1 JOHN 3

(All scripture quotes below are from the NIV, unless otherwise indicated.)

Most of us have attended company meetings, where management tells us what the company is doing and how we should participate in what the company is doing. Typically, these meetings produce a mixed response from employees, partial willingness to contribute to the company's goals, mixed with cynicism, boredom, and sometimes even resentment.

Many of us have also had family meetings. When we were children, our parents may have called us together to explain why we would be moving, where we would be going on vacation, or how to get out of the house in case there was a fire. Sometimes our family meetings produce excitement, but they may also produce reluctance to cooperate, if the purpose is discipline, living within a tight budget, etc.

This chapter might be described as God's family meeting. But God does not have a dysfunctional, partially united and cooperating family, as many of us do. It may appear to us that God's family is just as dysfunctional as the human families and organizations we have been part of, but God does not see his family that way, as we shall see.

1 John 3:1 "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

3:2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears,we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

3:3 Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure."

These opening three verses deserve a lot of attention, because they make several points. First of all, God could easily bring us into some sort of relationship with him without calling us his children. Scripture often refers to God's people as servants or disciples, as in the following passage:

Matthew 10:24 (NASB): "A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master.

10:25 "It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher, and the slave like his master. If they have called the head of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign the members of his household!"

Simply being called God's servant or Christ's disciple is a greater honor than we deserve. Beyond that, many of us are probably touched by having Jesus refer to us as friends, as he does in John's gospel.

John 15:13 "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

15:14 You are my friends if you do what I command.

15:15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you."

Yet even friends, as important as they are, are not usually invited to family meetings, and they are not identified as completely with us by the outside world as our family members are, nor do they bear a physical or genetic resemblance to us.

John says at the end of verse 1 that the world does not know us because it did not know him. From the time of his birth until his crucifixion, Jesus was in constant conflict with the world. Sometimes Jesus seems to have instigated that conflict by telling people the truth or warning them about coming judgment. At other times, such as when Herod destroyed all of the male children under two years old in Bethlehem, or when he was arrested in the garden of Gethsemane, the conflict had nothing to do with his intensions. That conflict is now ours, and if we have no conflict with the world, we have a conflict with God himself.

Verse 2 says that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Being like him does not mean we will eventually become God, as some religions teach. Divinity is the one thing which is absolutely unattainable for us. We can never become God's Son, but sonship is available to us, and the rest of this chapter describes what God's sons and daughters do, what the devil's children do, and how Christ has initiated the relationship we have with him.

As I said earlier, God doesn't have a dysfuctional family, because obedience is the evidence of family membership.

1 John 3:4 "Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness.

3:5 But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin.

3:6No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him."

When I think of sin as lawlessness, I realize that I don't want to be outside the law. Lawbreakers are subject to arrest, detension, punishment, and in some cases, lawlessness is fatal, as it was for Bonnie and Clyde. The concept of lawlessness conjures up images of flashing lights, a siren, and being asked to pull over. Sin is lawlessness and lawlessness has consequences, and the punishment for our sins either falls on us or it is covered in the blood of Christ, who came to take away our sins.

When verse 6 says that no one who lives in him keeps on sinning, and no one who continues sinning has either seen him or known him, it seems that what John is saying can't possibly be true. We know by experience that we ourselves and other Christians sin from time to time after they accept Christ. John can't mean that it's impossible for a Christian to sin, because we know Christians do sin. If John meant it is impossible for a Christian to sin, what could he have possibly meant earlier in this letter when he said:

1 John 1:8 "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

1:10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.

2:1 My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.

2:2 He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world."

We would have no need for Christ as an intercessor or an advocate before the throne of God on our behalf if we were beyond the reach of temptation.

But John must mean something in verse 6 when he says those who continue in sin have neither seen or known Christ, and this is what I think he means. In 1973, I read the Bible for the first time, from Genesis to Revelation, and I became a Christian as I read through the New Testament for the first time. Two days after I gave my life to Christ, my brother was talking to a young woman in our home. The woman said she was thinking about becoming a prostitute; the money was easy, sex was fun, etc. I didn't say anything, because she wasn't talking to me, but I remember how I felt. I was completely absorbed by the scriptures I had been reading, including the New Testament's prohibition of prostitution shown below.

1 Corinthians 6:13 "Food for the stomach and the stomach for food"—but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

6:14 By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also.

6:15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never!

6:16 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two will become one flesh."

6:17 But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit."

I felt absolutely no desire to be alone with her or to become her first customer, because I was having deep and intense fellowship with the Lord, and my newfound relationship with Christ was as much more valuable to me than a quick heartless sexual act as a Rolls Royce is more valuable than a pet rock. I specifically remember being astonished because this didn't even seem like a temptation at all. It seemed extremely unattractive. That doesn't mean that I was permanently above every sort of temptation, or that I could never be tempted to have sex inappropriately under any circumstances. What it means is that fellowship with Christ completely destroyed the desire I would otherwise have had for sexual sin at that moment. If the same thing happened today and I felt tempted by it, I would know that I'm out of fellowship with God, and I probably would have sin to confess. Pornography and sexual temptations have very deep roots in American culture today. They are as irresistible to many as gravity, and many people probably don't think there is anything better in life than what they call their sexual freedom. The Bible's standard is sex inside of marriage and nowhere else. Anyone who is struggling with that needs to submerge themselves in the scriptures and in the knowledge of God, because Christ alone gives us freedom from our passions.

What John is saying in this verse is that the presence of Christ in our lives inevitably produces the absence of sin. Holiness just can't live with vulgarity, because their desires are completely opposite. As we know Christ more and more, we will sin less and less. If we sin more and more, we don't know him. When we sin, we ought to confess our sins to him, so we can be forgiven, our fellowship with him can be restored, and he can continue to create his likeness in us.

1 John 3:7 "Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.

3:8 He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work.

3:9 No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God.

3:10 This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother."

John continues to develop the three themes of verses 4-6 in these verses:

1. The devil has sinned from the beginning, and the spirit of antichrist is leading the devil's children into more and more sin.

2. Jesus is righteous, and he came to destroy the works of the devil.

3. Those who know God do what's right, as Jesus did.

In keeping with John's earlier statement in 1 John 1:7 that God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all, the works Jesus came to destroy include all of the effects of sin, death, disease, etc. There was no death or disease before Adam and Eve sinned, and death and disease will persist until sin is done away with. Since we don't see that yet, we must assume that until Christ returns, God's primary business is to prepare a spotless and unblemished bride for Christ, a church which is both justified by faith and sanctified by deliberate separation from the sins which are in the world, by acts of righteousness and by the experience of being doers of good during an evil age, in a world that did not recognize or acknowledge either Jesus or those who follow him.

There is some disagreement about what the term "God's seed" in verse 9 means, with some arguing that it is the word of God, citing the parables of Jesus, particularly the parable of the sower and the seed in Matthew 13:3-9, and some arguing that the seed of God is the Holy Spirit, God's own presence, which is mentioned at the end of this chapter. Either view is acceptable, since the word and the Spirit are never in conflict with each other.

1 John 3:11 "This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.

3:12 Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother's were righteous.

3:13 Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you.

3:14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death.

3:15 Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.

3:16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

3:17 If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?

3:18 Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth."

John returns here to an earlier theme found in 1 John 2:9-11, which says that Christians who love their brothers are walking in the light, and anyone who hates his brother is still walking in darkness. But this time, he follows love and hate to their logical conclusions.

Anyone who hates his brother is capable of murder and already has the motive for murder in his heart. Jesus taught consistently that someone who desires sin, but doesn't commit it, is just as guilty as the one who actually commits it. Murder is specifically cited as the work of the devil, the very product of his nature.

John 8:44 "You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies."

By contrast, verses 16-18 here remind us that Jesus laid down his life for his friends, asks us to be willing to do the same, and states that we are not walking in love if we are not willing to share our material resources with other believers. The desire for sin, even when it is not committed, makes one guilty. But by contrast, love must be acted upon, or it is not real.

1 John 3:19 "This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence

3:20 whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

3:21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God

3:22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him.

3:23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.

3:24 Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us."

There are some key points in these final verses. First, it is the active love we are willing to share with our brothers and sisters in the Lord, which is not only for their benefit, but for ours, since our love for believers should give us confidence in God's presence. Christianity is not a religion of works and self-improvement. Rather, good deeds follow the purified motives which our faith in Christ produces. God knows we will fall short sometimes, but he is the justifier of the faithful. The faithful obey his commandments, and God wants us to pray to him with confidence, and ultimately to stand in judgment with confidence, because we have obeyed God and loved one another.

God's love works hand in hand with faith in Christ. We know very little about Abel's love for others, but we know that by faith he offered a more acceptable sacrifice than his brother Cain. By contrast, Cain did not have Abel's faith, nor did he love his brother. Not only did Cain murder his brother, but afterwords he continued to mock his brother's profession and his faith by asking, "Am I my brother's keeper (his shepherd)?" Verse 15 says that no murderer has eternal life, but Abel's Shepperd remembers him. Abel is the first patriarch mentioned in Hebrews 11, the New Testament's faith chapter.

Hebrews 11:4 "By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead."

Finally, verse 24 says that those who obey God live in him, and God's Holy Spirit, his abiding presence, the spirit of power and love and self-control, lives in those who obey him.

2 Timothy 1:7 "For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline."

Romans 8:12 "Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it.

8:13 For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live,

8:14 because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

8:15 For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father."

8:16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.

8:17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory."

We are part of God's family if we believe Jesus is the Christ, obey his commandments and love each other. Those outside of God's family do not share his purpose for them, nor do they have the blessed destiny of the body of Christ. This functional family meeting is adjourned.