(8)
Scripture Reading: 1 John 2:3-6
In this message we shall continue to consider 2:3-6. We have seen that 1 John 2:1-2 are a conclusion to the word in 1:5-10 regarding our confession and God’s forgiveness of our sins. Confessing our sins is the first condition of our enjoyment of the fellowship of the divine life. According to 1 John 2:3-11, the second condition is that we keep the Lord’s word and love the brothers.
In 2:5 John says, “But whoever keeps His word, truly in this one the love of God has been perfected. In this we know that we are in Him.” The words “in this” in the last sentence refer to the matter of keeping the Lord’s word and having the love of God perfected in us. The phrase “in Him” refers to our being in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a strong expression, for it emphasizes the fact that we are one with the Lord.
If we read the context of these verses, we shall realize that it is an important matter to have a sign indicating that we are in the Lord. How can we prove that we are in the Triune God? What is the evidence that we are truly in Him? The first sign that we are in Him is that we know God experientially in our daily life.
When John speaks of knowing God (v. 3), he speaks of knowing Him not doctrinally but experientially, by keeping His commandments. We should not merely know in a doctrinal way that God is almighty and that He created the heavens and the earth. We need to know God experientially in a way that affects our daily living. Others may wonder why you do not participate in certain forms of worldly entertainment. The reason that you do not participate should be that you know God, that you know Him in His holy nature. Because God’s holy nature does not allow you to participate in that form of entertainment, you refrain from doing so. Likewise, if we know God in His nature, this will affect the way we do our shopping. Knowing God in this way will also cause us to be sincere in relation to others. Because we know the Lord in His nature of sincerity, we would not be political. Therefore, the reason we behave ourselves and have our being in a particular way should not be merely that we follow the outward teachings of the Bible, but even the more that we know God’s nature and character and live according to what God is.
Sometimes others may try to convince you that there is no need for you to be so strict in your living. They may tell you, for example, that there is nothing wrong with spending some time engaging in a certain kind of amusement. You may wish to answer them by saying, “I do not view this as a matter of right or wrong. My testimony is that I know my God. I have a living God dwelling within me, and I am in Him and one with Him organically. This means that His nature becomes mine and what He is becomes my constituent. As a result, I know Him subjectively and experientially. This is the reason I cannot conduct myself in the same way others do. Unbelievers do not have Him, and, of course, they do not know Him or experience Him. Do you know why I behave in the way I do? It is because I have Him, know Him, and enjoy Him. The Lord is not only my life — He is everything to me. I do not live according to certain regulations or requirements. This is a matter of the divine life within me. The Lord dwells in me, and I know Him experientially.”
To be in the Lord Jesus Christ is to be one with Him organically. It is not to be one with Him merely in a doctrinal way. When we are organically one with the Lord, He is our life and even becomes our nature.
Every kind of life has its particular nature. With the nature of the divine life there is a certain taste. Because we have the Lord as our life and because we enjoy His nature, we also have the taste that comes with the divine nature. However, anyone who does not have the divine nature cannot have the divine taste. But because we have the taste of the divine nature, we simply cannot do certain things.
As an illustration of what we mean by the taste of the divine nature, we may consider what happens when something with a bitter taste is placed in the mouth of a baby. There is no need to teach the young one not to eat something bitter. As soon as a bitter-tasting substance is placed in a baby’s mouth, he will spit it out. The child does not behave according to regulations learned from his mother. There is no need for a mother to teach her baby not to eat things that are bitter. In the life of her child there is a nature that rejects things that taste bitter. In a similar way, there is in the divine nature a particular taste that causes us to reject those things that are contrary to the nature of the One who lives within us.
We do not know God merely in an objective, doctrinal way. It is in this way that the Jews know God. They know God objectively, apart from any subjective experience of Him. This means that they do not have any inner experience of the subjective God. But as those who have been born of God and who possess God’s life, we know Him not merely objectively, but in particular we know Him subjectively and experientially.
Because we know our God in this way, we cannot speak certain things, do certain things, or go certain places. Others may even defame us and falsely accuse us. However, because we know God subjectively, often we shall not have any desire to vindicate ourselves or argue in our own defense. No matter what others may say, we know that we have the divine life. We have God within us as our life and nature. Eventually this indwelling One will be expressed in our character and conduct. It is in this way that we know God experientially, and this knowing is a strong sign that we are in Him and one with Him.
In our behavior and way of speaking, we should bear a sign that we are in God. We should not talk with others the same way that unbelievers do. If your husband or wife, your children, your neighbors, and your classmates or co-workers cannot see a sign that you behave yourself according to the experience of God, then there is a question whether you are truly in God or not. We thank the Lord that those in the Lord’s recovery do have the testimony in their daily life that they are in God. We bear a sign that we are in God, even though at some times we are weak and fail Him. We thank the Lord that we have some evidence, some sign, in our daily walk that we are in God. This sign is an indication that we know the Lord experientially. Because we know Him experientially, spontaneously we keep His commandments.
In 2:6 John goes on to say, “He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk even as that One walked.” To be in Christ is the start of the Christian life. That was God’s doing once for all (1 Cor. 1:30). To abide in Him is the continuation of the Christian life. This is our responsibility in our daily walk, a walk which is a copy of Christ’s walk on earth.
Because God has put us in Christ once for all, we now must bear the responsibility to abide in Him. To abide in Him is actually to have fellowship with Him. On the negative side, this requires that we deal with our sins; on the positive side, this requires that we keep His word.
According to the context of these verses, the Lord’s word here refers to His commandments. His commandments are to love God and to love the brothers. We love our begetting Father, and we love all His children, all those begotten of Him.
When we are abiding in the Lord, having fellowship with Him, our abiding in Him spontaneously issues in love for God and for the brothers. Therefore, the second condition, the second requirement, of fellowship is that we love God and the brothers.
The Greek word used for love in verse 5 is agape. This word denotes a love higher and nobler than that denoted by the Greek word phileo. Only agape with its verb forms is used in this Epistle for love. In this verse “the love of God” denotes our love toward God, which is generated by His love within us. The love of God, the word of the Lord, and God Himself are all related to one another. If we keep the Lord’s word, God’s love has been perfected in us. This is altogether a matter of the divine life, and this life is God Himself.
God’s love is His inward essence, and the Lord’s word supplies us with this divine essence, with which we love the brothers. The word itself is not this essence or substance. The word is what conveys this essence and supplies it to us. Therefore, the word supplies us with the very essence of God, which is the divine love. As a result, we have something substantial within us for us to participate in and enjoy. This means that eventually the essence of God’s being becomes our enjoyment. Then out of this enjoyment there will be an issue — our love for God and His children.
It should not be with our natural love that we love God and His children. On the contrary, our natural love needs to be put on the cross. We should love God and His children with the divine love, the love that is conveyed to us through the word of the Lord and that becomes our experience and enjoyment.
Many of today’s Christians understand the Bible in a natural, religious, or ethical way. This is true in particular concerning the requirement to love God, the brothers, and our neighbor. From the time I was a youth I heard about loving the brothers and loving our neighbor. Today Christians often talk about loving the brothers or about loving our neighbor. Once when I was in Houston for a conference, a lady came up to me after the meeting and said strongly, “People in this country don’t know to love others. You should travel to different places and teach Christians to love one another.”
Yes, the Bible does tell us that we should love one another and that we should love our neighbors as ourselves. However, it is not God’s intention to command us to love others with our natural love. Instead, God desires that we love Him and His children with the divine love which we have enjoyed.
This is the reason verse 5 says that the love of God has been perfected in us. On the one hand, this love is the love of God; on the other hand, this love, having been experienced and enjoyed by us, becomes our love for God and the brothers.
How can our love for God be called the love of God? It is because this love is not our love, but is God’s love. However, this is not the love of God as it is objectively; it is the love of God experienced by us subjectively. This is the love of God becoming our love through our experience and enjoyment of Him. This love then becomes our love for God and others.
God wants us to love Him with His love. He also wants us to love His children, and even the whole world, with His love. First we need to enjoy God’s love and experience His love to such an extent that it fills us, saturates us, and becomes our very essence, causing us to be permeated with the love of God. Then with this love we shall love God, we shall love God’s children, and we shall love all people. We do not love them with our natural love; we love them with the love of God we have experienced and enjoyed. Praise the Lord for such a wonderful love! This is the love revealed in the first Epistle of John.
This experience of the love of God is altogether a matter in the fellowship in the divine life. If we do not enjoy God in the fellowship of the divine life, we cannot have such a love.
If we experience the love of God, we shall have the deep realization that our natural love is one thing and that the love of God which becomes our love through experience is something very different. One difference between God’s love and our natural love is that it is very easy for our natural love to be offended.
When we love others, we become involved with them. For this reason, it is often the case that those we love in a natural way eventually become our enemies. Because natural love may have such a result, those who are wise in a human way are slow and careful in loving others. They realize that if you love others in a foolish way, sooner or later that love will cause trouble. Many divorces and separations are the result of a foolish natural love that is easily offended and leads to enmity. For example, a certain man and woman may know each other only for a short time. In a quick way they get married. Then after only a little time has gone by, they may separate or get a divorce. At first they loved each other, but not too long after they were married they became enemies. This is the result of loving each other in a natural way. If they had never loved one another in a natural way, they would not have become enemies.
It is not very likely that you will regard as your enemy a person unknown to you that you see walking on the street. Those who become your enemies are often those whom you love in a natural way. This is why some exercise their human wisdom to be very careful in loving others. They realize that loving others in a natural way leads to problems. In order to avoid these problems, they are very slow in loving others.
The point I am making here is that we need to be careful not to love others by our natural love. Rather, our natural love should be put on the cross. We need to love others by the love of God we have experienced and enjoyed. If we experience God’s love, we shall love God with this love. We shall also love the brothers with this same love. This kind of love does not cause trouble. May we all see that we need to love God and others with the divine love that has become our experience and enjoyment.
Thus far in these messages we have covered sixteen verses from 1 John, ten verses from chapter one and six verses from chapter two. In these verses we can see many items of John’s basic vocabulary: the Word, life, the Father, the Son, fellowship, joy, light, truth, the faithfulness of God, the righteousness of God, confessing, forgiveness, cleansing, and the blood. All these matters are positive. On the negative side, we have sin, sins, unrighteousness, darkness, and lie. All these terms are found in chapter one. In chapter two we have the Advocate, the propitiation, the word or the commandment, and love. I encourage you to pray-read all these terms. The more we pray-read them, the more we shall realize how rich they are. Praise the Lord for the blood, the faithfulness of God, the righteousness of God, His forgiveness, and His cleansing! Praise Him for the Word, the life, the fellowship, the joy, the light, and the truth! Praise Him also for the Advocate, the propitiation, the word as the commandment, and the love of God!
