Search
Scripture Reading: 1 John 2:12-14; 4:4; 5:4-5, 18, 20-21; 2 John 7, 9-11; 3 John 9-10
I. The Son of God has come and has given us an understanding so that we might know the true One, the genuine and real God — 1 John 5:20:
А. This understanding is the faculty of our mind enlightened and empowered by the Spirit of reality to apprehend the divine reality in our regenerated spirit — Eph. 4:23; John 16:12-15.
B. Know in 1 John 5:20 is the ability of the divine life to know the true God in our regenerated spirit through our renewed mind, enlightened by the Spirit of reality — John 17:3; Eph. 1:17.
C. In 1 John 5:20 Him who is true — or the true One — refers to God becoming subjective to us, to the God who is objective becoming the true One in our life and experience:
1. The true One is the divine reality; to know the true One means to know the divine reality by experiencing, enjoying, and possessing this reality.
2. This indicates that the divine reality — God Himself, who was once objective to us — has become our subjective reality in our experience — v. 6.
D. To be in the true One is to be in His Son Jesus Christ — v. 20:
1. This indicates that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the true God.
2. This also indicates that the true One and Jesus Christ are one in the way of coinherence; thus, to be in the Son is to be in the true One.
E. The word this in verse 20 refers to the God who has come through incarnation and has given us the ability to know Him as the genuine God and to be one with Him organically in His Son Jesus Christ:
1. This genuine and real God is eternal life to us so that we may partake of Him as everything for our regenerated being.
2. This refers to the true God and Jesus Christ in whom we are; it includes the fact that we are in this One, the true One, and implies that, in a practical sense, eternal life is the God in whom we are experientially.
3. Therefore, the true God and eternal life include our being in the true One and in His Son Jesus Christ; now in our experience the true One becomes the true God, and Jesus Christ becomes eternal life.
II. The Epistles of John reveal the seven issues of the seven mysteries in 1 John: life (1:1-7), fellowship (vv. 3, 5-10), abiding (2:5-6, 24, 27-28; 3:24), the anointing (2:20, 27), the divine birth (v. 29; 3:9; 4:7; 5:1), the divine seed (3:9), and the water, the blood, and the Spirit (5:6-9):
А. There will be distinctions in the level of life in the church life — 2:12-14:
1. There will be the growth in life that brings in the distinctions in life between the young children, the young men, and the fathers.
2. If there is no growth in life, the believers will all be on the same level as far as life is concerned.
B. There will be a strong testimony of victory — the testimony that the One who is in us is greater than the one who is in the world — 4:4:
1. The One who is in the believers is the Triune God, who dwells in them as the all-inclusive, life-giving, anointing Spirit and who strengthens them from within with all the rich elements of the Triune God — Eph. 3:16-19.
2. He who is in the world is Satan, the evil spirit; such a one is lesser and weaker than the Triune God.
C. We will overcome the world — 1 John 5:4-5:
1. The regenerated believers have the capability of the divine life to overcome the world, the powerful satanic world system — v. 5; 2:15.
2. The regenerated spirit of the regenerated believer overcomes the world; the believer’s divine birth with the divine life is the basic factor for such victorious living — 5:4.
D. We will not be touched by the evil one — v. 18:
1. The evil one refers to one who is pernicious, harmfully evil, one who affects others, influencing them to be evil and vicious; such an evil one is Satan, the devil, in whom the whole world lies — v. 19.
2. A regenerated believer (especially his regenerated spirit, which is born of the Spirit of God — John 3:6) keeps himself from living in sin, and the evil one does not touch him (especially his regenerated spirit):
a. Whether or not we are under Satan’s authority is not determined by what we do; it is determined by whether we are in the Spirit or in the flesh — Gal. 5:16-17.
b. As long as we remain in the mingled spirit — the regenerated human spirit mingled with the divine Spirit as one spirit — we will be kept, and Satan will have no way with us — 1 Cor. 6:17; 1 John 5:18.
E. We will not have idols — v. 21:
1. Idols refer to the heretical substitutes for the true God and to anything that replaces the true God, the subjective God, the God whom we have experienced and are still experiencing — 4:13-15.
2. An idol is anything that replaces the true God, the Triune God experienced by us as our life in a practical way — 5:20.
F. We will reject the antichrists — 2 John 7, 9-11; 1 John 2:18, 22:
1. 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, not confessing that He has come in the flesh through the divine conception of the Holy Spirit — v. 23; 4:2-3.
2. The principle of antichrist is to deny some aspect of Christ’s person and to replace it with something other than Christ — 2:18.
G. We will not follow the divisive ones — 3 John 9-10:
1. Diotrephes loved to be first; this is self-exaltation in one’s actions — v. 9.
2. Diotrephes dominated the church in which he was, rejecting the apostles and some good saints and even casting out of the church those who received these saints — v. 10.
3. The cause of division is mainly rivalry for leadership; if we refuse to follow self-appointed leaders, there will not be any division — Luke 22:24-27.
