11 What John Means by “Sin Leading to Death (1 John 5:13-21)

Speaker: Welcome to Wednesday in the Word, a serious Bible study applied to real life. Today is November 20th, 2013. Our passage is 1 John 5, 13 through 21, and our teacher is Krisan Marotta. This is the final message in our series on the book of 1 John. Krisan Marotta: Good morning. We have come to the end of 1 John. It's not hard to believe. We're going to finish chapter 5 today, which is the conclusion of the letter. And this is where John wraps everything up. He gives us in doing that, he introduces us to this wonderful new phrase that is very hard to interpret, but we're going to get it. So let me just summarize where we've been to how we're how we got to where we are. I love doing this because I hope you remember it then. So remember, he started the book with his prologue saying, if you want to know the way to gain eternal life, you can trust the message of the apostles because they were the eyewitnesses, the ones who had firsthand knowledge and were given the authority to proclaim what they learned. And then in chapters 1 through 3, he kind of talks about how you can tell true believers from false believers. And he starts with the premise God is light and in him there is no darkness, and he gives us the criteria by which we will recognize true believers, and it mainly has to do with our attitude toward sin. So he says, true believers will know we're sinful. We will love the things of God, not love the things of the world. We will confess that Jesus is the Christ, and pursue a lifestyle of righteousness and holiness, and then love with a kind of self-sacrificing, other focused love that is only possible with the Spirit of God. Then in chapters four and five, he kind of shifts the focus a little bit. He starts, don't believe everything, or he says, test the spirits, which basically I think he's saying, don't believe everything that gets taught in the name of Jesus. And it's well, how do you know a teacher or a prophet from a true teacher from a false one? And he says they will love with the same kind of self-sacrificing love. They will confess that Jesus is the Christ, and then he talks about how we know that Jesus was confirmed by three witnesses baptism, his baptism, his death, and then the testimony of the Holy Spirit. And he concludes last week's session by saying this message came from God Himself, that we have this divine voice from heaven at his baptism, and then right before the cross saying, This is my son, this is the one, he's the one that will fulfill the prophecies. And if you want to gain eternal life, this is how you find it. And now he's gonna wrap it up. And I think this is is basically his so what section. So if everything I've said is true, what what can what does it mean to you? And he's basically gonna say you can have confidence about three things. And here I'll just give them to you now. The he says his conclusion, the so what is you can have confidence that you have eternal life. That's number one. Two, that even your sin will not jeopardize that life, and that the gospel message is true. So you can he's his conclusion is you can have confidence, utter confidence about three things. You have eternal life, even your sin will not jeopardize that life, and the gospel message is true. So let's look at how we get there. We're gonna start in 1 John 5, we're gonna start in verse 13. So these things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God in order that you may know that you have eternal life. So this is where he's kind of, okay, I'm wrapping things up. This whole letter, these things I've written to you, I wrote them to you who believe in the Son of God in order that you may know that you have eternal life. So I think his believe in the name of the Son of God is basically true believers. You who are genuine people who have saving faith, um, who know who Jesus is, you know what he did for you, believe, believe that you can have confidence that you have eternal life. Now remember the background. These are second generation believers, so they've been exposed to false teachers. The John's the last surviving apostle at this point. Many of the eyewitnesses, the people who were alive when Jesus was physically on earth have died. And so now you have a generation of believers who are hearing it not from firsthand, people with firsthand experience, but people who were taught by them. And there's heresies coming up through the church, and they're saying, no, no, that stuff you heard from the apostles, that wasn't right. We're the ones that have the true message. Jesus wasn't really the Messiah. The apostles missed out on that point. He was just a teacher, or he was just a man, or so on. So John's writing to settle the dispute, and he's saying, I wrote these things to you who believe in Jesus as the apostles taught, so that you will know you are in fact right and you will receive eternal life. And then 14, and this is the confidence which we have before him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from him. Okay, so this is one of those verses that has to stay in context. If you quote this out of context, you can promise all kinds of things which are not necessarily true. So remember where we've been in the letter and what his point is. Um I don't think he's saying this is these verses are not an argument that believers will receive whatever they ask from God, but they are an argument to say how you can be so confident that you have eternal life. So it, you know, his readers could be saying, okay, great, John, you've told us how to recognize true believers, you've told us how to recognize true teachers, but how do I know if I'm one? How do I know if I'm not fooling myself? Or maybe I'll fall away, or maybe I think I have all the signs of believer, but I don't really have them, and I'm just fooling myself. And John's saying, you can have confidence, and the basis for your confidence is this you can know you're personally saved because God always answers requests for righteousness. And that's basically, I think, what he's saying. So the logic of 13 through 15 is uh in 13, I've written this letter so that you can know you will in fact gain eternal life. And then 14, why can you be so confident? Because when you ask for things in accordance with God's will, and I think in context that is righteousness, God always answers. So if we know that God answers us when we ask for righteousness, we can know that when we said, please save me, or I trust you, or you know, off through ourselves on his mercy, that he will answer. That's precisely the type of answers. So we know uh that we have eternal life. So I think he's assuming that inherent in the very act of believing in the name of the Son of God is this request that God save us, that he give us righteousness. So every sinner whose eyes have opened to the fact that he is a sinner or she is a sinner, and wants that freedom from sin realizes you can't get it on yourself by yourself, that you can't muster it up or make yourself righteous, then you ask God for it. You those are the kinds of requests God hears and answers. We guaranteed I can have confidence because God keeps his promises, and nothing will stand in the way of the person who wants eternal life getting it because God has even given him the desire for it. So I think part of the confidence is if you're worried, that's a good sign. I mean, if you're thinking, oh no, how do I know if I'm saved? That's a good sign. Because it means at some level you desire righteousness and you long for it, and it is the Spirit of God at work in your life who made who gave you that realization, who made you want it, as opposed to want your sin. Remember all the things he talked about about believers will pursue a lifestyle of holiness and not sinfulness. Part of that is the desire for it. So you can have confidence if you ask God for salvation, that he will free you from that sin because of who Jesus was and what he did. So that's the basis of a confidence. When we ask to be saved, we are asking essentially for righteousness, and therefore we know God will save us, and we know we have eternal life. And I think that's what the promise is in 14. It's not that you know, we ask for a new car, you're gonna get it, but if you ask for righteousness. Now, that's pretty different than what the Jews thought, because remember, the Jews of the day thought you only have eternal life if you keep the law. So you've got to make a sincere, good faith effort, day in and day out, um, keeping the law to the best of your ability, and there's no confidence in that because you may be doing a good job this week, but next week, who knows what could happen or what life will throw at you. And then of course Jesus comes along and teaches that law keeping is not sufficient. So he talks about you, you know, all the passages he says, you have heard it said, and then he says, but I say to you, and he says, so you think the law standard is here, but I say to you it's really up here. You think that you're doing well if you haven't committed murder, but if you've hated someone, it's the same sin. So he talks about keeping it on the outside is not enough. You have to keep it on the inside, not even want to do those things. So now we're really in trouble. What can what confidence is there that we anyone can ever be saved? And John's saying, this is the good news of the gospel that God has determined to be merciful, that he sent his son to be an atoning sacrifice, and because of that, he will give life to those who don't deserve it, but who seek him and his mercy. So if he's willed to be merciful and grant life because of his son, we can stand before him and ask for that life and be confident that he will grant it. Okay, so that's what I think he means if we ask in whatever we um, if we ask anything according to his will in 14, but that kind of raises the question, well, what would it look like? What is a prayer that's not according to his will? So what does that look like? Is it an attitude? Is it an action? Is it a type of prayer? And I don't have all the answers, but I want to give you some thoughts on this. So I think at least one thing, one prayer that would not be according to God's will, is a prayer that is a means of getting God to do what we want. You know, and I don't know about you, but I often find myself falling into this. That prayer is this kind of mysterious device by which I get God to do what I want Him to do, you know, like an Aladdin's lamp, you know, you just gotta rub the magic prayer lamp the right way, and then that will cause the great genie of heaven to appear and grant all your requests. And, you know, that's when you stop and think about it, that makes God some kind of like heavenly bellboy, you know, we ding and he has to rush to do our bidding, and that's not how it works. Um for those of you who are with us in 1 Samuel, I think this is probably the best story of that kind of prayer. Remember, it's in 1 Samuel 5 and 6, when the Israelites take the Ark of the Covenant into the battle. And so what's the what's happening there is the Israelites go to war with the Philistines. They don't ask God's approval, they don't ask Samuel, who was the prophet, if they should go or not. They just decide we're gonna go fight the Philistines, and they are soundly defeated. So they come back and they say, Well, why wasn't God with us? Why didn't He give us victory? So they ask the right question, but they don't wait for an answer. They say, I know, we'll take the Ark of the Covenant onto the battlefield, and then we'll surely win. So the Ark of the Covenant was this very sacred gold-covered box that in which they kept the Ten Commandments and other things, and it sat behind a thick veil in the holy place in the center of the tabernacle, and it was the symbol of God's rule on earth. So it was the place they the priest would go to ask for forgiveness for his people. It was the sign of God leading his people, especially into battle. So they think we bring the ark into battle, we're gonna win. Because God will be forced to deliver them because if he doesn't, he's gonna look really bad, you know. Because if something bad were to happen to the ark, it would look like the Philistine God is more powerful, it will disgrace him. Naturally, he won't allow that to happen. So he'll have to save us. Well, that's not faith, that's like rabbit foot theology. You know, that's like I've got to have my rabbit foot in my pocket. Their concern was not to seek God, their concern was to control him. And they weren't asking what they should do, they were telling him what they wanted and trying to get him to bless it. So they were not submitting to his will, they were using him, and they weren't really interested in repentance, they were interested in success. So they don't ask God for what they should do, they don't wait for an answer, they just try to manipulate God into blessing them and to act on their behalf, and so they go into battle again and they're soundly defeated. The ark is captured by the Philistines, and the two wayward sons of the current priest are killed in the battle. So it's a huge defeat. And then, of course, the story goes on of how they get the ark back. But that I think is an example of not asking according to God's will. When we're just saying, I want what I want, God, and will you bless it? Now, you may think, well, we don't ever do that, but um we can claim to be asking for God's will when in reality we're forcing our will on Him. Let me give you an example. So I can, and I'm just I'm I wrote this out, but I can, this wasn't my prayer. I married a believer, but I can imagine doing this. In fact, I have done this in other situations. So imagine you have this kind of prayer, dear God, you know, I'm so excited, this is my wedding day. I know I haven't been able to spend much time with you lately with all the rush of getting ready, and I feel a little guilty because, you know, Larry isn't a Christian, but I love him so much. What else could I do? I couldn't give him up, and so, you know, I know you're gonna save him somehow, some way. And you know how much I prayed for him and how much we've discussed together, and I I try not to appear too religious because I don't want to scare him off. And he isn't antagonistic, I just don't know why he hasn't responded. So, you know, dear father, please bless our marriage. I don't want to disobey you, but I do love him and want to be his wife, you know. So just please be with us and and don't spoil my wedding day. unknown: You know. Krisan Marotta: Sound familiar? I mean, what's she really saying? I don't want to disobey you, but I want what I want my way at whatever the cost, you know. Um so, and she's essentially saying, I love what you do not love, and I want what you do not want. So, you know, God, just get off your throne and let me take over and just bite your lip and don't do anything that spoils my plans. And that sounds pretty harsh, but I, you know, I condemn myself with that kind of thing. I can write that because I've done exactly that kind of thing. Um, sometimes we go to God and we say, This is what I want, give it to me now. Um and we have to get to the question, to the place where, like Jesus in the garden, we learn to say, Not my will, but your will. Okay, so back to the text. That was my diversion. So that raises the question, okay, if God answers all these requests from righteousness, then how come I'm not righteous now? Why am I still sinning? And I think that's what he's gonna go on to address. So he says we can be confident when we ask for righteousness, and the answer is absolutely sure and guaranteed, and God is gonna give it to us, but the timing is never promised. The timing is the uncertain aspect. I think we can have utter confidence that God will give you righteousness, you will make progress toward righteousness and maturity, but it's not gonna necessarily happen by tomorrow. So remember, Abraham, God promised that he would make him the father of a whole nation, and when Abraham died, he had one son by Sarah, who was the line of promise. And yet God had promised him and answered him, and it there's a the answer wasn't really fulfilled until 486 years later with the Exodus, and there's a sense in which it's still being fulfilled today. You know, that Abraham still hasn't seen the full fulfillment of that promise. It's coming. So God's answer may very well be righteousness is coming, but it's your children's children's children who are going to see the fulfillment of the promise. So the timing of God's answer is completely in his hands and for his purposes. And that sometimes makes the waiting very hard. But it never doesn't change the outcome. All right, so verse 13 through 15, I think, explain the confidence we can have that God will make us righteous. We will gain eternal life. There is no doubt about it. We can rest assured and calm our hearts on that. And that raises the question then, what about believers who still sin? So, as John has assured us, we all do back in the early chapters. So, John, you said you know that that we're saved because God answers requests for righteousness, but I look around and I find myself sinning, I see others sinning. How does that fit? And I think 16 through 18 are his answers to that question. And I'm gonna give you a handout on these. Um, while those are going around, because this is one of those tricky Bible study passages. Let me read it while it's going around. So 5, 16 through 18. If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give for him life to those who commit a sin not leading to death. There is a sin leading to death. I do not say that he should make a request for this. All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin not leading to death. We know that no one who is born of God sins, but he who is born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him. Okay, so this is a really troublesome passage. There's a lot of disagreement about it. I'm going to give you my best shot at it, and I think it makes a lot of sense in the context. Um, but if you disagree, you're not alone. This is one of those very troublesome passages. But before we look at the options, I want to give you another kind of tool for your Bible study arsenal. You know, how do you when you get a passage like this, how do you handle it? And one way to approach it is remember those story problems in algebra? You know, like John has four red cars and Tom has three cars more than John, and one less than Janie, and if Joe has 13 cars, you know, how many cars does Sally have? You know, remember those? unknown: No. Krisan Marotta: And you know, so you kind of had to go A plus four is B and B minus one is C, you know, and you kind of solve through. All right. Well, you can take that kind of approach to a very difficult passage. So you want you can kind of write down, oh, and I should have kept one of those for me. I think I've got it in here. So you can kind of write down everything you know, and then try to see what that rules in and rules out. So what I've given you at the top of the page is the verse, and those little uh footnote or what are those superscripts are kind of, well, what does that imply that must be true? So any way we interpret this, we have it has to fall within these parameters. So we're trying to solve what is a sin to death and a sin not to death. And I think he starts out and says, if anyone sees his brother committing a sin, and brother, so that's typically refers to a believer. So whatever this is, a believer has to be able to do it. So a sin not to death, a believer has to be able to do. And then he talks about no one who is born of God sins, and most people think that means to death. So those sinning not sinning to death are probably not believers. The language suggests that this is any sin. That's a very generic word, so it's just like not a particular sin, but any type of sin could fit in this category. So that we'll, you know, you can't well, we'll talk about that when we get to the options. Um there must be some reason why God will give life to sins not to death and not to sins to death. So there's something about the two different sins that makes God respond differently, and or that God responds differently to them. We have to figure out what that is. And then most importantly, it has to fit the context. So it has to fit everything we've just talked about in 13 through 21, and it has to be consistent with the rest of Scripture. Okay, so those were my as I went through, like what do I know must be true with whatever interpretation I come up with. And those were mine. So with that in mind, let me give you the main options scholars suggest, and the last one is the one that persuades me. As you can see, I don't have any objections next to it, but let me go over what they are. So the first idea is that there are unforgivable sins and forgivable sins. So a sin not to death would be a forgivable sin, and a sin to death would be an unforgivable sin. And the idea is that there are certain sins that are so egregious or so terrible that they are unforgivable, and people have suggested different ones. So some people think like suicide would fall into this category, or murder, or adultery, or blasphemy, or idolatry. Different scholars will suggest different things. And I think this is very similar to the Catholic distinction between mortal and venial sins, but I'm not actually sure because I'm not a Catholic theologian, but I think they use those distinctions as venial sins are forgivable and mortal sins are not. So that's one option. The problems I have with that is I don't see any other scriptures making a distinction between types of sin this way, as forgivable and unforgivable. There's there doesn't seem to be like a sliding scale. So where we get to a certain point and no longer does the blood of Christ cover it. Scripture really seems to suggest that there that there are no sins that the blood of Christ cannot cover. And again, the language I think refers not to a specific sin, so something like suicide or or uh blasphemy or idolatry might. Be a specific sin, but it suggests it can be any type of sin which leads to death or not to death. So that's kind of the problem I have with that is where does that get the rest of Scripture? And why would John bring that up now in the context? That doesn't quite make sense to me. Okay, so that's the first option. The second option people have come up with is any sin which actually causes physical death and a sin which does not. So a sin leading to death is a sin that actually caused a physical death, and a sin not to death is a sin that didn't lead to a physical death. And a variation on that is the Old Testament sins that were punishable by death and those that were not. That's a kind of a I lumped those two together, but that is another variation that comes up. So you can see how that would make sense with the language, and it makes a sense because any particular type of sin could lead to a physical death or not, so it kind of fits that. The objections I have with that are that John never uses death in the letter to refer to physical death. In fact, he more often uses it to refer to spiritual death, and he uses life to refer to spiritual life. So my first thought, just from the way he's been talking, is that this is some kind of spiritual death. And it also doesn't make sense to me why wouldn't you pray for someone who commits a sin that's either punishable by death or led to death? I mean, why not pray for them? You certainly could. There are many examples in the Old Testament of people committing sins that led to someone else's death or their own death. David, Paul, Moses, you know, those are kind of the prime examples. So why wouldn't we pray for them? And and um though they were definitely believers, and yet this passage seems to suggest that non-believers would be the ones committing a sin to death. So that one doesn't quite fit. And again, it assumes there's some kind of sliding scale of sin in which some are worse than others. Okay, so the third option then would be apostasy. And this one I think is we're starting to get closer to the idea. So this would be a believer renouncing the faith versus any other sin. And it is defined as a believer announcing the faith. And there's no questioning me that those who reject the faith are in a bad way, but I I am not Arminian enough to believe that a believer can give it up. I just don't think that's possible. Um I don't think a believer can. Once you have saving faith, I don't think there's no give backs, God doesn't give it to you and then take it back. Um I don't that's my biggest objection to that. I don't think one who is truly born of God can give up the faith. And I think from the rest of the letter we've heard that, and certainly verse 18 suggests that those who commit sins to death are not believers, so how do you you have to go from one to the other? Okay, and then the last option, and this is the one that makes the most sense to me, is any sin which results from a character of unbelief versus a sin which which fundamentally there is belief underneath it. So it fits the language that any particular type of sin can be rooted in unbelief or it can be rooted with belief. Believers can sin that way, and it explains why you wouldn't pray for one whose sin is rooted in unbelief, because God has not promised to give life. So let me kind of paraphrase that back into the text and let me tell you what I think is going on. So in 16, so remember he's just said we're gonna be righteous, that's guaranteed, and it kind of raises the questions, well, what if we're still sinning if God always answers our requests for righteousness? And I think what he's saying in 16 then is if anyone sees a believer sinning and that, or a person sinning, and that person has genuine saving faith, ask God on your brother or sister's behalf, and God will give him life, because the one sinning ultimately has faith. It is a sin that does not lead to death, it's a sin that will ultimately lead to life because God will use it in that person's life to bring about life. So some people sin out of a rejection of God and a character of belief, and concerning that person whose sinning arises from a complete rejection and rebellion to God, I'm not saying you pray for them because God hasn't guaranteed that that person will be saved. Maybe, maybe not. We don't know what the future holds. So I think that's the idea of 16 and then 17. All sin is wrong, but some sins don't spring out of a rejection of God. Some spring do not spring out of a lifestyle of unbelief. See how I think that fits? So a believer's sin is not rooted in a character of rebellion and unrelief, as a in the way a non-believer sin is. So we see this, for example, in Romans 7, when Paul talks about this is one of my favorite chapters in the Bible, when he says, the thing I don't want to do, I do, and the thing I want to do, I don't do. And he's talking about I don't want to sin, but I still find myself sinning, and I want to do the right thing, and I find myself not doing it, and who will save me from this body of death but Jesus Christ? So I think that's the same idea Paul brings up, that there's a sin not grounded in unbelief, that it's grounded in we are saved, but we are not yet made completely holy. So his assurance is you can pray for them and God will grant them life, because that's what he's promised. Those who believe in the name of the Son of God will get there. So if you see your brother or sister sinning, pray for them, and you can have confidence that eventually God will bring them back. And then 17 clarifies all sin is wrong, but it doesn't all spring from unbelief. Now, I also think this fits with the words of Jesus, because I know you're gonna this passage immediately comes to mind. This is when he talks about blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. So this is Matthew 12. Let me, you can I'm gonna read a fairly long section, so if you want to turn there, you can. This is Matthew 12, starting in 22. Then a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute was brought to him, brought to him Jesus, and he healed him. So the man spoke and saw, and all the people were amazed. Can this be the son of David? But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, It is only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons. Knowing their thoughts, he, Jesus, said to them, Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Baalzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if it is the Spirit of God that by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or who can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house. Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters, and then this is the kind of crucial verse for our purposes. This is twelve thirty one. Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven, people, but blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or the age to come. Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bread, for the tree is known by its fruit. Okay, so what's going on there is demon Jesus has healed a demon-possessed man, and the crowd says, ooh, he may be the Christ. I think that's what they mean in twenty-two and twenty-three when they say, Is he the son of David? Is he the Christ we've been waiting for? And the Pharisees jump in in twenty-four and say, No, no, no, he's not the Christ. He's doing all this by the power of Satan. That's who enables him to perform these miracles. And Jesus responds in 25 through 30 by saying, No, it's by the power of the Holy Spirit that he casts out demons, and then he uses this occasion to talk about blasphemy of the Holy Spirit and saying it will not be forgiven. So, what is that? What is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? Now, two things we want to remember. Remember in the immediate previous passage, John says that the testimony of the Holy Spirit confirms that Jesus is who he says he is. So there's a subjective kind of working of God inside us telling us who Jesus is. And the other thing is knowing truth by itself is not sufficient for salvation. So you can know all the right theological answers, but you don't necessarily believe Jesus is who he says he was or trust in him. That's not enough. So for instance, um the demons knew Jesus was the Christ, they identify him as such, but they weren't saved. And probably some of the Pharisees might have fallen into this category. I don't know. So all truth is from God, and the Holy Spirit shows us that truth, but um if you never actually embrace it and live it and take make it your own as a lifestyle, you're not really trusting God. So if we if the Holy Spirit reveals to us that Jesus is the Christ and He is from God, and then we accuse him of being demonic, which is what's going on in this passage, we have blasphemed the Holy Spirit. We have called him a liar, we've been denying him his character, and essentially we have rejected the truth. So that is a sin which is it's arising out of rejection of God, rejection of the truth that we have seen, and it's a kind of I would define it as a willful rejection and suppression of the truth. And um that's the thing that won't be forgiven because you are no you do not have saving faith. And saving faith is what we know requires us to be forgiven. See, I'm closing the circle for you enough. So those who willfully deny the truth and therefore would have no concern for the state of their souls because they don't care. They've consciously chosen not to reject, or they've closed not to embrace, but to reject the truth. So theologians agree that if you're worried about it, you probably haven't done it. Because usually those who are worried about have I done this or want to be saved, and that's evidence of God at work in your lives. So I'd say blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is basically unbelief. It is rejecting the testimony of the Holy Spirit that Jesus is Lord and Savior, and that we are sinful people in need of him. So that is the one unforgivable sin, rejecting the truth of who Jesus is and what he did for you. And it's it's unforgivable in the sense that it is a necessary component of saving faith. You must believe Jesus was who he said he was, and that you have a problem with sin and that he's the solution. Okay? So we so remember the context then. Let's kind of walk through this again. So 13 through 15 say, you can be confident that you will gain eternal life because God has promised to make believers righteous. But I look around and I see believers sinning, what about that? And uh he says, if you do, pray for them, because God will save them. But the same guarantee doesn't apply to non-believers. Um we don't we don't know where they're gonna stand. And this was kind of a major, I I think John writes this because this was a major objection to the gospel in his day. Paul writes about it in Romans. Uh, we saw it in James 2. A major objection to the gospel was if God's simply gonna forgive me and be merciful, then how come I can't do anything I want? You know, you know, if I'm forgiven, then why can't I just pursue all the all the hedonism I want and get away with it? Because you promised me forgiveness. And Paul's argued, and I think John's argued, your lifestyle matters. Your lifestyle makes a great deal of difference because a desire for righteousness or loving the things of God, as John says, is part of the gift of saving faith. So you won't pursue a lifestyle of sin anymore because God has changed you such that you no longer want to sin, you grieve over your sin. So the question remains then, if I've been granted forgiveness and mercy and I don't want to sin anymore, why do I still do it? How does that fit? And John says, well, not all sin arises out of unbelief and rebellion to God. There are, as we've talked about, righteous sinners, sinners who have been forgiven but not yet completely freed from their sin. There are unrighteous sinners who have not been forgiven, don't even want to be saved, and are acting in complete rebellion to God. So we've got these so those who sin and know it and grieve over it, those would be the righteous sinners. They are justified and forgiven, but not yet completely freed from sin, and those would be the people committing a sin not to death. So I may still sin on occasion or want to sin on occasion, but the overall trajectory and destiny and character of my life is toward God, not away from him. And those who sin and excuse their sin and reject God are the what I would call the unrighteous sinners. They're the ones who would commit a sin to death because they are not headed toward life. The overall trajectory of their life is in rebellion. So the encouragement is if you see people who have faith sinning, pray for them and God will make them righteous. That's guaranteed. If you see a sister sinning, you don't need to reject her, you don't need to condemn her, you don't need to ostracize her. You may need to encourage or rebuke her, but you can pray and know with confidence that God will get a hold of her and teach her through the struggle. Okay. And I think part of his point there is even your sin can't jeopardize eternal life. So when Paul says in Romans, nothing can separate you from the love of God, that includes even your own sin. He's promised to forgive you, he's promised to finish his work in you and to work in your best interest and save you from your sins. So, and he will keep you from walking away, renouncing the faith and giving up his kingdom. Not even your sin can mess that up, and that's what he emphasizes in 18 and 19. We know that no one who is born of God sins, but he who is born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him. We know that we are of God and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. So remember again the immediate context, no one who is born of God, this is the distinction he's been making in 16 and 17. No true believer sins a sin which leads to death. So sin is a sin rooted in unbelief, or a sin arising from rejection to God. The whole world is seduced by the deceiver, but God sent his son to reveal the truth of who he is and how to find him, and he will keep him in the faith. So R. C. Spahl uses the analogy this way. He talks about how does God keep us? And he says, think about like a father and a son, or let's do a mother and a daughter, and they're walking along a cliff, and mom has a hold of the child's hand to keep the child from falling down to, you know, to certain doom off the edge of the cliff. And the question is, does our security and safety depend on how tightly we hold God's hand or how tightly God is holding us? And the answer is, God is holding on to us. So if we let go and our fingers start to slip, we will not fall. God will keep us because he is holding on to us. Our salvation does not depend on how tightly we hold to him, but on how tightly he holds us and he has promised to keep us safe. So I think that's what he means in 19, um, that, or is it 18? It's 18. He who is born of God keeps him. God, he who was born of God keeps him. It's the idea that God is keeping us safe. He will not let us go. The evil one cannot touch us and rip us, rip our hand out of God's hand. To continue my analogy. Okay, so we've got to wrap this up. Let's look at 20 and 21. And we 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 Christ. This is the true God in eternal life. Little children, guard yourself from idols. So I think he's this is his grand conclusion. We know that the Son of God has come to earth and has given us, I think, us apostles, the understanding such that we know the true revelation of how to gain eternal life, and we are faithful to that real revelation. We are the true followers of his son Jesus Christ. We have faithfully told you how to gain it. And this God, the one who sent his son Jesus, is the one true God and the true source of eternal life. So his final point is you can have confidence that this message is true. Notice how many times true comes up in that passage. He says, um, that we might know him who is true, literally the true one. Um, I think, and we are in him who is untrue. That is the true God, the true Son, the true message. This is the one. So Jesus is the true representative of God. Um, there are all kinds of teachers and priests and prophets and philosophers who will claim that no, no, no, we represent the true God, we represent the real path to enlightenment. And John is saying they're deceivers, they're idols, don't believe them, they have no authority to speak to God, and they're for God, and they're speaking a false message. By contrast, Jesus is the one prophet that God Himself testified, said, This is the one, this is my son, and he's the one true message and revelation. So his final statement, little children, guard yourself from idols. I think we could say, guard yourself from believing anything or anyone else. I mean, we often use idols as that false God or the thing that we value more than we value God, and in many contexts that's exactly what it means. I think here it's not so much as a false God as a false gospel, a false belief, or a false worldview. So anything that claims to be true, that claims to speak for God and doesn't. Um he's saying, don't believe anything else. Just stand firm in this. So Christianity doesn't rest on guesswork or philosophy or clever ideas or untested theories. It rests solidly on God's actions and history, on the facts concerning Jesus of Nazareth, how he lived, how he died, and how he was resurrected. And remember John's opening, we were the eyewitnesses, we saw it, we lived it, we touched it. We can testify in every way possible that the Son of God came and gave us this understanding and what we have told you is true. And he sums up basically don't believe anything else. You know, don't get taken in by new age philosophy or new thoughts or philosophy, don't give your attention or anything. This is it. So his conclusion, his ringing confidence is in 13 through 15, you can have confidence that you will receive eternal life, because God always answers requests for life and righteousness. In 16 through 19, you can have confidence that even your sin is not going to jeopardize that, because your sin is not arising out of a rejection of God or a character of unbelief. And then in 20 and 21, you can have confidence this is the true message. It was taught to us by Jesus Himself, and he basically says, Don't believe anything else. All right, let's pray and um give you some time to ask questions. Father, thank you that you loved us enough to send your son to die in our place, and that we can approach you with confidence, even though we are sinful and undeserving because of your great love and your great mercy. And I just pray that you would write these truths on our hearts, that you would make us people who live it and believe it and embrace it daily, and not just a intellectual endeavor or how we'd vote on the theology quiz, but something that changes us to our very core so that we can learn to know you better, love you better, and become more and more people who follow you and trust you. In Jesus' name. Amen. Speaker: Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word. For notes and study questions related to this message or more talks in this series, please visit our website, wednesdayintheword.com. We hope you'll join us again.