Introduction (3: 1-3)

 1See what love the Father has given 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. 2Beloved, we are God’s children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3And every one who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

 In Chapter 2, we were still striving to order our lives according to God’s specifications and avoid all the pitfalls along the way. Chapter 3 is going to give us a picture of God’s powerful provision to bring us through victorious. John is going to present the radical transformation that God makes in human nature to reverse the effects of the fall and to establish us in an unassailable position as children of God.

 The foundation for this victory is presented in verse 1. We have received God’s great gift of love: that we should be called children of God. On this gift, our whole victory and our whole confidence is to be built. Our status as children of God brings us into an intimate relationship with Him and imparts His nature to us,

 Surprisingly in the second half of the same verse, John raises the question of the world’s non-recognition of our position. Why does he do this so suddenly? The reason he gives is that they did not know or understand Jesus, and, therefore, cannot know or understand us. It could otherwise be stated that we simply do not fit into their categories; their concept of reality has no place for us. We are in a different frame of reference, a different culture. John presents this difference at the very beginning of his argument because he wants to emphasize the radical nature of the difference that he is about to explain.

He then begins immediately in verse 2 to explain that great difference. We have experienced a spiritual birth. As Jesus told Nicodemus, we have to be born again of water and the Spirit in order to enter the kingdom of God. This new birth makes us children of God, a different species from fallen man. Although we start out  to be God’s children from the time of that rebirth, growth to maturity is expected. We cannot at the outset know all that is involved in that growth. That knowledge will unfold one bit at a time throughout all of our lives. God rarely gives us total blueprints of future developments according to which we can build by our own wisdom and ability. We are rather being led on a guided tour by His voice, explaining one thing at a time.

 Verse 2, in the RSV and many other translations, is translated: “Beloved, we are God’s children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” This would mean that we will only become like Him at the time of His second coming. This contradicts other statements in 1 John.  This verse could also be translated as: 

 Beloved, now we are children of God, and what we shall be has not yet become evident. We know that, when it does become evident, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

 If  the greek is translated to mean “it has not yet become evident” and also a parallel construction which means “when it does become evident,” then this verse is speaking of the beginning of the process of our sanctification and its development as we continue to see Christ and His purposes. The subjunctive denotes the beginning of a process at a particular time but developing from that point. The revelation of Who Christ is transforms us, for we become more like Him. When we see Christ as He is, we know with certainty Who He is, discover what His purposes are, and rearrange our personalities and priorities to be in line with His.

Our total sanctification involves both a crisis experience at the time of our rebirth and a process that continues forever. Children of God share God’s nature just as fully as a human baby shares its father’s nature, but, just as the human child must grow to maturity, so the child of God will be matured and move towards perfection as he or she continues to live with Jesus. John says that we become like Him as we see Him as He is (3:2c). We “purify ourselves as He is pure (verse 3).”  Of course, we know that we are made pure through Christ’s sacrifice, and it is He Who makes us pure. Our part in the process is to keep our eyes on Him and be His disciples. We purify ourselves, not be trying to be good, but by seeing Jesus as He is.

 Being like Him  is our hope. Hope, in the Christian sense, means confidence in a faithful God, not just wishful thinking. We can surely trust in this process because God has given us His promise, and we know that His promises are secure. The hope will be realized in response to our faith, just as all aspects of our Christian development are received by faith.

Sin Contrasted with Righteousness

 4Every one who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. 5You know that he appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. 6No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him. 7Little children, let no one deceive you. He who does right is righteous, as he is righteous. 8He who commits sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. 9No one born of God commits sin; for God’s nature abides in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God. 10By this it may be seen who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not do right is not of God, nor he who does not love his brother.

 This passage uses sin in its second definition as missing the purposes of God. John is not primarily referring to doing evil deeds or breaking rules. We learned to deal with that in Chapter 1. When sin is here defined as lawlessness, and righteousness as obeying the law, he is not referring to the Old Testament law of rules and prohibitions, or even rules deduced from the New Testament,  but rather the law of the Spirit, the new law written in the heart and made possible of fulfillment by a love relationship with God.

 Jesus’ function is to take away sin. When John says, in verse 5, that “in Him is no sin,” he means two things:
 a) Jesus has no sin of His own.
 b) Those who are walking with Him are free from sin.

Internalizing these concepts is an inevitable result of seeing Jesus as He is. This is reinforced  by the statement that no one who abides in Him continues to sin, and that if one continues in sin, he must not really have seen Jesus or known Him(3:9).  Seeing Jesus is not limited to visions or imagination, but has the deeper spiritual meaning of knowing Him personally and grasping the enormity of His power, His love, His purity, His wisdom, and His authority.  Knowing Him is a spiritual reality implying an intimate relationship with Him and recognizing Him as our Lord. This is the relationship that Jesus referred to as being in His disciples and they in Him.

 Verse 7 introduces the concept of doing righteousness. This cannot be achieved by our own knowledge, decision, or effort. It has to be His righteousness, not ours. If we use our own concepts of right and wrong, we are, of course, using fruit from the wrong tree. Righteousness needs to be defined as an attribute of God’s character. This means righteousness is what God wants not what we want. Our part is to walk in the Spirit, obedient to His voice moment by moment. Through obedience to Him, we become righteous as He is righteous.

 John states the alternative very clearly: he who commits sin is of the devil; but Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil (3:8). We either have Jesus’ nature or the devil’s nature. If we have the devil’s nature, we continue in sin. If we are born of God, we have His nature and we do His righteousness. This enables John to come to the astonishing conclusion that, “No one born of God commits sin; for God’s nature (righteousness) abides in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God”(3:9). When we became children of God, our old sinful nature was laid down and we received the divine nature. If we can appropriate by our faith the tremendous implications of this fact, we can live as Jesus did.

 In these verses, John has given us a conclusive way to demonstrate to whom we belong, God or the devil (3:10). This is good news for us, if we believe that we are indeed God’s children, scary if we do not. It becomes very necessary to have our faith in God’s word, not on past experience. We need to be close enough to Him so that we can hear His voice at all times, know the secrets of His heart, and act in loving obedience.

 The two basic tests of which side we are on are acting in obedience or doing righteousness and loving our brethren.

Love Transformed (3:11-18)

 11For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, 12and not be like Cain who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. 13Do not wonder, brethren, that the world hates you. 14We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. 15Any one who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. 16By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 17But if any one has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? 18Little children, let us not love in word or speech but in deed and in truth.

 These verses pick up what was said in 2:7-11, but with a new emphasis. Love here is presented as the predominant and distinguishing characteristic of the Christian life and the fulfillment of the command of total obedience. Love must be expressed in the Christian community. The individual can only be matured through fellowship with the other members of the community.

 Immediately in verse 12, however, before any further discussion of this message, John brings up Cain as an extreme case of hating one’s brother. Why does this come in so suddenly, and why does John choose this particular example? Cain’s deeds were evil. Cain looked on the righteousness and godliness of Abel. Abel’s righteousness provoked Cain to jealousy and convicted him of his sinful state. He did not want him around.  John used this example to open the discussion of the radical nature of our walk as children of God. The Christian walk in God’s righteousness is radically opposed to the ways of fallen man.

 Let us remember that John is defining evil as falling short of total obedience and hate as falling short of Jesus’ perfect manifestation of God’s love. There is a total difference between those who are obedient and those who are not. Therefore, if we are really living as children of God, we can expect to be hated by those who are not (3:13). Being children of God is dangerous. It brings us into spiritual warfare. We have a great need for God’s protection. The only safe place for us is where the Lord wants us to be and doing what He tells us.

 When we become children of God, we pass from death to life. Only the eternal life that God gives at our conversion is real life. The old existence is actually death, spiritual death. The love of the brethren is the dividing line between children of God and others. Those who do not have this kind of love are dead. Love of the brethren is an essential corollary of being born of God and thus being children of God.

 Hating our brethren is delineated as falling short of showing God’s love for them; this is called murder. If we hate our brethren, we are murderers (Jesus said as much in His sermon on the mount). Not only do we murder them, but we actually kill ourselves also, because we lose eternal life.

 How can we be sure that we have His kind of love? The test is that we be ready to lay down our lives as Jesus did. This may, of course, involve physical death, but it more surely means devoting our lives to others.

 The focus of our lives and fellowship with others is towards the redemption of our fellows.

Love is not just words, but a course of action designed to meet other people’s needs. Here again Jesus becomes our model. He met people’s greatest needs by such activities as:
 ·. Healing the sick.
 ·. Setting people free from demonic powers.
 ·. Calming life-threatening storms.
 ·. Proclaiming God’s kingdom (rule).
 ·. Providing food in miraculous ways.
 ·. Teaching by word and example.

These are some practical ways of showing our love for others. The Lord can show us others as we keep obeying His instructions. It is important to note that none of these can be done by human effort. They demand God’s supernatural intervention and empowerment.

Confidence in God (3:19-24)

 19By this we shall know that we are of the truth, and reassure our hearts before him 20whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 21Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God; 22and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. 23And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. 24All who keep his commandments abide in him, and he in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit which he has given us.

 Our life as children of God gives absolute security and confidence.

 In the natural, prior to the awareness of ourselves as children of God, we often experience moments when “our hearts condemn us” (3:19). We wonder if we are on the right track or have done the right thing in a given situation. We are uncertain about our walk with the Lord and His favor towards us. But “God is greater than our heart” (3:20) His promises and directions are more trustworthy than our feelings. He understands perfectly where we are and where we are headed. He knows that we are “of the truth” because we have been born of Him; we are His children; He has given us His life, His obedience, His truth, and His love.

 The words “by this” in verse 19 refer to all the implications of the love God has given us in calling us His children, that is, all that has been said in the earlier parts of this chapter.

 ·. God’s nature abiding in us (verse 1).
 ·. The hope of perfection (verses 2 and 3).
 ·. Seeing Him as He is (verse 2).
 ·. Freedom from sin (verses 6 and 9).
·. His love and sacrifice for us (verses 8 and 16).
 ·. Our love for each other (verses 11 and 14).

 Because of this reassurance, our hearts no longer condemn us (3:21).  We have confidence before God. This is the opposite of Adam’s and Eve’s reactions of shame and fear after eating the wrong fruit. Jesus, through giving us the new life as children of God, has reversed the effects of the fall.

 This confidence before God enables us to pray and act authoritatively. We can receive whatever we ask (3:22).

 In creation, mankind was given authority over all the works of God’s hands.  This authority was conditioned on mankind’s obedience. As long as Adam and Eve were walking and talking with God and obeying Him, the glory of God and the power of the Holy Spirit were in place. God’s authority could be exercised. Disobedience caused the authority to be lost. Confidence, love, the divine nature, the power of the Holy Spirit were all lost or diminished.

 Christ’s redemption is a process which restores all of the above.

 As we live into the fulness of God’s gift of eternal life, seeing Jesus as He is, knowing the full significance and authority of His name, our obedience is perfected, our confidence established, the authority reestablished in its fulness.

 This enables us to pray effectively. Since we are obedient to God’s voice, we know what He wants; we can pray in accordance with His will. We will be able to exercise all the authority of the Name of Jesus because He is living in us and we in Him.

 The key to all this is to trust in the authority of that Name, to love one another, and to obey His commandments.

 If we have confidence in our continuation in sin, we probably will persist in it. If we have hope in God’s transformation and our position as sons of God, we can attain to the sanctification and authority that He promises.

 Hope is confidence in a trustworthy God and His promises.

 Verse 24 serves as a brief transition from our confidence in our relationship as children of God to the walk in the Spirit and spiritual warfare and ministry presented in chapter 4:1-5:15.