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INTRODUCTION
Please feel free to ask questions on the content of this blog
INTRODUCTION
In chapter three John distinguishes the believers who follow
Jesus from those who follow Satan. There
is no middle ground. As a Christian you
must make a choice you cannot sit on the fence.
The message of John’s first epistle is to love one another, not just in
word but in-deed as well.
Click and listen to
1st John three (EVS)
Love One Another
1 See
how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called
children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us,
because it did not know Him.
Everyone who is “born again” are called children of God. But
what does it mean to be born again.
Nicodemus asked Jesus this question: “How can a man be born when he is
old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?”
(John 3:5). “Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly,
truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
(John
3:3) A man is born of flesh but once
(Hebrews
9:27; John
3:6) Jesus is referring to a
spiritual rebirth. Whoever is reborn in
the Spirit of God will be a new creature, and be welcomed into the family of
God as a child of God (Romans
8:16; Ezekiel
36:26).
2 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it
has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will
be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.
Our spiritual self was changed when we received the Holy
Spirit. I believe John is referring to
our supernatural bodies. We have no
understanding of what that body will look like.
Jesus will appear again on that day when He gathers His
children. Our corruptible bodies will be
changed in an instant to an incorruptible body; and we will be with our Lord
for all eternity. There will be no
physical defects or pain or suffering in our bodies. Our scarred bodies will be made whole
again. Most Christians believe that
Jesus will be the only incorruptible body in heaven with scars, the scars of
His crucifixion.
3 And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him
purifies himself, just as He is pure.
By implication the word hope one might think means there is
some doubt. The Greek word here is
“elpis el-pece' from a primary elpo (to anticipate, usually with pleasure);
expectation (abstractly or concretely) or confidence:--faith, hope.” [2] I believe hope used here, really means
confidence in our resurrection. Because
Jesus was raised by the Father on the third day; we to will be raised from the
dead. Paul assures us of our
resurrection in Romans
8:11. Jesus assured us of our
resurrection in Matthew
11:5. John calls on believers to
purify themselves are Jesus was pure; apart from Jesus this is an impossible
task.
Augustine
Hippo writes "Thou purifiest thyself, not of thyself, but of Him who
comes that He may dwell in thee" .
4
Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.
The word practices leads one to believe John is talking
about repeating the same sin over and over again; in this context, it does
not. What is this lawlessness John
speaks of? We all sin and come short
of the glory of God. John is say anyone
who sins breaks the law, and any sin not confessed leaves us in a state of sin
or lawlessness. Sin and righteousness
cannot coexist; and therefore sin transgresses God’s law of righteousness.
Adam
Clarke writes: “Sin is
the transgression of the law - The spirit of the law as well as of the Gospel
is, that "we should love God with all our powers, and our neighbor as
ourselves." All disobedience is contrary to love; therefore sin is the
transgression of the law, whether the act refers immediately to God or to our
neighbor.”
5 You
know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin.
This was stated clearly to the church through the
gospel. The law of God demands death as
a punishment for sin. God created the
law of sacrifice for the atonement of man’s sin. God became flesh to once and for all time
cleans man of sin. He accomplished this
through the blood sacrifice and death of Jesus His only begotten son, who had
no sin in Him, bore the sins of the world on Calvary.
6 No one who abides in Him sins; no one who
sins has seen Him or knows Him.
John once again gives us a black and white view of abiding
in Christ. If a person truly abides by
faith, love, and obedience in Christ, they should not sin. We receive our strength from the Lord. It is this God given strength, we enabled to resist sin and
therefore do not sin. We are not perfect
and at times stumble Jesus is there to keep us from falling.
The second part of this verse tells us, if we continue in
our sins, we do not truly see or know Him.
Knowing Him we are convicted of our sins; we then may go to Him repent
and seek forgiveness. If there is no
conviction of sin and we continue to live in that sin, the question is; do we
really know Him?
7 Little children, make sure no one deceives
you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous;
8 the one who practices sin is of the devil;
for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this
purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.
Ian Mackervoy writes:
“Some people may say that they
are righteous. But they still do what is not good. What they say then is a lie.
We should not believe them. A righteous person will do what is good and right.
The person who does the right things is righteous.
At this time (50 – 60 AD), there were those in the church at
Ephesus, who were preaching false doctrines of the gospel. These men would pose as righteous men, but in
fact they were antichrists. This warning
John gave them holds true for us today.
We must be ever vigilant of the dangers of the children of Satan, who
use deceit to lure us away from Christ.
9 No one who is born of God practices sin,
because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.
We know John sees things in black or white; good or
bad. There is no middle ground.
A person who is born again is a new creature, and the old
self passes away. God gives a born again
person the Holy Spirit who guides us in the path of righteousness. If we would listen to the Holy Spirit
intently and follow His guidance we would not sin.
Having said this; can a Christian still sin?
When we are made a new creature this new creature cannot sin
because he was born of God in spirit.
However we know from our own lives and those we know, Christians do sin. We do not remain in this sin, because we go
to Jesus with a repentant heart, and He is faithful to forgive us, and we
become clean once again. We know that
Peter denied Jesus three times, a sinful act but Jesus forgave him (John
13:38; Luke
22:55-57 ).
10 By this the children of God and the children
of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of
God, nor the one who does not love his brother.
Children of God are known by their works, for they are
unselfish, and done to glorify Jesus. A Christian’s
works are not self-glorifying, and are often done anonymously, not seen, and
therefore harder to recognize.
Conversely children of Satan are also know by their works, which are
selfish and are of their father Satan.
Christians who show love for their brothers and sisters will
be known by this love; for it was Jesus who gave them the commandment to love
one another (John
15:17; 13:34;
Romans
12:10).
God is love; and if anyone professing his/her love for
Jesus, and does not love his brothers and sisters in Christ, are deceiving
themselves.
11 For this is the message which you have heard
from the beginning, that we should love one another; 12
not as Cain, who was of the evil one and slew his brother. And for what reason
did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brothers were righteous.
The message was the commandment Jesus gave as recorded in John
13:34. Jesus wanted Christians to
love their brethren, and by this, they will be known as His followers.
(12) Now Eve gave birth first to Cain and then to
his brother Abel. We all know the story
of how Cain slew able, presumably because he was Jealous and hated his brother
God favored Abel’s sacrifice and not his; but why did God reject Abel’s
offering?
Cain was the tiller of the earth while Able tended the
flocks. God had cursed the earth (Genesis
3:17-18), making it difficult to grow eatable food. Cain was undoubtedly influenced by Satan, and
may have kept the best of the harvest for himself; at this point we do not
know. We do know Abel’s offering was a
firstling, a blood sacrifice. Abel’s
offering cost him the best of his flock, whereas Cain’s offering cost him only
the sweat from his brow.
13 Do not be surprised, brethren, if the world
hates you.
It is man’s nature to lust after things of the flesh, and
when they see Christians as being different, mistrust and bias begin to
sprout. Sons of Satan are out for
themselves and those who get in their way will be trampled on. Christians who follow Christ's teaching love
not only each other but their neighbors, yes, and even their enemies (Matthew
5:44). For God causes it to rain on
the unrighteous and the righteous alike.
Adam
Clarke writes: “Expect no
better treatment from unconverted Jews and Gentiles than Abel received from his
wicked and cruel brother. This was a lesson to the Church, preparatory to
martyrdom. Expect neither justice nor mercy from the men who are enemies of
God. They are either full of malice and envy, hateful, hating one another, or
they are specious, hollow, false, and deceitful.
"A foe to God was ne'er true friend to Man. “
14 We know that we have passed out of death into
life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death.
Prior to knowing Jesus as our savior, we were dead in our
sins, without hope. In the world this is
a normal state of being. Once we realize
the depth of our sin, and are repentant, and ask Jesus for forgiveness; we are
reborn into a heavenly place; no longer of this world. Because we follow Jesus and love one another
the world hates us.
Write: “Those
who do not love do not have this life. They remain in death. This is the
opposite of life with God. Love is the evidence of life. But hate is the
evidence of death.”
15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer;
and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
In Matthew
5:21&22 we see Jesus comparing anger to murder. I believe John is referring to this quote
from Jesus. John is saying to hate your
brother is a sin, and as hard as this may be to accept; any sin is punishable
by death. There are no degrees of sin,
and no one who remains in sin has Jesus in his heart.
Adam
Clarke
writes the following: “He
has the same principle in him which was in Cain, and it may lead to the same
consequences…”
16 We know love by this that He laid down His
life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
Jesus tells us in John
15:13 “Greater love has no one
than this that one lay down his life for his friends.” Jesus backed up this remark, up by laying
down His life, for all who will accept His sacrifice. Laying down one's life for another is the
ultimate expression of love. This depth
of love can only be possible through Jesus.
We are to demonstrate our love for each other by our deeds
for each other. Paul writes in 1
Corinthians 13:4-7 the following: “4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not
jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek
its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but
rejoices with the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes
all things, endures all things.”
17 But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees
his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God
abide in him?
Not all of us have eyes to see needs in others, however John
is talking about when we do see the needs in our brethren and refuse
help. A person finding themselves in a
place where their goods are more important than helping a brother should
reevaluate their love lay? In my opinion
our church does a good job of showing love by their deeds.
Robert
Jamieson, A. R. Fausset
and David Brown writes the
following: “It is that quality of love that God gives. God
has given this love to all who belong to him. But this person does not love as
God does. The love of God certainly does not remain in him. If it did, he would
have helped his brother. If we are not willing to help our brother, the love of
God is not in us.”
Love without works is a dormant love, this kind of love is
neither giving, nor kind, nor true love; it is worthless.
John is not speaking of the panhandler on the street but
rather to fellow Christians. The
panhandler may have a genuine need; it is hard to tell these days. By giving to the panhandler you might be
aiding and abetting sinful acts on his part.
Let the Holy Spirit guide you in these instances.
19
We will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before
Him 20
in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows
all things.
Pilot asked Jesus “What is truth?” As the truth was not in Pilot Jesus did not
respond to this question; because He knew Pilot would not understand.
“of the truth” - John was talking about the Holy
Spirit here. Jesus calls the Holy
Spirit, the Spirit of Truth in John 16:13.
“assure our heart” – Because the Holy Spirit is in us
we can go before the Father in prayer with confidence and boldness (Ephesians
3:12 )
“heart condemns” - The Holy Spirit convicts us of any wrong doings. All righteousness comes from God because He is truth.
“heart condemns” - The Holy Spirit convicts us of any wrong doings. All righteousness comes from God because He is truth.
21
Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; 22 and whatever we ask we receive from Him,
because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His
sight.
Once we are forgiven our sins, our hearts are made clean,
and we will know longer feel the condemnation of the sin; because of the
indwelling comfort of the Holy Spirit.
This is not to say we will not remember who we were and what we were
like; it simply means we will know we are forgiven and will no longer feel the
guilt. Now we must keep Gods
commandments and the greatest of these is “love the Lord your God with all your
heart and mind (Matthew
22:37).
Once there is no sin in us, our prayers will be
answered. Therefore before we ask God we
should search our hearts for sin not yet repented; the Holy Spirit will convict
us of such sin.
23 This is His commandment that we believe in
the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded
us. 24 The one who keeps His commandments abides in
Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He
has given us.
When John says “believe in the name of His Son” I
believe he is saying believe that Jesus is the Son of the Father, and is the
risen Christ. The fruit of our belief is
the love we feel for each other. We are
known to be the adoptive sons and daughters of the Lord because of this love.
Ian Mackervoy writes the following on verse 24: 24.
dwelleth in him-- Reciprocity. "Thus he returns to the great keynote of
the Epistle, abide in Him, with which the former part concluded" ( 1 John 2:28
). Hereby--herein we (believers) know
that he abideth in us, namely, from (the presence in us of) the Spirit
"which He hath given us." Thus he prepares, by the mention of the
true Spirit, for the transition to the false "spirit," 1 John
4:1-6 ; after which he returns again to the subject of love.
CREDITS AND CITATIONS
[2]- Greek translation are derived from Crosswire.org/study
bible
and Strong’s Exhaustive concordance
[4] – Wikipedia.org
[8]- Commentary by Adam
Clarke
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