At the end of John’s first epistle, in chapter 5 vs 13  he writes that he has written these things “to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.”   That’s the overarching reason for his letter, to assure the Christians in the early church of their salvation.  It would seem that the false teachers who were disturbing them by their false doctrine, were also inferring that they could lose their salvation, or just never be sure of it.  But John says that you can know that you have eternal life.  The essence of eternal life, if you think about it, means that it cannot end, or be lost.  It must be enduring if it is to be eternal.

So John has written this epistle to address the Christian’s assurance of salvation and many other concerns taught by these false teachers. But particularly in this passage his intention is to give them assurances of their salvation. Notice  how he brackets this passage with the phrase, “by this we know…” in vs 19 and then again in 24.  That shows us that all that’s within those brackets are dealing with the same principles.

We find six assurances that John lists here so that the believers might have confidence in their salvation. And of course, these assurances are applicable to us today as well. A common downside to a strict preaching of  the gospel is to sometimes cause Christians to doubt their salvation.  When we speak about sin and righteousness and the need for holiness, for a lot of sincere people it can make them wonder if in fact they are saved, because they don’t feel like they measure up in some way, or they know that they sometimes fall into sin.  So I think that the Apostle John wants to assure our hearts that we are in fact children of God and if that’s true, then it will never change.  God  will never renounce His children.  2Tim. 2:13 says, “If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.”

So in this passage, John gives us six assurances of our salvation. The first assurance of our salvation John speaks of is because we love the brethren.  He says in vs 19, “We will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before Him.”  Now translators have some difficulty with a few of these verses in this passage, but it’s safe to say that the word “this” refers both forwards and backwards.  In other words, “this” refers back to vs 18, and it also refers to what is going to follow vs19, which are the other five reasons for assurance.

So in vs 18 we are told, “let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.” A sacrificial love for the brethren emanates from a new nature, which is the nature of Christ imparted to us in salvation.  The same nature that caused Christ to lay down His life, is the same nature that encourages us to lay down our lives for the brethren.

That nature that loves the brethren is not natural.  It’s spiritual.  And John says it’s indicative of a new birth.  So if you have an inclination to love the brethren with the same kind of love that Christ had for the church, it’s because you have been born again.  The presence of love in our hearts should serve to assure us of our salvation.

Now we talked last week a lot about love,  what it looks like, and how it operates from a Christian perspective.  So I don’t want to go over that again today.  However, I do want to stress one aspect of Christian love though that I don’t think I emphasized enough last week.  And that is this – Christian love wants to see souls saved and will do whatever they can, even to the point of sacrificing the priorities of their own lives, for the sake of seeing someone become complete in their salvation. If we really, truly love someone, then the condition of their soul is the most important thing to us.  Yes, Christian love also feeds the body, and clothes the body, and houses the body, and ministers to the physical needs of the body as much as is possible. But a greater priority is the spiritual condition of the soul.  As Jesus said, “what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” All those material things are necessary for this life, but our primary concern should be telling others about the importance of preparing for the next life, and showing them how they can know that they have eternal life.  That is by far the most important aspect of loving the brethren.

I see parents so often who obviously love their children, make the case that they want their children to be happy, and they want them to have a good education, to have a good job, to be able to buy a nice house and so forth.  They want them to be healthy.  And it sometimes seems like some Christian parents are willing to settle for that stuff, and neglect the most important thing of all – the condition of their soul.  Let us not love the way the world loves, but love the way Christ loved us, by bringing us to salvation.

So we have confidence in our own salvation because we love the brethren like Christ loved us.  And then secondly, John says we have assurance of our salvation because of a quickened conscience.  He says this in vs 19,20 and 21; “We will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before Him in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God.”

God has given all men a conscience. The conscience is given to men to make them come to the realization that they are sinners, they they have done wrong,  that they’ve  transgressed against the commandment of God. But the conscience can become dulled.  The conscience can become calloused.

The Bible has a lot to say about the conscience.  Paul speaks of it in Romans as something that God gave to make men come to recognize they are sinning against God.  He says in Romans 2:15 “they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them.”  So the conscience is something that theologians call a common grace, which means a gift of God that is given to all men for their benefit. 

However, the conscience can become defiled. It can became calloused.  And to some extent, it is informed by one’s environment.  1 Timothy says that the conscience can become seared. When something is seared, there forms a callous which makes it hard to feel what they are supposed to feel.  1Tim.4:2 “by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron.”  And then Titus 1:15 speaks of defiling the conscience;  “To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled.”  They believe a lie, and as such their conscience is defiled.  It no longer operates according to the truth.

But for those who have been born again spiritually, there is a quickening of the conscience, which is what I think John is referring to here.  Our conscience is quickened by the Holy Spirit, and informed by the word of God, so that it serves an important function in the life of the believer.  It serves to help us to walk in the truth, to conduct ourselves appropriately as followers of Christ.  It convicts us and causes us to repent if we sin.  And so it’s important that we do not sin against our conscience, because it is a tool that God uses to correct us and teach us. If we deliberately sin, our conscience becomes defiled and calloused, and then it does not work anymore as God intends it to work.

But when it is working properly, John says it is one of the means that God uses to assure us of our salvation. If you slip up and sin, and you feel the prick of your conscience, then that’s an indication that you are saved.  But if you sin and you have no guilty conscience, then that’s an indication that you are not saved. We have a conscience quickened by the Holy Spirit, and informed by the word of God.  And that’s a vastly improved conscience than what the unsaved person has. So we can be assured of our salvation by our conscience.

The third way John gives us that assures us of our salvation is because of answered prayer. John says, “Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God” and then vs22 “and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.”

As a child of God, we have unrestricted access to the throne of God our Father. And if our conscience is clear, then we have confidence as we come before God.  Unconfessed sin hinders our relationship with God.  Adam and Eve tried to hide in the Garden of Eden because they had sinned. But as John says, God knows our heart.  We can’t hide our sin.  

David said in Psalm 66:18,  “If I regard wickedness in my heart, The Lord will not hear.”  But because we are children of God, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight, we can have confidence before God and whatever we ask we receive from Him.  I’m reminded that James says that the prayers of a righteous man accomplishes much.  There is a condition to answered prayer, which is a clear conscience, and a clean heart, and clean hands before the Lord. 

So then answered prayer is an assurance of our salvation.  Now when John says this, he is obviously repeating what Jesus said in John 14:13,  “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do [it.] If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”   

That statement that God will do what we ask of Him is always tied to the commandments.  Not only does that mean keeping the commandments is a condition for answered prayer, but also it indicates that our prayers must be in keeping with God’s commandments, they must be in accordance with His will. Jesus kept all the commandments  perfectly, yet when He earnestly prayed with tears and sweating drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane, He prayed “not My will, but Your will be done.” So the key to answered prayer is that they are in keeping with God’s will, His commandments, and our answered prayer is an assurance of our salvation.

Now that segues into the fourth assurance of our salvation, which is because we keep His commandments. Vs 22 “and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.” This isn’t a new point John is making, he’s been saying this since the beginning of his epistle. That you can know, you can prove who is a Christian, by the fact that they keep the commandments.  

Back in chapter 2, vs 3 John said, “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.  The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him;  but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him.” 

As we have discussed in previous studies, the desire to keep the commandments comes from a new nature, a new heart.  In our natural state, we cannot keep the commandments.  We may make a stab at it from time to time, we may think we do enough good to outweigh what we do wrong, but in fact, the Bible says we fall far short of the standard of God.  

But as Ezekiel 36 tells us, when God gives us a new heart, we then have the ability to keep the commandments.  Ezekiel 36:26-27  “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”

So, our desire to keep the commandments of God is evidence that we are the children of God. It’s evidence that we have been given a new heart from our Father, and so we want to do what is pleasing to Him.  And if that is true in you, then that’s another assurance that you have been born again.

The fifth assurance of our salvation is because of faith in Christ. This is so basic, and yet it’s  so often overlooked, perhaps because of it’s simplicity. He says in vs 23 “This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us.” Jesus said in John 11:25 “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies.”  He also said ““I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.”  He is saying He is the spiritual food that gives life,  the spiritual water that gives life.  He also said, “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’”  He is the source of life.

Our assurance of salvation comes from just believing that what Jesus said is true.  That’s what it means to believe in Him, by the way.  It’s not just believing that He lived, or that He existed on earth 2000 years ago.  But to believe in Him, to believe in His name, is to believe all that He said, all that He was, all that He came to do, and all that He promised. And He promised that if you believe in Him, He would give you eternal life.

I want to emphasize though that to believe in Christ is to believe what He has said.  So many people today claim to be Christians, to believe in Christ, but yet they don’t believe in what He said, what He taught.  They don’t believe that He is the only way to God. Jesus said “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Me.”  But they say Jesus is not the only way to God. When questioned, a lot of professing Christians don’t believe in hell.  Yet Jesus preached more about the reality of hell than He did about heaven.  Many people today don’t believe in the commandments.  They don’t believe in the Biblical definition of sin and righteousness.  But yet Jesus said I did not come to nullify the law, but to fulfill it.” Many sophisticated so called Christians today don’t believe in the flood, or in creation as it is presented in the Bible, but yet Jesus spoke of both of those things authoritatively, basing HIs gospel upon them as facts.  The point is that a lot of professing Christians don’t really believe in Jesus Christ because they don’t believe what He said.  They don’t believe His word. And consequently, for such people, they should not have any assurance whatsoever of salvation. 

You don’t get to pick and choose what you want to believe about Christ. You don’t get to define God according to your woke mentality.  That’s idolatry, that’s not worshiping God in spirit and in truth as Jesus said was necessary.

Furthermore, John makes it clear that to believe in Jesus Christ is a command. You want to keep the commandments?  Start with that one.  Believe in Him, in HIs word, in His ministry, in who He said He was.  So if you believe in Jesus Christ and all that means, then you can have assurance that you are a child of God, because Jesus said to believe in Him was the way to receive eternal life.  You can have confidence, because Jesus promised, and He keeps His promises.

The second part of that commandment is one that John has already given us.  To love one another. And we have already said how obeying that commandment is evidence that you have been born again.  So we won’t belabor that  point again.  But it’s important to notice that John ` ties these two commandments together, to believe and to obey.  So then to believe in Christ  means to obey His command to love one another.  And by keeping these commandments, we have confidence in our salvation. 

The last assurance which John gives us of our salvation is because of the presence of the Holy Spirit.  Vs 24, “The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.”  It’s noteworthy that John ties so much doctrine to keeping of the commandments.  He has just said that to love one another is a commandment, to believe in Christ is a commandment, and now it seems that he is saying that we abide in Him by keeping the commandments, and the Holy Spirit is the means by which we keep the commandments.

That’s interesting because the church today doesn’t seem to teach that aspect of the Spirit’s ministry.  They don’t seem to recognize that the Spirit is given that we might have the power to do what Christ has commanded us to do.  A lot of churches seem to emphasize the Holy Spirit, but only as evidenced by some sort of feeling, some emotion, some ecstatic experience that they think verifies Jesus Christ as being real in their life.

But John is saying that the Spirit is given for much more practical purposes than that.  He is given to us that we might have the power to keep the commandments.  I’m not sure who said it, and exactly how they said it now, but it may have been Alistair Begg who I it from, but he said; the difference between the old covenant and the new covenant is that in the old covenant they were given the law but no means by which to keep it.  In the new covenant, we are given the Holy Spirit who enables us to keep the commandments of God. Now that’s not an exact quote, but I think I’m close enough to the thought. 

John is indicating that same principle here.  That we can know we are saved by the fact that we have the presence of the Holy Spirit in us and because we have His presence in us, we can keep His commandments. We are of God because we have His Spirit in us.  And so the presence of the Spirit is an assurance of our salvation.  But we know that we have the Spirit not because we believe we have experienced some gift of the Spirit, but because we keep His commandments.  Now I would hope that would be like a light bulb came on for some of you. Because there is this idea in modern churches today that to be Spirit led is the exact opposite of something as legalistic and archaic as keeping the commandments.  But we are given the power of the Holy Spirit so that we may do the works of God. 

 I hope you can read this text with the same understanding as I have. I believe the Spirit of God enables me to understand the scriptures.  That’s the other primary ministry of the Spirit of God.  He is the author of scripture, all scripture is inspired by the Spirit, so then an accurate interpretation of the scripture then comes from the power of the Holy Spirit to open my heart to understand what He wrote.  And that spiritual insight into the scriptures is a further assurance that I have the presence of the Spirit of God abiding in me.

You know, it is a wonderful thing to have the assurance and the confidence that you are a child of God.  It’s a knowledge that gives us peace and hope and joy.  It’s a knowledge that gives us the courage to face death, knowing that nothing can separate us from the love of God.  It’s a knowledge that my sins are forgiven, paid in full.  And that confidence in our salvation should be the source of our joy.  I hope that you have that assurance.  I hope that as you consider these six assurances you are given confidence in your salvation, and that your joy may be full. 

However, there may be someone here today that listened to this list of assurances, but they were not assured.  Perhaps they recognized that some of those things are not true in their life.  If that’s the case with you, I urge you to believe in the finished work of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, that purchased your salvation by His death on the cross and provided for you a new life through His resurrection.  I would urge you today to call upon Him as your Savior and Lord, that believing you might have life in His name.  Today is the acceptable day of salvation.  Don’t harden your heart against the conviction of the Holy Spirit, but believe the gospel of Jesus Christ and know the joy of knowing that you are truly a child of God.  

One of the Apostle John’s favorite instruments in teaching is the use of contrasts.  He also uses repetition as another major instrument for teaching in this epistle.  In the passage we are looking at today, John combines both of these instruments to help teach us concerning either the verification of a believer or the identification of a false believer, or a false teacher.

And the two principles that John is going to contrast here are love and hate. John presents love and hate as polar opposites, not only in emotion, but in thinking, and in action.  What John is going to teach us is that love and hate are the products of our hearts.  Not the heart as a muscle which pumps blood through our body, but hearts as used in the Bible, meaning the spiritual center of our soul. What is in the heart comes out – out of the mouth, out of our actions, and out in our attitudes.

Now as I said, John is going to contrast these two ways of thinking; love and hate.  And that’s where the repetition comes in.  John has already talked about the principles of love and hate in the previous chapter.  Yet by using repetition as a tool for learning, John brings them up again, but adding more elements to his original thoughts.  And he uses this instrument of repetition again and again as he deals with various themes in his epistle. Each time he repeats the principle that he wants to instruct us in, but adding more elements, or to say it in reverse, revealing more elements each time he revisits the theme.

So he begins in this passage with the theme of love, which as I said he has already spoken about.  For instance in chapter 2, John talked about the love of God being perfected or completed in us, so that we may walk as He walked.  We are to love as God loved. And then in vs10  he extrapolates the doctrine of love further saying “The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him.”  So we learned that we are to love like God loves, and that means we should love our brothers and sisters in the Lord.

Now in the passage we’re looking at today, chapter 3 vs 11, John reiterates and repeats that principle, saying, “For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.”  When John speaks of hearing this message from the beginning, he isn’t talking about the beginning of this epistle, but the beginning of their conversion. To love one another is a fundamental principle of the gospel, and one that they would have heard at the beginning of their salvation.

Love was a central doctrine of the gospel which the apostles taught, because it had been taught to them by the Lord Jesus.  In John 13, Jesus identifies love as the distinguishing mark of the disciples. vs 35 “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” And He says in vs 34, “A new commandment I give you that you love one another, even as I have loved you.”  The commandment to love was not new, but was in fact prefaced in the Old Testament. But there was a new element to it, which was to love one another as Christ loved. That’s the new element, to love like Christ loved.

So we should ask, how did Christ love? He loved with a sacrificial love, laying down His life for His brothers.  He said in John 15:13  “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”  That’s the kind of love that Jesus had, which we are supposed to emulate.  It’s a sacrificial love.  That’s the meaning of agape, the Greek word for love.  It’s not an affection, a sentiment, or even an emotion.  It’s a commitment, a sacrifice of your life, your priorities, your desires, your needs, for the sake of your brother.

It reminds me of Romans 12: 2 where Paul says “I urge you brethren, by the mercies of God,  to present your bodies as a living sacrifice.” That’s what love is, to be a living sacrifice for the sake of Christ, for the love of the brethren.  To lay aside your priorities to love another sacrificially.  I happen to believe that Paul in Romans 12 is speaking of presenting your body to the church as a living sacrifice.  A lot of people tend to think of going to church as something that is solely for their benefit.  So if they don’t really feel a need to go,  if everything’s good in their life, or so they think, then they can do without church. But one of the key reasons for going to church is to strengthen others, to share one another’s burdens, to teach others, to encourage one another, to help one another, ie, to love one another.  That exposes one of the major shortcomings of the pandemic live stream scenario we were caught up in during the last year.  You can’t love one another very effectively sitting in front of a computer screen or a television.  You need to physically present yourself as a living sacrifice, which Paul says is your spiritual service of worship. That’s what it means to worship the Lord, by sacrificially loving one another.

So John says the message is to love one another, that is those within the church.  And then he contrasts that love to hate.  And he illustrates hate by the life of Cain.  In John’s view, Cain is the representative of those who are not born of God, but are of the devil, whom he calls a child of the devil.  

He says in vs12, “not as Cain, [who] was of the evil one and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous.”  Cain belonged to the evil one.  Now that’s a pretty significant statement.  But it’s based on what Jesus said to the Jews in John 8:44,  “You are of [your] father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own [nature,] for he is a liar and the father of lies.”  So Jesus says that the unconverted, the unsaved, are children of their father the devil.  They share in the nature of the devil. 

But Jesus’s statement causes me to ask, when was Satan a murderer?  I suggest that Jesus says that because Satan was the instigator for the first murder, the murder of Able by Cain.  The devil instigated it by inducing Cain to rebel, to sin, to hate his brother.  You will remember the story that Cain and Able came to worship the Lord, and Cain brought an offering from the fruit of the fields, and Able brought a lamb to be slain upon the alter.  And the scripture says that God honored Able’s offering, but he had no regard for the offering of Cain.  And Cain got very angry because God did not regard his offering. 

But Cain’s anger was the thing that was sinful, and Satan taking the opportunity through that sinful rebellion and anger, induced Cain to kill his brother.  NowI happen to think there was more going on there than meets the eye.  You should remember when God cursed the serpent in the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve’s sin, God said in Gen 3:15 “And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

Now that may sound like a riddle to us, but I think it became clear to Satan, whom someone has rightly called the first theologian, that God had a plan for the redemption of man, and their deliverance from sin and death, and by this seed, to crush the power of Satan.  The plan of God was from the seed of the woman to come the Messiah, who was to redeem man from the curse of sin and death and give him life. And so the enmity of Satan, the hatred of Satan towards the object of God’s love was to try to destroy that seed of the woman.

I believe it had become obvious through some means that we are not privy to, that the line was going to be through Able.  Cain’s heart was evil.  And Satan knew that.  And so he deduced that the line was through Able.  So Satan acted upon this sin of anger that arose in Cain when his offering was rejected, and induced Cain to rise up and slaughter his brother, the one in whom Satan supposed was the seed of the Messiah.  And by the way, the Greek word for murdered, which John uses in our text, indicates cutting someone’s throat. There are other words specific to murder, but John uses one which indicates cutting one’s throat.  Someone has suggested that Cain deliberately killed him that way as a rebuff to God for demanding a sacrifice such as Able made in slaying a lamb for the altar.

But the point I would like to make is that Satan hates the gospel.  And He hates those that embody the gospel.  And the gospel was going to be made manifest in the seed which would come through Eve.  And throughout the ages we have seen numerous attempts by Satan to destroy that seed, to annihilate the Jews in general as the seed of Abraham.  But God’s plan would not be thwarted.  That’s why when Eve conceived again and brought forth Seth, she said, “God has appointed me another seed in place of Abel, for Cain killed him.”

So the point is that Satan hates God’s people.  He hates the gospel.  And likewise those that are of the evil one hate those that are of God. That’s why John continues in vs 13, “Do not be surprised, brethren, if the world hates you.” The world hates righteousness. They are in rebellion against God.  But the irony is that Cain came to worship God.  Cain believed in God.  He was religious. But he was not willing to accept God’s plan for redemption.  He was not willing to accept God’s standard for righteousness. 

And I would suggest to you that there are many false prophets and false believers today who claim to have fellowship with God, and yet in reality they hate God and they hate those who love God, because they resent God’s standard for righteousness.  They want to believe that their life is acceptable, their sense of right and wrong is acceptable.  They don’t want to believe that what they are saying is acceptable, God says is sin.  And so they hate those who are righteous. And God says that hate is the moral equivalent of murder.

Jesus said in Matthew 5:21, “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder and whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing, shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.” So Jesus said hate is enough to condemn you to hell, whether or not it ever becomes actual murder.  Because God looks at the heart. Prov.23:7 says, “as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”

So John says the test of whether or not you are a child of God or a child of the evil one is whether you love or hate your brother. Vs.14 “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. 15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” 

What John is saying is that love is the manifestation of those who are born of God, who have received life from God. Notice the sentence construction he uses does not indicate that love is the means by which we are born of God.  But that love is the evidence that you’ve been born of God.  “We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brethren.”  Love is the manifestation of a child of God.

And vice a versa, “everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.”  The hallmark of an unbeliever is that they hate their brother.  Now does that mean that if someone has committed murder they can never be saved? No, there are some good examples in scripture of murderers that were saved. For instance, Paul was a murderer. Didn’t he persecute and kill Christians? He says, “I was a blasphemer and a murderer.” But he repented and was forgiven. All sinners can be saved, if they repent of their sin. But that reveals the danger of not recognizing your sin.  If you don’t consider yourself a sinner, then you obviously can’t repent and conseuently you cannot be saved. But any sin can be forgiven if you repent.

So John says hate is the moral equivalent to murder.  And murder is the physical manifestation of hatred, and hatred is in a person’s heart. But there is another manifestation of hate and that is indifference., Not all the children of the devil are equally evil in their actions. They all are characterized by some level of hatred of those who are righteous. But not all of them carry it out to its extremity and actually murder someone. But another way, and perhaps the more common way of manifesting hate is through indifference. They don’t love others, so they are indifferent towards others. They could really care less about others. Look at verses 16 and 17, “We know love by this, that He lay down His life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him. How does the love of God abide in him?” This is speaking of indifference. This is another evidence of the selfish, hateful heart. They have the world’s goods but they selfishly hold them for themselves, for their own pleasure and satisfaction. They are not willing to make any sacrifice for anyone else. They’re dominated by selfishness. If they do give away a little pittance here and there, it is to pacify their own conscience and have the appearance of philanthropy.  But the root of their deeds are pride.  To be seen as philanthropic.  But in general, the children of the evil one are consumed with themselves and they’re unconcerned and indifferent towards others.

But let’s consider for a moment what John said in vs16, “this is how we know what love is…” And then he goes on to state Christ’s sacrifice for us.  The part I want to emphasize is John says this is how we know what love is. We need to understand what love is.  You know, if there is one word or one doctrine that is completely mischaracterized today not only in the world but even in the church, it is the word love.

Love is not sex, ladies and gentlemen.  Sex was designed to be a product of love, when love operates as God designed it to be. But love is not sex.  When the Beatles sang “All you need is love…” they were really talking about sex.  The culture has so corrupted the true meaning of love that it is hardly a word that has any spiritual significance today. That’s why in the Greek there were four words for love.  John uses agape, meaning sacrificial love. There was another word eros, which corresponded to erotic love.  God’s love is agape, which is the love we are to have for one another.

 I think it’s also disingenuous to substitute the name of God with love.  John will go on to say that God is love, but what he means is that love is a characteristic of God.  But God is not love in that it is the only characteristic of God.  Love is held in tension with all the other characteristics of God’s nature, such as holiness, righteousness, truth  and justice. God is almighty, all knowing, all powerful, omnipotent, omnipresent. He is life, He is light, He is the source of all things, and the means by which all things hold together. God  said to Moses that His name was “I AM THAT I AM.”  To reduce the name of God to a single emotion which we’ve dumbed down to it’s lowest common denominator is practically sacrilege.

This thing the world calls love, this emotional, sentimental, affection for someone or something that causes us to desire it, is a bastardization of what God calls love.  God says here is love; to lay down your life on behalf of someone else.  It’s sacrificial, total selflessness, a willingness to give up everything that we hold dear for the sake of a brother.  Love is being a living sacrifice to serve others, which is our spiritual service of worship to God.

Now then, if hatred is the moral equivalent of murder, then love is the moral imperative of the child of God. John says, “We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” Ought is a moral imperative.  Love is a commandment. Jesus said “if you love Me you will keep My commandments.”  For a believer, love is a command.

So how does love look on a practical level?  John says love gives freely.  “But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.”

There used to be another song on the radio which had the line, “It’s so easy to fall in love.” It may be easy to fall into bed with someone, but it’s another thing to sacrifice my priorities for the sake of what’s best for someone else.  It’s so easy to say I love you.  But it’s another thing to actually love someone the way God loved us.  It’s another thing to sacrifice your will for someone else.  It’s so easy to say I love God.  But it’s another thing to obey God’s commandments.  But He says if you love me, you will keep my commandments.

John says don’t just give lip service to God.  He is saying that true believers don’t just give lip service to God.  I think a lot of people come to church on Sunday and sing “O how I love Jesus,” and then Monday through Saturday they live for the devil. They live for the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, and the pride of life.  John says don’t just say you love, but do the deeds of love. We are to be known not by our words, but by our deeds.

What John is sort of reiterating here is the principle that by their fruit you shall know them.  The life that has been born of God will be a life that is manifested by a love for the brethren.  The life that is still in their sins, that is still in the bonds of the evil one, will be manifested by hatred, indifference, selfishness.

The crux of the matter is this, that our human nature is inherently sinful.  Our human nature is inherently selfish.  Watch two little children play together and no matter how many toys they have scattered all around the room, sooner or later they will end up in a tug of war over one of them. One of the first words a child learns is “Mine.”  Selfishness and hatred is a natural attribute and we are naturally inclined to sin against God.  We are naturally sinners, naturally rebels towards God.  

But the love of God for us was manifested in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us, that we might be forgiven of our sins and be given life through His death on our behalf. If you confess your sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  We can be born again as a child of God through faith in what Jesus has accomplished for us at the cross. We can receive a new nature, the same nature that God has, by becoming a child of God.  I urge you today to accept and believe in the death of Jesus Christ as the payment for your sins, and in His resurrection as the means of life in Him, that you might be born spiritually as a child of God.  I pray that you will have the love of God completed in you today, as you turn to Him in faith.  

The section of scripture before us today is one of the most difficult in John’s epistles, if not in the entire New Testament.  Just a cursory reading of this text seems to cause all sorts of conflicting interpretations, and seemingly contradictory interpretations.  I heard someone quote John Knox as saying to Mary Queen of Scots that if you read the Bible and think you find a contradiction, then keep on reading and sooner or later you will find another passage that explains it quite satisfactorily.  So in dealing with some of these statements by John we must compare scripture with scripture, and usually as you continue to study you will find within John’s own writings a suitable explanation for the seeming contradiction.

However, I want to approach this text a little differently than that this morning.  I think it may be helpful to look at the big picture and then scroll down to the details, rather than just focus on the details and lose sight of the big picture.  So that is the attempt I would like to make this morning.  And to do that we are going to exposit the word in reverse, starting at vs 10 which I think gives us the big picture, and then work backwards in the text to discover the details.

To help explain the big picture  I am going to use the same pattern that John has used repeatedly throughout this book so far.  And that is, there are only two categories of people that John sees in existence; either being a child of God, or being a child of the devil. John sees everything in reference of these two absolutes; light or darkness, truth or a lie, God or the devil, life or death.  And now in this section – sin or righteousness.  And all of these absolutes are contingent upon one another.  They are all related.  For instance, darkness, child of the devil, the lie,  death and sin are all related.  And light, child of God, the truth, life and righteousness are all related to one another and dependent upon one another.

So I really think that in this passage John is drawing another contrast in a series of contrasts, this time between sin and righteousness.  And as I have repeatedly stressed in previous messages, he makes these contrasts because one of his primary goals in writing to the church is to protect them from those who are trying to deceive them. He says in ch.2vs26, “These things I have written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you.” Those people are described as false prophets, antichrists, deceivers, who have emerged from the ranks of the church, and yet they attempt to lie and twist the truth of the gospel and as such lead astray people unto destruction.

John is saying in providing these contrasts that a false prophet will have certain characteristics about his life that are in opposition to what Christ taught. In other words, they will live in sin and thus by the evidence of their lives show that they are not of God and consequently you should not believe their word or follow their teaching.

Now it’s interesting that in this context John has chosen to contrast sin and righteousness. These two distinctions are really the root cause of all things, whether life and death, truth or the lie, a child of God or a child of Satan.  Everything stems from either sin or righteousness.

For instance, at creation, God made man, and it was good.  Man did not know sin, and thus was righteous.  Being righteous he had fellowship with God.  Being righteous, he had life, all that righteous life entails.  But when man disobeyed God, and fell into sin, sin caused death, and death passed upon all their descendants, for all have sinned.  Romans 5:12 “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”

So man sinned, and death passed to all men.  But God had a plan from before creation to redeem man from sin and give him life again.  That plan was for Jesus to come to earth as a man, to become our substitute, and our Savior, dying on the cross for our sins.  He became sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Cor. 5:21)  Christ’s death on our behalf not only provided the sacrifice for our sins so that we might be forgiven, but it also provided for the grace of God to be given to us, which is the righteousness of Jesus Christ.  We received the benefit of His righteousness, which was imputed to our account.  And as a result of righteousness, we receive life.

So to make sure you understand the two options here – sin and death, as contrasted to righteousness and life.  And to extrapolate that out a bit further, we might say that sin is commensurate with being a child of the devil, and righteousness is commensurate with being a child of God. Now John makes that principle very clear in vs 10; “By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.”  So righteousness is the predominate characteristic of the children of God.  

Now the characteristic of the child of the devil, John says, is sin. That principle is stated in vs 8.  “the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning.”  Now that’s a pretty clear contrast, is it not? Forget about all the theological mumbo jumbo for a moment and just accept these statements on their face value. Are they children of God? Then they practice righteousness.  They practice sin?  Then they are children of the devil.  John makes it a very simple equation, which should make obvious whether a person is of God or is not.

The NASB helps us to understand an important distinction here.  And that is the word translated as “practices.”  If you practice righteousness, then you are a child of God.  If you practice sin then you are a child of the devil.  The detail of note is “practice.”  Practice is habitual, continual, deliberate.  I talked about practicing in a previous message in reference to taking piano lessons as a kid.  I found practicing my piano to be hard work.  It’ took discipline.  I didn’t practice, so I failed at piano.  I found that I couldn’t accidentally practice.  It took conscientious, deliberate, dedicated practice.

That’s the idea behind the practicing of either righteousness or sinfulness.  Now granted, the impetus for doing either of those things comes out of our nature.   And what John tells us in the second part of vs 8 is that Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil.  That is, He came to destroy the effects of the sin nature.  Vs 8b, “The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.”

Now how did Jesus accomplish destroying the works of the devil?  By giving us a new nature.  By faith in what Christ accomplished through His substitutionary death on the cross, we are born again, that is born of God, born of the Spirit, and as a new creation we now have a new nature.  We have Christ’s nature.  We are given His righteousness in exchange for our sins.  We now have a righteous nature.  The sinful nature, our flesh, is crucified with Christ and we now live by the Spirit, in the righteousness of Christ.  

John states that principle in vs9, “No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.”   Now this statement “he cannot sin” is one of those that can really cause theologians to go into conniptions and false teachers to have a field day.  So let’s break it down one phrase at a time and work through it.  

“No one who is born of God practices sin…” We’ve really already dealt with this one.  It’s basically a restatement of vs 10.  The key to proper interpretation is “practice.”  And we explained what it means to practice.  It doesn’t mean, however, that we that are born of God can never sin.  Because John says in 1John 1:8, 10  “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. … 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.”  So in every way possible, John makes it clear that you can sin, and you have sinned.  The difference of course is that as a child of God you will not practice, continually, habitually, deliberately practice sin. But that old nature is not completely done away with, because you are still in the flesh.  So it’s possible for a child of God to sin, but it’s not possible for a child of God to continually practice sin. 

Then John answers the question, why?  Why don’t we practice sin anymore? That’s answered in the next phrase; “because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.”  When the Bible speaks of the seed of Abraham, it is talking about the child of Abraham, the descendants of Abraham.  The seed of Abraham is his DNA, it’s his reproductive life which is passed on to his son, or his child.  And that child that is born is of Abraham, in that he has the genes of Abraham, the DNA of Abraham, the characteristics of Abraham.  He is a man in the likeness of Abraham.

So in keeping with that analogy, when we are born of God we receive His seed, and that produces in us a new life, a new nature, new characteristics of our Father.  I would suggest that the seed is righteousness.  There are two verses that I think, while not directly speaking to this principle, do illustrate the connection between the seed and righteousness.  The first is in 2Cor. 9:10 “Now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.”  And then James 3:18 “And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”

And I think that the context here in 1John indicates that the seed is righteousness, because there are only two options given here, sin and righteousness.  And as I quoted while ago from 2 Cor. 5:21, God made Jesus, who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”  We are made the righteousness of God.  The seed then that we are given by God is righteousness, which makes us righteous.  And John says that is why we cannot sin, because we are righteous.  We are like our Father in our new nature.  Our righteous nature cannot sin.  Our sinful nature can and will sin.  The distinction is which nature we are living in.  Whether or not we are walking in the spirit or walking according to the flesh. 

Paul speaks of this war within his body between the spirit and the flesh in Romans 7:21 “I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.  For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.  O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.”  So if we practice righteousness and walk in the Spirit then  we will not, we cannot sin, and thus fulfill the lusts of the flesh.  

Now we are working our way through this section backwards, if you haven’t been paying attention. As I said I think it’s helpful to our understanding to work from the greater to the lessor, or from the big picture to the details.  And so in vs 7 we get some more detail of how this principle works.  John says in vs7, “Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous.”  Now just imagine if you will that we have a giant chalkboard behind me, and at the top of the blackboard we have the headings for two columns.  The column on the right has the heading SIN, and the column on the right has the heading RIGHTEOUSNESS.   And what we are doing is detailing the characteristics of each of those headings.  

John says concerning righteousness, that don’t be deceived, the one who practice righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous.  First of all, notice the warning; don’t be deceived.  This is the primary purpose of John’s writing, as I told you before.  The deceivers in the church are trying to give people a false gospel, a gospel that on the one hand doesn’t want to acknowledge sin, or wants to condone sin, or explain away sin, and in accordance with the devil’s strategy wants to keep people enslaved in sin, so they don’t preach repentance from sin, or that you can be cleansed from sin.  John says don’t be deceived.  There is sin, it is inviting, it’s pleasurable for a season, it’s alluring to the eyes, but it brings forth death and it’s of the devil.  So don’t be deceived. 

And secondly John restates the principle, that the one who practice righteousness is righteous, but then adds a very important caveat.  Because God is righteous.  If we are born of God then our new nature is righteousness.  We have Christ’s righteousness imputed unto us, we have the seed of righteousness that changes our DNA, that changes our heart, our desires, so that we are righteous, we do the works of righteousness.  That’s what Paul was saying in Eph. 2:10 “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” We are made a new creation to be able to do the works of righteousness.

Next, John contrasts righteousness to sin.  And going backwards in our text, John states that sin cannot be the characteristic of a child of God.  Vs6 “No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him.”  This is another statement that causes theologian’s heads to explode.  But let’s break it down and try to understand it in context with all that John has said.  “No one who abides in Him sins.”  The key to this statement is the word “abides.”  What does to “abide” mean?  It means to follow Him, to walk closely with Him, to listen to Him, to talk to Him, to have fellowship with Him.

To abide is to have what Revelation 3:20  talks about when Jesus says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.” He’s talking about fellowship, obedience, walking in the Spirit and not according to the flesh.  So John is saying here in vs 6 that if you have fellowship with God you cannot sin, you will not sin.  The key to avoiding sin is to abide with Him.  To have fellowship with Him.  To abide in His word.  To walk according to the leading of the Spirit. To be in constant communication with God.  I have yet to fall into sin when I am in prayer.  It’s only when I forget to pray, or don’t want to pray that I find myself falling into sin.  It’s only when I neglect the reading of the word of God that I find myself straying from righteousness.  So abiding in Him is the key to knowing Him.  If you truly know Him, if you are in intimate fellowship with God, then you will not sin.

And then in vs 5, John says that’s the purpose that Christ came, to take away sin.  Vs5 “You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin.”  This is almost an identical statement that John made in vs 8b: “The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.”  So to take away sins, and to destroy the works of the devil, are one and the same. Christ came to live a sinless life, to live a righteous life, and as the righteous One, to offer Himself as a substitute sacrifice for sinners, to take away the sins of the world.

Back in chapter 2 vs 2, we saw that John said, “and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for [those of] the whole world.”  Now remember, those of you who were here, what we said propitiation meant?  It means satisfaction.  Jesus is the satisfaction for our sins. and the sins of the world.  What exactly did He satisfy?  He satisfied the wrath of God against sin.  He satisfied the penalty for sins which is death.  He satisfied the justice of God, the righteousness of God, the holiness of God.

Christ amply, sufficiently paid the price of our sins, so that we might be made righteous. He appeared in order to take away sins, both the penalty, and the power of sin, which destroys the works of the devil.  The devil is a defeated enemy.  He was defeated at the cross and resurrection when Jesus triumphed over sin and hell.  Sin no longer has control over those who believe in Christ.  Sin no longer can condemn those who have trusted in Him as their Savior.  The devil’s power has been broken by the cross.  The very instrument of Satan’s plan to destroy the gospel, became the means by which he was broken.  We saw a good illustration of that in our study in Esther last week on Wednesday night.  Evil Haman was hung on the very gallows that he had planned to execute Mordecai upon.  God did the same thing in destroying the works of Satan through the cross, the very instrument Satan planned to use to kill Jesus.

So Christ having done away with the power of sin, that makes it possible for the practice of righteousness, which John has said is the evidence of a child of God. And in like manner, the practice of sin is the evidence of a child of the devil.  And that last principle is stated in vs 4, “Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.”

This sounds like what John has already stated numerous times.  But there is a nuance here which he wants to emphasize and bring out.  And I think it’s important.  Notice that he says he who practices sin, (we have discussed that aspect already) but then he adds, he also practices lawlessness.  Now what does he mean by that?  

Well, lawlessness, is someone without the law. It’s a disregard of the law.  It’s rebellion against God’s law. It doesn’t mean just breaking one of the 10 commandments, but complete disregard of the law of God, which encompasses all of the scriptures.  In short, lawlessness is rebellion against God. It’s saying there is no absolute truth, no authority in heaven.   You know, we are living today in a lawless age, aren’t we?  The things that are going on lately in our society are beyond the pale.  People are advocating, condoning, championing the grossest  immorality as something that should be celebrated.  And not just immorality, but there is a widespread lawlessness and rebellion against authority that pervades our society today that I think is unequaled since the time when Christ first appeared during the Roman Empire.  And actually, I’m convinced that the days we are living in are worse. 

There is quickly growing an attitude of hatred towards God, towards righteousness, towards good.  Men call evil good and good evil. I believe that when you consider the nature of sin, then you will conclude that the fundamental essence of sin is unbelief. The reason we are lawless, the reason we are rebellious, the reason we do not respond to the word of God is that we do not believe the word of God. We do not believe it is the word of God. 

Jesus said concerning the Holy Spirit, in John 16:8-9  “And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:  of sin, because they do not believe in Me.”  So the essence of sin is unbelief, and because they do not believe the word of God, unbelief causes lawlessness, which is rebellion against God, and an unwillingness to submit to what the word of God says, which is God’s law.

Well, I believe the contrast is clear, everyone who practices sin is not of God, and he who practices righteousness is born of God.  The evidence of whether one is born of God or not is a life that looks like the life of Christ, which is righteousness.  Those that practice sin do not know God.  By this we may know whether the preachers and teachers and priests and prophets are of God or of the devil.  Jesus said by their fruit you shall know them.

But there is also another important point being taught here, and that is that if you are going to have the life which God gives, if you are going to be righteous, then you have to be born of God.  And the only way to be born again is through faith in what Christ as your substitute and Savior did for you through His death and resurrection.  The question is whether or not you have been born again.  Have you received by faith the forgiveness for your sins, and the righteousness of Jesus Christ applied to your account?  That righteousness is a gift of God to those who believe in Jesus Christ.  I hope that no one leaves here today without receiving that gift of salvation.  You can be born again in the spirit today, right now, by trusting in Jesus Christ as your Savior.  I urge you to receive Him today.  

John has several reasons for writing this epistle, which is actually a letter, to the churches.  Back in chapter 2 vs 26, he mentions one of the most pressing reasons for writing them.  He said in vs 26 “These things I have written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you.”  Now we learned that “they” refers to false prophets and false teachers who John calls antichrists.  These are people who have come out of the ranks of the church, who claimed superior knowledge of spiritual things, but who are teaching doctrine which is the opposite of Christ’s gospel.

So what were they trying to deceive the church about?  I believe they were trying to deceive the church by presenting them another gospel, which was a fraudulent claim that you can have a relationship with God, that you can know God and receive life from God, but you don’t have to be concerned with the old fashioned ideas about sin and righteousness.  They taught that it was about an experience, a spiritual enlightening that doesn’t really have anything to do with morality or sin or the need for righteousness.  You could still be carnal and enjoy the lusts of the world and yet have salvation.

This skewed view of Christianity is still being taught today, by the way, in our modern culture.  There is very little concern today on the part of many false teachers in the church about sin and the need for righteousness.  A relationship with God is all that they teach, and when you examine their claims, you find that relationship is very one sided.  God sacrifices everything for us, but we sacrifice nothing in return. They teach that you can live in what the Bible calls sin and still be fine.  There is no need for repentance. There is no need to be righteous.  There is no need for a change in behavior.

But John says that cannot be true.  He says if you say you have fellowship with God and yet walk in the darkness, that means practice sin, then you lie and don’t practice the truth. He says if you love the world, then the love of the Father is not in you.  The point being that if you are truly a Christian, you will become like Christ.  If you really have fellowship with God, there is going to be a change in you, that results in looking more and more like Christ.  And John indicates that this is the test for how the church is to gauge the false prophets, how they are to test the spirits to see if they are from God.  If they claim to have fellowship with God, but their walk doesn’t bear witness of the fact that they have died to sin and walk after righteousness, then the church can know that these are false prophets and antichrists and they should not follow their teaching.

So John has been presenting a number of tests by which you can validate a person’’s Christianity.  And these tests also serve to assure you of your own salvation, or it should convict of your need of salvation should you fail the tests.

Today we are looking at another such test.  It’s kind of like the test we sometimes employ today in our society if there is a question about who is the father of a child. It’s called a paternity test.  They take a sample of the DNA of the child in question and a sample of the purported father, and they compare them to see if the child is really his or not. 

What John is proposing here is something akin to a paternity test.  The question is are they a child of God?  Are we a child of God? A lot of people claim to be children of God.  Some teach that everyone on earth is a child of God. But we don’t find that doctrine born out in the scriptures.  In fact, Jesus accused some Pharisees who confronted Him during His ministry of being children of their father the devil.  Paul in Ephesians 2 calls the world “children of wrath.” John in vs 10 of chapter three divides the world into two groups, children of God and children of the devil.  So not everyone then is a child of God.

To be a child of God, John says you have to be born of God. He mentions this necessity in vs 29 of the previous chapter, saying, “If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him.”  In other words, John is saying that the one who is born of God is like God in the sense that God’s DNA is righteousness, and if we are born of God then our DNA is righteousness.

But the question arises, what is meant by being born of God? The word John uses in vs29 is literally “begotten”.  That means they have had a birth experience.  It’s a second birth.  Jesus said in John chapter 3 vs 3 to Nicodemus, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?”  Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

So everyone on earth is born of their mother and father.  That’s the natural birth, what Jesus refers to as water birth.  But He says it’s necessary to be born again of the Spirit.  God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.  So we must be born again spiritually and that happens through the Holy Spirit.  

Now how does that work?  First a person must recognize that they are a sinner, and that they are dead in their sins.  Romans 6:23 says the wages of sin is death.  When Adam and Eve sinned against God He said that they would surely die.  What died immediately was their spirit. And as children of Adam we are born dead spiritually.  Romans 5 says “by the transgression of the one, (that is Adam), death reigned through the one.”  And “through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men.”  And “as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.”

So through the obedience of Christ, many will be made righteous.  There is the equation that produces new birth.  We are made righteous by Christ’s obedience to the Father to offer Himself as a sacrifice for sin, as our substitute on the cross, bearing our sins upon Him, so that we might receive His righteousness.  2 Cor. 5:21 says, “God made Jesus, who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might be made righteous in Him.”

Listen, new birth is having your sins forgiven and having the righteousness of Jesus Christ applied to our account.  And because we are made righteous, the Holy Spirit is able to regenerate our spirit by His dwelling in us.  So we are born of God when we by faith receive what Christ did on our behalf.  John says back in John 1:12-13 “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, [even] to them that believe on his name:  Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

That is what it means to be born of God. To be born again. By faith believing in Christ and HIs work on the cross and what He accomplished for us, we receive forgiveness of sins, the transference of His righteousness to our account, and the power to become sons of God.  That power is the Spirit of God that gives life to our spirit and gives us new life.  We are spiritually born not of man, nor by the will of man, but of God.

And John says what it means to be a child of God is a wonderful, tremendous privilege that can hardly be comprehended.  He says in chapter 3 vs 1, “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God.”  I think in some ways the KJV gives us a better sense of the wonder that John feels as he considers how incredible it is to be called children of God.  In the KJV it says “Behold! What manner of  love the Father hath bestowed upon us…”

It’s a phrase that indicates astonishment, wonder, incredulity at God’s love towards us. John doesn’t just say that the Father loves us.  But that He lavishes His love upon us. It’s extravagant, overflowing, super abundant love towards us.  It shows an action taken by the Father towards us.  It’s not just a sentimental feeling God has for us, but a tremendous act of love.  And the action that God took was He sent His own, beloved Son to die in our place for our sins so that He might make us HIs children.  John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him, should not perish but have everlasting life.” Greater love has no one than this, Jesus said, that a man lay down His life for His friends.  God loves us with an everlasting, sacrificial, lavish love that surpasses anything we can imagine. Because He loves us and sent Jesus to take away our sins, we receive the right to become children of God.

That we might be called children of God!  What an incredible thing!  God looked upon us, who were sinners, who were hostile towards Him, who were undeserving and unlovable, and He chose us to be the recipients of His love.  It’s as if prospective parents come to an orphanage, desiring to adopt a child.  And they pick the most unresponsive child, the child with all kinds of problems, that has no redeeming qualities, but they fall in love with this totally unlovable child, and adopt him and love him unconditionally.  And then not only do they adopt him, but they give him an inheritance of all that they have.  As children of God, we are adopted as His children, and we are made co heirs with Christ. Romans 8:16 says, “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God,  and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with [Him] so that we may also be glorified with [Him.]”

So to this tremendous privilege we are called children of God, John adds, “and such we are!”  We are now the children of God. It’s not something that is off in the future, it’s a present reality.  We have all the benefits of being a child of God now.  We have the Spirit of God in us now. We receive His spiritual DNA now.  We have complete access to the throne of God now.  We have eternal life now.  We enjoy all the rights and privileges that our adoption entails, because we have come to know God as our Father.

Paul describes our spiritual status as a present reality, to the point of even now spiritually being seated in the heavenly places as recipients of all God’s blessings.  In Eph. 2:4-7  he says, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,  even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),  and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly [places] in Christ Jesus,  so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

But John says, because we are born of God, we are known by our Father, we have the blessings of being  a child of God,  but the world does not know us.  At the end of vs 1 he says, “For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.”  Even as the world did not recognize Jesus as the Son of God, neither do they recognize us as being children of God.  They may recognize us as being crazy right wing nuts who call themselves Christians. But they don’t recognize that we are born of God, for the same reasons that they didn’t recognize Christ.  People don’t recognize Jesus Christ for who He is, they don’t believe in what Jesus Christ has done, because they are too enamored with this world. If they believed in Christ that would mean they would have to give up their love for this world, their love for themselves, and so it’s easier to just not believe in Christ.  That way they think they can hold on to their autonomy, their independence, and their sin.  But they don’t realize that they are enslaved to sin, and that they have within themselves the condemnation of their sin which is the sentence of death.

But because we know God, because we are born of God, we will come to know Him more, and we will become more like Him.  John says in vs 2, “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.”   For a second time John emphasizes that we are now children of God.  What he wants to stress is that there is already a resemblance to the Father that should be seen in the children.  Children should look like their father.  They should share some of the characteristics of their father.  And as they mature, they look and act more and more like their fathers.  That’s a fact in the earthly realm, and it should be a fact in the heavenly realm. If we are God’s children, then we should act like God more and more as we mature.

That process of maturing is what the Bible calls sanctification.  It’s the natural progression of maturity that believers should express in their lives and in their behavior.  The last stage of that progression of maturity will occur when we see the Lord.  It’s brought about by what John referred to in the last chapter as the coming of the Lord.  He said in the previous chapter, vs 28 “Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming.”  The way to not be ashamed, John adds in the next verse, is to be righteous as He is righteous.

Now John says that  our maturity as children of God will be completed and  we will be like Him for we shall see Him as He is.  He again is speaking of the coming of the Lord, and what is called our glorification.  There are in theological terms three stages of our salvation.  There is justification, when our sins are forgiven and HIs righteousness is applied, which is when we are born again; then there is sanctification, when we become conformed to His image, when we exhibit the characteristics of our Father, and then there is glorification, when Christ returns and we receive a new, glorified body.  That glorified body is like Christ’s glorified body. That’s about all I can tell you about it as far as how it looks.  But most importantly, this new body will not have the old sin nature anymore.  Sin will be done away with in all it’s forms, in all of creation, all things will be made new.  A new heaven and a new earth.  A new Jerusalem, John calls it in Revelation, meaning the city of God.  And there will be no night there, no sin there, no sickness there, no tears there.  The Lord will be the light, and we will be in His glorified presence.  We will be in what theologians call the beatific vision.  When we shall see the Lord in all His glory.  The same glory that Moses only saw the backside of, and yet his face glowed so brightly that he had to veil his face so that men could look upon him.  To be in the beatific vision is to be in the presence of pure light, pure truth, pure holiness, pure righteousness, and pure life.  All things have their being in Him.  Eternal life emanates from Him. And to be in His presence will transform us into His likeness. That is what John means when he says we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.  

Paul said that is indescribable. As the apostle Paul put it, “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.”  God told Moses that no man can see God and live. So God has to transform us into a creature that can see God. That can look upon Him as He is and live.  He has to make us holy, righteous.  That is the purpose of the process of sanctification that we are going through now. Through the word of God,  there is a constant sanctifying, cleansing influence going on in us. As we look intently at the word of God, we are constantly being changed and conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul states that in 2 Corinthians chapter 3:18 “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.” So the process of sanctification is going on in the life of every child of God now,  being conformed more and more to the Son of God until finally the conformation will be made complete, when we see him as He is at His coming.

So that being God’s purpose in our sanctification, John says if we have that hope, then we purify ourselves, just as He is pure.  Vs.3, “And everyone who has this hope [fixed] on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” The self validating test of being a Christian is that you become like Christ.  You are a work in progress.  You may not be perfect yet, but you are being perfected.  Paul said in Phil. 1:6 “[For I am] confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”

The more we learn of the Lord, the more we become like Him.  The more we know Him, the more we love Him. The more we love Him, the more we obey Him. The more we read His word, the more we have the mind of Christ, the more we imitate the life of Christ.  

Purity simply means being free from moral stain.  As Peter said in  1Peter 1:16 “because it is written, “YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY.”  It’s restatement really of what John said in chapter 2:29, which is the verse we opened with, “If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him.”

And that returns us to our initial premise, the purpose of John’s writing.  That the way the church might know the true prophet of God from the false prophet of God is in whether or not they live like Jesus lived.  If they practice righteousness or practice sinfulness. That’s how John instructed the church to distinguish the spirits. 

But let’s make sure we are clear on this principle -that righteousness follows as a result of conversion.  Our righteousness is not the means of our being born again, but righteousness is the fruit of our salvation.  Our righteousness is not the cause of the new birth, but it is the consequence of it. But if we are children of God, then we will exhibit the behavior consistent with our Father.   You cannot claim to know God, to have fellowship with God, and walk in darkness.  But if you are a child of God, you purify yourself even as He is pure.

I trust today that you pass the test of the evidence of your salvation.  Some of you here today may be trying to obtain salvation through your good works.  You might be sincerely trying to be a better person.  You want to know God and to know that you know Him.  You want to know that you have eternal life.  But the scripture says that  by your own righteousness you cannot obtain salvation.  

Titus 3:5-7 says,  “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,  whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,  so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to [the] hope of eternal life.”

God saves us because of His great sacrificial love which He has for us.  He saved us on the basis of what Christ did for us on the cross.  Our sins are forgiven, and our righteousness is granted, by our faith in what Christ has done.  So that John may say, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, [even] to those who believe in His name,  who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”

Have you been born again?  Are you able to answer that question today?  Born again not by man, nor by the will of man, but born of God, that you might become the child of God.  God loves you so much that He has already done all that is required for you to be become His child.  The part that is your responsibility is to trust in Him, to receive Him as your Lord and Savior, confessing your need for Him.  And the promise of God is that if you will receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, God will give you the right to be a child of God.  Call upon Him today and be saved. 

Last week, we looked at the previous passage of John’s message, which was not to love the world, nor the things of the world.  And we learned that the world was not speaking of creation, nor of the people of the world, but he was speaking of the world system.  We learned that this world system is orchestrated by Satan, to deceive the people of the world, to mislead them, to hold them captive by it’s deceptive philosophies, until it eventually leads to their destruction. 

We said that the world system is in opposition to the heavenly system.  The divine plan of God is diverted to serve the system of this world. It’s a demonic plan designed to mislead and deceive, and ultimately to overturn the plan of God.  And it does so by enticement of the things of this world, things which the world values, that look attractive, that look fulfilling, that promise to bring happiness, but the end results in not a more abundant life, but in fact is death.

So John warns us not to be deceived, and not to fall for the seductive siren of the world system, because he adds in vs 17, that the world is passing away, and also it’s lusts, but the one who does the will of God lives forever. 

Now to give a sense of immediacy to that warning that the world is passing away, John says, “children, it is the last hour.”  The fact that John refers to us as “children” hearkens back to vs 13 in which John had given three characterizations of spiritual maturity. In that analogy of spiritual maturity, John had addressed children, young men, and fathers, each designation representative of a Christian’s spiritual maturity.  This particular word for children is “paidion” which was used to describe a young child of teachable age.  Not an infant, but still a young child that was able to be instructed.  

As parents, in fact, generally speaking as a society, we have a protective attitude towards young children that is appropriate.  We know that children of a young age are particularly vulnerable.  We teach our children not to talk to strangers, not because we want them to be anti-social, but because they are particularly naive at that age, and that naivete makes them especially vulnerable to predators.  And it’s a sad reality that the world is full of predators that prey upon the weak. 

So it’s apropos that John calls Christians “children” in this general way, because we are particularly vulnerable, especially in the beginning stages of our spiritual maturity.  There is nothing wrong per se with being spiritually naive at the first stages of our spiritual growth. A certain degree of that is normal and to be expected. But it makes us especially vulnerable to predators in the spiritual realm.  To people that want to take advantage.  To people that pretend to be friends, but in fact they are foes.

The Bible tells us therefore to be wise as serpents but harmless as doves.  It warns us to be on the alert because the devil goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.  We are in the world, and the world hates us, even as it hated Jesus Christ. And furthermore, we are told that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light, so that he might deceive the world and take us captive. Satan doesn’t come dressed in all black, with hooded face, and fangs and a pitchfork that we might recognize him.  Satan comes like a messenger of God, robed in a false piety and false knowledge that beguiles the unwary.

So when John speaks to us as “children” it is not just a term of endearment, but it’s a term that implies a warning not to be naive, not to fall victim to the predators that prey on the church.  And that warning is particularly pertinent because John says it is the last hour.  When he says it’s the last hour, he is speaking not of a literal 60 minutes, but of the last age, or the last day, or last season.  When you study the New Testament, you will see that practically all the writers spoke of the time in which they were living was the last age, or the last day, or the last hour.  It simply refers to this age between the first appearing of Christ at His incarnation, and the last appearing of Christ which is the consummation of this age.

I believe John references this shortness of the time which is left in Rev. 12:12 which says “For this reason, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has [only] a short time.”  So the fact that it is the last age is yet another aspect of the warning that John is giving to the church. It’s the last hour, and Satan is doubling down, knowing quite well the theology which says that his time is short. The consummation of this age is quickly approaching, and Satan’s time is limited, so we should expect his fury to be fearsome in these last days.

His wrath is focused on us, by the way. We that are Christians are the focus of Satan’s hatred. That’s why the world hates those who are Christ’s.  And because the world hates us, we should be on our guard against the schemes of the devil.

Now the great scheme of the devil ultimately is to deceive and devour, and if possible to deceive even the elect.  Jesus said in Mark 13:22, “for false Christs and false prophets will arise, and will show signs and wonders, in order to lead astray, if possible, the elect.”  That doesn’t mean that it isn’t possible to lead the elect astray. It means that by all means possible Satan’s plan is to lead the elect astray.  Not to perdition, but to confound God’s will for their lives, to make them impotent as Christians.  To ruin their testimony perhaps.  To cause them to fall into sin and ruin their lives and become stumbling blocks to others. To retard their spiritual growth. I”m told that in battle strategy, it costs the enemy more to take care of the wounded than the dead.  So if Satan can’t kill us, then his goal is to wound us, and thus take his toil upon the church.

So John warns of the same thing that Christ warns of in Mark 13.  That false Christs and false prophets will arise, and will show signs and wonders, in order to lead astray, if possible, the elect.  Like the child who is approached by the friendly man at the bus stop and lured away with offers of candy, or  with a special message from Mommy, we should shudder at the deceptive approach of false Christs.  John calls them anti Christs.  He says, “Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour.”  

Jesus warned us that in the last days false Christs and false prophets would abound.  John says that they have already appeared.  And because they have already appeared, we know that it is the last days, the last age.  Now when we read John’s warning we notice that he calls these false Christ’s antichrists.  And immediately in many of your minds the word antichrist conjures up a picture of this figure that according to a popular understanding of end time theology is supposed to come during the tribulation and for three and a half years appear to bring the world peace, and then after 3 1/2 years be revealed for who he is, the enemy of God and he will persecute the world and bring about all sorts of tribulations.

And many preachers and theologians have imagined that various world leaders down through ages were the antichrist, only to have time prove them otherwise. Over time, we have seen people like Hitler, or Mussolini or dozens of other world leaders be suggested that they are the antichrist. 

Now I do not have the time this morning to delve into all the views of eschatology and try to present what I believe the Bible teaches.  But suffice it to say that I think this idea of a specific individual who is the antichrist is not what the Bible teaches, but is the kind of stuff that sells books and movies.  In short, I think what the antichrist represents is the world system that is orchestrated by Satan himself, that uses false religion and world governments for it’s purposes, and it’s purpose is opposed to the purpose and will of God.

This title of antichrist is only found in 1and 2 John.  Jesus calls them false Christs and false prophets.  John calls them antichrists in his epistle in four places.  We just looked at the first one.  The second mention is found in vs 22 “Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son.”  

So rather than one individual, it’s anyone that denies Christ, that denies the teaching of Christ, that denies the divinity of Christ. John says there are many antichrists.  Jesus speaks of multiple false Christs. And notice John gives another clue about the nature of the antichrist – he says he is a liar. Jesus said to the Pharisees, the false religious teachers of His day, in John 8:44 “You are of [your] father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”  Now that tells us a lot about how to identify false Christ’s or antichrists. They lie, twist the truth, distort the truth in order to deceive the naive.

The third reference to antichrist is in 1John 4:3 “and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the [spirit] of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world.”  So here John speaks of a spirit of antichrist that is already in the world.  It’s a spirit that embodies many people at many times. 

That’s why John says in just a couple of verses prior to that, in ch4 vs 1 “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” We can assume from that the antichrists and the false prophets are virtually the same, empowered by the same spirit, which is the spirit of the devil.  The devil by the way is a spirit.  John says not all spirits are from God. But there are deceiving spirits which seek to lead astray the world, and even the elect. 

That’s one of the great menaces of this fascination today with the spiritual world.  We hear some people say I don’t go to church, but I am spiritual. Or of even more concern, we see and hear of stuff happening in the church that are attributed to the Holy Spirit, but what they are doing causes us to question what spirit they are of.  I can assure you that a lot of the strange things you hear of in some churches that are attributed to the Spirit, are in fact not the Holy Spirit at all, but are evil spirits masquerading as spirits of light.  When I hear of being drunk in the spirit, or holy laughter, or angel dust falling from the rafters, or barking like dogs, or being slain in the spirit, I immediately think of these evil spirits masquerading as spirits of light.  I can assure you that such things are not of God. John says test the spirits to see whether they are from God because many false prophets have gone out into the world.  And how do you test the spirits?  By the word of God.  Not by experience, or supposedly by hearing voices from heaven, but by the word of God.

The fourth reference to antichrist is found in 2John 1:7 which says, “For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ [as] coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist.”  Notice the primary characteristic is that they are a deceiver.  John says it twice, this is the deceiver. And they do not acknowledge Christ as coming in the flesh.  The deny His deity and His incarnation.

Now that’s who the antichrists are. They are liars, deceivers, who deny the incarnation, who deny the deity of Jesus Christ. Back in our text, John gives us another clue to recognize them in vs 19. “They went out from us, but they were not [really] of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but [they went out,] so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.”

The first thing we should notice is that they come from within the church. He says they went out from us.  When the apostle Paul spoke farewell to the church of Ephesus he said in Acts 20:29-30  “I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock;  and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.”  That’s the nature of the false prophets and antichrists.  They come out of the church ranks.  They appear to be sons of light.  They desire to be teachers, to be revered by the church for their piety, by their power.  And by their ability to works signs and wonders will lead many astray.

Now many theologians and commentators want to camp out on these verses and use it as a pretext to talk about the perseverance of the saints. And while I believe in the perseverance of the saints,  I don’t think this is really addressing that doctrine.  Rather, I think this verse makes it clear these people never really were saved.  John says, “but they were not really of us, for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us, but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.”  

In other words, they never were saved.  And the fact that they did not abide in the truth but departed from the truth is proof that they never were saved.  And that’s what John is referencing here.  They departed from the truth, not just from a particular church.  Some have tried to use this to indict anyone that leaves a particular church organization.  He isn’t talking about a particular local church, but the church universal, which is bound together by the truth.  And that is made clear in the following verses.  Contrary to popular opinion, there is not an injunction in scripture to join a particular church.  But there is an injunction to abide in the truth, to be unified in the truth.

So John says these people abandoned the truth for another gospel.  Paul spoke of the same thing in Gal. 1:6-8 “I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is [really] not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.  But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed!”   So false prophets and false Christs preach a false gospel, which some false Christians show by their adherence to, the evidence of their false faith.  And the danger is that they attempt to persuade others to follow them in that false gospel.  Paul says that they do that by distorting the gospel of Christ.  They distort the truth.

But to the faithful Christians John is writing to, that have not abandoned the truth, he says in vs 20 “But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know.”  Now the translators seem to have a problem with this verse.  Many of them add an implied context to the Greek text to help us understand the intent.  The NIV says for instance, “But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.”  When you study the context it’s clear that John is speaking of the truth of the gospel, and not just saying that you know all things, or that you are all knowing or something like that.  And that’s made even more clear by the next verse.  

But don’t miss out on the main point that he is making.  He says you know the truth, because you have an anointing.  Anointing is another of those words that gets used in the wrong way in a lot of times in the church. The Greek word translated anointing is “chrisma”.  The KJV makes it even more confusing and translates it an unction. 

But “chrisma” is a word related to the word Christ. Christ means the anointed one, Christos, Jesus the anointed one. So this is an anointing, a christening in one sense.  But when you consider all that the Lord said in the upper room, and other parts of the New Testament, it’s clear that the the anointing is the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, that which the Lord Jesus had promised. He said, “I will pray the Father he will give you another Comforter, the Spirit of truth and he will abide with you forever.” That’s the unction that comes from the Holy One, the anointing, the indwelling of the Spirit of truth.

And it’s so important that we see that in Jesus speaking of this anointing which was to come in the presence of the Holy Spirit, that Jesus called Him the Spirit of Truth. This is how we as Christians come to know the truth, through the indwelling we have through the Holy Spirit at your new birth.  He leads us and guides us in all truth.  That is the purpose of the Holy Spirit.  

If we skip ahead to next week’s passage we can see in vs 27 it says the purpose of the Holy Spirit, to guide us into the truth.  To open our hearts and minds to receive the truth.  vs 27 says,  “As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him.”  HIs anointing teaches you the truth of God’s word.  That’s why when you become saved, when you receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we suddenly have the word of God opened up to us.  It becomes so clear.  Without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit we cannot know the truth. 

So because we have this anointing of the Holy Spirit, John says in vs 21, “I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth.”  John loves to show contrasts in order to teach a principle.  And that’s what he is doing here and in vs 22.  He is showing a contrast between the truth and the lie.  The truth is from God, the lie is from the antichrist, or from Satan, the father of lies.  

The contrast in vs 22, “Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son.”  The Spirit of truth versus the spirit of the world, the antichrist.  And the antichrist denies the Father and the Son. The world doesn’t necessarily deny God, or despise the teaching that there is a God. All the false religions of the world believe in a god.  Some teach that you are god. But they all teach about god, and they love to teach that god is not exclusive, but inclusive.  That all roads lead to God.  Allah is god, Buddha is a god.  The Great Spirit is a god.  Whatever god they teach, they tend to embrace an ambivalent, inclusive God. 

But Christianity teaches an exclusive God. That God was manifested in the flesh in the man Jesus Christ, and no one can come to the Father except through Him.  Peter preaching in the power of the Holy Spirit after Pentecost said concerning Jesus Christ in Acts 4:12  “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.” That’s pretty exclusive, isn’t it? That’s the truth that will make you free.  And that’s what the antichrists want to distort and to change.

But the principle of our gospel is simply stated in vs 23 “Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also.”  To confess Jesus as the Son of God, as God incarnate, as having come in the flesh and died on the cross as a substitute for our sins.  To confess Jesus as Lord, as Master, as Sovereign. Romans 10:9-10 says “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus [as] Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;  for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”  That’s the gospel in a nutshell, its the truth which sets us free from the condemnation of sin and the captivity of Satan.  And believing in Him, confessing Jesus as Lord, results in righteousness which is imputed to our account, and that righteousness results in eternal life.

 John closes out this principle by saying in vs 24 “As for you, let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father.”  What is that which is to abide in you which you heard from the beginning?  It’s simply the truth of the gospel, the word of God, which you heard at the beginning of your salvation, at the beginning of your new birth.  

Don’t be deceived into thinking that there is another level of truth, a greater body of knowledge that you can somehow achieve or learn about through some mystical, spiritual experience which will really establish your faith and validate your Christianity.  The goal of John in this passage is to lead us to maturity, and what he is indicating here is that maturity comes through abiding in the purity of the word of truth.  

Peter speaks of it this way in 1Peter 2:2  “like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation.”  That’s the goal, spiritual maturity.  And it can only come through two ways, through the anointing of the Holy Spirit working through the purity of the word of truth.

If you abide in the truth, then you will abide in the Son and in the Father.  Jesus prayed in the upper room before His death concerning the disciples, which is found in John 17. I will read His prayer as our closing prayer today.  

John 17:14-21 Father, “I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil [one.] They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth. I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word;  that they may all be one; even as You, Father, [are] in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.”  In the name of Jesus Christ the Son of God, we pray and believe, Amen.

Last week as we looked at the preceding verses, we talked about spiritual maturity. After our new birth, when we are born again spiritually, John described  three stages of spiritual growth which he titled as little children, young men and fathers.  And what we determined last week was that the goal of spiritual maturity is to become like Jesus Christ.  That is what spiritual maturity accomplishes in our lives.  We grow spiritually to become conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.  That process of becoming like Christ is what the Bible calls sanctification.  Sanctification is becoming more like Christ.  Sanctification is a process which begins at new birth and matures as we grow spiritually to be like Christ.

Now in this passage we are looking at today, John gives the antithesis for spiritual maturity.  The antithesis for spiritual maturity is to become like the world.  Instead of becoming like Christ, we become conformed to the world. The apostle Paul warned against that in Romans 12:2 saying, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”  So the hindrance to spiritual maturity is being conformed to the world.  Instead of loving Christ and loving what He loved, we love the world and we love what the world loves.  So there are two opposing ways to walk, two opposing ways to live.  You cannot walk north and south at the same time, can you? Neither can you walk after the Spirit and walk after the flesh.

Paul refers to that contrast of flesh and spirit. He says the flesh and the Spirit are opposed to one another.  In Gal 5:17 he says,  “For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another.”

Now that’s what John has been teaching since the beginning of his epistle.  That light and darkness cannot have fellowship together.  He says in chapter 1: vs5-6  “This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and [yet] walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.”

So John is concerned that we walk in the Spirit.  His concern is that we walk in the light, not in darkness. His concern is that we keep the commandments of God, and not do the works of darkness.  He says you cannot say you have fellowship with God and walk in the darkness.  John wants to help bring us to spiritual maturity in Christ, to become like Christ.  And so to do that, he has said that we must not walk in darkness.  He has said that we must not practice sin but practice the truth.  And now he speaks of this contrast in another dimension, and says that we must not love the world.

He says in vs 15, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world.”  It’s necessary for us to define what he means by the world. The Greek word is kosmos.  And there are numerous ways in which this word world are used in the Bible.  It can refer to the physical earth, it can refer to people, it can refer to a system.  

Now when John says here to “do not love the world,” he’s not talking about the world of individuals, because we know that God Himself loves the world of individuals, and we are told to love one another.  Everyone should be familiar with John 3:16 which says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”  So if God loves the world, then John must not be saying we should not love the individuals of the world.

And he must not be speaking of the physical world which is the earth and the plants and the creatures God has created. For we know that the heavens declare the glory of God, and as Romans 1:20 says, the creation teaches us about the invisible attributes of God. “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”

But what the world refers to in this context is the world system that is in opposition to the heavenly system.  It is the natural, sinful nature of mankind acting in opposition to the spiritual, godly nature.  It is a world system that has been orchestrated by Satan to bring about the rebellion of man against God. In Col 1:13 it is described as two opposing kingdoms.  It says, “For [God] rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.”  The apostle Paul spoke of it this way in Ephesians 2:1-2  “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,  in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.”

This idea which Paul refers to as the course of this world, can be likened to a river that runs in it’s course, the rushing water having eaten out a course in which the water is carried along in a path.  In other places, it is called an age, this present age, or this present world.  Paul says it’s a satanically devised course that carries along the people in a current, rushing them towards an inevitable end which is destruction.

So the world system, this age, this course that is moving, sweeping along all who are held within it, which is going in the opposite direction than what it means to walk with God.  It’s a system that has blinded the eyes of those who are in it.  It’s a system that captivates and enslaves those that are in it. And it’s a system that leads to their destruction.  John calls it simply the world.  And he warns us – do not love the world.

Well, why would a person love the world to begin with?  The answer is because everyone is doing it. Have you ever been rafting down a river?  My family was talking the other day about going on a short trip this summer, and we talked about going to Harper’s Ferry.  The big thing to do there is you rent a inner tube and they take you way up the Shenandoah River and drop you off and you float down the river with the current.  I went over the bridge there once on a sunny, summer day and there looked like hundreds of people floating downstream enjoying the river.

The funny thing is when you are floating down the river with all these people you don’t have the sense that you are going all that fast.  You’re all floating along together.  It’s fun.  It doesn’t seem dangerous. But once you are in the current, it’s going to take you where it wants to take you, and as you are caught up in it, it has control of you. 

Now that may be fine for an afternoon on the Shenandoah, but it’s another thing to be floating on the Niagara River and not know that the falls are up ahead. That’s what it’s like to be caught up in the world and being swept along to an eventual end which the Bible calls death.  So John says do not love the world. Don’t let yourself be enamored by what the world system is selling. It’s alienation from God. It’s life which is in opposition to God. It’s living by the world’s standards, by what the world says is fun, by what the world says is fulfilling, by what the world says is acceptable. But it’s in opposition to God.  In fact, the world is orchestrated by Satan himself to take us captive and destroy us.  John says later in chapter 5 vs 19 of this epistle, “We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in [the power of] the evil one.”

So John adds, “Do not love the world, nor the things of this world.” The things of this world is just an expansion on the world.  John’s not talking about the things that God created, but it’s the things that this world system values.  Such things could be money, luxury items, homes, a certain life-style.  These things of the world could even be people.  It could be woman or a man that you desire, that you think if I could just have this person, then I would be happy, my life would be perfect. I think the things of this world could be thought of as shiny, seductive lures which the devil uses to draw you into his world system. They are the attractive things of this world that you desire, that promise fulfillment, but in fact just get you hooked into the devil’s system, that gets you caught up in chasing things that never fulfill what they promise.

Jesus said if you love Me, you will keep My commandments.  So to love the world and the things of the world is to have a love for the things of the world that supersedes the love which we should have for God.  The things of this world are not necessarily bad in and of themselves.  There is nothing wrong with having a nice house, or a nice car, or having a wife or husband. But what is wrong is when you put those things above the love for God that should be preeminent.  

Jesus said in Matt. 10:37 “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.” And then again in Matt. 19:29 “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name’s sake, will receive many times as much, and will inherit eternal life.”

The point being that anything that supersedes our love for God is sinful.  It’s not the thing that is necessarily sinful, it’s the love of those things which is sinful. 1 Timothy 6:10 says, “For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil.”   It’s not money that is sinful, it’s the love of money that is sinful. So it’s not the world that is sinful, it’s loving the world that is sinful.

When I was growing up as a pastor’s kid in the church, there was a lot of talk about worldliness. Anything that looked cool was considered worldly.  Anything that seemed like fun was worldly.  And there was a pretty long list of things that were considered worldly.  Some of those things seem so antiquated now.  Dancing was worldly.  Movies were worldly. I wanted to join the Boy Scouts when I was a young kid, but my dad said it was worldly.  Knowing what we know about the Boy Scouts that have come out lately, maybe it wasn’t a bad idea to keep me out of it. But the warnings against worldliness for the most part missed the mark.  They focused too much on the external and not enough on the internal. It’s not the things of the world that’s the problem as much as it is our affection for the world.  So the important distinction to this warning is what do you love? What has first place in your heart?

John then goes on to say, “If any one loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” The first thing he says is that loving the world and loving the Father are incompatible. These two loves cannot go together. They are contradictory, very much like our Lord speaks in Matthew 6:24 when he says, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” 

We are to be in the world, but not of the world.  In John 17:14 Jesus prayed in the upper room for the disciples saying, “I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil [one.] They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.”  So we are in the world, but not of the world.  If we love the world, then we cannot love God.  Our love for God is to be preeminent.  If we love God we obey God’s commandments.  If we love the world, then God’s love is not in us. That simply means that the our love is the evidence of our faith.  If we love the world and obey it’s desires, then we are not God’s children.  The evidence of our salvation is proven by what we love.

So John goes on to give further justification of the incompatibility of these two loves.  He says in vs 16 “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.”

It’s almost as if he sums up all the things of the world as being in one of these three categories;   the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life.  One writer called them a trinity of evil.  They are in opposition to the Holy Trinity.  Or as John writes, they are not of the Father, but of the world.

So what does he mean when he says lusts of the flesh? When we hear the word lust we tend to think of sexual sins.  And while it certainly includes that, lusts are really just desires that are in opposition to godly desires. They are sensual desires, desires of the senses.  You can lust after food, lust after sex, lust after power, lust after fame or fortune.  Desires of the flesh then are those that would appear to satisfy the physical body.  Sexual desires outside of marriage are lusts of the flesh, but so are the desires for food which are gluttony. It might also be a desire for drink, for drugs, for anything that serves the body, the senses.  These are desires that are in excess, that are outside of the way that God ordained for our senses to operate. It’s a love for such things that exceeds or perverts God’s created intention.

The next category John gives is “the lust of the eyes.” I think what this refers to is coveting.  It’s desiring what you see, what is not yours, but which you want. It’s like being married and as you and your wife are walking through the mall, your head is swiveling around to look at another woman. You may not act upon it, but you nevertheless desire it, and that desire is sin.  Coveting is the sin of the heart.  It’s a desire for that which is not yours, being unsatisfied with what God has given you, and desiring more than you should.

Now that covers a lot of territory. It covers pornography, or coveting your neighbors things, or desiring anything that does not belong to you.  Lust is a perversion of love.  So it’s a perverse desire for what is not yours, but which you wish was.  The lust of the eyes is the sin of the heart before it becomes a sin of the flesh.  Before Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, she looked with her eyes and saw that the fruit of the tree was desirable. 

Genesis 3:6 “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make [one] wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.”  God had forbidden the fruit, but Eve looked with her eyes, it delighted her eyes, and she desired it so she took it and sinned against God.

The last category of this illicit love of the world that John warns against is the pride of life.  The pride of life can cover a wide gamut of things.  For instance, it can be arrogance, which is the lack of humility. It’s thinking you are better than others, more deserving.  It can be a lack of love for others.  It can be a spirit of competition, always trying to outdo someone. Keeping up with the Jones.  Whatever form it takes, it is not expressive of a love for God and a love for one another.  Instead it is a love of one’s self.  It’s self love, or selfishness.  That is contrary to the love of God which is a sacrificial love for others.

So this love of the things of the world is not from the Father, but from the satanic system of the world.  And the end of those things is death, but the end result of our love for God is life.  John states this principle in 1John 2:17 “The world is passing away, and [also] its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.”

The world is passing away… the clock is ticking, time is passing, and the time of the end is approaching.  It’s possible that you might even say that the earth is dying, as everything in it eventually dies, as everything is corrupted by death. The environmentalists think that somehow we can stop the world from dying.  But this world is not going to last forever.  At the fall, sin entered the world and death by sin. And it’s headed towards it’s inevitable conclusion.  The culmination of this age will coincide with the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Peter said that the world and it’s works will be burned up. In 2 Peter 3:10 he says, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.” Everything that is in the world, everything that was so desirable, that caused men to lust after them, all those things are passing away.  They are all in the process of death.  Why would we want to be chasing those things which are destined to be destroyed? 

Jesus said in Matthew 16:26  “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”  What good does it do to spend your life chasing after the things of this world, trying to fulfill the lusts of this world? They are passing away.  And one day you also will pass away.  There is a popular bumper sticker which says, “He who dies with the most toys wins.”  That’s actually a pretty sick joke. There are no winners in the system of the world.  There are only losers.  And as Jesus said, in the pursuit of the world, you also lose your own soul.  Even if you manage to get more than your fair share in this world, you cannot take it with you in the next.  The world’s currency has no value in heaven.  Money cannot buy eternal life.

But John says the one who does the will of God lives forever.  What is the will of God? To love God and love the Son. To obey Him, to abide with Him, to walk with Him, to worship Him, to have faith in Him. And he who has faith in Jesus Christ and follows Him will live forever.  Jesus said in John 11:25, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”

Do you believe this?  Do you believe that Jesus is God in the flesh, that He came to earth to live a perfect life, and to be your substitute, to pay the penalty for your sins by His death on the cross?  Do you believe that God raised Him from the dead and that He lives and stands at the right hand of the Father making intercession for us?  Do you believe in Him, if so, then He gives life to them that believe.  Life that continues after the grave.  Life that is not of this world, but spiritual.  And He freely gives it to all who confess their sins and believe in Him.  

You cannot love the world and love God.  Choose this day whom you will serve, whom you will love.  Are you loving the world and the things of the world, or will you love and serve the Lord?  Chose to love God, and receive everlasting life in Christ.

What John has been teaching up to this point is that a life of sin and new life in Christ are incompatible.  He says in chapter 1 vs 6 that you cannot walk in darkness, that means walk in sin, and say that you have fellowship with  God.  He also makes it clear in the next verse that fellowship with one another is predicated on being right with God.

Now that is the positive perspective, being right with God is being in fellowship with God and with one another.  From a negative perspective, John says that sin breaks fellowship with God and with one another.  And sin is defined by the commandments.

You cannot determine sin apart from the commandments of God. Now God did plant in the heart of man a conscience which is supposed to make us feel guilty for our sin, but we can’t actually rely on our conscience to do that, because it’s possible for the conscience to become so callused by sin that it no longer does what it should. 1Tim. 4:1-2 says, “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron.”  So false teaching, demonic doctrines, and the lies of the enemy can cause the conscience to stop working, so that a person no longer feels any remorse or not even any consciousness of sin.

John indicates that the most reliable way we come to know sin is through the commandments. Paul agreed with that principle.  He said I would not have come to know sin except through the commandment.  Romans 7:7 “What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, “YOU SHALL NOT COVET.”  So the law is not sin, but the law is good, and the law defines sin as sin.

Listen, it’s important to recognize sin as sin. I don’t think you can be saved unless you recognize you are a sinner.  I think that’s why John deals first of all in his epistle with the issue of sin.  Paul does the same thing in the first chapters of Romans, defining sin.  The lie of Satan is to debunk the law and thereby attempt to nullify sin.  The lie of the false teachers and false prophets abounding in the church in America today is to in effect say that there is no sin, or to legitimize sin, or say that what the Bible calls sin is not really sin at all.  

So starting in chapter 2 vs 3 John shows that fellowship with God is contingent on not living in sin, and that sin is defined by the commandments.  Vs 3 “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.  The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; . but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected, or completed.”  In other words, the love of God is received by us, which sets off a chain reaction in us, that completes the transformation that God initiated in us, which is that we love like He loves us.

So that, to use the metaphysical language of John in vs 6,  we walk as Christ walked. We walk in the light as He is in the light.  We become like Christ. We love like Christ loves.

Now I warned you last time at the end of my message that it’s possible to misinterpret the message of John and get the idea that you had to keep the commandments and try to be a better person in hope that you earn the right to fellowship with God.  But if you do that then you miss the essential point of salvation.  The essential point in salvation is that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And that happens by faith in what Jesus did on the cross as our propitiation, as the satisfaction for the judgment of God towards sin.

That cleansing, that forgiveness of sins, produces in us a righteousness from God, not on the basis of what we have done, but on the basis of what Christ has done. But it also produces in us a transformation; change of heart, a change of our nature, a change from death to life.  This new heart is the key to keeping the commandments.  It’s not just mustering up enough will power to overcome your natural tendencies and become by an act of self will and discipline a nicer person. 

Rather God changes our heart.  He gives us a new spirit and puts His Spirit within us.  The result is that we are a new creation.  We have a new nature, new desires, new attitudes informed by the Spirit of God, so that we might be empowered to do His will.  And so as a regenerated child of God, we are able to keep His commandments because we want to please Him.  The product of our regeneration is sanctification.  We learn to act like children of God.

God spoke of this supernatural change of heart which would come about through salvation previously in the Old Testament.  The first reference to it is found in Jeremiah 31:31, which says, “Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD. But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the LORD, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

Notice that in the new covenant, God not only forgives their sin, but writes HIs laws upon their heart, puts His law within them. That speaks of a heart change, from a heart of stone to a heart that is in tune with God, a heart that loves God, and consequently a heart that obeys God.

There are three references in Ezekiel to this heart transformation resulting in keeping the commandments.  The first is found in Ezekiel 11:19-20 which says, “And I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them. And I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh,  that they may walk in My statutes and keep My ordinances and do them. Then they will be My people, and I shall be their God.” Then further down in vs 27 God says,  “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”  

So not only is the regenerated man given a new heart, by which he has a love for God and a desire to keep the commandments of God, but he is also given the Holy Spirit, who gives us the power to keep God’s commandments.  We get a new heart, and a new spirit, plus the Holy Spirit to indwell us.  That’s the difference between the old and new covenant.  In the old covenant, they were given the law and the penalty for not keeping the law.  In the new covenant, we are given the law, Jesus paid the penalty due because of the law, and we are given a new heart, a new spirit, and the Holy Spirit to enable us to keep His word.

The last reference to this transformation is Ezekiel 36:26 which basically says the same thing as those previous references.  Ezekiel 36:25-27  “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”

Now that’s such a tremendously important doctrine that God repeats it no less than three times in the Old Testament.  And it’s important to comprehend this doctrine because that truth is the basis for understanding what John is teaching here in 1 John 2.  As we understand that doctrine, we can now read vs 7 and 8 with discernment.  

Listen to vs 7 and 8. “Beloved, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word which you have heard.  On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you, which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining.”

Without the insight given us through the Spirit as we consider the promises of God in Ezekiel and Jeremiah, we might be scratching our heads over this idea of an old commandment and new commandment.  And perhaps because of that many commentators have tried to find some sort of distinction being made here between the old covenant and the new covenant.  They say that under the old covenant there are given 613 or so laws, but under the new covenant we are given only two; love God and love one another.  And so they seek to explain it as if in the new covenant there are only two, easier commandments that we are obligated to keep, and everything else is just legalism that has now been eliminated by grace.

But that, of course, is the wrong exegesis.  What John is actually saying here is that the difference between the old commandment and the new commandment is simply that there is a new way of keeping it.  In the old covenant there was just the law given, and the penalty given for not keeping it.  In the new covenant, we are given the means by which to keep the commandments.  Under the old covenant, the only incentive was to avoid punishment.  In the new covenant, the incentive is love, which comes from a regenerated heart, and a new spirit, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to help us.  In the old covenant, you were legally bound to keep the law, but you didn’t have the resource to keep it.  In the new covenant, you have the all the resource you need, which is the power of the Holy Spirit in you.

That’s where the modern charismatic movement misses the boat on the purpose of the Holy Spirit.  They think the Holy Spirit is given to give us a feeling, an ecstatic experience which validates that we know God.  But in fact the Holy Spirit is given to give us the power to keep the commandments of God, to be our Helper that we might do the deeds of God.

Notice also John says in vs 8, that he is “writing a new commandment to you, which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining.” Now what is he saying?  I submit that when he speaks of that which is true in Him and in you, He is speaking of the Word of God. Another analogy which we saw earlier in Ezekiel talked of sprinkling clean water on you.  That is another reference to the word of God as evidenced by Eph. 5: 25 “Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her,  so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,  that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.”  Sanctification, holiness, which is keeping the commandments, comes as a result of the washing of water with the word.  

So we are able to keep the commandment because we have the cleansing power of the word of God at work in our lives, which John says means that the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining.  The word of God is the truth, is the light, which makes the darkness, the sin and ignorance flee.  Peter speaks of this in 2Peter 1:19 saying,  “And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.”  

Peter goes on to say the subsequent verses that the scripture is given by the Holy Spirit. So we see there how the word of God is used by the Holy Spirit to work in us, which in produces good works from us, so that we keep the commandments.

So the evidence that you know God, the evidence that you have fellowship with God, the evidence that you have the Spirit of God, is that you keep the commandments. John has made that very clear. It’s not in some feeling you have, or some experience you had, or some claim that you are on intimate terms with God and He talks directly to you.  The evidence  that you know God is that you walk according to the word, that you keep His commandments.

Now last week we concluded that all the commandments were able to be summarized in what Jesus said in response to the lawyer.  That the foremost commandment was to love God with all your heart, and the second was like it, which was to love your neighbor as yourself. He said, on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.  So love is the summary of the law.  It doesn’t diminish the law, but in fact, it encompasses all of the law, and the prophets, so all of the Old Testament.  Paul speaks of this law of love in Rom. 13:10, “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of [the] law.”  So in both the Old and New Testaments, love is the summary, the fulfillment of the law.

So keeping the commandments, especially the law of love which is the summary of the commandments, is a test by which we may prove that we know God. John gives us two tests, both a negative test and a positive test by which we may know that we know God.  He states the negative first in vs 9 “The one who says he is in the Light and [yet] hates his brother is in the darkness until now.”  John goes back to this metaphor of light and darkness to illustrate our relationship with God.  It’s almost a restatement of chapter 1 vs 6, “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and [yet] walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.”  So to hate your brother is darkness.  To hate is sin. 

Back in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus equates anger towards a brother with the sin of murder.  Matt. 5:21-22  “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT MURDER’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty [enough to go] into the fiery hell.”

Now vehemence, or anger towards a brother may be the manifestation of hate. When we think of hate we tend to think of it that way, a violent, vehement, anger towards someone.  But hate is actually broader than that.  Hate may be disdain, contempt.  It may not manifest itself outwardly at all.  It may just be an attitude of contempt for someone, as if they were beneath you, as if they are not worthy of your attention.  That also may be considered hate. 

But I would suggest that hate in the usage of this verse is even broader and seemingly more innocuous than that.  I would suggest that hate in this context may be the opposite of love.  Hate is the opposite of love.  We can see that in the next verse, as John contrasts love with hate.  He is contrasting the man who hates, versus the man who loves.  So hate is whatever love is not.  

That being the case then, it is necessary to define love if we are to define hate.  In vs 10, we have the introduction to the law of love. John says, “The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him.”  The word love is from the Greek word agapaō.  It’s a very familiar word for most Christians, I’m sure.  But nevertheless, let me give a synopsis of the word as a refresher so that we might be able to better define what love is not.

Agape is a divine love, the kind of love which God has for the world, which was manifested by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  So this love is a self sacrificing love for another that puts their good above your own. In the KJV it was translated as charity.

In 1Cor. 13:4-7 Paul gives an even fuller account of love, saying “Love is patient, love is kind [and] is not jealous; love does not brag [and] is not arrogant,  does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong [suffered,]  does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;  bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

That sets love at a pretty high standard.  It’s the law of love.  Jesus said in John 13:34 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”  Jesus loved us with an unconditional, sacrificial love.  And we are to love one another like that.  We are to love our brother like that.

So based on that definition of love, hate then is what love is not. Hate is not caring about the better good of your brother but only caring about your good.  Seeking your own interests and not seeking your brother’s best interests is hate. Hate is being unforgiving towards another.  Hate is being provoked towards another.  Hate does not act becomingly towards another. Hate is being jealous of another. Hate is arrogance towards another. Hate rejoices in unrighteousness.  Another way of saying that is hate condones unrighteousness.   

So John says the person who says he is in the Light, that says he is a Christian, he is in fellowship with God, and yet he acts in any of those ways which are the opposite of the way love operates, then he is actually in the darkness.  He is in sin.  Love is righteousness, but hate is sin.  Such a person who hates is in sin.  And sin has no fellowship with God, even as darkness and light cannot coexist at the same time.

John continues on that theme in vs 11, saying, “But the one who 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.”  Sin has blinded his eyes so that he doesn’t know where he is going. I think that’s a reference to what we spoke of earlier about the conscience being calloused, being seared continuing in sin.  Notice here John speaks of not only being in darkness, but walking in darkness.  That’s a continuing life style.  To continue in sin is to harden your heart, sin builds up a callous on your heart which keeps you from feeling remorse or guilt.  And so in their sin, their heart becomes hardened, calloused, and they continue on in the way of darkness, believing a lie, and not knowing that where they are going is the path of destruction.

But in contrast to the person who hates, John presents the person who loves in vs 10. “The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him.”

To abide means to continue, to dwell in the Light.  This is fellowship with God. To be in the Light, and to dwell in the Light.  It’s to walk in the light.  And we do this by walking in the word. Psalm 119 says, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”  To walk according to the word is to walk in the Spirit.  This is how we stay close to the Lord.

And because we are in fellowship with God we love our brother.  We love because He first loved us. Abiding in the Light produces love towards one another.  Love is the manifestation of our faith.  It’s the product of our love for God.  Jesus said if you love Me, then you will keep My commandments.  

And abiding in the Light and loving one another, gives no cause for stumbling in us.  What that means is our life is not a stumbling block to one another.  Because love is giving preferential treatment to another.  It’s not holding a grudge, it’s not being jealous.  All those things Paul says love is not back in 1 Cor. 13, those are things that end up being a stumbling block to the other person.  A stumbling block causes them to fall into sin.  Being a stumbling block to others is the result of hate. Its the result of selfishness, not love.  But when we love the way Christ loved us, then the stumbling block is removed.  And the other person is edified.  

So if we abide in the Light, we love one another, and do not put a stumbling block in front of them by our behavior, but we actually encourage and strengthen and edify one another.  That is the fulfillment of the law, and that is the evidence that we are in fellowship with God. I pray that you are walking in the Light, as He is in the Light.  That you walk by the Spirit, and in the power of the Spirit within you are being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ as we obey Him, and keep HIs commandment to love one another, even as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her.