September 18, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Like the gospel of John, the book of 1 John is filled with sharp contrasts: light and darkness, truth and falsehood, love and hate. In John\u2019s mind, things are fairly black and white with little if any grey area. In refreshingly simple terms, John writes his first epistle in order to give the people of God a better understanding of how they can know that they are saved, how they can tell the difference between true and false believers. He calls the church to be in a state of continual growth in faith, in obedience, and in love; let\u2019s heed that call together as a church as we read this letter!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
John begins this chapter with a command for his audience to \u201ctest the spirits\u201d, to discern between the kind of teaching and prophecy which comes from God and that which is of the world. The test seems simple enough: if the spirit in question does not confess Jesus as having come in the flesh and as the Son of the living God, it is not of God but of the antichrist. John elaborates by saying that all who listen to and affirm the teaching of the apostles are from God, and all who do not are of the world. In a world that increasingly attempts to blur the line between truth and falsehood, between the church and the world, between good and evil, we must be vigilant to test everything against the truth of God taught by the apostles and prophets and preserved for us in Scripture!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this chapter John gives his other descriptor for God; in chapter one he said God is light, and here he asserts that God is love. This statement has been co-opted and abused by those who refuse to understand it rightly, but John makes it clear what kind of love he is talking about when he says that God is love; he is talking about the kind of love that sacrifices for the other, even to the point of dying on a cross for the sins of another. He is talking about the love of God towards us in Jesus Christ, a self-sacrificial, giving, others-centered love, and John tells us here that knowing and experiencing that love always leads us to love others as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When we experience the love of God towards us in Christ Jesus, it produces in us love for God and love for other people. We love because He first loved us!<\/p>\n\n\n\n