1-3 John - 1st John 4 - Review/Questions on Chapter 4
1 John 4 · Roger Henderson · Sep 4, 2011
1, 2 & 3 John, No. 36
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926245367446

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

OK. Well, let's see here. Would someone like to read Chapter 4? The whole thing? Well, or parts of it? You want to share it with a friend? I can't read it. You do it in your turn. I'm sorry. Mine's taped together. OK. OK. I can read somebody else. Reading John 4? Yeah, 1 John 4, Chapter 4. Well, my I can't read it. I wish I could. Oh, but my my Bible was torn. I mean, that page is taped. You're going to help me. I got it. Memorize it. Well, no, I haven't. Somebody reads the first part. I can read the second. Yeah. So you start.

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the Spirit of the Antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world.

You are from God. little children, and have overcome them, because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. They are of the world, therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them. We are of God, he that knoweth God heareth us. He that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby we know we are the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

Let us love one another, for love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.

Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us, God is love, and that he dwelleth in love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in the world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him because he first loved us. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him. that he who loveth God loveth his brother also. Great. Thanks. Thanks ladies. I appreciate that. Okay. Well, we've been covering 1 John since the 17th of July.

We did it in seven sections and we divided it up and these are the names that I kind of assigned to it. They're not perfect. As I look back through, I said, well, I should have named it this and that. So what I propose to do is basically to go through the seven sections that have been taught already and just ask a few questions.

John has so much, every statement is a pondering, every statement he has, but I think there's a few things we can hopefully think about and consider that maybe we thought about before or maybe amplify upon that. So we're just going to start off with the first section, the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. So the first question I had here, and this is kind of thinking through the tenses in the Greek a little bit.

Since do not believe is in the present tense, what would be an alternate translation for that phrase, do not believe? So, think about the present tense. Do believe. Okay. Alright. Okay. That's okay. Well, it says do not believe, right? Since do not believe is in the present tense, in the Greek, what would be another way to say that? And if you look at Wyss and others, they have taken advantage of the present tense. You are not to believe every spirit? No, okay. I'm not looking so much for... I'm looking for, and maybe this is actually too much. Somebody else had a... Do not be believer? Okay. How about, do not continue to believe?

What I'm trying to pick up on here, and maybe this is too subtle a point, is that In Greek, when it's in the present tense, it has the idea of continuing. It's not just, I'm here present today, and I may or may not be present tomorrow. It means that I'm presently doing something. So it says, it assumes that there's ongoing action.

So it says, beloved, Do not believe every spirit. So it assumes that you are believing every spirit. So you could translate like this. You could translate it. Do not continue to believe the spirits. But what a more powerful and more stronger to the point is stop believing the spirits. So with that little piece of information, that's pretty powerful. It says that Beloved, and remember Beloved is this wonderful word that we've seen in 1 John a lot. It's the idea of divinely loved ones. It's a form of agape basically. Divinely loved ones.

He's concerned about, stop believing every spirit. He wants them to be wise. All through John he's cautioning them about truth. truth and error and that kind of stuff. So this is, it starts off in this chapter to say basically do not believe or maybe more precisely stop believing every spirit and then the question number two comes along.

Is that clear? Okay, good. What is the reason for the testing of the spirits? Now all these questions I didn't not try to be tricky. Maybe they are tricky. I just tried to look at the verse And maybe rephrase it and ask a question. So the answer is in the verse. It should be. To see if the spirits are from God, because if they're not, it's false doctrine.

Amen. Amen. That's exactly right. That's exactly what it says. We're to test the spirits and the reason we're to see are these spirits from God or not from God? Tom? What is that eenie, meenie, meenie? Cheely. Cheely, meenie, meenie. I don't remember. Tom, only you would have that piece of information. I don't know how, I can't remember half of that. Because he already spent his time. Oh my. Okay, alright. That kind of leads to the next question.

What is the test you are to apply to the spirits? What test are you to apply to the spirits? It's in the verses. who is Christ, right? And back in verse 2, confess that Jesus has come in the flesh and is from God. So there's two possibilities. Margaret was doing this. Confess or say the same thing. Agree with what scripture says.

Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. And the last question is what is already in the world according to this verse? The spirit of the Antichrist. And that's what we're going to see is that the spirit of the Antichrist is coming at a point in time But the spirit of the Antichrist, false doctrine, false belief, contrary to who Christ is, is in the world. And that's what John is cautioning us about. So there's obviously a lot more questions than these four questions about these verses. Any other thoughts or questions about these verses? Yeah, what is the spirits or spirit?

Well, in this case, it's a person, right? It seems like it's a person. A person may confess and agree that Jesus has come in the flesh, or he may not. It's not like it's a person. Actually, I think Pat asked that question. That's a good question. I believe it's a person. I do not believe every spirit. But does that mean the spirit of Antichrist is alive? The spirit of the Antichrist is alive right now? Well, I think there aren't those who deny that Jesus came in the flesh. They deny the entire message of the cross.

But you said it's a person. Well, okay. It's referring to the prophets, right? Well, it says, do not believe every spirit. No, but back down when it talks about the spirit of the antichrist. Oh, okay. Well, the spirit of the antichrist could be in a person, right? Disbelief. I don't know. Is that a divine spirit? Wouldn't it mean that the spirit or the... No, go ahead Margaret. Keep going. No, I was just going to say that the spirit is his philosophy, his demeanor, his thought, his character is in that person. Well also notice that the spirit of has been added. It's in italics there. So it just basically says this is of the Antichrist.

So to be of the Antichrist is to have what? To deny what God has done as revealed in scripture. Tom? You could say that this spirit of Antichrist was definitely present even back then simply because back when Paul was trying to evangelize in Athens or at least find out about how people were at so that he could speak to them from where they were and he had a certain amount of Greek background The general spirit was, you know, we have all these guns, we can add another one. So I think the spirit of the Antichrist is agreeing with what Antichrist is. He's denying the truth of what Scripture reveals that Christ has come in the flesh.

Okay, so let's go on to the next section. This is kind of part two. First question. What does it mean to be from God? And this was talked about in kind of a variety of ways. And actually, I've forgotten. I think Bob presented this one, I believe. What does it mean to be from God? And once again, this is not to be tricky or anything like that.

It does help if you know a little Greek here. But also, I think we talked about this a lot. There's a word that we use, a synonym, to be like in character. Source. Source is what I was looking for. I think Bob mentioned that. It's the word ek in the Greek to be out from, out from God. So when we see that it talks here about you are from God, that's a wonderful statement about the believer in the word Jesus. You are out from God as a source.

I'm just picking out little nuggets here and there, and we went through this a lot before, and we talked about it, and we talked about source many times, so when we see from this and from that, it's kind of good to say, what's the source? The source of the believer God the word Jesus Christ, and that's really you know that's why I didn't be called little children beloved That's our source, and it's wonderful. It's wonderful You know John just he just piles truth upon truth upon truth is so this chapter alone is so encouraging you I'm from God. I you know I I Abide in God that he loves me and Bob you know on and on and on and on it's just it's incredible There's so there's so much here Okay. Who? Go ahead.

You know, getting back to this first verse. First verse in this right here? M4. Okay. Oh, good. All right. Since you do not believe every spirit. Okay. You're back on the other one. So it seems like he's saying that some of them have actually not tested the spirit, and they are believing every spirit, and yet they're believers, which is kind of interesting. He's calling them children, and it sounds like some of them are in error. Right.

Not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they're from God, because many false prophets are not in the world. By this you know, and he's giving them a test to apply to people, And that would happen, I mean, if a person comes into our midst here and, you know, they may appear to be a believer, but if you find out they, what do they really believe? Do they really believe who Jesus Christ is? If they don't believe that, then there's a problem, right?

I mean, it doesn't mean you don't, you know, talk to the person, but, you know, is that what you're asking? Just that it seems like some, his people were in error. Some of them were in error, but they were still, it seemed like he's still calling them brethren. even though they are somewhat, let's say, somewhat confused in their doctrine, they're still. OK, so what you're saying is he's referring to them.

How about the legal spirit? Yeah. The other gospel. According to this, we wouldn't call those spirit of the Antichrist. He defines very tightly what the spirit of the Antichrist is here. It's not believing who Jesus Christ is. A person who is a legalist You know, they may be a believer, but they...

Yeah, but the first... I think that the third verse is not the same. I mean, he's going through different ways that they may not believe. The first one is there are many false prophets who are going to teach you a false doctrine. Okay, that's one. Sure. Then he goes to another one and, you know, says, and there are also people who are of the Antichrist.

But I don't think... Okay, I see your point. Those don't necessarily have to be the same people. I think a false doctrine can be... All right, that's good. Many false prophets. Yeah, that's true. And we see it today. Okay, verse first. I would agree with that. Yeah, that's good.

And Tom, do you have something you want to... Well, it seemed like when Paul was dealing with this, he was in the marketplace and he was just basically searching out where the kind of general tenor of the metropolitan population was. They were all just getting together and just hanging out with each other and picking up these ideas and really not really thinking them through and finding a way to find out which one is really right. And it was just kind of like they go to the marketplace and they pick up food and they find out Okay, okay. All right. All right, let's see here. Okay, so the next question.

Okay, who will be overcome from the verses? And this might be a little bit harder because it says, well, let me just talk a little bit here. It says, you are from God's little children and have overcome them. So it's critical kind of to say, what is them referring to? And that's kind of my question, basically. Who's them?

And I'll give you my, I think we've said this before. It's looking back, right? Looking back to the previous verses. It could be the false prophets, and then the specific cases you mentioned. It could be the spirit of the Antichrist. So that's what it says. These false prophets and spirit of the Antichrist, you've overcome them. You're from God. You're out of God as a source. So you're different than these. Now, since we expanded that false prophets, they could be from God too. In the sense that if they believe something, if they're truly believers.

But you know, we all have a sin nature, so at any time we could all be living in the world. That positionally is not who we are, but conditionally we certainly can be there. Anytime. Roger, on that idea of have overcome them, I think it's today's hungry heart, there's a little sentence or phrase that says that God has given us a subservient Satan. He's subservient to God, but we have overcome in Christ. Okay, well that's good. Interesting, subservient. Yeah, and he is. He's defeated. Good, okay, thank you.

So, the third question, what is the contrast for the term from God in these verses? Now, we kind of just talked about it, in the past couple sentences or past couple moments here. So we have from God, ek from God, God is the source. So what's the other source in these verses?

From the world. Right, right. Excellent. From the world. So basically it's because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. And then verse 5, they are from the world. Ek, out of the world, as a source. The spirit of the Antichrist works through the world system to ultimately appeal to the first nature. They all hang out together. And the other part is, the whole world system, who's in control of the whole world system?

I often think of, you know, we read our papers and look at the news and I always, in the back of my head I'm always thinking, Wow, it's going this way and that way and it's hard to figure out where is this world going to? People come to power and go up and down, all kinds of things happen. It seems so chaotic and it seems very characteristic of the evil one. It's chaos and misdirection and all kinds of craziness, and we see that just over and over again. It seems like somebody comes up for a while, this will really be good, and it just goes on and on. The thing we learn from history is we don't learn from history.

That's my favorite quote there from somebody. I don't know who said that. OK, this is a fast go through here. Any more on these verses? We spent a whole class on these. So if you missed a class for our, I've forgotten your name again. Helen. They're online. You can listen online. You can listen to, and Bob Eckel did this class. And so you can listen to each of the ones in more detail.

So this is just whizzing through it here. OK. Oh, I know what I'm going to do here. I didn't realize what I was going to do here. I'm going to take a little short detour here. The rest of the verses are going to talk about love and loving one another. And this question kind of came up last week a little bit and I decided I'd just take a little detour here.

And before we get into those verses, talk about this idea of love one another. And love one another is one of John's favorite expressions and and there's a paper if you're interested if you have the grace book by Schaeffer It's in a section of there and I also have a copy of it if you want I can I can provide it to you but Schaeffer and it's it's pretty obvious if you look at the the gospel of John and and what's called the Upper Room Discourse, which is 13 through 17, you'll see that before Christ goes to the cross, the night before, he's talking to his, he calls them little children in that account. He talks to them about, he's going to the cross and this new relationship that's going to happen after he's gone. And he talks about a thing called a new commandment in John 13. In fact, let's just look at, open your Bibles for a second, and let's just look at that A couple of verses before that I want to look at. John 13, and let's look at... So, starting in verse 31. Gospel of John 13, verse 31. When therefore he had gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of Man glorified. God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him immediately. So here's another, here's a 33. Little children. And he uses that also in the first John as well. Little children, I will be with you a little while longer. You shall seek me.

As I said to the Jews, I say now to you also, where I'm going, you cannot come. A new commandment I give to you. that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

So he introduces this idea of loving one another, and even though he's talking to Jews here, as we've been going through, he's talking to the beginnings of the church. in a sense. So he's talking to them, and it's interesting, if you look in places earlier, like in Matthew, when he talks to the Jews, he told them to obey the law. He referred them back to the law of Moses. The law says this, the law says that. But now, my little children, he's looking forward to the church. He's going to tell them a truth that's going to be fulfilled in the church age.

And then, what we see, he says a new commandment, a new equality commandment, And the commandment is, love one another. And he calls it my commandment. This is my commandment that you love one another just as I have loved you. And if you look down, we covered this somewhat in chapter 3. We looked at love one another there. The same kind of phraseology. And he says in 3.11 it says, for this is the message which you have heard from the beginning.

I believe that's referring back to when we first started teaching there, in the upper room, that we should love one another. And then in 3.23 it says, and his commandment, he calls it his commandment, he called it my commandment up in the gospel, and this is his commandment that we believe in the name of Jesus, Son of God, and love one another, just as he commanded. So we see that that love one another is an aspect of who we are in Christ.

It's not something that we say, okay, now I'm going to, checklist number one, I'm going to love one another today. No, we cannot. Chapter four is going to so tightly couple our life in Christ with one another. You cannot really separate that. If you try to separate out loving one another from who we are in Christ, you're missing the whole point. It's not like, okay, here's something, here's a special one, this is really special, so I'm going to do this really specially. No, this is of who we are.

He's going to talk about all these things that you have when you love one another. You abide in Him, and so on. And we're going to see that. And that's the group of verses, there are three verses that have love one another, which we're going to cover here. And he's going to talk about basically who we are in Christ, that we're born again, we know Him, and from that relationship flows us to love one another. So it's a characteristic of our life in Christ. So this new commandment, or my commandment, is a very special commandment that he points out.

But don't you think too, Roger, because before, as you said, when you talked to the Jews at the Sermon on the Mount, where he said, obey the commandments, obey the law, love one another. But he's saying this because He understands there's no way we can love one another unless we're in him and we have his character. There's no way the Jews could do that. He knew they couldn't follow the law. And that's why he's saying this.

If you look through, and that's something that Schaeffer does really well, if you look through the Gospel of John, you'll see that he talks to two different groups of people. He talks to the Jew. To the Jew he says, obey the law of Moses. To the pre-church, if you will, he says, you're my little children. And there's this new relationship that's going to happen. And he talks about the fruit of that relationship, which is to love one another.

So that's why John 13-17 is like a seed plot for what the church is all about. Just so many wonderful things in there. John 17 is another beautiful one too. There's so much in that section. So with that in mind, we're going to start right into this one. So what kind of questions do I have here?

What are the attributes of the one who is loving one another from verse 7? So what's true of the person who's loving one another from verse 7. There's only a few words left in that sentence. Beloved. Okay, they're beloved, that's one. Okay, what's another one? Born of God. Excellent. What's another one? Knows God. Excellent, okay. And there's one more in here, right?

Love is from God, right? That's the most important one. So he says, He tells them, let us love one another. So he's encouraging them, but he says, wait a minute here guys, don't forget, love is from God. It's kind of cool that you say, okay Johnny, but don't forget, love is from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and knows it.

So it's a life, right? Those have to be true of the person. So that's why This love one another is so coupled with those truths that people probably do it, but at your own peril you do that. You're going to be frustrated if you try to love one another without realizing where love comes from and what are the attributes. You have to be born again. You have to know God. You can't do it otherwise.

So that's why there's so many wonderful little nuggets here. It's just wonderful. Okay, he has several contrasts here. What is the contrast between loving and not loving? If you don't love, you don't know God. And what's the other one? If you love God, you know Him.

Exactly. Excellent. That's exactly right. So he says, OK, once again, this is not rocket science. John didn't have the word rocket science in, but whatever. He says, hey, this is simple. If you know God, you can love as God. If you don't know God, you cannot. It's just black and white, as we've said so many times. He doesn't give any detail. He doesn't elaborate. He just makes these statements. What does it mean to say God is love?

It means unconditional love, self-sacrificial, all these things that is the special meaning of agapao, the Greek word they use for that kind of love. Okay, well let's concentrate on the word is. I was going to say essence. Excellent, excellent, right. Well that word is, is the word in the Greek emi, The state in which someone continuously exists. So this is who God is. He continually exists as love, right? He cannot be otherwise. He also continuously exists as truth. So I mean, God, and he actually tells us to do the same thing, speak the truth in love. So, you know, God is in essence love.

It's not so much what we do, but who we are, right? If our source isn't from God, if we aren't abiding in Him, all bets are off. We can look pretty bad, and we do. So in verse 8 then. You're saying those who don't know God, well, who don't love her, don't know God. So these are unbelievers then?

I've been there and done that. I know. Actually, Bob, as I go through this, Bob's been... I'm okay with this. But I find this, I look at these and I say, wow, here's another one. There's just so many of these. And it stretches your mind to say, well, who is this person he's talking about? He's a believer, unbeliever.

But see, I think the bottom line here is God sees us entirely in the Lord Jesus. And this is who we are. So it's expected that love flows out of that. When you fall short of that, God still sees us in Christ. If you're born again, that's who you are. And sometimes what we do is not evident of who we are. I think this clearly isn't putting a yardstick to our love.

No. It wants to say, what is the source? Where is it coming from? What are the attributes of what you have? That's what he's trying to make sure. that your source is correct. Make sure you know God. Don't kid yourself. Later on he has a little check sign for you. Like if you hate your brother. Wow. Where you at there? That's good.

What did God do to manifest his love in us? He made us alive. Good, excellent, you're a good reader. Good, Gail, woo! I like that. That's what it says right here in the verse. Verse nine, by this the love of God was manifest in us that God has sent his only begotten son into the world so that we, as Gail said, might live through him.

So I just, I wasn't trying to be tricky here, but just trying to make it interesting. Okay. Actually, I asked Vani about this from last night. What satisfied God about our sins? From the verse. This shouldn't be hard. Verses. Vani said, God is not satisfied by our sins. He hates our sins. I said, yeah, he did. He's right. I'm sorry. Sure. He was paid for. Right there on nine. Right there on nine. Ten. Ten. Ten.

Propitiation. Propitiation. Okay, well, basically he's a propitiation. He was satisfied. Propitiation can be translated satisfied. He's satisfied about our sins because of what? Christ's work on the cross, right? His son. So that's what made it a little bit of a tricky one. Okay. Okay. So we start off again, Beloved, on this one again. You have them on the same page here, I believe. So put your finger back to 7. So what's the difference between verse 7, I didn't say what verse I was talking about here, verse 11 and 7. They say kind of similar things, but what's the difference do you see between verse 7 and verse 11? He's just restating it another way. So Beloved, because God so loved us, He was the programmer. This is where you should be because you're in him. I just think he's restating it in another way.

So the ought doesn't, you don't feel guilty about that, right? I really have a problem with that word ought. Yeah, that's good. Let's talk about ought there. I don't want to... well, can I go back a verse? Okay. We'll get back... hold it off there. This might help, but... You want to go back to here?

Yeah, so if we're thinking that this is some kind of... there's some law system in these verses somewhere, then the whole idea of propitiation just blows that out of the water, because the law system, you have to... you have to satisfy God about your sin by making a sacrifice.

That's true. And then you satisfy God and then he looks pleasingly on you. Right, exactly. And he blesses you for doing that, right? Well if we can't satisfy God in this way, I mean this is ultimately the personal work of Jesus Christ, then it just shows how we're totally out of the picture. He satisfied God, and He places us in that position with Him. And He blesses us, and then we live according to how we are blessed, and who we are, and where we're seated.

So it's a total reversal. I mean, when you talk about propitiation in all these group of verses, it just takes out the whole system of law all together. Good. I like that. Galatians 2.21. I'm crucified with Christ? No, that's 20. That's 20. Okay, you're right. I'm sorry. If righteousness comes by the law, then Christ died in vain. Right. And before that it says you make grace void. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Good. You guys are fantastic. OK. OK. Back to art. Gail.

It seems like it reminds me of what Vern has said so often in churches that We act, and I can't think of specifics, but we act in a certain way which is a logical response. What he has given us, our logical response then is to love him back. And it seems like if we are born of God and we are alive in God, it would be logical for this love of God to be expressed.

Does it help, Jack? Sure. He has put his spirit within us. Right. So this ought is an ought under grace. There's not guilt under this. There's no guilt involved with that ought. Now, in the legal context there is. It's driven by that, right? I didn't do this commandment, I didn't do that commandment. But under grace, that's just the response we have to God's grace. What he's done. Cool. OK. I got that one. OK. A little bit of a tricky way. How often should we love one another? Well it depends upon the person, right? I'll give you a hint here. This is in the present tense. What does that tell you about this? Continuing. I thought it was future.

How is God's love seen if no one has seen God at any time? Just think about what we said here. Seen through us, through Christ. And we just talked about this. How is it going to be seen? Isn't it going to be seen by us loving one another? Because that's not our love, that's His love. We just got through making a case. This love comes from God. We're abiding in Him. And what comes out of that? Loving one another. Well, people may not believe in God, but they'll see the love for one another. What single word describes we abiding in him and he in us?

Identification. Tom? Love. That's the first letter of the word. That's what I was looking for. Gail, you're two gold stars already. Fellowship. Alright. You can disagree with me. I made these questions up. These aren't scripture questions. I mean, they're hopefully based on scripture. Basically, abiding in Him and He and us, that's a relationship. And what's John all about? He's all about fellowship.

So that's what occurred to me. Okay. Sorry. It's okay, we will have to finish this. So then, out of fellowship, we abide in Christ, Christ is within us, that's fellowship, so then we turn around and say, well, this means we're out of fellowship. And that can happen, right? We can be out of fellowship. But He never leaves us. And that's true. And that's actually something I struggle with too. There's two parts to that. God abiding in us. He's never out of fellowship. He never leaves you or forsakes you. He is always there. He's waiting for us. Our fellowship may come and go. Sure. His presence and his abiding never ceases.

I think it's potentially problematic to discuss, well that means you're out of fellowship because just that statement being out of fellowship could imply that... Oh, you're afraid that you might take that and that God's not... Right, I don't, but I'm afraid that...

Okay, well that's interesting. I actually hadn't thought of that. I've had lots of discussions with other people over this loss of fellowship issue, yes. Okay. Okay. Interesting. That's good. That's good. Okay. Good to know what's interesting. Okay. Well, thanks. Okay. Okay.

Okay, this is kind of looking all the way back to chapter 1. What did John testify about in 1 John 1, chapter 1, that relates to this verse? Let me just go back. 1 John 1, verse 2 is what I was looking for. And 1 John 1-2 says, And the life was manifest, and we have seen and bear witness, and I say bear witness, some people have testified I hope, right? And testify and proclaim to you eternal life which was with the Father and was manifest to us. So eternal life is what was testified in chapter 1 verse 2. And here he's testifying about the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.

Very similar kind of thought here. What does confessing, and confessing means literally to say the same thing, that Jesus is the Son of God, tell you about a person? From the verses. Were you referring to 415? Yes, yes. So I'm referring to God, it's abiding in Him and He in God.

So what does that tell you about that person? Who is that person? This is a pattern I think I have seen in John. He'll talk about characteristics of our life in Christ, abiding, being in Him, and other aspects. And he will talk about that and then say something else. But he'll talk about aspects. He doesn't go through and develop all that. He just talks about abiding in Him.

And these are things that only can be true of a believer. I've got time for a few more. What are some examples of the love which God has for us? Actually, this one's going to be hard. I'll tell you the ones that I found. I found two in the Upper Room Discourse.

It says, My Father will love him and will come to him and make our abode with him. So he's going to make our abode with him. And then actually one that's really fantastic is John 17, 26. so that the love which you, the Father, love me, be in them, and I in them." So basically, the Father's love is in us as a believer, and Christ is in us as a believer. So that's the result of love which God has for us, which is a tremendous statement.

Okay, and then in verse 17, by this, you have to look back, you have to kind of look back at the previous verses I believe. So I think in this context it's looking at the idea that abiding in God and God abiding in you So once again, he's going to tell you a truth. He tells you about a relationship you have, and he's going to say, you know, that love, and this is positional, I believe, I think, and that's what we went through that before, love is, this is positional, love is perfected in us. And that, you know, so that's talking about who we are in Christ. Love has been perfected. There's nothing left for us. in our position in Christ. Nothing left for God to do in terms of His love has been perfected in us.

So that we may have... So this is to give us great confidence. So we may have confidence in the day of judgment. Because as He is, so are we also in the world. So these truths are to give us confidence. I thought that was kind of cool. It goes through all these truths about the believer. And he comes down here to 17 and he says, you know, this has been perfected in us, brought to completion. And so that, with a purpose set, we may have confidence. That confidence is, what's the word for that?

There's basically, security is another word in my head. There's another synonym I can't think of at the moment. Boldness? Boldness, I think, yeah. Yeah. Good, good, exactly. OK. And then, OK. He talks about being perfected. So what does perfected mean? I kind of alluded to that already. Let me just tell you, we want it complete. Exactly. To bring it to completion. Accomplish brought to completion.

What are the characteristics of God's love from 18? I thought this was really cool. I kind of flipped it around and when Bob taught it he... So I said, let's just flip this around. So what are the characteristics of God's love? And here's two wonderful characteristics we don't think of too often. Basically, there's no fear in love, and that his love casts out fear. So those are two characteristics of God's love.

John's just building up this wonderful storehouse of truths about what we have in Christ. And he's saying, look at what you have here. Consider what you have. What is needed for us to love? God loving us. Exactly. Or better, we have to respond to that, right? He loved us, we respond to that by faith, and then we can have agapio love. Actually, I'm going to get to the end here. I only have one question here. Actually, I thought of some other ones along the way, This is an interesting thing I discovered.

This talks about loving his brother. Is there a difference between loving his brother and loving one another? The heads are shaking. I don't think there is. I mean, I looked through that. In fact, actually, loving his brother isn't used very much. Brother is used, but many times, like in this verse, it's hating his brother, right? hates his brother. It's used in a negative sense a lot of times, by not considering your brother, doing this to your brother, doing that to your brother.

But I think it's an equivalent statement. If you notice here, actually 21 kind of nails that down, because remember we had, my commandment was that we love one another back in the Gospel of John, and then early chapters, chapter 3. Here he says in 21, and this is, and this commandment we have from him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.

So I think they're interchangeable. This is kind of just a little nugget that kind of came across. Well, that's a whiz. I'm zooming through chapter four. So it's great. It's a marvelous chapter, really marvelous truths about how much God loves us. So we look forward to chapter five coming up here.

All these verses relate to our relationship with those in Christ. Not at all to those outside of Christ. Only in the sense that we are made to identify who they are, right? Is that kind of what you're saying? This is talking about, you know, 1 John is about fellowship with God, right?

And treating the body of believers in Christ. Occasionally, and this is where we kind of go, but occasionally it seems like John will assert to talk about an unbeliever saying if these characteristics are true who is that person and it seems like in some cases it can be an unbeliever but in many cases it's not. In other words you could hate the non-believer. the world.

So I think when the Christ nature lives through us, that same agape love does I do think relates to the breadth of the body of Christ. Right, right. And that's to be the characteristic that people are attracted to. And that's mentioned somewhere in Scripture about how they love one another. And I think that's evidence of Christ working in the body of believers, that the love they have for one another. That's how I used to say, many times we're the only Bible that someone ever reads.

Exactly. They're never going to open it. In our life. Yeah, you're a problem. I was thinking that love is part of God's character, but hate is not. And that's absolutely right. Absolutely right. So if we're doing that, we're certainly not, as a believer, we're certainly not abiding in Christ. We're certainly not living out the life he has for us. All right, that's good. Okay, let's close then.

We thank you, Father. We thank you so much for this lesson, Lord. We thank you for your marvelous scriptures, Lord, that speak of your great love for us. And we thank you that we can trust you and rest in you day by day, moment by moment. We ask this in Christ's name, amen.