1 John 4

A third proof of our Christian privileges arises here. The Spirit whom He has given us is the proof that He Himself dwells in us; the manifestation of the presence of God in us. He does not add that we abide in Him, because the subject here is the manifestation of the presence of God. The presence of the Spirit demonstrates it, but in abiding in Him there is the enjoyment of that which He is, and, consequently, moral communion with His nature. He who obeys enjoys this also, as we have seen; but the presence of the Holy Ghost in us is the demonstration of only the half of this truth. But when this manifestation of the divine nature is seen in us; according to grace and according to the powers of the Spirit, then we know that we are in communion with that nature, that we dwell also in Him from whom we derive these graces and all the spiritual forms of that nature in practical life. It is in verses 12 and 13, chap. 4 that our apostle speaks of this.
Practical righteousness, the love of the brethren, the manifestation of the Spirit of God-these are the proofs of our relationship to God. Practical righteousness, that we dwell in Him; the Spirit, that He dwells in us.
Now to make use of this last proof caution was required, for many false prophets would assume, and even in the time of the apostle had already assumed, the semblance of having received communications from the Spirit of God, and insinuated themselves among the Christians. It was necessary, therefore, to put them on their guard, by giving them the sure marks of the real Spirit of God. The first of these was the confession of Jesus come in the flesh. It is not merely to confess that He is come, but to confess Him thus come. The second was, that he who really knew God hearkened to the apostles. In this way, the writings of the apostles became a touchstone for those who pretend to, teach the church. All the Word is so, doubtless; but I confine myself here to that which is said in this place. The teaching of the Apostles is formally a touchstone for all other teaching. I mean that which they themselves taught immediately. If any one tells me that others must explain or develop it, I reply "You are not of God, for he who is of God hearkens to them, and you: would have me not to hearken to them, and whatever may be your pretext, you prevent my doing so." The denial of Jesus come in the flesh is the spirit of Antichrist. Not to hear the apostles is the provisional and preparatory form of the evil. True, Christians had overcome the spirit of error by the Spirit of God, who dwelt in them.
The three tests of true Christianity are now distinctly laid down, and the apostle pursues his exhortations, developing the fullness and intimacy of our relationships with a God of love.
Love is of God, and he who loves is born of God, -partakes therefore of His nature and knows him (for it is by faith that he received it). He who loves not does not know God. We must possess the nature that loves in order to know what love is. He, then, who does not love does not know God, for God is love. Such a person has not one sentiment in connection with the nature of God, how then can he know him? No more than an animal can know what a man’s mind and understanding is when he has not got it. Give especial heed, reader, - to this immense prerogative, which flows from the whole doctrine of the epistle. The eternal Life, which was with the Father, has been manifested and has been imparted to us: thus; we are partakers of the divine nature. The affections of that nature, acting in us by the powers of the Holy. Ghost, in communion with God, who is its source, place us in such a relationship with Him that we dwell in Him and He in us. The actings of this nature prove that He dwells in us. We know at the same time that we dwell in Him, because He has given us of His Spirit. But this passage, so rich in blessing, demands that we should follow it with order.
He begins with the fact that love is of God. It is His nature; He is its source. Therefore he who loves is born of God, is a partaker of His nature. Also, he knows God, for he knows what love is, and who is its fullness. This is the doctrine which makes everything depend on our participation in the divine nature.
Now this might be transformed into mysticism, by leading us to fix our attention on our love for God and by seeking to fathom the divine nature in ourselves. In effect, he who does not love (for the thing is expressed in an abstract way), does not know God, for God is love. The possession of the nature is necessary to the understanding of what that nature is, and for the knowledge of Him, who is its perfection. But it is not to the existence of the nature in us that the Spirit of God directs the thoughts of the believers as their object. God, He has said, is love; and this love has been manifested towards us in that He has given His only Son, that we might believe through Him. The proof is not the life in us, but that God has given His Son in order that we might live. God be praised! we know this love, not by the poor results of its action in ourselves, but in its perfection in God, and that even in its manifestation towards us. It is a fact outside ourselves which is the manifestation of this perfect love.
The full scope of this principle and all the force of its truth are stated and demonstrated yet more plainly in that which follows. Herein is love, not that we have loved God, but in that He has loved us and has given His Son to make propitiation for our sins. Here, then, it is, that we have learned that which love is. It was perfect in Him when we had no love for Him. Perfect in Him, in that He exercised it towards us when we were in our sins and sent his Son to be the propitiation for them. The apostle then affirms, no doubt, that he who loves not knows not God. The pretension to possess this love is judged by this means; but in order to know love we must not seek for it in ourselves, but must see it manifested in God when we had none. He gives the life which loves, and He has made propitiation for our sins.
And now with regard to the enjoyment and the privileges of this love. If God has so loved us-this is the ground he takes - we ought to love one another.
No one has ever seen God: if we love one another God dwells in us. One can understand this. How is it that I love strangers from another land, persons of different habits whom I have never known, more intimately than members of my own family after the flesh? How is it that I have thoughts in common, objects infinitely loved in common, affections powerfully engaged, a stronger bond, with persons whom I have never seen, than with the otherwise dear companions of my childhood? It is because there is in them and in me a source of thoughts and of affections which is not human. God is in it. God dwells in us. What happiness! What a bond! Does He not communicate Himself to the soul? Does He not render it conscious of His presence in love? Assuredly, yes. And if He is thus in us, the blessed source of our thoughts, can there be fear, or distance, or uncertainty, with regard to what he is? None at all. His love is perfect in us. We know Him as love in our souls.
The apostle has not yet said "We know that we dwell in Him." He will say it now. But, if the love of the brethren is in us, God dwells in us. When it is in exercise, we are conscious of the presence of God, as perfect love in us. It fills the heart, and thus is exercised in us. Now this is the effect of the presence of His Spirit as the source and power of life and nature in us. He has given us not “His Spirit," the proof that He dwells in us, but “of His Spirit; “we participate by His presence in us, in divine affections through the Spirit, and thus we not only know that He dwells in us, but the presence of the Spirit, acting in a nature which is that of God in us, makes us conscious that we dwell in Him.
The heart rests in this, and enjoys Him, and is hidden from all that is outside Him, in the consciousness of the perfect love in which (thus dwelling in Him), one finds oneself. The Spirit makes us dwell in God and gives us thus the consciousness that He dwells in us.
If we compare ver. 12 of this chapter (4) with ver. 18, chap. 1 of the gospel by John, we shall better apprehend the scope of the Apostle’s teaching here. The same difficulty, or, if you will, the same. truth, is possessed in both cases. No one has ever seen God. How is this met? In John 1:18, the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. He, who in the most perfect intimacy, in the most absolute proximity, and as the one, eternal, absorbing object that knew the love of the Father as His only Son, has revealed Him unto us as He has Himself known Him. What is the answer in our epistle to this same difficulty? “If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and His love is perfected in us." By the communication of the divine nature and by the dwelling of God in us, we inwardly enjoy Him, as He has been manifested and declared by His only Son. His love is perfect in us; known to the heart, as it has been declared in Jesus. The God who has been declared by Him dwells in us. What a thought! that this answer to the fact that no one has ever seen God, is equally that the only Son has declared Him, and that He dwells in us. What light this throws upon the words “Which thing is true in Him and in you!" for it is in that Christ has become our life, that we can thus enjoy God and His presence in us by the powers of the Holy Ghost.
We see also the distinction between God dwelling in us and we in God, even in that which Christ says of Himself. He abode always in the Father and the Father in Him; but He says “The Father who dwelleth in me, He doeth the works." Through His word the disciples ought to have believed in them both; but in that which they had seen -in His works-they had rather seen the proof that the Father dwelt in Him. They who had seen Him had seen the Father. But when the Comforter was come, at that day they should know that Jesus was in His Father - divinely one with the Father.
He does not say that we are in God nor in the Father, but that we dwell in Him, and that we know it, because He has given us of His Spirit. We have already noticed that He says (3:24) hereby we know that He (God) abideth in us because He has given us His Spirit. Here he adds, we know that we dwell in God, because it is-not the manifestation, as a proof, but-communion with God Himself. We know that we dwell in Him always, as a precious truth-an unchangeable fact. Sensibly, when his love is active in the heart. Consequently, it is to this activity that the Apostle immediately turns, by adding, "and we have seen and do testify, that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world." This was the proof, for every one, of that love which the Apostle enjoyed-as all believers do-in his own heart. It is important to notice how the passage thus first presents the fact of God’s dwelling with us, then the effect, as He is infinite, of our dwelling in Him, and then the realization of the first truth, in conscious reality of life.
And here comes in a principle of deep importance. It might, perhaps, be said that this dwelling of God in us and our dwelling in Him, depended on a large measure of spirituality, the Apostle having, in fact, spoken of the highest possible joy. But although the degree in which we intelligently realize it is, in effect, a matter of spirituality, yet the thing in itself is the portion of every Christian. It is our position, because Christ is our life and because the Holy Ghost is given us. "Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him and he in God." How great the grace of the Gospel! How admirable our position, because it is in Jesus that we possess it.
The Apostle explains this high position by the possession of the divine nature- the essential condition of Christianity. A Christian is one who is a partaker of the divine nature. But the knowledge of our position ‘does not flow from the consideration of this truth, but of that of God’s own love, as we have already seen. And the Apostle goes on to say “We have known and believed the love that God hath to us." This is the source of our knowledge and enjoyment of these privileges, so sweet and so marvelously exalted, but so simple and so real to the heart when they are known.
We have known love, the love that God has for us, and we have believed it. Precious knowledge! by possessing it we know God; for it is thus that He has manifested Himself. Therefore can we say, “God is love." There is none besides. Himself is love. He is love in all its fullness. He is not holiness, He is holy; but He is love. He is not righteousness; He is righteous.
By dwelling, then in love, I dwell in Him, which I could not do unless He dwelt in me, and this He does. Here he puts it first, that we dwell in Him, because it is God Himself who is before our eyes, as the love in which we dwell. Therefore, when thinking of this love, I say that I dwell in Him, because I have in my heart the consciousness of it by the Spirit. At the same time, this love is an active, energetic principle in us, it is God Himself who is there. This is the joy of our position-the position of every Christian.
Verses 14 and 16 present the twofold effect of the manifestation of this love.
First. The testimony that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Quite outside the promises made to the Jews (as everywhere in John), this work is the fruit of that which God Himself is. Accordingly, whosoever confesses Jesus to be that Son, enjoys all the fullness of its blessed consequences.
Second. The Christian has believed for himself in this love, and he enjoys it according to its fullness. There is only this modification of the expression of the glorious fact of our portion-that the confession of Jesus as the Son of God is primarily here the proof that God dwells in us, although the other part of the truth equally says that he who confesses Him dwells also in God.
When speaking of our portion in communion, as believing in this love, it is said, that he who dwells in
love dwells in God; for, in effect, that is where the heart is. Here, also, the other part of the truth is equally true, God dwells in him likewise.
I have spoken of the consciousness of this dwelling in God, for it is thus only that it is known. But it is important to remember, that the Apostle teaches it as a truth that applies to every believer. These might have excused themselves for not appropriating these statements as too high for them; but this fact judges the excuse. This communion is neglected. But God dwells in every one who confesses that Jesus is Son of God, and he in God. What an encouragement for a timid believer. What a rebuke for a careless one. The Apostle returns to our relative position, viewing God as outside ourselves, as He before whom we are to appear, and with whom we have always to do. Herein is love perfect with us (in order that we may have boldness for the day of judgment), namely, that as He is, such are we in this world. In effect, what could give us a more complete assurance for that day than to be as Jesus himself. He who will judge in righteousness is our righteousness. We are in Him the righteousness according to which He will judge. Truly this can give us perfect peace. But observe that it is not as representing us before God that this is here said, but as having Christ for our life, and as being livingly identified with Him.
Now in love there is no fear: there is confidence. If I am sure that a person loves me I do not fear him. If I am only desiring to be the object of his affection,’ I may fear that I am not so, and may even fear himself. Nevertheless, this fear would always tend to destroy my love for him and my desire to be loved by him. There, is incompatibility between the two affections-there is no fear in love. Perfect love, then, banishes fear; for fear torments us, and torment is not the enjoyment of love. He, therefore, who fears does not know perfect love. And now what does he mean by “perfect love "? It is the consciousness.in the heart of that which God is, by His presence in us, so that we dwell in Him. The positive proof is that we are such as Christ is. But that which we enjoy is God, who is love, and we enjoy Him because He is in us; so that love and confidence are in our hearts; and we have rest. That which I know of God is that He is love and love to me, and nothing else but love to me, because it is Himself who is so. Therefore there is no fear.
If we inquire practically into the history, so to speak, of these affections - if we seek to separate that which in its enjoyment is united, because the divine nature in us, which is love, enjoys love in its perfection in God, His love shed abroad in the heart by his presence, therefore we wish to specify the relationship in which our hearts find themselves with God in regard to this-here it is, “we love him because he first loved us." It is grace and it must be grace, because it is God who is to be glorified.
Here it will be worth our while to notice the order of this remarkable passage (7-10). We possess the nature of God, consequently we love; we are born of Him and we know him. But the manifestation of love towards us in Christ Jesus is the proof of that love; it is thus that we know it (11-16); we enjoy it by dwelling in it. It is present life in the love of God, by the presence of His Spirit in us; the enjoyment of that love by communion, in that God dwells in us, and we thus dwell in Him (17); His love is perfected with us; the perfection of that love, viewed in the place that it has given us-we are, in this world, such as Christ is (18, 19); it is thus fully perfected with us-love to sinners, communion, perfection before God, gives us the moral and characteristic elements of that love, what it is in our relationship with God.
In the first passage, where the Apostle speaks of the manifestation of this love, he does not go beyond the fact that one who loves is born of God. The nature of God, which is love, being in us, lie who loves knows Him, for he is born of Him, has His nature and realizes what it is.
It is that which God has been with regard to the sinner, which demonstrates His nature of love. Afterward, that which we learned as sinners, we enjoy as saints. The perfect love of God is shed abroad in the heart, and we dwell in Him. As already with Jesus in this world, fear has no place in one to whom the love of God is a dwelling-place and rest.
Verse 20. The reality of our love to God, fruit of His love to us, is now tested. If we say that we love God and do not love the brethren, we are liars; for if the divine nature so near us (in them), does not awaken our spiritual affections, how then can he who is afar off do so? Accordingly, this is His commandment, that he who loves God, love his brother also.
Love for the brethren proves the reality of our love for God. And this love must be universal, must be in exercise towards all Christians, for whosoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God; and he who loves a person will love one who is born of him. And if the being born of him is the motive, we shall love all that are born of him.
But a danger exists on the other side. It may be, that we love the brethren because they are pleasant to us; they furnish us with agreeable society, in which our conscience is not wounded. A counter proof is therefore given us. “Hereby we know that we love the children of God, if we love God and keep his commandments." It is not as children of God that I love the brethren, unless I love God, of whom they are born. I may love them individually as companions, or I may love some among them, but not as the children of God, if I do not love God Himself. If God Himself has not His true place in my heart, that which bears the name of love to the brethren shuts out God; and that in so much the more complete and subtle a manner, because our link with them bears the sacred name of brotherly love.
Now there is a touchstone even for this love of God, namely, obedience to His commands. If I walk with the brethren themselves in disobedience to their Father, it is certainly not because they are His children that I love them. It was because I loved the Father and because they were His children, I should assuredly like them to obey Him. To walk then in disobedience with the children of God, under the pretext of brotherly love, is not to love them as the children of God. If I loved them as such, I should love their Father and my Father, and I could not walk in disobedience to Him, and call it a proof that I loved them because they were His.
If I also loved them because they were His children, I should love all who are such, because the same motive engages me to love them all.
The universality of this love with regard to all the children of God: its exercise in practical obedience to His will: these are the marks of true brotherly love. That which has not these marks is a mere carnal party spirit, clothing itself with the name and the forms of brotherly love. Most certainly I do not love the Father, if I encourage His children in disobedience to him.
Now there is an obstacle to this obedience, and that is the world. The world has its forms, which are very far from obedience to God. When we are occupied only with Him and His will, the world’s enmity soon breaks out. It also acts, by its comforts and its delights, on the heart of man as walking after the flesh. In short, the world and the commandments of God are in opposition to each other; but the commandments of God are not grievous to those who are born of Him, for he who is born of God overcomes the world. He possesses a nature and a principle which surmount the difficulties that the world opposes to his walk. His nature is the divine nature, for he is born of God; his principle is that of faith. His nature is insensible to the attractions which this world offers to the flesh, and that because it has outside this world an independent spirit, an object of its own, which governs it. Faith directs its steps, but faith does not see the world nor that which is present. Faith believes that Jesus, whom the world rejected, is the Son of God. The world, therefore, has lost its power over it. Its affections and its trust are fixed on Jesus, who was crucified, owning Him as the Son of God. Thus the believer, detached from the world, has the boldness of obedience, and does the will of God which abides forever.
The Apostle sums up in a few words the testimony of God respecting the life eternal which He has given us. This life is not in the first Adam, it is in the second- in the Son of God. Man does not possess it, does not acquire it. He ought, indeed, to have gained’ life under the law. This characterized it, "Do this and live." But man did not and could not.
God gives him eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life, and he who has not the Son, has not life.
Now what is the testimony rendered to this gift of life eternal? The witnesses are three: the Spirit, the water and the blood. This Jesus, the Son of God, is he who came by water and by blood. Not by water only, but -by water and by blood. The Spirit also bears witness because He is truth. That to which they bear witness is that God has given us eternal life, and that this life is in His Son. But whence did this water and this blood flow? It was from the pierced side of Jesus. It is the judgment of death pronounced and executed (compare Rom. 8:3), on the flesh, on all that is of the old man, on the first Adam. Not that the sin of the first Adam was in the flesh of Christ, but that Jesus died in it as a sacrifice for that sin. “In that He died, He died unto sin once." Sin in the flesh was condemned in the death of Christ in the flesh. There was no other remedy. The flesh could not be modified nor subjected to the law. The life of the first Adam was nothing but sin in the principle of its will;, it could not be subject to the law. Our purification as to the old man is its death. He who is dead is freed from sin. We are, therefore, baptized to have part in the death of Jesus. We are crucified with Christ, nevertheless we live, but not we, it is Christ who lives in us. Participating in the life of Christ risen, we reckon ourselves as dead with Him, for why live of this new life, this life of the second Adam, if we could live before God in the life of the first Adam? No; by living in Christ we have accepted, by faith, the sentence of death, passed by God on the first Adam. This is Christian purification: even the death of the old man, because we are made partakers of life in Christ Jesus. "We are dead," crucified with Him. We need a perfect purification before God-we have it for that which was impure no longer exists.
He came by water-a powerful testimony, as flowing from the side of a dead Christ, that life is not to be sought for in the first Adam; for Christ, as associated with him, taking up his cause, the Christ come in the flesh, had to die, else he had remained alone in His own purity. Life is to be sought for in the Son of God risen from among the dead.
But it was not by water only that He came; it was also by blood. The expiation of our sins was as necessary as the moral purification of our souls. We possess it in the blood of a slain Christ. Death alone could expiate them, blot them out. And Jesus died for us. The guilt of the believer no longer exists before God; Christ has put Himself in his place. The Life is on high, and we are raised up together with Him, God having forgiven us all our trespasses.
The third witness is the Spirit-put first in the order of their testimony on earth; last, in their historic order. In effect, it is the testimony of the Spirit, His presence in us, which enables us to appreciate the value of the water and the blood. We should never have understood the practical bearing of the death of Christ, if the Holy Ghost were not a revealing power to the new man, of its import and its efficacy. Now, the Holy Ghost came down from a risen and ascended Christ; and thus we know that eternal life is given us in the Son of God.
The testimony of these three witnesses meet together in this same truth, namely, that grace, that God Himself, has given us eternal life; and that this life is in the Son. Man had nothing to do in it -except by his sins. It is the gift of God. And the life that, He gives is in the Son. The testimony is the testimony of God. How blessed to have such a testimony, and that from God Himself, and in perfect grace!
We have, then, the three things: the cleansing, the expiation, and the presence of the Holy Ghost as a witness that eternal life is given us in the Son who was slain for man when in relationship with man here below. He could but die for man as he is. Life is elsewhere, namely, in Himself.
Here the doctrine of the epistle ends. The apostle wrote these things in order that they who believed in the Son might know that they had eternal life. He does not give means of examination to make the faithful doubt whether they had eternal life; but-seeing that there were seducers who endeavored to turn them aside as deficient in something important, and who presented themselves as possessing some superior light,-he points out to them the marks of life, in order to reassure them; developing the excellence of that life, and of their position as enjoying it; and in order they might understand that. God had given it to them, and that they might be in no wise shaken in mind.
He then speaks of the practical confidence in God which flows from all this-confidence exercised with a view to all our wants here below, all that our hearts desire to ask of God.
We know that He always listens to everything that we ask in accordance with His will. Precious privilege! The Christian himself would not desire anything to be granted him that was contrary to the will of God. But for everything that is according to His will, His ear is ever open to us, ever attentive. He always hearkens. He is not like man, often occupied so that He cannot listen, or careless, so that He will not. God always hears us, and assuredly He does not fail in power: the attention He pays us is a proof of His good-will. We receive, therefore, the things that we ask of Him. He grants our requests. What a sweet relationship! What a high privilege! and it is one also of which we may avail ourselves in charity for others.
If a brother sins, and God chastises Him, we may petition for that brother, and life shall be restored Chastisement tends to the death of the body (compare Job 33, and 36, and James 5:14 and 15); we pray for the offender, and he is healed. Otherwise, the sickness takes its course. All unrighteousness is sin, and there is such sin as is unto death. This does not seem to me to be some particular sin, but all sin which has such a character, that, instead of awakening Christian charity, it awakens Christian indignation. Thus, Ananias and Sapphira committed a sin unto death. It was a lie; but a lie under such circumstances, that it excited horror rather than compassion. We can easily understand this in other cases.
Thus far, as to sin and its chastisement. But the positive side is also brought before us. As born of God, we do not commit sin at all; we keep ourselves, and the wicked one toucheth us not. He has nothing wherewith to entice the new man. The enemy has no objects of attraction to the divine nature in us, which is occupied, by the action of the Holy Ghost, with divine and heavenly things, or with the will of God. Our part, therefore, is so to live, -the new man occupied with the things of God and of the Spirit.
The apostle ends his epistle by specifying these two things: our nature, our mode of being as Christians; and, the object that has been communicated to us, in order to produce, and to nourish faith.
We know that we are of God; and that, not in a vague way, but in contrast with all that is not us-a principle of immense importance, which makes Christian position exclusive by its very nature. It is not merely good, or bad, or better; but it is of God. And nothing which is not of God, that is to say, which has not its origin in Him, could have this character and this place. The whole world lies in the wicked one.
The Christian has the certainty of these two things, by virtue of his nature, which discerns and knows that which is of God, and thereby judges all that is opposed to it. The two are not merely good and bad, but of God and of the enemy. This as to the nature.
With regard to the object of this nature, we know that the Son of God is come-a truth of immense importance also. It is not merely that there is good, and that there is evil; but the Son of God has Himself come into this scene of misery, to present an object to our hearts. But there is more than this. He has given us an understanding that in the midst of all the falsehood of this world, of which Satan is the prince, we may know Him that is true-the true One. Immense privilege! which alters our whole position. The power of the world, by which Satan blinded us, is completely broken, and we are brought into the true light; and in that light We see and know Him who is true, who is in Himself perfection; that by which all things can be perfectly discerned and judged according to truth. But this is not all. We are in this true One, partakers of His nature, and abiding in Him, in order that we may enjoy the source of truth. Now, it is in Jesus that We are. It is thus, it is in Him, that we are in connection with the perfections of God.
We may again remark here, that which gives a character to the whole epistle-the manner in which God and Christ are united in the apostle’s mind. It is on account of this, that he so frequently says "He," where we must understand "Christ," although he had previously spoken of "God." For instance, chap. 3:2. And here, "We are in Him that is true, that is to say, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal Life."
Behold, then, the divine links of our position! We are in Him who is true: this is the nature of Him in whom we are. Now, in reality, as to the nature, it is God Himself. As to the person, and as to the manner of being in Him, it is in His Son Jesus Christ. It is in the Son, in the Son as man, that we are in fact as to His person; but he is the true God, the veritable God.
Nor is this all-but we have life in Him. He is also the eternal Life, so that we possess it in Him. We know the true God-we have eternal life.
All that is outside this, is an idol. May God preserve us from it, and teach us by His grace to preserve ourselves from it. This gives occasion to the Spirit of God to speak of "the truth" in the two short epistles that follow.