02.01.05. 1John 3:1-12 The children of God and the children of the devil
§ 5. 1 John 3:1-12 THE CHILDREN OF GOD AND OF THE DEVIL
St. John has been speaking of the conflict which the Church, holding the faith of the Incarnation, is bound to maintain with the antichrists who seek to undermine the right faith. But at the end of the paragraph there is a sharp transition. It had appeared that the mark of the true Church was right belief. Now suddenly it is declared that righteousness — a character like Christ’s — is the infallible mark of the new birth. These rapid transitions from insistence on orthodoxy to insistence on character as the one essential are characteristic of St. John. Of this something more will be said later. Now he pursues the last thought — of righteousness as the mark of the children of God. It is no longer the conflict between truth and falsehood which is in his mind, but the conflict of two kinds of society based respectively on righteousness and sin. The wonderful love of the Father has admitted us, by a new birth from Christ (1 John 2:29), into the position of children of God. So we are called and so we have found ourselves to be.
It follows that the world which refused to recognize Jesus Christ will refuse to recognize us, because in our sonship to God we are like Him in character. We are like Him in this world as being children of God. And if there lies before us a more splendid future when Christ shall have come in glory, and if our future condition has not yet been revealed to us, yet this at least we know about it, that it will still be a condition of likeness to Him. We shall see Him as He is; and none can so see Him without being like Him. Every one, therefore, who is inspired with the hope of eternal fellowship with Christ, must have one main motive in life — to become like Him, to purify himself even as Christ is pure. But this involves a permanent antagonism to sin. For what is sin?
It is lawlessness. God made the world to express a certain order and law in all its parts.
Upon every creature is impressed the law of its being. Only to created spirits, including man, was given the fateful gift of freedom, involving the opportunity for rebellion and lawlessness. This is sin. All sin is violation of law, and there is no violation of law except through the rebellion of free spirits. Sin and lawlessness are co-extensive terms. In antagonism to this principle of sin Christ was manifested. Himself sinless, He was to expiate and take away sins. And between Him and sin there can be no kind of fellowship. To abide in Him means not to sin: to sin means that we have had no vision of Him nor knowledge of Him.
There is this root antagonism: and it is with regard to this that St. John feels that there are so many who would deceive his “ little children’’ — his immature and easily misled disciples. There are, in fact, two sonships between which we must choose — the sonship to God in Christ, of which the essential principle is righteousness like Christ’s righteousness, and the sonship to the devil, of which the essential character is sin and lawlessness. Sin has been from the beginning, before ever man was, the characteristic of the devil, and every one who.sins belongs to him. To destroy all that the devil has done-to bring his seeming kingdom to dissolution — is the very object for which Christ was manifested.
We must recognize, then, the fundamental antagonism. In being regenerated and made children of God we have received the seed of a new life which makes sin impossible. Sin is the outward and visible mark of the children of the devil, as righteousness of the children of God. And this righteousness is no mere abstinence from evil but a positive thing, in particular a positive love of each one who belongs to the brotherhood. So we were taught from the beginning; just as, on the other hand, the children of the devil, since the days of Cain, as they have been themselves sinful, so also have been inspired by a jealousy of good in others which has made them hate their brethren, as Cain hated his brother Abel and became his murderer.
Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God: and such we are. For this cause the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be.
We know that, if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him; for we shall see him even as he is. And every one that hath this hope set on him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. Every one that doeth sin doeth also lawlessness: and sin is lawlessness. And ye know that he was manifested to take away sins; and in him is no sin. Who* soever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither knoweth him. My little children, let no man lead you astray: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous: he that doeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. To this end was the Son of God manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is begotten of God doeth no sin, because his seed abideth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is begotten of God. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. For this is the message which ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another: not as Cain was of the evil one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.
1. Sonship and heaven. — The love of the Father is a Self-communicating love. He is not content with showing it. He has also “ given ’’ it as a gift to us, by the Spirit. The true mark of the sonship into which we are called is to live in the possession and exercise of the divine love. “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.’’, St. John, however, never uses St. Paul’s word “sons.” He always calls us “children” of God, a word suggestive of our being only at the beginning of our spiritual life— still quite undeveloped, as he goes on to intimate: for “never yet was it made manifest “—not even in the appearances of our Lord after His resurrection — of what sort we shall be in the perfected life of heaven. This only we can be sure of, that as likeness to Christ is the mark of the children of God even now, so much more will it be in heaven.
There we shall be like Him “because we shall see Him as He is” — which phrase probably covers both possible meanings, viz. that only those who are like Him can see Him as He is, and also that the vision of Him will transform us more and more into His likeness. This is the essence of heavenly perfection, to see Christ as He is in His glory.
Beyond this fundamental thought the silence of the New Testament about the world beyond is most remarkable. In all those respects in which it has a direct bearing on present conduct — in all those respects in which faith needs to be made vigorous, and hope sure, and love active, and repentance thorough — we are informed about the eternal issues of life. But with regard to the multitude of questions which curiosity suggests to us about heaven and hell and about the state of waiting — whether, for example, there is purgatory for the imperfect — there is singularly little, we may almost say nothing, to be gathered from the pages of the New Testament. And this silence is so marked that we are forced to conclude that it is intentional. We are not meant to know what the after-life is to be like, and it is probably inexpressible in terms of our present intellectual faculties. We must be content with childish figures and metaphors. Our present business is to show what the life of sonship can be on earth.
2. Regeneration. — The principle of regeneration is stated by St. John in the prologue to his Gospel thus: In a world of sin and darkness there were yet those who received the true light, which is Jesus Christ. “And as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children 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 a man, but of God.” And again, he reports our Lord as saying to Nicodemus, “ Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born anew [or “ from above ’’], lie cannot see the kingdom of God... Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” These passages mean that so perverted is the whole world by sin that, though sonship to God is the purpose of our creation, it must be imparted as a new gift of God to each man in Christ by His Spirit; and the latter implies, what the whole New Testament suggests, that baptism, the ceremony of incorporation into Christ and into His Church, is the instrument of our regeneration. In the truest and deepest sense all the baptized into Christ have in themselves the principle of the new birth and “their seed abideth in them.”
We may feel sure St. John would not have denied this doctrine of baptismal regeneration. Nevertheless, it is most necessary for those who believe it to notice the insistence with which St. John speaks of regeneration as necessarily involving holiness. Of the baptized who have no knowledge of the meaning of their baptism or show no respect to it, he could not bear to speak as, in the real sense, “begotten of God.” To be sons of God, he would tell us, involves co-operation on our part with the act of God in us. Thus, St. John would be as far as possible from allowing us to treat baptism as a charm. He would not, I think, sanction our struggling to “get people baptized” with little or no regard to their dispositions; nor surely would he sanction the baptism of infants except with a very real guarantee for their being brought up to understand the meaning of what had been bestowed upon them.
3. Sin is lawlessness. — There have been many attempts to explain sin — as that it is an inevitable accompaniment of material life, matter in itself degrading the spirit which is imprisoned in it; or that it is the result of imperfection, a relic of barbarism or a former purely animal condition; or that it is due to ignorance. Now, it is quite true that our material bodies, especially as they have come to be tinder the long prevalence of sin, may and do press us to sin and minister to sin; it is quite true that sin may be due to animal impulses; it is quite true, once more, that ignorance promotes sin. But Christianity has it for one of its central and essential doctrines that sin, strictly speaking, is none of these things and does not consist in any external condition. It is rebellion — the rebellion of created wills against their creator.
God made the world for law and order, and impressed on each element or type of creation its own proper law of being. But He gave to created spirits the fateful gift of freedom, which carries with it the possibility of rebellion. And through the whole expanse of nature there is no lawlessness except where rebel wills have used their freedom to refuse the will of God. That lawlessness is sin; and sin, strictly speaking, begins and ends with lawlessness orrebellion. There is no lawlessness but sin and no sin that is not lawlessness. Thus it is a delusion to speak of sin as if it were a survival of animal instinct, or as if civilization tended to outgrow it. Sin is a spiritual thing — a rebellion of will which appears in refined and intellectual as well as in sensual and animal forms. Developed civilizations are no less sinful than barbarisms. Our Lord will not allow us to believe that sensual sins — fornication or violence — are more sinful than pride or avarice or uncharitableness. Wherever, then, is the refusal of God, of His truth, of His righteousness, of His love, there is sin, and as sin is always lawlessness, so it is always the source of disorder and weakness in the world.
Again, it is misleading to say (though great men have said it) that sin is purely negative.
It is no doubt true — in the sense that there is not in the world any evil substance, and that sin is only the misuse of things or faculties in themselves good. But if the essence of sin is rebellion or the assertion of self-will, then surely it is in itself a very positive thing.
4. He was manifested to take away sins. — Just because sin is not any essential quality of nature but only a rebellion of wills, so it is remediable by the conversion of wills into harmony with the purpose of God. Let but the will be right and the whole nature will be in time subdued to order. Sin is remediable.
Thus our Lord was manifested to take away sins. He was “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” That means that He both expiates it and removes it. Sinless Himself; He bore all the burden that was laid upon Him by human sin, into the heart of which He came in becoming man. As the victim of pure love He converted all that burden into the material of His perfect sacrifice. So He expiated sin and inaugurated a new manhood free from all taint and flaw of sin. And this new manhood, by the power of His Spirit, becomes the source and ground of moral victory to all who believe on Him and become united to Him. So was He manifested in fullest power to deal effectively both with the guilt and the power of sin in general and of all sins in particular. There is no sin for which He cannot and will not supply the remedy.
5. “The devil sinneth from the beginning,” “The works of the devil’’ “The children of the devil" — Like the rest of the writers of the New Testament St. John has no doubt that behind the rebel wills of men there is a masterrebel, who sinned before they were in being (“from the beginning”), and who, as the enemy of all good, is called the devil, the slanderer, or Satan, the adversary. It seems to me that our Lord’s own language in the same sense is so deliberate and intense that it is impossible to accept Him as a perfect spiritual teacher without accepting this element in His teaching. And it seems to me also to make a great practical difference in our spiritual outlook on life if we accept this as a fact; and, moreover, to be in accordance with the deepest spiritual experience. But instead of using words of my own, I will quote the words of one of our greatest recent prophets, Frederick Denison Maurice, , who was brought up among Unitarians and in disbelief of the existence of the devil.
I know that I did not learn this doctrine [about the devil] by the precepts of men. I was not taught it in my childhood. Those I reverenced, and still reverence, considered it a fable. As I grew up I felt the same motives to retain that opinion which act upon many of my contemporaries. The notion o| a devil was associated in my mind with many superstitions which science had confuted. It was held by vulgar people, among whom I did not wish to be reckoned. It was quite possible, if I cared for that, to pass muster with the orthodox and respectable though I was sceptical on this point. But there are some things which are more terrible than being confounded with vulgar people. It is more terrible not to be honest with one’s self. It is more terrible to think that one is given over hopelessly to work iniquity. It is more terrible to be cut off from all fellowship with human beings, if they are vulgar.
Then he describes the various efforts he made to explain evil otherwise:
These evil thoughts — did they originate with me? I could not say so to please any theorist, or to get credit for ever so much liberality and wisdom. I might have rejected the thoughts, but they were presented to me. I may bewilder myself — all men have bewildered themselves at some time or other — by saying, “I shuffled the cards; I played both hands”; but it will not do. It is not a fair representation of the facts. To a man in earnest it is a quite maddening explanation of them. Did they, then, originate with some other mortal? It is the same story again. If a man is making his confession on his deathbed, he, too, will speak of the thought having been in some way offered to him. He knows then that this does not make the case better for him, but he uses the language because it is the only natural language.
Then he speaks of the importance of this feeling:
It is no fancy. You know that it is what we are all tempted to do continually [that is, to make excuses for ourselves on the ground of our nature]. But if we heartily believed that we had a common enemy plotting against us all, making use of every man’s peculiar gift or characteristic which is meant for his blessing, to work his ruin, accusing our Father in heaven to us all, accusing every brother to another, persuading each of us that he is not a child of God, that he does not belong to a family of brothers, should we indulge this miserable tenderness of that which is preying upon our own vitals; should we indulge our cruelty by mocking the diseases and derangements of our brothers? Should we not feel that we have a common battle to fight; that each man who stood his own ground firmly was doing something for all against the common enemy, that each might aid some other, even by his wounds and his falls?
Granted this, we understand quite well what St. John means by “ the works of the devil.’
It is the devil who by his age-long activity gives a certain kingdom-like consistency to evil and builds an evil “world’’ over against the kingdom of God. And those who allow themselves to be the servants of sin become “his children.” But the whole of this false fabric is to pass away. Christ was manifested to destroy, or, more strictly, to “dissolve” it.
He has already in principle dissolved, and is in fact to dissolve, the “works of the devil.”
6. “ Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not;... "he that doeth sin is of the devil" — This section will make us familiar with St. John’s idealism. He sees things in their fundamental principles and traces out the working of these principles, free from all hindrances, to their ultimate results. So he exposes to light each tendency as it is in principle and in its extreme issue. So he deals with the good and evil which he sees around him. So he paints things white and black — not grey. Thus the principle of goodness is sonship to God. It is totally incompatible with any sin. It is the purity of Christ. It wages with sin an incessant conflict with an absolute mastery. Sin, on the other hand, is pure lawlessness. It is the principle of the devil. All who share in sin are the children of the devil. In particular, the characteristic of the children of God is pure love of the brethren. The characteristic of the children of the devil is jealousy, hatred, and murder. So the children of God and the children of this “world” which “lieth in the evil one” are absolutely distinct.
Thus, again, in the preceding paragraph, he has put into the same sharp opposition the faith of the Church and the lies of Antichrist. But we to-day resent this method of St. John’s and distrust it — and especially our “intelligent people.” The world is a very mixed place, we say. In every man and in every current opinion good and evil, truth and falsehood are mixed.
There is a soul of good in things evil and of evil in things good. We will neither give an exclusive approval nor an exclusive condemnation to anything; or, rather, with a benevolent optimism, we will make the best of every tendency and entertain the hope that nothing is really bad or utterly false, but is part of the great mixed movement which has God for its goal. This is called charity, or appreciative sympathy, or tolerance, or broad-mindedness. But we know enough of ourselves to know the fatal result of such tolerance ar broad-mindedness. It eats at the roots of decision. It makes us acquiesce in things as they are. It paralyses moral action. It does this, St. John would tell us, because it is false. Tendencies are not all fundamentally good. They are not all moving to the same good end. We are not all going to the same place. There are two tendencies; two standards; two kingdoms between which we have to choose; and our wisdom is to see each in its essential nature, in its ultimate issue, and under its real leader — Christ or the devil; Christ or Antichrist. Of course St. John is no dualist. He of all men knows that there is only one God— that the devil is only a rebel spirit, and that the kingdom of evil is destined only for final overthrow. Nevertheless, in our existing world evil is alive and active, and stands to be overcome. Again, St. John knows that the children of God are not absolutely true to their divine Father and do, in fact, commit sins. So he reiterates in this Epistle.
He gives no real support to the arrogant claims of sinless perfection. But Christians who sin “forget themselves.” And if their real will is right they can recover themselves. Also, there is no reason to doubt that he would recognize a movement for good in the heart of those who are, on the whole, abandoned to sin. But at the bottom there is an inevitable choice. “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” Each man at bottom adheres to the kingdom of God or the kingdom of the devil; and our wisdom is to unveil the true principles of each kingdom — the real meaning of truth and righteousness, and the real meaning of sin and falsehood, that we may cleave to the one and hate the other.
Finally, the special characteristic of the righteousness of Christ and His kingdom is active love, and the special characteristic of Satan’s kingdom is selfishness and the consequent hatred and jealousy of what threatens selfishness — that is, love. So we get our point of transition to the next paragraph.