First John 5:1-3 Our Relationship To God Part 2

Okay, 1 John chapter 5 verses 4 and 5 is what we're doing. Our Relationship to God part 2 is what it's titled. Boy, I couldn't get out of this verse 4 and studying these two verses this week. I thought, oh, this is That's easy, right? Yeah, it's just two verses. Boy, I'll take the week off. But boy, it's a big verse, so big two verses. So we'll look at that. So last week's verses were one through three that Roy covered in 1 John. So I'll read those.

Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God or begotten of God. And whoever loves The father loves the child born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and we observe or keep his commandments. For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not burdensome.

And that the father up there in verse one is supplied I think that interlinear and things like that has the one who begets or the one who begets. It's technically that way. So it's the one who begets is the father, and then the begotten are the children. born of the one who begets, is how the Greek reads there. And if you look at Roy's lesson last week, you'll see that clearly.

So today's verses 4 and 5 is, for whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith. Or some texts have even our faith. Verse 5, who is the one who overcomes the world? But he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. So that's our two verses for today. I'm pulling up Roy's summary from last week. It's a good one, so that's how we'll review last week. Chapter 5, verses 1 through 3.

Roy says, anyone believing that Jesus is God's promised Messiah, who has paid the penalty for his sins is born by God into God's church age family. That's what verses one through three are saying. As born again ones from God, as born from God ones, he says, when we love God, we will love all of God's family.

I added a thought that says, Is this, I think this means that begotten ones of God will naturally love other begotten ones. Like kind will recognize and love other like kinds is the note I added there. And I think if Roy doesn't mind, that might be correct. We experience love for all of God's family when we openly believe on him and his work on the cross for us and let him love all his family through us. God is love. We learned from 1 John earlier. And as we are changed to be like him, we love others now too, like he does. He loves others. He loves the ones begotten of him. So do we. And that's through our regeneration, through that being born again.

And that's sort of that That's one of the major themes of these five verses is this regeneration and the manifestation of being regenerated in Christ. Roy says, his commands are to believe on him that Jesus is God's son whom he the father has sent and the other command is to love one another or others in God's family. As I have loved you, Christ says, as the Son has loved us.

And then I just added, he didn't have this, but these two commands are not burdensome. They're not grievous, they're not weighty. And so that's a brief review of Last week's lesson from Roy. Oh, and then he adds at the end, Roy adds, God's commands are like divine love songs that we joyfully sing to him. And that was a popular sentiment I remember from last week.

So into verse four then, for whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world. Our faith has overcome the world. For whatever is born of God, in the interlinear, it's because, you know, for the fact that, and the subject is being born from God. So for the fact that we are born from God, we overcome Our faith overcomes the world. That's in the interlinear, the word because, and whatever.

John goes from verse one, he says, whoever, and he's talking about all believers and he's talking about ones who place their faith in Christ, but he switches the adjective here to a neutered adjective. It's whatever. And that's kind of strange, isn't it?

But Merriman says that by doing that, it stresses the comprehensive categorical fact that of the concept of being born from God is what John is talking about here. So he's moving from maybe individuals to this, he's looking at the principle of being born again. with this word, whatever. So whatever is born of God, the born is ganao.

It's a verb in the perfect tense, passive voice. So it's being done to us. We're the recipients. And the perfect tense says that it was done once in the past and has abiding results lasting through today. And the results would be our Our new in Christ, we have power, we have strength in Christ as Christians. We have the mindset of Christ and we have eternal destiny of being born from God. So those are some of the things I could think of that abide with us in this perfect tense that he puts that in, the word genal.

C.H. Macintosh says, I'll go back to what he stated, I think I've had this in a long ago previous lesson, and that is there's two musts in the Gospel of John, stated by Christ himself. One, you must be born again. And then he goes right on to say to Nicodemus, he says, as Moses was lifted up As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. And he goes, so that whoever believes will in him have eternal life in the Son. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.

That's John 3.16. So that's John Chapter 3 verses 7 and 14 through 16. So two musts. Macintosh says there's two men and they have two musts. There's one man, us, you and me, and there's Christ. So we must believe and Christ had to be lifted up on the cross.

And there are two absolutes, not really commands, musts are really an absolute instead of a command, something that just has to happen, categorically must happen. Yeah, actually Macaulay is always saying absolute necessity. Yeah, right, absolute necessity. And I don't know if the word must is ever used like that as powerfully as in those two places.

And on one man replaces, you know, the other man where our old man is replaced by our new man and the second man is Christ. For whatever is born of God is a phrase that, and this is what I said before, it's the reason he neuters it and things and stresses the categorical fact of being born from God is that he's stressing the principle of being born again.

The interlinear It reads, because everything having been begotten of God overcomes the world. So let's look at this overcome, overcomes the world for whatever, for whatever, I have two whatevers there, don't I? So whatever is born of God overcomes the world.

We'll look at overcoming the world. Overcomes is Nakao, and it's in the present tense, active voice. So, whatever is presently overcoming the world. Merriman likes to say it's durative action. It keeps on overcoming the world. As Roy stated, he had who, what, where, when, and why, and how in his lesson last week.

And I'll just take that thought and said, when is this all happening? Well, it's happening right now because it's in the present tense. Nakao is this word for overcome, is a verb from Nike. Terrible shoe company, by the way. With all their leanings and things like that. So there you go. So this lesson will not be sponsored by Nike. So the noun Nike means to conquer or to prevail. And Nika'o is the verb of that.

So Merriman says that the moment we become a begotten one from God, We become a focal point of angelic warfare. We are in a war, aren't we? And we are battling that. If you just turn on the news and you'll see a war we're in. A spiritual war. Soon to be in World War III, physically, but it seems, but at least we're in a spiritual war right now. There are three fronts to the war, the angelic war, or the spiritual war. It's that one is the world, two is the flesh, and three is the devil.

That's well stated in scripture. So let's review what the world, what this word, it's the word cosmos in Greek. What is it? And you've seen this before from me. Lucifer Schaefer's definition of cosmos. The cosmos is a vast order or system that Satan has promoted, which conforms to his ideals, aims, and methods. It is a civilization now functioning apart from God. This system embraces godless governments.

Conflicts. It's amazing how timely this is. Conflict, armaments, jealousies, it's education, culture, religions of morality and pride. It's the sphere in which man lives. It is what he sees and what he employs to the uncounted multitude or unbelievers, it is all they will ever know as long as they live on the earth. It's properly styled the satanic system, which phrase is in many instances a justified interpretation of the so meaningful word cosmos. And that's from Louis Barry Schaeffer.

So a very good definition, I think, of cosmos and There's one thing, though, there in the middle that's wrong. Do you see that? Godless governments. Governments aren't godless, are they? They are good and just. No, I'm kidding. It's a perfectly stated definition.

So whatever is born of God overcomes the world here in verse four. We're still looking at this overcoming the world. Oh, and by the way of review, we've learned in 1 John and we've also seen in the gospel and John amplifies what he wrote in the gospel here in 1 John.

About the cosmos and here's what Christ says about the world or the cosmos so our standing in the world Christ says in John 15 19 He says if you were of the world the world would love its own But because you are not of the world But I chose you out of the world because of this the world hates you So that's our standing in the world the world hates us We are in the world, but not of it, Christ says. I do not ask you to take them out of the world, him asking the Father, but to keep them from the evil one, in John 17, 15. Who owns the world?

That's Satan, and we see that in 1 John 5, 19. We'll see it in a future lesson. John says, we know that we are of God and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. So he, the world is in his power, Satan's power. Our mindset towards the world must be, do not love the world nor the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in him. And we saw that back in chapter two of first John. verse 15. And so the world, this cosmos, it's a big subject in 1 John.

Our resource in the world, from 1 John 4 that we've seen in a past lesson, John says, you are from God, little children, and have overcome them. Those are the Antichrists. Because greater is he who is in you, than he who is in the world. So that is our resource in the world, is Christ himself.

Then finally, I can't do this little subsection without this verse, John 16, 33, and that's Christ speaking, these things I have spoken to you so that in me you may have peace. We can have peace in the world. In this world, you'll have tribulation. Boy, boy, do we ever. But take courage or be of good cheer for I have overcome the world. So Christ has overcome the world. It says in John 16, 33. And that overcome, the same word, nakao, that's in the perfect tense, active voice. Christ did it. He did it at the cross.

It's in perfect tense. So it's abiding results and it's in the indicative mood. So it's an assertion of the fact that he has overcome the world. Some would say that the indicative mood is the mood of reality. So that's just a statement of pure pure hard fact there. So that's it. It starts bad, but it ends well there relating to the world. This slide here is the defeat. Here's the picture of the defeat of the cosmos of the world from Revelation 19.

Um, and I just put down the verses, Revelation 19, 11 through 21. And it's, you all know it, uh, you know, John, uh, in the, uh, book of Revelation sees a heaven open and behold a white horse and he who sat on it is called faithful and true. And in righteousness, he judges and wages war and his eyes are like a flame of fire and he has many diadems and He has this name written on his thigh, I'll kind of skip down here in the narrative, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and he seizes the beasts and the false prophet, and he throws them And in verse 21, I'm just summarizing this and you can read it in its entirety a little later. And the rest were killed with the sword, which came from out of the mouth of him who sat on the horse and all the birds were filled with their flesh.

So that's, that is the, you know, I was thinking about it. This is the destruction of the cosmos system right here. is when Christ, the heavens open and Christ appears at the second coming. And because this is the apex of the world system, the cosmos system, there at the end of the tribulation period. And this destruction here is its defeat.

But you may be wondering, what about this this little our faith text in verse four. Well, I'll circle back and now we'll revisit the actual verse. I kind of went off on a tangent there, but it sort of lays the background for this thing that overcomes the world and that's our faith. But first a little more about this word overcome. What is the victory or Nike that has overcome Nakao?

That's the verb, the world. And it says there in verse four, it's our faith. The Greek word is apistis, which means, well, I'll get to the definition a little later here, but that's what conquers or that's what prevails over the world in verse four here.

Note that overcome is an aorist, a once for all act. And Merriman says that the aorist has an aura of finality. So it's our faith once for all overcomes the world. The aorist is a very special little Greek Meaning that it is important here. A Greek tense, right? For a verb. An aorist, an example of an aorist would be in Romans 6. How shall we who have died to sin live in it? And that we who have died to sin, that's an aorist.

Once for all fact. Just a point in time fact. So, faith. Let's define faith now. I'll define faith as the writer of Hebrews does. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. So, I'm sort of doing the essence of faith right now, not exactly our personal faith. But we'll look at faith in its essence. Like my dad had that study on faith.

I'm kind of mirroring that here. I think it's helpful in this case. So substance is the Greek word hypostasis. And that means it's the reality of something or it's the undergirdment of a fact. It's a real foundation. Hupostasis really means understanding, but not as you think understanding means mentally, but something that stands under something, like a foundation. So that's why I made up this word, undergirdment, or undergirding. It's a real word, but no one ever uses that.

So that's the word substance, and that's what faith is. substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. In Hebrews, it's the reality. It is the reality of the things. The things are real and they don't depend on any outside source of verification. Even it doesn't depend on us believing them to be true. They stand on their own, irregardless. And what are these things? These things are the things of God, aren't they? So, when we have personal faith, we exercise personal faith by relying and trusting in the veracity of the real things of God.

It's sort of how Hebrews 11.1 plays out there. And there are many things of God in this.

In the case of verse four that we're studying this morning, the two things of God are that believing that Jesus is the anointed one, the Christ from chapter five, verse one. And the second thing we are to believe is that that he is the son of God. And we see that in the next verse we're studying this morning. You see that there in verse five, who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the son of God. So those are two things we are to exercise faith about, two real things of God.

Hence God sent his son as the Messiah, as the Christ to deliver us from sin. And that's the simple gospel. The gospel is one of the things that are God's reality. It's a thing that he accomplished at a point particular time in history. They're all facts.

I note that one of the things of God that God really likes to state often in the Old Testament is the fact that he brought the children of Israel out of the desert, right? He brought them out of the desert and parted the Red Sea and he led them through the wilderness and brought them into the promised land. He always says, I'm the God who brought you out of Egypt. And that's how he defines himself a lot of times in the Old Testament.

And that's one of his things. So that's what we have faith on. It's a reality. That's another thing of God that we are to believe. The interlinear has here in verse four, and this is the victim overcoming the world, the faith of us. So the interlinear has the faith, the definite article faith. But it's interesting, it has a definite article and it's also faith of us. So you see it's the thing called faith or the definite article faith or the essence of faith plus its personal faith there in the interlinear. But what we're really talking about in this verse is our personal faith in these things. Here I ask myself a question. Is this reality, is any of this reality of things of God known to the world?

And the answer would be no. The non-believer does not believe that Jesus is the Christ, that he's from God. So he's not born again. He's not regenerated. And you could say that the reverse is true. See up in verse 5 there. Who is the one who overcomes the world? But he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God, verse 5 says. So if you take the reverse of that and say, One who does not believe that Jesus is the Son of God will not overcome the world. He'll be defeated and crushed by the world. And that's a point that Merriman brought out that, yeah, the non-believer cannot have any victory over the world.

And lastly, on this faith subject, the word faith, it requires an object, doesn't it? And here it is the fact that Christ has overcome the world. We looked at that in John 16, 33. But the object is really the person of Christ, Christ himself. Christ himself, his veracity and his standing in the world. Who and what he is, is what we base our faith on. Always requires an object. Andrew? Yeah, go ahead. I think you're hitting this spot on. One thing that you said at the very beginning is that this is a neuter, whatever. Yeah, yeah. It's a principle that is being thought here.

And when you have the article with the faith, it's the body of truth that is the victor. Our faith is in that body of truth focused, in this case, on the Lord Jesus Christ, right? Yeah. And you went into it in Revelation very clearly. And I believe that the next verse is in contrast to that. where we have the personal, who is the one? So, I think John, by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, says that there's a principle that what we are believing overcomes the world. Yeah. And who is the one that is overcoming the world?

We are a part of that picture, Christ in us, right? Right. And so, do you see in the interlinear there's the faith but it also says the faith of us and you're right in verse 5 it's who is the yeah so there's both at play there the body of truth the faith all the information that we need to know and our reliance on that right yes good so one one emphasizes that it is the body of truth believe. The other verse emphasizes that we participate in that victory of God by believing on Christ.

Yeah. And that is even a contrast to the first phrase above, isn't it? Because one believing that Jesus is the Christ, the promised one, that's really a foundational truth but here that he's the son of God is a bit of a contrast also. Yeah. I see here I'm hoping that that might help us all understand that John appears by the guidance of the Holy Spirit to talk in a general way about the faith and then in a specific way about what is our faith that overcomes We're part of that victory, aren't we? Yeah, yeah. And that's a wonderful thing.

So here in this, I think I'll have time for, yeah, I will, to look at that a little more, what Roy's kind of talking about in the next slide here too. So verse five, I don't really go into it so much because what he's, it's just a lot of repeated, we know this, he's restating what we've already heard in a different way.

He says, who's the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes Jesus is the son of God. And he's stated that since verse one. that believes Pistilo there is a present active participle. So it's in the present tense. Who is believing? It's us doing it. So that's our, like Roy said, that's our personal faith in the body of information, which is faith.

Merriman has brought out this, that this These two verses are a syllogism, and I guess Aristotle, I flunked out of Greek school, you know, of, what's it called, when you... Logic or... Logic, yeah. Philosophy, yeah. I never took any of those classes, so I know little about them. Learned a little about them in high school, but I'm getting interested now because, you know, I need more logic in my life. But a syllogism is a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion. This is what a syllogism is. And we'll look at how this is, verse 1 through 5, is a syllogism. If I can get my mouth to work.

So verse 1, the major premise. is whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ of God is born of God. So let me read that again. Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ of God is born of God. That's from verse 1 that Roy covered last week. The minor premise is in verse 4. Those born of God overcome the world. Which leaves us with the conclusion, therefore, whoever believes that Jesus is the Son of God overcomes the world.

And John writes it out as a Greek syllogism. And here's an example from, not the Bible, but one you've heard. All men are human. All humans are mortal. Therefore all men are mortal. That's his syllogism. So basically he's saying the same thing with these verses in this major premise, minor premise, conclusion form. And my conclusion for today is his victory by grace, association, and regeneration is our victory. Amen. Yeah. And let me, let me just do one more thing here before we close out. There's a, J. F. McGee gives an excellent example of these two verses, this overcoming the world, our faith, and that's in the story of Joshua and the Israelites at Gilgal before they entered Canaan. from Joshua chapters five and six.

And when they took control of Jericho, think of that, they were camped outside of Jericho. And then, so Joshua was a great, great military man. But this man with a sword appeared to him. And Joshua said, who are you? Why are you drawing a sword? Are you for us or are you against us? You know, because he was the commander. Here's this guy coming out with a sword. What's his deal? So he recognizes that this man was the incarnate Christ. And this man told him of how he was going to conquer Jericho. And we know the story.

The Israelites formed a front and they were to march around it once a day for six days with the priest in the front and the Ark of the Covenant in front. And then on the seventh day they marched around seven times and then it fell. Well, to a military man that would be the That wouldn't make sense at all, just marching around your target attacking them or nothing, right? So that the soldiers inside of the city walls of Jericho who were up on the walls to defend against an assault with their spears and hot boiling oil to pour over and things like that, they were waiting for this assault, but for six days, all they did was march around it twice and then they called it a day. So by the time the fourth day arrived, the soldiers inside the city of Jericho were probably playing solitaire by that time because nothing was going on. So the seventh day came and it fell. So think of that victory of Jericho, the walls falling. And that was all by faith. And it's a wonderful representation of physically what happened to Israel with the spiritual concept here we're looking at today.

And then really quick, they go up and they go to this little town of Ai, tiny little town. So they said, Oh, we'll only send up 3000 men. It'll be easy. We'll be done. in about 90 minutes, but they go up there and they get routed by these people in the AI. That's because the one soldier steals, takes some plunder, right?

So that represents the flesh, is what J. Verne Newquay says. And then they go on to Gibeon. When the people of Gibeon, they deceive the Israelites. and they can't conquer them because they make a covenant with them and they were deceived. So that represents the devil, the world, the flesh, the devil, those three cities there. So it's really cool, but that first one representing the world, the fall of Jericho, that's a really good illustration of what we studied today. So there you go. I'll close here. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the time we spent in 1 John and your rich word and that it is true that our faith overcomes the world. We have victory in Christ. In Jesus' name, Amen.