1 John 2:3-6 (cont.)

Text:

“3Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. 4He who says, I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know we are in Him. 6He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.”

2:3-6 – The simplest way to restate these verses is this: All believers must go through the process of sanctification as they mature as Christians. Sanctification is the process by which our lives become more and more conformed to that of Jesus’ life which is explicitly explained in His Word.

v. 3 – the most important thing to take from this verse is the order in which the clauses are written. “we know that we know Him” comes before “keep[ing] His commandments.” The clause did not say “if we keep His commandments” then “we know Him.” Keeping the commandments of Christ are merely the outworking of knowing Him, not the process by which we get to know Him. The latter is legalism; the former is true salvation.

v. 3, 4 – The depth of these verses is amazing. Basically, they say that if we “know Him” we will “keep His commandments.” Jesus once said in this gospels, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” This is one case of the Bible talking about two things leading to the same end. These ideas are not contradictions at all, rather they create a continuum of spiritual truth. If we love Christ, we will know Him; if we know Him, we will love Christ.

1 John 2:3-6 (cont.)

Text:

“3Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. 4He who says, I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know we are in Him. 6He who says he abides in Him ought himslef also to walk just as He walked.”

Sorry for the recent hiatus. School hit me pretty hard, but I’m back now, to cover our next section of Scripture.

1 John 2:3 -6 – John gives three tests of genuine fellowship in these Scriptures. In vv 1:1-4; John establishes the first test, the affirmation of a proper view of Christ. In vv. 1:5-2:2, John gives us the second test of true fellowship – the affirmation of the reality of sin. (From a translator’s note: “the ‘we’ in verses 6,8,10 is not a reference to genuine Christians but a general reference to anyone claiming fellowship, but denying sin. The ‘we” in vv. 7, 9, and 2:1, 2 is a specific reference to genuine Christians.”). In these verses, John finally gives us the third test of genuine fellowship. Obedience to God’s commands constitutes this third test. First, John presents two external tests that demonstarte salvation: doctrinal and moral. The doctrinal test consists of confessing a proper view of Christ and sin (1:1-4 and 1:5-2:2), while the moral test consists of obedience and love (also see vv 7:11). While subjective assurance of salvation comes through the witness of the Holy Spirit, the test of obedience consitutes objective assurance that one is genuinely saved. Obedience is the external, visible proof of salvation. Those who are ruly enlightened and know God are obedient to His Word.

We will explore these verses individually more tomorrow.

1 John 2:3 – 6

Here is our next block of text. Meditate and Pray on these words that God may show you truths that never have been brought forth to you before. Make sure that your heart is clean and pure before approaching God in prayer. Also pray that I can be a clean vessel for Him to use to bring forth truths from these words:

Text:

“3Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. 4He who says, I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know we are in Him. 6He who says he abides in Him ought himslef also to walk just as He walked.”

1 John 1:5 – 2:2 (cont.)

Text:

“5This is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. 6If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.

8.If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.

2:1My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 2And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.”

vv. 1:5-2:2 – John gives three tests of genuine fellowship in these Scriptures. In vv 1:1-4; John establishes the first test, the affirmation of a proper view of Christ. In this set of verses, John gives us the second test of true fellowship – the affirmation of the reality of sin. (From a translator’s note: “the ‘we’ in verses 6,8,10 is not a reference to genuine Christians but a general reference to anyone claiming fellowship, but denying sin. The ‘we” in vv. 7, 9, and 2:1, 2 is a specific reference to genuine Christians.”)

2:1 – The first thing that jumped to my mind when reading this verse was the all-important “And.” This “And” is interesting. According to modern syntactical rules of language, the more logical beginning to this sentence would be a “But” rather than an “And.” When trying to figure out why John’s writing would do this, I suddenly remembered that the other important word to look for in all of scriptoure (other than “and”) is in fact the word “but.” This word, quite literally and especially in Scripture does the direct opposite of the word “and.” It does not link two things that can never be separated and shall always be together, but rather it brings forth paradoxes. The preceding clause of a “but” statement generally in Scripture is a statement that isn’t true, or is a statement that expresses an incorrect truth that is generally believed, but is not truth. The phrase following the “but” is the true truth as it pertains to God’s Word, generally. In modern English language, the word literally means, “this is what I said, but now let me tell you what I really mean.” In this verse, if John had begun the second sentence with a “but,” just by syntactical rules, it would negate the phrase before it, in this case being the first sentence to verse 1. Because the sentence is not negated, it remains a biblical truth, herein being that everything written in this entire book is written for the purpose of helping believers stay free of sin. Isn’t incredible how God will influence John’s writing almost 2,000 years ago so that when it was translated into English, this truth would not be negated, even by accident due to lack of translatory precision?

According to the Bible, Satan is known as the Great Accuser. Because of his lack of omniprescence, Satan must stay at the foot of the throne of God for all eternity accusing each human being of their sins. Quite literally, Satan spends his every breath rattling off the sins of humans on Earth, in order to try and cause God to turn His back on us. This verse gives us as believers hope that our sins will not come upon the lips of Satan and be declared to our Father. This is because “Jesus Christ the righteous” is acting as our “Advocate” by cleansing us of our sins and stripping Satan of the chance to present our sins to our Father in Heaven.

v. 2 – This verse brings to mind one of my favorite verses in all of Scripture, 1 Peter 2:24. That verse says, “[Christ] himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness – by whose stripes you were healed.” The word “proptiation” literally means “appeasement” or “satisfaction.” His death on the cross “satisfied” the necessary blood sacrifice atonement of sins.

The significance of these verses is huge. Personally, the verse in 1 Peter is what changed my entire spritual life and caused me to internalize my faith and realize that it’s not about Hell, it’s not about an intellectual pursuit, but rather a real relationship with the creator of the universe. What started that revelation was the quesiton I asked myself those many years ago: “Okay, so what made Christ’s death so horrible? I mean, his death, though torturous it was, was not the most horrible way to die. Even Peter was crucified like Jesus, except he insisted being crucified upside down, because he did not feel worthy to die in the same manner as Christ. That itslef is a worse death than Christ suffered. So, why was Jesus’ death so important? What literally happened to make it the end-all be-all of deaths, even though it wasn’t the worst possible one?” Well, this verse answered that question, mainly the phrase that says that Christ “bore our sins in His own body.” After reading that, I realized all at once, what made Christ’s death on the cross the most horrible death imaginable. This is kinda deep. Your going to have to follow me here. Anyway . . .

I’m gonna give you the cliffnotes version of this. Is there such thing as heat? Yes. Is there such thing as cold? No; merely as absence of heat. You can reach absolute zero temperature, but you can’t have a limit to how much heat can be produced. I could go on, but the same principle applies to light, pressure, air, energy, matter, density, weight, and so on and so forth. The significant thing you need to remember is that this principle applies to good and evil. Some people say that “God created evil, thus some part of Him must be evil as well.” No, because God is nothing but goodness manifested, so by default, evil is merely the absence of good; sin is merely the absence of holiness. You get the idea. Well, anyway, that is the very reason why only “good people” cannot be allowed in heaven. Sin and holiness CANNOT occupy the same space at the same time, thus anyone that still has the sin on their heart THAT THEY WERE BORN WITH cannot enter heaven no matter how much God desires it, because of the natural spiritual law that sin cannot be in the presence of holiness. (a.k.a. “heaven”).

That said, we return to the verse in 1 Peter. What happened on the cross when Christ died, more specifically when he let out the cry “it is finished!” was that every result of our sin nature – child birth pains, death, aging, sickness. In short, every bit of psychological, emotional, physical and spiritual pain anyone had felt, was feeling, or would ever feel – was thrust into the body of Christ on the cross (“bore our sins in His body”). So, quite literally, two things that canNOT occupy the same space at the same time (sin and godliness) were forced to occupy the space within the spirit, body, and soul of one man and kill him physically and spiritually. Talk about one hell of a death. No human can begin to comprehend what that is like, yet this one man did. Remember, He was just as much man as He was God, so not only did He feel the physical pain, we know He felt the spritual pain because of His connection with every soul of every human. Just try and comprehend that. After you inevitably fail to do so due to your finite human-ness, ask yourself what you are doing in response to that pain endured for you. If you are not saved, and this truth does not move you to become saved, then just know that it is pride within you that is keeping you in that place, not a lack of power on God’s part. He gave us free will, and the same free will that we can use to let God set us free can also be used to damn us.

Anyway, I’ve gone on long enough and have shared with you a part of my spiritual walk, that hopefully God can use to impact someone out there. Never forget the cross and what happened there. It is the foundation on which every other step of a spiritual life is built upon. From here on out, the lessons and truths within 1 John become deeper, harder to grasp, and will inevitably boggle your mind. Pray that God establishes in you a discerning heart and wisdom to understand the truths that He will try to show through me, and pray that I can be a worthy vessel for Him to work through. It’s gonna be incredible. You can count on that. Tell everyone you know about this, please do.

God Bless always,

– Paul <

1 John 1:5 – 2:2 (cont.)

Text:

“5This is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. 6If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.

8.If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.

2:1My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 2And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.”

vv. 1:5-2:2 – John gives three tests of genuine fellowship in these Scriptures. In vv 1:1-4; John establishes the first test, the affirmation of a proper view of Christ. In this set of verses, John gives us the second test of true fellowship – the affirmation of the reality of sin. (From a translator’s note: “the ‘we’ in verses 6,8,10 is not a reference to genuine Christians but a general reference to anyone claiming fellowship, but denying sin. The ‘we” in vv. 7, 9, and 2:1, 2 is a specific reference to genuine Christians.”)

v. 8 – Romans 3:23 says, “for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God.” Knowing this central idea to Christian doctrine, this verse makes perfect sense. In order for Christ (“the truth”) to be in us, we must acknowledge that we are sinful human beings who need the sacrifice of Christ to be free. If we claim to blameless in the first place and not needing any salvation, how can one truly be saved from the sin they think they don’t have?

v. 9 – One of the primary chracteristics Christians should have is the continual and constant recognition and confession of their own sin(s). Unfortunately, Christians in this generation have lost this idea of constant admission and confession. Most Christians either don’t care about their sin, and one can question their salvation in the first place, or they deny their sin altogether which in many ways is worse. The latter kind of Christians are the ones that facilitate every negative stereotype of Christians. These are the ones that forget they sin and in response to this, begin to think that they are better than others. It is this piety and comparative righteousness that leads to their loss of a witness. The only person one should compare their righteousness to is Christ, and against that, no one will meet that.

Once again, in this passage, we see the word “and.” What two things does this “and” connect and thus forever preserve as inseparable? It connects the clause that states that God is “faithful and just to forgive our sins” and the clause that says he is also faithful to “cleanse us from all righteousness.” According to this passgae, the only way to become blameless in God’s eyes is to acknowledge and ask forgiveness for the sins that make us full of blame in the first place. The process through which God makes believers holy, known in the Bible as “sanctification,” is started, marked, facilitated, and ended by the acknowledgment and confession of one’s sin. It is the only way to become righteous in God’s eyes.

One will notice that the last words of this verse pretty much match the last phrase of v. 7. Putting these two verses together creates a series of things that must be in place for a cleansing of “unrighteousness” and “sin” to take place. (1) We must “walk in the light, as He is in the light,” (2) “have fellowship with one another,” (3) and “confess our sins.” All of these things go together, and one does not bring about another anymore than another brings out another. They all must be in the package, not just 1 or 2.

v. 10 – this verse is a list of things connected by an “and” that all go together. (1) saying that “we have not sinned” automatically means that Jesus was “lying” when He spoke the gospels, thus (2) making “Him a liar.” Lastly, according to this verse, the first two things will happen if “His word is not in us.” Number 1 is saying that “we have not sinned” which is a mark of not being saved according to verse 9. Following the logic, God’s word not being “in us” is another mark of not having salvation, because we think we “have not sinned,” and we make God into a “liar” in our hearts, thus the truth is not in us.

Summary:

All three of these verse have to do with the necessity of admitting and confessing one’s sin. This is not just each individual sin you do. That we be too much to humanly do. Rather, these verses demand from the believer a constant acknowledgment and recognition of one’s sinful nature and weaknesses to things of the world. To think one is invincible to temptations is to put one on the pedestal of God. To truly be living one’s salvation, according to these verses, one must acknowledge that everything good in them and every victory over sin is only because of the power of Christ within the Holy Spirit within them. An acknowledgment of anything else is idolatry, as one can only do it by placing something within the power seat of God.

Challenge:

Pray that God helps you to ackowledge your weaknesses due to your sinful nature. The only way to fight sin is not by focusing on each little thing you do and just try to stop doing it. To truly have victory over sin, one must become as Christ was: so focused on the will of His Father that to sin was completely out of His character to do so. Never fight an illness by beating the symptoms. Every sin or weakness you give into is merely a symptom of the spiritual illness over your soul. Pray that God gives you the wisdom and discernment to find your weaknesses and pray that He will mold you to the point that these weaknesses become completely out of your charcter to do them, just as to most people it is completely out of their character to murder another human being. Before you pray these, though, you must know the cost. To let God be able to “cleanse us from all righteousness,” we must always be “confess[ing] our sins,” which means we must acknowledge we are not perfect and that we need God. To do this requires salvation, for it is the only way to recieve the power of God working within us and our character.

1 John 1:5-2:2

Text:

“5This is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. 6If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.

8If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.

2:1My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 2And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.”

vv. 1:5-2:2 – John gives three tests of genuine fellowship in these Scriptures. In vv 1:1-4; John establishes the first test, the affirmation of a proper view of Christ. In this set of verses, John gives us the second test of true fellowship – the affirmation of the reality of sin. (From a translator’s note: “the ‘we’ in verses 6,8,10 is not a reference to genuine Christians but a general reference to anyone claiming fellowship, but denying sin. The ‘we” in vv. 7, 9, and 2:1, 2 is a specific reference to genuine Christians.”)

v. 5 – The first thing to point out in this verse is when John talks of the message that “we have heard from Him.” The obvious ramification of this is that God does speak to believers and gives them His message, “that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.” That quote reminds me of Psalm 23 – “As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” When one is in that “shadow of death” – someone reading this right now could be in there – remember that there are no shadows where there is no light. The valleys that people go through can only have shadows if there is a light to cast them. If not, then there is only darkness. So remember, whenever you are going through I valley, “fear no evil” and always hold fast to the message of God that he “is light and in Him is no darkness at all.” With that final phrase, John basically forcefully affirming that God is absolutely perfect and nothing exists in God’s chracter that impinges upon His truth and holiness.

v. 6 – If we are not “in God” who “is light,” then we are in darkness. It is as simple as that. If we don’t have the light of God in us, yet claim to be holy, we are lying to God, ourselves, and everyone else around us, and do not have a genuine salvation.

1:7 – If we walk in the light, then we will have fellowship among us and we are purified!! A genuine Christian walks habitually in the light and not in darkness. The blood of Christ which “cleanses us from all sin,” once accepted into the new believer and the Holy Spirit falls upon that individual, begins to change the nature of the individual. This process, known as “sanctification” is the process by which we become more and more holy through the changing of our nature by the Holy Spirit. This verse tells us that this process of becoming more and more like Christ through sanctification we naturally become included into the fellowship of believers. So, as God makes us holy, he brings closer and further into fellowship with other Christians giving us support to keep us from the “darkness” again. Isn’t God amazing? While a Christian is “in the light” God continually forgives the believers for their sin. Once again we see the word “and.” In this instance, the “and” connects two clauses as the end result of a “If . . . then” structured statement. So, this verse is telling is that “if” we walk in the light of God in the same way that God is in the light (that being a continual state of being due to one’s nature), “then” we will have fellowship with others that are doing that as well “and” the blood of Christ will continually cleanse us of sin. So, to be have forgiveness and fellowship, one must take one the very nature of God, availible only through a relationship with Christ. The opposite statements can also be true. One cannot have forgivenness and true fellowship with anyone else unless they are “walking in the light, as He is in the light.” Sure some may feel like they are truly in fellowship with another, but that’s only because they don’t know the truth, and darkness is all they’ve known and have grown accustomed to. Without God (who is perfect love) in our lives, there can be no true love within us that we can give to or recieve from anyone. We will study this concept deeper later on in 1 John.

1 John 1: 1-4 (cont.)

Text:

“1That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life – 2the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us- 3that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. 4And these things we write to you that your joy may be full.” – NKJV

vv. 1:1-4 – John gives three tests of genuine fellowship in these Scriptures. In vv 1:1-4; John establishes the first test, the affirmation of a proper view of Christ.

v.2 – the “life” that was “manifested” is of course the “Word of Life” manifested into flesh – Jesus Christ. A key word that anyone studying the Bible should notice in all Scripture in all cases is the word “and.” This word in the context of a perfect, infallible clause, sentence, or excerpt from the Word of God is very important. Every word in the Bible is holy, precious and perfect in its placement, meaning, and emphasis. Because of this, whenever one sees the word “and” in scripture it usually joins two or more things that cannot be separated and hold the same meaing. They must be together. We see this in verse 2. After the Word was “manifested” into flesh, the disciples, according to John, “have seen and bear witness, and declare” salvation through Christ. The first clause tells us quite literally that one cannot truly “see” Christ and not “bear witness” about Him. The opposite is also true, follwing syntactic rules – one cannot truly “bear witness” about Christ without having truly “seen” Him. The second “and” joins the first clause eternally to the second, saying that the single unit of “seeing and bearing witness” cannot be separated from “declaring” the eternal life found only in Christ.

v. 3 – John goes on into verse 3 to let the readers know that he is fulfilling this pattern of “seeing . . . bearing witness . . . and declaring” Christ to them. He also tells them the reason why he does this and why all Christians should do it if they are truly Christians; it brings the lost, confused, and backslidden into fellowship with the believers (us), “with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.” In this context, John isn’t merely talking about a physical fellowship of social relation, but rather he is telling everyone that they can be partakers in the eternal life that they are “declaring.” Chris DeRoco said a very powerful thing tonight at ENLI. He said that the Word of God is not the kingdom of God; what comes out of the Word of God through believers is the kingdom of God. This verse shows that. It shows the power of Christ (the Word manifested) when it comes out through the declarations of believers. With our mere declarations of how we have seen and bore witness to eternal life, we can allow the power of God to bring the lost into eternal fellowship with Him, His Son, and other believers and partakers in the salvation of Christ.

v. 4 – Here we have our final important “and” at the opening of the sentence. This joins the last sentence to the previous verses making them an inseperable single unit. The proclamation of the reality of the gospel (vv. 1,2) produces a fellowship in eternal life (v. 3), and in turn, fellowship in eternal life produces joy (v. 4). Think about that. These words of the Bible are the words of God. 2 Timothy 3:16 says that “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God” (NKJV) or “All Scripture is God-breathed” (NIV). If this is so, and I believe and know it is, then when 1 John says that our “joy can be full,” it’s actually God saying that we can. Think about that! The creator of the universe, to whom all things of human worth are meaningless, is saying that we as human beings can have “our joy made complete” (NIV). Think of how great that must be and how much the lost of the world are missing out thinking that they are living a full life.

Summary:

This passage of Scripture has so much behind it, but one of the main messages in it is the power of Christ and God’s Word spoken by believers to the lost. If one has truly seen God, then it follows scripture that they will “bear witness” and “declare” eternal life through Christ. God said in His Word that “my food is doing the Will of God.” This section of 1 John talks about “full joy” being possible for the believer but only if the above requirements are fulfilled. If they are, then the believer begins to do God’s Will in his life, and thus he will be fed, which will lead to the full joy of the creator of the universe being manifested in His believer.

Challenge:

If you are not “declaring” eternal life in Jesus verbally to the lost, or more importantly, do not have a burden to do it, analyze yourself. No one should go through life thinking they have something they do not. Pray for God to put that passion in your life that you should have if you don’t have it and pray for the lost you should be “declaring” to if you do have it. God Bless.

1 John 1:1-4

Text:

“1That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life – 2the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us- 3that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. 4And these things we write to youthat your joy may be full.” – NKJV

These verses clearly mirror the first words written by John in the gospel that holds his namesake. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” – John 1:1. When John says “from the beginning” in this epistle, though, he refers to the beginnings of gospel preaching when the readers first heard about Jesus. Nonetheless, John restates the unmistakeable spiritual truth that Jesus Christ was the Word of God manifested into flesh.

vv. 1:1-4 – John gives three tests of genuine fellowship in these Scriptures. In vv 1:1-4; John establishes the first test, the affirmation of a proper view of Christ.

v.1 – The amazing thing about this verse is that it tells us as Christians that we can not only “hear . . .see . . .look upon . . .and handle” the Word of God, because we already know and do that, but that we can “hear . . . see . . . look upon . . . and handle” the things “concerning the Word of Life.” We can experience spiritual truths, revelations, and teachings just as if they were Christ before us. This places the bible on its proper pedestal of being a living, breathing, work with constant relevance that the Holy Spirit can always use to expose a new truth, revelation, teaching, instruction, encouragement, or other little diddy to help guide the spiritual walk and life of the Christian reading it.

Summary:

The Bible is perfect; we are not. As Ray said at church Sunday evening, if God’s Word doesn’t bear fruit in our lives, there’s nothing at all wrong with the Bible. The problem is with us. In short, the Bible, as stated above, is always relevant to all people, at all times. Never can we exhaust the ability for God to inspire us with revelations from his Word. These verses tell us that just as the disciples had Christ to “see”, “handle”, and “look upon”, we have the Word of God. Actually, more than the Word of God. We have the power, love, and authority of God and Christ at our fingertips to “see”, “handle”, and “look upon.” We as Christians have a responsibility to do that.

Challenge:

If you are not a Christian, then the Word of God will mean nothing and cannot mean anything to you until you “open your mind” to it. If these verses are saying anything, it is telling every non-Christian what they are missing by not letting themselves be changed and impacted by the Word of God. If you are a Christian, you know exactly what I’m going to say: Read your Bible. Honestly, before a couple of days ago, I hadn’t opened my Bible on my own in months. As Chris DeRoco said, the Word of God is opposite of food in one way: the more you don’t eat food, the more you miss it and hunger for it. The Bible isn’t that way many times. The longer you stay away from it, the more you think you don’t need it. Not only do Christians have a responsibility to do it, according to Scripture, it is a matter of spiritual life and death.

It’s God Word. Open your mind. Open your heart. Open your Bible. Do God’s Will. Be happy and fulfilled. It’s as easy that. Once you start reading your Bible, you will feel God’s power and authority in it and won’t be able to leave it. Trust me. Peace.

Introduction to 1 John

Background and Setting:

Though John was quite old when he wrote this epistle, he was still actively ministering to churches. He was the sole apostolic survivor who had intimate, eyewitness association with Jesus throughout His early ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension. As the last remaining apostle, John’s testimony was highly authoritative among the churches

Ephesus lay within the intellectual center of Asia Minor. As predicted years before by the Apostle Paul (Acts 20:28-31), false teachers arising from within the church’s own ranks, saturated with the prevailing climate of philosophical trends, began infecting the church with false doctrine, perverting fundamental apostolic teaching. These false teachers advocated new ideas which eventually became known as “Gnosticism” (from the Greek word “knowledge”). After the Pauline battle for freedom from the law, Gnosticism was the most dangerous heresy that threatened the early church during the first 3 centuries. Most likely, John was combatting the beginnings of this heresy.

Gnosticism, influenced by such philosophers as Plato, advocated a dualism asserting that matter was inherently evil and spirit was good. As a result of this presupposition, the false teachers, although attributing some form of deity to Christ, denied his true humanity to preserve him from evil. It also claimed elevated knowledge, a higher truth known only to those in on the deep things. Only the initiated had the mystical knowledge of truth that was higher even than Scripture.

Instead of divine revelation standing as judge over man’s ideas, man’s ideas judged God’s revelation. The heresy featured two basic forms. First, some asserted that Jesus’ physical body was not real but only “seemed” to be physical; remember this when reading verses 1:1-4; 4:2,3. According to early tradition, another form of this heresy which John may have attacked was led by a man named Cerinthus, who contended that Christ’s “spirit” descended on the human Jesus at his baptism but left him just before his crucifixion. John wrote that Jesus who was baptized at the beginning of His ministry was the same person who was crucified on the cross (see verse 5:6).

Such heretical views destroys not only the true humanity of Jesus, but also the atonement, for Jesus must not only have been truly God, but also the truly human (and physically real) man who actually suffered and died upon the cross in order to be the acceptable substitutionary sacrifice for sin. The Biblical view of Jesus affirms His complete humanity as well as His full deity. Responding to this crisis, the aged apostle wrote to reassure those remaining faithful to combat this grave threat to the church. Since the heresy was so acutely dangerous and the time period was so critical for the church in danger of being overwhelmed, John gently, lovingly, but with unquestionable apostolic authority, sent this letter to churches in his sphere of influence to stem this spreading plague of false doctrine.

Historical and Theological Themes:

In light of the circumstances of the epistle, the overall theme of 1 John is “a recall to the fundamentals of the faith” or “back to the basics of Christianity.” The apostle deals with certainties, not opinions or conjecture. He expresses the absolute character of Christianity in very simple terms; terms that are clear and unmistakable, leaving no doubt as to the fundamental nature of those truths. A warm, conversational, and above all, loving tone occurs, like a father having a tender, intimate conversation with his children.

1 John is also pastoral, written from the heart of a pastor who has concern for his people.

The book’s viewpoint, however, is not only pastoral, but polemical; not only positive, but also negative. John refutes the defectors from sound doctrine, exhibiting no tolerance for those who pervert divine truth. He pointedly identifies the ultimate source of all such defection from sound doctrine as demonic.

The constant repetition of 3 sub-themes reinforces the overall theme regarding faithfulness to the basics of Christianity: happiness (1:4), holiness (2:1), and security (5:13). By faithfulness to the basics, his readers will experience these 3 results continually in their lives. These 3 factors also reveal the key cycle of true spirituality in 1 John: a proper belief in Jesus produces obedience to His commands; obedience issues in love for God and fellow believers (such as 3:23,24). When these 3 (sound faith, obedience, love) operate in concert together, they result in happiness, holiness, and assurance. They constitute the litmus test, of a true Christian.

– Various excerpts and rephrasings from the John MacArthur Study Bible.

WELCOME!

This blog is dedicated to a verse by verse study of the book of 1 John in the Bible. The first two chapters will not be as verse-by-verse as the latter chapters, but they will be good. I John is so rich and so deep and contains so much deep spiritual truths. This is an independent study of the book on my part with the help of some notes in my NIV Bible and the expanse of knowledge contained in the NKJV version of the John MacArthur Study Bible. With that said, anyone can post a response to anything I put up here, in fact, I welcome it!

Thus we embark on a study into one of the deepest books of the entire Bible, 1 John. But first, some spritual context by John MacArthur . . .