On Tuesday, our Time Out Bible Study group completes a 14-week journey in 1 John. I bless our Lord for each one of my fellow-travellers, study-buddies and friends. I can only wish you were a fly against a wall hearing and seeing the honesty, grappling, discovery, laughter and earnestness. The fellowship of kindred spirits! If you belong to such a group meeting around the living Word of God to meet Him there, you will know exactly what is meant!
Sadly, it's impossible to relate here the truths the Spirit taught us about Jesus, love, faith, glad obedience - the list goes on! Talking about lists: 1 John is one of those Bible books that fires one up to sift and organise life-changing truths in bullet-point form. How blessed then to find one of the 1 John summary lists on the Desiring God web-page. I've included a link at the end of this post.
John's aim is that Christians will be sure they are born of God.
John's second aim is that those who make false claims about knowing God, will have their
false assurances dashed and come to Christ as their atoning sacrifice.
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John Piper writes:
"I think God wants the totality of 1 John to have its impact on us. It is dominated by the concern to give “tests of life” or effects and evidences of the new birth. He gives at least eleven evidences that we are born again. We could probably boil them all down to faith and love. Here they are:
1. Those who are born of God keep his commandments.1 John 2:3-4: “By this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says ‘I know him’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him.”
1 John 3:24: “Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him.”
2. Those who are born of God walk as Christ walked.1 John 2:5-6: “By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.”
3. Those who are born of God don’t hate others but love them.1 John 2:9: “Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness.”
1 John 3:14: “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.”
1 John 4:7-8: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
1 John 4:20: “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar.”
4. Those who are born of God don’t love the world.1 John 2:15: “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”
5. Those who are born of God confess the Son and receive (have) him.1 John 2:23: “No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.”
1 John 4:15: “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.”
1 John 5:12: “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.”
6. Those who are born of God practice righteousness.1 John 2:29: “If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.”
7. Those who are born of God don’t make a practice of sinning.1 John 3:6: “No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.”
1 John 3:9-10: “No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.”
1 John 5:18: “We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him.”
8. Those who are born of God possess the Spirit of God.1 John 3:24: “By this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.”
1 John 4:13: “By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.”
9. Those who are born of God listen submissively to the apostolic Word.1 John 4:6: “We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.”
10. Those who are born of God believe that Jesus is the Christ.1 John 5:1: “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.”
11. Those who are born of God overcome the world.1 John 5:4: “Everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.”
Let's not be tempted to conclude that those who are born again have turned into sinless little gods.
1 John 1:8-10, “If we say we have no sin [present tense], we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins [present tense], he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” So John is at pains to say that “walking in the light” (1:7) does not mean walking flawlessly. It means that, when you stumble, the light of Christ causes you to see it and hate it and confess it and move forward with Christ.
Here is the link to John Piper's full transcript of his sermon on 1 John 5.
