As John proceeds in his Epistle, you can clearly perceive the spirit of personal application which characterizes it. He addresses not churches but individuals. Nor is his address ecclesiastical, but moral. This is great comfort; no discouragement around can touch the personal question. If the whole economy be gone to ruins, the individual thing remains untouched. Just as in Israel, when Jezebel was practicing sin, what had that to do with the personal thing? Were there not 7000 in Israel who had not bowed the knee to Baal? They were not implicated in the ruin around. Again, in the days of Omri, what could be worse? Yet the Spirit was not straitened, as the apostle speaks.
In such a place John sets us in the very innermost circle, narrow and intimate. This is uniform with the spirit of John’s writings. Do we not see it in the Gospel? The outer circle is drawn, “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.” Was He straitened! No; but the circle narrows. “He came unto his own (the Jews), and his own received him not.” That would not do; but the inner circle remains. “But to as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God.” If the world, with its atheist heart, denies its Creator, if the Jew denies his Messiah, is grace to be reduced to inactivity? Never! If earth deny Him room to work, God shall retire to heavenly activities (and this is the secret of Church calling). Can God remain passive because man is unbelieving? No, never! Pregnant truth that tells, “Love never faileth”! If God were to give up, what would it be but the failure of love. “Love never faileth.” So, then, if the world and the Jew give up God, He will act with individuals-with as many as believe. This is the atmosphere of John—the Spirit looking upon ruins, separating and educating individuals. Is there not confusion abroad? If you say there is not, you cannot have your eye open. Saints here, and saints there, but they cannot walk together. God’s grace is undisturbed; it is His work to conduct you; and this is the activity of grace in the innermost circle. When the Spirit is disappointed in one place, He turns to another John, dealing with personalities, unfolds the secrets and wonders of God’s mind, and in hearing Him you may listen as though you yourself were the only saint on the face of the earth. I may read it as though God were speaking to my own self.
John now speaks of true knowledge. We have all heard of the Gnostics of olden times, and their proud boast of knowledge. We are in danger, from these things, many of us, and some in particular, who certainly have much knowledge. Ah, but the true knowledge is always linked with obedience. It is not poetic thoughts or high imaginations, but obedience. Now, do you not approve of the third verse, “Hereby do we know that we know him if we keep his commandments”? Do you not reject all speculations, all ideality? True knowledge is clothed with obedience. Anything else is rebellion. As another has said, “If we can sport, even while we speak the name of God, we have the name without the substance.” And so it is, if we speak of knowledge without cultivating obedience.
The fourth verse shows that if we do not keep God’s commandments, we are liars, to speak of knowledge, and thus serve the old liar.
Verse 5. —It is thus “the love of God is perfected,” i.e., matured, brought to issue, exhibited. Again, the sixth verse brings another individual thing. If we boast of knowledge, let us show obedience! As James says, “Show my thy faith by thy works.” Do not you be talking after the fashion of the Gnostics. Show me your faith! This is a time when knowledge is increased, but if you turn to boasting, John says to you, ‘Show your knowledge by obedience.’ And this precept I would desire to retain; it is very healthful.
Verse 7. — “From the beginning” is a common expression in these writings, and it may mean from all eternity, as in the early part of Genesis, which is closely connected with this Epistle, or it may be taken to mean, from the beginning of Gospel times. “I write no new commandment;” and yet a new commandment, for since the resurrection of Jesus love has taken a new form. Love is now dispensed in power. The old commandment, as in the Gospel, “That ye love one another,” is new since Jesus rose from the dead. Since then love has reached its meridian brightness, its noonday strength! And how can I say that? “ Because as he is, so are we in this world!” i.e., since He rose.
Love has always been at work. Love planted Adam in the garden of Eden; love set Israel in Canaan; love sent forth the prophets; love sent Jesus into the world; but to take Jesus into the presence of God, and me with Him, is a new and bright phase of love. “Darkness is past, and the true light now shineth!” As we read in Canticles, “So the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in the land.”
Verse 8. — “A new commandment,” “which thing is true in him and in you.” Here we fail, we do not give God credit for His grace; yet there is nothing beyond or greater than the place He has put us in. Love is made perfect. Was Adam in Eden equal to you in heaven? Where does love shine brightest? Putting you in Christ, or Israel in Canaan? Love is an old commandment, but it has got a new character. With what title? “The precious blood of Christ!” and this is the point, (Do you believe it?) that where He is you are.
Verses 9, 10, and 11. Shall I then talk of light when I hate my brother? Can I hate him in the light? Impossible! If I talk of light, and yet hate my brother, I lie.
Verse 12. —Here “little children,” is a generic term. It might have been “begotten ones,” or “born ones.” Whether fathers, young men, or little children in the family, our sins are forgiven. Forgiveness is a common thing-not distant and difficult of access, but common property. It was said to me once, Scripture makes far less ado about the forgiveness of sins than conscience does! The Epistle to the Hebrews takes for granted the forgiveness of sins. As begotten ones, your sins are forgiven.
Three generations in the family are mentioned; and here we may pause to ask what are “fathers,” “young men,” and “children” in the Church? The “children” are those who are in the happy knowledge of the Father. Oh! to be a child! Oh, to enjoy our relationship as “little children”! There is nothing sweeter, no finer attainment. And do we not naturally look back to childhood The Spirit gives that impression of the joy of tasted relationship. “ Young men “ are girded with strength—no longer children, they go forth to battle. They go forth to war; yes, and with him in whom the world lieth. He beguiled Eve; the world has been in him ever since, and they go forth to war with him. Fathers are those who “have known him, that is from the beginning”; no longer little children—theirs is a meditative joy! They are able to gaze, meditate, and wonder as they decipher the ways of God. Theirs is a reflective, meditative worship. These are fine distinctions.
And now, what need the sinner care for what is around? What was it to the woman of Samaria that Israel was in confusion? She found herself alone with Christ, and got her own heart’s questions answered! What care I how things are if I have this gravity of old age—a wondering gravity, is it not? exquisite, perfect, and simple-able to look on, able to gaze and wonder! —no speculation, but meditation in the light of the Holy Ghost!
Verses 15, 16, 17. —Here we have a larger word, putting the young men at the business of their calling. How the Epistle teems with moral glories! Here is the world to fight, and him also in whom the world lies. Framed by Satan’s lie, the world lies in him, and is nourished by him. On the forbidden tree grew “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life.” Eve took it, and these lusts have impregnated her race! By that fruit the world to this day is animated. It “ lieth in the wicked one.” It is the warmth of the wicked one that nourishes the world. “The world passeth away.” To be sure it does! “In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.” Death, decay, and misery all lie in the track of sin.
Why will the kingdom be everlasting when Jesus takes it? Because of righteousness. “Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity, therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee,” &c. “A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy kingdom,” because righteousness and abiding are linked together: wasting and sin! Nothing that is essentially righteous is ever lost; it is in its very nature enduring. Suppose that the Spirit enlightens your soul with a ray of Christ’s glory, though you lose it for a time, it is eternal. No fragment of the mind of Christ is ever lost. You may be happier today than tomorrow; but though the joy may pass away from you, it is not annihilated. And oh! what a place will heaven be, where all the fragments shall be added together!
“Little children, it is the last time.” Paul, Peter, and John all speak of the “last time” as an evil time. Cast down the imagination that this world will become better. Whenever the Spirit looks at “the last time,” He marks it with iniquity, awful iniquity. Peter marks it with scorning; John as the age of Antichrists. Now, do not let that go. They promise you improvement here, but no such thing is coming; judgment must close the scene; there is no grace in the Apocalypse! It is a scene of judgment, clearing the kingdom of all who offend and work iniquity. And whereas at present the world makes an “Exhibition” of itself (A well-chosen word!) shall I go see it? Could I look on a man decking himself to go forth to execution? The world makes its “international.” Exhibitions of what it can do, on its road to judgment! Am I to make my boast in a world lying under sentence of judgment? Now, supposing we were living in the days of Cain and Seth; if I were of the family of Seth, I could go to the town of Enoch and buy a spade to till my little fields, but could I go and enroll myself among the citizens? I can make use of things in this world, and thank God, too, for them; but while I am in this world, I am not of it. Many very dear people do not see this; but if one has once got into the light, how can one act in concert with these things! I cannot do it! The world is on the road to ruin, decking itself for the execution. It is a suited warning in this last time, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.”
Verse 19. — “They went out from us, but they were not of us.” It is a poor thing to have resort to ecclesiastical excommunication! Shall I say “a poor thing” in the face of the fifth of first Corinthians? Yes, assuredly it is a poor thing. The railer was to be put away from amongst them, no doubt, but when I see the Blessed Lord Jesus at such things, I do not see Him using discipline; but so deepening the atmosphere about Him that the spirit of a Judas could not stand it! He is not excommunicated, he is forced out!
John looks on the Church of God as so conducted that the railer has not to be excommunicated, but is forced out by the atmosphere around. Those who would touch the person of Christ cannot stand it—the complex person of Christ, as He came, God and Man. I confess that He came in the flesh; otherwise I have no Redeemer. I am equally certain that He is the “Son of the living God.” You and I should retain that so strongly that those who are of a contrary part should be ashamed, forced out. Do you do this? Did you ever know an instance of a sinner sporting his sin in the presence of Christ? Sorrows may be brought to Jesus. What atmosphere so suitable, so soothing to sorrow? None so reproving to Sin! Yes, Lord Jesus, thy presence invited a Magdalene, but repelled her sin! The consequences of our sins we bring to Jesus, but can our sins disport themselves under His eye? Never!
When Judas sold his Master, no ecclesiastical censure was necessary; it was moral censure, moral excommunication! Jesus so deepened the atmosphere around Him that Judas was forced out. And here, in John, the Spirit does the same. Nothing so touches the border of heaven, beloved, nothing so near heaven, as that you so behave yourself that contrary minds cannot stand it. How we should bless the Lord that He ever wrote such things for our learning! These personal addresses! My soul blesses Him for them; and may he apply them, and give us such confidence in each other that we may join together in celebrating His glories in such a manner that the contrary part may be ashamed! Amen.