First John: 1 John 3:23-The Relationship Between the Two Commands Lesson # 139

1 John 3:23 And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. (ESV)

1 John 3:23 Specifically, this is His command: First, that each and every one of us believed in the name, that is His Son, who is Jesus who is the Christ. Secondly that each one of us continue making it our habit of divinely loving one another just as He gave to each one of us this command. (My translation)

1 John 3:23 is epexegetical which means that it is introducing a declarative statement composed of a hina appositional clause.

This clause identifies specifically for the reader the identity of the commands being referred to in phrase tas entolas autou (τὰς ἐντολὰς αὐτοῦ), “His commands” which appears in the fifth class conditional statement in 1 John 3:22.

This hina appositional clause contains two commands, which summarize the Father’s commands.

Therefore, it is asserting that the command is two-fold.

The first required that John and the recipients of First John trust in the name of the Father’s Son Jesus Christ.

The second required that they love one another as God’s children.

Therefore, “His command” refers to these two commands.

The first is related to the moment the sinner is declared justified by the Father through faith in His Son Jesus Christ.

At this moment, the sinner becomes a child of God.

Then, the second is applicable only to the child of God since only the child of God has the capacity to obey the command to love one another since obedience to this command demands the indwelling omnipotence of the Holy Spirit, which John identifies as the “anointing” in 1 John 2:20 and 27.

Therefore, the first command in 1 John 3:23 is related the child of God’s justification or conversion experience and their eternal relationship with the Trinity.

On the other hand, the second is related to their fellowship with the Trinity after justification, which results in their experiencing their sanctification and salvation and manifesting the righteousness of God in their lives.

The first command is God’s will for the unregenerate sinner while the second is God’s will for His child.

Therefore, the first command speaks of the gospel in relation to the unregenerate sinner.

In relation to the unbeliever, the gospel is God’s victorious proclamation of God’s love in delivering the entire human race from sin, Satan, his cosmic system and eternal condemnation and has reconciled them to Himself through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:1-4).

This reconciliation with God and deliverance and victory over sin, Satan and the cosmic system that God accomplished through His Son’s crucifixion, burial, death, resurrection and session is received as a gift and appropriated through faith in Christ (John 3:16-18; Acts 16:31; Romans 5:1-2).

In relation to the believer, the gospel message is God’s victorious proclamation regarding the believer’s deliverance and victory positionally from the power of Satan, the old sin nature and the cosmic system of Satan (See Romans 5-7).

By positionally, I mean that God views the believer as crucified, died, buried, raised and seated with Christ, which was accomplished at the moment of justification through the baptism of the Spirit when the omnipotence of God the Holy Spirit placed the believer in an eternal union with Christ.

No doubt, by mentioning this first command, the apostle John is thinking of the antichrists who he mentions in 1 John 2:18 and identifies in 1 John 2:19 as non-believers.

Thus, he is emphasizing that these antichrists were disobedient to this command and were thus not doing God’s will and thus had absolutely no capacity whatsoever to obey the command to love one another.

1 John 2:18 Children, it is the last hour. To be specific, as each of you heard that Antichrist is certain to come, in fact, now, many antichrists are in existence. Each of us can confirm from this that it is the last hour. 19 They departed from us but in fact they were never a part of our fellowship because if and let us assume that it is true for the sake of argument they had been a part of our fellowship, they would have in fact remained with us. On the contrary, this departure took place in order that they would demonstrate that each and every one of them are by no means a part of our fellowship. (My translation)

Obeying the command to love one another manifests the fact that a person is a child of God and has been declared justified by the Father through faith in His Son Jesus Christ.

In other words, it is concrete visible evidence that a person is a child of God and has been declared justified by the Father through faith in His Son Jesus Christ.

When the believer demonstrates the love of God in their life towards their fellow-believer, they are demonstrating that they have been justified by faith in the Father’s Son Jesus Christ and are a child of God since this love produced by the Holy Spirit and only the children of God are indwelt by the Spirit.

Therefore, we can see why John identifies the Father’s command (singular) here in 1 John 3:22 as being these two commands since they are inextricably tied to one another.

You can’t have one without the other.

You can never obey the command to love one another unless you first obey the command to be declared justified by the Father through faith in His Son Jesus Christ.

Justifying faith results in the indwelling of the Spirit which enables the child of God to love like God since this love is the production of the Holy Spirit when the believer obeys His command to love one another as each member of the Trinity loves each other and the child of God.

We can also understand why John put these two commands in the order in which he did since a person has absolutely no capacity whatsoever to obey the command to love one another unless they first are declared justified through faith in the Father’s Son Jesus Christ.

This faith results in the indwelling presence of the Father who gives the justified sinner the capacity to obey the command to love one another.

The Christian way of life, which is characterized by obedience to the command to love for one another, is a supernatural way of life which demands a supernatural means of execution, namely the omnipotence of the Holy Spirit who is identified as the “anointing” in 1 John 2:20 and 27.

Therefore, obedience to these two commands here in 1 John 3:23 is a manifestation that a person is a child of God.

On the other hand, disobedience to the first command is a manifestation that a person is not a child of God but rather a child of the devil.

That a person is a child of God and has obeyed the first command will be manifested by the fact that they obey the second command.

On the other hand, that a person is not a child of God and has disobeyed the first command will be manifested by the fact that they do not obey the second command.

These two commands encompass the Father’s plan for every person in the human race.

He wants them to become His children through faith in His Son Jesus Christ which results in their justification and after their justification, He wants His child to love their fellow-believer as He loves them.

So, we can see John is giving assurance to the recipients of First John that they were all children of God because they were obeying the command to love one another.

This obedience thus manifested the fact that they were obedient to the command to trust in the name of the Father’s Son Jesus Christ as Savior in order to be declared justified by the Father.