Podcast: 1 John: Law, Grace, and Law

This is a transcript of one of our recent podcasts. To subscribe to the podcast using iTunes, please click here. To listen to the podcast without iTunes, please follow this link.

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
-1 John 5:1-5

This is the drum that John’s been beating for a while, and here we are at the summary of the doctrine. He’s come at it in a couple of different ways, but this is the ultimate point. True Christians act like Christians.

And John’s been very careful to specify that it is not the fact that we love each other that saves us. Not at all. And he’s been careful to state that we’re not going to be perfect, and that the Blood of Jesus still covers our sin, even when we sin after becoming Christian. And yet, even though he is careful to say that, there is still a lot of misunderstanding about what saves us and how we will respond. So let’s start from the beginning and work our way back to this point.

There is the Law. The Law was given by God to Moses. You remember Charlton Heston bringing them down in The 10 Commandments. These are the things God expects from us. These are His perfect standard of righteousness. Unfortunately, we don’t do those things. God tells us not to lie, and we do. God tells us not to covet our neighbor’s stuff, and we do. God tells us not use His name as a curse word, and we do. We become so wrapped up in ourselves that we seek our own pleasures and satisfaction rather than seeking God. The greatest commandment is to love God. That shouldn’t be hard. He created us. He gave us breath and food and everything in creation. He has given us so much. And yet we do not love Him. We say we do, but except for a little time here or there, we aren’t even thinking about Him. We’re thinking about US. We are only thinking about getting ahead, being happy, getting rich, gaining power, being recognized.

And so we’ve failed at keeping the Law. We are not righteous. We are rebellious, selfish, God-belittling, and self-exalting. We are sinners. We do not deserve eternal life, but rather we deserve the rightful punishment for sin, which is death.

But God loves us, even when we do not love Him, and He sent His Son to take our place in death. He died upon the Cross, even though He didn’t deserve it, to take our place.

We are not saved by anything we do, but what He has already done. When we repent of our sin, our rebellion, turn away from it, and trust in Jesus, then we are saved. His righteousness has earned eternal life for us, just like our unrighteousness earned death for Him.

That’s it. That’s Grace. There isn’t more to it. We are saved by Grace alone, not by our own actions. When we have faith, we are saved.

What John is talking about is what comes next. He is talking about what happens when we repent and believe. He is speaking to the Christian who has been saved by Grace, and talking about what that Grace means.

And we jump back to the Law again, but in a different way. See, we could not keep the Law before. We failed to do it. Then by Grace we are saved by Jesus, who did keep the Law. So why can we keep it now? Because we are in God and God in us.

It’s that simple. God the Son fulfilled the Law, and now God the Spirit is in us. And that Spirit guides us.

We’re back at the Law, but not as a source of salvation. Jesus already took care of that. We are back because the righteous obey the commands of God, and we are righteous in Christ.

So John speaks of these things in connection with each other. “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.” We have been reborn in Him, gaining His righteousness. So John repeats the phrase a little differently: “and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him.”

Same thing. Do you believe in God? Do you have that saving faith? Then you love Him. And what is the greatest commandment? To love God. Huh.

The writer of Hebrews gives us a clue as to why we could not obey the Law without God, and why we can with Him: “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (11:6). See, we were made to worship God, and if we don’t even have faith, how can we be doing what He has made us to do. It doesn’t matter how many orphans you feed or dolphins you save. The first and greatest commandment is to love God. If you fail that, then you fail. You must have faith.

And so with faith comes a love for God, and that is pleasing to God.

“By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.” Again, John is making connections. If you love God, then you will follow God. That seems obvious right? You only disregard people when you love yourself or someone else more. You stick with those you love most. That is why God tells men to cleave to their wives. That is a picture of Christ and His church. It’s a metaphor for the greater relationship between God and His children. The way you cleave to your spouse is a picture of the closeness and deep love between Jesus and the Body of Christ. This is a love that causes you to follow God.

Have you ever wondered why the answer for the question, “How can I be saved?” seems slightly different in various parts of the Bible? Sometimes it says “Believe,” and sometimes “Repent and believe,” and sometimes “Repent and be baptized.” It’s because faith is going to bring about the rest of it. Faith will bring about repentance. Faith brings about obedience, including baptism. As James tells us, “So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:17). Why is it dead? Because faith brings love, and love obedience. They exist together.

And you will then naturally love other Christians, because God loves other Christians.

These commands are not burdensome. Before Grace they were burdensome, because we did not have God in us. But now we are righteous in Christ, and so they are easier. We have been turned away from sin and toward God. This was not our doing, but it was part of that Grace.

John speaks of our victory over the world. What is it? Faith. Faith. That is the ingredient that changes everything. That is the part of Grace that turns us from the Law that cannot justify us and into a place where we’re already justified, and we obey out of sheer love for God.

Jesus overcame the world in His death, and by Grace we are baptized into that death. In other words, we died upon that Cross with Jesus, and we were reborn by His power to new life. We have overcome the world with faith, because our faith is in the one who overcame the world on our behalf.

I am not suggesting that if we sin that is proof that we are not saved. John has already told us that if we say we are sinless, then we are lying. No, we’re talking about a turn here. We are not perfect, but we’ve been turned by the Spirit. This is the evidence that we are saved, not that we are sinless, because we’re not, but that we have been turned from sin and toward God.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then look at your heart. Are you being guided by the Spirit toward good works, not as a source of righteousness, but as a result of love? Do you stand by Jesus’ righteousness, or an effort to gain your own? John is telling us these things so that we can be confident in your salvation. If these words do not bring about a confidence, then look to your heart. Have you a true faith in Him? One that brings about love and obedience? If not, don’t try harder. That will not please Him. Look to the Cross for Grace. It is only Grace that can bring about this result in us.

Podcast: 1 John: Why We Love

This is a transcript of one of our recent podcasts. To subscribe to the podcast using iTunes, please click here. To listen to the podcast without iTunes, please follow this link.

For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
-1 John 3:11

In the last episode, we finished up chapter 4 of John’s first epistle, but before we moved on, I wanted to take a look at the section as a whole. John’s been telling us pretty plainly for about two chapters that we are supposed to love our fellow Christians. But he hasn’t been talking about it like it’s something we should be struggling with, but ultimately as something that Christians do by nature. The reason for that is, ultimately, that faith and love are tied up together, and you cannot have faith without loving God and you cannot love God without loving those whom God loves. It’s all one. That will be the message of the first verses of chapter 5, but before we get there, let’s take another look at the different causes John gives for our love.

I picked that word – “causes” – intentionally. I’ve read a lot of commentaries that talk about the “reasons” John gives us for why we love. I don’t have a problem with that phrase. Not at all. I’m only changing it because “reasons” seems like you are trying to convince someone. Here are some reasons for doing something. We’re going to find that love is something different. It is, of course, something we can choose to do, but John presents it more as the natural effect of what is happening in us. I think we’ll see that clearly as we go.

We’ve read the command, but that phrase is repeated in 3:14: “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.”

Take a close look at what he is saying here. He doesn’t say, “love the brothers so you will pass into life.” He tells us that we can know we have passed into life because we love the brothers. We love the brothers, in other words, because love is an effect of passing from death to life in Christ. He’s saying it in the same sense that I would say, “We know that we have been swimming because we’re all wet.” The wetness did not cause the swimming, but the other way around.

In 3:24 he tells us why this is: “Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.”

If we are careful about John’s wording, we will see it here again. Love is an evidence that we are in God. God is love, and so those who are in God naturally love. Again, it is an effect. We do not love so that we can be in God, but the other way around.

4:9 defines love a little more clearly: “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.” And John will say that we are the beneficiaries of this love, and so we ought to love others. We should love, in other words, because we were loved. And that is exactly what it says in 4:19: “We love because he first loved us.”

It is the love of God, overflowing in us, that produces our love for others. This is very natural. It is difficult for a man, giddy with love for a girl, to be mean to others. That love overflows into everything! The perfect love of God is so much more effectual than even that. Poured out for us, it splashes onto everything around us.

“So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.” In 4:16-17, love becomes our assurance of eternal life. If we have been changed, if we see that His love is overflowing in our lives, so that we cannot help but to love, we can be assured of our standing with the Father. We are secured for eternity.

And this love, spilling over in us, becomes a witness to the world about the truth of Christ. 4:12 says, “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.”

It is love that drives us to talk to others about Jesus. It is love that persuades us to serve others so that they will see the love of God in us. It is love that changes us, and it will be a change that cannot be denied by anyone except those who refuse to see.

Am I preaching a salvation of works? Surely not. Surely you have seen from the very beginning that the love within us causes nothing, but is an effect. Love is the result, but not the cause. At least OUR love is not the cause. For truly it is love that has brought all of this about, but it is the love of God that causes, and love in us is the effect.

It is the love of God for a fallen people that caused Him to send His Son to the earth to die for us. It is that incredible love for those who did not deserve it that put Jesus upon that Cross. Make no mistake – love is a command, and it is a command that we have failed to accomplish in every day. That is the standard God has set for righteousness, and we prove with every selfish and hateful thought that we are not righteous at all. In justice, God could have destroyed us all. He could have rained down fire against us, and He would have been right to do it. Except for love. Except that God literally loved us to death, and in that death He took our punishment and paid the price for our sins. He died for us.

If I preach a salvation of works, it is the work He has already done. It is a finished work, lacking nothing. The love we show is merely an effect of the love He has already given. When we are convicted of our sin, that is the work of His love in us. When we fall upon our knees and beg His mercy, that is the work of His love in us. When we are forgiven, not because of anything we have done, but because of the work of Jesus alone, that is the work of His love in us. We find grace because of love.

Is it so difficult to understand how, once we are in the God of love, that we would begin to love as well? Is it so hard to understand that once we have been grafted into that sweet vine that we would produce the same sort of fruit? Our love is not how we earn salvation, it is the evidence that we are saved!

Please hear me on that point, because well-meaning Christians so often lie to us and tell us that just because we prayed the Sinner’s Prayer as a kid that we never have to worry about our salvation. That’s not what John is saying. He is saying, “Do you believe in Jesus? Has that belief manifested itself in how you treat others? If not, then you do not believe.”

Hear him, friends, and look at your hearts. Do you believe? Then surely you have shown the evidence of that repentance in how you see others. Look at your heart for the evidence of life in you! Then praise God for that life, and let it show in everything you do, for no one has seen God, but they will see how we love.