The Epistles of John, Part 6: Blessed Assurance Part 2

Let’s take a quick lesson in metallurgy (I know what you’re thinking, but stay with me; this will make sense in a minute).  A noble metal is defined as one that is resistant to corrosion and oxidation in moist air.  The most well-known noble metals are probably gold and silver, due to their additional status as precious metals.  Whether in art, coinage, or jewelry humans have been involved in the acquisition of these lustrous materials for millennia.  History records people working with silver in Mesopotamia as far back as the 4^th millennium B.C. 

The catch though, is that most of the time the noble metals are not found in a pure form.  They are mixed with other base metals and must be refined.  The refining process is known as “cupellation”.  This is a method where the metallic substance is heated to a very high temperature.  Once the correct temperature is achieved, the base metals begin to separate from the noble metals.  The reason is because the noble metals, as mentioned above, do not oxidize, meaning they do not react chemically.  So when heat is applied the base metals form slags or other compounds, leaving the more valuable noble metals separate.

In ancient times the container used for this chemical process was known as a “cupel”.  Hence the term “cupellation”.  It was a vessel formed of wood ashes and finely powdered brick dust.  In other words, it was made of earthen materials.  Well, it just so happens that the Latin word for earthen pot is “testa”.  It is the origin of the modern word test.

This is helpful because the history behind it gives us an extremely accurate understanding of the definition of test.  We can say that a test is a method whereby a catalytic agent is applied to a target object for the purpose of identifying (and consequently removing) impurities as well as refining the quality of the object in question.  To take the classic example of an educational test: the student is the target object and a list of questions on a piece of paper is the catalytic agent.  The objective is to pinpoint inaccuracies in the thinking patterns of the pupil so as to eliminate them.  And in the end it is hoped this process will improve the quality of the student’s intellect.

What in the world does that have to do with 1^st John?  Well, in the second half of our study of 1^st John 2:1-6 the author gives us a rock solid, proven test to determine the status of our salvation.  He has already alluded to this test in chapter 1 verse 7: if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.  And John has given us the grounds, or parameters, within which the test is to be administered.  Namely, that our confidence is in God alone.  As verse 9 of chapter 1 points out, He is faithful and righteous.  Not only that, but chapter 2 and verse 1 teaches us that we have the best legal defense in the universe in the person of Jesus Christ the Righteous.  Furthermore, verse 2 makes it clear that He is the atoning sacrifice which expiates, or cleanses us from sin and causes God to be propitious, or favorable in His regard for us.  All of this has been discussed in previous weeks.

But now John both reiterates what he has hinted at and capitalizes on what he has laid the groundwork for by telling us exactly how to test ourselves so that we can be confident in our status as adopted children of God.  He states the test quite plainly in 1^st John 2:6, as follows: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.  This is really quite obvious and clear.  But the manner in which John leads up to that simple formula and the framework he builds around it is fascinating and I believe will be instructive as well.  He begins in verse 3 with two criteria that must be met prior to beginning the test if we are to be successful.  These pre-requisites result in both a condition and a consequence.  The effect of all this, in John’s mind, ought to be a successfully aced test, every time we take it.  I will move through these four components, one at a time, followed by a final word on the test itself.

Verse 3 of 1^st John chapter 2 states: By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.  The first criterion that a successful salvation test taker must meet is they must know the God who they claim to have received salvation from.  We looked at this concept back in the very first essay of this series but it is important enough that we go over it again here.  The knowledge that John is talking about is probably not the same thing we associate in our minds with that word.  We in the modern western world tend to think logically and pragmatically.  But the Jewish mind in John’s day and culture would have tended to think much more in terms of relationships and principles.  This is why the 

Hebrew Scriptures so often paint word pictures with objects rather than adjectives.  In 2^nd Samuel 22:2-3 David sings this hymn to God after being delivered from the hand of King Saul: “The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold and my refuge; my savior, You save me from violence.”  David peppers his song with images that are immediately relatable to a reader in a visual and tangible manner.  By contrast the tendency of a westerner would be to refer to God as powerful, protective, secure, and heroic.  We mean the same things but go about expressing them in a completely different way.

This difference is instructive when it comes to understanding what John has in mind when he refers to knowing God.  John is not talking about a clinical or sterile understanding.  He is not talking about knowing as we might come to know something at school.  Rather, the idea is to understand, perceive, or become acquainted with in an intimate manner.  As stated in that previous essay, the word that John uses for this concept, “ginosko”, was also used by the Jews as an idiom for sexual intercourse between a man and a woman.

An excellent example of this usage is found in John 6:69.  The twelve apostles are asked by Jesus if they want to leave with the crowds who were leaving Him because the message He was preaching was too radical.  Peter, acting as spokesman, responds beginning in verse 68: “Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have words of eternal life.  We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.”  The underlined word is the same as what John is using in 1^st John 2:3.  Clearly, Peter and the eleven haven’t just heard through the grapevine that Jesus is the holy one of God.  Obviously, their conviction is deeper than the surface level response that most of the crowds had to the miraculous signs and wonders Jesus was performing.  Unmistakably, their education in this matter extends beyond even hearing Jesus make these claims first-hand.

No, Peter’s belief in this passage is one of experience.  He knows that Jesus is the Christ because he has lived through the process of coming to grips with this amazing truth.  And that process has instilled in him and his brothers a deep and abiding persuasion of the truth of what he has just stated.  This is what it means to know as John intends for us to understand it.

This experiential and intimate knowledge is incredibly important to John.  The word “ginosko” appears 49 times, the most of any single book of the New Testament, in the Gospel of John.  And coming in third for most usage is 1^st John, at 21 times.  Only Luke, with 28, beats it.  To put it another way, John’s usage of “ginosko” in the relatively few books penned by him accounts for more than half of the overall occurrences of the word in the entire New Testament.

What this tells me is that for John, the “disciple whom the Lord loved”, who rested on His bosom at the last supper, who of all the apostles did not flee in terror from the crucifixion, and who was the one selected to care for Christ’s mother after His death this knowing God is of absolutely paramount importance for us to understand and take part in.

Now here, for me, is the completely mind blowing part.  John says the manner in which we prove that we have come to know God in this way is to obey Him and His commands.  That is just completely opposite of the direction my mind would tend to go in processing the idea of coming to know someone.  I would think that if I want to know a person very well I simply need to spend time with them.  I would have to learn their preferences, their likes and dislikes, and their patterns of behavior.  Now to be sure, these factors are a part of the process.  And they come into play in knowing God as well.  But these elements are not what John chose to focus on.  Much as he will do in verse 6, he strips away all the extraneous details and leaves us with the over-arching umbrella principle that the proof of our knowing God is bound up in the consistency of our obedience to Him.

Interestingly, John doesn’t actually use the word obey in this verse.  Instead, he says that we must “keep His commandments”.  This is an important point to remember.  Because the issue is not offering our obedience to God.  The point is to do as He has said.  Obedience given that is not in accord with the instructions delivered is of no value whatsoever.  Samuel makes this clear in 1^st Samuel 15:22: “Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord?  Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams.”  Furthermore, the attitude of our hearts must be penitent and humble before Him before we attempt to follow His commands.  David speaks of this in Psalm 51:16-17: For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; You are not pleased with burnt offering.  The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.

The final point I want to make on this verse has to do with the word translated keep.  The Greek behind it means “to attend to carefully” or “to guard”.  Our calling in this situation is not merely to do what God has said.  We must view ourselves as protectors of the sanctity of the Lord’s precepts and instructions.  This implies a level of ownership and participation that goes far beyond just obeying the letter of the law.  In Acts chapter 12 Peter has been imprisoned by King Herod.  Verse 5 says: So Peter was kept in prison.  You can be sure this was no casual activity for the guards who were with him.  In fact, after Peter’s supernatural release at God’s hands, Herod had these guards executed for their failure to keep their prisoner secure.  The guards would have been very well aware of Herod’s reputation and the probable penalty for failure.  So they were undoubtedly doing everything within their power to ensure that the king’s instructions were followed to the letter.  This is the mindset we are to have when keeping God’s commandments.

So we can say from all this that the two requirements we must meet before administering the test of salvation to ourselves is to know God deeply and experientially as well as humbly and penitently obeying exactly what He has commanded while we go above and beyond the call of duty to protect those commands.  If these factors are present within our hearts and are evidenced in our lives then we can expect two results: a condition and a consequence.

The condition can be seen in verse 4: The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.  This is of course a parallel of chapter 1, verses 6, 8, and 10 that we have already discussed.  But what I want to do this time around is look at it in reverse.  In other words, it is clear that if we make a claim of knowing God, yet we do not obey His instructions, we are liars.  But what does that imply about the opposite situation?  Put simply, if we claim to know God and we do keep His commands, then the truth is in us rather than not in us.  Let’s re-phrase the verse to illustrate this: The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and keeps His commandments, tells the truth, and lies are not in him.

This is the condition which results from the meeting of the criteria John gave us.  Why do I say it’s a condition?  Because of the word John uses to express this idea; “esti”.  This is the Greek verb that expresses a state of being.  It is more than an action that has been performed.  Actions are the surface level evidences of the condition that exists within a person.  If we say that someone is intelligent we are communicating that the essence of their mental capacity is of a high degree.  John 1:1 gives us the sense of this: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  John expresses the state of being of Christ three different ways, using the word “en”, which is a form of the word “esti” that he uses in our passage in 1^st John.

First he says that in the beginning was the Word.  The eternality of the Word is tied to and bound up in who He is.  Then we read that the Word was with God.  His proximity to God adds an additional element to the reality of who He is because you cannot be “with” God in the sense John means unless you are in fact God.  But to ensure there is no confusion or distortion John makes it plain when he says that the Word was God, or as the Greek literally reads “God was the Word”.  Not only is He eternally with God, but He literally exists as God Himself.  They share the same essence.  Or to put in the terms we are discussing, they share the same state of being.

So, if we obey God’s commands we exist in the state of being truthful.  The truth becomes more than something we tell.  It becomes more than things we do.  It becomes a part of who we are.  In fact, I would go so far as to say it is a lesser, paler version of the character of Christ Himself.  He claimed in John 14:6: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”  If you guessed that this word is yet another form of our same “state of being” verb you are correct.  Jesus literally is the physical embodiment of truth.  And when we obey Him we are afforded the privilege of emulating that reality, at least to some degree.

When all of this comes together in a person, the satisfaction of God’s requirements and the transformation from a state of untruth into a state of truth, then a wonderful and mysterious consequence emerges.  John expresses this in verse 5: but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected.  Honestly, this statement is a little bewildering at first glance.  God is perfect in every way.  So how can that which is perfect be perfected?

Well, if we once again turn to the Greek behind the English we find the word “teleioo”.  This verb doesn’t really have quite the connotation we would normally associate with the idea of perfection.  We tend to think of perfect as being completely free from defects.  But “teleioo” has more of an idea of bringing to completion, accomplishing an objective, or reaching a goal.  A perfect example of this is found in Luke 2:43: and as they were returning, after spending the full number of days, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem.  But His parents were unaware of it.  The word I have underlined is the same one translated as perfected in 1^st John.  So you can see that it is carrying a very different weight and intention than how we might typically think of perfect.

At this point the immediately obvious question now becomes “How is the love of God brought to fulfillment in those who keep His word?”  I think there are at least two ways: it is experienced and it is evidenced. 

The love of God exists as a component of His personality.  It is not an entity unto itself.  Rather, it is an element of what makes Him God.  But love as it exists within God is not a solitary characteristic.  It must have a target in order to be fully expressed because it is inherently outward in scope.  Within the confines of the Godhead we can see this in the relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.  They love each other with a sacrificial affection that is visibly demonstrable.  The Father sacrifices Himself in humility to elevate the Son to a position of highest glory and honor (Philippians 2:9-11).  The Son sacrifices Himself in humility to submit His will to the Father’s plan (Philippians 2:5-8) and by leaving the world so that the Spirit can have free reign to do His work (John 16:7-11).  And the Spirit sacrifices Himself in humility to cast the spotlight on both the Father (John 16:13) and the Son (John 16:14).

Now then, with that being the shape of the love of God, when it comes to His creations it must follow the same pattern.  Meaning, it must be present and active in a person’s life in order to be brought to fulfillment.  If God says He loves us but we can see no presence of that love within us then the love of God is nothing more than an ephemeral idea floating in rivers of philosophy.  And what is the ultimate expression of His love?  I think it is clearly the redemptive work of Christ that opens the door of salvation to someone who, prior to that point, was God’s enemy.  Scripture says “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” in John 15:13.  So when a human being is regenerated and brought to faith in Christ, it is the best and clearest example possible that God loves him or her.  The proof of that salvation is in the doing of God’s commands, as both our passage today and John 15:14 (You are My friends if you do what I command you) makes clear.  To summarize, God’s love is brought to completion in the heart of a Christian at salvation and onward through sanctification and finally to glorification.  This truth is verified in submissive obedience to God’s commands.  Therefore, going back to 1^st John, whoever guards and protects God’s instructions is proving to themselves they are redeemed, and that redemption is the greatest expression of God’s sacrificial love.  In this way the love of God is brought to fulfillment experientially.

But this completion or fulfillment of the love of God is not only inward, for verification in the Christian’s own heart.  It is also outward, for verification of God’s goodness to a watching world.  It is essentially free advertising of divine love for anyone the Christian comes into contact with.  John 13:34-35: A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.  By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.  Love as God defines it by His own character is so radical, so unusual, and so contrary to typical human behavior that it is startling to behold.  So Christ’s point to His apostles at the last supper was that when they love each other as He loved them first it will prove conclusively to anyone watching that they are followers of Christ.  And in turn it will point to Christ’s own loving character because Christians are to be essentially copies of Him.  Just as someone watching the Son will in effect see the Father (John 14:9) so someone watching us will in effect see the Son.  In this way the love of God is brought to fulfillment evidentially.

At this point we are finally ready to take our test.  We have met the requirements of knowing God intimately and demonstrating that knowledge through obedience.  This has had the effect of causing us to be in a condition of truthfulness.  And in that state of being God’s love for us is brought to fulfillment inwardly in the fact of our salvation and outwardly in the witness of our love for one another. 

The test is stated in verse 5b-6: By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.  Let’s not beat around the bush here.  John’s point is this.  If you want to know if you are a Christian.  If you want to be convinced that your salvation is genuine.  If you want to be assured of your inheritance in heaven.  You need look no further than your own life.  What are the patterns of behavior you invest yourself in?  What are the passions that excite you?  What are the choices you take?  What are the sacrifices you make?  If these elements of your lifestyle are patterned after Jesus then that is all the evidence you need of your status as a genuine Christian.  On the other hand, if the behavior that you see in yourself is not patterned after Jesus then that is all the evidence you need of your status as a false Christian.

Notice that I said “patterned after”.  Let’s be honest here.  Christ is perfect.  He has known on sin other than what was temporarily placed on His head from the world when He was sacrificed on our behalf.  It is simply not possible for us to achieve that level of perfection.  John himself has verified that over and over in these opening lines of his letter.  We cannot say we are not sinful without being liars and being devoid of truth.  So the issue is not whether you look exactly like Christ.  What is at stake is whether you are looking more like Him over the course of time.  If you can look behind you in your own personal history of the course of your Christian life and see sanctifying progress from where you started to where you are now, then that is a visual indicator of a genuine abiding in Jesus.  And consequently, you have successfully passed John’s test.

The interesting thing about this test is that it is essentially an automatic pass.  What I mean by that is if someone has made it to the test at all they have necessarily already moved successfully through all the pre-requisite work on the preceding six pages of this essay.  And that process will have already verified their position as people who are abiding in Christ.  So the test itself functions as more of a benchmark of an already existent status rather than a true pass or fail metric.

And bound up in all this is the point of my essays for the past two weeks.  God is so wonderfully gracious that He provides us with a concrete assurance of our salvation.  He gives us the tools we need to confirm the truth of His promises to us.  There should be absolutely no reason to doubt our inheritance in heaven.  When troubles or afflictions come into our life they are there for the purpose of confirming our position and conforming our character.  They do not mean that God has abandoned us or that we have done something wrong, deserving of punishment.  Peter says it this way in 1^st Peter 1:3-7: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.  In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 

Just as ancient metallurgists used testa to separate purity from impurity and noble from base metals.  So God uses the crucible of trials to forge us into imitators of Christ.  And it is in this process of terrible pain, confident hope, and increased faith that our character is built and our redemption is verified.  

The Epistles of John, Part 5: Blessed Assurance Part 1

As I write these words much of the financial world is in upheaval over the recent referendum in Great Britain regarding whether to leave the European Union or to stay.  As many of you are aware the vote went a direction most people did not expect.  The country decided, by a narrow margin, to remove itself from the EU.  The media has labeled this popularly as “Brexit”, for British Exit.  And in the wake of this landmark democratic event global markets are churning due to fear, the political landscape of the United Kingdom is in turmoil, and many of the ordinary citizens are left wondering what in the world is going on.

Probably the decisive factor in how all this is playing out is a single emotion; fear.  People, in general, dislike the unknown.  Our minds yearn for structure in the chaos of this sin drenched world.  Especially for we in the western hemisphere who tend toward the logical and the pragmatic, fear of the unknown can be debilitating.  To state the issue another way; we want to bet on a sure thing.  So when we come to a situation like the Brexit, where no expert can tell us with assurance exactly how things are going to play out in the stock markets, we tend to recoil and dump questionable investments.  In politics, British power brokers who once thought they had an iron grip on the reins of their country are finding that not only is their hold on power illusory, but in some cases even their very future careers are now on the chopping blocks.

In light of the uncertainty of the times we live in it should offer us tremendous comfort to know that within the gospel of God there is an absolute rock solid assurance.  He graciously offers us overwhelming proof of the grounds upon which we stand; namely His own character.  And He follows that up with an ironclad and proven method of determining both our status as His adopted children and our eternal future as people destined for glory.  The Lord God in 1 John 2:1-6 offers us nothing less than a blessed assurance of the salvation upon which we base our hope for the future.  Today we are going to look at the first component of this assurance, in verse 1 and 2.

That first element of our confidence is indeed the character of God Himself.  John has already laid the groundwork in chapter one by calling our attention to God’s faithfulness and righteousness as well as His pure goodness, represented by the metaphor of light.  Now he will add yet another layer to our understanding.  But first the apostle interjects a bit of his own personality and desire into the equation in chapter 2 and verse 1: My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.  Right off the bat we can see the heart of this elder statesman of the church.  He chooses a word here that conveys his feelings toward his audience: “teknia”.  This doesn’t just mean a child.  It narrowly refers to a very small child, perhaps an infant or a toddler.  An example of this can be seen in Matthew 2:18: “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; and she refused to be comforted, because they were no more.” 

The scene is the infamous Herodian slaughter of small children in Bethlehem in an effort to eliminate Jesus.  Babies had been ripped from their mother’s arms and brutally killed on the spot without mercy or compassion.  And the poor mothers were left absolutely devastated and in shock.  Their wails and moans of anguish must have pierced the night air and risen like a crescendo into the sky.  If you have children of your own, put yourself in the position of these unfortunate parents on this hellish night some two thousand years ago.  Imagine the pain you would feel.  Now ask yourself the question: why would you feel that way?  More specifically, what is it about the parent/child relationship that precipitates such emotions?  A number of factors come to my mind: sacrificial love, shared existence, and an urge to protect.

We love our children so dearly with a sacrificial love because we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they issued forth from us.  They are a part of our DNA which causes them to be very similar to us in some respects.  The children God blesses us with in some ways become extensions of our own character as they are imprinted by our behavioral patterns through the course of their development.  This bonds them to us as surely as glue holds together two pieces of paper.  The tie can be broken, but not without emotional and/or physical violence, and not without great distress.

Not only that, but our kids form a part of the fabric of the lives we have become accustomed to.  Living in the same residence with someone else for an extended period of time typically results in an incorporation of that person’s presence into our perception of what is normal.  The newness of having another living human being in such close proximity begins to wane.  We become accustomed to them.  Our inhibitions around them loosen and our relaxation intensifies.  Of course this is all assuming a normal relationship unspoiled by abuse or other negative factors.  And in this mostly positive context, if that other entity were to be removed the loss would be immediately obvious and profound.  Our understanding of normalcy would eventually return, but it would be neither fast nor easy.

Furthermore, parents instinctively sense their role as protectors of the young.  A newborn baby is so obviously helpless against the ravages of this world that we don’t even have to think twice to immediately realize that they need to be cared for.  The very young are not just physically incapable of defending themselves from harm.  They are also intellectually not up to the challenge of even recognizing when danger is present.  The awareness of problems as well as the tools to surmount them are in the hands of the adults exclusively in the parent/child relationship.

Thus, when a little one is injured or sick, a part of their protector’s mind becomes distressed by the failure to offer adequate shielding for the person who is in their care.  This unrest is added to all the other negative emotions being experienced and serves to amplify the feelings to debilitating levels.

So we can easily understand where the mothers in Bethlehem were coming from on the night of slaughter spoken of in Matthew.  But this is not the only way “teknia” is used in Scripture.  It was also utilized by Jesus in reference to His disciples.  More specifically, the Lord directed this affectionate moniker toward His twelve specially chosen Apostles in John 13:33: “Little children, I am with you a little while longer.  You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’”  These were the men Christ had invested three years of His life into.  They were the ones whom He was counting on to continue His ministry after He had departed and gone back to heaven.  Make no mistake.  This ministry was of absolutely monumental significance and importance to Jesus because it was His Father’s work that He was there to accomplish.  This ministry was so important to Jesus that it took on a level of prominence equal to or greater than the very food which served to continue His physical life.  So to say that these twelve men were special to Him probably doesn’t do His level of affection justice.

All of these elements are pouring out from John’s heart as he addresses us in this letter.  He doesn’t just call us “teknia”, or little children.  He refers to us as “my” little children.  John personalizes the parent/child and master/disciple relationship that he shares with his audience.  There is no hint of condescension in his words.  The callous John who wanted to call down fire from heaven to burn people who disagreed with him is nowhere to be found.  The arrogant John who dared to request the place of highest honor beside Christ in His glory has been burned away by the sanctifying work of God.  All that remains is the loving elder who cares so deeply for his spiritual children in the faith that he earnestly longs for their victory over sin in the latter half of verse 1: I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.

But wait a minute!  Isn’t this the same guy that just said “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves” and “If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar”?  If those are both true then how can he possibly expect us to not sin?  Has our dear Apostle John given in to old age and dementia such that he has forgotten what he just wrote on the previous page, so to speak?

Of course he hasn’t.  The explanation is perfectly simple and entirely reasonable.  John, although he knows we are sinners by both commission and condition, still harbors a desire to be free from sin both for himself and for his spiritual children, us.  He also knows from experience that through the work of the Holy Spirit a believer can, over time, sin less frequently than they once did.  To illustrate this allow me to play a bit further on the already established parent/child imagery.  Any parent worth their salt will encourage their children to obey them.  Yet they know perfectly well that sometimes the child will not live up to that expectation.  But that knowledge doesn’t diminish in the parent the strong desire for obedience.  It’s the same principle here with John.  He is giving us instruction for the purpose of helping us to fight sin.  He knows we will lose battles.  But he wants us to win more of them as we mature.  And ultimately, through the power of Christ and the promise of God John knows that the overall victory in the greater war is assured.  So he can easily say that he is writing to us so that we will not sin without contradicting himself in the slightest.

With that being said, an important question to consider is this.  How can what John is writing to us actually help us to not sin?  I think his words aid us in two ways, through a blend of encouragement and warning.  Again returning to the parent/child metaphor, what does a good parent do when they are training their kids in righteousness?  Let’s get very specific and say the lesson being taught is on not lying.  What is the best practice to approach this situation?  Should the parent command their child to tell the truth and then only threaten them with impending punishment for any infractions?  No, because this creates a simple outward obedience mechanism without any heart change within.  Perhaps the adult would be best to refrain from mentioning discipline and stick exclusively to the benefits of obedience.  This really won’t work either in the long run and it’s not fair to the child.  It won’t work because eventually a point is going to come when that young person will be tempted to lie.  This is a guaranteed reality.  And when that happens the fear of punishment is a powerful deterrent that can be exceedingly useful as a tool to guard us from our own stupidity.  Additionally, such an approach is not fair to the child.  Without a clear understanding of the negative realities of their actions they are left with half a deck of cards to play with in life.

The best approach a parent can take in this situation is to carefully and thoughtfully explain to their child, ahead of time, both the negative consequences of disobedience and the positive benefits of obedience.  “If you lie you will receive a spanking.”  “If you tell the truth your enjoyment of having a relationship with me will be much greater.”  I think that is basically the same thing John is doing here in his epistle.  He has given us both the positive motivation for avoiding sin in that God is light and faithful and righteous.  John has presented the Lord to us as the best of all things.  He is confident that if we truly buy into this truth that it will provide a powerful motivation to do what’s right inasmuch as we desire to please this great God.  On the flip side, John has made it very clear what the consequences of sin are.  We will be guilty of lying to ourselves, making God out to be a liar, and being divorced from the truth.  These twin elements of benefit and consequence resulting in motivation is all that John has to offer his readers.  But he can do so with the confident assurance that the Holy Spirit will take his words and forge them into a powerful and life changing catalyst in the hearts and minds of believers.

John is not a lunatic.  He is a realist who has lived through a lifetime of opposition to sin.  He is well aware of its destructive and insidious onslaught.  I think it is already pretty clear that John is desirous that we not sin yet he knows that we will, some of the time.  Now in the latter half of verse 1 he drives that point home: And if anyone sins.  In other words when you sin, John says, pay attention to what comes next: we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 

Advocate is an interesting word.  It is translated from the Greek “parakletos”, meaning one who argues another’s cause before a judge.  Other terms that come to mind are intercessor, pleader, and of course lawyer.  This is the person who is going to come to our rescue.  We stand trial, accused of horrible crimes.  Our fate hangs in the balance.  And we can offer nothing in our defense.  We stand mute before the judge, helpless and alone.  We don’t have any friends.  We lack the funds to hire an attorney.  Even if we could speak we know perfectly well there is nothing we can say that will dissuade the judge from pronouncing a guilty verdict.  We stand upon the precipice of our doom and there is no one can save us.

But wait!  There is a disturbance at the door of the court room.  A commotion arises from outside.  The hubbub of voices are heard.  The door opens and in walks confidently a magnificent man.  He is dressed immaculately in fabulous attire.  His face is clear and unconcerned.  A determined resolve shines in His eyes.  He glances neither to the right nor to the left as He strides purposefully down the length of the room.  He stops momentarily upon reaching us, glances down, places his hand comfortingly upon our shoulder, and whispers “I’ve got this.”

Then he turns and approaches the judge’s bench.  They confer together quietly for a moment.  Then the man faces the open court room and begins to speak.  He tells of how the crimes you are accused of are heinous in the extreme.  Furthermore, you are guilty of every last one of them, He says.  The audience is stunned.  The man is sealing your fate.  But then He smiles and proclaims that He has already paid the penalty for your crimes.  Your debt to society is no longer owed due to His sacrifice.  And He contends that a not guilty verdict is the only appropriate response of the court to this extraordinary situation.  The judge solemnly intones that the prisoner is to be set free and completely absolved of all crimes.  And in a whirlwind of confused emotion, unsure whether to laugh or to cry, you rush into the arms of your savior and He holds you to His breast forever.

This is the impossible service that Jesus performs for us.  He stands in the docket and pleads our case.  But amazingly, he doesn’t even attempt to prove our innocence.  Instead He took the punishment on our behalf and did such an incredible job of it that the penalty He paid is sufficient for all time.

And consider just what a legal defense He offers to us.  He is qualified.  There is none who is righteous, except for Jesus.  2 Corinthians 5:21 informs us that: He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.  There is no one else who is even on the same playing field as Christ in terms of qualifications. 

He is educated.  His knowledge of the Scriptures is second to none because He wrote them and they are about Him.  In Matthew chapter 4, when Satan the tempter came with his futile attempt to waylay the Son of God, Jesus responded only by quoting the word of God.  He knows the Scriptures backwards, forwards, upwards, and downwards.

He is experienced.  Jesus has lived through the entirety of a human life.  He has firsthand experience of our struggles, our delights, and our conditions.  And although He Himself has known no defeat He has had a front row seat to those around Him continually dropping the ball in abject failure.

We are well and truly safe in the loving embrace of this powerhouse attorney.  And the sweet icing on this delicious cake of grace is that, even if we sin in the future we are still under the protection of our personal intercessor.  The danger of conviction will never loom over us because He always lives to continually plead for us.  Romans 8:33-34: Who will bring a charge against God’s elect?  God is the One who justifies; who is the one who condemns?  Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.  The proof is in the raising up to new life that Christ was granted.  Because He has already faced down death, passed through it, and defeated it we are assured that He will always live to stand before the judge and point to His sacrifice on the cross.  This is the means by which His blood “cleanses us from all sin”, as John stated in the previous chapter.

One final point about Christ as parakletos and we will move on.  Think about how magnificent a picture of the tri-une nature of God is implicit in this verse and the court room imagery parakletos conjures in our minds.  John says that our advocate pleads with the Father.  The Father is the judge in this picture.  Jesus of course is the One who presents our defense to the judge.  But the Holy Spirit, although He is not mentioned specifically in this passage, most definitely comes into play.  Consider the text of John 14:16: I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever.  Jesus is speaking to His disciples and foreshadowing the arrival of the Spirit of God who will come to indwell them.  The word that is translated here as helper is in fact the exact same word as in 1^st John 2:2, parakletos.  This means that not only is Jesus Christ our defender but the Holy Spirit is as well.  But how does that work?  Does He stand with Jesus before the judge?  

That doesn’t quite seem to fit the idea of our passage in 1^st John.  Nor does it line up with other Scriptures that tell us about the work of the Spirit, such as John 16:13: But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.  The Spirit seems to be functioning as a messenger here rather than someone up front in view of the crowd.  And in the very next verse of John chapter 16 we see the Spirit functioning as a witness: He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you.

So what then?  How does the Holy Spirit function in the court room drama of 1^st John?  I think the answer is given in Romans 8:16: The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God.  The Spirit is like a star witness who is brought into the court room to give true and accurate testimony about our standing as adopted children of God.  He has been right there with us throughout our lives, watching and recording, prompting and warning.  Just as John was an eyewitness of Christ, so the Holy Spirit is an eyewitness of our lives.

So to complete the picture and flesh it the rest of the way out would go something like this.  God the Holy Spirit testifies that we have already been granted adoption into God’s family.  As such we are to be given special consideration by the court due to the reputation of our family.  God the Son pleads our defense by rightly stating that He has already paid for our crimes.  As such we should be set free.  And God the Father sits on the judge’s bench, considering and weighing the scales of justice and redemption.  As such He renders a verdict of not guilty of all charges.  This is an absolutely towering picture of the glory and majesty and trinity of God on full display, functioning together as a cohesive unit, granting grace and mercy to those who don’t deserve it.

Continuing the exposition into verse 2, we are given more information about our righteous advocate: and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins.  This phrase warrants some explanation.  Propitiation is a strange word and is not likely to be heard in casual conversations.  In fact, it is such a theologically technical term that some English translations don’t use it in an effort to be more understandable for the reader.  Instead they typically use “atoning sacrifice”.  And while that may be helpful as an aid to a casual understanding, I think it will be beneficial to explore the meaning behind propitiation.

The Greek word that John uses in this sentence is “hilasmos”.  This word is used in the New Testament only by John, and only twice.  Both occurrences are here in 1^st John.  The other is found in 4:10.  This makes it rather difficult to arrive a suitable English translation.  Propitiation, expiation, and atonement have all been suggested and in fact are related conceptually.  So in an effort to expand our understanding on this issue I will look at each word separately.

Propitiation uses the prefix “pro”, meaning “for”.  This has the idea of currying favor and a changing of disposition.  In this case it is God’s disposition toward us that is altered.  Formerly He was against us, but after a propitiation is made He becomes for us.  He changes from our enemy to our friend.  He takes up our cause and adds us into His family.  So we can say that propitiation has the effect of altering that which is outside of the one being propitiated.  Romans 3:25 illustrates this beautifully.  In referring to Christ it says: Whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith.  This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed.  So we can see that in this case it is God who is taking action and being affected here.  He is the one who is demonstrating forbearance by “passing over” our sins.

By contrast, expiation has a prefix of “ex”, meaning “from” or “out of”.  The issue at hand with this word is something being removed or taken away or brought out of.  In a Biblical context what we are talking about is sin.  Expiation cleanses from, or removes, or takes away sin on behalf of a penitent person.  Although the word is not used we can see this idea back in 1^st John 1:7 where it says: and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.  In addition, Hebrews 9:13-14 can be instructive: For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a young cow sprinkled on those who are defiled consecrated them and provided ritual purity, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our consciences from dead works to worship the living God. 

This passage is particularly helpful because it draws our attention to the Old Testament Jewish sacrificial system.  In this context, the concept of being clean or unclean was quite prevalent.  And this will help to layer our understanding even further because Numbers 35:33 is the only place in the entire Bible, and only in the NASB translation, where the English word expiation is used: So you shall not pollute the land in which you are; for blood pollutes the land and no expiation can be made for the land for the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of him who shed it.  The usage here is making the case that the land is defiled by murder and cleansing, or expiation, will not be accomplished easily.

The last of our three words is atonement.  This might be familiar to you due to more frequent usage in churches today.  It is defined as making reparation by giving an equivalent compensation for an injury.  If a child breaks a neighbor’s window with a baseball, and the child’s parents pay for the window to be replaced, the money they give is the atonement they offer to give satisfaction for the offense of the broken glass.  In other words, an atonement is the action that produces a change of state in both parties of a grievance.

These words are so closely linked to each other that in some instances translators have taken the same original word from Scripture and translated it with one of the three in one passage, and another of the three in another passage.  An example of this is Numbers 35:33, given above, and 2^nd Chronicles 29:24.  Both passages contain the Hebrew word “kafar”.  But in Numbers it is translated as expiation while in Chronicles atone was chosen, as follows: The priests slaughtered them and purged the altar with their blood to atone for all Israel, for the king ordered the burnt offering and the sin offering for all Israel. 

So to put all three of these theological terms together we might say it like this.  Christ’s death is the atonement that results in our sin being expiated and God becoming propitious toward us.  And although only the word propitiation is used in the NASB, all of these concepts can be inferred from the single phrase from 1^st John 2:2, “He Himself is the propitiation for our sins”.  There is truly a mountain of theological significance behind the scenes here.  And I believe it is important for us to understand the ramifications of what happened when Jesus was tortured and crucified on our behalf.  My hope is that by expanding our minds on this topic we will appreciate what He has done for us all the more.

With that being said, there is one more very important question that needs to be answered in verse 2.  And although it doesn’t directly speak to the main point I am going after I think it is necessary to look at the question.  It comes from the final phrase of the verse: and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.  John is making the claim that Jesus is the propitiation not just for our sins, those of us who have already been adopted into the family of God, but also for others.  And it is there that the question arises.  Namely, who are the others?  What does John mean by “whole world”?  Let’s be honest.  That phrase sounds an awful lot like universalism, doesn’t it?  Is John saying that the whole world will have their sins covered by the blood of Christ?

To get at this we need to once again look at the original language.  The word John chose to use in this verse is “kosmos”.  It means world, universe, or humankind depending on context.  It is a blanket statement that is not meant to convey a sense of individuals.  Rather, John is speaking of the world in a collective umbrella sense.  We do the exact same thing today in our speech.  Going back once again to the topic of the Brexit, a recent Time magazine article was titled “Why Brexit could be just the beginning for an angry Europe”.  

What did the author of this article mean by the phrase “an angry Europe”?  Does he mean that every person across the entire continent of Europe is going to be upset about Britain leaving the European Union?  Well, I suppose he might be meaning literally that, but if so it’s ridiculous.  Of course every single human being in Europe is not going to be angry about it.  

Some don’t much care.  Others will see it as a positive development.  Still more will not be happy about it but will make the best of what they see as a bad situation and move on with their lives.  In point of fact, very few people will truly be angry over this situation.

If John had wanted to convey the idea that every person on the whole planet was going to have their sins expiated and God made propitious toward them due to the sacrifice of Christ he would have used a different word or phrase in verse 2 such as “anthropos”, meaning “man” and/or “pasa”, meaning “every”.  He might have done something similar to Paul in Romans 13:1: Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.  Paul’s audience was the church at Rome initially and all of Christendom subsequently.  And he very much did want to get across the point that every one of us must indeed subject ourselves to the governing authorities.  So he used the construct “pasa psuche”, which literally means “each living being”.

This is why it is an incorrect interpretation to use 1^st John 2:2 to make a case for universalism or even for a universal atonement.  We do not interpret “whole world” as literally meaning “every person in the world” in our language usage today.  And we should not treat John any different.  His point was that generally speaking, due to the work of Christ on the cross, salvation would now be made available to people throughout the world.  The phrase “some of all types” has been used in the past to convey this idea.

At this point in my essay we have been on a real roller coaster ride of nuances and insights from which to approach these two verses.  I believe a summary is in order to draw this to a close and crystallize in our minds what John is going after.  He has just finished laying out for us, in chapter 1, verses 5 to 10, the main theme of his letter.  Namely, that God is a perfected essence of light and goodness.  He serves as the focal point for our awareness of reality.  He is the primary motivation behind any desire we might have to avoid sin.

Furthermore, John is quite blunt in his estimation of a parallel, or lack thereof, in people’s actions and words.  If you say you walk in the light with God yet your actions demonstrate a pattern of walking in darkness, then John calls you a liar and insists that you are filled with falsehood rather than truth.  He wants to sort of shock us into spiritual wakefulness and awareness so that we can understand more clearly where we err.  John does this because, just like a loving parent, his earnest desire is that we would flee from sin and have victory.

Yet, in spite of his hope he knows full well that we will fail at times.  And when that happens John desperately wants us to have the confidence of our position in Christ so as to be free from doubt.  Thus, he provides us with a solid, blessed assurance of salvation.  We have only looked at the first component of this assurance.  It is found in the person and work of Jesus Himself.  He is our high powered lawyer, the dynamite advocate who comes in at the 11^th hour and takes the testimony of His star witness, the Holy Spirit, and combines that with the revelation that He has already paid our debt to society.  The result is that Judge God the Father declares us not guilty of all charges and sets us free.

This is a work that Christ will perform for us every minute of every day.  He will never show up late for work.  He will never miss his flight and be delayed.  He has been through death and torment, and raised into new life, to stand before the throne of God eternally making intercession for His brothers and sisters.

And what has caused us to be adopted into His family as siblings of Jesus?  He submitted Himself to horrible death on a Roman cross to provide an atonement for the grievous insults we had heaped against His Father.  This almost unbelievable act of sacrifice had the effect of expiating, or cleansing us from our sins.  And furthermore, it caused the Father to be propitious, or “for” us where He was previously “against” us.

Honestly, when we stop to consider the mountain of time, work, and effort on God’s part that has already gone into our salvation, how in the world can we possibly doubt anything?  He has done it all for us.  He is the judge, jury, defense attorney, and star witness at the trial.  He is the one who came up with the whole plan in the first place.  He is the one who executed His own strategy to absolutely stunning perfection.  Our salvation is all of Him and none of us.  Why would we doubt?  Why indeed…

The Epistles of John, Part 4: The Heart of the Matter

Works of literature have several defining characteristics.  They have an opening, also known as “the hook”, designed to catch the reader’s attention.  A main point is necessary.  This is the theme that runs through the piece, overshadowing all that is written.  A purpose, while often being synonymous with the main point, can sometimes be different.  Climaxes, denouements, prologues, and epilogues are among the other features that are usually present.  We have already discussed the fact that John chose to dispense with several of the typical characteristics of a letter in his first epistle.  But what he doesn’t leave out is his main point.  And it is found in verses five to ten of chapter one.  Bear in mind that this is not John’s purpose for writing the letter.  That won’t come until chapter five and verse 13.  But what he reveals here is the fulcrum upon which the pendulum of 1^st John swings.  This is the crux of the issues he is presenting.  What we will find in these few verses is the grounds which enable John to drive toward that purpose to be revealed later.  To state it clearly, this is the heart of the matter.

John has spent considerable effort already in detailing his authority as an eyewitness of the manifestation of God the Father in the person of God the Son, Jesus Christ.  We have seen how John’s firsthand experiences with Jesus overwhelmed his senses and contributed to a comprehensive understanding and contemplation of this revelation of God’s character.  So when he comes to verse 5 it should come as no surprise that he continues to draw on that authoritative position he enjoys: This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you.  Remember that this is no mere preacher seeking to exegete the Bible.  The speaker is not someone whose words may be casually ignored or even judiciously considered for accuracy.  This is the Apostle John and his words carry the same weight of authority as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

And what words they are!  This is the critical point upon which 1^st John hangs: God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.  We looked at this verse briefly a few weeks ago.  John is capitalizing on a Biblical metaphor here.  He did not invent it.  In fact, this illustration of light and dark is from antiquity.  Consider Psalm 119:105: Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.  Or perhaps Proverbs 6:23 would be helpful: For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching is light; and reproofs for discipline are the way of life.  Repeatedly Scripture gives us this image of light as a good and helpful thing.  Light illumines our way forward to aid us in not becoming lost.  It is associated with heat, as from the Sun, to warm our bones on a cold winter’s day. 

By contrast, darkness is confusing and mysterious, even fearful.  Temperatures fall in the dark, causing us to shiver and feel a sense of dread or foreboding.  We instinctively know and understand that darkness is worse than light.  This is because the dark represents the unknown.  We fear the unknown on a primal level because of the sundering of our relationship with God.  So in all these ways, in every way possible, it makes absolute sense to our minds that light is good and dark is bad.  Therefore, when John uses this metaphor it feels right to us.

But, do we truly play it out to its logical conclusion?  If God is light, or good, and if there is no darkness, or evil, in Him then what is our response to evil in the world?  There are only two possibilities.  To be fair, there is a third, that God Himself is evil.  But that option is so ludicrous as to not even be worthy of consideration.  Thus we are left with the following.  Either we ascribe to God the full ruler ship and authority over His creation, including the evil parts of it that are due to sin.  Or we divorce Him from this evil and maintain that agents outside of God are the causal forces responsible for the evil that is present in the world.  The problem with the latter solution is that it removes a portion of God’s sovereignty over His creation.  The difficulty with the former is that if God allows, permits, or ordains that evil exist in His world then how can He be perfectly light with no darkness at all in Him?

This is one of the most perplexing and divisive issues in the Bible.  And I’m not going to be very fair here because I’m not going to get side-tracked and delve too deeply into it.  My purpose is rather to cause you to reflect and contemplate.  I want you to process this apparent Scriptural difficulty.  So I will say this.  The fundamental reason that humans grapple with this issue is because we struggle to reconcile the possibility that two truths can run parallel to each other without intersecting or contradicting each other.  In our minds there is a finite, or two dimensional cause.  Similarly there is a finite, or two dimensional effect.  And to be sure, many doctrines of Scripture are this way.  One of them is in this very passage and we will get to it in a few minutes.  But some Biblical truths are not like this, such as the issue at hand of how God’s sovereignty and goodness co-exist and relate to the evil in the world.  There is a very clear principle in Scripture that God can be sovereign in ordering circumstances to His whim yet at the same time when those circumstances involve the commission of acts of evil, the human beings perpetrating the offense are the ones who are guilty, not God, for their conduct in spite of the fact that they were operating under the auspices of the Lord.

Two passages among several come to my mind to reinforce this point.  I will allow them to speak mostly for themselves and then I will move on from this topic.  Both references involve the death of Christ.  The first is in Mark 14:21.  Jesus is speaking and He references the pre-ordained path He was on that would ultimately lead to His death.  But at the same time, even though this was part of God’s plan, Jesus places the burden of responsibility squarely on Judas’s shoulders: “For the Son of Man is to go just as it is written of Him; but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed!  It would have been good for that man if he had not been born.”  The second citation I will give comes from Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost, found in Acts chapter 2.  In verse 23 Peter makes it clear that the death of Jesus was according to God’s plan yet the ones responsible for that death were held accountable for their actions: “this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.”

These passages prove that the parallel truths of God’s sovereignty over evil and man’s responsibility for his evil actions can and do co-exist in harmony.  We may not understand how that can be.  But honestly our ability to comprehend it is quite irrelevant to the question of whether or not it is true.  And we need to come to terms with the fact that, however we want to settle this issue in our minds, the Bible makes allowance for this peaceful co-existence. 

In addition, we need to be clear on our understanding of who God is.  John reveals Him here as light with no hint at all of darkness.  The whole rest of this letter hinges upon understanding that.  So we must be sure that our understanding lines up with reality as best it can.

With this foundational unveiling of God’s nature out of the way, John now moves on to draw some practical conclusions from what he has just said.  In 1^st John 1:6 we read: If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.  Immediately a question comes to my mind.  Namely, what exactly is walking in darkness?  What does that look like on a practical level?  Let’s engage in a little bit of logical deduction and see where it takes us.  We will pre-suppose that we already know good is the opposite of evil.  We will also assume an understanding that light is the opposite of darkness.  Therefore, if God’s nature, His fundamental character quality, is equivalent to good and light then it stands to reason that evil and metaphorical darkness are similarly equivalent to that which is opposite of God’s own essence.  So with very broad but accurate brush strokes we can say that to walk in darkness is to live and act in a manner which is not consistent with who God has revealed Himself to be.

To further clarify our understanding on this matter, remember that the fellowship John is speaking of is the same word he used in the preceding passage: koinonia.  This is infinitely more than an acquaintance.  It is vastly deeper than even a close friendship.  Koinonia as the Greeks thought of it was a comprehensive and intimate communion that bonded two entities together in a shared relationship of sacrificial love and unconditional affection.  This causes the offense John is describing to ratchet up significantly in terms of its putrescence.  He is describing a situation where people claim this sort of bond with God that practically transcends human ability it is so special.  Yet while making such assertions the very same people are gleefully stabbing the Lord right in His proverbial heart with their lifestyles that are flat contradictions of everything He is.

As I mentioned just a minute ago, some Biblical truths are quite clear cut and plain.  This is one of them.  It’s really a black and white issue.  If we claim to be born of God yet we act contrary to Him then we are liars.  It is as simple as that because the Bible clearly says so.  This is strong language.  I think we often, especially in this age of politically correct speech, tend to shy away from making such blunt pronouncements.  It feels somehow cruel and unusually harsh to call someone a liar.  Yet John, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and speaking to this issue of walking in darkness while claiming the light, pulls no punches in labeling the behavior he is condemning.

Furthermore, notice the connection that John makes between works and words.  He could have written that we are liars.  Or he could have said that we do not practice the truth.  But instead he throws them both into the verse.  Those who claim fellowship with God yet don’t act like Him are both liars and practitioners of falsehood, also known as darkness, also known as evil.  The works follow the words or the words follow the works.  Either way, one goes with the other, always.  This is the point Jesus was making with his tree metaphors in Matthew 7:15-20: “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.  You will know them by their fruits.  Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?  So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.  A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.  Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  So then, you will know them by their fruits.”

To reinforce his own illustration John now provides us with the counterpoint to this dark and gloomy description of unfaithfulness and lies.  Verse 7 presents a far different picture of how to live: but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.  This is the exact polar opposite of what John has previously described.  We have seen that walking in darkness is equivalent to acting contrary to God’s own nature.  Therefore, walking in the light is necessarily defined as acting in accord with God’s own nature.

There is a logical paradigm implicit in what John is saying about the blood of Jesus.  Cleansing cannot occur unless dirt is present to be cleaned.  If there is no dirt then washing is unnecessary.  In fact, it becomes irrelevant.  Because of this John doesn’t have to specify that sin is present in those who are in fellowship with God.  All he has to say is that Christ’s blood will cleanse us from sin.  And because of this we are automatically categorized as being sinful because if we weren’t then the blood of Jesus would have nothing to clean.  Why is this important?  Because it refutes the claims of those who would say that we are not inherently sinful.  John places himself firmly in lockstep with the other New Testament Apostolic witnesses (Romans 3:10-18) as well as the Old Testament prophetic record (Psalm 14:1-3) with his statement.  But to eliminate any possibility of still being misunderstood on this point he proceeds to lay out three arguments in the form of potential responses to what he has said followed by the conclusions drawn based on the truth or falsehood of the responses given.

The first possible reply that John foresees is found in verse 8 and I am going to categorize it as John’s response to those who profess past sinless origination: If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.  This first clause links very nicely with the preceding point.  As John has already implied the presence of indwelling sin he now argues specifically against any denials of it.  He does this by using a Greek word that connotes a state or a condition.  The word is “echo”.  It is usually translated into English as “have”.  The idea is to hold or contain something, or perhaps to be in a condition or state of something.  In this case the something being held onto or the condition present is that of sin. 

Jesus uses the same verbal construct in John 19:11: You would have no authority over me, unless it had been given you from above.  In this verse Christ is describing Pilate’s power to pronounce judgment upon Him.  He is describing the authority invested into Pilate as the Roman governor of Palestine.  This authority is a state of being that Pilate is currently in or a condition he is holding onto. 

Another usage of “echo” that bears more similarity to our current location in 1^st John is found in John 9:41: If you were blind you would have no sin, but since you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.  Jesus is not describing a situation in which a person can potentially free themselves from their sinful condition.  He is making the point that if any person anywhere would or could actually admit that they are hopeless in and of themselves and consequently confess their need for God, they would in that case be sinless.  But this is purely a hypothetical exercise that He is using to prove a point.  Because the reality is that no mere human has existed since The Fall that is capable of making such an admission.  

Therefore, all people’s sin remains.  And again we see Jesus using the word “echo”, translated once again as “have” to express the idea of a condition or a state of sin.

With that point in mind, look at John’s opinion of those who deny their sinful condition.  He says they deceive themselves and the truth is not in them.  This is a strong parallel to verse 6 that we have already looked at.  But here the offense is amplified and the shame is intensified by revealing that these people are not just lying externally but they are lying internally as well.  They are deluding themselves.

I recall the sheer lunacy of the people described in Isaiah’s sarcastic description of idol worshipers, found in Isaiah 44:9-20.  The prophet is describing the idiocy of a man who plants a tree, watches it grow, chops it down, uses it to build a fire, cooks his food on the fire, eats and is filled.  Oh yes, and then he takes the rest of the clearly inanimate wood, fashions it into an idol, and prostrates himself before it in heinous worship.  It is the very definition of insanity; to deny that which is real.  And then in verses 18 to 20 Isaiah says this: They do not know, nor do they understand, for He has smeared over their eyes so that they cannot see and their hearts so that they cannot comprehend.  No one recalls, nor is there knowledge or understanding to say, “I have burned half of it in the fire and also have baked bread over its coals.  I roast meat and eat it.  Then I make the rest of it into an abomination, I fall down before a block of wood!”  He feeds on ashes; a deceived heart has turned him aside.  And he cannot deliver himself, nor say, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?”

The man in the story is clearly out of touch with reality.  He doesn’t understand or comprehend.  The passage makes it clear that God is the one who has caused the blindness.  Yet we once again see elements of the parallelism that I talked about above in that it is his own deceived heart that has turned him aside.  It matters not that God is the one who has smeared over the eyes.  Foolish and sinful man is still held accountable for his blindness.  It matters not that man cannot deliver himself.  He is still fully under the wrath of God and destined for hell should something not intervene to alter his fate.

This is the depth of divinely ordained and self-deluded damnation that people are headed for who deny the reality of their own indwelling sin.  To deny one’s sinful condition is to cut the legs out from under the very foundation of the gospel.  If we refuse to admit that we are sinners by not just action and commission, but by condition and classification, then we refute the necessity of forgiveness and cleansing.  It’s a bit like a child, covered in mud after a hard day’s playing outside, who adamantly resists his parent’s exhortations to wash before dinner.  He looks them boldly in the face and says “But I’m not dirty!”  And the whole time his obtuseness is evident to all except himself.

Moving on from the sad and pitiable state described in verse 8, John now gives us a pleasant interlude of God honoring behavior in verse 9.  I’m going to call this John’s response to those who confess their sinful conduct: If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  What we find in this verse is nothing less than a textbook definition of repentance.  The word confess doesn’t just mean an admission of guilt.  It is more than that.  To confess in this context means to agree with one’s accuser.  The One who accuses the world of sin is God, specifically His Holy Spirit (John 16:8-9).  So when we confess as the Bible dictates, we are agreeing with God that our standard of thought, word, and deed has missed His holy and righteous mark which is established and delineated by His own character.  Furthermore, we agree with His assessment of the punishment due to us by virtue of the guilty verdict which has been delivered.  And finally, we agree to turn away from our former lifestyle and conform to a new standard, God’s standard, the only perfect standard which is acceptable in His sight.  This is the pre-requisite attitude that God demands before He will consent to absolve us of our guilt before Him.

But notice how John is very careful to draw our attention, even in this moment of repentance, back to the character and reputation of the Lord.  He specifically points out that God is both faithful and righteous.  His faithfulness is exhibited in the fact that He has previously promised this forgiveness (John 3:16; Acts 2:38).  Therefore, His trustworthy nature dictates that He will follow through and be true to His word.  His righteousness, as the visible portrayal of His holiness in quantifiable actions, is displayed because He doesn’t just nonchalantly excuse away our trespass.  Rather, God has followed His own paradigm of justice in providing a substitutionary sacrifice in the person of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Pet. 3:18).  This is precisely why it is the blood of Jesus that is the cleaning agent which cleanses us from all sin, as John stated back in verse 7.  Christ’s blood on the cross is the catalyst that enables God to remain perfectly just when He righteously forgives our sin and declares us not guilty.

This is terribly, critically important for Christians to bear in mind.  Our salvation from death and adoption as children of God is not dependent on our own sometimes half-hearted and at all times imperfect efforts to live righteously.  The rock on which we stand is built upon the character of God and what He has said.  Our transient minds are extremely capable of delusion and error.  Satan is very well aware of this and is exceedingly proficient at exploiting our vulnerability.  He plants doubt in our minds about our salvation.  He sows seeds of fear over some horrific sin from our past.  He lustfully covets our joy in Christ and exerts all of his considerable skill in attempting to rob us of it by accusing us daily of our imperfections.  Jesus described the efforts of the devil in John 10:1: “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber.”

Our defense against these seditious acts of spiritual sheep rustling is to implant firmly into our minds the truths of God’s faithfulness and righteousness.  That is why John is calling our attention to those divine qualities in this verse.  He knows that it is imperative for his “little children”, as he will refer to us in the next chapter, to throw up a solid and defensible shield wall against the onslaught of the enemy’s attacks.  I believe that John’s purpose in giving us this defense is twofold.  First, just as any parent or older sibling doesn’t want a child to be in danger or in pain, so this Apostle desires for his spiritual children to be safe, happy, and contented. 

To this end I think he would echo the sentiments of his apostolic brother Paul in Philippians 3:12-14: Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.  Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.  Just like Paul, John wants us to grab ahold of the truths of God’s character and use them as both an anchor to hold us steady and a raft to keep us afloat.  Then he wants us to run with abandon and vigor toward the finish line of glorification.  He wants us to cast away doubt and fix our gaze firmly forward.  If we will do this we are assured of a confidence and a joy in our Christian life.  But as glorious and hopeful as this sentiment is, it’s the lesser of his two motivations.

The far more important issue at stake is one of sin.  Let’s connect the dots here.  God has stated emphatically that He will save us purely on the basis of biblical saving faith in the person of Jesus; both His sacrificial work on the cross and His nature as God in the flesh.  To disbelieve or even mildly doubt what God has said is to imply that He is untruthful.  This is a slander against His name, which is sinful and evil.  Jesus affirms this warning in His wonderful and masterful teaching about worrying in Matthew 6:25-33.  To worry about God’s provision of what we need is a sin.  Likewise, if we doubt our own salvation we are effectively making a statement about the trustworthiness and validity of what God has said, and we are falling into sin in the process.  To put it bluntly, we are making God Himself out to be a liar.  Not only that but we are perverting the genuine and pure repentance we started with when we originally confessed, into a sad parody and wicked caricature of what God has commanded.  We cast ourselves into a vicious cycle where we sin, repent for it, but then fall back into sin by doubting the forgiveness that is granted by our repentance.

And this leads perfectly into the final point of this section in verse 10.  This is John’s response to those who claim present sinless perfection: If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.  Although in English we see the same word, have, as in verse 8, the meaning here is different.  Actually, there are three words in this verse that come from a single word in the original Greek: we, have, and sinned.  That original word is a different tense of the same verb also found in verse 8, which is itself an expression of the original Greek noun for sin, “hamartia”.  If you are feeling confused at this point, don’t be.  Just remember that the English word “have” in verse 10 has nothing to do with the original Greek word like it does in verse 8.  In verse 8 “echo” modifies “hamartia”.  In verse 10 “echo” is not present but we translate the concept into “we have sinned” for ease of understanding.  Then the verb is modified by a negative which comes into English as “not”.  And so we are left with the phrase “we have not sinned”.

What’s the point of all this language gibberish?  It is that John is stressing a different emphasis in this verse than in verse 8.  In the former he was talking about a state, or a condition, of being sinful.  Here he is referring to our current existence, the choices we make, and the actions we do.  He is talking about a person who claims they do not currently sin.  They might say this either as an extension of the verse 8 point, that they don’t believe they have a sin nature at all.  Or perhaps they think they have advanced beyond the capacity to sin.  In other words, they have achieved a sinless perfection in this life.  This is blatantly, obviously, contrary to the biblical record.  One example of many we could draw on to prove this is Ecclesiastes 7:20: Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins.

Why does John feel the need to express a denial of sin in these two different ways?  After all, isn’t this kind of like two sides of the same coin?  Perhaps, but by doing it this way John delivers a comprehensive killing blow to any form, shape, or fashion of a denial of sin.  I think he is trying to eviscerate any possible objection to his teaching here.  And in the process he ratchets up his rhetoric to new levels by plainly stating what we have already inferred from the previous verse: namely, that by acting this way what we are doing, in effect, is calling God a liar.

Consider the condemnatory cross-examination delivered by Paul in Romans 2:21-24: you, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that one shall not steal, do you steal?  You who say that one should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?  You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?  You who boast in the Law, through your breaking the Law, do you dishonor God?  For “the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,” just as it is written.  He is talking directly to two-faced Christians who from one side of their mouth teach others not to sin, while from the other side they engage in the very same acts they preach against.  This type of hypocrisy blasphemes the name of God.  It taints His reputation.  Because of people like this God’s glory is diminished.

The same sort of behavior is what John has in mind here in verse 10.  By refusing to own up to one’s own sinful activities we not only condemn ourselves but we impugn God’s honor.  This is a terrible crime.  It is the most evil of actions possible for a human being to commit, seeing as how it seeks to do harm to the only perfectly holy being in the universe; the Lord Himself.  John emphatically says “Don’t do this!  Don’t act like this!  Don’t be like this!”

In the interest of drawing this to a conclusion, I want to point your attention back to what I think is the main point of this section.  It is the heart of the issue of how we respond to sin.  God Himself is the standard by which all of reality is measured.  He Himself is light and all that that entails.  Matthew Henry, writing his commentary on 1^st John in the 17^th century, stated it this way:

He is all that beauty and perfection that can be represented to us by light. He is a self-active uncompounded spirituality, purity, wisdom, holiness, and glory. And then the absoluteness and fullness of that excellency and perfection. There is no defect or imperfection, no mixture of anything alien or contrary to absolute excellency, no mutability nor capacity of any decay in him

This essential goodness of God is the motivational grounds of all that follows in this first epistle of John to the Christian church.  It is not acceptable for us to be primarily moved by a desire to escape judgment and wrath.  It is insufficient for believers to view righteous Christian conduct as a rigorous and unyielding list of rules that serve to steal their joy and bring monotony to their existence.  The Lord God is the best and brightest standard of measure that exists.  He graciously and mercifully loved us and extended an olive branch of peace to us while we were yet sinners.  The only correct response to this wonderful truth is to be filled with a sense of wonder and a determination to strive to love Him back as sacrificially as He first loved us.  And it is in this, this decisive ordering of one’s life not out of requirement but out of affection, that we will live life to the fullest measure possible.