Gems in the Letter of 1 John - Part 118

Gems in the Letter of 1 John

Part 118 - 1 John 5:20
What We Should Know

What we should know. John wanted the people of his fellowship to ‘know’ 4 things.

They are:

• that they have eternal life (16);
• that those born of God do not continue to sin (18);
• that they are children of God but all the world marches to a quite different tune - that of the evil one (19);
• that by knowing Jesus they know the truth in a very special way (20);
• Then he summarizes it all by saying that they were ‘in’ Jesus.
  
  Their job was much easier than ours. In those days there were not too many things to know. Even those who could read would not have many things to read. We, on the other hand, are deluged with things to know. The TV and the radio and a million books take care of that. So it is hard for us to really concentrate on things like these and make sure they are really deeply imbedded in our thinking. But we must make the effort to get them there and hold them there.
  
  We have eternal life - the life of the ages. A whole new worldview opened up with the appearance of Jesus in the lanes and houses of Galilee. The Kingdom has come, with him as its Crown Prince. It is a kingdom that is unlike any other there has ever been. Not only is it a kingdom we can, and should, enjoy now but it is one that will take care of us after we have died out of this earthly life. We will be in heaven, briefly, before we are resurrected, as Jesus was, to partake in the new heaven and the new earth. What it will be like we do not know in any detail but we have his word for it and may rest in that with great confidence.
  
  He then gives us a sharp reminder that we must not live in sinfulness by his positive statement that we do not continue to sin. What happens if we do he does not say but the prospect would not be good. We do all sin, as he said in his first chapter, but we must not live with a fixed tendency to sin. That is idolatry. Beware.
  
  He then says that, presumably provided we do not disbar ourselves by idolatry, we are the children of God, members of the family of faith. That you will probably not fully understand until you are overseas, away from home, and have to rely on your brothers and sisters of the faith. Then you will realise what the power of a worldwide family is.
  
  In knowing your fellows of the faith you will have some slight idea of what it means to be ‘in Jesus’, part of the body of the Messiah.. You will come to understand that much of the world is quite antagonistic to you because of your faith. Some of you who read this will understand that very much better than I, in my comfortable Western country ever can, even although I lived for a few years in a country where Christians are not very welcome.
  
  In summary then, his 4 messages are:
  We have eternal life
  Continuing in sin is not possible for us
  We are in the family of the Messiah
  That all our thinking is to be centred on Jesus
  
  
  

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