There is a kind of summing up in this chapter of who these are: not what they are, but who they are, and what that is in which they have part. It was loving the brethren, for instance, we were seeing in a previous chapter. Now comes the inquiry, who is my neighbor, and who is my brother? “whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and everyone that loveth Him that begat, loveth Him also that is begotten of Him.” It is not now a spiritual or moral test to see whether the love is real, but we get those who are these children of God, and then “everyone that loveth Him that begat, loveth Him also that is begotten of Him.” that is if it is really this divine love, I shall love those that are born of God. If it is for the parent's sake, I shall love all the children, and this is the way in which it is put here. But in the 2nd verse he gives a counter-proof that it is genuine. I know that I love God by loving the children of God; but I know that it is real loving them if I love God and keep His commandments. If I love them as his children, I shall love Himself. It runs all through this epistle, a kind of counter-check, which is of the greatest use. If it is the Holy Spirit, it is the spirit of truth too. I have thus the means of checking one thing by another. I might seem to be loving God's children very much, and it may be only a party feeling. But if I love God, I love all for his sake. Anything else may be merely a feeling of human nature. It is the bringing God in which brings all in. In 2 Peter it is said, “add to brotherly kindness charity.” by this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep his commandments. If I love them as God's children, it is because I love Him that begat them. It takes them all in, but it always takes him in, and therefore it is a question of obedience. “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not grievous.” The great difficulty is the world. “For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world; and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” there is a nature we have received which belongs to a system which is not of the world at all. “Ye are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” “Ye are from beneath, I am from above.” This world, as a system, is of the devil—not of God at all. All that is in it, “the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, is not of the father, but is of the world.” The father is the head, and source, and blessedness of a great system to which the world is entirely opposed: and therefore when the Son came into the world, the world rejected him, and that has put the world, as a tested world, in perfect antagonism to the father. We always find that it is the flesh against the spirit, the world against the father, and the devil against the son. “Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world.” It is truth which sanctifies. The difficulty is the world. We look on the things that are seen, and not on the things that are not seen, and therefore we are weak. The victory that overcomes the world is our faith. It is not merely a nature that is given to us, but as creatures we must have an object for this nature. I must have something, and therefore “who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” he is occupied with something. When I find that the one whom the world has spit upon and crucified is the Son of God, I say that is what the world is. And therefore when my faith really rests upon Jesus as this despised one, the son of God, I have done with the world: I overcome it as an enemy.
There we get the short account of these saints. They are born of God: they are a set of people that belong to Him as those that are alive; they live in another world that belongs to the Father. He then speaks of the spirit and power in which Christ came, that by which we are connected with this scene of blessedness that belongs to the Father. “This is He that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood.” This gets back to a most vital principle that we have had all through the epistle. If it had been by water only, John the Baptist came by water. The word of God being applied to man as a child of Adam, could not purify him. Christ coming into the world by that put man to the test; and man was God's enemy and, therefore, there was no mending him at all. It then became a question of redemption, of blood as well as water, and that life was in the Son; not in the first Adam, but in the second. “This is He that came by water and blood.” There is a cleansing; but this is the effect of redemption on the new life. It was out of a dead Christ that the cleansing came. A living Christ coming into the world presents Himself to man to see whether any link could be formed between God and man. But then was man finally condemned, and death comes in. It was always so. There is no life in us. “If ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins.” And that is the reason why He says you must eat the flesh and drink the blood. If you do not take him as a dead Christ, you have nothing, for that cleansing came out of a dead Christ. It is death to the old thing, and a new life entirely is brought in. Then there comes another blessed truth. We have a dead Christ, now alive for evermore; and then we have the Holy Ghost dwelling in us. But that is all as belonging to a new world. “There are three that bear witness on earth—the Spirit, the water, and the blood.” We have the cleansing, the Spirit bearing witness, and the water, the cleansing power; and the blood, the expiatory power; and these all agree in one. There is no cleansing of the old nature, but there is a new nature given. “God hath given us eternal Life, and this life is in his Son.” It is no mending of the old Adam, but it is a gift of the new. “He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” There is no life belonging to the old man, it is a rejected thing, and there will not be two Adams in heaven. It is the Son, and those that have life in the Son. God began working out that in the fall, but the full truth of it was brought out when Christ was risen.
Then there is another point in connection with this here, and that is, the knowledge of it. “He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself,” because we have got Christ, through the Spirit of Christ in us. Therefore, I know that I have eternal life—that I am the child of God. We have got this blessed consciousness and comfort—the work has been wrought, the blood shed, and, besides that, I cry Abba, Father, through the Spirit that dwells in me. That is, “He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself.” He has got the thing: got Christ, in a word.
The fault of the unbeliever is not that he has not got that, but that he makes God a liar. God has given an adequate witness about His Son; and “he that believeth not God hath made him a liar.” And therefore a person rejecting the gospel is rejecting God's testimony about His Son. The witness was sufficient. We read of many who believed on His name. But they did not overcome the world, because there was no real faith. Jesus did not commit Himself to them.
“And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.” It is of all importance to see that it is not a mending of the nature that we have already, but the giving to us one that we had not before, in receiving Christ as our life. And all the rest is accomplished. The Spirit is the Holy Ghost present in the world. The water came out of His side as well as the blood. Water cleanses what already exists. The water is the washing by the word—but not without the power of the Holy Ghost. It is the application of the word by the Holy Ghost. But besides that, the water gives the idea of the washing by the word; and therefore he says we are born of water and the Spirit.
One thing remains—the present confidence that we have with God. “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.” And then there comes every-day confidence. “And this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us.” We are really reconciled to God. It is not an uncertain condition with God, but we are at home with Him. We have confidence in Him. It is not merely the fact that we have been saved, but we have present confidence. “And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.”
Then there is another privilege we have—that of intercession for others. And now, too, we get just a hint at the dealings of God in the way of government with a man that is saved. “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. All unrighteousness is sin; and there is a sin not unto death.” In the case of Ananias and Sapphira, that was a sin unto death. There is a constant dealing of God in government with his children, which, if the sin be not of that character as unto death, (it may go on to it,) it is a question of discipline. There is many a sickness that is a discipline of God in some shape or another—positive discipline, that if the heart were bowed to God about it, would be for good. Chastenings are not always for actual faults. In Job it is said, (chap. xxxiii. 18, 19,) “He keepeth back his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword. he is chastened also with pain upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong pain” —and that we find from the seventeenth verse is for the purpose of hiding pride from man. Then in chap. xxxvi. the chastening is for positive faults. (Ver. 9.) “Then he showeth them their work, and their transgressions that they have exceeded. He openeth also their ear to discipline, and commandeth that they return from iniquity.” There was a positive discipline of God. It is not merely here that there is this discipline, and that if there is a “messenger with him, one among a thousand, to show unto man his uprightness, that there he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down into the pit,” &c. But now, as a Christian, you are competent yourself to be a messenger. The Christian, having the title of intercession, and walking with God, he has this access to God, to be heard in whatever he asks. When, then, you see a brother sin, and come under the discipline of God, you go and be this messenger, one among a thousand, to him. It is a matter of discipline and chastening for sin; and if this intercession be used, he will be restored. It supposes a person walking with God to be able to be this interpreter.
“We know that whatsoever is born of God sinneth not.” The man is living after the flesh, if he is giving way to sin. The new nature sinneth not. If he sins at all, therefore, it must be because he is acting in the flesh. If we walk in the Spirit Satan has no power over us at all. “He that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.”
“And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.” He sums up all in these two verses. “The whole world lieth in wickedness,” and “we are of God.” We blink things that are so plain sometimes, in order to save a little bit of the world. But “we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true; and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ.” God being revealed in Christ, and we being in Christ, we have got our place in a scene outside the world altogether.
We have here, too, a remarkable witness to the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. “We are in him that is true, even in his Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.” It is an immense comfort; because, when I have found Christ, I have got God. I have found Him. I know Him. I know what He is to me. “He that hath the Son hath the Father also.”