1 John 5:13—21

1 John 5:13-21

13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.

14 And this is the boldness we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have obtained the requests made of him. 16 If you see your brother or sister committing what is not a mortal sin, you will ask, and God will give life to such a one—to those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin that is mortal; I do not say that you should pray about that. 17 All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that is not mortal.

18 We know that those who are born of God do not sin, but the one who was born of God protects them, and the evil one does not touch them. 19 We know that we are God’s children, and that the whole world lies under the power of the evil one. 20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

21 Little children, keep yourselves from idols.

We see 5 Assurances in this passage that I want to look at.

VS. 13…

 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.

That you may know that you have eternal life.

There is confidence in having eternal life.

What are these things…Maybe the whole letter but at the very least vs 1-12

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.”

VS. 14-15…

And this is the boldness we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have obtained the requests made of him.

We have boldness in God, when we ask we will get what we ask when it is according to his will.

We know that he hears us

There is confidence in God hearing and answering our prayers!

How do we know if what we ask for is according to his will?

VS. 16-17…

Now we get to a seemingly difficult passage.

What is mortal sin?

Sin leading to death!

Is it intentional sin?

Numbers 15:27–31

27 “If one individual commits an unintentional sin, the guilty person must bring a one-year-old female goat for a sin offering. 28 The priest will sacrifice it to purify the guilty person before the Lord, and that person will be forgiven. 29 These same instructions apply both to native-born Israelites and to the foreigners living among you.

30 “But those who brazenly violate the Lord’s will, whether native-born Israelites or foreigners, have blasphemed the Lord, and they must be cut off from the community. 31 Since they have treated the Lord’s word with contempt and deliberately disobeyed his command, they must be completely cut off and suffer the punishment for their guilt.”

Biblically there is only one kind of sin that leads to death, what is it? Unforgiven sin!

his (John’s) major emphasis as the letter concludes is that only those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God have eternal life (verses 5 and 13), then the sin that leads to death, the sin that excludes the sinner from the life of God, must surely be the denial of that saving truth. If this is right, then the sin that leads to death does so because, by its very nature, it rejects the only means by which sin may be forgiven—the atoning death of the incarnate Son of God. This underlines the important truth that it is not that this sin is unpardonable, but that it remains unpardoned.

David Jackman, The Message of John’s Letters: Living in the Love of God, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester, England; Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 164.

VS. 18-20…

We know that those who are born of God do not sin, but the one who was born of God protects them, and the evil one does not touch them.

There is confidence in the protection of Jesus!

The one who was born of God is Jesus

We know that we are God’s children, and that the whole world lies under the power of the evil one.

There is confidence in knowing we are not subject to the evil one.

And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

There is confidence in knowing what we understand to be true, is true.

VS. 21…

Little children, keep yourselves from idols.

While idols may seem out of place, John is contrasting the true God in vs 20 with false Idols.