CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 2

The two first verses connect themselves as a kind of supplement to the preceding chapter. He had put before them this privilege of fellowship with the Father and the Son, which must be in the light; and there was this perfect remedy, the blood of Christ, which presents us clean in the light. Now he says, “These things write I unto you, that ye sin not.” The object of all this was that they should not sin. “And if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” It is not exactly the same thing as in Hebrews, where we find a priest with God, because there the question is of the possibility of our coming to God. There it is making good the truth that we can go to God, and it has that character throughout. But all through the Gospel and Epistle of John he speaks of more than merely going to God as a public worshipper. Here we are much more intimate with Him. It is a different thing that I can go and worship before God and approach Him, or that I am in intimate fellowship with Him. We get into relationship with Him. Whenever he speaks of grace, he speaks of the Father and Son, and when of light he speaks of God. In John 8, where they are all convicted of sin, it is God. “Before Abraham was, I am.” When he gets to grace, He speaks of being a good Shepherd, who gives His life for the sheep, and whose voice the sheep know. He says there is as much intimacy between you and Me as between Me and My Father. There is the perfect revelation of love in an intimate relationship like that.

^[p. 212] Advocacy here is connected with the Father. Where communion is interrupted, it is restored: we do not cease to be sons and to be accepted. It is not a question here of whether as a sinner I can come to God or not, but of the loss of this intimacy which the least idle word destroys. And this makes it still further plain that accepted persons are spoken of here. It is not a question now of God’s accepting. Not even priesthood has to do with that, still less advocacy with the Father. It supposes that we are naughty children, and that the freedom of this intimacy is destroyed, and Christ takes the place of Advocate to restore it. Grace works, but there is never any mitigation of sin in itself; it is no allowance of evil.

The ground is thus laid in this remarkable manner. There are two things to consider; our standing in the presence of God, and, on the other hand, the evil which is inconsistent with it. Christ has met both. “We have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” This never changes. The place which we have with God abides there, because Christ, the righteous One, is there. The perfectly accepted Person is in the presence of God, and God is honoured about the failure. “And ^[p. 213] he is the propitiation for our sins.” So that the advocacy of Christ with the Father is founded upon this acceptance, first of His Person, and then of His work for us. We are accepted in the Beloved, and this never changes, because the righteous One always appears in the presence of God for us. And yet the Lord does not allow anything contrary to Himself. Sin is not passed over. “We have an advocate.” And yet if He is the Advocate for these persons who have failed, it is because He is the propitiation for their sins. There is perfect acceptance. Having met all requirements about sin on the cross, we are put in the presence of God in the acceptance of Christ Himself.

“He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world.” This blood-shedding is put upon the mercy-seat, in virtue of which we can go and preach the gospel to every creature. It does not mean that all are reconciled, but that the testimony of God’s mercy went out not to Jews only, but to every creature in the world. Through this blood we can stand in His presence; but there failure comes to be the question for the conscience of the saint, and then the advocacy of Christ applies.

But now he takes up another subject — the practical tests before men that we have got this life. In the main we may say that love to the brethren, and righteousness or obedience, are the grand tests. This eternal life we have seen in contrast with sin, sustained by the grace of Christ. Now we come to the same life shewn in its fruits down here; and they were calling in question whether they had this life or not. Therefore he gives, in order to keep them in the consciousness and certainty that they had that life, these traits of it, which some of those of high profession had not. “And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.”

I would just observe here that throughout this Epistle you will find God and Christ so entirely united in the thought of the apostle, that he speaks of one and then of the other in relation to the same thing Look at the last chapter: “And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.” God is revealed to us in Christ. It may seem confusion, but it brings out the glory of the Person of Christ. So here (verse 28), “^[p. 223] And now, little children, abide in him; that when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming. If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him.” He begins with Christ’s appearing, and the same sentence ends with God Himself. So here, with regard to God’s commandments. “Hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.” They are Christ’s commandments, and yet they are God’s too.

Next, we are told that “He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” A man says he knows God and does not keep His commandments — the truth is not in him, because this life is an obedient life, and if Christ is our life, the principles of Christ’s life are the same in us. If the principle of obedience is not there, life is not there. But this is not all. “Whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected; hereby know we that we are in him.” This gives a great deal more than the mere fact that he is a liar, if he says he knows God and does not keep His commandments.

^[p. 214] Another thing to be remarked is this, that all John’s statements are absolute. He never modifies them by bringing in the difficulties or hindrances that we may have in the body. “He that is born of God,” he says in chapter 3, “does not commit sin.” He is speaking there according to the very essence of the nature. The divine nature cannot sin. It is not a question of progress or degree, but “he cannot sin because he is born of God.” “He that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not,” chapter 5. The wicked one touches the Christian often; but he never can touch the divine life: and John always states it in its own proper absoluteness, according to the truth itself. There are plenty of other scriptures that shew our inconsistency. But if the flesh acts, it is not this new life, but you get the measure of it in itself. “Whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected,” etc. That is absolute. If I am only saying an idle word, it is not keeping His word.

This is an immensely blessed truth. Because if I was under law and took His word in that way, I should have nothing to do with life. It tells me to love God, and in that I fail. But here the revelation I have of God in Christ is perfect love. The love of God is manifested, and if His word dwells in our hearts, His word is love and His love is perfected in us. “If a man keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected.” In him — not only towards him. If the word is kept, that word is the power of Christ in us, and that is the perfect love of God enjoyed in the heart. We may fail in keeping it, but the Apostle does not give these kinds of modifications, but the truth in itself; and it is thoroughly true, and experienced in the measure that the word of God is kept in the heart. The Holy Ghost is the power, but we cannot separate this from the word. He is in us, and we have got that love in our souls — God’s love as manifested in Christ. Supposing I am disobedient, I get sin in my heart instead of Christ.

“Whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected; hereby know we that we are in him.” Now he says we are in Him. We dwell in God. If I say I am in Him, I have got this strength and shelter in Him. Now you must walk as He walked. Christ is my life. Then I must walk like Christ. It is not be as He was; but we are not to walk according to the flesh. Therefore he does not say, You ought to be what Christ was; but “He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk even as he walked.” If you say you abide in Him, you are there always: you should always walk as He walked. There is never any reason for walking after the flesh. The flesh is in us, but that is no reason why we should walk after it. I am always at liberty to walk spiritually. There is liberty before God as to the walk. If I have got a fleshly nature, a commandment comes contrary to the will of that nature. I want to go into town, and I am ordered off into the country. I do not like it. But supposing I was longing to go into town, and my father says, You must go into town; why then to do the commandment is liberty. So now all the commandments of Christ are according to the nature that I have got already. Christ is my life, and all Christ’s words are the expression of that life. And therefore when Christ’s words are given to me, they only give me the authority to do what my nature likes to do. All the words of Christ are the expression of what He was. They told out His nature and life and being; and, when we have that nature, they guide and direct us. Therefore it is real and holy liberty. We ought to walk even as He walked.

“^[p. 215] Brethren I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment, which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning”; that is, from the beginning of Christ — His manifestation down here.

“Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you,” etc. Because they were looking for something new. One thing, he says, I boast of is that it is old, because it is what Christ was when upon the earth. But if you will have something new, it is Christ as your life by the Holy Ghost now. It is “true in him and in you,” because the darkness is passing and the light now shines. It was true in Him when here below, but now all this truth of the divine nature is as true of you as of Christ. Therefore it is new enough. It is old, because it was in Christ Himself; but it is new, because it is in you, as well as in Christ Himself.

^[p. 216] So far we have had the first great principle of the divine life — obedience — walking in righteousness. Now comes the other side: loving the brethren. You are in the light, for God is light. Well then, God is love, and you cannot have one part of God without the other. If you have the light, you must have the love. Christ, when He was here, was the light of the world; but He was love too, and therefore if you have Him as your nature, you will have both. “He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.” In its very nature and way there is no occasion of stumbling. “But he that hateth his brother is in darkness and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.” This is true really in detail; because, if I am walking in hatred to my brethren, I am walking in darkness. But the apostle only gives the principle here. Love is an old thing, because it was in Christ on earth; but it is a new thing, because it is true in Him and in you. “He who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

We get there what I may call the characteristic tests of Christ our life. One is light — obedience — for no righteousness can be, unless it is obedient. Christ says, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Therefore we get this principle of obedient dependence which is righteousness. The other is love. Here then we have, first, as a supplement to the previous chapter, the advocacy of Christ; and then, in the other parts of the Epistle, the tests of this divine life as manifest in obedience and love to the brethren. In the life of Christ Himself all was most wonderfully, perfectly, and blessedly brought out.

This comes in now as breaking in upon the general course of the Epistle, and giving an account of why he wrote, and what he felt in writing. And first we find him speaking to all Christians, whom he calls “My children,” and then addressing different classes of Christians, and telling why he wrote to them. It is his heart opening itself out to those to whom he was writing: and then we get some important practical truths.

In verse 12 the word “children” is the same as in verses 1, 28, but different from the “little children” in verses 13, 18. In the former he is speaking of all Christians, and calls them his “children”; whereas, in the other verses, he distinguishes between the young men, fathers, and the little children [babes] (paidia) or the youngest Christians. But in verses 1, 12, 28, the word teknia includes all saints.

“I write unto you, children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake, verse 12.” That is true of all Christians. It is their universal condition. He had said before, “Hereby we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.” This was not to throw any doubt upon Christians being forgiven, but to stablish them in the truth, inasmuch as he says, “I write unto you children, because your sins are forgiven for his name’s sake.” This was a settled thing; they were all forgiven, and he wrote unto them because they were forgiven. A person that is not forgiven, the Epistle does not apply to. He takes that ground in writing to them. He says, “I write unto you, children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake.” Such was the common condition of all Christians.

But now, when he comes to the different classes of Christians, there is a different character and position given to each of them. “I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning.” Amongst the children of verse 12 there may be old Christians and babes. The fathers had known “him that is from the beginning.” We have seen before, this means Christ in the world, His Person manifested in flesh. “Ye have known him that is from the beginning.” That is where all experience ends; not in a knowledge of self merely as being occupied with it, but in such a knowledge as empties us of self, and gives us Christ. When a person is a young Christian, he is occupied with his feelings; it is all fresh and new to him, and it is right enough. He feels such wonderful joy in being forgiven. But, as you grow up, you get more and more emptied of self and occupied with Christ. Christ is this, and Christ that. In verse 14 he only repeats the same thing when writing to the fathers. He has a great deal to add when he writes to the young men, but to the fathers, it is still, “Ye have known him that is from the beginning.” We learn our own foolishness and weakness, and so are cast upon Christ, and learn more of the depths of His grace, the perfectness of His Person. All right experience ends in forgetting self and thinking of Christ.

^[p. 218] Next, he comes to the young men: “I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one.” Having Christ with them, they have got strength in conflict and in service — they have overcome Satan.

Then he says, “I write. unto you babes, because ye have known the Father.” Here again, we get another remarkable fact as to what he thought about Christians. That is, the babes in Christ — they that were but little children — had the Spirit of adoption. He has no idea of the weakest Christian not knowing that he was a child of God. To know Christ well, in the riches and excellence of His Person, is to be a father in Christ. But the youngest Christian knows that he is a child, and that the Father is his Father. It is like all Christians being forgiven — it is his place as a Christian. “We have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but we have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba Father.” It is not that you will not find persons doubting. You will find many a person who, if you ask him whether he is a child of God or not, will think it very humble to doubt about it, but who, in his prayers, cries, “Abba Father,” with all his heart. It is between him and God. Repeating it over again, he has nothing to add to what he has said to the fathers, because all ends in Christ.

With the young men he goes more into detail because of the difficulties of the way, and he brings out the secret of strength for them — the word of God, in the midst of this world, where nothing is owned of God — God’s mind comes into this world, and that is what we want. There is no way in the desert, as it is said in the Old Testament. The word of God shows God’s way in the midst of a world where there is none. Therefore, when they are in the conflict, he says, “I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.” That is the word by which Christ Himself overcame when the wicked one came and offered Him all the kingdoms of the world, He answered by the word — He overcame the wicked one.

Then he warns them: “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.” These things belong to it. All the glory of this world is not of the Father at all. And the more we look into John, and indeed all through the New Testament scripture, we may see these two great systems brought out plainly. He does not say you do not love Christ. But there is one great system that belongs to the Father, and another that belongs to the world. Every thing belongs to God as a Creator; but morally all is departed from Him. It was the devil that made this world, looked at as a moral world. God made paradise; and man sinned and got out of it, and then made up this world. Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and builded a city, and called it after the name of his son. Then God sent His Son, and they would not have Him, and thus it was a judged world. God has put it fully to the test — without law, under law, and then by His Son; and then He says, It is all judged. But then He has a way of His own, the Father has, and you cannot have both. If you love the world, the love of the Father is not in you. You may be tempted by it, and have to overcome it; but if you love it, the love of the Father is not in you; because He has got a system of His own, and you are going to the other system. It is so all through. In the Gospel we get divine life in the Person of Christ, and in the Epistle this divine life in the persons of Christians. In John 8 you will see the same truth. “Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world.” There is no middle path with God. If they are of this world, they are from beneath; and if they are not of this world, they are from above. He says, I am not of this world; I am from above: because He came from the Father. You are of the world, and therefore from beneath, because it is Satan’s world. So here — if the love of the world is in you, the love of the Father cannot be. There is another divine system, where the love of the Father is displayed, and if you belong to that, you have to overcome the world. It is not of the Father; it does not belong to that system.

Then he adds this: “The world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” Satan’s works cannot last. They are seductive while they are there, but they cannot last: “but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” We have the same thing in Peter’s Epistle, “All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away, but the word of the Lord endureth for ever.” So here. “He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever” — he that follows that word. The word of God brings all this into us, and that is what we have to follow.

^[p. 220] Now he turns to the third class, having given this warning to the young men. For when a Christian is first converted, he would not thank you for the world. But when he has got on a little, the freshness fades; the world gradually eats out his freshness. If he is not careful, if his soul is not full of the things that are not seen, he gradually slips into the world. If he is full of Christ, he does not even see the things around. In chapter 5 John speaks of overcoming the world. There is the loss of all power and spiritual enjoyment, if the spirit of the world comes in: you cannot think of the things which the world suggests and the things of the Father at the same time. If the Holy Ghost is suggesting divine things to me, I have the present consciousness of belonging to all these things.

He turns, in verse 18, to the little children, and he tells them, “It is the last time.” That is a remarkable expression, because eighteen hundred years have gone on since then, and it remains equally true that it is the last time; only the Lord, in His patience, is waiting, and not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But it is the last time, because the power of evil has come in. When Christ was here, and was rejected, the power of evil was in the world. Then, when God raised up the church by the presence of the Holy Ghost, while Christ was on high, so that a man was in heaven, and the Holy Ghost in the world; there came power of redemption into the middle of Satan’s world. That was not the last time. But now antichrists had come in, and he says, “this is the last time,” because even this had failed, and nothing will come after this but judgment. “Little children, it is the last time; and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last time. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would not doubt have continued with us; but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.”

These babes in Christ had broken with the world; they had done with its course. But here was a new kind of evil in the very place of divine power; persons setting up themselves, and abandoning Christ, and this was more dangerous. They had broken with the world, and knew what it was. But here comes in spiritual wickedness in heavenly places. He warns the babes against these enemies of the last times. Thank God, we have the warnings now. The apostle Paul even says, these are the last days, which is stronger still. But there is entire security where Christ is looked to. It is remarkable how he looks at the presence of the Spirit of God in the saints. He may be a babe; but God will not suffer him to be tempted above that he is able to bear. There may be the young men, but God gives them discernment; they know not the voice of strangers. These people may come to them with ever so much pretension, but it is not a voice they know. They know the voice of Christ, and they follow Him.

^[p. 221] We saw that the babes in Christ knew the Father, and now we find further that these very babes have the divine unction, so that they will be able to judge through divine knowledge. He is pressing upon them their own competence, not as others, in themselves, but as taught of God, to avoid all snares. It is the subtlety of Satan, and therefore he warns the little ones more against it. “But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things. I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth. Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.” Here he gives us the full character of the antichrist. There were many antichrists, because the spirit of it had come in. Here it is the full character of it. It takes a certain Jewish character, denying Jesus to be the Christ; and it is opposed to Christianity, denying the Father and the Son.

Then he presses another point of immense importance, because people in these days use a great many fashionable words, such as development.

“Let that, therefore,” the apostle says, “abide in you which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son and in the Father.” It is the Person of Christ. Instead of talking about the church as a body that teaches, I say it is taught.

The thing that is revealed is the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, that which was from the beginning. But if my soul is resting upon that, the truth about Christ as taught by the Holy Ghost, I am taught of the Father. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes ... of the word of life.” And now he says, “Let that therefore abide in you which ye have heard from the beginning.” It is the Person of Christ that is the great thing, and it was by the revelation of Him that the church itself was formed. It exists in virtue of being taught of God.

^[p. 222] The church does not teach — had nothing to do with teaching at all. God may raise up individuals in the church to teach, but the thing pressed upon us is that which we have heard from the beginning. It is a test of divine truth that we hold fast the starting-point — Jesus Christ. This is what tests everything. Where people insist upon the authority of the church, they never have the certainty of being children. If I am taught of God, I shall know what I have got for certain. Faith is always absolutely certain. If I have got the Father, I know that I am a child. I may be a naughty child, but still I am a child. “If that which ye have heard from the beginning remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.” He has promised me eternal life, and I shall have it; it is a perfectly settled thing.

“These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you. But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you; but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.” There is real divine teaching. God may use an instrument to put it before us; but there is no real faith in the soul except where there is this unction of the Spirit of God. There may be convictions of sin before we get our souls clear as to being saved. But the moment I am divinely taught the Person of Christ, I say I have got eternal life — the life that God sent into the world.

A babe in Christ being most in danger, he enters into these kinds of warnings; but a person grown up into Christ knew very well where these things came from. What we now might think would be very learned things in Christianity, he says to the babes; but the great thing that marks those that are the most advanced — the fathers — is their knowledge of Christ.

The apostle takes up again in verse 28 all Christians in general, with an exhortation to abide in Him. You have here God in Christ so before the apostle’s mind, that he says “Him,” without saying who He is. He had been talking about the anointing — “even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.” Previously, it was rather God as such spoken of; but “when he shall appear,” we know Christ is meant thereby.

“And now, little children, abide in him; that when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming.” If they did not abide in Him, the apostle had lost all his work. It would have been so far to his shame. You get the same thing in the second epistle (verse 8), “Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward.” It is just what the apostle says to the Corinthians; 1 Corinthians 3: 12, etc.) If we build upon the foundation, wood, hay, and stubble, the work will be burnt; there will be loss: he is proved to be a bad workman. The apostle here is pressing upon them to abide in Christ, that he may not be ashamed of his work. It is “that we may have confidence and not be ashamed,” etc. — not that you may have confidence, etc. It is just what you see in the second epistle.

Then he takes up the second great object of the epistle — that communication of the divine nature of Christ, as our life, which gives us the same traits and characters that there are in God Himself — “which thing is true in him and in you.” God is love, and the Christian loves. God is holy, and the Christian is so too. In His almighty power God, of course, is alone. But in what may be called the character of God, inasmuch as we are born of Him, we are like Him. And this divine nature enables us to enjoy God, as well as to be like Him.

Then, again, we see that God and Christ are so absolutely one, that the apostle says, “that we may not be ashamed before him at his coming”; but immediately he adds, “If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that everyone that doeth righteousness is born of him.” We are born of God; yet he would appear to be speaking of the same one that should come — which is Christ. We find the same truth in Daniel 7. The Ancient of days described there is in Revelation 1 the Son of man. We get in Christ what the character and nature of God is in a man as living in this world; and then he shews that it is true of us too, as having the same life. He is righteous; and if a man doeth righteousness, he is born of Him. He has this nature.