Epistles of John

A study of John's three letters

Sunday, April 11, 2010

1 John 5

(1) Everyone who *believes that Jesus is **the Christ has become a child of God. And everyone who loves the Father loves his children, too.

  • *believes: Of 1 John's 10 references to believing, seven are in chapter 5.
  • **the Christ: the Messiah. James 2:19: You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror. So, this does not refer to simple head knowledge - it is believing the Jesus is not the Messiah but that He is MY Messiah!

(2) We *KNOW we love God’s children if we love God and obey his **commandments.

  • *KNOW: ginosko - to know with effort or by experience.
  • **commandments: but, which commandments?

    Romans 13:9: For the commandments say, “You must not commit adultery. You must not murder. You must not steal. You must not covet.” These—and other such commandments—are summed up in this one commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

     Galatians 5:14: For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

(3) Loving God means keeping his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome.

(4) For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith.

(5) And who can win this battle against the world? Only those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God.

  • In other words, the gnostics will lose in the battle against this evil world because their concept of Jesus is all wrong. As a result, the gnostics will (and did) slip into deep sin.

(6) And Jesus Christ was revealed as God’s Son by his baptism in water and by shedding his blood on the cross—not by water only, but by water and blood. And the Spirit, who is truth, confirms it with his testimony.

  • Greek: This is he who came by water and blood.
  • Matthew 3:16-17: After his baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy.”
  • John 19:34: One of the soldiers, however, pierced his side with a spear, and immediately blood and water flowed out.
  • John 15:26: “But I will send you the Advocate—the Spirit of truth. He will come to you from the Father and will testify all about me.
  • Gnostics taught (and still teach) that Jesus received the “Christ Spirit” at His baptism, and the “Christ Spirit” left Jesus before He died on the cross (for them, it is unthinkable that God could hang on a cross). He was just as much the Son of God on the cross as He was the baptism of Jesus.

(7) So we have these three witnesses—

  • The Old Testament taught that every charge must be confirmed by “two or three witnesses” (Deuteronomy 17:6; 19:15), a principle continued in the New Testament (Matthew 18:16; 2 Corinthians 13:1).

(8) the Spirit, the water, and the blood—and all three agree.

  • KJV: And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.

    Not in the original!

(9) Since we believe human testimony, surely we can believe the greater testimony that comes from God. And God has testified about his Son.

  • Matthew 17:5: But even as he spoke, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy. Listen to him.”
  • While they should believe John's eyewitness testimony, they should even more believe God's testimony! To claim that Jesus what the gnostics taught (and teach today) is to deny God's own testimony and (in verse 10) to call God a liar!

(10) All who believe in the Son of God KNOW in their hearts that this testimony is true. Those who don’t believe this are actually calling God a liar because they don’t believe what God has testified about his Son.

(11) And this is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

(12) Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have God’s Son does not have life.

  • Only 2 categories - the saved and the lost. And the only difference is the Son. Outside of Christ, there is no eternal life. But, what is this "life"? Obviously, John isn't referring to life on this earth - everyone has that kind of life who is alive. This is referring to eternal life. Then, what does it mean "does not have life?" If a person is in hell suffering throughout eternity, does he not have life?
  • John 3:36: And anyone who believes in God’s Son has eternal life. Anyone who doesn’t obey the Son will never experience eternal life but remains under God’s angry judgment.”
  • This life is not available to the false teachers. They deny Jesus' Sonship. They reject God’s full testimony concerning His Son. They make Him a liar. For them there is no life. For they are liars and preach lies. They believe ‘the Lie’ (2 Thessalonians 2:11). God’s testimony to His Son lies in the fact that He demonstrated His lifegiving power by raising Him from the dead as the Son by the Holy Spirit, and enabling Him thereby to give life to those who believed in Him.

(13) I have written this to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may *KNOW you have eternal life.

  • So many believe you cannot KNOW for sure whether you're saved, but John says emphatically that you can. I have capitalized the word "KNOW" in this chapter because the gnostics claimed special knowledge (gnosis).
  • John 20:31: But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing in him you will have life by the power of his name.
  • *KNOW: Greek = oida = to know intuitively (without effort).
  • 1 Thessalonians 1:5: For when we brought you the Good News, it was not only with words but also with power, for the Holy Spirit gave you full assurance that what we said was true. And you know of our concern for you from the way we lived when we were with you.
  • Colossians 2:2: I want them to be encouraged and knit together by strong ties of love. I want them to have complete confidence that they understand God’s mysterious plan, which is Christ himself.
  • God wants you to know you have eternal life. Many religions teach a path of works; you can never really know until after you die if you made it or not. Not so with the true God — he wants you to have the assurance of salvation. Of course, that assurance can only come if I have nothing to do with it, because if I have something to do with it you can be sure I’ll mess it up. What do you have to do to be saved? Accept Jesus as savior for your sins — that’s it. And it’s the only way you can have assurance of salvation — to believe God is in charge of it for you. If you do, then you can know you have eternal life.
  • “I tell you the truth, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death into life. (John 5:24). This faith in Him and all He has done for them, has produced eternal life now within them.

(14) And we are confident that he hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases him.

  • True prayer will conform to His will. It is when we want His will uppermost that we can begin to pray effectively - Luke 22:42: “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”

(15) And since we KNOW he hears us when we make our requests, we also KNOW that he will give us what we ask for.

(16) If you see a Christian brother or sister sinning in a way that does not lead to death, you should pray, and God will give that person life. But there is a sin that leads to death, and I am not saying you should pray for those who commit it.

  • The "unforgivable sin" is refusal to accept Jesus Christ as Savior (John 3:36). The "sin unto death" refers to such flagrant sin that God's punishment is physical death:

    1 Corinthians 11:27-30: So anyone who eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord unworthily is guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. That is why you should examine yourself before eating the bread and drinking the cup. For if you eat the bread or drink the cup without honoring the body of Christ, you are eating and drinking God’s judgment upon yourself. That is why many of you are weak and sick and some have even died.

     1 Corinthians 5:5: Then you must throw this man out and hand him over to Satan so that his sinful nature will be destroyed and he himself will be saved on the day the Lord returns.
  • See Acts 5:1-11 where Ananias and Sapphira die because they lied to the Holy Spirit.
  • Mark 3:28-30: “I tell you the truth, all sin and blasphemy can be forgiven, but anyone who blasphemes the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven. This is a sin with eternal consequences.” He told them this because they were saying, “He’s possessed by an evil spirit.”

(17) All wicked actions are sin, but not every sin leads to death.

(18) We KNOW that God’s children do not make a practice of sinning, for God’s Son holds them securely, and the evil one cannot *touch them.

  • Living in habitual sin is incompatible with being a Christian. If sin doesn’t bother you, that should bother you. If you can walk through the cesspool we call earth and not have it distress you every day it might mean you need to re-evaluate your relationship with Jesus.
  • *touch: It means to "lay hold of" or to "grasp" rather than a mere superficial touch. The only other place in his writings where John uses this particular verb for touch is in John 20:17, where He tells Mary Don’t cling to me.

(19) We KNOW that we are children of God and that the world around us is under the control of the evil one.

  • Luke 4:5-6: Then the devil took him up and revealed to him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. “I will give you the glory of these kingdoms and authority over them,” the devil said, “because they are mine to give to anyone I please.

(20) And we KNOW that the Son of God has come, and he has given us understanding so that we can KNOW the true God. And now we live in fellowship with the true God because we live in fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the only true God, and he is eternal life.

  • John 17:3: And this is the way to have eternal life—to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth.

(21) Dear children, keep away from anything that might take God’s place in your hearts.

  • Greek: keep yourselves from idols.
  • An idol is anything between you and God.
  • Is worship of Mary idol worship?

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Bible studies are held in Oakbay subdivision in Noblesville, Indiana. In-person Sunday studies have been eliminated because of COVID-19 concerns. Wednesday studies at 7:00 pm led by Don Terry via Zoom - presently studying the Book of Acts from a dispensationalist viewpoint. Bi-monthly Wednesday’s women’s studies at 7:00 pm led by Carolyn Terry via Zoom - presently studying Paul’s second letter to Timothy - and his last writing. You can see several of our present and past studies but we covered many other subjects before starting this blog. The goal of these studies is to bring each of us to know Christ better (epignosis) and then to “press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” as mentioned by Paul in Philippians 3:14 and to hear Jesus’ “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”. Dedicated to the memory of Don & Carolyn Terry’s daughter, DJ (Dorothy Jean) Terry, who went to be with the Lord Jesus Christ in 1999 at 20 years old.