"He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son."
There is an impression of intense personality, of individualizing each of us, in John's writings, which cannot fail to strike us, whether we read his Gospel or his Epistles.
The Gospel opens with this. It tells us that the world did not know Him who made it, that Israel did not receive Him to whom they belonged; but that " as many" as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God.
Here is personality at once. This as many" bespeaks it.
When we read the Epistles we find the same. Each of us, as it were, feels himself addressed.
It is the fellowship of the individual saint that is contemplated at once, as in the first chapter of the first epistle. There are orders or ages among these individuals, these elect ones, as fathers, young men, and little children; but each order has personal knowledge of God, and each one of them his own individual standing with God. The fathers " know him that is from the beginning," the young men have " the word abiding in them," the little children " know the Father." There is an anointing in them. (1 John 2)
So again, each of them has the seed. of God in them. (Chapter 3)
So again, each of them has God dwelling in him, by the Spirit that He has given him; (3:24;) and the virtue or quality of that given Spirit is declared in this, that he who has Him makes a true confession to Jesus; and though they be but little children, yet do they, by virtue of His indwelling Spirit, overcome the lie that is in the world. (Chapter 4:1-4.)
And so again, each of these knows for himself than great fact that God dwells in him and he in God, through this Spirit given to him, and that given Spirit also enables him to make a confession to the grace of the Father in sending the Son, and also to the personal glory of Jesus, that He is " the Son of God." (Chapter 4:13-15.)
It is " whosoever," again, and again, and again, in this Epistle, and such language intimates individuality, just like the " as many" of John 1:12 already mentioned.
Each has been given an understanding to know Him that is true, as we read at the close. (Chapter 5:20.)
It is in company with all this that, as I judge, the apostle says in chap. 5:10, " he that believeth on the Son hath the witness in himself." It is in character with the whole Epistle.
According to John, the individual saint is divinely independent. He is not left dependent on whatever religion his country, or his birth, or his education may have provided for him. He himself has been personally, individually visited of God. He himself has received the Spirit, and therewith the divine seed, and light, and life, and truth, and unction-he has the witness in him, and needs not that any man should tell him what he is or whose he is. He knows this of himself. " He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself."