If I stood in front of you today with a tank of helium, filled a balloon with the helium, tied off the balloon to trap the helium, and let go, you would have an expectation of what would happen. You'd anticipate the balloon would float upwards toward the ceiling. Why? Because that's what a balloon with helium inside it does.
A similar thing has happened to John. John knew the truthfulness of the gospel message. He had watched Jesus' life and heard His teaching. He'd witnessed Jesus' death and resurrection. And he'd seen the gospel flood the world after Jesus' ascension.
And, over time, John had discovered what the gospel does inside a believer. He knew the gospel message is true, but had also come to discover some of its outworkings.
We've read and studied John's teachings regarding these outworkings, three in particular, but today he will conjoin them into one small paragraph. Then John will point to three witnesses to the gospel's truthfulness.
So, today, we will follow John through the passage. In it, we will notice three outworkings, followed by three witnesses, of the gospel's truthfulness.
Three Outworkings (1-5)
1. Outworking #1: Love
1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of Him.
Love For The Father's Kids
John's point here is to remind us that every true believer in Jesus' gospel message has been born of God (1). Believers are God's kids.
Now, elsewhere, John used this truth to encourage us to love one another. John thinks we should love each other because we are family. In Christ, we are spiritual siblings who should care for one another.
But here, John moves beyond the horizontal argument that we should love other Christians because they are our spiritual relatives. Instead, John goes vertical when he says, everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of Him (1).
What this means is that I should love you because you're my sibling, but also because you are God's child, and I love God. If I love the Father, I will think much of His offspring.
This is easy to exemplify from every day life. I have one biological sibling, a younger sister who I love very much. She is important to me. I admire her, but also root for her, because she is my blood. Life would not be the same without her. This is sibling love.
But I am also close to several friends God has placed in my life. Many of them have children, and I love those kids. Because I know and love their parents, these little boys and girls, babies and toddlers and kids and teens, have my heart. Why? Because I love their parents.
Love for the Father's kids is what John wants. He thinks a major outworking of the gospel is love for other believers. Partly because we are spiritual siblings, but also because we love God, and those are His kids.
Lesser Dividing Lines
This seems important for modern believers. The new birth, salvation, unites us, but it is a shame how quickly Christians will divide over less consequential issues. We ought to love others who've been born again, regardless of lesser dividing lines such as race, gender, nationality, or political affiliation.
When we sense ourselves more united with nonbelievers with whom we share those distinctions than we do with a fellow believer who does not, something is wrong. God wishes to tune our hearts to His frequency. The gospel asks us to love one another because we love God, and we are God's kids.
But there is another crucial outworking of the gospel's truthfulness John wishes to remind us of: obedience to God's Word.
2. Outworking #2: Obedience
2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey His commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.
A Surprising Twist
Now, this statement from John begins with a surprising twist. John says, We know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey His commandments (2). This is unexpected, shocking to the reader.
What we would expect John to say is that our love for God is evidenced in our obedience to Him and our love for other believers. And he has said these sorts of things elsewhere in the letter.
But, here, he flips it around. Instead of saying love for God is displayed in our love for others, he says our love for others is displayed by our love for God. A significant proof of our love for each other is our love for God and allegiance to His commands.
Put another way, when I walk with God and allow Him to govern my life, it demonstrates my love for you.
Bottom Line: One of the most loving things you can do for others is to love and obey God.
You see, when you take care of your walk with God by loving and serving and obeying Him, you are doing a good thing for the rest of us.
Why Obedience Is Love
But how is our love for and obedience to God loving towards our brothers? Here are a handful of suggestions:
- To love and obey God means you will walk in the light. You will not allow your life to head into the dark world of disobedience. This is good for the rest of us because walking in the darkness introduces chaos and evil to the community. You make the church family better when walking in the light.
- To love and obey God means you will spend time with Him. And time with God leads to transformation. You become more Christlike (2 Corinthians 3:18). When that occurs, we all benefit.
- To love and obey God means you will allow space for course correction. Even the holiest person has blind spots and areas they succumb to the flesh. But the person who seeks God and wants to have their lives conform to His Word is eager for course corrections. Change might be slow, but at least there is hope it will occur.
- To love and obey God means you will not become an instrument of temptation towards others in the church family. Carnal believers often harm others, inviting them into gossip, anger, complaint, pride, lust, or other weaknesses of the flesh. The obedient and godly believer, however, is not a source of such temptation.
- To love and obey God means you become a positive contributor to the strength and health of the overall group. A church is a collection, a gathering, an ecclesia of various people, all of whom have different levels of spiritual maturity and health. When you love and obey God, the group at large gets a little healthier.
We often forget how much our love for God impacts others. But when you maintain your relationship with God and walk in His light, you become the best version of yourself, and the community becomes enriched by your life. Conversely, if you neglect your walk with God and disobey Him, you hurt the community.
Ice Cube famously rapped: Check yourself before you wreck yourself. But John has a bigger and better idea. He would say: Check yourself before you wreck your church. He wants us to love and obey God, partly because it is good for our church family, our spiritual siblings.
Imagine, if you will, a large ship. For the sake of illustration, this particular boat gives each passenger their own anchor. As the boat chugs along, if all the anchors are on deck, progress can be made. But if some of the passengers throw their anchors into the water, the entire boat will slow or stop.
Let this become part of your vision for your walk with God. When you love and obey Him, your anchor is up, and the community can make progress. Your walk is your individual way of giving the church community the best shot at success, the greatest opportunity at making an impact in this world. Without our love and obedience to God, however, the church slows.
Why God's Commandments Are Not Burdensome
But before we move on to the third outworking of the gospel's truthfulness, we must spend some time thinking about a phrase John wrote, to which some of us might have inwardly objected. He said: And His commandments are not burdensome (3). The not is in the original Greek, for those wondering.
How can this be the case? How can John, after a lifetime of allegiance to Jesus, say the commandments of God aren't burdensome. Love seems hard. Denial of the flesh is a constant battle. And service in the name of Christ is often discouraging. How can John think, how can the Scripture say, the commands of God are not a burden?
One reason His commandments are not burdensome is that Jesus condensed the commands of God down to love for God and others (Matthew 22:36-40). They asked Him about the greatest commandment. He said it was to love God and to love your neighbor. Jesus took the burden of a complex Law and made it simple.
Another reason His commandments are not burdensome is the new nature we receive from Christ. When you become born again, born of God, you become a new creation or creature in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17). God begins to live within you, and He makes real inner transformation possible (Hebrews 8:10), so the burden is not all on you. He will help you.
A third way His commandments are not burdensome is when comparing them to the legalistic systems of the world. The religious leaders of Jesus' day tortured the people with obligations they could never keep. And, today, the world is littered with religions or philosophies that require impossible things from their adherents. In comparison, Christ's yoke is no burden at all.
Still another reason His commandments are not burdensome is their life-giving reality. Obedience to God leads to good and positive outcomes in our lives. When one eats nutritious foods, their body displays healthy results. When we obey God, spiritual and emotional health comes. The healthiest lives are obedient ones. And obedience isn't just good for us; it leads to deep satisfaction and joy.
Finally, His commandments are not burdensome because we love Him. Genesis tells us Jacob served Laban for fourteen years to earn the privilege of marrying Rachel; "They seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her" (Genesis 29:20). So it is with God and us. Love for God makes the commands of God easier for us to obey.
But there is one more outworking of the gospel's truthfulness John wishes to highlight.
3. Outworking #3: Belief
4 For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
What About The World?
John's readers, at this point, when thinking about obedience to God, might have thought about the pull of the world (4-5). Everything the world system under Satan's power offers us is attractive and tempting. Its draw is the main reason it's hard for us to imagine God's commandments are not burdensome.
We all know this. We can talk about victory over lust and greed and pride all day long, but when the images and philosophies of the world are thrust upon us, we feel their power and pull. Like a young Luke Skywalker being lured by the dark side, the attraction of the world has a substantial appeal to us. At times, we feel weak under the world's pressure.
Faith Overcame The World
For this, John wants us to remember, everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world -- our faith (4). In other words, John wants us to remember how our faith overcame the world in the past. This is why he alluded to the victory that has overcome the world (past tense).
When you became a believer in Christ, you were launched into the family of God. His program and kingdom became yours. Your position before God was radically altered. The world's destiny for you was replaced with God's.
Faith Overcomes The World
John's logic is simple. If your faith tapped you into God's victory to overcome the world at conversion (4), then continued faith will help you overcome the world today. He asked: Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God (5)?
In verse 4, we have overcome. In verse 5, we can still overcome. Our faith overcame the world at our new birth. Experientially, it is by faith we still overcome the world. Faith unlocked justification, but it also unlocks sanctification.
Faith is how we are to live with God as we sojourn through this world (5). Though what we see is hard to resist, we walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7, Romans 1:17).
And this life of faith and trust is the third outworking of the gospel's truthfulness John had in mind. If God sent His Son to die for us, if Jesus came to rescue us, then He is worthy of our faith today.
You may be listening to this right now, feeling so weak against the mounting pressures and temptations the world throws at you. You might feel like you're hanging on by a thread. You might feel like your flame is about to extinguish. But Jesus will not break a bruised reed; He will not quench a smoldering wick (Matthew 12:20). Put your faith in Him afresh. He wants to give you victory over the pressures of this world.
So those are the three outworkings of the gospel's truthfulness John envisions. Love, obedience, and faith.
But, in thinking of our faith in Christ, it is helpful to think of the witnesses who testify to the truthfulness of the gospel.
Three Witnesses (6-12)
Water, Blood, & Spirit
6 This is He who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree.
In the paragraph, John mentions three that testify Jesus is the Son of God (7). The Spirit and the water and the blood all witness to the truthfulness of the gospel (8). They all proclaim Jesus as the Savior-Christ-Messiah who came to deliver humanity from their sins.
But to what did John refer? What is the water? The blood? And the Spirit? Over time a basic consensus has evolved.
1 & 2. The Water And The Blood
First, consider the water and blood (6). John said, this is He who came by water and blood -- Jesus Christ (6). Then he repeated the idea: not by water only but by the water and the blood (6).
It seems John meant that Jesus' baptism (the water) and cross (the blood) both testified about His nature and character. John felt compelled to make it clear that Jesus had come by both. This is why he said, not by water only (6). He wanted to make certain his audience knew Jesus came by the blood also (6).
John emphasized Jesus' blood because of the false doctrine floating around the churches and regions he served. Though those false teachers died off, we can glean hints about their teaching. It seems some of them thought the divine Christ-nature fell upon Jesus at His baptism but left Him before the cross. They taught a temporary Christ-ness was on Jesus, departing from Him before His death.
John, though, wants us to know Jesus was already the Son of God, the Messiah, the Christ, at His baptism. When the Father said, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased," it was not a new concept (Matthew 3:17). Jesus is the eternal Son. He has never not been the beloved Son of the Father.
And John wants us to know Jesus did not cease to be the Son at the cross. His "Christ-ness" did not lift off of Him when He went to His death.
At its core, the denial Jesus came by water and blood is a denial of the incarnation. And to deny that Jesus is God who became flesh for us undermines the foundations of our faith.
If Jesus is not the Son of God, God the Son, then He was ill-equipped to reconcile us to God. Without the incarnation, there is no redemption, no propitiation, and no salvation for humanity.
3. The Spirit
But John goes on to tell us that the Spirit also testified of Jesus (6, 8). How does He do so?
One way was at the baptism of Christ. There, before the Father spoke, the Spirit descended upon Jesus (Matthew 3:16). And, from that point on, Jesus' ministry and miracles were fueled by the power of the Holy Spirit.
But the Spirit also bears witness about Jesus in the Word. He moved Jesus' men to write about Him in all of Scripture. He is, as John said, the truth (6).
Additionally, the Spirit bore witness about Jesus all through the events of the book of Acts and beyond. John was privy to that era. The Spirit gave gifts to individuals, and they used those gifts to testify of Christ. And He is still gifting and empowering today.
Finally, the Spirit testifies of Jesus because He is the one who produces the internal conviction every person needs in order to believe in Christ. He is the one who opens eyes. He is the one who convicts us of sin.
Jesus said:
"When He comes, He will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment:" (John 16:8)
John rejoiced that these three witnesses -- the Spirit and the water and the blood -- all agree together about Jesus (8).
But there is another witness John wished to call to the stand: God the Father.
Bonus Witness: The Father
9 If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God that He has borne concerning His Son. 10 Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning His Son.
11 And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
The Testimony Of The Father
In thinking of a court of law, John knows we will often receive the testimony of men (9). This is normal and good. But, John thinks, the testimony of God is greater (9). God is the one who has borne this testimony of the Spirit, water, and blood (9). So belief in Jesus is the acceptance of God's testimony (10). Rejection of Jesus makes God a liar because that person has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning His Son (10). And John said: Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son does not have life (12). This eternal life is in (God's) Son whom He testified about (11).
But how did the Father testify of the Son?
Well, one way John might be thinking of is the voice of the Father at various stages throughout Jesus' ministry. The Father voiced His pleasure with His Son -- first at His baptism, then at the Mount of Transfiguration, and after the Triumphal Entry during the last week before the cross. At each moment, the Father spoke and confirmed His Son's identity.
But John might have also had in mind the cacophony of miraculous voices and supernatural events that surrounded Jesus. Angels appearing to shepherds. Wise men coming from the far east to see Him as a baby. Simeon and Anna, aged saints who spent time in the temple precincts, who both prophesied about Jesus when they saw Mary and Joseph arrive with Him in their arms. And all that was testimony from the Father surrounding Jesus' birth.
All through His life though, the miraculous followed Him. He walked on water. He multiplied bread and fish in His hands. He turned water into wine. He healed countless people of their afflictions. He brought people back to life. Finally, He Himself rose from the grave.
And accompanying all this was the witness of the prophetic utterances of Scripture. The prophets of old told the time and place of the Messiah's birth, that He would be from Bethlehem, Egypt, and Nazareth, and Jesus' early travels took Him to all three places. They talked of the virgin birth. They spoke of the way and time He would enter into Jerusalem riding on a colt. They foretold He would be rejected by the people. They predicted very specific details surrounding the events of His death, including His beatings, the dividing of His garments, the piercing of His side, the mocking of the people, and the method of crucifixion.
In all these ways and many more, the Father testifies of the truthfulness of the gospel. He declares the reality of Jesus. He witnesses to the person of Jesus.
Life From A Person
You see, believers are just that: believers. We do place our faith in Jesus, but it is a faith standing on the firm foundation of the testimony of God Himself. He has broken into our time and space and declared to us the way to be saved. He has done a wonderful job of saying to the world: believe in Jesus; He is My Son!
We aren't adherents of a philosophy or devotees to a program. John said: this eternal life is in (God's) Son (11). We don't attempt to attain God or take steps to climb towards the divine. To be Christian does not mean we adopt a certain lifestyle in the hopes God will approve of us.
Instead, we become Christians by birth, and that birth occurs because of belief in a Person. It is belief in Jesus that makes us children of the living God. Regeneration occurs, He makes us new, and we are forever His, living with the new nature He has deposited into us.
And God has testified of His Son. This is one of the things I appreciate about Christmastime in our culture. No matter how hard people try to keep Jesus' message out, the gospel breaks through during this season. The songs of God coming for us are still being sung!