Podcast: 1 John: Heard, Assured, and Alive

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.

Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.
-1 John 5:12-15

There’s a lot of talk now about how all roads lead to God. It seems like a growing part of the population believes that everyone’s worshipping the same god, just with different names. So it really doesn’t matter, these people say, what religion you are part of. God has revealed himself differently to different people, but it’s really the same. Just try to be a good person.

It’s true that the moral element in most religions is very similar. And that’s the way it should be, because the Law of God is written on our hearts, as Paul tells us in Romans 2:15. So it totally makes sense that the moral law is consistent all over the world. All cultures agree on these things – that lying, stealing, murder, adultery, etc, are wrong.

So does it really matter it we follow Jesus or Mohammed or Buddha? To hear John speak, it completely matters, because “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.”

Eternal life is found in Jesus alone, and there is a very good reason for this. It’s because, while the moral law is shared commonly with all people, no one keeps it. We are all liars, thieves, and blasphemers. We withhold the truth, or even tell outright lies. We take things that are not ours, even if it is just to download music or spend time at work doing personal stuff and still accepting pay for that time. We use God’s name as a curse word, or we use it in a flippant way, which is blasphemy.

More than that, God is going to judge us not just by our actions, but also our hearts. So we may not physically murder someone, but when we have that desire in our hearts, then we are guilty. We may not have sex outside of marriage or cheat on our spouses, but when we look at porn online or have lustful thoughts about people around us, we are guilty.

So the religions may share this moral law, but we don’t keep it, so we cannot be justified by that law. We cannot hope to earn eternal life by our own actions. If God is just, and He is, then we should expect nothing but condemnation for our thoughts, words, and deeds.

That is why there is no salvation except through Jesus, because we cannot earn it ourselves. We need someone to take the punishment we deserve upon Himself. In this action, He would satisfy justice. It would be like if I owed a fine to the court that I cannot pay. If someone paid it for me, I would be free.

But I cannot pay your fine, because I cannot even pay my own. Since no one is sinless, I cannot expect a savior from another person.

Except that Jesus was sinless. He is God in human flesh, come to earth to live the life that I failed to live. He died so that God’s children may live. If you repent, turn away from your sin and toward God, and have faith in Jesus, then you too will live.

You cannot be forgiven by believing Mohammed or Buddha. They cannot pay your fine. So we can agree on the moral law with them, but that doesn’t mean anything, because you can’t keep that law. By the law, we cannot be saved.

That is why John says with confidence that there is no life outside of Jesus. This passage transitions into our next major section of the book, in which he tells us why he is writing the letter – to assure those who believe that we have eternal life. He’s been talking a lot about how Christians are in God, and God in us, and that the presence of God will begin to reveal itself in our lives in love. We’ve gone through these passages before, but John here is reminding us that he is not trying to make us feel guilty, but in fact he is trying to make us feel reassured. He is answering the common question amongst Christians – how can I be sure that I am saved?

And John points us to the Cross. In Jesus we have life. Have you believed? Look back over your life to the hour you first believed. Have you been changing? For some, I know, the change is very quick. For me, it was gradual, but I can see it. I can see the change in me that brought about greater love for others. I can see the fruit of the Spirit – which is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23) – manifest itself in my life.

These are not things that save me. They are a result of being saved. I love more because I am in God, and God is love. Don’t slip here – we cannot save ourselves by trying to love more. We have already failed to save ourselves. We love because God first loved us.

So we are assured because we see the presence of the Spirit in our lives. This should give us all the more incentive to pray. Because we are in God, we know that God will hear us. Isn’t that a great reason to pray?

People tell me, “Oh, I’m good with God. I pray all the time.” I do not doubt that these people pray, but may I suggest that the important part is not the prayer itself, but who is listening? There is an assumption in our culture that God hears all prayers, even by those who are not Christian. We have no such assurance from the Word. God listens to His children. Those who are in Him can be assured that He is listening, but not someone who is praying to some nameless god or the false god of another religion. Only the true God hears prayers, and we must pray to Him in faith. James tells us that the person who does not come to God in faith “must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord” (1:7).

And for what should we pray? We should pray according to God’s will. God is not going to go against His will just because you want a new car. This is not so strange as we may think. It is sometimes very clear whether we are praying for our own will or for God’s will. God has told us that He will provide for us what we need, so clearly a prayer for that provision is a good prayer. A prayer to be freed from a marriage because you have your eye on another woman is a sinful prayer.

When we have commands, we know the will of God. We should pray in humility and selflessness. But this verse is not saying that we cannot pray for a future event simply because we do not know God’s will in that event. We do not know how His hand will move, but this verse is specifically addressing God’s revealed will.

Let us pray for tomorrow. Let us also be sure that we can talk to our Father about our pain, our confusion, and our desires. We may not receive an answer right away, as Job discovered. And yet if we do not know how things will go, let us hope more for God’s will than our own for the future. Ultimately, God is better at being sovereign Lord of the universe than we are. He is working all things together for our good, if we are in Him (Romans 8:28), so even when things take a bad turn today, His will ultimately will prove better than our own best-laid plans. He is leading us to a future that will be eternally good. In the end, we will be more content and more hopeful in leaving those plans to Him.

Podcast: 1 John: Water, Blood, and Spirit

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.

This is he who came by water and blood – Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God that he has borne concerning his Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his Son. And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
-1 John 5:6-11

I wasn’t really looking forward to it because this passage has just about as many interpretations as there are commentators. Albert Barnes, for one, lists six interpretations, and that’s in one commentary alone. The ultimate meaning of the passage as a whole is very clear, and very wonderful, but trying to figure out the particulars is pretty hard. Very honestly, I’m not sure what John is getting at here. I have an opinion, but I don’t know that John had this particular thing in mind when he wrote it. So I’m going to give this one a stab and see what we come up with, but with the hope and understanding that it is getting us to verse 11 here, which is the real wonder of this passage. Hopefully we won’t let this business of water and blood distract us from where John is going. It is that clear conclusion that should draw us, even if we don’t understand the rest.

We’ll get there. Stick with me. “This is he who came by water and blood – Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree.”

Deuteronomy 19:15 tells us that “Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established.” Both Jesus and Paul make reference to this “two or three witnesses” idea, and John is here giving us the witnesses to the truth of Christ.

The real sticking point here is the “water” is the passage.
Most people say the blood is His death, but the water is more difficult. So I’m going to throw out some possible interpretations. The water, some say, is for His baptism. He was baptized by John the Baptizer, and the Spirit bore witness to that. Some say it is OUR baptism, as a symbol of our salvation, bought by His blood. Others will say it refers to when blood and water mixed came out of him when he was speared on the Cross.

The water represents, I believe, His baptism, at which time the Father identified Jesus and the spirit descended on Him. That Spirit becomes another witness, for the Spirit helps guide Jesus through life without sin. His words, His actions, and even His thoughts were perfect, and people could see that. If you read the Gospel accounts and watch for the account of the crowd, they can tell that there is something different in Jesus. They tell us that no one ever spoke as He did.

The blood is the final witness, for upon the Cross He died a death that He did not deserve. It is this Blood that saves us, for He was dying for God’s children. The passage tells us that Jesus did not come by water alone. John the Baptizer baptized by water, and it was a baptism by repentance. And repentance is great, except that it doesn’t satisfy justice. There is still a price to be paid, and the writer of Hebrews reminds us that without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. So Jesus came by water and blood both.

The Cross is such an amazing testimony for who Jesus is, for it is the culmination of redemptive history. God loves us so much, and He wants us to be saved, but we, like wayward children, have gone about our own pleasures and wickedness. We have sinned against a holy and just God. We have embraced inequity rather than righteousness. We have sinned, and that sin is not some minor thing. Sin is crime against God. Every greedy, lustful, or prideful thought is a sin against Him. Those sins deserve punishment.

And the Cross was that punishment for those who repent and have faith in Him. The Cross provides that Blood that we need to be forgiven. Jesus died the death we deserve so that we could have the life that He earned. If you wonder who Jesus is, then look to the Cross. There died not just another guy. There died not some other sinner who deserved it. There died the Son of God.

His baptism, His life, and His death, all testify together that Jesus is God.

But there is more, because these three combined make up the first of a new set of three witnesses. We know who Jesus is because of the historical truths of His life, death, and resurrection. But there is more, because God the Father also testifies about Jesus. How does this happen? By His words to us.

The Bible is about Jesus. It was started thousands of years before the birth of Christ, and yet it is about Him. The whole Old Testament points forward to Him. There are hundreds of prophecies about the Messiah, and Jesus is that Messiah. The Father testified of Him when He inspired the Old Testament. Then He testified again when He brought Jesus back to life on the third day, proving that He was God. Do you want testimony about Jesus? Look for the body. It’s not there. That is strong testimony, my friends. The Jews of the first century, when arguing against Christianity, never just took officials to the tomb and pointed inside, saying, “See? He’s still there.” That would have destroyed Christianity at the very start if they had done it, but they didn’t. They didn’t do it because the tomb was empty.

The Father testified further through the writers of the New Testament, giving them the Word of God to transmit to us in the Bible. Creation itself is a testimony, because through Jesus was everything made. The sunset tonight is a testimony to God. Creation and the Word stand as the witness of God that Jesus is the Messiah.

Finally, there is an internal testimony. This is not some warm feeling in your belly, but a change when we are saved. What has John been telling us the whole time? He’s been telling us that once we become Christians, the Spirit begins to change us so that we start actually living as we should. It is a work of God in us, because once we are saved, we are in Him. So what is this testimony? It is the change within us. Don’t take this verse out of context and say, “I have a quiver in my liver, so I must be saved!” You cannot look at the whole of 1 John and come to that conclusion.

Three witness, and they all point to the truth of the Gospel. Jesus was God, and He died for us, and yet He lives. He lives! If you deny that, then you are calling God a liar, because He has given us these testimonies to teach us of Himself.

“And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.” Jesus told us, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

This is the way to life. In Jesus there is life, and in no one else. You cannot earn your way to eternal life. You cannot follow some false god and expect to live. Jesus is the way. Examine the testimonies, for they are true. These witnesses all point to the Cross, where Jesus took on the sins of the children of God and died for them. Eternal life is a free gift, not to be earned, because it was already earned by the only one who could do it – Jesus.

If you are a believer, you will find that these witnesses remain with us. By water we are baptized, by Blood forgiven, and by the Spirit led.