…to move forth further in chapter 3 of 1 John. We won’t have slides here tonight. I prepared them and left them in the front door of my house so we’ll have to use our imagination here and pay attention to the text because there are details in the text that we’re going to look at this morning. So let’s open with a word of prayer.
(Opening prayer)
Okay, just to review where we’ve come now in chapter 3 from verses 10 to 13. So let’s turn to the text of 1 John and recall those verses – verse 10, verse 11, verse 12, and verse 13 - because that gets us set for the rest of this passage. Remember that the last part of verse 10 was the beginning of the new series, the beginning of the new section where John says:
NKJ 1 John 3:10 …Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.
Those two clauses are important because those are the first two that we have in this epistle that explicitly link righteousness and loving the brethren together. The fact that they’re linked together needs to…it requires some thinking on our part. Why does John link doing righteousness with loving the brethren because he clearly does. They’re clearly identified here. We’ve gone over and over again the idea that God in His character - He is righteousness, He is just, He is loving. Those 3 characteristics in God go together. Because they go together, they force us to contrast with our culture.
In our culture l-o-v-e, the word love, is divorced from moral content increasingly. It can be used in trivial sense – you know, “I love football,” or something like that.
In a more serious vein, the culture at large does not link love with righteousness and justice, particularly the righteousness and justice coming from God. So if we’re to love the brethren – and notice that this is not love of neighbor in this epistle. It’s love of the brethren. That means for John a special kind of love, a love with a particular object. The object of the loving the brethren is God’s work in the brethren. Therefore what separates the brethren from non-brethren? It’s the work of regeneration. It’s the work of the indwelling Holy Spirit. It’s the work of justification. It’s all this work that God does in believers. So there’s an object for His love. That object is His own work.
So when John says love the brethren really what He’s telling us is to respect the work, the saving work of God in people’s lives. That needs to be injected.
Love of the neighbor is also legitimate; but that’s a different category. This love in this epistle is focused on the work of God in believers. The fact that we know this is shown in verses 11 and 12. So we check our interpretation by the context. If you go to verse 11, for – there’s the explanation. What connects verse 11 to verse 12 is f-o-r.
NKJ 1 John 3:11 For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another,
NKJ 1 John 3:12 not as Cain
So immediately the flow goes into verse 12 now. The illustration of verse 12 is one that is going to link righteousness and love, or love’s opposite – hate. To link them - what John is talking in loving the brethren has something to do with God’s righteousness. It’s not just a social whim. So verse 12 we spent time last time on:
NKJ 1 John 3:12 not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother
That’s the historic event of Genesis 4. And then he says:
And why did he murder him?
So now we have the analysis of the first fratricide, the first murder in history. When you look at the analysis of the Cain incident, it’s quite clear where John’s coming from. It’s quite clear that behind the fratricide, behind this first murder, behind this homicide; there’s a dynamic at work that involves God’s righteousness.
So in verse 12:
NKJ 1 John 3:12 not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him?
The answer is because his deeds were evil and his brother’s were righteousness. Bingo! There’s the noun righteous; and there’s the verb hate. Hate is the opposite of love. In the brother dynamic here between Cain and Abel, it wasn’t ultimately an issue of personality. It was an issue of God’s righteousness character.
So God’s righteousness character is behind loving the brethren. So in this case Cain hated Abel not because of a sociological issue, not because of an economical issue. He hated Abel for one reason and for one reason only. That was because God had respect to Abel’s sacrifice and did not respect Cain’s sacrifice. That’s important to see here because obviously the verb hate is the opposite of the verb love. It’s very clear in verse 12 what John is driving at in this business of loving the brethren.
I keep emphasizing that because I don’t want us to walk away from this text with some sort of sentimentalistic idea of what he’s talking about. This is not sentiment. This is not a case of how I happened to feel on Tuesday morning when I wake up. This has to do with an enduring principle that applies to all human history. So verse 12 is important.
Remember last time we went over to Genesis 4 and in Genesis 4 - remember we covered the first counseling section – well, it was the second counseling session in human history. The first one is in Genesis 3 after the fall. And these passages are important because they show you principles of biblical counseling. In biblical counseling, questions are used to surface how we’re thinking. When you ask someone a question that’s different than telling them something. If you tell somebody something, they’re passive. They’re receiving it or rejecting it. But if you ask the question, they can’t be passive. They have to be active because they have to respond to your question. That’s one of the principles you see in biblical counseling. It’s not coming off as some self-righteous individual.
It’s simply saying, “Let’s think about this. What’s going on in your life?”
So here in Genesis 4, you remember what God said. Because Cain was angry, He said:
NKJ Genesis 4:6 So the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen?
Remember that passage? That Hebrew expression, his face falling, actually it’s true. You look at depressed people and they have a sad face. Their face falls. In the Old Testament Hebrew mind, that’s what they were looking at – a person’s face.
But we would translate that dynamically as, “Cain, why are you depressed? You’re angry and you’re depressed.”
Then God gives a warning to Cain. That warning is a very sobering thing. That’s in the background of John’s epistle here because when God says to Cain, He says:
NKJ Genesis 4:7 "If you do well, will you not be accepted?
“Just get with the program, son. I’ve outlined the protocols to approach Me. You violated those protocols; and you’re angry because I enforce my protocols. I told you up front the way to do it and the way not to do it. So you go ahead - you do it your way, then you get angry at Me because I outlined it to you.”
This is almost like a parent and child relationship going on here. It’s one of authority. God has the right to tell us how to approach Him. That’s His right as Creator. We do not have the right to tell Him how we ought to approach Him. That violates the Creator-creature distinction. So there’s an issue of respect of authority here. Cain has to get with the program.
But then God gives him a warning.
“Let me tell you,” He says, “if you don’t do what is good, you’d better be careful because sin lies crouching at the door; and you are going to have to cope with that.”
Now what is that threat all about? That’s a threat for the dynamic of evil in human history. The idea is that principalities and powers can take advantage of mental attitude sins. These people that commit horrific crimes, if you read their biographies (the are times when you can) they didn’t just think about doing the crime on the spur of the moment. That crime is a result in many cases of years of anger, years of bad decisions, years of resentment, years in cases of thievery and basically laziness, incompetence and then angry because God has structured the world the way He has. When I violate those designs somehow I don’t prosper. Well, no you don’t prosper. I don’t prosper. No one prospers when we violate the rules of God. That’s life in the world. Suck it up and move on! The point here is that when we get out of fellowship and we get into mental attitude anger what God is warning Cain is that there are principalities and powers that can come in and use your mind to do their dirty work in the world’s system.
Look at what’s happened in world history in the last two weeks. I mean come on. Do you think that the people who are crucifying Christians in Iraq and Syria, who are trapping these people up on a mountain in the Kurd area—do you think that they just thought about doing that or do you think that these people are so deluded, so deceived, that they actually think they’re doing what’s right?
So we have the reality of evil. Then last time and part of the review this morning, remember we ended the class on Ephesians 4:17f because in Ephesians 4 after Paul goes on about walking with the Lord, being in fellowship with Him he gives this warning.
He says, “Don’t give place to Satan.”
Toupos – don’t give a room to Satan. It’s a warning the fact that - it’s like we have rooms inside our minds. When we’re angry we’re basically allowing Satan to infiltrate his thoughts, his hatred of God, into us. That warning in Ephesians 4 is given to believers. We’re not talking about unbelievers here. We’re talking about believers. All of us can be subject to this kind of power.
Those of you interested in computers and stuff, think of it this way. You take a computer apart or your smart phone apart, you’ll see a circuit board in there. Well, one way of thinking about this. Think of that circuit board. A modern circuit board, you’ll see the little circular all printed out in the board with all the components, capacitors and so on in there - diodes. They’re a part of that circuit. Well, visualize your brain as a circuit board. Now the difference between circuit board and your cell phone or computer and the circuit boards of the neurons in our brain is that our brains are far more sophisticated in their circuitry. Not only are our brains more sophisticated in their circuitry; but they’re adaptable. The brain can create circuits and get rid of circuits. If you don’t believe that, think of what an athlete goes through.
Why do athletes train by repetition over and over and over? Because what they’re doing is not only building muscle but they’re building the neuron controls of those muscles. So your brain is adapting to this. God built our brains to be adapting. The problem is this – that our brains can adapt without a moral filter on them. So if we engage in sin, we can build circuits for sin in our brain just like we can build circuits in our brain for righteous behavior. That’s why choices are so important and repetitive choices are important because we are adapting all the time.
Well, think of this then. A circuit board by itself without a voltage supply isn’t going anywhere. What does a circuit board need in order to execute the logic that’s implicit in the circuit board? It needs electricity. So one illustration of this is think of your brain as an adaptable circuit board with all this sophistication. Then what God is saying is by giving place to Satan you can allow voltage to be applied to your circuits over and above your normal voltage.
Think of the fierce anger that’s involved in violent crime. Think of that. Where is that energy coming from? It’s not just the person doing it.
For years my wife and I had a jail ministry in a penitentiary. You talk to men who have been in crime. They will often tell you after the fact, they couldn’t believe they did it. Why did they say that? Because it was like there was this thing that overcame them. Now we’re not buying into the idea that it’s Satan’s fault. It’s our fault.
What these men would share is the fact that often times they look back – “How could I have done something that stupid? How could I have done something like that?”
It’s almost an unbelief about that moment of that crime? So what was going on at the moment of the crime? The circuit board was energized by these powers. That’s why Paul says in Ephesians 4, “Don’t give place to Satan.”
How do we not do that? We not do that by monitoring our thinking.
NKJ Proverbs 23:7 For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.
So that’s all the background.
So now what we’re going to do is go to verses 14 and 15. Again, this is a sharp Johannine contrast. Remember John is always light versus darkness, fellowship versus out of fellowship, abiding versus not abiding. God is light and then there’s darkness. So John is an author of contrast – over and over, one or the other, this or that. So now we come in the same style
NKJ 1 John 3:14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death.
NKJ 1 John 3:15 Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
These are very strong words and connote the importance of the branch abiding in the vine. Remember go back to John 15. That’s the picture of abide. That’s why we keep going back to John 15 because we want to know how did this expression “abide” get started. Well, it got started by Jesus’ Upper Room Discourse in John 15. It was Jesus not John – it was Jesus who gave the picture of the grape vine and the branches abiding in the vine. Then Jesus interprets the metaphor right in the very context.
Keep in mind John 15 was given to believers because the only unbeliever in the group that was listening was Judas and he got out of there in chapter 13. So by the time you get to John 14 and 15 they’re all believers.
But Jesus is addressing believers and He says:
NKJ John 15:5 "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.
That’s a lesson we all have to go through every day every week of our life over the time we’re on earth because we have to learn it and relearn it and relearn it and relearn it.
“I can’t do anything unless I’m abiding in Christ.”
That’s our growth as Christians and we have to keep going back.
“Why did I screw up in this? Why did I make a mistake there? It’s because I wasn’t abiding. I wasn’t looking to Him.”
In verse 14 we have to look at the structure. Again I wish I had the slide to show you this. In the outline in the handout, I translated the literal Greek for you. So this is not a nice, smooth English translation. This is not what would be considered to be a quality translation; but I’ve deliberately done it so that you can see what the Greek words say in the order in which the Greek words come because in the Greek language order, word sequence, is very important. They would put the emphasis at the front end of the sentence.
Let’s look at the handout there under Roman II, 1 John 3:14-15. The text says:
NKJ 1 John 3:14 We know that we have
Notice by the way the subject of the verb. What’s the pronoun here? Is it singular or plural? Plural. It’s first person. What does that mean John was thinking of as far as himself? Is he included? Yeah. It’s first person plural.
passed from death to life,
The verb there is passed over. It’s a powerful term of passing over a boundary of some sort. So you’re going from one thing to the other thing. He uses that verb.
passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death.
Notice the article. Out of the death into the life. I put under that a little box on your handout from Dana and Mantey Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament. There’s a principle here. In Greek when it is desired to apply the sense of an abstract noun in some special and distinct way, the article accompanies it. The fact he’s plugging an article onto life and onto death means he’s talking about a particular life and a particular death. How would we know what life and what death he’s talking about? The only way to do it is context.
So you have to go back. How has John been using life and death? Hold the place there and look back at the second verse. In 1 John 1:2, remember we went over this and over this repetitively when we first started the class.
NKJ 1 John 1:2 the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us --
It was with the Father and was manifested to us (the apostles). What is he talking about there? What was with the Father and was manifested to us? Jesus Christ.
There’s another thing about this verse too. The life was with the Father. Here we seem to have something else. He could have said God the Son was with the Father and was manifested to us. He could have said Jesus Christ was with the Father and was manifested to us. Why do you suppose he didn’t use the word Jesus and didn’t use the word Son, but in fact used the word life? If it had been his gospel, he clearly would have said (as he did) the Son has come from the Father. But he doesn’t choose that vocabulary when he talks to us in verse 2. Now he shifts the nouns from Son to life. That must mean that he’s stressing some feature about the Son. The feature whatever it is, is something that was always existing within the trinity.
Now between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit was there ever an unbroken fellowship? The only time there was any kind of a break was on the cross. So from all eternity there was a personal relationship between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. He’s talking about a personal relationship here. You remember when I covered that doctrine - this is the Doctrine of the Trinity.
Now here’s where if you look carefully at the Bible and you mine it for all the richness of its depth, you see little treasures. This is one of those little treasure points. This is why people, we Christians do not have to apologize for the Doctrine of the Trinity when you have some Unitarian theologian come to your door, whether it’s Jehovah Witness, the Unitarians literally, or the Moslems or whoever. All of these people are Unitarian. meaning they believe in a solitary being of God.
We believe in a tri-unity – that God is three in person, one in essence. Yes, it is a mystery. Yes, it is incomprehensible ultimately. But here’s the thing. If you have a solitary deity, you’ve got a problem with one of His attributes. The attribute we’re talking about is love. A solitary being has no object for his love from all eternity. Right? Can a solitary being have personal relationships? He would have to create people to have a personal relationship, which then makes his personality dependent on the creature. This is one of those neat balances if you look in the depth of Scripture. So here we have the life that was, always was, from all eternity. That’s why the second time the noun life used in verse 2, he prefixes it with an adjective. What’s the adjective he prefixes the word – the second occurrence of the noun here? What’s the adjective? Eternal, it always was. It always existed. So whatever life is here, it’s something that’s like the trinity’s personal relationship.
Going back now to John 3. That is:
NKJ 1 John 3:14 We know that we have passed from death to life,
The life is clearly the eternal life. And here they apply in depth. Now he’s talking to believers.
NKJ 1 John 3:14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren.
The implication is that if we don’t love the brethren, we don’t know that we have passed from death to life. It’s contingent. This is a contingent sentence here.
Then he says:
.He who does not love his brother abides in death.
It’s one or the other. So here’s abiding, which is a fellowship issue – in fellowship, out of fellowship. So when we’re out of fellowship it is as though we are under the power of the world system - no different from unbelievers in that respect. We are abiding in death. Now the death that he’s talking about here is also seen in an idea in his second chapter.
So let’s go back to 1 John 2:15. Now he’s talking about the cosmos, the whole organized system of the world as viewed from the standpoint of good and evil.
In verse 15 he says:
NKJ 1 John 2:15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
Now that we know about love and righteousness, do we understand verse 15?
NKJ 1 John 2:15 … If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
Can’t be because the love of the world has as its object something other than God’s righteousness.
Then he says:
NKJ 1 John 2:16 For all that is in the world -- the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life -- is not of the Father but is of the world.
Then he adds in verse 17 and here’s the connotation of this word death:
NKJ 1 John 2:17 And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.
Now what he’s showing us is that when we’re not abiding in Christ, we’re wasting our time. When we’re not abiding in Christ, we’re basically investing in a sinking ship. The time, our time investment, our labor investment, our choices investment is destined to pass away. There’s nothing good eternally coming out of that. But when we are in fellowship, then we have the fruit. Remember the branch in the vine bears fruit. Then that fruit abides. That’s what’s worthwhile.
Think of it economically. This is an economic choice. What’s the best investment? Something that is going to last and pay dividends off for eternity or something that’s just fleeting, just is passing away? So these are some of the ideas here in 1 John.
So 1 John 3 again:
NKJ 1 John 3:14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death.
Now in verse 15 he gets more serious. Now in verse 15 John reverts to the third person. Now this play in structure of sentences between the first person and the third person and then back to the first person - I told you about, to watch this back in chapter 2. In chapter 2 we had 3 verses where you see clearly what John is doing. He starts with the first person; he goes to the third person; and then he winds up with the first person. Why does he construct his sentences this way?
Well, let’s review what we did 1 John 2:3. This is the first time in this epistle this kind of sentence structure shows up. But the sentence structure then shows up repetitively through the rest of the epistle. So if you’ll look at verse 3, verse 4 and the first of verse 5 – or the whole verse 5. Notice 2:3
NKJ 1 John 2:3 Now by this
Third person or first person?
by this
It’s the first person
NKJ 1 John 2:3 Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments
Then in verse 4 - first person or third person? It’s the third person.
NKJ 1 John 2:4 He who says, "I know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
Remember the verb “know.” Again it’s not talking about salvation. It’s talking about maturity and depth and being in fellowship. That’s when Jesus turned to Philip who was a believer and said:
NKJ John 14:9 Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip?
That’s the context of the verb know. We use that everyday in our language. Think about the times you’ve heard people use that expression. Something happens to a person and their personality emerges in kind of a new way.
You say or a friend of yours says, “Gee, I didn’t know he was like that. I didn’t know him.”
When you say that do you mean you didn’t know they existed? You knew they existed. That’s not the knowledge you’re talking about in that situation. You’re talking about something else – seeing into who they are. So that’s what John says. The one who doesn’t keep Christ’s commandments basically doesn’t understand who Jesus is. You just don’t get it.
NKJ 1 John 2:5 But whoever
See, third person – verse 4. Verse 5, first clause:
NKJ 1 John 2:5 But whoever keeps His word
So there’s third person again.
truly the love of God is perfected in him.
Or, becomes operational. Then he concludes verse 5 by this.
By this we know that we are in Him.
So the structure to watch for in John is when he talks about we, himself, and all believers. Then he has a section with the third person in it. That’s the principle. That’s the proverbial way of sentencing someone. Whoever - whether it’s me, whether it’s you or whether it’s somebody else. So that’s why there’s the third person in there. The third person is like a proverb. It’s a proverb. It’s a principle stated. Then he’ll finish it off with a third person again including himself in it. Well, he does the same thing in chapter 14 – or chapter 3 I mean, verse 15.
NKJ 1 John 3:15 Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
There’s abiding.
abiding in him.
The branch that’s separated from the vine doesn’t have the nourishment of the vine in it. So the eternal life is not active. It’s not abiding in him.
Now why do you suppose in verse 15 he elevates the intensity of the expression “to murder.” In context what has he just done? Why?
If we were asking the Apostle John, “John, why do you get so violent in your depiction of believers who don’t love one another; and you’re accusing somebody who doesn’t love his brother?” – by the way, you know how it’s a believer here? It’s his brother. It wouldn’t be his brother if it was an unbeliever. So here’s one Christian – doesn’t love another in the Johannine sense.
Why does he use the word murder here? What has he set us up for by telling about Cain that injects why he’s using murder here now down in verse 15? Did anybody catch and express - what was it about Cain that he was talking about? He’s talking about hatred. What kind of hatred? What was Cain hating? He was angry at his brother; but it wasn’t because his brother used his shirt yesterday afternoon. He was angry at his brother because, why? His brother was accepted by God; and he wasn’t.
This is divine discrimination. Divine discrimination is going on here. God is not treating Cain and Abel equally. Now they’re equal in the sense they’re both creatures obviously. But they’re not equal when it comes to obeying or disobeying God’s protocols of approach. So God is discriminating here in this case. This is legitimate discrimination. It’s not arbitrary discrimination. That’s stupid discrimination. This has a valid basis for the discrimination. So here we have the idea that leads then.
What does Cain do finally? What did God say would happen? “You’re angry,” and what lies at the door? Sin lies at the door. If you don’t handle your anger and if you don’t handle your depression; you’re liable to do all kinds of stuff. Sure enough, Cain did this stuff.
So now what ideas does that bring into verse 15? Anyone? Yeah.
Comment
Yeah, the Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount – Jesus pointed this out. The Pharisees were concerned with the regulation - don’t do murder because you might get caught. Jesus took it far deeper than worrying about what the regulation says. He’s talking about what the heart says.
Don’t you get the idea here when you think about Genesis 4 and Cain that one of the reasons John may be bringing up murder here in this case is the fact that we’re out of fellowship and we’re not treating other believers right, we can cause all kinds of dissention in the body. We can cause all kinds of problems in the body. Every church has these kinds of problems. The first century had it, and we have it in our churches. You get people that are out of fellowship; and it’s a playground for the principalities and powers. Splits happen. This is why there’s animosity inside congregations – all because of this principle. This is a kind of first aid kind of thing, a warning sign saying that you love the brethren.
Remember loving the brethren is not loving every little wart on somebody’s personality because we all have warts. It’s not loving somebody because of their scintillating personality or trying to love somebody with frankly an obnoxious personality. It’s seeing in them the fact that they’re born again. God has chosen to put a regenerate nature in them. God the Holy Spirit indwells them. God the Holy Spirit is doing a work in their life. That’s the object of the love here. That’s possible. That’s possible to do or God wouldn’t tell us to do it. But, you have to keep your mind separate here.
Every parent knows this because every parent goes through this. Back in the days a year or two ago when we were dealing with Proposition 6 and same sex marriage here in Maryland people would say, “Well, if you’re for traditional marriage you hate gays.”
No. I used the counter illustration. How many times in one week does a parent disagree ethically with their kids? Three or four times? More than that? Okay. When you’re a parent and you disagree ethically with your kids, does that mean you hate them? What a silly argument that is. Of course you can love somebody and disagree with them. That’s called tolerance. We apparently have a problem with that in our society right now. I’ve got to ethically agree with everybody or I hate them. Nonsense! And here – and every parent knows this - of course you love your children. In fact it’s because you love your children that you’re going to make the ethical disagreement manifest to them. That’s part of parenting. So standing up for an ethical standard as long, as it’s done in a gracious fashion, doesn’t mean you hate somebody. That’s just propaganda, the hate word. It’s thrown around all through the media today.
“Oh, they hate me.”
No, that’s a false accusation. Justify your statement. There’s no basis for saying such a stupid thing. Hatred is a manipulative term today in our culture.
What John is talking about though is not. John is talking about verse 15.
NKJ 1 John 3:15 Whoever hates his brother is a murderer,
He’s talking in context about disliking because we’ve just gone through Cain and Abel. It’s very clear from the Cain-Abel thing what the hatred of the brethren is. Cain hated Abel because of what Abel stood for and what Abel reminded him of. You could say in one sense, “Poor Abel.” He was just the nearby target.
Cain was really angry at who? At God. Abel just happened to be a nearby target that he could hit because he couldn’t hit God. So he took his hatred out on his brother. That’s the dynamic here.
So when we come now to verse 16 which is the counterpart to the Gospel of John 3:16. It’s so interesting. John didn’t write all the verse numbers in there. Over the centuries scholars have added these verse numbers. The original manuscript had no numbers. In fact the original manuscript had no verse divisions – just text, text, text, text, text. They wanted to save space because manuscripts were very costly. They didn’t just go out and go to Home Depot for a parchment. This was costly stuff so they wanted to save space and they didn’t want spaces with numbers in them.
But it is ironic that when the translators get all through down through the centuries of time – you know John 3:16. Look what 1 John 3:16 says. It’s so interesting it worked out this way.
NKJ 1 John 3:16 By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
So there’s the love that is patterned after what? This is interesting. The greatest act of love in history had moral content to it. The cross is the greatest act of love in history, and it dealt with the righteousness – justice issue, didn’t it? The crucifixion. So when somebody starts talking about love, you get the feeling that they’re talking about some sort of emotional goo, take them back to the cross and straighten out their thinking here. God loved; but He didn’t love sentimentally. God loved by sending His Son at a tremendous price to pay for righteousness and resolution of His justice. That’s what love did. Love did not deny justice. Love affirmed justice and worked within justice to deal with the problem.
Now here’s another thing about biblical theology. We talked about the trinity – why as a Christian we do not have to apologize for being a Trinitarian. Now here’s the other side – we do not have to apologize for saying that the cross is the only way to God. It is His protocol of approach because there is no other solution.
Consider a religion without the cross. I won’t name a religion; but you can guess. You’re in religion A. In religion A you are taught that God may or may not forgive you dependent upon your works. God may forgive you; He may not forgive you; but that is up to you and your good works.
What happens to justice and righteousness in that kind of forgiveness?
Comment
First of all you never know it’s achieved because you never know until you get to the final end how many good works are going to qualify you for it. So number one right off the bat, you don’t know this because you don’t know the standard.
Let’s suppose the theologians of religion A say, “Yes, but God is absolutely righteous and just.”
So there is some standard even though you don’t know how you qualify for it. They say that God has an absolute standard of righteousness and justice. What happens if the God of religion A forgives somebody on the basis of works that only imperfectly meet His standard? What has just happened? He has violated His own justice. That’s the consequence of subtracting the cross of Christianity. Take away the cross, take away the crucifixion and you have arbitrary justice. God on a whim may decide to forgive this person and not that person. Regardless of what He decides about this person or that person, the fact that He’s forgiven anyone with a finite set of works and His standard is up here, in order to lower the standard or to forgive the person, He has to lower the standard. You can’t protect an immutable just standard with arbitrary with forgiveness. They don’t go together. That’s why we as Christian have to believe when we look at the cross in God’s grace. It’s not our works. It can’t be our works. If it’s our works, either God has compromised His justice or He doesn’t have a standard – one or the other. So that’s one of the problems.
Be encouraged. There’s an eternal strength when you think through the foundations of the Bible. Your faith doesn’t rest in fragments of Sunday school sometime. Your faith rests upon the authority of the self-revealing scripture. This is all the background. Next time we’re going to get now to verse 16; and you’ll notice how verse 16 starts.
NKJ 1 John 3:16 By this we know love,
What John is telling us is that when you and I hear the word l-o-v-e. this is what we ought to think about. This is not primarily sexual, though in marriage there’s a component of this kind of love. But l-o-v-e John says in this verse, the content for that verb and that noun is to be seen in the crucifixion. We’ll start with that. Our time is up and we’ll have to end it.
(Closing prayer)
T
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