Among the things Bible students must remember is that the books of the Bible are not chronological. Nor do the chapters in those books necessarily follow a logical sequence of time or even of order. The Bible may not be as mixed up as alphabet soup or scrambled eggs, but neither is it the history of a simple day in the life of humanity. The Book of Job for example should come before Exodus, and Malachi comes inside II Chronicles. I and II Thessalonians were written before Romans or Corinthians, and the last book of the New Testament may not be Revelation. There are some scholars which say that it might be III John and some even say that it is I John.
What I am trying to say is that some people think the very last words of the Bible might be our text. I am not convinced of that, but I’ll acknowledge that it is a possibility. Neither am I convinced that even if it is true that it is therefore important. But it does lead to some interesting cogitations. (If meditations are the thoughtful considerations of the wise, are cogitations the thoughtful considerations of old codgers? I hope not.)
There was an old preacher – definitely not an old codger – the last of the great Apostles of the Lord Jesus. After decades of service, persecution, exile, suffering, torture and great joy, he sat down with pen and ink to exhort and encourage the children of the Lord. By this time in his life, he considered just about all the rest of the saints in the world – “children.” He took all he had learned of Christ during his 50+ years and smelted it down to primary elements. His voice may have been feeble, and he could no longer be heard by the thousands to whom he once preached, but that voice on paper was lucid and clear. It was soft, but earnest and almost pleading. And because of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit it was also made eternal.
A dying man’s last words are often the most important to leave his lips. And if he has the strength and time to write, generally speaking, the pages written with his dying blood are even more thoughtful than the spoken word. When our Saviour said, “It is finished,” those words had incredible theological significance. They may not have been His most important words, but they were momentous. As Stephen died, in prayer he said: “Lord lay not this sin to their charge.” Solomon at the conclusion of his Book of Ecclesiastes wrote: “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments for this is the whole duty of man.” Joshua was coming to the end of his service for the Lord and he spoke to all of Israel: “Now therefore fear the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the LORD. And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” Moses and Joseph and Jacob all did essentially the same sort of thing. And here in our text, John, the beloved disciple, does it once again: “And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.”
Would I be in error to say that THIS IS THE SUM of what we need to know of Christ?
We need to know that “THE SON OF GOD IS COME.” I think that I’ve told you about a pseudo-intellectual I once knew who denied the existence of JESUS. He denied that Christ had ever lived in the flesh. But nothing is more easily proved about ancient history than the existence of Jesus of Nazareth. There is as much proof of Christ as there is of the historicity of Julius Caesar. Only the blatantly blind man – only the openly rebellious will deny that a child named “Jesus” was born in the Judean village of Bethlehem about 2,000 years ago. Only the thoroughly Satanic or demon-possessed deny that the Son of God has come in the flesh. I John 4 – “Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.” But our verse in chapter 5 says far more than chapter 4: “The SON of GOD is come.” This is not talking about the human resident of Nazareth, or the one with his birth certificate from Bethlehem. This is a declaration of the DEITY of that historical person. And not only that, but it parallels the ancient Hebrew prophecy of Isaiah 9:6 – “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” I John 5:20 isn’t talking so much about the birth of Jesus, as it is the incarnation of the Son of God. This isn’t the birth of a baby, but the translation of the eternally existent Second Person of the Trinity. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.” John is talking about the One “whose goings forth have been of old, from everlasting.” He is talking about the One who said of Himself – “Before Abraham was I am.” Jesus Christ may have resided on earth for a third of a century, but He existed before the existence of time – before creation itself, because He IS the Creator.
There was a good Christian man, a man who didn’t have a great deal of secular education. One day he was confronted by an enemy of Christ – one who denied the pre-existence of Christ. The Christian gentleman didn’t know a lot of seminarian arguments, but he did know his Bible. After listening to the educated unbeliever for a while, he said, “In II Corinthians Paul said, “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.” “I know that Jesus was never rich when he was in this world, so he must have been rich before he got here.” Right on, brother. A man doesn’t have to have a PhD to put the PhDs in their proper place.
Do you remember what the Jews did when Jesus publically said, “I am the Son of God?” When Jesus used the idea in our text, the Jews picked up stones in order to kill Him as a blasphemer. They knew that the phrase “Son of God,” as Christ used it, was a declaration of His personal Deity. And in a similar fashion John said, “We know that the Son of God has come.” “God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.” If your Bible, in I Timothy 3:16 does not say that “GOD was manifest in the flesh,” then you don’t have the Word of God. Jesus Christ, the Living Word, “was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”
By the way, it is interesting to notice that John said, “the Son of God – IS – come.” It’s not merely that He HAS come, but His influence, power and Spirit are still here. He IS come. I hope that you don’t have a problem with that statement. Because if He hasn’t come then it means that you are as lost and hell-bound as Judas Iscariot.
But what about those words, “This is the true God?” To whom does that refer? Is it the Father – or the Son? I acknowledge that the question is not a simple one to answer. And whatever answer we select, it will be debated by someone. I have able authors in my library who answer on both sides of the question. I won’t bore you with all the arguments, but I think that logically and grammatically the “true God” refers directly to the Lord Jesus. Grammatically, the word “this” relates to its nearest antecedent: “Jesus Christ, this is the true God.” And then logically, we note that the verse does not use the word “Father” – although He is implied. It simply speaks of “God.” And in that case, it would be somewhat redundant to say that “God is the true God.” This book was written primarily to encourage the saints in Ephesus, where John once pastored. Ephesus was a city whole given over to idolatry, just as Athens was. It was a city once dedicated to the preposterous and imposterous goddess Diana. In addition, John was raised a Jew and given a somewhat confusing education about Jehovah. But in contrast to both what he had learned and what he had seen in Ephesus, he declared that Jesus is the Son of God and thus the True God and eternal life.
I believe in the deity of Lord Jesus Christ; I believe that He is the Jehovah of the Old Testament. He is God blessed for ever – Romans 9:5. He and the Father are one – John 10. I believe that “in the beginning was the Word (the Lord Jesus Christ) and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
This matter must be settled in our minds if we claim to be “Christians.“ “The Son of God is come in the flesh and this is the true God and eternal life.” This is the sum and pinnacle of our knowledge of Christ; the foundation and the peak of our theology. Deny Jesus’ deity and you negate Jesus, the Saviour.
Now notice the sum of Lord Jesus’ gifts to us.
Oh, what a difference between the gifts of Christ and the gifts of the world. The world measures its gifts in abundance, weight and value – measure, mass and money. But the Saviour and His Spirit measure by different standards. Hey world, “Mene, mene, teckel, unpharsin.” You are weighed in God’s balances and are found wanting. “We know that the Son of God hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true.”
47 years ago, my wife gave to me a ring of white gold, which I have rarely taken off – maybe a dozen times. When she gave it to me, it was fluted and filleted with an handsome geometric pattern. Today almost all of the design is worn off. Probably 10% of the gold on that original ring is gone, maybe soaked into my skin. (My wife is slowly killing me through gold poisoning.) That ring is typical of all the temporal gifts that we might receive. Every one of them, and the very best of them, are temporary and corrupting. They may be valuable according to the pawn shop, and they may mean much between friends, but as far as eternity is concerned they have very little value at all. Only those things whose veins are filled with Christ will stand the test of eternity.
Adam and Eve for a time walked and talked with the Lord Jesus in the cool of the evening. When those two chose to become sinners, and to become as gods, knowing good and evil… When they fell from their lofty estate, they began a human odyssey of once again finding and knowing God. There were the gods of the Babylonians, Persians and Medes. Later the Greeks and Romans had their Pantheon of gods and their Parthenon of gods. The Orientals have had their gods innumerable. Some people worship the sun and others the moon, and others rivers, alligators, monkeys and beetles. Some people worship their dead great-grandparents – despite the fact that those grand-parents had no ability to keep themselves alive. As I said this morning, the world is full of foolish false gods.
But the One True Living God selected one nation out of many hundreds and determined to reveal Himself to the world through them. And He did just that; Jehovah revealed His wrath and His justice through the history of Israel. God revealed himself through the law which He gave to Israel – with all its rites and ceremonies. And He revealed Himself by way of prophets and priests. But then “in the fulness of time, God sent forth his son, made of a woman made under the law.” And … as Jesus said, “Thomas, he that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” “He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son hath not life” – I John 5:12. As John said in chapter 2 – “Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: (but) he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also. Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father. And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.”
The sum and conclusion of all knowledge is the Lord Jesus Christ – Because we are all eternal souls that shall one day exit this world. And because Christ is “the way, the truth and the life, no man can know God except through Him.” Though a man or woman gain the whole world and loose his own soul, he has made a terrible bargain. There is nothing that a man can give in exchange for his soul. And when the lost are cast into the Lake of Fire, there will be nothing that they will not be willing to exchange for their souls. But that soul can be secured safe, only by the sovereign grace of God. And that soul can know that he is secure only by knowing, loving and yielding to Christ. I am speaking about humbly meeting the Lord Jesus at the altar called “Calvary” in repentance and faith. “Come every soul, by sin oppressed there’s mercy with the Lord.”
Part of the Apostle John’s final words speak of knowing God through knowing Christ Jesus.
And then he also mentions the SUM of all Christian RESPONSIBILITY.
Seeing that only Jehovah is the true God, “keep yourselves from idols.” What did John mean when he used the word “idols”? Was he talking about the barbarous, grotesque, multi-breasted image of Diana? Yes he was, but at the same time, he was talking about anything that comes into the human heart that draws it away from the Lord. And more specifically, he was referring to professing Christian hearts. How many Christian young people have been sucked away from the Lord by their love for an ungodly friend? How many foolishly yearn for the things which only a lot of money or fame can buy? How many can’t come to the house of God because the calendar says that it is Christmas? On Sunday some of them sing “All to Jesus I surrender,” but on Monday still using the same tune they sing, “All of Jesus I surrender; all because I want the world.”
Jesus summarizes our duty by saying: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.” Solomon said, “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.” James says “Pure religion and undefiled is to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” While John says, “Children of God, keep yourselves from idols.”