1 John 2
McGeeCHAPTER 2THEME: The advocacy of Christ; how the dear children may have fellowship with each other; the “dear children” must not love the worldThis chapter is a continuation of the thought begun in the previous chapter regarding the manner in which “little children” may have fellowship with God. We have seen that we can have fellowship with God by walking in the light, that is, in God’s presence. The second thing we must do in order to maintain that fellowship is to confess our sins to Him. When we walk in the light, we know that the blood of Jesus Christ keeps on cleansing us from all sin, but we also know that there is imperfection in our lives and that we must go to Him in confession. In chapter 2 we come to the matter of the advocacy of Christ. We will now see the conclusion of that which began with 1Jn_1:5, where John said, “This then is the message.” What is the message? It is the message of the gospel of the grace of God that takes the hell-doomed sinner and by simple faith in Christ brings him into the family of God where he becomes an heir and joint-heir with Jesus Christ. It is the relationship with the Father that is all important.
1 John 2:1
FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD BY THE ADVOCACY OF CHRIST"My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not." John is writing these things to us because God does not want His children to sin. Although God has made ample and adequate provision for us not to sin, our entrance into His provision is imperfectbecause of our imperfection. Notice that this verse does not say that we cannot sin, but John is writing to us that we may not sin. God wants us to walk in a manner that is well pleasing to Him; that is, He wants us to walk in obedience to His Word. Let me remind you that 1 John is a family epistle; it emphasizes the relationship of the family of God. I mention this again because there is so much emphasis in the contemporary church on “body” truth; that is, that all believers are part of a body. “Body” truth is the message of Ephesians, and it is wonderful, but now we need to move out a little farther into “family” truth. We need to recognize that we are in God’s family and that our relationship is all important. We need to have fellowship with our heavenly Father. “My little children” is an interesting expression. It comes from the Greek word teknia and probably should be translated “my little born ones” or “my little born-again ones.” I like the Scottish term best, “my little bairns.” “These things write I unto you, that ye sin not.” None of us has reached that exalted plane, although there are those who claim sinless perfection. I am reminded of an occasion when a speaker was emphasizing the fact that nobody is perfect. Finally he became very dramatic and oratorical and asked, “Is there anybody here who has ever seen a perfect man?” No one responded until one little fellow in the back of the auditorium, sort of a Mr. Milquetoast, put up his hand. The speaker asked, “Have you seen a perfect man?” The little fellow stood to his feet and said, “Well, I have never seen him, but I have heard about him.” “Who is he?” “He is my wife’s first husband.” Well, I imagine he had heard about him a great deal! But the truth is that none of us has reached that exalted position of perfection. Several years ago a speaker was telling a story about a family that was going to take a trip for a couple of days. They did not want to take their little girl along, so they left her with neighbors, who had four boys. When they returned, the little girl said to her daddy, “There are four boys in that house where I have been staying. They have family worship there every night. Each night their father prays for his four little boys.” Her father replied, “That certainly is good to hear.” “Daddy, he prays that God will make them good boys, and he prays that they won’t do anything wrong.” Her father said, “Well, that’s very fine.” The little girl was silent for a moment, and then she added, “But, Daddy, He hasn’t done it yet.” If we are honest with ourselves, we too will have to say that God hasn’t made us perfect yet either. We have not reached that exalted plane of sinless perfection. John says, “My little born ones, my little bairns, I write these things unto you that you may not be sinning.” God doesn’t want you to live in sin. We are going to find later that John is going to say, “Whosoever is born of God sinneth not” (1Jn_5:18). This means that whosoever is born of God does not practice sin; that is, live in sin. The prodigal son got up out of the pigpen and went home to his father. He did not stay in the pigpen. Why not? Because he was a son and not a pig. Also we need to realize, as it is stated in Ecc_7:20, “For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.” Today you and I may be able to say, “I don’t think I have done anything real bad.” But how about doing good? James says, “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin” (Jas_4:17). There are sins of commission and sins of omission. You and I are to walk in the light. When we walk in the light, we will see just how far we have fallen short of what God wants. Every sincere child of God wants to have fellowship with Him, and yet he knows within himself that he has fallen far short of the kind of life he should have. There is sin in his life, and sin, be it ever so small, breaks communion with the Father. It is said of Spurgeon that when he was crossing a street one day, he suddenly stopped. It looked like he was praying, and he was. One of his deacons waited for him on the other side of the street and said to him, “You could have been run down by a carriage [this was before the day of the automobile]. What were you doing? It looked like you were praying.” Spurgeon replied, “I was praying.” The deacon then asked, “Was it so important?” “Indeed it was. A cloud came between me and my Savior, and I wanted to remove it even before I got across the street.” Many Christians are living lives in which they are constantly disobeying God, yet they wonder why they aren’t having fellowship with Him. They need to recognize that sin causes a break in fellowship. They need to know that they have not lost their salvation, because in the next breath John adds, “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” Notice that John says, “We have an advocate with the Father"John doesn’t call Him by the impersonal name God because He is still our Father even though we have sinned. Therefore we need to recognize that our salvation rests upon what Christ has done for us, and that is a finished work. Someone has expressed it like this: Upon a life I did not live, Upon a death I did not die, Another’s life, Another’s death, I stake my whole eternity. It is finished, yes, indeed; Finished, every jot! Sinner, this is all you need! Tell me, is it not? Author unknown We cannot add anything to a finished work. What Christ has done is all we need for salvation. However, if you and I are going to have fellowship with Him, we need to recognize something else. “And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father.” Who is He? He is “Jesus Christ the righteous.” The word advocate is from the Greek parakletos, the same word which is translated “comforter” in John’s Gospel. The Holy Spirit is our Comforter down here, and Christ is our Comforter up there. Advocatea paraclete, a helperis a legal term. It means “one who will come to your side to help in every time of need.” We have a wonderful heavenly Father, and we don’t lose our salvation when we sin, but there is somebody up there who wants us to lose it, and that is Satan. Satan is the accuser of the brethren. In Rev_12:10 we are told that he accuses us before our God day and night. Satan is there at the throne of God accusing you and accusing me. Remember how he accused Job.
In effect, he said to God, “If you will let me get to him, I’ll show You that he will curse you.” When that happens in our case, the Lord Jesus is able to step in as our Advocate. He died for us! Yet the accuser is there, and some folk are very disturbed by that. But the Advocate is far greater than the accuser. Someone has expressed this in beautiful poetic language: I hear the accuser roar Of ills that I have done; I know them well, and thousands more, Jehovah findeth none. Though the restless foe accuses Sins recounting like a flood, Ev’ry charge our God refuses; Christ has answered with His blood. Author unknown
1 John 2:2
“And he is the propitiation for our sins.” The word propitiation, as it is used here in John’s epistle, is a different word from that used in the Epistle to the Romans. In Romans the meaning is “mercy seat"Christ is the propitiation, the mercy seat, the meeting place between God and man. However, here in 1 John propitiation means “an atonement or an expiation.” It means that sins have been paid for by the suffering of Another. Christ is my Advocate, interceding for me, and He Himself is the propitiation. Notice that John does not say that if anyone repents, he has an Advocate nor if anyone confesses his sins, he has an Advocate. Neither does he say that if anyone goes through a ceremony to get rid of his sins, he has an Advocate. What he does say is that if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father. Before we even repent of that cruel or brutal word we said, the very moment we had that evil thought, and the moment we did that wrong act, Jesus Christ was there at the throne of God to represent us as Satan was there accusing us. Then, because of the faithful advocacy of Christ, the Holy Spirit brings conviction to us, and we confess our sin to the Father. As we said before, to confess means that we get on God’s side and we see our sin from His viewpoint and confess that it is sin. The sincere child of God wants to please the Father, and he walks along with that in mind. The psalmist expressed it this way: “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psa_139:23-24). Dr. Harry Ironside has illustrated the confession that God requires with an incident in his own home. He had trouble one evening with one of his boys, so he sent the boy upstairs and told him not to come down to supper until he confessed the thing he had done wrong. The boy would not admit anything at all. Finally the boy called for Dr. Ironside to come upstairs and asked if he could go down to supper.
His father said, “It depends upon you.” The boy said, “If you think I have done something wrong, I am sorry.” His father said, “That won’t do.” Later the boy called him upstairs again, and this time he changed his story a little. He said. “Well, since you and mother both think I have done something wrong, I guess I have. I want to come down to supper.” Once again his father told him that that wasn’t good enough. Dr. Ironside went downstairs, and later on he heard the boy almost weeping. He said, “Dad, please forgive me.
I know I have done wrong. Please forgive me.” Then the lad came downstairs, and the family had a wonderful supper together because fellowship had been restored. My friend, if you are a child of God, you are in the family of God, and He wants to have fellowship with you. I don’t care about these little rules you are following. You think that some way you are going to be able to live the Christian life by following rules. My friend, God doesn’t want you to be a programmed computer. He is not trying to do that to you. You are a human being with your own free will, but you are a member of His family, and He wants to have fellowship with you. We can talk to Him like we can talk to no one else. Up to this point, John’s subject has been that God is light and how God’s dear children may have fellowship with Him. Now in this second section, the subject is that God is love and how God’s dear children may have fellowship with each other. Before, he was talking about walking in light; now he will be talking about walking in love. Love is the very heart of this epistle. The word occurs thirty-three times, and there is a great emphasis upon it.
1 John 2:3
HOW TO HAVE FELLOWSHIP WITH EACH OTHERFirst of all, let me point out that this verse has nothing to do with the security of the believer. John is talking about assurance. As God’s children, we are in a family. But how can we have the assurance that we are in God’s family? He is telling us that assurance comes by keeping His commandments. “If we keep his commandments” does not refer to the Ten Commandments. John is not dealing with any legal aspects; he is dealing with family matters. The Ten Commandments were given to a nation, and on these commandments every civilized nation has based its laws. The Ten Commandments are for the unsaved. Now God has something for His own family, and they are commandments for His children. For example, in Gal_6:2 the family is told, “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.” In 1Th_4:2 Paul tells the family of Christ, “For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus.” Some of those commandments are mentioned in the last chapter of 1 Thessalonians.
I have counted twenty-two commandments in that chapter, and here are a few of them. “Rejoice evermore"God wants you to be a joyful Christian. “Pray without ceasing” refers to an attitude of prayer. That is, when you get off your knees, you still are to walk in a prayerful attitude. “Quench not the Spirit"don’t say no to Him. These are some of the commandments which the Lord Jesus has given to believers, and if we are to have fellowship with the Father and enjoy it by having assurance in our own hearts, we must keep His commandments. We do not feel that we are free to do as we please. The Christian doesn’t do as he pleases; he does as Christ pleases. “And hereby we do know that we know him.” Remember that throughout this epistle John is answering the Gnostics who claimed to have a superior knowledge that no one else hadand generally it was heresy. The apostle John is saying that the important thing is to know Jesus Christ. And how can we have the assurance that we know Him? My friend, although a great many folk believe in the security of the believer, they don’t have the assurance of salvation, and the reason is obvious. We cannot know that we are children of God if we are disobedient to Him. Obedience to Christ is essential and is the very basis of assurance. You cannot have that assurance (oh, you can bluff your way through, but you cannot have that deep, down-in-your-heart assurance) unless you keep His commandments.
1 John 2:4
I would call this very plain talk! In the previous verse John has said that we know that we know Himthis is the positive side. We know by experience in contrast to the esoteric knowledge of the Gnostics. Now he presents the negative side: disobedience to Christ is a proof that we do not know Him. This is plain and direct language. Disobedience to Christ on the part of a professing Christian is tantamount to being a liar. In other words, his life is a lie. There are a great many people who say they are children of God, but are they? It is one thing to say you are a child of God, and it is another thing to be a possessor of eternal life, to have a new nature that cries out to the Father for fellowship and wants to obey Him. You cannot make me believe that all of these church members who have no love for the Word of God and are disobedient to Christ are really His children. I do not believe they have had the experience of regeneration. John is making it very clear that we know that we know Him because we keep His commandments. Let me repeat that John is not talking about the Ten Commandments that were given to the nation Israel in the Old Testament. John is talking about the commandments that Christ gave to the church. If a child of God does not have a love for these commandments, he is in the very gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity, as the Scripture says (see Act_8:23). The Lord Jesus, when He was here in the flesh, said of the Father, “…I do always those things that please him” (Joh_8:29). I can’t say that, but I can say that I want to please Him, and I have dedicated my life to that end. Although I sometimes stumble and fall, I want to please Him. While it is true that “he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life …” (Joh_3:36), it corroborates his faith when in his heart he knows that he wants to do God’s will. The natural man never did want to do God’s will. Oh, boy, this is a strong statement which John makes! “He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” And John will tell us that the Holy Spirit is the one who prompted him to say it. The truth is not in a man who claims to be a child of God but does not keep His commandments.
1 John 2:5
I want to make a distinction that I find very few expositors make. Even The Scofield Reference Bible does not make this distinction. I feel there is a difference between the Word of God and the commandments of God. Somebody is going to call my attention to the fact that the commandments are the Word of God. Well, commandments are the Word of God, but the Word of God is not all commandments. It is more than that. I hope you see the distinction. There are commandments in the Word of God, but the Word of God is not only commandments. The Word is the expression of the will of God, either by commandment or otherwise. In the Word of God you have His complete revelation to us about His will for our lives. In Joh_14:15 the Lord made this statement: “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” In Joh_14:23 He said, “…If a man love me, he will keep my words….” What is the distinction here? Let me illustrate this. Suppose the home of a young boy is in the country. His father is a farmer. One day, when the boy is on his way to school, his father says, “Son, I’ll milk the cow when I come in from the field each day, but when you get home from school, I want you to chop wood, put it on the back porch, and tell your mama so she can make a fire in the cook stove and in the fireplace.” When the boy comes home, he obeys his father’s commandment that he chop wood. He spends about an hour and a half chopping wood after school, and he stacks it on the back porch.
Then one morning at the breakfast table, the father says, “I don’t feel well today. I feel so bad that I don’t think I can go out and work in the field today.” But he goes out anyway. Now when the boy comes home from school, although his only commandment is to chop wood, he knows that his father is sick and doesn’t feel like milking the cow, so he not only chops the wood but he milks the cow also. He chops the wood because he was commanded to do so, but he milks the cow because he loves his father. In just this way a child of God not only wants to obey the commandments of God but he also wants to obey the Word of God. He wants to please his Father in everything that he does. I get the impression from many folk that they want to live as much like the unsaved as possible and still be Christians. I would never give an answer to a young person who asked me if a Christian could do this or that and still be a Christianbecause they were asking the wrong questions. The right question to ask is this: “What can I do to please my heavenly Father?” You see, a genuine child of God wants to please Him; he does not try to live right on the margin of the Christian life. There are many Christians in our day who feel that they need to be broad-minded. They are against whiskey, but they use beer and they use wine, which gives them the feeling of being broad-minded. And, of course, they feel that I am very narrow-minded. Well, it is not a question of a thing being right or wrongI hope you are above that plane, my Christian friendthe question is: does it please my heavenly Father? I want to do the thing that will please Him, bring joy to His heart and fellowship and joy to my own life. All of this, you see, is on the basis of love: “If you love me, keep my commandments,” and “If a man love me, he will keep my words.” If you love Him, you will do more than keep His commandments; you will do something extra for Him. I feel that a great many folk have in their thinking only the sins of commission and forget about the sins of omission. James said, “…to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin” (Jas_4:17). There are many things I know I should do, but I neglect to do them. These are sins of omission. The Bible makes no distinction between the gravity of sins of commission and sins of omission. They are equally bad. My friend, verse 1Jn_2:5 is very important. Let me repeat it: “But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected [that is, realized in practice]: hereby [by this] know we that we are in him.” When the love of God is perfected in you, it means that you have passed the commandments and you just want to please God. I suggest that you take an inventory of yourself. What is your attitude toward sin? Does it trouble you? Does it break your fellowship with the Father? Does it cause you to cry out in the night, “Oh, God, I’m wrong, and I want to confess the wrong I have done. I want fellowship with You.” On that basis God will restore fellowship with us, and the assurance of salvation comes to our hearts.
1 John 2:6
We cannot do or be all that the Lord Jesus Christ did or was, but if we set our hearts on doing our Father’s will, which was the thing that the Lord Jesus put uppermost in His life, then we are walking as (in the same manner as) He walked. I hear the word commitment a great deal these days. When an invitation is given after a message, the question is asked, “Do you want to commit your life to Christ?” What do they mean by that? Well, let me tell you what John means by full commitment. It is to love Christ. And if you love Christ, you are going to keep His Wordyou can’t help it. You want to please the person you love. You don’t want to offend; you want to please. This is the reason I send a dozen American Beauty roses to my wife occasionally. You see, the question is not “Are you committed to Christ?” The question is, “Do you love Christ?”
1 John 2:7
“An old commandment which ye had from the beginning.” From what beginning? Well, the “beginning” in 1 John is the incarnation of Christ. It began in Bethlehem, then worked itself out in a carpenter shop and three years of public ministry. The “commandment which ye had from the beginning” was what the Lord Jesus gave to His apostles when He was with them on earthwhich He repeated many times. For example, in Joh_13:34-35 we read, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” And in Joh_15:10, Joh_15:12, “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love…. This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.” John is saying, “This old commandment is what I am giving to you. It is what the Lord Jesus said when He taught here upon this earth.” Then John continues
1 John 2:8
Now, why is it a new commandment for believers who are regenerated and indwelt by the Holy Spirit? Because it was given on the other side of the Cross, before the coming of the Holy Spirit. On this side it is new. Believers are to do the will of God; and the will of God, first of all, is to love Him. This identifies a believer. A believer is one who delights to do the will of God. Because “the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth,” the believer ought to be able to say that he is getting to know the Lord God better and that he is understanding His will more perfectly. Schiller, the great German poet, said, “I see everything clearer and clearer.” And that should be the experience of every child of God. Every day we should be growing, and it is impossible to grow apart from a study of the Word of God. The written Word reveals the living Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, and He is the Bread of Life and the Water of Life. We will famish if we don’t feed upon Him. Let me repeat that the great problem in the world today is that the majority of believers are trying to follow a few little rules and regulations; they are programmed like a computer. They feel that they are living the Christian life if they do all those little things. Oh, my friend, you are not a computer; you are a human being. If you are a child of God, you have a new naturealthough you still have your old nature in which “…dwelleth no good thing …” (Rom_7:18). But your new nature wants to do God’s will; it wants to please Him. “The darkness is past, and the true light now shineth” would be better translated, “the darkness is passing.” As you look around you today, you will see that the darkness has not passed yet. Ignorance of the Word of God is still much in evidence. The “true light,” who is the Lord Jesus Christ, is breaking upon this world. He still is the most controversial person who has ever lived on the earth.
1 John 2:9
It is impossible for you as a child of God to walk in the light and hate your brother. If you do hate another Christian, it means there is something radically wrong with your confession of faith. This doesn’t mean that there are not some people whose manners and habits will be objectionable to you. This doesn’t mean that there won’t be some believers who have certain habits that you don’t approve ofthat is understandable. But to hate them reveals that you are in darkness. Hatred of a fellow believer is evidence that a person is not in the light.
This is something we need to keep in mind. There is the natural darkness in which all men are born. Paul talks about it in Eph_4:18, where he says, “Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.” That is the condition of mankind by nature. But our condemnation is not because of what we are by nature. “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (Joh_3:19). This is important. Don’t let it slip by you.
We are not responsible because we are sinners by nature; we are responsible if we reject the Savior. We are not responsible because we were born in darkness and because our understanding is darkened; we are responsible if we reject the light that comes to us through the Word of God. If you walk in the light, it will chase away all darkness. Instead of turning from its searching rays, let it search your heart. If a man keeps on rejecting this light, there will come a day when God will withdraw the light altogether. Or that man will become sunburned. Esau was that kind of man. He was red. He was sunburned. He was not only sunburned physically, he was also sunburned spiritually. What is sunburn? It means the skin will absorb all the rays of the light except one particular ray, and that is what burns. The soul that will not accept the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, the Light of the World, will become sunburned, just as Esau was. John gives us a test to see if we are in darkness. This is the test
1 John 2:10
When the Lord Jesus was here on earth, He said, “…I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (Joh_8:12). My friend, we need to apply John’s test to our own lives. Have you really trusted Christ? Is He your light? Is He the one who is so guiding you that you are not hating your brother? Here is a bit of poetry which sets this truth before us I heard the voice of Jesus say, “I am this world’s light. Look unto Me, thy morn shall rise, And all thy days be bright.” I looked to Jesus, and I found In Him my star, my sun, And in that light of life I’ll walk, Till traveling days are done. “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say” Horatius Bonar Now, of course, there are other believers whose habits you dislike. You may have a distaste for some of their expressions. You may even have a personality that clashes with that of another brother. But that doesn’t mean you hate him. When I was attending seminary, I roomed with a fellow who had some of the meanest habits I have ever seen in a Christian. He would start singing at night after I went to bed and was asleep. He wouldn’t sing all day long, but at eleven o’clock at night, he was ready to tune up. He had a lot of mean habits like that. So one day I told him, “You know, you are the greatest proof to me that I am a child of God.” He asked, “What do you mean?” I replied, “You are the most nauseating, the most sickening Christian that I have ever met, but I do want you to know somethingI love you.” He looked right at me and said, “I want you to know that you are the most abominable Christian I have ever met, and I also want you to know you are the hardest person in the world to love, but I love you.” Years later that fellow got into some trouble. I made a trip to see him, to see if there was anything I could do to help him.
When I met him, I found that he wasn’t any more lovable than he had been when I roomed with him. He was even more objectionable, and I think he found me the same, but I didn’t hate him. That man was a child of God, and God marvelously used him in the ministry. In many ways he was a great fellow. I don’t know why it is that when a Christian finds he doesn’t like somebody, he thinks the only alternative is to hate him. You don’t have to hate him at all; you are to love him as a child of God. My friend, John has given here a tremendous statement: “He that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.” If you want to know for sure that you are a child of God, apply this test to your own life. If you are hating your brother, you are dwelling in darkness. If you are loving your brother, you are dwelling in light. The Christian life is like a triangle. Let me diagram it for you (see below). God is at the top of the triangle, and the light of God comes down into your heart and life. Your love for God goes up, for you love Him because He first loved you. If you are walking in the light down here, it means you are going to love your brother also. You cannot say you love God and hate your brother. That is absolutely impossible, and John will make this very clear later on. At this point it seems to me that we have a departure from the theme which John has been following. He begins to talk about the three different degrees of believers.
1 John 2:12
These whom he calls “little children,” the Greek teknia, little born ones, I think refer to all believers, regardless of their age or their maturity as believers. The basis on which all Christians rest is the forgiveness of sins because of the shed blood of Christ. “Your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake.” Some Christians stay in that position of little children and never move out of that area. Now John moves to another group
1 John 2:13
“Fathers” are the saints who have known the Lord Jesus for many years and have grown and matured. Personally, I think that David wrote Psalms 23 when he was an old man. He could never have written that psalm as a young shepherd, because it is a psalm which had grown out of life’s vicissitudes. David had faced all sorts of problems and dangers, and he had lived in fellowship with God. He was a matured child of God and would certainly fall under John’s classification of “fathers.” I have called Psalms 23 the psalm of an old king. I believe David wrote it as he was seated upon his throne, looking back over his life.
He remembers that shepherd boy who would take the flocks out to pasture on the hills of Bethlehem, how he would protect them from the bears and lions. Then he remembers when he was made king and became the shepherd of a people. As he looks back over his checkered career, he recalls his wonderful friendship with Jonathan, his flight from King Saul, then his reign in Hebron, and finally when God made him king over all twelve tribes. Then he remembers his awful sin and God’s gracious forgiveness when he confessed it to Him. He recalls the trouble in his home (because God had taken him to the woodshed), especially the rebellion of Absalom, the son whom he most loved. He recalls his flight from Jerusalem and being holed up again and then receiving the news of Absalom’s death, which had been a heartbreak to him.
With these things in mind, the old king says, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want” (Psa_23:1). As a mature child of God, he recounts how God led him in green pastures and beside still waters and restored his soul. It is folk like David whom John is addressing as “fathers.” “I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one.” The “young men” are not as mature as the fathers, that is, they haven’t had the experience the fathers have had, but they have learned the secret of overcoming the enemy by the blood of Christ. They have learned how to live for God. Don’t tell me that a young person cannot live for God in this day. “I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father.” The “little children” in this case is the Greek paidia, immature little folk. They are the ones who know they are the children of God, but that is about all they knowand some of them feel that is all they want to know. Oh, how many children of God fall into this classification! In some churches you feel as if you are in a spiritual nursery! Although the folk are physically full-grown, some of them with gray hair, they are still spiritually immature. They never did grow up. Now John has something more to add; so he goes over each of these degrees of believers again.
1 John 2:14
“I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning.” John doesn’t add anything to that because you can’t go beyond that. As Paul expressed it, knowing “…him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death” (Php_3:10) is what makes one a father in Christ. My friend, how do you get to know somebody? By living with him day by day. I have discovered that my wife knows me. She has been living with me for over forty years so she knows me very well. And the summer I was forced to stay home because of illness, she and I sat on our back patio and really got acquainted with each other. We talked about many things from the time we met down to the present. Although I was sick during that time, it was the greatest summer I have ever spent. I know her better now, and she knows me better. Now how are we going to know the Lord Jesus Christ? My friend, the only way you can know Him is in the Word of God. That is where He is revealed. Many folk feel that if they go to a Bible study once a week, they will become super-duper saints. But the Word of God is like food. I’ve conducted Bible studies once a week over the years, and I certainly approve of them, but imagine going in and eating a good meal and then saying, “I’ll be back for another meal in a week.” Well, if you don’t get any food in the meantime, you will be in bad shape. This is the reason I have maintained a daily Bible-teaching program by radio. The Word of God is the Bread of Life. If we are to know Christ, we must live with Him in His Word as we go through the joys and sorrows of this life. Now John addresses the second group"I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.” In the previous verse John said that the young men were strong and they were able to overcome the wicked one. But now he gives the secret: “the word of God abideth in you.” My friend, how can you and I overcome the wicked one? With the Word of God. In Ephesians 6 the Christian’s armor is listed, piece by piece, and the weapon of offense is the “…sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph_6:17). If you are going to be able to defend yourself against the Devil, you will have to have a good knowledge of the Word of God. The reason so many believers are succumbing to the sins of the world is that they are not studying the Word of God. You eat three times a dayyou need physical food to be strongand, believe me, you need spiritual food to be strong also.
1 John 2:15
DEAR CHILDREN MUST NOT LOVE THE WORLDThis is a section which a great many would separate from what has gone before, but I feel that it is very much a part of what John has been talking about. John has been telling us how we as God’s children can know that we are His children. He has said that the way we can know is by the fact that we love Him and keep His commandments. Later on, John is going to say that His commandments are not grievous. We are not talking about the Ten Commandments here but about the commandments which the Lord Jesus gave, for we have been brought into the Holy of Holies in a very personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Someone has made this division which I like: The Epistle to the Romans deals with how we come out of the house of bondage; Ephesians is how we enter the banqueting house; Hebrews is how we approach the throne of grace, but 1 John is how we approach the divine presence. The way in which we can have assurance and be a proof not only to our neighbor but also to ourselves that we are genuine children of God is by our obedience to Him and our desire to please Him in all we do. I feel that there are some folk today who more or less grit their teeth and say, “Yes, I’ll obey Him.” But their motive is not love, and love should be the motive for obedience to Him. The Lord Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (Joh_14:15). My friend, when you obey the commandments of Christ because you love Him, a great many of the family problems will be solved and a great deal of the uncertainty in your own heart will disappear. If someone is offering a little course to follow in living the Christian life, people come running. A great many folk like to lean on somethingeven if it is a poor, broken reed which won’t hold them up. Christianity is based on a love relationship. Salvation is a love affair. John is going to tell us more about this later when he says, “We love him, because he first loved us” (1Jn_4:19). “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.” What “world” is John talking about? He does not mean the world of creation, that is, the system and order found in the physical creation. In spring the flowers bloom and the trees put out leaves. In the fall the leaves begin to turn all kinds of beautiful colors, like yellow and gold and red. Then the leaves fall off, and winter soon comes. This is not the world we are warned against loving. This is the world God created for our enjoyment. It is just as the poet says in “The Vision of Sir Launfal” And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune, And over it softly her warm ear lays; Whether we look, or whether we listen, We hear life murmur, or see it glisten. James Russell Lowell I learned that poem when I was in grammar school, and it has always stayed with me. My birthday is in June, and in June I always think of how wonderful nature is. The hymn writer has put it like this Heav’n above is softer blue, Earth around is sweeter green! Something lives in every hue Christless eyes have never seen: Birds with gladder songs o’erflow, Flow’rs with deeper beauties shine, Since I know, as now I know, I am His, and He is mine. “I Am His, and He Is Mine” Wade Robinson Isn’t that lovely? John is not talking about the physical earth where beautiful roses and tall trees grow. The wonderful mountains and the falls and the running streams are not what we are to hate. Rather, they are something we can admire and relish and enjoy. Nor is the world about which John speaks the world of humanity or mankind. We are told that “God so loved the world.” What world? The world of people, of human beings. “…God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son …” (Joh_3:16). Then what world does John mean? The Greek word for “world” here is kosmos. It means the world system, the organized system headed by Satan which leaves God out and is actually in opposition to Him. The thing which we need to hate today is this thing in the world which is organized against God. Believe me, there is a world system in operation today, and it is satanic. John mentions this in his Gospel where the Lord Jesus says, “Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me” (Joh_14:30). “The prince of this world"the prince of the world system, which is included in the civilization that you and I are in today. The world system belongs to Satan. He offered the kingdoms of this world to the Lord Jesus, and I don’t think he left out the United States when he made the offerit all belongs to him, and we are not to love this world. We read in Joh_16:11, “Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.” Again, the Lord Jesus is referring to the satanic system that is in this world today. In Eph_1:4, when Paul speaks of “…the foundation of the world …”, he is talking about the material creation, but when we come to Eph_2:2, he says, “Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world….” What is “the course of this world”?
This is a world that is filled with greed, with selfish ambition, with fleshly pleasures, with deceit, and lying and danger. That is the world we live in, and John says that we are not to love the world. We are living in a godless world that is in rebellion against God. Our contemporary culture and civilization is anti-God, and the child of God ought not to love it. We are in the world, but we are not of the world. Many of us must move in the business world, many of us must move even in the social realm, but we do not have to be a part of it. We need to recognize that we are going to be obedient to one world or the other. You are either going to obey the world system and live in it and enjoy it, or you are going to obey God. Listen to Paul in Gal_6:14: “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.” In effect Paul is saying, “There stands between me and this satanic world system, a cross. Both are bidding for me and, as a child of God, I am obedient unto Him, and I glory in the Cross of Christ.” You can be sure that the world today is not glorying in the Cross of Christ! Peter also speaks of this: “For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world …” (2Pe_2:20, italics mine). He spoke earlier of the corruption of the world. We live in a world that is corrupted and polluted. We are hearing so much today about air pollution and water pollution, but what about the minds which are being polluted by all the pornography and vile language? What about the spirit of man that is being dulled by all these things? “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” You may run with the Devil’s crowd all week long and then run with the Lord’s crowd on Sunday, but it is obvious that the love of the Father is not in you. In Romans 7 Paul describes his own struggle as a Christian. He says in effect, “I have discovered that in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. I have found that there is no power in the new nature. What I would not do, I’m doing. What the new nature wants to do, the old nature balks atthe old nature backslides and will not do that thing.” So there is a real conflict which goes on in the heart of the Christian as long as he is in the world with that old nature. For the old nature is geared to this world in which we live; it’s meshed into the program of the world.
1 John 2:16
John lists these three things that are in the world. These are not only the temptations which face us, they are also the temptations which Satan brought to Eve (see Gen_3:6) and to the Lord Jesus Christ (see Mat_4:1-11).
- “The lust of the flesh.” Eve saw that the tree was good for foodif you were hungry, it was a good place to eat. Scripture condemns gluttony and the many other sins of the flesh. So many things appeal to the flesh. There is an overemphasis on sex today both in the church and out of the churchit is all of the flesh. Satan brought this same temptation to the Lord Jesus: “And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungered. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread” (Mat_4:2-3).
The Lord Jesus could have done that. The difference between the Lord Jesus Christ and myself is that if I could turn stones into bread, I suspect that I would be doing it, but He didn’t. He was being tested in that same area in which you and I are being testedthe desires of the flesh. We are being tested, and there is no sin in being tested. The sin is in yielding to the temptation. This same principle applies to sex or to any other realm of the desires of the flesh. 2. “The lust of the eyes.” Eve saw that the tree was pleasant to the eyes. Remember also that Satan showed the Lord Jesus Christ all the kingdoms of this world. Let me tell you, they are very attractive, and they are in the hands of Satan. There is a godless philosophy which is trying to get control of the world today. There will come a day when Antichrist will arisehe is coming to rule this world for Satan. This is an attractive world that we live in, with all of its display, all of its pageantry, all of its human glory. 3. “The pride of life.” Eve saw that the tree was to be desired to make one wise. Many people like to pride themselves on their family. They pride themselves on the fact that they come from a very old family and upon the fact that they belong to a certain race. There are a number of races which are very proud of that. That was the appeal which Hitler made to the German people, and it is an appeal to any race. That is a pride of life.
It is that which makes us feel superior to someone else. It is found even in religion today. I meet saints who feel they are super-duper saints. As one man said to me, “I heartily approve of your Bible study program on radio.” In fact, he has given financially to our program to help keep it going. He said, “I know a lot of people who listen to it, and they need it,” but he very frankly told me, “I don’t listen to it.” He felt that he didn’t need it, that he had arrived, that he was a very mature saint. Of course, it proves that he is a very immature saint when he even talks like that.
Satan took the Lord Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple and said, “Cast yourself down. A great many people will witness it, and You will demonstrate to them Your superiority.” It was probably at a feast time when many would have seen Him, but the Lord Jesus never performed a miracle in order to demonstrate His superiority. These are the three appeals that the world makes to you and me today. But when we make our tummy our goal in life, when we attempt to make beauty our goal, or even when we attempt to make that which is religious our goal, it leads to the most distorted view of life that is possible. These things are of the world, and they become deadly. We are told that we are not to love these things because God does not love themHe intends to destroy this world system someday. What is our enemy? The world, the flesh, and the Devil. This is the same temptation which Satan brought to Eve and to the Lord Jesus. He has not changed his tactics. He brings this same temptation to you and to me, and we fall for it. Now John gives us the reason we are not to love this world
1 John 2:17
I have always enjoyed going to England and visiting such places as the Tower of London, Tewkesbury Castle, Warwick Castle, Hampton Court, Windsor Castle, and Canterbury. Many of us have ancestors who came from over there, but those folk were a bloody, cruel, vain, and worldly people. Just recall the way Henry VIII took Hampton Court away from Cardinal Wolsey who was the one who had built it. Poor old Cardinal Wolsey before he died said something like this, “If I had only served my God like I served my king, I wouldn’t be here today.” My, how Henry VIII could eat! And when he got tired of a wifehe had severalhe just sent her to the Tower to be beheaded. Go and look at all of that today"the world passeth away.” What a story of bloodshed is told at the Tower of London, of the pride of life and of the lust of the flesh. The lust of the eyes alsohow beautiful Windsor and Hampton Court are! Even the arrangement of the flowers was made by Sir Christopher Wren, the wonderful architect who also built St. Paul’s Cathedral.
There is a glory that belongs to all of that, but it has already passed away. England is just a third-rate power in the world today and maybe not even a third-rate power. All of that has passed away and the lust of it. Where is the lust of Henry VIII today? It is in one of those tombs over there. Just think of all the glory which is buried in Westminsterall of that has passed away. When I look back to when I was a young man, I wish that somehow I could reach back there and reclaim some of those days and some of the strength which I had then. I wish I could use for God what I squandered when I was young. “The world is passing away.” “But he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” Why don’t you work at something which is permanent, something which has stability, something which is going to last for eternity?
1 John 2:18
The word translated “little children” here is slightly different from the word that is translated in the same way back in verse 1Jn_2:12. There it is a term of affection and implies all who are born into God’s family, God’s little born ones, little bairns as the Scottish term is. These little children here indicate the first degree of spiritual experience which we have seen in verses 1Jn_2:12-14: the fathers at the top, then the young men, and then the little babies. Here John is talking to the little babies again. The little babies haven’t grown up yet. They are passing through this world, and the chances are that they have been tripped up by one of these three things which John has just mentioned. “It is the last time.” We are living in the last day here upon the earth. It has been the last time for a long time. This is the age when God is calling out a people for His name. You can say at any time during this period, “Now is the acceptable time. Today if you will hear His voice.” Why the urgency about salvation? Because, my friend, you might not be here tomorrow. Tomorrow I might no longer be heard preaching on the radio. It just might be that we will not be around, so it is important that I give out the Word, and it is important that you hear the Word. “As ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.” Many antichrists had already appeared in John’s day, but there is coming the Antichrist. What do we mean by antichrist? I think that this word has been misunderstood and, as a result, the person who is coming has been misunderstood. Antichrist is made up of two words: the title Christ and the preposition anti. It is important to see that anti has two meanings. It can mean “against.” If I am anti-something, that means I am against that thing. Anti can also mean “instead of, an imitation of.” Therefore, it can be a substitute. It can be either a very good substitute or just a subterfuge for something. The question arises, therefore: Is the Antichrist to be a false Christ or is he an enemy of Christ? Where does Scripture place the emphasis? There are several references to Antichrist in 1 John, but the only things we can derive from this verse is that there is going to be the Antichrist and that there were already many antichrists in John’s day. What was the thing which identified an antichrist? He was one who denied the deity of Christ. That is the primary definition of an antichrist which we are given in 1 John, as we shall see when we come to verse 1Jn_2:22. This is the emphasis in 1 John, but you will recall that the Lord Jesus said, “…many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many” (Mat_24:5). That is antichristinstead of Christ, claiming to be Christ. I personally believe that there are going to be two persons at the end of the age who will fulfill both of these typesbeing against Christ and claiming to be Christ. Scripture presents it that way in Revelation 13. There we have presented a “wild beast” who comes out of the sea, and Satan is the one who calls him forth. That is the political ruler, and he is definitely against Christ. There is a second beast who comes out of the land. He appears to be a lamb, but he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
He pretends to be Christ who is “…the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (Joh_1:29). He will be a religious ruler. The political ruler will come out of the gentile world, the former Roman Empire. The religious ruler will come out of the nation Israelthey would not accept him as their Messiah unless he did. So that you have actually two persons who will together fulfill this term antichrist. They are coming at the end of the age, and both of them can be called Antichristone against Christ and the other instead of Christ.
1 John 2:19
This is very solemn. John says that some who had made a profession of being Christians in that day had all the outward trappings of being Christians. They bore the Christian name, and they identified themselves with some local assembly, some church. They were baptized, immersed, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They took the bread and the cup at the communion service. But John says that the way you can tell whether or not one is really a child of God is that eventually a man will show his true colors and will leave the assembly of God if he is not a child of God. He will withdraw from the Christians, the body of believers, and he will go right back into the world. We see in 2 Peter what I call “the parable of the prodigal pig.” Peter speaks in that epistle of “…the sow that was washed …” (2Pe_2:22). Not only did a son get down in the pigpen, but also a little pig got washed. A little girl pig went up to the Father’s house, became very religious, got all cleaned up with a pink bow around her neck and her teeth washed with Pepsodent, but she found she didn’t like the Father’s house because she was a pig. So one day she said, “I’m going to arise and go to my father, my old man.” Her old man was down in a big loblolly of mud. The little pig went home, and when she saw her old man, she squealed, made a leap, and landed in the mud right by the side of him. Why?
Because she was a pig. “They went out from us, but they were not of us.” That’s a harsh, cruel statement, but it happens to be a true statement. There are many who make professions of being Christians, but they are not really Christians. Remember that the Lord said of Judas, “But, behold, the hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table” (Luk_22:21). Right there, at the first communion service, there was a traitor, Judas Iscariot, and he was one who was identified with the group of faithful disciples. We read in Joh_6:70, “Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a demon?” Judas was never anything else although he looked like an apostle, he acted like an apostle, and he had power, I believe, to perform miracles. He went out with the others, and they were not able to identify him as being a phony, but he was. John makes a very solemn and serious statement here, and he makes this statement to us today. The Lord Jesus said to a very religious man, Nicodemus, that he must be born again. He said to him that night, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (Joh_3:3). John says here, “They went out from us, but they were not of us.” They looked as if they were true children of God, but they actually were not, and the real test, of course, was the Word of God. This ought to cause every Christian, including this poor preacher who writes this, to ask himself the question: Have I really faced up to my sins in the light of the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ? Have I come to God in repentance, owning my guilt and acknowledging my iniquity?
Have I cast myself upon Him and Him only for my salvation? Have I evidence in my life of being a regenerate soul of God? Do I love the Word of God? Do I want the Word of God? Is it bread to me? Is it meat to me?
Is it drink to me? Do I love the brethren? And do I love the Lord Jesus Christ? These are the things which we need to consider, my friends, and the Word of God enjoins us in this particular connection. After presenting justification by faith in no uncertain terms, Paul goes on to make it clear in Gal_6:15, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.” You cannot even boast of the grace of God and say, “Oh, I don’t trust in church membership. I don’t trust in baptism.” Well, whether or not you believe they are necessary for your salvation, the essential question is: Have you really been born again? Or, perhaps you are one who is trusting in these things. Again the important question is: Are you a new creation in Christ Jesus? Paul spoke to the Corinthians, some of whom had reason to believe they might not be children of God: “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?” (2Co_13:5). My friend, it is very important that you really know that you are a child of God. Paul also wrote earlier to the believers in Corinth, “Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong” (1Co_16:13). Friend, how are you doing with the Christian life? Are you really a child of God today?
Is there evidence in your life that you are a child of God? I’m not talking about whether you have committed a sin or not, but what did you do after you committed the sin? Did you continue on in sin? The Prodigal Son got into a pigpen, but he did not continue therethat was not his permanent address. If you had mailed him a letter after he had been there a few weeks or months, unless the pigs had forwarded it, he wouldn’t have gotten your letter. That was no longer his address; he had gone home.
The child of God, after he has sinned, is going to go to God with hot tears coursing down his cheeks and crying out to Him in confession. If he doesn’t do that, he’s not God’s child. God’s child must hate sin. This light view of sin which we have today is simply something that is not quite scriptural. I am afraid that there are many church members who are just taking it for granted that they are children of God because they are as active as termites in the churchand they have just about the same effect as termites. Let me pass this little story on to you. I have heard it told several different ways, and I don’t know which way is accurate. Years ago in London, living down in the slums, there was a woman of the underworld, a prostitute. She had a little son, and she became terribly sick. She was frightened because she knew she was dying, and she sent her little son to get a minister, as she put it, “to get me in.” She told the little fellow, “You go get a minister to get me in.” The little fellow went out looking for a church. He had to go a long way before he found a very imposing looking church. He went around to the rectory, and the minister came to the door when he rang the bell. The minister looked at this little urchin and said, “What do you want?” The little boy replied, “My old lady is dying. She wants you to come and get her in.” At first the minister thought the boy meant that his mother was out drunk somewhere, so he said, “Get a policeman. It’s raining tonight, and I don’t want to go out.
Get a policeman to get her home.” The little fellow said, “She’s already home. She’s not drunk. She is home in bed, and she is dying. She wants somebody to get her in, and she wants me to get a minister. Would you come?” That liberal minister was stunned for a moment. He knew that he should go, that he couldn’t turn down a request like that, so he got his coat and umbrella, and he went with the little fellow.
They walked and walked and came finally to a very poor section of London and found the creaky stairs which led to an upstairs bedroom. All the way over, the minister had thought, What will I say to her? I can’t say to her what I have always preached to my people. He had always told his congregation that they were people of culture and refinement, that they were to keep that up and continue to be very cultured and refined. He thought, What in the world can I say to her? I can’t even tell her to reform. She ought to be reformed, but it is too late now.
What can I tell her? Then he remembered that as a boy his mother had always quoted Joh_3:16, and in desperation he turned to that verse when he sat down beside this woman. It actually wasn’t too familiar to him, but he read it to her: “…God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The dear woman wanted to go over the verse with him. She said, “Do you mean that in spite of the type of person I am, all I have to do is just trust in Jesus?” He said, “Well, that is what it says here. It says that God gave His Son to die on a cross. It says, ‘As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up’ (see Joh_3:14).
That is what I read here, and so that is what you are to do.” This dear woman, before she died, right there accepted Christ as her Savior. The preacher himself told the story afterwards, and he said, “That night I not only got her in, but I got myself in.” My friend, are you sure that you are in? Are you sure that you have trusted Him and that He is your Savior? Some people will write me and say, “You have no right to ask questions like that because we have been members of the church for thirty years.” Well, I think you ought to examine yourselves and see whether you are in the faith or not. It is wonderful to make an inventory and find out where you are. There was a time in the Thru the Bible radio ministry when we didn’t know where we were financially because our accountant became too ill to help us. When we got an accountant, we found that, although we had thought we were sailing along on nice, blue seas, we really weren’t. Thank the Lord, we found it out in timebut it was only because we examined our condition. A great many church members need to examine themselves.
Are you really in the faith? Do you really trust Christ? Someone will say, “You are robbing me of my assurance of salvation.” My friend, I believe in the security of believers, but I also believe in the insecurity of make-believers. We need to examine ourselves to see what kind of believer we really are. At the beginning of this chapter, John made it very clear that we can know that we are God’s children and that we can have fellowship with Him. In spite of the fact that we are His feeble, frail, faltering, falling little children, we can still have fellowship with Him because the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, just keeps on cleansing us from all sin. We have an Advocate up there with the Father, and He’s for usHe is on our side. Then beginning at verse 1Jn_2:3 we saw that God is love. This is the very heart of this epistle. Love is mentioned about thirty-three times. John said that the dear children may have fellowship with each other by walking in love. In other words, the little children must recognize that they are called to live a different kind of life. They now have been given a new nature. They now can live for God. Obedience is the test of life. We can know whether we really have life or not if we keep His commandmentsand not only His commandments but His Word. Obeying His Word means we are willing to go even farther than anything he had commanded. The difference between law and grace is brought out by what John has said. The law said: If a man do, he shall live. But grace says the opposite: If a man live, he will do. That is, a man must have a life from God before he can live for God. He cannot by the old nature live for God. This is the radical difference between law and grace.
The law says, “Do,” but grace says, “Believe.” It is a different approach to the same goal. The only problem is that law never did work for man because it is impossible for the old nature to please God. We all have come short of the glory of God. John showed that the real test is: Do I delight in the will of God? Do I love His commandments? If you are a child of God, you have a new nature, and now you want to please Him.
It has been expressed like this in a little jingle: My old companions, fare you well. I cannot go with you to hell. I mean with Jesus Christ to dwell. I will go with Him, and tell. Author unknown That may be a very poor piece of poetry, but it certainly expresses it as it really is. You cannot be having fellowship with God and other believers if you are living in sin. Pro_28:13 says, “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.” Though we know that the blood of Christ does indeed cover us from all sin, we cannot walk and live in sin and at the same time have fellowship with God and with other believers. If you and I have a life which commends the gospel, it is another assurance that is given to us. I personally do not think you can have real assurance down deep in your heart unless you are obedient unto God. I believe that you can know beyond the peradventure of a doubt that you are a child of God. Such assurance is not presumptuous, it is not audacious, it is not being arrogant, it is not effrontery, it is not a gratuitous assumption, it is not overconfidence, it is not self-deception, it is not wild boasting, it is not self-assertion. In fact, it is true humility.
Knowing that you are saved and the eternal security of the believer are not the same; they are not synonymous, although they are related. The Lord Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand” (Joh_10:27-28). If you are His sheep, you will hear His voice. You are not boasting when you say that you know you are saved. You are saying that you have a wonderful Shepherd. You are not saying that you are wonderful but that your Shepherd is wonderful.
What a tremendous truth this is!
1 John 2:20
What John means here by “unction” is anointing. We have an anointing, and that is the anointing of the Holy Spirit. We are going to see this later in verse 1Jn_2:27 where John says, “But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you.” “But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.” The Holy Spirit indwells every real believer and is able to reveal to him all things. “…Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit …” (1Co_2:9-10) so that we have someone dwelling in us who can reveal to us these things which are in the Word of God. We have an anointing, and every person can have the assurance of his salvation. If you really want to do business with God, if you really want to get right down to the nitty-gritty with Him, come to Him, ask for light, ask for guidance, and ask for His assurance. “And ye know all things.” John means that all the things that you should know as a child of God are potentially yours to know. This does not mean that you have suddenly been given a Ph.D. degree in spiritual things. It does mean that by the Holy Spirit you can study the Word of God, and then through the experiences which God sends to you, you have the possibility of growing in these matters. Many a child of God grows in grace and in the knowledge of Christ. I have been amazed at the number of lay people whom I have met in my ministry who have done so. The first time I discovered this was when I was a student in my first year in seminary during the depression, way back in the late 1920s. I was asked to go to a little Baptist church in the cotton mill section of Sherman, Texas. I went up there and preached four times that Sunday. I never will forget that!
Because the cotton mill hadn’t been operating for over a year, they gave me thirty cents for an honorarium! A friend of mine, a fellow student, went with me, and on the way home he asked, “Why are you so quiet?” I told him, “The offering I got was thirty cents!” He said, “Well, this is a real event for you. This is probably the only time that you will ever be paid exactly what you are worth.” Thirty centsbut, gracious, that had to be spread over the four sermons which I had given! We had had dinner, that is, the noon meal, that day in a home where there was an elderly woman whom everybody called “Grandma.” (There were about twenty people there, but I don’t think she was a grandmother to everybody!) She told me that she had come in a covered wagon in the early days and that she had loaded the rifle for her husband as he had shot at attacking Indians. She had been a real pioneer. But she had never learned to read nor write, and she wasn’t able to go to church. The people asked me, “Would you read something to Grandma?” Being a first-year seminary student, I thought I would give her the benefit of my vast knowledge of Scripture (which, by the way, wasn’t so vast). I thought I would take something easy and familiar so I began to read John 14. As I went along, I wanted to explain it to Grandmaafter all, she couldn’t read nor write, and I thought I should help her.
I made a comment or two as she sat there, and I thought she looked a little bored. After a few minutes she said, “Young man, had you ever noticed this?” Frankly, she made comments to bring out some things in that passage which I had never heard before. In fact, there was no professor in school who had ever mentioned what she mentioned about that passage of Scripture. Before we got through the chapter, she was telling me and I was listening. This friend of mine who had come with me was sitting over in the corner, and I knew he was really going to get me for this. On the way home that night, he made another comment. He said, “My, you sure were helpful to Grandma today!” I said, “Where in the world do you suppose that woman learned so much about John 14?” He replied, “Did it ever occur to you that maybe the Holy Spirit is her Teacher? Maybe you and I have been listening to the wrong teachers!” John is saying here that we need to let the Holy Spirit be our Teacher. “Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.” That’s potentialit is up to you whether you are going to learn or not.
1 John 2:21
“I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth"they had the gospel; they had the truth. John is not writing something new to these folk. He is writing to them for what I think is a twofold purpose. One is to encourage them, and the other is to warn them because there was false teaching going out in that day. “But because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth.” John is saying that they had the truth, but now lies were coming in. Gnosticism was coming in, and there were many antichrists who were appearing. Who is an antichrist? We have already said just a few words about this, but now John will say a little bit more
1 John 2:22
The language is much stronger here; it is, “Who is the liar?” In other words, all lies are summed up in the one who is the prince of liars, the Devil. There is coming a man who is Satan’s man, and he is the liar. And a liar is one who does not tell the truth. “Who is a liar, but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.” John gives us now the definition of antichrist. This will be the embodiment of the Antichrist, but there are many antichrists. There were some in John’s day; there have been some down to our day, and there are many today. Who are they? They are easy to recognizethey are those who deny the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, those who deny that Jesus the man is the Christ, the Messiah, the one who is God, the one whose name is Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the one who is pictured in the Old Testament. To deny that is being antichrist. We have many systems in the world today which deny Him. They are against Christ, and they also imitate Him and try to take His place. In the early church it was Gnosticism. Irenaeus made this statement, “They [that is, the Gnostics] say that Jesus was the son of Joseph and born after the manner of other men.” That is the way Irenaeus identified the Gnostics in his day. Liberalism and all of the cults and “isms” today have also denied His deity. Very candidly, I do not mind saying that the rock opera, “Jesus Christ Superstar,” is antichrist. It does not by any means present the Jesus of the Bible who is the Savior of the world. Many years ago Dr. William E. Hocking, who was professor of philosophy at Harvard University, wrote Living Religions and a World Faith. He made this statement, “God is in His world, but Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed are in their little private closets, and we shall thank them, but never return to them.” You can see that that is simply a direct, rank denial of the deity of Christ. The one “that denieth the Father and the Son"that will be the sure mark of the Antichrist, and there are many antichrists even today, of course. John has identified antichrist for us as the one who denies the Father and the Son. Now he will make it clear in verse 1Jn_2:23 that you cannot deny the Son without denying the Father. You see, the deity of Christ is essential to your salvation because if He is not God, the man who died on the Cross over nineteen hundred years ago cannot be your Saviorin fact, He could not even be His own Savior. None of us as human beings can die for the other. It was necessary for God to become a man in order that you and I might have redemption. Therefore, John says
1 John 2:23
When you say that you believe in God and deny the deity of Christ, you really do not believe in God, certainly not the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible is the one who sent His Son into the world to die for our sins. And since the Son is God, He alone is the one who could make a satisfactory sacrifice to God for our sins. Had he been anyone else other than God, He Himself would have been a sinner. In the great Riverside Church in New York City when Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick was the pastor, the cover page of a bulletin at that time said, “Whoever you are that worship here, in whatever household of faith you were born, whatever creed you profess, if you come to this sanctuary to seek the God in whom you believe or to rededicate yourself to the God in whom you do believe, you are welcome.” It goes on to say a lot about peace and the fatherhood of God, but I’m nauseated reading that far so I will not quote any more of it. It sounds sweet and flowery; it appeals to the natural man, but John’s whole point is that we need to beware of this, for this is antichrist. We need to emphasize this very important verse.
1 John 2:24
“Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning.” “The beginning” in 1 John goes back to the incarnation of Christ. That “which ye have heard from the beginning,” that which you heard concerning His incarnation, that which you heard concerning His life, that which you heard concerning His death and resurrectionin other words, that which they had heard from the beginning when the apostles began to preach the gospel. “If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father.” I know a man who heard our Bible-teaching radio program more than twenty years ago in San Diego. I’m not going to tell you about his life before then, but when he heard the broadcast, right there and then he accepted Christ as his Savior. God put him at the head of the Christian Servicemen’s Center in San Diego, and it is one of the finest in the world. Down through the years, he has been responsible for leading literally thousands of sailor boys and soldier boys to the Lord. I thank God for the testimony of this man’s life because John says that if you abide in Him, that is the evidence that you are a child of God. It is essential, therefore, to have a living faith which rests in the One who came to this earth more than nineteen hundred years ago. In his Gospel John wrote, “…the Word was made [became] flesh, and dwelt among us …” (Joh_1:14). How tremendous that is! “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (Joh_1:18). He has “declared"exegeomai, exegeted God. He has led God out to where we can know about Him because God became a man. That is the only way you and I could know about Him.
We can now know about God. The important thing in this whole section of Scripture is communion with the Father and with the Son. The emphasis here is not so much upon having life in Christ through faith in Him, but the emphasis is upon having communion and enjoying that fellowship with Him which is so essential.
1 John 2:25
The only kind of life that God offers is eternal life. If you lose it tomorrow or next week or next year, it isn’t eternal life that you have. It is some other kind of life, but not eternal life.
1 John 2:26
Seduce means “to lead astray, to lead from the truth.” I think that seduce is a good word here because it applies in exactly the same way in both the physical and spiritual realms. In other words, you lead a person to commit spiritual adultery when you lead him away from the truth. Even in John’s day there were those coming along who were beginning to deny the Father and the Son, beginning to deny that the Lord Jesus Christ was who He claimed to be. They were seducing some of those who were professing Christians. John says that the thing which you must hold onto is that God has promised you eternal life if you put your faith in Christ, and you do not need to add anything to that. John was telling the people of his day that they did not need what the Gnostics were teaching. The Gnostics pretended to have super-duper knowledge, that they knew a little bit more than anyone else. I am afraid that in our own day there is a real danger when a great many people are going to so many Bible classes. There is the danger of their becoming super-duper saints. A lady said something to me the other day which I didn’t appreciate very much because I know her husband so well and he is a wonderful Christian. She’s been going to Bible classes, and they have been fine classes.
Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not criticizing the Bible classes. However, she was adopting a very superior attitude toward her husband, that she knew more than he knew, and that she was really the one who could teach him. Very frankly, I don’t think she could. He is a very intelligent man, and although he is not able to be in as many Bible classes as she is, what he does hear has an effect upon his life. So there is a real danger of present-day Gnosticism, of professing to have a superknowledge and maybe even a super experience, of becoming a super-duper saint where there is just no one else at your level. Such a position is a dangerous one to come to because if you come into a knowledge of Christ and you begin to grow in grace and knowledge of Him, you will have the same experience that John the Baptist had, which he expressed this way, “He [Christ] must increase, but I must decrease” (Joh_3:30). I’m going to make a confession to you, and I hope you won’t let it out but will just keep it in the family. In one sense it is a little disturbing to me that my study of the Word of God does not reveal how much I know, but rather it reveals how much I don’t know and how woefully ignorant I am. I am studying the Bible now as I never have in my entire life, but when I graduated from seminary, I practically knew it all; there was very little that I thought I needed to learn after that. There were certain things I thought I knew at that time, but very frankly, I’m coming now to find that I didn’t know them at all. I thought I did, but I didn’t know them at all. There is a vast field of knowledge today for the child of God.
It behooves us to make this matter of coming to know Christ through His Word a serious business and to give it top priority in our lives. That is the thing that is all important, and all that John is really saying is, “I don’t want you to become a super-duper saint. I want you to rest upon the promise of God.” Now John is going to say to them, “You know Him as your Saviorhold on to thatbut now you also want to have communion with Him and the Father, and to have fellowship with Him and the Father and with other believers.”
1 John 2:27
“Anointing” is the Greek word charisma. We speak of a certain speaker or preacher as having charisma. If he doesn’t have charisma, he doesn’t get very far today, you’ll have to admit that. When I went to my classical dictionary, I must say I was shocked and disappointed. This word means “to smear on”; it means to take an ointment and smear it on. It is like when you take a medicated petrolatum and put it on your chest at nightyou are anointing yourself, you are smearing it on. That is literally what charisma means. I checked with Dr. R. C. Trench and Dr. Marvin Vincent, two outstanding Greek scholars, and they also have come up with the same meaning. Charisma means “to smear on.” But what does this mean for us today as believers? Back in the Old Testament, by the command of God, the Israelite priests were anointed with oil. That anointing indicated in a physical way that they were specially endued by the Holy Spirit to perform a certain function. That is what the anointing here means for us today. “But the anointing which ye have received of him"that is, you and I have received an anointing of God. When you are saved, one of the things which the Spirit of God does for you is that He anoints you. He anoints you to understand divine truth which you could not understand before. “But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you.” The important thing to note here is that John is not saying that we do not need teachers. We do need teachers, or else Paul was certainly wrong in Ephesians when he made the statement that God has given to the church certain men who are giftedsome who are teachers, some who are evangelists, and some who are shepherds to minister to and counsel folk. Paul said that God has given these men to the church to build up the body of believers. I think it is important that we all sit under good teachers. As I think back over my life, I thank God for the godly men who have crossed my pathway. They are the ones who are responsible for my being in the ministry. I have the pictures of four men hanging on the wall of my office at the headquarters of our radio ministry. The combined influence of these four men is the reason that I entered the ministry. These men affected my life. You may not know these men, but I am going to give you their names.
The first man is a man by the name of Joe Boyd who was a layman in Nashville, Tennessee. When no one else seemed interested in a young fellow who wanted to study for the ministry, Joe Boyd got interested. He is actually the man who did the footwork of making it possible for me to get a job so that I could go to college and for me to get a loan so that I could go to college and seminary. He followed my ministry, and I was his pastor for three years. He was a wonderful man, and I thank God for him. Next to his picture is the picture of the pastor whom I followed in that church in Nashville, Dr.
A. S. Allen. He is one of those unsung preachers whom you never hear about today, but he is one of the greatest preachers I ever listened to. Next to his picture is that of Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer, the founder and first president of Dallas Theological Seminary.
My, when I heard him preach, that’s what turned me on. I thought, This is the thing that I want to do. Next to Dr. Chafer is the picture of probably the brainiest man whom I have ever met, Dr. Albert Dudley. He is a man who had great influence upon the turn which I took in the ministry to become an expository preacher rather than a preacherette giving little sermonettes to Christianettes.
I thank God for him and for all these men. Therefore, John is not saying that teachers are not essential, but he is saying something that is important for God’s children today. “But the anointing which ye have received of him"this has been referred to before when he spoke of “the unction of the Holy One,” the anointing of the Holy Spirit. One of the Holy Spirit’s ministries is to teach us. He is able to guide us into all truth. The Lord Jesus, the great Teacher, said, “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you” (Joh_14:26). The Holy Spirit will teach us all things, that is, all that you and I are able to contain. “But as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.” There has been given to you an anointing whereby you are enabled to understand all truth because “…the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1Co_2:14). Paul also wrote earlier, “…Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit …” (1Co_2:9-10). This is the anointing of the Holy Spirit for a believer. This is one reason we encourage folk to get into the Word of God and to study it. I received a letter from a dear lady who makes a tape recording of our radio program and then listens to it again and again. She also reads repeatedly the passage of Scripture being taught. All of a sudden her eyes are opened, and she sees the Lord Jesus in a new way. What has happened? She has had an anointing. I don’t believe in a lot of the silly stuff that is going on today which is purely emotional and which doesn’t enlighten you to understand and love the Word of God and to love the Lord Jesus. It does not matter how much whoopee you put into your religion, you can just whoop it up and have all kinds of emotion, but all that is of no value. It is enlightenment that we need today. The whole point is that there ought to come a day when you and I can stand on our two feet as far as the Word of God is concerned and, as Peter says, “…be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear” (1Pe_3:15). We ought to be able to do that. But there is also a grave danger in this which I want to very carefully point out. I know people who have been going to Bible classes and have been studying the Bible for years, but they never get anywhere. They are the ones who bring Bible teaching into disrepute. I see people at Bible conferences in the summertimeI’ve seen them there every summer for thirty yearsand they are today right where they were thirty years ago.
They are like “…silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2Ti_3:6-7). They don’t seem quite to arrive, but they always have their Bibles and are always writing a few little notes down. At a summer conference where I was speaking sometime ago, a woman came to me with the same question that I am confident she had asked me twenty-five years ago at another summer conference! She had a notebook, and she was still taking it down"ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” In other words, we ought to get to the place where the Spirit of God is our Teacher. As you study the Word of God, do you ask the Spirit of God to teach you and to lead you? If you don’t understand something the first time, get down on your knees and say, “Lord, I miss the point. I don’t understand this. Make it real to me. I want this to be real to me.” This is important, and this is what John is saying here. “The anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you.” There are certain things which the Spirit of God can make very real to you. “But as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie.” The Lord Jesus said, “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect” (Mat_24:24). But it will not be possible to deceive the elect. The Antichrist will not deceive the elect who are left on the earth when he comes. And today no antichrist will deceive them. I knew a couple who had recently been saved, and they got into a liberal church. I met them when I was a pastor in downtown Los Angeles.
They told me, “We worked our way down Wilshire Boulevard, going from church to church until we got to your church. We knew we were not hearing the truth of God at the churches we visited, but we couldn’t put our finger on it. We knew the teaching was wrong, but we didn’t know how it was wrong"they were just new converts. God’s little children are going to follow the pattern the Lord Jesus spoke of when He said, “My sheep hear my voice …” (Joh_10:27). God’s children are not going to follow a false shepherd. They hear His voice, and the Spirit of God can be their Teacher.
This should be a great comfort to us. We need to test every teacher we hearit would be well if you tested me. Ask the Holy Spirit, “Is this that McGee is teaching the truth of God? Make it real to my heart, too. I want to know for myself whether it is true or not.”
1 John 2:28
“And now, little children"dear little bairns, little born ones, meaning all God’s children, irrespective of maturity. “Abide in him.” This is not really the imperative here but the indicative. In other words, John is saying, “You are abiding in Him.” I want to repeat that John is speaking here of fellowship. To abide in the Lord Jesus is to live in fellowship with Him. To abide in Him means to have communion with Him. “That, when he shall appear.” This is actually, “If he appear,” but the if is not one of doubt. The if hasn’t anything in the world to do with a doubt of the fact of His coming, but it has to do with the uncertainty as to the circumstances. Although we may have an anointing, we do not know when Jesus is coming. That is one thing which He has reserved for Himself to know. Why has He not revealed to us the time of His coming? “That, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming.” A Christian ought to live in the light of the imminent coming of Christ. If you tell me today that He is not coming for another ten years (I may not live that long!), then I do not need to worry about today, and I can be a little careless in my living. But if He might come today, if He came right at this moment, He would catch me preparing this Bible study and that would be fine. I hope He will come at a time like that, but I don’t know when He will come. There are times when I get behind a driver who won’t let me around to pass him, and I tell him what I think of him. If the Lord were to come at that moment, I might be ashamed at His appearance. So you and I need to be living all the time in the light of His imminent return. “When he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming.” A great many people are talking about the coming of Christ, and they get very excited about it; but it certainly is going to be embarrassing for them because they will not have any confidence and they are going to be ashamed before Him at His coming. Why? Because of their lives. The Lord Jesus says, “And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be” (Rev_22:12). Many people will look around for their reward, and they will find that they haven’t got any. Paul wrote, “If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire” (1Co_3:15). It is very important to have a life that commends the gospel. John is saying here the same thing that Peter said: False doctrine and false living go together; true doctrine and true living go together. Every now and then you hear of a cult leader who is in trouble because he is guilty either of adultery, or of taking money which doesn’t belong to him, or of beating some person out of money. Why? False doctrine leads to false living. True doctrine leads to true living. There is nothing that will affect your life as much as the knowledge that you are going to stand in the presence of Christ and give an account of your works.
Every believer will stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Paul writes, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2Co_5:10). The issue of salvation has already been settled because we are His children and in His presence. It is not a question of whether you are saved or lost; it is a question of whether or not you are going to get any reward or recognition. There will be some folk who will not get any recognition. Paul writes further, “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men …” (2Co_5:11).
The Rapture is not going to be such a thrilling event for a great many believers because of the lives they lived down here.
1 John 2:29
This is the final proof, this is the litmus paper which is put into the solution to tell whether it is acid or base. It surely will tell every time. The Word of God is the real test. In effect John is saying that God’s children look like the Fatherthey take after their Father. If they don’t take after the Father, they must not be the Father’s children. It is just as simple as that, my friend.