Abide

Abide with me, fast falls the eventide;

The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide:

When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,

Help of the helpless, oh abide with me.

Henry Francis Lyte

1. Indwelling sin always abides whilst we are in this world; therefore it is always to be mortified.

John Owen

Abiding in Christ means a constant receiving of His Spirit, a life of unreserved surrender to His service.

Ellen Gould White

He who would confess Christ must have Christ abiding in him.

Ellen Gould White

“Abide in me,” “To be” in Christ and “to abide” in Him are two different things which must not be confounded. One must first be “in him” before he can “abide in him.”

Arthur Walkington Pink

abiding

An important motif in John’s writings is the notion of “remaining” or “abiding” (menō), used twenty-four times in 1 John and forty times in the Gospel. In John, the Spirit abides on Christ (John 1:32–33) and the Father in him (14:10). Christ’s word abides in believers (5:38; 15:7), and believers are to abide in his word (8:31). Faith, like food that sustains, endures to eternal life (6:27). So, those who eat of Christ abide in him (6:56). They no longer abide in darkness (12:46). The Spirit also abides in believers (14:17). As branches are joined to a vine, so believers are to abide in Christ (15:4), and they will bear abiding fruit (15:5, 16), will not be cast aside (15:6), and will receive answers to prayer (15:7). They are to keep Christ’s commandments and will then abide in Christ’s and the Father’s love (15:9, 10).

Similarly, in 1 John, abiding is a key concept. Those who abide in Christ and the light emulate Christ’s life pattern (1 John 2:6) and especially love (2:10). Those who do not love, abide in death (3:14); they do not have eternal life abiding in them (3:15). God’s love abides in believers, which is demonstrated by them helping brothers and sisters in need (3:17). Those who love one another experience God’s abiding presence (4:12). God abides in those who abide in love and they in him (4:16).

God’s word abides in believers (Christ is the word of life) (2:14, see also 1:1). Those who do God’s will abide or remain forever (2:17). The false teachers’ inability to remain with the believers indicates that they do not belong to the believing community (2:19). If believers allow the message they heard to remain in them, they will abide in Father and Son (2:24). They experience God’s anointing, and by living according to the anointing, they abide in God and his Son (2:27). And this they must do (2:28). Those who abide in him do not sin as do the false teachers (3:6). As 1 John 5:16–17 points out, not all sin, but grave sin, ruptures one’s relationship with God. Believers cannot keep sinning because God has implanted his seed in them (3:9). As in John 15:9–10, those who keep God’s commandments abide in God and he in them by the Spirit (1 John 3:24). The giving of the Spirit indicates that we and God mutually indwell one another (4:13). God abides in those who confess Jesus’ divine Sonship, and they in him (4:15).