1 John 5:6-12 The Possession of Life

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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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6 This is he that came by water and blood, [even] Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood

6. "This is he that came." The identity of the man of Nazareth with the eternal Son of God is again emphasized as the central truth of Christian theology, the reception of which is necessary to the attainment of victory over the world and of translation out of darkness into the marvelous light of His kingdom. Then follow the witnesses to this truth which are "the water and the blood." Many are the explanations of these words. The ritualists understand them to signify the sacraments of baptism and of the Lord's Supper. Others see only symbols of purification and redemption. But it seems to the writer that John uses these words as a summary of Christ's earthly life and mission, baptism in the water of Jordan and His sacrificial death by the shedding of His blood for the redemption of the world. The cardinal truths of His gospel are here briefly stated; for at His baptism with water was His baptism with the Holy Spirit attended by the Divine announcement of His Sonship to God in words implying that He is the Son in a sense unique and peculiar. This was a sufficient opening and explanation of the whole of His ministry. His public and tragic death is at once the close and the explanation of His life of self-sacrifice. "The Gnostic teachers, against whom the apostle is writing, admitted that the Christ came 'through' and 'in' water; it was precisely at the baptism, they said, that the Divine Word united Himself with the man Jesus. But they denied that the Divine Person had any share in what was effected 'through' and 'in' blood; for, according to them, the Word departed from Jesus at Gethsemane. John emphatically assures us that there was no such separation. It was the Son of God who was baptized; it was the Son of God who was crucified; and it is faith in this vital truth that produces brotherly love, that overcomes the world, and is eternal life." (The Cambridge Bible for Colleges.)

The Transforming Power of God's Love

"This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love each other, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us." — I John 4:10-12 (NIV)

In Christ crucified we find the highest expression of God's love to sinful men. The most comprehensive sentence in the universe is comprised in three monosyllables, 'God is love.' Nature could not reveal this wonderful truth, men of the greatest wisdom and insight could not infer it from the physical world or from human history. There is too much suffering in the world to justify such an inference. It must be revealed by the Spirit of God, who searches the depths of His being. The Spirit inspired John to write the words 'God is love,' the demonstration of which he had contemplated at Golgotha.

Natural Religion Fails to Discover Forgiveness

At another vital point do all systems of natural religion fail utterly in affording to the guilty soul the assurance of forgiveness. Here is a practical test. Does my religion save me now from the guilt, the pollution and the dominion of sin? Go and question nature until you are gray. Her lips will ever be dumb. Though Bishop Butler may find in the constitution and course of nature some faint analogies which may confirm the doctrine of forgiveness when it has been once revealed, there is not in the whole range of nature sufficient light for the discovery and demonstration of this cardinal evangelical truth.

The analogies of suffering invariably treading upon the heels of violated natural law with no provision in nature to arrest the penal consequences, strongly incline men to believe that punishment must inevitably, without an exception, follow the transgression of moral law. Hence paganism teaches that the penalty follows the sin as surely as the cart-wheel rolls in the footsteps of the ox. Socrates was so impressed with the cardinal doctrine of natural religion, that God is just, that he doubted whether God could pardon sin. The semi-paganism of the liberalists and free-religionists teaches the absolute impossibility of the pardon of sin. In their estimation it would be plucking down the pillars of God's throne and subverting the moral order of the universe. But turn to Christianity and you find that not only forgiveness through faith in the atoning Savior, but also the knowledge of forgiven sin, is its grand and glorious peculiarity. From the day the apostles went forth preaching to guilty men the knowledge of the forgiveness of sins till this hour, there have not been absent from the earth witnesses to the truth of this doctrine. Millions have crossed the flood, and millions are crossing now who can say, "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord."

— Jesus Exultant Chapter 9.

Is Perfect Love Real?

QUESTION: When I quoted to my pastor I John 2:5 and 4:18 he said "There is no such a thing as perfect love." What shall I say to him?

ANSWER: Tell him for me that he assumes that he is wiser than John and that a light so much brighter than the beloved apostle ought not to be kept under a bushel but on the world's candlestick. For John did not know any better, after leaning on the bosom of Jesus, than to teach that there is such a glorious reality as perfect, i.e., pure, love shed abroad by the Holy Spirit in the heart of him who exercises an all-surrendering faith in Jesus Christ as both Savior and Lord. If this is a chimera, those Christians who are chasing it ought to know it, but as it is a blessed verity, let it be proclaimed from the house-top in trumpet tones by every herald of the Gospel.

— Steele's Answers p. 164.

When Did Christmas Festivities Originate?

QUESTION: I find nothing in the Bible about Christmas festivities. When and where did they originate?

ANSWER: Augustine (A. D. 354-430) considered the fast of Good Friday and the festivals Easter, Ascension and Whitsuntide (Pentecost) as the only holy days which had an apostolic origin. Christmas, he deemed to be of later origin and of less authority. This was because the day of Christ's birth was unknown. Neither did the Jews nor the great pagan nations make any record of the birth in a stable of a humble peasant babe. The various guesses were the 6th of January, the 20th of May, and the 20th or 21st of April. The 25th of December was conventionally chosen, I am sorry to say, because it was nearest to the pagan saturnalia to which the converts had been accustomed while heathens. Hence the purity of the day became sullied almost at the first by the revelry and unrestrained license of that period of seven days. The remedy is in joyful worship and in impressing upon the children especially, and all other receivers of gifts, that they are designed to remind them of God's great and unspeakable gift, of the world's Savior. If the gifts are of books, they should be such as relate to Christ. In this way the day may be rescued from follies and frivolities.

— Steele's Answers p. 145, 146.

Christ: Founder of a New Order

When sin had discrowned Adam and his sons it was determined in the Council of the Trinity that a new and superior order should be constructed out of the ruined race. A second Adam appears on earth the first term of the glorious series, the new founder of the new order. He is the norm or model by which the new creation will proceed.

All those sons of fallen Adam who by faith yield to the transfiguring power assume the essential attributes of the second Adam, the Lord from heaven. To adopt the phrase of modern philosophy, a new race is to be evolved. In all evolution there must first be involution. You must put into the first term all that you take out. Jesus Christ is the first term. "And it pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell." "For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily."

Can Law Alone Save?

QUESTION: Explain Galatians 3:22-25 and answer the question, Can a sinner come to Christ through the constraint of the law alone without faith in Christ?

22 But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.  23 But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.  24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.  25 But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.  (KJV)

ANSWER: Paul teaches the opposite, that law can only show the sinner's guilt, but cannot remove it; just as the straight-edge used by the carpenter cannot straighten out the crooks which it reveals. If the legalist or moralist could find perfect rest of soul in his own good works, he would never feel the need of the Saviour to give him rest. He must despair of salvation on the ground that he has perfectly kept the law before he will plant his feet on the new ground, faith in Christ. He will then render glad obedience to him as his Benefactor and will no longer need a pedagogue or child-leader to drag his unwilling feet. Love to the Lawgiver has taken the place of fear of the law. But law is still his rule of life. Believing in Christ is what is meant by coming to Christ. By faith he is united with Christ and by faith he stands. He is freed from the moral law as the ground of acceptance with God and also as a motive to good works, which will now spontaneously appear as the fruit of faith. This is what we mean when we say the believer is not freed from the law as the rule of life.

— from Steele's Answers pp. 46, 47.