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In this message we will continue to consider aspects of Christ as our life and victory and then go on to see Christ as the source of mercy, grace, and peace.
First John 5:20-21 says, “We know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding that we might know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. Little children, guard yourselves from idols.” Christ has come and has given us an understanding that we may know the true God and be in the true God, that is, in Him who is the true God and eternal life. The Son is the Father (Isa. 9:6), and the Son of God is God (Heb. 1:8). Therefore, the expressions Him who is true and the true God in 1 John 5:20 refer to the Divine Trinity. The Triune God is both the true God and eternal life, and now we may enjoy Him as the true God and eternal life.
The word come in verse 20 indicates that the Son of God has come through incarnation to bring God to us as grace and reality (John 1:14) that we may have the divine life, as revealed in John’s Gospel, to partake of God as love and light, as unveiled in this Epistle.
In 1 John 5:20, John says that the Son of God has given us an understanding so that we may know Him who is true, the true One. This understanding is the faculty of our mind enlightened and empowered by the Spirit of reality (John 16:12-15) to apprehend the divine reality in our regenerated spirit. In 1 John 5:20 to “know” is the ability of the divine life to know the true God (John 17:3) in our regenerated spirit (Eph. 1:17) through our renewed mind, enlightened by the Spirit of reality.
The understanding mentioned in 1 John 5:20 involves our mind, our spirit, and the Spirit of reality. According to our natural being, our spirit is deadened, and our mind is darkened. Hence, in our natural being we do not have the ability to know God. It is impossible for a person with a deadened spirit and a darkened mind to know the invisible God.
The Lord Jesus, the Son of God, has come and has given us an understanding that we might know the genuine and real God. He has come to us by the steps of incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. He accomplished redemption for us, and when we repented and believed in Him, we received Him. Now that we have believed in and received Him, our sins have been forgiven, our darkened mind has been enlightened, and our deadened spirit has been enlivened. Furthermore, the Spirit of reality, who is the Spirit of revelation, has come into our being. This means that the Spirit of reality has been added to our enlivened spirit and has shined into our mind to enlighten it. Now we have an enlightened mind and an enlivened spirit with the Spirit of reality, who reveals spiritual reality to us. As a result, we surely have an understanding and are able to know the true One. Before we were saved, we did not have this understanding, but the Son of God has come to us and has given us this understanding so that we may know God. This understanding includes our enlightened mind, our enlivened spirit, and the revealing Spirit of reality.
In John 17:2 and 3 we see that eternal life has the ability to know God: “Even as You have given Him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom You have given Him. And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Him whom You have sent, Jesus Christ.” Eternal life is the divine life with a special function — to know God. In order to know God, the divine person, we need the divine life.
Because we as believers have been born of the divine life, we are able to know God. In order to know a certain living thing, a person needs to have the life of that thing. For example, a dog cannot know human beings, because a dog does not have a human life. It takes human life to know human beings. The principle is the same with knowing God. The life of God is certainly able to know God. Therefore, the life of God, which has been given to us, has the ability to know God and the things of God.
In 1 John 5:20 John speaks of knowing the true One. Here the word know actually means “experience, enjoy, and possess.” Therefore, to know the true One is to experience, enjoy, and possess the true One. In this universe only God Himself is the true One. We need God’s life in order to experience, enjoy, and possess Him.
John in verse 20 speaks twice of “Him who is true.” Another translation would be “the true One.” To speak of God simply as God may be to speak in a rather objective way. However, the term the true One is subjective; it refers to God becoming subjective to us. In this verse the God who is objective becomes the true One in our life and experience.
What is the meaning of the expression the true One? In particular, what does the word true mean? Here the Greek word translated “true” is alethinos, meaning “genuine, real” (an adjective akin to aletheia, “truth, verity, reality” — John 1:14; 14:6, 17), the opposite of false and counterfeit. Actually, the true One is the reality. The Son of God has given us an understanding so that we may know — that is, experience, enjoy, and possess — this divine reality. Therefore, to know the true One means to know the reality by experiencing, enjoying, and possessing this reality.
First John 5:20 indicates that God has become our reality in our experience. The Son of God has come through incarnation, death, and resurrection and has given us an understanding so that we may experience, enjoy, and possess the reality, which is God Himself. Now the God who was once objective to us has become our subjective reality.
In verse 20 John also says that we are in the true One. We not only know the true God; we are also in Him. We not only have the knowledge of Him; we are in an organic union with Him. We are one with Him organically.
When John says that we are in the true One, he is making a crucial point. Not only do we know the true One and experience, enjoy, and possess Him as the reality, but we also are in this reality. We are in the true One.
John tells us that we are “in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ” (v. 20). To be in the true God is to be in His Son Jesus Christ. Since Jesus Christ as the Son of God is the embodiment of God (Col. 2:9), to be in Him is to be in the true God. This indicates that Jesus Christ the Son of God is the true God.
Being in the true One is equal to being in His Son Jesus Christ. This indicates that the true One and Jesus Christ are one in the way of coinherence. Therefore, to be in the Son is spontaneously to be in the true One. Furthermore, we are in the true One by virtue of being in His Son Jesus Christ.
The last part of 1 John 5:20 says, “This is the true God and eternal life.” The word this refers to the God who has come through incarnation and has given us the ability to know Him as the genuine God and be one with Him organically in His Son Jesus Christ. All this is the genuine and real God and eternal life to us. This genuine and real God is eternal life to us so that we may partake of Him as everything for our regenerated being.
We need to pay special attention to the word this. In verse 20 John does not say “He is”; he says “this is.” Furthermore, John uses the word this to refer both to the true God and to eternal life. By this we see that the true God and eternal life are one.
We have seen that we are in the true One and in His Son Jesus Christ. Doctrinally, the true One and His Son Jesus Christ may be considered two. But when we are in the true One and in Jesus Christ experientially, these two are one. For this reason John uses this to refer both to the true One and to His Son Jesus Christ.
We have seen that to be in the true One is to be in His Son Jesus Christ. This means that in our experience of being in Them, They are one.
Moreover, when we are in the true One and Jesus Christ, They are our true God and also our eternal life. John speaks first of the true One and His Son Jesus Christ, and then he speaks of the true God. Here there may be some distinction between the true One and the true God. When we are in the true One and His Son Jesus Christ, the true One is called the true God, and His Son Jesus Christ is called eternal life. This means that first They are the true One and His Son Jesus Christ. But when we are in Them, They become the true God and eternal life.
The word this in verse 20 refers to the God who has become experiential to us through our being in Him. No longer are we outside of this God. Rather, we are in this God, and we are in the true One, in His Son Jesus Christ. Because we are in Them, God and Jesus Christ are no longer objective to us, and in our experience They are no longer two. When we are in Them, They become one to us. Therefore, John says that “this” is the true God, and “this” is eternal life. “This” is the God and the Jesus Christ in whom we are. We may also say that “this” includes the condition of our being in God and Jesus Christ. Hence, the true God and eternal life include our being in the true One and His Son Jesus Christ.
If we are not in God, we cannot say from experience that to us He is true. Of course, He would still be true in Himself, but we could not testify that in us He is true. But since we are in the true One, to us He is the true God. Furthermore, Christ is eternal life to us. If we were not in Him, Christ would still be eternal life in Himself, but He would not be eternal life to us. Because we are now in Him, to us Jesus Christ is eternal life.
In verse 20 we have the crucial conclusion of the entire Epistle of 1 John. This Epistle reveals that now we are truly one with the Triune God, and He becomes true, real, to us. He becomes reality and life to us because we are in Him.
The word this in verse 20 implies that God, Jesus Christ, and eternal life are one. In doctrine, there may be a distinction between God, Christ, and eternal life, but in our experience they are one. When we are in God and in Jesus Christ and when we experience eternal life, we find that all these are one. Therefore, John concludes verse 20 by saying, “This is the true God and eternal life.”
In verse 21 John goes on to say, “Little children, guard yourselves from idols.” The word guard means to garrison ourselves against attacks from without, like the assaults of the heresies. Idols refers to the heretical substitutes, brought in by the Gnostics and Cerinthians, for the true God, as revealed in this Epistle and in John’s Gospel and referred to in the preceding verse. Idols here also refer to anything that replaces the real God. As genuine children of the genuine God, we should be on the alert to guard ourselves from these heretical substitutes and all vain replacements for our genuine and real God, with whom we are organically one and who is eternal life to us. According to John’s understanding, an idol is anything that replaces, is a substitute for, the subjective God, the God whom we have experienced and whom we are still experiencing. This is the aged apostle’s word of warning to all his little children as a conclusion of his Epistle.
Anything that is a substitute or replacement for the true God and eternal life is an idol. We need to live, walk, and have our being in this God and in this life. Unless we live in the true God and eternal life, we will have a substitute for the true God, and this substitute will be an idol.
In 2 John, Christ is revealed as the source of grace, mercy, and peace.
Verse 3 says, “Grace, mercy, peace will be with us from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.” Truth here denotes the divine reality of the gospel, especially concerning the person of Christ, who expressed God and accomplished God’s purpose; love is the believers’ expression in loving one another through receiving and knowing the truth. These two matters are the basic structure of this Epistle. In them grace, mercy, and peace will be with us. The apostle greeted and blessed the believers with grace, mercy, and peace, based on the fact that these two crucial things existed among the believers. When we walk in the truth (v. 4) and love one another (v. 5), we will enjoy the divine grace, mercy, and peace.
If truth and love do not exist among the believers, there is no way for them to enjoy grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ. Grace, mercy, and peace can be unto us only when the basic factors of truth and love are present. All of us need to live a life of truth and love.
Verse 7 continues, “For many deceivers went out into the world, those who do not confess Jesus Christ coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist.” The deceivers mentioned here were heretics, like the Cerinthians, the false prophets (1 John 4:1).
These deceivers do not confess Jesus Christ coming in the flesh. This means that they do not confess that Jesus is God incarnate. Thus, they deny the deity of Christ. Jesus was conceived of the Spirit (Matt. 1:18). To confess Jesus coming in the flesh is to confess that, as the Son of God, He was divinely conceived to be born in the flesh (Luke 1:31-35). The deceivers, the false prophets, would not make such a confession.
John says in 2 John 7 that those who do not confess Jesus coming in the flesh are not only deceivers but also antichrists. An antichrist differs from a false Christ (Matt. 24:5, 24). A false Christ is one who pretends, deceivingly, to be the Christ, whereas an antichrist is one who denies Christ’s deity, denying that Jesus is the Christ, that is, denying the Father and the Son by denying that Jesus is the Son of God (1 John 2:22), not confessing that He has come in the flesh through the divine conception of the Holy Spirit (4:2-3). Whoever denies the person of Christ is an antichrist.
Anyone who rejects Jesus Christ coming in the flesh rejects His humanity and His human living. Such a one also rejects Christ’s redemption. If Christ had not become a man, He could not have had human blood to shed for the redemption of human beings. If He had not become flesh through the conception of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the virgin Mary, He never could have been our Substitute to be crucified to bear our judgment before God. Therefore, to deny that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is to deny His holy conception, His incarnation, His birth, His humanity, His human living, and also His redemption. The New Testament makes it emphatically clear that Christ’s redemption was accomplished in His human body and by the shedding of His blood (Eph. 1:7; Heb. 9:22).
Anyone who rejects Christ’s incarnation and thereby rejects His redemption also denies Christ’s resurrection. If Christ had never passed through death, it would not have been possible for Him to enter into resurrection.
Denying that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is a great heresy. This heretical teaching makes it impossible to have the enjoyment of the Trinity. According to the revelation of the Trinity in the New Testament, the Son came in the flesh with the Father and in the name of the Father. The Son was crucified, and in resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). Therefore, we have the Spirit as the reality of the Son with the Father. This includes incarnation, human living, redemption by the shedding of human blood, death in a human body, burial, and resurrection. All these are components, constituents, of our enjoyment of the Triune God. If anyone denies Christ’s incarnation, that one denies Christ’s holy birth, humanity, human living, redemption through crucifixion, and resurrection. This utterly annuls the enjoyment of the genuine Trinity.
We must love all the dear brothers in the divine fellowship, but we must be strict with certain persons. We should not even greet them because they are not in the fellowship and even oppose the fellowship. On the one hand, they claim to be Christians, but on the other hand, they do not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who was incarnated as a man. Not only are there modernists teaching these things today, but also from the beginning of the church in the first century, before the early apostles had passed away, there was already this kind of persons. In the words of the apostle John, they do not confess Jesus Christ coming in the flesh (2 John 7). Although they claim that they are Christians, John called them deceivers and antichrists. These persons went beyond the teaching concerning Christ, as today’s modernists do, inventing something beyond the truth.
Second John 9 says, “Everyone who goes beyond and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have God; he who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son.” Literally, the Greek word translated “goes beyond” means to lead forward (in a negative sense), that is, to go further than what is right, advancing beyond the limit of orthodox teaching concerning Christ. This is in contrast to abiding in the teaching of Christ. The Cerinthian Gnostics, who boasted of their advanced thinking concerning the teaching of Christ, practiced this. They went beyond the teaching of the divine conception of Christ, thus denying the deity of Christ. Consequently, they could not have God in salvation and in life.
The teaching in verse 9 is not the teaching by Christ but the teaching concerning Christ, that is, the truth concerning the deity of Christ, especially regarding His incarnation by divine conception. The modernists today go beyond and do not abide in the teaching of Christ. They also claim to be advanced in their thinking. According to them, it is out of date to say that Christ is God, that He was born of a virgin through divine conception, that He died on the cross for our sins, and that He was resurrected both physically and spiritually. Denying the truth concerning the deity of Christ, the modernists claim to be advanced in their philosophical thought. In principle, they follow the way of the Cerinthian Gnostics.
According to verse 9, the one who goes beyond and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have God, but he who abides in the teaching of Christ has both the Father and the Son. To “have God” is to have “both the Father and the Son.” Both the Father and the Son are God (Eph. 4:6; Heb. 1:8); God is triune — the Father, Son, and Spirit (Matt. 28:19). It is through the process of incarnation that God has been dispensed to us in the Son with the Father (1 John 2:23) to be our enjoyment and reality (John 1:1, 14). In the incarnated God we have the Son in His redemption and the Father in His life. We are thus redeemed and regenerated to be one with God organically that we may partake of and enjoy Him in salvation and in life. Hence, to deny the incarnation is to reject this divine enjoyment, but to abide in the truth of incarnation is to have God, as the Father and the Son, for our portion in the eternal salvation and in the divine life.
This point in 2 John 9 concerning having both the Father and the Son helps us to interpret the full reward spoken of in verse 8. The full reward is to have both the Father and the Son for our enjoyment. Today’s modernists, like the ancient Gnostics, do not have the Father and the Son, for they do not abide in the teaching of Christ.
