Chapter One - God Is Light Reality of Christ’s Manhood The opening verses of this chapter deal particularly with the docetic system. Listen to John, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life. (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.)” What John said is that eternal life was manifested on earth in a man. We heard that man speak, listened to His words, looked upon His face, and handled Him. We know that He was a real man. We walked with Him for three and one-half wonderful years. If you want the truth about Christ, do not believe these things that spring up overnight like mushrooms, but go back to that which was from the beginning. We may be sure of this, “What is new is not true, and what is true is not new.” There are three distinct beginnings emphasized in Scripture. We read, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” . That was the beginning of creation. Some speculate that was about six thousand years ago; it might have been much more than that, but the Bible does not say. But go back as far as you want and you still find that, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Whenever that event took place, it was God who did it. He was there. He brought the universe into existence. It may have gone through a great many changes before the conditions described in the second verse of Genesis 1, but it was created by a personal God in the beginning-the beginning of creation. Then in John 1:1 we read, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” That is the unbeginning beginning. When everything that ever had a beginning began, the Word was. He had no beginning but was the eternally existing Son subsisting in the bosom of the Father. Then in the first chapter of this Epistle, “That which was from the beginning” is not the beginning of the creation, neither is it the unbeginning beginning of John 1, but it is the beginning of the new dispensation-the beginning of Christianity when the truth was revealed in Christ. There are several verses that support this interpretation. 1 John 2:7 : “Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment, which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning”. This refers to the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, the commandment given by Him. When was that given? From the beginning of Christianity, the beginning of the new dispensation. “The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning.” In other words, John was saying, “Do not take up with anything new; go back to that which was from the beginning of Christianity.” Then read verse 1 John 2:14 , “I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him [that is] from the beginning.” He was writing to the “fathers” who had known Him from the beginning of this new age of grace. Then in verse 1 John 2:24 we read, “Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father.” In 2 John 1:5 we find these words, “And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another.” In other words, don’t fall for something new. The message you received at the beginning is the message you must cling to and is the message that must abide in you. These passages make it clear that this term “from the beginning” does not, as some have thought, refer to eternity. It refers to the start of a new era. When people come to you and say, “We have a new doctrine, a new teaching, a new system of thinking,” you can say, “Keep it; as for me I will cling firmly to that which was from the beginning.” We have a “faith which was once delivered unto the saints” . When the Mormon says, “We believe the Bible, but we have the Mormon Bible too, and it is a new revelation,” you can reply, “I do not need your new book. I have that which was from the beginning.” When Mrs. Mary Baker Patterson Glover Eddy says, “Of course we believe the Bible, but here is my little book, Science and Health, which is something new,” you can say, “Thank you, madam, but I do not need your Key to the Scriptures. The Word of God interpreted by the Holy Spirit is all I need.” When the Swedenborgians say, “Sure, we believe the Bible, but we add to it the dreams and visions of Emanuel Swedenborg,” we can reply in the words of Scripture, He “that hath a dream let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully” . When Pastor Russell and Judge Rutherford come along and say, “Of course we believe the Bible, but we must add to it our Studies in the Scriptures and The Harp of God, if you would really understand it,” we can reply, “Keep all your seven or ten volumes; we will go back to that which we have heard from the beginning. We do not want anything added to the Scripture. We go back to what God gave at the start.” John showed that Jesus was a real man. He said in effect, “We have heard Him; we listened to His teaching as we walked with Him; we heard Him speak; we have seen Him with our eyes.” The gnostics said that He was merely a phantom, but John insisted on His true humanity, “That which we have looked on intently.” He was not deceived. If someone comes up to me and says, “I want you to meet my friend, Mrs. so-and-so;” I say, “I am glad to meet you,” and turn away because others are crowding about me. The next day I meet this person on the street and she says, “Don’t you know me? Why, I met you yesterday at the Moody Church.” I would have to say, “I’m sorry, I did not look intently enough to have your face impressed on me.” The apostle said, “We were not deceived. We saw Him and gazed intently on Him. We know He was a real man, and He filled the vision of our souls.” Then John added, “That which our hands have handled, of the Word of life.” It was not merely that he heard and looked, but he touched Him, and when he touched His arm, it was not thin air. When John leaned against Him at supper, it was not a delusion. Christ Jesus is a man of true flesh and blood! What a wonderful thing it is that the very first truth in the Christian revelation is that God became man-the amazing grace of it. God came down into His own world as a man. He came near to us in order that He might reveal Himself to us and die for our sins. He was made a little lower than the angels in order that He might settle the sin question for us. And so the apostle said in 1 John 1:2 , “For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.” Think of it! Eternal life appeared on earth! Do you want to know what eternal life really is in all its fullness, in all its purity? Study the life of Jesus in the four Gospels. John wrote, “The Word was made flesh, and [tabernacled] among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” . Although you and I do not see Him now with our natural eyes, yet through the testimony of John and his fellow apostles we are enabled to see Jesus-to see the manifestation of eternal life. So John continued, “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ” . Fellowship is a distinctly New Testament word. Not that you won’t find the English word in our translation of the Old Testament, but there it has the thought of companionship. In Christianity fellowship is far more. When you hear the benediction pronounced, “The love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit, and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you,” do you stop and think of what that means? People of different heredity, environment, and cultural standards, are saved by the same grace, indwelt by the same Holy Spirit, and brought into marvelous fellowship one with another. I remember a number of years ago sitting at a table eating with two Christian workers, one a colored man, the other a Japanese. Suddenly my Japanese friend said to us in his quiet oriental way, “What a wonderful thing is the grace of God! Just look at this, a black man, a yellow man, and a white man, all one in Christ Jesus! By nature each one filled with suspicion of the other, and even with a feeling of repugnance toward each other, but by grace all one in Christ.” This is not something artificially pumped up or produced by any effort of your own. It is the effect of the indwelling Holy Spirit of God. The Christian’s object of fellowship is occupation with Christ. The apostle John said, “Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.” I like that- our fellowship. In 1 Corinthians 1:9 we read, “God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son.” Men try to start fellowships, but they are poor things at best. The only fellowship I know anything about is the fellowship of God’s dear Son. Men may create their own fellowships, but thank God every believer has been called into the fellowship of God’s Son. Years ago I was telling a brother about a certain missionary. The man to whom I was speaking happened to be part of a particular group of Christians with whom I am intimately associated. He looked rather bored while I was speaking with him, and when I had finished he said, “And is the brother in our fellowship?” “If you mean some little clique of Christians, no, I don’t think he is in our fellowship. But if you mean the fellowship of the Son of God, yes, he is in our fellowship.” Our fellowship is the fellowship of the body of Christ as demonstrated in the communion. “The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?” What a marvelous fellowship this is! Do you want to know how to get into this fellowship? There is only one way-through a second birth and the gift of the Holy Spirit of God. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be born again. The Spirit will come to dwell in you and bring you into “our fellowship.” Fellowship means common thoughts and interests. Have you learned to know a Savior’s love? Do you enjoy the precious things that the apostle John is talking about? Has the glorious truth of eternal life as revealed in the Son of God become a reality to you? Then we can share it together. As I tell you a little about Christ and you tell me a little of what you know, our hearts are warmed. That is real fellowship. John concluded this section with these words, “And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.” You have a measure of joy now, but you will have more as you get better acquainted with Christ. You have a measure of happiness now; you will have more as you get to know Him more intimately. The Christian Message In this section John briefly gives us the Christian message-a synopsis of the gospel that the Lord Jesus Christ commissioned His apostles to carry into all the world. This gospel, if believed fills the heart with joy. What is the message? “This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” . They had heard the message from His own lips while He was on earth. You may say, “I don’t see anything about these verses that is particularly encouraging or that would fill my soul with joy.” If you are going on to know fullness of joy, you must first of all be brought into the presence of God as He is; and God is light. There are two expressions used in this book that tell us the nature of God. Here we read that God is light, and in chapter 4 we read that God is love. Light is used throughout Scripture as a synonym for infinite holiness, purity, and perfect righteousness. “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” There is nothing in God but absolute purity, absolute perfection, absolute holiness. You say, “Well, how then can I, a guilty sinner, ever have fellowship with an infinitely holy God? I might as well give up now, for if ‘God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all,’ if He can discern every secret thought of my heart, if He sees every evil way in me, how can I ever have fellowship with Him?” He has provided the way, but He first wants me to recognize that if I ever have fellowship with Him, it must be in the light. John went on to say, “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth” . There is no use talking about having fellowship with God and living in sin. “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy” . To walk in darkness is to walk in sin. To walk in sin is to follow the dictates of our own natural minds and hearts. “For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light” . “Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart” . This is the description of the nature of all men. The unsaved man belongs to the darkness. He is in Satan’s kingdom of darkness; he walks in it and loves it. Scripture says, “Men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” . If you are doing something shameful, corrupt, or vile, you don’t want to do it in the full light of day. You look for some hidden place either alone or with someone like yourself. You cannot have fellowship with God in darkness, for God is light. We have darkness presented in four different ways in Scripture. There is the natural darkness, “having the understanding darkened” . This darkness is natural to all men. No man by nature understands God. No man naturally loves holiness and purity. Have your ever noticed that you do not have to teach little children to tell lies? You do have to teach them to tell the truth. You never have to teach them to lose their temper, but you do have to teach them to control it. You never have to teach them to be disobedient, but you do have to teach them to be obedient. Why is this? Because people naturally are children of darkness. As we look into the faces of babies we do not like to think that in their little hearts there are the same sinful tendencies we find in ourselves. Nevertheless sin is present, and so there is the necessity of regeneration. “Ye must be born again” . Someone might say, “I am not responsible for my sin because I was born a sinner and my understanding was darkened. God is responsible for permitting me to come into the world like this.” God accepts full responsibility, and is not going to send anyone to eternal judgment because he was born a sinner. He is not going to send anyone to everlasting ruin because he was born in darkness. God has come to men and offered them a way out. That way is in the gospel. In the second place, we have willful darkness. Our Lord Jesus said, “This is the condemnation [not that men were born sinners], that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” . “He that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God” . Everyone who does evil hates the light. Men are therefore responsible when they reject the light that comes to them. That is the condemnation. That is willful darkness. The solemn result of willful darkness is judicial darkness. In Jeremiah 13:16 we read, “Give glory to the Lord your God, before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and, while ye look for light, he turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness.” Does a God who is light sometimes cause darkness? Yes, if men deliberately reject and turn their backs on the light. Pharaoh rejected the light. He hardened himself against God, and God hardened him in his sins. In 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12 we read of those who “received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” My friend, if God has given you a measure of light, thank Him for it. Seek grace to go on in that light. Don’t turn away from it, lest you go into judicial darkness. In Jude we read of the final result of rejecting the light, “To whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever” . If you lean towards universalism and believe the dream of the final restoration of all men to God, how do you account for this verse? There are certain men for whom is “reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.” God does not want any man to live in the dark or die in the dark. He wants men to come into the light, and in order that they may do so He has come to them. When Christ died, the veil that once separated God and man was torn in two from top to bottom. Now the true light is shining, and “if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” . Long ago God’s glory was veiled in the thick darkness. Man tried in vain to find and comprehend Him. But now God is “in the light”; He has been fully manifested. He is no longer hidden. He has been perfectly revealed in Christ, and the torn veil permits His glory to shine forth. Notice that the cleansing of the blood depends on our walking in the light. What is the apostle telling us? For many years I was very confused about this. I thought it said, “If we walk according to the light, the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” I thought it meant that if I was very careful about obeying every command of God, that if I walked according to all the light I might have, He would cleanse me. But we find that the worst sinner may have this cleansing. When does he get it? When he turns away from the darkness and comes to the light. Notice, it does not say if we walk according to the light, but it says, “If we walk in the light.” It is where you walk, not how you walk-it is to walk in the presence of God. By nature we do not want to come into the presence of God. But when the Holy Spirit has done His convicting work in our souls, we cannot stay away any longer. When we run toward the light, making our way into the very presence of the One we have been dreading, we find the light is shining from the blood-sprinkled mercy seat. Remember the picture in the tabernacle. In the holiest of all there was the ark of the covenant, the mercy seat, and the cherubim overshadowing it. They are mentioned in the Psalms as portraying divine justice and judgment. As a poor sinner, justice and judgment are waiting, as it were, to bring divine wrath on my guilty soul. But here the divine justice and judgment are seen above the mercy seat. What makes the throne of God a mercy seat? It is the sprinkled blood, the blood of sacrifice. And so divine justice and judgment are gazing down on the blood, and it is from this very place that the light shines. Between the cherubim is an uncreated light, the shekinah glory. I used to shrink from the light, loving my sin and the darkness. Now led on by the Spirit of God, I come to the light, face it, and let it shine full on me. What does it reveal? It reveals my sin and my iniquity. But I am not alone there, for “if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another” . I find that I am simply one of a great group of people who are all just as bad as I am by nature. Many people have the idea that they could never be happy coming into the presence of God until they first become saints. But the first time you come into His presence, you must come with all your sins, either in this life or in the day of judgment. If you come into His presence with your sins on you in the day of judgment, it means that you will be lost forever. But if you bring your sins before Him in this life, then you will find that though the light exposes all your corruption, iniquity, and wickedness, “the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” We do not need to fear the light, for the blood is in the very place from which the light comes. Let me emphasize again, It is not how we walk, it is where we walk. Do you walk in the light; have you come into the presence of God; have you ever had that light shine upon you? The word cleanseth suggests to many a continual cleansing. I do not think that is the thought of Scripture. The marvelous thing about salvation is that when you put your trust in the Lord Jesus, the blood of Christ cleanses eternally and completely in the sight of God. The blood abides on the mercy seat; it is there constantly before God in its eternal power. There is never a moment that the blood is not there before God. I may fail in words, actions, and thoughts that grieve the Spirit of God, but the blood abides and it cleanseth from all sin. When it comes to practical cleansing we have the washing of water by the Word . God’s estimate of the sacrificial work of His Son will never change, and therefore my standing before God will never change. Once in Him, in Him forever, Thus God’s faithful record stands. “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” This verse could be translated, “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from every sin.” It cleanses from the guilt of sin. The moment I put my trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, the blood cleanses from it all. I once thought of this as a kind of inward experience. I considered myself a Christian with a sinful nature, and that little by little it would be cleansed. But the marvelous fact is that in contrast to all my guilt is the infinite value of the atoning blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. God does not see one sin resting on the soul that trusts that precious blood. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” . Suppose someone says, “I have no need of this cleansing blood; I am good enough as I am I am not a sinner; I do not need forgiveness.” One of our poets has said, “I need no Christ to die for me,” and he is not the only one who takes that position today. Very well, the apostle said, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.” Notice, we do not deceive anyone but ourselves. You never saw a man that could deceive his wife by saying he had no sin. He might have been able to deceive her before they were married, but she soon begins to see his flaws and cannot be deceived. We do not deceive those closest to us; the only person we deceive is ourselves. The Word goes on to tell us that “the truth is not in us.” I remember years ago when Henry Varley was having some meetings in Oakland, California and spoke on this verse. He said, “I have been told that you have a good many sinless people out here in California. I have never seen one such person myself, and I have a real curiosity to see one. If there is one here tonight, I would like to see him as soon as the meeting is over.” After the meeting, one man came up to the preacher and said, “I understand you want to see a perfectly sinless man. I have never sinned in twenty-two years, since I was wholly sanctified.” “Well now, my dear brother,” said Mr. Varley, “let me get this right. You recognize, of course, that there are sins of omission as well as of commission?” “Yes,” he said. “And you are telling me that you have never been guilty either of sins of commission or of omission for twenty-two years?” the preacher asked. The man started to justify himself when an old lady came up the aisle, and before he could say a word, she said, “Yes, there are some folks that say they never commit sins, but ask their neighbors. They can tell a different story.” The man left without a word. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” That is why we need the cleansing value of the precious blood of Christ. As a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, I can no more stand before God on the grounds of my own spiritual experience than I could as a sinner. I stand before Him on the grounds of the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Can we go on then living in sin? No, not at all. Cleansing by the blood is our judicial cleansing. But “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” . This is our practical cleansing. You see, I come to God not only wanting my sins put away from before Him, my evil record omitted from the books of eternity, but also wanting practical deliverance by His power. I want to know what it is to have actual cleansing in my life in word, thought, and deed. I must come to God as a penitent, for it does not say that if we pray our sins will be forgiven, but, “If we confess our sins.” Of course, as a sinner, when I come to Christ I come on the grounds of this verse, and He cleanses me. But as a believer confessing the failures in my life, I come confessing my sin, and He is “faithful and just to forgive.” In the Old Testament a person was to come to God with an offering and “confess that he hath sinned in that thing” . This implies definiteness in confession. I’m afraid many of us never really get to God in confession because we are so indefinite. Someone may pray and say, “If You have seen any sin, anything wrong in me, forgive me.” Hold on a minute! Is there any sin; do you know of anything wrong? The proper way to make confession is to come to God acknowledging the wrong I have done. A lady who came to Charles Wesley said, “I want you to pray with me, for I am a great sinner. I am a saint of God, but I fail so dreadfully, and I want you to pray with me.” Mr. Wesley said rather sternly, “I will pray for you, for indeed you need it. You are a great sinner.” “What do you mean?” she asked indignantly; “I have never done anything terribly bad!” Oh, dear friends, if you want blessing, do not be vague in your confession. Go into the presence of God and tell Him all about your sins. Tell Him about your bad temper, about your scandalous tongue, about all the things you do to grieve His Holy Spirit. Some of you say, “Pray for my husband, I would like him to be converted.” He is more likely to be converted if you will say, “O God, I confess that my bad temper is hindering my husband from being saved and is alienating my children. I am not surprised that my friends are not converted.” Then go to them and make confession to them. If you have been saying it was nervousness when it was really bad temper, confess that it is temper, and stop trying to excuse your sin. He will cleanse us by the washing of the Word and give victory in our lives. He will enable us to live here to His praise and glory. “If we say we have not sinned [if we dare to take the ground that we have never sinned] we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” . We have not yet come into the light, but are still in the darkness trying to cover up our sins. May God enable us to be real with Him and with one another. Then we will know the blessing of fellowship in the light. Chapter Two - Living In God's Light Christ Our Advocate These two verses constitute the second part of the message we were studying in Chapter One. Remember in verse 5 of 1 John 1 we read, “This then is the message,” and then in the rest of that chapter, including the first two verses of the second chapter, we have the message in its entirety. This is the message that John and the other apostles were commissioned by Christ to carry throughout the world. It is the message of man’s utterly lost condition in darkness, and of the atoning value of the precious blood of Christ. This message tells us the importance of facing our sins in the presence of God, and finding forgiveness. Now John goes on to address the failures of believers, those who have been cleansed judicially from all sin. What about our failures?-for you know we do fail, all of us, much as we may regret the sad fact. I remember one summer I was rather amused listening to a sermon in which the speaker was telling about a little girl who had been left by her parents with another family while they were away. When at last the mother and father returned for her and she was on her way home, she said to her father, “Daddy, there were four little boys at that house where I have been staying.” “Yes, I knew that,” he said. “Daddy, they have family worship there every night.” “I’m glad to hear that.” “Daddy, every night their father prays for those four little boys.” “That is very nice.” “He prays, Daddy, that God will make them good boys, and that they won’t do anything naughty,” said the little girl. She was silent a moment and then said, “But Daddy, He hasn’t done it yet.” There are a great many folk like that. We are praying that God will make us good, and holy, and that our lives may be lives of victory. But I’m afraid many of us have to confess that God hasn’t done it yet. We recognize the fact that we do sin, and we do fail. Our hearts are nearly broken by our failures. What about the sins of believers? First of all, believers should not sin. John tells us, “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” . The word translated “little children” could better be translated “children” or “dear children” because the original word does not refer to age or size. It is a word that takes in everyone who is born of God. It literally means “born ones,” those who are born into God’s family. “My children, these things write I unto you, that ye should not be sinning.” It is the desire, the will of God for His children that we should not sin. God has redeemed us to Himself not only to take us to Heaven, but that we should live to the praise of His glory in this world. Farther on we read, “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin” . In other words, they do not live in the practice of sin. When an individual is saved, a change takes place. If there is no change in a person’s life, they have never been born of God. From the time of their new birth they hate sin and love holiness. If they do not hate sin and love holiness, they are not born of God. On the other hand, I recognize the fact that “there is not a just man upon the earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not” . There is no one who does not fail. It is not that God is powerless to deliver us, but we fail to steadfastly keep our eyes fixed on Christ-to reckon ourselves “to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” . The moment a believer becomes self-occupied, undisciplined, and negligent in prayer, he sins. Remember that sin consists not only in doing overt evil acts, but also in not doing the good that you know you should. ‘To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin” . I frequently meet people who say they never sin. I ask them, “Just what do you mean by that? Do you mean that you never break any of the ten commandments?” “Yes,” they say. “Do you mean that you never commit any actual overt acts of iniquity?” “Yes.” “Do you also mean that you do everything that you know you could do for God, that you take advantage of every opportunity of doing good, of every opportunity of speaking for Christ, of every opportunity of glorifying your Lord and Savior?” If there is the least bit of honesty, they bow their head and say, “No, I am afraid that I do not.” Then you sin. Sin is not merely the violation of certain moral principles, it is also failure to do the good that you know you should do. “If any man sin”-here the word sin is in the Greek aorist-it means, “If any man commit a sin at a given point of time.” It is not a question of the practice of sin, but of a definite failure. “If any man sin,” what then? Some believe that sin immediately severs the link that binds the believer to Christ. If that were true, no one would ever have the assurance of being a Christian. But there are two links that bind us to Christ. First there is the link of union. That link is so strong that the weight of the world could not break it. Our blessed Lord Himself said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish” . Nothing can ever break our link with Christ once it has been formed by the Spirit of God. But there is another link that binds the believer to the Lord, and that is the link of communion. This link is so delicate, it is easily broken. One unholy thought will snap it. One unchristlike action will destroy it. One minute given to foolishness will break it, and that link could never be formed again if it depended entirely on us. We often speak of the finished work of Christ, and rightly so. Our blessed Lord as He hung on the cross cried, “It is finished” . He bowed His head and dismissed His spirit, and there the work that saves our guilty souls was completed. “Whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him” . The finished work of Christ stands alone in absolute perfection. Our souls can rest on that finished work. As a believer was dying, someone leaned over him and asked, “Is everything all right?” The man replied,” ‘It is finished’; on that I can rest my eternity.” Upon a life I did not live, Upon a death I did not die, Another’s life, Another’s death, I stake my whole eternity. It is finished, yes, indeed; Finished, every jot! Sinner, this is all you need! Tell me, is it not? Nothing can be added to a finished work. While it is perfectly Scriptural to speak of the finished work of Christ, it is just as Scriptural to speak of the unfinished work of Christ. Our blessed Lord who completed one work when He died for our sins, began another when He ascended to the Father’s right hand in Heaven. There in the glory “he ever liveth to make intercession for [us]” . That intercessory work has two aspects. We read in Hebrews that He is there as our High Priest with God. As High Priest He is able to give us a perfect representation before God. We are seen in Him, and He is there to minister grace in our time of need. As a High Priest He can be “touched with the feeling of our infirmities”, and sympathizes with us in all our weakness. His sympathy has nothing to do with our sins, but with our infirmities-our weaknesses. If we avail ourselves of His high priestly work, we will not fall into sin. We can go to Him-our great High Priest-to “obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” . Scripture not only presents Christ as our High Priest, but also as our Advocate. It is as our Advocate that He confronts the believer’s sins. He is said to be a High Priest with God, but He is our Advocate with the Father. The more I read the Bible the more I realize the exactness of Scripture. The more I hear people talk about the Bible, the more I am impressed with how inexact we are when talking about divine things. It is quite natural for us to talk about Christ as the High Priest with the Father, or the Advocate with God, but that would dilute the truth of Scripture. My sins are put away by the blood of Christ, and I have a perfect representation before the throne of God in my great High Priest. “Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them” . When I was converted, God became my Father. There is no such thing in the Bible as the universal Fatherhood of God. He is Father only to those who are born again. As a believer if I fail or fall into sin, I read, “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father” . Not an Advocate with God, but with the Father. Why with the Father? Because the Spirit of God teaches me that our relationship has not been disturbed! When you sin, the devil says, “Now you’ve done it; you were a Christian before, but not any more. God is no longer your Father.” This is just a lie of the devil, for it is written, “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father” Our relationship is undisturbed. In the original the word paraclete means “one who comes to your side to help.” This same word is translated “Comforter” in John 14:16 ; John 14:26 ; John 15:26 ; John 16:7 . In the Gospel Jesus spoke of the “Comforter” that the Father will send in His name. The Comforter-the Spirit of God-comes from the Father and is sent both by the Father and the Son. The Lord said in effect, “I am going away, but I will send the Paraclete-One who will come to your side to help in every time of need.” On the other hand, in 1 John 2:1 we read that we have a Paraclete or “advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” In other words, God sent the Holy Spirit down to earth to dwell in me, to be my Advocate here on earth-to look after God’s interests in me. Then He took the blessed Lord up to Heaven to be my Advocate with the Father-to look after my interests with the Father. Why do I need an Advocate in Heaven? Because I have a great adversary. An advocate is someone who goes into court to represent you and to plead your case. You cannot defend yourself, but, when you go to your advocate, he defends you and pleads your case against your adversary. Satan is called in Revelation 12:10 , the “accuser of [the] brethren…which accused them before our God day and night.” When you sin, the devil appoints himself the prosecuting attorney in the high court of Heaven. The devil goes right into the presence of God and says, “Is this one of your Christians? Listen to what he is saying now; see what he is doing!” He is there to accuse, but the blessed Lord is there. He shows His wounds and spreads His hands, and says to the Father, “I took all that into account when I died on Calvary’s tree.” I hear the accuser roar Of ills that I have done; I know them well, and thousands more, Jehovah findeth none. Though the restless foe accuses- Sins recounting like a flood, Every charge our God refuses; Christ has answered with His blood. I realize my unrighteousness when I fall into sin, and could easily give up in despair. But I have an Advocate in the presence of the Father who gives me a perfect representation. God sees me in Him. I do not plead my case on the basis of my own righteousness but on the absolute righteousness of Christ Jesus. And so I can plead with power; I can plead effectively, because Christ died for the very sin that is now troubling me. “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins” . This word, propitiation, as used in John’s Epistle is a different word from the one used in Romans. Propitiation in Romans means the mercy seat. Romans 3:25 reads, “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.” The reference is to the mercy seat-the meeting place between God and man. But in 1 John 2:2 ; 1 John 4:10 , propitiation means an “atonement” or an “expiation.” My failures cannot undo the work of the cross. Christ has died, been raised, and gone up to God’s right hand, and is there as my Advocate interceding for me. There He undertakes my case. He Himself is the propitiation. 1 John 2:1 does not say, “If any man repent, we have an advocate; if any man confess his sins, we have an advocate; if any man weep over his sins, we have an advocate.” Instead it says, “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father.” It is not just when I am repentant that I have an Advocate, but the very moment I fail, Christ takes up my case, even before I am sorry about it. The moment that unkind word left my lips, the moment I did that spiteful thing, the moment I was thoughtless in some business matter, that very moment before my conscience was exercised and I was troubled, the devil was in the presence of God to accuse me. But the same instant the Son of God was there to represent me. As a result of His advocacy, the Spirit takes the Word of God and applies it to my conscience, and I confess my sin. It is possible that my conscience was not troubled until some time after my failure. Perhaps I did not realize the true condition of my heart until the night I could not pray, and I said to myself, “What is the matter?” Then I cried, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts” . In answer to the advocacy of my blessed Lord, the Spirit of God says, “Don’t you remember that unkind word, that unholy thought, that spiteful thing you did, that unforgiving spirit, that selfishness, that worldliness?” The guilt overwhelms me, and I break before God and say, “O God, I cannot go to sleep tonight until I have told You all about it.” Then I tell my story, confess my failures, my weakness and my sins, and as I do so, I know the blessing of the promise, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” . You see the wonderful truth is that all the experiences I have gone through have not touched my relationship in the family of God. My wife and I have raised two boys. Like other boys they are usually very good, but sometimes they give us a great deal of trouble. There are times they have given us a great deal of comfort, and then there are times when they have not been everything they should be, and it has concerned us. Often we have had to discipline them and say, “Go up to your room and stay there until you can face this thing, until you are ready to acknowledge your wrong and ask for forgiveness.” Sometimes the child’s will sets itself against the will of the parents. Hour after hour goes by without acknowledgment of wrong. Then suppertime comes and as the child hears the rattling of dishes, he calls out, “Father!” I go upstairs and he asks, “Can I go down to supper?” “That depends on you. Confess your wrong and you may come down.” “Well,” he says, “if you think I have done anything wrong, I am sorry.” “No, that won’t do,” and so I leave him and go back downstairs. Soon the meal is served and the odor wafts upstairs. He is getting hungry, and so he calls again. I go upstairs, and he tries to avoid the issue by saying, “Since you and Mother both think what I did is wrong, I guess it is, and I am sorry.” “No, guessing will not do,” and I turn to go downstairs. Maybe halfway down the stairs I hear him cry, “Father, Father, Please forgive me. I have been very naughty and stubborn.” Oh, how glad I am to throw my arms around him and put the kiss of forgiveness on his forehead, and say, “Come on down; we will all enjoy dinner better with you there.” So it is with our God and Father. Sin does not touch our relationship, but it does hurt our fellowship. But our blessed Lord is in the presence of God the Father to plead for His people, and as a result of His advocacy, we are brought to repentance and confession, and He graciously restores our fellowship. Obedience, the Proof of the New Life The apostle now presents to us some tests of our Christian profession. It is one thing to say, “I am a Christian,” but it is another to possess eternal life. It is one thing to say, “I am a child of God,” and quite another to know the marvelous blessing of regeneration. Do we say we are Christians? Do we claim to be children of God? Then we must prove it by our lives. “We do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments” . He is not speaking from a legal standpoint. In the Old Testament the commandments of God were presented to us with a view of obtaining life. The law said of the man who kept His commandments, “Which, if a man do, he shall live in them” . But here, under grace, it is the opposite. The man who lives by faith will do His commandments. The one who says he lives for God and yet is completely indifferent to the will of God, has never been born of God. He is still in “the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity” . The child of God delights in obedience to the will of God. Not that his obedience is perfect, for it is never that. There is only One who could say, “I do always those things that please him” . But love for the will of God springs up in the soul of the man who is truly regenerated. He delights to walk in obedience to God’s Word, and thus he proves that he is a child of God. He not only rests on the Word that says, “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life,” but he finds within himself that which corroborates his faith-that which proves he has been born of God. This new desire to do the will of God is not of the natural man. By nature we prefer to do our own will, we prefer to take our own way. But in trusting Christ, we learn to delight in His divine will. “He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him” . How outspoken the apostle John was! Some people do not appreciate this kind of strong language. But we need to realize that the apostle was dealing with great abstract truths. Men either love God or do not. They either walk in darkness or they walk in light. There is no in between. The principle here is that we can test ourselves to see where we are. We should ask, “Do I delight in the will of God; do I love His commandments?” If I do not, there is no use professing to be a Christian, for I am professing a lie. It is hypocrisy to claim to be a Christian while my works deny my profession. “He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him” . There is a difference between keeping God’s word and keeping His commandments. Of course, a little farther down we are told that the “commandment is the word” , but we could hardly say the word is the commandment. The commandment is included in the word, but the word is more than the commandment. The word is the expression of the will of God, either given in direct commandment or otherwise, and we who are saved delight to keep His word. This is the commendation that the Lord gave the church in Philadelphia, thou “hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name” . The Lord Himself makes this distinction between keeping His commandment and keeping His word. In John 14:15 He says, “If ye love me, keep my commandments,” but farther on He adds, “If a man love me, he will keep my words” . The following story illustrates the difference between “commandment” and “word”. There is a little girl who after school enjoys playing with her friends. One day her mother said, “My dear, when you come home from school today, there are some chores I want you to do. Dust the living room and set the table for supper. I will be out for a while, but when you are finished you can go out and play.” Because she is an obedient child, when she returned from school she did the things her mother had commanded her to do. She showed her love in this way. On another occasion she was under no such command, but coming home heard her mother speaking to the next door neighbor. Her mother said, “You know, I really don’t know how I am going to get through this afternoon. I have invited company for dinner, and I am in a panic because I don’t have anything ready. I am so exhausted and yet there are potatoes to peel, vegetables to prepare, and I don’t know how I will get it all done.” Now in the morning the mother had told her daughter, “When you come home from school today you can go out and play until I call you for dinner.” But the little girl, after hearing this conversation between her mother and the neighbor said, “Mother, you go and lie down for an hour. I will peel the potatoes, prepare the vegetables, set the table, and help you get dinner ready.” “But I told you you could play today,” the mother answered. “Oh, but I wouldn’t be happy out playing knowing you were here at home feeling so badly,” the child replied. Yesterday the little girl kept her mother’s commands; today she is keeping her word. How it must have delighted the mother’s heart to have her daughter doing these things even when she was not commanded to do them! The believer, in studying the Word of God, finds direct commands-certain things the Lord has told him to do, and because he loves his Lord, it is his delight to keep those commandments. But as he continues to read, he comes across passages containing no command whatever, but that express God’s desires-the longings of His heart for His own people. The true believer says, “Because You have won my heart, dear Savior, I will keep Your words.” “Whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him” . The word is the revelation of what God is and of His dwelling in the believer. Therefore keeping His word is the demonstration of the life of Christ in the one whom He has redeemed. So the apostle added, “He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked” . I cannot be all that Jesus is; that is impossible. Jesus is the Holy One of God, and I, although regenerated, am still a poor, failing, sinful man. But I am called to walk as He walked, for Christ has left us “an example that [we] should follow his steps” . I am to glorify Him by following in His footsteps. “Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning” . Earlier we examined the expression, “From the beginning,” and saw that it differs from the words in Genesis 1:1 , which speak of the beginning of creation. When John said, “I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning” , he was not referring to something strange and new, but was referring back to the word spoken by the Lord when He was here on earth. He was referring to the beginning of the Christian dispensation. False teachers had come into the church and were deceiving the people of God with their teachings. The apostle said to test these teachings by asking, were these things taught from the beginning? As we have already seen, in Christianity, “What is new is not true, and what is true is not new.” We are not in the process of discovering Christianity. Christianity was a revelation committed to godly men by the Holy Spirit in the very beginning of the church age. In other words John said, “Go back to the records of our Lord’s life, see what He Himself taught, and walk in obedience to His Word.” Our Lord was not merely summing up the commandments when He said, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another” , but it was His instruction concerning obedience to the will of God. But now the commandment takes on a new character. Since Christ has died, risen from the dead, ascended to Heaven, and sent the Holy Spirit to dwell in the hearts of believers, there are millions of regenerated men and women. To them the apostle declared, “Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth” . The commandment is the word of God, and the word was expressed in the life of Christ. If we are born again, the life of Christ has been given to us, so what is true in Him is true in us. The only thing Jesus could do when He was here on earth was the will of God. He had no other thought or desire. Now He dwells in us, and if we are Christians, we have His life in us. When John speaks of His commandment, he says it is new because divine life is ours, and so the word is both in Him and in us. By calling on the believer to do the will of God, our Lord is asking him to do the very thing he longs to do. Suppose a mother calls the doctor to see her young child. The little one seems to be very ill. After a careful examination, the doctor says, “I’m afraid the baby is very sick. I’m going to leave you some medicine. Don’t neglect the child, or be indifferent to its needs. Watch it carefully, see that it gets the medicine regularly, and is protected from anything that might make it worse instead of better. Please take good care of this child!” Is he asking the mother to do something that is difficult? No. She would probably reply, “That is exactly what I want and intend to do. I love that little child and nothing would cause me to be careless with it. I want to do the very best that I can for it.” The mother is told to do the very thing her heart yearns to do. And so it is with the believer, “You, that were sometime alienated, and enemies in your mind by wicked works” , now love to do the things He asks. We delight in the will of God. “A new commandment I write unto you…because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth” . The word past does not exactly suggest the tense of the original. What he was really saying is, “The darkness is passing, and the true light is now shining.” We can see as we look on the world around us and in us that the darkness is not past. Even though the gospel of the grace of God has been preached for almost two thousand years, the darkness is not gone. There are still millions in darkness and in the shadow of death. And no matter how well I know my Lord and His Word, I cannot say that the darkness is past even in me. But the darkness is passing, and the true light is shining. Every day I am getting to know my Lord better, and every day I understand His will more perfectly. But until the time comes when I leave this body and see my blessed Savior face to face, there will still be a measure of darkness in me, even though all is light in Him. Schiller, the German poet, said as he was dying, “I see everything clearer and clearer.” It won’t be long until all the darkness will be gone, and we will see everything in all its clearness in His own blessed presence. In verses 9 and 10 the apostle speaks very seriously and very solemnly concerning something that may well convict some of us. “He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now” . If you hate your brother, no matter what you profess, you are still in darkness. Notice he did not say you may be a real Christian who has fallen into darkness; but he said, if you hate your brother you are “in darkness even until now.” You have never been anywhere else. You have never been in the light at all. You cannot have divine light or the Holy Spirit or the love of God dwelling in you, and still hate your brother. And yet we often see people professing the name of Christ while showing hatred toward others. “He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him” . With new life comes light and love. God is light and love, and as we walk in fellowship with Him, nothing will cause us to stumble. Instead, we will constantly demonstrate the love of Christ. There is no room for hatred in the heart that is filled with the love of God. “He that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes” . This is the natural darkness in which all men are born. “Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart” . That is the condition of man by nature. But remember, we are not condemned because of what we are by nature. “This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” . You are not responsible because you are a sinner by nature, but you are responsible if you reject the Savior. You are not responsible because you were born in darkness and your understanding is darkened, but you are responsible if you reject the light that comes to you through the Word of God. This light will chase away all the darkness if you walk in it. Don’t turn from its searching rays. But if men persist in rejecting the light, there may come a day when God will withdraw that light. In Jeremiah 13:16 we read, “Give glory to the Lord your God, before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and, while ye look for light, he turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness.” This is the “strong delusion” we read about in 2 Thessalonians 2:11 . Then there is only one more step-eternal darkness-“Wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever” . “He that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes” . But Jesus said, “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” . Have you honestly trusted Him? Is He your light? Is He your life today? I heard the voice of Jesus say, “I am this dark world’s Light; Look unto Me, thy morn shall rise, And all thy days be bright.” I looked to Jesus, and I found In Him my Star, my Sun, And in that light of life, I’ll walk Till trav’ling days are done. Horatius Bonar The Children of God These verses introduce a distinct section of John’s Epistle in which he has a word of exhortation for all God’s children. Whatever their years of Christian life or their experience, all are addressed in verse 12 when he said, “I write unto you, [dear] children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake.” I purposely omitted the word little, which is in the King James version and substituted the word dear. I did this because the word translated “little children” in verse 12 is a very different Greek word from the one translated “little children” in verse 13 . The first word takes in all those who are bom into the family of God. It is a term of endearment. But the second word refers just to those who are young. In verse 12 , John is addressing all who have been redeemed to God by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ-those who have been bom into the great family of God. They are all God’s beloved children. If you have made Christ your only ground of confidence, and are now able to say, “On Christ the solid rock I stand, / All other ground is sinking sand,” then you are numbered among the children of verse 12 . “I write unto you, children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake.” He has given us in 1 John 1:7 the basis of that forgiveness: “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” There is no other way that sin can be blotted out. No other way that guilty men can be given a standing in the presence of a holy God. No other way is needed, for on Calvary’s tree our Lord shed His precious atoning blood. Thank God that “Sinners plunged beneath that flood, / Lose all their guilty stains.” These are the children of God. All men are by nature the children of Adam. They are “alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them” , and, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” . Those who have trusted the Lord Jesus and believed the gospel are already born into His family. Peter said, “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever…And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you” . But now, although all believers are equal as the redeemed of the Lord, and all who have trusted Christ are in one family as the children of God, yet there are obviously differing degrees of spirituality-degrees of progress in the Christian life. So in verse 13 , the apostle divides the children of God into three classes according to the measure of their growth “in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior” . “I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father” . John was not referring here to age or sex. He was not writing just to the men in Christ and excluding the women. These three terms, fathers, young men, and children, are used to distinguish believers according to the measure of their growth in grace. Who are fathers? They are those who for years have known the Lord, walked with God, and grown old in the things of Christ. To them John said, “I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning.” It is quite possible to have been a Christian for many years, and yet not be a father. There are many who have been saved a great many years but are spiritually dwarfed because they give so little attention to spiritual things. They give so little time to the Word of God, are so seldom exercised in holy things, and know so little of the blessedness of prayer and communion with the Lord, that they do not grow. But when the apostle spoke to the fathers, he was speaking to those who through long years have availed themselves of their Christian privileges, learned to love the Word of God, sought to walk with Christ, labored for the blessing of others, and learned experientially to know the blessed Lord in all His fullness. When John said, “Ye have known him [that is] from the beginning,” he did not mean, “Ye have known concerning him,” or “known about him,” but “ye have known him.” Spiritual fathers have lived in fellowship with Him, walked with Him, and talked with Him. He has become dearer and nearer and more real to them than any earthly friend. He draws very near to His own, and, if I may coin an expression, He presences Himself with them. He shows them His hands and feet, and says, “It is I myself: handle me, and see” . He asks us to remember that it was for us He bore the wounds and endured the agony of the cross, in order that we might become His own. So the fathers are those who have learned to know Him throughout the years. They have learned to appreciate His love. The world has lost its power over their souls because Christ has filled the eyes of their hearts. Next John wrote to the “young men.” These are the strong Christians who, although they may not have walked with God for as many years as the fathers, have yet gone on with Him into spiritual maturity. They have learned the secret of overcoming. In the book of Revelation we read, “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony” . When John said, “I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one,” we can be sure that it is through their faith in the atoning blood of Christ that they have been able to turn away from the world that crucified Him. They have said farewell to anything that has no place for their Lord. My old companions, fare you well, I cannot go with you to hell; I mean with Jesus Christ to dwell I will go. Do you remember an experience like that? Have you turned from the world that rejected your Savior, and clinging to Him, taken His place of rejection? If so, then even when Satan seeks to terrify you by bringing before you your past sins, you are able to plead the infinite value of Christ’s atoning blood. That is the way to overcome. Finally, there is a third class into which the apostle divides the family of God. These are the little ones, new believers in Christ, and to them he says, “I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father.” A little while ago they were walking with the world in darkness, but they heard the gracious invitation of the loving Savior, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” . Responding to His invitation, they came with all their sins and grief, and found how true a friend Jesus is to those who trust Him. Now, though they do not know much else, they know the Father and have been given the Holy Spirit. God does not wait until we become mature Christians before the Holy Spirit is given to us. “Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” We began in the Spirit. We received the Spirit of God as soon as we believed in Jesus, and He teaches us to cry, “Abba Father.” We look up into His blessed face and are able to say, “My Father.” There is a great deal for the “little children” to learn. Many varied experiences are still ahead of them, and there are wonderful truths yet to be opened. But they are just as accepted in the Beloved as the fathers. They are just as cleansed from every sin as the young men who “have overcome the wicked one.” How to Overcome Beginning with verse 14 John goes on to give a word of encouragement, warning, and exhortation, to each group of believers, so he mentions them all again in order. To the fathers he says, “I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning” . John does not add anything to what he said in verse 13 . It is exactly the same. Why doesn’t he add anything? Because you cannot add to the climax of Christian experience-“Ye have known him that is from the beginning.” “From the beginning,” refers to Jesus’ incarnation here on earth. It must have been wonderful to trace His footsteps as He walked the sands of earth, and see Him in His perfection-God revealed in the flesh. It is even more wonderful to know Him now as the One who passed through death, was raised by the glory of the Father, has ascended to Heaven, and sits exalted at God’s right hand as our great High Priest and Advocate. There are not many fathers in the faith. People may be very old in Christ and yet not be fathers in a spiritual sense. Sadly, many who have been Christians for years are still very worldly minded and know little of true fellowship with Christ. Paul earnestly prayed, “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death” . It is this personal knowledge of God that constitutes one a father in Christ. This is the height of Christian maturity, and comes through a life of intimate fellowship with Christ. Does your soul long to know Him? Do you seek to know Him better through the years? There is only one way that you will ever become a father in Christ-it is to know Him. Many people are quite clear regarding certain great doctrines, or convinced as to where they stand on the fundamental and liberal controversy. They have rigid ideas as to how the people of God should meet together, and yet there is one thing very evident-they do not know Christ in this intimate relationship that is indicated here. How do you get to know a person? By living with them day after day. How do you get to know Christ? By living in intimate fellowship with Him day after day throughout the years. You know Him when He ministers to you in your sorrow. You know Him when you put Christ first and find your chief joy and gladness in Him. To know Him! This is to be a father in Christ. John does not add a word of exhortation. Why? Because when Christ becomes the sole object of the heart, nothing more can be added to that. The heart completely devoted to Christ is delivered from the power of sin, saved from worldliness, and kept from jealousy, envy, and everything that is of the flesh. These things will not be present in the heart where Christ is all in all. Next the apostle turned his attention to those who have not reached the depths of experience that the fathers have, and yet are strong, vigorous Christians. He said, “I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one” . When he spoke to them previously, he simply said, “I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one” . But now he reveals the secret of that overcoming. They are not strong in their own power, but “in the Lord, and in the power of his might” . In other words, you are strong because “the word of God abideth in you.” Many of us spend the greater part of the week occupied solely with the things of earth-things that in themselves are very right and legitimate. Once a week we come together for Bible study or worship, and say, “How encouraging and helpful!” It is like someone eating one good meal a week. That is not the way to be strong. We are strengthened by reading the Word of God first thing in the morning, meditating on the Word of God all day long, and studying the Word of God the last thing at night. If you go to bed with the Word of God in your mind, you will wake up with the Word of God in your mind. It is the Word of God that keeps us from the power of the enemy throughout the day. Some say, “I do not think this is possible.” But it is possible, and many have proven it can be done. Someone said to me once concerning a fellow Christian, “I like your friend. He is like a walking Bible.” That was because my friend was constantly feeding on the Word. I knew a blacksmith who was so eager to become a man of God that he used to cut his Bible into sections, and tie one section up with a piece of string beside his forge. He would pull a page of it off and tack it up before him so that as he worked away at the blacksmith shop, he would be reading the Word. Was it any wonder that three years later God called that man away from the blacksmith shop into active Christian service? For forty years he has been an evangelist, leading many to the Lord Jesus Christ. Another man I knew was a printer. He had his Bible on a little stand in front of him, and as he worked away on those great circular presses, he had his heart set on the things of God. He would read a verse and meditate on it as he worked, and then read another, and another. It was not long until God took that man away from the printing press and sent him out preaching. He always said he got his theological seminary training standing at his printing press. “Because the word of God abideth in you.” You know there are many Christians who think of the Word of God as something to take up an extra hour or so when they have nothing else to do. But you will never grow that way. What little strength you get from that hour is all used up when you become occupied with other things. You do not get anywhere on small doses. When the Word of God is the supreme thing in your life, and everything else is made to fit into that, then you will grow and become a strong Christian. The world is bidding for strong young Christians, and its allurements are all around them. The devil would do anything to trip up an earnest Christian. There are some believers the devil could care less about. But the ones who are out and out for God, Satan pursues with his snares and attractions, trying to trip them up. If they flee from one thing, he has another temptation waiting for them. And so the exhortation comes, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever” . What is this world that we are not to love? It is not the earth, for that in itself has nothing that can hurt our souls. We can love nature. We do not need to be afraid of a beautiful view or a lovely flower. Some Christians have the idea that we are not to enjoy the world of nature. I said to one, “Isn’t that a beautiful rose bush?” He replied, “I am not interested in roses; I am not of this world.” That is not the world that is spoken of in Scripture. The universe is the expression of the Father’s wisdom and goodness. Heav’n above is softer blue, Earth beneath is sweeter green! Something lives in ev’ry hue Christless eyes have never seen: Birds with gladder song o’erflow, Flow’rs with deeper beauties shine, Since I know, as now I know, I am His, and He is mine! George W. Robinson The Lord loved the lilies of the field. He drew attention to the beauties of nature. They stirred His own soul, and He wants His people to see in them the evidences of the wisdom and goodness of the Father. But what, then, is the world we are to hate? It is the system that man has built up on earth, in which he is trying to make himself happy without God. The world’s system really began back in Genesis when Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and built a city. It was a wonderful world. They were skilled in all kinds of arts, sciences, business, and pleasure-anything and everything to make them happy without God. But it ended in corruption and violence, and God had to sweep the whole thing away with a flood. The principles of the world that caused the corruption and violence before the flood were carried into the ark in the hearts of some of Noah’s children. They brought the world into the ark, and when they emerged from the flood, they brought the world out of the ark with them and set it up again. What is then the world, which John described as the “lust of the flesh” (the gratification of the flesh), and “the lust of the eyes” (the desires of the unregenerate soul)? When some think of the world, they think of things that are abominable, vile and corrupt-saloons, gambling halls, and every kind of violence. These things offer little to attract the Christian heart. The world the Christian needs to beware of is the world of culture-the world that appeals to their esthetic nature. That world should hold as little attraction for the Christian as the corrupt, abominable world in the slums of our great cities. Don’t imagine yourself safe and free from worldliness because your world is in the arts and sciences. Even the business world may become a great snare. But you ask, “Don’t we have to work?” Yes. Jesus said, “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil” . In all these things we have to watch against the evils of the world. I remember when I was a young Christian, the world I had to guard against most was the world of literature. I used to love its poetry, essays, and wonderful books. I still appreciate them to a certain degree. But I have to remember that if ever these things come between my soul and my love for God’s Word, I have to turn away from them and give my time and attention to Scripture. And so it is with anything that comes between you and your Lord. There was a young lady with great musical ability preparing to go on the concert stage when the Lord saved her. She said one day, “You know I have made an amazing discovery. My love for music is coming between my soul and Christ.” That young woman, for eight years, would not touch a musical instrument for fear she would become so absorbed that she would not enjoy the things of God. But the time came when she said, “Although I can’t enjoy music for its own sake, I can use it as a vehicle to bless the souls of people.” She gave her talent to Christ, and He used it in attracting people to hear the gospel. No matter what your world is, if you lay it down at Jesus’ feet and use it for Him, you do not need to be afraid of it. But do not put your world before Jesus Christ. For some a fine house is “the world.” Suppose there is a Christian who has little worldly wealth. He lives in a quiet little home and is happy and content. But then the Lord trusts him with a good deal of money, and he immediately says, “I must have a better house now. I must live in style. I must have magnificent furniture and fine draperies.” What for? Is he any more comfortable? He can only eat three meals a day; he can only sleep in one bed and sit in one chair at a time. But he feels he must impress people. He is in love with “the things that are in the world.” Physical beauty can also get between you and Christ, and will prove to be “the world” if one is not careful. “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world” . What is “the pride of life?” It is the pretentiousness of living, of trying to make an impression on others. It is the excessive exalting of oneself in the eyes of the world. I sometimes think if Christians took two-thirds of the money they invested in a mansion in this world, and invested it in sending the gospel to a lost world, they would have a much finer mansion in the eternal world. I was walking down the street one day with a friend. As he pointed out a particular home he said, “There is an awful lot of tragedy connected with that house. A man built this great home for his beautiful wife, and suddenly she died. Here is a house that had a lot of money put into it, but there was a suicide in the family, and now no one wants to live in it.” There is no real joy in things. As Christians, our joy in Christ is the only joy that will last forever. Our joy is in the things that will never pass away, and yet it is sad to think that we can be so foolish and invest so much in what is fleeting and will leave us dissatisfied and unhappy in the end. “But he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” In obedience to God’s will there is lasting joy and endless gladness. In the light of that, who would not say, Take the world, but give me Jesus, All it’s joys are but a name, But His love abideth ever, Through eternal years the same. Fanny J. Crosby Have you made your choice? As a believer you made your first choice when you turned from sin to Christ. Have you made your next choice? Have you turned from the world to Christ? There are many who have trusted Jesus as their Savior from judgment, who have never learned to know Him. They have never learned to walk with Him in blessed fellowship No one can ever put this world beneath his feet until he has found a better world above. When your heart is taken up with Christ in that eternal world, it is an easy thing to heed the exhortation, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.” God’s Little Children-Their Privileges and Dangers We have noticed that the Holy Spirit in addressing the family of God has divided it into three classes, according to the measure of their growth in grace. We have already considered what the Lord has to say to the fathers in Christ and to the young men. Now we come to consider His message to God’s little children. “Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time” . The word translated “little children” here, as pointed out on a previous occasion, is very different from the word translated “little children” in the first part of verse twelve. There it is a term of affection, and implies all who are born into God’s family, all His dear children, who are at varying degrees in their spiritual experience. But here the term includes not only those who have been recently saved, but also those who although saved for years, have not been well nourished or built up in Christ. While they should be in one of the more spiritually mature classes they are still God’s little children. These immature believers are passing through a world in which there are a great many adverse influences seeking to turn them away from the simplicity that is in Christ. So the apostle immediately warned them, and interestingly enough, he warned them against the spirit of antichrist. “Ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.” John is the only writer who used the term antichrist. Other terms used in Scripture are the “idol shepherd” , the one who “shall come in his own name” , the “son of perdition” and the “man of sin” , the “lawless one” , and the “false prophet” . These different terms describe the same person, the one who will arise during the great tribulation and lead apostate Christendom and Judaism farther away from God than they are at the present time. The antichrist has not yet appeared, but the spirit of antichrist is in the world, for “even now are there many antichrists.” The “spirit of antichrist” is the putting of man in the place of God and His Christ. It is self-worship or humanism. The little children need to be warned against this. Sadly many of the advocates of these unholy systems once claimed to be Christians. They took their places at the communion table, had fellowship outwardly with God’s people, were baptized, but now have turned away from Christianity and Scripture. They deny the precious blood they once confessed. Scripture says, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand” . So how are we to account for people who for years seemed to be just as real as any other professed believers, but now count “the blood of the covenant, wherewith [they were] sanctified, an unholy thing, and have done despite unto the Spirit of grace” and spurned the love of Jesus? The answer is, “They were not of us: for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us” . I remember how my heart was stirred after the war as I read of one of our great American preachers who was great from the standpoint of ability, culture, and rhetoric, but knew nothing of the saving grace of God. He said that after he had been to Europe and after his experience in the trenches, he threw overboard the doctrine of blood-atonement through the precious sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ, gave up the doctrine of the deity of Christ, and scoffed at His virgin birth and resurrection. How could so great a preacher repudiate these truths? We don’t need to guess about this, for the answer is given by the Holy Spirit Himself in verse 19 , “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us; but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.” Their going out made it evident that they were not genuine believers. They carried the Christian name, they joined a Christian church, they were baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and they took the bread and the wine at the table of the Lord. But He who sees not as man sees said, “The hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table” . He knew what Judas really was, and so said, “Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?” He was never anything else. God knows who are the unreal among His people today. He knows all who mingle with the people of God, who profess the name of Christ, but have never known the blessing of regenerating grace, never bowed in repentance at the cross of Christ, never been washed from their sins in the Savior’s precious blood. The hardest thing in the world to do is to attempt to live like a Christian when you have no Christian life. It would be easier for one of the beasts of the field to set himself up in a mansion and try to live the life of a millionaire human being, than for an unregenerate sinner to try to live the life of a Christian. “Ye must be born again” . “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” . And so John wrote of men mingling with Christians and outwardly looking like them, but he said, “They were not of us.” They were not genuine. Oh, may each one of us search our hearts in the presence of God and ask ourselves, have I really faced my sins in the light of the cross of Christ? Have I truly turned to God in repentance, admitting my guilt, acknowledging my iniquity, and fled for refuge to the hope given me in the gospel? Do I show evidence of a regenerate soul? Do I love the brethren? Do I love the commandments of God? Is the Word of God sweet to me, and do I delight to feed on it? Is it my joy to serve the Lord, or are these things wearisome to me? I am persuaded, and I say this with love, that there are tens of thousands of people today whose names are on a church roll who have never had their names enrolled in the Lamb’s Book of Life. There are tens of thousands of people struggling to live a Christian life, and making a complete failure of it because they have never yet been born again. If a great revival were to come to this land, one of the first evidences of it will be that people who have used the Christian name and passed for Christian workers will begin to find out that they themselves have never been saved. They will break down before God, and confess their sins and judge their iniquities and selfishness. How dreadful to never find out the truth until the day of judgment when it is too late to rectify the error! John wrote of these pretenders, “They went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us” . Once outside they became the worst opponents of those who stood for the truth of God. There is no one who hates the gospel like the man who once professed to be saved but afterward turned to a life of sin because there was no reality in his profession. These were the antichrists John warned the little children about in his day. How are the little children to guard against these false teachers? Look at verses 20 and 21 . “But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things. I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth.” He said, “Ye know all things”-not actually every detail, but potentially. You have dwelling in you the One who does know, and therefore you don’t need to be carried away by any form of error. What do young believers have as their resource? They have the Spirit of God and the Word of God. They have the Word of God in their hearts and the Spirit of God dwelling in them to open the truth to them. When people come with their false teachings that deny the atoning blood, or the deity of Christ, or emphasize human attainment, the young ones in Christ can turn back to the Word of God, and the Spirit of God dwelling in them opens the Word to them and thus preserves them from error. The story is told by a well-known English minister, how one night, when he was just ready to retire, there came a knock at his door. When he went downstairs, he found at the door a poor, wretched little girl, dripping wet. She had come through the storm, and she said, “Are you the minister?” “Yes,” he said, “I am.” He was at that time one who had turned away from the simplicity of the gospel. “Will you please come and get my mother in?” she asked. The minister replied, “I was just about to retire, and besides it is hardly proper for me to go out in this weather and bring your mother in. If she is drunk, you can get a policeman to fetch her. He has his oilskins on and is prepared for the storm.” “Oh no,” said the little girl, “you don’t understand! My mother is not out in the storm, and she is not drunk. She is at home dying, and she is afraid to die. She is afraid she is going to be lost forever. She wants to go to Heaven and doesn’t know how, so I told her I would get a minister to get her in.” He asked where she lived, and she told him of a district so corrupt that even in the daytime respectable people did not go there without a police escort. “Why,” he said, “I can’t go down there tonight.” To himself he reasoned, It would ruin my reputation to be seen with a girl like this in that district in the middle of the night. No, I cannot go. I am the preacher of a large and important church. What would my congregation think if it should get into the papers? To the girl he said, “I will tell you what to do. You go down and get the man who is running the Rescue Mission. He will be glad to help you.” He felt ashamed as he said it, but decided his reputation had to be maintained. “He may be a good man,” replied the girl, “but I don’t know him. I told my mother I would get a real minister, and I want you to come and get her in. Please come quickly; she’s dying.” “I couldn’t stand the challenge in those eyes,” the preacher confessed. He felt ashamed, and so he said to her, “Very well, I will come.” He went upstairs, got dressed, and put on his overcoat. Then the girl led him down through the city, into the slum district, into an old house, up a rickety stairway, and along a long dark hall into a little room where lay the poor woman. “I have gotten the preacher of the biggest church in the city,” said the girl. “He will get you in. He didn’t want to come, but he’s here. You tell him what you want, and do just what he tells you to do.” The woman looked up and said, “Oh, sir, can you do anything for a poor sinner? All my life I have been a wicked woman, and I am going to Hell. But I don’t want to go there. I want to be saved and go to Heaven. Tell me what I can do.” The preacher related how he stood there looking down at that poor anxious face, and thought, Whatever will I tell her? I have been preaching in my own church on salvation by character, ethical culture, and reformation. But I can’t tell her about salvation by character, for she hasn’t any. I can’t tell her about salvation by ethical culture, for there’s no time for culture, and besides she most likely wouldn’t know what I meant. I can’t tell her about salvation by reformation, for she has gone too far to reform. Then it came to me, why not tell her what my mother used to tell me? This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/iron/ Chapter Three - God Is Love The Father’s Love and Christ’s Appearing What beautiful words are written to believers in the opening verses of 1 John 3. First comes the “manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.” This is something different from the general love of Joh 3:16 , “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” That is infinite love to lost men everywhere. If you are not a believer, be assured of this: the love of God goes out to you and he has extended His love to you in that while you were yet a sinner Christ died for you. However, there is a love sweeter and more precious than that, but it is not for you until you trust in Christ. But if you have already trusted in Him, then you can enter into the Father’s love. “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us.” It is the children who are addressed, not sons. It is a peculiar thing in the King James version, that often in the translation of John’s writings, the word sons is used where it should be children: “That we should be called the children of God.” And because we are the children of God “the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.” If you are using a revised version you will notice that there are several words added, which were found in some old manuscripts that were not known when the King James version was translated, “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God, and so we are.” It is not that we hope to be, but we are. Are you clear about that? If you are, you will never sing, Tis a point I long to know, Oft it causes anxious thought, Do I love my Lord or no? Am I His, or am I not? I would not dishonor my Lord by singing words like that when I read, “Rejoice, because your names are written in heaven” . Therefore, because we are-because we have been born of God and regenerated-the world does not understand. The world does not know us because it did not know Christ. If it did not know Him, we cannot expect it to recognize us. Because He passed through this world a stranger and a pilgrim, we too go through it as strangers and pilgrims, refusing to look at things from the world’s standpoint. “Beloved, now are we the [children] of God”-not we hope to find that we are such when we get to Heaven but-“ Now are we the children of God” . But there is something we are waiting for. “It doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” Soon every believer will be fully conformed to His blessed image-this is our great expectation. What a wonderful day that will be! Even now God looks at His people as they are going to be when He gets through with them. We look at each other as we are now, and get discouraged with ourselves and with one another. But God is looking at us as we will be when we see our blessed Lord and are changed into His glorious image. A story is told of an artist who had in his mind the conception of a great picture he was going to paint. He stretched his vast canvas straight across one side of his large studio, put up the scaffolding, brought the big, thick brushes, and prepared the paint. It looked like a job of house painting. He painted with great sweeps of his brush as he put in the background. Day after day he would walk back and forth putting a dab of gray here, and dab of blue there, and some black there. One day he came down from the scaffolding to look at it. He kept moving back, and back, and back. A visitor had come in unnoticed, and as the artist moved backward he bumped right into him. He turned around and said, “Why are you here? I didn’t know you had come in. What do you think of my picture? It is going to be the masterpiece of my life. Isn’t it magnificent?” The other said, “I don’t see anything there but a lot of great daubs of paint.” “Oh, I forgot,” said the artist; “you can see only what is there, while I can see the picture as it is going to be.” The blessed Lord sees us as we are going to be when we see Him, for then we will be just like Him. Even now on earth, “We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” . And when we see Him as He is, we will become just like Him. “And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure” . It is literally, “Every man that hath this hope set on Him”-looking forward to the coming of the Lord Jesus, the blessed hope of His return. I do not know any incentive to godly living like the hope of the coming again of the Lord Jesus Christ. People must be weaned away from the world by heart-occupation with the coming Savior. You cannot be occupied with Him and occupied with the world at the same time. It is impossible not to be weaned away from the world when your heart is totally surrendered to Him. You do not have to give up the world for Jesus’ sake. The fact of the matter is that, “The things of earth will grow strangely dim / In the light of His glory and grace.” When you are looking for His return, you cannot enjoy the things of the world that crucified Him. Conversely, if you are a Christian and trying to enjoy the world, forgetting that you are called to be separate from the world, you cannot enjoy Christ. You cannot enjoy Christ and the world at the same time. In the flyleaf of John Bunyan’s Bible he had written, “This Book will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from this Book.” And so we may say, occupation with Christ will save you from worldliness, or worldliness will hide the glory of His wonderful face. “Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.” The Two Natures We have in the fourth verse what appears to be a definition of sin. What is sin? There was a little boy who when his Sunday school teacher asked him this question, said, “I think it is anything you like to do.” That is not far from wrong, because in our natural state we are so utterly out of touch with God that we like to do those things that are contrary to His holy will. The definition of sin is given in 1 John 3:4 , “Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.” The King James translation is not very accurate. The verse should read, “Whosoever committeth sin committeth lawlessness, for sin is lawlessness.” In other words, sin does not consist merely in the breaking of a revealed law. The King James version seems to indicate this, but if we turn back to Romans, we are told that “where no law is, there is no transgression” , but “until the law sin was in the world” . If sin is the transgression of the law, how could sin have been in the world before the law was given? If we accept the more accurate rendering, all is clear. “Sin is lawlessness,” and that is the very essence of sin. It is rebellion against God-taking my own way. This is something we all do naturally. Isaiah said, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” . I was a wand’ring sheep, I did not love the fold, I did not love my Shepherd’s voice, I would not be controlled: I was a wayward child, I did not love my home, I did not love my Father’s voice, I loved afar to roam. Horatius Bonar Rebellion characterizes every man or woman who has never been subdued by divine grace. Sin therefore is self-will-it is taking my own way and not subjecting myself to the will of God. 1 John 3:5 tells us, “And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin.” Here John declared more than he did in his Gospel. In John 1:29 John the Baptist exclaimed as he pointed to the Lord Jesus Christ, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” In his Gospel John directed us to Christ’s work on the cross. There He settled the sin question and because of that finished work He is able to show grace to all men everywhere. But here in the Epistle, we have deliverance from the practice of sin for those who are already saved: “He was manifested to take away our sins.” “Sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace” . The Word says, “Thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins” . Our blessed Lord not only saves us from the guilt of sin through the work of His cross, but He has provided the means whereby He may save us from the power of sin. He takes away the habit of sinning through the indwelling Holy Spirit after the new nature has been communicated to us through the new birth. People who loved to sin and go their own way, now delight in holiness and find their joy in doing His will. This is the characteristic mark of a Christian. A man who has professed to accept Christ as his Savior, to have been justified by faith through His atoning blood, and yet goes on living in the world and liking the world, shows that he has never had a renewed nature. He is simply a hypocrite because he is pretending to be what he is not. A real Christian is one who has been born again, one who has a new life and a new nature and is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and therefore has learned to hate the sin in which he once lived. “Ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin” . It was said of the sin offering, “It is most holy” . If our blessed Lord Jesus would become the great sin offering for the world, He must be the Holy One- the Lamb without blemish and without spot, both outwardly and inwardly. The Spirit of God is careful to insist that this perfection is true of our Lord Jesus Christ. Again and again Scripture dwells on His infinite beauty and holiness. “He did no sin” and, “In him is no sin.” And now this absolutely sinless One, who in grace became sin for us that we might be reconciled to God, dwells by the Spirit in the believer. Our new nature is really His very life imparted to us. It is in the power of this life that we triumph over sin. There is a friend of mine who has been for a long time a confirmed addict to the disgusting cigarette habit. He has tried to free himself from this habit, and wants to be free, but this thing has such a hold on him that unfortunately physicians have told him it would be best to continue smoking. I cannot tell you how many times I have looked at him and said, “Oh, how I wish it were possible for me in some way to get control of your will so that this habit would go away, because I detest it so! If I could only get within you so that my mind could control yours, and my feelings toward this thing would take possession of you, then you would never smoke again.” That is exactly what the Lord does for those who trust Him. He dwells within us, and as we yield to Him, He takes full control. He dominates the believer so that he lives to His praise and to His glory. Next the apostle went on to show what holiness really means in the Christian’s life. “Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not [is not characterized by sinning]: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him” . This verse used to trouble me, because I was not clear about it. I used to read it as though it said, “Whosoever committeth a sin hath not seen him, neither known him.” Verse eight was particularly disturbing: “He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning.” And as I got my eyes off the Lord and allowed myself to fall into something that dishonored Him, those words were the torment of my life-“He that committeth sin is of the devil.” This verse seems to says that whoever sins has never been a Christian at all. I was greatly troubled, for I knew I had not gotten to the place of sinless perfection, even though I was trying to get there in those days. I was so sure I was born of God-that I was converted-but wondered if it had all been a mistake. I went to a teacher and asked him about this, and he said, “You have been converted all right, but every time you commit a sin you become unconverted again, and a child of the devil once more.” That made me even more bewildered than before, and I wondered how I would ever know when I was converted to stay. If I were converted over and over again how would I know for sure that I was still converted just before I died? I might suddenly become a child of the devil again and miss everything. What a relief of mind it was to get a better understanding of the tense of the verbs! Contrast 1 John 3:6 with 1 John 2:1 , “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” He does not say if any man sin he ceases to be a child of God, but, “We have an advocate with the Father.” The word sin is in the aorist tense, and refers to a definite action at a given point of time, “If any man should fall into a sin.” But chapter three verse six is in the present continuous tense, “Whosoever goes on practicing sin, whosoever makes it the habit of his life to live in sin, hath not seen him neither known him.” Peter fell into grievous sin, and that sin was repeated and repeated. But when the Lord turned and looked at him, he went out and wept bitterly. His heart was broken because of his failure, and he was soon restored. True believers fall into sin if for a moment their eyes are taken off the Lord Jesus Christ. But the advocacy of the Lord Jesus begins at that moment, and He restores their souls. The fear of losing his salvation troubled a dear Irishman who had been wonderfully saved. The thought came to him, “Dear me, if I am so happy in the Lord now, what an awful thing it would be if something happened that cut me off from Christ and I should be lost after all!” He went to a meeting, and a preacher read these words, “Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God” . The truth of that verse dawned on the Irish brother with such clarity that he shouted, “Glory to God, whoever heard of a man drowning with his head that high above water!” “Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him. Children [this is the word that takes in the whole family of God], let no man deceive you: he that [practises] righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. He that [practises] sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth [has made sin a practice] from the beginning” . All through his fearful history the devil has been characterized by rebellion against God. He practiced sin from the beginning. Those who are children of the devil exhibit the moral characteristics of their father, while those who belong to the family of God exhibit the moral characteristics of their Father. They delight in holiness even as the others roll sin as a sweet morsel under their tongues. “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy [undo or annul] the works of the devil.” Dear believer, there is not only deliverance from the judgment due your sin, but deliverance has been provided from the power of sin. He provides deliverance over sin that He might annul the works of the devil. He sets His people free from the power of sin and Satan that they might live in this world to the praise of His glory. “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin [practice sin]; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin [cannot be sinning], because he is born of God” . When I think of justification, I think of a forensic act of God by which I am cleared of every charge of guilt. When I think of regeneration, I think of the imparting of a new nature through the power of the Holy Spirit in which the whole direction of my life is changed. Years ago when I went to California as a boy, the only oranges we knew were the ones with seeds. But then two of the Washington navel orange trees were brought to Riverside from Brazil and cultivated. Cuttings were taken from these parent trees at Riverside, and orange trees were budded with the Washington navel shoots, and their character was completely changed. A man having a forty acre orchard and not wanting to be left completely without fruit, would have the tops of one half of the trees cut off. Twenty acres would go on bearing the oranges with the seeds. But he would cut under the bark of the lopped trees, and put in the navel orange cuttings, and in a couple of years all those trees would have new branches and would be loaded with oranges. I might say to the owner, “What kind of oranges are these?” “Washington navel oranges,” he would reply. “Is that the only kind of oranges they bear? Don’t they sometimes bear oranges with seeds?” “Oh no,” he would say; “A budded tree does not produce seeded oranges.” But even as he speaks I stoop down and see a little shoot under the branches coming out of the trunk of the tree, and say, “Look, what is that shoot?” He would snip it off, or taking his knife out of his pocket would cut it away, saying, “That’s from below the graft. It must be pruned off.” You see what is characteristic of the budded tree is that it bears the navel oranges, but if one does not watch, below the grafting there will be a shoot of the old nature. Likewise as children of God we cannot go on living in sin. If you ever find a Christian slipping into anything unclean or unholy, you know that this comes from below the graft- it is the old nature manifesting itself! How can you keep the old nature from producing sin? By using the pruning knife of self-judgment. Whenever you find any tendency of rebellion against God, any tendency of self-will, any tendency to think of unclean or unholy things, get out the pruning knife and use it unsparingly on yourself. These tendencies are of the old nature, not of the new, and they must not be allowed to grow and develop, or they will destroy your fellowship with God. “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin,…because he is born of God.” The new life given to him is eternal life. It abides in him, and he cannot continue in sin because he is born of God. The tenth verse summarizes it all: “In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.” We must face the fact that there are two families. Men talk about the universal Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, and would have us believe that all men are considered by God as His children. But it was our blessed Lord Jesus Christ who taught the very opposite. What did He mean when He said to the Pharisees, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the [works] of your father ye will do”? What did He mean when He said to Nicodemus, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God”? John walked with the Lord for three-and-one-half years, drank in His testimony as perhaps no other, and is referred to several times in the Gospel of John as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” He wrote his Epistle when he was an old man, and gathered up what he had been taught by the Lord and what he had experienced through the years. He said in effect, “Here are the two families. The family that loves God and delights in righteousness is the family of God. But the family that hates, that harms, that loves sin and iniquity is the family of the devil.” Let us challenge our own hearts. Let us face the question honestly in God’s presence. Have I been regenerated by divine grace? If we are really saved, we will find the answer in verse 14 : “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.” Love, the Proof of Divine Life This is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another” . We have noticed a number of times that this expression, “From the beginning,” is characteristic of John’s Epistle. In a day when men were trying to bring in false teachings and seeking to palm them off on unsuspecting people as Christianity, when in reality they were doctrines of demons, the apostle called the Christians back to what they had been taught from the beginning. He emphasized the teaching of our Lord Jesus and His immediate successors, the apostles. There are three distinct words used for love in the Greek language. One of these words is never used in the New Testament. It is the word eros . This word was also the name of the Greek equivalent to Cupid. According to Roman mythology Cupid was the son of Venus, the goddess of sensual love and physical beauty. Among the Greeks they used the name Aphrodite for the goddess, and Eros for her son. This word for love is never used in the New Testament probably because it had been degraded among the Greeks. It would seem that the Holy Spirit of God stood guard over the pages of the New Testament, and said as it were, “Don’t pollute these pages with a word that has become so debased.” The other words for love are phileo and agapao . Phileo means affection or friendliness-the kind of love that good-natured people feel one for another. This word is used frequently in the New Testament. It is used of God in one place-”After that the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost . “Love…toward man” is just one word in the original. It is really our word philanthropy. In other words, the philanthropy of God was revealed in sending His Son. Ordinarily phileo is the word that is used for love between friends, brothers, sisters, husband, wife, and sometimes between Christians. But it is not used in the sense that the word agapao is used. This word signifies a divine love. God is agape . He Himself is love in His very essence, and “he that dwelleth in love [in this sense], dwelleth in God” . It is this highest of divine loves- agape love-that is brought before us in this portion of the Epistle. This love is the proof of a new nature, the evidence that we have been regenerated. The one great command that is laid on us by our Lord Jesus is that we love one another as He loved us-unselfishly, in a Godlike, Christ-like way. “Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous” . Cain was stirred up by jealousy and lured on by envy. What a terrible thing is this sin. Scripture says that jealousy is “cruel as the grave” . Never allow yourself to harbor jealousy in your heart. Check it immediately. Go into the presence of God at once and confess it, and ask Him to fill you with Himself so there will be no place for it. I have seen jealousy among Christian workers and have felt it in my own heart in connection with other preachers. One man has a message from God and gives it in the power of the Holy Ghost, but another cannot bear to think that his brother’s message is appreciated more than his own. He falls under the power of the same sin that led Cain to slay his brother, Abel. I have seen it also among those who sing, among Sunday school teachers, and even among those ministering to the temporal needs of the saints. I remember attending a fellowship tea where two dear sisters would not speak to nor look at one another because one had found that the efforts of the other were appreciated more than her own. What a wretched thing is jealousy! There is no room for it in love or in the new nature. Whenever you find it, it is simply an evidence of a shoot from the old nature that needs to be pruned and cut away. Jealousy is indeed as cruel as the grave. Because of it, people will tear one another’s reputations to shreds and go to extreme lengths in order to belittle and degrade them. It seems strange that we Christians, hated by the world and small in number, should ever allow ourselves to indulge in such unkind feelings towards one another. The story is told of Nelson, who, as his ships were drawn up in battle array facing the Dutch fleet, saw two English officers quarreling. He threw himself between and pushed them apart. Pointing to the ships of Holland he said, “Gentlemen, there are your enemies!” If only Christians would truly love one another, then it would not bother us if the world hated us. “Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you. We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death” . Do we know that we have passed from death unto life because we are sound in the faith, because we are fundamentalists, because we are earnest Christian workers, or because we give liberally to missions or the Lord’s work? No. “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.” We love them in the divine sense-with agape. Dear friend, if you don’t have that testimony you better begin to investigate the foundations of your Christian profession. “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.” As unbelievers, some of us did not love Christians very much. I remember some Christian men who would come to our home when I was a boy. They were stern old Scotsmen, and would say, “Harry, lad, are ye born again yet?” I wouldn’t know what to say, and so I detested them! Then one day God came in grace and saved my soul. I could hardly wait to see some of them and say, “Thank God, I am saved!” Regeneration made such a difference. Being born again, being converted to God, is a real thing. It is the imparting of a new, divine nature, the very essence of which is love. “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him” . The same thing that leads you to hate your brother, produces the sin of murder. It may not have gone that far yet. I heard a professed Christian woman speaking of another, and between her clenched teeth, she said, “I wish she were dead.” That is murder! That is what sends men to the electric chair. “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.” “But,” you say, “you heard a Christian woman say that?” Yes, but that was just for a moment, when she allowed the old nature to assert itself. She soon judged it and put it away. If Christians get out of touch with God, there may be a demonstration of the old flesh, or carnal mind. But they are indwelt by the Holy Ghost, and He will soon make them intensely miserable, and they will judge their sin and put it to death. No one who willfully goes on in these sins has any business calling himself a child of God. No one who is characterized by hatred has eternal life abiding in him. No murderer possesses eternal life, and hatred is the root of murder. This does not mean that an actual murderer cannot be saved. It does mean that if he is saved, he will no longer live in hatred. “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” . You will observe that the words “of God” are italicized in the King James version. John was saying that if we want to understand what divine love is, we need to look at Christ’s example. We recognize what love is because, “He laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren”-that is, if you want to know what is meant by divine love, Christ is the example. As a Christian, that which is manifested in Christ must be manifested in you. You must be willing to lay down your life for others, to endure any kind of hardship in order that you may help and bless others. Years ago when I was a Salvation Army officer, General William Booth was over in London. He was an old, blind man. They had hoped to have him present at a great congress, but word was sent that he could not come. Then they asked for a letter from him- some message to read to the assembled officers-but no letter came. While the congress was in session, a boy came up the aisle with an envelope. It was given to the officer in charge, and as he held it up he exclaimed, “A message from General Booth!” He opened it, and said, “My comrades, it contains just one word-’Others.’” That was all. That was what the old man had lived for, and that was what he would impress on those who followed him. After all, that is the only happy life. The most miserable people are those who are trying to get the best for themselves, while the happiest people are those who give the most, sacrifice the most, and expend themselves the most for the blessing of others. There is real joy in laying down one’s life for the brethren. There are always those who will say, “You are working too hard; you ought not to do this, and ought not to do that.” The devil always has a lot of lieutenants to say, “Be careful; your health is much more important.” It is ten thousand times better to wear out for Jesus by blessing others, and hear a “Well done, good and faithful servant,” than to have to go to the judgment seat of Christ and give account for a lifetime of selfishness. “But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?” Do you say to yourself, “I know he has need, but if he had saved his money as I have done, he wouldn’t be in such a fix,” or “I know his clothes are shabby, but if he would take care of them as I do mine, he wouldn’t look like that”? We read in James 2:16 of those who say to the needy, “Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled, notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?” God is looking down and taking note of it all, and some day the one who turns down God’s poor is going to be poor himself. Perhaps not poor financially in the same way that the other was, but a time of great need will come, and he will go to God and begin to call upon Him in that hour of distress and wonder why the heavens seem silent above him. “My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him. For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things” . If in the secret of our hearts and in the presence of God, our conscience says, “You know you were selfish and inconsiderate, you did not act in love or show the Spirit of Christ,” remember that “if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.” Then we read, “Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight” . Do you get the inference? When you do not receive from Him, perhaps it is time to ask, “Is my heart condemning me? My need is great, yet God does not seem to minister to it. Have others come to me in their need, and have I failed to minister to them? I have cried to God in the depths of my grief and sorrow, but He does not seem to listen. Did anyone ever cry to me in their grief and sorrow, and did I refuse to listen?” “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” . Christianity is intensely practical. We may ask, “Is it not true that all who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved?” Yes. But we recognize real faith by its works of love. Do not forget that. If we have gone to Him in prayer and there has been no answer, then the secret of our unanswered prayer is in our own heart. Perhaps we have been selfish and indifferent to the needs of others. “And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment. And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us” . The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of “power, and of love, and of a sound mind” , and when He dwells within the believer and controls him, that believer walks in love and manifests the kindness of God to his brethren. Chapter Four - Living In God's Love Jesus Christ Come in the Flesh The Scriptures recognize the fact that there is an unseen spirit world, and in that world there are both good and evil spirits. Of the angels it is written, He “maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire.” These good spirits have a certain ministry to the people of God here on earth, for we read, “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?” . Their ministry has to do with temporal mercies rather than with the unfolding of spiritual truths. There is another Spirit greater than all created spirits, whose job it is to guide us into all truth-that is the Holy Spirit of God. We as believers are not to look to angels for guidance and understanding, but to the Comforter, the Holy Spirit. This third person of the Trinity came into the world to take the things of Christ and open them to us. On the other hand, there is a realm of evil spirits. We are told in Ephesians 6:12 that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” It is possible for a man to be under the control of the Holy Spirit to such an extent that He is able to use that man to spread the truth of God in a mighty way. It is just as possible for a man to be under the control of the evil spirits, and teach lies instead of truth. When under their control he will seek to turn people away from the revealed message that God has given in His Word, and bring them into bondage to some form of error. It is important, therefore, that we be able to distinguish between the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. In the early days of the Christian church there were those who came in among the assemblies, professing to be speaking by the Spirit of God, but teaching something contrary to what was plainly declared in God’s Word. So John wrote, “Believe not every spirit, but try [or test] the spirits whether they are of God.” But how do we test them? Study Scripture to see if what they say is in accordance with what is revealed in the Bible, for it was given by inspiration of God. “Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” . Therefore, no one who is truly speaking through the Holy Spirit will teach anything that contradicts that revelation. John’s exhortation is of tremendous importance today as well, for there are still multitudes who profess to interpret the message of God to man, and claim to be under the controlling power of the Holy Spirit, who in reality are controlled by evil spirits. They speak things that they ought not to speak. Scripture says that for the sake of money many false prophets are gone out into the world. A prophet is not necessarily one who foretells the future, but also one who comes to man with a message from God. “He that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort” . So, when one comes professing to be a messenger from God, he must be tested by the Word of God. The test is given in 1 John 4:2-3 , “Hereby know ye the spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.” Notice the simplicity of this test. Does a man confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh or does he deny the great doctrine of the incarnation? If a man confesses the incarnation, he is of God. That does not mean that everything else he teaches is necessarily Scriptural, but he had the right foundation if he confesses the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. We begin-the whole Christian system begins-with the incarnation, not with an apotheosis. I do not like to use this theological term, for some of you may wonder what it means. But it is such a convenient term, and stands in direct contrast to the term incarnation. The word apotheosis comes from two Greek words, one meaning “from,” and the other “god” or the “deity.” So we speak of an apotheosis as a man entirely under an influence from God-a deified man. There are many ministers and instructors today who teach that our Lord Jesus Christ was a remarkable youth, a child born into this world in many respects the superior of any other child, a religious genius, who from budding consciousness was God-intoxicated. His sole direction in life was toward a greater knowledge of deity. He was always reaching out after God. They teach that Jesus was so constantly under God’s influence and so absorbed in Him that He eventually became like Him. Therefore, we see in Jesus Christ, God manifested. That is an apotheosis, and what is commonly taught by those who are called modernists. They deny the incarnation and affirm an apotheosis. The Word of God does not teach an apotheosis, but it does teach the incarnation. What do we mean by the incarnation? We mean that God, who existed from eternity in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, desired to make Himself known to men, and take upon Himself man’s sin and iniquity, thus making full atonement for them. He stooped in grace in the person of the Son to identify Himself with humanity, and became incarnate by taking upon Himself flesh and blood. But, remember, it was God who did that. The baby in Bethlehem was not merely a remarkable child who was born with a great religious instinct, but that baby was God the Son. It was God who stooped in grace to dwell in the virgin’s womb, and was born into this world as man. But He did not cease for one moment to be God. “Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God.” Not that Jesus Christ began to be when he was born into the world, but that He came-from where?-from Heaven. This is the incarnation, and every spirit that confesses this is of God. Did you ever stop to think what a remarkable expression this is, “Jesus Christ came?” You were born into the world; you had no existence before you were conceived. Poetically, we ask, Where did you come from, baby dear? Out of the everywhere into here. Where did you get those eyes so blue? They came from the sky as I came through. But that is only poetry. You began here on earth. You came into existence when you were born of your parents. But Jesus did-not begin to be when He was born in the stable and cradled in the manger. He came from Heaven’s highest glory down into this world to be the Savior of the world. He who was higher than all of the angels-He, their Creator-became a little lower than these glorious beings in order that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for every man. Men may profess to honor Him while teaching an apotheosis. They may profess to think a great deal of Him by speaking of Him as the greatest religious genius that the world has ever known. They may even go so far as the French infidel, Renen, who declared, “From henceforth shall no man distinguish between Thee and God.” But Renen only meant that Jesus, a man, had become so godlike that we saw God revealed in Him. That is not the incarnation. The great truth is that “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation” . “Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory” . This is the Christian confession. Men may profess to honor Jesus by recognizing Him as the mightiest among the mighty, the greatest of all the great men of the world, the most marvelous of all its ethical teachers, but in reality they are only degrading Him unless they acknowledge Him as God over all. Jesus is God come in the flesh. The denial of this fundamental doctrine is the spirit of antichrist. Notice, whether this denial is couched in rude or ignorant terms, or presented in beautiful language, it is the denial of the incarnation. To think of Jesus as anyone else than God-the Creator become man for our redemption-is to deny the truth concerning Him revealed in this Book and is the spirit of the antichrist. Turning to believers with a word of warning, the apostle said, “Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world” . None of us would be what we are apart from the work of the Holy Spirit. It is not by chance that one person believes in the deity of Jesus and one does not. No man would ever acknowledge Him as God become flesh except by the illumination of the Holy Spirit. Even if men only acknowledge it intellectually, they do so because God has illumined the mind. But when men bow at the feet of the Savior and own Him as their Lord and Redeemer, that is the work of the Holy Spirit of God winning their hearts for Himself. From that moment on it is He who dwells in them and leads them on into fuller and clearer light and enables them to overcome. The believer takes no credit for himself, but gives all the glory to God for illuminating him and saving his soul. My responsibility begins here. The Spirit of God illumines the mind and exercises the conscience, and I follow in accordance with His leading, until I am brought to a full acceptance and acknowledgment of Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. The man who follows the leading of the Holy Spirit of God must see in Jesus Christ, God the Son become man for our redemption. It is to these believers that John said, “Ye are of God.” When we speak of believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, we mean a great deal more than simply accepting a dogma regarding the deity of Jesus Christ. If I acknowledge Jesus Christ as God, I owe the allegiance of my heart and life to Him, and when I have been led by the Spirit of God to so put my trust in Him that makes me a Christian. To believe in Him is to trust Him. You could stand by the sea looking at a large ship lying at anchor, and say, “I believe that is a splendid ship. I believe that it is thoroughly seaworthy and properly manned. I believe it would take me on a long journey.” You may believe all that, but if you don’t step aboard that ship it will never take you there. And so intellectually you may believe what is recorded about Jesus Christ, you may accept the full Scriptural declaration about Him, but unless you trust yourself to Him, He will never be your Savior and Redeemer. When you trust Him, you come into this family of which John is writing, and are made one of God’s children. So it can be said of you, “Ye are of God, little children.” When you turn away from the world and walk in obedience to His Word, you are a member of His family, not through any power of your own, but through the indwelling Holy Spirit, for, “greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.” Those who deny the deity of our Lord are of the world. They will always be popular in the world’s eyes because “they speak of the world, and the world heareth them” . The world will always ridicule the person who stakes everything for eternity on a divine revelation, and it will honor the man who says, “I do not accept anything from God. I depend entirely on my own sound judgment.” The world understands that kind of talk, for the wisdom of God is foolishness to the worldly-wise, but “it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching [not, through foolish preaching] to save them that believe” . Those who are born of God have an understanding far beyond that of earth. It is not egotism that leads John to say, “We are of God” . This was a truth that he and his fellow apostles could claim having had the privilege of walking with the Lord for three-and-one-half years. John said of Jesus Christ, “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth” . Knowing Him so intimately, John had irrefutable proof that Jesus was more than man. When He died, and rose triumphantly from the tomb, they met Him on resurrection ground and their faith was again confirmed. Later, when the Holy Spirit descended at Pentecost and brought them the message that the risen Christ was exalted to God’s right hand, they were empowered to go out and preach the gospel. There were no doubts left-the last vestige of unbelief disappeared, and they could say, “We know that ‘we are of God.’” “He that knoweth God, heareth us; he that is not of God, heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error” . Any man who knows God will hear the Word of God. We can test ourselves by that. Do you accept the testimony given in God’s Word-the testimony of our Lord Himself? He that is of God hears this testimony, and he that is not of God rejects it. John says, “Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.” What a blessed thing it is to know God as revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ. What a wonderful thing it is to realize that He has come so close to us. Jesus, the infinite holy One-the One whom our poor finite minds could not comprehend-has become man that we might see in Him God fully revealed. Shouldn’t we praise and adore Him? Life and Propitiation in Christ After the parenthesis of verses 1 to 6 in which believers are warned against the false teachers and evil spirits that are seeking to turn the hearts of God’s people away from Christ, the apostle returned to his previous theme-the love that gives evidence of the divine nature. If you remember from our study in chapter 3, there are two words for love used in the New Testament- phileo and agapao . Phileo refers to a mere human affection, although it is used once when God is spoken of as being a friend to man. Agapao speaks of a more utterly unselfish affection, a love which is seen in all its fullness in God Himself, and which was displayed in our Lord Jesus Christ here on earth. When the apostle said, “Beloved, let us love one another,” he does not merely seek to encourage a natural affection, but has in mind a divine affection. As believers, the love of God is poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Being possessed of a new and divine nature, having been regenerated, the natural thing for the believer in the Lord Jesus is to love. “Let us love one another: for love is of God” . This love is simply the manifestation of the divine nature He has implanted within us. If you find a person who is not characterized by divine love, bearing the name of Christian, you can be reasonably sure that person has not yet been born again. On the other hand, be careful about snap judgments lest you yourself fail to exhibit divine love. “Every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.” Not merely everyone who has natural affection for a father or mother or children or sister or brother, but everyone who loves in this divine unselfish way, demonstrates that he is born of God. Have you been born of God? I’m afraid too many people get in the habit of attending services and listening to Bible expositions, and to a certain degree even enjoying them, yet the power of God’s Word never grips their souls. Let us never forget the solemn words of our Lord Jesus Christ, “Ye must be born again.” We are told that John Wesley used to preach on this text over and over again, until some people grew weary of hearing it and wished that he would use another theme. Once after having preached on it in a place where he had done so many times before, someone said, “Mr. Wesley why do you preach so often on that one text, ‘Ye must be born again?’” “Why?” exclaimed Mr. Wesley. “Because ‘ye must be born again!’” Many people think they must join the church, be benevolent, turn over a new leaf, be good citizens, or be one hundred percent American in order to be a Christian. But you can do and be all these things and yet be lost for all eternity. “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” The proof that someone has been born again is that he exhibits this divine love. “Every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God” . On the other hand, “He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love” . Twice in this chapter we have that wonderful statement, “God is love.” Nowhere else in the world will you find this wonderful truth than in the Bible. Years ago a lady who prided herself on belonging to the intelligentsia said to me, “I have no use for the Bible, Christian superstition, and religious dogma. It is enough for me to know that God is love.” “Well,” I said, “do you know it?” “Why, of course I do,” she said; “we all know it, and that is religion enough for me. I do not need the dogmas of the Bible.” “How did you find out that God is love?” I asked. “Why,” she said, “everybody knows it.” “Do they know it in India?” I asked. “That poor mother in her distress throwing her little baby into the Ganges to be eaten by filthy and repulsive crocodiles as a sacrifice for her sins-does she know that God is love?” “Oh, well, she is ignorant and superstitious,” she replied. “Those poor natives in the jungles of Africa, bowing down to gods of wood and stone, and in constant fear of their fetishes, the poor heathen in other countries-do they know that God is love?” “Perhaps not,” she said, “but in a civilized country we all know it.” “But how is it that we know it? Who told us that God is love? Where did we discover it?” “I don’t understand what you mean,” she said. “I’ve always known it.” “Let me tell you this,” I answered. “No one in the world ever knew it until it was revealed from Heaven and recorded in the Word of God. It is here and nowhere else. It is not found in all the literature of the ancients.” “God is love”-this is the divine nature, the very nature of God, and twice over you get it in this Epistle. How has that love been manifested? That is what the apostle explained in the next two verses. “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him” . That is the first manifestation of divine love. Creation proclaimed God’s omnipotent power and wisdom, but creation could not proclaim His love. When God looked down on a world groaning under the sentence of death because of sin, a world of people who were alive to the things of this life, but dead to the things of God, God found it in His heart to go down after those people and find a means of bringing “whosoever will” into newness of life. He said in effect, “I am going to give them the greatest gift that one could possibly give, My only begotten Son. I am going to send Him into the world that they may have life through Him.” Five times in the New Testament you will find the expression, “The only begotten,” and it always speaks of our Lord’s eternal relationship to the Father-the eternal Son, the Only Begotten. It doesn’t imply priority or generation. Notice the use of the same word in Hebrews 11. There you read of Abraham who had received the promise and offered up his only begotten son. Isaac was not his only son. Abraham was the father of Ishmael years before Isaac was born, but Isaac is called his only begotten son. Why? Because Isaac was his son by a miraculous, unique relationship in which no other son could ever share. He had other sons afterwards, through Keturah, but none had the same relationship to him that Isaac had. And so this term “The only begotten son,” describes our Lord as one person of the trinity in eternal relation with the Father. It might be translated His unique Son. Others are sons by creation, as Adam was and as angels are, or by new birth, as believers are, but Jesus alone is the unique Son. Five times He is called “The only begotten,” and five times “The first begotten.” In the latter term you have a different thought altogether. You have Christ coming into the world, going down into death, and rising in triumph at the head of a new creation. Thus He is the First Begotten, through whom God is “bringing many sons into glory” . In eternity the many sons will shine resplendent in the same glory, but not one of us will enter into the relation of the Only Begotten Son. That relationship remains unique for all eternity. Think of it! God the Father loved a world dead in trespasses and sins in such a way that He gave His unique Son, the darling of His bosom, that we might live through Him. Because we were dead we needed life, and there is no life apart from Him. “He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son hath not life” . No work or effort of our own, could ever produce divine life. You cannot make yourself become a Christian. You cannot become a child of God by any effort of your own. No prayers or penances can produce one spark of divine life within your soul. But the moment you receive Christ, you have received Him who is the life. “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life” . Life is found alone in Jesus, Only there ‘tis offered thee- Offered without price or money, ‘Tis the gift of God sent free. Take salvation- Take it now, and happy be. While it is true that as dead sinners we need life, there is something required in order that God may righteously accept us as being perfectly justified in His sight. There was a work that had to be done that we could never do. That work God, in His infinite love and grace, sent His Son to accomplish. The second great proof of His love is found in verse 10 , “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” It is God who came out to us. We did not seek after Him. We did not love God, and our hearts were filled with hatred for Him. But He met our every need. You see, because we were dead we needed life and God sent Christ that we might live through Him. Because we were lost and guilty sinners it was necessary that a propitiation be made for sin, and God sent His Son to effect that propitiation. It is an interesting fact that the original word translated “propitiation” is exactly the same word that is used for “atonement” in the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament. In this Greek translation of the Old Testament, wherever the translators sought to reproduce the Hebrew word caphar, or atonement, they used the Greek word here rendered “propitiation.” The Hebrew word atonement comes from a root meaning “to cover.” This word speaks of an expiation, a settling of the sin-question, so that one who was once lost and guilty may stand in the presence of God without one charge against him. All his transgressions are covered by the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ-covered so effectually and completely that they will never be found again. “Clean ev’ry whit;” Thou saidst it, Lord; Shall one suspicion lurk? Thine surely is a faithful Word, And Thine a finished work. On the cross the Son of God took our place in judgment. It was not merely the sufferings that men heaped on Jesus that settled the sin-question, but there as he hung upon the cross and supernatural darkness covered the scene, we read that Jehovah made “his soul an offering for sin” . In those hours of darkness God was dealing with His Son in judgment. There He bore in His inmost soul the punishment that you and I would have to bear ourselves for all eternity if left without a Savior. There He became the propitiation and expiation for our sins. It is at the cross that we see the fullest extent of God’s love. “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” . This indeed is love. We hated Him, we loved our own way, we wanted to take our own course, and we did not want to be submissive to His will. But He loved us and looked upon us in grace. He yearned to have us with Him in glory, free from every stain of sin. And because there was no other way whereby we could be justified, He sent His Son to become the propitiation for our sins. Don’t talk about believing God is love if you won’t accept the gift of His love, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is in Christ alone we have life and propitiation. “There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” , but the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. God Manifested in Love Notice carefully what the Spirit of God brings before us here. First, “Beloved, if God so loved us” . What does he mean when He puts in this little word so? He is referring back to the tenth verse, “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” That is how God so loved us. He did not wait for us to love Him first; He did not wait for us to behave ourselves before loving us, but “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” . God loved us when there was nothing lovable about us. God loved us when we were at enmity against Him and “alienated…by wicked works” . God loved us when our desires were contrary to His desires, when we were trampling His Word beneath our feet, spurning His grace, and breaking His commandments. Now we read, “Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.” We remember the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, “If ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?” Even the most corrupt people in the world love those who seem to give them some return for their affection. But the great principle laid down here is that after we have been born of God and are partakers of the divine nature, we will not wait for people to love us, but will love them no matter how they behave. That is divine love demonstrated through the new nature. This kind of love is a challenge even to Christians, because we still have the old nature in us. Though born of God, the Christian has a nature that came from fallen Adam, and that nature is selfish and is looking for satisfaction in others and in the things of this world. It is only through the power of the new, divine nature inherited at the second birth, that the Christian can rise to the standard set before him. “Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.” I like that word, ought. It suggests duty. Sometimes Christians do not like to be reminded of duty, for they have an idea that duty is not consistent with grace. But the grace of God, when it is active in the life, leads men and women to do the things they ought. Here is one thing we ought to do-we ought to love one another. We ought to love those who do not love us, who mistreat us, who speak evil of us, who harm us, and who would ruin us if they could. That is the way God loves us. Nothing that men did to our blessed Lord Jesus, nothing that they said about Him, could change the attitude of His heart toward them. As He was hanging on the cross and the angry rabble cried out for His life, He prayed, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” . This is not natural love. No one loves like this naturally. This is divine, spiritual love, and is possible only by walking in the power of the new nature, which God gives to those who believe. “No man hath seen God at any time” . This is not the first time this expression is found in the Scriptures. In John 1:18 you will find the exact same words, “No man hath seen God at any time.” Let’s examine these controversial words, for Scripture seems to indicate that there were many instances where men saw God. Didn’t God speak with Moses face to face, and didn’t He put him in a cleft of the rock while He passed by? Didn’t Adam speak with God in the garden? And doesn’t Isaiah say that “In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple” ? Didn’t Ezekiel have visions of God, and didn’t the glory of the Lord appear to Daniel and many others? Yes, and yet it remains true that, “No man hath seen God at any time.” God is a Spirit, infinite and eternal, and is Himself invisible. Christ, however, has revealed God to men. But before Jesus became incarnate, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit were all invisible. The Old Testament characters of whom it is written that they saw God, saw a form that God took-a Theophany-by which He revealed Himself to them. They saw His glory and splendor, but they could not see His deity. No one, in a sense, has ever seen you. People have seen your body, your face, and your eyes, but they have never seen the real you-the spirit that looks out through your eyes. We cannot see the real man, for under present conditions the spirit of man is invisible. We shall never really see one another as long as we are in the flesh, but in eternity we shall see and know one another in spirit. No one has ever seen the sun. Someone might object to that and say, “How can you tell me that I have never seen the sun! Of course I have seen it. I have seen it rise, I have seen it moving through the heavens, I have seen it set as it dips into the west.” But you are mistaken. You have never seen the sun! You have seen the robe of glory that envelopes it, but you cannot pierce that glory and see behind the flame that enfolds mat great globe. That would be impossible. It is the sun that gives out that glory and you cannot even gaze on that in its full strength at noonday for one minute, because of its blinding glare. A great astronomer was so delighted when one of the finest telescopes was first invented that, in his haste to look at the sun through it, he forgot to put the dark glass over the lens. Swinging that great instrument into place, he leaned down and with the naked eye looked through the lens at the sun. The next moment he uttered a cry of pain as the blinding light burned his eye, destroying its sight completely. Plato said, “The radiant light is the shadow of God.” David declared of God, Thou “coverest thyself with light as with a garment” . The light, the glory, the radiance is just the garment, and God is behind it all, invisible. We read in John 1:18 that “the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” Jesus Christ came into the world as God revealed in the flesh and made God known to man. We understand God as we could not have done otherwise. Jesus said, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father” . In Hebrews 1:3 we read that Christ is “the express image” of the Father. In other words, Jesus is the exact expression of God’s character. All that God is is seen in Jesus. Jesus walked this world for a brief period of thirty-three and one-half years, and during that time God was manifest, God was seen on the earth, in the person of His Son. When Jesus went back to Heaven was God left without any manifestation on earth? We read, “No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God [abideth] in us, and his love is perfected in us” . God dwells in all believers, but the Greek word for dwelleth is different from that for abideth. If we love one another, we exhibit the new and divine nature. If we walk in love, then men can see God in us, for God abideth in us. If we are living in fellowship with God, we are manifesting and making Him known. We have read the account of the professed conversion of the President of China (Chiang Kai-shek). We hope there has been a real work in his soul, but only eternity will tell. I was reading how he came to his Christian wife who was saved long before he made a profession, and said, “I can’t understand these Christians. They have been treated most abominably here. They have been robbed, beaten, and many of them killed. They have been persecuted fearfully, and yet I never find one of them retaliating. Anytime they can do anything for China and for our people, they are ready to do it. I do not understand them.” “Well,” said his wife, “that is the very essence of Christianity. They do that because they are Christians.” That is how God is manifest in China, and how you and I are called on to manifest Him wherever we may be. There are many who will never read the Bible, but they are reading us. They are looking at our lives. How much of God is really seen in us? You are writing a gospel, a chapter a day, By deeds that you do, by words that you say. Men read what you write, whether faithless or true; Say, what is the gospel according to you? People may never read the Gospel of Matthew, never look at the Gospel of Luke, never heed the Gospel of Mark, and never consider the Gospel of John, but they are reading the gospel of you-they are watching you, listening to you, and observing you. They are getting their ideas of Christ and of God from what they hear and see in you. A number of years ago I was down in Ganado, Arizona, visiting a Presbyterian mission. In the hospital there was a poor Navajo woman who had been desperately ill but had been nursed back to life and health through the Christian missionary doctor and nurses. She was a poor Indian woman who had been cast out by her own people when they thought she was going to die. She had been thrown behind a clump of brush and left there for three or four days. It was the middle of August when the heat is terrific during the daytime and the nights become bitterly cold. There she lay without food or drink, suffering terribly. This missionary doctor found her, brought her to the hospital, and did everything that Christian love and surgical skill could suggest. At last he brought her back to health. After nine weeks in the hospital, she began to wonder about the love shown to her and said to the nurse, “I can’t understand it. Why did he do all that for me? He is a white man and I am an Indian. My own people threw me out. I can’t understand it. I’ve never heard of anything like this before.” The Navajo nurse, a sweet Christian girl, said to her, “You know, it is the love of Christ that made him do that.” “What do you mean by the love of Christ? Who is this Christ? Tell me more about Him.” The nurse was afraid she would not tell it in the right way and so called the missionary doctor. He sat down and talked to her, and day by day unfolded the wonderful story. After a few weeks (for she could take in only a little at a time) the hospital staff thought she understood enough to make her decision. They had a special prayer meeting for her then gathered around her bed and prayed that God by His Spirit would open her blind eyes. Again they told her the story of God’s love, and asked, “Can’t you trust this Savior? Turn from the idols you have worshiped, and trust Him as the Son of the living God!” She looked at them with her big dark Indian eyes and was silent a long time. Then the door to her room opened and the doctor stepped in. Her face lit up and she said, “If Jesus is anything like the doctor, I can trust Him forever,” and she came to Christ. Do you see what had reached her? She had seen divine love manifested in a man. That is what you and I are called to exhibit to the world. “No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth [abideth] in us, and his love is perfected in us.” The love that was revealed so fully in Jesus is now being revealed in those who have trusted in the risen Christ. They are called to make known to a lost world the same wondrous love that led Him to go to the cross. So the apostle concluded this section by saying, “Hereby know we that we dwell [abide] in him” . If we love in this divine way, we abide in Him. You cannot abide in Christ and have hatred in your heart. You cannot abide in Christ and have jealousy in your heart; you cannot have unlovely thoughts and unholy desires. All these break fellowship with the Lord. “Hereby know we that we abide in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.” Notice carefully these last words. Notice what John does not say, and then what he does say. The longer I live the more I am filled with admiration for this wonderful book. It is absolutely perfect. God does not say here that He gives us His Spirit, although He does that at salvation. We would not be Christians if He had not given us His Spirit: “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his” . But He is speaking to people here to whom He has already given His Spirit and is telling them how they can show divine love. “Because he hath given us of his Spirit.” What does that mean? He has Himself implanted within us something that He has given us from His Spirit. That is the new nature. His Spirit is that of love, and this is the very essence of the new nature. All you and I have to do is to let the Spirit of God control us and we will manifest the love of Christ. To an unbeliever, this seems like a high standard, and they may say, “I don’t see how I could ever live up to this, and what is more, I don’t know that I have ever seen a Christian who fully did so.” Yes, I know I have failed to live up to Christ’s standard, but that is my objective, desire, and aim. It is better to have a high objective and fail to obtain it than to have a low one and meet it. Perhaps you feel you could never be a Christian because you can’t live up to divine expectation. An Indian once said to me, “Well, you know what I see in this? Here we are in our sin, and a great abyss is before us. On the other side is Heaven. We must get from our sins over to Heaven. There is a bridge across that chasm, but it is like a razor edge, and I have to walk on that in order to get to Heaven!” On the contrary, Christ Himself has bridged the chasm and will carry us over from sin to salvation, from Hell to Heaven. And in order that we may exhibit the love of Christ, He has given us His divine nature. We are called to receive Christ, and then He gives us the nature that delights to love. “Whosoever loveth [in this sense] is born of God.” Perfect Love That Casts Out Fear We have already noticed that the manifestation of divine love is the gift of the Lord Jesus Christ. We had Christ presented to us in two different ways in verses 9 and 10 . Because we were dead in trespasses and sins, the Father sent the Son that we might live through Him. Because we are guilty on account of our iniquity, God sent His only begotten Son into the world to be the propitiation for our sins. John summed it all up in verse 14 : “We [the apostolic company who knew Christ personally] have seen, and do testify [bear witness] that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.” Notice again, “The Father sent the Son”-the relationship of Father and Son did not begin after Jesus was born into the world. It existed from all eternity where the Father and the Son lived together in holy fellowship. Christ is the eternal Son. He did not become the Son after He was sent, but “the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.” This does not imply, of course, that all men will be saved. It does imply that God has provided a Savior for all men. So the great question between God and man today is not merely the question of our sins but what are we doing with the Lord Jesus Christ? “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” . If we have accepted Him and put our trust in Him, then we know Him as Savior. If we reject Him, all His wondrous work is worth nothing as far as we are concerned, and only adds to our condemnation. But “whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth [abideth] in him, and he in God” . There is no other meeting place between God and man except Christ Jesus. To accept Him as a great teacher does not save. To acknowledge Him as the greatest among the sons of men does not bring deliverance. But to own Him as Son of God-to put one’s trust in Him as Savior, and thus confess Him before men-this alone brings salvation. You find the word whosoever used in John’s writings over and over again. What an all-inclusive word it is! We read in John 3:16 , the verse that Luther called the miniature Bible, that “Godso loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” It is strange that anyone should question the universality of the offer of mercy with a verse like that in the Bible. “Whosoever believeth [hath]”-anyone in any circumstance or condition who puts his trust in the Lord Jesus Christ enters into the present possession of eternal life. And so we read in 1 John, “Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.” Notice, it is “whosoever shall confess,” not merely whosoever shall profess. There are a great many people who profess that they believe Jesus is the Son of God but they have never trusted Him as such. You cannot confess Him as Son of God until He is your own Savior. You confess the One in whom you have trusted. “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” . But on the other hand, let us not forget that there is another very solemn “whosoever,” and that is also found in the writings of John, “Whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” . Think of the solemnity of that declaration. It is the same word, whosoever. “Whosoever believeth…[hath] everlasting life,” therefore the believer’s name is inscribed in the book of life. Whosoever refuses to believe, whosoever will not put his trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, “whosoever” is “not found written in the book of life,” must be banished eternally from the presence of God. After all the gospel preaching you have listened to, after all the Christian people you have known through the years, are you among those who have never yet definitely received the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior? I beg of you not to postpone the settlement of this question for even one hour. Wherever you are, lift your heart to God. Tell Him you are the sinner for whom Christ died. Tell Him you are coming to Him for the salvation which He has provided through His blessed Son. Tell Him you are trusting the Lord Jesus Christ as your own Savior. Then go forth to confess Him before men, for, “Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him [God abideth in him] and he in God.” “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us” . This is the declaration of faith, the declaration of one who has definitely laid hold of the gospel message for himself. “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love.” This is the second time that statement is made in this chapter. We have already considered it in verse 8 : “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” And now here again the Spirit reminds us that “God is love.” This is His very nature. This is the very essence of His being; and “he that [abideth] in love [abideth] in God, and God in him.” There you have fellowship in the light, according to the nature of God Himself. You cannot have fellowship with Him while harboring malice, unkindness, or hatred in your heart. It is impossible. All those things spring from that old corrupt nature inherited from Adam. But if converted we have received a new nature. We may sometimes forget Him for a while, and malice, envy, unkindness, hatred, and all these evil things spring up anew. But as long as we permit any of these evil things to control our lives, we are not abiding in love, and therefore not abiding in God. We are not living in fellowship with Him. Fellowship can only be enjoyed as we walk in light and in love. Now that there may be no misunderstanding as to what this love is, John wrote in verse 17 , “Herein [hath love with us been perfected], that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.” I confess there was a time in my Christian life when I was confused as to what these words really meant. Today, however, I know of no passage of Scripture that gives me greater joy or seems clearer, than this verse. As a young believer, I tried to understand it and gave up in frustration. I was misled by the King James version, and did not notice how beautifully it is corrected in other translations. I studied the words, “Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment,” and I said to myself, If boldness in the day of judgment depends on my love being perfect, how can I ever be sure that everything will be right with me on that day? I was looking within my own heart for perfect love, and as I searched that poor heart, I was always finding something there that was contrary to perfect love. How was I ever going to stand in the day of judgment? It was like a second conversion when God showed me that perfect love is in another Man altogether. I had been looking for it in myself for six and one-half years until one day God turned me away from myself and said, “Look up!” By faith I saw another Man-the man Christ Jesus-seated in glory at the Father’s right hand. God said to me, as it were, “There is perfect love. It is displayed in Christ.” “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins…And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world” . At last I understood. Perfect love led Christ to come from the Godhead’s fullest glory down to Calvary’s depth of woe. Perfect love led Jesus to look at a lost, ruined, guilty world, take all our sins upon Him, and die in our place on a felon’s cross. A line in one of our hymns says, “I lay my sins on Jesus.” But we do nothing of the kind. Scripture tells us that when Jesus hung on Calvary’s cross, the Lord “laid on him the iniquity of us all” . Bliss has written: What, lay my sins on Jesus, God’s well-beloved Son? No, ‘tis a fact most precious That God e’en that hath done. God laid our sins on Jesus when He died on Calvary. He made full atonement, and there perfect love was displayed in all its fullness. Now He is seated at the right hand of the Father in Heaven. What about my sins? When He hung on the cross my sins were on Him. Are they on Him now as He sits there? Impossible. He could not have entered Heaven with one sin on Him. Perfect love has settled the sin-question. Perfect love has put my sins away forever, and now we may have “boldness in the day of judgment.” I am not afraid of the day of judgment now. Why not? Because my penalty has been paid-my case has been settled. I would not be afraid to go into a courthouse to view an important case for I am only a spectator. There is nothing against me. And so I can be bold in the day of judgment because I am there with my Lord. I am not there to be judged. I am a spectator, and not just any spectator, but an associate of the Judge Himself. Years ago we had a very odd judge out in San Francisco. Tourists going through the city would often be taken to see Judge Campbell’s court. One day a group of us were going through the courthouse, and in our party were four distinguished looking ladies. When the judge saw them, he invited them to join him on the judge’s seat. They went up and sat with him on the bench. He heard the evidence of the first case and then turned to one of the ladies and said, “I will let you pronounce sentence “I don’t know what to do,” she answered. “This offense would get from ten to thirty days,” the judge informed her. “Oh,” she replied, “don’t give him more than ten days.” “The lady says you are to have ten days,” the judge announced. Case after case of that kind came up while the ladies were sitting there, but they “had boldness in the day of judgment.” Why? Because they were not being judged. They were associated with the judge. If you are a believer in Christ, when the great white throne is set up, you are going to be there in association with the Judge. “The world shall be judged by you” , and I will tell you something more, you are going to see the devil, who has caused you so much trouble throughout the years, bound in chains and brought to your feet to know what you want done with him. The Bible says, “We shall judge angels” . The lost angels will receive their sentence of judgment from the people of God. No wonder the apostle Paul said, “The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly” . Yes, we have boldness in the day of judgment because perfect love has settled the sin question. Jesus said in John 5:24 , “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” I like the Roman Catholic translation of that verse. The rendering of the Douay Bible is, “Amen, amen, I say unto you, He who hears my word and believes him who sent me, has eternal life, and comes not into judgment, but is passed out of death into life.” Isn’t that a wonderful message? It is enough to settle the sin question forever for anyone who believes. The person who knows Christ has eternal life here and now. He does not hope to have it eventually, but has it now, and shall never come into judgment, but is already passed out of death into life. Look at the rest of 1 John 4:17 , “As he is, so are we in this world.” Some of the greatest truths in the Word of God are packed into the shortest and simplest sentences. Sometimes when preachers want to impress their audiences, they use theological words that make things sound profound. One time a preacher was speaking in such a way that no one could understand the meaning, and a man spoke up and said, “Brother, put the cookies on the lower shelf so the children can reach them.” Spurgeon used to say, “The Lord said, ‘Feed My sheep,’ but some ministers have the idea that He said, ‘Feed My giraffes.’ They put things so high that few can attain to them.” Here is one of the most profound truths of Scripture, and it is embodied in nine monosyllables, only three of which have more than two letters. “As he is, so are we in this world.” Nine monosyllables, and yet how profound. I used to think that this verse meant that “as he is, so ought we to be in this world.” I thought we were to aim for perfection-to be like Christ-and even if we could not hit it, it was better than aiming at something lower. But that is not what this verse means. Then I thought it must be, “As he is, so shall we be when we get out of this world and get safe home to Heaven.” But that is not what the verse says either. Instead, it means exactly what it says, as Scripture always does. “As he is [as Christ is] so are we in this world.” How are we like Christ? We are as He is in relation to judgment. When Christ died on Calvary for my sin, that was the judgment day. Christ settled everything for me that day. Now God has raised Him from the dead and taken Him to His own right hand, and there He sits exalted. Christ will never again come under judgment. Likewise, right here and now we have the testimony of the Word of God that we are just as secure from judgment as He is because we are accepted in Him. So near, so very near to God, I could not nearer be; For in the person of His Son I am as near as He. So dear, so very dear to God, Dearer I could not be; The love wherewith He loved His Son, Such is His love to me. What an incentive to live for Him! What an incentive to yield our lives as a living sacrifice since He in grace has settled the whole question of our justification, our acceptance with God, and our immunity from judgment! Made Perfect in Love We have noticed that perfect love is something that is not natural to us. No Christian, no matter how devoted or how mature, has ever on his own exhibited perfect love. There is always some selfishness, jealousy, envy, or self-seeking in the heart of every child of God. Sometimes people imagine that they have gotten beyond all this, but circumstances soon bring out the fact that they have not. When we look for perfect love, we find it only in the Lord Jesus Christ. It was manifested when He gave Himself on the cross for guilty sinners such as ourselves. It is the contemplation of this love that banishes all our fear. “There is no fear in love” . If it were a question of our own love, then every honest Christian would be continually in fear if he thought that his final acceptance depended on his own inward perfection in love. But, thank God, we are turned away from ourselves and from our experiences and directed to the full revelation of perfect love in the cross. There you see love triumphant. Love expressed in all its fullness, reached down to the deepest depths and lifted up poor sinners utterly lost and ruined and undeserving. You can be sure He will never give you up. “Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end” . “There is no fear in love.” Watch a little child who really believes that you love him with all your heart and see how trustful that little one is. If you believe that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life,” how can you ever fear that you may perish? How can you dread being shut out of Heaven, for “perfect love casts out fear?” “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment.” This word torment is used elsewhere in Scripture. It speaks of a grief-a form of pain and anguish caused by spiritual and mental distress-which unsaved men and women have in this life, and which will go on eternally if they leave this world in their sins. The Scriptures plainly teach that if men and women die in their sins, they are going to suffer consciously under the judgment of God for all eternity. This should move our hearts to weep over lost men and women as the Lord did when He said, “Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life” . We read in Matthew that “these shall go away into everlasting punishment” , and, “shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever” . There is no hint that their suffering will ever come to an end. But now having said that, I want to say that while the Word of God plainly teaches the eternal punishment of Christ-rejecters, it never even so much as hints at the eternal torture of lost men. I say that because I think it is well that we should keep God’s character clear. There is nothing vindictive about God. He has no desire to inflict any unnecessary pain or anguish on men, so Scripture never speaks, as preachers sometimes do, of eternal torture. God will never torture men, nor will He permit the devil to torture them. He will never permit demons to torture them, and they will not be allowed to torture one another. Hell is not a kind of pandemonium where wicked men and lost angels torture one another and sin against God for all eternity. It is God’s well-ordered prison house where men who never behaved before will have to behave at last, and where “every knee shall bow…and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” . Satan will not torture men, and he will not reign as king in Hell. He will be the most miserable being there. Hell was created for the devil and his angels, and it is his prison, where he will be in the lowest depths of the lake of fire, suffering for the sins he has committed throughout the ages. And so, every man will be judged according to his own sin and will suffer according to his own transgression. No statement is ever made in the Bible of the torture of lost souls. But while Scripture never teaches torture, it does teach the eternal torment of men who die unrepentant. I know that our English words torment and torture come from the same Latin root, which means “to writhe and twist in anguish,” but torture suggests the infliction of physical suffering, and torment is used for the suffering of the mind. “Fear hath torment.” You know the awful anguish of mind that fear can throw you into. Here is a man who has shut his eyes to the perfect love of God, refused to believe the gospel testimony, and he sees rising before him the great white throne. He knows he must answer for his sins. He is rightfully filled with fear, and “fear hath torment.” If that man refuses to bow in repentance before God, and to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior, and goes out of this life spurning the grace of God, then he goes out to be tormented forever. I think the most awful torment that can come to a lost soul in Hell will be to think of days gone by, to remember mercies rejected, to meditate on grace despised, and cry in the anguish of his soul, “Jesus died for me, and I knew all about it. He shed His precious blood for sinners, and I heard about it over and over again. He died for me, and I rejected Him. I rejected His mercy, and here I am shut away from the light and joy of God for all eternity, and it is my own fault. I might have been saved from the penalty for my sins, but I refused to trust the Savior that God provided and now His wrath rests on me forever.” I cannot imagine anything worse. This anguish of soul and mind, as I understand it, will be the very essence of the torment that lost men and women must endure for eternity. We remember the word of Abraham to that once-rich man, “Son, remember!” . All is wrapped up in that word, remember-remember for all eternity! Psychologists tell us that we never forget anything that we have ever known; it is all stored away in our minds. We may think we have forgotten, but things will come to the surface when we least expect them. They come to mind even when we are not thinking of them. So it will be with men in a lost eternity. Every sin, every iniquity, every transgression, and every disobedience will come to rememberance, and will remain throughout all the ages to come. Men will remember the follies of this life and how foolishly they treated God’s offer of mercy. “Son, remember!” For the righteous, the word remember also has its place. We read, “Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee” . Memory for the child of God is a blessed thing! Memory for the lost soul is a fearful thing! If you are still unsaved, I pray you will accept the perfect love manifested in the cross. Then all your fears will be dissipated, your torment will disappear, and your heart will sing, He “loved me, and gave himself for me” . This is the love that casts out fear. John continued, “He that feareth is not made perfect in love.” Imagine a group of students in a Latin class. They know that next Monday there is to be an exam. All day Saturday some of them cram and endeavor to get ready for the test. Even on Sunday their minds are not quiet. Their fear tells us that they are not made perfect in Latin, and they know that they are not. They would not be cramming or worrying if they knew their lesson. Suppose there is another student in the class, a bright young girl who is neither cramming nor worried. One of the others meets her and says, “Don’t you realize you have a Latin examination on Monday? “Yes.” “Well, aren’t you worried?” “Not at all.” “Why aren’t you anxious?” “Because I have been studying every day. I am thankful to have a good memory. It is all stored away, and so I am not afraid.” The one who is perfect in Latin is not afraid. The one who is not perfect in Latin is afraid. If we are made perfect in love, we have learned our lesson and our fear is gone. It is not my love that keeps; it is His love. Now we come to the practical side in verse 19 , and I am going to remove a word from the text in the King James version, for if you will consult the Greek you will find that one word does not appear. It is omitted in all the older manuscripts. The correct rendering is, “We love, because he first loved us.” Maybe some of you feel that you have lost something. You like to read, “We love him, because he first loved us.” But think it over, and you will see how much more precious the correct translation is after all. It is easy to talk about loving Christ and loving God, and yet be cold and unkind and discourteous toward those for whom Jesus died. The test of whether we really love Him is found in the way we behave toward His people, and what a test that is! You say you love Him, but you do not love Him any more than you love the child of God of whom you think the least. Think of that cantankerous, ill-tempered person who always seems to upset you, and yet who you know belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ. You do not love Christ any more than you love that person, and so “we love, because he first loved us.” When our hearts are occupied with His wonderful love, we remember that He loved us when we were unlovely, and some of us are not very lovely now. We remember that He loved us when we were unlovable, and some of us are not very lovable yet. If He could love us when we were rebellious, and if that same love is now filling our hearts, we ought to be able to love those who are sinful and unkind and selfish. It is love triumphing over evil. “We love, because he first loved us.” Here is the last of the tests that John brings before us: “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” John used very strong language sometimes. A great many people have a wrong idea of the apostle John. Many of the ecclesiastical pictures present him as a fair and effeminate-looking individual, rather than a real vigorous man. He was probably a young man about eighteen years old when he and his brother James came to Christ, for John was the youngest of the disciples. As the Lord looked at those two brothers, James and John, in their earnest youth, He said in effect, “I am going to give you another name, I am going to call you Boanerges, the sons of thunder.” All of his life John was true to that name given by Jesus. Long after Paul and Peter and all the rest of the disciples had died, John was still ministering the Word at Ephesus, and afterward he was sent to Patmos because of his faithfulness in witnessing for Christ. He died about a.d. 96, and at that time he was an aged man and could look back to the days of his youth when he walked with Jesus. There was nothing effeminate about John. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/iron/ Chapter Five - God Is Life Overcoming the World Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of him” . This verse continues the theme found in the closing verses of the former chapter, where we read, “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar” . Who is our brother? Some people have the idea that our brethren are those who happen to belong to the same denomination. If I belong to one certain church, my brothers are those who go to that church. In other words, if I am a Methodist, my brothers are Methodists. If I am a Presbyterian, my brothers are Presbyterians. If I am a Baptist, my brothers are Baptists. Our poor minds are inclined to narrow down the family of God to some special fellowship. But in 1 John 5 the Lord Himself gives the limits of the family when He says, “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God.” Our brothers are those who in every place have exercised faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The statement, “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ,” is not merely an intellectual acceptance of the fact that Christ is the Son of the living God, but rather a true, vital confidence-a personal faith in the Lord Jesus as the Christ, the anointed One of God. If you have faith in Him, you are born of God. All who trust in Him enter into this relationship. It is not a question of who you associate with or what church you attend, for there is only one great assembly-the body of Christ-which God Himself recognizes as His church. When we speak of church membership, we are usually referring to a local fellowship, but when the Word of God speaks of church membership, it is referring to the vast company of believers over whom Christ is the glorified Head in Heaven. Every believer belongs to that church. Our brothers include the whole church of God and our love must go out to them all. There is no use talking about loving the Father if you do not love the Father’s children. There is no use talking about our devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ if we are not devoted to those for whom He died. Love is a very real and practical thing. We often speak sentimentally of loving the people of God, but how do we show it? What form does our love take? Scripture says that love “suffereth long, and is kind; [love] envieth not; [love] vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up…Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things” . Take some of these simple statements and test your own love to find where you stand. Are you envious of any of God’s people? When honor comes to others that does not come to you, do you rejoice with them? Scripture says, “Whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it” . When people are saying good things about someone else and not saying them about you, does your heart rejoice in that? Are you thankful to see others honored and exalted, even though you may be passed over? Real love of others will lead to that very thing. It will always endeavor to put others first. Love is active. It seeks to serve and delights to minister. Are you trying to serve the people of God or are you someone who loves to be served? Some Christians are always wanting others to do for them, while other Christians are always trying to do for others. The people who are constantly looking for attention are never happy. They are always feeling hurt and slighted. But how different with those who are showing the love of Christ! Someone once said to me, “When I go to such and such a church, I find they are very cold. I never see any love exhibited.” I replied, “Do you ever show any?” He looked at me and said, “Well, perhaps not as much as I should.” Standing next to him was a woman who attended the same place. “How do you find them down there?” I asked her. “Are they cold?” “Why,” she said, “I think they are the most loving and affectionate group of Christians I have ever seen.” She was showing love to them, and was getting love in return. You usually find what you are looking for. A while ago I read of a man who spent a few months in India. When he came back, he was discussing India at the home of some of his friends, and the talk drifted to missions. This man, out of his wide experience of about five months in India said, “I have no use for missions and missionaries. I spent five months there, and didn’t see that they were doing anything. In fact, in all that time I never met a missionary. I think the church is wasting its money on missions.” A quiet old gentleman spoke up and said, “Pardon me, how long did you say you were in India?” “Five months.” “What took you there?” “I went out to hunt tigers.” “And did you see any tigers?” “Scores of them.” “It is rather peculiar,” said the old gentleman, “but I spent thirty years in India, and in that time I never saw a tiger but I saw hundreds of missionaries. You went to India to hunt tigers and you found them. I went to India to do missionary work and found many other missionaries.” Love is a practical thing-“Every one that loveth him that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of him.” Scripture also says, “Love covereth all sins” . And again, “[Love] shall cover the multitude of sins” . In the King James version the word charity is better translated love. These verses mean that if you know your brother or your sister has failed-if you know of some sin, even some grievous sin that has come into their lives-you will never mention it to anyone but God. If you really love them, you will go to them first and try to help them recover. “Love covereth all sins.” You will never be a talebearer. You will never be a gossip. You will never go around talking against your brother. When you know of anything wrong, you will go to God about it. When you talk to other people against your brother, you only spread things that hurt others, but when you go to God, the Holy Spirit of God can, in answer to your prayer, begin to work in the heart and conscience of the wrong-doer. He will be brought to repentance or be broken down under the discipline of the Lord. Love in all its fullness will lead you to go to that brother and tenderly, graciously, and kindly seek to help him in his trouble. You will lovingly point out the wrong, offer to pray with him, and leave it with God if he bows in repentance before Him. There is a beautiful picture in the Old Testament which illustrates this point. Among the furnishings of the tabernacle was a candlestick. The Lord told Moses to make a golden candlestick with seven lamps. The candle was really an olive oil lamp with a wick. The wick would burn just so long, and then turn over charred and blackened, needing to be trimmed. The snuffers and the snuff dishes were made of pure gold . What is important about snuffers and snuff dishes? Well, you see if a lamp is going to shine brightly, it needs to be snuffed or trimmed sometimes, and if I want to burn brightly for Christ, there will be many a time when I have to judge myself in the presence of God, or I will be just like the burned wick that obscured the light. The Old Testament priest was to go in and trim the lamp using a golden snuffer. Gold in Scripture speaks of that which is divine, so the believer who reproves his brother is to go to him in fellowship with God. I may be able to help my brother if I go in tenderness and grace. What did the priest do with the wicks when he trimmed them away? Did he scatter them around, get them on his robe and hands, and go around defiling the garments of other priests? No. He was to take that dirty black snuff, put it in a golden snuff dish, and cover it up so that it would not defile anyone else. That is what love does. You do not spread around your brother’s failures, but you show real love by covering them up in the presence of God. That is love in a practical sense. 1 John 5:2 suggests something more. “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.” What an interesting book the Bible is! First, John said, that we know we love God because we love the brethren. Then he said we know we love the brethren when we love God. It seems like circular reasoning, but God is above all our rules of logic. In God’s eyes the two are inseparable. If we love God, we love the children of God also. If we love the children of God, we love God and keep His commandments. Love is faithful. It does not make light of sin. It does not seek to excuse evil. It leads us to put the truth of God first and to bring all else into subjection to it. I do not love my brother when I condone his wrong-doing, or agree (for the sake of peace) to what is in direct opposition to the command of God. Take the question of divorce and remarriage. There may be circumstances where people have to be separated, but if so, they are to remain unmarried (unless divorced for clear scriptural reasons), and yet what a lot of preachers there are who marry people who have been divorced contrary to the Word of God. Some ministers may say, “I love these people so much I don’t want to hurt their feelings.” But love does not help them to do something that is contrary to the Word of God. “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.” Real Christian love exhibits itself when we put the will of God first and seek to show love to His people, according to His Word, and lead our brethren in the path of obedience to that Word. “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous” . But someone might say, “That’s all very well, but I find it awfully hard to do some things that God wants me to do.” If I felt that way, I would begin to wonder whether I were really born again. If unsaved you have only one nature, and that nature hates the things of God. When you are born again, you have a new nature, and you ought to glory in the will of God. You will do so if you are walking in the power of the Spirit. If you are a Christian and do not find delight in the will of God, it is because you are grieving the Holy Spirit. There is something in your life that is dishonoring the Lord, and so you have lost your joy. Judge everything in your life that is contrary to the Word of God, and you will be surprised to find how sweet His will is. “His commandments are not grievous.” “For whatsoever is born of God [the new nature, the new life which is communicated to you] overcometh the world” . It is a blessed fact that every true believer will be an overcomer at the last. But some of us, like Jacob, will never be overcomers until we are almost at the end of life. Jacob had been a child of God for many years, but it was not until he was down to the very end that he manifested the graces that God was seeking to work in him throughout all those years. Then we read, “By faith Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff . By faith when he was dying, he was brought to the place of an overcomer. What a pity to have lost all that time. What a pity if you and I should be so set on having our own way that we lose out through the years-years that can never be recalled. What does it mean to overcome the world? “All that is in the world” is described in verse 16 of the second chapter of this Epistle -“the lust of the flesh,” which is carnal indulgence of any kind; “the lust of the eyes,” or the pleasures of the senses; and “the pride of life,” ambition and struggling after fame and praise in the world. These are the things that constitute “the world.” Some Christians have the idea that worldliness consists of going to the theater, playing cards, dancing, taking part in certain worldly pleasures. No doubt these satisfy one form of worldliness-the lust of the flesh and perhaps the lust of the eye. But you may never have crossed the threshold of a theater, you may never sit down at the card table, you may never have been on the dance floor in your life, and yet you may be just as worldly as the people who do these things. The lover of money is as worldly as the lover of pleasure or fame or ambition. The one who is trying to crush others and push himself to the front is just as worldly as the man who spends half the night at the theater. Don’t think that you can, as Samuel Butler said, “compound for sins (you) are inclined to by damning those (you) have no mind to.” Overcoming the world means being delivered from the “lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” As you obey the desires of the new nature you are set free from the world, because this new life finds delight in the things of God. “And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith” . Seven times over in Revelation we hear the Lord say to the seven churches, “To him that overcometh.” He is not singling out a superior class of Christians, but is saying that in every age Christians will be overcomers. By faith they will finally overcome the world in every instance. “Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” Do you believe Jesus is the Son of God? It is not merely accepting a statement of creed, but it is trust in the blessed Son of God. It is trust that He went to Calvary’ s cross, and there shed His precious blood to put away your sins. Have you trusted Him? Have you believed on Him? Peter wrote, “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever…And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you” . When you believe the message of the gospel and receive the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as your personal Savior, then you are born of God. You are given a new nature, and your faith is manifested by love. Whatever failures, struggles, or temptations you may have to meet, you will come through triumphant at last because it is God who will bring you through. It is not a question of your own power or steadfastness, but you are “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” . The Three Witnesses We have three witnesses presented to us in this section. Contrary to how it may appear in the King James version we do not have six witnesses in this chapter-three in Heaven and three on earth. In the King James version, verse seven reads, “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.” This verse is not found in any critical translation of the New Testament. My statement may trouble some and cause you to question the dependability of Scripture. Let me try to explain, very briefly. You must remember that the Bible was translated into English from Hebrew and Greek sources. The Hebrew and Greek were hand written and came down through the centuries, copied first by one scribe and then by another. It is quite possible for one man writing a manuscript to insert or to leave something out. It is possible for something to be put in the margin of one manuscript which the next scribe may assume belongs to the text. The oldest Greek manuscripts from which the King James version was taken were probably written in the twelfth century. Since then literally thousands of manuscripts have come to light from as far back as the end of the second and the beginning of the third century, and in none of them are these words found. They probably got in because some scribe made a comment on the margin of his manuscript, and someone copying it thought the words belonged to the text, and so inserted them. In 1 John 5:6 we read, “This is he [that is, the Lord Jesus Christ spoken of in verse 5 ], that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.” Then verse 8 reads , “And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.” What does the apostle mean when he speaks of these three that bear witness or testimony? To what do they give testimony? They testify to the effectiveness of the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. The three witnesses are the Spirit, the water, and the blood. The Spirit, of course, is the Holy Spirit of God who, after the death, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, came from Heaven to dwell in the church on earth. He came to empower those proclaiming the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is a vast difference between merely explaining doctrine and preaching the gospel in the Spirit’s power. Anyone can do the former, and everything said might be true, but there is no power in it. Preaching the gospel in the energy of the Holy Ghost is another thing altogether, and therefore we read, “It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe” . Jesus said, “Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth” . The Holy Spirit, then, is a witness to the effectiveness of the cleansing power of the blood of Christ. He has come down from Heaven to assure us that Christ’s sacrifice has been accepted for us. The other witnesses are the water and the blood. In John’s Gospel we are told that they broke the legs of the thieves who hung on either side of the Lord Jesus Christ. When they came to Jesus, they marveled because He was already dead, and so they did not break His legs, for it was written, “A bone of him shall not be broken” . Instead one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and, John writes, “Forthwith came there out blood and water” . That made a great impression on the mind of John as he saw those two elements mingled and flowing from the wounded side of the Savior. Years later when John wrote this Epistle to the children of God, he said, “This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood” . Why does he draw our attention to the water and the blood which flowed from the side of the Son of God? In these two elements we have suggested two characters of cleansing. As a sinner I learn that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin. But that cleansing is judicial-that is my cleansing before God. When God looks at me as a believer, He sees me cleansed from every stain by the blood of His Son. But that cleansing alone does not satisfy me. As a Christian, I want to know practical deliverance from the power of sin. I am not content to know that my sins have been put under the blood if I find that I am still living under the power of sin. I want sin to be taken away practically-I want to be set free, to be cleansed from the things that curse my life-and I find practical cleansing through the “washing of water by the word.” We read in Ephesians 5:25-26 , “Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word.” The Word of God applied to my heart and conscience sets me free from sin as a habit. I am delivered from its power. A Christian poet wrote: Let the water and the blood, From Thy riven side which flowed, Be of sin the double cure, Save me from its guilt and power. Augustus M. Toplady The blood cleanses from sin’s guilt. The water of the Word applied in the power of the Holy Spirit cleanses from the defilement of sin. So then these are the three witnesses: the blood witnesses that the sin question is settled to God’s satisfaction; the Word witnesses that there is power to deliver from sin in a practical way; the Spirit bears witness that this power is for every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. “If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son” . Men come to us and tell of things we have never seen, and we believe them. They make us promises that we believe. The entire commercial system of the world depends largely on the witness of men. Companies make certain promises, and because we trust them we go ahead and do business with them. If we are willing to trust our fellow men who may fail to keep their promises, and whose word may prove unreliable, surely we can say, “The witness of God is greater.” God has given us the witness of His Word, and His witness can be relied on, because it is impossible for God to lie. “For this is the witness of God, which he hath testified of his Son.” God in His Word has given a testimony concerning His Son. He has told us that the Lord Jesus died on the cross for our sins, that He “was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification” . This is God’s witness, and He calls on us to believe it. “He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the [witness] that God gave of his Son” . The witness is not a question of feeling happy, or of a great emotional experience. Neither is it a question of “getting religious,” but it is a question of believing God and receiving His Word in your heart. When you do that, you have the witness in yourself, and the Spirit of God makes it real to you. When asked, “Are you saved?” you may answer, “Yes.” If someone inquires, “How do you know?” you say, “Because God has told me so.” You don’t know you are saved because you feel happy. You feel happy because you know you are saved. People often put the cart before the horse. They look for feelings of happiness as a testimony that they are saved, when they must first believe the Word. Then the joy will follow. Alex Marshall, the Scottish evangelist, went as a young boy to a circus where an evangelist was preaching. As he sat in the balcony, he felt the need to be saved, but thought to himself, “If I could only get the happy feeling that some of these people have, I would know if it were real.” Often the Spirit of God gives a preacher just the right message for someone in the audience, and this preacher leaned over the pulpit, pointed to where Alex sat and said, “Young man, believing is the root, feeling is the fruit.” At that moment Alex Marshall understood, believed, and passed out of death into life. “He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself.” Take God at His word and say, “Let God be true, but every man a liar” . You can rest on His Word. Others may have believed on Christ but have no assurance of salvation because they are waiting for a feeling-waiting for the witness. This is what God says, “He that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son.” As long as your assurance depends on a feeling, you are making God a liar. God has told you something that He asks you to believe. What does it imply if you don’t believe? Suppose I told you something and you said, “Yes, well, I would like to believe you. I am even trying to believe you, but somehow I just cannot believe you.” What would that mean? It would imply that you really thought I was lying to you. It is just the same when you fail to believe what God has said in His Word. “He that hath the Son hath life” . God’s Word says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” . You might believe that you are saved, and not be saved at all. But you cannot believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and trust Him as your Savior without being saved. When you lack the assurance of salvation after putting your trust in Him, you make God a liar, because you do not believe “the record that God gave of His Son.” A friend of mine who died some years ago in India did not have the assurance of salvation. The thing that troubled him above everything else was that he believed that God had chosen an elect few that should be saved. As he had no evidence that he was among them, he could not know that he was saved. He went to a meeting where the preacher declared that a man was saved the moment he believed in Jesus, that he possessed eternal life, and that he could never perish. He wanted to have the same assurance. When he got home, he got down on his knees and prayed, “O God, if it is possible for a man to be sure he has eternal life, show it to me now from Your Word. But if it is not possible, show me that, and I will leave it with You.” He turned to 1 John chapter 5. When he came to verse 10 he read , “He that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son.” “I don’t want to make God a liar,” he said, “but I don’t know what that record is.” Then he read verse 11 , “And this is the record.” He put his thumb down on the rest of the verse, and shut his eyes and prayed, “O God, I have just been reading that if a man does not believe the record that You have given of your Son, he makes You a liar; I don’t want to make You a liar, but I don’t know what the record is. I suppose I have it under my thumb. I am going to lift my thumb, and when I do, help me to believe whatever I find there, because I don’t want to make You a liar.” He almost dreaded to lift his thumb, but finally did, and read, “And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.” “Oh,” he said, “Blessed be God! Right here and now I can know!” His faith was confirmed as he read, “He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life” . He saw that salvation was a matter of receiving Christ. Assurance of salvation was a matter of believing God’s Word. His heart found peace, and for years he preached this same truth to others. “He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name” . Have you received Christ? Then, “He that hath the Son hath life.” Are you rejecting Him? “He that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” If you have not received the Son of God by faith as your Savior you are still dead in your sins. But if you have received Him as your Savior, God says you have everlasting life. Take Him at His word. “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God” . John was not speaking of an intellectual belief. Do you have faith in the Son of God? Do you trust in Him? Listen, then; I have a message for you, and I wish I could drive it home to every heart with power. Suppose a letter came addressed, “To you who believe on the name of the Son of God.” The courier announces, “I have a letter, and if the person to whom it is addressed is here, please come and claim it. It is addressed to ‘You who believe.’” What would you say? Do you believe on the name of the Son of God? Is the letter for you? Very well, then, open it and see what it says. “That ye may know that ye have eternal life, [even you who] believe on the name of the Son of God.” It is a message from Heaven to every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Have you been doubting the assurance of your salvation? Are you “sometimes up and sometimes down,” yet hoping all the while that you are Heaven-bound, but not very sure of it? Get it settled today. Put away your doubts and fears, and look by faith at the risen Christ. Take it from God Himself that “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life” . Faith’s Confidence In these closing verses we have three major sections. First, John spoke of the confidence of faith, and of prayers heard and answered. Second, he gave a warning to those who sin unto death. And finally, in verses 18 to 21, the apostle summarized the teaching of the entire Epistle. In verses 14 and 15 we read, “This is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.” The ordinary word for confidence in the New Testament is the same Greek word that is generally translatedfaith, but the word used here is a different one. The apostle was not simply saying, “This is the faith that we have in him,” or “This is the trust that we have in him,” but he used a word that literally means boldness. “This is the boldness that we have in him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us.” What a bold thing it is for a man or a woman, once a sinner condemned to die under the judgment of God, to dare to come into the presence of the infinite God, bringing the petitions of his heart. What boldness to know that if we bring these to Him, inasmuch as they are in accordance with His will, “he heareth us.” This is a boldness that the world cannot understand. Men and women who do not know Christ ask, Do you think that your puny prayers and petitions are going to change the mind of divine Omnipotence, and that the infinite God is going to listen to the pleadings of a poor finite creature of the dust? Abraham felt like that, and yet boldly came to God and said, “Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes” . And because he came in faith and in accordance with the will of God, his prayer was heard. Today we who know Him as Savior have this boldness, and so we come to Him knowing that “if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us.” How do we know if our petition is in accordance with His will? This is a very important question. For a prayer to be in accordance with the will of God, it must first of all be in accordance with the Word of God. I might pray earnestly, but my pleadings will never be heard if they are contrary to the Word of God. On the other hand I might pray in accordance with the Word of God, but if I am not living in the will of God my prayer will still go unanswered, for “if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me” . The Lord tells us, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you” . Under such circumstances, God’s will becomes our will, and so as we ask according to His will, we know He hears us. “And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask [that is, of course, whatsoever we ask in accordance with His will], we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.” We may not get the answer to our petitions immediately. But if we ask in accordance with the will of God, and if we are in fellowship with God as we bring the petition, we may be definitely assured that He has heard and has answered, and that sometime, somewhere, we will see the answer. Of course, we have to remember our human limitations, for we do not always know what is wisest or best. Therefore we must be prepared to find that the answer sometimes comes in a way we least expect. There was a Christian man who was the only survivor from a wrecked vessel after a storm at sea. He found himself on a small island, and by great effort managed to make a little shelter from the equatorial storms. He waited day after day praying for God to send a ship to rescue him. He used to go down to the shore of the island and wave a piece of his clothing every time he saw a ship passing in the distance, but they never saw him. One day as he was cooking his dinner, he spotted a ship some distance away and hurried to the shore, earnestly praying that this time they might see him and come to his relief. He waved frantically, but to no avail. Returning to his hut he was astonished to see that it had burst into flames. The wind had caught some embers and set the place on fire. Everything burned. He stood there utterly distressed, not knowing where he would be able to gather sufficient material to build another shelter. However, to his amazement, he noticed that the vessel he had seen earlier was headed straight for the island. As they neared the shore they sent a boat for him and took him on board. “Did you see me waving?” he asked. “Waving!” they replied; “We saw your smoke, and so we came to rescue you.” God had answered his prayer, but not at all in the way he expected it. Someday when we get home to Heaven, we will see that many of the prayers we thought God had not heard were answered in His own wonderful way. What about faith healing? If we pray for the sick, will they be healed? Yes, if it is His will. But sometimes it is not. While on earth, Jesus healed all the sick that came to Him, but that is not how He works today. It is true that the Lord is “the same yesterday, and today, and forever” . He is an unchanging Savior, but His methods are not always the same. When He was here on earth He raised the dead, but He is not raising the dead now. However, when He returns, He will raise the dead and prove that His power is the same now as when He was on earth. In verse 16 we read, “If any man see his brother [referring to a child of God] sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death.” The implication clearly is that sometimes-not always, but sometimes-sickness comes to the children of God as divine chastening. It is a means of correction and discipline because of waywardness. Sometimes the discipline has the desired effect in the spiritual restoration and the body is healed. But other times it does not seem to be the will of God to restore the disciplined believer. “There is sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it” . Of course it is physical death that John referred to, not eternal death. He is not speaking of the death of the soul, but of the death of the body under divine discipline. The indefinite article in this part of the verse should be omitted. It is not that there is some specific sin that always results in death, but there is sin unto death. Moses and Aaron sinned unto death when they became angry with the children of Israel and struck the rock in anger instead of speaking to it as they had been commanded. The Lord said, “Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them” . Now Moses had immediate repentance and restoration to fellowship. He pleaded with God that He would forgive him and permit him to enter the land, but the Lord said, “Speak no more unto me of this matter” . Moses had sinned unto death. If today every time Christians got angry they sinned unto death, how few of us would be here! I’m afraid most of us would be at home in Heaven. Why then was He so severe with Moses? Moses was one who spoke with God face to face, and with greater privilege comes greater responsibility. Don’t forget that. Turning to the New Testament, we find the Spirit of God was working in great power in the early church. Among the professed converts were two, Ananias and Sapphira. They sinned against the Holy Ghost by pretending to have a devotion to God that they did not possess. When they were faced with the sin, they told a lie. The result was that first Ananias and then Sapphira his wife fell down dead. They had sinned unto death. If God were dealing with all Christians that way today, there would be few believers still here. How many Christians have never permitted others to think that they were holier than they really are? And is there a believer who has never been guilty of a lie? Perhaps you have repented, but for Ananias and Sapphira there was no restoration. They had sinned unto death when they pretended to be more spiritual than they were and then lied concerning it. We find another incident recorded in 1 Corinthians. There was a great deal of laxity and carelessness of behavior at Corinth when they gathered together to take what we call today the communion or the Lord’s supper. Because of this laxity and carelessness that marked them, the apostle wrote, “For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep” . Sleep is a term used throughout the Bible for the believer’s death. If every time a Christian took communion carelessly God were to visit with temporal death, how often tragedy would follow the observance of the Lord’s supper! We cannot say of any particular sin that it is the sin unto death. God gives His people opportunity after opportunity, but if at last they deliberately go on refusing obedience to His Word, He says, “I am going to take you home; I can’t trust you in the world any longer. I will deal with you at the judgment seat of Christ.” Imagine a group of children playing in the evening, and eventually a quarrel develops. A mother appears in the doorway and calls to her child, “What’s going on here? You behave yourself.” “Yes, Mother. I will try to do better.” “If you don’t, you will have to come in.” After a while there is a fuss again, and the mother calls out, “You come inside.” “Oh Mother, I’m sorry. We are in the middle of a game. I promise to be good.” “Very well, but you be careful.” The game goes on, and once again there is a quarrel. The mother tells her child, “You come inside now.” “But Mother-.” “Not another word; you come inside.” “But Mother, I will try to behave myself.” “No, I can’t trust you anymore tonight. Come inside.” So it is with God and His children here in this world. He gives them many chances because He is wonderfully gracious. After a failure they repent and say, “Now I have learned my lesson.” Perhaps a little later the same thing occurs, and God says, “Now I am going to lay My hand on you.” Perhaps there is a long siege of illness, and they have an opportunity to bring everything to God in sincere confession, but the Lord says, “You have sinned unto death. I can’t trust you anymore, so I am going to take you home.” I knew a young man who left his home in obedience to the call of God to engage in Christian work in a needy district. He had not been there long before an offer of a prosperous job came between him and the Lord. His fiancee declared she would never marry a preacher, and so he decided to take the position. He settled down, made money, and succeeded in his work, but inwardly was always very unhappy. He knew he had sinned against the Lord because he had been called to a different service. Eventually he developed tuberculosis. He gave up his position and spent his savings in a sanitarium, where he lay flat on his back. He sent for me and said, “Brother, I want you to pray with me, but not that the Lord will heal me, unless He should make it very clear to you that it is His will. I have been facing a great many things lately. I see my failure now as never before. I believe I have sinned unto death.” I looked to the Lord asking, if it was His will, to heal him, but if not to give him great joy in departing. Two weeks later I saw him again and he said, “I will never see you on earth again. I have had two very wonderful weeks. The Lord has been very near to me, but He has told me that He is going to take me home. I lost my opportunity, and inasmuch as I chose my own comfort instead of His will He can’t trust me here any more. But, thank God, I am perfectly resigned to His will. I am going home!” And, sure enough, three days later he died. He had sinned unto death, and it was useless to pray for his healing, but he went home happy in Christ. “All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death” . All unrighteousness is sin and is therefore distasteful to God, but there are certain circumstances that do not make some conditions quite so serious as others. In verses 18 to 21 we have the epitome of all that has gone before. This section is divided into three parts. Each part is introduced by the expression, “We know.” The word translated know really means “an inward knowledge.” We know not merely because we have read it or heard it, or because someone told us, but we know because of an inward assurance that has come to us. John said, “We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not [doth not practice sin]; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not” . This is another way of saying that the child of God has received a new nature. Even though he falls into sin, he has an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. The accuser of the brethren will not be permitted to lay one charge against them, for they are in the hands of their own Father who will deal with them about their failures. In the next verse we read, “And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness” . This is sometimes translated, “The whole world lieth in the wicked one.” It may seem like a bold assumption for Christians to say that they have inward knowledge-absolute assurance that they are of God-and that the whole world lieth in the wicked one. Yes, it may seem like assumption to men who do not know God, but there is a reality about it that cannot be explained to the world. For instance, a young Christian who has recently come to Christ may be confronted by the specious arguments of atheists, agnostics, and other unbelievers and find that he is unable to answer their questions. They say to him, “See we have proven to you that you are wrong and that God never spoke to men.” The young believer looks them full in the face and says, “I don’t know how to answer your arguments, but I know I have passed from death unto life.” A Christian who has been saved out of a life of sin is often unable to explain the transformation that has taken place in his life. But one thing he knows and can boldly claim, “Whereas I was blind now I see. Whereas I was once the victim of sinful habits that were wrecking and ruining my life, now I have found liberty in Christ Jesus.” Explain that if you can. Every believer as he walks with God has this blessed inward knowledge. The only believer who loses this knowledge is the one who is disobedient to God. He loses his sense of assurance. But when he comes back to God, makes a frank confession of his failure and is restored, he once again has this blessed inward knowledge given by the Holy Spirit. Verse 20 reads, “And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.” Of course John could speak from actual knowledge, for he had leaned on the breast of the Lord. He had walked with Him for three and a half wonderful years. He had heard the message proceeding out of His mouth, and had seen His works of power. We have no such evidence, but we know nonetheless, for He has revealed Himself to us in His Word. The same divine life that was revealed in all its fullness in Christ can be part of every believer. And so, “we are in him that is true.” Having spoken of our Lord Jesus, John immediately added, “This is the true God, and eternal life.” Eternal life is seen personally in Christ and is communicated by Christ to those who believe in Him. In verse 21 we have the closing exhortation, and though brief, it is an important one: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” Anything that comes between your soul and the path of obedience to God is an idol. Sometimes God has to come and take these idols away from us in a way that seems very hard, and we may even charge Him with being cruel. But He takes them away in order that Christ may have His rightful place and our hearts may be entirely devoted to Him. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” . Scripture says of Jesus Christ, “This is the true God.” Therefore, any god other than the God revealed in Jesus Christ is an idol. In Christ alone is God made fully known. FULL BY H.A. In penning the following pages, I have had but one outstanding object before me: to make as plain as I possibly can just how any troubled soul may find settled peace with God. I am thinking particularly of those people who believe the Holy Scriptures to be divinely inspired, and who recognize that salvation is only to be found in Christ, but someway have missed the "peace of a perfect trust," and though earnestly desiring to know the Lord, are floundering in perplexity of mind, like Bunyan's Pilgrim, in the Slough of Despond, or like the same anxious inquirer in his earlier experience, trembling beneath the frowning cliffs of Sinai. Consequently, no attempt is here made to prove that the Bible is true, as both the writer and the readers he has specially in view take that for granted. People who are bothered by doubts along that line may find abundant help elsewhere, as there are not wanting plenty of good books, written by sound Christian scholars, that present unanswerable arguments for the inerrancy and the divine authority of the Bible. The trouble is that so many people who profess to want help along these lines are too indifferent to investigate, even when the opportunity is put before them. It is of really earnest seekers after the truth that I am thinking. For many months I was myself in much doubt and confusion of thought until God by His Holy Spirit showed me through His Word the true ground of peace. That was many years ago, and as I write I find myself living over again the conflict of those days, and recalling, as though it were but yesterday, the gladness that filled my soul when I rested in Christ alone, and entered into a lasting peace with God that has known no disturbance throughout the years. The clouds may at times veil my sky. Sorrows and difficulties may try my soul. New discoveries of the corruption of my own heart may bring humiliation and repentance. But this peace with God remains unchanged, for it rests not on me, not on my frames of mind or experiences, but on the finished work of Christ and the testimony of the Word of God, of which it is written: "For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven." AFTER In a ministry of almost half a century, I have had the joy of leading many to rest in Christ. And I have found that the questions that perplex, and the hindrances to full assurance are all more or less basically alike, though expressed differently by different people. So I have sought in this little volume to set forth, as clearly as I know how, the truths that I have proven specific in meeting the needs of thousands of souls. I have been told that in days gone by young doctors were in the habit of using a great number of medicines in their endeavors to help their various patients, but that with increasing practice and larger experience, they discarded many remedies which they found were of little use and thereafter concentrated on a few that they had proven to be really worth while. The physician of souls is likely to have much the same experience, and while this may give a somewhat uninteresting sameness to his later ministrations, as compared or contrasted with his earlier ones, it puts him after all in the immediate succession of the apostles of our Lord, whose viewpoint may be summed up in words written by the greatest of them all: "I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." Here is the sovereign remedy for all spiritual ills. Here is the one supreme message that is needed, whether they realize it or not, by all men everywhere. And this I have tried to proclaim in these unpretending pages. As an Itinerant Preacher For the most of my life I have been an itinerant preacher of the gospel, travelling often as much as thirty to forty thousand miles a year to proclaim the unsearchable riches of Christ. In all these years I only recall two occasions on which I have missed my trains. One was by becoming confused between what is known as daylight saving and standard time. The other was through the passive assurance of a farmer-host, who was to drive me from his country home into the town of Lowry, Minnesota, in time for me to take an afternoon train for Winnipeg, on which I had a Pullman reservation. I can remember yet how I urged my friend to get on the way, but he pottered about with all kinds of inconsequential chores, insistent that there was plenty of time. I fumed and fretted to no purpose. He was calmly adamant. Finally, he hitched up his team and we started across the prairie. About a mile from town we saw the train steam into the station, pause a few moments, and depart for the north. There was nothing to do but wait some five or six hours for the night express, on which I had no reservation, and found when it arrived I could not get a berth, so was obliged to sit in a crowded day coach all the way to the Canadian border, after which there was more room. While annoyed, I comforted myself with the words, "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." I prayed earnestly that if He had some purpose in permitting me to miss my train and comfortable accommodations, I might not fail to find it out. When I boarded the crowded, foul-smelling coach, I found there was only one vacancy left and that was half of a seat midway down the car, a sleeping young man occupying the other half. As I sat down by him and stowed away my baggage, he awoke, straightened up, and gave me a rather sleepy greeting. Soon we were in an agreeable, low-toned conversation, while other passengers slept and snored all about us. A suitable opportunity presenting itself, I inquired, "Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ?" He sat up as though shot. "How strange that you should ask me that! I went to sleep thinking of Him and wishing I did know Him, but I do not understand, though I want to! Can you help me?" Further conversation elicited the fact that he had been working in a town in southern Minnesota, where he had been persuaded to attend some revival meetings. Evidently, the preaching was in power and he became deeply concerned about his soul. He had even gone forward to the mourners' bench, but though he wept and prayed over his sins, he came away without finding peace. I knew then why I had missed my train. This was my Gaza, and though unworthy I was sent of God to be his Philip. So I opened to the same scripture that the Ethiopian treasurer had been reading when Philip met him: Isaiah 53 . Drawing my newly-found friend's attention to its wonderful depiction of the crucified Saviour, though written so long before the event, I put before him verses 4, 5 and 6: "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." As the young man read them, they seemed to burn their way into his very soul. He saw himself as the lost sheep that had taken its own way. He saw Christ as the One on whom Jehovah laid all his iniquity, and he bowed his head and told Him he would trust Him as his own Saviour. For perhaps two hours we had hallowed fellowship on the way, as we turned from one scripture to another. Then he reached his destination and left, thanking me most profusely for showing him the way of life. I have never seen him since, but I know I shall greet him again at the judgment seat of Christ. Help for the Needy Soul Into whose hands this book will fall I cannot tell, but I send it forth with the prayer that it may prove as timely a message to many a needy soul as the talk on the train that night in Minnesota with the young man who felt his need and had really turned to God, but did not understand the way of peace and so had no assurance, until he found it through the written Word, borne home to his soul in the power of the Holy Spirit. If you are just as troubled as that young man, and should by divine providence peruse this treatise at any time, I trust that you will see that it is the Lord's own way of seeking to draw you to Himself, and that you will read it carefully, thoughtfully, and prayerfully, looking up each passage referred to in your own Bible, if you have one, and that thus you, too, may obtain full assurance. Be certain of this: God is deeply concerned about you. He longs to give you the knowledge of His salvation. It is no mere accident that these pages have come to your attention. He put it on my heart to write them. He would have you read them. They may prove to be His own message to your troubled soul. God's ways are varied. "He worketh all things after the counsel of his own will." The Barber Was Much Concerned Another personal experience will perhaps accentuate and fittingly close this chapter. One afternoon I was walking the busy streets of Indianapolis, looking for a barber shop. Entering the first one I saw (my attention being attracted by the red and white striped pole), I was soon seated in the chair, and the tonsorial artist began operations. He was chatty but subdued, I thought, not carelessly voluble. Praying for an opening, it soon seemed a fitting time to ask, as in the other case, "Are you acquainted with the Lord Jesus Christ?" To my astonishment, the barber's reaction was remarkable. He stopped his work, burst into uncontrollable weeping, and when the first paroxysm had passed, exclaimed, "How strange that you should ask me about Him! In all my life I never had a man ask me that before. And I have been thinking of Him nearly all the time for the last three days. What can you tell me about him?" It was my turn to be amazed. I asked him what had led up to this. He explained that he had gone to see a picture of the Passion Play, and that it had made an indelible impression on his mind. He kept asking, "Why did that good Man have to suffer so? Why did God let Him die like that?" He had never heard the gospel in his life, so I spent an hour with him opening up the story of the Cross. We prayed together and he declared that all was now plain, and he trusted the Saviour for himself. I had the joy of knowing, as I left his shop, that the gospel was indeed the dynamic of God unto salvation to him, an uninstructed Greek barber, who had learned for the first time that Christ loved him and gave Himself for him. To me it was a singular instance of divine sovereignty. The very idea of the Passion Play - sinful men endeavoring to portray the life, death and resurrection of Jesus - was abhorrent to me. But God, who delights not in the death of the sinner, but desires that all should turn to Him and live, used that very picture to arouse this man and so make him ready to hear the gospel. And I could not doubt that He had directed my steps to that particular shop, that I might have the joy of pointing the anxious barber to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. That in many similar instances He may be pleased to own and use these written messages is my earnest desire. "Sovereign grace o'er sin abounding, Ransomed souls the tidings tell; 'Tis a deep that knows no sounding, Who its length and breadth can tell? On its glories, let my soul forever dwell." FOREVER THERE is a very remarkable statement found in the book of Isaiah, chapter thirty-two, verse 17: "The work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance forever." Assurance forever! Is it not a wonderfully-pleasing expression? Assurance not for a few days, or weeks, or months - nor yet for a few years, or even a lifetime - but forever! It is this blessed assurance that God delights to impart to all who come to Him as needy sinners seeking the way of life. Two words are employed in this verse that are intimately related - peace and assurance. Yet how many deeply-religious people there are in the world who scarcely know the meaning of either term. They are honestly seeking after God. They are punctilious about their religious duties, such as reading the Scriptures, saying their prayers, attending church, partaking of the sacrament, and supporting the cause of Christ. They are scrupulously honest and upright in all their dealings with their fellowmen, endeavoring to fulfil every civic and national responsibility, and to obey the golden rule. Yet they have no lasting peace, nor any definite assurance of salvation. I am persuaded that in practically every such instance the reason for their unquiet and unsettled state is due to a lack of apprehension of God's way of salvation. Though living seven centuries before Calvary, it was given to Isaiah to set forth in a very blessed manner the righteousness of God as later revealed in the gospel. This is not to be wondered at for he spoke as he was moved by the Holy Spirit. The key word of his great book, often called the fifth gospel, is the same as in the Epistle to the Romans - the word, "righteousness." And I would urge the reader to meditate on this word for a little and see how it is used in the Holy Scriptures. The Dying Lawyer A lawyer lay dying. He had attended church all his life but was not saved. He was known to be a man of unimpeachable integrity. Yet as he lay there facing eternity, he was troubled and distressed. He knew that upright as he had been before men, he was a sinner before God. His awakened conscience brought to his memory sins and transgressions that had never seemed so heinous as then, when he knew that shortly he must meet his Maker. A friend put the direct question, "Are you saved?" He replied in the negative, shaking his head sadly. The other asked, "Would you not like to be saved?" "I would indeed," was his reply, "if it is not already too late. But," he added almost fiercely, "I do not want God to do anything wrong in saving me!" His remark showed how deeply he had learned to value the importance of righteousness. The visitor turned to his Bible and there read how God had Himself devised a righteous way to save unrighteous sinners. The fact is that He has no other possible way of saving anybody. If sin must be glossed over, in order that the sinner may be saved, he will be forever lost. God refuses to compromise His own character for the sake of anyone, much as He yearns to have all men to be saved. It was this that stirred the soul of Luther, and brought new light and help after long, weary months of groping in the darkness, trying in vain to save himself in conformity to the demands of blind leaders of the blind. As he was reading the Latin Psalter, he came across David's prayer, "Save me in thy righteousness." Luther exclaimed, "What does this mean? I can understand how God can damn me in His righteousnes, but if He would save me it must surely be in His mercy!" The more he meditated on it, the more the wonder grew. But little by little the truth dawned upon his troubled soul that God Himself had devised a righteous method whereby He could justify unrighteous sinners who came to Him in repentance and received His word in faith. Isaiah stresses this great and glorious truth throughout his marvellous Old Testament unfolding of the gospel plan. In unsparing severity, the prophet portrays man's utterly lost and absolutely hopeless condition, apart from divine grace. "The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds and bruises and purtrefying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment" . It is surely a revolting picture, but nevertheless it is true of the unsaved man as God sees him. Sin is a vile disease that has fastened upon the very vitals of its victim. None can free himself from its pollution, or deliver himself from its power. A Sure Remedy But God has a remedy. He says, "Come now, and let us reason together, said the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool" (v. 18). It is God Himself who can thus purge the leper from all his uncleanness, and justify the ungodly from all his guilt. And He does it, not at the expense of righteousness, but in a perfectly righteous way. "'Tis in the Cross of Christ we see How God can save, yet righteous be; 'Tis in the Cross of Christ we trace His righteousness and wondrous grace. The sinner who believes is free, Can say, the Saviour died for me; Can point to the atoning blood And say, That made my peace with God." So it is Isaiah who, above all other prophetic writers, sets forth the work of the Cross. He looks on by the eye of faith to Calvary, and there he sees the Holy Sufferer dying for sins not His own. He exclaims, "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: The chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the LORD (Jehovah) hath laid on him the iniquity of us all" . Have you ever thoughtfully considered these remarkable statements? If not, I beg you to ponder over them now: It was Jesus that the Spirit of God brought before the mind of Isaiah. He would have you gaze upon Him, too. Take each clause separately and weigh its wondrous meaning: "He was wounded for our transgressions." Make it personal! Put yourself and your own sins in there. Read it as though it said, "He was wounded for my transgressions." Do not get lost in the crowd. If there had never been another sinner in all the world, Jesus would have gone to the cross for you! Oh, believe it and enter into peace! "He was bruised for our iniquities." Make it personal! Think what your ungodliness and your self-will cost Him. He took the blows that should have fallen upon you. He stepped in between you and God, as the rod of justice was about to fall. It bruised Him in your stead. Again, I plead, make it personal! Cry out in faith, "He was bruised for my iniquities." Now go farther: "The chastisement of our peace was upon him." All that was necessary to make peace with God, He endured. "He made peace through the blood of his cross." Change the "our" to "my." "He made my peace." "He bore on the tree The sentence for me, And now both the surety And sinner are free." Now note the last clause of this glorious verse, "With his stripes we are healed." Do you see it? Can you set to your seal that God is true, and cry exultingly, "Yes, I a poor sinner, I a lost, ruined soul, I who so richly deserved judgment, I am healed by His stripes"? "We are healed by His stripes, Wouldst thou add to the Word? He Himself is our righteousness made. The best robe of heaven He bids thee put on, Oh, couldst thou be better arrayed?" The Old Account Settled It is not that God ignores our sins, or indulgently over-looks them; but on the cross all have been settled for. In Isaiah 53:6 , He has balanced the books of the world. There were two debit entries: "All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned every one to his own way." But there is one credit item that squares the account: "Jehovah hath laid on him (that is, on Jesus at the cross) the iniquity of us all." The first debit entry takes into account our participation in the fall of the race. Sheep follow the leader. One goes through a hole in the fence and all follow after. So Adam sinned and we are all implicated in his guilt. "Death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." But the second entry takes into account our individual wilfulness. Each one has chosen to sin in his own way, so we are not only sinners by nature, but we are also transgressors by practice. In other words, we are lost - utterly lost. But "the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost" . By His sacrificial death on the cross, He has paid to outraged justice that which meets every charge against the sinner. Now in perfect righteousness God can offer a complete pardon and justification to all who trust His risen Son. Thus "the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance forever." The troubled conscience can now be at rest. God is satisfied with what His Son has done. On that basis He can freely forgive the vilest sinner who turns in repentance to the Christ of the cross. "The trembling sinner feareth That God can ne'er forget; But one full payment cleareth His mem'ry of all debt; Returning sons He kisses, And with His robe invests; His perfect love dismisses All terror from our breasts." He says to every believing soul, "I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee" (Isa: 44:22). And again, "I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins" . You may never be able to forget the years of wandering, the many sins of which you have been guilty. But that which gives peace is the knowledge that God will never recall them again. He has blotted them from the book of His remembrance, and He has done it in righteousness, for the account is completely settled. The debt is paid! Christ's Resurrection Gives Assurance Christ's bodily resurrection is the divine token that all has been dealt with to God's satisfaction. Jesus bore our sins on the cross. He made Himself responsible for them. He died to put them away forever. But God raised Him from the dead, thereby attesting His good pleasure in the work of His Son. Now the blessed Lord sits exalted at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens. He could not be there if our sins were still upon Him. The fact that He is there proves that they are completely put away. God is satisfied! "Payment He will not twice demand, First at my bleeding Surety's hand, And then again at mine." It is this that gives quietness and assurance forever. When I know that my sins have been dealt with in such a way that God's righteousness remains untarnished, even as He folds me to His bosom, a justified believer, I have perfect peace. I know Him now as "a just God and a Saviour" (lsa. 45:21). He says, "I will bring near my righteousness; it shall not be far off, and my salvation shall not tarry" (lsa. 46:13). What cheering words are these! He has provided a righteousness, His very own, for men who have none of their own! Gladly, therefore, do I spurn all attempts at self-righteousness, to be found in Him perfect and complete, clothed with His righteousness. Every believer can say with the prophet, "I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with jewels" . "Clad in this robe, how bright I shine; Angels have not a robe like mine." It is given only to redeemed sinners to wear this garment of glory. Christ Himself is the robe of righteousness. We who trust Him are "in Christ"; we are "made the righteousness of God in him" . He is "made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption" . If my acceptance depended on my growth in grace I could never have settled peace. It would be egotism of the worst kind to consider myself so holy that I could be satisfactory to God on the ground of my personal experience. But when I see that "He hath made us accepted in the beloved," every doubt is banished. My soul is at peace. I have quietness and assurance forever. I know now that only "That which can shake the Cross, Can shake the peace it gave; Which tells me Christ has never died, Nor ever left the grave." As long as these great unchanging verities remain, my peace is unshaken, my confidence is secure. I have "assurance forever." Dear, anxious, burdened soul, do you not see it? Can you not rest, where God rests, in the finished work of His blessed Son? If He is satisfied to save you by faith in Jesus, surely you should be satisfied to trust Him. MUCH When reminding the Thessalonian believers of the work of God in their city, as a result of which they were saved, the apostle Paul says: "We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers; remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father; knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God. For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance; as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake. And ye became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost: so that ye were ensamples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia." This is a very striking declaration, and all the more so because it stands out in such vivid contrast with much that goes under the name of evangelical testimony in our days. It is not too much to say of perhaps the majority of sermons preached in our myraids of churches, that one who was in deep spiritual trouble might listen to them year in and year out and be left in as great uncertainty as ever. They give no assurance to the hearers, whereas Paul's preaching was of such a character as to produce much assurance. Consider the people addressed. Only a few months before at the most, they were for the greater part pagan idolaters, living in all kinds of sin and uncleanness. They had never been trained in Christian truth. A few among them were Jews, and had some knowledge of the law and the prophets. But the great majority by far were ignorant heathen, given to superstitious and licentious practices, and who were without any understanding of the way of life. To them came Paul and his little company of itinerant preachers - men of God whose lives evidenced the power of the message they proclaimed. In dependence on the Holy Spirit they preached Jesus Christ and Him crucified. They bore witness to His resurrection and present saving power, and they declared He was coming back some day to be judge of the living and the dead. It was the same missionary message which has ever proven to be the dynamic of God unto salvation to all who believe. Paul's hearers were convicted of their sin. They realized something of the corruption of their lives. They turned to God as repentant sinners, and believed the gospel they heard preached. What was the result? They became new creatures. Their out-ward behavior reflected the inward change. They knew they had passed out of darkness into light. They did not simply cherish a pious hope that God had received them. They knew He had made them His own. They had much assurance! Could anything be more blessed? Is it not strange that so much that passes for gospel preaching today fails to produce this very-much-to-be-desired result? Surely something is radically wrong when people can be church-goers all their lives and never get farther than to live in hope of receiving "dying grace" at last! The Woman Was Dying An aged woman was reported to be dying. Her physician had given up all hope of her recovery. Her minister was called to her bedside to prepare her for the great change. She was in much distress. Bitterly she lamented her sins, her coldness of heart, her feeble efforts to serve the Lord. Piteously, she besought her pastor to give what help he could that dying grace might indeed be hers. The good man was plainly disconcerted. He was not used to coming to close quarters with dying souls anxious to be sure of salvation. But he quoted and read various scriptures. His eye fell on the words, "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life" . As he read the words with quivering voice, the dying woman drank in their truth. "Not by works, but justified by his grace!" She exclaimed, "Aye, minister, that'll do; I can rest there. No works of mine to plead, just to trust His grace. That will do. I can die in peace." He prayed with her and left, his own heart tenderly moved and grateful, too, that he had been used to minister dying grace to this troubled member of his flock. He hardly expected to see her again on earth, but was comforted to feel that she would soon be in heaven. Contrary to her physician's prediction, however, she did not die but rallied from that very hour, and in a few weeks was well again, a happy, rejoicing believer with much assurance. She sent once more for the pastor, and put the strange question to him: "God has given me dying grace and now I am well again; what am I to do about it?" "Ah, woman," he exclaimed, "ye may just claim it as living grace and abide in the joy of it." It was well put, but what a pity his preaching throughout the years had not produced assurance long before in the mind and heart of his anxious parishioner. The Thessalonian believers did not have to wait until facing death in order to enter into the positive knowledge of sins forgiven. Their election of God was a reality to themselves and to others, who saw what grace had wrought in their lives. And it was what Paul calls "our gospel," and "my gospel," that produced all this. We are not left in any doubt as to what that gospel was, for he has made it very clear elsewhere. He had but one message, that Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again. The import of this received in faith destroyed doubt, banished uncertainty, and produced much assurance. Of course, back of the witness borne by the lips was the witness of the life. Paul's deportment among them was that of a man who lived in the atmosphere of eternity. A holy minister of Christ preaching a clear gospel in the energy of the Holy Spirit is bound to get results. Such a man is a tremendous weapon in the hand of God for the pulling down of satanic strongholds. But it was not the piety of the messengers that gave assurance to those early believers. It was the message itself which they received in faith. It is a great mistake to attempt to rest one's soul upon the character of any preacher, however godly he may appear to be. Faith is to rest, not in the best of God's servants but in His unchanging Word. Unhappily, it often transpires that impressionable folk are carried away with admiration for a minister of Christ, and they put their dependence upon him, rather than upon the truth proclaimed. "I was converted by Billy Sunday himself!" said one to me, in answer to the question, "Are you certain that your soul is saved?" Mr. Sunday would have been the last of men to put himself in the place of Christ. Further conversation seemed to elicit the evidence that the person in question had been carried away by admiration for the earnest evangelist and mistook the "thrill of a handshake" for the Spirit's witness. At least, there seemed no real understanding of God's plan of salvation, which Billy Sunday preached, in such tremendous power. Then it is well to remember that some vivid emotional experience is not a safe ground of assurance. It is the blood of Christ that makes us safe and the Word of God that makes us sure. Queen Victoria Decides the Question There is an apparently authentic story told of the great Queen Victoria, so long ruler of Britain's vast empire. When she occupied her castle at Balmoral, Scotland, she was in the habit of calling, in a friendly way, upon certain cottagers living in the neighborhood. One aged Highland woman, who felt greatly honored by these visits and who knew the Lord, was anxious about the soul of the queen. As the season came to a close one year, her Majesty was making her last visit to the humble home of this dear child of God. After the good-byes were said, the old cottager timidly inquired, "May I ask your gracious Majesty a question?" "Yes," replied the queen, ''as many as you like." "Will your Majesty meet me in heaven?" Instantly the royal visitor replied, "I will, through the all-availing blood of Jesus." That is the only safe ground for assurance. The blood shed on Calvary avails for all classes alike. When Israel of old were about to leave Egypt, and the last awful plague was to fall on that land and its people, God Himself provided a way of escape for His own. They were to slay a lamb, sprinkle its blood on the door-posts and lintel of their houses, go inside and shut the door. When the destroying angel passed through that night, he would not be permitted to enter any blood-sprinkled door, for Jehovah had said, "When I see the blood, I will pass over you." Inside the house, some might have been trembling and some rejoicing, but all were safe. Their security depended, not on their frames of mind, or feelings, but on the fact that the eye of God beheld the blood of the lamb and they were sheltered behind it. As they recalled the Word that He had given concerning it and truly believed it, they would have much assurance. So it is today! We cannot see the blood shed so long ago for our redemption on Calvary, but there is a sense in which it is ever before the eye of God. The moment a repentant sinner puts his trust in Christ, he is viewed by God as sheltered behind the blood-sprinkled lintel. Henceforth his security from judgment depends, not on his ability to satisfy the righteous demands of the Holy One, but upon "the blessed fact that Christ Jesus satisfied them to the utmost when He gave Himself a ransom for our sins, and thus made it possible for God to pass over all our offences and justify us from all things. That Dreadful Night in Egypt Imagine a Jewish youth on that night in Egypt reasoning thus: "I am the first-born of this family and in thousands of homes tonight the first-born must die. I wish I could be sure that I was safe and secure, but when I think of my many shortcomings, I am in deepest distress and perplexity. I do not feel that I am by any means good enough to be saved when others must die. I have been very willful, very disobedient, very undependable, and now I feel so troubled and anxious. I question very much if I shall see the morning light." Would his anxiety and self-condemnation leave him exposed to judgment? Surely not! His father might well say to him, "Son, what you say as to yourself is all true. Not one of us has ever been all he should be. We all deserve to die. But the death of the lamb was for you - the lamb died in your stead. The blood of the lamb outside the house comes between you and the destroyer." One can understand how the young man's face would light up as he exclaimed, "Ah, I see it! It is not what I am that saves me from judgment. It is the blood and I am safe behind the blood-sprinkled door." Thus he would have "much assurance." And in the same way, we now, who trust in the testimony God has given concerning the atoning work of His Son, enter into peace and know we are free from all condemnation. Perhaps some one may ask, "But does it make no difference to God what I am myself? May I live on in my sins and still be saved?" No, assuredly not! But this brings in another line of truth. The moment one believes the gospel, he is born again and receives a new life and nature - a nature that hates sin and loves holiness. If you have come to Jesus and trusted Him, do you not realize the truth of this? Do you not now hate and detest the wicked things that once gave you a certain degree of delight? Do you not find within yourself a new craving for goodness, a longing after holiness, and a thirst for righteousness? All this is the evidence of a new nature. And as you walk with God you will find that daily the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit will give you practical deliverance from the dominion of sin. This line of truth does not touch the question of your salvation. It is the outcome of your salvation. First, get this settled: you are justified not by anything done in you, but by what Jesus did for you on the cross. But now He who died for you works in you to conform you daily to Himself, and to enable you to manifest in a devoted life the reality of His salvation. The Thessalonians "turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; and to wait for his Son from heaven." The moment they turned to Him they were saved, forgiven, justified, set apart to God in all the value of the work of the Cross and the perfection of the resurrection life of the Lord Jesus. They were accepted in the Beloved! God saw them in Christ. Believing thus, they had much assurance. This matter settled, they then yielded themsleves unto God as those alive from the dead, to serve Him who had done so much for them, and they waited day by day for the coming again of Him who had died for them, whom God had raised from the dead and seated at His right hand in highest glory. Acceptable service springs from the knowledge that the question of salvation is forever settled. We who are saved by grace apart from all self effort are "created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." Not Saved by Good Works Notice, we are not saved by good works, but unto good works. In other words, no one can begin to live a Christian life until he has a Christian life to live. This life is divine and eternal. It is imparted by God Himself to the one who believes the gospel, as the apostle Peter tells us: "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: but the word of the Lord endureth forever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you" . The new birth, therefore, is by the Word - the message of the gospel - and the power of the Holy Spirit. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." These were our Lord's words to Nicodemus. The one thus regenerated has eternal life and can never perish. How do we know? Because He has told us so. Weigh carefully the precious words of Joh 5:24 , "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life"; and link with this verse John 10:27-30 , "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one." Observe that in the first of these passages there are five links, all of which go together: "Heareth" - "Believeth" - "Hath" - "Shall not" - "Is passed." Study these terms carefully and note their true connection. They should never be dissociated. In the longer passage pay careful attention to what is said of Christ's sheep: a - They hear His voice; b - They follow Him; c - They possess eternal life; d - They shall never perish; e - None can pluck them from the hands of the Father and the Son. Could there be greater security than this and could any words give clearer assurance of the complete salvation of all who come to God through His Son? To doubt His testimony is to make God a liar. To believe His record is to have "much assurance." Do you say, "I will try to believe"? Try to believe whom? Dare you speak in this way of the living God who will never call back His words? If an earthly friend told you a remarkable tale that seemed hard to credit, would you say, "I will try to believe you"? To do so would be to insult him to his face. And will you so treat the God of truth, whose gifts and promises are never revoked? Rather look up to Him, confessing all the unbelief of the past as sin, trust Him now, and thus know that you are one of the redeemed. Some years ago in St. Louis, a worker was dealing with a man who had expressed his desire to be saved by going into the inquiry room upon the invitation of the evangelist. The worker endeavored to show the man that the way to be saved was by accepting Christ as his Saviour and believing the promise of God. But the man kept saying: "I can't believe; I can't believe!" "Who can't you believe?" replied the worker. "Who can't I believe?" said the man. "Yes, who can't you believe? Can't you believe God? He cannot lie." "Why, yes," said the man, "I can believe God; but I had never thought of it in that way before. I thought you had to have some sort of feeling." The man had been trying to work up a sense of faith, instead of relying upon the sure promise of God. For the first time he realized that he was to take God at His word, and as he did so, he experienced the power and assurance of salvation. "Not saved are we by trying; From self can come no aid; 'Tis on the blood relying, Once for our ransom paid. 'Tis looking unto Jesus, The Holy One and Just; 'Tis His great work that saves us - It is not 'try' but 'trust'! "No deeds of ours are needed To make Christ's merit more: No frames of mind or feelings Can add to His great store; 'Tis simply to receive Him, The Holy One and Just; 'Tis only to believe Him - It is not 'try' but 'trust'!" FULL OF FAITH In the tenth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, verses 19 to 22, are found the words which we will consider together as the theme of this present chapter. Read the entire passage very thoughtfully: "Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; and having an high priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water" . Do you notice that remarkable expression, "full assurance of faith"? Does it not thrill your soul as you read it? "Full assurance!" What could be more precious? And it is for you if you want it, only you must receive it by faith. For observe carefully, it is not the full assurance of an emotional experience, nor the full assurance of a carefully reasoned-out system of philosophy. It is the full assurance of faith. The little boy was right who replied to his teacher's question, "What is faith?" by exclaiming, "Faith is believing God and asking no questions." That is exactly what it is. Faith is taking God at His word. This is the real meaning of that wonderful definition given by inspiration in Hebrews 11:1 - "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." God tells us something beyond human ken. Faith gives substance to that. It makes unseen things even more real than things that the eye beholds. It relies in unquestioning certainty upon what God has declared to be true. And when there is this complete reliance upon the promise of God, the Holy Spirit bears witness to the truth, so that the believer has the full assurance of faith. Faith is not, however, mere intellectual acceptance of certain facts. It involves trust and confidence in those facts, and this results in the word of faith and the work of faith: Faith in Christ is not, therefore, simply accrediting the historical statements revealed concerning our blessed Lord. It is to trust one's self wholly to Him in reliance upon His redemptive work. To believe is to trust. To trust is to have faith. To have faith in Christ is to have full assurance of salvation. Because this is so, faith must have something tangible to lay hold of, some definite worth-while message to rest upon. And it is just this that is set forth in the gospel, which is God's well-ordered plan of salvation for sinners who otherwise are lost, helpless and hopeless. When, for instance, we are told four times in our Bibles that "the just shall live by faith," it is not simply that we live in a spirit of optimism, a faith or hope that everything will come out all right at last. And when we speak of the doctrine of justification by faith, it is not to say that he who maintains a courageous heart will thereby be declared righteous. Faith is not the savior. Faith is the hand that lays hold of Him who does save. Therefore the folly of talking of weak faith as opposed to strong faith. The feeblest faith in Christ is saving faith. The strongest faith in self, or ought else but Christ, is but a delusion and a snare, and will leave the soul at last unsaved and forever forlorn. And so when we are bidden to draw near to God with true hearts in full assurance of faith, the meaning is that we are to rest implicitly on what God has revealed concerning His Son and His glorious work for our redemption. This is set forth admirably in the former part of this chapter in Hebrews where our verse is found. There we have set out in vivid contrast the difference between the many sacrifices offered under the legal dispensation and the one perfect, all-sufficient oblation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Note some of the outstanding differences: 1. They were many and often repeated. His is but one, and no other will ever be required. 2. They did not have the necessary value to settle the sin question. His is of such infinite value, it has settled that problem forevermore. 3. They could not purge the consciences of those who brought them. His purges all who believe, giving a perfect conscience because all sin has been put away from under the eye of God. 4. They could not open the way into the Holiest. His has rent the veil, and inaugurated the new and living way into the very presence of God. 5. They could not perfect the one who offered them. His one sacrifice has perfected forever those who are sanctified. 6. In them there was a remembrance again of sins from year to year. His has enabled God to say, "Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." 7. It was not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should put away sin. But Christ has accomplished that very thing by the sacrifice of Himself. Here then is where faith rests, on the finished work of Christ. It will help us greatly to understand this, if we glance at what is revealed concerning the sin offering of the old dispensation. Consider the Troubled Israelite Let us imagine that we stand near the altar in the temple court, as a troubled Israelite comes with his sacrifice. He leads a goat along to the place of the oblation. The priest examines it carefully, and finding it without any outward blemish he commands it to be slain. The offerer himself puts the knife to its throat, after laying his hand on its head. Then it is flayed and cut in pieces, and all its inward parts carefully inspected. Pronounced perfect, it is accepted and certain parts are placed upon the fire of the altar. The blood is sprinkled round about the altar and upon its four horns, after which the priest pronounces absolution, assuring the man of his forgiveness. This was but "a shadow of good things to come," and could not actually put away sin. That unblemished animal typified the sinless Saviour who became the great Sin Offering. His blood has made full and complete expiation for iniquity. All who come to God through Him are eternally forgiven. If the Israelite sinned against the Lord, on the morrow he required a new sacrifice. His conscience was never made perfect. But Christ's one offering is of such infinite value that it settles the sin question eternally for all who put their trust in Him. "By one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified." To be sanctified in this sense is to be set apart to God in all the value of the atoning work and the personal perfections of Christ. He is Himself our sanctification. God sees us henceforth in His Son. Is not this a wonderfully precious truth? It is something man would never have dreamed of. God alone devised such a plan. He who believes His testimony regarding it has full assurance of faith. He does not know he is saved because he feels happy. But every true believer will be happy to know he is saved. Confidence based upon an emotional experience would leave one in utter bewilderment when that emotion passed away. But assurance based upon the Word of God abides, because that Word is unchangeable. The Old Gentleman Had No Peace Many years ago I was holding a series of evangelistic meetings in a little country schoolhouse some miles out of Santa Cruz, California. One day I was out driving with a kindly old gentleman who was attending the services nightly, but who was far from being sure of his personal salvation. As we drove along a beautiful, winding road, literally embowered with great trees, I put the definite question to him, "Have you peace with God?" He drew rein at once, stopped the horse, and exclaimed, "Now that's what I brought you here for. I won't go another foot until I know I am saved, or else know it is hopeless to seek to be sure of it." "How do you expect to find out?" I inquired. "Well, that is what puzzles me. I want a definite witness, something that I cannot be mistaken about." "Just what would you consider definite, some inward emotional stirring?" "I can hardly say, only most folks tell us they felt some powerful change when they got religion. I have been seeking that for years, but it has always eluded me." "Getting religion is one thing; trusting Christ may be quite another. But now suppose you were seeking salvation, and suddenly there came to you a very happy feeling, would you be sure then that you were saved?" "Well, I think I would." "Then, suppose you went through life resting on that experience, and at last came down to the hour of death. Imagine Satan telling you that you were lost and would soon be beyond hope of mercy, what would you say to him? Would you tell him that you knew all was well, because you had such a happy emotional experience years before? What if he should declare that it was he who gave you that happy feeling, in order to deceive you, could you prove it was not?" "No," he answered thoughtfully, "I couldn't. I see that a happy feeling is not enough." "What would be enough?" "If I could get some definite word in a vision, or a message from an angel, then I could be sure." "But suppose you had a vision of a glorious angel, and he told you your sins were forgiven, would that really be enough to rest on?" "I think it would. One ought to be certain if an angel said it was all right." "But if you were dying and Satan was there to disturb you, and told you that you were lost after all, what could you say?" "Why, I'd tell him an angel told me I was saved." "But if he said, 'I was that angel. I transformed myself into an angel of light to deceive you. And now you are where I wanted you - you will be lost forever.' What then could you say?" He pondered a moment or two, and then replied, "I see, you are right; the word of an angel won't do." "But now," I said, "God has given something better than happy feelings, something more dependable than the voice of an angel. He has given His Son to die for your sins, and He has testified in His own unalterable Word that if you trust in Him all your sins are gone. Listen to this: 'To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.' These are the words of God spoken through His apostle Peter, as recorded in Acts 10:43 . "Then here in 1 John 5:13 , which says, 'These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life.' Are these words addressed to you? Do you believe on the Name of the Son of God?" "I do, sir, I do indeed! I know He is the Son of God, and I know He died for me." "Then see what He tells you, 'Ye may know that ye have eternal life.' Is not this enough to rest upon? It is a letter from heaven directed expressly to you. How can you refuse to accept what God has told you? Can you not believe Him? Is He not more to be depended on than an angel, or than aroused emotions? Can you not take Him at His word and rest upon it for the forgiveness of your sins? "Now suppose that as you are dying Satan comes to you and insists that you are lost, but you reply, 'No, Satan, you cannot terrify me now. I rest on the Word of the living God and He tells me I have eternal life, and also the remission of all my sins.' Can you not do this now? Will you not bow your head and tell God you will be saved on His terms by coming to Him as a repentant sinner and trusting His word concerning His blessed Son?" The old man dropped his eyes, and I saw that he was deeply stirred. His lips were moving in prayer. Suddenly he looked up and touching the horse lightly with his whip, explained, "Giddap! It's all clear now. This is what I've wanted for years." That night at the meeting he came to the front and told the audience that what he had sought in vain for half a lifetime, he had found when he believed the message of God's word about what Jesus had done to save sinners. For several years he was a regular correspondent of mine until the Lord took him home - a joyous saint whose doubts and fears had all been banished when he rested on the sure Word of God. His was the full assurance of faith. Emotional Element in Conversion And please do not misunderstand me. I do not discount the emotional element in conversion, but I insist it will not do to rely upon it as an evidence that one has been forgiven. When a man is awakened by the Spirit of God to realize something of his lost, undone condition, it would be strange indeed if his emotions were not aroused. When he is brought to repentance, that is, to a complete change of attitude toward his sins, toward himself, and toward God, we need not be surprised to see the tears of penitence coursing down his cheeks. And when he rests his soul on what God has said, and receives in faith the Spirit's witness, "Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more," it would be unthinkable but that, like Wesley, his heart should be strangely warmed as he rejoiced in God's salvation. But what I am trying to make plain is that assurance is not based upon any emotional change, but whatever emotional experience there may be, it will be the result of accepting the testimony of the Lord given in the Scriptures. Faith rests on the naked Word of God. That Word believed gives full assurance. Then the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in the believer's heart and to conform him to Christ. Growth in grace follows naturally when the soul has trusted Christ and entered into peace with God. "Soon as my all I ventured On the atoning blood, The Holy Spirit entered And I was born of God." FULL OF WHEN writing to the Christians at Colosse, who had been saved largely through the ministry of Epaphras, that man of prayer and devotion, the apostle Paul said: "For I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you, and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh; that their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God and of the Father, and of Christ; in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" . The expression I desire to draw particular attention to is found in the second verse: "the full assurance of understanding." The initial question of salvation having been settled, one is not to suppose that there will never arise any further doubts or perplexities. The child of God is a stranger and a pilgrim passing through an unfriendly wilderness-world, where he is beset by many foes who will seek in every way possible to impede his progress. He still has an enemy within: the old fleshy nature which is in constant warfare with the spiritual nature imparted in new birth. Then outside, our adversary, the devil, goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. We are called upon to resist him, being steadfast in the faith. He knows he can never destroy the life hid with Christ in God, but he will do everything that satanic ingenuity can suggest to hinder the believer's progress in spirituality and retard his growth in grace. By fiery darts of doubt and incitements to carnal pleasure, he will endeavor to hinder communion with God and so to destroy the Christian's happiness and annul his testimony. Therefore the need of being built up on our most holy faith and nurtured in sound scriptural instruction. "Through thy precepts," says David, "I get understanding." As soon as one knows he is saved, he should begin, in dependence upon the Holy Spirit, a careful, regular, systematic study of the Word of God. The Bible is our Father's letter to us, His redeemed children. We should value it as that which reveals His mind and indicates the way in which He would have us walk. "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works" . The study of the Word will instruct me in the truth, it will show me what needs to be rectified in my life and walk, it will make clear how I may get right with God, and it will guide me in paths of uprightness. No Christian can afford to neglect his Bible. If he does, he will be stunted and dwarfed in his spiritual life, and will be a prey to doubts and fears, and may be carried about by every wind of doctrine. The Newborn Irishman As newborn babes require milk, so the regenerated soul needs to be nourished on the Word. I wonder if you have heard the story of the Irishman who was converted through reading the New Testament. Rejoicing in his new-found treasure, he delighted to pore over its sacred pages whenever opportunity permitted. One day the parish priest called to see him and found him perusing the precious volume that had brought such blessing to his soul. "Pat," he asked sternly, "what book is that which you are reading?" "Sure, yer riverance," was the reply, "it's the New Testament." "The New Testament! Why, Pat, that's not a book for an ignorant man like you to read. That is for the clergy who go to college and learn its real meaning and then give it to the people. But unlearned folks like you will get all kinds of wrong ideas from it." "But, yer riverance," said Pat, "I've just been reading here, and it's the blessed apostle Peter himself that says it, 'As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby,' and sure it's just a babe in Christ I am, and it's the milk of the Word I'm afther, and that's why I am reading it fer meself." "That's all right, Pat, in a way, but the Almighty has appointed His priests to be the milkmen, and when you want the milk of the Word you should come to me and I will give it to you as you are able to bear it." "Oh, sure, yer riverance, you know I kape a cow o' my own out there in the shed, and whin I was sick I hired a man to milk her fer me, and I soon found he was shtealin' half the milk an' fillin' the bucket up with wather. But whin I got well I discharged him and took to milkin' me own cow, and now it's the rich cream I'm gettin' all the time. And, yer riverance, whin I depended on you fer the milk of the Word, man it was the milk an' water stuff ye gave me, so now I'm milkin' me own cow in this case, too, and it's the rich cream o' the Word on which my soul is feedin' every day." Nothing will make up for lack of this diligent study of the Bible for yourself. You cannot get the full assurance of understanding without it. But as you search the Scriptures you will find truth after truth unfolding in a wonderful way, so that doubts and questions will be banished and divinely-given certainty will take their place. Discouraged Christians Many uninstructed believers become discouraged because of their own failures and Satan takes advantage of these to inject into their minds doubts as to whether they are not deceiving themselves after all in supposing they are Christians. But a knowledge of the truth as to the believer's two natures will often help here. It is important to understand that sin in the flesh, inherent in the old nature, is not destroyed when one is born again. On the contrary, that old sin-principal remains in the believer as long as he is in the body. What takes place at new birth is that a new and divine nature is communicated. These two natures are in conflict with each other. But the Christian who walks in the Spirit will not fulfil the desires of the flesh, even though at times those desires may be manifested. In order to so walk, one must take sides with God against this principle of evil which belongs to the old Adamic nature. God reckons it as executed at the cross of Christ; for the Lord Jesus died, not only for what we have done but for what we are by nature. Now faith accepts this as true, and the believer can exclaim, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life that I now live in the flesh (that is, in the body) I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me, and gave himself for me" . Carefully consider what is taught here: I, the responsible I, the old man, all that I was as a man in the flesh, including my entire sinful nature, - "I have been crucified with Christ." When was that? It was when Jesus died on Calvary's tree nineteen hundred years ago. He was there for me. I was there in Him. He was my representative, my substitute. He died the death I deserved to die. Therefore in God's eyes His death was my death. So I have died with Him. Now I am called upon to make this real in my personal experience. I am to reckon myself as dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God . The old nature has no claim upon me. If it asserts itself and endeavors to bring me into bondage, I am to take sides with God against it. He has condemned sin in the flesh. I must condemn it too. Instead of yielding to it, I am to yield myself unto God as one alive from the dead, for I have been crucified in Christ's crucifixion, but I live anew in His resurrection. I am quickened together with Christ, who Himself lives in me. He then is my new Master. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/iron/