It is open to some debate, but I think that the Spirit’s primary purpose in leading John to write this epistle, was to lay down guidelines whereby we can test whether or not we are children of God. Are you unsure if you are saved? Read and study I John. It is not the only book which answers this question, but it is a good place to start if you are worried about the condition of your soul.
Again, we have I John 5:13: “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.” John wanted his readers to have assurance of their salvation. And if they didn’t have that assurance, then he wanted them to begin at the beginning, encouraging them to trust Christ and what He accomplished on the cross. Yes, there are other things in these five chapters, such as love for the brethren and general holiness in life. He wrote: “My little children, these things write I unto you that ye sin not.” But, “if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”
How often has someone told you, “I know I’m going to Heaven,” but their authority for saying it was weak? There are the classic failures such as: “I was baptized when I was twelve.” And: “I’ve been a member of such and such church for twenty years.” A twenty-year-old catfish has been immersed all its life, but its immersion doesn’t make it a Christian. We often hear people say, “When I was a child, I asked Jesus to come into my heart.” Contrary to popular opinion that is not something which we can find in the Word of God. While it may be true in a true Christian, but it is not a true test of eternal life.
Beyond the common misproofs of salvation, there are the uncommon. “I was in a car accident, which should have been fatal, but today I’m as healthy as ever. Because of that miracle, I know that God loves me.” But health in this world, even miraculous physical health, doesn’t prove the existence of spiritual health. “I was addicted to drugs, but God delivered me, therefore I know He has saved me from all my sins.” I pray that both are true, but the first does not prove the second. Someone might say that he had a seizure-like experience and came out of it with perfect peace. Again, that is not something of which we read in the Bible.
Paraphrasing our apostle, 1 John 3:24 concludes with: “We know that we are God’s children through the Holy Spirit whom the Father has given us.” That may be a more difficult test to analyze than “God saved me from certain death,” but it is at least a scriptural test. When it comes to the extremely important matter of our eternal souls… When it comes to the difference between heaven and hell… I want to apply tests which come from the author of salvation rather than from my own mind. For that reason, I reach back to the message from last Sunday and extend it into the last verse of chapter 3. Let’s consider once again, “the commandment,” before getting to “the communication” and its “comfort.”
God’s COMMANDMENT.
“And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ…” I make no apology for repeating myself from last week. The eternal nature of the soul is so important that we cannot over emphasize or repeat too often: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” “Except ye REPENT, ye shall all likewise perish.”
Faith in Christ the Saviour, is the critical element in proving that He has delivered us from our sins. Salvation is by God’s sovereign grace, but we understand it and experience it through our faith. GALATIANS, 2:16: “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have BELIEVED in Jesus Christ, that we might justified by the faith of Christ.” In that verse Paul was speaking as one who had been raised in the most extreme religion of the Jews. Earlier, he had conscientiously done all that was required of him to please his concept of God. But those works of the law which he had considered gain to him, he had learned to estimate as loss. “I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ. And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is God by faith.” Romans 10:4: “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that BELIEVETH.” Acts 10:43: “To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever BELIEVETH in him shall receive remission of sins.”
All the Apostles, reiterate what Jesus said: “it is by faith in the Saviour that sinners are delivered from their sin.” Trusting our works, or our merits, only further condemns the sinner, because “all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” before God. And faith in the miracles we have received is not the same as trusting the omnipotent God of all miracles. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31).
But there is an important caveat involved with that verse and all the others which we might quote. “And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the NAME of his Son Jesus Christ…” As Paul put it to the his jailor in Philippi, or as he said to the Romans 10: “For whosoever shall call upon the NAME of the Lord shall be saved.” There are multitudes of saviours in the world today, and many of them go by the nick-name of “Jesus.” But if the sinner isn’t putting his trust in the Christ we find in the Bible, he is trusting a religious fraud. And if that sinner isn’t fully bowing before Christ as his Lord as well as his Saviour, it is a fraudulent faith. “This is God’s commandment, That we should believe on the NAME of his Son Jesus Christ…” True saving faith is trust that is placed in all that is contained in the eternal Son of God.
When the sinner trusts Christ, something very special is COMMUNICATED to him.
By definition, “communication” is not confined to conversation; it is the actual sharing of something. It is usually words, but sometimes it is words with ideas, and sometimes it is sharing thing more substantial. This is where we see the character of God’s grace. You and I, as sinners, have nothing to share with the Lord, but our sin and our sin-dead souls. We have substance; no wealth. We have no righteousness worthy of the Lord’s righteousness. We have no works of sufficient character to add anything to the Lord’s glory. We are simply empty, dead, unworthy sinners. We have nothing to give to the Saviour. Nevertheless, He took up our sins and placed them on His back. Isaiah 53:6: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” I Peter 2:24: “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.”
In salvation, the Lord communicates an abundance of gracious blessings to the sinner. Not the least significant is eternal life. The Lord Jesus said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” “I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand” (John 10:28). After that comes peace with God, because the condemnation of the law has been taken up by Christ. John 14:27: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Of course peace and rest are important to someone who has been struggling with sin. Are you fighting with some sinful addiction: in Christ there is victory and rest. Really! Do you find it impossible to sleep because the weight of sin sits on your chest: the Saviour promises and provides genuine peace. And of course eternal life, itself, is something which can’t be measured, especially as we look at how quickly death is approaching. BUT there is a sense in which peace, rest and even eternal life are just THINGS to enjoy.
John is speaking about the communication of something infinitely more important and special. “He that keepeth (God’s) commandments DWELLETH in him, and HE in him. And hereby we know that (God) ABIDETH in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.” This is one area in which the salvation which is preached in so many churches differs with the salvation of the Word of God. Deliverance from sin is not some sort of spiritual exfoliation. And it isn’t an addendum or add-on to glue to the end of a person’s life. Salvation is icing on the cake. It is not a suit of nice clothes we put on to attend church and which we shed when we reach home.
The Lord Jesus, while in prayer to the Father said, “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” He said to Martha, “I am the resurrection, and the life; (therefore) he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” Christ said to Thomas, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” As John will tell us in I John 5:12: “He that HATH the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” In other words, eternal life, is not just a gift from God; it is the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In one sense, when you were in your mother’s womb, your life and her life were one and the same. If she died, you died. But then you were born, and despite an on-going dependence on Mom, you existed as a distinct life. That post-partum life does not illustrate eternal life. The child of God still lives and exists – he “abides” – in Christ, not unlike a baby in the womb. If there was separation from God even the thickness of a sheet of onion skin paper, we’d be dead eternally.
John says, “God ABIDES in us.” Look across the page to chapter 4 verse 12: “No man hath seen God at any time. (Nevertheless) if we love one another, God DWELLETH in us, and his love is perfected in us.” Verse 15: “Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God DWELLETH in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.” There is a sense in which there is a reciprocal residency in salvation. I will come back to this thought, but consider I Corinthians 3:16: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” The Spirit of the Holy God dwells, abides, lives in our souls. I Corinthians 6:19: “What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?”
We don’t have the ability to fully understand or picture the full nature of our new life in Christ. It is not just something the Lord has done for us – or to us. Salvation “is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). That is something unfathomable to my mind; it is beyond my comprehension. But there it is; it is declared over and over again.
With that we come to our third point:
God’s dwelling in us is the source of incredible COMFORT.
Specifically, “we KNOW that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.” I believe that every born again believer is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. He is born of the Spirit, and he continues to live by the Spirit. This is what John is telling us in this verse, and we see it in many other scriptures. For example, there it is in chapter 4:13: “Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he is us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.”
Please turn to JOHN 7:37: During one of Feast of Tabernacles in Jesus’ ministry, “In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” John adds: (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)” Things were a bit different at the time, but since Christ’s ascension to Heaven, the Holy Spirit has taken up permanent residence in each of Christ’s believers, when He saved them. I’ve already given you I Corinthians 6:19: “What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
In II CORINTHIANS 5 Paul was saying we should be yearning for the glory which will be given to God’s saints. Verse 4: “We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (For we walk by faith, not by sight:) We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” How can we be so confident that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord? The answer is what John is telling us in his first epistle: “by the Spirit which he hath given us.”
Then there is that wonderful passage from GALATIANS 4 beginning with verse 4: “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.”
This indwelling of God’s Holy Spirit is the guarantee and testimony that believers are children of God. And God will never leave His children behind. II Crinthians 1:20: “All the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us. Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; Who hath also SEALED us, and GIVEN THE EARNEST of the Spirit in our hearts.” To be stamped with the seal of God signifies His ownership of us. It is a guarantee of security and safety. It means that God takes full responsibility for us. Salvation begins with the Lord’s powerful sovereign grace, but just as importantly, it ends the same way. And the Holy Spirit is the earnest, or guarantee of the completion of our salvation. EPHESIANS 1:13: You who have trusted Christ for salvation… “after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.”
Nowhere in God’s Word are we told to pray for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. He is part and parcel with salvation itself. Nowhere are we exhorted to strive to possess God’s Spirit. His presence is not some sort of goal to which we should be working. Every child of God has the Spirit abiding in him.
That doesn’t mean we are all equally empowered by Him. That doesn’t mean that we won’t grieve Him when we sin. But even in that grief, the Christian cannot drive the Spirit away. His indwelling presence doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be seeking for the fulness of the Spirit, or the fulness of His power. Nevertheless we are all equally fully indwelt.
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And this makes the Christian special; it sets us apart from the mere religious crowd. This, in effect, makes us saints, whether or not we are as saintly as we ought to be. His presence in us makes us temples of the Lord.
And how do we know that the Holy Spirit abides in us? We know because He tells us so. Do we feel His indwelling with physical nerves and emotional sensations? No we don’t. But as long as we remain in fellowship with Him, we’ll know when He is grieved. And we will also know when we are empowered by the Spirit, because we’ll do things beyond our ordinary nature.
John was writing to believers – saints of God. But you may not be one of those blessed people. In the midst of your chaotic life, would you like to have Holy Spirit joy and peace? Then humbly bow before the Triune God of salvation, beginning at the cross of the Lord Jesus, God’s Son. Repent of those sins you have committed against the Lord; acknowledge that you are sinner. And trust the sacrificially shed blood of Christ. He has promised to restore life to that dead heart of yours and to take up permanent residence in your soul. “Hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given unto us.” Will you come to the Saviour this morning?