Little children, keep yourselves from idols
The last verse of John’s letter has puzzled commentators for centuries: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” John has written nothing of idols throughout his entire letter–why would he end on this note? Certainly, formal idolatry is not addressed whatsoever at any point in this letter. John nowhere mentions the making of idols, nor sacrificing [...]
Jesus is the true God and eternal life
The third “we have come to know” statement as John closes his First Letter is this: And we have come to know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus [...]
The Whole World Lies in the Power of the Evil One
In the second “We have come to know” statements with which John closes his First Letter, he writes: We have come to know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. (1 John 5:19) The two halves of this verse speak to the infinite chasm between [...]
He who was Born of God Protects you from the Touch of the Evil One
John closes his First Letter with three “We have come to know” statements and one command. In 1 John 5:18, the Apostle writes the first of these statements: We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil [...]
Praying for the Prodigal Brother
In 1 John 5:13-15, John explains how the confidence that we have toward our eternal life translates into the way we conduct lives that are motivated and governed by prayer. In v. 16-17, John gives us a very specific application for the prayer that should stem from our confidence: [16] If anyone sees his brother [...]
Confidence in our eternal life results in prayer
After assuring his readers that he has written his letter to confirm that they have eternal life if they believe in the name of the Son of God, John begins to unfold what the confidence looks like: [14] And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to [...]
How confident are you that you have eternal life?
Finally, almost at the very end of his letter, John gives the primary motivation behind what he has written: I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. (1 John 5:13) Everything John has written in 1 John–the commands [...]
Whoever has the Son has Life
In God’s grace, he has given us two witnesses that testify to the profoundly unique mystery of Jesus Christ’s having come in the flesh: the water and the blood. At Jesus’ baptism and at Jesus’ cross, our Lord physically received the sacrament of baptism and he physically bled out his life–yet in doing so he [...]
There are Three that Testify
Even though Christians experience a victorious new birth, being born of God himself, in order to believe, love, and obey, we must still wrestle for the rest of our lives with why we believe, love, and obey. Does our faith rest on some kind of psychological deception, whether from a hyper-emotionalized experience, a desperately guilty [...]
The Victory of Being Born of God
1 John 5:1-5 is the clearest, most concise summary of the theology of the entire letter: [5:1] Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. [2] By this we know that we love the children of God, [...]
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