Five Truths God Wants Every Child of God to Know

If this is correct (and I think this is the best option), John is saying that for those who willfully, resolutely, and irrevocably reject the biblical teaching about Jesus, death—spiritual death—is their destiny. To pray for such a one is futile and useless. It will do no good.

Verse 17 affirms, "all unrighteousness is sin," yet John again states, "There is sin that does not bring death." Such sin can be confronted and even conquered through the faithful intercession of one believer for another. Spurgeon said it well in an address to his Pastors' College regarding the power of prayer:

Might not we win more victories if we more constantly used this weapon of all-prayer? All hell is vanquished when the believer bows his knee in importunate supplication. Beloved brethren, let us pray. We cannot all argue, but we can all pray; we cannot all be leaders, but we can all be pleaders; we cannot all be mighty in rhetoric, but we can all be prevalent in prayer. I would sooner see you eloquent with God than with men. 145Prayer links us with the Eternal, the Omnipotent, the Infinite; and hence it is our chief resort. Resolve to serve the Lord, and to be faithful to His cause, for then you may boldly appeal to Him for succour. Be sure that you are with God, and then you may be sure that God is with you. (An All-Round Ministry, 313-14)

We Can Know Victory over Sin

1 John 5:18

For the final time in this letter John addresses the "new birth." The apostle wants us to be sure that we have been born again, and he catalogs no less than 13 evidences of the new birth in this letter.

Here in verse 18, John makes three powerful affirmations that assure us once again of our victory over sin. First, we know that the person born of God does not keep on sinning. Sin is no longer the pattern of his or her life. John is affirming the purity of our lives, not perfection, something he addressed in 3:2-3. Future glorification (perfection) impacts present sanctification (practice). Second, "the One who is born 146of God keeps" or protects him. I like the fact that the HCSB capitalizes "One" because I believe the reference is clearly to Jesus and not us. We do not keep ourselves. Jesus keeps us. This is a theme repeated several times in the New Testament.

While I was with them, I was protecting them by Your name that You have given Me. I guarded them and not one of them is lost, except the son of destruction, so that the Scripture may be fulfilled. (John 17:12)

You are being protected by God's power through faith for a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. (1 Pet 1:5)

Now to Him who is able to protect you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of His glory, blameless and with great joy. (Jude 24)

Jesus, by His work on the cross, obtained my salvation. Now, by His work in heaven, He maintains my salvation (cf. Heb 7:25). Jesus Christ, the eternally begotten of God, protects me and keeps me safe. Therefore, and this is our third promise, "the evil one does not touch" me. The word "touch" has the idea of grabbing hold of something with the intent to harm. Alexander Ramsay says, "He is well kept whom Christ keeps; the enemy of souls cannot lay hold of him: he assaults but cannot seize" (quoted in Vaughan, 1, 2, 3 John, 134). Satan may grab at us and tempt us through doubt, friends who fall away, idols, fleshly enticements, and worldly allurements, but because of the power of Christ he cannot get us. There again is a beautiful logic to this verse. The Devil does not touch the Christian and harm him in any ultimate sense because he is protected by the Son. And because the Son keeps the believer safe, he cannot persist in or continually practice sin. It is contrary to his nature. It is contrary to his Protector.

Now we know why we have victory over sin and why we have victory over Satan. "The Son of God was revealed for this purpose: to destroy the Devil's works" (1 John 3:8), and He did a perfect job!

We Can Know That We Belong to God

1 John 5:19

In stark contrast to the safety of the believer in Christ, the whole world rests in the power of the evil one. We are safe, but the world is a slave. 147Believers in Jesus have a certain and settled knowledge that they are God's. The NIV says, "We know that we are children of God." Eugene Peterson says in The Message, "We know that we are held firm by God." Here is confidence, an inner assurance, that spiritual death has no claim on me. Here is a certainty of the soul that sin cannot dominate me and the evil one cannot harm me (v. 18).

Now I belong to Jesus, Jesus belongs to me;

Not for the years of time alone, but for eternity. (Norman J. Clayton, "Now I Belong to Jesus")

Tragically, on the other hand, those caught up in the lies and futility of this world-system are controlled and captivated by the power and authority of Satan himself, "the evil one." Satan—who blinds the minds of unbelievers (2 Cor 4:3-4), snatches the Word of God from human hearts (Matt 13:4, 9), deceives by miraculous signs and wonders (Matt 24:24; 2 Thess 2:9), and entices through fleshly desires and pride (1 John 2:15-17)—has the entire world in his pocket. This is instructive for those of us who follow Christ. We are in a global conflict with an enemy that influences and in many instances controls cultures, societies, finances, and even governments. This "evil empire" under "the sway of the evil one" opposes with vehemence the advancement of the gospel, ministries of mercy, and care for the weak and helpless. He hates who we are and what we are trying to accomplish. This requires on our part a wartime mentality and commitment. Sacrifices must be made, and strategies bathed in spiritual wisdom must be created and implemented. But know this: As we move forward, we are children of God, a God who is in us and who is greater than he who is in the world. (4:4). We are His and He will protect us (5:18).

We Can Know What Is True

1 John 5:20-21

Not surprisingly, John ends the letter as he began it: talking about Jesus! He affirms again the reality of the incarnation ("we know the Son of God has come"). He also affirms that it is Jesus who gives us understanding so that we may know Him who is true (God Himself) in and through Jesus Christ. These words echo Luke 10:22 where Jesus said, "No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son desires to reveal Him."

148Because of our union with Christ, we understand the truth of the gospel, we are safe from the claws of the evil one, we know the Father, and we abide "in the true One—that is, in His Son Jesus Christ." Of Christ it can be said, "He is the true God and eternal life." Here is truth. Here is life. Here is knowledge and understanding. All of this is ours by virtue of our union with Christ, because "we are in the true One."

However, if there is a true God, there are also false gods. Therefore John provides a simple but perfect complement to verse 20 and a perfect conclusion to the letter in verse 21. "Little children," he says, "guard yourselves from idols." Be on guard, John says, from god-substitutes. Paul gives us similar warnings in Ephesians 5:5 ("For know and recognize this: Every sexually immoral or impure or greedy person, who is an idolater, does not have an inheritance in the kingdom of the Messiah and of God.") and in Colossians 3:5 ("Therefore, put to death what belongs to your worldly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry."). John, letting his letter be our guide, would say,

Those who claim to be Christians but do not believe the truth concerning Jesus, do not live a righteous life in obeying God's commands, and do not love others are in danger of idol worship. This is an idol because they have created a religion that is false. This is a religion that man has created and not that of the apostolic faith. This is nothing short of idolatry. To embrace a form of Christianity that allows one to deny the truth about Jesus, not live a godly life, or not love others, is to create an idol—and that is something all Christians must constantly guard against. (Merkle, "What Is the Meaning of 'Idols'?," 340)

John Calvin said, "Man's nature ... is a perpetual factory of idols" (Institutes, 1.11.8). Mark Driscoll says idolatry is the opposite of the gospel (Driscoll and Breshears, Death by Love, 92). Amazingly, the object of idolatry can be a good thing. However, when we turn a good thing into a god thing it becomes a bad thing: an idol. Tim Keller helps us see how idolatry is sin when he says, "The ultimate reason for any sin is that something besides Christ is functioning as an alternative 'righteousness' or source of confidence—and is thus an 'idol,' a pseudo-savior, which creates inordinate desires" ("Preaching the Gospel in a Post-Modern World"). Luther's "Preface to the Galatians" is equally helpful:

149Satan attacked this rock (the doctrine of justification) in paradise when he persuaded our first parents to forsake their faith in the God who had given them life and who promised enduring life, and to try to become like God by means of their own wisdom and virtue (Gen. 3:5).... For thereafter the whole world went mad in opposition to this faith, inventing endless idols and religions, by which, as Paul says (Acts 14:16), everyone went his own way, in the hope of placating a god or a goddess or gods or goddesses by his own works, in other words, of redeeming himself from evil and sin by means of his own work, without the help of Christ. The acts and books of all the heathen provide plenty of evidence for all of this. ("Preface to Galatians," 145-46)

Also, note Luther's Treatise on Good Works:

Those who do not trust God at all times and do not see God's favor and grace and good will toward them in everything they do and everything they suffer, in their living or in their dying, but seek His favor in other things or even in themselves, do not keep this [First] Commandment [to have no other gods before Him]. Rather, they practice idolatry, even if they were to do the works of all the rest of the Commandments. (Treatise on Good Works, 30-31)

Any effort to earn our own salvation creates idols of necessity. For if we make our career or our morality or our marriage our fundamental "confidence" in life—our "wisdom" and "power"—then those things become idols which we look to instead of Christ for our "salvation." Thus, those keeping the other nine commandments as a way to earn their own salvation are really breaking the first commandment by and in their morality! Their good works are therefore all done in service to an idol as a way of avoiding Christ as Savior (Keller, "Talking about Idolatry in a Postmodern Age").

In sum, idolatry is anything you love, enjoy, and pursue more than God, more than Christ, who "is the true God and eternal life." Idols say we are true when God says only Christ is true. Idols say they will give life when God says only Christ provides life, eternal life. Idols promise but can never deliver, whereas God says Christ both provides and delivers. So guard yourself from idols of power, control, comfort, approval, position, applause, and pleasure. Your heart will never be satisfied and 150at rest with any of these little false gods. Only Christ truly and eternally satisfies. Jesus said it perfectly: "Whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again—ever! In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up within him for eternal life" (John 4:14).

Conclusion

Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the true God, and the only God who gives you an eternal life—and you can have it with certainty. All you have to do is believe in His name. He and He alone is the "true God." All other gods are deceiving counterfeits and false substitutes. What they promise they can never provide. Jesus "is the true God and eternal life." On this truth you can stand and stake your eternal destiny.

Reflect and Discuss