Download discussion questions:  1 John 3:14-4:6

One repeated phrase characterizes this section of John’s letter:  “We know.”  Once he words it as “we will know” and again as “you know,” but the theme is consistent.  He is confirming certain truths about the faith and about the lives of believers.  Over and over John makes assertions about reliable facts.  He describes the evidence for the facts.  He states the implications of the facts.  Our discussion focused on following that pattern through the passage.

“We know that we have passed out of death into life” (1 John 314).  What is to us a familiar Christian cliché is actually a profound statement.  We were spiritually dead, completely unresponsive, not even knowing we were dead.  So how do we know that now we really are spiritually alive?  John gives an immediate answer:  we love the brethren.  This could be another example of “Christianese” jargon, but John elaborates.  First, he describes the mutual incompatibility between living love and an attitude of deadly, murderous hate (v. 15).  One person pointed out the dreadful depth of the phrase “abiding in death” – immersed, surrounded, submerged.  Love is confirmation that death has been left behind.

John has just used Cain as his counterexample (v. 12).  Mention of Cain’s murderous action might also prompt the original readers to remember Jesus’ words about anger as equivalent to murder (Matthew 5:21-26).  The point is clear.  Our attitudes toward others are an indication of the genuineness of our faith.

John doesn’t stop with attitude or with vague, sentimental generalities about love.  His meaning is quite specific:  “We know love by this” (v. 16).  The evidence of this knowledge is unambiguous:  “He laid down His life for us.”  Any quibbling or debating about what really constitutes love (agapē, ἀγάπη) ends on that example.  John spells out the implication just in case any of his readers (like us) are not catching on:  “We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”  Last week we discussed more about the meaning of laying down one’s life, from sharing transparently to abandoning our self-protection and defensiveness.  Even those efforts don’t meet John’s expectations.  He is much more practical:  “Whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how can the love of God abide in him?” (v. 17).  Practical, tangible sacrifice is the standard.

At this point our discussion became very practical and very personal.  Someone brought up the familiar fact that we see need all around us.  Homeless people and “will work for food” signs confront us daily.  In this passage John repeatedly uses the term “brethren” or “brothers” as the objects of love (vv. 14, 15, 16, 17).  The question naturally arises, is John limiting our charitable efforts only to other Christians?  Are there practical limits to how much we are expected to do?  What if we don’t help every needy person we pass?  Is that evidence that we don’t genuinely love, suggesting a doubt about our “passage from death into life?”

As is always the case, context is critical.  John is not making broad statements about Christian charity (or “love” – the same word translated today as “love” was translated in older translations as “charity”).  Recalling earlier discussions about the setting and purpose of John’s first letter was helpful.  John was writing to Christians from a variety of Jewish and pagan backgrounds.  Their beliefs were under active assault by “many antichrists” (2:18), “those trying to deceive” (2:26), and “false prophets” (4:1).  Many in the church were confused and uncertain who to believe, who was accurately teaching the Gospel?  As our previous discussion paraphrased, “How do we know who is on our team?”  John’s letter, and specifically the present passage, is concerned with practical guidelines for discerning genuine faith.  Other passages in Scripture have plenty to say about our general response to the poor, the stranger, the alien.  Those passages would be a valuable (and challenging!) study in the future.  For this passage, John’s intent is more limited:  Authentic faith is reflected in relational ways among believers.

John continues, but moves to make his application more personal.  Instead of “everyone” and “whoever” (vv. 15, 17) he says “We will know by this that we are of the truth” (v. 19).  The hypothetical “whoever” becomes the first-person “we” that includes his readers.  The “by this” seems to point back to the preceding words in v. 18 about loving in deed and in truth, and he uses a future tense – we will know.  This whole phrase generated considerable discussion in our group.  Why did he change to future tense?  What does it mean to be “of the truth”?  The implication John suggests also contributed to the puzzlement.  Why should our hearts “condemn” us (v. 20, ff.)?  One suggestion from our group was that our hearts might condemn, or at least entertain doubts because of the variety of contradictory teaching.  False teachers usually plant doubts about truth before planting lies (“Did God really say…”, Genesis 3:1).  John’s antidote to that poison is the evidence of relational behavior, loving in deed and in truth.  The “deed” part already seemed clear to our group from the statement about the “world’s goods” in v. 17.  Loving “in truth” brought out comments that focused on our motives, our attitude, and our authenticity.  Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5) provided a clear counterexample (as did Cain mentioned earlier).  The “truth” of our deeds reflects the “truth” (or genuineness) of our faith, of being “of the truth.”  Our relational behavior and attitudes are tangible evidence that the source of our life is truth.  The deceivers and antichrists may sound convincing when they offer “another Gospel which is not a Gospel” (as Paul described in Galatians).  God who knows our hearts can use the relational evidence in our lives to defeat whatever doubts might be sown by false teachers.

Although our group did not have time for much discussion on v. 22 (“whatever we ask we receive from Him”), I would suggest that the context provides the boundary conditions.  The immediate concern is the doubt plaguing believers.  The assurance John offers is the point of that promise.  Our doubts should prompt our prayers for the reminders of the evidence of God’s work in our heart, which we will receive from Him.  But that assurance may not be instantaneous, which may explain John’s use of the future tense.  As we live out our Christian lives, loving “in deed and in truth,” we will see more of the changes God accomplishes in moving us “out of death into life” (v. 14).  That assurance will continue to grow now and in the future.

Another fact that John communicates:  “We know by this that He abides in us” (v. 24).  Christians often refer to our relationship with God or to Jesus in our hearts.  John points to the Spirit of God Himself as the evidence for his assertion.  The letter has included significant statements about the Father and the Son (e.g., 1 John 1:3; 2:1, 22-24) which provided hints about the multi-Person nature of the Godhead.  Now John explicitly mentions the (Holy) Spirit to expand his description of the Trinity.  However, he does not launch into a theological discussion.  Instead the implication from this knowledge takes the form of a warning:  “Do not believe every spirit…” (1 John 4:1).  Unlike our culture that seems to believe that “spiritual” is a synonym for good, John was under no such illusions.  In fact, our modern Western idea that spiritual is better than material is a reflection of one of the attitudes John was combating two millennia ago.  Some teachers believed that spirit was good and matter was evil.  John knew better.  He had first-hand testimony of the reality of the Incarnation (1 John 1:1,ff.).  He also had seen the effects of “spiritual” influence in demonic form (Luke 9:49).  Spirits need testing.

One member of our group questioned the existence of spirits other than the Holy Spirit.  Aren’t all other spirits evil or unclean?  John doesn’t give this impression, and perhaps other spirits or spiritual beings are also good and unfallen.  Angels come to mind (and eldila if you are a fan of the science fiction space trilogy by C. S. Lewis).  John’s point is that there is Spirit and there are spirits and there are spirits.  Testing is important.  The word John uses for testing is the same word that is used to test metals for purity (dokimazō, δοκιμάζω; c.f. 1 Peter 1:7).  A merchant may test a precious metal.  A saint may examine faith.  In both cases there is a hope, a desire for a positive outcome.  In many translations, the passage in 1 Peter the word is rendered as “proof” (e.g., NASB) or “genuine” (e.g., ESV).  The desire is that as we examine our own lives and help other believers examine theirs, we will find true evidence of God’s work through His Spirit.

John keeps going deeper into his layers of what “we know.”  We are to love, and love means relating like Jesus.  When we relate as He did, we grow in confidence in the face of false teaching because the Spirit of God dwells in us.  But how are we to test the spirits?  How are we to know the influence or the words of a popular new teacher (or anyone) are prompted by the Spirit of God?  Once again, John provides a clear rule of evidence:  “Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God” (v. 2a).  John already denounced anyone who rejects the divine incarnation (“that Jesus is the Christ”, 2:22a), or denies the Triune nature of God (“the Father and the Son).  Now he adds more clarity regarding spirits who claim to be representing God.  Once again the test (or “proof”) relates to the nature of Christ.  John’s grammar is quite specific:  that Jesus Christ “has come” in the flesh.  Most English translations use the perfect tense (“has come,” rendering the Greek perfect, elēluthota, ἐληλυθότα) rather than the simple past tense (“came”).  The point is not that there was a historical person name Jesus who “came” (i.e., existed) and was executed.  All but the most cynical historians would affirm that fact.  The perfect tense communicates more.  The action is “perfect” in that it is completed and continues to have an effect.  The idea is “the progress of an act or state to a point of culmination and the existence of its finished results.”[1]   Not only did Jesus come in the flesh, He still is in the flesh.  He existed eternally, He has come in the flesh, and He now is the first of many brethren with a glorified body.  That is the criterion John sets for evaluating spirits.  The Holy Spirit (and spirits or teachers obedient to Him) will make that affirmation to display the glory of Jesus.

Finally, John summarizes the tests of “How do we know who is on our team?”  “By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error” (v. 6b).  That’s the basic question.  How do we know who to listen to?  How do we know true teaching in a world full of alternatives?  John makes it reasonably simple:  “he who is of God listens to us.”  This letter of John and the Gospel he wrote provided the foundation of the church seeking his help.  In addition we have the remaining books of the Old and New Testament.  Those who are “of God” will faithfully follow all of Scripture.  In particular, those who are “of God” will accurately communicate the nature of the Triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Cults distort various doctrines, but they almost always misrepresent the Trinity.  Even orthodox, evangelical Christians (pastors as well as lay-persons) too often tend to minimize or undervalue the importance of the fundamental nature of the Three-Personal God.  Studying the Gospel and the letters of John should sensitize us to the importance of knowing God as He is, not as people tend to over-simplify Him.  A quotation I have used before is worth repeating:  “It is significant that when the word ‘God’ is spoken in discussions such as the present, few Christians think immediately of the Trinity. The operative model is not trinitarian but unitarian.”[2]  May God the Holy Spirit remind us of the glory of God the Father through the work of God the Son, that we do not fall into that unitarian mindset.

[1] H. E. Dana and Julius R. Mantey, A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament (Toronto:  The MacMillan Company, 1957), 200.

[2] J. E. Leslie Newbigin, Christian Witness in a Plural Society (London: British Council of Churches, 1977), 7.