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Synopsis of the Books of the Bible
John Nelson Darby
1800-1882
1st Epistle of John
Introduction & Chapter 1
The Epistle of John has a peculiar character. It is eternal life manifested
in Jesus, and imparted to us- the life which was with the Father, and which
is in the Son. It is in this life that believers enjoy the communion of the
Father, that they are in relationship with the Father by the Spirit of
adoption, and that they have fellowship with the Father and the Son. God's
own character is that which tests it; because it proceeds from Himself.
The first chapter establishes these two latter points: namely, communion
with the Father and the Son, and that this communion must be according to
the essential character of God. The name of Father is that which gives
character to the second chapter. Afterwards it is that which God is, which
tests the reality of imparted life.
The Epistles of Paul, although speaking of this life, are in general
occupied with setting before Christians the truth respecting the means of
standing in the presence of God justified and accepted. The Epistle of
John, that is to say, his First, shews us the life that comes from God by
Jesus Christ. John sets God before us, the Father revealed in the Son, and
eternal life in Him. Paul sets us before God accepted in Christ. I speak of
what characterises them. Each respectively touches on the other point.
Now, this life is so precious, manifested as it is in the Person of Jesus,
that the epistle now before us has in this respect quite a peculiar charm.
When I, too, turn my eyes to Jesus, when I contemplate all His obedience,
His purity, His grace, His tenderness, His patience, His devotedness, His
holiness, His love, His entire freedom from all self-seeking, I can say,
That is my life.
This is immeasurable grace. It may be that it is obscured in me; but it is
none the less true, that that is my life. Oh how do I enjoy it thus seen!
How I bless God for it! What rest to the soul! What pure joy to the heart!
At the same time Jesus Himself is the object of my affections; and all my
affections are formed on that holy object.
But we must turn to our epistle. There were many pretensions to new light,
to clearer views. It was said that Christianity was very good as an
elementary thing; but that it was grown old, and that there was a new light
which went far beyond that twilight truth.
The Person of our Lord, the true manifestation of the divine life itself,
dissipated all those proud pretensions, those exaltations of the human mind
under the influence of the enemy, which did but obscure the truth, and lead
the mind of men back into the darkness whence they themselves proceeded.
That which was from the beginning (of Christianity that is, in the Person
of Christ), that which they heard, had seen with their own eyes, had
contemplated, had touched with their own hands, of the Word of life-that
was it which the apostle declared. For the life itself had been manifested.
That life which was with the Father had been manifested to the disciples.
Could there be anything more perfect, more excellent, any development more
admirable in the eyes of God, than Christ Himself, than that Life which was
with the Father, manifested in all its perfection in the Person of the Son
? As soon as the Person of the Son is the object of our faith, we feel that
perfection must have been at the beginning.
The Person then of the Son, the eternal life manifested in the flesh, is
our subject in this epistle.
Grace is consequently to be remarked here in that which regards life; while
Paul presents it in connection with justification. The law promised life
upon obedience; but life came in the Person of Jesus, in all its own divine
perfection, in its human manifestations. Oh how precious is the truth that
this life, such as it was with the Father, such as it was in Jesus, is
given to us! In what relationships it sets us, by the power of the Holy
Ghost, with the Father and with the Son Himself! And this is what the
Spirit here first sets before us. And observe, how it is all grace here.
Farther on, indeed, He tests all pretensions to the possession of
fellowship with God, by displaying God's own character; a character from
which He can never deviate. But, before entering on this, He presents the
Saviour Himself, and communion with the Father and the Son by this means,
without question and without modification. This is our position and our
eternal joy.
The apostle had seen that life, had touched it with his own hands; and he
wrote to others, proclaiming this, in order that they also should have
communion with Him in the knowledge of the life which had been thus
manifested. Now, inasmuch as that life was
the Son, it could not be known without knowing the Son, that is, that which
He was, entering into His thoughts, His feelings: otherwise He is not
really known. It was thus they had communion with Him -with the Son.
Precious fact! to enter into the thoughts (all the thoughts), and into the
feelings, of the Son of God come down in grace: to do this in fellowship
with Him, that is to say, not only knowing them, but sharing these thoughts
and feelings with Him. In effect, it is the life.
But we cannot have the Son without having the Father. He who had seen Him
had seen the Father; and consequently he who had communion with the Son had
communion with the Father; for their thoughts and feelings were all one. He
is in the Father, and the Father in Him. We have fellowship therefore with
the Father. And this is true also, when we look at it in another aspect. We
know that the Father has entire delight in the Son. Now He has given us, by
revealing the Son, to take our delight in Him also, feeble as we are. I
know, when I am delighting in Jesus-in His obedience, His love to His
Father, to us, His single eye and purely devoted heart -I have the same
feelings, the same thoughts, as the Father Himself. In that the Father
delights, cannot but delight, in Him in whom I now delight, I have
communion with the Father. So with the Son in the knowledge of the Father.
All this flows, whether in the one or the other point of view, from the
Person of the Son. Herein our joy is full. What can we have more than the
Father and the Son ? What more perfect happiness than community of
thoughts, feelings, joys, and communion, with the Father and the Son,
deriving all our joy from themselves? And if it seem difficult to believe,
let us remember that, in truth, it cannot be otherwise: for, in the life of
Christ, the Holy Ghost is the source of my thoughts, feelings, communion,
and He cannot give thoughts different from those of the Father and the Son.
They must be in their nature the same. To say that they are adoring
thoughts is in the very nature of things, and only makes them more
precious. To say that they are feeble and often hindered, while the Father
and the Son are divine and perfect, is, if true, to say the Father and the
Son are God, are divine, and we feeble creatures. That surely none will
deny. But if the blessed Spirit be the source, they must be the same as to
nature and fact.
This is our christian position then, here below in time, through the
knowledge of the Son of God; as the apostle says, " These things write we
unto you, that your joy may be full."
But He who was the life which came from the Father, has brought us the
knowledge of God.
The apostle had heard from His lips that which God was -knowledge of
priceless
value, but which searches the heart. And this also the apostle, on the
Lord's part, announces to believers. This then is the message which they
had heard from Him, namely, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness.
With regard to Christ, He spoke that which He knew, and bore testimony to
that which He had seen. No one had been in heaven, save He who came down
from thence. No one had seen God. The Only-begotten, who is in the bosom of
the Father, He had declared Him. No one had seen the Father, save He who
was of God; He had seen the Father. Thus He could, of His own and perfect
knowledge, reveal Him.
Now God was light, perfect purity, which makes manifest at the same time
all that is pure, and all that is not so. To have communion with light, one
must oneself be light, be of its nature, and fit to be seen in the perfect
light. It can only be linked with that which is of itself. If there is
anything else that mingles with it, light is no longer light. It is
absolute in its nature, so as to exclude all that is not itself.
Therefore, if we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness,
we lie, and do not practise truth: our life is a perpetual lie.
But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we (believers) have
communion with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from
all sin. These are the great principles, the great features of christian
position. We are in the presence of God without a veil. It is a real thing,
a matter of life and of walk. It is not the same thing as walking according
to the light; but it is in the light. That is to say, that this walk is
before the eyes of God, enlightened by the full revelation of what He is.
It is not that there is no sin in us; but walking in the light, the will
and the conscience being in the light as God is in it, everything is judged
that does not answer to it. We live and walk morally in the sense that God
is present, and as knowing Him. We walk thus in the light. The moral rule
of our will is God Himself, God known. The thoughts that sway the heart
come from Himself and are formed upon the revelation of Himself. The
apostle puts these things always in an abstract way: thus he says, "he
cannot sin, because he is born of God;" and that maintains the moral rule
of this life; it is its nature; it is the truth, inasmuch as the man is
born of God. We cannot have any other measure of it: any other would be
false. It does not follow, alas! that we are always consistent; but we are
inconsistent if we are not in this state; we are not walking according to
the nature that we possess; we are out of our true condition according to
that nature.
Moreover, walking in the light, as God is in the light, believers have
communion with each other. The world is selfish. The flesh, the passions,
seek their own gratification; but, if I walk in the light, self has no
place there. I can enjoy the light, and all I seek in it, with another, and
there is no jealousy. If another possess a carnal thing, I am deprived of
it. In the light we have fellow-possession of that which He gives us, and
we enjoy it the more by sharing it together. This is a touchstone to all
that is of the flesh. As much as one is in the light, so much will we have
fellow-enjoyment with another who is in it. The apostle, as we have said,
states this in an abstract and absolute way. This is the truest way to know
the thing itself. The rest is only a question of realisation.
In the third place, the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
To walk in the light as God is in it, to have fellowship with one another,
to be cleansed from all sin by the blood; these are the three parts of
christian position. We feel the need there is of the last; for while
walking in the light as God is in the light, with (blessed be God) a
perfect revelation to us of Himself with a nature that knows Him, that is
capable of seeing Him spiritually, as the eye is made to appreciate light
(for we participate in the divine nature), we cannot say that we have no
sin. The light itself would contradict us. But we can say that the blood of
Jesus Christ cleanses us perfectly from all sin Through the Spirit we
enjoy the
light together: it is the common joy of our hearts before God, and well
pleasing to Him; a testimony to our common participation in the divine
nature, which is love also. And our conscience is no hindrance, because we
know the value of the blood. We have no conscience of sin upon us before
God, though we know it is in us; but we have the conscience of being clean
from it by the blood. But the same light which shews us this, prevents our
saying (if we are in it) that we have no sin in us; we should deceive
ourselves if we said so; and the truth would not be in us; for if the truth
were in us, if that revelation of the divine nature, which is light, Christ
our life, were in us, the sin that is in us would be judged by the light
itself. If it be not judged, this light-the truth which speaks of things as
they are-is not in us.
Chapter 2
If, on the other hand, we have even committed sin and all, being judged
according to the light, is confessed (so that the will no longer takes part
in it, the pride of that will being broken down), He is faithful and just
to forgive us, and to cleanse us from all iniquity. If we say that we have
not sinned (as a general truth), it shews not only that the truth is
not in us, but we
make God a liar; His word is not in us, for He says that all have sinned.
There are the three things: we lie; the truth is not in us; we make God a
liar. It is this fellowship with God in the light which, in practical daily
christian life, inseparably connects forgiveness, and the present sense of
it by faith, and purity of heart.
Thus we see the christian position (ver. 7); and then the things which, in
three different ways, are opposed to the truth-to communion with God in
life.
The apostle wrote that which relates to the communion with the Father and
the Son, in order that their joy might be full
That which he wrote according to the revelation of the nature of God, which
he had received from Him who was the life from heaven, was in order that
they should not sin. But to say this is to suppose that they might sin. Not
that it is necessary they should do so; for the presence of sin in the
flesh by no means obliges us to walk after the flesh. But if it should take
place, there is provision made by grace, in order that grace may act, and
that we may be neither condemned, nor brought again under the law.
We have an Advocate with the Father, One who carries on our cause for us on
high. Now this is not in order to obtain righteousness, nor again to wash
our sins away. All that has been done. Divine righteousness has placed us
in the light, even as God Himself is in the light. But communion is
interrupted, if even levity of thought finds place in our heart; for it is
of the flesh and the flesh has no communion with God. When communion is
interrupted, when we have sinned (not when we have repented, for it is His
intercession that leads to repentance), Christ intercedes for us.
Righteousness is always present-our righteousness-"Jesus Christ the
Righteous." Therefore, neither the righteousness nor the value of the
propitiation for sin being changed, grace acts (one may say, acts
necessarily) in virtue of that righteousness, and of that blood which is
before God -acts, on the intercession of Christ who never forgets us, in
order to bring us back to communion by means of repentance. Thus, while yet
on earth, before Peter had committed the sin, He prayed for him; at the
given moment He looks on him, and Peter repents and weeps bitterly for his
offence. Afterwards the Lord does all that is necessary to make Peter judge
the root itself of the sin; but all is grace.
It is the same in our case. Divine righteousness abides-the immutable
foundation of our relationships with God, established on the blood of
Christ. When communion, which exists only in the light, is interrupted, the
intercession of Christ, available by virtue of His blood (for propitiation
for the sin has also been made), restores the soul that it may still again
enjoy communion with God according to the light, into which righteousness
has introduced it.
This propitiation is made for the whole world, not for the Jews only, nor
to the exclusion of any one at all; but for the whole world, God in His
moral nature having been fully glorified by the death of Christ.
These three capital points-or, if you will, two capital points, and the
third, namely, advocacy, which is supplementary-form the introduction, the
doctrine of the epistle. All the rest is an experimental application of
that which this part contains: namely, first (life being given), communion
with the Father and the Son; second, the nature of God, light, which
manifests the falsehood of all pretension to communion with the light, if
the walk be in darkness; and third, seeing that sin is in us and that we
may fail although we are cleansed before God so as to enjoy the light, the
advocacy which Jesus Christ the righteous can always exercise before God,
on the ground of the righteousness which is ever in His presence, and the
blood which is shed for our sins, in order to restore our communion, when
we have lost it by our guilty negligence.
The Spirit-now proceeds to develop the characteristics of this divine life.
Now we are sanctified unto the obedience of Jesus Christ, that is to say,
to obey on the same principles as those on which He obeyed; where His
Father's will was the motive as well as the rule of action. It is the
obedience of a life to which it was meat and drink to do the will of God:
not as under the law, in order to obtain life. The life of Jesus Christ was
a life of obedience, in which He enjoyed the love of His Father perfectly,
tested in all things and so proved perfect. His words, His commandments,
were the expression of that life; they direct that life in us, and ought to
exercise all the authority over us of Him who pronounced them.
The law promised life to those who obeyed it. Christ is the life. This life
has been imparted to us -to believers. Therefore, the words which were the
expression of that life, in its perfection in Jesus, direct and guide it in
us according to that perfection. Besides this, it has authority over us.
His commandments are its expression. We have therefore to obey, and to walk
as He walked-the two forms of practical life. It is not enough to walk
well: we must obey, for there is authority. This is the essential principle
of a right walk. On the other hand, the obedience of the Christian-as is
evident by that of Christ Himself -is not that which we often think. We
call a child obedient, who, having a will of his own, submits himself at onc
e when the authority of the parent intervenes to prevent his accomplishing
it. But Christ never obeyed in this way. He came to do the will of God.
Obedience was His mode of being. His Father's will was the motive, and,
with the love that was never separate from it, the only motive of His every
act and every impulse. This is obedience properly called christian. It is a
new life which delights in doing the will of Christ, acknowledging His
entire authority over it. We reckon ourselves to be dead to everything
else; we are alive unto God, we are not our own. We only know Christ
inasmuch as we are living by His life; for the flesh does not know Him, and
cannot understand His life.
Now, that life is obedience: therefore he who says, " I know him," and does
not observe His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. It
does not say here, "he deceives himself," for it is very possible that he
is not self-deceived, as in the other case of fancied communion; for here
the will is in action, and a man knows it, if he will confess it. But the
reality is not there; he is a liar, and the truth in the knowledge of
Jesus, which he professes, is not in him.
There are two remarks to be made here. First, that the apostle takes things
always as they are in themselves in an abstract way, without the
modifications that are occasioned by other things, in the midst of which,
or in relation with which, the former are found. Second, that the chain of
consequences which the apostle deduces is not that of outward reasoning,
the force of which is consequently on the surface of the argument itself.
He reasons from a great inward principle, so that one does not see the
force of the argument unless one knows the fact, and even the scope, of
that principle; and, in particular, that which the life of God is in its
nature, in its character, and in its action. But, without possessing it, we
do not and cannot understand anything about it. There is indeed, the
authority of the apostle and of the word to tell us that the thing is so,
and that is sufficient. But the links of his discourse will not be
understood without the possession of the life which interprets what he
says, and which is itself interpreted by that which he says.
I return to the text. "Whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of
God perfected." It is in this way that we are conscious that we know Him.
His " word" has rather a wider sense than His "commandments." That is to
say, while it equally implies obedience, the word is less outward.
"Commandments" are here details of the divine life. His "word" contains its
whole expression-the spirit of that life. It is universal and
absolute.
Now this life is the divine life manifested in Jesus, and which is imparted
to us. Have we seen it in Christ ? Do we doubt that this is love; that the
love of God has been manifested in it? If then I keep His word; if the
scope and meaning of the life which that word expresses is thus understood
and realised, the love of God is perfect in me. The apostle, as we have
seen, always speaks abstractedly. If in fact at any given moment I do not
observe the word, in that point I do not realise His love; happy
intercourse with God is interrupted. But so far as I am moved and governed
absolutely by His word, His love is completely realised in me; for His word
expresses what He is, and I am keeping it. This is the intelligent
communion with His nature in its fullness, a nature in which I participate;
so that I know that He is perfect love, I am filled with it, and this shews
itself in my ways: for that word is the perfect expression of Himself.
Consequently we know thus that we are in Him, for we realise that which He
is in the communion of His nature. Now if we say that we abide in Him, it
is evident, from what we have now seen in the instruction the apostle gives
us, that we ought to walk as He walked. Our walk is the practical
expression of our life; and this life is Christ known in His word. And
since it is by His word, we who possess this life are under an intelligent
responsibility to follow it; that is to say, to walk as He walked. For that
word is the expression of His life.
Obedience then, as obedience, is thus far the moral characteristic of the
life of Christ in us. But it is proof of that which, in Christianity, is
inseparable from the life of Christ in us: we are in Him. (Compare John
14:29) We know, not merely that we know Him, but that we are in Him. The
enjoyment of the perfect love of God in the path of obedience, gives us by
the Holy Ghost the consciousness that we are in Him. But if I am in Him, I
cannot indeed be what He was, for He was without sin; but I ought to walk
as He walked. Thus I know I am in Him. But if I make profession to abide in
Him, my heart and spirit to be wholly there, I ought to walk as He walked.
Obedience as a principle, and through keeping His word, and so the love of
God perfected in me knowing that I am in Him, are the formative principles
and character of our life.
In verses 7 and 8 the two forms of the rule of this life are
presented-forms which, moreover, answer to the two principles which we have
just announced. It is not a new commandment which the apostle writes unto
them but an old one; it is the word of Christ from the beginning. Were it
not so, were it in this sense new, so much the worse for him who set it
forth, for it would no longer be the expression of the perfect life of
Christ Himself, but some other thing, or a falsification of that which
Christ had set forth This corresponds with the first principle, that is,
obedience to commandments, to the commandments of Christ. What He said was
the expression of what He was. He could command that they should love one
another as He had loved them. Compare the Beatitudes.
In another sense it was a new commandment: for (by the power of the Spirit
of Christ, being united to Him and drawing our life from Him) the Spirit of
God manifested the effect of this life by revealing a glorified Christ in a
new way. And now it was not only a commandment, but as the thing itself was
true in Christ, it was so in His own as partakers of His nature and in Him;
He also in them.
By this revelation, and by the presence of the Holy Ghost, the darkness
disappeared,
passed away, and in fact the true light shone. There will be no different
light in heaven: only then the light will be publicly displayed in glory
without a cloud.
Verse 9. The life as in John i. 4, is now found to be the light of men,
only the brighter for faith that Christ is gone, for it is through the rent
veil it shines most brightly. We have had the pretension to know Him
discussed-to be in Him; now that of being in the light, and this before the
Spirit of God applies in detail the qualities of this life, as a proof of
its existence to the heart, in answer to seducers who sought to terrify
them by new notions, as though Christians were not really in possession of
life, and, with life, of the Father and the Son. The true light now shines.
And this light is God; it is the divine nature; and, as that which was a
means of judging the seducers themselves, he brings out another quality
connected with our being in the light, that is with God fully revealed.
Christ was it in the world. We are set to be it, in that we are born of
God. And one who has this nature loves his brother; for is not God love?
Has not Christ loved us, not being ashamed to call us brethren? Can I have
His life and His nature, if I do not love the brethren? No. I am then
walking in darkness; I have no light on my path. He who loves his brother
dwells in the light; the nature of God acts in him; and he dwells in the
bright spiritual intelligence of that life, in the presence and in the
communion of God. If any one hates, it is evident that he has not divine
light. With feelings according to a nature opposed to God, how can it be
pretended that he is in the light?
Moreover, there is no occasion of stumbling in one who loves, for he walks
according to divine light. There is nothing in him which causes another to
stumble, for the revelation of the nature of God in grace will assuredly
not do so: and it is this which is manifested in him who loves his
brother.
This closes as an introductory statement the first part of the Epistle. It
contains in the former half, the privileged place of Christians, the
message giving us the truth of our state here, and the provision for
failure: that ends with chapter 2:2; in the second half, the proofs the
Christian has of the true possession of the privilege according to the
message giving obedience, and love of the brethren, knowing Christ, being
in Christ, enjoying the perfect love of God, abiding in Him, being in the
light, forming the condition which is thus proved.
Having established the two great principles, obedience and love, as proofs
of the possession of the divine nature, of Christ known as life, and of our
abiding in Him, the apostle goes on to address Christians personally and to
shew us the position, on the ground of grace, in three different degrees of
ripeness. This parenthetical but most important address we will now
consider.
He begins by calling all the Christians to whom he was writing, "children,"
a term of affection in the loving and aged apostle. And as he writes to
them (chap.2:1) in order that they should not sin, so he writes also
because all their sins were forgiven for Jesus' name's sake. This was the
assured condition of all Christians: that which God had granted them in
giving them faith, that they might glorify Him He allows no doubt as to
the fact of their being pardoned. He writes to them because they are so.
We next find three classes of Christians: fathers, young men, and babes. He
addresses them each twice, fathers, young men, babes (ver. 13) fathers, in
the first half of verse 14; young men, from the second half, to the end of
verse 17; and babes from verse 18 to the end of verse 27. In verse 28 he
returns to all Christians under the name of "children".
That which characterises fathers in Christ is that they have known Him who
is from the beginning, that is, Christ. This is all that he has to say
about them. All had resulted in that. He only repeats the same thing again,
when, changing his form of expression, he begins anew with these three
classes. The fathers have known Christ. This is the result of all christian
experience. The flesh is judged, discerned, wherever it has mixed itself
with Christ in our feelings: it is recognised, experimentally, as having no
value; and, as the result of experience, Christ stands alone, free from all
alloy. They have learnt to distinguish that which has only the appearance
of good. They are not occupied with experience-that would be being occupied
with self, with one's own heart. All that has passed away; and Christ alone
remains as our portion, unmingled with aught besides, even as He gave
Himself to us. Moreover He is much better known; they have experienced what
He is in so many details, whether of joy in communion with Him, or in the
consciousness of weakness, or in the realisation of His faithfulness, of
the riches of His grace, of His adaptation to our need, of His love, and in
the revelation of His own fullness; so that they are able now to say, " I
know whom I have believed. " Attachment to Himself characterises them. Such
is the character of "fathers" in Christ.
"Young men" are the second class. They are distinguished by spiritual
strength in conflict: the energy of faith. They have overcome the wicked
one. For he speaks of what their character is as in Christ. Conflict they
have as such, but the strength of Christ manifested in them.
The third class is "babes" These know the Father. We see here that the
Spirit of adoption and of liberty characterises the youngest child in the
faith of Christ, that it is not the result of progress. It is the
commencement. We possess it because we are Christians and it is ever the
distinguishing mark of beginners. The others do not lose it, but other
things distinguish them.
In again addressing these three classes of Christians the apostle, as we
have seen, has only to repeat that which he at first said with regard to
the fathers. It is the result of christian life.
In the case of the young men he develops his idea and adds some
exhortations. "Ye are strong," he says, " and the word of God abideth in
you"-an important characteristic. The word is the revelation of God, and
the application of Christ, to the heart, so that we have thus the motives
which form and govern it, and a testimony founded on the state of the
heart, and on convictions which have a divine power in us. It is the sword
of the Spirit in our relations with the world. We have been ourselves
formed by those things to which we bear testimony in our relations with the
world, and those things are in us according to the power of the word of
God. The wicked one is thus overcome; for he has only the world to present
to our lusts: and the word abiding, in us keeps us in an altogether
different sphere of thought in which a different nature is enlightened and
strengthened by divine communications. The tendency of the young man is
toward the world: the ardour of his nature, and the vigour of his age, tend
to draw him away on that side. He has to guard against this by separating
himself entirely from the world and the things that are in it; because, if
any one love the world, the love of the Father is not in him, for those
things do not come from the Father. He has a world of his own, of which
Christ is the centre and glory. The lusts of the flesh, the lust of the
eyes, and the pride of life- these are the things that are in the world and
that characterise it. There are really no other motives besides these in
the world. Now these things are not of the Father.
The Father is the source of all that is according to His own heart-every
grace, every spiritual gift, the glory, the heavenly holiness of all that
was manifested in Christ Jesus, and that will be-all the world of glory to
come, of which Christ is the centre. And all this had only the cross for
its portion here below. But the apostle is speaking here of the source; and
assuredly the Father is not the source of those other things.
Now the world passes away; but he who does the will of God, he who, in
going through this world, takes for his guide, not the desires of nature,
but the will of God-a will which is according to His nature and which
expresses it-such a one shall abide for ever according to the nature and
the will that he has followed after.
We shall find that the world, and the Father with all that is of Him, the
flesh and the Spirit, the Son and the devil, are put respectively in
opposition. Things are spoken of in their source and moral nature, the
principles that act in us and that characterise our existence and our
position, and the two agents in good and evil that are opposed to each
other, without (thanks be to God!) any uncertainty as to the issue of the
conflict; for the weakness of Christ, in death, is stronger than the
strength of Satan. He has no power against that which is perfect. Christ
came that He might destroy the works of the devil.
To the babes the apostle speaks principally of the dangers to which they
were exposed from seducers. He warns them with tender affection, reminding
them at the same time that all the sources of intelligence and strength
were open to them and belonged to them. "It is the last time;" not exactly
the last days, but the season which had the final character that belonged
to the dealings of God with this world. The Antichrist was to come, and
already there were many antichrists: by this it might be known it was the
last time. It was not merely sin, nor the transgression of the law; but,
Christ having already been manifested, and being now absent and hidden from
the world, there was a formal opposition to the especial revelation that
had been made. It was not a vague and ignorant unbelief; it took a definite
shape as having a will directed against Jesus. They might for instance
believe all that a Jew believed, as it was revealed in the word, but as to
the testimony of God by Jesus Christ they opposed it. They would not own
Him to be the Christ; they denied the Father and the Son. This, as to
religious profession, is the true character of the Antichrist. He may
indeed believe or pretend to believe, that there shall be a Christ; yea,
set himself up to be it. But the two aspects of Christianity (that which,
on the one hand, regards the accomplishment in the Person of Jesus of the
promises made to the Jew; and, on the other hand, the heavenly and eternal
blessings presented in the revelation of the Father by the Son), this the
Antichrist does not accept. That which characterises him as Antichrist is
that he denies the Father and the Son. To deny that Jesus is the Christ is
indeed the Jewish disbelief that forms part of his character. That which
gives him the character of Antichrist is that he denies the foundation of
Christianity. He is a liar in that he denies Jesus to be the Christ;
consequently it is the work of the father of lies. But all the unbelieving
Jews had done as much without being Antichrist. To deny the Father and the
Son characterises him.
But there is something more. These antichrists came out from among the
Christians. There was apostacy. Not that they were really Christians, but
they had been among the Christians and had come out from them. (How
instructive for our days also is this Epistle!) It was thus made manifest
that they were not truly of the flock of Christ. All this had a tendency to
shake the faith of babes in Christ. The apostle endeavours to strengthen
them. There were two means of confirming their faith, which also inspired
the apostle with confidence. First, they had the unction of the Holy One;
secondly, that which was from the beginning, was the touchstone for all new
doctrine, and they already possessed that which was from the beginning.
The indwelling of the Holy Ghost as an unction and spiritual intelligence
in them, and the truth which they had received at the beginning-the perfect
revelation of Christ-these were the safe guards against seducers and
seductions. All heresy and all error and corruption will be found to strike
at the first and divine revelation of the truth, if the unction of the Holy
One is in us to judge them. Now this unction is the portion of even the
youngest babes in Christ, and they ought to be encouraged to realise it,
however tenderly they may be cared for as they were here by the apostle.
What important truths we discover here for ourselves! The last time already
manifested, so that we have to be on our guard against seducers-persons
moreover issuing from the bosom of Christianity.
The character of this Antichrist is that he denies the Father and the Son.
Unbelief in its Jewish form is also again manifested: owning that there is
a Christ, but denying that Jesus is He. Our security against these
seductions is the unction from the Holy one- the Holy Ghost, but in
especial connection with the holiness of God, which enables us to see
clearly into the truth (another characteristic of the Spirit); and,
secondly, that that abide in us which we have heard from the beginning. It
is this evidently which we have in the written word. "Development,'' note
it well, is not that which we have from the beginning. By its very name it
sins radically against the safeguard pointed out by the apostle. That which
the church has taught, as development of the truth, whencesoever she may
have received it, is not that which has been heard from the beginning.
There is another point indicated here by the apostle that ought to be
noticed. People might pretend by giving God in a vague way the name of
Father, that they possessed Him without the true possession of the Son,
Jesus Christ. This cannot be. He who has not the Son has not the Father. It
is by Him that the Father is revealed, in Him that the Father is known.
If the truth that we have received from the beginning abides in us, we
abide in the Son and in the Father; for this truth is the revelation of the
Son and is revealed by the Son, who is the truth. It is living truth if it
abides in us; thus, by possessing it, we possess the Son, and in the Son,
the Father also. We abide in it, and thereby we have eternal life. (Compare
John 17:3)
Now the apostle had happy confidence that the unction which they had
received of Him abode in them, so that they needed not to be taught of
others, for this same unction taught them with respect to all things. It
was the truth, for it was the Holy Ghost Himself acting in the word, which
was the revelation of the truth of Jesus Himself, and there was no lie in
it. Thus should they abide in Him according to that which it had taught
them.
Observe also, here, that the effect of this teaching by the unction from on
high is twofold with regard to the discernment of the truth. They knew that
no lie was of the truth; possessing this truth from God, that which was not
it was a lie. They knew that this unction which taught them of all things
was the truth, and that there was no lie in it. The unction taught them all
things, that is to say, all the truth, as truth of God. Therefore that
which was not it was a lie, and there was no lie in the unction. Thus the
sheep hear the voice of the good Shepherd; if another calls them, it is not
His voice, and that is enough. They fear it and fly from it, because they
do not know it.
With verse 27 ends the second series of exhortations to the three classes.
The apostle begins again with the whole body of Christians (ver. 28). This
verse appear.s to me to correspond with verse 8 of the Second Epistle, and
with chapter 3 of the First Epistle to the Corinthians.
The apostle, having ended his address to those who were all in the
communion of the Father, applies the essential principles of the divine
life, of the divine nature as manifested in Christ, to test those who
claimed participation in it; not in order to make the believer doubt, but
for the rejection of that which was false. I say, "not to make the believer
doubt;" for the apostle speaks of his position, and of the position of
those to whom he was writing, with the most perfect assurance. (Chap.
3:1,2) He had spoken, in recommencement at verse 28, of
the appearing of Jesus. This introduces the Lord in the full revelation of
His character, and gives rise to the scrutiny of the pretensions of those
who called themselves by His name. There are two proofs which belong
essentially to the divine life, and a third which is accessory as
privilege: righteousness or obedience, and love, and the presence of the
Holy Ghost.
Righteousness is not in the flesh. If therefore it is really found in any
one, he is born of Him, he derives his nature from and in Christ. We may
remark, that it is righteousness as it was manifested in Jesus; for it is
because we know that He is righteous, that we know that "he who doeth
righteousness is born of him." It is the same nature demonstrated by the
same fruits.
Chapter 3
Now to say that we are born of Him is to say that we are children of
God. What a love is
that which the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called
children! Therefore
the world knows us not, because it knew Him not. The apostle returns here
to His appearing and its effect on us. We are children of God: this is our
present sure and known position; we are born of God. That which we shall be
is not yet manifested; but we know that- associated with Jesus as we are in
the same relationship with the Father, Himself being our life-we shall be
like Him when He appears. For it is to this we are predestined, to see Him
as He now is with the Father, from which the life came which was manifested
in Him and imparted to us, and to appear in the same glory.
Having then the hope of seeing Him as He is, and knowing that I shall be
perfectly like Him when He appears, I seek to be as like Him now as
possible, since I already possess this life-He being in me, my life.
This is the measure of our practical purification. We are not pure as He is
pure; but we take Christ, as He is in heaven, for the pattern and measure
of our purification, we purify ourselves according to His purity, knowing
that we shall be perfectly like Him when He is manifested. Before marking
the contrast between the principles of the divine life and of the enemy, he
sets before us the true measure of purity (he will give that of love in a
moment) for the children, inasmuch as they are partakers of His nature and
have the same relationship with God.
There are two remarks to be made here. First, "hope in him" does not mean
in the believer; but a hope that has Christ for its object. Second, it is
striking to see the way in which the apostle appears to confound God and
Christ together in this epistle; and uses the word "Him" to signify Christ,
when he had just been speaking of God, and vice versa. We may see the
principle of this at the end of chapter 5: "We are in him that is true,
[that is to say] in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal
life." In these few words we have the key to the epistle: Christ is the
life. It is evidently the Son; but it is God Himself who is manifested, and
the perfection of His nature, which is the source of life to us also, as
that life was found in Christ as man. Thus I can speak of God and say,
"Born of him;" but it is in Jesus that God was manifested, and from Him
that I derive life; so that "Jesus Christ" and "God" are interchanged with
each other. Thus "He shall appear" (chap. 2:28) is Christ, He is righteous;
the righteous one "is born of him" But in chapter 3:1 it is " born of God,"
"children of God;" but the world did not know Him: here it is Christ on
earth; and "when he shall appear," it is again Christ and we purify
ourselves "even as He is pure." There are many other examples.
It is said of the believer, "he purifies himself:" this shews that he is
not pure, as Christ is. He needed not to purify Himself. Accordingly it is
not said, he is pure as Christ is pure (for in that case there would be no
sin in us); but he purifies himself according to the purity of Christ as He
is in heaven, having the same life as the life of Christ Himself.
Having set forth the positive aspect of christian purity, he goes on to
speak of it in other points of view, as one of the characteristic proofs of
the life of God in the soul.
He who commits sin (not transgresses the law, but acts lawlessly.
His conduct is without
the restraint, without the rule of law. He acts without curb; for sin is
the acting without the curb of law or restraint of another's authority,
acting from our own will. Christ came to do His Father's will, not His own.
But Christ was manifested that He might take away our sins, and in Him
there is no sin; so that he who commits sin acts against the object of the
manifestation of Christ, and in opposition to the nature of which, if
Christ is our life, we are partakers. Therefore he who abides in Christ
does not practise sin; he who sins has neither seen Him nor known Him. All
depends, we see, on participation in the life and nature of Christ. Let us
not then deceive ourselves. He who practises righteousness is righteous, as
He is righteous: for, by partaking in the life of Christ, one is before God
according to the perfection of Him who is there, the head and source of
that life. But we are thus as Christ before God, because He Himself is
really our life. Our actual life is not the measure of our acceptance; it
is Christ who is so. But Christ is our life, if we are accepted according
to His excellence; for it is as living of His life that we participate in
this.
But the judgment is more than negative. He who practises sin is of the
devil, has morally the same nature as the devil; for he sinneth from the
beginning: it is his original character as the devil. Now Christ was
manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil; how then can one
who shares the character of this enemy of souls be with Christ?
On the other hand, he who is born of God does not practise sin. The reason
is evident; he is made a partaker of the nature of God; he derives his life
from Him. This principle of divine life is in him. the seed of God remains
in him; he cannot sin, because he is born of God. This new nature had not
in it the principle of sin, so as to commit it. How could it be that the
divine nature should sin?
Having thus designated the two families, the family of God and that of the
devil, the apostle adds the second mark, the absence of which is a proof
that one is not of God. He had already spoken of righteousness; he adds the
love of the brethren. For this is the message that they had received from
Christ Himself, that they should love one another. In verse 12 he shews the
connection between the two things: that hatred of a brother is fed by the
sense one has that his works are good, and one's own evil. Moreover we are
not to wonder that the world hates us: for we know that we have passed from
death unto life, because we love the brethren. If this love is an essential
proof of being renewed, it is quite natural that it should not be found in
the men of the world.
But, this being the case, he who does not love his brother (solemn
thought!) abides in death. In addition to this, he who does not love his
brother is a murderer, and a murderer has not eternal life. There is the
absence of the divine nature, death; but more, the activity of the old man
in the opposite nature is there, he hates, and is in spirit the activity of
death-a murderer.
Further, as in the case of righteousness and of purity, we have Christ as
the measure of this love. We know love by this, that He laid down His life
for us; we ought to lay down ours for the brethren. Now, if our brother has
need, and we possess this world's good, but do not provide for his
necessity, is that the divine love which made Christ lay down His life for
us? It is by this real and practical love that we know we are in the truth,
and that our heart is confirmed and assured before God. For if there is
nothing on the conscience, we have confidence in His presence; but if our
own heart condemns us, God knows yet more.
It is not here the means of being assured of our salvation, but of having
confidence in the presence of God. We cannot have it with a bad conscience
in the practical sense of the word, for God is always light and always
holy.
We also receive all that we ask for, when we walk thus in love before Him,
doing that which is pleasing in His sight; for thus walking in His presence
with confidence, the heart and its desires respond to this blessed
influence, being formed by the enjoyment of communion with Him in the light
of His countenance. It is God who animates the heart; this life, and this
divine nature, of which the epistle speaks, being in full activity and
enlightened and moved by the divine presence in which it delights. Thus our
requests are only for the accomplishment of desires that arise when this
life, when our thoughts, are filled with the presence of God and with the
communication of His nature. And He lends His power to the fulfillment of
these desires, of which He is the source, and which are formed in the heart
by the revelation of Himself. (Compare John 15:7)
This is indeed the position of Christ Himself when here below: only that He
was perfect in it. (Compare John 8:29; 11:42)
And here it is the commandment of God which He desires us to obey; namely,
to believe on the name of His Son Jesus; and to love one another, as He
gave us commandment.
Now he who keeps His commandments dwells in Him; and He dwells also in this
obedient man. It will be asked whether God or Christ is here meant? The
apostle, as we have seen, confounds them together in his thought. That is
to say, the Holy Ghost unites them in our minds. We are in Him who is true,
that is, in His Son Jesus Christ. It is Christ, who is the presentation of
God to men in life in man; and to the believer He is the communication of
that life, so that God too dwells in him, in the revelation, in its divine
excellence and perfection, of the nature which the believer shares in the
power of the Holy Ghost who dwells in him, so that love is alike enjoyed
and exercised.
But what marvelous grace to have received a life, a nature, by which we are
enabled to enjoy God Himself, who dwells in us, and by which, since it is
in Christ, we are in fact in the enjoyment of this communion, this
relationship with God! He who has the Son has life; but God then dwells in
him as the portion, as well as the source of this life; and he who has the
Son has the Father.
What marvelous links of vital and living enjoyment through the
communication of the divine nature of Him who is its source; and that
according to its perfection in Christ! Such is the Christian according to
grace. Therefore also he is obedient, because this life in the man Christ
(and it is thus that it becomes ours) was obedience itself, the true
relationship of man to God.
Practical righteousness, then, is a proof that we are born of Him who, in
His nature, is its source. In presence also of the world's hatred, we know
that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren.
Thus, having a good conscience, we have confidence in God, and we receive
from Him whatsoever we ask, walking in obedience and in a way that is
pleasing to Him. Thus walking, we dwell in Him and He in us.
A third proof of our christian privileges arises here. The Spirit whom He
has given us is the proof that He Himself dwells in us, the manifestation
of the presence of God in us. He does not here add that we abide in Him,
because the subject here is the manifestation of the presence of God. The
presence of the Spirit demonstrates it. But in abiding in Him there is, as
we shall see farther on, the enjoyment of that which He is, and
consequently moral communion with His nature. He who obeys enjoys this
also, as we have seen. Here the presence of the Holy Ghost in us is spoken
of as demonstration of one part only of this truth, namely, that God is in
us. But the presence of God in us according to grace, and according to the
power of the Spirit, involves also communion with that nature; we dwell
also in Him from whom we derive this grace, and all the spiritual forms of
that nature, in communion and practical life. It is in verses 12 and 16 of
chapter 4. that our apostle speaks of this.
Practical righteousness or obedience, the love of the brethren, the
manifestation of the Spirit of God, are the proofs of our relationship to
God. He who obeys the Lord's commandments in practical righteousness dwells
in Him, and He in him. The Spirit given is the proof that He dwells in us.
Chapter 4
Now, to make use of this last proof, caution was required, for many false
prophets would assume, and even in the time of the apostle had already
assumed, the semblance of having received communications from the Spirit of
God, and insinuated themselves among the Christians. It was necessary
therefore to put them on their guard, by giving them the sure mark of the
real Spirit of God. The first of these was the confession of Jesus come in
the flesh. It is not merely to confess that He is come, but to confess Him
thus come. The second was that He who really knew God hearkened to the
apostles. In this way the writings of the apostles become a touchstone for
those who pretend to teach the assembly. All the word is so, doubtless; but
I confine myself here to that which is said in this place. The teaching of
the apostles is formally a touchstone for all other teaching-I mean that
which they themselves taught immediately. If any one tells me that others
must explain or develop it to have the truth and certainty of faith, I
reply, "You are not of God, for he who is of God hearkens to them; and you
would have me not to hearken to them; and whatever may be your pretext, you
prevent my doing so." The denial of Jesus come in the flesh is the spirit
of Antichrist. Not to hear the apostles is the provisional and preparatory
form of the evil. True Christians had overcome the spirit of error by the
Spirit of God who dwelt in them.
The three tests of true Christianity are now distinctly laid down, and the
apostle pursues his exhortations, developing the fullness and intimacy of
our relationships with a God of love, maintaining that participation of
nature in which love is of God, and he who loves is born of God-partakes
therefore of His nature, and knows Him (for it is by faith that he received
it) as partaking of His nature. He who loves not does not know God. We must
possess the nature that loves in order to know what love is. He then who
does not love does not know God, for God is love. Such a person has not one
sentiment in connection with the nature of God; how then can he know Him?
No more than an animal can know what a man's mind or understanding is when
he has not got it.
Give especial heed, reader, to this immense prerogative, which flows from
the whole doctrine of the epistle. The eternal life which was with the
Father has been manifested and has been imparted to us: thus we are
partakers of the divine nature. The affections of that nature acting in us
rest, by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the enjoyment of communion with
God who is its source; we dwell in Him and He in us. The first thing is the
statement of the truth in us. The actings of this nature prove that He
dwells -that, if we thus love, God Himself dwells in us. He who works this
love is there. But He is infinite and the heart rests in Him; we know at
the same time that we dwell in Him and He in us, because He has given us of
His Spirit. But this passage, so rich in blessing, demands that we should
follow it with order.
He begins with the fact that love is of God. It is His nature: He is its
source. Therefore he who loves is born of God, is a partaker of His nature.
Also he knows God, for he knows what love is, and God is its fullness. This
is the doctrine which makes everything depend on our participation in the
divine nature.
Now this might be transformed on the one hand into mysticism,- by leading
us to fix our attention on our love for God, and love in us, that being
God's nature, as if it was said, love is God, not God is love, and be
seeking to fathom the divine nature in ourselves; or to doubt on the other,
because we do not find the effects of the divine nature in us as we would.
In effect, he who does not love (for the thing, as ever in John, is
expressed in an abstract way) does not know God, for God is love. The
possession of the nature is necessary to the understanding of what that
nature is, and for the knowledge of Him who is its perfection.
But, if I seek to know it and have or give the proof of it, it is not to
the existence of the nature in us that the Spirit of God directs the
thoughts of the believers as their object. God, he has said, is love; and
this love has been manifested towards us in that He has given His only Son,
that we might live through Him. The proof is not the life in us, but that
God has given His Son in order that we might live, and further to make
propitiation for our sins. God be praised! we know this love, not by the
poor results of its action in ourselves, but in its perfection in God, and
that even in a manifestation of it towards us, which is wholly outside
ourselves. It is a fact outside ourselves which is the manifestation of
this perfect love. We enjoy it by participating in the divine nature; we
know it by the infinite gift of God's Son. The exercise and proof of it are
there.
The full scope of this principle and all the force of its truth are stated
and demonstrated in that which follows. It is striking to see how the Holy
Spirit, in an epistle which is essentially occupied with the life of Christ
and its fruits in us, gives the proof and full character of love in that
which is wholly without ourselves. Nor can anything be more perfect than
the way in which the love of God is here set forth, from the time it is
occupied with our sinful state till we stand before the judgment-seat. God
has thought of all: love towards us as sinners, verses 9,10; in us as
saints, verse 12; with us as perfect in our condition in view of the day of
judgment, verse 17. In the first verses, the love of God is manifested in
the gift of Christ; first, to give us life-we were dead; secondly, to make
propitiation-we were guilty. Our whole case is taken up. In the second of
these verses the great principle of grace, what love is, where and how
known, is clearly stated in words of infinite importance as to the very
nature of Christianity. Herein is love, not that we have loved God (that
was the principle of the law), but in that He has loved us, and has given
His Son to make propitiation for our sins. Here, then, it is that we have
learnt that which love is. It was perfect in Him when we had no love for
Him; perfect in Him in that He exercised it towards us when we were in our
sins, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for them. The apostle then
affirms, no doubt, that he who loves not knows not God. The pretension to
possess this love is judged by this means; but in order to know love we
must not seek for it in ourselves, but seek it manifested in God when we
had none. He gives the life which loves, and He has made propitiation for
our sins
And now with regard to the enjoyment and the privileges of this love:-if
God has so loved us (this is the ground that He takes) we ought to love one
another.
No one has ever seen God: if we love one another, God dwells in us. His
presence, Himself dwelling in us, rises in the excellency of His nature
above all the barriers of circumstances, and attaches us to those who are
His. It is God in the power of His nature which is the source of thought
and feeling and diffuses itself among them in whom it is. One can
understand this. How is it that I love strangers from another land, persons
of different habits, whom I have never known, more intimately than members
of my own family after the flesh? How is it that I have thoughts in common,
objects infinitely loved in common, affections powerfully engaged, a
stronger bond with persons whom I have never seen, than with the otherwise
dear companions of my childhood? It is because there is in them and in me a
source of thoughts and affections which is not human. God is in it. God
dwells in us. What happiness! What a bond ! Does He not communicate Himself
to the soul? Does He not render it conscious of His presence in love ?
Assured]y, yes. And if He is thus in us, the blessed source of our
thoughts, can there be fear, or distance, or uncertainty, with regard to
what He is? None at all. His love is perfect in us. We know Him as love in
our souls: the second great point in this remarkable passage, the enjoyment
of divine love in our souls.
The apostle has not yet said,"We know that we dwell in him." He will say it
now. But, if the love of the brethren is in us, God dwells in us. When it
is in exercise, we are conscious of the presence of God, as perfect love in
us. It fills the heart, and thus is exercised in us. Now this consciousness
is the effect of the presence of His Spirit, as the source and power of
life and nature, in us. He has given us, not here "his Spirit"-the proof
that He dwells in us, but "of his Spirit;" we participate by His presence
in us in divine affection through the Spirit, and thus we not only know
that He dwells in us, but the presence of the Spirit, acting in a nature
which is that of God in us, makes us conscious that we dwell in Him. For He
is the infiniteness and perfection of that which is now in us.
The heart rests in this, and enjoys Him, and is hidden from all that is
outside Him, in the consciousness of the perfect love in which (thus
dwelling in Him) one finds oneself. The Spirit makes us dwell in God, and
gives us thus the consciousness that He dwells in us. Thus we, in the
savour and consciousness of the love that was in it, can testify of that in
which it was manifested beyond all Jewish limits, that the Father sent the
Son to be the Saviour of the world. We shall see further another character
of it.
If we compare verse 12 of our chapter 4 with chapter 1:18 of the Gospel by
John, we shall better apprehend the scope of the apostle's teaching here.
The same difficulty, or if you will, the same truth is presented in both
cases. No one has ever seen God. How is this met?
In John 1:18 the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He
has declared Him. He who is in the most perfect intimacy, in the
most absolute proximity and enjoyment of
the Father's love, the one eternal, sufficient object that knew the love of
the Father as His only Son, has revealed Him unto men as He has Himself
known Him. What is the answer in our epistle to this same difficulty? "If
we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us."
By the communication of the divine nature, and by the dwelling of God in
us, we inwardly enjoy Him as He has been manifested and declared by :His
only Son. His love is perfect in us, known to the heart, as it has been
declared in Jesus. The God who has been declared by Him dwells in us. What
a thought! that this answer to the fact that no one has ever seen God is
equally, that the only Son has declared Him, and that He dwells in us. What
light this throws upon the words, "which thing is true in him and in you!"
For it is in that
Christ has become our life that we can thus enjoy God and His presence in
us by the power of the Holy Ghost. And from this we have seen that the
testimony of verse 14 flows.
We see, also, the distinction between God dwelling in us and we in God,
even in that which Christ says of Himself. He abode always in the Father,
and the Father in Him; but He says, "The Father who dwelleth in me, he
doeth the works." Through His word the disciples ought to have believed in
them both; but in that which they had seen-in His works -they had rather
seen the proof that the Father dwelt in Him. They who had seen Him had seen
the Father. But when the Comforter was come, at that day they should know
that Jesus was in His Father-divinely one with the Father.
He does not say that we are in God, nor in the Father, but that we
dwell in Him, and we
know it, because He has given us of His Spirit. We have already noticed
that He says (chap. 3:24) "hereby we know that he God abideth in us,
because he has given us his Spirit." Here he adds, We know that we dwell in
God, because it is-not the manifestation, as a proof, but-communion with
God Himself. We know that we dwell in Him, always as a precious truth-an
unchangeable fact; sensibly, when His love is active in the heart.
Consequently it is to this activity that the apostle immediately turns by
adding "and we have seen and do testify, that the Father sent the Son to be
the Saviour of the world." This was the proof for every one, of that love
which the apostle enjoyed-as all believers do-in his own heart. It is
important to notice how the passage thus first presents the fact of God's
dwelling in us, then the effect (as He is infinite), our dwelling in Him,
and then the realisation of the first truth in conscious reality of life.
We may remark here that, while God's dwelling in us is a doctrinal fact and
true of every real Christian, our dwelling in Him, though involved in it,
is connected with our state. Thus chapter 3:24, "He that keepeth his
commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him." Chapter 4:16, "He that
dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him.''
Love one to another is indeed taken as the proof that God is there, and His
love is perfected in us-this to contrast the manner of His presence with
that of Christ. (John 1:18) But, what we thus know is dwelling in Him and
He in us. In each case this knowledge is by the Spirit. Verse 15 is the
universal fact: verse 16 brings it fully up to its source. We have known
and believed the love that God hath to us. His nature is there declared in
itself (for we joy in God); God is love, and he who dwells in love dwells
in God and God in him. There is none anywhere else: if we partake of His
nature, we partake of it, and he who abides in it abides in God who is the
fullness of it. But then remark that while what He is is insisted on, His
personal being is carefully insisted on. He dwells in us.
And here comes in a principle of deep importance. It might perhaps be said
that this dwelling of God in us and our dwelling in Him depended on a large
measure of spirituality, the apostle having in fact spoken of the highest
possible joy. But although the degree in which we intelligently realise it
is in effect a matter of spirituality, yet the thing in itself is the
portion of every Christian. It is our position, because Christ is our life,
and because the Holy Ghost is given us. "Whosoever shall confess that Jesus
is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him and he in God." How great the grace
of the gospel! How admirable our position because it is in Jesus that we
possess it! It is important to hold fast this, that it is the portion of
every Christian, the joy of the humble, the strongest reproach to the
conscience of the careless.
The apostle explains this high position by the possession of the divine
nature-the essential condition of Christianity. A Christian is one who is a
partaker of the divine nature, and in whom the Spirit dwells. But the
knowledge of our position does not flow from the consideration of this
truth, though it depends on its being true, but of that of God's own love,
as we have already seen. And the apostle goes on to say "We have known and
believed the love that God has to us." This is the source of our knowledge
and enjoyment of these privileges, so sweet and so marvelously exalted, but
so simple and so real to the heart when they are known.
We have known love, the love that God has for us, and we have believed it.
Precious knowledge! by possessing it we know God; for it is thus that He
has manifested Himself. Therefore can we say, "God is love." There is none
beside. Himself is love. He is love in all its fullness. He is not
holiness, He is holy; but He is love. He is not righteousness; He is
righteous.
By dwelling then in love I dwell in Him, which I could not do unless He
dwelt in me, and this He does. Here he puts it first, that we dwell in Him,
because it is God Himself who is before our eyes, as the love in which we
dwell. Therefore, when thinking of this love, I say that I dwell in Him,
because I have in my heart the consciousness of it by the Spirit. At the
same time this love is an active energetic principle in us; it is God
Himself who is there. This is the joy of our position-the position of every
Christian.
Verses 14 and 16 present the twofold effect of the manifestation of this love.
First, the testimony that the Father has sent the Son to be the Saviour of
the world. Quite outside the promises made to the Jews (as everywhere in
John), this work is the fruit of that which God Himself is. Accordingly
whosoever confesses Jesus to be that Son enjoys all the fullness of its
blessed consequences.
Secondly, the Christian has believed for himself in this love, and he
enjoys it according to its fullness. There is only this modification of the
expression of the glorious fact of our portion-that the confession of Jesus
as the Son of God is primarily here the proof that God dwells in us,
although the other part of the truth equally says that he who confesses Him
dwells also in God.
When speaking of our portion in communion, as believing in this love, it is
said, that he who dwells in love dwells in God; for in effect that is where
the heart is. Here also the other part of the truth is equally true; God
dwells in him likewise
I have spoken of the consciousness of this dwelling in God, for it is thus
only that it is known. But it is important to remember that the apostle
teaches it as a truth that applies to every believer. These might have
excused themselves for not appropriating these statements as too high for
them; but this fact judges the excuse. This communion is neglected. But God
dwells in every one who confesses that Jesus is Son of God, and he in God.
What an encouragement for a timid believer! What a rebuke for a careless
one!
The apostle returns to our relative position, viewing God as outside
ourselves, as Him before whom we are to appear and with whom we have always
to do. This is the third great proof and character of love in which it is
complete, testifying, as I have already said, that God has thought on all
as to us from our sinful state to the day of judgment.
Herein is love perfect with us (in order that we may have boldness for the
day of judgment), namely, that as He is, such are we in this world. In
truth, what could give us a more complete assurance for that day than to be
as Jesus Himself-like the judge? He who will judge in righteousness is our
righteousness. We are in Him the righteousness according to which He will
judge. We are in respect of judgment as He is. Truly this can give us
perfect peace. But observe, that it is not only in the day of judgment that
this is so (it gives us boldness for it), but we are it in this world. Not
as He was, but in this world we are as He is, and have our known place
already, as needed, and according to the nature and counsels of God, for
that day. It is ours as being livingly identified with Him.
Now in love there is no fear; there is confidence. If I am sure that a
person loves me, I do not fear him. If I am only desiring to be the object
of his affection, I may fear that I am not so, and may even fear himself.
Nevertheless this fear would always tend to destroy my love for him and my
desire to be loved by him. There is incompatibility between the two
affections-there is no fear in love. Perfect love then banishes fear; for
fear torments us, and torment is not the enjoyment of love. He therefore
who fears does not know perfect love. And now what does he mean by "perfect
love"? It is that which God is, and which He has fully displayed in Christ,
and given us to know and to enjoy by His presence in us, so that we dwell
in Him. The positive proof of its complete perfectness is that we are such
as Christ is. It is manifested towards us, perfected in us, and made
perfect with us. But that which we enjoy is God, who is love, and we enjoy
Him by His being in us, so that love and confidence are in our hearts, and
we have rest. That which I know of God is that He is love, and love to me,
and nothing else but love to me, because it is Himself who is so. Therefore
there is no fear.
If we inquire practically into the history, so to speak, of these
affections; if we seek to separate that which in the enjoyment is united,
because the divine nature in us, which is love, enjoys love in its
perfection in God (His love shed abroad in the heart by His presence
therefore); if we wish to specify the relationship in which our hearts find
themselves with God in regard to this, here it is: " we love him because
he, first loved us." It is grace and it must be grace because it is God who
is to be glorified.
Here, it will be worth our while to notice the order of this remarkable
passage. Verses 7-10: We possess the nature of God; consequently we love,
we are born of Him, and we know Him. But the manifestation of love towards
us in Christ Jesus is the proof of that love; it is thus that we know it.
Verses 11-16: We enjoy it by dwelling in it. It is present life in the love
of God by the presence of His Spirit in us; the enjoyment of that love by
communion, in that God dwells in us, and we thus dwell in Him. Verse 17 His
love is perfected with us; the perfection of that love, viewed in the place
that it has given us in view of judgment-we are, in this world, such as
Christ is. Verses 18-19: it is thus fully perfected with us. Love to
sinners, communion, perfection before God, give us the moral and
characteristic elements of that love-what it is in our relationship with
God.
In the first passage, where the apostle speaks of the manifestation of this
love, he does not go beyond the fact that one who loves is born of God. The
nature of God (which is love) being in us, he who loves know~ Him, for he
is born of Him-has His nature and realises what it is.
It is that which God has been with regard to the sinner which demonstrates
His nature of love. afterwards, that which we learnt as sinners we enjoy as
saints. The perfect love of God is shed abroad in the heart, and we dwell
in Him. As already with Jesus in this world, and as He is, fear has no
place in one to whom the love of God is a dwelling-place and rest.
Verse 20: the reality of our love to God, fruit of His love to us, is now
tested. If we say that we love God and do not love the brethren, we are
liars; for if the divine nature, so near us (in the brethren near us), and
Christ's value for them, does not awaken our spiritual affections, how then
can He who is afar off do so? This also is His commandment, that he who
loves God love his brother also. Obedience is found here also. (Compare
John 14:31)
Love for the brethren proves the reality of our love for God. And this love
must be universal, must be in exercise towards all Christians, for whoever
believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God; and he who loves a person
will love one who is born of Him. And if the being born of Him is the
motive, we shall love all that are born of Him.
Chapter 5
But a danger exists on the other side. It may be, that we love the brethren
because they are pleasant to us; they furnish us with agreeable society, in
which our conscience is not wounded. A counter-proof is therefore given us.
"Hereby we know that we love the children of God, if we love God and keep
his commandments." It is not as children of God that I love the brethren,
unless I love God of whom they are born. I may love them individually as
companions, or I may love some among them, but not as the children of God,
if I do not love God Himself. If God Himself has not His true place in my
heart, that which bears the name of love to the brethren shuts out God; and
that in so much the more complete and subtle manner, because our link with
them bears the sacred name of brotherly love.
Now there is a touchstone even for this love of God namely, obedience to
His commands. If I walk with the brethren themselves in disobedience to
their Father, it is certainly not because they are His children that I love
them. If it were because I loved the Father and because they were His
children, I should assuredly like them to obey Him. To walk then in
disobedience with the children of God, under the pretext of brotherly love,
is not to love them as the children of God. If I loved them as such, I
should love their Father and my Father, and I could not walk in
disobedience to Him and call it a proof that I loved them because they were
His.
If I also loved them because they were His children, I should love all who
are such, because the same motive engages me to love them all.
The universality of this love with regard to all the children of God; its
exercise in practical obedience to His will: these are the marks of true
brotherly love. That which has not these marks is a mere carnal party
spirit, clothing itself with the name and the form of brotherly love. Most
certainly I do not love the Father if I encourage His children in
disobedience to Him.
Now there is an obstacle to this obedience, and that is the world. The
world has its forms, which are very far from obedience to God When we are
occupied only with Him and His will, the world's enmity soon breaks out. It
also acts, by its comforts and its delights, on the heart of man as walking
after the flesh. In short, the world and the commandments of God are in
opposition to each other; but the commandments of God are not grievous to
those who are born of Him, for he who is born of God overcomes the world.
He possesses a nature and a principle that surmount the difficulties that
the world opposes to his walk. His nature is the divine nature, for he is
born of God; his principle is that of faith. His nature is insensible to
the attractions which this world offers to the flesh, and that because it
has, altogether apart from this world, a spirit independent of it, and an
object of its own which governs it. Faith directs its steps, but faith does
not see the world, nor that which is present. Faith believes that Jesus,
whom the world rejected, is the Son of God. The world therefore has lost
its power over it. Its affections and its trust are fixed on Jesus, who was
crucified, owning Him as the Son of God. Thus the believer, detached from
the world, has the boldness of obedience, and does the will of God which
abides for ever.
The apostle sums up, in a few words, the testimony of God respecting the
life eternal which He has given us.
This life is not in the first Adam, it is in the Second-in the Son of God.
Man, as born of Adam, does not possess it, does not acquire it. He ought
indeed to have gained life under the law. This characterised it, "Do this
and live." But man did not and could not.
God gives him eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son
has life, and he who has not the Son has not life.
Now what is the testimony rendered to this gift of life eternal ? The
witnesses are three: the Spirit, the water, and the blood. This Jesus, the
Son of God, is He who came by water and by blood; not by water only, but by
water and by blood. The Spirit also bears witness because He is truth. That
to which they bear witness is that God has given us eternal life, and that
this life is in His Son. But whence did this water and the blood flow ? It
was from the pierced side of Jesus. It is the judgment of death pronounced
and executed (compare Rom. 8:3) on the flesh, on all that is of the old
man, on the first Adam. Not that the sin of the first Adam was in the flesh
of Christ, but that Jesus died in it as a sacrifice for sin. "In that he
died he died unto sin once." Sin in the flesh was condemned in the death of
Christ in the flesh. There was no other remedy. The flesh could not be
modified nor subjected to the law. The life of the first Adam was nothing
but sin in the principle of its will; it could not be subject to the law.
Our purification as to the old man is its death. He who is dead is
justified from sin. We are therefore baptised to have part in the death of
Jesus. We are crucified with Christ; nevertheless we live, but not we it is
Christ who lives in us. Participating in the life of Christ risen, we
reckon ourselves as dead with Him; for why live of this new life, this life
of the second Adam, if we could live before God in the life of the first
Adam? No; by living in Christ we have accepted by faith the sentence of
death, passed by God on the first Adam. This is christian purification:
even the death of the old man, because we are made partakers of life in
Christ Jesus. "We are dead "-crucified with Him We need a perfect
purification before God; we have it; for that which was impure no longer
exists: what exists, as born of God, is perfectly pure.
He came by water-a powerful testimony, as flowing from the side of a dead
Christ, that life is not to be sought for in the first Adam; for Christ, as
coming for man, taking up his cause, the Christ come in the flesh, had to
die: else He had remained alone in His own purity. Life is to be sought for
in the Son of God risen from among the dead. Purification is by death.
But it was not by water only that He came; it was also by blood. The
expiation of our sins was as necessary as the moral purification of our
soul. We possess it in the blood of a slain Christ. Death alone could
expiate them and blot them out. And Jesus died for us. The guilt of the
believer no longer exists before God; Christ has put Himself in his place.
The life is on high, and we are raised up together with Him, God having
forgiven us all our trespasses. Expiation is by death.
The third witness is the Spirit: put first in the order of their testimony
on earth, as He alone gives witness in power so that we know the other two;
last, in their historic order, for such in fact was that order, death first
and only thereafter the Holy Ghost.
In effect it is the testimony of the Spirit, His presence in us, which
enables us to appreciate the value of the water and the blood. We should
never have understood the practical bearing of the death of Christ, if the
Holy Ghost were not to the new man a revealing power of its import and its
efficacy. Now the Holy Ghost came down from a risen and ascended Christ;
and thus we know that eternal life is given us in the Son of God.
The testimony of these three witnesses meets together in this same truth,
namely, that grace-that God Himself-has given us eternal life; and that
this life is in the Son. Man had nothing to do in it, except by his sins.
It is the gift of God. And the life that He gives is in the Son. The
testimony is the testimony of God. How blessed to have such a testimony,
and that from God Himself, and in perfect grace!
We have then the three things: the cleansing, the expiation, and the
presence of the Holy Ghost as the witness that eternal life is given us in
the Son, who was slain for man when in relationship with man here below. He
could but die for man s he is. Life is elsewhere, namely, in Himself.
Here the doctrine of the epistle ends. The apostle wrote these things in
order that they who believed in the Son might know that they had eternal
life. He does not give means of examination to make the faithful doubt
whether they had eternal life; but- seeing that there were seducers who
endeavoured to turn them aside as deficient in something important, and who
presented themselves as possessing some superior light-he points out to
them the marks of life, in order to re-assure them; developing the
excellence of that life, and of their position as enjoying it; and in order
that they might understand that God had given it to them, and that they
might be in no wise shaken in mind.
He then speaks of the practical confidence in God which flows from all
this-confidence exercised with a view to all our wants here below, all that
our hearts desire to ask of God.
We know that He always listens to everything that we ask in accordance with
His will. Precious privilege! The Christian himself would not desire
anything to be granted him that was contrary to the will of God. But for
everything that is according to His will, His ear is ever open to us, ever
attentive. He always hearkens; He is not like man, often occupied so that
he cannot listen, or careless so that he will not. God always hears us, and
assuredly He does not fail in power: the attention He pays us is a proof of
His good-will. We receive therefore the things that we ask of Him. He
grants our requests. What a sweet relationship! What a high privilege! And
it is one also of which we may avail ourselves in charity for others.
If a brother sins and God chastises him, we may petition for that brother,
and life shall be restored him. Chastisement tends to the death of the body
(compare Job 33, 34; James 5:14, 16); we pray for the offender and he is
healed. Otherwise the sickness takes its course. All unrighteousness is
sin, and there is such sin as is unto death. This does not seem to me to be
some particular sin, but all sin which has such a character that, instead
of awakening christian charity, it awakens christian indignation. Thus
Ananias and Sapphira committed a sin unto death. It was a lie, but a lie
under such circumstances that it excited horror rather than compassion. We
can easily understand this in other cases.
Thus far as to sin and its chastisement. But the positive side is also
brought before us. As born of God, we do not commit sin at all, we keep
ourselves, and "the wicked one toucheth us not." He has nothing wherewith
to entice the new man. The enemy has no objects of attraction to the divine
nature in us, which is occupied, by the action of the Holy Ghost, with
divine and heavenly things, or with the will of God. Our part therefore is
so to live-the new man occupied with the things of God and of the Spirit.
The apostle ends his epistle by specifying these two things: our nature,
our mode of being, as Christians; and the object that has been communicated
to us in order to produce and nourish faith.
We know that we are of God; and that not in a vague way, but in contrast
with all that is not us-a principle of immense importance, which makes
christian position exclusive by.its very nature. It is not merely good, or
bad, or better; but it is of God. And nothing which is not of God (that is
to say, which has not its origin in Him) could have this character and this
place. The whole world lies in the wicked one.
The Christian has the certainty of these two things by virtue of his
nature. which discerns and knows that which is of God, and thereby judges
all that is opposed to it. The two are not merely good and bad, but of God
and of the enemy. This as to the nature.
With regard to the object of this nature, we know that the Son of God is
come-a truth of immense importance also. It is not merely that there is
good and that there is evil; but the Son of God has Himself come into this
scene of misery, to present an object to our hearts. But there is more than
this. He has given us an understanding that in the midst of .all the
falsehood of this world, of which Satan is the prince, we may know Him that
is true-the true One. Immense privilege which alters our whole position!
The power of the world by which Satan blinded us is completely broken, and
we are brought into the true light; and in that light we see and know Him
who is true, who is in Himself perfection; that by which all things can be
perfectly discerned and judged according to truth. But this is not all. We
are in this true One, partakers of His nature, and abiding in Him, and in
order that we may enjoy the source of truth. Now it is in Jesus that
we are. It is thus, it is in Him, that we are in connection with the
perfections of God.
We may again remark here-that which gives a character to the whole
Epistle-the manner in which God and Christ are united in the apostle's
mind. It is on account of this that he so frequently says, "He," when we
must understand "Christ," although he had previously spoken of God: for
instance, chapter 5:20. And here, "We are in him that is true [that is to
say], in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life."
Behold then the divine links of our position! We are in Him who is true;
this is the nature of Him in whom we are. Now, in reality as to the nature,
it is God Himself; as to the Person, and as to the manner of being in Him,
it is His Son Jesus Christ. It is in the Son, in the Son as man, that we
are in fact as to His Person; but He is the true God, the veritable God.
Nor is this all; but we have life in Him. He is also the eternal life, so
that we possess it in Him. We know the true God, we have eternal life.
All that is outside this is an idol. May God preserve us from it, and teach
us by His grace to preserve ourselves from it! This gives occasion to the
Spirit of God to speak of "the truth" in the two short Epistles that
-follow.
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