“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.  This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.  And if we know that he hears us–whatever we ask–we know that we have what we asked of him.  If anyone sees his brother commit a sin that does not lead to death, he should pray and God will give him life.  I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death.  There is a sin that leads to death.  I am not saying that he should pray about that.  All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death” (1 John 5:13-17).

Follow the apostle’s thoughts link by link.

1.  He writes so that believers would be assured of eternal life (v. 13).  That’s what the letter is about: How can I know that I have the Son and have life.  Assurance of our fellowship with God, of His love for us, of our love for Him is the birthright of all those who have been born of God.

2.  Along with assurance, God wants us to know that He hears our prayers when we “ask anything according to his will” (v. 14).  We are to be confident of this when we approach God.  Believing, confident, God’ will-dependent prayer is also our birthright, for we know He hears us.

3.  Since God hears us, we know that we have whatever we ask of Him (v. 15).  Wow.  Savor that for a moment: we have life in the Son, we have an audience with the Father, and we have anything we ask for in accord with God’s will.

4.  But then John tells us one thing in keeping with God’s will that we should pray for specifically.  Imagine: The attention of heaven is riveted to our prayers and God is leaning forward desiring that we should ask something specifically in keeping with His will.  What should that be?  Pray for any brother we see committing a sin so that God will give him life!  “Anyone” who sees a brother in such sin and prays will be answered by God.  The effectiveness of the prayer isn’t limited to some special, select “prayer warriors.”  Anyone in Christ may move heaven to grant life by interceding for any brother caught in sin.

Oh, we should pray fervent, believing, confident prayers for one another’s deliverance from sin to life!  Who can you pray for today?  What brethren do you know committing sin and in need of life?

Here’s how.

God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them.  We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure.  We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised (Heb. 6:10-12).

Or, said differently:

God is love.  Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.  In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.  There is no fear in love.  But perfect love drives our fear, because fear has to do with punishment.  The one who fears is not made perfect in love (1 John 4:16b-18).

Words too sublime for blogs.  Please read them again slowly and prayerfully.

These were the passages my girls and I studied this morning.  Seems the Lord desires us to know with certainty our standing in Him and to give confirming evidence through love.

Heb. 6:11 says God will not forget the love we show Him as we help His people.  We love God, in part, by loving and helping His people.  If we’re diligent to love this way–not lazy in love–such love makes our hope sure.  Assurance is held out as motivation for loving God by loving His people.

1 John 4 teaches that if we live in love we live in God and God in us.  God is love.  So, one dominant quality of a genuine Christian life is love for the brethren.  In fact, the church is to be a place of increasing mutual love, where God’s “love is made complete among us.”  The result: “we have confidence on the day of judgment.”  The abounding and maturing love of God in and between us drives out the fear of judgment.  ”There is no fear in love.”  Divine love and fear of judgment cannot co-exist.

If we lack assurance, one remedy is being with and loving God’s people.  It’s another argument for the centrality of the local church and the necessity of our meaningful involvement in her.  As Mark Dever sometimes puts it, “The local church is like an assurance of salvation co-op.”  I think he stole that from the Bible.

Do you lack the assurance of salvation?  Here’s one remedy: Join a church.  Love the people.  Receive assurance.

World News Service–Scientists have stumbled upon an amazing discovery “hidden” in their midst for thousands of years.  While efforts to detect life on other planets has been largely fruitless, some have been surprised to find life right here on planet earth.

Researchers at The Obfuscate Center on Sentient Beings were startled to discover evidence of intelligent human life on earth.  One senior research official offered comments on the condition of anonymity: “For so long, we’ve assumed that life must be found elsewhere, or at least interesting life must be found elsewhere.  The old paradigm held that things on earth were simply artifacts of random chance and that little meaningful life could be observed.  To have evidence of real life on earth… well that changes everything.  We have to start over.”

Others were more cautious, calling for further scientific research and government funding to verify the claims.  Dr. Aurelius Sowat, chief biological researcher at The Scientific Laboratory for Animate Matter and Life  (SLAM Life), scoffed at the finding.  “Much more needs to be done to confirm these reports.  It’ll take decades of highly specialized research to verify these ‘findings.’  And even if the research proves valid, of what use is it?”  Dr. Sowat continued: “It wouldn’t change one thing about my daily existence.”

One observer of the recent scientific exchange regarding the existence of life on earth, the much beloved theologian, author, and speaker, John Messenger, says he is not surprised at the discussion.  “In one sense, both sides are correct.  There is a surprising amount of life on earth if you know how to look for it.  And, one can easily see that there is so much absence of life as well.  The problem is that most people think dead things are alive simply because they move or speak or feel, while the truly living things are despised and rejected.”

Mr. Messenger teaches that in order for their to be life on earth, people must be born again.  Until people are born again, they are in fact spiritually dead.  Then, they become new creatures with real spiritual life in them.  They are people with eternal life and a new identity, often mistaken as outcasts, rebels, and scourges to the former culture of death.

Mr. Messenger is no stranger to such mistaken identities.  He spent some time in exile for his preaching and writing, and believes he simply suffered the kind of rejection that truly living people face.  Asked about his time in exile and if he had any words of encouragement for those now facing rejection because they’re alive, he said, “Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you.  We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers.  Anyone who does not love remains in death.  Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.”

John reminds his followers that there is one path to finding true life on earth: “to believe in the name of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.  Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them.  And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.”

Dr. Sowat mocked John Messenger’s comments as “the delusions of an old man brokenhearted at the loss of a great teacher important to him.”  He asked, “Do we really believe that life on earth comes down to believing in the Son of God and loving others?  Where’s the proof of that?”

Reached for one last comment, John Messenger said, “Proof?  We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.  And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.  If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God.  And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.  God is love.  Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.  The proof is in the living people, who live in God.  You don’t need a microscope to see that.”

I’m greatly enjoying mornings with my daughters.  We’ve started a new routine this year.  I spend 15 minutes with each of them discussing the Bible and praying for one another.  With my oldest daughter, I’m studying Hebrews.  With my youngest daughter, I’m reading 1 John.  They chose the books, and God has been meeting with us in powerful ways.

I’m a bit of a dim-wit, because it just dawned on me this morning that these times are rich with opportunity for teaching them not just the discipline of reading (set a time, choose a book, do it regularly, etc.)  but also how to read the Scripture.  I find myself drawing their attention to the basics: subjects, verbs, similes, metaphors, repetition, and so on.  As we do that, we fight taking things for granted in the text and incredibly rich things “pop out” at us.  And we also learn to avoid the frequent mistake of simply jumping to “this is what it means to me.”

That little sentence has been the death of many well-meaning attempts to understand the Bible.  “What it means to me” ruins our understanding because it decapitates the intent of the original author.  What matters first and primarily is “what did it mean to John or Paul or Luke or whoever wrote Hebrews.”  What did the author intend to communicate.  That’s first base in biblical interpretation and its the guard rail that keeps us from driving off into the wilderness of subjectivity and a million swamps of private interpretation.

And, ultimately, we’re concerned to know what the Author–God Himself–intends to communicate with us.  If we’re hasty to rewrite the Bible with our own thoughts, we’ll ultimately write God right out of it.  A premature “what it means to me” takes the pen out of God’s hand and dips it in the ink of our puny intellectual, emotional, social, psychological and usually idolatrous wells.

Writing on a larger subject, but commenting very helpfully where this issue is concerned, Carl Trueman offers the following:

“if the intent of the divine author does not inform and ultimately determine the meaning of scripture, then three things follow: scripture has no normative set or range of meanings; theology becomes merely reflection upon human religious psychology; and God remains an unknown, and unknowable, quantity.” (Wages of Spin, p. 55).

Now that’s a train wreck!  And it explains so well why some people “don’t get anything out of the Bible.”  In fact, they may not be reading the Bible in such a way as to “get something out,” but to always put something in–self.  Can it be any wonder that wherever we put self where God belongs we get nothing out of it?

In it’s proper place–well after we’ve done the careful work of understanding the author’s intent–”this is what it means to me” can be helpful.  It’s then  just another way of bringing home the application.  But if this sentiment forgets its place, it’ll undermine the deeper, richer blessings of Bible study that we’re meant to enjoy when we sit and let the Father speak to us.

“See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first” (Heb. 3:12-14).

“And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming” (1 John 2:28).

It is entirely possible to be among the brethren and have a sinful, unbelieving heart.  Judas did.  Judas’ hands mingled in the bowl with the hand of God the Son, but his heart belonged to the enemies of Christ who bought his betrayal for 30 pieces of silver.  The fact that all the disciples asked in turn, “Surely, not I Lord?” reveals the uncertainty they had about their own hears.  As the songwriter puts it: “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.”

What a desperately wicked and deceitful and frail thing is the human heart.  And by degrees, subtly and unnoticed, the heart may become unbelieving.  It may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.  So much so that some who seemed to begin with Christ may finish without Him.

The antidote: “continue in him,” that is, Christ.

The practical application: “Encourage one another daily.”

The encroachment and deceit of sin is so steady and unrelentless, we need to daily encourage one another.  We need others to speak every day the words of life, to assure us in the faith, and by such words to purge our hearts of unbelief and hardness.  As Paul Tripp put it, “Our words are the principal tool God uses in the work he does through us” (Winning the War of Words, p. 199).  What we say to one another every day has serious spiritual importance; it may be the difference between increasing hardness and increasing confidence before God.

“But if we continue in Him, we may be confident and unashamed on the Day He returns.”  This morning I asked my youngest daughter what she thought it would be like when Jesus returned.  Her first response: people will be afraid.  I think she nailed it.  But I asked her why she thought that.  “Because it will be a surprise and shocking,” came the reply.  Again: spot on.  Sinful men are never ready to meet a holy God.

But for those whose thoughts are fixed on Christ, who love His coming, who long for His appearing, who are in Him, the Day of His return will be a Day filled with confidence and no shame.  We will be ready to meet Him, and seeing Him we will be like Him (1 John 3:2), and seeing Him we will be satisfied completely (Ps. 17:15).  What a great and glorious Day!

So, in view of that coming Day, let me ask you: How is your day going so far?  How might it change by thinking for a moment about that coming Day when Christ will appear and we will be caught up together with Him in the air?  Will we be confident and unashamed because we have continued in Him in faith, love and hope?  Will others be confident and unashamed because today we encouraged them with the word of life?

I pray so.  For every day we need to be encouraged so that our hearts might not harden and our confidence be made solid.

Let’s allow Piper to take a crack at it from 1 John.  Great explanation:

(HT: Reformation Theology)

While I’m at it, I’d love to offer another plug for Piper’s recent book, Finally Alive.  Or, listen to or watch the sermon series here.  I say the title should have an exclamation point in it, because the book nails this very important issue in a very clear and life-giving way. Read it and be blessed in knowing what God has done to raise sinners to life through His Son.

“See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you.  If it does, you will remain in the Son and in the Father.  And this is what He promised us–even eternal life.” (1 John 2:24-25)

When I was a little boy, there were times when my mama gave me an instruction with her “see to it” voice.  Do you know what I’m talking about?

She could use words like “See to it that you obey your teachers today.”  But that’s too formal.  More often she would say something like, “You betta….”  Or, “I bet’ not have to tell you again….”  Or even a single word to begin a sentence, like, “Now….”  Or even sometimes with just a tone you knew you were in one of those situations where she was not simply encouraging or negotiating or merely suggesting.  This was an urgent and necessary statement for your own good.

So it is with the apostle’s words in 1 John 2:24-25.  With urgency he calls his readers and us to make sure, see to it, make every effort to guarantee that what they and we have heard from the beginning remains in us.  Read it imagining your mama’s “this is not optional” voice.

What John’s readers had “heard” was the gospel, the happy announcement that the Son of God bore our flesh to bear our sin as our substitute and was raised from the dead to bring us life and forgiveness and atonement and God, so that all who repent and believe on Him would have God’s salvation.  That’s what they heard “from the beginning,” from the first days of their encounter with God’s messengers.  They didn’t hear one message at first and then move on to another message, the gospel.  There was no drifting in the message.  From day one they heard the good news, and it’s that news they are to remain in.

But how to remain?  John’s letter is an extended treatment of this question, and it reveals that remaining in the gospel is more than knowing the gospel, remembering the gospel, or merely believing the gospel.  Remaining in the gospel is not less than those things, but it issues forth in more than those things.

Remaining in the gospel means to walk in the light since God is light (1 John 1:5-7).

Remaining in the gospel means to obey His commands (1 John 2:3-6).

Remaining in the gospel means loving our brothers and sisters in the Lord (1 John 2:9-11).

Remaining in the gospel means loving the Father and not the world (1 John 2:15-17).

Remaining in the gospel means remaining with the apostolic teaching and not the Christ-denying errors of anti-Christs (1 John 2:18-23).

John will go on to say more, and to expand these points.  But already he has given us a picture of the gospel and being “in” the gospel that explodes out into holiness of life, obedience to the word, loving a new family, rejecting the world and false teaching.  And it alerts us to the fact that we may be “out” of the gospel by a number of means, not just by believing the wrong things.

The gospel, then, is a marinade in which we soak.  Remaining in that marinade–with its salty, savory, light and sticky consistency–is the daily call upon our lives as Christians.  We want to be covered and soaked in the gospel.  We want the message to seep into our marrow so that we’re sweeter with the gospel the closer we get to the bone of our souls.

And being soaked in the gospel, remaining in what we have heard, brings great promise both now and eternally.  If we remain in the gospel, we “also will remain in the Son and in the Father.”  Now, this is beyond all intelligence and capacity to wonder.  How is it that soaking in what we hear keeps us in the Son and in the Father?  And have you marveled lately that our lives–our ordinary, gritty, imperfect, sometimes misdirected Christian lives–are hidden in Christ and in God?  What a marvelous thing it is to hear the news of Christ’s crucifixion, burial and resurrection and trust in Him for our salvation and have our very selves united with, placed in Jesus, the Father, and the Spirit.

And on top of all that, God even promises us eternal life.  Oh, beloved, do everything to remain in what you heard from the beginning, the gospel of our dear Savior, God’s only Son, who ransoms us with His blood and cleanses us of all our sins, who gives us His righteousness and reconciles us to the Father, and makes us a special people unto God by grace alone through faith alone.  Remain in the gospel.  Run the race!  You’ll reap if you do not faint!

“Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning.  This old command is the message you have heard.  Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining” (1 John 2:7-8).

Here, then, is something to ponder.  The beloved apostle states matter of factly that he is not writing a new command but an old one.  This is a message they “have had since the beginning.”  Then, the apostle goes on to say that “yet” he is “writing a new command.”  What’s the deal?

He explains: the truth of this new command “is seen in him.”  What’s new about the new command, which is the old one, is that it can also now be seen.  It’s seen “in him.”  That is, what is both old and new is seen in Jesus.  But not just in Jesus, also “in you,” in Jesus’ people.  What is this old command from the beginning that is now a new command seen in Jesus and His people?

It is the command to love (Deut. 6:5; John 13:34).  Love, that most ancient and eternal of attributes, which never fails and never ceases, is yet always new.  And where do we see the love of God clearest?  Is it not in Jesus, God’s Son?  For it is in Jesus that we see all the newness of love expanded, a love proclaimed by the apostles and by the faithful preacher in the gospel, the message we possess from the beginning of our spiritual lives.

Jesus makes this old thing new in the lives of His people.  John Stott tells us how:

The idea of love in general was not new, but Jesus Christ invested it in several ways with a richer and deeper meaning.  First, it was new in the emphasis he gave it, bring the love commands of Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18 together and declaring that the whole teaching of the Law and the Prophets hung upon them.  Secondly, it was new in the quality he gave it.  A disciple was to love others not just as he loved himself but in the same measure as Christ had loved him, with selfless self-sacrifice even unto death.  Thirdly, it was new in the extent he gave it, showing in the parable of the Good Samaritan that the ‘neighbour’ we must love is anyone who needs compassion and help, irrespective of race and rank, and includes our ‘enemy’ )cf. Mt. 5:44).  It was also, fourthly, to continue new by our fresh apprehension of it, ‘for though doctrinal Christianity is always old, experimental Christianity is always new’ (Candlish).  In these ways it was ‘a new command,’ and will always remain new.  It is new teaching for the new age which has dawned, new… because ‘the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.’ (Stott, The Letters of John, italics added)

All of this newness is in Jesus–an in us!  We see it in His life and sacrifice, and we see it in the church, His body.  Oh what love is seen in the lives of His people!  What mystery and wonder!  Embrace and enjoy the Savior’s love today!  Plumb the oldness and explore the newness for the joy of your soul!

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“So if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would welcome me.  If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me.” (Philemon 17-18)

A couple posts back, I made mention of Paul’s astonishing and radical appeal to love rather than authority when he wrote to Philemon on behalf of the slave now brother, Onesimus.  Paul continues his appeal to Philemon, but now he adds another piece of logic.  Let’s call it gospel substitution. He says to Philemon:

1.  Welcome Onesimus just as you would welcome me.

2.  And, charge me with the wrongs and debts you would charge Philemon.

Philemon would recognize the logic right away.  It’s the logic beneath the same message that saved him.  It’s not difficult to see the cross looming all over this exchange between these two “partners” in Christ.  For the cross presents the exact same logic:

1.  God treats us sinners as though we were Jesus.  We get Jesus’ righteousness and spotless record.

2.  God treats Jesus as though He were sinners.  Jesus bears our guilt and debt of sin.

The “sweet exchange” some call it.

Now Paul thinks about the social dynamics of slavery and manumission in precisely the same terms.  The enormous crime of slavery calls for the most ardent counter-attack.  In the minds of fallen men that almost always means armed rebellion, retaliation, and so on.  The mind of the Christian calls for something more radical still in difficult situations like this.

The appeal to love was radical.  But how do we know what love is?  As another apostle put it, we know what love is because Jesus laid down His life for us (1 John 3:16a).  That is, He took our place, the sin-less for the sin-full.  He laid down His life… and then He picked it up again.  Here, Paul lays down his life for Onesimus.  And he calls Philemon to do the same.  And he calls Onesimus to do the same in sending him back.  Everywhere there are Christians, there is laying down of life for others (1 John 3:16b).  And everywhere there is laying down of life there is receiving life more fully.  It’s the logic, the facts, the call, and the benefit of the gospel.

What could be more radical than in love laying down your very life in someone else’s place?  Taking life is easy and often the cowardly, fearful response.  Giving your life is humble, courageous, full of love and subversive.

Oh Father in heaven, grant that like our Savior, your Son, we might lay down our lives today so that others may have life and have it to the full.  Amen.

“How do we know God loves us?” Have you ever been asked that question? Ever asked that question yourself?