Ben Zornes

Living and Dying to Show the Preciousness of Christ

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1 John 2:7-8 | Nothing New, But All is New

1 John 2:7-8 | Nothing New, But All is New

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7 Brothers, it is no new commandment I write unto you, but an old commandment which you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you have heard from the beginning. 8 Again, a new commandment I write unto you, this is true in Him and in you, because the darkness has passed away and the true light now shines. 

1 John 2:7-8

Given the discussion in 1 John 1:6-10 on the believer’s relationship to sin, it’s unsurprising that the next question to be answered, particularly for believing Jews, would be in regards to their relationship to the commandments. Believers in Christ are not “let off” from commandment keeping. Rather, it is only by Christ that we can be true commandment keepers (Cf. 1 Jn. 2:3).

Christ gave a new commandment, in John 13:34: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” The light which has shined into the darkness (Cf. Jn 1:5) is the converting light of the Gospel. This light is the birthright and experience of every true saint. When we’re converted by the heralded Gospel, we can truly say, “This is nothing new, but now everything is new.” The scales have come off, the day has dawned, the clear light is shining.

The commandment is the same as ever: love God, and love your neighbor. But there is new light shining, illuminating new glories in the old commandment. John isn’t giving a new command, but an old one which they had heard from the beginning. The phrase “the beginning” here is the same construction as in 1 Jn. 1:1, but here it is in reference to the beginning of their hearing of the Gospel which had been from the capital “B”Beginning.

The newness however, is that of a newly discerned glory. It’s as if under the OT the saints held a diamond, but in the dim light could only vaguely perceive the beauty of what they held. As soon as the rays of Gospel light caught in the prism, a new glory was revealed. This wasn’t a novel idea, nor did it just appear out of thin air. The newness is not that of recency, for it is from the beginning; it is a newness of quality.

The newly unveiled glory is that by dwelling in Christ, and thus being invited into the loving fellowship of the godhead, we’re not only receivers of this marvelous love (1 Jn. 3:1), we’re also empowered to actually love God in return and love the brethren. This is true “in Him”, because Jesus was indeed the Christ and thus enjoyed this perfect love, and now by Christ we might enjoy the assurance that God receives our love to Him (for He first loved us, 1 Jn. 4:19), and we are able to love and be beloved by our fellow saints. This is the glory which has come forth from the old commandment. All the enmity with God and our brother is settled in the substitutionary atonement of Christ on our behalf.

This is true in Christ, and it is true in us. It is only true in us, however, because we are in Christ. Thus, as John proceeds, he will show that union with Christ’s love makes enmity with one’s fellow saint an impossibility. As one ancient Christian commented: “The commandment is true in him because he loved us so much that he died for us, and it will be true in us also if we love one another.”⁠1

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1 Hilary of Arles. James, 1-2 Peter, 1-3 John, Jude. Compiled by Gerald Lewis. Bray. Downers Grove (Ill.): InterVarsity, 2000. Pg. 180

1 John 2:3-6 | Knowing that You Know

1 John 2:3-6 | Knowing that You Know

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3 And by this do we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. 4 He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments is a liar, and in him the truth in not. 5 However, he who keeps His word, assuredly in him the love of God is perfected; by this we know that we are in Him. 6 He who says he abides/dwells in Him is bound to walk even as He walked.

1 John 2:3-6

Christ our Advocate promises propitiatory grace to us, but many wonder how to know that they know that they know that it is really for them. One of the most common questions a pastor is asked is how someone can really know that they are saved. This has given rise in some circles to a bad habit of naval gazing. 

John raises this theme of knowing and will return to it numerous times throughout John’s epistle. This is why this epistle is often called the epistle of assurance. Here is how we know that we know Christ; and thus, we can know that all His  forgiveness and fellowship is ours as well.

The answer to how do you know if you know Christ isn’t to stare inward; John tells us that our assurance arises as we keep His commandments. In other words, it isn’t by gazing inward, but by hearing Christ’s commands and obeying. If you can’t hear His commands, or you refuse to obey them, well, then there’s your answer chump. 

John goes on to expand on what it means to keep Christ’s commands (vv7-11, 5:3), but for now the equation is simply that we can know that we know Christ by obedience to Him. Those who know Christ obey Him. Those who don’t know Christ spend too much time staring at themselves in the mirror. This is John weaving in Christ’s teaching in John 14:15, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”

In 2:4 we have an echo of the liar of 1:8. In the prior passage, denying sin’s presence is self-delusion, and thus proof that truth doesn’t dwell within. In this chapter, the liar claims to have the knowledge which comes through close fellowship, while demonstrating through his actions that he doesn’t in fact know how Christ would have him behave. This evinces that truth doesn’t dwell in such an one (and thus is the mark of a false teacher); this sets the stage for the later discussion of anti-Christs (2:18, 22).

Of note, John makes keeping Christ’s commandments synonymous with keeping Christ’s word. A beloved confidant of the King will do as the King commands, and by this obedience it is seen that the King’s love truly rests upon and in him. God’s love is perfected, or fulfilled, in us by keeping Christ’s word. A second assurance is added here, that keeping Christ’s word shows that we are indeed in the fellowship with the Father & Son described in 1:3.

Again, declaring that you dwell in God obligates you to conform your life to His. Calvin points out that John “does not simply exhort us to imitate Christ; but from the union we have with him, he proves that we ought to be like him.⁠1” In other words, it isn’t just “grit your teeth and be like Jesus.” Rather, on the basis of our covenantal union with Him we must indeed be like Him.

This is, after all, what Christ himself taught John, “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love (Jn. 15:10).” Our old covenant head (Adam) has been replaced by a new head (Christ). Just as Christ submitted to the Father’s will, and now the Father has given the government of the world into Christ’s hands, so to Christ’s own must walk in submission to His commands because of their covenantal union with Him. As A.A. Hodge once put it, “True [assurance] leads to constant aspirations after more intimate fellowship with God.”⁠2

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1 Calvin, Jean. Calvins Commentaries. Vol. XXII. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999. Pg.176.

2 Hodge, Archibald Alexander. The Westminster Confession: A Commentary. Edinburgh, Scotland: Banner of Truth Trust, 2002.

1 John 2:1-2 – Christ Our Advocate

1 John 2:1-2 – Christ Our Advocate

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My children, these things I write unto you in order that you may not sin; and if anyone perchance sin, we have an Advocate with the Father: Jesus Christ the Righteous. And He is the propitiation for our sins, and not only for ours, but also the whole world.

1 John 2:1-2

John now moves from the plural “we” to the singular “I”. This shift is deliberate, and is an example of how the Gospel is the common proclamation of the Apostolic witness, but then must be applied personally. 

This Gospel is proclaimed in order that those in fellowship with Christ might not sin. Leonard Ravenhill once pointed out, and I tend to agree, that it says if we sin, not when we sin. While there’s a tendency in some Christian circles to take a statement like that and begin assuming a sinless perfectionism (which is a doctrine which has stumbled many an immature believe and is not a millstone I want hanging around my neck), the point is helpful if rightly used. Christ has delivered us from sin, we are united with Him, and we enjoy His overcoming power. John builds this out later on in 1 Jn. 5:4. But it is here in seed form. 

The saint is delivered from sin. This should be the underlying assumption of the saint in regards to their relationship with sin. John has just stated that the presence of sin isn’t to be denied (Cf. 1 Jn. 1:8, 10); but we also shouldn’t cede territory back to sin by operating as if Sin still has dominion. Thus, the comfort for the believer is that their gracious Savior has freed them from and forgiven them for their sinful state and past sinful actions; furthermore, the comfort extends forward so that if the saint sins in the future, the Lord Jesus remains as their faithful Advocate. The Greek word here means, “one summoned to your side”, implying coming to your legal defense.

Our Accuser is cast down, as John’s apocalyptic vision assures us. Which means you need not heed the Accuser’s voice, when the Advocate’s voice is declaring that the Gospel reckons you forgiven, cleansed, and pardoned. This forms the foundation of Christian assurance. We need not sin, because we’ve been given a new nature; but if we sin, we are no less a saint for Christ the Righteous is our eternal Advocate before the Father.

The word propitiation here is a “bible-ese” word that doesn’t often feature in modern vocabulary. But it is a word of great importance, and so is worth a brief explanation. Propitiation simply means covering. This concept comes down to us through the Mosaic Law’s emphasis on the atoning power of sacrificial blood. One theologian–remarking on this significant aspect of the Sacrificial system of the OT–gives these insightful comments: 

“We also understand the covering of sin in the sacrificial worship as a covering by which the accusatory and damnatory power of sin its power to excite the anger and wrath of Godis broken by which in fact it is rendered both harmless and impotent And understood in this sense the sacrificial covering was not merely an apparent conventional expiation of sin which would have been the case if it had been merely removed from the sight of Jehovah but a process by which it was actually rendered harmless which is equivalent to cancelling and utterly annihilating.” 1

J.H. Kurtz

So, in plain words, Christ being our propitiation gives us assurance that the wrath of God which sinners are justly deserving of, is covered and absorbed by Christ. Furthermore, this glory is not reserved just for the individual saint, as verse 2 goes on to expound. This covering grace is for the entire world (the word in the Greek here is kosmos). 

John asserts that Christ has not only covered our sins, but the sins of the entire world. Calvinists have the odd habit of resembling a Circus side-show contortionist when confronted with verses like this. They twitch at sounding either like a universalist or an Arminian. This verse doesn’t overthrow the doctrine of definite atonement, rather it helps establish it. That doctrine, in short, is that Christ’s blood is only effectual for atoning the elect. 

Here is why this verse is a boon, not a burden, to this doctrine. As one insightful commentary points out, “The world that Christ formed (1 Jn. 1:1) is the very world for which he died.” 2 Since Christ purchased the world, with His own blood, He’s King of it. Those are the rules. Jesus overthrew Satan (Cf. 1 Jn. 3:8, Rev 12:10). The Father gave the government of the whole world into Christ’s hands. In that sense, the entire cosmos is now the rightful inheritance of Christ. The atonement which covers the individual saint is here promised to the Church entire, throughout the whole world, through all time. What John is asserting here is that the propitiatory power of Christ’s blood is not restricted merely to the Apostles and their followers. Rather, this atoning blood is efficacious for all the scattered elect both in his day and in all ages to come. The Church shall one day overrun the planet. In this way, the world will indeed be saved.

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1 Kurtz, J. H. (John Henry). Sacrificial Worship in the Old Testament. Minneapolis, MN: Klock & Klock Christian, 1980. Pg. 70

2 Beale, G. K., and Benjamin L. Gladd. The Story Retold A Biblical-Theological Introduction to the New Testament. Westmont: InterVarsity Press, 2020. Pg. 454

1 John 1:9-10 – Forgiven & Not Guilty

1 John 1:9-10 – Forgiven & Not Guilty

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If we confess the sin [in] us, He is faithful and just to forgive us [our] sins, and shall cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His Word is not in us.

1 John 1:9-10

Denying the presence of sin isn’t how a believer addresses their sin. John has established a distinction between what it means “to have sin” (ἁμαρτίαν ἔχειν) in 1 Jn. 1:8, and “to sin” (αμαρτανειν).⁠1 In other words, there’s both a sinful nature and sinful actions which are the fruit of that nature. Both are dealt with by confessing to the One who is faithful and just.

Verses 8 and 10 echo each other. Saying you don’t have sin is self-delusion, and proof that the truth isn’t dwelling in you (v8); saying that you have not sinned makes God (who is the truth) out to be a liar, and demonstrates that His Word doesn’t dwell in you (v10). Refusing to acknowledge the sin nature and the sins themselves are not only the project of self-delusion, but it is also a slander against God’s Word. 

Sandwiched between these statements regarding the false ways of addressing our sin is the simple explanation for how the Christian deals with both the sinful root and the sinful fruit. We confess the sin in us, and God forgives our sins. The root is confessed, and not only is the fruit forgiven, but our unrighteousness is cleansed. Confession here is ὁμολογῶμεν (homologomen), which simply means to say the same thing as another. Of course, in this context we are agreeing with what God says about our sinful condition and our sinful actions. The conditional promise here is that if we confess our sin He not only forgives our sins, but he reckons us as righteous. He not only passes over our sin, but declares that we are not guilty.

This promise is one of the most golden passages of Scripture. In this simple promise the Gospel is held forth in all its profound glory. Sinners who confess their sinfulness, find in God a God who maintains His standard of justice, and yet forgives sinners because their unrighteousness is cleansed by the covering of another (1 Jn. 2:1-2).

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1 Smith, David. The Expositors Greek Testament. Edited by W. Robertson Nicoll. Vol. Five. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1979. Pg 172

1 John 1:6 – Do the Truth

1 John 1:6 – Do the Truth

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If we say that we have fellowship with Him but walk in darkness we lie and do not the truth.

1 John 1:6

John is concerned about a few errors which have cropped up in the early days of the Christian church. John shows us a wonderful example of the truth that fighting wolves is doctrine in action. The first wolf he fights is that of the Nicolaitans. Their namesake, Nicolas, was––according to the early church father Irenaeus⁠1––one of the first seven deacons. They believed they could follow God while indulging in all sorts of fleshly and carnal activities; most notably, they practiced ”spouse-sharing”. In Revelation, we’re told the Lord hates the deeds and doctrine of the Nicolaitans (Rev. 2:6, 15).

So, John in continuing the contrast of light and dark of verse 5 points out that since darkness is not at all in God, it is nonsensical to think that we His children can walk in darkness and still have fellowship with the Light. The Hebrew word for “walk” הלך, carried the idea of one’s manner of life. That sense is continued here in the Greek.

Through the Life manifested in the flesh, Jesus the Christ, we enjoy fellowship with God who is Light. John is teaching that our union with God will result in moral reformation in our “walk” or manner of life. To put it in more systematic theological terms, our justification leads to our sanctification, and to claim that you have fellowship with God while continuing the pursuit of your dark deeds of lust is a lie. We should also note that this lie is presented not doing the truth. An application of this verse is that the truth is something which we should act upon. We should “do the truth” by not walking in darkness, and presuming to also enjoy fellowship with the triune God.

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1 Against Heresies –  Chapter XXVI.3

1 John 1:5 – God is Light

1 John 1:5 – God is Light

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This then is the promise which we have heard of him and announce unto you, that God is light, and darkness is not at all in Him.

1 John 1:5

John now commences with the body of his joyful message. The word order in Greek is unique and masterfully emphasizes that this message is, i.e. exists.⁠1 Then he moves on to the content of the announcement. He begins with the first of many contrasts. 

This letter contains a series of contrasts: light and dark, truth and lies, love and hate, Christ and Anti-Christ, life and death, born of God and born of the devil, etc. If this epistle were a photo, it would be notable for its high contrast. The darks would be pitch black. The whites would be shining bright. 

The first contrast which John introduces is that of light and dark. The apostles received a promise from the Eternal Life which came in the flesh. They heard this promise from Jesus––who is the manifested Life––and now announce it to the world. 

God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. Or as I have rendered it to draw out the double negative found in the Greek: ”darkness is not at all in Him.” John is at pains to make plain that God is not a yin-yang. Darkness (I.e. sin, evil) can have no fellowship with God. Christ coming in the flesh is the basis for our fellowship with God (1:3), but God is light, which means that our moral darkness will need to be dealt with.

This raises a problem which John will soon answer:  how can sin-darkened man can dwell in God? The starting point to answer that question is this statement of God’s being. He is light. Note too that John is providing foundational language which will moor the church throughout the ages. God is light (1:5). God is love (4:8b). Christ is the eternal life of God manifested in the flesh (1:2). Make no mistake God’s nature and character are foundational for true religion, for true fellowship with God.

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1 Kistemaker, James, Epistles of John, Peter, and Jude. Pg. 241

Other Posts in this Series

To the Victor Go the Spoils

To the Victor Go the Spoils

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LISTEN HERE

Introduction

Our culture is infected with oath-breaking, reneged campaign promises, defaulted debts, divorced marriages, & fake news. Promises are only as good as the promiser. The Gospel promise is salvation from sin & eternal life. It insults the idolatrous religion of self-sufficiency. It tears down & defiles the altars of works righteousness. It fills the believer with swagger. And the world despises it. So, should we believe it?

Summary of the Text

Believing that Jesus is the Christ & being born of God are inseparable, you can’t have one without the other. The new birth results in both love for the Father who begot you and love for all those whom the Father begets (v1). Loving God’s people flows from love to God & obedience to His Word (v2). Loving God means obeying God. This doesn’t make God a dystopian tyrant, because His commandment—to believe upon His Son—results in our eternal life & joy (v3, cf. 1 Jn. 1:4). Whoever is born again is assured of their victory over the world, because they trust in Jesus—who has conquered sin, the devil, the world (vs.4-5).

The incarnation & death of the Word has Trinitarian fingerprints: the Father sent His Son, & the Spirit bears witness to the truth of this Gospel (vs. 6-8). God Almighty is witness to the eternal Sonship of Jesus; this doctrine wasn’t cooked up in the lab of man’s cranium (v9). Refusing to trust that Jesus is the Christ makes God out to be a liar, because God has testified that eternal life is given only through His Son. Without Jesus you do not have life (vs.10-12).

John repeats his slogan: all this is written that your faith––and assurance of eternal life––may be strengthened (v13). The practical cash-out of this assurance is that we can pray like Calvinists (vs. 14-15). Prayerful intercession for a brother in sin isn’t a hopeless cause; however, a warning is here: rejecting Jesus as the Christ is a sin that most certainly ends in eternal death (v16). Unrighteousness is sin, but Christ is our promise of cleansing (cf. 1 Jn. 1:9), our assurance of eternal life, & our salvation from the wicked one (vs.17-18). The world’s humanistic doctrine ensures it remains in league with the wicked One & his wickedness. Only through the light of Christ can we behold the truth of our union with the true God, the source of eternal life (vs. 19-20). All other saviors are idols. So John adjures his little children to forsake idolatry’s many forms (v.21).

Water & Blood

John is rebutting the rising heresy of Cerinthus: the eternal Christ merely came upon Jesus at His baptism, and left him at the cross. If Cerinthus was right, the water & blood from Jesus’ side meant the man had died, but his death was pointless & retained no promise of resurrection or eternal life.

The Jews knew that covering for sin & entrance into God’s presence were only through the ceremonial washings & bloody offerings of Moses’ Law. John sees in Jesus the fulfillment of the Law’s ceremonies & offerings. John is the only Gospel writer who recorded how after a soldier pierced Jesus’ side, blood & water came pouring out (Jn. 19:34). John pauses to add this commentary:

He that saw it [John] bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe. For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken. And again another scripture saith, They shall look on him whom they pierced (Jn.19:35-37).

This episode was a big deal for John. It not only showed that Jesus was a real man who had really died. It also revealed that His death was pregnant with redemptive meaning. The questions which the OT raised were answered by Jesus’ death. He was the Passover lamb (Ex. 12:46). He was the fulfillment of Zechariah’s cryptic prophecy (Zec. 12:10).

The Jews quibbled & puzzled over what in tarnation Zechariah could have meant. Surely he didn’t mean God was pierced by the sins of His people. How could you even pierce God? John’s eye-witness account of Jesus being pierced by the spear, cinches up this question. Contrary to Cerinthus, it wasn’t a phantom on the cross. It was a man who was also God. He was the final sacrifice for sins. All who look upon Him find salvation & life. John bore record that you (the reader) might believe; and then bear record yourself.

Living Like a Martyr

We think of a martyr as someone who dies for the faith, but that only describes what happens to a martyr. It doesn’t tell us what a martyr is & does. A witness (martys) declares what it is they have witnessed (martyreō)––that is their testimony (martyria); a martyr testifies regardless of personal consequences. John is bearing witness to the fact that “the life was manifested (1 Jn. 1:2).” But John makes it plain that his testimony is second fiddle to the witness of the triune God. In believing upon Jesus for salvation & eternal life, it is not man’s witness, but the witness of God which we believe (1 Jn. 5:9-10).

John calls Jesus Christ “the faithful witness/martys (Rev. 1:5).” Jesus washes us from our sins in his own blood, He makes us kings and priests unto God & his Father (cf. Rev. 1:5-6). Those who trust in Him are joined with Him, made new, & are made witnesses of the miraculous power of His life, death, resurrection, & ascension to all dominion. Christians live like living martyrs. We declare the power of the Gospel. No matter the cost. John is joined by Paul in making this clear: our testimony doesn’t come from us, nor is it about us. “You are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart (2 Cor. 3:3).” Our witness is carved on our heart by the Spirit.

The Victory Lap

The Word was made flesh (Jn. 1:2) that He might destroy the works of the devil (1 Jn. 3:8). But since we fight a sore loser, we’re told that we’ve “already overcome, in order that [we] may fight more courageously & more strenuously (Calvin).”

As John concludes this letter of assurance, he takes us on a victory lap of what Jesus—the Word made flesh, the true Christ, Whom the Father sent to be our Savior, Propitiation & eternal Life—has done for you. “For whatsoever is born of God overcometh (nikaō) the world: and this is the victory (nike) that overcometh (nikaō) the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh (nikaō) the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God (1 Jn. 5:4-5)?”

[epq-quote align=”align-left”]Your union with God is not dependent on your ability to solve the problem. Your salvation from sin & hope of obtaining eternal life are found in a man who was God in the Flesh.[/epq-quote]John doesn’t hand us the chalk, fold his arms, & watch to see if we can solve the theological calculus problem on the board. Your union with God is not dependent on your ability to solve the problem. Your salvation from sin & hope of obtaining eternal life are found in a man who was God in the Flesh. Your salvation is in Christ, who was the eternal Word, the life, the propitiation, the life, the Spirit Who indwells you, the Father Who secures you.

What does it mean to be born again or born of God? It means you believe that Jesus is the Christ. How can I be sure? Because God Almighty––Father, Son, Spirit––says so. What about the penalty of my sin? It is covered. What about when I die? You are given eternal life. What if I sin again after believing in Jesus? Look to Jesus, only, ever, always. Are you sure about all this? John’s answer, “Oh, yeah!”

Ben Zornes