Spiritual Strength and Victory; 1 John 2:14
1 John 2:14 NASB “I have written to you, fathers,
because you know Him who has been from the beginning.” John is talking about
Jesus Christ here. The reason we know that he is not talking about God the
Father but is talking about God the Son is that going back to the beginning the
very issue that gave rise to this epistle had to do with the deity of Christ. At
the very beginning we dealt with the issue of incipient Gnosticism, Docetism, that
the real issue related to the person of Jesus Christ as undiminished deity in
true humanity. The verb here is what breaks open the meaning of that phrase. It
is the perfect active indicative of the second person plural of ginosko [ginwskw]. The perfect tense emphasises the present results of
a past action. It doesn’t say anything necessarily about the ongoing results of
that past action into the future but John is saying at this point in time they
were spiritually mature (though they can still go into reversionism
and carnality), they have come to know Jesus Christ. The subject is these
individual believers who have reached spiritual maturity. It emphasises the
fact that it is a result of their volition that they have reached spiritual
maturity because they have made it a priority in their life to study the Word
of God and to apply it consistently in their lives. As a result of that they
have reached a point where they have come to know—not just an academic
knowledge but in terms of a relationship with God Jesus Christ. It is more than
academic knowledge.
The epistle is written by the
apostle who was present in the upper room and he is the only Gospel writer who
gave us all the details of what Jesus taught in the upper room. The vocabulary,
phraseology, and idiom of John’s epistle is similar to
that of the upper room discourse. John adopted a way of speaking and writing
that was very similar that which Jesus used. For example, in John 14:7 Jesus
says to the disciples NASB “If you had known Me,
you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen
Him.” The concept of knowing Jesus can be understood in one of three different
ways. First o0f all we can know Jesus in an academic manner. People can read
and talk about Jesus and understand certain facts about Him such as the fact
that He was born in Bethlehem, His father was a carpenter, He lived in obscurity
until He was about 30 years of age, He had three years of ministry then
crucified. They may interpret these in different ways and understand certain
things academically about Jesus that have nothing to do with whether or not a
person is a Christian or not. Another way what the word “knowing” Jesus means has
been interpreted in a salvation sense. This is comparable to the idea of “You
have met me” in a salvation sense, that we have trusted Christ as saviour. But
that is not how Jesus or John uses the perfect active indicative of ginosko.
Jesus made His statement to
the disciples in the upper room when He was instructing them on the principles
that will characterise the spiritual life of the yet undisclosed church age. He
is just beginning to give them this instruction and they are beginning to
question Him. They were surprised when He said that He was leaving, they couldn’t
grasp what He was teaching about the fact that he was going to the cross. In
the course of that discourse He said: “If you had known Me,
you would have known My Father.” They had been with Him for three years. This
isn’t academic knowledge or even salvation because these eleven are saved. This
is something deeper, more profound, than a simple academic truth. He is talking
about if they had come to know Him in an intimate way; and they haven’t. So
this tells us that you can be saved and not know Jesus; you can be saved and
not have a profound understanding of who He is. This knowledge is a more
in-depth knowledge based on an in-depth relationship with Him. The principle of
how well we know Jesus has to do with His commandments. 1 John 2:3 NASB
“By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.”
So coming to know Him is an advanced stage in spiritual growth, according to
this verse, and it is characterised by obedience to His mandates. So the point
that John is making to the fathers in 2:14
is that there is an intimate knowledge over time that now characterises their
relationship. If they have come to know Jesus and you put that together with
verses 3 and 4, that means that they are also keeping
His commandments. They are spiritually mature; they understand His Word. To
keep His commandments you have to know His commandments; to know His
commandments means you have to understand the commandments. That means they
have had clear instruction and have advanced beyond elementary doctrines and
they are consistently walking in fellowship.
Love in Scripture is
always evidenced by action. Notice what John says in 1 John 2:4, 5 NASB
“The one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’ and does not keep His
commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever
keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we
know that we are in Him.” Keeping His Word is tantamount to being obedient. We
cannot know Him without spending a lot of time in the Word learning about Him;
we cannot love someone we do not know. We cannot know Jesus unless we are in
the Word, and it takes time. Knowing Jesus is related to spiritual maturity. The
spiritual adult is characterised by love for God and that demonstrated by
obedience to divine mandates.
The second group is the
young men, and the next four verses are going to characterise them: “… I have
written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides
in you, and you have overcome the evil one.” He says to then first of all, “you are strong.” The key word is “strength” which is the
masculine plural nominative adjective ischuros
[i)sxuroj] which
is from the noun ischus. It is
important to make these connections because of other verses where these words
are used. For example, Ephesians 6:10
NASB “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His
might.” We have to look at several synonyms that are used in this verse to help
us understand the connections here. These adolescent believers have reached a
level of victory in spiritual conflict. “Be strong” is the present active
imperative of the Greek word endunamoo
[e)ndunamow], and
that is the preposition en [e)n] plus the verb from dunamis
[dunamij], meaning power or ability. The word “strength” could
be better translated “power,” to be consistent with the word found in 1 John
2:14. This word translated “strength” in the NASB comes from kratos [kratoj], having to do with strength or power, and it could
be preferable to translated “in the power of his strength.” The word “might” is
from ischus. The reason for going
to this verse is because it demonstrates the connection between these three
synonyms: that we are to be strong and our strength comes from God’s strength,
it is not our inherent strength. This is seen in 1 Peter 4:11 NASB “Whoever
speaks, {is to do so} as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever
serves {is to do so} as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies;
so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs
the glory and dominion forever and ever.” So we are to serve in the Christian
life not on the basis of our own power, our own ability, but on the strength
that God supplies. The ultimate goal of the Christian life is to glorify God.
We are here to serve God and to do that we do it in the strength which he
supplies.
A synonym for ischuo is dunamis, as we see in Ephesians 6:10, and to understand the
concept of how divine power is given to the believer we need to go to an episode
that also relates it to a spiritual warfare issue in 2 Corinthians 12:8. We see
a situation in the life of the apostle Paul where he is faced with some sort of
debilitating and overwhelming adversity. We don’t know exactly what it was but
there are hints in the text that it indicates the extreme opposition that he
had to face in performing his ministry. 2 Cor 12:10 NASB “Therefore I am well content with
weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with
difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then
I am strong.” This is the strength of the believer. How did he come to
understand this? As he was advancing in his spiritual life and he faces the
fact that in his ministry serving God he has certain abilities. He had more
revelation than any other apostle, he had a higher IQ than anybody
else, and so there was a natural tendency, as there is for anybody who has been
given so much and to be so talented, to be a little bit arrogant. So God allowed
something to happen to his life that would keep him humble. In v. 7 we read
about it. NASB “Because of the surpassing greatness of the
revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given
me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting
myself!” There was some continuous irritation and problem. The origin of this
adversity is Satanic. [8] “Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that
it might leave me. [9] And He has said to me, ‘My
grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected [teleiow = brought to completion] in weakness.’” So God’s answer to Paul is that in the midst
of his weakness he was going to realise that it was not by his power, his
might, his intelligence, his ability, but God’s power, plan, ability, strength
and provision that is going to enable him to face and handle any difficulty. Before
he got anywhere in life he had to understand that the principle is grace. His
grace is more than enough to handle any situation or problem in life. Strength derives first from grace orientation.
In 1 John 2 the adolescent believer is being praised because first of all he is
strong. He got strength because he was grace oriented. 2 Peter 3:18 tells us that we grow by means of grace and the
knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. “…Most
gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power
of Christ may dwell in me.”
So the principle is that
God’s grace is sufficient for us and because of God’s grace we have power—dunamis which is a synonym for ischuo. Secondly he says, not only are
you strong but “the word of God abides in you.” The Word of God dwells in them.
This is the next spiritual skill that is developed: doctrinal orientation. Jesus
said in John 8:31 NASB “If you continue [abide] in My word, {then} you are truly disciples of Mine.” This is
not something that just happens at salvation, it is something that happens
through spiritual growth.