1 John 3 Study Notes

3:14 Our assurance of salvation rests in part on the love that God gives us for our brothers and sisters—that is, fellow believers. If we have this love, it is a sign of our salvation. If not, we are warned to examine our hearts before God.

3:15 There is no middle ground. Love is the gospel mandate (Jn 13:35). The person who neglects to love hates his brother or sister. This signals absence of eternal life. This verse recalls Jesus’s teaching in Mt 5:21-22.

3:16 Jesus’s death is not only the source of forgiveness of sin (1:7); it is also the yardstick by which believers gauge their own love for other believers.

3:17 Selfishness and God’s love are mutually exclusive.

3:18 With the phrase in action and in truth, John declared that faith which is only talk is false faith.

3:19 Before him refers to God’s observation of our lives. Faithful living results in confident hearts rather than guilt, evasion, or fear.

3:20 Human hearts can be self-deceived, but God who knows all things can grant assurance.

3:21 Confidence in the presence of God is no small thing. See Heb 3:6; 4:16; 10:19,35.

3:22 We will receive whatever we ask in prayer if our prayer is within God’s will (5:14). If we keep his commands, we will have no desire to request what God does not wish.

3:23 His command and faith in his Son Jesus Christ are not different things but two aspects of a single, undivided love of God.

3:24 The role of the Holy Spirit has been assumed all along in this epistle, but he is mentioned outright here for the first time.