The Epistles of John, Part 24: Affirmations 3

If you knew that the next conversation you were going to have with a friend or relative would be the last time you were ever able to speak to them, how would it alter your perspective?  Would you choose different words, or maybe even a completely different theme altogether?  Maybe you would try to make the conversation last longer, savoring the time you have with your friend, knowing that it will not last.  Perhaps you would be kinder or gentler in how you treat them.

I was 13 years old the last time I spoke to my father.  He and my mother had been divorced for most of my life.  He lived in Florida and I lived in West Virginia, so I was used to him not being around; an occasional visit or phone call was the extent of our relationship.  One fall evening I was watching a VHS movie (if that doesn’t date me I don’t know what will) with my mother and step-father.  VCRs and movies on tape were new experiences for me at the time, so I didn’t know that they could be paused and resumed.  In the middle of our film, my father called to talk to me.  However, being young and selfish as well as interested in the movie and afraid I was going to miss it, I told him I didn’t have time to talk right then.  We hung up the phone and he died from a heart attack about a month later.

Now, I do not obsess over this.  It is merely one in a lengthy list of mistakes I have made in my time on earth.  And I am not here to talk about my life.  But I think this topic is relevant because of the passage we will be looking at; 1^st John 5:18-21.  These are the last four verses of John’s letter to the church.  Although he would do more writing after this with his second and third epistles as well as the book of Revelation, for all he knew if some brother or sister in Christ somewhere in the world was to obtain a copy of his letter, this could be the last words from him they ever read.  So I think it is insightful and noteworthy to consider how John decided to close out his missive. 

This elderly apostle had lived for the better part of a century at this point.  He had experienced the Messiah in person and participated in the most significant formative stages of the birth of the Christian church.  This man so clearly had a deep and abiding affection for his “little children”, those saints younger in the faith than he was.  Was he perhaps contemplating the end of his own life approaching, with all the perspective that gives a person regarding what is really important?  With all of these factors possibly playing into John’s thoughts, what is it that he wanted to leave us with?

It seems to me that John desired to leave us with affirmations, or supports and encouragements.  Three affirmations to be exact: God is faithful, God is just, and God is truth.  He begins with verse 18: We know that no one who is born of God sins; but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him.  This verse has some surprising interpretive twists, so let’s break it down into parts.

First John says that we know, or it could be translated as you know.  He begins verse 18, 19, and 20 with the same word; “eido” in Greek.  We have seen it a number of times throughout the letter.  It means simply to see or perceive with the eyes or senses.  Additionally, “eido” has the idea of a careful inspection.  It is interesting that John chose this word.  He apparently does not believe that he is giving us new information.  He is not delivering new teaching to us.  Rather, he is bringing to our attention something that has come before; something that we have already perceived and come to know.  In this case, John is re-iterating something he taught us back in 3:9, as follows: 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.

Notice the word I underlined.  This point is actually quite critical to make.  Reading 5:18 by itself one could get the impression that John is teaching a type of sinless perfection here.  If so, it would be particularly troubling because it would put him at odds with himself.  In both 1:8 and 1:10 we were assured in no uncertain terms that we most definitely do sin.  Furthermore, anyone who claims otherwise is a liar.  Most damning of all, such a person also makes God Himself out to be a liar. 

If John is now saying that we don’t sin at all it would make no sense.  Thus, the clarifying point from 3:9 is absolutely crucial to bear in mind.  John is not claiming that anyone born of God commits no sins.  Rather, he is teaching that those who are part of God’s family do not make a practice of sinning.  This is in contrast to the practitioners of sin mentioned in 3:4. These are people who consistently, intentionally, and deliberately violate the law of God by manufacturing evil.  In light of all this, verse 18 stands as yet another excellent example of why it is so critical to interpret the Bible contextually.  If we were to read 5:18 in a vacuum, we could easily construe it to mean something it does not.

Next I’m going to skip to the end of the verse and deal with the last phrase.  John tells us that the evil one, meaning Satan the great adversary of God, cannot hurt the one born of God.  We are kept from him.  John is echoing the words of Christ here.  In John 17:15 He said: I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one.  There is a tremendous security and reassurance in this.  Think about it.  We literally have nothing to fear from the devil.  He cannot hurt us.  Although Christians may suffer pain at his hands, it is only through the allowance of God that Satan is permitted to do anything at all; as in the case of Job.  So in a sense, any damage the enemy may do to us is not even of himself at all.  He is functioning as the Lord’s agent in our sanctification.  James makes this point in 1:2-4 of his letter: Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.  And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. 

Now then, moving back to 1^st John, the key point of 5:18 is found in the middle of the verse.  It answers a crucial question for us; namely, why or how are we protected and kept from the evil one?  The phrase presents some interpretive challenges, but as we will see, the overall point is clear regardless of which way it is translated.  The difficulty arises from the manner in which John put his sentence together.  He is notorious for vague or obscure word constructs in his writings.  And this one is no exception.  Without diving too deeply into the Greek, there are three primary ways this middle part of the verse could be translated, all depending on how you interpret the pronouns being used:

• The one fathered by God (the Christian) protects himself
• The one (Jesus) fathered by God protects him (the Christian)
• The one fathered by God (the Christian), he (God) protects him (the Christian)

The first option clearly makes no sense and is completely inconsistent with Biblical thought.  For John to assert that the Christian is the one who guards his own self from Satan would be absurd.  Just to take one simple example from this same letter, we could turn to 3:8b: The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the words of the devil.  It was part of Christ’s ministry to oppose and ultimately defeat the devil.  Even Michael the archangel, who led the army of heaven in war against the dragon, Satan, would not confront him directly on his own, but instead turned to God for assistance (Rev. 12:7; Dan. 10:13).

The second and third options are both plausible.  Most modern translations take the approach of number two.  But an argument could be made for number three as well.  However, I am not going to make that argument here.  Because in my opinion, it doesn’t alter the point of the verse.  Either way, it is God who protects us.  Whether we see that as being accomplished by the Father or the Son makes little difference.  The key thing to remember is that it is a work of God to keep us safe from the perils of this evil world and the god, Satan, who rules it (2 Cor. 4:4).

This is quite frankly a rather astonishing thought.  In Romans 14:4 the apostle Paul wrote this: Who are you to judge the servant of another?  To his own master he stands or falls; and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.  The context of this verse is Christians judging each other over relative strengths or weaknesses of faith.  But the point for us is the reality that we do not stand on the solid rock of Christ on our own.  God literally makes us stand firm.  He keeps us from falling away.  He will bring to completion that which He began in us (Phil. 1:6).

Yet, in spite of this divine oversight of our spiritual futures, the Bible is also clear that we are expected to take ownership of our Christian conduct.  Sometimes the Scriptures present these two competing elements almost in the same breath, as in Romans 6:12 and 14: Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts.  For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.  John himself has repeatedly emphasized that we must walk like Christ walked (1 Jn. 2:6).  But at the same time, even the very way he phrases our salvation, being “born of God”, implicitly conveys the idea of something we do not do for ourselves, considering that no one births themselves.

So what are we to make of all this?  How can God be the One who completely secures our salvation in Christ yet we are simultaneously expected to work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12)?  How do we reconcile these two conflicting spiritual realities?  Frankly, I don’t think that we capable of doing so.  The reason is that our minds, limited as they are, are not possessed of the faculties to understand how God’s sovereignty over our salvation and sanctification along with our responsibility in them can mesh smoothly.  I recommend that rather than spend time trying to force your mind to wrap itself around something it will never completely grasp you instead just accept both as truth.  Then pay careful attention to the part of the equation God has made you responsible for, walking like Christ walked and abiding in Him. 

And finally, glory and exult in God’s faithfulness.  This is a God who has promised you an inheritance beyond your wildest dreams.  He has guaranteed that you will possess, starting right now, a new quality of life that mirrors His own.  You will have this life for all of eternity.  And in the meantime, in this present physical world, He will protect you and keep you from anything He does not wish to bring into your life for the purpose of making you stronger in Him.  This is truly a God to delight in and place your faith and trust in!

Moving on, we can see that John continues his affirmations in verse 19 by confirming that God is just: We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.  Perhaps you are wondering how a statement about the world being under the control of Satan has anything to do with God’s justice.  Allow me to explain.

First, we need to clarify what John means when he writes “whole world”, or “kosmos holos” in Greek.  Does he mean literally everything in the world?  We considered this question back in 2:2, which reads: He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.  This is a very important point to understand correctly, because it has implications for how we understand the biblical doctrine of soteriology, or the study of salvation.

I will approach this from two angles: grammar and logic.  First, notice the difference between verse 18 that we just looked at and verse 19.  The prior verse contains the Greek word “pas” to express the idea that no single individual person who is born of God continues in the practice of sinning.  “Pas” means each, every, everyone, all things, etc.  It is the word the New Testament writers used when they wanted to convey the idea of every single detail.

We can see this at work in John’s own writings.  In 1^st John 1:7 we find the following phrase: and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.  The word all in that verse is the translation of “pas”.  John specifically highlights the fact that every single sin we are guilty of is fully and completely covered by the blood of Christ.  He wants to ensure that all bases are covered with this blanket cleansing.  Again we see “pas” in 1^st John 2:23: Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also.  In this case it is critical that John clarify that anyone, at any time, from any culture, with any circumstances, who denies Jesus has no part with the Father either.

We could continue examining verses where “pas” is used, but you should be able to see the point by now.  And what is noteworthy about this is that “pas” is not found in 5:19. John used the phrase “kosmos holos” to communicate the idea of the whole world.  If he had wanted to tell us that every single person on earth was under the power of the evil one, he would have used “pas” instead of “holos”.

Furthermore, even if he had used “pas” it would still be inconclusive.  The Greek phrase for world and all are used several different ways in Scripture, and they rarely mean every person in the world.  Let’s consider just one of them, briefly.  Matthew 3:5 states the following: Then Jerusalem was going out to him, and all Judea and all the district around the Jordan.  Both occurrences of the English word all in that verse are translations of “pas”.  Did Matthew mean to say that every person who lived in Judea went down to the Jordan to be baptized by John?  I hardly think so.  At the very least, we know with a great deal of certainty that the Pharisees refused to be baptized by him.  I don’t think they would have been very enthusiastic about submitting themselves to a man who had just called them a brood of vipers (Matt. 3:7).

Ok then, but what about the world “holos” itself.  Perhaps John uses that word as a synonym for “pas”.  In John 11:50 we read the words of Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest, spoken to the assembled Sanhedrin: “nor do you take into account that it is expedient for you that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish.”  Did Caiaphas mean that if Jesus were not put to death that every single Jew would be killed by the Romans?  Of course he didn’t.  He may have been an unbelieving sinner but he was not an idiot.

The clear sense of the Bible is that all or whole combined with world does not indicate everyone.  Frankly, this should not be difficult to understand because we do the same thing today in our modern vernacular.  If we instruct our children to “rake all the leaves”, does that mean that if we come home and there is even a single leaf still left in the yard that they have disobeyed us?  Of course it doesn’t.  The writers of Scripture may be separated from us by 2,000 years of history as well as a completely different culture.  But they were still human beings just like us, with many of the same idiosyncrasies, or unique mannerisms.

The second angle is one of logic.  Quite simply, it would make no logical sense whatsoever if John is saying that all people in the world are under the power of the evil one.  Why?  Because he has literally just told us, in 5:4, that: whatever is born of God overcomes the world.  Is that not specific enough for you because that verse does not contain the words “evil one”?  Then how about 2:12: I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one.  So we have two options.  Either John is completely inconsistent and from one chapter to the next, or even one part of a chapter to another part of the same chapter, he changes his mind about who is under the power of the evil one.  Or he does not mean that literally everyone on earth is under Satan’s thumb.

This concept becomes extremely important to understand when it comes to how you understand what the Bible teaches regarding salvation.  For example, consider the familiar verse of John 3:16.  When John wrote that God loved the world, he did not mean that God loved every person in the world individually with the same love.  Remember that the love of God, “agape”, is an affection that results in sacrificial choices.  It is a surrendering of one’s own time, comfort, etc. for the sake of another.  Now consider that not everyone since the advent of Christ has come to Him in repentance.  Some have died in their sins, clearly.  So if God loved the whole world in the same way, then that would mean that God chose not to rescue people He loved sacrificially from sin and death.  That would not make any logical or consistent sense.

2 Peter 3:9 tells us that the Lord: is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.  An interpretation of that verse which says that God wants all people everywhere to repent but is stopped short due to people’s insistence on unbelief is logically inconsistent with the extreme level of sovereignty over the affairs of the world that we see God ascribing to Himself in the Bible with verses such as Proverbs 16:33: The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.  Besides, Peter’s letter was written to believers.  It is they who are in view in terms of God not wishing for any of His elect to perish.  Peter is not talking about the whole world there.

But what about God’s justice?  We still haven’t seen how John’s statement about the whole world being under the power of Satan demonstrates the justice of the Lord.  Consider Romans 8:20, which reveals that: the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope.  The word futility in that verse is the Greek “mataiotes” (mah-tah-yo-tace’).  It means perverseness, depravity, or devoid of truth and appropriateness.  Who caused the whole of creation to suffer like this?  Who is behind the decay, disorder, and chaos that we have observed in the world all our lives?  Paul reveals in that verse that it is the Lord Himself who has done this.  When your body ages and begins to break down, when the engine of your car stops running, when the ocean rages with the fury of a hurricane and causes property destruction and loss of life, when your favorite pet turns feral and begins to attack people resulting in you being forced to put it down.  All of these situations and more that are completely undesirable and cause stress or heartache in our lives are what is in view here.  The responsibility for this state of affairs in the world can be laid squarely at the feet of God.

Does that distress you?  Does it seem incompatible with your concept of a loving and holy God that He could have done this to the place you will live all of your days?  Does it strike you as unjust that God has permitted the whole world to lie under Satan’s power?  If so, then perhaps it will help to answer the following question: why did He do this?  We can trace the roots of the issue all the way back to Genesis 3:17 and the single phrase spoken to Adam: Cursed is the ground because of you.  Adam was God’s surrogate representative for the whole of creation.  When he rose the whole universe rose with him.  And when he fell it all came tumbling down after him. 

The curse that God spoke of is the futility that Paul described and the subjection to the enemy that John is talking about in our verse today.  It was a judicial decree or a penal judgment.  To be sure, Adam was the one who was at fault.  But it was God who chose the form and the function of the punishment.  If you struggle with this idea, then perhaps the following illustration will help.  Suppose a man is married with two children.  The Lord has blessed him with a good job that has enabled his wife to stay home and educate their kids.  It has also enabled the family to purchase a comfortable home to live in.  Subsequently, the man gives in to temptation and embezzles from his company.  His sin is found out and his employment is terminated.  This results in the loss of their home due to an inability to pay the mortgage payments each month.  They have to move into a cramped two-bedroom trailer with the kids sharing a room, whereas before they had their own separate rooms.

Now then, in this example, who is the one at fault?  Is it the company for firing him?  Is it the bank because they foreclosed on the home?  No.  Obviously, it is the husband and father.  He committed the crime and his wife and children are innocent of any wrongdoing in the matter.  Yet, because he was the surrogate representative for the family, exemplified by his status as the breadwinner, now they are all suffering because of his mistake and the subsequent just and righteous decision by the company to terminate him and the bank to foreclose.

This is very much the state of affairs in the world as it relates to Adam’s sin, God’s just punishment, and our present state of suffering which has resulted.  And frankly, if you are unable to wrap your mind around the concept that God could do this and remain perfectly righteous and holy, then you will have a difficult time truly and accurately understanding Him as He has revealed Himself in Scripture.  You will question why He allows tsunamis to devastate coastal areas or earthquakes to bury little children under tons of rubble.  You will decide that a loving God could not possibly allow your relative to develop cancer. 

And ultimately, you will call into question God’s honor in the matter of salvation, considering that He has not chosen to rescue all people from sin and death, thus essentially condemning them to an eternity of torment.  The issue of God’s justice is not some ivory tower doctrine fit only for professors and scholars to debate amongst themselves.  It is decisively relevant to our everyday lives.  And we must come to an accurate understanding of it from the Bible if we are to have any hope of not sinning via defamation of the Lord’s character.

The third and final affirmation that John gives us as he closes out his epistle is that God is truth.  We can see this in verse 20 of chapter 5: And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ.  This is the true God and eternal life.

It didn’t occur to me until I was in the middle of writing this, but John’s statement here, this single verse, is actually a wonderful summation of the Christian experience as a whole.  Being a Christian, a true Christian, is not about avoiding hell.  It is not about having a comfortable life.  It is not about being active in church.  It is not even about being a morally good person.  Some of those things are byproducts of being a Christian.  But the real meat and potatoes of what it means to follow Christ is right here in this verse.

Jesus came in the form of a man for one single reason.  He gave this reason to Pilate the very day He was executed.  John 18:37 reads: Therefore Pilate said to Him, “So You are a king?”  Jesus answered, “You say correctly that I am a king.  For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”  The purpose of Christ’s birth was so that humanity would be able to know God.  The Son is the perfect image (Col. 1:15) and visible physical representation of the Father (Heb. 1:3).  In Christ the complete picture of God dwells in bodily form (Col. 2:9).  This is why He told Pilate that He had come to testify to the truth.  

How did He provide this testimony?  In word of course.  In deed to be sure.  But over and above any individual act Jesus performed and even out shadowing the totality of His earthly ministry, is simply the fact that He existed and continues to exist as a person.

Were it not for the incarnation of the Son of God we would fail to have an accurate and complete understanding of who God is.  The only way to truly know this God who is our Creator is to come to know Jesus.  And the not so secret ingredient of the eternal life that the Bible talks about all the time is that this life, as we have discussed previously, is not bound to the concept of length of years.  Rather, it has to do with quality of existence.  The reason is because the life that we are given is in some mysterious way a portion of God’s own being.  Not that we become gods, worthy of worship ourselves (Rev. 22:9).  But that we come to know the only true God who is the only source of true life.  This is why, in John 17:3, Jesus prayed to His Father: This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.  That is the same sentiment John is now echoing for us some 60 years after Jesus first spoke it in his presence.

The fact that John is pushing knowledge of God as the reality of the Christian existence should come as no surprise to us.  This has been the theme of his letter all along.  In 1:2-3 he told us he was proclaiming to us what he had experienced about God so that we could share in fellowship with him and with the Lord.  In 2:6 he pointed out that the proof of our coming to know God is whether we walked like Christ walked.  In 2:13 and 14 he reminded the spiritual fathers that they have known the Father.  In 2:24 we found that we are to abide in the Son and in the Father so that, in 2:28 we may have confidence before Him when He appears rather than shrinking away in shame from His presence.  In 3:1 John implied that we know God by stating that the world does not know Him.  In 3:24 we were told to keep God’s commandments so as to abide in Him.  In 4:7-8 John taught that whoever loves knows God and whoever does not love does not know Him.  In 4:15-16 we found that an authentic unashamed public confession of Jesus as the Son of God results in God abiding with us and us coming to know Him and believe Him.  In 5:12 we learned that through belief in Christ we actually come to possess the same quality of life that is in Him.

This letter, from beginning to end, has been eminently practical.  In a modern secular society such as ours, where faith is cheap, prayers are supposedly on everyone’s tongue, and all roads lead to heaven the first epistle of John stands out as a beacon of practical theology.  John takes the notion that one can profess to be a Christian without practicing the life of a Christian and utterly eviscerates it.  He takes “easy believism”, turns it on its head, and throws it out the window.

Even the final six words of his letter resound with this message.  Verse 21 reads: little children, guard yourselves from idols.  What a strange way to end we might think.  A seemingly random comment, thrown in as if by an afterthought.  But think it through.  What is idolatry?  Is it the act of worshiping an idol?  That is certainly the evidence of it.  But where does this idol worship begin?  It starts in the heart.  It launches with a refusal to submit to God as the rightful owner of all our affections.  Idolatry is a sin of the mind, not a sin of the hands or the feet or the mouth.

So John tells us to guard ourselves against such things; but how?  Simply by using the instructions he has given us for the last five chapters as ammunition to fight against our own perversions and distortions.  He has just done a masterful job of summarizing the whole letter for us.  John has re-affirmed that God is faithful in guarding and protecting us from Satan.  He will keep us in Him because otherwise we would fall away if left to our own devices.  John has also reminded us that God is just.  We cannot trust our own interpretation of fairness or of what is right and wrong.  Our perception is warped and as changeable as the autumn leaves.  But God’s sense of justice is perfectly accurate and uniformly consistent.  Finally, John has pointed out that God is truth.  The real perk to becoming a Christian is getting the privilege of knowing God.  This is at once the simplest and most elegant of paradigms while simultaneously being the most complex and indescribable of miracles. 

I think John is telling us to use these truths in our struggle against idolatry.  This idolatry starts within one’s own heart.  It is not about the images you see, the words you hear, or the temptations you are subjected to.  It is about who occupies the place of utmost pre-eminence in your soul; Christ or you.  So because it is within us that the real war against idolatry will be won or lost, John is entrusting us with this spiritual ammunition in the confidence that we will use it to guard and protect ourselves.  These are the words the apostle John chose to leave us, his beloved little children with, in case we were to never hear from him again.  He was interested in spiritual matters of eternal significance rather than physical issues of relative worthlessness.  What sorts of words will you leave with your loved ones?

The Epistles of John, Part 23: To Die or Not to Die

Any teacher worth his or her salt knows that examples are instructional gold.  The most complex subject in the world can be understood and applied in the mind of a student with far greater precision and clarity if the instructor is able to provide a concrete illustration of the concept they are teaching that is relevant to the lives of their pupils and is clear enough to be easily understood and processed on the fly.  You have probably heard the phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words.”  This may be an old cliché, but like most old clichés, it is old because it has survived and stood the test of time.  And it has stood the test of time because it is true.

Those that know me well know that I love to play board games.  The types of games I enjoy are typically deep, rich, and complex strategy games.  I am equally delighted to play a strategic recreation of Operation Barbarossa (the German invasion of Russia in 1941) as I am a political simulation of The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union from the mid-1940s to the late-1980s.

In these types of games there are often many pages of rules, usually double columned, in smallish print, with few pictures.  The voluminous instructions are provided in an attempt to recreate the complex situations being modeled by the game in question.  So the rules are intricate by both design and by necessity.  But without question the games that are easiest to learn are the ones that, in addition to the main rule book, provide a play book of sorts with detailed examples of play, including photos of the board, positioning of pieces, and hypothetical moves by real or imaginary players.  It is these samples of game play that elevate the learning experience to a thing of beauty and enjoyment.

This principle, of illustrated instruction, is nowhere more helpful and necessary, than it is in Bible education.  The plan of salvation that God has provided to mankind is extraordinarily simple.  But the rich and majestic theologies and doctrines which lie beneath the surface of the Scriptures are the stuff of years to understand and lifetimes to master to any great degree.  This should hardly be a surprise, because the word of God is nothing less than a partial revelation of the mind and nature of an infinite Being who is endlessly complex in His character.  Because of this, the best Bible teachers are the ones who are capable of presenting the truth of Scripture through not only sound exegesis (or pulling from the text what is really there), careful interpretation, and deep meditation.  But they are also possessed of the ability to bring the characters, situations, places, settings, and concepts of the Bible into razor sharp focus and relevance through interesting and clear illustrations and examples.

In fact, such teachers are really just mirroring the Scriptures themselves when they do this.  Anyone who is at least passingly familiar with the ministry of Jesus is probably aware of His preferred method of teaching; the parable.  The word in Greek is “parabole” (pah-ru-bo-lay’).  It means literally to place one thing by the side of another.  It is a comparing, a simile, or similitude.  Jesus was a master of taking the Old Testament Scriptures and bringing them directly and immediately into a first century context by communicating them through stories that His audience clearly understood.  These stories were filled with cultural connotations and physical object lessons.  And although in many cases He was intentionally obscure because He did not want casual observers to understand His message, at other times He was frighteningly precise with a razor wit and piercing comprehension that skewered the sinful hearts and minds of those in earshot.

The Apostle John, as one of the Lord’s best and brightest students, must have learned everything he knew about teaching from his Master.  Here in chapter 5 of his first letter, he is going to take Christ’s principle of teaching via illustration, and use it to great effect.  You see, in verses 14 and 15, that we examined previously, John has taught us that we are blessed with an extraordinary privilege of coming before God in prayer.  Not only are we both allowed and encouraged to do this, but John says that when our prayers are according to the will of God He guarantees that He will hear us.  And the perks don’t stop there, because we are also guaranteed to be given that which we have asked for if it is according to that perfect will of the Lord’s.  This is truly a marvelous reality for the disciple of Christ to understand and live by.  But John is not content to leave the subject alone quite yet.  In the next two verses, 16 and 17, he is going to present us with an example scenario of how this process of requesting, hearing, and granting works in actual practice.

But when we first consider John’s example, we might be inclined to conclude that he either did not learn the teaching methods of Jesus very well or he is going for the latter style of parable that Jesus taught; that of the mysterious and difficult to grasp illustrations.  This particular passage of Scripture ranks as one of the most difficult to interpret and understand in the entire New Testament.  Scholars, priests, theologians, pastors, and professors have debated John’s meaning in these two verses for centuries.  It is truly what some theologians call a “crux interpretum”.  This is a Latin phrase.  “Crux” means a vital, basic, decisive, or pivotal point.  Alternatively, it refers to something that torments by its puzzling nature.  “Interpretum” means what it probably sounds like; to interpret or translate.  So a “crux interpretum” is a passage of Scripture that is of exceeding importance, only matched by its exceeding, indeed maddening, complexity and difficulty to understand.

From a personal standpoint, I can state without any hesitation whatsoever that 1^st John 5:16-17 has been the most difficult work of interpretation and understanding that I have ever attempted in a teaching capacity.  In fact, in the process of straining to understand what John is communicating here I turned to the work of two eminent and learned men, much more so than myself; Irvin Busenitz, professor of Bible and Old Testament at The Master’s Seminary, and W. Hall Harris III, professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary.  And here’s the thing; neither of them completely agree with each other and in fact come to rather different conclusions about certain aspects of the text.  And to top it all off, I find myself in the unenviable position of not entirely agreeing with either of these men who are unquestionably more skilled at Bible exegesis than I am.

Allow me to try to illustrate the thorny problems this passage presents.  First let us look at the actual text itself: If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask and God will for him give life to those who commit sin not leading to death. There is a sin leading to death; I do not say that he should make request for this.  All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin not leading to death.

I think there are three critical questions that we must answer as we search for an understanding of these verses.  One, who is the brother that John is referring to?  Is he an authentic believer or is he a false Christian?  Two, what constitutes the “sin unto death” that this brother apparently does not commit in John’s example?  Is John talking about any general sin or does he have in mind something specific and possibly even of greater degree than the “average” sin, such as the unforgiveable sin Jesus spoke of in Matthew chapter 12?  Three, how are we to understand the nature of the death itself?  Is it a physical or a spiritual death?

Now then, with only two possible answers to each question that I will be considering, and a total of eight possible combinations of answers, you might think this shouldn’t be that difficult.  But the trouble is that these are neither black and white questions or answers.  Frankly, it is difficult to see a clear and obvious answer in each situation.  And to make matters worse, every single one of the combinations of answers presents its own set of problems.  Consider:

• If brother refers to a Christian, the “sin leading to death” refers in general to any sin, and death is spiritual death, then why would we ask God to give life to one who already has life?
• If brother refers to a non-Christian professing to be a Christian, the “sin leading to death” refers in general to any sin, and death is spiritual death, then how can he be committing a sin not leading to death, since all unsaved sin leads to death?
• If brother refers to a Christian, the “sin leading to death” refers to something specific such as the “unforgiveable sin”, and death is spiritual death, then how can a Christian even be capable of committing such a sin in the first place?
• If brother refers to a non-Christian professing to be a Christian, the “sin leading to death” refers to something specific such as the “unforgiveable sin”, and death is spiritual death, how are we supposed to know when they are beyond hope?
• If brother refers to a Christian, the “sin leading to death” refers in general to any sin, and death is physical death, then how are we supposed to know when a brother commits a “death worthy” sin so that we know whether to pray for them or not?
• If brother refers to a non-Christian professing to be a Christian, the “sin leading to death” refers in general to any sin, and death is physical death, then why would we pray for their physical life when we should be praying for their spiritual life?
• If brother refers to a Christian, the “sin leading to death” is something specific such as the “unforgiveable sin”, and death is physical death, why would the issue of physical death even be on the table alongside such matters of eternal significance?  And as already stated, how can a Christian even be capable of committing such a sin in the first place?
• If brother refers to a non-Christian professing to be a Christian, the “sin leading to death” refers to something specific such as the “unforgiveable sin”, and death is physical death, then why would we pray for them since they are doomed anyhow?

Is your head spinning yet?  It should be.  I don’t include that list of bullet points with the intention of delaying or avoiding the actual exegesis.  Nor do I expect you to go through them carefully and analyze each one in detail.  I merely want to illustrate the logical interpretive challenges in these verses so that you come to the text with a healthy respect for it.

With that ridiculously long preamble out of the way, let’s get right to the meat of the issue; our three questions.  I will begin with what I think is the easiest question to answer; number three.  In verse 16 John mentions a sin not leading to death twice.  He follows this with the inverse; a sin that does lead to death.  Again in verse 17 the apostle calls to attention this sin that does not lead to death.  We will consider the sin itself shortly.  But what kind of death is John talking about; physical or spiritual?  If we can establish an answer to that question as a baseline it will aid in our analysis of the other two questions.

It will be helpful for us to consider the words that John chose to use here; specifically, death as well as its opposite, life.  The purpose in examining the type of life John has in mind is because these two words form a sort of symbiotic relationship with each other when they are used together like this.  The one is the antithesis, or opposite, of the other.  Therefore, when John writes of physical life alongside death he is most likely referring to physical death as well.  Conversely, if it is spiritual life in view then it is almost certain to be spiritual death also.

There are three words for life that John primarily uses in his writings: “zoe” (zo-ay), “bios” (bee-os), and “psuche” (p-soo-kay).  “Bios” very simply means life, or that by which life is sustained.  It appears twice in 1^st John.  One is in 2:16: 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.  This corresponds to the first definition given above.  The other is in 3:17: 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?  Here John is describing the material goods that facilitate continued life (i.e. the second definition).  In both cases the contextual meaning is clearly a form of physical life.  Either worldly life that is enmeshed in the principles of the world, or a more neutral depiction of life as a simple process of breathing, eating, sleeping, etc. and the physical items that serve to assist in these endeavors.

“Psuche”, on the other hand, usually refers to the breath of life that fills living beings and demonstrates their quality of being alive.  John uses this word only once in his letter, in 3:16.  In this verse he writes the following: We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.  It goes without saying that it was not His spiritual life that Jesus gave up for our sake.  It is impossible for Him to die spiritually, since He is God.  Rather, it was the breath of physical life in His lungs that suffered death and defeat and endured the grave.

But neither of those two words is what John used in 5:16. In that verse he wrote “zoe”, one of ten occurrences in 1^st John.  Without exception, John chose this word when he wanted to convey the idea of spiritual life.  Let’s look at two other places where John used “zoe”.  1^st John 1:1-2 reads: What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life – and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us.  1^st John 2:25 tells us: this is the promise which He Himself made to us: eternal life.

It is obvious what the type of life is that John has in view when he uses “zoe”.  It is the life that is possessed by the Father, Son, and Spirit of the godhead.  It is the quality of spiritual life God has promised to us via the blood of Christ on the cross.  And in 5:16 it almost certainly references that same quality of life.

So if John is talking about spiritual life in verse 16, he is undoubtedly talking about spiritual death in the same verse.  To back that up even further, consider the lone other use of “thanatos” in 1^st John; in 3:14: we know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren.  He who does not love abides in death.  When John describes passing from death to life in this verse he can be talking about nothing other than spiritual birth, or salvation. 

Because of this evidence it is best to understand the death and life of 5:16-17 as having a spiritual rather than a physical meaning.  This interpretation will assist us when we seek to answer question number one.  Namely, who is the brother that John is talking about in this hypothetical scenario?  Is this person a Christian or a non-Christian? 

The first point to make is that throughout the New Testament, the word brother (“adelphos” in Greek), almost always points to fellow Christians.  John’s own work bears this out.  1^st John 3:10 draws a sharp dividing line between two sets of children: 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.  This verse is clearly phrasing “adelphos” in the context of a family situation.  And it is the family of God that is in view.  The only possible meaning for brother in this situation is that of a fellow believer.

Adding to that is 3:16: we know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.  In Ephesians 5:25 Paul is instructing husbands in how they ought to love their wives.  He says that they are to love them as Christ loved the church and: gave Himself up for her.  The physical life that Jesus surrendered on the cross was specifically for authentic believers who would come to populate His church.  Those true Christians are the “brethren” spoken of in 3:16.

However, the evidence given above is solid, but inconclusive.  Just four verses prior to 3:16 John gives us the example of Cain and Abel.  His point is that we ought not to be evil as Cain was.  Instead, we ought to love our brother rather than murder him.  And although it is likely that John intended that biological sibling relationship to point to the church and the spiritual sibling relationships within it, the illustration does muddy the waters a bit.

It gets even dirtier when we consider 2:9: the one who says he is in the Light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now.  John cannot possibly be talking about a Christian here because he actively hates those who are supposed to be his brothers, thus confirming the darkness as his place of residence.  Or how about 3:15: everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.  I hardly think John would refer to real followers of Christ as murderers and those who are devoid of eternal life.

So we have a conundrum.  It is safe to say that someone completely outside the church is not in view with John’s use of brother.  There seems to be only two possibilities; either the brother is an authentic disciple of Christ or he is a false disciple who only professes the name of Christ.  Let’s examine both of these possibilities.

If the brother is a Christian then Scripture, including John’s writings, exclude him from the possibility of sinning to the point of spiritual death.  This would seem to fit with John’s description of someone committing a sin that does not lead to death.  But it does not resolve all of our difficulties.  Because this same Christian brother, while being incapable of spiritual death, is also possessed of spiritual life.  Why then would John tell us to request that God grant him life?

On the other hand, if the brother is a non-Christian in the church why would John call him a brother?  One likely possibility is that this could be one of the antichrists John spoke of in chapter 2.  These are people who profess to be Christians but who are really wolves in sheep’s clothing.  However, this still does not answer all possible objections.  Because while such a person would certainly be in need of God to grant him life, how can we possibly make the claim that his sin does not lead to death?

The solution that I believe makes the most sense is a melding of these two disparate elements.  Consider John’s illustration from the perspective of the one observing the sin (i.e. you).  Your assumption is that those who are in the church with you are fellow Christians.  While it is true that given enough evidence to the contrary we may come to doubt the salvation of some within our fellowship, that is not the normative manner in which we conduct ourselves.  No, we operate under the assumption that a man’s testimony of salvation is accurate and honest.

Therefore, when we observe them sinning, we already have the belief that they are our brother.  It would follow then that, being a brother of ours and of Christs as well as a child of God’s, that their sin will not result in spiritual death because God has promised to hold them fast.  However, we do not ever truly know for sure what is in the heart of another man.  Only the man himself and the Lord are privy to that information.  Thus, while we may believe them to be saved the possibility exists that they are not.  And if they are not then they are in huge trouble because they are not covered under the blood of Christ, meaning that the sin they just committed most definitely does lead to ultimate spiritual death.

The unifying thread through all of this is our lack of clarity on our perceived brother’s spiritual status.  Because of this fog that shrouds our vision, what should our default response be?  John says we should pray.  We should ask God on behalf of our sinning brother, that if he is not truly born again that God would grant this spiritual life to him, causing him to be our brother in truth rather than word only.

To put it succinctly, I believe the brother John is referring to is one whom we believe to be our brother.  However, due to our lack of perfect knowledge we may be in error about his spiritual status.  This interpretation of brother leads me straight to my answer to the final question remaining; namely, what constitutes the “sin unto death” spoken of here?  In other words, what kind of sin is it?

The first part of the answer has already been alluded to.  If we understand the death as spiritual death and the brother as a perceived Christian, then it naturally follows that any sin committed by such a one would also be assumed to stop short of death.  In this view, the sin would be non-specific.  It is any general sin that any Christian is capable of committing at any time.  However, if that is the case then why does John insert the additional sentence at the end of verse 16: There is a sin leading to death; I do not say that he should make request for this.

I think our beloved apostle’s intention here is one of encouragement.  John recognizes that he has presented us with a pattern for prayer and a real-life example in which the very supplication before the Father that John is exhorting us to may never see the results we anticipate.  Think about it like this.  What is likely to happen to our mental fortitude if the brother we observe in sin, and then subsequently pray for, continues to repeat that sin and maybe others as well?  If we see, over a period of time, that our prayers on his behalf are apparently resulting in no change, then wouldn’t it be likely that we, in our frail humanity, would begin to doubt God or grow frustrated with Him?

John wants to guard against that potential.  So he brings up a truth of Scripture.  One example of it is taught by John’s fellow apostle, Paul.  In Romans chapter 1 we find Paul describing the consequences of sin.  He outlines a process of judgment that grows progressively harsher and more absolute.  It culminates in verse 28 with the following judicial sentence: and just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper.  The issue seems to be that there is a certain point past which God will no longer choose to absolve the continued, hardened, intentional, and unrepentant sinning of a person.  Although He could save them from themselves He decides not to do so.  At this point He removes His restraint of common grace from their lives, opening the door to further and further debauchery.

Jesus seems to teach a similar principle in Matthew 12:31-32: “Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven.  Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.”  This is a challenging passage to interpret in its own right and it is beyond the scope of this essay to attempt to do so.  And I do not think John is referring to this “unforgiveable sin” back in his epistle.  But suffice to say that for our purposes in 1^st John, Jesus is teaching about a similar principle as Paul is in Romans. 

That is, the possibility exists for a sinner to be so embroiled in sin, for such a prolonged period of time, and with an obstinate and intractable disregard for repentance, that God deliberately alters His position toward them.  He therefore condemns this person to remain in spiritual death.  Given this circumstance, all the prayer in the world we might do on their behalf, will ultimately, in the grand scheme of things, amount to nothing.

So to our point in 5:16, I think John is reminding us of such truth.  He wants us to be aware of this potential.  But he also does not want us to think that we are wrong to continue to pray for someone even after all apparent hope of salvation has been lost.  Notice what he says: There is a sin leading to death; I do not say that he should make request for this.  John is not telling us that we cannot continue to pray for our wayward brother.  He is simply letting us off the proverbial hook by assuring us that he is not commanding prayer in such a case.  And given our aforementioned inability to know with certainty, the best practice is probably to go ahead and keep on praying with the awareness that our prayers might be in vain if they are not in accordance with the will of God in our brother’s life.

Then John moves to verse 17 in order to give us a warning.  He recognizes the all too likely human response to his example here.  That is, we may be prone to think to ourselves that the sin of a believer is of low or no consequence because it is not to death.  And therefore we may tend to undervalue the heinous nature of our own sins as well as the sins of others.  So he clarifies for us that any sin, whether committed by believer or unbeliever, in any circumstances, with any level of motivation, containing all degrees of ignorance, is unrighteous.  Meaning, it is opposed and contrary to the perfectly righteous character of God.  So, John says, remember that all sin is evil and worthy of condemnation before the Lord.  But the sins of a believer do not lead to death because there is no such thing as a loss of genuine salvation.

Allow me to attempt to summarize what we have covered to this point.  If you see a fellow Christian sin, his sin is not to the death because he is already possessed of life; but you don’t know that for sure, he could be one of the antichrists of chapter 2, so you ask for life on his behalf.  On the other hand, there is sin that leads to death.  This is the sin of the unregenerate.  And sometimes that unregenerate person has been abandoned by God, unbeknownst to us.  Nevertheless, continue to pray that the sinner would repent thus having the sin you observed plus all others covered by the blood of Christ.  In the meantime, don’t forget that all sin is equal to unrighteousness, therefore all men are capable of sin, even Christians.  But there is sin, among Christians only, that does not lead to death.

You might be thinking that my interpretation is rather ambiguous.  I have to admit there are an awful lot of unknowns in the previous paragraph.  But I think that actually strengthens my argument because I think God has purposely left this example vague.  In the preceding teaching (vv.14-15) on praying according to God’s will, we must admit to ourselves that we will not always, or perhaps rarely, or possibly even never, fully and clearly perceive what God’s will is.  The point in those verses is not to give us specifics about the day-to-day, humdrum, decisions of ordinary life on earth as they relate to what God’s will is.  Rather, the point is to pray that His will be accomplished in the situation you are facing.

Therefore, when we come to verses 16 and 17 John presents us with a scenario that is similarly almost or completely impossible to have a full and clear understanding of.  We have a brother, either practicing or professing (i.e. authentic or false), who commits a sin that we observe.  Barring evidence to the contrary we must assume the brother is genuine.  Therefore, we must also implicitly assume that his sin will not lead to death because he has been raised into new life with Christ. 

However, we don’t really know for sure, do we?  So John instructs us to pray for that brother, that God would grant him life.  Meaning, we pray in two different directions.  First, that he is genuine and that his sin that we have observed will not lead to death.  Second, if he is not genuine that God would grant him repentance therefore leading to life.  This may feel ambiguous and undefined to you.  But honestly it meshes perfectly well with the preceding verses about praying according to God’s sovereign will.  The whole point is that we don’t know all the details.  The crux of the issue is that we lack the foresight and perspective of the Lord.  It is critical for us to bear in mind that only with His guidance can we possibly have any hope of success in life and practice.  In this light, the ambiguity present in John’s puzzling example is actually a strength because it blatantly directs us straight to God.

And there is a second powerful element that I think John is conveying with his teaching here.  That is, the need and the power and the value of prayer.  Consider the following.  You are at church.  You observe a fellow Christian being rude or obnoxious.  Or perhaps they are not managing their children well.  Maybe they are gossiping with others.  They may even be talking bad about the leadership of your church.  Whatever the sinful action is that you observe, it stands as unrighteous behavior before the Lord and in front of anyone who happens to be witnessing it.

Now, what is your typical response?  Do you think negatively about your brother in a self-righteous mental high five to yourself?  Are you offended personally and you quickly sequester that offense away in your heart for safe-keeping, ready to be unveiled at a future time and place in a supreme act of bitterness and resentment?  Maybe you find yourself in a conversation later with someone else and you exclaim, aghast at the corruption in your church, about how so and so did such and such and can you believe it?

There could be many more responses to finding oneself in such a situation.  But how often has it crossed your mind to ensure that the first meaningful response to the sin you have observed is prayer?  As soon as you are home or in private somewhere do you fall on your knees and plead for God’s intervention in the life of your brother?  Do you intentionally and lovingly intercede for them before the Lord?  Is your primary mentality that of restoration and unity?  Or is it divisiveness and judgment?

I think that is the second major take-away from this passage for us.  The first has already been stated; that we must simply trust God and pray that His will would be accomplished, whatever it may be and regardless of whether His will is our personal first choice of outcome in a given situation.  The second major point is simply to pray unceasingly for our fellow Christians.  This does not necessarily exclude the possibility and requirement of confrontation.  The Scriptures are quite clear on the proper biblical process of restoring a brother caught in sin via a loving and restorative act of Christ-like confrontation.  But I think John’s point here is that our very first, immediate, instinctive response should be to drop to our knees in humble supplication before the Lord, crying out to Him for wisdom and for life for our wayward brother.

I leave you with Ephesians 6:18 and the words of Paul: With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.

The Epistles of John, Part 22: Purpose Statement

Confidence.  What a nebulous word!  Oh, it is easy enough to define.  Noah Webster said confidence is: A trusting, or reliance; an assurance of mind or firm belief in the integrity, stability, or veracity of another, or in the truth and reality of a fact.  Ok, that’s not so hard.  But what Webster doesn’t say is how to achieve such a state.  Some people seem to have boundless confidence; at times to a fault.  Others have almost none; almost always to a fault.  But how does one go about gaining confidence?  Is there a step-by-step process we could follow if we desired to acquire greater confidence?

Well, as we continue to move through 1^st John chapter 5, we are going to discover in verses 13 to 15 that John says emphatically YES!  There is a method to having confidence in life.  In fact, he considers this so important for us that he makes it a part of his stated purpose for writing this entire letter.  As has been his pattern so far, this is not a new topic for John.  He has already mentioned confidence, in Greek “parrhesia” (par-rhe-see’-ah), three times. 

In 2:28, 3:21, and 4:17 the apostle has given us pieces of the puzzle of how to have confidence.  What is particularly noteworthy is the context he places this confidence in.  In 2:28 he writes: 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.  In 3:21 we find: beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God.  And in 4:17 another aspect is revealed: by this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment.  We can see from these three verses that John categorizes the elements that make up a biblical confidence into three components:

1. abiding in Christ
2. listening to the Holy Spirit and examining the righteous fruit of our Christian conduct rather than listening to our heart
3. abiding in love.

But what is most significant to me about these passages is their focus, or theme.  Every time John brings up the issue of having confidence, his approach is to relate that confidence to God.  In other words, the only confidence that matters to John is that which we have, or do not have, before the Lord.  I believe this is diametrically opposite of how Christians typically view situations. 

You see, I think that probably for most of us, when we consider the issue of having confidence, our instinct is to associate it with how it relates to other people.  For example, at the prospect of giving a public speech is it the Lord God we are concerned about messing up in front of and being embarrassed, or is it all the humans in the audience?  If we find ourselves in a situation where loving confrontation is necessary, what are we most fearful of: having conflict or drama with the other party, or disobeying God’s extremely clear teaching on how to go about reconciling an offense with a brother or sister in Christ?

I think that with very few exceptions our concern is over the human interaction that is at stake rather than the divine relationship that is on the table.  But for John it seems to be exactly the opposite.  In his teaching throughout this letter he relates the entire conceptual understanding of confidence to the divine relationship.  In other words, John’s approach is to ground his confidence in his relationship to the Lord first, and only then give any thought whatsoever to how that confidence might relate to the various situations he finds himself in and the experiences he has.

And if that wasn’t noteworthy enough, consider this.  As already stated, John has touched on this topic on three separate occasions in this letter alone.  But his pattern throughout the book has been to revisit teachings repeatedly, offering some additional nuance or insight to our understanding each time.  I think John is demonstrating in his epistle that he is a master of repetition teaching.  He gives us bite sized chunks of truth to chew on, one at a time, in a methodical and structured manner.  The reason is so that by the end of the letter, assuming we read slowly and carefully, digesting just a portion at a time, we will have a much fuller grasp and understanding of what he is teaching.

John is going to stay true to that approach here in verses 13 to 15.  And as we will see in a moment, he is going to up the ante considerably by making it clear that having confidence before God is so critically important for a believer that it is tied to his entire reason for writing the letter in the first place!  He accomplishes his task by identifying two major components or elements of having confidence before God: knowledge and assurance.

We will pick it up in verse 13 with the knowledge angle: These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.  This is nothing less than John’s purpose statement.  This is, at the end of all things, his attempt to summarize the whole letter.  Setting aside all the individual teaching he has given us: being honest about our sin, walking as Christ walked, understanding apostasy, rejecting the world and the things in the world, loving one another, discerning between false prophets and authentic Bible teachers, and conquering the world.  All of those elements are of vast importance to a Christian.  But if you walk away from this letter only remembering one single thing, this is what John wants it to be.  He wants you to know that you have eternal life.  He wants your confidence in Christ to soar like an eagle and cause you to sail far above the troubles and turmoil of this evil world we live in.

At the very beginning of our consideration of John’s epistle, we examined the relationship between his gospel and this letter.  In that connection there is a fascinating flow of logical purpose and intent.  It’s worth a reminder now.  John 20:31 reveals the purpose statement for the gospel of John: these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.

I find this to be an utterly compelling and fascinating sequence.  John wrote his gospel for the express purpose of facilitating the Holy Spirit’s work of bringing people to faith in Jesus and the necessary repentance that must follow it.  All of the miracles, all of the teaching, all of the historical details, all of the horrifying reality of the crucifixion.  John intended every drop of it to ultimately coalesce into faith and trust in Christ.  Then, once that was accomplished and someone had become a believer, he wrote his first epistle so that they would be able to follow on the heels of that saving faith with a concrete and unshakeable assurance of their security in their savior.  What a beautiful package of sound teaching and instruction for us to partake of 20 centuries later.

On the topic of John’s purpose, consider this.  The phrase “have eternal life” at the end of the verse may be proper English, but it’s not quite right according to the original text.  First of all, every major English translation places this phrase at the end of the verse, after the clause about believing in the name of the Son of God.  But the original phrase that John wrote places “have eternal life” in the middle of the verse.  The verse reads approximately like this in Greek: these things I have written to you in order that you may know that life possess eternal, these that believe in the name of the Son of God.

What you need to understand about the Greek language of John’s day is that it was very flexible.  Word order was extremely important.  In English we have a very methodical structure of subject – verb – direct object.  But in New Testament Greek subjects and verbs were not determined by placement in a sentence or relation to each other.  They were communicated through altering the way the word was written by using different case endings on the ends of the nouns.  In other words, you could conceivably have a verb at the beginning of the sentence and the subject at the end, separated from each other by multiple other words.  This presented a wonderfully freeing opportunity for the NT writer to place particular emphasis on the words they thought were most important in the verse they were writing.  They accomplished this by putting the more important words earlier in the sentence and relying on the case endings to enable readers to determine subject, direct object, etc.

So for verse 13 this means that John considered the clause of a Christian knowing that they have eternal life to be of primary significance.  This is why I said a moment ago that it was absolutely central to him that you not just be saved, but that you are absolutely, unswervingly convinced of the reliability and trustworthiness of that salvation.  He wrote a whole letter to you for the purpose of convincing you of that fact!  Have you been and are you listening?

Beyond that, let’s go back and once again compare English and Greek.  The English phrase “have eternal life” is a translation of the Greek “life possess eternal”.  What’s the difference you might be thinking.  Aren’t both versions saying the same thing?  I don’t think they are.  Think about it like this.

The modern English structure conveys the idea of eternal being an adjective that describes life.  To be sure, eternal is in fact an adjective by definition.  And the life that we now live in Christ is most certainly one that will be lived eternally.  But the structure paints a picture of this life being just one of a variety of different flavors of life.  We might have reduced life, wasted life, vibrant life, etc. to go alongside eternal.

Now compare that with the way John actually wrote it: life possess eternal.  His original structure says that because of belief in the Son of God, we now have life eternally.  The negative implication of this is that apart from that belief in the Son, catch this, life is not possessed at all.  It may be true that physical life exists apart from Christ.  But this biblical concept of John’s is accurate because such life is only partially realized, in the physical sense only.  If one possesses physical life but lacks spiritual life can one be said to be truly alive?  I don’t think so, and I submit to you that neither did John.

Consider the very beginning of this same letter.  1^st John 1:2 reads: and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us.  John is describing Jesus here.  He calls Him “the eternal life” and he mentions His manifestation, in other words, His incarnation in human flesh to the human parents Joseph and Mary.  And although that manifestation is time bound, Jesus was born, he grew, he died, he lived, his quality of eternal life is not.  He was possessed of this quality prior to being manifested.  So His eternal life cannot be bound up in a chronological time sequence.  John 1:4 echoes this point: In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.  Christ’s quality of being alive was present as a part of His character long before the night He was born in a stable.

What’s my point?  Simply this.  The biblical concept of life, as it applies to Christ, has nothing to do with length of years.  Rather than dealing with the quantity of life possessed, it has the idea of the quality of life that is possessed.  And this is the same quality of life that being granted to us through faith and trust in Him.  It is the same life that John wants us to be absolutely convinced that we now have.

So I think what he is getting at here is the idea that to even be truly alive in the first place you must express belief in the name of the Son of God.  And not only will you be granted life when you do, but that life will be of an eternal, imperishable, undefiled, and vibrant nature.  Reading 1^st John 5:13 as “possess eternal life” rather than “life possess eternal” does not convey this sense nearly as well.  Do you see why it is so important to work hard and study and dig to attempt to ascertain the author’s original intent?

And on that note, I need to side track for a page or two.  I discovered something troubling as I was studying this verse.  All of the major modern English translations of the Bible basically line up with each other on this verse in structure and flow.  All, that is, except for one.  The King James translation is as follows: These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. 

Now compare that with the NASB that I bolded several paragraphs back, or read it in your own Bible, assuming you have a translation other than the KJV.  Do you notice the difference?  There is an entire clause hanging off the end of the KJV that is not present in any other English translation: and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.  Why do the other versions of the Bible not include this crucial piece of information?  Were the modern translators lax in their efforts?  Were they not as thorough as their 17^th century equivalents?

The answer is really quite simple.  That clause at the end of 5:13 in the KJV does not exist in the original text.  It is simply not there.  It was straight up added out of thin air by the team of translators that England’s King James put together to translate the Scriptures.  Now then, is this a huge issue?  Not really, no.  The overall intent of John’s writing is not altered.  In fact, we already know from the aforementioned John 20:31 that he definitely did want us to believe on the name of the Son of God.

But here’s the problem.  That is not what he was trying to accomplish right here, right now, in the 13^th verse of the fifth chapter of the first letter to the church that he wrote.  His purpose for this letter begins and ends through these three verses with confidence.  He had already covered the belief issue with his gospel.  He didn’t need to revisit that topic again.  In fact, I think John’s assumption was that you had already read his gospel and come to faith in Christ.  Otherwise, why in the world would you bother to read a letter about unpacking that faith and relating it to daily living.

And please understand, I am not trying to dump all over the KJV here.  It is a very good word-for-word translation of the original texts.  But no English version of the Bible is perfect because no translation from one language to another is perfect and no team of translators is perfect.  I have yet to find any English Bible that is free from issues of one sort or another.  There are better and worse efforts.  Some are more accurate and others, not so much.  But none of them is a literal rendering of the original text that the Holy Spirit authored through human writers.

Ok then, you might ask, “After jumping the KJV’s case and then rushing to assure me that it’s not alone in its errors, what in the world are you driving at?  Am I supposed to just not trust anything?”  Nothing could be further from my mind.  The English Bibles we have are extraordinarily accurate, especially in light of the translation issues they all face.  I would submit that the more modern versions, such as the ESV and the NASB are better, simply because textual criticism (the science of interpreting dead languages) is more refined today than it was in 1611.  But again, none of them are completely free from issues and the problems with the KJV are not sufficient enough to cause me to not ever use it.

No, my plea is not to turn away from our Bible translations.  Rather, my plea is to be careful, discerning, and studious in your attempt to understand God’s word.  But how can you do that if you don’t know the original languages?  Simple.  Just compare English translations every time you study.  Many web sites are available to help you do this, such as www.biblehub.com.  Look for anomalies.  Watch for sore thumbs and red flags that stand out from the rest.  And when you find them avail yourself of the Internet, your pastor, or other Bible teachers to help you investigate and attempt to get to the bottom of it.

I will not apologize for that intentional rabbit trail because I believe it was important.  But we do need to get back to our text and look at the other aspect of John’s unpacking of confidence; that of assurance.  Verses 14 and 15 read: This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.  And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.

Here we have our word; confidence.  This word is the theme we are looking at today.  So we need to spend a few minutes observing how John uses the word elsewhere to be sure we have a firm grasp on it.  This is not all the occurrences in the New Testament of John using “parrhesia”, but it is enough of them to paint a picture for us.  I will underline the relevant word in each passage:

• John 7:13 – Yet no one was speaking openly of Him for fear of the Jews
• John 7:26 – Look, He is speaking publicly, and they are saying nothing to Him.  The rulers do not really know that this is the Christ, do they?
• John 10:24 – The Jews then gathered around Him, and were saying to Him, “How long will You keep us in suspense?  If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.”
• John 11:14 – So Jesus then said to them plainly, “Lazarus is dead.”
• John 11:54 – Therefore Jesus no longer continued to walk publicly among the Jews.
• John 16:25 – “These things I have spoken to you in figurative language; an hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figurative language, but will tell you plainly of the Father.”
• John 16:29 – His disciples said, “Lo, now You are speaking plainly and are not using a figure of speech.”

There are three distinct images of “parrhesia” in these verses: openly, publicly, and plainly.  To exercise “parrhesia” in your actions is to perform them openly.  You are unconcerned about whether anyone observes what you are doing.  Not only that, but it is to do those actions publicly.  You are so committed to your lack of concern for outside opinion that you intentionally place yourself in a visible and public arena so that others may witness your deeds.  And then when the time comes to conduct your business you ensure that it is clear and obvious both what you are doing as well as the why behind it.  “Parrhesia” is nothing less than an unembarrassed and self-assured confidence.

Perhaps the thought on your mind at this point is that this description doesn’t sound very much like the way you conduct yourself in your interactions with other people, let alone your posture before the Lord.  Even the most self-assured among us face the daunting prospect of situations where we lack confidence.  Perhaps for you it’s public speaking.  Or maybe you have a debilitating fear of confrontations.  Possibly you are convinced that you sound less intelligent than others, causing you to shy away from social interactions, tending to stay in your shell rather than risk exposure to perceived embarrassment.  Whatever your hang-up, I can with a high degree of certainty predict that you do have one or more.

Where does my confidence come from?  Further, if I am correct why are we like this?  Why are we cursed with this basic lack of confidence and assurance?  Both questions can be traced to the same source.  It all stems from mankind’s core state of mind in a fallen and corrupted world.  Because of the curse of the fall we are, without exception, shackled by a predilection to shame and embarrassment coupled with uncertainty and fear.

Let’s trace it back to its biblical roots and piece together the image of where our shame comes from and what it looks like from God’s perspective.  Genesis 2:25 tells us that: the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.  Prior to the entrance of sin into the world there was no concept of embarrassment.  There was no understanding of shame.  Some theologians refer to this as the dispensation (a fancy term for age) of innocence.  But have you ever thought about how odd it was for Moses to include this seemingly random detail?  We previously discussed that the Bible contains no accidents and no authorial flights of fancy.  This particular piece of information about Adam’s and Eve’s nakedness is no exception.  Notice the connecting detail in the next chapter.  Verse 7 describes the man and woman’s immediate response to their sin: then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.

God is specifically demonstrating a contrast here.  He wants to take a single detail, that of nudity, and display the difference in how man viewed it both pre and post sin.  And in that post sin response we notice an interesting point.  Why would they seek to cover themselves as one of their first actions?  Verse 10 gives us the answer: he said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.”

Adam was afraid.  His fear was caused by a previously unknown awareness of his nakedness.  At a primal and perhaps even subconscious level, one of the divinely decreed effects of sin was to be uncomfortable with even the idea of someone else seeing us without clothes on.  This basic premise of the new human condition was placed into the Mosaic Law as well.  In Exodus chapter 20 God is giving Moses instructions about how to properly worship Him.  One of the requirements was that altars to worship Him not be placed on high.  The reason is found in verse 26: “and you shall not go up by steps to My altar, so that your nakedness will not be exposed on it.”  Even with that restriction in place it still was not sufficient for God’s chosen people to be acceptable in His sight.  In Exodus 28 we find instructions for the priestly garments that Aaron and his sons would wear.  Verses 42 and 43 are particularly relevant: You shall make for them linen breeches to cover their bare flesh; they shall reach from the loins even to the thighs.  They shall be on Aaron and on his sons when they enter the tent of meeting, or when they approach the altar to minister in the holy place, so that they do not incur guilt and die. It shall be a statute forever to him and to his descendants after him.

I believe the Scriptures are clear that nakedness and the associated humiliation are a crucial element in our quest to understand where our lack of confidence comes from.  This is only one aspect of shame, but I think it stands as a surrogate representative of the root cause of why we can even experience disgrace in the first place.  The negative connotations associated with nakedness are pervasive and influential.  It is more than merely an embarrassing cultural more taught to us by our parents.  This stigma was put into place by God Himself as a visible and tangible reminder of our rebellious and alienated condition of separation from His perfect holiness.  So I believe, based on Scripture, that inhibitions regarding nudity are hard-wired into our brains.

Now hold on some might say.  What about people around the world who live in nudist colonies, perform nude photo shoots, or otherwise seem to glory and revel in their nakedness.  Frankly, these facts hold no weight with me whatsoever.  It is a solid biblical truth that God’s laws are written onto every human heart (Rom. 2:14-15).  Furthermore, it is clear that apart from God man will, by nature, do everything in his power to suppress the truth in unrighteousness (Rom. 1:18).  So I find it to be utterly inconclusive that some folks have trained themselves to ignore the warning bells their consciences are sounding. 

In fact, we all do this exact same thing to some extent, although probably not with nudity. 

But whatever the private sin is that we struggle with, have we not at times trained our consciences to be silent about it?  We know what is a correct course of action yet we blindly and stubbornly choose to go a different direction anyhow.  Further, the more we engage in the binding and gagging of the Holy Spirit does it not become easier and easier to do the same thing the next time?  Of course it does.  No, offering up our modern culture’s infatuation with sex and nakedness as supposed proof of the Bible’s irrelevance is no proof at all of anything.

Now, with all that in mind, consider for a moment what it would be like to actually be free from humiliation, from disgrace, and from dishonor.  Can you imagine how it will feel to have that veil or barrier of shame finally removed from your relationship with God?  Would it not make a massive difference in your attitude toward Him to be completely unafraid, unashamed, and unembarrassed in His presence?  Does it make you long for your heavenly glorification in the presence of the Lord?

If it does, then you have misunderstood John’s point in this verse.  Because that is not what he is saying.  John used the present active form of “echo”, or to possess, to describe our “parrhesia”, or confidence.  He is not talking about “someday” or “in glory”.  He is literally stating that right here, right now, you own a confidence before God that is open, public, and plain.

I think the obvious question hanging in the air right now is this.  If you lack this confidence.  If you have no idea what John is talking about.  Why?  To attempt to answer that for you without knowing any of the private details of your life let me put it this way.  Based on our study of “parrhesia” earlier, what would it look like for someone to have that level of confidence before God?

First of all, this person would have no need to try to hide any of their activities from God because all of them honor and glorify Him.  In other words, they would be completely transparent about their life.  Second, they would feel no trepidation at allowing anyone else into the privacy of their life to view what they do behind closed doors because their activities in private mirror their activities when others are around.  In other words, they would be very public about their life.  Finally, there would be no need to dance around topics with words, or attempt to side-track conversations to avoid discussing issues, either with themselves as an internal monologue, with the Lord in prayer, or with other people in conversation.

That is what the life would look like of a person who has real confidence before God.  So if you feel that you lack that confidence, examine your life and compare it with what I have just written.  Better yet, match it up against the life of Jesus that we read about earlier.  I have a feeling, if you feel disgrace before your God, your life will reflect the reason why.  And I have a further suspicion that you know exactly what it is that needs to change in order to effect an alteration of your perceived standing before your King.  The question most likely isn’t “what is the problem?”.  Rather, the question is probably “what are you going to do about it?”

Now then, those last few paragraphs are probably enough for you to chew on that I could stop writing right now.  But we haven’t finished our passage yet.  And there is another question that I think leaps out of verse 14.  Namely, how do we know that we are asking things according to God’s will?  This is one of the top questions on people’s minds across Christendom.  Believers typically fret and worry over whether they are truly acting according to the will of God.  They lose sleep over decisions that are coming up or have already been made.  They seek counsel from pastors and teachers, desperate for someone to tell them what to do.

And to everyone who may be struggling with that same dilemma, I have tremendous words of encouragement from Scripture.  The answer to the question of how to know if you are in God’s will or not is actually astoundingly simple.  I will use three passages, all from the gospel of John, to explain.

In the fifth chapter of John, Jesus is explaining His relationship with the Father.  And in verse 30 He says the following: “I can do nothing on My own initiative.  As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.”  The key component of Jesus’s ministry, power, and effectiveness was His dogged determination to never seek His own will.  One hundred percent of the time, He was committed exclusively to accomplishing whatever the Father asked of Him.  So the first piece to knowing God’s will is to determine right off the bat whether you are going to follow suit.  Is the will of God truly and honestly what you want most of all?

A while later, in chapter 9, we find a man who had been born blind.  Jesus has healed him and the man is being interrogated by the Jews.  In a delightfully sarcastic response to their repeated stubborn insistence that Jesus could not be from God the man says in verses 30 and 31: “Well, here is an amazing thing, that you do not know where He is from, and yet He opened my eyes.  We know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is God-fearing and does His will, He hears him.”  Adding onto what we already read in 5:30, we now find that once you set your will to be in submission to God’s greater will, you are absolutely guaranteed beyond question that He will hear you. 

But how do we know if we are truly conforming our wills to His?  Is there any evidence or test we can measure ourselves against to be sure of this?  As a matter of fact, there is.  It is found in John 15:7: “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”  John has made it clear, all the way back in 1^st John 2:6, that if we want to know whether we are abiding in Christ we need to examine whether we are walking in the same manner as He walked.  And now we find the glorious truth that if we are walking like Him, then we know that we are placing the will of God before our own because that is exactly what Jesus did.  And finally, if all that is true so far, then we are guaranteed by nothing less than the promise of Almighty God that He will grant our requests when we speak to Him.

If you have a petition for your God and you want to know if it’s according to His will, don’t look at the request itself.  Examine the rest of your life.  If it matches up with Christ’s life then ask away, and ask that God’s will be accomplished.  In effect, the biblical method to always have your prayers answered and your requests granted is to pray for His exaltation.  He will always give you what you want if what you want is what He wants!

Perhaps that is not the answer you were hoping for.  Maybe you feel that this is rather self-serving of God.  And it is.  But you were not created to satisfy yourself and the Bible was not written to tell you how to accomplish such an aim.  You were created to worship God and the Bible was written to tell you how to accomplish that correctly.

I have one final point to make about this passage.  It is an observation rather than a question.  I find John’s wording in verse 15 fascinating.  He begins with “if we know that God hears us”.  First we must become convinced of our place before Him and that His “ears” are inclined in our direction.  Then we know, it is a guarantee, it is an absolute assurance, that He will grant our request.  And once again John uses our little word “echo” to indicate that God doesn’t just give us what we want.  He makes it so that we possess the petition that we have asked from Him.

This implies that God’s character is such that a petition heard is automatically a petition granted.  There is an obvious flip side to that of course.  God sometimes does not hear.  This is figurative language because God always hears everything.  The point is that God chooses not to hear.  And when He responds in this manner it is because we have not asked according to His will as Jesus did.  So in effect, it is as if He did not hear us.  But if we always ask for everything in the context of whether God wants us to have it or not, then we are guaranteed to always receive what we asked for.

But beyond all that, it is interesting to me that John’s description of God’s character in this verse is such that He automatically grants requests.  What does that say about who He is on a fundamental core level?  I think it communicates to us the reality that God is a god of generosity, of love, of mercy, of tenderness, of compassion.  He delights in giving out wonderful and beautiful and useful and priceless gifts to His children.  In fact, He is of such an incomprehensibly magnanimous nature that He is even pleased to give an absurd level of gifting to those who are in active and open rebellion against Him?  What does this look like?  It looks like all those unrepentant sinners continuing to draw breath every day and enjoying the fruits of their labors.  It looks like God not obliterating them all in an instant with the fiery consuming wrath of His anger.

This piece of who God is causes me to think of James chapter one.  James has just described to us what the process of lust, temptation, sin, and death looks like on a practical level.  And he wants to assure us that this is all of our doing and none of God’s.  So in verses 16 and 17 he writes: Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.  Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.

Not some good things.  Not a part of the perfect gifts we receive.  Every. Single. One.  If there is anything good in your life (and we have looked in previous chapters at the truth that all things are for your good if you love God) then it is one hundred percent of the time, totally and completely, without exception, the Lord God who is responsible for giving it to you.  This is an absolutely glorious truth beyond reckoning!  God is so good as to defy human comprehension.  Jeremiah writes in Lamentations 3:22-23: The Lord’s loving kindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. 

The prophet wrote this as he was surveying the utter destruction of the city of Jerusalem and the wholesale enslavement of his countrymen.  How much more then should we, who live lives of such ease and contentment and pleasure, be passionate about glorifying God for His goodness?  John is certainly pushing that angle in these verses.  He expects you to walk away from this letter on cloud 10, reveling in your confidence before the goodness of God and your assurance of a supreme quality of life possessed eternally.  The simple question is; how will you respond today?