1 John Archives - Page 3 of 6

1 John: Light

Christ Church on September 22, 2019

Introduction

As members of a fallen race, we want, we desire. What we want is the world, taken by us outside the framework of God’s character. This is worldliness. Because we want to be unrighteous in this way, but we also want the reputation of righteousness, the only solution is to deceive ourselves, to lie to ourselves. But however much we lie, we cannot cross the chasm that exists between our death and God’s life. The only way to have that life is to receive it as a gracious gift from God. But we must never forget the character of the one who gives this life—He is light.

The Text

“This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).

Summary of the Text

This passage contains one of the few succinct definitions of God as found in Scripture, where the writer tells us that God is xyz. Jesus tells the woman at the well, for example, that God is Spirit. “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24).

In this passage, we are told that God is light. Because He is light, it follows that in Him there is no darkness at all. This is not a theological triviality; John declares as integral to his message. This is the message we have heard from Him. This is the message we declare to you. God is light. This is crucial, in other words.

But this is no hard, cold, severe light. John introduced this thought in the previous verse when he said, “these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.” God is light, and those who are in fellowship with that light are happy people. Their joy is full and overflowing. To use the apostle Peter’s expression for this, it is “joy inexpressible and full of glory” (1 Pet. 1:8).

The verse following our text is a verse that emphasizes the problem of lying again. Those who claim to have fellowship with the light, while walking in darkness, are lying. They are not doing the truth.

Confession and the Light

Near the end of this short chapter, we are told that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins (the ones we confessed), and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). The word for confess is homologeo, which means to “speak the same.” Homomeans the same, and logeo is the verb to speak. To confess your sins means therefore to acknowledge your sin, freely and honestly, no spin control. Spin control is actually sin control.

The consequence of this kind of confession is that God cleanses us (katharizo) from all unrighteousness. But notice that two verses earlier, walking in the light has the same result.

“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).

If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Christ cleanses us (katharizo) from all sin.

Put This All Together

If you are not walking in the light, you are walking in the darkness. If you are walking in the darkness, you are telling yourself lies (v. 6). If you are in the darkness, you can’t see any of your own sin down in there, right? You can then tell yourself that you have no sin. But if you do that, then John says that you are deceiving yourself, and the truth is not in you. If you come into the light, if you confess your sin, then you are cleansed. Not only are you cleansed, but you are also now in fellowship with anyone else who has been cleansed (1 John 1:7).

And if your automatic reflex is to assume that you are not in fellowship with someone else because they are still walking in darkness, then you have said something that could be true, technically, but probably isn’t.

A man is walking in darkness, and his sole comfort in that dark place is something he takes for a teddy bear, his precious, which he strokes as he walks along. But it is not a teddy bear at all, but rather a ten-pound tarantula. You might wonder if such a mistake is possible, but I can assure you that it is. Remember how dark it is in there.

Confession of sin is to flip on the lights, and to walk in that light. You see the sin for what it is, and throw it away from your chest with an anguished gaaa! It is either that or a return to the darkness, and the grotesque comforts found in that darkness.

Bring It Down to Relationships

Remember that to walk in the light is to walk in the way that God is. To walk in the light, “as He is in the light,” is to walk in Christ-light. Again, you are not walking in a material impersonal substance. You are not walking in a force. You are walking in a Person. You are abiding in a Person. And what does this light look like? It looks like love, and does not look like hate. It does not taste like that acrid bitter taste in your mouth.

“Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth. He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him” (1 John 2:8–10).

But as long as you are in the darkness, you can chop definitions lengthwise, and say that you dolove her. You can say that youdolove him. Then why are youmiserable? Why are you unhappy? When you are in the dark, every word you look up in your self-justifying dictionary is pitch black. Allthe words are black down there.

Christ Light, not Christ Lite

But again, this light is a Person. Arise, O sleeper, and Christ will shineon you (Eph. 5:14). But this light . . . this light overwhelms all of our senses. It is light you can drink, like it was a cold mountain stream. It is light that fills the house with the aroma of spiritual bread baking, and then it tastes like that same bread, still hot enough to melt the butter. It is light that cascades over your head like an infinite bolt of unrolling invisible silk. It is light that is a breeze off the ocean. It is symphonic light, with an orchestra and choir made up of myriads of angels, and their billions of human understudies.

And finally it is the unapproachable light that you cannot see for brightness, and the cool clear light by which you see everything else—but especiallyyour brother and sister. If we are walking in the light, we regard no oneafter the flesh (2 Cor. 5:16). I can assure you that if you can’t see your brother and sister rightly, then what you are using for eyes need to be taken back to the worldview shop. If you see Christ, then you can see all the rest of us.

1 John: Life

Christ Church on September 15, 2019

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Introduction

We have considered the enticements of worldliness—the snare that tripped up our first parents. Those enticements are the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. When we are drawn to such things, which makes us unrighteous, and we also want to cling to our deep need to be in the right, this results in us lying to ourselves. Self-deception is a radical problem. So our dilemma is the death grip of lust and lying. The alternative, the only possible alternative, is life from the dead.

The Text

“And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life” (1 John 5:20).

Summary of the Text

The Christian gospel, the Christian life, and the Christian worldview, are all encompassed by the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Everythingrevolves around who He is, and what He did. Who is this Jesus? And what did He accomplish through His life, death, and resurrection?

What do we as Christians know? We know, in the first instance, that the Son of God is come (v. 20). We were in darkness, but He came in order to give us light. We were in ignorance, but He came to give us an understanding. And what is that understanding? He came to give us an understanding of the one who came—e.g. that we may “know him that is true” (v. 20). He came so that we might understand why He had to come. If we know this, then we know that we are in Him that is true, that is to say, in His Son the Lord Jesus Christ (v. 20). This, John says, is the true God, and this, John says, is eternal life (v. 20). And he could add to this, if he wanted to, “but I repeat myself.” This is the true God. This is eternal life. They are not side by side—they are the same thing. The true and living God is our life.

Life Came Down

When the living God came down to us, lifecame down to us. Not only so, but this life has been mediated to us in a particular way.

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;)” (1 John 1:1–2).

So the Word of life came down, and the apostles touched Him, and handled Him. This life was manifested to them, and they saw it. Having seen it, they bore witness to the life, and the result of this witness, this testimony, is that eternal life is shown to us. The life comes down from Heaven and is manifested. That is step one. This eternal life is seen and testified to. That is step two. This life that came down from Heaven also comes down through the centuries. The power of the Incarnation was the Holy Spirit of God. The power of apostolic witness and testimony is also the Holy Spirit of God.

“And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life” (1 John 2:25).

We are recipients of promises, and so it is that we are trafficking in certainties (1 John 5:13).

Airy Fairy?

Now for some, this seems like it is all “long ago and far away.” So somebody appeared to some ancient guys way back then, who then made some outlandish claims about it? How convenient that it all happened two thousand years ago. And so the question presses in on us—how can we be sure about this so-called “life”?

But I would suggest that we start somewhere else. Let’s start with something we have a lot more experience with, and which is empirically demonstrable. Let us start with the raw fact of death. As Chesterton points out somewhere, original sin is the one doctrine of the Christian faith that can be empirically shown. Open a news site on your browser. Can’t you read?

“We know that we have passed from deathunto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brotheris a murderer: and ye know that no murdererhath eternal life abiding in him. Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (1 John 3:14–16).

Before we discuss the eternal life that was manifestedin the Incarnation and is manifestedin the proclamation of the gospel, we need to make we understand the backdrop. That backdrop is the indisputable fact that we surrounded by death on every hand. We were born into it, and the death of selfishness is the air we breathe. The human race is bent and crooked timber, and we cannot build a straight house with it. So we are not arbitrarily saying that our little mystery religion is “special,” a claim made by all the other mystery cults. Sure. Claim and counterclaim. But we are not claiming to have the secret cheat codes of the cosmos (doctrine x as opposed to doctrine y). Rather, we are claiming something else entirely, something which, if true, cannot be denied by anybody. We are claiming to be alive. We have been born again. God has granted us the glorious miracle of the new birth.

The New Birth as Real Certainty

This is what it actually means to be evangelical. It means to be quickened. It means life.

“And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may knowthat ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God” (1 John 5:11–13).

This life is not impersonal. This is not some kind of spiritual joy juice. Remember our text. This is the true God, this is eternal life. And in the verse just cited it says that this life is in his Son.

1 John: Liar

Christ Church on September 9, 2019

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Introduction

We should all know that it is a sin to lie. Perjury is, after all, prohibited by the ninth commandment (Ex. 20:16). The Colossians were told not to lie to one another, now that they had put off the old man with his deeds (Col. 3:9). And we are told that the lake of fire is reserved for liars, among a number of others (Rev. 21:8). So we know that lying is a sin. But it is less well known that lying is foundationally about sin.

The Text

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:8–10).

Summary of the Text

It is a lie to say that you mailed the check when you know good and well that you did not mail the check. That is a lie simpliciter. But there is another kind of lie, a deeper lie, a more foundational lie. And that is the prior lie that you have to tell yourself, convincing yourself that you are not sinning, that you are not lying. The truth is not in the person who lies to himself, even though part of him knows what the truth is.

A person who says he has no sin deceives himself (v. 8). Now how is it possible for one part of us to lie to another part of us, and, on top of that, to have us buy it? How do we dothat? Scripture teaches us about self-deception elsewhere, and we are taught that one way it happens is by copping a religious pose while not bridling your tongue (Jas. 1:26). Another way is through listening to good teaching without actually doing any of it (Jas. 1:22).

Now of course if we confess our sins (the opposite of lying about them), then God forgives us and cleanses us because He is faithful and just (v. 9). But if He says that we have sinned, and we claim that we have not sinned, then in effect we are accusing Him of being a liar (v. 10). If that is the case, then the truth is not in us.

Lying About Our Own Performance

Because we were created as God’s image-bearers, we have a deep need to believe ourselves to be righteous. But because we have, with our first parents, tumbled into the chaos of sin, we are notin fact righteous. Put those two realities together—a deep need to be righteous, to be in the right, coupled with the fact that we are profoundly unrighteous. What is the result? Self-deception is the result.

“He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1 John 2:4).

Bitterness Tells Lies as Well

If your internal dialog frequently starts out like this: “I am not bitter . . . I just want to . . .” then you almost certainly have a problem. The problem is called “going to Hell.”

“If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” (1 John 4:20).

The Definition of Sin

Now if lying is fundamentally about our own sin, you can see why we would have an interest in tinkering with the definitions. Adjusting the definition of sin is a great way to tell yourself these pretty little lies.

Absolute righteousness is established by the way God is. “But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God” (John 3:21). “This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). The holiness of God’s character is itself the ultimate law, and any deviation from this character is what all sin actually is. “Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4, ESV).

Remember that we have already defined worldliness as the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life (1 John 2:15-17). Remember also that when Eve was dazzled by these things, she was deceivedabout them. “But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ” (2 Cor. 11:3, ESV).

The Unveiled Word

Sin is our problem, and Christ is our salvation from that problem. This means that it is not possible to be deceived about the nature of your sin without simultaneously being deceived about Christ.

“He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son” (1 John 5:10).

Sin is revealed whenever Christ is revealed. Sin lies hidden whenever Christ is veiled. And this is why so much of the Church lies in a mass of confusions, stupefied by the world’s lies. This is why so many Christians worship at Ichabod Memorial. The glory has departed from the Church, but it is in the interest of clerics and professional religionists to prevent awareness of this from getting around. So they take the correct-on-paper gospel and smother it with academic jargon, or with soothing therapeutic whispers. This is nothing but a veiling of the gospel, and it is done for the same reason Moses had to do it. But we are not called to this. “It is not for us to use veiled language, as Moses veiled his face” (2 Cor. 3:13, Knox).

1 John: Lust

Christ Church on September 1, 2019

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Introduction

We are beginning a short series of sermons in 1 John, but of a topical nature. Although the messages will revolve around particular topics, I believe that when we are done, we will have apprehended the larger message of the book via a somewhat different route. So over the next few weeks I would like to ask you to read and reread this short letter, and with the following words in mind. As it happened, they all begin with the letter L, but thatwas more or less an accident. The words we will be considering are lust, liar, life, light, and love.

The Text

“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever” (1 John 2:15–17).

Summary of the Text

We are sometimes tempted to think that certain verbs are inherently virtuous. But the virtue or vice in any transitive verb is found first in the direct object, and secondly in the adverb. Take the verb love, for instance. Whatdo you love, and howare you loving? In our text here, we are directly commanded notto love the world. Not only so, but the verb is that world-famous Greek verb, agapao. Do not love the world, John say, or the things in the world (v. 15). This kind of prohibited love is exclusionary. If a man has it, then he does not have the love of the Father in him (v. 15). No man can serve two masters—one will expel the other. John then gives us a list of the things that are in the world, the things that he had in mind with his earlier prohibition. First is the lust of the flesh (v. 16), then the lust of the eyes (v. 16), and then third, the pride of life (v. 16). These are not of the Father, but rather of the world (v. 16). This is why the one excludes the other. The world is transient, it passes away. The lusts within the world are also transient, and they too pass away (v. 17). But the one who does the will of God abides forever (v. 17).

The Heart of Worldliness

So these three things are what characterize the world, in the sense John is using it here, and taken together, they are the very definition of worldliness. So in order to have worldliness, you do not need Times Square bedecked in neon, or downtown Babylon, or Vanity Fair. All you need is one prohibited tree. Please note the italics.

“For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2:16).

“And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat” (Gen. 3:6).

Lust

When we use the word lust, we usually mean desire in the sexual sense. And while John would include that sense, he is not limiting it that way here.

The World We Are Not to Love

Now of course, we know from the most famous verse in the Bible that God loves the world (John 3:16). We see the same thing repeated in 1 John (1 John 2:2; 4:9). Christ is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world.

But there is a world system, still sunk in sin, and that system of worldliness has certain characteristics. First, it passes away (1 John 2:17). The world does not recognize us as the sons of God, and they fail at this because they did not recognize the Lord for who He was (1 John 3:1; 4:17). The world hates genuine believers (1 John 3:13). The world is filled up with lying prophets (1 John 4:1). The world has the spirit of antichrist, which denies the Incarnation (1 John 4:3). The world listens to its own (1 John 4:5).

The world is overmastered by believers, who have the great God within them (1 John 4:4). And the world is overcome or conquered by us, using the instrumentality of faith (1 John 5:4).

The Great Sin of Worldliness

When it comes to moral theology, it is a commonplace to say that the cardinal sin is the sin of pride. And considered from a certain vantage point, I believe that this is certainly true. But if we zoom out, and consider our lot as interconnected individuals, I would want to say that the cardinal sin is that of worldliness. Worldliness is our mortal enemy because it pits one rule against another—the rule of God in Christ over against the rule of whatever is in fashion according to the regnant non-Christs. The biblical view of our view here is binary. There are two roads you can walk, and only two. There are two tables you may eat from, and only two. There are two houses where you may live, and only two. They are Christ and the world. And if you get to know Christ well, you will recognize the world in an instant, whatever get-up she put on this time.

“Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4).

When John writes to us about turning away from lust, he is talking about a lust for respectability—and it is a respectability that always make room for a little sin on the side. Sin is included in the annual budget. Some of it is out in the open, some of it is tolerated with a wink and a nod.

The alternative is Christ. Always Christ, and only Christ.

The Christmas Gift

Christ Church on December 16, 2018

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Introduction

Our celebration of Christmas is all about the arrival of the one who was given to us. For unto us a Son is given (Is. 9:6). The Christ was given. God so loved the world that He gave. In Isaiah’s promise, there are two words that are repeated twice, and they emphasize the reality of God’s great gift. Those words are unto us.

The Text

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

“And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16).

Summary of the Text

John tells us that God gave us His only begotten Son because He loved the world. He did it so that anyone who believed in that Son should not perish, should be delivered from the wrath that was already resting upon him, and could be ushered into everlasting life. But this love that God has for the world is not something He decided to do on a whim. God’s love for the world proceeds from the way He is. It proceeds from His ultimate and everlasting character. The love that God extends to the world (John 3:16) is the same love that we have known and believed in, the love that God has to us (1 John 4:16). And what kind of love is that. John tells us that God is love, and so it follows that the one who lives in love is living in God, and the one who lives in love has God living in him. But note the potency of that phrase—God islove.

Deep Error from Shallow Hearts

Before we are converted to God through Christ, we tend to veer in one of two directions. Whenever we conceive of ultimate reality, we either imagine unity at the top or we imagine plurality at the top. If the former, then we go in the direction of some form of Unitarianism—it could be Deism, it could be Islam, or it could be the generic God of American civic religion. The god at the top of this system is a solitary monad, the ultimate hermit god, the greatest bachelor.

The other direction is to assume some sort of multiplicity at the top. This reduces to some form of polytheism—many gods. And because each of these gods is contained by the cosmos, by the “whole show,” over time that cosmos in its entirety tends to assume the place of ultimacy, which has a tendency toward pantheism.

These two ways of thinking have a political expression as well. The Unitarianism system is a model of the cosmos that is a “tower of power,” and so the political arrangement that reflects this (remember that we become like what we worship) is authoritarian. The political arrangement that reflects polytheism is called pluralism. There is usually a hidden unity in the system somewhere, but on the surface we have many voices, many laws, many gods.

The unbelieving mind is incapable of resolving the problem of the one and the many. Which is ultimate? Unity or plurality?

God Is Love

When the early church was battling through the various controversies surrounding the Trinity, and then surrounding the relationship of the human and the divine in the Lord Jesus Christ, these were weighty controversies—they were notnontroversies.

Prior to the creation of the world, when there was nothing but God, how was it possible to say that God islove? How can we possibly claim that love is an aspect of God’s essential character? If there is no one else, if God is simply an ultimate solitary being, there can be no Beloved. If there is no Beloved, then God didn’t start loving until He created the world, and He needed to create the world in order to start loving. This would mean that He was dependent on something external to Himself in order to be love—which is intolerable. God islove.

God So Loved

Biblically defined, love means revealing yourself and it means giving yourself. When God loved the world, what did He do? He gave. What did He give? He gave His only begotten Son. The word here is monogenes, and the clear implication is that He gave Himself. But then what did He do? This is also important. He toldus about it. So God gave us Jesus, so that we could have everlasting life. And then God gave us John 3:16, to tellus that He had given Jesus so that we could have everlasting life. God gave us Himself, and then God revealed Himself.

These gifts are not offered to us insteadof Himself.

An Aside About Christmas Presents

Why do we give presents at Christmas? What is that all about? What we are doing is celebrating the greatest gift ever given: “Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift” (2 Cor. 9:15). The gift that God gave to us was ineffable, indescribable, beyond all mortal calculation. Giftis the hinge upon which all human history turns. Gift is the meaning of everything. Grace provides the meaning of life.

In the beginning, God gave us a perfect world in the first instance, which we promptly wrecked in our insolence and rebellion. So then God undertook to repair that cosmos, making it much more glorious than it had been before, and He did this by bearing the penalty of sin Himself. This is how He gave Himself, and the Christmas message reveals how He gave Himself.

When you are shopping for presents, you are imitating that. When you buy a present for someone, you are not doing it so they will leave you alone for another year, or at least until their birthday. No, you are giving a token that represents you, that reveals you, that gives you.

Nicea and Chalcedon

Nicea testifies to the truth that God is love. If the eternal Word is God, then God loves His Son eternally, which means that God is love. It cannot be any other way. Love is not an add-on extra. Love is an essential part of who God is. The Father loves the Son eternally. The Son loves the Father eternally. Their mutual infinite love is Himself an infinite person, the Holy Spirit of God. This is why the Spirit is described as the Spirit of God, and as the Spirit of Christ.

And Chalcedon means that that the God who is love is that love unto us. And as recipients of that love, what are we to do? Returning to the text, we are to dwell in the love He has bestowed, which is how we are enabled to dwell in Him. When we dwell in His love, we dwell in Him, and when we dwell in Him, He dwells in us.