Continue reading »]]>

17 By this, love is perfected with us, that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world.
18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.
19 We love, because He first loved us.
20 If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.
21 And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.
(1 John 4:17-21, NASB).

John the Apostle on Assurance

John raises the question of confidence and the day of judgment. Christians are always raising this question. We are constantly wondering about our assurance one way or the other, and here the flipping apostle John weighs in! You want to know about assurance, you want to know how we can be confident in the end? Maybe we should examine what JOHN the stinking APOSTLE says.

He says that by “this” love is perfected in us. What does he mean by this? Let’s take a quick peek at the context. He has just finished, in the last paragraph, seconds ago in a normal reading, that in this is love, not that we love God, but that God loved and sent His Son as a propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:10). He has said that God is love, and that the love of God is manifested in us, that Jesus was sent into the world. He has said, mainly, that we have come to know and have believed the love which God for us (1 John 4:16).

Love is perfected with us, in that we come to believe that His love persists beyond our imperfection. We believe that He loves us, even when we don’t love Him, and died for our sins as the ultimate expression of that love. So love is perfected in us because we believe in His perfect love. His perfect love cleanses us, but more importantly, His perfect love loves us while we are yet unclean. We are cleansed when He reaches past our uncleanness and touches us to heal us anyway. Otherwise, he would say, “In this is love, that we love God, and Christ died for the godly.” But it doesn’t say that. The love of God isn’t manifested in that kind of thing. That’s the love of man manifesting, and it is insufficient.

So, it is this perfect love for imperfect sinners, this love which far transcends us but reaches down to us and loves us first without condition, which is the love that is perfected in us. This is love which is born of belief, love which walks around as one convinced that the love which God has for us is real. We believe in the sufficiency and the power of Christ’s blood for each other. Love is perfected with us when we begin to walk in belief that Christ’s blood is sufficient for each other.

Give me that Mumbo Jumbo Assurance

All of this is the “mumbo-jumbo” that people seem to want to skip over when talking about assurance. They want to look at fruits. They want to know there is sanctification and obedience. They want to measure your success in the faith. Frankly, they want to gloss over the details of this passage when they pull out-of-context verses to prove their own points. They want to make sure there is no obvious sin in your life. However, the apostle John is saying something far different. I could say, you shouldn’t tie your assurance to your success in ministry or Christian living, because such things are shifting sand and amount to trusting in yourself. However, no one cares what I say, and few people read what I write anyway. I am not your savior, it doesn’t matter what my opinion is. We are examining what JOHN THE APOSTLE says. He stood at the foot of the cross and watched Jesus say “it is finished” as He breathed His last. Take it up with him.

John the apostle says, belief in the love which God has for us – in Christ as the propitiation for our sins – is our confidence in the day of judgment. It is our CONFIDENCE. In our most fearful hour, our faith in Christ is our confidence.

If you do not think that raw belief in Christ and Him crucified as your only solace and hope is enough, you will not have confidence in the day of judgment. In your conscience, you know it can’t be your confidence. The real question is, is your confidence in yourself and your fruits, or is your confidence in Christ? Is your confidence in your flawed and practically non-existent love for God, or is it in God’s love for you? Are you going to the throne of judgment thinking that your fruits are enough, that you have done enough for God? Here are some others who thought that way:

21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven.
22 “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’
23 “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’
(Matthew 7:21-23, NASB).

Have you performed many miracles? Notice that Jesus does not dispute that they performed many miracles in His name. He says they practice lawlessness. ALL sin is lawlessness (1 John 3:4). So, even if you have such fruits that you are performing many miracles in His name, you do not want to base your confidence on that. I bet it is heady and empowering and quite a rush to perform many miracles, and would be very tempting to base your confidence on that. But the amount of miracles in your life is a shifting sand. Maybe I did a lot of miracles last month, but not so many this month. Is my confidence less confident? I have to keep doing more miracles to be assured! Whose stinking miracles are they anyway? Where was Jesus’ miracle as He died on the cross? Paul the apostle performed many miracles, but clearly his confidence was in Christ and Him crucified. Even if you are a miracle performing prophesying wonder-girl, you are going to approach the throne of judgment with doubt, with a lack of confidence if that is your hope. The fact is, if you think your ability to control God’s opinion of you through your success in ministry is going to carry you, you are living in lawlessness right there. You are making yourself out to be God’s God. You are playing up your success and playing down Christ’s blood. How do you really think that a confidence in your fruits is going to play out at that time? Not well!

We have Confidence

Here is the amazing truth: we actually can have confidence in the day of judgment. It doesn’t say that we won’t! We can actually have CONFIDENCE. Let’s look at the dictionary definition of confidence:

Noun
1. The feeling or belief that one can rely on someone or something; firm trust: “we had every confidence in the staff”.
2. The state of feeling certain about the truth of something.

I am certain that I do not love God, but that He loved me, and that Christ’s death for me is sufficient justice for all of my sins. I am certain that I cannot rely on myself, but that I can rely on God. I am completely convinced and assured that it is true that justice has been completely satisfied on my behalf in Christ. I have 100% no strings attached no-holds-barred confidence that I am going to be just fine at the judgment seat, because I trust in Christ and Him crucified and not in myself. I don’t trust myself at all, I don’t care how many miracles I perform or resurrections I preside over or how many awesome prophecies I announce that all come true. I trust in JESUS, I don’t trust those things.

Everyone who professes Christ would say that we should have confidence in Christ, not self-confidence. However, in many minds, this ends up meaning that you have confidence that Christ will somehow browbeat you or trick you or otherwise coerce you into righteous lawful behaviors, and that these behaviors are your confidence. It is self-confidence which has the veneer of the good theology which one ought to have. It is, however, quite bankrupt when one is confronted with the fact that he or she is still a sinner, and still needs to confess the power of the blood of Christ over their lives in specific ways. Our behavioral change and personal transformation makes for a bad confidence, because it is self confidence, confidence in a flawed sinner who will continue to fail. Only confidence in Christ’s one-way love for us will produce the true assurance that leads to genuine hope when facing the future.

By way of observation, let’s note that however this all works out, Christian believers and non-believers will equally stand at the same day of judgment. It all depends on what you place your confidence in. There is a day, a specific time in the future, when there will be judgment. It will not be skirted by any human who has ever lived. As a believer in Christ, in the love that God has for us and has expressed so completely in Christ, we can face that coming day with joy and peace and even confidence. Our dependence is on Christ, and we have it here in scripture that this is more than enough.

Feeling vs. Having

I notice that it doesn’t say that we will feel confident. It says that we will have confidence. There is a world of difference. If we only feel confident, we may be wrong about it. It is an emotion, not based necessarily on logic or truth. But, because of the incredibly tight inner logic of grace, that the death sentence is sufficiently harsh for any transgression, and that justice must be met or our conscience could never be satisfied, we know that we have confidence.

Now, a lot of 1 John has been about present tense existential assurance in the here and now. Walking in the light, confessing our sins, knowing Him, abiding in Him, believing the love He has for us, these are all present tense experiences. Even 1 John 3:3, where he talks about hope, is really talking about how our hope in the now causes us to purify ourselves. Faith and hope will pass away, but are a very important part of our present experience (1 Corinthians 13:13), but perfect love endures on to eternity (John 3:16). This verse addresses not just the current veracity and plausibility of our belief, but the future confidence we will have at the day of judgment.

Notice also, there is a day, a specific time and place, in the future, which is appointed for judgment. He clearly implies in this verse that we all, Christian believers included, will face it. He says that in believing the love which God has for us in Christ, we can face that day now and at that time in the future with confidence.

He is, so also are we

This has always seemed an obscure turn of phrase to me: “because as He is, so also are we in this world.” Based on some of my musings on the surrounding verses, I am going to take a shot at interpreting this.

The defining thing about the way that He is is that He is love. He is perfect love, meaning that His perfect love persists and endures through our imperfection right through to eternity. He never stops loving us even though we murder Him. This is the kind of love that He is. John has gone on at length hammering home this point, that He is love.

So, He is. However, He was in the world, walking around and talking and teaching and loving. He is no longer present in that sense, but we are, in the world. We are interacting with people. We can have this persistent love, this love that sees imperfection and shortcoming and non-love and persists in love anyway. It doesn’t mean that we are perfect. It means we see people from the perspective of Christ’s love for us. We see their sin, and we are not shocked. We declare it all evil and worthy of death and hell, but we are not shocked. Like Christ, we separate the sin and the person, and we see the person as someone worth dying for, someone greatly and recklessly loved. We see ourselves that way, we see other siblings in Christ that way, and we see those in the world that way. They are eaten up with lusts and the boastful pride fo life, but we see straight through it and see them as sinful and evil people who are nevertheless of immense beauty and worth dying for by Jesus Christ. So, as He was, so also are we in the world.

Because we walk with this knowledge and belief, we face the future together with confidence and a positive hope. It changes how we walk in the world to have this confidence. What can ultimately defeat us? Nothing! We are His beloved, and even death doesn’t defeat Him. Were our confidence in ourselves or our quality of sanctification or righteous fruits, we would look with fear at the coming day of judgment, but we have believed that God of His own initiative has loved us with a complete love. We are safe and adored by Him, and so we walk in the world through its problems and detritus with a hope and with a joy and with a pep in our step.

Continue reading »]]>

14 And we have beheld and bear witness that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.
15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.
16 And we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
(1 John 4:14-16, NASB).

Faith of the Apostles

The same “we” who have come to know and have believed, are the “we” who have beheld and bear witness. I think John means this: we, the original disciples, beheld Jesus with our eyes and touched Him with our hands (1 John 1:1). He is a real guy. We ate fish with Him. We walked around with Him. We saw Him dead and we saw Him resurrected. We were there. We know first hand as eyewitnesses that the Father has sent the Son into the world. As the closest eyewitnesses, as friends of this amazing person, we are telling you our clear assessment: He is from the Father God, sent to be the Savior of the world. We have come to know (from the Holy Spirit, from experience, from His teachings) the love which God has for us. More than that, we, the eyewitness real-life in-the-flesh friends of His, have come to believe the love which God has for us. I think he is invoking the same language as in 1 John 1:1 here to imply that there is gravitas in saying that the eyewitnesses of Jesus’ fleshly life believe this stuff. Because they believe, we should have an easier time believing it.

So, the “we” in verse 16 is the early disciples who were eyewitnesses. They have come to know and believe the love which God has for us. This is an incredible thought. It says, this isn’t just a beautiful fairy tale; the people who really knew Jesus and walked with Him and were eyewitnesses to the events in His life are convinced this way, that His blood is a propitiation and that through that God demonstrated His love for us. It isn’t just some isolated Pauline interpretation. It is the true interpretation and meaning of Jesus’ death and resurrection. John says so quite powerfully from his own perspective in this book.

The Eyewitness

There is a strange power in the idea that the actual disciple who was an eyewitness to Jesus’ life, who walked with Him and touched Him and ate with Him and saw His miracles, is saying that Jesus is the incarnate God, and that He died for our sins. It isn’t just a weird churchy doctrine dreamed up several hundred years later. It is really from God. John was there:

25 Therefore the soldiers did these things. But there were standing by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.
26 When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, “Woman, behold, your son!”
27 Then He said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own household.
28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, “I am thirsty.”
29 A jar full of sour wine was standing there; so they put a sponge full of the sour wine upon a branch of hyssop, and brought it up to His mouth.
30 When Jesus therefore had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And He bowed His head, and gave up His spirit.
(John 19:25-30, NASB).

(Since the 1st century, the “disciple whom He loved” has been considered to be John, the author of the gospel of John and the three epistles named for him. If you’re interested, there is an excellent wikipedia article to dig through on this.)

So John was an eyewitness to the event of the cross, when Jesus cried out “it is finished” and breathed His last. It is amazing to think that having actually lived with Jesus, and having been an eyewitness to His remarkable death, that He came to the same doctrines and ideas about the purpose of His death as Paul or Martin Luther or me or you. He seems very convinced that this was an act of love and was no accident or random injustice.

So it is John the eyewitness who says, “whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.” It is John the eyewitness, the disciple whom Jesus loved, who confirms that mere belief in Christ allows us entrance into the privileged dwelling of God. This is quite powerful!

The Love which God has for Us

So, “we” – the eyewitness apostles together with the “mere” believers, together and equally have come to know and to believe the love which God has for us. In His reckless passion and throw-it-all-away desire for us, He has demonstrated that He has a very great and tangible love for us. We have not come to believe that we are responsible to love Him. We have not come to believe that God in His holiness maintains a conditional threat of ending over us. We have come to believe that even as we slay Him, He continues to love us. We have come to believe that even our sin, even our murder of Him, cannot stop Him from loving us. Where our love is imperfect and limited by conditions and rules and expectations, His perfect love cannot be undone and cannot be stopped. He loves forever to eternity, and even though we slay Him He resurrects to love us to the very end of time.

This is the thing we have come to know and believe. His perfect love transcends our imperfection; His one-way love triumphs over our two-way love. Even though He is killed, He is raised to abide forever in those who believe. Even though they sin, His love continues to abide because He has shed His blood and still loves to the uttermost. It is His love which conquers me, my sin does not conquer Him. This is our faith. No other belief produces the joyous abandon of the treasure finder selling all to get his treasure, because no other belief is really a treasure. The substance of our faith is not that we are to love God. The substance of our belief is that He loves us. So says the apostle, so says all the faithful from antiquity, and so say I. I have no trust in my love for Him, but believing only that He loves me, I come to love! Hallelujah!

Continue reading »]]>

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
9 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.
10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
12 No one has beheld God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.
13 By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.
(1 John 4:7-13, NASB).

Signposts

Have you ever been driving along, perhaps on a road trip, and you are fairly certain that you are on the right road, but you have a niggling little fear that you may not be on the right road? Or that perhaps you’ve gotten turned around after stopping at that gas station, and you might be going the wrong direction? You begin to watch for signs along the road to assure you that you really are on the right road going the right direction. 1 John is full of these little spiritual road signs, small assurances that you are on the right road going the right direction. It is full of “By this we know” statements, full of tests for authenticity. He says, if you notice that you have “X” going on, you can be assured that you are a real Christian. Here is a cursory list:

“By this you know” type verses

3 And by this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.
20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know.
27 And as for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him.
10 By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.
21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God;
2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God;
6 We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
13 By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.
20 If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.
2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments.
19 We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.
20 And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding, in order that we might know Him who is true, and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.
(1 John 2:3, 20, 27; 3:10, 21; 4:2, 6, 13, 20; 5:2, 19, 20, NASB).

I think it is important to notice that in every case in all of these statements, there is not one imperative. These are not imperatives or directives, but signposts. He simply says, here is how you know who is who and what is what. It implies that somewhere in the believer’s heart, the claims and gifts we have been given seem too good to be true, and we know our sinfulness and our shortcomings. We crave signs of assurance that we really do belong to God, because we really do still sin (1 John 1:8,10). So John keeps giving us these encouragements, and that is what they are. He says, you may doubt yourself, but consider this: here is how you know that you’re the real thing. We need the assurances, and there is nothing wrong with it. We are under threat from inside and out that we are all a sham, all fake. Yet we have certain particular signs along the way. Remember that John is writing to people that he is assured are real believers (1 John 2:14, 21). These statements are not intended as imperatives to get us to conform, but rather as observations and encouragements, as signposts along the way that we can be assured that despite our sins and inconsistencies we are real Christians. We really belong to Jesus, we have true signs in our lives of genuine faith.

I believe that in many cases these signpost verses are pulled out and pressed as imperatives, and it does violence to the context and overall intent of the message. Things that are intended as promises and comforts become rules and condemnations. It is crucial to understanding the whole book of 1 John that we observe the purpose and intent of these statements.

Abiding

“By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us…” It isn’t just that we obey Him. It isn’t just that we manifest His presence in a big meeting. There is a mutual abiding. There is a unity of indwelling, we in Him and He in us. We are yet individuals with individual will and thought, but there is also this mutual indwelling. We abide in Him. The propitiation and the blood of Jesus, the sacrificial and redeeming love of God for us, is the air we breathe, the ocean we swim in. Every thought, every desire, every emotion, every tear shed and every joy, is experienced in the context of the precious blood of Jesus spilled for us, the blood which cries out for mercy and not for judgment. Every action of God on this earth is carried out for the welfare and benefit of the community of believers, to make all things work together for good to those who are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). So, it is an inward indwelling, living waters in our innermost being (John 7:38). It is also the spiritual dynamic under which we carry out our relationships with each other.

Gift of the Spirit

Here is an interesting observation: the indwelling of the Holy Spirit would seem to be the most ethereal and subjective thing imaginable. Yet John says that the giving of the Spirit is on of the main signposts for us that God abides in us and that we abide in God. The presence of the Spirit is thought to be so obvious and so clear that this is a comfort and a clear sign that we are real believers. The work of the Spirit in the Johannine conception is a giver of comfort and knowledge (John 14:26, 1 John 2:20). So the revelation we have of the power of Christ’s blood, the incredible depth of knowledge we are granted, and the comfort we have in the various circumstances of life, by the Holy Spirit, are meant to be obvious and clear signposts that God is really with me. Far from being a weird mystical ethereal strange presence, the Holy Spirit is meant to be a clear and obvious presence in our lives as believers.

Continue reading »]]> Trust Him. And when you have done that, you are living the life of grace. No matter what happens to you in the course of that trusting – no matter how many waverings you may have, no matter how many suspicions that you have bought a poke with no pig in it, no matter how much heaviness and sadness your lapses, vices, indispositions, and bratty whining may cause you – you simply believe that Somebody Else, by His death and resurrection, has made it all right, and you just say thank you and shut up. The whole slop closet full of mildewed performances (which is all you have to offer) is simply your death; it is Jesus who is your life. If He refused to condemn you because your works were rotten, He certainly isn’t going to flunk you because your faith isn’t so hot. You can fail utterly, therefore, and still live the life of grace. You can fold up spiritually, morally, or intellectually and still be safe. Because at the very worst, all you can be is dead – and for Him who is the Resurrection and the Life, that just makes you His cup of tea.
- Robert Capon

Continue reading »]]>

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
9 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.
10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
12 No one has beheld God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.
13 By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.
(1 John 4:7-13, NASB).

Beholding God

“No one has beheld God at any time.” You think that this is an obvious point, that in this day and age we don’t have people running around claiming that they have seen God. However, there really are people out there who claim to have had encounters with God, including hearing the audible voice of God and being taken to heaven. This verse is pretty clear. The scripture here say that “no one has beheld God at any time.” Nor are we to take our stand on visitations from angels or visions (Colossians 2:18). However, I confess that I grow weary of these battles. People are going to make their stand on whatever they think is important regardless. People will find every way to minimize so great a salvation. I am not their savior and I am not going to be able to control them any more than God is. I’m working out these great truths for myself, and I hope this is helpful to others. In that, I’m not asked to control their doctrine, I’m asked to love them.

The real question is, in the middle of this seminal passage, why did he throw this in here? What’s the significance? Why start talking about beholding God and how no one has done it? In context, he is talking about the centrality of of the propitiation and of God’s love for us as the substance of our love for one another. He is saying that it is Christ and Him crucified that is the manifestation of the love of God in us. The true revelation that we have of God, is that through Christ’s blood we love each other. If we are seeking God, if we want to know God, if we want to see God manifested, indeed if we want to see the Spirit of God manifested in our midst, it is going to be made manifest in the love we are empowered through Christ to have for each other.

God is manifest in your lazy sinful brother

So, if you want to have a spiritual encounter and see God manifest with power, look to your ignorant arrogant lazy sinning flawed unsuccessful brother or sister in Christ, because the one-way love which God has for him or her is the manifestation in you that is the true manifestation of God’s presence. Not only is it meant to happen in community, it ONLY happens in community. It does say, after all, “if we love one another, God abides in us…” The true manifestation of God simply is not going to happen outside of the context of a community of believers based upon God’s unbreakable one-way love. That’s actually exactly what he is saying in the rest of the verse:

“… if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.” This love of one another is in the context of God sending His Son as a propitiation for our sins. Love is in God loving us, in this substitutionary way. So, we really are talking about God’s one-way costly (to Him) love for sinners. This is the love: God’s love for flawed people. Love that loves always, even when there is sin and offense present in them. It is an omnipresent, eternal, past present and future love. If it is not one-way gift-without-payment unstoppable sin-can’t-unmake-it kind of love, it isn’t the kind of love that God is manifested in. If it doesn’t soundly condemn all the sin while forever loving the person, it isn’t the manifestation of God’s love. This is the way He “so loved” us. This is the love that is manifested in us for one another that is God’s presence: one-way unbreakable unstoppable unconditional eternal long-haul love.

Are you planning to stay, or to go?

So, it is by unbreakable love that God abides in us. Perfect love persists beyond imperfection. If it is a conditional love, it is a love that is poised and planning and prepared to leave. There are conditions so there are plans to reject. This is two way love, imperfect love, love which is not forever. We imagine that love is perfected by a moral stringency, but this is not the perfection in which love abides. It couldn’t be: if we say we have no sin we lie (1 John 1:8,10). No, it is perfect because it is love which persists, which acts as an advocate despite the shame and guilt and failure of each other. It is not its moral quality but it’s persistence which makes it perfect. It is its reckless all-in quality, its lack of plans for departure and separation. We are loved forever despite our failures and shortcomings; we can always confess again (1 John 1:9). This is how we walk, all the time. We walk in the light in letting our failures be known, not in pretending to be perfect. There is no option to actually be perfect, there is only the option to love always or to plan to reject.

These secret plans to judge and to reject, to separate and to hold aloof, are the very things that crowd out the manifest presence of God. But we have been accepted, we have been loved with an everlasting and eternal love, a faithful and persistent love that will never end or fade. Ironically, only a belief in limitless grace and mercy towards each other can harbor the very love which the moralist demands from this verse. The demand to love cannot produce love, but actual love requires the suspension of judgment through the propitiation of Christ’s blood. So, we can also love without judgment, we can throw away our plans to judge and to reject, because our brothers and sisters have been loved by God with an eternal and persistent love as well. We all as believers have entered the universe of the love that is always given as a gift without condition, the world where all is always forgiven. Together we have been loved and redeemed, we need never fear isolation and rejection again. God has loved us together with a resurrected and therefore undying affection.

Hallelujah!

Continue reading »]]>

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
9 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.
10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
12 No one has beheld God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.
13 By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.
(1 John 4:7-13, NASB).

We are the Beloved!

How many times does John refer to his readership as “Beloved”? Six times explicitly! (1John 2:7, 3:2,21, 4:1,7,11 ) I think this is such an important thing to observe and to remember: we are beloved! If anyone sins, we have an advocate. All of these statements, all of these little tests, all of these admonitions, are to be understood from the perspective that we are beloved. I am encouraged to view myself as beloved, and I am encouraged to view others around me as beloved. This is the real secret to everything.

God Loved us, Once.

God loved us. Does He still? Why is this past tense? It is not that He once loved us and then stopped. Duh. It is that He loved us in a final way that cannot be undone or broken. It is the same idea as a dish getting broken. Because it was once broken at a point in time, it does not mean that it has now stopped being broken and has now become whole. In the same way, Jesus was broken for us as an act of love, in a way that cannot be unmade. It is a finalized act that cannot be undone, He has loved us with a great and authoritative sacrifice.

Superlative Love

“If God so loved us.” This is the crux of the matter. How did God so permanently and unbreakably love us, with this once done and now never to be be undone kind of love? He “so” loved us. What does this mean? It is easy to observe that in this superlative way, not simply that He loved us, but that He so loved us, that we are to be moved to love for each other. So, what is the superlative love?

It is 1 John 4:10 – that God sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. How is this such superlative love? It is extremely wonderful that the propitiation of the Son satisfies justice between us all, as I have been talking about in reflection over the past few blog posts. We might begin to think this is a dry theological point, a means to an end.

I was reflecting on the reason that we call Christ’s death on the cross the “passion”. In truth, I haven’t researched it at all and I have no idea why we really call it that. But I know what passion means. It means extreme desire. It means reckless love. It means fierce devotion to the point of obsession. It means laser-like focus born of strong wanting. How does this word relate to Jesus’ death on the cross?

It was absolutely reckless and dangerous love. It was abandon-everything-else desire. It was passion for us that led to such sacrifice. He wanted us. Badly. Enough to do this.
So when you are irritated at your brother or sister in Christ, and probably rightly so because they are a sinning fool, remember that you are irritated at an eternal creature of such beauty and glory and who is the object of such passionate desire that God Himself was willing to throw away everything else to secure an eternal relationship with him or her.
God is love. Not just any love. Not just idle affection. Not the gentle distracted love of a grandmother. That is a wonderful kind of love, but it is not this love. His was passionate love. His was a reckless love. His was a die-for-you love. His was a throw-away-every-other-option love. We are His obsession. We are not His obligation, we are His joy. This is the God who is love – the God who would go to such shocking lengths on our behalf.

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. Get it?

The Two Oughts

The latter part of this verse hinges on the meaning of the word “ought”. There is an “old command” way of understanding this word and a “new command” way of understanding this word (1 John 2:7-11). What do I mean?

I am a programmer and system designer by trade. Let’s say that I create a simple program that, when you submit two numbers, spits out their sum. If you submit 2 and 2, it should spit out 4. However, let’s say I have gotten something wrong, and instead it spits out 5. I say, it ought to spit out 4, but it isn’t working correctly. I need to fix this, something has gone haywire. Given the algorithms set up in this program, it should give out an accurate sum of the numbers given to it. I thought I had got this right; it ought to work, but there is a bug that needs to be fixed. There is no guilt or punishment or threat involved, it is an assessment of right functioning. “Ought” in this sense is a statement of cause and effect. Given these premises, that you are so loved, you ought to love. If you do not love, perhaps you have not come to believe the love which God has for us (1 John 4:10, 16, 19). If you do not love, some crucial premise is missing. It is not a statement of moral imperative, but of right conditions leading to certain inevitable consequences.

On the other hand, if I create a program that processes credit card payments, and pays a percentage of the payments to the credit card processor as a fee, I might add bit of secret code that siphons a sliver of that percentage over to my own bank account. It functions as designed, but I really ought not do such a thing. This is a moral kind of ought: you ought to do this, or you ought not to do that. This is the “old commandment” way of love. It carries a moral element with the fear of a threat: if you do not love, you are rejected from fellowship or you do not belong to God. This is not the dynamic which John is pointing towards (1 John 4:18). It does not care that the conditions need to be right to lead to an effect which is love, it merely presses the moral necessity of loving as a judgment.

John is clearly indicating the first flavor of the word “ought” – certain conditions leading inevitably to a certain outcome. Believing the love which God has for us, manifesting the love of God, produces this love for each other.

Continue reading »]]>

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
9 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.
10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
12 No one has beheld God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.
13 By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.
(1 John 4:7-13, NASB).

Defining Love

It’s a bit of a writer’s game to try to define love; there are a zillion definitions out there. Here are a few attempts from famous writers:

“What is love but acceptance of the other, whatever he is.” Anais Nin

“Love is like a fever which comes and goes quite independently of the will. … there are no age limits for love.” – Stendhal

“Love is kind of like when you see a fog in the morning, when you wake up before the sun comes out. It’s just a little while, and then it burns away… Love is a fog that burns with the first daylight of reality.” Charles Bukowski

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind.” Shakespeare

“Love, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage.” Ambrose Bierce

“Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get — only with what you are expecting to give — which is everything.” Katherine Hepburn

“Love is an untamed force. When we try to control it, it destroys us. When we try to imprison it, it enslaves us. When we try to understand it, it leaves us feeling lost and confused.” Paulo Coelho

“Anyone who falls in love is searching for the missing pieces of themselves. So anyone who’s in love gets sad when they think of their lover. It’s like stepping back inside a room you have fond memories of, one you haven’t seen in a long time.” Haruki Murakami

I think there is probably a world of insight in looking at how great writers try to define the idea of love; I’m not setting these in contrast to this Bible passage as if they are all wrong. I think that all of them, even the silly Ambrose Bierce quote, touch on an important biblical truth. The word “love” in some fashion occurs 15 times in these 6 verses, so I think we would be justified in saying that this is John’s attempt at writing a definition of love. In verse 10 he spells it out: “In this is love…”. If you want a definition of love, this is the verse.

I have written extensively on this verse in the past, as I think it is central to 1 John and in fact to the whole of scripture. It is the key to unlock the nature of the gospel and the bridge between grace and practice. Even though I’ve written on this so much before, I always think there is still foundational and critical truth to be found here.

Vertical and Horizontal Love

Notice that in the context, there is no distinction between love for God, or love for people. There is no horizontal and vertical distinction in this verse. He simply says, “In this is love.” A huge amount of teaching in evangelical circles is devoted to the division between “vertical” relationship and “horizontal” relationship. The general notion is that “vertical” love is a kind of status based on receiving grace while “horizontal” love is a behavioral choice that we can practically show to others in various relational roles. In other words, “vertical” love = justification while “horizontal” love = sanctification. I think it is very important to observe that this passage, in which John is defining the source and nature of love itself, blurs these divisions.

On the whole in 1 John, there is no distinction between motherly love, romantic love, or brotherly love. I think it is more true to say that all of our love relationships are defined by the grace that comes to us through Christ’s blood, regardless of the roles played. Agape love trumps and indeed gives context to all the other kinds of love. A huge part of evangelical teachings bear on the responsibilities that love demands as we play out these various roles. As Paul says (Galatians 3:28, Ephesians 2:14,15), we are destroying divisions, not creating them. These roles have been completely rehashed under the universe of grace and gift. We are all qualified by the blood of Jesus, and we all submit to one another (Ephesians 5:21). Our roles flow from this common unity in Christ; we do not define ourselves by our roles but by Christ.

You are skeptical! Let’s carefully observe the text and the context. Is it not fascinating that in the context of 1 John 4:10, he is talking about horizontal relationships if he is talking about anything? He is saying, love one another (horizontal). He is saying, if you don’t love one another(horizontal), you don’t know God(vertical). But then he says, without any transition or bridge, that love (horizontal) is found in this: that God loves us (woops! one-way vertical!) and not that we love God (forget about two-way vertical!). He is saying that our love for each other is completely defined by God’s love for us. John purposely blurs these lines of horizontal and vertical love. He is talking about horizontal relationships with other people and he uses the same word in the same context to say that this horizontal love is found in the vertical one-way love which God has for us.

Love’s True Source

7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves;
(2 Corinthians 4:7, NASB).

We are leaking clay vessels filled with the treasure of another that is not of ourselves. If we are vessels, and the treasure or power is of God and not of ourselves, it means that we are not the responsible party to produce love. We have given up. We no longer have to trust ourselves to produce love on demand; we have a limitless and endless love that is not of ourselves. Love is not in us. Love is in God. I am not love, I was not designed to be the source and fountain of love. I am off the hook. I can just come out and admit that I am a selfish monster, I don’t know how to stop it no matter how hard I try. In contrast to the brutish message we generally receive in evangelical circles, that love is a choice or that love is a command or duty we can obey (thus implying that we are the source of love), John says that love is not in us. Let’s review this again:

10 In this is love,

not that we loved God,

but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
(1 John 4:10, NASB).

Could this be any clearer or more simple? Seriously, could it? What else could it mean? What is he really talking about? I’m sorry but if you interpret other passages in 1 John or even in the whole scripture in a way that is out of line with this passage, this passage stands in your way. It is NOT that we love God – it is that God loved us. This is shocking and clear. It’s not subtle.

Slicing Up Love

“In this is love.” Why do we find this difficult to grasp? I think it is because it raises the wrong question for us. We ask – does this mean love for God, or love for people? Let’s clarify the question; what we are really asking is this: “Does this verse refer to the love I have for God, or the love I have for people?” The answer is no, it doesn’t refer to either one of these; this question betrays a life under law. Instead, he says, that love, vertical and horizontal, is in God loving us. God is the source and resting place of love. We try to slice up love by person or role, but John slices up love by its source.

So, we might say that the old covenant way of love slices up love as a command and defines it as something we can choose and which we perform in different relational roles. The new covenant way of love defines it as either coming from ourselves or coming from God, and champions the love which doesn’t come from ourselves but comes from God.

Love by Example vs. Love by Manifestation

Let’s put this another way. We are tempted to think, Jesus loved us sacrificially, and we ought to take His example and love people in a similar way. But it doesn’t say that we ought to endeavor to love them similarly. It says the love of God is manifested in us. We are not asked to love people in a way that is similar to the way that God loves them; we are asked to love them with the actual love of God, to manifest His present love for them. God’s love is not an example, it is a presence.

This is not what you would think, some wild supernatural manifestation. That also is not really what he is saying here. He is saying that, in community (horizontal), we look at each other as having been died for by Christ (vertical). The love which God has for us is not just any kind of love, it is the love which specifically involves the sending of the Son as a propitiation for our sins.

Our relationships either have rules and expectations and judgment at the center, or they have Christ and Him crucified at the center. If Christ and Him crucified is at the center of our community, we see each other as the one pearl which God wanted. We see each others’ sins as terribly and decisively judged already, and yet we see each other as powerfully and eternally accepted. Mere belief achieves what the commandment demands but cannot deliver. Belief in Christ for both you and me actually is horizontal love. It means I see you with Christ’s perspective, I operate from my giftings on your behalf according to God’s abundant acceptance for you. I don’t have to pretend your sin is OK, and that I’m not hurt and offended by you. I believe that a terrible price was paid for your sins at the cross, already, and that your acceptance and forgiveness has been achieved at a very great cost. That means that without reservation, I am free to seek your blessing, and that having already been so blessed with abundant love, I do not need to suck meaning and favor and acceptance and a sense of worth out of you. You can be flawed and sinful and I can still bless you. Since I am not God, and I am not the controlling source of blessing and acceptance to you, I can bless with the limited gift and time and insight that I actually have, without feeling guilty that I didn’t fulfill the expectations of your standards and judgment. Guilt and judgment are the main barriers to practical love, and when these are removed, love flows freely. We are the community, not of those who are supposed to love each other but do not, but of those who are already powerfully loved by God and so freely love.

Continue reading »]]>

In the conversations of Luther, which are in some measure a posthumous publication, we read, that . . . Satan, either in reality or in a dream, appeared in the depth of the night, and addressed him in the following terms: “Luther, how dare you to pretend to be a reformer of the Church? Luther, let your memory do its duty – let your conscience do its duty: you have committed this sin – you have been guilty of that sin; you have omitted this duty, and you have neglected that duty: let your reform begin in your own bosom. How dare you attempt to be a reformer of the Church?

Luther, with the self-possession and magnanimity by which he was characterized, (whether it was a dream or reality, he himself professes not to decide,) said to Satan – “Take up the slate that lies on the table, and write down all the sins with which you have now charged me; and if there be any additional, append them, too.” Satan, rejoiced to have the opportunity of accusing, just as our blessed Lord is rejoiced to have the opportunity of advocating, took up a pencil, and wrote a long and painful roll of the real or imputed sins of Luther.

Luther said, “Have you written the whole?” Satan answered, “Yes, and a black and dark catalogue it is, and sufficient to deter you from making any attempt to reform others, till you have first purified and reformed yourself.” Luther said, “Take up the slate and write as I shall dictate to you. My sins are many; my transgressions in the sight of an infinitely holy God, are countless as the hairs of my head: in me there dwelleth no good thing; but, Satan, after the last sin you have recorded, write the announcement which I shall repeat from 1 John 1:7,”The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin.” Luther in that text had peace; and Satan, knowing the source of his peace, had no more advantage against him.

by Rev. John Cumming, 1854

Continue reading »]]>

Blame God’s lack of existence

Back in my college days, I went to hear a debate between an apologist and an atheist philosopher. I don’t remember much about what the apologist said, but I do remember that the atheist’s argument seemed very strange to me. He basically said, since there is evil in the world, there must be no God.

On reflection, the problem of evil really is a big deal. The atheist was right to focus on it. However, it is a poor argument against God. What he was really saying could more accurately be couched like this: there may or may not be a God. Since there is evil in the world, and I don’t like it, I’m going to pin it on His lack of existence. However, I got the picture that he would rather there be a God, so he could blame Him. He was quite passionate about his anger against the God who doesn’t exist. He wrote several books about God not existing – go figure!

Blaming is the right thing to do

It seems crazy to blame God for everything doesn’t it? God is loving and kind and good. Right? Of course He is, He really is. The real question is, why are we so driven to decry evil and fix blame? Isn’t there some fundamental truth to be found there? If we were mere meat machines and there is no designing mind behind existence, what difference does it make who dies and why they died? Marilyn McCord Adams has argued convincingly that the existence of evil is actually a proof of the existence of God, not a defeater.

As Christians, we want to think that we are not the kind of people who are looking to fix blame. We are kind and forgiving and full of love. However, love doesn’t work like that. If it did, it would trivialize the suffering that evil has caused. Love sees the harm that evil causes, and resists. It is indignant. It is angry. It seeks to afix blame so that justice can be upheld. Justice is love, spread across a bunch of evil sinners. Justice says, no suffering will be marginalized or ignored.

Your big decision: Who will take the blame?

So, if you think about it, when Jesus went to the cross, He took the blame. All of it. In a sense, ultimately, God takes all the blame for everything. If you believe in Christ, you give up your control of yourself and of everyone else, and let Him take the blame. You give up being your own God (Genesis 3:5), your own controller, you give up blaming yourself. You let Him take the blame.

That is the difference between the believer and the unbeliever. It isn’t that there isn’t blame to be fixed. It is that the unbeliever still wants to be their own God, and so retains not only control but ultimate responsibility for their actions. The believer gives over their autonomy. They “die”. They say, “to live is Christ.” They let God take the blame and the control, and in so doing, ironically they gain their freedom (2 Corinthians 3:17).

20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.
(Galatians 2:20, NASB).

Continue reading »]]>

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
9 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.
10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
12 No one has beheld God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.
13 By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.
(1 John 4:7-13, NASB).

The divide between theology and practice

It seems that the divide between theology and practice is constantly an issue of discussion in Christian circles. What is the connection between belief and practice? How can grace be lived out practically? How does belief in Christ lead to the love of others? How can I live for God, shed my sin, and truly lead a holy life? How does sanctification really work?

1 John 4:9 has the answer: “By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.” If we want to have the love of God manifest through us, this is the way. The Greek word for “manifest” means “make actual and visible, realised”.

Let’s get this straight: the question on the table is, “How is the love of God made actual, how is it practically realized in us?” How do we move this from the realm of “paper” theology to real life? Isn’t that the question? And what is his answer?

“That God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.”

Is this the wrong answer?

If we are honest, we will admit that this makes us want to scream and slam our fist. We want to ask, “can we PLEASE have done with this begotten sending puzzle gibberish and have on with the real deal?” We are going to have to warm up to the idea that this is the real deal. Let’s step back and examine the answer a bit more closely. Here are the pieces of the puzzle:

• This is a community truth. Notice that the love of God is not something that is manifested singularly in you. It is manifested in us. The love of God is manifested in community, in relationship.
• God has “sent” His Son. He is an “apostello”, a messenger or a bearer of a letter. He is His only begotten Son. He has not simply sent any messenger, such as an angel or a prophet. He has not even sent some important emissary. He has sent His only Son. If this didn’t work out, there was no one else to send, no one more convincing or more important. In sending Jesus, God pulled out all the stops. If we reject His only Son, there are no other options left. He is His most precious emissary, and His one and only most precious one at that. God has sent His most precious only unique begotten and beloved Son.
• God has sent Him into the “world”. He did not send Him into our hearts. It doesn’t say that. He sent Him into the world. This is the Greek word “cosmos”, which really means the general society of men. He has sent Him, not into the community of faith or the community of the righteous and deserving, but into the world as a whole. This is part of what makes His answer so puzzling, because if He is sent into the world, how exactly does this work that this is the means by which His love is made manifest in US? “Us” is an exclusionary term – it indicates John and his intended believing readers. God did not send His Son into the church, He sent Him into the world as a whole. However, it is this sending of Him into the world as a whole that is an important piece of the manifest love puzzle.

Why this isn’t the answer we were looking for

Here is the thing: we want the love of God to be manifest because we do something. We want it to actually be OUR love for God that manifests. We need it to be practicable and doable. We need action points. We want law. However, it isn’t our love that is manifesting, so it isn’t ours to do. It is God’s love that is made manifest. We have been looking for our own workings to be enabled, but God is looking to manifest His workings. We want to live through ourselves, through our own affections and brilliance. But it is God’s love He is looking to manifest in us. We are the ones in the community of faith who have given up our own manifestation of godhood and look to Christ as our manifestation.

Why this is the best answer!

I think my friend Terrell Dismukes has caught the meaning I’m looking for:

I think it means that God showed us that he loved us, rather than just telling us that he loved us. Back in the other chapter, in 3:18, John says don’t just tell people you love them, but actually do something truly.

I thank God that he showed us that he loved us, by sending his Son to be the propitiation for our sins, so that we could have eternal life through him (check NLT on 1 Jn. 4:9), and also that he told us that he loved us (how he did it and explaining what it meant), by giving us the Bible. He both showed us and he told us that he loved us.

This makes a lot of sense. In 1 John 1:1 he tells us that what was from the beginning of time is that which the original disciples heard with their own ears, saw with their own eyes, and touched with their own hands. He didn’t just tell people a message, he actually did something. This something was to die for their sins.

So, by this the love of God was manifested in us: God came to the earth and was made incarnate flesh and blood, and died for our sins. The society of those who believe this live in a state of solid and true forgiveness in community. This is why he goes on in the next verse to say, in this is love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us, and most critically, to be the propitiation for our sins. It is the propitiation which takes away the just and good wrath of God from our afflicting conscience and puts love and affection at the front and center of our community.

The reason this verse seems cryptic and maddening to us is that we want to put a to do list at the center of our relationships. In truth this only produces judgment of our failures. We want practicality but we do not count Christ’s blood as practical, because we harbor unbelief about its real power to utterly forgive and utterly save. Once we give over to full trust in the power of His blood which cries out for mercy and not for justice (1 John 1:7), love blossoms between us and Christian community forms around it. So by His propitiating blood, we live; we live “through” Him, so to speak.

14 “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up;
15 that whoever believes may in Him have eternal life.
16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.
17 “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him.
18 “He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
(John 3:14-18, NASB).

One Easy Step to True Love!

So, biblically, you can manifest true love in one easy step: Believe in Christ!