Assurances of our salvation, 1 John 3:19-24

At the end of John’s first epistle, in chapter 5 vs 13  he writes that he has written these things “to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.”   That’s the overarching reason for his letter, to assure the Christians in the early church of their salvation.  It would seem that the false teachers who were disturbing them by their false doctrine, were also inferring that they could lose their salvation, or just never be sure of it.  But John says that you can know that you have eternal life.  The essence of eternal life, if you think about it, means that it cannot end, or be lost.  It must be enduring if it is to be eternal.

So John has written this epistle to address the Christian’s assurance of salvation and many other concerns taught by these false teachers. But particularly in this passage his intention is to give them assurances of their salvation. Notice  how he brackets this passage with the phrase, “by this we know…” in vs 19 and then again in 24.  That shows us that all that’s within those brackets are dealing with the same principles.

We find six assurances that John lists here so that the believers might have confidence in their salvation. And of course, these assurances are applicable to us today as well. A common downside to a strict preaching of  the gospel is to sometimes cause Christians to doubt their salvation.  When we speak about sin and righteousness and the need for holiness, for a lot of sincere people it can make them wonder if in fact they are saved, because they don’t feel like they measure up in some way, or they know that they sometimes fall into sin.  So I think that the Apostle John wants to assure our hearts that we are in fact children of God and if that’s true, then it will never change.  God  will never renounce His children.  2Tim. 2:13 says, “If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.”

So in this passage, John gives us six assurances of our salvation. The first assurance of our salvation John speaks of is because we love the brethren.  He says in vs 19, “We will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before Him.”  Now translators have some difficulty with a few of these verses in this passage, but it’s safe to say that the word “this” refers both forwards and backwards.  In other words, “this” refers back to vs 18, and it also refers to what is going to follow vs19, which are the other five reasons for assurance.

So in vs 18 we are told, “let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.” A sacrificial love for the brethren emanates from a new nature, which is the nature of Christ imparted to us in salvation.  The same nature that caused Christ to lay down His life, is the same nature that encourages us to lay down our lives for the brethren.

That nature that loves the brethren is not natural.  It’s spiritual.  And John says it’s indicative of a new birth.  So if you have an inclination to love the brethren with the same kind of love that Christ had for the church, it’s because you have been born again.  The presence of love in our hearts should serve to assure us of our salvation.

Now we talked last week a lot about love,  what it looks like, and how it operates from a Christian perspective.  So I don’t want to go over that again today.  However, I do want to stress one aspect of Christian love though that I don’t think I emphasized enough last week.  And that is this - Christian love wants to see souls saved and will do whatever they can, even to the point of sacrificing the priorities of their own lives, for the sake of seeing someone become complete in their salvation. If we really, truly love someone, then the condition of their soul is the most important thing to us.  Yes, Christian love also feeds the body, and clothes the body, and houses the body, and ministers to the physical needs of the body as much as is possible. But a greater priority is the spiritual condition of the soul.  As Jesus said, “what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” All those material things are necessary for this life, but our primary concern should be telling others about the importance of preparing for the next life, and showing them how they can know that they have eternal life.  That is by far the most important aspect of loving the brethren.

I see parents so often who obviously love their children, make the case that they want their children to be happy, and they want them to have a good education, to have a good job, to be able to buy a nice house and so forth.  They want them to be healthy.  And it sometimes seems like some Christian parents are willing to settle for that stuff, and neglect the most important thing of all - the condition of their soul.  Let us not love the way the world loves, but love the way Christ loved us, by bringing us to salvation.

So we have confidence in our own salvation because we love the brethren like Christ loved us.  And then secondly, John says we have assurance of our salvation because of a quickened conscience.  He says this in vs 19,20 and 21; “We will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before Him in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God.”

God has given all men a conscience. The conscience is given to men to make them come to the realization that they are sinners, they they have done wrong,  that they’ve  transgressed against the commandment of God. But the conscience can become dulled.  The conscience can become calloused.

The Bible has a lot to say about the conscience.  Paul speaks of it in Romans as something that God gave to make men come to recognize they are sinning against God.  He says in Romans 2:15 “they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them.”  So the conscience is something that theologians call a common grace, which means a gift of God that is given to all men for their benefit. 

However, the conscience can become defiled. It can became calloused.  And to some extent, it is informed by one’s environment.  1 Timothy says that the conscience can become seared. When something is seared, there forms a callous which makes it hard to feel what they are supposed to feel.  1Tim.4:2 “by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron.”  And then Titus 1:15 speaks of defiling the conscience;  “To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled.”  They believe a lie, and as such their conscience is defiled.  It no longer operates according to the truth.

But for those who have been born again spiritually, there is a quickening of the conscience, which is what I think John is referring to here.  Our conscience is quickened by the Holy Spirit, and informed by the word of God, so that it serves an important function in the life of the believer.  It serves to help us to walk in the truth, to conduct ourselves appropriately as followers of Christ.  It convicts us and causes us to repent if we sin.  And so it’s important that we do not sin against our conscience, because it is a tool that God uses to correct us and teach us. If we deliberately sin, our conscience becomes defiled and calloused, and then it does not work anymore as God intends it to work.

But when it is working properly, John says it is one of the means that God uses to assure us of our salvation. If you slip up and sin, and you feel the prick of your conscience, then that’s an indication that you are saved.  But if you sin and you have no guilty conscience, then that’s an indication that you are not saved. We have a conscience quickened by the Holy Spirit, and informed by the word of God.  And that’s a vastly improved conscience than what the unsaved person has. So we can be assured of our salvation by our conscience.

The third way John gives us that assures us of our salvation is because of answered prayer. John says, “Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God” and then vs22 “and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.”

As a child of God, we have unrestricted access to the throne of God our Father. And if our conscience is clear, then we have confidence as we come before God.  Unconfessed sin hinders our relationship with God.  Adam and Eve tried to hide in the Garden of Eden because they had sinned. But as John says, God knows our heart.  We can’t hide our sin.  

David said in Psalm 66:18,  “If I regard wickedness in my heart, The Lord will not hear.”  But because we are children of God, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight, we can have confidence before God and whatever we ask we receive from Him.  I’m reminded that James says that the prayers of a righteous man accomplishes much.  There is a condition to answered prayer, which is a clear conscience, and a clean heart, and clean hands before the Lord. 

So then answered prayer is an assurance of our salvation.  Now when John says this, he is obviously repeating what Jesus said in John 14:13,  "Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do [it.] If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”   

That statement that God will do what we ask of Him is always tied to the commandments.  Not only does that mean keeping the commandments is a condition for answered prayer, but also it indicates that our prayers must be in keeping with God’s commandments, they must be in accordance with His will. Jesus kept all the commandments  perfectly, yet when He earnestly prayed with tears and sweating drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane, He prayed “not My will, but Your will be done.” So the key to answered prayer is that they are in keeping with God’s will, His commandments, and our answered prayer is an assurance of our salvation.

Now that segues into the fourth assurance of our salvation, which is because we keep His commandments. Vs 22 “and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.” This isn’t a new point John is making, he’s been saying this since the beginning of his epistle. That you can know, you can prove who is a Christian, by the fact that they keep the commandments.  

Back in chapter 2, vs 3 John said, “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.  The one who says, "I have come to know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him;  but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him.” 

As we have discussed in previous studies, the desire to keep the commandments comes from a new nature, a new heart.  In our natural state, we cannot keep the commandments.  We may make a stab at it from time to time, we may think we do enough good to outweigh what we do wrong, but in fact, the Bible says we fall far short of the standard of God.  

But as Ezekiel 36 tells us, when God gives us a new heart, we then have the ability to keep the commandments.  Ezekiel 36:26-27  "Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”

So, our desire to keep the commandments of God is evidence that we are the children of God. It’s evidence that we have been given a new heart from our Father, and so we want to do what is pleasing to Him.  And if that is true in you, then that’s another assurance that you have been born again.

The fifth assurance of our salvation is because of faith in Christ. This is so basic, and yet it’s  so often overlooked, perhaps because of it’s simplicity. He says in vs 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.” Jesus said in John 11:25 "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies.”  He also said ““I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.”  He is saying He is the spiritual food that gives life,  the spiritual water that gives life.  He also said, “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’”  He is the source of life.

Our assurance of salvation comes from just believing that what Jesus said is true.  That’s what it means to believe in Him, by the way.  It’s not just believing that He lived, or that He existed on earth 2000 years ago.  But to believe in Him, to believe in His name, is to believe all that He said, all that He was, all that He came to do, and all that He promised. And He promised that if you believe in Him, He would give you eternal life.

I want to emphasize though that to believe in Christ is to believe what He has said.  So many people today claim to be Christians, to believe in Christ, but yet they don’t believe in what He said, what He taught.  They don’t believe that He is the only way to God. Jesus said “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Me.”  But they say Jesus is not the only way to God. When questioned, a lot of professing Christians don’t believe in hell.  Yet Jesus preached more about the reality of hell than He did about heaven.  Many people today don’t believe in the commandments.  They don’t believe in the Biblical definition of sin and righteousness.  But yet Jesus said I did not come to nullify the law, but to fulfill it.” Many sophisticated so called Christians today don’t believe in the flood, or in creation as it is presented in the Bible, but yet Jesus spoke of both of those things authoritatively, basing HIs gospel upon them as facts.  The point is that a lot of professing Christians don’t really believe in Jesus Christ because they don’t believe what He said.  They don’t believe His word. And consequently, for such people, they should not have any assurance whatsoever of salvation. 

You don’t get to pick and choose what you want to believe about Christ. You don’t get to define God according to your woke mentality.  That’s idolatry, that’s not worshiping God in spirit and in truth as Jesus said was necessary.

Furthermore, John makes it clear that to believe in Jesus Christ is a command. You want to keep the commandments?  Start with that one.  Believe in Him, in HIs word, in His ministry, in who He said He was.  So if you believe in Jesus Christ and all that means, then you can have assurance that you are a child of God, because Jesus said to believe in Him was the way to receive eternal life.  You can have confidence, because Jesus promised, and He keeps His promises.

The second part of that commandment is one that John has already given us.  To love one another. And we have already said how obeying that commandment is evidence that you have been born again.  So we won’t belabor that  point again.  But it’s important to notice that John ` ties these two commandments together, to believe and to obey.  So then to believe in Christ  means to obey His command to love one another.  And by keeping these commandments, we have confidence in our salvation. 

The last assurance which John gives us of our salvation is because of the presence of the Holy Spirit.  Vs 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.”  It’s noteworthy that John ties so much doctrine to keeping of the commandments.  He has just said that to love one another is a commandment, to believe in Christ is a commandment, and now it seems that he is saying that we abide in Him by keeping the commandments, and the Holy Spirit is the means by which we keep the commandments.

That’s interesting because the church today doesn’t seem to teach that aspect of the Spirit’s ministry.  They don’t seem to recognize that the Spirit is given that we might have the power to do what Christ has commanded us to do.  A lot of churches seem to emphasize the Holy Spirit, but only as evidenced by some sort of feeling, some emotion, some ecstatic experience that they think verifies Jesus Christ as being real in their life.

But John is saying that the Spirit is given for much more practical purposes than that.  He is given to us that we might have the power to keep the commandments.  I’m not sure who said it, and exactly how they said it now, but it may have been Alistair Begg who I it from, but he said; the difference between the old covenant and the new covenant is that in the old covenant they were given the law but no means by which to keep it.  In the new covenant, we are given the Holy Spirit who enables us to keep the commandments of God. Now that’s not an exact quote, but I think I’m close enough to the thought. 

John is indicating that same principle here.  That we can know we are saved by the fact that we have the presence of the Holy Spirit in us and because we have His presence in us, we can keep His commandments. We are of God because we have His Spirit in us.  And so the presence of the Spirit is an assurance of our salvation.  But we know that we have the Spirit not because we believe we have experienced some gift of the Spirit, but because we keep His commandments.  Now I would hope that would be like a light bulb came on for some of you. Because there is this idea in modern churches today that to be Spirit led is the exact opposite of something as legalistic and archaic as keeping the commandments.  But we are given the power of the Holy Spirit so that we may do the works of God. 

 I hope you can read this text with the same understanding as I have. I believe the Spirit of God enables me to understand the scriptures.  That’s the other primary ministry of the Spirit of God.  He is the author of scripture, all scripture is inspired by the Spirit, so then an accurate interpretation of the scripture then comes from the power of the Holy Spirit to open my heart to understand what He wrote.  And that spiritual insight into the scriptures is a further assurance that I have the presence of the Spirit of God abiding in me.

You know, it is a wonderful thing to have the assurance and the confidence that you are a child of God.  It’s a knowledge that gives us peace and hope and joy.  It’s a knowledge that gives us the courage to face death, knowing that nothing can separate us from the love of God.  It’s a knowledge that my sins are forgiven, paid in full.  And that confidence in our salvation should be the source of our joy.  I hope that you have that assurance.  I hope that as you consider these six assurances you are given confidence in your salvation, and that your joy may be full. 

However, there may be someone here today that listened to this list of assurances, but they were not assured.  Perhaps they recognized that some of those things are not true in their life.  If that’s the case with you, I urge you to believe in the finished work of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, that purchased your salvation by His death on the cross and provided for you a new life through His resurrection.  I would urge you today to call upon Him as your Savior and Lord, that believing you might have life in His name.  Today is the acceptable day of salvation.  Don’t harden your heart against the conviction of the Holy Spirit, but believe the gospel of Jesus Christ and know the joy of knowing that you are truly a child of God.  

Love and Hate, 1 John 3:11-18

One of the Apostle John’s favorite instruments in teaching is the use of contrasts.  He also uses repetition as another major instrument for teaching in this epistle.  In the passage we are looking at today, John combines both of these instruments to help teach us concerning either the verification of a believer or the identification of a false believer, or a false teacher.

And the two principles that John is going to contrast here are love and hate. John presents love and hate as polar opposites, not only in emotion, but in thinking, and in action.  What John is going to teach us is that love and hate are the products of our hearts.  Not the heart as a muscle which pumps blood through our body, but hearts as used in the Bible, meaning the spiritual center of our soul. What is in the heart comes out - out of the mouth, out of our actions, and out in our attitudes.

Now as I said, John is going to contrast these two ways of thinking; love and hate.  And that’s where the repetition comes in.  John has already talked about the principles of love and hate in the previous chapter.  Yet by using repetition as a tool for learning, John brings them up again, but adding more elements to his original thoughts.  And he uses this instrument of repetition again and again as he deals with various themes in his epistle. Each time he repeats the principle that he wants to instruct us in, but adding more elements, or to say it in reverse, revealing more elements each time he revisits the theme.

So he begins in this passage with the theme of love, which as I said he has already spoken about.  For instance in chapter 2, John talked about the love of God being perfected or completed in us, so that we may walk as He walked.  We are to love as God loved. And then in vs10  he extrapolates the doctrine of love further saying “The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him.”  So we learned that we are to love like God loves, and that means we should love our brothers and sisters in the Lord.

Now in the passage we’re looking at today, chapter 3 vs 11, John reiterates and repeats that principle, saying, “For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.”  When John speaks of hearing this message from the beginning, he isn’t talking about the beginning of this epistle, but the beginning of their conversion. To love one another is a fundamental principle of the gospel, and one that they would have heard at the beginning of their salvation.

Love was a central doctrine of the gospel which the apostles taught, because it had been taught to them by the Lord Jesus.  In John 13, Jesus identifies love as the distinguishing mark of the disciples. vs 35 "By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” And He says in vs 34, “A new commandment I give you that you love one another, even as I have loved you.”  The commandment to love was not new, but was in fact prefaced in the Old Testament. But there was a new element to it, which was to love one another as Christ loved. That’s the new element, to love like Christ loved.

So we should ask, how did Christ love? He loved with a sacrificial love, laying down His life for His brothers.  He said in John 15:13  "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”  That’s the kind of love that Jesus had, which we are supposed to emulate.  It’s a sacrificial love.  That’s the meaning of agape, the Greek word for love.  It’s not an affection, a sentiment, or even an emotion.  It’s a commitment, a sacrifice of your life, your priorities, your desires, your needs, for the sake of your brother.

It reminds me of Romans 12: 2 where Paul says “I urge you brethren, by the mercies of God,  to present your bodies as a living sacrifice.” That’s what love is, to be a living sacrifice for the sake of Christ, for the love of the brethren.  To lay aside your priorities to love another sacrificially.  I happen to believe that Paul in Romans 12 is speaking of presenting your body to the church as a living sacrifice.  A lot of people tend to think of going to church as something that is solely for their benefit.  So if they don’t really feel a need to go,  if everything’s good in their life, or so they think, then they can do without church. But one of the key reasons for going to church is to strengthen others, to share one another’s burdens, to teach others, to encourage one another, to help one another, ie, to love one another.  That exposes one of the major shortcomings of the pandemic live stream scenario we were caught up in during the last year.  You can’t love one another very effectively sitting in front of a computer screen or a television.  You need to physically present yourself as a living sacrifice, which Paul says is your spiritual service of worship. That’s what it means to worship the Lord, by sacrificially loving one another.

So John says the message is to love one another, that is those within the church.  And then he contrasts that love to hate.  And he illustrates hate by the life of Cain.  In John’s view, Cain is the representative of those who are not born of God, but are of the devil, whom he calls a child of the devil.  

He says in vs12, “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 brother's were righteous.”  Cain belonged to the evil one.  Now that’s a pretty significant statement.  But it’s based on what Jesus said to the Jews in John 8:44,  "You are of [your] father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own [nature,] for he is a liar and the father of lies.”  So Jesus says that the unconverted, the unsaved, are children of their father the devil.  They share in the nature of the devil. 

But Jesus’s statement causes me to ask, when was Satan a murderer?  I suggest that Jesus says that because Satan was the instigator for the first murder, the murder of Able by Cain.  The devil instigated it by inducing Cain to rebel, to sin, to hate his brother.  You will remember the story that Cain and Able came to worship the Lord, and Cain brought an offering from the fruit of the fields, and Able brought a lamb to be slain upon the alter.  And the scripture says that God honored Able’s offering, but he had no regard for the offering of Cain.  And Cain got very angry because God did not regard his offering. 

But Cain’s anger was the thing that was sinful, and Satan taking the opportunity through that sinful rebellion and anger, induced Cain to kill his brother.  NowI happen to think there was more going on there than meets the eye.  You should remember when God cursed the serpent in the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve’s sin, God said in Gen 3:15 “And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel."

Now that may sound like a riddle to us, but I think it became clear to Satan, whom someone has rightly called the first theologian, that God had a plan for the redemption of man, and their deliverance from sin and death, and by this seed, to crush the power of Satan.  The plan of God was from the seed of the woman to come the Messiah, who was to redeem man from the curse of sin and death and give him life. And so the enmity of Satan, the hatred of Satan towards the object of God’s love was to try to destroy that seed of the woman.

I believe it had become obvious through some means that we are not privy to, that the line was going to be through Able.  Cain’s heart was evil.  And Satan knew that.  And so he deduced that the line was through Able.  So Satan acted upon this sin of anger that arose in Cain when his offering was rejected, and induced Cain to rise up and slaughter his brother, the one in whom Satan supposed was the seed of the Messiah.  And by the way, the Greek word for murdered, which John uses in our text, indicates cutting someone’s throat. There are other words specific to murder, but John uses one which indicates cutting one’s throat.  Someone has suggested that Cain deliberately killed him that way as a rebuff to God for demanding a sacrifice such as Able made in slaying a lamb for the altar.

But the point I would like to make is that Satan hates the gospel.  And He hates those that embody the gospel.  And the gospel was going to be made manifest in the seed which would come through Eve.  And throughout the ages we have seen numerous attempts by Satan to destroy that seed, to annihilate the Jews in general as the seed of Abraham.  But God’s plan would not be thwarted.  That’s why when Eve conceived again and brought forth Seth, she said, “God has appointed me another seed in place of Abel, for Cain killed him.”

So the point is that Satan hates God’s people.  He hates the gospel.  And likewise those that are of the evil one hate those that are of God. That’s why John continues in vs 13, “Do not be surprised, brethren, if the world hates you.” The world hates righteousness. They are in rebellion against God.  But the irony is that Cain came to worship God.  Cain believed in God.  He was religious. But he was not willing to accept God’s plan for redemption.  He was not willing to accept God’s standard for righteousness. 

And I would suggest to you that there are many false prophets and false believers today who claim to have fellowship with God, and yet in reality they hate God and they hate those who love God, because they resent God’s standard for righteousness.  They want to believe that their life is acceptable, their sense of right and wrong is acceptable.  They don’t want to believe that what they are saying is acceptable, God says is sin.  And so they hate those who are righteous. And God says that hate is the moral equivalent of murder.

Jesus said in Matthew 5:21, “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder and whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing, shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.” So Jesus said hate is enough to condemn you to hell, whether or not it ever becomes actual murder.  Because God looks at the heart. Prov.23:7 says, “as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”

So John says the test of whether or not you are a child of God or a child of the evil one is whether you love or hate your brother. Vs.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. 15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” 

What John is saying is that love is the manifestation of those who are born of God, who have received life from God. Notice the sentence construction he uses does not indicate that love is the means by which we are born of God.  But that love is the evidence that you’ve been born of God.  “We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brethren.”  Love is the manifestation of a child of God.

And vice a versa, “everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.”  The hallmark of an unbeliever is that they hate their brother.  Now does that mean that if someone has committed murder they can never be saved? No, there are some good examples in scripture of murderers that were saved. For instance, Paul was a murderer. Didn’t he persecute and kill Christians? He says, “I was a blasphemer and a murderer.” But he repented and was forgiven. All sinners can be saved, if they repent of their sin. But that reveals the danger of not recognizing your sin.  If you don’t consider yourself a sinner, then you obviously can’t repent and conseuently you cannot be saved. But any sin can be forgiven if you repent.

So John says hate is the moral equivalent to murder.  And murder is the physical manifestation of hatred, and hatred is in a person’s heart. But there is another manifestation of hate and that is indifference., Not all the children of the devil are equally evil in their actions. They all are characterized by some level of hatred of those who are righteous. But not all of them carry it out to its extremity and actually murder someone. But another way, and perhaps the more common way of manifesting hate is through indifference. They don’t love others, so they are indifferent towards others. They could really care less about others. Look at verses 16 and 17, “We know love by this, that He lay down His life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 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?” This is speaking of indifference. This is another evidence of the selfish, hateful heart. They have the world’s goods but they selfishly hold them for themselves, for their own pleasure and satisfaction. They are not willing to make any sacrifice for anyone else. They’re dominated by selfishness. If they do give away a little pittance here and there, it is to pacify their own conscience and have the appearance of philanthropy.  But the root of their deeds are pride.  To be seen as philanthropic.  But in general, the children of the evil one are consumed with themselves and they’re unconcerned and indifferent towards others.

But let’s consider for a moment what John said in vs16, “this is how we know what love is…” And then he goes on to state Christ’s sacrifice for us.  The part I want to emphasize is John says this is how we know what love is. We need to understand what love is.  You know, if there is one word or one doctrine that is completely mischaracterized today not only in the world but even in the church, it is the word love.

Love is not sex, ladies and gentlemen.  Sex was designed to be a product of love, when love operates as God designed it to be. But love is not sex.  When the Beatles sang “All you need is love…” they were really talking about sex.  The culture has so corrupted the true meaning of love that it is hardly a word that has any spiritual significance today. That’s why in the Greek there were four words for love.  John uses agape, meaning sacrificial love. There was another word eros, which corresponded to erotic love.  God’s love is agape, which is the love we are to have for one another.

 I think it’s also disingenuous to substitute the name of God with love.  John will go on to say that God is love, but what he means is that love is a characteristic of God.  But God is not love in that it is the only characteristic of God.  Love is held in tension with all the other characteristics of God’s nature, such as holiness, righteousness, truth  and justice. God is almighty, all knowing, all powerful, omnipotent, omnipresent. He is life, He is light, He is the source of all things, and the means by which all things hold together. God  said to Moses that His name was “I AM THAT I AM.”  To reduce the name of God to a single emotion which we’ve dumbed down to it’s lowest common denominator is practically sacrilege.

This thing the world calls love, this emotional, sentimental, affection for someone or something that causes us to desire it, is a bastardization of what God calls love.  God says here is love; to lay down your life on behalf of someone else.  It’s sacrificial, total selflessness, a willingness to give up everything that we hold dear for the sake of a brother.  Love is being a living sacrifice to serve others, which is our spiritual service of worship to God.

Now then, if hatred is the moral equivalent of murder, then love is the moral imperative of the child of God. John says, “We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” Ought is a moral imperative.  Love is a commandment. Jesus said “if you love Me you will keep My commandments.”  For a believer, love is a command.

So how does love look on a practical level?  John says love gives freely.  “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? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.”

There used to be another song on the radio which had the line, “It’s so easy to fall in love.” It may be easy to fall into bed with someone, but it’s another thing to sacrifice my priorities for the sake of what’s best for someone else.  It’s so easy to say I love you.  But it’s another thing to actually love someone the way God loved us.  It’s another thing to sacrifice your will for someone else.  It’s so easy to say I love God.  But it’s another thing to obey God’s commandments.  But He says if you love me, you will keep my commandments.

John says don’t just give lip service to God.  He is saying that true believers don’t just give lip service to God.  I think a lot of people come to church on Sunday and sing “O how I love Jesus,” and then Monday through Saturday they live for the devil. They live for the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, and the pride of life.  John says don’t just say you love, but do the deeds of love. We are to be known not by our words, but by our deeds.

What John is sort of reiterating here is the principle that by their fruit you shall know them.  The life that has been born of God will be a life that is manifested by a love for the brethren.  The life that is still in their sins, that is still in the bonds of the evil one, will be manifested by hatred, indifference, selfishness.

The crux of the matter is this, that our human nature is inherently sinful.  Our human nature is inherently selfish.  Watch two little children play together and no matter how many toys they have scattered all around the room, sooner or later they will end up in a tug of war over one of them. One of the first words a child learns is “Mine.”  Selfishness and hatred is a natural attribute and we are naturally inclined to sin against God.  We are naturally sinners, naturally rebels towards God.  

But the love of God for us was manifested in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us, that we might be forgiven of our sins and be given life through His death on our behalf. If you confess your sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  We can be born again as a child of God through faith in what Jesus has accomplished for us at the cross. We can receive a new nature, the same nature that God has, by becoming a child of God.  I urge you today to accept and believe in the death of Jesus Christ as the payment for your sins, and in His resurrection as the means of life in Him, that you might be born spiritually as a child of God.  I pray that you will have the love of God completed in you today, as you turn to Him in faith.  

The contrast between sin and righteousness, 1 John 3:4-10

The section of scripture before us today is one of the most difficult in John’s epistles, if not in the entire New Testament.  Just a cursory reading of this text seems to cause all sorts of conflicting interpretations, and seemingly contradictory interpretations.  I heard someone quote John Knox as saying to Mary Queen of Scots that if you read the Bible and think you find a contradiction, then keep on reading and sooner or later you will find another passage that explains it quite satisfactorily.  So in dealing with some of these statements by John we must compare scripture with scripture, and usually as you continue to study you will find within John’s own writings a suitable explanation for the seeming contradiction.

However, I want to approach this text a little differently than that this morning.  I think it may be helpful to look at the big picture and then scroll down to the details, rather than just focus on the details and lose sight of the big picture.  So that is the attempt I would like to make this morning.  And to do that we are going to exposit the word in reverse, starting at vs 10 which I think gives us the big picture, and then work backwards in the text to discover the details.

To help explain the big picture  I am going to use the same pattern that John has used repeatedly throughout this book so far.  And that is, there are only two categories of people that John sees in existence; either being a child of God, or being a child of the devil. John sees everything in reference of these two absolutes; light or darkness, truth or a lie, God or the devil, life or death.  And now in this section - sin or righteousness.  And all of these absolutes are contingent upon one another.  They are all related.  For instance, darkness, child of the devil, the lie,  death and sin are all related.  And light, child of God, the truth, life and righteousness are all related to one another and dependent upon one another.

So I really think that in this passage John is drawing another contrast in a series of contrasts, this time between sin and righteousness.  And as I have repeatedly stressed in previous messages, he makes these contrasts because one of his primary goals in writing to the church is to protect them from those who are trying to deceive them. He says in ch.2vs26, “These things I have written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you.” Those people are described as false prophets, antichrists, deceivers, who have emerged from the ranks of the church, and yet they attempt to lie and twist the truth of the gospel and as such lead astray people unto destruction.

John is saying in providing these contrasts that a false prophet will have certain characteristics about his life that are in opposition to what Christ taught. In other words, they will live in sin and thus by the evidence of their lives show that they are not of God and consequently you should not believe their word or follow their teaching.

Now it’s interesting that in this context John has chosen to contrast sin and righteousness. These two distinctions are really the root cause of all things, whether life and death, truth or the lie, a child of God or a child of Satan.  Everything stems from either sin or righteousness.

For instance, at creation, God made man, and it was good.  Man did not know sin, and thus was righteous.  Being righteous he had fellowship with God.  Being righteous, he had life, all that righteous life entails.  But when man disobeyed God, and fell into sin, sin caused death, and death passed upon all their descendants, for all have sinned.  Romans 5:12 “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”

So man sinned, and death passed to all men.  But God had a plan from before creation to redeem man from sin and give him life again.  That plan was for Jesus to come to earth as a man, to become our substitute, and our Savior, dying on the cross for our sins.  He became sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Cor. 5:21)  Christ’s death on our behalf not only provided the sacrifice for our sins so that we might be forgiven, but it also provided for the grace of God to be given to us, which is the righteousness of Jesus Christ.  We received the benefit of His righteousness, which was imputed to our account.  And as a result of righteousness, we receive life.

So to make sure you understand the two options here - sin and death, as contrasted to righteousness and life.  And to extrapolate that out a bit further, we might say that sin is commensurate with being a child of the devil, and righteousness is commensurate with being a child of God. Now John makes that principle very clear in vs 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.”  So righteousness is the predominate characteristic of the children of God.  

Now the characteristic of the child of the devil, John says, is sin. That principle is stated in vs 8.  “the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning.”  Now that’s a pretty clear contrast, is it not? Forget about all the theological mumbo jumbo for a moment and just accept these statements on their face value. Are they children of God? Then they practice righteousness.  They practice sin?  Then they are children of the devil.  John makes it a very simple equation, which should make obvious whether a person is of God or is not.

The NASB helps us to understand an important distinction here.  And that is the word translated as “practices.”  If you practice righteousness, then you are a child of God.  If you practice sin then you are a child of the devil.  The detail of note is “practice.”  Practice is habitual, continual, deliberate.  I talked about practicing in a previous message in reference to taking piano lessons as a kid.  I found practicing my piano to be hard work.  It’ took discipline.  I didn’t practice, so I failed at piano.  I found that I couldn’t accidentally practice.  It took conscientious, deliberate, dedicated practice.

That’s the idea behind the practicing of either righteousness or sinfulness.  Now granted, the impetus for doing either of those things comes out of our nature.   And what John tells us in the second part of vs 8 is that Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil.  That is, He came to destroy the effects of the sin nature.  Vs 8b, “The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.”

Now how did Jesus accomplish destroying the works of the devil?  By giving us a new nature.  By faith in what Christ accomplished through His substitutionary death on the cross, we are born again, that is born of God, born of the Spirit, and as a new creation we now have a new nature.  We have Christ’s nature.  We are given His righteousness in exchange for our sins.  We now have a righteous nature.  The sinful nature, our flesh, is crucified with Christ and we now live by the Spirit, in the righteousness of Christ.  

John states that principle in vs9, “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.”   Now this statement “he cannot sin” is one of those that can really cause theologians to go into conniptions and false teachers to have a field day.  So let’s break it down one phrase at a time and work through it.  

“No one who is born of God practices sin…” We’ve really already dealt with this one.  It’s basically a restatement of vs 10.  The key to proper interpretation is “practice.”  And we explained what it means to practice.  It doesn’t mean, however, that we that are born of God can never sin.  Because John says in 1John 1:8, 10  “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. ... 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.”  So in every way possible, John makes it clear that you can sin, and you have sinned.  The difference of course is that as a child of God you will not practice, continually, habitually, deliberately practice sin. But that old nature is not completely done away with, because you are still in the flesh.  So it’s possible for a child of God to sin, but it’s not possible for a child of God to continually practice sin. 

Then John answers the question, why?  Why don’t we practice sin anymore? That’s answered in the next phrase; “because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.”  When the Bible speaks of the seed of Abraham, it is talking about the child of Abraham, the descendants of Abraham.  The seed of Abraham is his DNA, it’s his reproductive life which is passed on to his son, or his child.  And that child that is born is of Abraham, in that he has the genes of Abraham, the DNA of Abraham, the characteristics of Abraham.  He is a man in the likeness of Abraham.

So in keeping with that analogy, when we are born of God we receive His seed, and that produces in us a new life, a new nature, new characteristics of our Father.  I would suggest that the seed is righteousness.  There are two verses that I think, while not directly speaking to this principle, do illustrate the connection between the seed and righteousness.  The first is in 2Cor. 9:10 “Now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.”  And then James 3:18 “And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”

And I think that the context here in 1John indicates that the seed is righteousness, because there are only two options given here, sin and righteousness.  And as I quoted while ago from 2 Cor. 5:21, God made Jesus, who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”  We are made the righteousness of God.  The seed then that we are given by God is righteousness, which makes us righteous.  And John says that is why we cannot sin, because we are righteous.  We are like our Father in our new nature.  Our righteous nature cannot sin.  Our sinful nature can and will sin.  The distinction is which nature we are living in.  Whether or not we are walking in the spirit or walking according to the flesh. 

Paul speaks of this war within his body between the spirit and the flesh in Romans 7:21 “I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.  For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.  O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.”  So if we practice righteousness and walk in the Spirit then  we will not, we cannot sin, and thus fulfill the lusts of the flesh.  

Now we are working our way through this section backwards, if you haven’t been paying attention. As I said I think it’s helpful to our understanding to work from the greater to the lessor, or from the big picture to the details.  And so in vs 7 we get some more detail of how this principle works.  John says in vs7, “Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous.”  Now just imagine if you will that we have a giant chalkboard behind me, and at the top of the blackboard we have the headings for two columns.  The column on the right has the heading SIN, and the column on the right has the heading RIGHTEOUSNESS.   And what we are doing is detailing the characteristics of each of those headings.  

John says concerning righteousness, that don’t be deceived, the one who practice righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous.  First of all, notice the warning; don’t be deceived.  This is the primary purpose of John’s writing, as I told you before.  The deceivers in the church are trying to give people a false gospel, a gospel that on the one hand doesn’t want to acknowledge sin, or wants to condone sin, or explain away sin, and in accordance with the devil’s strategy wants to keep people enslaved in sin, so they don’t preach repentance from sin, or that you can be cleansed from sin.  John says don’t be deceived.  There is sin, it is inviting, it’s pleasurable for a season, it’s alluring to the eyes, but it brings forth death and it’s of the devil.  So don’t be deceived. 

And secondly John restates the principle, that the one who practice righteousness is righteous, but then adds a very important caveat.  Because God is righteous.  If we are born of God then our new nature is righteousness.  We have Christ’s righteousness imputed unto us, we have the seed of righteousness that changes our DNA, that changes our heart, our desires, so that we are righteous, we do the works of righteousness.  That’s what Paul was saying in Eph. 2:10 “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” We are made a new creation to be able to do the works of righteousness.

Next, John contrasts righteousness to sin.  And going backwards in our text, John states that sin cannot be the characteristic of a child of God.  Vs6 “No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him.”  This is another statement that causes theologian’s heads to explode.  But let’s break it down and try to understand it in context with all that John has said.  “No one who abides in Him sins.”  The key to this statement is the word “abides.”  What does to “abide” mean?  It means to follow Him, to walk closely with Him, to listen to Him, to talk to Him, to have fellowship with Him.

To abide is to have what Revelation 3:20  talks about when Jesus says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.” He’s talking about fellowship, obedience, walking in the Spirit and not according to the flesh.  So John is saying here in vs 6 that if you have fellowship with God you cannot sin, you will not sin.  The key to avoiding sin is to abide with Him.  To have fellowship with Him.  To abide in His word.  To walk according to the leading of the Spirit. To be in constant communication with God.  I have yet to fall into sin when I am in prayer.  It’s only when I forget to pray, or don’t want to pray that I find myself falling into sin.  It’s only when I neglect the reading of the word of God that I find myself straying from righteousness.  So abiding in Him is the key to knowing Him.  If you truly know Him, if you are in intimate fellowship with God, then you will not sin.

And then in vs 5, John says that’s the purpose that Christ came, to take away sin.  Vs5 “You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin.”  This is almost an identical statement that John made in vs 8b: “The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.”  So to take away sins, and to destroy the works of the devil, are one and the same. Christ came to live a sinless life, to live a righteous life, and as the righteous One, to offer Himself as a substitute sacrifice for sinners, to take away the sins of the world.

Back in chapter 2 vs 2, we saw that John said, “and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for [those of] the whole world.”  Now remember, those of you who were here, what we said propitiation meant?  It means satisfaction.  Jesus is the satisfaction for our sins. and the sins of the world.  What exactly did He satisfy?  He satisfied the wrath of God against sin.  He satisfied the penalty for sins which is death.  He satisfied the justice of God, the righteousness of God, the holiness of God.

Christ amply, sufficiently paid the price of our sins, so that we might be made righteous. He appeared in order to take away sins, both the penalty, and the power of sin, which destroys the works of the devil.  The devil is a defeated enemy.  He was defeated at the cross and resurrection when Jesus triumphed over sin and hell.  Sin no longer has control over those who believe in Christ.  Sin no longer can condemn those who have trusted in Him as their Savior.  The devil’s power has been broken by the cross.  The very instrument of Satan’s plan to destroy the gospel, became the means by which he was broken.  We saw a good illustration of that in our study in Esther last week on Wednesday night.  Evil Haman was hung on the very gallows that he had planned to execute Mordecai upon.  God did the same thing in destroying the works of Satan through the cross, the very instrument Satan planned to use to kill Jesus.

So Christ having done away with the power of sin, that makes it possible for the practice of righteousness, which John has said is the evidence of a child of God. And in like manner, the practice of sin is the evidence of a child of the devil.  And that last principle is stated in vs 4, “Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.”

This sounds like what John has already stated numerous times.  But there is a nuance here which he wants to emphasize and bring out.  And I think it’s important.  Notice that he says he who practices sin, (we have discussed that aspect already) but then he adds, he also practices lawlessness.  Now what does he mean by that?  

Well, lawlessness, is someone without the law. It’s a disregard of the law.  It’s rebellion against God’s law. It doesn’t mean just breaking one of the 10 commandments, but complete disregard of the law of God, which encompasses all of the scriptures.  In short, lawlessness is rebellion against God. It’s saying there is no absolute truth, no authority in heaven.   You know, we are living today in a lawless age, aren’t we?  The things that are going on lately in our society are beyond the pale.  People are advocating, condoning, championing the grossest  immorality as something that should be celebrated.  And not just immorality, but there is a widespread lawlessness and rebellion against authority that pervades our society today that I think is unequaled since the time when Christ first appeared during the Roman Empire.  And actually, I’m convinced that the days we are living in are worse. 

There is quickly growing an attitude of hatred towards God, towards righteousness, towards good.  Men call evil good and good evil. I believe that when you consider the nature of sin, then you will conclude that the fundamental essence of sin is unbelief. The reason we are lawless, the reason we are rebellious, the reason we do not respond to the word of God is that we do not believe the word of God. We do not believe it is the word of God. 

Jesus said concerning the Holy Spirit, in John 16:8-9  "And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:  of sin, because they do not believe in Me.”  So the essence of sin is unbelief, and because they do not believe the word of God, unbelief causes lawlessness, which is rebellion against God, and an unwillingness to submit to what the word of God says, which is God’s law.

Well, I believe the contrast is clear, everyone who practices sin is not of God, and he who practices righteousness is born of God.  The evidence of whether one is born of God or not is a life that looks like the life of Christ, which is righteousness.  Those that practice sin do not know God.  By this we may know whether the preachers and teachers and priests and prophets are of God or of the devil.  Jesus said by their fruit you shall know them.

But there is also another important point being taught here, and that is that if you are going to have the life which God gives, if you are going to be righteous, then you have to be born of God.  And the only way to be born again is through faith in what Christ as your substitute and Savior did for you through His death and resurrection.  The question is whether or not you have been born again.  Have you received by faith the forgiveness for your sins, and the righteousness of Jesus Christ applied to your account?  That righteousness is a gift of God to those who believe in Jesus Christ.  I hope that no one leaves here today without receiving that gift of salvation.  You can be born again in the spirit today, right now, by trusting in Jesus Christ as your Savior.  I urge you to receive Him today.  

Children of God, 1John 3: 1-3

John has several reasons for writing this epistle, which is actually a letter, to the churches.  Back in chapter 2 vs 26, he mentions one of the most pressing reasons for writing them.  He said in vs 26 “These things I have written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you.”  Now we learned that “they” refers to false prophets and false teachers who John calls antichrists.  These are people who have come out of the ranks of the church, who claimed superior knowledge of spiritual things, but who are teaching doctrine which is the opposite of Christ’s gospel.

So what were they trying to deceive the church about?  I believe they were trying to deceive the church by presenting them another gospel, which was a fraudulent claim that you can have a relationship with God, that you can know God and receive life from God, but you don’t have to be concerned with the old fashioned ideas about sin and righteousness.  They taught that it was about an experience, a spiritual enlightening that doesn’t really have anything to do with morality or sin or the need for righteousness.  You could still be carnal and enjoy the lusts of the world and yet have salvation.

This skewed view of Christianity is still being taught today, by the way, in our modern culture.  There is very little concern today on the part of many false teachers in the church about sin and the need for righteousness.  A relationship with God is all that they teach, and when you examine their claims, you find that relationship is very one sided.  God sacrifices everything for us, but we sacrifice nothing in return. They teach that you can live in what the Bible calls sin and still be fine.  There is no need for repentance. There is no need to be righteous.  There is no need for a change in behavior.

But John says that cannot be true.  He says if you say you have fellowship with God and yet walk in the darkness, that means practice sin, then you lie and don’t practice the truth. He says if you love the world, then the love of the Father is not in you.  The point being that if you are truly a Christian, you will become like Christ.  If you really have fellowship with God, there is going to be a change in you, that results in looking more and more like Christ.  And John indicates that this is the test for how the church is to gauge the false prophets, how they are to test the spirits to see if they are from God.  If they claim to have fellowship with God, but their walk doesn’t bear witness of the fact that they have died to sin and walk after righteousness, then the church can know that these are false prophets and antichrists and they should not follow their teaching.

So John has been presenting a number of tests by which you can validate a person’’s Christianity.  And these tests also serve to assure you of your own salvation, or it should convict of your need of salvation should you fail the tests.

Today we are looking at another such test.  It’s kind of like the test we sometimes employ today in our society if there is a question about who is the father of a child. It’s called a paternity test.  They take a sample of the DNA of the child in question and a sample of the purported father, and they compare them to see if the child is really his or not. 

What John is proposing here is something akin to a paternity test.  The question is are they a child of God?  Are we a child of God? A lot of people claim to be children of God.  Some teach that everyone on earth is a child of God. But we don’t find that doctrine born out in the scriptures.  In fact, Jesus accused some Pharisees who confronted Him during His ministry of being children of their father the devil.  Paul in Ephesians 2 calls the world “children of wrath.” John in vs 10 of chapter three divides the world into two groups, children of God and children of the devil.  So not everyone then is a child of God.

To be a child of God, John says you have to be born of God. He mentions this necessity in vs 29 of the previous chapter, saying, “If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him.”  In other words, John is saying that the one who is born of God is like God in the sense that God’s DNA is righteousness, and if we are born of God then our DNA is righteousness.

But the question arises, what is meant by being born of God? The word John uses in vs29 is literally “begotten”.  That means they have had a birth experience.  It’s a second birth.  Jesus said in John chapter 3 vs 3 to Nicodemus, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." Nicodemus said to Him, "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?"  Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

So everyone on earth is born of their mother and father.  That’s the natural birth, what Jesus refers to as water birth.  But He says it’s necessary to be born again of the Spirit.  God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.  So we must be born again spiritually and that happens through the Holy Spirit.  

Now how does that work?  First a person must recognize that they are a sinner, and that they are dead in their sins.  Romans 6:23 says the wages of sin is death.  When Adam and Eve sinned against God He said that they would surely die.  What died immediately was their spirit. And as children of Adam we are born dead spiritually.  Romans 5 says “by the transgression of the one, (that is Adam), death reigned through the one.”  And "through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men.”  And “as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.”

So through the obedience of Christ, many will be made righteous.  There is the equation that produces new birth.  We are made righteous by Christ’s obedience to the Father to offer Himself as a sacrifice for sin, as our substitute on the cross, bearing our sins upon Him, so that we might receive His righteousness.  2 Cor. 5:21 says, “God made Jesus, who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might be made righteous in Him.”

Listen, new birth is having your sins forgiven and having the righteousness of Jesus Christ applied to our account.  And because we are made righteous, the Holy Spirit is able to regenerate our spirit by His dwelling in us.  So we are born of God when we by faith receive what Christ did on our behalf.  John says back in John 1:12-13 “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:  Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

That is what it means to be born of God. To be born again. By faith believing in Christ and HIs work on the cross and what He accomplished for us, we receive forgiveness of sins, the transference of His righteousness to our account, and the power to become sons of God.  That power is the Spirit of God that gives life to our spirit and gives us new life.  We are spiritually born not of man, nor by the will of man, but of God.

And John says what it means to be a child of God is a wonderful, tremendous privilege that can hardly be comprehended.  He says in chapter 3 vs 1, “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God.”  I think in some ways the KJV gives us a better sense of the wonder that John feels as he considers how incredible it is to be called children of God.  In the KJV it says “Behold! What manner of  love the Father hath bestowed upon us…”

It’s a phrase that indicates astonishment, wonder, incredulity at God’s love towards us. John doesn’t just say that the Father loves us.  But that He lavishes His love upon us. It’s extravagant, overflowing, super abundant love towards us.  It shows an action taken by the Father towards us.  It’s not just a sentimental feeling God has for us, but a tremendous act of love.  And the action that God took was He sent His own, beloved Son to die in our place for our sins so that He might make us HIs children.  John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him, should not perish but have everlasting life.” Greater love has no one than this, Jesus said, that a man lay down His life for His friends.  God loves us with an everlasting, sacrificial, lavish love that surpasses anything we can imagine. Because He loves us and sent Jesus to take away our sins, we receive the right to become children of God.

That we might be called children of God!  What an incredible thing!  God looked upon us, who were sinners, who were hostile towards Him, who were undeserving and unlovable, and He chose us to be the recipients of His love.  It’s as if prospective parents come to an orphanage, desiring to adopt a child.  And they pick the most unresponsive child, the child with all kinds of problems, that has no redeeming qualities, but they fall in love with this totally unlovable child, and adopt him and love him unconditionally.  And then not only do they adopt him, but they give him an inheritance of all that they have.  As children of God, we are adopted as His children, and we are made co heirs with Christ. Romans 8:16 says, “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God,  and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with [Him] so that we may also be glorified with [Him.]”

So to this tremendous privilege we are called children of God, John adds, “and such we are!”  We are now the children of God. It’s not something that is off in the future, it’s a present reality.  We have all the benefits of being a child of God now.  We have the Spirit of God in us now. We receive His spiritual DNA now.  We have complete access to the throne of God now.  We have eternal life now.  We enjoy all the rights and privileges that our adoption entails, because we have come to know God as our Father.

Paul describes our spiritual status as a present reality, to the point of even now spiritually being seated in the heavenly places as recipients of all God’s blessings.  In Eph. 2:4-7  he says, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,  even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),  and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly [places] in Christ Jesus,  so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

But John says, because we are born of God, we are known by our Father, we have the blessings of being  a child of God,  but the world does not know us.  At the end of vs 1 he says, “For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.”  Even as the world did not recognize Jesus as the Son of God, neither do they recognize us as being children of God.  They may recognize us as being crazy right wing nuts who call themselves Christians. But they don’t recognize that we are born of God, for the same reasons that they didn’t recognize Christ.  People don’t recognize Jesus Christ for who He is, they don’t believe in what Jesus Christ has done, because they are too enamored with this world. If they believed in Christ that would mean they would have to give up their love for this world, their love for themselves, and so it’s easier to just not believe in Christ.  That way they think they can hold on to their autonomy, their independence, and their sin.  But they don’t realize that they are enslaved to sin, and that they have within themselves the condemnation of their sin which is the sentence of death.

But because we know God, because we are born of God, we will come to know Him more, and we will become more like Him.  John says in vs 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.”   For a second time John emphasizes that we are now children of God.  What he wants to stress is that there is already a resemblance to the Father that should be seen in the children.  Children should look like their father.  They should share some of the characteristics of their father.  And as they mature, they look and act more and more like their fathers.  That’s a fact in the earthly realm, and it should be a fact in the heavenly realm. If we are God’s children, then we should act like God more and more as we mature.

That process of maturing is what the Bible calls sanctification.  It’s the natural progression of maturity that believers should express in their lives and in their behavior.  The last stage of that progression of maturity will occur when we see the Lord.  It’s brought about by what John referred to in the last chapter as the coming of the Lord.  He said in the previous chapter, vs 28 “Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming.”  The way to not be ashamed, John adds in the next verse, is to be righteous as He is righteous.

Now John says that  our maturity as children of God will be completed and  we will be like Him for we shall see Him as He is.  He again is speaking of the coming of the Lord, and what is called our glorification.  There are in theological terms three stages of our salvation.  There is justification, when our sins are forgiven and HIs righteousness is applied, which is when we are born again; then there is sanctification, when we become conformed to His image, when we exhibit the characteristics of our Father, and then there is glorification, when Christ returns and we receive a new, glorified body.  That glorified body is like Christ’s glorified body. That’s about all I can tell you about it as far as how it looks.  But most importantly, this new body will not have the old sin nature anymore.  Sin will be done away with in all it’s forms, in all of creation, all things will be made new.  A new heaven and a new earth.  A new Jerusalem, John calls it in Revelation, meaning the city of God.  And there will be no night there, no sin there, no sickness there, no tears there.  The Lord will be the light, and we will be in His glorified presence.  We will be in what theologians call the beatific vision.  When we shall see the Lord in all His glory.  The same glory that Moses only saw the backside of, and yet his face glowed so brightly that he had to veil his face so that men could look upon him.  To be in the beatific vision is to be in the presence of pure light, pure truth, pure holiness, pure righteousness, and pure life.  All things have their being in Him.  Eternal life emanates from Him. And to be in His presence will transform us into His likeness. That is what John means when he says we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.  

Paul said that is indescribable. As the apostle Paul put it, "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.”  God told Moses that no man can see God and live. So God has to transform us into a creature that can see God. That can look upon Him as He is and live.  He has to make us holy, righteous.  That is the purpose of the process of sanctification that we are going through now. Through the word of God,  there is a constant sanctifying, cleansing influence going on in us. As we look intently at the word of God, we are constantly being changed and conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul states that in 2 Corinthians chapter 3:18 “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.” So the process of sanctification is going on in the life of every child of God now,  being conformed more and more to the Son of God until finally the conformation will be made complete, when we see him as He is at His coming.

So that being God’s purpose in our sanctification, John says if we have that hope, then we purify ourselves, just as He is pure.  Vs.3, “And everyone who has this hope [fixed] on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” The self validating test of being a Christian is that you become like Christ.  You are a work in progress.  You may not be perfect yet, but you are being perfected.  Paul said in Phil. 1:6 “[For I am] confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”

The more we learn of the Lord, the more we become like Him.  The more we know Him, the more we love Him. The more we love Him, the more we obey Him. The more we read His word, the more we have the mind of Christ, the more we imitate the life of Christ.  

Purity simply means being free from moral stain.  As Peter said in  1Peter 1:16 “because it is written, "YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY."  It’s restatement really of what John said in chapter 2:29, which is the verse we opened with, “If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him.”

And that returns us to our initial premise, the purpose of John’s writing.  That the way the church might know the true prophet of God from the false prophet of God is in whether or not they live like Jesus lived.  If they practice righteousness or practice sinfulness. That’s how John instructed the church to distinguish the spirits. 

But let’s make sure we are clear on this principle -that righteousness follows as a result of conversion.  Our righteousness is not the means of our being born again, but righteousness is the fruit of our salvation.  Our righteousness is not the cause of the new birth, but it is the consequence of it. But if we are children of God, then we will exhibit the behavior consistent with our Father.   You cannot claim to know God, to have fellowship with God, and walk in darkness.  But if you are a child of God, you purify yourself even as He is pure.

I trust today that you pass the test of the evidence of your salvation.  Some of you here today may be trying to obtain salvation through your good works.  You might be sincerely trying to be a better person.  You want to know God and to know that you know Him.  You want to know that you have eternal life.  But the scripture says that  by your own righteousness you cannot obtain salvation.  

Titus 3:5-7 says,  “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,  whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,  so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to [the] hope of eternal life.”

God saves us because of His great sacrificial love which He has for us.  He saved us on the basis of what Christ did for us on the cross.  Our sins are forgiven, and our righteousness is granted, by our faith in what Christ has done.  So that John may say, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, [even] to those who believe in His name,  who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”

Have you been born again?  Are you able to answer that question today?  Born again not by man, nor by the will of man, but born of God, that you might become the child of God.  God loves you so much that He has already done all that is required for you to be become His child.  The part that is your responsibility is to trust in Him, to receive Him as your Lord and Savior, confessing your need for Him.  And the promise of God is that if you will receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, God will give you the right to be a child of God.  Call upon Him today and be saved.