1 John 5:1-5 - Faith Conquers the World

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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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In this chapter true faith is described as acknowledging the Messiahship of Jesus, as experiencing the new birth, as aflame with love to God and to all the regenerate, as keeping God's commands, as victorious over the world, as having inward self-attestation and eternal life, and as having boldness and success in prayer. The apostle in iv. 12 details the various evidences on which the Christian faith rests, and declares faith and love to be inseparable, that alike worthless is a faith which does not inspire love, and a love not the offspring of faith. The transition from the former chapter lies in the idea of brotherhood, not human, but Christian, arising from a love flowing from a vital apprehension of Christ as both an almighty Saviour and a supreme Lord. On the plane of love inspired by the Holy Spirit, this brotherhood is not an arbitrary command, but a natural outflow from this diffusive principle.

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?" 

Don't Pray for the World?

QUESTION: Explain Christ's word's "I pray not for the world." (John 17:9).

ANSWER:  They are not to be understood as an absolute refusal to pray for the world which he came to redeem. In his last prayer, in full view of the cross upon which he would die on the morrow, he focalized his prayers upon the few who believed in him, whose faith would certainly fail unless supernaturally strengthened by divine power, when the Messiah King should yield to the powers of darkness, and die as a malefactor. Verse [9] must have reference to a world that was yet in alienation from him. Says Luther, "To pray for the world, and not to pray of the world, must both be right and good. Paul certainly was of the world when he persecuted and killed the Christians. Yet Stephen prayed for him. Christ also prays in like manner at the cross, Luke 23:34." His prayer for the world is that it may cease to be what it is; his prayer for believers is that they may be perfected in the love enkindled in them when they were born from above. For this chiefly his high-priestly prayer was made.

— From Steele's Answers pp. 11, 12.

The Piano Tuner's Dilemma

QUESTION: I am a piano-tuner by occupation. Should I as a Christian refuse to tune the pianos used in ball-rooms and theaters?

ANSWER: In this wicked world there is scarcely any business which does not bring the Christian into evil associations which can be avoided only by "going out of the world," as Paul says in I Cor. 5:10. A poor day-laborer must either go out of the world or do the work, the evil use of which he is not responsible for, asking no questions for conscience sake. Yet he is to listen to the voice of conscience and heroically starve, if he should be required to take a direct and active part, such as that of the bartender, or the brewer, or distiller, or dance fiddler. Tuning the piano is one thing, but playing it for the dance is another.

— Steele's Answers p. 237.