1 JOHN 5 (NOTES OF A READING)
[p. 421] 1 JOHN 5 (NOTES OF A READING)
CAC This is the boldness that belongs to the family circle (verse 14); there is freedom in speaking to God and the sense of knowing what His will is, which belongs here to the family circle. This would go along with the knowledge that we have eternal life; we should gather, I think, that eternal life is the portion of children.
Ques Would you say that the boldness is in the realisation of the knowledge of His love in the relationship in which He has placed us to Himself?
CAC Quite so, God having given the knowledge of Himself we know what to ask for, so that we pray from that standpoint. As in the children’s place we know His will; it would be so normally in any family, the father’s will would be known generally by the children, they would have liberty in speaking to their father; but John supposes that we pass out of the region of sin.
Rem Life was one of His original thoughts for man, and there is confidingness.
CAC And God loves that, He does not take any pleasure in a spirit of bondage to fear. So in this case, we have the petitions. We are still in the place where prayer is needful. It is not needed in heaven but it is here. John’s gospel makes it very clear that everything is to be carried on on the principle of dependence. The Lord repeated it again and again to His disciples; so that we have a full resource.
Rem We are often very slow to ask. The woman in John 4 is instructive on that line. “If thou knewest the gift of God ... thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water”. Asking is a great thing.
CAC That is confirming; it is just what we have been saying. The Lord instructed her to ask according to God’s will. It is instructive. If we ask for living water, we shall get [p. 422] it.
I suppose all the wonderful things brought out in this epistle can very happily and advantageously be turned into prayer. Saints have been helped by praying about eternal life, have they not? It is really one of the most wonderful things that God has ever proposed, that it should be possible for dying men and women in a scene of death to have the enjoyment of that which death cannot touch, and to have it as a matter of life.
Some years ago when the question of eternal life came up, many were stirred up to know the reality of it for themselves. Though they knew it as a term, they actually knew no more of it than a block of wood! I do not suppose anyone will get the gain of it apart from prayer.
It is a serious thing that there is a sin unto death, for here I suppose it is a believer. “If any one see his brother sinning a sin not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life, for those that do not sin unto death”. But the asking is on the line of life. It shows how much we can do for our brother. It is a wonderful thing that we can get him life, that there is power for me to get him life by prayer. So if we see a brother sinning we are not to give him up but get him life. “And he shall give him life”, it says, as if there is no doubt about it.
Rem It is remarkable to think of the Lord as Man asking for life; “He asked life of thee; thou gavest it him, length of days for ever and ever” (Psalm 21: 4).
CAC It is remarkable that the Lord should have entered into life in resurrection on the principle of prayer. Think of that blessed One who was perfectly immune to death, coming into a position in which He could ask for life; and He received it in resurrection. Hebrews 5: 7 says He offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him out of death, and was heard because of His piety. It is not “from” but “out of” death. It is wonderful to think of the Lord getting life on the principle of prayer, but He is the pattern for everything, it is [p. 423] patterned first in the Lord. He saw the great shadow of death coming upon Him, there was no escape; only, His death was vicarious, but He prays with strong crying and tears, and resurrection is the answer to His own crying and prayers. We can be taken out of death morally by prayer. So if you see me sinning I hope that you will get me life.
The family of God is a circle of life, and everyone in it should be in life. If a man loses his place in the christian circle I regard that very seriously. If he is out of fellowship and dies without being restored he is guilty of a sin unto death. It is very solemn that so many get out of the circle of life and privilege and do not get back. Perhaps that is our fault, we do not pray for them. There is no life really outside christian fellowship, and it is a very solemn thing to get outside it.
I do not think it means some particular sin which people talk about as ‘mortal sin’. It is that there is such an amount of self-will in it that there is no restoration in the government of God. It is possible to be so self-willed that in the government of God there is no restoration. All this goes on in God’s government in His family. There is not only all the warmth and wealth of divine affection, but the solemn fact of divine government. It is so in any family; without government it would be like a ship without a rudder. “We know that every one begotten of God does not sin, ... and the wicked one does not touch him”.
Rem Verse 18 is the normal state in contrast to those who fall in the wilderness.
CAC It is quite abnormal for a believer to sin. The wicked one has not got anything in those begotten of God. “The ruler of the world comes, and in me he has nothing”, the Lord said (John 14: 30). He had not the slightest hold in that blessed One. As begotten of God we have the divine nature, and there is nothing for Satan in that. It shows how important it is that we should go on with what is of God.
Ques The thought of keeping oneself is important, is it not? Jude says, “Keep yourselves in the love of God” (Jude 21).
CAC It shows that the element of responsibility enters into things and we are put in charge of ourselves; and I have to be watchful and observant. The world is there with all its attractions, but it only appeals to that in me which does not love God. As children of God we love the Father, and the world has no appeal. I suppose Satan is baffled when he sees that the world does not make the slightest appeal to us. Satan claimed the world and its glory, and I suppose that through man’s sin Satan has got a certain power, so that he could propose to give the Lord all of it if He would worship him. But the Lord says, “Thou shalt do homage to the Lord thy God, and him alone shalt thou serve” (Luke 4: 8), showing that as God is kept before us we are not allured by what is in the world. Satan was a usurper. Satan might make a believer rich in order to ruin him. Many have been thus ruined, and by anything that belongs to the world. But if we are really in the love of God, those things do not attract us, and if things come to us in the providence of God we accept them as a responsibility.
Rem The statement that “the whole world lies in the wicked one” is a remarkable statement.
CAC Yes, there should be the consciousness with us that we are of God. All God’s children know that they are of God, by the intercourse they have with God. What they get from God is the great thing. It is a conscious knowledge. When we have to do with God we are conscious of it; we cannot have to do with God and not know it. If a child could not know his father, it would be a peculiar state of things. If one has once been turned inside out and convicted of sin, he knows no one else but God could have done it; and the consciousness of the love of God came in on top of that conviction, and we know it was God.
So there is a wonderful summing up in verse 20: “We know that the Son of God has come, and has given us an [p. 425] understanding that we should know him that is true; and we are in him that is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life”.
I do not suppose that refers to His coming historically, that He came nineteen centuries ago. But the Son of God has come into our lives; that is, He has come as regards me!
We can look back to a time when the Son of God had not come (He was a stranger to us and far off); and those to whom He has come are conscious that He has come. And He has given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true. The result of the Son of God coming into the heart really is that we get an understanding of God. It is very wonderful for it to be said, “We are in him that is true”, for I suppose that is God Himself; it is a little more than being in Christ, it is being in God.
Rem “God abides in him, and he in God”.
Ques Why does it say, “In him that is true”?
CAC Well, I do not know, but I wondered if it conveyed the thought that everything is perfectly genuine in God and nowhere else. There is no deception in any way, you can be sure of everything with God. I am amazed in myself that there is such a lot that is not genuine in ourselves; you are never quite sure when you have got to the bottom!
I think a Christian walking humbly with God would say he knew God better than himself. To the end there will be an element of uncertainty with us; no one of us quite knows what will turn up in ourselves. There is nothing absolutely genuine outside divine Persons, and the more we dwell in divine Persons the more genuine we shall be. So it says, “We are in him that is true, in his Son Jesus Christ”, for all that can be known of Him that is true has been set forth in a Man, and so is a substantial verity brought into our range in Him. So that everything is summed up in Him in that “He is the true God and eternal life”, and everything else outside Him is a lie. As the One who is true He is known to us; we [p. 426] have a standard by which to detect every idol.
“Children, keep yourselves from idols”. It is the last word from father John — for he takes a parental and not an apostolic place here — the last word from father John is to “keep yourselves from idols”.
Rem It shows that we are prone to it.
CAC Quite so. Naturally there is always the tendency with us to let anything outside divine Persons influence us. Anything that influences me outside is likely to become an idol. So our safety is to be kept, ‘Love divine, near Thee’.