As we enter this last section of chapter 5, John is summing up all that has been said up to this point in what you might call the epilogue. John’s style of writing is one where he uses repetition to teach us certain doctrines and principles. And each time he repeats a principle, he usually adds some new dimension to it. But now that he has reached the conclusion, he makes his final statements regarding these reoccurring themes.
Probably the most frequently repeated principle that John makes is the assurance we can have of our salvation. Not only has he explained the means by which we might know that we are saved, but he has shown the evidence of salvation, so that we might be fully assured. And also the other aspect of that was to reveal those who were not really saved, but who may have claimed to be, but they were actually false prophets.
This has really been the central theme of the epistle - how to know that you are saved. John states this concept of salvation several different ways. For instance, in chapter one he referred to it as having fellowship with God. In chapter two he said it was to know God. At the end of the chapter he refers to it as abiding in God. In chapter three, John refers to salvation as being the children of God, or born of God. In chapter four he says we are from God, or of God. And in chapter five he calls our salvation the life, or eternal life. All of those terms are used to describe our salvation and he uses them interchangeably and repeatedly throughout the epistle. All of them speak of some aspect of our salvation.
The other much repeated principle he teaches frequently is that we may know. John uses the word know around 33 times in this epistle. He wants us to have assurance of certain truths, certain principles. And the most essential principle that he is concerned about is that of our salvation. He wants us to have assurance of our salvation. So repeatedly he has given us assurances or evidences or tests that we might know that we are saved. John believes that we might know that we are children of God, not that we might hope we are, but that we might know it and have any doubts or uncertainty about our eternal life settled here and now.
So now as he concludes this epistle, he says in the 13th verse; “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.” I have referred to this verse at least a dozen or more times since we started studying this epistle. And yet like John, I realize that repetition is an aid to learning. And furthermore, some of you may not have been here for some of our previous teaching. So at the risk of repeating myself, I want to briefly expound on the major points of this verse, for the sake of greater assurance to those who have already heard, and the benefit of those hearing for the first time.
John’s summary statement says he has written these things. These things refers to the entire letter up to this point. But the main point that he is making is that faith in Jesus Christ, or to believe in Jesus Christ, is the essential key to the assurance of our salvation. There is salvation in no one else. Peter, preaching in Acts 4:12 said, ”And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”
But when the apostles speak of the name of Jesus, they do not mean merely saying the name, or believing that simply repeating the name Jesus has some magical power. But to believe in the name of Jesus Christ is to believe in the full revelation of the Son of God. That full revelation then includes His deity, His work, His ministry, His teaching, His word, His work of atonement, His life and death and resurrection and ascension into heaven to sit at the right hand of the throne of God. All that the gospel teaches concerning Christ is included in the name of Jesus Christ.
So to believe then does not merely mean that we believe that Jesus lived and died 2000 years ago. Or that He was a good teacher, or a rabbi, or a prophet. But as Peter said in Matt.16:16 in answer to Jesus’s question, “whom do men say that I am?” Peter said, “You are the Christ the Son of the living God.” To believe that He was the Way, the Truth and the Life. And that the words He spoke were truth and life. To believe that He bore our sins on the cross and died in our place, that we might receive forgiveness of our sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
That belief is the means by which John says we may know that we have eternal life. And as I have said almost every week, eternal life is not just life that never ends, but it’s the life of God in us. It’s spiritual life. It’s fellowship with God. As the wages of sin is death, so righteousness is life. And the righteousness we receive from Christ gives a life that will never pass away. This body will one day pass away, but our soul and spirit will not pass away, and at the resurrection will be joined to a glorified body just as Christ has, an immortal body that will be forever with God. Life with God is eternal life.
And we can be assured of eternal life because of His promise to us. John said back in chapter 2 vs 25 “This is the promise which He Himself made to us: eternal life.” Jesus promised eternal life to those who believe in Him. For instance, Jesus said in John 11:26 “and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” Jesus promised eternal life, and we can have assurance because of His promise. God cannot lie. His word endures forever. His promises never fail. And He gives us the Holy Spirit as a deposit on the fullness of that promise.
Now that leads John to assure us of another promise we have from Christ. And that promise is that He hears us when we pray, and He will answer our prayers. The fact that God answers our prayers is another assurance by which we know that we have the life of God. John said back in chapter 3 vs 21 “Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.” Notice John says we have confidence when we ask of God.
So building upon that principle John reassures us of our salvation by the promise that God will answer our prayers. He says in chapter 5 vs 14 “This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us [in] whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.” Notice, John uses the same word, “confidence” in regard to prayer in this verse as he did back in chapter 3 vs 21 which we just read concerning receiving what we ask of God.
What he mens is that because we have eternal life, the life of God in us, we have the confidence, literally, the freedom, to approach the throne of God in prayer at anytime. I remember a famous photo of the President John F. Kennedy in the Oval Office. The Oval Office is probably one of the most restricted areas in the world, and yet in this photograph you could see the President’s young son playing under the desk. That young boy had the privilege of being the President’s child, and so he had unrestricted access to his father. We have that kind of confidence with our Heavenly Father, to come to Him in prayer at anytime. That freedom to come in prayer to the Father is an assurance that we are a child of God.
Not only do we have the privilege, we have the freedom to ask for whatever it is that concerns us, because we know that our Father hears us. John says if we ask anything according to His will He hears us. To hear us, means that He will grant our request. But notice that there is one caveat. The caveat is that we ask according to His will. So this is not a blanket promise that if we ask anything at all, we will get what we ask for. Many of the false teachers on television teach a name it and claim it type of so called faith that is based on a wrong understanding of this verse and others like it. They teach that if you have enough faith, God is obligated to answer your petitions in the way that you want them answered. The only condition in their minds, is your faith, or lack of faith. They teach that if you aren’t healed, or you didn’t get that new job, or whatever, it’s due to your lack of faith.
But John is clearly saying that the condition for a child of God receiving what you ask for is not faith, but is whether or not it’s God’s will. Even Jesus, the Son of God, understood that His prayers were contingent upon it being God’s will. When He was in the Garden of Eden, He prayed, “not My will, but Thy will be done.” And we know that God did not answer His prayer to let the suffering of the cross pass from Him. So if God didn’t answer even Jesus’s prayer, then we should know that God will not answer every prayer we make if it is not according to His will.
Jesus, when He taught the disciples to pray, said pray in this way, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” The Father knows what is best, not us. We often pray not knowing what God’s will is. We cannot possibly know what God’s will is in every situation. So as much as possible, we study the word of God that we might know the will of God, and then we can know how to pray in accordance with His will. But there are some things we can’t always discern from scripture as to whether or not it’s God’s will. So we pray anyhow, “if it be your will, then grant me this thing.” And then we need to be satisfied with the answer that we get.
Not every prayer that we pray receives the response that we want. So we should be ready to accept a negative answer and understand that God knows that which is good for us and good for the kingdom of God, much more than we do with our limited understanding. Even what sometimes seems to us to be not so good in the short run, may be good for the purposes of the kingdom of God from an eternal perspective. And that also means that timing is God’s prerogative. God will answer us in His timing. So we need to be content not only with His answer, but with His timing.
Now having said that, I don’t want to negate the confidence that we are to have in regards to our prayers being answered. The principle is that a further assurance of our salvation is that we have our prayers answered. So God wants to answer our prayers. The problem usually isn’t that God doesn’t want to answer them, but the problem is our prayers are asking for the wrong kind of things. We aren’t asking for things to advance the kingdom of God, to further the purpose and will of God, but instead we are asking for things to satisfy our selfish pleasures. James said in James 4:3 “You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend [it] on your pleasures.” He says in that passage that we are too consumed with the lusts of the world, rather than being concerned about the kingdom of God, and so our prayers are not answered because they are not things concerning the purposes of God.
So we are not to pray just for our personal needs or desires, but we should pray for the kingdom of God. And one of the things we should be concerned about is the spiritual life of our brothers and sisters in the Lord. That’s been a prime subject of John throughout most of this book, that we should love one another. And there is hardly any measure of love greater than to pray for one another. To pray for one another is an act of love.
John then says that as members of the family of God, we should pray for one another. And especially we should pray when we see a brother or sister committing a sin. So he gives specific instructions to that regard in vs 16; “If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not [leading] to death, he shall ask and [God] will for him give life to those who commit sin not [leading] to death. There is a sin [leading] to death; I do not say that he should make request for this.”
John has had much to say on the subject of sin in this epistle. He has spoken of it in every chapter. He’s made it clear that sin and the life of Christ are not compatible. Sin has to be dealt with, it has to be confessed, we need to be cleansed from sin. John said in chapter 1 vs 9, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
But there will be times when a Christian, who is known by the fact that he doesn’t practice sin, does indeed fall into some sin. John says in the verse immediately following 1:9 that “If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.” But there is a way to deal with sin in the life of a Christian, and that is to confess it, and be cleansed from it.
But John speaks here of a sin which is practiced, which is not confessed, which is held onto, which is cherished, which is rebellion against God. And he speaks in that context of a sin unto death. Now understand that he is not talking about the so called “unpardonable sin.” That’s a different subject for a different sermon. But he’s speaking of unconfessed sin in the life of a brother. In other words, a Christian who has fallen into sin and refuses to ask for forgiveness.
Notice first of all we are instructed to pray for a brother that sins. We often do not know the extent of the sin. We don’t know the heart of the brother who sins. We can’t be the judge and jury of someone who has fallen into sin. Our first instinct should be compassion. It should be fear. We should pray for that person who has fallen into sin. And according to the template for prayer previously given, God will answer our prayers. John says if he has not sinned a sin unto death then God will give him life.
Now this life that God gives him is not eternal life. It’s not “the life.” If this man is a brother, then he already possesses that life from God and that life is eternal. It cannot pass away. But what John is referring to is not spiritual life, but his physical life. John is saying that there is a sin not unto death, and a sin unto death. There may be a point when God decides to take that person’s life because they continue in persistent, rebellious sin and they are unrepentant. And so we pray that God will give them life.
But in the case where God has decided to take such a person, then John says that it’s not going to do any good for us to pray for that person’s life, because it’s the will of God to take his life. Now for a lot of you here this morning, this is perhaps a shocking, upsetting principle that you would maybe rather not believe is true. But nevertheless, John is laying out a Biblical principle of how God sometimes deals with erring Christians.
I say it’s Biblical, because there are a number of examples in scripture that we can see God doing that very thing. The most famous of course is that of Ananias and Sapphira, whom God struck dead in the middle of the church service. Their sin was they lied to the Holy Spirit by claiming to give an offering that they really did not fully give. They wanted to be seen to be generous and giving, but in fact had lied about how much they had received for their property. Now that sin of lying about their offering doesn’t seem nearly bad enough in my estimation to be worthy of death. But I believe God wanted to set an example right at the beginning of the church, that the gifts and the offering given to God are holy unto the Lord. So God took them because He wanted to make the church realize that He was holy and He was not to be lied to.
The Apostle Paul also referenced a severe punishment leading to death for those who willfully sin against God and do not repent. He spoke of judgment for coming to the Lord’s Supper with unrepentant sin. Paul said in 1Cor. 11:29-32 “For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep. (sleep there is a way of speaking of death for a Christian) But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world.”
One last reference I’ll give to that principle is found in the statement of Paul concerning a person in the church who had unrepentant sin. He said, in 1Cor. 5:5 “[I have decided] to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.” In other words, the man was saved, but his flesh was destroyed, yet in his spirit is saved.
I want to stress though what I said when I began this subject, that is that God sometimes brings judgment to the point of death for the unrepentant believer. I happen to think that for the most part, mercy triumphs over judgment. Thankfully, God doesn’t always strike dead the Ananias’s and Sapphira’s in the church, but rather, He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. I think if God struck down Christians every time they sinned, then it would be no time at all till we had no Christians left in the church.
But I will say that in the wisdom of God, there are times when it seems that His will is to remove a person who is willfully sinning for reasons that we don’t always understand. One possible reason might be that such a person is putting a stumbling block before to other Christians. For the protection of the greater church, God might take one away who is being a stumbling block.
I will say this, by the mercy of God, most of us don’t get what we deserve. You know, there was a time in my life when I was a young man that I had stopped living for the Lord and started living to fulfill the lusts of my flesh. Over the course of several years, I went further and further from the Lord. It was not apparent to anyone that I was a Christian, and I will confess that after a few years I started doubting my own salvation.
I had a close friend that I had gone to Christian high school with. He had grown up in a Christian household like me. And like me, he too had gone astray from the Lord. His name was Ivan. He was from a wealthy family, I was not. But otherwise, we were pretty much the same. He was no worse a sinner than I was. I was no angel. I remember one night we were driving back from a vacation at the beach, and he began to unburden his soul. He talked about how guilty he felt about things, and how he sometimes wondered if he was even saved. I was so far away from God I didn’t feel comfortable even talking to him about it too much. Eventually, I managed to change the conversation and we talked about how he was going to start a new job in a couple of weeks as an airline pilot, and how cool his new job was going to be.
That night we each went our own ways. I went back to Atlanta and continued living a life of partying and living in sin. Ivan started his new airline job. And then a couple of weeks later, I got a phone call from another friend who told me to turn on the television. There was a new story on tv about a terrible plane crash. Ivan had been on a training flight at his new job, and for reasons that are still unknown, there was an explosion in mid air and the entire flight crew were killed in the crash.
I’ve often wondered if maybe God took Ivan in order to turn me back to the Lord. I don’t really know. I know that Ivan wasn’t any worse than I was. But God in His wisdom gave me mercy and yet took my friend. I believe that tragedy did eventually serve to turn me back to God. But we don’t always understand God’s ways of accomplishing His purposes.
What John is saying is that when it comes to answered prayer, there are times when God won’t answer our prayers, even when it seems like He should. We have to trust God in such situations, and pray not my will be done, but thine. And then John reiterates the principle of sin. He says in vs 17, “All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin not [leading] to death.” And I think that’s the prevailing principle. Yes there will be times, I think rare times, when God will take the life of someone who is persisting in sin. So there is a sin unto death. But the prevailing principle is that all unrighteousness is sin and there is a sin not leading to death. God does’t strike dead everyone that sins. But yet at the same time we recognize that He is able to do so, and He is justified in doing so.
We have a recourse for sin, which does not lead to death, but leads to life. And that recourse is found in 1 John 1:9 which we quoted earlier. Let me restate it again in closing; “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Listen, I can assure you that the prayer of repentance is a prayer that God always answers. He hears our confession and forgives us, and cleanses our unrighteousness so that we might be restored to full fellowship with Him.
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