CHAPTER 2
At this point in the epistle the Christ of Christianity is set forth as advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, a propitiation for our sins. John introduces this passage by telling us why he wrote it.
Verse 1 “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”
In chapter 1:4 he says that he was writing so that full joy might be experienced in the sort of fellowship he was seeking to build in Christianity. Here he is writing that this fellowship might not sin (aorist tense).
This section has to do with what is negative, with guarding against spiritual evil. It is possible for there to be a sinless company, in a spiritual sense, even though the individuals who constitute it continue to commit fleshly sins. The ideal and its embodiment is to be found in the fellowship.
He addresses them as his “dear” children (Newberry). This expression, as in verse 12, includes all the people of God – little children, young men, fathers. John is seeking to prevent the possibility of his own children in the faith failing to live up to that which he has introduced them into by his apostolic teaching. Having these writings should cause them and us not to fail as God’s responsible people on earth, to sin not. Collective spiritual failure is the greatest failure of all. We are thus set into the most significant and responsible place in the outworking of divine purpose. By giving His Word to His people in a sphere in which it can be rightly interpreted, God is fitting them spiritually to fill the place they will occupy in the day of Christ’s manifestation and universal reign. It is, therefore, sin for the people of God to fail to attain spiritual maturity, in view of what God has done to make this development possible through the work of Christ and that of the Holy Spirit by the apostles. John’s epistle is written to prevent this sin.
It is essential to realise why God has established Christianity on earth. It is really a heavenly system which functions because of the continued work of a Mediator in heaven. This produces results on earth from the death and subsequent glorification of the Christ.
John then traces out the perfections and potentialities of the system. He shows the provision which God has made in it for failure on the part of those who are its exponents. “If any man sin” – this brings out the stability of what God has constituted in heaven in respect of the system He has established on earth. This stability is unaltered by sin. The ideal remains, Man in the presence of God in unsullied holiness. Attainment of the ideal remains possible so long as we do not lose sight of Christ, the Christ as He appears to God.
There are three aspects of, and functions to be fulfilled, in Christianity.
- Our place and relationship toward the Father
- Our position toward one another
- Our place in the world.
‘Sin’ here is also in the aorist tense, showing an act complete in itself rather than continuous sins. Sin can be directed against and represent a failure in any of the three aspects of collective christian life.
As Advocate with the Father, Christ is answering to failure toward the Father. He is Paraclete with the Father, One in His presence to help His people to maturity despite their natural weakness. The spiritual ideal to which we can attain is the measure of the fulness of the stature of Christ, the full-grown man. This is reached as we regard the ideal in glory with increasingly enlightened spiritual eyes. However, in our original spiritual immaturity as a family of God on earth we may sin against the truth displayed in the completed Word. The throne of God established in heaven responds to us according to the advocacy of the Man who occupies it for our progress out of spiritual shortcomings, rather than to punish us for such sin.
As Jesus Christ the righteous He is answerable to internal spiritual failure. This is the Man Jesus, who walked in spiritual perfection in this world in order to become the Christ we have in Christianity. In our response to such an unveiling of the personification of truth and perfection we may sin but He still remains for us Jesus Christ the righteous. Righteousness is not human merit but God acting in character to realise His intentions. To enable us, collectively, to attain to the perfections embodied in Christ in glory, God has given us the same life as Christ lives in and His completed revelation to live by.
Verse 2 “And He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”
Christ is also propitiation, both for our sins and for the whole world. Our Lord Jesus has accomplished an act of redemption and in our christian calling we have great spiritual responsibility in relation to it. This has to do with the already completed work of Christ and the place and office He has assumed, whereby the world will ultimately be reconciled to God. The propitiation sets forth Christ as a mercy-seat. This was the lid upon the ark in Judaism which contained the law of Moses. The law represents the demands God made upon man if he would be in His Presence. Upon this lid rested the cherubim, the angelic assessors of divine righteousness. Between the cherubim rested the divine Presence in complacency, because the mercy-seat answered the demands of the law. So Christ, by His death, affords God a meeting-place with man and a resting-place in perfect complacency in creation. The present effect of this is that Christ is already an effective propitiation for our sins. Ultimately, this propitiation will be effective for the whole world.
Christ acts for us (‘we have such a Christ’) in these offices and character, even in the midst of our failure on earth, so that the spiritual effects which God desires in His people might result. What Christ is with the Father, what He is for His own, what He will be for the world, can be a functional reality on earth if His people will lay hold upon the truth of Christianity.
John seeks to produce this spiritual reality amongst them, and us, by his apostolic ministry. Obedience to divine revelation is the way to achieve results. This obedience was displayed perfectly by Christ in His life in flesh. In heaven He is now devoted to the spiritual cause of His people on earth in their involvement in divine purpose. “For their sake I sanctify Myself”, John 17:19. So also we should be sanctified unto the obedience of the Christ. As it was with the high priest of Judaism, so it is with the present High Priest in Christianity. He both embodies and displays the highest significance of the system. He is Man in the presence of the God of revelation and He bears the iniquity of the holy place.
The spiritual responsibility of our heavenly calling is thus set forth by John. John then shows how the reality and productivity of our service can be tested by using each of the phrases “in this” and “he that saith” three times.
“In this we know that we know Him” – v.3
“In this verily hath the love of God been perfected” – v.5
“In this we know that we are in Him” – v.5
“He that saith I know Him” – v.4
“He that saith he abideth” – v.6
“He that saith he is in the light” – v.9
If in our christian profession, what we say is true, then we will:
1. Obey His commandments
2. Walk as He walked
3. Love the brethren.
This sort of Christianity is the truth, is the true light and is of the truth.
Verses 3-5 “And hereby we do know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He that saith, I know Him, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth His word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in Him.”
The purpose of our being the people of God in the christian system is that we might fully know God in and through the Lord Jesus. Christianity above all else is the means whereby its adherents arrive at the full knowledge of God as He is revealed in the completed Scriptures of truth. The Word of God, the truth, is the revelation of God but it must be appreciated spiritually rather than literally. If we are to know God insofar as He is knowable by the Christ of Christianity, we will have to go about it in the right way. We have to keep His commandments, we have to walk as He walked, we have to love the brethren. Our divinely constituted place and relationship to the Father must be kept in doctrinal purity. Our walk in the world must correspond to the Lord’s (spiritual) walk in it. Though we cannot as individuals correspond to Him spiritually, we can do so collectively by being governed by the revealed will and rule of God, as He was. Our divine affections toward one another must be active and productive.
Failure, collective failure to come to know the God of revelation, is a dreadful possibility. There are three ways in which there can be failure – in constitution, in walk, or in love. The things with which Christianity has to do, divine life, light and love, may not be fully and truly appreciated by its adherents. If there is failure, it is not on the part of God’s provision. The Lord Jesus succeeded perfectly in His God-given task of bringing the full knowledge of God down to earth. The apostles also, despite being men in the flesh, perfectly fulfilled their mission by completing the Word of God, Col.1:25, and established spiritually-orientated Christianity in which this work can be known and perpetuated on earth. So there is opened up to the people of God the glorious possibility of knowing and keeping the Word of God. This is a divine necessity for the realising of God’s eternal purpose, for which He has acquired a people. It is however possible for the people of God to lie and for the truth, the whole truth, not to be in them.
God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, has now been revealed and the revelation is contained in the completed Word. The Word is, however, also a revelation of the ideal formation of the people of God, so that they might play their part in having received revealed truth. Man keeping the Word of God is man in whom the love of God has been perfected. The Lord Jesus on earth kept the Word of God and so abode in His love. The people of God being able to keep that Word is the perfect response which results when it has free course and is glorified in them.
If the full knowledge of God, the God of the Word, does come to us in our practice of Christianity, then by this we know we are in Him. We are effectively in the fellowship resulting from the Lord Jesus’ mediation of the blessings of God. So obedience to the first principles of Christianity – the teachings of the apostles, the basic essential demands for christian fellowship, the truth of the local assembly – is what is demanded of those who would come to know the fulness of truth. Only in this way can the spiritual climate be built up in which God can work unhinderedly to make Himself known.
Verse 6 “He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked.”
The second essential is abiding, continuing steadfastly in divine things. The third, as we shall see later, is loving, v.10. Abiding involves walking as the Lord Jesus Himself walked. He walked in obedience to the Father, for the Father’s pleasure, when He brought His Sonship into humanity. If He had used the power and wisdom of His Sonship for His own advantage in the world, to establish Himself as the Son in this world independently of the Father, He could have readily subjected the world to Himself. He could have installed Himself in Jerusalem or Rome and used His miraculous powers to heal all the sick, to turn stones into bread or gold, to reveal all the secrets of the universe He had made and so forth. At the same time He need not have died but could have lived eternally in flesh. He could have been exactly the sort of Messiah the world wants and would accept. But thereby the ultimate state of creation which God desires could not have been realised. Such activity would have been disobedience to the Father. He would not then have been abiding in the Father’s love. Instead, however, He humbled Himself, even though He was the Son, to establish in the world the full knowledge of the Father and of His love.
We are also called to such obedience and abiding in the Son as He Himself kept the Father’s Word and abode in His love. For us this also involves the rejection of what we are by nature. “If any one will come after me, let him deny (aorist) himself”. To come into Christianity involves a once-for-all denial of the flesh. This is not a daily self-denial but a recognising that ordinary human nature, the flesh, cannot follow Christ into the spiritual realm which He was by His obedience to the Father opening up for man. Human nature and natural things have no positive place in Christianity. By Christianity, God is not seeking an improvement in human nature and the world as a result of our dedicated conscious efforts, as is the vogue in Christendom. That is a denial of the Father’s will, just as it would have been for the Christ to have used His divine powers for His own end. We have all, of course, secular lives to live and for humanistic reasons we should all do our best and contribute to the welfare of society. However, if this is our Christianity, it is a lie. This fleshly, worldly cancer has eaten deeply into what passes as Christianity. What the world calls puritanism is one of the greatest enemies of the cross.
Abiding for the Lord Jesus meant the path of the cross. It meant His continuing to accept the cost of being obedient to the Father and by this He declared the Father in all His fulness. “No man has seen God at any time; the only-begotten which is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him”, John 1:18. “Though He were Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered”, Heb.5:8. So should we also walk. We have been given sonship by God but not to manifest how much better this makes us by nature. Christ the Son came to reveal God. If we are His obedient and abiding people we must be given up to the full understanding of this revelation He has brought. We have present possession of eternal life so that its activity in us might produce fruit unto the full knowledge of God. To have, to know and to keep the Word of God in the fellowship which is of God’s establishing is what the christian life is essentially about. Its good works are spiritual rather than natural. These are the good works which God has prepared before so that we might walk in them, Eph.2:10.
Verse 7 “Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning: The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning.”
The effectiveness of our service to God in christian life is to be measured in two ways – by the old commandment and the new. The old commandment is what had existed from the beginning of Christianity. It answers to what we have in the gospels, the Holy Spirit’s appreciation of the life of the Lord Jesus. It is not suggested that the churches of God then had the gospels as we have now but we know that they had the Word of the beginning of Christ, Heb.6:1. The churches would have those members, the elders, who would possess by apostolic teaching, a thorough knowledge of the fleshly life of the Lord Jesus and its spiritual significance. Therefore, when John refers to the walk of the Lord Jesus in the flesh, he says that he is writing no new commandment. They already knew what was involved: it is the word heard from the beginning. This is described as a commandment because it required them to respond and to follow after Him spiritually in subjection to divine revelation. This caused them to occupy the same spiritual place as the Lord Occupied as to the realising of divine purpose in His life in the flesh. He was a Man who lived by every word that proceeded forth from God’s mouth. They must follow after such a Christ, the Son of God who lived in flesh.
Verse 8 “Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in Him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth.”
There was also a further spiritual development which characterised Christianity. Its adherents are a people of a Christ who has been glorified in the light and who gives forth the new commandments which John makes known in this epistle. This commandment which John writes is said to be true in Him and in them. It is concerned with the truth involved in the present life in heaven of the Lord Jesus and with the possession of His life on earth by His people. ‘The darkness passes away and the true light is already shining’. This sets forth the true spiritual character of the present time for the people of God who have eyes to see such light. Before Christianity was established, the world was in spiritual darkness as to the light of the knowledge of God.
So the old commandment is the word which they heard from the beginning: it had to do with eternal life, God’s life, being lived by a man on earth. The new commandment is that there is a Man in heaven living in eternal life in the fulness of divine light. Moreover, it is the word that there are now men on earth who are also alive in the heavenly places in Christ: they are living in eternal life, having also the light of completed divine revelation which already shines effectively on earth for them. The world is no longer a dark place for them. They know and walk according to the purpose of God which has been declared to them in the Word.
Verses 9-11 “He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brothers, is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. But 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.”
However, despite God’s provision for His people on earth, it is still possible for darkness, the power of evil, to blind us to such revelation. He that says he is in the light, claiming to be in the christian system in truth, yet who hates his brother, is in the darkness despite his profession. John is here setting forth the third essential for the effective and productive practise of Christianity: this is love. The first is obedience, the assuming of discipleship, the second is abiding, continuing to accept the cost, the third is love, reaching the fulfilment.
John is presenting the outworking of the christian system, which is for the mutual enjoyment of all that are in it. If a man hates a brother he is not active toward him for his greatest spiritual benefit. Such a man is still in the darkness and does not realise what Christianity is really about. The love spoken of here is a product of divine life formed in us. It is not natural affection or social feeling. If our Christianity is naturalistic and is dependent upon fleshly activity it is hateful and hate-producing. One who loves those who are spiritually related to him in the brotherhood, as fellow exponents of revealed truth, is abiding in the light. He is alive to the significance of Christianity and confers the knowledge of God which he receives upon others. So there is no occasion of stumbling in him. He does not create a false impression about spiritual things, which would deceive and stumble his brother. It is spiritual error to introduce the flesh into the fellowship, thinking it to be purposeful to God. The system is wholly and solely for the growth and glorification of the new man.
He who magnifies human nature, the flesh, in the brand of Christianity he practices does not know where he is going in his Christianity. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the darkness of the power of evil has effectively blinded his eyes. In conferring His life upon us, God has introduced us into the new creation: this is Christianity. A great potential has been given to us by the divine nature being begotten as the seed in us. A great inheritance has been opened up for us to live in, a sphere in which the knowledge of God can be obtained. However, even in the new creation, which is spiritual, the power of evil which is also spiritual still acts. This is the ‘principalities and powers in the heavenly places’. The power of evil can prevent the people of God from attaining to the objectives set before them. We shall be frustrated if we do not have recourse to all God’s provision.
Verses 12-14 “I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His name’s sake. I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known Him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father. I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known Him that is from the beginning. 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.”
We have seen in the first part of 1 John 2 the provision which God made whereby His people might not sin: verse 1, “I write unto you that ye sin not”. In verse 12 John is setting forth the positive fact that we have had our sins forgiven. We are now concerned with the Name of the Lord Jesus on earth. John addresses all the christians who are in this divinely constituted community. Every christian in it, at whatever stage of spiritual growth and development, is to John a dear child (Newberry). The characteristic of a child of God is that his sins have been forgiven him for His Name’s sake. God did this work of forgiveness in order that His people on earth might adequately respond to Him and glorify His Name. The Son subjected His Sonship in order to honour the Name of the Father in His life on earth. In like manner, we are called to give ourselves up to honouring the Name of the Son.
Those who make up the christian fellowship in the spiritual sense are the fathers, the young men and the young children. This could be illustrated in the organisation of Israel coming out of Egypt into the wilderness, where they were to glorify the Name of Jehovah. There were those who would answer to the children, aged up to 20, who could not go to war: the young men or warriors, aged up to 50: then the fathers over this age.
The spiritual characteristics of the fathers is that they had known Him who was from the beginning. They knew Christ and to know Him is the full result of christian experience. This does not mean that they know Christ personally by fleshly contact but they knew all that the apostles had declared concerning Him from the beginning, chapter 1:1. To know the full significance of what is contained in the four gospels is the greatest knowledge we can gain in christian experience. The doctrine of the epistles is a necessary means for this: so the epistles were completed before the gospels.
John then brings out the characteristics of young men in the fellowship. He has the spiritual power which prevails in the conflict into which Christianity brings him. He has overcome the wicked one. It is not human strength that overcomes Satan, the greatest natural force. God develops His own life in man and this makes him potentially greater than Satan in the spiritual realm. If the new nature develops so that it can be used effectively, Satan can be overcome at the ‘young man’ stage. The light of divine revelation now exists on earth. The young man has his senses exercised to distinguish between light and darkness and he walks accordingly in triumph over evil. Satan would triumph over God and the means God is now using to realise His purpose if he could prevent the christian system from being rightly practiced. The young men to whom John was speaking had prevailed in that they had acted according to the Word of God to maintain the spiritual purity of the fellowship which is of God on earth.
John then addresses the babes in the family of God. Their spiritual characteristic is that they have known the Father. This spirit of adoption and liberty characterises the youngest in the faith. This is not the result of progress in divine things but is basically true of the spiritual life of a babe in a fellowship. Christianity is a system by which God is made known and enjoyed as the Father. He is fathering on earth a spiritual seed in His own likeness as a result of the work of the Son and the gift of the Holy Spirit. A family of the Father is being formed in which the babe, by spiritual birthright, enjoys every privilege and amenity.
John then re-addresses all three categories which make up the fellowship. In doing so he does not add anything further to what he has already said about the fathers: their spiritual development is complete. It is only necessary that they act as the spiritual fathers that they are so that the fellowship is effective for God on earth.
Of the young men, John now adds that they are strong and that the Word of God abides in them. Their successful conflict with spiritual evil has developed in them the sort of strength which God seeks in man: this is spiritual ability to lay hold upon God in His Word. The Word of God lives and abides forever. Now it does so in men who are alive in creation. There are now two things of God in creation for the realisation of His purpose: there is the Word of God and the man of God whom this Word forms. It is this man who causes the revealed Word to abide and to be effective for divine purpose on earth despite the power of evil. The strong young man knows the Word of God and sees the world-to-come and the truth of the new man in it, so he is interested neither in the flesh nor in the present world. He has overcome the wicked one.
Verse 15 “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”
As a result of their response to the work of divine revelation, the people of God have been established into the christian family in which they may be productive and effective for divine purpose. The world, however, presents a danger to these christians: they are not to go on loving the world. This can be interpreted in two ways – literally or spiritually. If interpreted literally, it would mean that, as those alive in the world, we should control our natural desires so that we do not love worldly things. Clearly, this would be both impossible and undesirable. If, however, the interpretation is spiritual (as it should be, 1 Cor.2:14) it would mean that the love of God, the divine affection which the Father has developed in us, should not be directed to worldly things. In other words, we should not make Christianity secular. To God, we are not alive in the flesh, Rom.8:9. Ideally in Christianity, we are not in the world even though we remain in nature in the world with our ordinary natural commitments.
The modern theological doctrine, whereby Christianity becomes involved in the wealth and troubles of the world, in fact militates against the purpose for which God established Christianity. Puritanism has the same effect. Devoting man’s natural talents to the service of God in the world is one of Satan’s most powerful weapons, whereby he seeks to hinder and corrupt the rendering of true service to God on the part of His people. If a christian loves the world by attaching some spiritual value to it for the realising of ultimate peace and prosperity on earth, the love of the Father is not in him. Our true service is to be about the Father’s business in the sphere into which He has brought us. The Word of God and the family of God, the local assembly, are the objects which divine love has produced on earth and with which we are to be occupied. This is the revelation of God and the means by which we can understand it.
John then proceeds to reveal what he means by “the things that are in the world”. He alerts us concerning a subtle danger facing us as God’s responsible people. He speaks of the powers and forces which are now active in the world, even in human nature. In the spiritual state in which creation is now found there are forces of chaos and evil which are not of the Father. To man they seem to be so powerful that they apparently dictate and govern the course of the world and the age in which we live. Man is faced with intractable problems which his nature is incapable of handling. There is the greatest possible danger of the people of God seeking to use these natural powers in the christian system to achieve present worldly success by the misuse and misinterpretation of christian doctrine.
Verse 16 “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.”
“The lust of the flesh” describes the instinctive desires of man’s bodily existence, which come from his subconscious mind. These desires make demands upon him which he must fulfil if he is to live satisfactorily in creation. Some of these lusts, in certain circumstances, are held to be evil by society, in particular a society that is formed by a so-called christian ethic. Naturalistic ‘Christianity’ has become concerned with such issues rather than with spiritual things, that is with divine revelation. The purpose of Christianity is not to change our natural instincts: we still necessarily lust after natural things according to the dictates of our nature. Man lives by the lust of the flesh. The danger is to seek to use this power for christian purposes. Natural powers and desires are of the world, for natural life in the world. However, these subconscious powers and urges are not of the Father, that is, not of the God of full revelation. Such naturalistic forces, useful to man in creation, are useless for the Father’s purpose in the new creation.
“The lust of the eye” is soulish. The eye gives man ability to perceive things outside of himself which appeal to him: they are desirable to him because of his natural sensibilities. His love of music, beauty, virtue and so forth is satisfied by the world and its things. The danger is in bringing aesthetics into Christianity and thus making it also of the world and not of the Father. Beautiful buildings, paintings, vestments and music have nothing to do with Christianity. They appeal to natural emotions only. Pleasant to the eye, as Eve saw in the forbidden fruit, they stimulate natural religious feelings and are of the world. They are of no help in appreciating the God of revelation, the Father.
“The pride of life” has to do with man’s spirit, his intellectual faculties and particularly his God-consciousness. Man has within him a natural pride, the pride of life, which he gratifies by seeking to raise himself up as a god-like figure in creation.
When Eve was tempted with the forbidden fruit she was made to see that it was good for food, pleasant to the eye, desirable to make one wise, that is, it would satisfy the body in providing convenient food: it would satisfy man’s love of beauty in creation: it would confer upon him the knowledge of good and evil so that he would become as the gods, Gen.3:5,6
In fact, this sort of good was, in God’s eyes, ultimately evil for man. It was not intended to be his by nature but ultimately to be his by redemption. Man did not wait for God to make him God-like, Gen.3:5 but sought to be God-like by using his natural desires, that which made the fruit desirable to him. Natural man tends to be governed Godwardly by his own thoughts and reasonings: these are influenced by the serpent, Satan, for man cannot see beyond human nature and the world in his appreciations. At best he can only appreciate a God of nature. But our God is the Father who has acted supernaturally to give us in His Word His own thoughts, His mind and its expression.
The practice of Christianity does not consist in rejecting or denying ordinary life lived in human nature in this world. Christianity is not outworked ethically, aesthetically or religiously. There is the great danger, particularly for the young men addressed here by John, of the family of God seeking to use the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye and the pride of life to please the Father. It is a doctrine that Satan has used to fool man in the world. It appears good and is acceptable and gratifying to man to educate, culture and sanctify the flesh so that by this means he can do good for his fellow man on earth and so ultimately bring in the conditions of peace and prosperity which God has in mind. It is a spiritual illusion and contradiction of Christianity, which owed nothing to nature for its establishment and is not dependent upon the things of the world for its outworking.
Verse 17 “And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.”
Another effect produced from the establishment of Christianity on earth, besides that of the darkness passing away (verse 8) is that the world is also passing away. The natural world, with man assuming a position of importance as ruler in it by his natural abilities and efforts, ceases to be ultimately purposeful to God in the present time. The world is no longer the sphere of the manifestation of God’s glory. God the Father acting as the Father, has produced a spiritual sphere in creation in which He is now purposefully active. The natural comes first and then the spiritual, as in 1 Cor.15:46. The Father has introduced a new sort of life, man alive in eternal life, into the new spiritual sphere – the new creation – to be purposefully occupied with the things of God therein. The world and natural powers are passing away as to the realising of God’s ultimate intentions.
The new order of humanity, established already in the new creation, is performing the will of God. Such humanity is rendering purposeful service to God in acquiring the spiritual ability by which God’s will is done now in His family and will be done ultimately in creation universally. By the growth and development of the divine life which resides in the family of God, God’s purpose in having a people for Himself in the present time is being realised. The servant of God, whether a babe, a young man or a father in Christ, is building up the spiritual system in and by which God’s will is being done on earth as it is in heaven. This is the Kingdom of God.
The agencies of good and evil are, in the present stage of the outworking of divine purpose, opposed to one another. The people of God, called to be His servant in the handling of divine things, must not seek to mix the two powers, the holy and the secular, the spiritual or supernatural and the natural, the new creation and the world. The lust of the world is the natural desire of humanity for prosperity. By this, man seeks to build a world of peace and plenty apart from divine revelation. If the Word of God is referred to by natural man, he uses it in an attempt to build such a world. On the other hand, the man that does the will of God is building a system of blessing which is eternal. God is going to bless the world by establishing His peace and prosperity in it universally and eternally. He is now preparing His people for future government and the administration of blessing universally.
In the meantime the servant of God, in his true response to receiving divine revelation, is doing work for God which will abide forever. The young man who has overcome the wicked one in not being seduced by organised spiritual evil, has the power also to do the will of the Father. He overcomes evil and establishes good. This is what the Father seeks. Fully developed Christ-likeness is the quality which is essential to God. True Christianity is capable of producing it in His family now.
Verse 18 “Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now there are many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.”
John then re-addresses the babes in Christ so that they also might be caused to develop their spiritual potential. He desires to make them intelligently aware, firstly, of things around and, secondly, of things above. They have to grow in knowledge. Because of what has occurred spiritually – a Christ raised up into glory and a new servant formed on earth for God – the present time for the spiritual babe is to be known as the last days. This is the time of God’s final dealings with man on earth so that good might be universally established and evil removed.
Despite outward appearances, it is God who is supreme in creation. He is bringing to a close all the issues raised in creation by His powers. The babes had already heard that the antichrist was coming. They knew the prophetic scheme of things in the days when the apostles taught the truth in the churches of God. They were now also to realise that there were already many antichrists at work.
God is now fully revealed and is active as Father toward the family which His Fatherhood is begetting. He has established, in these last days of His activities for the realising of divine purpose, the new system of Christianity. If evil was, or is, to prove itself stronger and wiser than God, it would have to prevent the people of God making full use of Christianity. It would have to prevent them from arriving at the full knowledge of the truth. Evil is still active in the world and against the exponents of the christian system it takes the form of antichrist. If antichrist overcomes spiritually, it prevents the Word of God from producing the desired effects amongst those who receive it. If they secularise revealed truth, making their Christianity world-centred, they will fail spiritually. They would then have received the grace of God in vain.
Because of the faithfulness of the apostles in their ministry, the Word of God has been completed and Christianity, the system in which alone it can be perfectly interpreted, was established. These are facts of definitive importance. Man – the apostles given the Word of God and acting perfectly according to divine instruction in delivering it – has been successfully used by God to perform a perfect work for Him on earth in the face of the opposition of evil and despite inherent natural weakness.
Even the babes knew that Satan’s supreme agent would be manifested in the last days, in a final attempt to bring to nothing the work and purpose of God. He is theantichrist. Satan, however, is already the god of this world. He had, even in apostolic days, established his antichrist system. The world is now governed by a proud power which insists that ultimate peace and prosperity can be established in creation by natural means. This is contrary to divine revelation. God has declared that by His Christ alone can the ultimate state of blessing He intends be brought about in creation. There can be no ultimate blessing for man until he comes to know God fully, a possibility opened up to the present people of God by Christianity.
The antichrist will be a man of supreme ability, the greatest created being, Satan incarnate. By the use of his natural powers he will be able to work lying wonders. He will reign by the principles which men in the flesh hold dear: liberty, equality and brotherhood in nature, apart from and hence opposed to the God of revelation. This rule is not dependent upon man receiving the revelation of the God and Father of the Lord Jesus and so is antichrist. It is a denial of the life and death of the Lord Jesus and the subsequent revelation of divine truth resulting from the place God has given Him as a Man in the glory. He already lives in the light, which shall subsequently enlighten all creation in the day when the knowledge of God shall fill the earth as the waters cover the sea.
Already in John’s day there were many antichrists, men living according to the same naturalistic principles, applying Christianity to present life in this world, christian humanists as they would now call themselves. The spirit of the last days was then already apparent, in that evil was already developing itself against the means which God had taken up for the realising of divine purpose. The response and reaction of the evil to the good had manifested itself according to John’s expectations and to prophetic testimony already borne. There were already men whose practice of Christianity was naturalistic and so satanic. They assumed what they supposed to be christian ground, peace on earth and goodwill to men by human efforts sanctified and dignified by the Name of the Lord Jesus. Humanity, by Christianity, came to know that God is one. Such humanity christianised itself by taking the teachings of Christ, such as the sermon on the mount, and applied them to ordinary natural life for the improvement of the present world, that is of Satan’s world.
Verse 19 “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us, but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.”
There were even those who originally took their place in the family of God who did this. They applied the teachings to what they were by nature and then went out from the supposed narrowness and limitations of the brotherhood which applies divine truth only to the new nature. They sought to apply Christ’s teachings to unregenerate men in the world. Whether these were true possessors of the divine nature or merely professors is beside the point. A believer who values the flesh in the sort of Christianity he practises is as antichrist in spirit as a mere professor. His subsequent spiritual life is useless and purposeless for God, who has finished with the flesh as to the bringing in of blessing. Nature now exists to be blessed rather than to be the means of blessing.
Verses 20/21 “But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things. I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth.”
Another basic spiritual characteristic of those who are babes in Christ is that they have an anointing from the Holy One and know all things. Babes in Christ possess divine life by the anointing of the Holy Spirit. They live in a life and nature which is God’s and which has the ability to know all things. This is what is theirs by birthright, the anointing they have from God. The “all things” would be ‘the all things of God’ with which Christianity has to do, the spiritual truth contained in Scripture. It is not that they had learned all the truth of God but that they had received a nature capable of apprehending it.
The particular family of God to whom John wrote was based on sound principles spiritually and he did not write to correct them in this. From there they could go on to spiritual perfection, as in Hebrews 6:1. They had their senses exercised to distinguish between good and evil, between the truth and the lie, systematised evil, which had even then already spread.
Verse 22 “Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son.”
At this point John introduces the third presentation of the Lord Jesus of Christianity – “He is the Christ”. Whilst it was true, in the narrower Jewish sense, that He wasthe Christ in the flesh, the present truth is that He remains the Christ, albeit in glory. He is no longer in the flesh or in the world personally but He continues to be the Christ. Of course His rights in the world as Christ remain valid but His assumption of them has been deliberately deferred until He comes to earth again in glory. John sets forth what is involved in the people of God now acknowledging the Lord Jesus as the Christ and thus entering into the fulness of Christianity. As the Christ in the present time, He introduces those who acknowledge Him into the glories of heaven where He lives. Christianity is characterised by a Christ who lives and works in the spiritual realm rather than One who works in nature.
Meanwhile the spirit of evil, called the liar, is active to deny God the effects He seeks on earth from the Lord Jesus being the Christ in heaven. The Lord Jesus is not yet effectively the Christ for this world. He is and should be owned as the Christ by the present people of God. They should accept His offices in heaven as the Christ who deals only with heavenly things. The liar denies His present Messianic effectiveness when he causes the people of God to believe that their Christianity should be concerned with the things of the world. He seeks to cause them to serve or to reign in this world in their Christianity before Christ takes it as His own and reigns. Worldly ‘Christianity’ is of the liar, the father of the lie, as in John 8:44. It is now almost universally accepted as being true but in reality it is Satan’s counterfeit and renders effective Christianity impossible.
The Lord Jesus now only acts as the Christ in the world for His people in the world, to make known to them all that is associated with the throne of His glory in the heavenlies. He is antichrist that denies the Father and the Son. Supreme good in Christianity is in knowing the Father and the Son. Where the antichrist and his teaching has authority, understanding of the completed revelation of God is effectively denied to His people. The christian revelation is essentially a revelation of the Father made by the Son on earth, and of the Son made by the Holy Spirit on earth. The Lord Jesus deferred His reign on earth to return to heaven in glorified humanity, in order that the Holy Spirit might come forth to give the knowledge of the Father and the Son to man. Antichrist causes this knowledge to be withheld from those who are under his spiritual influence.
Verse 23 “Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: but he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also.”
The important truth being presented by John and denied by the antichrist, is the Deity of the Christ. Every one that denies the Son has not the Father. Man having the Father is now the supreme, realisable possession. This is what the Lord Jesus Himself had as a Man on earth, as in John 10:15. This can only be the full possession of those who know the Deity of the Christ. It is not merely a question of knowing God as the God of nature and providence but of having Him effectively now as the Father. “No one cometh unto the Father but by Me”, John 14:6. There is no such thing yet for natural man as the universal Fatherhood of God, neither is there yet a universal brotherhood of man under such a Fatherhood. The ministry of the Lord Jesus as the Christ is as yet only toward His own. “I pray not (do not yet make demand) for the world but for them which Thou hast given Me” John 17:9.
“He that acknowledges the Son has the Father also”. In His days in the flesh, Christ was concerned above all else with declaring the Father. His being the earthly Messiah was devoted to this rather than to procuring for Himself a glorious kingdom on earth. But now the Father is presenting the Christ as the Son on earth and in His testimony to the Deity of Christ lies the crux of the matter. The Father has produced, for man to receive, the evidence that Christ is His Son. This evidence is of course the whole of the Word of God, inspired of the Holy Spirit to set forth the glory of the Son in such a way that it is perceived by men, selectively as yet.
The understanding of revealed truth rests upon knowing the Deity of Christ. If the Christ not only was but still remains God in humanity, then all that is recorded – the virgin birth, the miracles, the cross and the subsequent message preached in the world – was not only factual but of the deepest significance. The Father was and is active in Him and there is no limitation set upon His power. In its fulness it acts to cause men to acknowledge the Son and possess the Father. If the Father is to be known, if the God of completed revelation is to be perceived, He must be approached through the Son according to the perfect record and appreciation given of His Person and work by the Holy Spirit in the Word. Knowing the Deity of the Christ makes the character of His humanity intelligible.
Verse 24 “Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father.”
John is concerned that they proceed from this fixed and settled point, the true form of Christianity which they have accepted from the apostles and been founded upon. Let that (not Him) abide in you. John is speaking of the Life and Word which was with the Father, revealed in human form, and then transmitted to men by apostolic preaching, teaching and eventually writing. So that which was true of Christ on earth is true of them also, not only as to divine life being in them but also as to its abiding in them. An effective result may thus be produced from their present possession of eternal life. The Father being revealed was the effective result of Christ’s ministry in flesh. Similarly, the perfect interpretation of that revelation is the product sought from christians now living in eternal life and abiding in Christianity. The power of the antichrist need not prevent this result but the people of God must, if they are to make their calling and election sure, continue obediently in the paths marked out for them, as the Lord Jesus did in the course of His life and service.
If – and this is conditional – that which they heard from the beginning abode (aorist) within, they should abide in the Son and the Father. In chapter 1:3 our fellowship is said to be with the Father: here John sets forth what should result from our abiding there spiritually. What has been opened up for us in Christianity must be pursued with the greatest diligence if God’s purpose in having a people on earth is to be realised in us. This is realised when we go on abiding in the Son and the Father. The way to arrive at it is to abide, an act complete in itself, in that which has been heard from the beginning – as given in the former part of the verse. Christian action at its highest is not a dedicating of all our gifts and talents to God, as is frequently presented. That is a lie. True christian action is in dedicating our new life and nature to living in the sphere in which the Son and the Father live in active revelation of Themselves. We are to give ourselves to gaining the full knowledge of God, that is of His Word, in a new humanity lived in constant fellowship with the Son and the Father. The Holy Spirit is not spoken of here, for He is in view as being with us on earth, the Power which raises us into that fellowship in heaven.
Verse 25 “And this is the promise that He hath promised us, even eternal life.”
Promise is held out to those who will abide in this effective christian fellowship. God has Himself promised us the eternal life. Here it is its present enjoyment rather than just its present possession. “This is life eternal that they might know Thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent”, John 17:3. Here God is viewed acting effectively as the Son and the Father to a faithful, responsive fellowship on earth. God has promised to be Father – that which He was to the Lord Jesus on earth – to those who so continue. In His life in flesh, the Son declared the Father in all His words and deeds: these have been recorded for us by the Holy Spirit. If our christian activity is devoted to this record, then we will come to realise the significance of His recorded deeds as being a full revelation of the Father.
Verse 26 “These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you.”
The true way to guard against being led astray in our christian activity is to know what good is and to follow after it. Many christians appear to be so intent not to go astray morally, that is at a natural level, that they are distracted from going in for the highest spiritual good. Thereby, they go astray spiritually: they sin in that they miss the mark. If, however, supreme christian good is known (that I may know Him) and followed after in an effective manner, then evil will not seduce. The world cannot provide that which spiritual men are seeking and receiving by virtue of being obedient to divine principle. The knowledge of God is the treasure to be gained and the sects and denominations of man’s devising cannot provide this. The present full enjoyment of eternal life is not to be found in the attending of university or theological college. Natural sciences merely blind man to the true significance of revealed truth.
Verse 27 “But the anointing which ye have received of Him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: 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.”
The anointing which they received from Him abode in them effectively, seeing they continued in Christianity in truth, as He declares in verse 24. In verses 25-28 John is showing forth and testing the reality of the christian position in which they stood. Christianity is God-centred. It has to do with the Father, v.25, with the Holy Spirit, v.27 and with the Son, v.28. The Father will be effectively the Father of His family if they will act as sons to Him in it. He will be to them what He was to the only-begotten Son in His life in flesh. The Holy Spirit’s anointing will lead them on to the full knowledge of the truth without any human aid. The Son on His part has promised to come for them at the end of the path they walk in. So the reality of our Christianity can readily be tested. Have we the full present enjoyment of eternal life? Do we need anyone to teach us the things of the Spirit? Are we looking forward unashamedly to the coming of the Son as the only worthwhile objective? We all have of course our ordinary human lives to live in this world. However, our Christianity is defective if it has to do with natural things, with things other than the things of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
We have received the anointing in such a way that it goes on abiding in us. There is no such thing as a fresh baptism of, or in, the Holy Spirit. In this original anointing lies the power for the outworking of Christianity by those called to be God’s people effectively. God, by the very nature of His salvation, gives His people all they require that they might learn all things. A knowledge of what human wisdom can teach – history, church history, archaeology, philosophy, etc. – is completely unnecessary and even seductive. All the things of God are now completely revealed in the Word but only His indwelling Spirit can teach them.
The anointing in them teaches all things, is true and is not a lie. It gives them an adept spiritual mind. It gives them all God’s unadulterated truth to handle. It also distinguishes truth from lie, for them. The new nature, God in man, developed as it is in true christian fellowship and practice, completely equips them to go on to spiritual perfection, to go on abiding in Him. That which the apostles handled in their earthly association with the Word and subsequently mediated to their hearers, christians now themselves come to handle by this new-found spiritual ability, the anointing. It is true, just as God is true and His Word is true, for it is of God. So two things have now resulted on earth from God’s intervention for the fulfilment of divine purpose: this is the completed Word of God and the new nature He begets in His people by the Holy Spirit.
The purpose for which God has established Christianity in the world, man coming to be in possession of the full knowledge of God, is realised when the spiritual ability of the people of God gets to work upon the Word of God. It is impossible for God to lie and He is exactly what His Word declares Him to be. God cannot deny Himself. If we deny Him by the way we go about our service in response to His calling of us, He will deny us. We will not possess the inheritance of the knowledge of Himself. If we accept only the Holy Spirit’s teaching, know the truth revealed to us and remain unseduced by evil, then we shall go on abiding in Him. Our only concern in Christianity then is with the things of God in our possession of divine power in a sphere beyond the reach of evil. Thereby we go on abiding fruitfully with God, as in John 15.
Verse 28 “And now, little children, abide in Him; that when He shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before Him at His coming.”
John then exhorts them to go on abiding in Him. He addresses them again as “dear children”, a term which includes every member of the family of God. This exhortation to go on abiding, to go on to full growth and knowledge as a developing family, is based upon the fact of the Lord’s impending return. The present time for the people of God is to be characterised by abiding in Him who is in the light. Thereby they fulfil their present function and service in glorifying the Father and the Son by entering into the full knowledge of the Persons of the Deity. This is also for example set forth by Paul in Eph.3:14-19 and 4:12-13. The Holy Spirit’s anointing is for this purpose, Eph.3:16. John desires that they will arrive at such a state of spiritual perfection that, when the Christ shall be manifested to the world in all His glory, they may feel confident and bold in their acquired glory. The people of God have a most solemn responsibility in relation to the Lord’s second coming.
John desires them to be spiritually competent now and thereby confident about that day when all that God has wrought for the establishment of His ultimate intentions in creation will be manifested. It will then be made manifest what ultimate benefit they have reaped from the present age when such spiritual possibilities have been opened up for them. John here speaks of “we”. The apostles are included, for God gifted and sent them forth as apostles both to complete the Word of God and to establish local assemblies, who received the written oracles. God has determined that by this means His purpose will be achieved. He has revealed Himself and determined and decreed that this full revelation of truth will become fully known by man before the establishment of the age of universal blessing.
On the other hand, there is the dreadful possibility of evil preventing their realising the good set before them and making them ashamed before Him at His coming. This warning applies to any given family, or Local N.T. church, at any particular time in the outworking of divine purpose. If God’s people are not devoted to glorifying Him in that which He has entrusted to them, then they have received the grace of God in vain. They are not contributing to what is of ultimate importance to God for the full and final blessedness on earth. Our contribution to improving the world ultimately consists not in present direct intervention in its affairs but in abiding in Christ with the things which are of God.
The last verse of the chapter introduces the final part of the first section or division of the book, a section that presents the spiritual ideals that are to be attained by the exponents of Christianity and which are perfectly embodied in the Christ, viz. v.29 – “He is righteous”, 3:1 – “we shall see Him as He is“, i.e. glorified, the perfect object of divine love, and 3:3 – “He is pure”. We are like Him in righteousness, will be like Him in glory and should be like Him in (spiritual) purity. He is displayed to us and for us, after the work of God in Him has been completed and perfected.
In John’s presentation of Christ at this point, there is a reversal of the historical order, viz. 2:28 – He comes again, v.29 – His present life in heaven and 3:1 – His life on earth. In Christianity we are identified with Him in all three for practical purposes. To the minds of many, practical Christianity consists of doing natural good to one’s fellow man. Practical apostolic Christianity, however, consists in being spiritually like Christ and acting like Him spiritually. The flesh, or human nature, from which flows naturally good works, can never be or act like Christ. The new nature, Christ in us, is begotten in the children of God now that it might act, or be acted upon by God, for the realising of divine purpose. God has demonstrated in the Christ of Christianity what He is capable of doing in and to those who possess such life.
Verse 29 “If ye know that He is righteous, ye know that everyone that doeth righteousness is born of Him.”
Basically, we know in such Christianity that He is God-like in life and character, rather than man-like. The significant thing about Christ then, is divine activity and not natural activity. If we have come to know this in our new understanding of how God has acted and is acting purposefully, then we should continue to act in this spiritual intelligence.
The manifestation of divine righteousness that we have come to know is that God has begotten an altogether new kind of life and nature, man alive in divine life. If God were to use ordinary human nature for His purpose, He would be using what is unrighteous and so would be compromising with evil. In Christ, God has overcome this difficulty so as to bring perfection into creation in perfect righteousness.
In Christianity there has been a further development to the manifestation of Christ in flesh for the realising of ultimate perfection. By Him there has already been begotten a seed which practises righteousness. His life and nature now acts in them, for God is now righteous in conferring divine life upon sinners. Those who are thereby constituted righteous practise righteousness when the new nature acts in them. Christ is God-like in heaven: they are God-like on earth. Those begotten of God who act righteously, produce effects on earth from their present possession of divine life. These effects are visible only to others who possess it and not to the world. Men with such ability can see Christ and the spiritual ideal in all the Scriptures.