Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

This video is a little over 4 hours long, but is broken into 11 segments. This part is covered from 1 hour 43 minutes to 2 hour 5 minutes.

1 John 2:3-11.

Before I proceed to consider the teaching of chapter 2:3-11, a few words of an explanatory nature are required. In the portion we have examined, the children of God are authoritatively informed that they have community of life with God, with the Father and with the Son; that through the blood of Christ the stains of their sins no more attach to them; and that the life they are partakers of, and the cleansing that is connected with it through the blood of the cross, are abiding and unchangeable realities, infallibly maintained in the person of the One who is the believer’s Representative in the presence of God. This knowledge is a matter of revelation. However true it all might be as a fact, we could not know it to be true of us if God had not made it known.

Thus far, then, we have been occupied with the objective reality — with what is objectively presented, or set before us. In saying this, I must warn my reader that in thus speaking, I mean, of course, objectively set before us as being true of us, i.e., of believers, and not merely as being something that has been established in Christ, and is true for us to be appropriated by us. I repeat, it is true of us. It is what God in His blessed grace has given us. It is what we really are in Christ.

In chapter 2:3-11, there is an unfolding of the subjective side. The apostle now speaks of what is inwardly realized. Every believer is conscious of operations going on within himself. He may not necessarily understand or be able to explain them, but he is quite conscious of their presence in him. He knows something is going on within himself that never took place there before he was born from above. He has quite new desires, new aspirations, new hopes. He has new thoughts and feelings. He knows these things are not natural, but the result of a new power outside himself altogether. It is not simply a new power acting on him, but working in him. A new life has been received, and it is making itself felt.

Now, as he speaks of these new activities in his soul, he is simply saying, I know God; I am in Christ; I am in the light. It is not that he has apprehended the full import of these expressions, but the things he is conscious of mean that what they imply is true of him. He is a new creature, he has divine, eternal life; the true light is in him, so that he is in the light and has thus the knowledge of God; feebly it may be, yet, in whatever measure of power, it is true knowledge. He now knows that he is in relationship with God in a new way, though he has yet to learn the full blessedness of the relationship. He thus possesses the two-fold testimony that he is a child of God — the direct testimony of God (in which the truth and reality of what he has become through grace is objectively set before him), and the testimony of his own consciousness of what he realizes to be going on within him.

We must now look at the way in which these inward activities are manifested as being there; the way in which the believer takes note of the reality of their presence in him. He experiences in his heart the desire or spirit of obedience to God, and a love that makes others instead of self the centre of interest.

As regards the spirit of obedience, its presence in the soul is displayed in two ways. First, in submission to what God has expressly commanded; and, second, in treasuring up and keeping the communications of God’s mind, of His will, of His heart. These two things exist together in the soul. I speak as distinguishing, not as separating. Wherever the one operation is found, so is the other. It is true, of course, that one may be more plainly discernible than the other, but wherever there is the spirit of submission to what God has commanded, there is also in greater or less measure the appreciation of what may not be an express command, but an expression of what is in His heart, of some purpose or counsel.

I turn now to the portion before us. The apostle says (ver. 3), “And hereby we do know that we know Him if we keep His commandments.” He is speaking of what every soul born from above realizes to be in operation within himself. He is conscious of the presence in him of the spirit of submission to what God has enjoined. He has heard the voice of the Son of God. He recognizes its authority. It is not that everything in him is in subjection to God, but he sees an operation within himself that is unnatural — an activity that he realizes to be from a new power producing in him what was never there before. He is conscious that now the spirit of submission to what God has commanded is in his soul.

The strength of this new principle working within him is not what the apostle has under consideration here. He is not occupying us here with the measure in which this spirit of submission to what God has enjoined is developed. That is a distinct matter, and is not the apostle’s point. What he is here directing our attention to is the fact of the presence, in the soul of one born from above, of this spirit of submission to what God commands. Every truly converted soul is characterized by keeping the commandments of God. Obedience to God marks him, in greater or less degree; but whatever the measure, greater or less, it is there, and the consciousness of it.

Now this consciousness is the witness that we know God. For us to say, “We know Him,” is no pretense. It is no false profession; even though they see and recognize much inconsistency in themselves, they are not speaking falsely. The false professor is one who claims to know God with no spirit of submission whatever. The truth, the light, is not in him (ver. 4). There are many things in Scripture which God expressly commands; many things He expressly forbids; to the soul in whom the spirit of submission dwells, they have divine authority. Where this spirit of obedience is not, their authority is not owned and God is not known.

If the spirit of obedience is manifested in submission to what God has enjoined, it is also seen in the esteem in which the various communications are held. If God has rights over us which He requires us to maintain, it has been also His good pleasure to treat us as His friends (John 15:15). As being His servants, He commands us; as being in the position of friends, He communicates to us His thoughts. He reveals to us what He wishes us to know. Very many of His revelations are like the communications of one friend to another. They are not commands — something expressly enjoined, but expressions of His love. The child of God prizes these communications, and sees in them intimations of God’s mind and will, and he observes them as carefully as he does that which God has expressly commanded.

The character of this form of obedience is of a higher order than simple obedience to a positive command. It is doing God’s will, even though He has given no command. It is of this form of obedience the apostle speaks in verse 5. He calls it keeping God’s word.

The soul to whom God has become an object of love, will find in that love a divine authority for all that God commands. It is, however, in prizing and keeping the word of God that this love for God gets its full character: “Whoso keepeth His Word, in him verily is the love of God perfected.” By this the apostle does not mean that the character of obedience which I have called submission to commandments, is ever found without the other character of obedience. They go together. What the apostle means is, that the element of obedience exemplified in keeping God’s word is what gives to the love of God its perfect or full character. To “keep His commandments” is one side of the character of the love of God; to “keep His word,” is the other side. This latter side makes manifest that the love of God is perfected in the heart.

But we must avoid the mistake of supposing that the love of God is present in its full character only in advanced Christians. It is present thus in every Christian. It is present in the soul from the moment the new birth has taken place. As soon as a soul is born from above he possesses a new nature. This new nature is an active nature. Its activities, its operations, are the expression of its character. From the moment the new life has been imparted (which immediately operates in the soul), it has a distinctive character of its own. All the elements of its character are there. I do not mean there will be no growth, but that the growth is the development of what is already present — the growth of the love of God already in the soul, as not lacking any of its characteristics.

We have seen that the consciousness of keeping the commandments of God is a witness to the soul in whom this consciousness exists, that he knows God. So, also, to be conscious of keeping the word of God is to know “we are in Him.” The child of God is making no false profession when he speaks of knowing God, or of having community of life with the Son of God. As born of God, he lives by a life through which he dwells in God. Our Lord declared this to be the truth: “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in Me, and I in you” (John 14:20). I am aware of the use some make of this passage, but our Lord is not singling out some special class among the family of God who were to know that they would have community of life with Himself in the day of the Spirit’s presence on earth. He is declaring this knowledge to be the common heritage of all the children of God in the day to which he refers. He is not speaking of the extent to which they would enjoy the fact he is revealing. He is simply saying, When the Spirit is personally present on earth He will enable the children of God to realize that they are such. He will enable them to be conscious of being in the Son of God.

We have been considering the way in which this consciousness is proved to be in the soul of every believer: the consciousness of knowing God and of dwelling in the Son; in realizing that the spirit of obedience operates in his soul. This is made manifest to him — the desire to keep the commandments and word of God — which was not present in him as an unregenerate man. He sees resisting tendencies, and is conscious of a conflict going on, but he knows a new force is at work in his soul which he attributes to God. He knows the God of the Gospels and of the Cross has put it there, though the full significance of its presence may not yet be comprehended.

We must not forget that responsibility goes with the possession of a new nature — with being born from above. We are professing to possess the same nature and life that are in the Son of God if we profess to know Him and to be in Him — a nature and life which had its fullest expression in Christ’s walk of unwavering obedience to God when He was in this world. He kept perfectly the commandments of God. Most earnestly, most heartily, He kept God’s word. His life, His walk of perfect obedience, is our example and standard (ver. 6). It is in His steps we are walking, if we are in Him. True, we have to confess we are not walking perfectly, as He did, but our walk is the same in character as His. However far He has outdistanced us in the path of obedience, if we are following Him in the path He trod, we must not be discouraged, but press on after Him. May the Lord grant us steadfastness of purpose in seeking for His steps!

In considering the import of verses 7 and 8, it will be necessary to refer to chapter 12 of John’s Gospel. In John 12:49 our Lord says, “For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent Me, He gave Me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that His commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto Me, so I speak.” He is here speaking of the testimony He has been giving from John 1:35 to chapter 12. This testimony He calls “a commandment,” because it is what the Father had enjoined on Him as sending Him into the world. The Father had commanded Him what He should say — what He should speak. His testimony then — the word He had spoken — was the commandment of the Father.

Now what the Father had enjoined on Him to speak was the revelation of life eternal both in its principle and its constant activity. The eternal life that was with the Father had been declared, testified of, precisely as the Father had enjoined it to be done.

John was a representative of those who had heard the testimony the Son had given. He knew the word the Son had spoken — the word, the testimony, which was the revelation of life eternal.

As we have seen in verses 3-6, the apostle has been writing of the activities of eternal life in the souls of those who through grace have become the recipients of it. In verse 7 he assures the children of God that he is not writing a new commandment — something different from what the Father gave to His Son as sending Him into the world. He is writing what they had heard from the lips of the Son of God Himself. He is writing of the life that is in the Son — the nature, character, and activities of which were fully manifested in His life upon earth.

Writing then of the old commandment — the Father’s commandment to the Son — he is not introducing any new commandment; he is not speaking of some new revelation in advance of the Christian revelation; not of some progress beyond the revelation given by the Father through the Son.

But if it is of the old commandment he is writing, of what is “true in Him;” there is a sense in which it may be called a new commandment: for the thing that is “true in Him” is also true in those who are born from above. The same life that is in Him is in them. They are in community of life with Him, participators of the life in Him — the life eternal. Once they were in the darkness — belonged to it, were a part of it — but they have been laid hold of by the light that shines in the darkness. They are following Him who is the light of life (John 8:12). They are in the light, and the light is in them. The darkness is thus passing away. They are delivered from the darkness by the light of life; and those who have the light of life dwelling in them are not walking in the darkness, but in the light. The same thing that is true in the incarnate Son is true in them. The light that is in Him is in them; the life that is in Him is also in them. In principle, it is the same thing in them as it is in Him.

It must be borne in mind that I am speaking of the nature and character of that which is “true in Him and in them,” not of the degree of its manifestation. The manifestation of it in Him was perfect. There was nothing in Him to cloud and obscure its manifestation. How much, alas, there is in us to hide or check this life that is in us! The life that has been communicated to us is covered over to a large extent by the activities of the life that is natural to us, so that the characteristic activities of the imparted life are not seen in us in the perfection that they were seen in Him.

But even so, having what is “true in Him” within us as a divine deposit, we are in the light, though the display of it in us is not full and perfect as in Him, what display there is in us is the display of the same thing that is in Him. It is in us through the light that is in Him laying hold upon our souls. The light in which He is is the light in which we live and walk.

To profess to be a child of God, to claim to be born from above, to say, We know God and dwell in the Son, is to profess to be in the light — the light of life. But the profession may be made when the reality of the thing professed is wanting. The professions made therefore have to be tested, and the test of this claim is very simple. If there is no activity of love to those who are fellow-partakers of a common nature and life, the claim to be in the light is a false claim (ver. 9).

As we have seen, the love of God dwells in those who are born of Him — with the elements of His nature, therefore. Love in God is active. It is His nature to love; and this activity of love is in those who have become partakers of the moral nature of God. This activity of God is displayed in His children in loving the brethren. Loving the brethren is the mark of the presence of divine love in the soul. Where it is not present, the soul is still in the darkness.

The one in whom divine love is abides in the light. It is not an intermittent thing; sometimes there and sometimes not, but is dwelling there. However much its manifestation may vary on different occasions, the love that is of God is permanently and abidingly in the soul, and the soul is permanently and abidingly in the light — does not become a scandal (ver. 10).

Alas, how many scandals there are! How many are turning away from the truth! How many are giving up the faith! They are thereby manifesting themselves as not having the light of life in their souls. The profession to be in the light is mere profession — not a reality, but a scandal. The love that is of God is not in them; they are yet in the darkness; they know not God, and walk in the darkness. The light of life is not in them.

These apostates from the truth not only lack what marks one who is of God — the love that is of God — but there is enmity in the soul towards those professedly their brethren. The apostle calls it “hating his brother” (ver.11). Loving the children of God is the fruit of knowing God; hating them is the fruit of not knowing Him — the, fruit of man’s fallen nature. Those marked by enmity to the children of God are therefore in the darkness. They live and walk in the darkness; blinded by the darkness in which they walk, they know not whither they are going. The light of the Christian hope and prospect does not shine upon their path; they have not in their souls the cheer of trusting Christ as “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). The light that is in them is darkness, and how great that darkness is!

Before passing from this portion of the epistle, I wish to guard against two mistakes which are often made. When the apostle says, “He that loveth his brother,” he is not thinking of the measure in which that love is manifested, not speaking of the perfection of its display, but of the fact of its existence in the soul as an active principle — a principle abidingly present and continuously operative, though it may be in varying measure as regards our observance of it. We must not therefore make the mistake, as is sometimes made, that failure in the display of that love proves its absence in the soul. If there is any measure of its display, the love is there. Indeed, only One has displayed it perfectly. All others must confess to coming short of the perfection seen in Him.

When the apostle says, “He that hateth his brother,” we must not understand him to be speaking of the outbursts of the flesh in true Christians. Sad, unnecessary and unjustifiable as these are, the apostle is not fixing our attention on them here, and we must not make the mistake of some who take them to be proofs of the absence of love.

The love that is of God, however feebly exhibited, marks those who dwell in the light. Antagonism to those who walk in the light, displayed in varying measures, marks those who are of the darkness. This is what the Spirit expresses here by the apostle.