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Looking at 1 Jn 5

Looking at 1 Jn 5. Epistles of John. Jn 5:1-5 The three tests. In Ch 2, John describes three tests which he applies to the professing Christian Obedience 2:3-6 Love 2:7-11 Belief 2:18-27 In Ch 3, he examines obedience (2:28-3:10) and love (3:11-18).

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Looking at 1 Jn 5

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  1. Looking at 1 Jn 5 Epistles of John

  2. Jn 5:1-5 The three tests • In Ch 2, John describes three tests which he applies to the professing Christian • Obedience 2:3-6 • Love 2:7-11 • Belief 2:18-27 • In Ch 3, he examines obedience (2:28-3:10) and love (3:11-18). • In Ch 4, he looks at belief (4:1-6) and love (4:7-12). • Now in Ch 5, the three tests are combined. Looking at 1 Jn 5

  3. Examining the words • “Believe” and “faith” occur in vv1,4 and 5. • “Love” occurs in vv1,2 and 3. • “Obey” or “keep his commandments” occurs in vv2 and 3. • The point is to show how the three tests belong together. • Also, our love for God (at the end of ch 4) belongs together with our obligation to love our brother. Looking at 1 Jn 5

  4. Linking the tests • The link between the three tests is the “new birth”. Faith, love and obedience are the natural growth which follows abirth from above, just as in 4:13-16, faith and love were shown to be evidences of the mutual indwelling of God and his people. Looking at 1 Jn 5

  5. “Born of God” (v1) • Present/ perfect tenses combined • Believing is the consequence, not the cause of the new birth. • A present continuing activity of believing • New birth brings us into a loving relationship with our family: father and other children Looking at 1 Jn 5

  6. “Keep his commandments” (vv2f) • F.W.Robertson: “There is not love that does not shape itself into obedience.” • Love for God is not an emotional experience so much as moral obedience. • “My yoke is easy” (Mtt 11:30). Looking at 1 Jn 5

  7. “Overcoming the world” (vv 4,5) • “John gathers up the sum of all the limited, transitory powers opposed to God which makes obedience difficult” (Westcott) and calls it the world. • Godless preoccupations (2:16) • Intellectual sidetracks (heresy) • Physical attack (persecution) Looking at 1 Jn 5

  8. Summary • A circular argument: • Christian believers are God’s children, born from above. • God’s children are loved by all who love God. • Those who love God also keep his commandments. • They obey because they overcome the world. • They overcome the world because they are Christian believers, born from above. Looking at 1 Jn 5

  9. Jn 5:6-17 The three witnesses • How do we come to faith? • Faith depends on testimony. Vv6-9 describes the nature of the testimony, vv10-12 the results of testimony and vv13-17 the consequent assurance. Looking at 1 Jn 5

  10. Jesus came by “water and blood” • The two sacraments (Luther and Calvin)?? • Jesus’ wound in Jn 19:34,35 (Augustine)? • Tertullian: water relates to Jesus’ baptism and blood to his death. • (Remember that John is countering heretics who held that Jesus was not fully human) • Symbols of purification and redemption. Looking at 1 Jn 5

  11. “The Spirit bears witness” (v6) • The Spirit is personal: only a person can testify. • The Spirit is truth (Jn 15:26. 16:13; 1 Jn 4:6) : he is essentially fitted and also constrained by his nature to bear witness. • How? Because the Spirit is given to us (3:24; 4:13) and our confession of Christ comes from his anointing (2:20,27; 4:1-6). • Objective and subjective testimony, historical and experimental, water and blood on the one hand and the Spirit on the other. Calvin: “ He it is who seals in our hearts the testimony of the water and the blood.” Looking at 1 Jn 5

  12. Vv10-12 The results of the testimony • It evokes faith in Jesus (v10) • It produces eternal life (vv11,12) • Not a prize but a gift • Not anywhere else but in the Son • Not a past possession but a present relationship Looking at 1 Jn 5

  13. Vv13-17 The consequent assurance • That my reader should hear • That hearing they might believe • That believing they might live • That living they might know… • ASSURANCE OF LIFE • ASSURANCE OF ANSWERED PRAYER Looking at 1 Jn 5

  14. Vv16f: A limitation on prayer? • What is “sin unto death”? • A specific sin? • “Mortal” and “venial” sins? • Apostasy? (Heb 6) • Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? (Mk 3:29) • Counterfeit Christians? Looking at 1 Jn 5

  15. 5:18-21: Three affirmations • The “born of God” don’t sin v18 • You either belong to God or to the world v19 • We know Him and we are in Him v20. • V21 So avoid substitutes! Looking at 1 Jn 5

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