1 John 4
McGeeCHAPTER 4THEME: Warning against false teachers; God is lovelittle children will love each other
1 John 4:1
WARNING AGAINST FALSE TEACHERSWe have come to a very difficult section of Scripture here in the fourth chapter of 1 John. One of the reasons is that we are dealing with the spirit world which none of us knows too much about. The second reason is that we are in the Devil’s territory. As a pastor I found that whenever I would preach about the Devil, he always managed to cause some interruption in the church service. Generally, he would pinch some baby, or someone would cause some kind of disturbance in the service. It is amazing how he works. This is a very important passage, but there is a danger of going off the deep end here and becoming rather fanatical. I believe that there is an abnormal preoccupation with the occult on the part of many Christians today which is a most dangerous thing, but we do need to know what the Bible teaches about it. In the first six verses of this chapter, John gives a warning against false teachers, false prophets. He gives us this warning, having just established the fact that we have been given the Spirit of God and that we have been given an anointing to understand the things of God. We are dealing here with the spirit world, and the Bible has a great deal to say about it. For instance, we read in Psa_104:4, “Who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire.” That is quoted in Heb_1:7, “And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire.” Down a little farther in the first chapter of Hebrews, we read, “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?” (Heb_1:14). I have never seen an angel, and I have never had a visit from one of them. I personally do not feel that they have a ministry to the church today. My belief is that since we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, no improvement can be made on that arrangement. I would much rather have the uncreated Holy Spirit than a created angel following me around and ministering to me. I think that we need to put the emphasis upon the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and in our lives. Not only are there good angels who serve God, but there are also fallen angels. They too are called spirits in the Scriptures. The Gospels speak a great deal of the fact that in Christ’s day there were “unclean spirits.” That is what is known as demonism; we call them demons because the Scriptures use that term. As believers we are warned to put on the whole armor of God because we are in a gigantic battle which is beyond the flesh, a battle that is a spiritual battle. Paul writes in Eph_6:12, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” As this verse suggests, the Devil had his demons pretty well organized. In his army of demons he has the generals at the top, the lieutenant colonels, and then on down to the sergeants, the corporals, and the plain, ordinary infantrymen or soldiers. I think that God has His angels organized in pretty much the same way. “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try [prove] the spirits whether they are of God.” A few years ago that sounded rather spooky, but we have moved from the time when the supernatural was ridiculed, especially among the intelligentsia, to a day when Satan has become an obvious reality and is now worshiped openly. Much of this is taking place on or near our college campuses. I know of a couple of satanic churches here in Los Angeles, and there may be many more. What a few years ago was considered to be way out in left field today exists out in the open. The report came from Florida that a young boy of only seventeen years of age was murdered, and they found that it was done to appease Satan. The satanic priestess down there, just a young woman of twenty-two, had said that this boy should be killed! Quite a few things which have happened in our day are really spooky. We had, for instance, the appearance of the book, Jonathan Livingston Seagull. The author, Richard Bach, said that a voice dictated the book to him and that it was not his own style of writing. I understand that many churches recommended the reading of this book and that several good men were taken in by it. It is the story about a theological concept of a young sea gull which has human attributes. He soared off toward unlimited perfection and found that each of us is just an idea of the Great Gull.
This book teaches that birth and sin and sickness and death are not realities but only illusions, that what the biblical writers call sins really are virtues, and that freedom is freedom to do what one pleases. All of that is not new but is actually out of the very pit of hell itselfit is satanic. We are seeing a manifestation of demonism today, and it is all around us. It is strange that this has happened in this materialistic age that once would have nothing in the world to do with the supernatural. When I was in college any concept of the supernatural was frowned upon and looked down upon. It did not make any difference what IQ you had or what grades you made in school, if you believed in the supernatural, you were considerably less than intelligent and you were radically wrongand they didn’t hesitate to tell you so. Today that has all changed. Many young people have gone off the deep end into this because they never have had any Bible training at all. John has been speaking here to God’s children. He has told us how we are to love each other and to help each other, but we must be careful. Paul wrote to the Philippians whom he loved a great deal, “And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment” (Php_1:9). It is a wonderful thing to love, but you and I are in a big, mean, wicked world, and this world we live in will take us in; it will deceive us. We need to be careful. This lovey-dovey idea the liberals havelove slopping over on every sideis not what the Word of God teaches. Paul prayed that the Philippians’ love might abound in knowledge and judgment. Don’t be taken in by everyone who comes along and says that he is a Christian, because many of them are not. When I was first a pastor in downtown Los Angeles, I had to discover through experience that all of the bumsand that’s the best word I know for themwill take advantage of you. One Sunday morning after the service, those who had come forward in response to the invitation were being dealt with, when one of them said that he wanted only me to talk to him. I was quite flattered when the personal worker came and said, “This man wants you to talk with him.” So I went over to him and gave him the plan of salvation. He seemed very interested. In fact, when I would read a verse, he would then take the Bible and read it for himself. (He knew what he should do!) Then he said that he wanted to accept Christ; so we got down on our knees; he shed tears and professed to receive Christ. When we got up, I made the mistake of asking him how he was getting along.
He said, “I hate to say this, but my suitcase is down yonder in a hotel.” It was one of the cheap hotels in the downtown area. “They won’t let me have my suitcase because I can’t pay my bill. I’m greatly embarrassed by it.” He told me that his bill was seven dollars. Well, what are you going to do for a man who has apparently just accepted the Lord and has lost his suitcase? I gave him seven dollars. I went out and got into our car where my wife was waiting for me. I became very expansive as I told her what I had done and how wonderful it was. Time went by, and about six weeks later I saw the man’s picture in the newspaper. He had been arrested. He said, “I’ve been living in Los Angeles for six months, and I’ve lived off the preachers. They are the biggest saps in the world.” Well, I happened to have been one of them! I called up a good friend of mine, the late Dr. Bob Shuler, who was then pastor of Trinity Methodist Church.
I asked him, “Did he come to see you?” He said “Yes.” “Well, did he get to you?” I asked, and he said that he hadn’t. When I told Dr. Shuler that he had gotten to me, he said, “Well, Vernon, I have been in downtown Los Angeles longer than you have, and I’ve had a little more experience. Don’t let them take you in. Remember that the Bible says to try the spirits to see whether they are of God or not. A lot of these men are phonies.” Yes, the bum was a phony, and he had taken me for seven dollars, but I had learned my lesson.
Paul prayed that the Philippians might not only grow in their love, but in judgment and knowledge. You need to use love wisely. You need to be very careful. John says here, “Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits.” When I hear of some person who seems to have supernatural power, to heal, or to impart a gift, I don’t get excited. Someone asks me, “Why don’t you go hear So-and-so?” Well, I don’t want to waste my time. I am told to test, to prove the spirits. There is a lot of hocus-pocus going on today which I can assure you has nothing supernatural in it at all. It is just camouflaged Christianity. “Because many false prophets are gone out into the world.” The “false prophets” are false teachers. Paul used the word that way in 1Co_14:3, “But he that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort.” Prophesy here means “to teach, to exhort, to instruct.” There are many teachers abroad today of whom we need to beware. Right now prophecy is becoming an interesting subject and rightly so. But again, the thing which needs to be said was said very well by Sir Robert Anderson: “Beware of the wild utterances of prophecymongers.” There are many today who are saying more than the Scriptures say so that we need to be very careful. Just because a man comes along saying, “Lord, Lord,” does not mean that we should love him. That may be the man who is more dangerous than a rattlesnake because he may be teaching a false doctrine. He may not be really teaching the Word of God, although he carries a big Bible under his arm.
1 John 4:2
“Hearby know ye the Spirit of God.” How are we to distinguish? John tells us the way: “Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God.” This is where it all beginsin Bethlehem. Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem, and it begins there with his incarnation. Calvary and the Garden Tomb are meaningless unless He is who He claimed to be, unless He is the God-man. The way that you can determine the false teachers is that they will deny the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. That does not mean they do not talk nicely about Him.
They talk about what a remarkable youth He was and that He was a superior child who was born into the world. They say that he was a religious genius and that he was intoxicated with God. They say that He probably had a greater knowledge of God than any other man. He was a “superstar,” you know. They can say a lot of nice things about Him, but ask them if He was God manifested in the flesh?John speaks of “the Word” in his Gospel. Who was the Word?
He was God, and He created all things, and He became flesh. Where? Yonder at Bethlehem, at the Incarnation. Jesus came there. When you deny the Incarnation, the deity of Christ, then you deny His work upon the Cross because it all rests upon who He is. The false teachers attempt to tear Him down by complimenting Him.
That is the way the Lord Jesus is being treated today in many circles. But He is who He claimed to beGod of very God. John is meeting head-on the early heresy of Gnosticism, one of the branches of which said that Christ came upon Jesus at His baptism and left Him at Calvary. That is not what the Word of God teaches. The Word of God says that that Babe in Bethlehem was more than a remarkable baby, that His death upon the Cross was not an ordinary death, and that when He rose from the dead, He rose bodily from the dead. He “…was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification” (Rom_4:25). Isaiah wrote, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given …” (Isa_9:6). The child is born, but the Son is given.
The Son came out of eternity, the Ancient of Days, but the child, His humanity, was conceived in the virgin’s womb. He came forth yonder in Bethlehem where a few shepherds and wise men came to worship Him. He was more than just a precocious child. He was the precious Prince of Peace who made peace by the blood of His Cross and some day shall bring peace to this war-weary world that we are living in. The important thing for us to note is that this is the mark of whether a man is a false prophet or not"Hereby know ye the Spirit of God." Let’s find out what a person believes about Jesus Christ. That’s important, very important.
1 John 4:3
This is the third time John has mentioned Antichrist. John is the only writer who mentions him and he does so only in his epistles. In the second chapter of this epistle, John says, “Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time” (1Jn_2:18). And then again we read, “Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son” (1Jn_2:22). As we saw in chapter 2, anti can mean two different things. It can mean either “against” or “instead of,” that is, an imitation. We have that idea presented in Scripture. The Lord Jesus said, “For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many” (Mat_24:5)in other words, they imitate Him. Antichrist is used, therefore, in the sense of pretending to be Christ. The other meaning is to be against Christ. Revelation 13 presents to us the two beasts of the end time. The first beast is the great political ruler who is comingAntichrist to rule the world, a world dictator. Then there is a religious ruler who is coming, and he is called the false prophet. He will cause the world to worship the first beast. He will come like a lamb, but underneath he is a wolfhe will imitate Christ. I believe that there will be two men and that it will take both of them to fulfill all that is said in Scripture about Antichrist. There will be a great political ruler at the end of time, and there will be a great religious ruler at the end of time. All our contemporary civilization is building up to the coming of Antichrist. There is coming a great religious ruler, and all the religions of the world will amalgamate under his leadership. The movement is in that direction even today. We also have that same kind of movement politically. There is a moving today toward one ruler for this world. He will bring peace into the world temporarily, but it is going to be the most frightful time the world has ever seen.In chapter 2 John says, “Even now are there many antichrists” (1Jn_2:18), and there are quite a few of them about in our day, but they are not the Antichrist. They are false teachers who are moving the world closer and closer to that day, preparing the world for the one finally to appear. In these first six verses of chapter 4, we have what some have called a parenthesis. Maybe they are not quite that, but this is certainly a red light that John puts up here, a caution sign, a stop-look-and-listen sign. He says that love must be exercised with judgment and knowledge. We are to love believers, but we need to be sure that the so-called believers are not false teachers. We are to prove the spirits, for there are false prophets around who are teaching false things. In John’s own day there were the Docetic and Cerinthian Gnostics who denied the humanity of Christ, and in so doing, they also denied the deity of Christ; they made Him out to be a very strange and weird individual. For some reason, God’s people have always been credulous and gullible. There are many believers who fall victim to what Dr. A. T. Robertson called “the latest fads and spiritualistic humbuggery.” There is a lot of that going around in our day. Therefore, John spends the time to give us this warning to beware that false teachers will deny the incarnation of Christ.
Don’t tell me that the virgin birth is not important. Some people ask, “Can you be a Christian and deny the virgin birth?” You cannotthat is impossible because the mark of a false teacher is at that very point. When you destroy the virgin birth, you destroy His death upon the Cross for the sins of the world and His bodily resurrectionin other words, you wreck the Christian faith. This is the reason that the virgin birth is the place where there has been so much denial in our day, and that denial, of course, is that which reveals a false teacher immediately. John is saying that God’s children ought not to be deceived by false teachers. The objective way to identify them is that they deny the incarnation of Christ. Now John gives us the internal, the subjective evidence in verse 1Jn_4:4
1 John 4:4
There is no reason for you to be taken in by satanic teaching or the denial of the deity of Christ. A man said to me once, “I used to be in a certain church, and I was a high officer in the church. Then I got saved, and my eyes were opened. I knew then I was in the wrong place because they were denying the deity of Christ. So I got out.” Why did he get out? Well, he was indwelt by the Spirit of God who had revealed the truth to him. “Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world"so that there is no excuse for you to be taken in today by a false teacher, a false prophet, or a false teaching. The thing to do is to go to God and ask that the Holy Spirit lead you and teach you. If you are in fellowship with Him, the Spirit of God is going to make the issue clear to you. I knew a dear lady right here in Southern California who told me that when she first began to listen to my radio broadcasts, she was very critical of them. She was in a cult, and she felt that what I said contradicted what she was being taughtit sure did! But she began to test it by the Word of God. She was really a born-again Christian but had gotten caught up in this cult. Her eyes were opened because the Spirit of God was there to teach her. “Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.” You can overcome all the false teaching you hear because of the indwelling Spirit of God. Every Christian is indwelt by the Spirit of God. Listen to what Paul has to say: “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his” (Rom_8:9, italics mine). Back in the fifth chapter of Romans, Paul tells us of one of the present results of being justified by faith: “…the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us” (Rom_5:5). Again, we read in 1Co_6:19, “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” Was Paul talking to some super-duper saints, some who had really arrived, some very spiritually-minded saints who were living on a high plane? No.
He was writing to the Corinthians, and he called them carnal and babes in Christ. The Corinthian Christians were just about everything they should not have been, and yet they were indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Every child of God is indwelt by the Spirit of God. This is the reason that you do not need an angel to appear to you tonight to tell you what you need to know. Rather, you need to have the Holy Spirit teach you, and the Holy Spirit teaches through His Word. You cannot stay away from the Bible, be ignorant of it, ignore it, and yet expect to have the Spirit of God lead you and guide you. I try to get people into the Word of God because I have seen that the Spirit of God opens people’s hearts, and He protects them from this world in which we live. We are living in a big, bad world, and we need to be warned concerning the false teaching that is around us. John tells us that we can test the teachings of men. This test is just like putting litmus paper into a solution to tell whether it is an acid or a base. This is a test which will work: Does the teaching deny the incarnation of Christ? That is the spirit of antichrist, my friend. You do not want to follow that. It is contrary to Christ, although it may imitate Him. Generally, these false teachers are very attractive persons. Many of them have charisma, and they make a fleshly appeal to folk. But they can be tested by the Word of God for the Holy Spirit is there to be our teacher and guide.
1 John 4:5
False teachers do get a following. The occult and the cults are growing much faster today than is Christianity. They have the advantage of appealing to the flesh which we do not. I think it is tragic to have Christians using fleshly means to draw in a crowd. We need to be very careful of the methods which we use. If they are fleshly methods, God cannot bless them at all.
We need to be sure that the Word of God is being given out. I do not care whether several thousand people come to your churchthat is not the important thing. I am interested in the message. Is the Word of God being given out? Is it given out in the power of the Spirit so that the Spirit of God can take it and use it? The message should not be a great deal of pious promotion for some sentimental appeal that causes you to give.
The question is: Is the Word of God going out from your church? Are folk coming to know Christ? You would not want to invest money in a company simply because they have a nice, beautiful building and the president is a very handsome fellow with a warm personality and charisma. If you are going to invest in that company, you will want to know whether it is making money or not. Is it getting results? Is something happening there?
God intends us to use a little consecrated common sense when we are dealing in the area of religion. “They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them.” When John used Cain and Abel as an illustration in chapter 3, he said that Cain was not righteous and was not God’s child. He did not say that Cain wasn’t religious. Cain did bring an offering; in fact, I have a notion his offering was much more attractive than Abel’s offering. Cain’s was beautiful; it was the fruit of the field, but Abel’s was bloody and would have been sickening, nauseating to some people. However, Abel’s offering is the one which God accepted because it recognized the sin of man and his need of a Savior. Cain did not recognize that at all. The flesh depends on itself; it does not depend upon God. John has made very clear to us that the important thing is that Jesus Christ is who he claimed to be, and that is the thing that we need to be very clear on in order to determine whether a teaching is true or not.
1 John 4:6
I used to tell the people of my church that I use the Bible as a Geiger counter. A Geiger counter tells you whether or not there is uranium there in the rocks and in the soil. So I just run the Geiger counter over the congregation, and the Bible is what I useit’s my Geiger counter. I want to tell you, God’s children will always respond to it. That was my confidence as a pastor, and that is my confidence as I write this book: God’s people are going to hear. And, my friend, I do not expect the other crowd to hear.
If they don’t want to hear it, all they have to do is close this book. The Christian ministry does not depend upon them for support; God’s people are to support God’s work. After all, the ark of the covenant was carried on the shoulders of the priests of Israel. The ark speaks of Christ, and if we are to take Him to the world, we must carry Him on our shoulders. The supreme encouragement of the ministry is to know that God’s children will hear you. The elect cannot permanently be deceived.
Christ said it is not possible to deceive the elect. John was sure of who the Lord Jesus was. He could say, “And the Word was made [became] flesh, and dwelt [pitched His tent] among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (Joh_1:14). Then John gave us the purpose of his Gospel: “And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name” (Joh_20:30-31). John had indubitable, indestructible, inevitable evidence that Jesus was who He claimed to be. John knew that, and that is something we need to be a little more sure of today.
1 John 4:7
GOD IS LOVE: LITTLE CHILDREN WILL LOVE EACH OTHER"Beloved, let us love one another.” Why? “For love is of God.” Let’s be very careful here as to what John is talking about. He has just given a warning against false teachers who are not to be lovedlet’s be clear on that. I don’t pray for them. I do not give any pious platitude, saying, “Oh, I’ll pray for them.” I’m not praying for them. They are the children of the Devil. I’m praying for God’s people, and I’m praying for the lost sinner who will turn to Christ if I can just get the Word to him. Having given a warning against these false teachers, John returns now to the theme of this section: believers are to love one another. Again, may I say that the word for love here is not eros; John is not talking about sex. All through this section, the word for love is agape love. It is not sentimental, it is not sexual, and it is not social love. It is supernatural love. It is that which the Holy Spirit can put in our hearts, and only the Spirit of God can make it real to us. It is the love of God, and only the Spirit of God can enable us to extend this love to others. This is not the kind of love you have for friends whom you delight in being with. I am afraid this verse has been misused by many. When I was a student in college, I used the verse in courting a girl: “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God.” But the kind of love I was talking about was not the kind John was talking about, I can assure you of that! I surely did misinterpret this, and I must confess that I did not have a very lofty purpose at that particular time. “Beloved, let us love one another"that is, love other believers. “Every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.” This is approaching it from the human viewpoint. When you meet a person who says he is a believer, and you find that he loves you and loves other brethren, you can know that he is a born-again child of God. I think people write things in letters to me that they probably would not say to me in person. Many people write, “Dr. McGee, I love you,” and then they go on to tell me why. One family, for instance, wrote, “You brought our two children to the Lord.” Their love for me is an evidence that they are real born-again children of God.
1 John 4:8
“He that loveth not knoweth not God.” This is another test of whether or not you are a child of God. I’m not asking you if you love your papa and your mama. I’m not asking you whether you love your wife or your husband or your children or your kissin’ cousinsI’m not asking you that. But I am asking you this: Do you love other believers? Maybe someone will say, “Well, I can love some of them.” That is helpfulyou are moving in the right direction. There are some believers who are very unlovely, but I think that we can love them in the sense that we can have a concern for them. I do not think it is essential to put your arms around them. The way you can show your love is by your concern for others which is going to result in helping them. John gives us now another definition of God: “God is love.” We have three great definitions of God in this wonderful little book: (1) “God is light” (1Jn_1:5), and that was the theme from chapters 1Jn_1:1 to 1Jn_2:2; (2) “God is love” (1Jn_4:8-16), the very heart of this epistle is the theme from chapters 1Jn_2:3 to 1Jn_4:21; and (3) “God is life” is the theme of chapter 5. These are the three great definitions of God which John gives to us, and they constitute the major divisions of this very marvelous epistle. John says here and again in verse 1Jn_4:16, “God is love.” Dr. Harry Ironside has a very remarkable story relative to this which I am going to pass on to you because I think it demonstrates in a wonderful way the truth that only Christianity reveals the God of love. In The Epistles of John Dr. H. A. Ironside writes: Years ago a lady who prided herself on belonging to the intelligentsia said to me, “I have no use for the Bible, for Christian superstition, and religious dogma. It is enough for me to know that God is love.” “Well,” I said, “do you know it?” “Why, of course I do,” she said, “everybody knows that.” “Do they know it yonder in India?” I asked. “That poor mother in her distress throwing her little babe into the holy Ganges to be eaten by filthy and repulsive crocodiles as a sacrifice for her sinsdoes she know that God is love?” “Oh, well, she is ignorant and superstitious,” she replied. “Those poor wretched negroes in the jungles of Africa, bowing down to gods of wood and stone, and in constant fear of their fetishes, the poor heathen in other countries, do they know that God is love?” “Perhaps not,” she said, “but in a civilized land we all know it.” “But how is it that we know it? Who told us so? Where did we find it out?” “I do not understand what you mean,” she said, “for I’ve always known it.” “Let me tell you this,” I answered; “no one in the world ever knew it until it was revealed from heaven and recorded in the Word of God. It is here and nowhere else. It is not found in all the literature of the ancients.”
1 John 4:9
How does God love you? Well, you won’t find that love in nature, but you will find a bloody tooth and a sharp clawthat is what nature reveals to us. You will find the love of God at Calvary. There is where you find the love of God manifested. “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.” God has proven His love. He laid down His life for us, and that is the proof of His love. Paul wrote, “For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die” (Rom_5:7).
I don’t know whether or not you could get anyone to lay down his life for you; I think I’d have a little problem finding someone myself. But God has proven His love by giving His Son to die for you! He gave Him to die for you, not after you won a Sunday school attendance bar for not missing a Sunday in five years, but God loved you when you were yet a sinner. “For when we were yet without strength [while we were lost, while we were absolutely unlovely], in due time Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom_5:6). God loved us! “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom_5:8). The explanation of this love is found in Him and not in usbecause we are not lovely, and some of us do not ever seem to become very lovely. “God sent his only begotten Son into the world.” Here is another verse to which those who would like to rob us of the deity of Christ turn. When Jesus Christ is called “the only begotten Son,” it means that He has a unique relationship with the Father. He was not created. God called the created angels His sons, and He says that those who trust Christ are sons of God, but yet He says that the Lord Jesus is “the only begotten Son.” It is interesting that the same thing is said of Isaac: “By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac; and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son” (Heb_11:17, italics mine). At that time Abraham already had his son Ishmael, and later on he had other sons. Ishmael was Abraham’s son, just as much his son as Isaac was.
In fact, Ishmael probably looked as much like Abraham as Isaac ever did. But Isaac is called “his only begotten.” Why? Because he was unique, his birth was miraculous, and he stood in a unique relationship which was not shared by Abraham’s other sons. The position of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Godhead is that of the eternal Son of the eternal Father. We cannot have an eternal Father without an eternal Son. God is not a father in the sense that a human being is a father. “God is a Spirit” (see Joh_4:24), the Lord Jesus said.
The “only begotten Son” is the Father’s unique son. Others are sons by creation, as Adam and the angels, or by new birth, as believers are, but Jesus Christ alone is the unique Son. “That we might live through him.” How are we going to live through Him? We are going to live through Him because He died. His death gives us life.
1 John 4:10
John has used the word propitiation previously: “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1Jn_2:2). This word is quite remarkable. I recognize that there are two different Greek words translated as “propitiation” in the New Testament; actually, it is the same word, but two different forms of it. Dr. A. T. Robertson, whom I consider to be the greatest Greek scholar of them all, writes that here the word propitiation is a predicate accusative in apposition with huion, that is, the Son. Propitiation means “mercy seat”; it is the same as the Old Testament word atonement, meaning “to cover.” Let me make this as clear as I possibly can. In the tabernacle in the Holy of Holies there was the ark of the covenant. On top of that ark there was a highly ornamented lid crowned with two cherubim of solid gold, facing each other and looking down upon the lid of the box. The ark was a very beautiful thing, for it was all made of acacia wood, and covered inside and outside with gold. The lid was called the mercy seat. It was here that the nation of Israel met God in the person of the high priest.
Once a year and only once a year, the high priest came into the Holy of Holies, bringing blood to be sprinkled on the mercy seat. That is what made it a mercy seat because they could meet God only in that way. God loved them, but He didn’t simply slop over with love and say, “You can come to Me any way you want.” This was the way they were to come to God: On that great Day of Atonement, the high priest went in and sprinkled the blood on the mercy seat. That meant that the nation was accepted by God for another year, and then they would need to go through it again the next year. Now here in the verse before us, the Lord Jesus Christ is called “the propitiation for our sins” which means that He is the mercy seat for our sins. Jesus is Himself the mercy seat because He died down here for us"Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification” (Rom_4:25). He has made expiation for our sins so that you and I can come with boldness to God’s throne of grace. That throne is now a throne of grace because there is mercy there for us. That is what Christ did, and that is the way God demonstrated His love for us. Twice in this chapter John gives us the definition, “God is love"in verse 1Jn_4:8 and again in verse 1Jn_4:16. This is a very wonderful thing, but I would have you notice something about it. You cannot say God is mercy. You cannot say God is grace. You cannot even say God is justice. You can say God is holy because that is what “God is light” means. But you can also say God is love. However, I must add that God does not save us by love. He loves us, and we don’t want to lose sight of that, but God just cannot open the back door of heaven and slip us in under cover of darkness because He loves us. And God cannot let down the bars of heaven and bring us in the front door. God cannot do that, and God will not do that because He is a holy and righteous God. We have seen so many shenanigans go on in the execution of justice in this nation of ours, and as a result, the judges and others who are in authority have wanted to get rid of capital punishment. Why? Because they know that if a man has money or influence, his life will not be taken. It is the poor fellow who cannot escape his due punishment. The tragic thing today is that we believe that justice can be bought. My friend, even though God loves you, He does not save you by love, and He cannot save you by love.
God had to do something about the fact of sin because He is holy and righteous, and what He does is right. So God gave His Son to die on the Cross for you and me, to pay the penalty for our sin so that a holy God can now reach down and save us. It is only on that basis that a holy God can save us. Christ is the mercy seat, and that is where God reveals His love. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (Joh_3:16). “Herein is love, not that we loved God"we didn’t love Him first. God didn’t give His Son for us because we were attractive, or because we were good, or because we promised to do something. God loved us “while we were yet sinners.” We need to recognize that you and I today are sinners and that “…God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom_5:8). God did it at that time, and God loved us at that time. He has made a way for us, if we will accept it. Jesus said, “…I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (Joh_14:6).
You either come His way, or you don’t come, my friend. It is nonsense to think that because God is love, everything will work out all right and everyone will ultimately go to heaven. It is going to work out all right because the lost are going to a lost eternity, and the saved are going to a saved eternitythat’s the reason things are going to work out all right. Are they going to work out all right for you? They will, if you come God’s waythis is tremendously important.
1 John 4:11
God has demonstrated His love for us; therefore, you and I ought to love on that plane. John says, “Beloved, if God so loved us.” This carries our minds back to verse 1Jn_4:10: “Herein is love …that he loved us, and sent His Son.” He loved us enough to give His Son as a propitiation for our sins. If we love those who love us, or if there is a selfish motive in our loving them, there is no value in that. The Lord Jesus said, “For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?” (Mat_5:46). “We ought also to love one another.” I like thatwhen John says ought, he means it. He is not talking about the cheap sentiment which a great many people entertain today. Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (Joh_14:15). If you really love Him, keep His commandments. “This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you” (Joh_15:12). How about it, my friend? Do you mean to tell me that you can hate Christians down here and still love God?
I want to say to you very frankly that if you cannot demonstrate in your life that you have love for other believers, there is a serious question whether you are a child of God or not. There is a lot of nonsense going on today. We are not talking about backslapping, calling somebody “brother,” or behaving so nicely in the church. But do you have a concern for believers? Do you have a concern to get out His Word? Do you have a concern to serve Him? The Lord Jesus could say even on the Cross, “…Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do …” (Luk_23:34). The first martyr of the church, Stephen, said the same thing. Can you forgive like that today? Are you able to forgive those who have hurt you and harmed you and yet profess to be children of God? And if they cannot return your love, there is some question whether they are children of God or not. This is the real test, the acid test, and it hurtsdoes it not? We do not hear this type of teaching in these little seminars which talk about how to live the Christian life and how to get along with your spouse. John gives us the bedrock of it all: Do you love God? And do you love other believers?
1 John 4:12
“No man hath seen God at any time.” Some folk challenge this statement by pointing out scriptural illustration of those who have seen God. Of course, there was Adam, and then Moses who talked with God face to face and was hidden in the cleft of the rock as He went by. And Isaiah says, “In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple” (Isa_6:1). We find that Ezekiel had visions of God, and the Lord appeared to Daniel and to others. And yet John said in his Gospel, “No man hath seen God at any time.” But John does not conclude his statement with that; he goes on to say, “…the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (Joh_1:18)that is, He has exegeted Him. When God appeared to men in the Old Testament, they did not see God, for God is a Spirit and that is the way we worship Him.
Those men saw what is known as a theophany. That is, God manifested Himself in some form to these men, but He did not reveal Himself in all of His fullness. So that John says in his epistle, even after the Lord Jesus had gone back to heaven, “No man hath seen God at any time.” The Lord Jesus said to Philip, “…he that hath seen me hath seen the Father …” (Joh_14:9). But how did they see Him? He was veiled in human flesh, so much so that multitudes who saw Him did not recognize Him. He grew to manhood yonder in Nazareth, veiled in human fleshthey did not know that He was the Son of God.
No man has seen God in all of His fullness. That is still true today. The point that John is making here is that no man has seen God at any time, but God today can manifest Himself through believers loving each other. Since the world in general is not seeing Jesus as He is presented in the Word of God, the only way it will know of God’s love is through the lives of believers who represent Him. None of us knew about God’s love until God showed it to us on the Cross when Christ died, and He makes it real to us by the Holy Spirit. “And …the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us” (Rom_5:5). And “…God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners [while we were dead in trespasses, while we were ungodly], Christ died for us” (Rom_5:8). It is still true that there is none that seeketh after God, so God has come down seeking man. He came down nineteen hundred years ago, manifesting Himself in the Lord Jesus Christ, and all I know about God is what I know in the person of Christ.
I do not know how God feels about certain things; I do not know what He thinks about certain things. But when I follow the Lord Jesus and listen to Him, I know what God is thinking, I can feel the heartbeat of God. I know how He feels at a funeral, for the Scriptures tells us that “Jesus wept” (Joh_11:35). I know how He feels about little children because He took them up in His arms and blessed them. I know these things because the Lord came and manifested God. How is this wicked world in which you and I live to know God? Unfortunately, too many believers are trying to please the world instead of trying to preach to the world. We are concerned about what the world thinks of us, but the important thing is: What do they think of Jesus? What do they think of us as we represent Him? Someone has put it like this: “At the age of twenty, we do not care what the world thinks of us. At thirty we worry about what the world is thinking of us.
At forty we discover that it wasn’t thinking of us at all!” That is about true. We today are to witness to the world. How are we going to witness? By giving out the Word? Yes, that is all important. But the world is hungry for love; they do not know what love is.
Their definition of love would be a three-letter word spelled s-e-x. That is the love the world knows about, but they don’t know anything about the love of God. They do not know how wonderful He is, but He can be manifested in us. “And his love is perfected in us.” His love is developed in us. It is a growth in us. The world is not seeing enough of this love, and yet it has seen it in the lives of a great many believers.
1 John 4:13
You see, it is only by the Holy Spirit within us. This is not a human love. You and I cannot work it up. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law” (Gal_5:22-23). Love heads the list. Many believe that love is the fruit and that the others stem from love. If you read 1 Corinthians 13, you will come to the conclusion that joy comes out of love and peace comes out of love. In The Epistles of John Dr. Ironside records this incident concerning Chiang Kai-shek at the time he was ruling mainland China. We all noticed a short time ago the account of the professed conversion of the President of China. We hope there has been a real work in his soul, but time will tell. I was reading how he came to his Christian wife who was saved long before he made a profession, and said, “I can’t understand these Christians; why, they have been treated most abominably here, they have been robbed, beaten, many of them killed, they have been persecuted fearfully, and yet I never find one of them retaliating, and any time they can do anything for China, for our people, they are ready to do it; I do not understand them.” “Well,” said his wife, “that, you see, is the very essence of Christianity. They do that because they are Christians.” There is a need for a great many more pagans to be able to see this love in the lives of believers. This is a teaching that is surely neglected today. How often do you hear this taught in the church, on radio, or in these little seminars which are held? Is this the teaching which is given as being basic and all important? When the love of God is in a home you don’t need to worry about the wife’s place and whether she is to obey her husband or whether the husband is to be the head of the house, and all of that argument. Paul writes, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it” (Eph_5:25). If he loves her, if she is a woman for whom he would lay down his life, if the wife can say that she loves him with all her heart and would do anything for him, then I don’t think you need a lot of little rules to go by. There is a monument which I have seen, a statue of a pioneer woman, a fine looking young woman with a sunbonnet on. She has about five children around her holding on to those long skirts which they wore back in those days. She’s holding a gun, and out ahead of her is her husband.
She is loading one gun, while he shoots another. He is out there protecting her. Do you know, friend, I don’t think that woman needed any lectures on sex. If she had five children, I think she could have given you some lectures on it! And I don’t think she needed to have a lecture on how to keep her husband. She had no trouble keeping him.
They loved each other, and they were bound together. How wonderful love is! If the child of God could only manifest the love of God to others round about him! “Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.” Back in verse 1Jn_4:4 John says, “Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.” You are indwelt by the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of God can produce this love in your heart. You cannot produce it; I cannot produce it. I cannot love like this. My natural bent is that when somebody hits me, I hit back. But if we are filled by the Spirit of God who indwells us, we are going to manifest this kind of love to the world.
1 John 4:14
This is the gospel witness. This is the message which we have to give. This is the purpose of our love. Again I must come back and repeat: Christian love is not sloppy or sentimental; it is not sexual; it is not social. It is not something that you have at the church banquet. It is something which reveals itself when we take Christ to a lost world of sinners. That is the way we manifest our love. This kind of love is hard to understand. I have been with missionaries in many placesin Israel, in Africa, in Lebanon, in Turkey. I have been with them in France and Italy, and I have been with them in Mexico, in Venezuela, and in the Caribbean. The thing which I have noted about these missionaries is that they love people, and a lot of people they love are very hard to love. But they have a love for them, and it is wonderful to see it. What are they doing? They are taking the gospel out to these people, and that is the thing that God has commanded them to do. When they first got there, maybe they didn’t love the people. But after you have ministered to people, my friend, you will love them, or you just couldn’t be God’s child.
1 John 4:15
This is where you begin with Himdon’t tell me that the virgin birth is not important. This is the gospel: “…how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures” (1Co_15:3-4). My friend, if He is not who He said He was, His death and resurrection are absolutely meaningless; in fact, He was not raised from the dead if He is not who He said He was. But the evidence is all on the side that He did arise from the dead, and the proof of it is that He was virgin born; He was who He claimed to be. “Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.” This is the reason that the Lord Jesus could say, “Whatever God does, I do.” He made this tremendous claim: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life” (Joh_5:24). How is that possible? He had just said in Joh_5:19, “…The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.” He is going to raise the dead, and He is going to judge all of the dead. Therefore, He can say to you today that because of who He is, if you will hear His voice and if you will believe on Him, you will be saved.
1 John 4:16
These are inextricably intertwined and interwoven together. You simply cannot say that you love God and that you are a child of God when you hate the brethren down here. This is the second time in this chapter that we have had the definition, “God is love.” An easy way to remember where in chapter 4 it occurs is this: multiply four by two and you get eightit occurs in verse 1Jn_4:8 the first time; then multiply eight by two and get sixteenit occurs in verse 1Jn_4:16 the second time. 1Jn_4:8 and 1Jn_4:16 give the definition, “God is love.”
1 John 4:17
Our love is made “perfect,” and that means complete. “That we may have boldness in the day of judgment.” If you and I love God, love the Lord Jesus, and love one another as brothers and sisters in the faith, then that will give us boldness, and we will not have any fear of the day of judgment. “Because as he is, so are we in this world.” In other words, we are just like the Lord Jesus. He was raised from the dead, we are told here, and He has life. Well, we have that life too, and He is up yonder at God’s right hand for us. We are in Christ, and we are accepted in the Beloved. Therefore, John can go on to say
1 John 4:18
There is nothing like fear in the human heart, but the child of God does not need to fear any judgment which is coming. It was all settled when Christ died for you. “He that feareth is not made perfect in love.” If you are fearful, you cannot enjoy your salvation. Joy stems from love, and if you have love for the Lord Jesus, for God, and for your brethren, then fear has been cast out.
1 John 4:19
He loved us when we were unlovely. He is worth loving. He is worthy. The Lamb is worthy of all of our love, all of our devotion, all of our service.
1 John 4:20
I didn’t say this; John said it. John says that if you say you love God and hate your brother, you are a liar. “For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” There is a great deal of nonsense and pious hypocrisy going on today even in our fundamental churches. If we do not love our brother, then we do not love God either.
1 John 4:21
This is a commandment. God does not ask you if you feel like it or if you want to. He says, “This is what I command you. Because I love, you are to love.” I get a little weary hearing the talk of “dedicated” and “consecrated” Christians who are lazy on the job. You are not dedicated to the Lord unless you demonstrate it in your life and in your service.