How to Discern Truth and Love: 1 John 4:1–5:4

Don Carson: (Reading from 1 John 4:1-5:4) “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 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. 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 out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.

And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world.”

So reads the Word of God.

The passages this evening talks about truth, then about love, and then it talks about the links between the two.

1. Truth

Let’s begin with truth. You may have noticed not only that John recycles a lot of his themes, but when he moves from theme to theme, he sometimes has a transition verse or two. You may recall last week that chapter 3, verse 10, was one of those. After talking a great deal about obedience and so forth, John ends up with:

“This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God …” That’s summarizing the obedience test. “… nor is anyone who does not love his brother.” That becomes the kickoff into the next section, which is about love.

There are these transition passages. Something I didn’t comment on last week is that at the end of chapter 3, the Spirit was introduced. Chapter 3, right at the end, says, “This is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.” That raises all kinds of questions about how the Spirit reassures us or gives us confidence. In part, I want to deal with those questions, namely the question of confidence, next week.

But clearly, this is linked to the beginning of chapter 4. Our versification and chapter divisions weren’t invented until the late Middle Ages. Originally, the Bible just ran from verse to verse and chapter to chapter. Sometimes, the divisions that were put in during the Middle Ages were not particularly well-placed. This is one of those.

Clearly, we’d go on to talk about the Spirit. We know something about his life in us by the Spirit he gave us. We haven’t been told much about what that means yet. Then John says, “But yet, dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”

In other words, the first thing John says, when he introduces the truth criterion, is that there is an urgent need for Christians not to be gullible. It is easy to confuse the spirit world with what is genuinely spiritual. It is easy to confuse what seems to be religious, what really seems to be at least transcendental or numinous, with what is good. John won’t have it.

Let me give you an example today. One of the words that I call an applause word is spirituality. An applause word is a word that, whenever it’s uttered, everyone applauds. In America, baseball is an applause word. Apple pie is an applause word. Does anyone not like apple pie? If you don’t like it, you probably won’t admit it.

Spirituality has become an applause word today. Every time somebody says that they’re into spirituality, everybody applauds. You can’t say anything nasty about spirituality. But I’m going to! The trouble is that spirituality has come to mean something vague, like having some feeling of the numinous, of the transcendental.

Over against crass philosophical materialism, I suppose that’s a good thing. But then people start writing books and essays on, “My moments of deepest spirituality are when I gaze at the Matterhorn.” Well, if you recognize that God is the Creator and the Matterhorn is breathtaking (and there is ample evidence for praising the God of creation when you look at the Matterhorn or a butterfly, a beautiful eye, or a thousand other things), I suppose you can call that spirituality.

I had a letter from a former student in Ethiopia. His wife wrote that they looked out their window and had seen a fuchsia in full bloom, and she almost began to cry because it was the first beautiful thing she had seen for a whole day. They work with lepers and prostitutes, broken people. I suppose that’s a moment of spirituality. Or is it a moment of aesthetics?

Yes, it’s true that you can see God’s hand in all kinds of things. If that’s what you mean by spirituality, I suppose that’s a good thing. But then suddenly we start talking about the spirituality of eating, the spirituality of ecology, the spirituality of Hinduism, the spirituality of discipline, and on and on. It seems to me that here is nothing about which one cannot be spiritual today. It’s an applause word.

John will want to say something like this: “There are forms of connection with the numinous, with the transcendental, with the otherworld, and with the spiritual that are not good. They’re dangerous. They’re even damning.” The language is very strong. In the first instance, the criterion that John advances is a truth criterion.

“Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” We should not be surprised by this. After all, did not Jesus himself say that many would come and in his name cast out demons, perform miracles, and give prophesies? “But,” Jesus says, “on the last day, I will have to say to them, ‘Depart from me; I never knew you.’ ”

“In his name” suggests that these are, in other words, part of the household of Christianity. We should expect it. In his farewell address to them in Acts 20, Paul warns the church in Ephesus that even from amongst their own number, some people would arise and draw people away, distorting the truth. Peter writes, “But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them.” We should expect that sort of thing.

It’s very important to understand that both in the moral realm and in the truth realm, the Devil is deceptive. Never does the Devil come along and say to you, “My dear Sally, here is a great, big, ugly, filthy sin. Jump in. You’ll be all slimed over with filth, but go ahead and enjoy!” No, no, no, no.

He comes, rather, and he says something like this: “Paul, I know that you’re from a broken home. I know that you really don’t understand the warmth of love and affection. But this woman, this student, is really a gift of God to you to open you up to new experiences of acceptance, warmth, being cherished, and cherishing. For once in your life, you’re not being yelled at. You ought to explore this relationship closely and intimately and dearly.” Everybody applaud. He hasn’t said anything bad. Who can argue with that?

The same is true with the truth area, isn’t it? The Devil doesn’t come along and say, “Boy, have I got a great lie for you today!” No, no, no. He comes along and says something like this: “Well, I know that’s what you’ve been taught, but it’s associated with fundamentalists.” That’s a hiss word. Whenever you hear fundamentalists, you have to hiss!

It used to be that fundamentalist meant that you believed there were fundamentals to the faith. Then it came to mean that you believed that there were fundamentals of the faith and you were an obscurantist. Now it simply means that you’re a religious nut who hates a lot of people. So the Devil uses the hiss word.

He says something like, “If you believe that kind of stuff, you know, you’re ignorant. You’re probably nineteenth century. The sophisticated people don’t believe that anymore. I can introduce you to many fine Christians who believe something a little bit different. Here’s a great book to read. It’s warm. It’s written by somebody who has his devotions in Greek in the morning and in Hebrew at night.” You can’t get much more spiritual than that!

What the particular error will be, what the particular lie will be, is going to change from age to age. It’s not going to be the same in every age. The particular test that John gives us here, to be quite frank, won’t work in every generation, but it was absolutely critical in his. It is a truth test. Hear it well, and then we’ll see how it applies to us today.

The truth test John gives, then, is in verses 2 and 3. “This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.”

Despite the fact that there are some people who deny it, it seems to me that the particular error being espoused here is a form of Gnosticism. I will argue next week more closely, but what these particular Gnostics believed was something like this: Jesus was born by natural conception, whether legitimately or illegitimately, it doesn’t matter a scrap. Then the Christ (or the Son or the God-person) came upon Jesus at his baptism and thus revealed something of God and his truth by his teaching during the days of Jesus’ ministry.

Then, when Jesus was finally hung on the cross, this Christ or this spirit entity left him. That’s why Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” In other words, Jesus was left on the cross in the lurch. But it doesn’t matter because our salvation, in this view, doesn’t finally depend on an atonement, on a sacrifice, on a God-man dying for us.

Instead, it depends on knowledge, on information, on a certain view of God. God was very nice to come and clothe himself in Jesus, but then this Christ figure left and Jesus died. That’s just one of those things that happens in a Roman empire. It was an act of history, nothing more. It’s not significant.

What does John say? “This is how you recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.” All the words are carefully chosen. “Jesus Christ … has come … in the flesh …” The whole thing. It’s not that Christ clothed himself in flesh for a short while and then left. In fact, John will become more precise yet, in the next chapter, as we’ll see next week.

“This is the spirit of the antichrist: the one that denies that this Jesus Christ in the flesh is from God. You’ve heard that antichrist is coming. At the end of the age, there is a final outbreak against Christ. Already anyone, anything, any teaching that opposes him, this revelation from God in human flesh, is not from God.” It’s a truth test.

Before we press on to see what else John says about this test, it’s important to reflect a bit about what that means today. There are not many Gnostics around of the ancient variety, but there are all kinds of ways, today, of denying the uniqueness of Christ. There are all kinds of ways of denying the atonement of Christ.

The tests here are truth tests, and I tell you frankly, they’re becoming harder and harder and harder for Christians to espouse because the age is characterized by pluralism. It sounds so narrow and bigoted to make your doctrine the critical test, but John does not hesitate to do it. We’ll come to that a little further in a moment.

In fact, even when you come to talking about your faith with fellow Christians, don’t conversations go like this nowadays? “Yes, I was at CICCU tonight at the Bible Reading. Jesus does mean quite a lot to me. I’d really like to tell you a bit about him.” “Well, if it helps you, that’s fine. What about all the Hindus?” Immediately, there is no question whatsoever about the truth claims that you are offering to present, but rather the assumption that pluralism will destroy them regardless of what you say.

Or when you start talking about evidence for the resurrection, today, people just go glassy-eyed. They’re just blank. What they want to know is, “Does he help me pass exams? Does he help me find a mate? Does he guarantee that I have decent children or that I get a job?” Thus, religion has to have immediate cash value. “Does it make me feel good? Do I get in touch with the transcendent and be spiritual?” Applause.

Yet, John won’t have it. There is a sense in which it is possible for a Christian to address people and say, “I want to tell you frankly that closing with Christ does establish Christian homes, true. I want to tell you frankly that closing with Christ does handle the question of guilt, true. I want to tell you that closing with Christ does give you a purpose in living and puts you in contact with the transcendent, true. But at the end of the day, Christianity is true.”

You will never establish solid Christian churches or solid Christian CUs, unless you get men and women who understand the truth and the truthfulness of the truth. It is non-negotiable. There is a whole worldview that’s at stake. We have not simply arisen from the primordial ooze and gradually ascended up the scale until now we can enjoy spirituality (applause) and be connected with the transcendent.

Rather, we have been made in the image of God. We have rebelled against him. God’s wrath hangs over our heads, but he loves us so much he sends his Son to die for us. The way we are reconciled to this God and receive eternal life (to live forever in his presence both in this life and in the life to come) is by trusting the Son whom God has given. That is the heart of the gospel. That’s non-negotiable. That happens in space-time history. It’s in the public arena. It depends on witnesses. You have to come to terms with those facts, or you cannot be a Christian.

It is important to say that again and again and again and again in this generation, because this generation does not really want a God to whom we are reconciled. It wants, instead, a God who is a powerful genie to serve us. Religion becomes like the bottle of the genie; you rub it the right way and out he pops and gives you a blessing. Thus, you have a nice, domesticated God.

He serves me. Oh, I have to pay homage to him, sing, go to church now and then, but at the end of the day, I hold to spirituality (applause), to fulfillment and freedom and all those good things. Then, in addition, this God serves me. John won’t have it. There are truth claims to elementary biblical Christianity and people will divide around them. John goes so far as to say, “This is how you know the spirit of truth and the spirit of the antichrist.” That’s what John says.

Elsewhere, there are other tests. In 1 Corinthians 12, the test is “Jesus is Lord.” Here, it’s “Jesus is the Christ,” because that’s what was being denied. It has to be said that in different generations, there will be different tests that are elevated. Luther said, “He who affirms the truth at every point, except specifically where it is being denied, is a heretic.” He was a bit harsh, but he was close to the truth.

This may not be, therefore, a sufficient criterion for everything. For instance, the basic statement of faith of the World Council of Churches is “Jesus is Lord.” It’s a great statement. I would insist that it is a necessary condition for genuine Christianity. Is it a sufficient condition? Jehovah’s Witnesses can affirm it. Mormons can affirm it; they believe we’re all on the same continuum with God. “I’m becoming just like Jehovah, just give me long enough.” Liberals can affirm it. Fundamentalists can affirm it.

Suddenly, it is no longer a sufficient criterion, however important a criterion it is. In fact, it doesn’t mean much when it means different things to different people. That’s not saying anything good or bad about the WCC by itself. It is simply saying that one has to begin to understand one’s age and apply the heart of the gospel to the patterns that deceive, corrode, and corrupt. Every age will have them. This is a lost world.

Now then, John, before he presses on with this line, reminds his readers that the power to overcome the opponents in this regard does not come from themselves. Listen to what he says in verse 4: “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them …” That is, those who have brought this false teaching. They’ve overcome them in that they haven’t been seduced by such teaching. Why? “… because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” Identified already as the Spirit. The same identification is made in verse 6.

In other words, although there is an intellectual element, a confessional element, a truth element to Christianity, you must not, then, take the next step and say, “I’ve sussed it out. I am brighter than the next chap who hasn’t sussed it out.” At the end of the day, although there is an intellectual element to Christianity, you never become a Christian simply by an intellectual turn. You take on board certain truths because of the Spirit of good working in you. That, too, is what Paul says. Read 1 Corinthians 2.

In other words, although there is a content that can be argued, witnesses to be believed, and truth in the public arena, it is never such that it is simply going to capture everybody with an IQ of 116 and up. Then the gospel would be for the brightest, and the gods of the bright are not very patient with the gods of all the rest of us. God has not worked things out that way.

There is ample truth out there in the marketplace but, although it is argued … although you push, witness, talk to your friends, and give them reasons; although you give someone a copy of F.F. Bruce’s The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? and give someone else a copy of Frank Morris’s Who Moved the Stone? and give someone else a copy of Basic Christianity … at the end of the day, you come to recognize that it is the Spirit of God within us that gives us enough of a turn that we suddenly say, “Ah-ha! I see it, and I bow before it.”

When I first met the woman who became my wife, she was doing graduate education in this university. She was not a Christian. The first time we met was at a Freshers’ Squash at one of the colleges here, which shall remain blissfully nameless. I was speaking at this Freshers’ Squash, and she was dragged along by her Christian roommate. Let the record show, she was not impressed with either the speaker or his message.

In due course, in line with constant evangelism that I was trying to do in the university at that time, I dared her to read a copy of Basic Christianity. When I first mentioned the book, she said, “Was it written by a Baptist?” I assured her that no, it was written by a decent Church of England clergyman; you can’t get safer than that!

She said, “I don’t have much time.” I almost said, “I don’t have much patience,” but I didn’t. I said, “Listen, I don’t care how much time you have. So long as you read it, I’ll give it to you. But if you’re not going to read it, I won’t waste it on you.” She said, “All right, so long as there’s no deadline on the time.” “Take whatever time you want.” She took the book. I didn’t see her for months.

Then I bumped into her in Cambridge, and I said, “Have you read that book I gave you?” “Yes,” she said. “Well, what did you make of it?” “Well, I looked up a lot of the references there.” It turned out that she was so suspicious, she had looked up about three-quarters of the biblical references in that book. I said, “What do you conclude from it?” She said, and I quote, “I’ve come to the conclusion that Christianity is for good people like you and Carol, but it’s not for me.” Carol was her Christian roommate.

I ask you, how can anybody doing graduate education at Cambridge University read John Stott and conclude that’s what Christianity is about? My wife is not a twit! As soon as she said it, I thought of 1 Corinthians 2:14. “The natural man does not receive the things of God, for they are foolishness to him.” Listen, if you’ve come to grasp the truth, do not think it is because you are so bright. What does John say? “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”

Then John also says this about the truth. He makes a fundamental division in audience. When you first read these words, they are shocking, and then they just make so much sense. Verse 5: “They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.”

When you first read that, it sounds an awful lot as if it’s saying, “Hey, if you believe me, you’re right. If you believe somebody else, you’re wrong. If you’re with me, you have the truth. If you’re against me, you don’t. How do you know you’re on the side of the truth? You agree with me.” It just sounds like the most insufferable arrogance!

But what John in saying is, in fact, extraordinarily profound, and it is important that we grasp it. Compare something Paul says in Galatians 1. He says, “Though we or an angel from heaven should preach any other gospel than the one we preached to you, than the one you have received, let him be anathema; let him be damned.”

Notice carefully what he does. He does not say, “No matter what I preach to you, you have to believe it, or you’re damned.” He doesn’t say that. That’s what David Koresh says. It is not what Paul says. It is not what John says. It’s not an authority bound up with an individual such that no matter what I say, no matter what I do, it doesn’t matter. You believe it; that’s the truth.

Paul says, “Even if we who have brought you this gospel, or an angel from heaven, should bring any other gospel to you than the one we have brought, let him be anathema.” In other words, what Paul is convinced about is the truthfulness of the apostolic deposit, the apostolic gospel, the non-negotiability of the gospel of Jesus Christ as first given, which he has been preaching. “So if, at this point I change my mind or become a heretic or fall away or you get some revelation, decked out in angelic colors, understand this: this is the non-negotiable apostolic gospel.”

John is saying something similar here. This isn’t a personal statement. It’s a statement of allegiance to the apostolic gospel. “If you move away from the apostolic gospel, well, then,” he says, “they’re from the world.” Of course. The world always has it’s “-isms” and eventually the “-isms” become “-wasms.” They pass; the fads go. Yesterday’s Gnosticism is not a burning issue today. Today’s deconstructionism will be dead as a dodo in 30 years; don’t hook your life to it.

“They speak from the viewpoint of the world.” Then of course they’re going to be written up in the journals. They speak from the world’s viewpoint. “We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.”

In other words, there is a Christian community. There is a Christian community in line with the Christian apostolic gospel. When you find people who are constantly trying to step outside the line of the Word, outside the line of the Christian community committed to the apostolic gospel, then you find people that are drifting from this deposit of truth.

Conversely, you spot a spiritual mind, in the first instance, by its desire to come around the Word, to feed, be nourished, and grow in the revelation of God and the apostolic gospel. Isn’t that what Jesus prayed on the night he was betrayed? He says, “Sanctify them through your truth; your word is truth.” Do you want to be sanctified? Spend a lot of time in the Word. I have yet to meet a genuinely spiritually minded person who does not love to grow in the knowledge of the apostolic gospel. That’s what John is saying. There is a division of community around this gospel of truth.

2. Love

Now he turns to love. He says three things about love.

A) God is love, and so everyone begotten by him must be loving.

Verses 7 and 8: “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” John has talked about love several times, as you know. Now he is connecting love and new birth and God’s character in some very remarkable ways.

Begin with this expression: “God is love.” What does that mean? Some people have argued that it is a reciprocal statement: God is love, and love is God. Or some people worry about its ontological value: what does it mean that God is love? I’ve hunted around for an example, and the best one I can come up with is this. It’s not very good, but it’s the best I could do.

There is, on East Road here, a Kentucky Fried Chicken store. Kentucky Fried Chicken is not a big number in this country, but when Kentucky Fried Chicken first came into the United States, it was owned and operated by Colonel Sanders. Colonel Sanders had invented the famous combination of spices that go on top to make it “finger lickin’ good.”

When it first came in, Colonel Sanders’ Kentucky Fried Chicken was so well known and so good and, all over the country, the stores were so warmly advertised, that you could have said with a straight face without anybody being confused, “Colonel Sanders is Kentucky Fried Chicken.” That is not an ontological utterance. God is love. That’s not an ontological utterance either. It means there is no love apart from him. There’s no real Kentucky Fried Chicken apart from Colonel Sanders. There’s no real love apart from God either. God is love. That’s his character.

Nor does it mean that God is part love, part holiness, part wrath, part jealousy, and part power; sometimes he shows this part, sometimes he shows another part, and sometimes he turns on that part. God is never less than perfectly holy. He is never less than perfectly loving. He cannot be other than loving. That is what God is. He is love. He cannot be other than true. He cannot be other than clean. He cannot be other than right. He cannot be other than holy. He cannot be other than light (that, too, was not an ontological statement if you recall from chapter 1).

“But,” John says, “if this God, then, sires us …” He is taking up the language of new birth again. “… if he begets us, if we’re born of him, if by his Spirit he works in us so that something of his nature is pulsating within us … if it is of the essence of his character, of his nature, that he loves … then how could it be thought that his children don’t?”

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” The language is very strong. Let me tell you quite frankly that this is difficult. “To live above with those you love: undiluted glory. To live below with those you know: quite another story.”

Promises in Scripture become very frequently an incentive to obedience. We saw at the beginning of chapter 3 that God is making us pure. We will one day be perfectly pure in the new heaven and the new earth. Therefore, let us pursue purity. The new birth is already pulsating within us with all of its power. We are learning to love. In the new heaven and the new earth we will love perfectly. Therefore, let us determine to love.

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love is from God.” In other words, we confirm his calling and his election, we confirm his begetting of us, precisely by the determination to love. The fact that that’s the way it works does not take away the onus of responsibility upon us to pursue love. In Scripture, it’s just the opposite. The fact becomes the incentive to pursue. If you are born again, then love. That’s part of what it means to be born again: to demonstrate the character of the God who has sired you.

B) God is love, and the ultimate proof of his love is in the cross.

Verses 9 and 10: “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” This is wonderful.

We saw at the beginning of chapter 2 that this atoning sacrifice language is the language of propitiation. That is, this God could have, with perfect justice, condemned us all. His holiness demands that we be condemned, but because of his very character, he loves even those who are unlovely. He sends the Son, whom he loves, to save us. The final demonstration of God’s love is in the cross.

Now I think we catch some glimpse as to why John is so passionate about the truth test. For him, it’s not simply an intellectual issue about how you formulate Christology on a Theology II paper. It is a question of how human beings are reconciled to God. He’s already said that the way we’re reconciled to God is by the death of the God-given Son, who is a human being yet also very God of very God.

“The Word became flesh and lived for a while among us.” This Word that was, in the beginning, with God (God’s own fellow) and, in the beginning, was God (God’s own self). He became flesh. He lived right through the baptism, right to the cross, and died as the God-man to pay for my sin. God provided that sacrifice. God satisfied his own sense of justice. God provided someone to stand in my place. He died my death. If, instead, this is simply some other human being, you don’t have this powerful atonement. You don’t have this act of God. It’s all gone.

John is passionate about the truth claims about Jesus because he sees that the cash value is what you make of the cross. That concerns, finally, not simply a truth question, but the evidence that God loves me. God loves me so much that he sent his Son to the cross. “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

By and large, the human race does not pant after the God who is truly there. The human race pants after various forms of religion but, in one degree or another, these are domesticated religions that are far removed from the God who is there. All of them preserve something of the nature of God. We’re made in his image. God, by the commonness of his grace, freely distributed to the human race, preserves us from going too far astray in all kinds of ways.

Yet at the end of the day, the sad record is that, left to ourselves, we go farther and farther away. We don’t love God. We aren’t devoted to him. No, no, no, no. God takes the initiative. He loves us and demonstrates his love most conclusively and dramatically in the gift of his dear Son. That is the wonder of the gospel. We are lost without a Savior. He loved us and sent his Son to rescue us, not because we are lovable, but because he is love.

C) God is love, and his love is completed in us.

This is the third thing that John says about love. This is strange language in verses 11 and 12. “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” In other words, there is exemplary value in the death of God’s Son. Not only is he the sacrifice for our sins, but he modeled something.

In Scripture, we must be holy because God is holy. We must be merciful because God is merciful. We must be perfect because God is perfect. And we must be loving because God is love. He demonstrated it so powerfully in his Son. “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”

Then he says this: “No one has ever seen God …” How are you going to imitate him? How are you going to think about him? How are you going to talk about him? How are you going to be conformed to him? “… but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” That last one is a very difficult clause. If I understand it aright, it means, “God’s love comes to the completeness of its function when we love.”

In other words, God did not shower his love upon us just as a wonderful display, and that’s the end of the story. He showered his love upon us so we would be transformed, so that we, in turn, would love. Thus, his love is made complete in its function, its purpose, its gift, precisely when we love. If he poured out all his love upon us and we say, “Well, that’s very nice. I’ll take that, thank you” and then walk away and don’t love anybody, then his love is not made complete in us. It is not performing the function and purpose for which it was given.

What is this function and purpose? “No one has ever seen God; but if we love as God loves, his love is made complete in us.” I think it is saying this: “We demonstrate something of the presence and character of God himself by Christian love.” I can’t show you God. I can’t show you a picture, give you a chunk, or break off a portion, but a Christian will say, “Watch me, for my life has been changed.” I know that sounds ominous, but surely that’s what the New Testament says.

When I was an undergraduate at McGill University, a friend and I started a Bible study in Molson Hall, our men’s residence. Because we were both timid and rather frightened by the whole prospect, we invited only three people on the reasonable assurance that not more than two would show up, so we wouldn’t be outnumbered. All three came, unfortunately. Within about six or seven weeks, we had 16 people at that Bible study, and there were still only two of us that were Christians. I was scared out of my little mind, but I struggled on.

Mercifully, there was a chap in the university (an Anglican, even; in Canada, that’s saying something) who was a marvelous personal evangelist. He was superb. He had a wonderful gift. Every time I came to the end of my feeble knowledge and my limited ability to answer questions, I’d say something like, “I don’t have a clue what to say to that, but come and meet Dave. We’ll have coffee with Dave.”

I remember one night. Dave was feeling a bit pressured for time, no doubt, but he agreed to see these two chaps that I was bringing down. We settled down, and I was feeling quite chuffed with myself that I’d got these two fellows to see Dave. Dave turned to the first one, and he said, “Why did you come?”

The first fellow said, “Well, I think that in a university, you ought to be open-minded and explore things. I’m interested in Buddhism, and I’m interested in Christianity. I should read some of the Bible, so I’m in this Bible study. This fellow can’t answer the questions, and he said you could. So I came.”

Dave turned to him and said, “Listen, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m sorry. I don’t have time. I’m a graduate student myself. I just don’t have time. I’ll pass you on to somebody else; I’ll give you some books to read. If you have some questions, write them out, and I’ll tell you what to look up. But I don’t have time.” He turned to the second one, “Why did you come?” I thought, “What have I done?”

The second fellow said, “Listen, I come from a home that you people wouldn’t even consider Christian. We’re church-goers, but we don’t believe like you. But we’re a good, upright home. It’s a stable family. There’s courtesy in the home. We love one another. My parents are great people. They love us, care for us, and want the best for us. They pray, in their own way. Listen, our home is better than most of the homes I’ve seen of you people. You give me one solid reason why I should be a Christian and be like you.”

Dave looked at him. He didn’t say anything. The seconds ticked by, and I thought, “Uh-oh.” Then Dave said, “Watch me.” The fellow said, “I beg your pardon?” Dave said, “Watch me. I don’t know what else to do. Come and live with me if you want. Move in. Watch what I do, what I say, how I live, what I do with my money. You can have access to my letters. You can sit in on where I go. Be with me all the time for as long as you like. Watch me. Then tell me there’s no difference.”

The second chap became a Christian within just a few months. He didn’t move in with Dave, but he did get to know him pretty well. He became a Christian within a few months and eventually became a medical missionary. At the time, I was so torn between, “What hubris! What astonishing arrogance!” and remembering that Paul said, “Be imitators of me, even as I also am of Christ.” Years later, I thought about that event when I read this verse.

Verse 12: “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” Isn’t that what Jesus said: “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you love one another”? Do you want to have a witness in this university? In other words, God is love, and his love is completed in us.

Even in our religion, we can be so terribly introverted, self-focused, self-pleasing, and even self-righteous, God help us. But for all our sins and our failures, for all our need to go back to the cross and claim the forgiveness that he has given us, for all of our need to remember that “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,” Christians must surely want to say, at some level, “I’m not what I should be, but I’m not what I was. And thank God, I’m not yet what I will be. Come and watch me.”

3. Links

Now we come to the last section. Here I’m going to go very quickly. The point is a simple one, but it is a very important one. What John does now is start linking things.

A) Love and truth are linked.

Verses 13 to 16: “We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.” I’ll say something more about the Spirit’s internal witness next week, but the Spirit, as you’ve seen so far in this chapter, has already been connected with this truth criterion.

“We have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.” That’s the truth that the Spirit bears witness to. It’s a truth criterion. “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.”

You’ve moved from the truth of who Jesus is to recognizing that who Jesus is is a function of God having sent him out of love. The truth criterion and the love criterion are coming together. “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God.” If, then, God has given us this Son out of love, and we learn to live in love because of this, then the truth of the gospel itself goes directly to the fact that we must live in love. Thus, John has linked truth and love.

B) Love and confidence are linked.

Verses 17 and 18: “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.” Do you see what that is saying? God’s love is made complete in us (that is, its purpose comes to completion as we ourselves love more and more), and we look back and say, “Yes, I know I don’t love as I ought to, but I do love more than I did. I want to love more. There is something in me that does draw me to loving as it never did before.”

So we have confidence before God that this plan of his, this love for us in his Son, is working out and is being completed in us. We have confidence, therefore, on the day of judgment, not because the love is a good work that has won God’s favor, but because it’s evidence that his work, his love, is operating in us. It’s the evidence.

Then we’re told, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” Some people take this verse entirely out of context. They argue that any religion that has any element of fear whatsoever is bad or immature. “Perfect love casts out fear. I don’t have any fear. Therefore, I must be perfectly loving.” It’s never put quite so crassly as that, but that’s the impression that you get.

Anybody who still fears God or anybody who dares to preach a sermon like that of Jonathan Edwards’ Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God doesn’t understand the Bible. After all, the Bible says, “Perfect love casts out fear. God so loved the world. You don’t want a God who makes you fear. You want a God that makes you love. Isn’t that what the text says?”

No, it’s not what the text says. It’s very important to remember the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of passages in both testaments that speak of the fear of God as a good thing. “The fear of the Lord is clean, rejoicing the heart. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ ” There is no fear of God in the fool. Many texts.

So then why does John, here, say, “Perfect love casts out fear”? For this reason: the particular fear that he has in mind is constrained by the context. The context is the day of judgment. You’re still dealing with the question of assurance on the last day. If we see that God’s love is being made complete in us, “We will have confidence on the day of judgment, because already in this world we are like him.” (Verse 17)

That is, we know we’re coming up to the ultimate culture shock. We’ll see him face to face. But already in this world, we discover we’re being like him because his love is being made complete in us. We’re being transformed by it. So we come to the day of judgment not saying, “God has to let me in. I loved quite well.”

Rather, we say, “I’m not so fearful about the day of judgment as I might have been because there is evidence in my life that God’s purposes in love and sending his Son have taken hold of me. The evidence here is the evidence that my heart, too, has been changed.” And if you did love perfectly, you’d come up to judgment day with perfect freedom from all fear. It’s as bold as that. I’ll pursue this question of Christian assurance a little further next week, but clearly, John is willing to link, here, love and confidence.

C) Love and obedience are linked.

Verses 19 to 21: “We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.” Again, very strong language. There is relationship here between love and obedience.

Finally, in verses 19 to 21, love and faith and obedience and truth and Jesus Christ and knowledge in the new birth are linked! John links it all. In several tightly packed verses, he argues, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ …” There’s the truth test. “… is born of God.”

In other words, believing the right things shows that you’re born of God. It is the new birth that is produced through right belief. “Everyone who loves the father …” That is, this one who has sired you, this one who has given you new birth. “If you then love this God, you’re going to love that God’s child.” So you love other Christians. Now you have the love test thrown in.

“This is how we know that we love the children of God.” Is it going to be a smarmy test? Mere protestation? Sentimental prattle? No. “This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands.” How can you say “I love God” and not obey him? So now you have love connected with obedience on the other end. “This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome …” In fact, one of his commands is to love.

So it goes on. You say, “What on earth is John doing here? This is dense. This is the stuff of which dissertations are written!” The reason, I think, is this: Every once in a while, someone will say, “You believe in a God of rigid truth. I believe in a God of love.” I confess that I want to say, “I believe in an airplane with left wings; you believe in an airplane with right wings.” You have to have the two together!

In fact, John is now saying that the whole package fits together. If you approach one part of his book and simply say, “The criterion for spirituality …” Applause. “The criterion for spirituality is the truth test,” you’ll misunderstand John. The point is he can only say one thing at a time. So he deals with this test and with this test and with this test. Then he goes around and deals with this test and this test and this test. Then he goes around them again. Finally, he sticks them all together in one paragraph that’s almost illegible!

This is because he wants us to understand that this business of being a Christian is not a question of believing the right things and stopping there. Or just loving one another and stopping there. Or just being upright and uptight and stopping there. There’s a whole package. This package is not best two out of three, three out of four, or one out of five.

You cannot say, “I am a Christian because I believe the truth, even though I hate your guts.” There are some people who try to go that route, you know. There was a wonderful poem published about 30 years ago by Evangeline Paterson. She described some fundamentalists in her acquaintance. She called it “Lament,” and this is what she wrote:

Weep, weep for those

Who do the work of the Lord

With a high look

And a proud heart.

Their voice is lifted up

In the streets, and their cry is heard.

The bruised reed they break

By their great strength, and the smoking flax

They trample.

Weep not for the quenched

(For their God will hear their cry

And the Lord will come to save them)

But weep, weep for the quenchers

For when the Day of the Lord

Is come, and the vales sing

And the hills clap their hands

And the light shines

Then their eyes will be opened

On a waste place,

Smouldering,

The smoke of the flax bitter

In their nostrils,

Their feet pierced

By broken reed-stems …

Wood, hay, and stubble,

And no grass springing,

And all the birds flown.

Weep, weep for those

Who have made a desert

In the name of the Lord.

The last century’s Spurgeon wrote, “I am sorry to know of a brother who, the moment he thinks that a member, especially a deacon, has gone wrong, blows the whole thing to pieces and calls it faithfulness.” There is a way of handling the truth in a way that you think is prophetic but is merely heartless. There is a way of being so compassionate that you leave the truth behind.

There is a way of being moral and upright and disciplined out of some kind of genuine love for the Lord, but you never acknowledge your sin and don’t go to the Christ whose propitiation alone reconciles you to God. There’s no genuine faith if there’s no love for the brothers. John wants it all. It’s elementary Christianity. It’s all or nothing. That is what we mean when we say, “Jesus is Lord.”