Lesson 7 continued

Lesson 7 continued

II.  Love Gives Us Assurance  (1 John 4:12-16)

                As we begin to examine this section of scripture, recall that in verse 7 John has told us first that “love is of God” and second “God is love”.  Certainly we find this truth revealed to us in the “Word”, but it was revealed to us as well on the cross.  This idea that “love is of God” and that “God is love” is in fact a biblical doctrine, but is as well an eternal fact as demonstrated by Christ at Calvary.  God has said something to us, and God has done something for us, but now John is telling us that God does something in us.  As a Christian you are not merely spectator of God’s love, but rather a participant.  John tells us in verse 12 how our love fulfills two important functions.  First, our love for others is evidence that God is real and dwells in us.  Second this Christian lifestyle of love is evidence that the goal of God’s love is perfected in us.

                So let’s look at the first doctrine—our love is evidence That God is real and dwells in His believers.  To better understand this lets go back and take a quick look at how God has interacted with mankind as recorded in the Bible.  In the beginning God maintained fellowship with man in a personal and direct way. (Gen. 3:8)  “And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the cool of the day:…”  As we know, sin broke that fellowship and God demonstrated for the first time His plan of substitutionary death by clothing Adam and Eve in coats of skin.  Some animal shed its blood to cover Adam’s sin that fellowship might be restored.  As you look at God’s description throughout Genesis, God is described as walking with mankind. [Enoch (Gen. 5:22), Noah (Gen. 6:9), Abraham (Gen. 17:1 and 24:40)]  As we turn to Exodus a change takes place.  God no longer simply walks with man, but we are introduced to the idea of God living or dwelling among men. (Ex. 25:8).  “And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them”.  The first of these sanctuaries was the tabernacle.  As it was completed and dedicated the glory of God came down and resided in the tent. (Ex. 40:33-35)  So we see God dwelt in the camp, but not necessarily in their bodies.  Then we get to 1 Sam. 4:21 and the nation of Israel sins and God’s glory departs.  Of course God loves His people and uses people like Samuel and King David to restore Israel.  By the time David dies and turns the kingdom over to Solomon a magnificent temple is built.  As this temple is dedicated, once again, the glory of God filled the house of God. (1 Kings 8:1-11)  Then, as we know, history repeats itself, Israel disobeyed God, they were taken into captivity, and ultimately the temple is destroyed.  Ezekiel, while in captivity (Ez. 1:1-3), sees through visions the glory of God depart from Israel. (Ez. 8:4, 9:3, 10:4, 11:22-23)  The Bible does tell us that God in His glory did visit Israel again.  John 1:14, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth”.  The glory of God dwelt on earth in the body of Jesus Christ, for His body was the temple of God. (John 2:18-22)  Wicked, lost, men nailed that body to a cross, crucifying the “Lord of Glory (1 Cor. 2:8) fulfilling Gods plan of sending His Holy Spirit to now dwell or take up residence with and in mankind.  The glory of God now lives in the bodies of His children. (1 Cor. 6:19)  “What?  Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?”  The significance of this is that while the Glory of God departed from the tabernacle and the temple when Israel disobeyed, according to John 14:16 the Holy Spirit will “abide with you for ever;”.

                Now with this understanding, I think we can better understand what John is saying here.  “No man hath seen God at any time.”  This is consistent with what God had told Moses when he desired to see God’s glory. (Ex. 33:17-23)  Verse 20 says, “Thou canst not see my face for there shall no man see me and live.”  Paul in writing to Timothy tells us, “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever, Amen.” (1 Tim. 1:17) and according to Col. 1:15, speaking of Jesus, he says “who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:”.  By taking on Himself a human body, Jesus was able to reveal God to us, yet Jesus is no longer walking around here on earth so how does God now reveal Himself to mankind?  The answer is through the lives of His children.  While man cannot physically see God, they certainly can see us.  Thus if we abide in Christ, we will love one another and that love reveals God’s love to a world in great need of that love.  The invisible God becomes visible to the world through you and me. It is only when the world observes Christians loving unconditionally just as Jesus did that they will open up to the message of the gospel.  For most people, the only God and Jesus they will ever see is the one they see in you and me.

                Consider this poem by Edgar Guest entitled, “Sermons We See”.  Here is the first portion.

I’d rather see a sermon than hear one any day;

I’d rather one should walk with me than merely tell the way.

The eye’s a better pupil and more willing than the ear,

Fine counsel is confusing, but examples always clear;

And the best of all preachers are the men who live their creeds,

For to see good put in action, is what everybody needs.

                The absolute best way for people to see Christ is by means of our love for them.  It is our evidence that God dwells in us.

                Next John says, “His love is perfected in us”.  The idea here is that God desires that we become like Him, and we are never more like Him that when we love others unconditionally.  May I submit to us that biblical love is evidence of spiritual maturity.  Our spiritual maturity is not measured by our age, years of being a “Christian”, how long you’ve been a church member, how much scripture you can quote, or even by your level of service participation.  According to John 13:35 it is by our love one for another that people will truly know us as disciples of Christ.  When John wrote of perfection he was not speaking about moral perfection, sinless perfection nor the sense of “without flaw”, but rather speaking about maturity or completeness.  It seems that John is saying that God’s love reaches its intended goal when those whom God loves, practice God’s perfect love towards others.  Our love for God is only fully complete when we love other people like Christ love’s them.

                So John is telling us that loving one another evidences two realities in our lives.  First, God abides or dwells in us, and second, His love is brought to perfection in us.  John seems to like the concept of dwelling or abiding.  He uses it throughout both his gospel and this epistle.  To dwell or abide speaks to our relationship to God as well as the relationship of God to men, but it also speaks to our conduct.  When we abide in Christ, we behave according to His character, thus John links the concept of dwelling with that of loving for both are characteristics of Christ.

                In verse 13, John points out how we are assured of our salvation (we dwell in Him and He is us) because God has given us His Holy Spirit to indwell our lives.  The Apostle Paul makes much the same claim in Romans 8:16.  “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God”.  The Holy Spirit provides a multifaceted ministry for the believer, with such things as conviction, assurance, directions, instruction, understanding, and intercession among no doubt many more.  At the moment of repentance and faith, the Spirit of God indwells without exception.  This does not necessarily mean we always follow His leading or that a saved person will never have doubts about their salvation, but the Spirit is always there to bear witness and  give assurance.

                Verse 14 says, “And we have seen and do testify…”.  This is a reference to their apostolic ministry with Christ.  Look back to 1 John 1:1.  “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life.”  So John is saying that he along with the other apostles were eyewitnesses to Christ and His teachings that He was sent from the Father.  The word “testify” is also sometimes translated as bear witness, thus John is saying that what he is bearing witness to is first hand information, not hearsay.  Also important here is that Jesus was “sent”.  Jesus being God, co-equal with His Father, submitted Himself to the will of the Father to fulfill the plan of salvation as “savior of the world”.  “Savior” means deliverer or rescuer and “world” means all sinful people estranged from God under the dominion of the evil one.  So Jesus was sent to rescue men from sin and deliver them from eternal condemnation regardless of race, face, or place.  Whether big sinners or little sinners, rich or poor, open or secret, Jesus came to save who-so-ever-will, nobody excluded if only they believe.

                In verse 15, to “confess” is to agree fully with what God has said about His Son.  A right belief about who Jesus is and what He has done is essential to salvation.  Realize also that Rome was an empire dedicated to emperor worship as a state religion.  To recognize our Lord as savior of the world in place of the emperor was a capital offense.  When someone publicly confessed Jesus as the Son of God, Savior of the world, Rome took offense and responded with bloody persecutions, thus it was a sign that they meant real business.  No one would do so flippantly or insincerely.  So what John is saying is that for someone to publicly and openly confess Christ as the Son of God is great evidence that they are truly saved.

                In verse 16 John points out two things about dwelling in God’s love.  First, that person grows in knowledge and second that person grows in faith. (“And we have known and believed the love God hath to us.”)  The more we love God, the more we understand the love of God and the more we understand the love of God, the easier it is for us to trust Him.  The idea is that the more intimately you know someone the more confidence you have in that person.

                So when John tells us that “God is Love”, It is so much more than just a statement of fact.  As John has pointed out, it is the basis for a believer’s relationship with both God and mankind.  Because “God is Love”, we can love also.  God’s love is not just past history (sending His son), it s a present reality that assures us of His future faithfulness love.  God, because of the great love He has for us, is with us moment by moment here in our present.  Christ died to save us from the penalty of sin, from the power of sin, even the pollution of sin, but ultimately, He is taking us to heaven away from the very presence of sin.

                The bottom line here is that the better we know and experience God’s love, the easier it will become to live this Christian life,  Bible knowledge is good and needed, but can never take the place of our personal experience of God’s love.  The Bible is the revelation of God’s love and the better we understand His love, the easier it should be for us to obey Him and to love others.

III.  The Benefits of Perfect Love  (1 John 4:17-21)

                Here John is now looking to the time when one’s love is made perfect or reaches it’s intended goal.  He has in mind the contrast of the judgments of believers and unbelievers.  A day of judgment awaits us all.  For the unsaved, the Great White Throne Judgment, will be a time of great fear and ultimately indescribable torments.  This judgment is reserved for those who never accepted “God is love” in its full context, thus never experienced the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  These people never experienced the saving grace of God.  But John has a different judgment in mind, that of the Judgment Seat of Christ.  John’s point is that for those who are saved, those who have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God, can have great confidence as we look forward to our future meeting with God.  Why boldness?  As John puts it “because as He is, so are we in this world”.  It seems that John has in mind the idea of sanctification.  A big word to describe our day by day process of being made into the image of Jesus by the inter working of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  Sanctification is not just the absence of certain sins, but is the overwhelming presence of the Holy Spirit bringing about things like right thinking, speaking, living, and loving.  As John puts it (vs. 18), “There is no fear in love”.  As we talked about at the close of the last section, love is the basis for our relationship with both God and Men, thus there is fear in judgment without Christ, but there is no fear in love or in relationship with Christ.  Fear means dread or terror.  There is a healthy kind of fear, fear the Lord, but that’s not what John is referring to.  Here is the fear of judgment that brings about torment or punishment.  Consider you family, (we are family in God’s kingdom), the child who loves their parents, and who’s parents love him, is never terrified of his parents.  Likewise the child of God who is dwelling in the love of God will joyfully anticipate being in His presence.  Love casteth out fear.  Consider Jesus’ teaching in Matt. 10:28, “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”

                If someone professes to know Christ, but has a dread and a fear of judgment, something is amiss.  That’s evidence that person has never grown spiritually or they have never been saved in the first place.  The only reason you or I have the capacity to love is because we have been the recipient of God’s love, having been born again.  We can never love (agape) apart from God’s first having loved us.

                Ted Peters, in his book Sin:  Radical Evil in Soul and Society, says it pretty good.  “The promise of eternal life has the power to disarm anxiety for those who believe, for those who trust God to deliver on His promises.  God’s eternal being sustains our threatened being.  God’s faithfulness makes our faith possible, and our faith makes it possible to love others.”

                John just simply said “We love Him because He first loved us.”  Consider what we know.  Jesus was the lamb slain from before the foundation of the world.  The very reason the Father sent His Son into this world was because of His great love.  Eph. 2:4, “But God who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us,” and 1 John 3:16, “Hereby perceive we the love of God because He laid down His life for us…”  God has always been first to act, when Adam and Eve sinned, they hid while God came looking for them.  We love Him, not because of some special goodness within us, but only because He first loved us.

                In verse 20 John now begins to explore the absence of love and its consequences.  The presence of love demonstrates that a person has been saved, while the absence of loves tells us a person has not been saved.  This is a very hard hitting verse.  If you say you love God yet hate your brother you’re lying about your claim to love God. (1 John 3:14).  John’s logic is simple.  What’s easier? To love what you can see or to love something you can’t.  Please understand there are times we become agitated and impatient with people, but we will not hate them.  Perhaps we might even no like somebody, but we will still love them because God loves them.  When we become a child of God we get a changed nature, the nature of our heavenly Father, therefore what our Father loves, we love.  If a professed Christian hates, that person is lying.  Jesus takes this even further.  Not just love your brethren, but love also your enemies.  Matt. 5:44 says, “But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you”.  I promise you that if you can practice Christ’s teaching you will have no problem loving your brother.  John closes this chapter with the remembrance of that very commandment of Jesus.  Remember when the scribe asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was (Mark 12:30), Jesus answered to love God supremely yet He did not stop there.  Jesus taught that there was a second that was just as important.  “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself”.  It seems to me that in Christ’s mind, loving God and loving your brother were and are inseparable.