"And hereby we do know that we know Him if we keep His commandments. He that saith, I know Him, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepth His Word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in Him. He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked."
1 John 2:3-6
Part 3
Yesterday: A Liar Does Not Walk His Talk
“He that saith, I know Him.”
“And keepeth not His commandments.”
“Is a liar, and the truth is not in him.”
Today: Our Obedience to the Word of God Shows That Our Love for God Is Maturing
“But whoso keepeth His Word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in Him” (1 John 2:5).
“But whoso keepeth His word.”
This brings up a simple question. Do we listen to God’s Word, think about His Word, believe His Word, and do it?
“But He said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it” (Luke 11:28).
“He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him” (John 14:21).
“Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him” (John 14:23).
If we are faithfully doing God’s Word, His love for us is working in us to maturity.
“In Him verily is the love of God perfected.”
“Love here answers to knowledge in 1 Jn 2:3. In proportion as we love God, in that same proportion we know Him, and vice versa, until our love and knowledge shall attain their full maturity of perfection” [1] (JFB).
The believer who is in the Word of God begins to grow and change. The child of God is not perfect, but they are maturing in Christ, day by day. One of the significant changes in their life is the way that they now love God. That love is growing and maturing. And loving Him affects our love for people around us. We begin to love people as we never have before.
“The act of God’s love becoming complete in a person—accomplishing its purposes of transforming them. This results in them loving others” [2] (FSB).
“Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:11-12).
“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love” (1 John 4:18).
“The Love of God Perfected”
“John also makes the link between our obedience and our love for God. A perfected (the idea is mature) love for God will show itself in obedience, and the presence of this obedience and love gives us assurance that we are in Jesus (By this we know we are in Him)” [3] (EWC).
“…an obedient believer has a deep, full-orbed acquaintance with ‘God’s love.’ Since God is love (4:16), to know God intimately is to know His love intimately” [4] (BKC).
“God’s love is truly made complete in the person who obeys His Word. This does not mean that Christianity is a form of legalism. It means that God has revealed himself in Christ, who is His Word (1:1; John 1:1), and that the coming of Christ is a challenge to our whole way of life. We are challenged to abandon all self-seeking and to take up our cross; nothing less will do” [5] (NBC).
As we have seen before, the believer will not be perfect or sinless on this side of heaven. But after salvation, the child of God has a different relationship with their sin than before they met Christ. The genuine child of God no longer has sin as their master. That long love affair with sin comes to an end when they are made a child of God. There is no more bragging about it and no more making plans to sin. Although believers still sin, as a child of God, they can no longer take pleasure in their sin the way they did in the past.
“The Christian no longer loves sin; it is the object of his sternest horror: he no longer regards it as a mere trifle, plays with it, or talks of it with unconcern… Sin is dejected in the Christian’s heart, though it is not ejected. Sin may enter the heart, and fight for dominion, but it cannot sit upon the throne” [6] (Spurgeon).
What about someone who claims to know Jesus Christ but is living in blatant disobedience to Him and His Word? Let’s not kid ourselves –
“He who claims to know God, yet lives in disobedience, is a liar” [7] (Vincent).
That’s the hard and fast truth. Let’s follow the rest of Vincent’s quote –
“We should expect as an offset to this: He that keepeth His commandments is of the truth; or, the truth is in him. Instead, we have, ‘In him has the love of God been perfected.’ In other words, the obedient child of God is characterized, not by any representative trait or quality of his own personality, but merely as the subject of the work of divine love: as the sphere in which that love accomplishes its perfect work” [8] (Vincent).
“Hereby know we that we are in Him.
Believers are dwelling permanently in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not a new stage or a passing phase – it is new life in Christ.
“Hereby We Know”
“hereby—in our progressing towards this ideal of perfected love and obedience” [9] (JFB). Note the steps:
1 Jn 2:3, “know Him” – knowledge of Him
1 Jn 2:5, “we are in Him” – fellowship with Him
1 Jn 2:6, “abideth in Him” – abiding faithfulness to Him
“That We Are in Him”
We always expect to find obedient living in the believer who truly knows Christ. Being “in Him” is vital for us.
“And he that keepeth His commandments dwelleth in Him, and He in him. And hereby we know that He abideth in us, by the Spirit which He hath given us” (1 John 3:24).
“Hereby know we that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit” (1 John 14:13).
“Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:15-16).
“For in Him [Jesus Christ] dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power” (Colossians 2:9-10).
What beautiful words are these about the child of God and Jesus, the believer is “in Him.”
Come back tomorrow as we look at our walk “in Him.”
Quote: “But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:4-7).
[1] JFB, Jamieson, R., Fausset, A. R., & Brown, D. (1997). Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (Vol. 2, p. 527). Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc. The emphasis is theirs.
[2] FSB, Barry, J. D., Mangum, D., Brown, D. R., Heiser, M. S., Custis, M., Ritzema, E., … Bomar, D. (2012, 2016). Faithlife Study Bible (1 Jn 2:3–6). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
[3] EWC, Enduring Word Commentary, the electronic version in eSword. The emphasis is theirs.
[4] BKC, Walvoord, J. F., & Zuck, R. B., Dallas Theological Seminary. (1985). The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Vol. 2, pp. 888–889). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.
[5] NBC, Morris, L. L. (1994). 1 John. In D. A. Carson, R. T. France, J. A. Motyer, & G. J. Wenham (Eds.), New Bible commentary: 21st-century edition (4th ed., pp. 1401–1402). Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press. The emphasis is theirs.
[6] EWC, ibid. The emphasis is theirs.
[7] Vincent, M. R. (1887). Word studies in the New Testament (Vol. 2, pp. 326–329). New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
[8] Vincent, M. R., ibid.
[9] JFB, ibid. I have edited and reformatted these ideas for our purpose.