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; 1st 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 1st 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
1st 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 1st 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.
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