The confession of His Person is the test here, as in the opening of chapter 4. “Every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ come in the flesh is of God”; this Antichrist denies. “Whosoever confesses that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.” “Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” We have already seen that love and righteousness, in exercise amongst professors of the truth, proved that they possessed the divine nature, of which “these are qualities. But in verses 4 and 5, we find what is so deeply interesting, the confession of the Person of Jesus, Son of God, united with the possession of the divine nature (born of God), in giving us the victory over the world. Who then is he that conquers the world? What a bold challenge! Can you take it up? But I put another question, for the pleasure of answering it in our hearts. Who is He that has over come it, and bids us therefore be of good cheer? (John 16:3333These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)). Boldness in the day of judgment, and overcoming the world, these are high thoughts. Did ever Roman, Grecian, or barbarian commander think of victory like this? And yet they do not puff up, but build up on the most holy faith.
Verse 6. “This is he that came by water and blood,” and so forth. We have seen that Jesus Christ come in the flesh is the Object of faith, but the manner of His coming is the great point here, how He came. Were it only in the flesh, Christ incarnate, what but judgment could have been the result? the creature forever separated from God. Atonement and reconciliation are not found in Christ in the flesh, indeed His presence in the flesh maintained in a sense the enmity between Jew and Gentile. “Come in the flesh,” was also come under law, and in connection with the whole system. He broke down the middle wall of partition by death, when He “abolished in His flesh the enmity, the law of commandments contained in ordinances . . . and that He might reconcile both in one body to God by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby.” For faith, all enmities perish there; at the other side of it, we love God and our neighbor. Present in the flesh, the only-begotten Son of the Father revealed the Father. The eternal life which was with the Father was manifested, but if this was all, our state was infinitely worse than ever, for His presence made it manifest, to those who had eyes to see, that a gulf impassable to man lay between them and Him whom the Son revealed, when He said, “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” No, sin was there, and unless a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but for this purpose He came into this world, that the lost might find life through His death (Matt. 17:1111And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. (Matthew 17:11)), and that He might not be alone (John 12:2424Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. (John 12:24); Eph. 5:2525Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; (Ephesians 5:25)).
He came by water and blood, not by water only, “but by water and blood,” cleansing and expiation. We have in Ephesians the expression “washing of water by the word,” from which we can clearly understand its use elsewhere. It is always used in a moral sense. One must be born of it and the Spirit, to enter the kingdom. “He that is washed” (John 13), signifies regeneration; one is not washed again, any more than (when it is a question of the efficacy of the blood) one is sprinkled again. It is in connection with walking in the light that it is said, “the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin,” that is its property, it cleanses from sin. But “if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father”; and to wash the feet is another thought, and the word for it different from that used in, “He that is washed.” We are born again of incorruptible seed, by the word of God (1 Pet. 1). The entrance of the word brings light, and we are born of it by the Spirit, but it judges all that it finds, and writes death upon every thought of the carnal mind, and becomes itself the source of wholly new thoughts and affections. But blood, not water, is the expiation for sin, “without shedding of blood is no remission” (It would seem that many of the doctors have forgotten this). But there is no cleansing power like the death of Jesus, He died for and unto sin. There I get God’s judgment about it, and His judgment, through grace infinite, has become mine. “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin,” “We are baptized unto His death” (Rom. 6). “He that is dead is freed from sin”; freed as a slave from his master, not in the sense of saying, we have no sin. It is from the dead body of Jesus that the water and blood flowed.
How precious is the truth of Jesus wondrous death! Infinitely, everlastingly precious, and from every point of view, whether looked at from heaven or from earth, from the side of God’s glory or man’s ruin. Having humbled Himself to the death of the cross, it was the Father’s glory that raised Him to the right hand; there the Spirit in the saints delights to follow Him: Seek the things which are above, where the Christ is sitting at the right hand of God.
But the third witness is the Holy Ghost, which, like cleansing and expiation, we have through the death of Christ. He received the Spirit for man and in the Man (Psa. 68:1818Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them. (Psalm 68:18), margin), after that He had, through death, destroyed him that had the power of death. These are the three witnesses on God’s part. This the witness of God, about whom? About His Son, and what is it? That God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son, in us, from Him, as a stream from an exhaustless fountain. We have got the witness, too, in ourselves; for the life itself, with its affections, is there, the consciousness of it too, the Spirit also bearing witness. Like Himself, we love righteousness and hate iniquity, like Him we cry, “My God, My Father”; thus the nature approves itself to be divine. The thing that was true in Him is true also in us. The first chapter speaks of the manifestation of the eternal life that was with the Father, the last tells us that it is in us. God has given this life unto us.
And now, to the three witnesses on God’s part, the water, the blood, and the Holy Ghost, may a fourth be added, through grace, the heart of the believing sinner. This precious doctrine, received in the heart, delivers from the seductions and lies of false teachers and antichrists. “He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” Thus God, by His Spirit, definitively and for eternity, settles this question. All praise and glory to Him!
Verse 13 (New Trans.). “These things have I written to you that ye may know that ye have eternal life who believe on the name of the Son of God.”
It is in this way that God conveys to His people, through the apostle, His desire that they should enjoy the unspeakable blessedness of consciously possessing eternal life. The deep grace of this will be noted, and its importance too.
Verse 14. We have again this beautiful word “confidence,” or “boldness,” the grounds for it He delights to reveal — the divine Lover of His people! What they are for the day of judgment, for entering the Holy of holies, for drawing near to the throne of grace, we have seen. What they are in prayer is twofold — a heart that needs not to condemn itself, and one submissive to His will (“If we ask anything according to His will”; 3:21, 5:14).
Verse 16. “If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and He shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.” There are two beautiful aspects in which the child of God is contemplated in this epistle; overcoming the world “and “prevailing with God “for the life of a sinning brother. Here it is prolongation of natural life. But what nearness to Christ this supposes, to Him who conquered the world, and obtained, by His death, eternal life for those who had sinned even unto death!
A sin unto death may be any sin, a resisting His will and grieving His Spirit, which only His eye has seen. What can be more sad for a child of God than the weakening of confidence in Him, the waning of all joy, and the apprehension of chastening, which may reach even unto death. May God preserve His beloved people from sorrow like this.
Verse 18. Through consciousness of what we have and are, as from God, we keep ourselves, and the wicked one touches us not. This is what we have in the thrice repeated, “we know.” “Begotten of God,” “of God,” and with an understanding given us by the Son of God, that we might know Him that is true (This last is objective knowledge, the three former “we know” are subjective — conscious knowledge). “And we are in Him that is true . . . This is the true God and eternal life.” Thus ends this glorious epistle — Jesus Christ is the true God and eternal life. Rock of ages! in vain the waves of hell have dashed against Thee, it was only that they might be broken and disappear for ever! All praise and glory to Him who has shut us in, within that Ark which has found its resting-place upon the throne of God!