AF-S61-031305 1 John C2
Alêtheia Christian Fellowship (Sermon 61, 03-13-05)
a Announcements, Celebration night.
1 John is a microcosim of the entire Bible and as such it explains everything foundational to Christianity. Details and background information are found elsewhere. In this letter, John says, walk like Christ, and so we need the Gospels to know how Christ walked. We need the Old Covenant Books to know why Jesus came and what it means. We need the other New Covenant Books to understand the details and structure of our Theology, but right here in this tiny book you have all the requirements for a right relationship with your Creator. If, if, if, you do this book, you cannot fail!
1 John 1:10 - 2:2 ~ If we should say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and the His Word is not in us. My dear children, I write these things to you all so that you will not sin. Even so, if anyone does sin we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous One. He is the perfect sacrifice for our sins; and not only ours but also for the sins of the entire world.
1 John 1:10
If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.
If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts.
eja<n ei]pwmen o[ti oujc hJmarth>kamen,
If we should say that we have not sinned,
yeu>sthn poiou~men aujto<n kai< oJ
a liar we make Him and the
lo>gov aujtou~ oujk e]stin ejn hJmin.
Word of Him is not in us.
hJmarth>kamen, Is the perfect tense of the verb, “to sin.” The abiding results of a past activity, so we sinned and that has forever barred the door to God unless we accept the new door, which is Jesus. To deny sin is to deny the need for Jesus. yeu>sthn, a person/being who lies, i.e. the Devil, Jesus says when Satan lies he is speaking his native tongue. When we go the selfish way of Satan then our native tongue is also lies. poiou~men, present active, to make someone do something. lo>gov,
There is a continuous flow of forgiveness for future events, paid for in the past, if we continue in the Light, which is the same as relating to God in Spirit and in Truth.
Genuine, Biblical Christianity is in fact eternal security if we continue to actively remain in Him. Perfectionism and also high experiential spirituality on the other hand both lead to diminishing the cross, as do modern psychologies of self-actualization and “success.” These churches had two major internal attacks that caused great confussion and distress resulting in splits. the first was under the supervision of Paul and it was one of perfectionism with Jewish roots. We see the same thing today. people trying to please God by legalistic adherence to rules. It diminishes Jesus’ sacrifice and elevates the person. The second split is addressed here as super-spiritual people will believe they no longer need Jesus because they are now full of God and have their own power where sin can no longer affect them. Again, we have people like that today who are so filled with the Holy Spirit they become elite Christians, better than everyone else. This is similar to our societal philosophy today of high exultation of the individual. An Army of one?
1 John 2:1
KJV: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:
NASB:My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous;
NLT:My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if you do sin, there is someone to plead for you before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who pleases God completely.
Tekni>a mou, tau~ta gra>fw uJmi~n
My kids, these things I write to y’all
i[na mh< aJma>rthte. kai> eja>n tiv
in order that y’all might not sin. And if anyone
aJma>rth|, para>klhton e]comen pro<v
sins, an advocate we have with
to<n pate>ra jIhsou~n Cristo<n di>kaion?
the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous;
Tekni>a is the diminutive for little children and is a term of both great affection and also stresses the authority of John over them. gra>fw is to write and is now “I.”
aJma>rthte is a special construction that means the purpose of this letter is to clear the path so the people will not engage in sinful behavior. Let’s be clear, He’s not talking about a state of sin, i.e. the sin nature, he’s talking about sinful commissions and omissions. He is saying that beyond leaving the desire to sin there is the possibility of not sinning as missteps in life. It is the ideal, just because it will not be fully achieved in this life doesn’t mean we shouldn’t shoot for it! Instead of winking at sin it takes a hard view of it saying this is not good. In Romans 5&6, Paul talks about the same concepts. It is difficult not to let mistakes drag you down without going too far and thinking sins don’t matter. Paul asks rhetorically, “shall we sin so grace may increase?”. John 8 11She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.” Read Romans 8:26-39[aorist subjunctive active 2nd plural together with i[na and mh a negative of purpose so it is not sin nature, but individual sins and it is possible at least in theory not to do it.]
eja>n our friend if, if. para>klhton paraclete, we often call the Holy Spirit the paraclete, but He’s actually the other paraclete, Jesus is the first. This is your defense attorney, He instructs, comforts, encourages, exhorts and he defends you against the prosecution, which is your accuser, the Devil. Dia>bolov - slanderer, Satana~v - adversary before the Judge. di>kaion He is Jesus Christ the One who is Right before God. No one else is, so guess what, you have the only attorney that can win, because the prosecution has a case!
1 John 2:2
KJV:And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
NASB:and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.
NLT:He is the sacrifice for our sins. He takes away not only our sins but the sins of all the world.
kai< aujto<v iJlasmo>v ejstin peri< tw~n
and He propitiation is concerning the
aJmartiw~n hJmw~n, ouj peri< tw~n
sins of us, but not concerning
hJmete>rwn de< mo>non ajlla< kai< peri<
ours only but also concerning
o[lou tou~ kosmou.
all of the world.
iJlasmo>v in the Greek understanding one makes a God propitious toward them by satisfying their anger, wrath or even disinterest. In Homer’s Illiad, men do various things to get the gods on their team. Because of this we often think that Jesus is our offering to get God on our side and of course most people think that is only part of the deal because they think they must do things to keep God on their side.
There is nothing you can do to save yourself in the first place and it is a blasphemy and heresy to think you must maintain your salvation once you have it. We contribute nothing, God needs nothing and God has done it all for us, there is nothing for us to do except spit on His efforts by thinking we will please Him. We accept the gift freely given and we continue to accept, that is all. This genuine acceptance allows relationship and relationship produces a natural effect. The effect is only Love. Love for God, which is measured by our love for each other. All activity in a Christians life is either flesh or the natural result of the Love inside.
Propitiation in this case means the opposite of what humans like Homer conclude.
It isn’t an angry or uncaring God that we have to appease so he will act on our behalf or at least not act against us. Propitiation is God giving up that, which was most precious to Him in order to provide fellowship with an angry or uncaring mankind. We rejected God, that’s what caused the separation. God said let’s fix this division and people still reject Him and now His Son. Christians do the same when they either think they can please God or they think there’s no reason to actually be what they claim…filled with God’s agapê.
o[lou tou~ kosmou not just our sin, but the sins of the entire creation. The propitiation of Jesus is far more payment than the world could ever require. You talk about sufficiency, this is proof that it is not God who limits relationship it is us by refusing to accept the gift. It can’t be that God has selected certain people for failure otherwise it says Jesus was insufficient to reach those people. The insufficeincy cannot be God’s it is ours.
1 John 2:3-6
And by this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commands. The one saying, “I have come to know Him,” and yet does not keep His commands, is a liar, and the Truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His Word, in him, God’s Love is truly made perfect. By this we know that we are in Him: the one saying he abides in Him is obligated to walk in the same manner as He walked.
1 John 2:3
KJV:And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.
NASB:By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.
NLT:And how can we be sure that we belong to him? By obeying his commandments.
Kai< ejn tou>tw| ginw>skomen o[ti
And in this we know that
ejgnw>kamen aujto>n, eja<n ta<v
we have known Him, if the
ejntola<v aujtou~ thrw~men.
commands of Him we keep.
ginw>skomen this word is used four times in the next three verses and means to know. it’s the family of words giving the name Gnostic to the heresy John battles.
ejgnw>kamen this is the perfect form of the verb to know, so the NASB, is better rendering, “have come to know,” to give the sense that it is the abiding effect of a past action that is in view. Then our friend eja<n
ejntola<v It is the plural of order or command, hence commandment in the Old Covenant. thrw~men guard or keep or protect, subjunctive with our friend eja<n to show it is possible if, if, if. IF we hold onto and keep His commands then….
But what does He command? In the context of 1 John it can only mean one thing and that one thing has two components. Faith in Jesus and Love for each other. The first is the prerequisite of the second and so the second is the proof of the first!
1 John 3:23-24 ~ This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us. The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.
What is the Spirit? Faith in Christ Jesus manifested as love for each other!
1 John 2:4
KJV:He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
NASB:The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him;
NLT:If someone says, “I belong to God,” but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and does not live in the truth.
oJ le>gwn o[ti ]Egnwka aujto>n, kai<
the one saying - “I have known Him,” and
ta<v ejntola<v aujtou~ mh< thrw~n,
the commands of Him not keeping,
yeu>sthv ejsti>n kai< ejn tou>tw| hJ
liar is and in this man the
ajlh>qeia oujk e]stin?
Truth not is;
Of course the knowledge refered to is not simply intellectual it is also experiential. yeu>sthv one who lies or a liar the ultimate example is the father of such a person the Slanderer Dia>bolov. ajlh>qeia is our name and it is the name of God as He is the Father of us and it is the name of Jesus as He is the master of us and so it becomes our name, who we are. the Truth lives in us and therefore we live in the Truth and the Truth is Life Eternal.
1 John 2:5
KJV:But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.
NASB:but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him:
NLT:But those who obey God’s word really do love him. That is the way to know whether or not we live in him.
o[v d j a}n thrh~| aujtou~ to<n lo>gon,
but whoever keeps of Him the Word,
ajlhqw~v ejn tou>tw| hJ ajga>ph tou~
truly in this man the Love of the
qeou~ tetelei>wtai, ejn tou>tw|
God has been perfected, in this
ginw>skomen o[ti ejn aujtw~| ejsmen?
we know that in Him we are;
o[v d j a}n thrh a slightly different way to constuct the same huge IF. [but, whoever (conditional) if they, then subjuctive should keep] If you should keep His Word lo>gon then…. John 14, Jesus says, “if you love Me, obey My commands.” Truly in that kind of person the special non-human God love ajga>ph qeou Has been perfected, brought to it’s proper place completed. We love Him, but it is His love in us. In fact it is the divine God love deposit which is evidence not only of God’s love for us, but also enables our love for Him and this is proven by our actual agapê love for each other. tetelei>wtai is a proleptic perfect used to refer to a state of being resulting from a yet to be accomplished action to come. It is the goal to be strived for.
1 John 2:6
KJV:He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.
NASB:the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.
NLT:Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Christ did.
oJ le>gwn ejn aujtw~| me>nein ojfei>lei
the one saying in Him to remain is obligated
kaqw<v ejkei~nov periepa>thsen
just as that One walked
kai< aujto<v (ou[twv) peripatei~n.
also he (in this manner) to walk.
me>nein an infinitive, to remain as a continual state. It is an abiding fellowship a close personal relationship. Abide can sometimes carry the idea of a deeper Christianity, such as born-again so some like the term reside to show permanance. Those who are genuine Christians have this type of relationship, those who are not in deep relationship are not true Christians! ojfei>lei to be morally obligated so ought or should, but if this is who you are then it is your obligation to
periepa>thsen walk. Walk of course means the conduct of life and if we are Christians we are therefore obligated to conduct ourselves in exactly the same manner as Jesus walked.
aujto<v (ou[twv) as He walked or in this manner implied is the He who in both cases is Jesus.
The test of our religious experience is if it produces a reflection of Jesus Christ in our daily life.
What would Jesus do, is great, but the question is what would He do. That is the real test because so many claim to do what Jesus would do the real test is love.
Do you really love others as much as you love yourself?
I said 1 John, is a microcosim of the entire bible. The reason this is so is because John writes to combat a heresy to correct doctrine. As I mentioned, the Apostle Paul set up these churches 30 years earlier and immediately encountered an heretical movement that caused a split, now John has the same problem, but from a different camp. Up until this point all of God’s people were Semetic, Eastern, Oriental. The Gospel message was readily accepted by a competely different people. Greek, Western thinkers of the Roman world West of Syria, had a different way of looking at things and as soon as they accepted this new religion they set about defining it. Western thinkers are our ancesters and we have inherited their way of viewing the world and God. We, like them, must figure things out logically. The Great Philosophers. mathematicians, poets and artists of Greece and Rome influences their culture and it was their decendants who had to analyse the Christian message. How could a virgin give birth? How could a God die? How could one God be three and how can people be holy? These questions were not really questions to the Eastern mind. They were simply Truth to be accepted on Faith. Every heresy of the last 2,000 years has arisen from Western thinkers trying to interpret God’s mysteries with their human understanding. We want tangible proof of these things and in lieu of that we must at least be able to logically and rationally figure out how it all works? We are not inclined toward faith. In America we trust no one! Not the President, not the Government, not our religious leaders, not our parents, teachers or bosses. We question everything and that trait while possibly good in some ways is completely inappropriate to Christianity. In Christianity Trust is what it’s all about! Wisdom is from God as we yield completely to Him. In Job 28, the Bible says the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. Throughout the Proverbs and other Bible Books wisdom is precious and only comes from God. James talks about the fact that wisdom which causes jealousy, and ambition it is demonic fleshly wisdom, but the wisdom from God causes peace, gentleness, mercy, good behavior and is without hypocricy. In
1 Corinthians 1:21-25 ~ For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
John sets the record straight… There is no middle ground! No middle ground at all. It is either Truth or lies, light or dark, love or hate, fellowship or split and the end is either eternal life or eternal death.
Jesus said, wisdom is proved right by her actions. Forest Gump says, “Momma always says,’stupid is as stupid does.’” Actions speak louder than words. Rembrant told a student, when asked questions about technique, “said practice what you already know and you will understand.” It is in doing that we grow.
1 John 2:7
KJV: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.
NASB:Beloved, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word which you have heard.
NLT:Dear friends, I am not writing a new commandment, for it is an old one you have always had, right from the beginning. This commandment—to love one another—is the same message you heard before.
jAgaphtoi>, oujk ejntolh<n kainh<n
Beloved, not a command new
gra>fw uJmi~n ajll j ejntolh<n
I write to you all but a command
palaia<n h{n ei]cete ajp j ajrch~v?
old which you all have had from the beginning;
hJ ejntolh< hJ palaia> ejstin oJ
the command the old is the
lo>gov o{n hjkou>sate.
Word which you all have heard.
jAgaphtoi plural, another term of endearment.
ejntolh<n singular, not the Gospel message itself, but the portion, “to love one another.” as the NLT has it. in this case the old command which they have had ei]cete imperfect
from the beginning means the New command given by Jesus and extolled from the beginning of Christianity.
John 13:34-35 ~ “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
8- pa>lin ejntolh<n kainh<n gra>fw
uJmi~n, o[ ejstin ajlhqe<v ejn aujtw~|
kai< ejn uJmi~n, o[ti hJ skoti>a
para>getai kai< to< fw~v to<
ajlhqino<n h]dh fai>nei.