1 John 4:7-12 - Love is the Mark of the Christian

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d. iv. 1-v. 12. The Sources of Sonship: Possession of the Spirit as shown by Confession of the Incarnation.

•     The Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of Error (iv. 1-6)
•     Love is the Mark of the Children of Him who is Love (iv. 7-21).
•     Faith Is the Source of Love, the Victory over the World, and the Possession of Life (v. 1-12).

 

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7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God

7. "Every one that loveth" with evangelical, pure, unselfish affection "is begotten of God." This excludes sexual love and the merely natural love of kindred. Some who have never heard of Christ, such as Socrates and Marcus Aurelius, have exhibited Christian philanthropy, which evinces that they were born of God. They had the spirit of faith, i. e., the disposition to embrace the object of saving faith, Christ, were He presented to them; and they had the purpose of righteousness, the disposition to conform to Christian ethics when revealed to them. "Such are saved through the historic Christ, though they know him not." (Wesley.) They have the essential Christ, i. e., the outlines of His moral character.

1 John 4:1-6 - Testing the Spirits

The mention of the Spirit, the pentecostal gift, as decisive of the question whether God abides in believers, suggests that a safeguard should be set up against false spirits who would lead them astray. These are not all of them disembodied, and invisible like Satan. Some of them walk the earth as living religious teachers. These must be tested to prove that they are in sympathy with God and are trustworthy expounders of His truth. Other evil spirits are unseen assuming "specious forms of ambition, power, honor, knowledge, as distinguished from earthly and sensual enjoyments. All such spirits are partial revelations of the one spirit of evil which become (so to speak) embodied in men." (Westcott.)

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d. iv. 1-v. 12. The Sources of Sonship: Possession of the Spirit as shown by Confession of the Incarnation.

•     The Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of Error (iv. 1-6)
•     Love is the Mark of the Children of Him who is Love (iv. 7-21).
•     Faith Is the Source of Love, the Victory over the World, and the Possession of Life (v. 1-12).

 

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1 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits, whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world

1. "Prove the spirits." One element of our probation consists in the exercise of our powers of discernment, in discriminating between the influences which are brought to bear upon us. The devil wears many different masks. He conquers by deceit. It is our duty to cultivate the ability to detect the actor behind the mask. This ability is one element of Christian perfection, according to Heb. v. 14, "But solid food is for the perfect, even those who by reason of use (habit) have their (internal) senses åexercised to discern good and evil." (R. V. margin.)

The mental inertia which refuses to form this habit of spiritual insight is next in culpability to total indifference in the presence of moral good and moral evil, holiness and sin, soliciting our choice and determining our character. There is no evading responsibility at this point. The fact that "discerning of spirits" is one of the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit excuses no one from the constant exercise of his intellectual discrimination between good and evil.

The Old Testament Witness Against Slavery (1891).

I have reproduced this from the Commentary on Leviticus written by Dr. Daniel Steele in Whedon's Commentary on the Old Testament. This was originally published in 1891.

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 1.) The verdict of Jehovah against chattelism, and in favor of freedom as the natural inheritance of all men, is found in the sentence of capital punishment inflicted on him who steals and sells a man, or retains him in his hand. Exodus 21:16. This statute lays the axe at the very root of chattel slavery by destroying its very germ, “the wild and guilty phantasy of property in man.” For both stealing and selling assume the fact of a property value. It is to be observed that this law is universal. Stealing a man is a crime. Exodus 21:7, is not a limitation of this universal prohibition to persons of Hebrew blood. The toleration and regulation of the system of servitude in Mosaism are by no means an endorsement of its abstract rightfulness, but rather a concession to the depravity of the times. “Servitude existed before Moses. It was no part of the mission of the Hebrew code to create it. Let it be forever admitted that the laws given of God through Moses cannot be held responsible for its existence. They found it existing, and proceeded, therefore, to modifyit; to soften its more rigid features; to extract its carnivorous teeth; to ordain that the slave had rights which the master and the nation were bound to respect — in short, to tone down the severities of the system from unendurable slavery to very tolerable servitude.” — Cowles.

1 John 3:13-24 - Love and Hate: Life and Death

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ii. 29-v. 12. GOD IS LOVE.

c. ii. 29-iii. 24.The Evidence of Sonship: Deeds of Righteousness before God.

• The Children of God and the Children of the Devil (ii. 29-iii. 12).
• Love and Hate: Life and Death (iii. 13-24).

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13 Marvel not, brethren, if the world hateth you

13. "Marvel not . . . if the world hate you." In the order of the original the word "hate" is accentuated. That there should be hatred of holiness instead of admiring love would awaken astonishment in all unfallen beings. This hatred of goodness shows the depth of the world's depravity. The "if" does not intimate a doubt, but rather it announces an existing fact. Hatred is the characteristic of the world. The connection of thought is that terrible as Cain's history is, it is a syllabus of the history of the world, a conspectus of its follies and crimes. 

1 John 3:4-12 - The Children of God and the Children of the Devil

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ii. 29-v. 12. GOD IS LOVE.

c. ii. 29-iii. 24.The Evidence of Sonship: Deeds of Righteousness before God.

• The Children of God and the Children of the Devil (ii. 29-iii. 12).
• Love and Hate: Life and Death (iii. 13-24).

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4 Every one that doeth sin doeth also lawlessness: and sin is lawlessness

4. "Every one that doeth sin," despite his philosophic theories and the intensity of his fancied illumination and superior knowledge, "doeth also lawlessness." Sin cannot be concealed by fine sounding phrases, such as an innocent misstep, a pardonable error. Every voluntary violation of the known law of God is a realization of sin in its completeness (Greek — "the" sin).

"Sin is lawlessness." These are convertible terms, and with equal truth the sentence may be read backwards. Sin is a wilful collision of a finite will with the highest authority in the universe. A failure to fulfil the law which man was created to keep, on which his happiness is suspended, is more than a disaster, it is a sin. Duty is threefold, to God, to men and to self. Hence there are three forms of sin. In each form there may be the doing of what is forbidden, which is a sin of commission, and the failure to do what is required, which is the sin of omission. In the last analysis sin may be traced to selfishness. See James i. 14, 15, for the first form of sin as selfishness, and James iv. 17 for the second form, a selfish failure in duty to others, which is emphasized by Christ in His description of the final judgment. (Matt. xxv. 31-46.) Sin reaches its climax when, having heard of the mission of Christ, the sinner sets Him at naught in His purpose "to take away sins." This He does, says Bede, "by forgiving sins, by helping us to keep from committing sins, and by reason of our moral inability to sin wilfully (Gen. xxix. 9) against one whom we love with the whole heart. Deliverance from punishment is the least part of Christ's work of taking away sins. He takes away the disposition to sin from every one who by faith claims His full heritage of divine grace. "He came to remove all sins, even as He was Himself sinless." (Bishop Westcott.) This explains how sin is utterly incompatible with fellowship with Him. It implies a rebuke of the Gnostic teachers, for the practice of sin, and it proved their professed knowledge of Christ to be unreal and hypocritical.

1 John 3:1-3 - The Children of God

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ii. 29-v. 12. GOD IS LOVE.

c. ii. 29-iii. 24.The Evidence of Sonship: Deeds of Righteousness before God.

• The Children of God and the Children of the Devil (ii. 29-iii. 12).
• Love and Hate: Life and Death (iii. 13-24).

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The third chapter should begin with the last verse of the second, which speaks of being begotten of God. Then naturally the author describes the present character and future position of the children of God when their real glory, now unappreciated by the world, shall be outwardly manifested.

1 Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God: and [such] we are. For this cause the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not

1. "Behold." This is not a mere interjection of surprise, but a verb in the plural number calling on all to gaze upon something actually visible now to eyes anointed by the Holy Spirit, and destined to be transcendently glorious hereafter.

"What manner of love." Love is the very essence of Christianity distinguishing it from all false religions. Its origin is not earthly, but heavenly. It is a spark dropped from the skies, not to consume sinners, but to illumine and purify believers.

1 John 2:29 & Concluding Thoughts on Chapter 2

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ii. 29-v. 12. GOD IS LOVE.

c. ii. 29-iii. 24.The Evidence of Sonship: Deeds of Righteousness before God.

• The Children of God and the Children of the Devil (ii. 29-iii. 12).
• Love and Hate: Life and Death (iii. 13-24).

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29 If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one also that doeth righteousness is begotten of him

29. "He is righteous . . . begotten of Him." The difficulty is to determine the antecedent of the pronouns "he" and "him." The last person mentioned is Christ the Judge. But "to be born of Christ" is not a scriptural idea. It is evident that John so firmly believed that the Father reveals Himself in His co-equal Son that he made the transition from one Divine Person to the other almost unwittingly.

"Is begotten of Him." He who in his character is like God is in Hebrew phrase begotten of Him. The habitually righteous man is a true son of the righteous God. Other points of likeness are faith and love.

CONCLUDING NOTE TO CHAPTER II

1 John 2:18-28 - Antichrists

 

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 b. ii. 12-28. What Walking in the Light excludes: the Things and Persons to be avoided.

• Three-fold Statement of Reasons for Writing (ii. 12-14)

• Things to be avoided: the World and Its Ways (ii. 15-17).

• Persons to be avoided: Antichrists (B. 18-26). [Transitional.] The Place of Safety: Christ (ii. 27, 28).

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18 Little children, it is the last hour: and as ye heard that antichrist cometh, even now have there arisen many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last hour

18. "It is the last hour." This expression denotes a crisis and not the end of the world. Christianity is the last dispensation in human history. It will be a period of suffering and conflict ending in victory over all the foes of Christ. Of these the most subtle and the most difficult to conquer is that evil power which antagonizes Christ by proposing to take His name and to continue His work while denying Him. This hypocrisy on the part of men professing faith in Christ is personified under the name of antichrist, a word meaning far more than an adversary of Christ. Says Bishop Westcott, "The essential character of antichrist lies in the denial of the true humanity of Messiah, as in verse 22, in iv. 3, and 2 John 7." To refute the Gnostic denial of the reality of Christ's body is the purpose of this Epistle. If He is not the God-man, very God and very man, there is an impassable gulf between God and the world. It is not bridged by the incarnate Son, if He is not a real man. If His body was a phantom, His incarnation, atoning death and resurrection are unreal. God is still unknown and unknowable, and all men are, and ever must be, agnostics groaning under the burden of unforgiven sins.

1 John 2:15-17 - "Love not the World."

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b. ii. 12-28. What Walking in the Light excludes: the Things and Persons to be avoided.

• Three-fold Statement of Reasons for Writing (ii. 12-14).
• Things to be avoided: the World and Its Ways (ii. 15-17).
• Persons to be avoided: Antichrists (B. 18-26).
• [Transitional.] The Place of Safety: Christ (ii. 27, 28).

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15 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

15. "Love not the world." The sum of secular influences hostile to God, "the world is the order of finite being regarded as apart from God. Whatever is treated as complete without reference to God is so far a rival to God" (Westcott), instead of being the true expression of God's will under the conditions of its creation. Some exegetes harmonize this prohibition, "love not the world," with the statement, "God so loved the world" (John iii. 16), by saying, "That which man may not do, being what he is, God can do, because He looks through the surface of things by which man is misled to the very being which He created." A better harmony of these Scriptures is found in the fact that love has two meanings : (1) a love of pity, and (2) a love of complacency and delight. In the first meaning we not only may love the world, but we ought to love the world, if we are in sympathy with God, and we are under obligation to evince our pitying love by godlike self-sacrifice for the salvation of the fallen world. The more Christ-like we are the more perfectly will we fulfil this obligation. But this material world, as an object of delight in preference to its Creator, we may not love. Augustine finely illustrates this point: "If the bridegroom should make for his bride a ring and give it to her, and if she should love the ring more than her husband who made it for her, would not an adulterous disposition be detected by means of this very gift of her bridegroom, although she was loving what he gave to her?" 

1 John 2:12-14 - John's Reasons for Writing

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b. ii. 12-28. What Walking in the Light excludes: the Things and Persons to be avoided.

•     Three-fold Statement of Reasons for Writing (ii. 12-14).

•     Things to be avoided: the World and Its Ways (ii. 15-17).

•     Persons to be avoided: Antichrists (B. 18-26).

•     [Transitional.] The Place of Safety: Christ (ii. 27, 28).

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12 I write unto you, [my] little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake

12. "Little children." This is a title of endearment addressed to all St. John's readers, and not to children in age.

"Your sins are forgiven." The Greek perfect tense implies not repeated forgiveness up to the present hour, but rather the unbroken continuance of a conscious freedom from guilt as the result of pardon.

"His name's sake." The antecedent to "His" is Christ, the thought of whom has been present in the mind of John since the last mention of His name in verse 2, and the last reference to Him in verse 6. His name implies all that is contained in His personality, His sinless example, atoning death, glorious resurrection and mediatorial intercession at the right hand of the Father. They who believe in His name not only assent to Christian truths, but also wholly cast themselves upon His atoning merit for the assured possession of eternal life. The declaration of the purpose of the Gospel in John xx. 31 is, "that believing ye may have life through His name." This corresponds very closely with the purpose of this Epistle, "that ye also may have fellowship with us," i. e., divine fellowship implies divine life.