St. Stephens Blog

We continue to explore the basis of John’s understanding of God. The conclusion of John’s first epistle, what follows in his epistle, is basically a sermon by John.
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. (1 John 4:7; NRSV)

One commentator put it, “here is concentrated the theology John”, God is love. How do you preach a sermon on a sermon? You let it stand in its integrity and identify the points it is highlighting.

In this day and age we could be mistaken of thinking that love is God and, where love is being practiced, there God must be. We might wonder, however, about the nature of the definition of love, particularly where the act of sexual intercourse is so commonly described as “making love”. Love does not equal God, but love, according to John, is the very nature and action of the Godhead. As someone once put it, God did not have to create everything there is, especially humans, but did so because it is in the nature of the Godhead to want to love outside of itself. God created us, because it is in God’s nature to love, “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (1 John 4:8; NRSV)

The greatest evidence of God’s love towards us is declared in the work of Jesus on the cross.
God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. (1 John 4:9; NRSV)

The telling aspect of God’s love for us is not just in the work of the cross, not even our broken relationship that needed to be restore, reconciled. The power of God’s love is that despite the brokenness, God desires and works to fix it.
In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. (1 John 4:9-10; NRSV)

Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and it was for this reason he sent his Son into the world. You can almost hear the words of Paul to the Romans, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

I can’t help wondering whether the greatest problem we have in our evangelism, our work of helping others to have a relationship with God, is because we are continually inviting them to be a part of church, being involved in the things which are concerned with our work of reaching out to God. On the contrary, our greatest task is to help people become aware of the love of God for them.
Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Saviour of the world. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. (1 John 4:11-16; NRSV)

We often speak about God as a God of love, it just rolls off our tongues, but I can’t help wondering whether the problem we have in helping others to know that God is love is because we have not yet grasped this reality deeply for ourselves. Consequently, we are not very good at witnessing that love, putting that love into practice with those around us, because we do not know it for ourselves.
One of the problems, I suspect that we have, is that we have a misplaced understanding of what love means. We can get so caught up in the idea of love that is about being nice. Such kind of love does not expect another to take responsibility for their life, their own choices and their own mistakes.

The word for love here is ????? (agape), the love that a father has for his children. It is the work of a father to enable his children to grow up into adults, not by age, but to be able to take responsibility for their own life: choices and mistakes, and in turn be able to raise their children to do the same. A father does not keep his children as children.

I don’t see anything in the love of God, described by John, that pretends there is not a problem, after all, that is why he sends his Son (v 10), he acts to fix the problem. This does not mean that the cause of the problem is overlooked for we will still need to give an account “on the day of judgement” (v 17), but because of the action of God in Jesus, we can have boldness in the face God’s judgement. We can stand assured that we are right with God.

I know I have said it to you before, that every relationship begins in fear. What I mean by that is, when we first meet someone, we are guarded in what we say and do, because we are afraid that, if we reveal certain aspects of ourselves, this new person will not like us, will reject us.

In God, however, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.” (v 18) So often, it seems, that Christians are in a constant fear of God. They will speak of God’s love, but the legalism of the religious life, the purely literal, or fundamental, reading and interpretation of the Bible, the condemnation of others for approaching things differently, all speak of a fear of getting it wrong. They are not in the love of God, they are in a perceived fear of being punished by God.

This must have been stirring in the camp of Christians to whom John was writing. The false teachers expressing the importance of having right knowledge, the fear of those Christians that they would miss out on the promises of eternal life, the kingdom of heaven, because they did not have the secret knowledge.

So John condemns such misguided understanding of a love that has no action and of a fear of God.
We love because he first loved us. Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also. (1 John 4:19-21; NRSV)

“Hate” is a very powerful word here and it is a word that receives bad press. We know that God himself hates so does Jesus. Hate comes out of passion. But I am sure that, while God hates our sin and Jesus hates the practices of the Nicolaitans, (Revelations 2:6) he does not hate a person. If “God sent his Son to be our atoning sacrifice”, even though he hates our sin, he does not reject us. Those false prophets who would condemn those who disagree with them, do not know God’s love and are, therefore, liars if they do. Their actions are a contradiction to what is revealed about God’s love in Jesus Christ death on the cross.

So the love of God that John is presenting to us here is an act of the will, a choice, to enable another, or ourself, to grow physically (body), psychologically (mind) and spiritually. It is an act of the will because we are inspired, compelled, to love when we realise the full extent to which we are loved by God.

So here is the basis of our faith, “We love because he first loved us.” (V 19) Love is the essential nature of God, according to John, and if we do not know that we are deeply loved by God, we will not be able to love God in return, as he deserves, and we will not be able to love those around us because we do not love ourselves.

We have been exploring the Epistles of John.
Jesus was a real fleshed human being
The first thing that we have noted is that John is responding to the presence of false teachers who are proclaiming that Jesus was not truly human, but retained his “heavenly” spiritual nature and only appeared human. Our knowledge of God determines our behaviour
The second thing that we explored is that we are not saved by simply having knowledge of God nor are we made right with God by our good works. John is making it clear that good works are determined by how we understand the identity and nature of God and it is our knowledge of God, having an intimate relationship with God that determines the righteousness of our behaviour and actions.
There is right and wrong knowledge of God and, therefore, right and wrong behaviour

As a counter argument to the false teachers, John is affirming that the human person is essentially good and is not evil. Having said this, he is arguing that we cannot be ruled and controlled by the desires of the flesh.
“Little children, let no one deceive you. Everyone who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. Everyone who commits sin is a child of the devil; for the devil has been sinning from the beginning.” (1 John 3:7-8a; NRSV)

The freedom we have in Christ Jesus does not mean anything goes! The question is how we understand righteous and unrighteous behaviour, or right and wrong action, and how to work out the difference.

I have to confess being a little puzzled as to how to reconcile,
“Those who have been born of God do not sin, because God’s seed abides in them; they cannot sin, because they have been born of God.” (1 John 3:9; NRSV)

The reality is the human condition is corrupted by the sinful nature, and we do go on sinning. I would like to suggest that, in the same way that I can’t imagine life without Sandy, my wife, friends, people in this church and from previous churches, and communities in which I have lived, who have had an influence over my becoming who I am, I can’t imagine life without God in it. Those who have truly entered into a relationship with God cannot later say that God does not exist, cannot afterwards choose not to have a relationship with God. So, perhaps John is speaking about sin as the particular, and only unforgivable, sin of not having a relationship with God and his Son, Jesus Christ. Those who have been born of God cannot commit the sin of denying him.

So, the determining factor of righteousness, according to John, is our knowledge of God, “The Son of God was revealed for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.” (1 John 3:8b; NRSV) If you want to know what God is like, look to Jesus, he is God in the flesh, and knowing Jesus is knowing God, and knowing God is what enables us to discern what is right behaviour and this destroys the works of the Devil, our bad behaviour.

There is no lack of responsibility here. “The Devil made me do it,” does not stand up in the court of heaven. However, remember John’s black and white language, we can know God and choose to act according to that relationship, but to not know God is to choose to know the Devil and we are, then, choosing to act according to that relationship.

There are only two options, according to John, those who know God and those who do not, and this equates to knowing the Devil. “The children of God and the children of the Devil are revealed in this way: all who do not do what is right are not from God, nor are those who do not love their brothers and sisters.” (1 John 3:10; NRSV)

There are different pictures, or roles, given of the Devil through the bible. Job sees him as a kind of legal prosecutor. I think it is clear that John understands the Devil to be one who is working in opposition to God, “sinning from the beginning.” (v According to biblical legend, the Devil was one of the first creative acts of God. His role was like that of heavenly Prime Minister. What led to his being cast to earth was his desire to be God. He wanted to be the one with who people had their most important relationship. In the story of the Garden of Eden, we read of how the Devil continued that desire. Even though Adam and Eve had a relationship with God, who walked with them in the Garden, the Devil invited them to listen to him rather than God. They chose to take more notice of the Devil than God. He had won their relationship and Adam’s hiding from God revealed how his relationship with God had become broken.

Sin, for John, seems to be those things, in thought, word and, particularly, action, which express our lack of relationship with God, our lack of righteousness. He goes on, then, to express the fruit of that lack of relationship with God in the brothers Cain and Abel. What is interesting is that, even though John recognises murderers “do not have eternal life abiding in them” (v 15), it is not the murder that he wants to identify as the evil and unacceptable behaviour. Cain murdered his brother Abel, “Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous.” (v 12) There was something in him before the murder that was considered his base sin.

We could be mistaken in thinking that it was very unfair of God to accept Abel’s offering of lamb and not Cain’s offering of grain. But there is more to it than this.
For Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. The LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.” (Gen 4:5-7; NRSV, italics are mine)

Remember that John seems to understand sin as being those things which express a broken relationship with God. What makes Cain’s offering unacceptable, is not that it was a grain offering, but that he made an offering when “sin’s desire was for him”, when he was predisposed to not accept relationship with God. God cannot accept an offertory from Cain because Cain has no relationship with him. It is God who ought to be angry, not Cain. It is God’s countenance that ought to have fallen, not Cain’s. It is because Cain did not know God that his action was unacceptable and led him in misplaced anger to take his brother out and murder him.

Not all behaviour is acceptable to God. Things which may be in themselves good, such as coming to worship or financial contribution to the life of the church, are not acceptable to God, even if they are done in God’s name, if they are done without a relationship with God. Although we are not inherently evil, we mortals do not have the power or freedom to determine what is and is not acceptable to God.

Growing in our knowledge and love of God, our relationship with God, is a process and a journey to which we must commit ourselves, as Jesus committed himself to us.
We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. (1 John 3:16; NRSV)

It is a journey that needs to be undertaken with others for their, and our, mutual benefit and growth.

He goes on to say,
And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God. (1 John 3:19-21; NRSV)

If we are created in the image and likeness of God, there should be, within us, this working out of a relationship with God is not a religious one, separate from our human one, but a normal and part of who we are. It is truly human to desire and have a sense of peace with God and be able to stand before God in boldness.

Even though Jesus is no longer present on earth, seated at the right hand of the Father, “by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us,” (1 John 3:24b; NRSV) we are given the Holy Spirit to continue that work of revealing God to us and by the Holy Spirit “every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,” (1 John 4:2; NRSV) helps us to have security in the knowledge of God in which we are growing.

Finally, and what sounds like it carries a tinge of arrogance, John says,
Whoever knows God listens to us, and whoever is not from God does not listen to us. From this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. (1 John 4:6; NRSV)

I find it curious that, once upon a time, if I heard or saw a Christian programme on the radio or television, I would turn off or onto another channel. Today, I am inclined to listen. I may not agree, but those who know God will be willing to discuss and work it out together.

For those who truly know God, they understand that, although everything is permissible because we have freedom in Christ, not everything is beneficial, it is not anything goes. What is righteous, and is right behaviour, is that which is consistent with the nature of God. And God has not left us alone to work this out, he has given us his Holy Spirit to help us grow in our knowledge and love of God, and of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord and express that knowledge in action.