word of God; and it is clear from the Scriptures that God desires His saints to be fully assured of His salvation, and of all that He has so graciously made known to us by the inspiration of His Holy Spirit. Defective teaching, and weakness of faith in God’s word, have very much to do with the doubts that afflict many true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. Simply faith in what the Scripture says would dispel every doubt, giving assurance of God’s salvation and of the place of relationship and favour into which God, in His matchless grace, has set us before Him.
If the knowledge of salvation is desired, we have but to read what the Apostle Paul has written by divine inspiration in 2 Timothy 1:8-9, “God, has saved us, and called us with a holy calling.” If there is uncertainty as to what lies ahead, we have but to rest on the Scripture which says, “For we know that if our earthly tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Cor. 5:1). Justification by faith in Christ Jesus, our present standing in the favour of God, the portion of the saints put to sleep by Jesus, and our future portion as joint-heirs with Christ, are among the innumerable blessings of which the believer can be certain through knowing and believing in what God has spoken in His word.
In John’s First Epistle, the terms “we know” and “ye know” are found throughout this divine communication, and it is necessary to have this common Christian knowledge to understand what the Apostle is writing. Ignorance of God, which marks the unbeliever, makes it impossible for him to understand anything of what John is writing; and true believers, who do not know the Scriptures, or who have been affected by defective teaching, will find it most difficult to follow the reasonings of this precious part of God’s word.
The object of the epistle is that those who “believe on the Name of the Son of God” may know that they have eternal life (5:13). John was writing to tell the saints of what the eternal life really consisted, the things that were theirs as children in the family of God. The first mention of “we know” is in chapter 2 verse 3, “And hereby we do know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments.” Simple obedience to the Lord’s desires for His own, expressed in His commandments to us, gives us the certainty in our souls that we know Him. A life of obedience to God is what marked His Son upon earth, and it is to this we are called. The mere professor may say, “I know Him,” and his profession means this, but if there is not a walk in obedience, which expresses the divine nature within, “he…is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (verse 4).
Christians not only delight in keeping the Lord’s commands, the express desires of His heart, but also keep “His word,” the whole scope of His will, and “hereby know we that we are in Him” (verse 5). How blessed it is to know that we are in the Son before the Father, sharing His place in the Father’s affections, and this is the nearest possible relationship as His children. All who profess to abide in Him, ought to walk in the steps of Jesus; and the answer to this shows who are real Christians, true disciples of Christ, and who are not.
The knowledge of God, and the knowledge of our being in the Son before the Father, are two of the things in which eternal life consists. Regarding the former, the Lord Jesus said to the Father, “And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou has sent” (John 17:3). The new life communicated to His own by the Son of God consists in knowing what the natural man cannot possibly know, and of enjoying things that lie outside of natural experience, heavenly relationships and heavenly affections.
Fathers in the divine family, know “Him that is from the beginning” (2:13-14), that is they have an acquaintance with the Son of God come in flesh that is the result of a deepening communion with Him; but to the babes in God’s family it is written, “ye have known the Father” (verse 13). This was not a knowledge into which they had grown, but which belonged to the eternal life the Son had given them. It is hardly needful to say that what belonged to the babes also belonged to the “young men” and “fathers”, who had been babes before they had matured in the knowledge of the truth.
Even so early in the history of the church, the Apostle could write, “Little children, it is the last time” (verse 18). There would indeed be the development of evil, but every feature of evil had already manifested itself, and had been met by the word of God, so that the children of God would not be taken unawares by any form of evil they would meet down the centuries. What would mark the last time would be the appearance of antichrist, but many antichrists had already come on the scene, so that God’s children knew it was the last time.
Antichristian teachers had left the Christian circle, making it clear that they did not belong there, but they still sought to influence the saints of God with their pernicious teaching. It was not given to every child of God to be able to refute their teaching but every one had the ability to know the teaching to be false, for, says the Apostle, “ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.” Possessing the Holy Spirit, they had a capacity for entering into all the truth, but they had the ability to discern all that was not the truth. Acquaintance with the truth (verse 21), gave discernment to the saint of God to perceive that what the antichristian teacher taught was false, and manifested to them its origin.
The divine safeguard against the teachings of antichristian teachers was for the saints to abide in that which they had heard from the beginning, for in so doing they would continue in the Son and in the Father, and to do so was eternal life for them, for in communion with the Son and the Father they enjoyed the life that had come in the Son, and belonged to those who believed in Him. The Father in whom they believed was the “Righteous Father,” and His Son was “Jesus Christ the Righteous,” so the Apostle could write, “If ye know that He is righteous, ye know that every one that does righteousness is born of Him” (2:29). Righteousness, one of the traits of the divine life, when manifested, showed the divine origin of him in whom it was manifested.
Our relationship to God as His children makes known His great love towards us, a relationship that is now known and enjoyed. But our place and part with Christ in the coming day has not been manifested, so that it is unknown to the men of this world, but says the Scripture, “We know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is” (3:2). We have already been brought into the secret of God as to our part with Christ in the coming day. We shall be like Him, conformed to His image, the life already possessed in our spirits then found in our glorified bodies, when that which is mortal is swallowed up of life. In that blessed state, we shall see Jesus as He is in God’s presence even now.
As regards our sins, the Apostle can say, “And ye know that He was manifested to take away our sins; and in Him sin is not” (3:5). Every child of God should know that his sins are gone; it is common knowledge in God’s family, even as it is written earlier, “Little children, I write unto you because your sins are forgiven you for His Name’s sake” (2:12). Our sins are forgiven, and taken away because of the coming and death of our Lord Jesus Christ, the sinless One, in whom there was no sin.
God’s children are hated by the world, which accounted for Cain’s murdering Abel, therefore it is written here, “Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you. We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren” (3:13-14). Love for the brethren, those in whom God’s nature is manifested, can only be from hearts in which God has wrought. The life which was seen in its perfection in Jesus was hated by the world, as we learn from God’s word. The leaders of the religious world hated Jesus, and the men of this world still hate the heavenly life that was seen in Jesus, and those in whom the life is now seen. But this is the life that delights those who possess it, as it is seen in the members of God’s family. As finding pleasure in those who manifest the divine life, we are assured that we belong to the same family, having the same life.
We may hate the flesh in others, and should also hate it in ourselves but no one with divine life can possibly hate one in whom the divine life is expressed, for “Whosoever hates his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him” (3:15). A mere professor, who is not born of God, professes to have every true Christian as his brother, but, whatever he may say, he hates his brother because of the divine life he manifests. Such have not the eternal life abiding in them, for the eternal life finds delight in its expression in another child of God.
Love, that belongs to the divine nature, is to be expressed, and not only spoken about, “And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him” (3:19). If we are to have the sense in our souls that we belong to God, it will be by manifesting divine love to each other in truth, for the truth was fully made known in Him who said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6). And it is His life, the life in which love has been fully made known, that God has given to us. Our heart will not condemn us when in God’s presence if divine love is shown in our lives, but if not we shall have a bad conscience before God.
To love is to answer to the commandment of the Lord, “And he that keeps His commandments dwells in Him, and He in him” (3:24). “And hereby we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit which He has given us.” How wonderful is the blessing that belongs to the family of God, and the privileges of the present time! It is given to us to dwell in the joy of communion with the Father and the Son, drawing upon all the resources that are in Jesus, in dependence upon Him, so that the divine life within us is sustained in testimony for His will and pleasure.
It is by the Holy Spirit that God has given to us that He dwells in us, and by that same Spirit we have the consciousness of this divine indwelling. The Holy Spirit is within us as the seal of God, as the divine earnest, and as the unction; but He is the One who brings to the soul the blessed sense of God’s indwelling us, so that we might express in our lives that which yields fruit for His delight, and that which testifies to His Son before men.
R. 1.11.66.
(Chapters 4-5.)
At the beginning of chapter 4 the saints are warned against the spirits in the false prophets of the religious world, the Apostle writing, “Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: and every spirit that confesses not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God” (verses 2, 3). The spirit by which any teacher speaks is known by his attitude to the Son of God. Where there is the denial of the deity of Christ or of His true and perfect Manhood, the prophet is exposed as “not of God,” for the spirit by which he speaks is the spirit of antichrist.
Antichristian teachers belong to the world’s religious system, and the subject of their communications are of this present world, and the men of this world attend to what appeals to them. In marked contrast, the Apostle writes, “We are of God: he that knows God hears us; he that is not of God hears not us” (verse 6). Only those born of God have any real desire for His word, the word spoken by the Apostles, and now given to us in the Scriptures. Then John adds, “Hereby know we the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” If a man will not listen to the word of God he exposes himself as not being of God. The teacher is exposed by his attitude to the Son of God, the one who is taught by his attitude to God’s word.
How good it is to turn from the evil of the antichrists to the subject of the love of God, the love made known in Jesus to give us eternal life and to put away our sins; love that belongs to the nature God has given us, and that we are to express towards each other. The expression of divine love by any one is the evidence that he is indwelt by God, and that divine love has its true place in his heart. Then we read, “Hereby we know that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit” (verse 13).
It is God’s own Spirit that believers have, which gives the consciousness in the soul of our dwelling in God, and He in us. As abiding in Him we know the blessedness of all that He has given to us in association with His own Son, and of the privilege of being in this world to express what He is for His own delight. Nor are these blessings only presented for our faith, but the Spirit of God is given to us that we might know them in consciousness and joy while still in the world out of which His Son is gone.
God’s love towards us, which has brought such infinite blessings to us, is both “known and believed” (verse 16). The same Holy Spirit that gives us to know our place along with God’s Son, and that enables us to testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world, has given us the consciousness of the love of God, the love that was presented to us in the Gospel, and which we believed. It is not a love unknown, but known in the heart, for the Holy Spirit has shed it abroad there (Rom. 5:5).
Those who believe that Jesus is the Christ are born of God, for faith is the result of a divine work within us; and those who love God, as born of God, love also all who are in the family of God, as born of Him. Our love to God’s children is not proved by going with them in anything contrary to His will, for the word from God to us is, “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep His commandments” (5:2). To walk in a wrong course with any of God’s children would be harmful to them, for it would be sanctioning what was contrary to the will of God. To do what is right in God’s sight, to be obedient to what He has asked us to do, may not please those doing what is wrong, but it manifests our love to God, and also to the children of God who are astray.
In verse 13 of chapter 5 we come to the object of the writer of the epistle, “These things have I written unto you, that ye may know that ye have eternal life who believe on the Name of the Son of God.” It must be evident that the Apostle is not exactly writing to persuade those in doubt about their having eternal life, for he has already written, even to the babes, that they knew the Father and, “I have not written to you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it” (2:13, 21). Is it not that the Apostle is showing in this epistle the things in which eternal life consist?
Eternal life consists in the knowledge of God, and of Jesus Christ the Sent One of the Father (John 17:3); and this the Apostle writes of in this epistle (2:3). This divine life is known by those who walk in the path of God’s will, being the portion of all who believe in the Son. Our part with the Son, as being in Him before the Father, is also one of the blessed features of the divine and eternal life that is ours in Christ. Our abiding in the Son and in the Father, enjoying the blessed part that God has given to us as believers, as those who have accepted the truth of Christianity, what came out in the Son of God in Manhood, is what was promised of God, the eternal life that was not known till He came (1:2; 2:24-25).
Our part with Christ in the coming glory is sure, but we are already God’s children, knowing the Father’s love (3:1-2); and this relationship belongs to the eternal life that came in Jesus. Before His coming, none could take their place as children of God, for the Name of Father could not be revealed till the Son came; now that the Father has been made known, His children, drawn to the Son by Him, have the privilege of a known relationship with the Father in the life communicated by the Son.
The traits of the divine life, righteousness, obedience and love, so perfectly displayed in Jesus on earth, are in the life that God has given to us, and their manifestation in us is the proof that we have the eternal life. Loving those who have God’s nature is the evidence that we have passed from death unto life (3:14); while hatred of the children of God, which God views as murder, evinces that there is a generation in whom the eternal life does not dwell.
To give us the present consciousness of the divine blessings that He has given to us, God has given to us His Spirit; and it is because He has given to us of His Spirit that “we know that we dwell in Him, and He in us” (4:13), which is surely something of the new and eternal life, that which is heavenly and divine, and altogether apart from anything that is known to man after the flesh. To dwell in Him is something of which this world knows nothing; it belongs to the life of heaven, brought to us while here below, but abiding in the Son where He is above, and enjoyed in spirit there in communion with Him. It is a life in which there is no fear, but that has perfect confidence in Him whose life it is, and that has been made known in perfect love.
These then are some of the features of the divine and eternal life that God has given to us, and the Spirit of God would have us understand what this life consists in. It is something entirely new so far as this world is concerned. Before the Son came, it was with the Father eternally, but the Son revealed it on earth, and in going into the Father’s presence, after finishing the work He gave Him to do, the Father glorified the Son, and the Son still brings glory to the Father in communicating the eternal life to those the Father has given to Him. What was seen in the Son here is now seen in His own; “which thing is true in Him and in you” (2:8).
While absent from our heavenly home, where we shall no longer have the life we have in flesh and blood, but only the eternal life, we need to be in constant dependence on God so as to be here for Him. We are not here to please ourselves, but to live for Him, and His infinite resources are available for us. While on earth, the Lord had said to His disciples, “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my Name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (John 14:13). As in the good of this, John is able to write, “And this is the confidence that we have in Him, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us: and if we know that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him” (John 14:14-15).
What is asked in the Name of the Son is for the interests of the Son, and this is what is according to the will of God. Seeking the interests of the Son, we know that the ear of the Father is open to us, and nothing that is really for His interests will be denied us. Therefore in knowing that we have Christ’s interests at heart, we can come from the presence of the Father with confidence that He will grant from His infinite resources the things we have asked.
Although the believer has eternal life, he has also the life and nature derived from Adam, and a brother in Christ may so dishonour the Lord’s holy Name by his life that the Lord’s judges him unfit to live any longer in this world, and lays him aside to take him home. For such, it may be very difficult to know how to pray; but for any other ensnared by sin, but not of such a serious nature, it is our privilege to intercede for him to the Lord. Yet, “We know that whosoever is born of God sins not” (5:18). The flesh may be enticed, but the divine nature cannot be, and the child of God, seen as such, that is abstractly in the divine nature, cannot sin. The wicked one cannot touch the divine nature, nor can he touch one who is controlled by the divine nature. Satan can act, and does act, on the flesh, but not on the nature we have received of God.
“And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in wickedness (or in the wicked one)” (5:19). How very blessed is the confidence of the Christian, based on the sure word of God, and known and enjoyed in communion with God, and in fellowship with those who belong to His family; the Holy Spirit making good in the heart what we have learned from the Holy Scriptures.
“And we know that the Son of God is come” (5:20). The testimony of the coming of God’s Son reached us, and we believed it, but His coming has altered every department of our lives down here. All our interests now are His interests, and with those who are His. Our thoughts, feelings, desires, activities and all else that makes up our life down here have been completely changed, and coloured by the life of the Son of God; so that we not only believe that the Son of God is come, but we know it, for He is our life, and all that we now have is in Him.
He has also “given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true.” How restful for the heart to know God and His Son in this way, Him that is true, One upon whom we can rely at all times, and for all things, knowing that He is all that He has been manifested to be in Jesus. And the place we have before God is in His Son, the One that is true; One who never changes, who is “The Same” yesterday, today and forever.
How great and glorious is the Person in whom we are before the face of the Father, and Object to fill the heart with delight at all times, but One who commands our worship and adoration, for He is “The true God.” In addressing the Father, the Son speaks of Him as “The only true God,” God fully revealed in Him, and setting aside everything that would claim the homage of the hearts of men. As one with the Father, the One in whom He is revealed is “The true God,” for all that is to be known of the true God is found in Him.
And Jesus is also “Eternal Life.” We see in Jesus in Manhood what eternal life is, for it was revealed in Him, but He is also the personal expression of it where He now is in the presence of the Father. Eternal life is also “in His Son” (5:11), and we possess it in Him, having the witness that it is ours by the Spirit who indwells us, and who brings to us the witness of the water and the blood. If we desire to learn more of what eternal life is, we look to Him “Who is the true God, and Eternal Life.”
R. 2.11.66.