Category Archives: Stuff I’ve Been Writing

^2:28 And now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears we may have confidence and not shrink from Him in shame at His coming. ²⁹ If you know that He is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of Him.

^3:1 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. ² Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is. ³ And everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies himself as He is pure.

⁴ Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. ⁵ You know that He appeared in order to take away sins, and in Him there is no sin. ⁶ No one who abides in Him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen Him or known Him. ⁷ Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as He is righteous. ⁸ Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. ⁹ No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God. ¹⁰ By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.^[1]

1 John 2:28-3:10

Greetings, Sojourner!

Today marks the end of the first half of our study of 1 John! It has been so good to slow down and take this book of the Bible section-by-section, making it as easily understood as possible. We have eaten our way through some tough portions of Scripture, sometimes taking a week or two to chew on them, but today’s passage is too rich to divide up. It’s a bit longer than usual, so we will not nibble through an introduction.

In this week’s passage, John uses the image of either being a child of God or a child of the devil. This refers to the characteristics of an individual being similar to their father. For the church, it should be apparent that God is our Father similar to the way that children are viewed as sharing similar traits to their parents. But walking through this passage is going to require us to ask tough questions of ourselves to make sure that we resemble the Father and not look like children of the adversary.  

God’s Children are Characterized by Confidence

Our first verse this week (v. 2:28) is the same one we finished with in the last devotion. But I believe that we can dive into it a bit more. Look at the contrast between the phrases “have confidence” and “shrink from Him in shame”. Both of these are linked with the end of that sentence “at His coming”. In the context of being a child of God, I get the image of a child reacting to a parent returning home from work.

The ideal image would be like my nephew Caleb who, every time his dad walks outside, stands at the door with his hands up waiting for him to come back in and pick him up. Now, if he was a bit older and his mom told him something along the lines of “wait until your daddy gets home – you’re gonna get it”, he would likely avoid greeting or even being seen.

Throughout this passage, we are going to look at the dreaded subject of sin and what it means – both for children of God and children of the devil. But I think v. 2:28 very clearly sets the standard for God and His children that is put out in Hebrews 4:16, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need”, resting and having confidence in our Father rather than trusting in what we did wrong or tried to accomplish on our own.

When you look to the Father, do you have confidence in what He has done or do you shrink in fear and shame at what you have done? Do you look at His coming return with hope and joy or with anxiety and fear?

God’s Children Practice What They Preach

I know that the phrase “practice what you preach” is loaded. It is often used as a response to a religious person acting wrongly. And that is why I want to use it here.

The word that is translated “practice” can also be translated as “perform”, “behave”, or “make oneself out to be”, and making our practice as Christians into a performance or a behavior is part of the problem. We often try to make ourselves out to be something in order to show the world something or convince others or ourselves about something. I believe the best alternate translation is “produce”, “yield”, or “bear”.

Jesus Himself uses this exact word in the context of those words in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7. You may notice that we cited the first few verses in this section in last week’s devotion:

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.”

Matthew 7:15-20

 Jesus uses the same Greek word that John uses as “practices” five times in that one paragraph, and, if we truly want to understand the Word better, there is no better person to have interpret it for us than Jesus Himself! So, when John says “practices righteousness” in vv. 2:29, 3:7, and 3:10, he does so like he would discuss an apple tree bearing apples. It also means that when he says “makes a practice of sinning” (vv. 3:7, 8, 9) and  “practices lawlessness” (v. 3:7) that he does so in the same manner. Just as apple trees bear apples, those who are born again (John 3:3, 1 Peter 1:3) are children of God and bear the fruit of His Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). Those who are spiritually dead in their sin (Ephesians 2:1) bear the fruit of sinful flesh (Galatians 5:19-21) and reflect the heritage of sin that mirrors the rebellion of Satan against God (John 8:44).

This is an opportunity to look at our own lives and test whether or not we “walk in the Spirit” or “gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). Are you able to see the fruit of the Spirit in your practices, or are you trying to bring your own plans and desires into fruition?

God’s Children Reflect His Righteousness

We must be careful here because we run the risk of falling into the same heresies that the antichrists and false teachers were spreading to John’s original audience. The specific brand of heresy that they were spreading is known as Gnosticism where they believed that knowledge could save people. As we talked about at length a few weeks ago, anything that twists or purposefully alters the gospel is not of the Spirit of God but of a spirit of antichrist. One of the things that gnostics believed that is particularly appealing to sinful people is their beliefs that sin was not harmful for those who have become intellectually enlightened and that they were perfect as they are. Both of these are dangerous. One the one hand, God alone is sinless and perfect, and He alone – as the sovereign, all-powerful Creator of the universe – defines what is and is not sinful.

Furthermore, we have to have a complete view of sin here. This is why context is so needed and why walking through a whole book is helpful to us when trying to understand the Word of God better. Everything that John says here in chapter 3 (his original letter did not have chapters and verses anyway) cannot be interpreted apart from what was already written in chapters 1 and 2. Let us look back at a few verses that are extremely important to get this part correct:

• John 1:8: If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
• John 2:1: My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

Both of these are important here because, 1) they show the danger of false teachings regarding sin and salvation, and 2) how, even though we are to strive to follow Jesus and live following the example He laid out with His life and in His Word, He knows our limitations and has borne the burden of our sin Himself as our propitiation (ch. 2:2) so that we can find cleansing and justification in Him (ch. 1:9).

This is good news for us because we are incapable of being righteous on our own (Romans 3:10) and need Jesus to be righteous for us (2 Corinthians 5:21). When we follow after Him, we find that practicing righteousness becomes part of our way of life. It stops being about doing good deeds to earn salvation or to make ourselves look like something we are not and becomes simply being about what He is about.

We no longer find ourselves making “a practice of sinning” because He has changed us from the inside out, bringing us from death to life (Ephesians 2:4-5) and transplanting our hearts of stone with hearts that live and beat for Him alone (Ezekiel 36:26). This is even seen in how John defines sin here – “lawlessness” (v. 3:4). Most of the time, the words referring to sin in the New Testament have negative consequences (hamartia, sin, which is an archery term meaning to miss the target; adikia, unrighteousness, meaning to not do what is known to be right and good; and paraptoma, tresspasses or transgressions, meaning getting off of the right path), but, in this passage, John’s saying that “sin is lawlessness (anomia)” basically describes being in active rebellion against God. This is important because it explains all of the talk John makes about those who are “children of the devil” (v. 3:10).

Concluding Thoughts

I know this has been a lot, but I want to sum up what we have been talking about this week with a closer look at the illustration that John gives in talking about the different children (of God or the devil).

Two verses from this section are key to our understanding how this applies to our lives. The first verse is 3:3 which says, “everyone who hopes in Him purifies Himself as He is pure”. This is the reason that children of God are characterized by righteousness. It is not because we are better than other sinners because we are not – the difference is Christ’s righteousness. It is not because we have something to prove or earn. There is nothing we can do to earn salvation, and Christ’s life, death, and resurrection prove it. Just like the quirks and qualities that come together to make me Just Keith come largely in part to my parents and my upbringing, the way that our lives gradually become more like Christ is because we learn to “walk in Him” because we are “rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, just as [we] were taught” (Colossians 2:6-7). Our hope stems from what He has already done in His first coming and leads us to walk in the hope that He is coming back as He promised.

The second verse 3:8 which clarifies the relationship between one who “makes a practice of sinning” like “the devil [who] has been sinning from the beginning” and Jesus coming in order “to destroy the works of the devil”. Simply put, if we are making a practice of sinning – not committing individual sins but habitually continuing a purposeful pattern of keeping sin going – we are working against Christ. We cannot seek to continue building up what He is actively tearing down and be of Him.

This passage has caused me to look at and evaluate my life and choices that I make on a regular basis. That makes it hard. But hard questions are good so long as they produce good answers. It is good for those of us who identify as children of God to check our walks by His Word. The good news is that, should we find that we are not His children, we can be because all who “receive Him, who [believe] in His name, He [gives] the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). And the way you do it is laid out simply in Scripture. If you want to be a child of God, “confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, [and] you will be saved” (Romans 10:9).

As always, I love you and am praying for you.

[1] The Holy Bible: ESV (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), 1 Jn 2:28-3:10.

¹⁸ Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. ¹⁹ They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. ²⁰ But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. ²¹ I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. ²² Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. ²³ No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. ²⁴ Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. ²⁵ And this is the promise that he made to us—eternal life.

²⁶ I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. ²⁷ But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him. ^[1]

1 John 2:18=27

Greetings, Sojourner!

I hope this week’s devotion finds you warm in the midst of all this…winter. I remember the ice storms that hit Mississippi in 1994 and Christmas 1998. I remember that it was cold – and sometimes dark. And I also remember that everything eventually thawed out and got back to whatever normal is. In the midst of ever-changing weather patterns and virtual work and school, I am thankful for the Word of God that will remain forever (Isaiah 40:8) and that the God it proclaims will never change (James 1:17).

The Word of God contains everything that can be known about God. It is “breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). It discerns “the thoughts and intentions of the heart”, laying our motivations and the truth of our allegiances – everything we may want to hide from Him – bare before God (Hebrews 4:12-13). And it is in the Word that we find Life and salvation (Psalm 119:25, Ephesians 2:4-5, John 3:16-17, Romans 10:17).

This week’s passage draws on all of that. It is in this section that John begins to discuss the issues that were plaguing his original audience and their churches, and it is easily seen that the same issues attack us and our churches today. To study this, we are going to break the passage up into three parts and study them over the coming weeks: 1) the difference between the Church and its attackers (vv. 18-21), 2) the qualities and effects of the attack (vv. 22-23), and 3) the protection that those in Christ already possess to stand against the attacks (vv. 24-27).

In today’s section, we see that John uses specific language to describe the Church. He calls them “children” (v. 18) – used other places in 1 John as a term of love – to remind of the fact that they have been adopted through salvation into the family of God (Galatians 4:5, Titus 3:6, Romans 8:15). He describes them as having continued in faith to the end (v. 19). He reminds them that they have been “anointed by the Holy One” and possess “knowledge” that comes from Him through His Spirit (v. 20). And, finally, he reminds them of what he has already said in this letter about the truth and what it means to walk in it (v. 21).

On the other hand, he describes those who attack the Church as antichrists. I want to briefly pause here and talk about the word antichrist. It is one of the few words that, rather than translating, just has English letters replace the original Greek ones (ἀντίχριστος – antichristos – antichrist). It literally means “against Christ” or “in place of Christ”.^[2] It shows up in the Old Testament (Daniel 7-8; 9:26-27; 11; Zechariah 11:16-17) and the New (1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 John 7; cf. Matthew 24:15-25; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12; Revelation 6:2; 16:13; 19:20).

Several of the references listed above refer to the Antichrist who, based on the prophecies of Daniel, will be a “human leader, satanically energized, who will come to Jerusalem, enforce his will, exalt himself above all other people and gods, and wreak havoc and slaughter”^[3]. While the Antichrist is a real figure prophesied in Scripture, we should note that 1) King Jesus’ victory has already been recorded (Revelation 19), and 2) he is not who John is talking about here.

The antichrists that John talks about here are those whose message is anti-Christ and anti-gospel. These are figures who come into the church and distort the gospel from within. They are pretenders. They make believe that they are part of the church and seek to tear it down from the inside. They are similar to the “false christs” and “false prophets” that Jesus warned about in Matthew 24:24 and Mark 13:22. Their goal is to use any means at their disposal, even demonic “signs and wonders”, to “lead astray” as many as they can – if possible, even those who are saved and know the truth. The specific message of the antichrists attacking the church in 1 John was related to denying that “Jesus is the Christ” (v. 22); they were preaching and proclaiming a different/false gospel.

Rather than trying to explain the true gospel to you in my own words, let me show you a primary difference between those who seek to glorify God through His gospel and those who seek to distort it. The gospel does not require explanation since it is shown plainly in Scripture:

• For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures…. (1 Corinthians 15:3-4)
• For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)
• But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:4-6)
• Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (1 Peter 1:3-5)

That should be a quality of all preachers/gospel teachers who say that they are “rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15) – they must actually present the Word and use it in the correct context.

John emphasizes twice in v. 19 that these antichrists “went out from us” because “they were not of us” to make it “plain that they all are not of us”. The antiChrist nature of the antichrist’s gospel cannot abide in the Church. And their leaving – either by their own choice or by being removed – shows that they are not of us. This is important to understand because it helps us see that we can know we are in Christ – that we are His.

We looked a few weeks ago at the importance of understanding that “if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (ch. 2:1). That shows that we do not look to be sinless and perfect to show we are saved because it is not possible. We look to Christ, “the propitiation of our sins”, for salvation (ch. 2:2). We look to what He did and trust in that rather than our own actions. It is important that we grasp this truth in order to move on here. Salvation comes from Christ and His grace, “not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

When it says that the antichrists left because they were not of us, John emphasizes the eternal nature of salvation^[4] – those who are saved by Christ will continue in Him to the end. He, in describing how those who are “not of us” leave the church, emphasizes the same thing that Paul does in Philippians 1:6: “And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ”. If God has saved you, you are saved. He will not quit on His children nor forsake them (Hebrews 13:5). But those who masquerade as “church members” while not being a part or member of the body of Christ will eventually be exposed. Rather than worrying over this or allowing our natural doubts to bloom into fear, let us take hold of the advice that Paul gave to the church in Philippi – to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”, making sure that it is “God who works in you” and not you working to earn salvation by your own actions (Philippians 2:12-13). The language in this verse is interesting and fits perfectly with the context of 1 John 2:18-21.

The word translated “work out” here does not mean that we make our salvation happen or earn it somehow. It was a word that would have been familiar to farmers of the period, similar to our word “cultivate”. In this case, God has planted the seed of His gospel in our hearts and is growing it up in us to bear fruit (John 15:4, Colossians 1:10). He has done all the work in our salvation; we merely continue in that beautifully simple command and invitation from Jesus that is the same for us as it was for Peter, John, and their brothers all those years ago: “Follow me” (Matthew 4:19-21). And, despite the false teaching of the antichrists around us, we – like sheep – know the voice of the Good Shepherd (John 10:14-16).

It has been my hope that this study of 1 John could be a tool to help you better understand the Word of God so that you can know Him better. But some passages are just plain meaty and need to be chewed and chewed until the bites can be swallowed. Know that you are prayed for and loved and that – should you want to talk about anything you read here or need specific prayer – you can always feel free to reach out and contact me.

^[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), 1 Jn 2:18–27.

^[2] Daniel I. Morrison, “Antichrist,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).

^[3] John MacArthur, “Antichrists and Christians”, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: 1-3 John (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2007), 96.

^[4] The issue of the eternal nature of salvation (sometimes called the perseverance of the saints or, too simply, once-saved-always-saved) is debated by some. Rather than debate that here, I have compiled a list of Scriptures that deal with it in the “Bible Study Notes” section of the website.