BaptistWay Bible Study for Texas for Dec. 14: Show what you know to pass test_112403

Posted: 11/24/03

Dec. 14

1 John 2:3-11, 18-27

Show what you know to pass test

By Gary Long

Silly how poems and phrases stick in your head, isn't it? From my childhood, I remember a two-liner my dad would say every time I made a rhyme: “You're a poet and didn't know it. Or maybe you did and just didn't show it.”

That second line stuck with me–what do I know but just don't show in my life? What do I know about God but don't show in my life?

What are the indicators that show you know God? How does one verify the reality of the relationship between a human being and God? This is exactly where this lesson takes us. The organization of the text will offer some framework to answer the question of which indicators show we know God. There are three clear tests, first called the “tests of life” by Robert Law in 1909, that serve as the measuring stick as to how one may be assured that they know God.

The verses of this lesson can best be understood if we view them this way: 2:3-6, righteousness through obedience; 2:7-11, love for fellow Christians; and 2:18-27, right belief.

Test 1–Obey me

1 John 2:3 is the hinge pin of a doubly-pointed argument which follows in this passage. First, the word “knowing” signals a challenge to the Gnostics that would boast in their knowledge of things spiritual. Second, obedience to God's commands is promoted ahead of special forms of special enlightenment or mysticism. The writer is issuing a strong argument that a kinesthetic form of faith is an expression of intimacy with God. That is to say, we illustrate our faith by doing our faith.

It takes little effort mentally to connect ki

nesthetic and doing with the way in which many of us learn. Venture into any preschool or early elementary classroom and see how rapidly they learn when they are doing what they are being taught. Consider your own experiences with different kinds of computer software and how no matter how many times you read the instructions, you really only learn the software after you begin to work with it.

Bible teachers do well to remember that no matter what age their students, doing a Bible lesson with a class will foster more learning and in turn a deeper faith in the long run. As the old adage goes, faith is caught, not taught. Our families and friends see our faith through our acts of obedience to God, and we in turn are drawn closer to God in that obedience.

In Matthew 21:28-32, Jesus tells about two sons told by their father to go and work in the vineyard. One said he would not go and then later went and did the work. The other said he would go but never went to do the work. Jesus' listeners quickly and correctly chose the first one as the one who did his father's will. So it is in 1 John 2:4, for the one says “I know him” but does not do what the father commands.

Obedience is easier said than done. In my own life, obedience has seldom been a problem of knowledge but often a problem of the will. I often know cognitively what I should do in order to be obedient to God's direction for my life. However, I must confess I don't always have the desire or will to be obedient. Like Paul, “I desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out” (Romans 7:18).

Perhaps a solution to this struggle can be found in 1 John 2:6, pointing to the way in which Jesus walked as a worthy pattern for our own walk. We know from the gospels that Jesus struggled with his impending death on the cross. In the garden of Gethsemane, he prayed God would let the cup of death pass over him, but even in that prayer was able to say, “Yet not what I will, but what you will” (Mark 14:35-36). There was a surrender of Jesus' will to that of the Father that offers us a path today when obedience to God's command seems undesirable or undoable.

Test 2–Love for one another

This test of whether we know God is anchored in the authority and authenticity of the words and witness of Jesus. Repeatedly Jesus instructed his followers that the whole sum of the law could be boiled down to two: Love of God and love for neighbor.

The command to love was not a new one. It was as old as the Israelites could remember. Yet with Jesus came a new way of loving God and neighbor. Jesus fulfilled the law of love in a way no one had seen before, as evidenced in his ministry of hope and healing, and ultimately in his self-giving sacrificial death. But even greater, Jesus' life, death and resurrection equip his followers to embody that love through the ages to the very moment you read this ink on paper. You can love your neighbor more truly and deeply because of your faith as a Christian, and that by way of Jesus' irrepressible love for all humanity.

I believe our churches are to be the practice stages where we learn and rehearse our lines of love for neighbor. With Jesus' life as our script, we rehearse and rehearse, polishing and refining how to love one another. And if Shakespeare is correct that “all the world's a stage” then the theatre of our drama is a sold-out crowd hungry for the love we have to share and that Jesus wants to share through us.

Love for one another is a measure of the quality of fellowship in our churches, and we have some work to do here. Because we have missed the importance of love for one another as the way to strengthen the community of faith, we have a malnourished theology of fellowship that has diminished to the time for doughnuts between Bible study and worship.

The term “fellowship” has been misused often, usually with the report, “A good time was had by all.” Fellowship ought to be defined as the conscious efforts a church body makes to love one another as Christ has loved us all. This love is not a negotiable, but rather an imperative of the faith, and although we will never attain perfect fellowship, we are obligated to aim for it.

Test 3–Right belief

The real urgency and passion of the writer comes through in this passage. Strong language frames a plea for the children to realize the time, the “last hour,” and to beware of those who teach against the divinity of Jesus, the “antichrists.” Clearly the appearance of those who would oppose the church (the antichrist) and the exodus of some from the church indicated the “last hour” was near. Could John have seen this as a signal to an imminent return of Jesus? Or could this be a view that the last hours of history where a world had no chance of redemption before Christ was now coming to an end?

Ultimately, the choice in interpretation is for the reader, but either choice stresses an importance for right belief. In the church to which this letter is addressed, there had been serious questioning as to whether Jesus was the Messiah, the “anointed one.” 1 John makes clear that knowing God required belief that Jesus was indeed the Messiah.

Assurance of salvation, of knowing God, is perhaps one thing believers wish for and most seek to maintain. Christians want to “feel” saved. We have fear and anxiety that if we don't believe the right things or step into wrong doctrine, we might somehow lose touch with God and ultimately lose our salvation. This text offers a counter to that fear.

Although there are many areas within doctrine that are of debate, John's letter lays weight on one issue alone–the doctrine of Jesus Christ. When the church begins to question the identity of Jesus as Christ, as 1 John 2:22 asserts (“Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ”), serious trouble will follow. Believers may experience assurance of salvation and knowing God by maintaining right belief in Jesus as the Christ.

John further asserts that each of the followers has received an “anointing” that will enable discernment of truth from error. The Holy Spirit, whose advent was Jesus' resurrection, gives believers guidance to discern teachings, as well as power to live the life of obedience and love. It is tempting to pass over teaching about this “anointing” for fear of sounding quirky or too “Pentecostal,” but we must not shirk away from it because our Christian discipleship is linked intimately to the Holy Spirit. Christians must cultivate their discipleship through this sense of anointing by the Spirit, thus false teachings will be less threatening.

Questions for discussion

The author of 1 John delineates some clear black and white lines between “liars,” the ones “blinded to truth” and those that “live in darkness.” Is this absolute path of classifying people healthy for a church?

To what extent does personal moral failure refute our claim to be a follower of Christ? When does a church's moral failure to follow all of God's commands cause it to cease being a church?

What is the difference between the blind obedience to a religious organization or leader and the kind of obedience that 1 John demands of believers?

If “fellowship” is defined as “loving each other as Jesus loves us,” how would you rate your congregation's health in the area of fellowship?