Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript: 1 John 3:1-10

Sermon text today is 1 John 3:1-10. 1 John 3:1-10. And we’re talking about perseverance and its relationship to sanctification and specifically talk about gratitude and good works. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. 1 John 3:1-10.

Now listen, listen to this text. It is gospel from beginning to end. 1 John 3:1-10: “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.

Therefore, the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now we are sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifyeth himself even as he is pure. Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law. For sin is the transgression of the law. And you know that he was manifested to take away our sins, and in him is no sin.

Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not. Whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him. Little children, let no man deceive you. He that doeth righteousness is righteous even as he is righteous. He that committeth sin is of the devil. For the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God do not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God.

In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil. Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.”

Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for the wonderful truths, the great proclamations, the statements given to us in this text. May we receive them down deep into our hearts and souls and in our minds and give us a sense of who we are today. Renew us, Lord God, with a sense of our identity in the person and work of Jesus and as your beloved children. In Jesus’s name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

What are the objections to the doctrine of perseverance of the faith specifically and the doctrine of God’s sovereignty generally? Perseverance is a subset of the application of the sovereignty of God to salvation—the belief that God will preserve us and the belief that God has sovereignly elected us unconditionally. The objection says: these people will be lazy in their sanctification. They won’t do good works.

Even as we looked at Psalm 51 and looked at the candidates adore relative to the enormous sins that we can sometimes commit, they said those people particularly that are brought back to repentance for their sins and to walking again and abiding in God, these people particularly will just sort of get lazy in their sanctification if they know that God forgive even these enormous sins.

If you look on the first page of the outline down at verse or number six, the error—I’ll go back up to the statements first. But remember that the cannons are reputation of errors first and foremost. So Arminius’s followers were teaching these things and had declared this is what we believe under five heads. And so the cannons are written to rebut them. So really the errors are helpful to understand the positive statements.

For error number six under perseverance says this: “The error is that by its very nature, the doctrine of this certainty of perseverance and salvation causes false security and is harmful to godliness, good morals, prayers, and other holy exercises. On the contrary, it is praiseworthy to doubt.”

So this is a question of motivation that the Armenians were addressing or raising: what’s a motivation for our sanctification if we have no fear of losing somehow God’s preserving grace of us? If it’s God’s doing and he’s sovereign, then our motivation, which they assume to be fear of loss of something, is somehow set on its head. And so that’s really what’s addressed here is motivation.

Well, the refutation of this error that the church council at Dort came up with was under number six, refutation: “This doctrine ignores the false doctrine. In other words, ignores the effective power of God’s grace and the working of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us.”

Wonderful statement. You know, we’re not talking about the psychology of man in general. We’re talking about the psychology of those who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. And that is a far different matter. It contradicts the Apostle John who teaches the opposite with these expressed words in his first letter: “Beloved, we are God’s children. Now, it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

And here’s the kicker: And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.”

Now, this is written as a refutation of an error. And what they do is they cite the text that we’ll be looking at in its context—that well, no, if you really believe that you’re a child of God, that means because Jesus Christ is pure, if your hope is in Christ, you’re going to purify yourself. Not that you should but that you will.

The fathers went on to say this: “Furthermore, it is refuted by the example of the saints both of the old and new testament who although they were certain of their perseverance and salvation nevertheless continued in prayer and other exercises of godliness.”

So you know they’re refuting this error. Now let’s look at the positive statements articles 12 and 13.

Article 12: “This assurance does not lead to complacency or laziness.

So far however is this certainty of perseverance from making true believers proud and complacent, that on the contrary, it—this assurance that God is preserving us, that we’re his children—this is the true root of humility, childlike reverence, genuine godliness, patience in every conflict, fervent prayers, constancy in the cross, and in the confession of the truth, and lasting joy in God. Further, the consideration of this benefit is for men an incentive to the serious and constant practice of gratitude and good works.”

There’s a nice summary statement for today: “The serious and constant practice of gratitude and good works.” And we’ll see in first John first the gratitude part and then the good works part toward the verse 10. So they’re saying that if a person is indwelt by the spirit of God and knowledge of God’s sovereign preservation, unconditional election doesn’t lead to pride and laziness. It’s the very opposite.

They’re saying the Armenians say their psychology wrong and they’re saying that biblical psychology says that on the basis of who we know God to be and has done for us—that’s the motivation for our sanctification—that has tremendous implications for all kinds of things.

Well, to go on to read, “However, the serious and constant practice of gratitude and good works as is evident from the testimonies of scripture and the examples of the saints.”

And then Article 13: “This assurance does not lead to carelessness.

Neither does renewed confidence of persevering produce carelessness or neglect of godliness in those who have been restored after their fall. So think of David here restored after his fall. Peter restored after his fall—after the restoration doesn’t make them lazy. No, it doesn’t produce carelessness and neglect of godliness. Rather, it renders them more careful and diligent to discern the ways of the Lord so that by walking in them they may retain the certainty of persevering. They do this—and this is so important these last couple of sentences.

They do this less because of their abuse of his fatherly goodness. The reconciled God should again turn away his face from them. The contemplation of which is to the godly sweeter than life and the withdrawal of it more bitter than death. And they should fall into more severe torments of soul.”

So they’re saying that the psychology of Christian is he doesn’t fear so much the rod that God might bring down upon us in terms of judgments and punishments. The biggest thing the Christian fears is the removal of the Father’s face, the beholding of our fatherly care by him, his turning his back on us. That’s the thing that is more bitter than death.

Dort said to Christians—as I said before, Dort gets a lot of bad press. The cannons of Dort—they’re a highly pastoral document and I wanted to take just a few minutes today to talk about these truths and look at how they’re displayed in 1 John 3:1-10.

So some say that God’s sovereignty makes us lazy in our good works. No, that’s not true. Now I want to talk about 1 John 3:1-10 but in its context. On your handouts, the bottom of the first page, I’ve got a simple seven-part outline of first John and of course it’s seven—amorous, kayastic, sevenfold—lines up the seven days creation, the seven feasts, all this stuff. And I don’t think it’s forcing it. I think that this particular epistle is obviously following after the gospel of John. The emphasis is this new creation that Jesus has affected for mankind and it begins in the first section of chapter 1 with the declaration that God is light—the light of life—we have seen God is light. This is the great announcement in the first chapter.

And then in the context of that, we make him a liar by walking in darkness. So you know we separate ourselves from him by walking in darkness. So God is light and then Christ’s new commandment is given to us in chapter 2 and antichrist begin to surface there. So this division between the first fruits—the third day—the coming up of Jesus Christ as the first and renewed man is contrasted with the first fruits of antichrist.

And then four, at the very heart of this epistle, is the confidence of the sons of God. And this confidence is rooted in loving one another. So verses 1 to 10 will conclude with that—that’s kind of the ultimate expression of what he talks about in these 10 verses. And that’ll open up verses 11 and following in 3 that talk about the love of the brother. You’ve heard me say over and over again, you know, we read that—how can you say you love God whom you haven’t seen if you don’t love your brother whom you have seen.

So this is the test of our faithfulness, our belief in God and our trust in Jesus Christ for salvation—his love of the brothers. And so we move from the light of God in the first day—sort of light to sun, moon and stars—the reflection of the light of God in the Christian life. And the power to rule is the power of loving one another. That beautiful, wonderful structure of this short epistle.

Then we go back to Antichrist versus God’s increasing love, making a liar by not believing the witness, and then finally the confidence of eternal life in the last part of the book.

So when we deal with 1 John 3:1-10, we’re dealing with the first half of the very middle—the power, the reflection of the glory of God who is light by our love for the brothers. And remember that fourth section is always about supervising or ruling. How do we do it? Well, we do it through love. And so again, it’s a little counterintuitive as the Armenians would have thought, but this is how we do it.

So in today’s section of 1 John 3, there’s a transition from the first two chapters. The first two chapters—God is light and we’re to walk in the light. And so now we have a second declaration of God here in chapter 3 and that is that God is our father. And he takes that theme, opens it up in verse one, and then talks about it for the rest of the chapter. And we’ll go look at the first 10 verses.

So the emphasis in the first section of this epistle was God is light. The emphasis in the second section, the one we’re reading now at the center, is the fatherhood of God. Tremendous implications.

All right. So now let’s look at the text. And I’ve made all of these—these are subheadings under this statement: “Those with the assurance of their preservation and perseverance are first of all those who are deeply grateful for their having been called as sons of God and know that they are the unworthy recipients of his love.”

Now here’s how I understand this text. And you know we have question answer time. You think I’m wrong? Okay, talk to me about it afterwards. But the way I look at it, there is certainly implied exhortations here. You know, the one who is in Christ purifies himself. We’ll get to that in a minute. Well, we could read from that him saying, well, you should make sure you purify yourself. The one who is related to God through Christ loves the brothers.

And we could read from that, well, you really ought to love your brothers, and that’s okay. That’s an application of this text. But I think it’s critical in understanding what the cannons of Dort are saying about perseverance relative to how we live our lives to take the text at face value. And in its first application, its first interpretation, these are not a series of imperatives or commands to you. That’s why I said this text is gospel from beginning to end.

You know, God’s word frequently is gospel and then response. And there’s a response to this gospel clearly. But in these verses, there’s no—I don’t see verses that say, “Well, this is what you ought to do.” These verses are concerned with helping us to know the truth of the matter: who we are in Jesus Christ. You know, who are you? What’s your identity? And some Christians think, well, we’re part good, part bad, got the old man, got the new man, kind of going back and forth.

We’re living both worlds, you know? And you can sort of get that impression sometimes. I falsely give that impression sometimes. May God forgive me of my sin if I do that. But this text helps us to remember who we are, what our identity is at the core of our being. This is who we are. And Dort says if we understand that—if we come to the new life in Jesus Christ, to the degree that we build up an acknowledgment of who we are—we take away the scales that the devil would put over our eyes to have us doubt who we are in Christ and doubt who God is.

If we understand who we really are, what our basic identity is, that’s the engine for sanctification, not a series of commands. You understand? The gospel is what drives lives of obedience. It’s counterintuitive.

You know, we’ll be talking about fathers here, and I’m not—may not get to this application later—but, you know, clearly as he discusses fathers and children, clearly this text is instructive to us in terms of how we’re to raise our own children. How the church raises the children of the church. And I think that the church, we’re doing good here. They come to the table. They’re part of the family. They’re told from their very earliest days of their memory here that they’re part of the family of God and not excluded. I think that’s very good. We reinforce their identity every Lord’s day at this table, the young people in our church and in our homes.

You know, this is important. How do we create better, more obedient children by, you know, haranguing them all the time? I don’t think so. I’m not saying you never do that. The Bible is filled with imperatives and there’s stated commands that are supposed to be adequate responses to the gospel. But if this is the heart of the new creation in Christ, this is the heart of the new humanity, and this is key to our sanctification, then I think it means that with our children as well, the most important thing we do to drive sanctification is bless them with our love and presence and assure them of their being part of our family—not to threaten them.

Now threats come—there are a few threats in the New Testament. They’re appropriate at certain places in the raising of children. But if you bring the threat without laying the foundation of the fatherly and motherly love for these children and the assurance of what their identity is, they don’t have to work to be part of the household. They’re brought into it by the grace of God. So there’s application here, I think, in terms of how we raise our children, how we treat one another, etc.

But let’s just go through the text. So, first of all, they’re deeply grateful.

So “Behold”—this is how the text starts. I don’t want to just slide past that. This is a statement of like, wow, look at this. There’s a note. There’s an element of wonder in it. “Behold”—it’s not like, no, let me explain to you logically what’s going on. No, it’s like the setting for what he’s going to say is this “behold” remark. Goodness gracious, look what the truth of the matter is. It’s got that import to it. And I want us to bring that into an understanding of this text. I want us to be—you know, man, this is wonderful, wonderful gospel. This is tremendous news and it’s marvelous. It’s awesome. It’s wonder producing. We don’t understand how it works out and all this stuff, but it’s great. Praise God. Behold what beautiful thing this is.

And what is it we’re beholding? Well, we’re beholding “what manner of love the father hath bestowed upon us. Behold the love of God poured upon us here. Bestowed upon us. What wonderful love the Lord has given to us through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Behold one translation puts it this way: “Consider, be in amazement how lavish is the love which the father has showered upon us.” That catches the Greek phrase a little more. Look at the lavishness of the love that God has and he showered it upon us. “Behold what manner of love the father hath bestowed upon us.”

And what is the objective? What’s the truth of this? Where does it all find its focus? It is in the very next phrase. But before we get there, we’re already kind of told that this love is coming from a father. So the love is coming from a father and it’s bestowed upon us. So as you hear this text, I want you to, you know, look at it personally. “Behold, what manner of love, what wonderful, lavish love the Lord God has poured upon me.” Put your name in there. So God’s love and what that we should be called the Sons of God.

So this is in a summary thing the entire deal for these next this next chapter or two. God is our father. We are now called the sons of God. The children of God. Children of God.

I know this is silly, but there’s an old Joni Mitchell song and the repeated refrain. It’s about her growing up in Canada. The repeated refrain is “all we ever wanted was to come in from the cold.” And she sings beautifully and well—strange person, but she’s got tremendous talents and giftings that she applies in music. And over and over again, the refrain goes through about how what we wanted was to come in from the cold. That’s what we all want.

We all are born in alienation. We don’t have—we don’t have here a common—God isn’t saying well like your fathers are to you and like you are to your fathers—that’s the way I am to you. That would be bad news because our fathers do not lavish wonderful love on us the way they should. Our fathers aren’t omniscient. They don’t know what’s happening. God is. Our fathers are not all powerful. They can’t control every circumstance of your life. God can. Our fathers are unfair. They’re sinful. They do things that are wrong. Not usually, but sometimes they’ll sin. And so when we grow up, we grow up experiencing not “behold what marvelous, wonderful love my father hath bestowed upon me” as this child.

Now hopefully we do in this church and our families more and more over the generations. But you know a number of us can’t say that was our experience. We had this wonderful seminar yesterday and the speaker talked about expectations and how if parents are always giving kids expectations they can’t meet, kids are always frustrated and then if you might meet the expectation parents then raise the expectation. And the speaker said that when he was in high school he wished his father was dead because his father—he just could never please his father.

We all want to please our fathers. We all want to please other people but we particularly want to be pleasing to our fathers and fathers don’t necessarily—don’t—through sinfulness, through their own frailty, through their own upbringings, we don’t have it. And so what we all end up doing is we grow up, you know, wanting to know above all things about who we are—that we’re loved by our fathers, you know? So many movies, that’s the theme: Father, child, mother, child, reunion, first disjunction, and then getting that worked out.

And the speaker yesterday—I should quickly go on to say that later in college he worked that out, went back to his father and confessed his sinfulness to his dad and reconciled the relationship. But this is who we are. We all want to come in from the cold. We want, you know, to be accepted and most of all, we want to be accepted by our fathers and we don’t have it. We do to some extent, but let’s be honest—we don’t have it.

But the scriptures tell us that there is this tremendous truth and the spirit of God has been given to us to cause us to say what “Abba Father.” It’s the spirit of adoption. God assures us through the work of Jesus Christ and through the work of the holy spirit bringing it to us that he is our father and we are now called the sons of god. This is this carries the freight of all the rest of the application—that in Christ we’re now the sons of god. And so this is the wonderful truth. This is not saying this is something we hope will happen. This is not saying this something you should attain to. This is saying the reality is that the Lord God has bestowed, showered, this wonderful lavish love upon us by calling us, by identifying us as his children. His children.

Now it comes at a price. The text goes on to say “therefore the world knoweth us not because it knew him not.” So there’s opposition that’s going to happen. But the opposition is there because of this wonderful truth that God has bestowed his great love upon us.

And then in verse two: “He beloved.”

Now the text is going to end by saying in verse 10 that this gratitude we’re supposed to have—we have no right to be the children of God. We forfeited our right in Adam. We know we’re sinners. So this love is gracious love to us. And we’re to have this great gratitude to God for what he has accomplished. We do have great gratitude. And he’s going to end by saying that gratitude will find expression in loving our brothers and sisters in Christ. Says brothers, but you know the male stands for male and female. And so covenantally “brothers” means sisters as well. He’s going to move there, but he’s already doing it. You see, John is assured of the father’s love.

And how does he treat these people he’s writing to? He calls them beloved. He’s giving us at the beginning the application at the end by way of example. So he begins by calling them, referring to them as beloved and he doesn’t say—and what does he say in verse two? “Beloved what’s the greatest message of love he can give to them? The love is this: ‘Beloved now we are the sons of God.’

So just in case you didn’t catch it when it says that God calls us the sons of God, it doesn’t mean he refers to us as that as a possibility or potentiality—he wants to be very clear that you understand: “Beloved now we are the sons of God.” Present possession of sunship. Present possession of a father who provides everything we’ve always wanted in our life. A present possession at the core of our identity is the knowledge of our love from God the father. That’s at the very center of who we are.

So when it says that God has called us children of God, you know, we’ve talked about effectual calling and that we’re called of course to salvation, to live with God in eternity away from hell. Well, we’ve talked about our calling—the effectual calling can be an application of it is a calling to a vocation. Your calling—you persevere in the calling that God has effectually called you to. And here we’re we can we can say that we are called—what is the context of our vocation? What is our identity? Our central identity is that we are called, effectually called to be and are children of God. Sons of the father.

We’re called to that. So effectual calling is to sunship—not just to vocation in a general sense, but to the specific sense: we are called to be sons. And the declared fact is that “beloved, now we are the sons of God.”

“It doesn’t appear what we shall be. You know, it isn’t like it’s going to be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him. For we shall see him as he is.” So what is he saying? Well, the end result of this, our full assurance that we’re in from the cold and act like that and be portray the glorious character of Jesus Christ. This will happen in the eschaton.

This is important, these two things, because he’s giving us tremendous news that we’re children of God. We’ve been brought in from the cold, but we still experience pain in this world—both because of our sin and the sins of others and the opposition of the world and all that stuff. And he’s not denying any of that. He’s saying, “Now, I know it hasn’t been brought to its full completion, your experience of this, but it shall be.” And so he gives you the assurance that you are presently the sons of God. And he gives you the assurance that eternity holds for you a fuller manifestation of who you are and who the other person is.

You look around at everybody in church and you say, “Well, that guy doesn’t seem like he’s too loving to me. I don’t feel like I’m in from the cold of that person. This person doesn’t treat me right. This person hurt me, sinned against me. Maybe obviously and maybe intentionally, maybe inadvertently. We have these problems. And John doesn’t ignore those. But he says, “Look, at the center of your being, you have everything that you’ve ever wanted. You have relationship with God the Father in heaven.” And he’ll work it out—your relationship with brothers and sisters. And it doesn’t look like what it should be now, but it shall—with the coming of Jesus Christ with the full consummation.

So he’s given this tremendous wonderful gospel news: “we shall see him as he is.”

Now understand he’s drawing attention to Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ is the vehicle by which our union and communion with Christ is the vehicle by which we have this relationship with the father. But in any event, “we shall see him as he is.”

“Every man that hath this hope in him purifies himself even as he is pure.”

Now again, he doesn’t say “now because of this, make sure you purify yourselves.” He’s stating an objective fact. “If every man that has this hope in him”—what hope is this? This is not, as I said before, a “Jiminy Cricket” hope. You know, in Hebrews, Hebrews—God makes sure we understand the nature of hope. Hebrews 6:18 and 19. We read this, oh, beginning at verse 17:

“Thus God determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise us the immutability of his counsel confirmed by an oath that by two immutable things in which it is impossible for God to lie—he’s piling up the assurances here, is he not? We might have strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before us, which he says, ‘this hope we have as an anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast.’”

It’s not a hope in “I hope this will happen.” It’s the hope, the assurance that in the future this is a reality and the present reality is manifested and culminates in this future reality—that’s the hope that’s in us. And as we have that hope, that’s what leads to our sanctification. It’s our relation—it’s a knowledge of God’s love, it’s a knowledge of our being children of God, it’s a that is inevitably what the Lord God has in mind for us. That is the reality now. That’s what the future will work out progressively. That is our very calling to be the children of God.

And those people who have that hope do indeed purify themselves. The Armenians said, “If you have that hope, if you have that assurance, you’re going to back off. You’re going to get lazy. You’re not going to do good works.” And John says just the opposite. To the extent that hope is made real in your heart—hearts—and you know this truth, right? To the extent that you appropriate that great love of the father for you, this text says you’re going to purify yourself. You’re going to purify yourself.

So, you know, this is this is gospel and it’s gospel related to our relationship to the father. I should just say here something by the way, you know, it seems to me John’s gospel particularly—in John’s—this is like John’s gospel—but that the Bible has a tremendous amount to say about the father and the reason why the holy spirit has been given to us is to minister Jesus to us in the sense that Jesus is the son of god and to make us cry out “Abba Father.”

Jesus said the purpose of his work was to reveal the father and in revealing the father on the cross he’s revealing the father’s love—this great love that’s been showered upon us. That’s the purpose—John’s gospel says for Jesus and the purpose of the spirit is to bring us the works of Jesus and Jesus is pointing us to the father. And I think at the core of our identity we have a tremendous need to know fatherly love and I think that we’ve been created that way and the lord god has said we should be assured of the father’s love. We should rest in that today and tomorrow and the next day.

And when things go bad, we should recognize, well, this father is not like my dad. He’s not going to make mistakes. He’s not powerless. He’s not going to sin. Everything that he’s doing is a ministration of his love to me somehow. We need to know that.

Now, the devil doesn’t want us to know that. The devil is the opponent of Jesus, as this text goes on to say. And what the devil will want to do is to get you to focus on something other than the father’s love. And sometimes one way for him to do that is to get you focused on the holy spirit in a way that doesn’t lead you to Christ and the father. And I think that in much of the charismatic movement this has happened.

So you know, let’s not forget the father—number one, because the father should be given all glory, lord and honor just like the son and the holy spirit. Let’s not forget it because he has—do that—and let’s not forget it because it is the engine—this text says—of our sanctification. And true sanctification, true purification will result to the extent of our knowledge, our experiential knowledge of the love of the father.

So love of the father—quite important here.

So, okay: “Behold how much love the lord god has for us. Because God is our father, we will love our brothers. That’s what John begins to do. ‘Beloved,’ he says, and by brothers, we mean sisters. Knowing our own sin and God’s great mercy and love, we are grateful. So serious and constant practices of gratitude is what the response that’s require—that is obvious for this great truth. Tremendous blessing from God. We should begin our days with prayers of thanksgiving. Thanksgiving should permeate our lives and the opposite of thanksgiving is not being thankful and complaining and grumbling and disputing.

So this text tells us at the beginning that the great engine for our sanctification is indeed the work of the father’s love for his children.

All right. Secondly, these are those who eschew evil works and embrace good works.

So this purification now is talked about and under this heading. This is a general heading. Then these other four verses talk about getting rid of bad works, doing good works. We are those who no longer move in terms of the evil of lawlessness, the reflection of which is sin.

So verse four on your outlines: “Whosoever commits sin transgresses also the law. For sin is the transgression of the law. And you know that he was manifested to take away our sins, and in him is no sin.”

So another reason why perseverance—God’s preservation of us—ministers sanctification is that we no longer move. Again, this is not an exhortation to you. It’s a statement of fact. If you commit sin, you’re transgressing the law. Sin is the transgression of the law. So clearly, the law of God is essential in understanding what this is.

So sin isn’t just doing something wrong. It’s transgression. It’s rebellion. In other words, it is wickedness. It’s violation of God’s law. And “you know that he was manifested to take away our sins.” So we don’t engage in sin because we love God’s law. Our identity now is to love the law of God and not to act in rebellion to it.

And then secondly, we are those who are subjects of Christ’s mission, which is to remove sin. His very mission was to remove sin. Verse 5: “You know that he was manifest ested to take away our sins. That in him is no sin.”

So I, you know, you got a little structure there. Sin is the transgression of the law. He’s come to take away our sins. This is the very reason that Jesus Christ came, or was manifested, was to remove sin, remove transgression. So if Jesus came and affectionately called you and his purpose was to get rid of sin, then what are you going to be like? You’re not going to sin as much, right? Your lives are going to not be sinful lives. And again, this is not an exhortation. This is a reality.

Jesus came to remove sin. In him is no sin. So in Jesus Christ, his humanity, right? His humanity, no sin. And we are becoming more and more like him. That’s what the text told us. As he—as we know him, we become like him. And we become like him in embracing and delighting in God’s law and accepting the mission of God—was to take away our sins.

So this is the truth of the matter. Jesus has come to take away our sins. That is his purpose. We have gratitude and good works because we are those who’ve been the subject of Christ’s mission, which is to remove sin.

Now in John’s gospel John the Baptist says “behold he sees Jesus the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world”—or the sin of the world. So there’s a sense in which Jesus takes away the sin of the world once for all on the cross. But this text is saying that—is comparing sin to the violation of the law. And so it’s saying that the Lord Jesus Christ appeared for the very purpose of removing these sins in the context of our sanctification as well. At his death on his cross, he removes the penalty of our sin. And by his mission though is further than that. It’s to remove the practice of our sin as well. And so it talks not just about our justification but about our sanctification here.

His purpose is to remove sins, to have people stop sinning, stop violating God’s law. So Jesus came to take away our sins. That’s his very mission. Because of this, we won’t be lawless. We won’t be rebels against God.

Under this second section, the third thing I say in the outline is: “These are those who now move in terms of union communion with Christ, which is incompatible with practicing sin. They abide in him, meaning they grow in holiness.”

Okay. So why is it that we have constant gratitude and in good works because of these facts?

Verse six: “Whoever abides in him sins not. So if we’re abiding in Christ, if our position is relationship to Jesus or with God through Jesus, we don’t sin. That’s verse six says. Whoever sins has not seen him nor known him. So verse six says, if we abide in him—by way of parallelism, that’s to understand, discern him, not to see him physically, but to see, acknowledge him, and to know him.

If we’re Christians, in other words, we don’t sin. And if people do sin, they don’t know him. Now, this is a problem. Not really. But verse 9 says the same thing. A little stronger language: Says that we cannot commit sin. Cannot sin. So what is it talking about?

Now, some people say these are the verses that, you know, prove sinless perfection. The purpose of the Christian is to get to a place where he never sins anymore. What’s the problem? Well, if you been listening to me, these are not a series of exhortations. It doesn’t say “if Christians do well enough, they won’t sin.” It’s a descriptive statement. It says what the reality is. “Whoever abides in him doesn’t sin. Doesn’t say “shouldn’t sin”—’cuz he doesn’t sin.” So that’s part of it—is they’re wrong because it doesn’t say what we should attain to.

And secondly, we want to recognize the scriptures as a whole. They don’t contradict themselves. And if they appear to then we’re not getting it downright. And earlier in John’s epistle he’d said that if we say we don’t sin we’re lying and God is truth—so we don’t want to lie. So he’s not saying that. He doesn’t say we never sin. Some people have said the answer to this dilemma is the tense. Sin is in the present tense. So “whoever abides in him doesn’t keep on sinning. He doesn’t sin habitually. Whoever sins habitually has not seen him, neither known him.” Yeah, that’s—I think that’s right. I think that there’s truth to that, but I think it presses it a little far.

I think that John is making a basic statement of truth again relative to what our identity is. You know, Paul went so far as to say, you know, in Romans 7, “I’m not sinning. Sin is doing these things in me.” Now, that kind of gets at the sense, I think, of what John is trying to say: you Christian are beloved of the father. He’s lavished great love on you. He’s given you the assurance that you will become like Christ. And you Christian are those who no longer act in rebellion to God’s law. Your life isn’t characterized by that. And you Christian, your identity is to not sin. That is to be—that. No, I said that wrong. That is not—I was going to say that to be what we are. That is not to be who we are. That is who we are.

John is making the assertion here: is that our identity is that we don’t sin. Now, we’re going to sin occasionally, but it’s not central to who we are. So I think that’s what this verse—in verse 9—means. And it’s very important. It helps us to under—we’re getting kind of a checkup. Who do we think we are and who does God say we are? And we think we’re kind of these folks sometimes that—h—well, we don’t know. Oh, we’re doing good, doing bad. God’s punishing us. We need to be rewarded. We don’t know who we are. We doubt the father’s love because we’ve never seen love from our friends or fathers.

You know, can anybody really be faithful? Well, God is faithful. And so this is telling us to correct our understanding of who we are. This is given to us as gospel to tell you, you’re loved of God tremendously. You are the children of God. You do not act—your life is no longer—your identity is not rebellion against God’s law. It’s conformity to it. And your life is not sinning anymore. Your life is obedience. This is what your identity is.

Now, as a result, you won’t habitually sin. So that explanation is okay. But I don’t think it gets kind of the purpose or meaning of this text, which is to restore or to give us a sense of who we are. We abide in Christ. We have union and communion with him. He doesn’t sin. And if our identity is found in Jesus Christ, then we’re not going to sin. That’s as simple as what he’s saying here.

Verse seven: “Little children, let no man deceive you. He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. He that committeth sin is of the devil. For the devil sinneth from the beginning.”

And I think the little structure here is well, first of all, the structure in six is obvious: Abiding, don’t sin. Whoever sins hasn’t seen him. That’s kind of obvious. And this structure, I think, is rather obvious as well: don’t be deceived. Well, who’s the deceiver? It’s the devil. That’s what happened—is God’s people were deceived in the garden.

So “don’t let any man deceive you. He that doeth righteousness is righteous. He that committeth sin is of the devil.” Those two match up. And the difference is that we are united to Christ, not the devil. And Jesus, at the center of this text, is the one who is righteous. Jesus is faithful. Jesus acts in conformity to his to the father’s word. And that’s who we are. We’re united to him and our identity now is linked to the righteousness of God.

So we’re not to be deceived. That is an imperative. We don’t be deceived about this. And what he’s telling you is, do you remember what the deception was? Well, of course, the deception was “God doesn’t love you. He’s not your father. You’re in the cold. You coming from the cold of this guy. He doesn’t want you in the warm.” So don’t let anybody deceive you.

And he’s writing these letter, these verses to the end of not being deceived, remembering who we are—loved by God, the father—in from the cold. And then he specifically—he tells us that because Christ is righteous, we’ll be righteous. We’re not going to commit sin either. If you commit sin, people that are—whose lives and identity is not linked to Christ are in union and communion with the devil.

What he’s saying is that all sin is satanic. So we think of, you know, satanic—is like drawing a Ouija board and summoning the goat and all that sort of stuff. And there is a maturation in satanic service I suppose we could talk about—but don’t misunderstand this. What he’s saying is that the original sin came from the devil, came from Satan. Sin today is a direct result of people’s union and communion with the devil. Sin is satanic. And because we’re not satanic, we’re not going to have lives—our identity is not as people who sin.

The devil sins from the beginning—reminding us again the deception, the devil’s fall, etc.

So, you know, he’s giving us a series of statements here. We’re not lawless. Jesus isn’t lawless. We’re not in union and communion with the devil. We’re in union and communion with Christ. The devil is unrighteous. Jesus is righteous. These are statements of who we are. And they’re statements of great hope to us because Jesus is faithful to the father. Jesus is righteous, faithful. We become more and more like Jesus.

Those who have this constant gratitude and good works are those who no longer move in terms of union and communion with the devil. That is the practice of sin. We just mentioned that.

Now, one other thing I wanted to point out as we as we move to the final couple of verses: there’s a—if you look in your Bibles, open up your Bibles to this text if you’re not open there now—there’s a kind of a structure to this that I didn’t see at first. I would have put it on your outlines otherwise, but it’s kind of nice. You’ll notice the parallelism.

Look at verse 5: “You know that he was manifested to take away our sins.” Okay? And then down at verse 8, which we’ll talk about in a little bit, but in verse 8 says, “For this purpose the son of God is manifested ed that he might destroy the works of the devil.” Those are parallel, right? Those are saying that he gets rid of sin by destroying the works of the devil. He destroys the devil, we’re getting rid of sin. Those are parallel statements.

And just before those statements in verse five—you know that he—I’m sorry, in verse four, “Whoever commits sin transgresses the law. Sin is the transgression of the law.” And the first part of verse eight, “He that commits sin is of the devil. The devil sins from the beginning.” So the first section is talking about rebellion or transgression of the law. The second section is talking about the devil.

So the first section Jesus appears to get rid of sin, which is rebellion against the law. Second section he comes to destroy the works of the devil, to break our union and communion with the devil and bring us into communion and communion with him. They’re parallel. And what they flow from in verse the end of verse three, “Everyone who has his hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure.” And then if you look at verse 7, “he that doeth righteousness is righteous even as he Jesus is righteous.”

So Jesus is pure. Jesus is righteous. Sin is transgression. Sin is union with the devil. Jesus came to get rid of lawlessness. Jesus came to get rid of the devil and his works. And then and then finally, if you look at verse 8 or six rather verse six, “Whoever abides in him doesn’t sin.” And then in verse nine, “Whoever is born of God doesn’t commit sin.” So you see there’s—we can lay these vers, this out in parallel to one another from the end of verse three:

You know, we purify ourselves because he’s pure. And connected to that in verse 7, we’re righteous because he’s righteous. So they match up: transgression and then the devil and sin being put away. And then finally, the statements that the source of all this work is abiding in Christ. “If you abide in Christ, you don’t sin.” In verse six and in verse 9, “Whoever is born of God doesn’t commit sin.” So to be born of God is parallel to abiding in Christ.

So these sections first of all open up with a statement of the great love of the father for us—his children—that we’re the children of God. And the second section draws our attention to lawlessness, which was his fallen man’s way of life: rebellion against the law. And we’re not going to do that. We’re going to become more and more pure in obedience to the law because we’ve been made in union with Christ. And he in him is no unrighteousness.

And then we’re brought to the source of all of this: the devil and his deception. Jesus has broken us away from rebellion. He’s broken us away from union and communion with the devil. And so he delivers us because we’re in union and communion with him. And again, these are not ethical commands to us. This is a series of statements. The devil’s a liar. The Bible tells us Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.

If we don’t imitate Jesus, if we don’t follow him, we’ll imitate the devil—the deceiver, the unrighteous, the transgressor. And we see in verse 8 that again, this is like the earlier one. We are subjects of God’s Christ’s mission, which is to destroy the works of the devil. He came to get rid of our sin. We’re not going to sin. Our identity won’t be sinning. He came to get rid of the works of the devil. We’re not going to be like the devil. We’re not going to be liars and deceivers and unfaithful and lawless. No. Because the very mission of Christ is to get rid of these things.

Jesus came to destroy the devil’s work. Again, this is not an exhortation. This is a statement of truth.

Verse 9: “No one who is born of God commits sin, for his seed abides in him. He is not able to commit sin because he is born of God.”

Again, this is not a statement of saying you can never—you’ll never ever do something wrong, but it’s saying your identity is—the seed that was within you, the generation, the new birth, we could refer to it as our union and communion with Christ by the word of God. This seed is within us. His nature, in other words, Jesus’s nature is within us. And because that’s who we are now, we’re not—we’re not going to have lives that are characterized by sinfulness. Our identity is to not sin.

And it doesn’t say you shouldn’t sin. It says you cannot sin. You’re not able to commit sin because you’re born of God. Again, you know, he’s using exaggeration terms, but he’s getting to a truth that’s much more important than just saying he’s not—you cannot habitually sin. He’s saying your very nature is not to sin. When you sin, it is something that is in opposition to the very nature that God has brought into your life through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And then finally in verse 10, we are children of God, not children of the devil. And we love the brother.

“In this, the children of God are manifest and the children of the devil. So this—we’re kind of wrapping it together. Lawlessness and the devil at the middle. We’re children of God at the beginning through Christ. Now we’re not children of the devil. We’re children of God. And as a result, our very identity is not to walk in lawlessness, not to engage in acts of sin, but rather to purify ourselves.

Whosoever does not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brethren. So all of this is the purification that he’s focusing on will now become the great topic of the next section of third John—the application is love of the brothers.

So we have a tremendous text here with great good news to us. The good news is that he has brought us definitively in from the cold. The good news is that your very nature now is one that does not sin. You’ve been born again. You’ve got the incorruptible seed of God. You’re partakers of the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ raised up in perfection. This is who you are. You’re children, you’re loved. You’re no longer in union communion with the devil. You’re in union and communion with Christ.

And because of these things, this is what motivates our sanctification. Perseverance—God’s preservation—doesn’t just refer to our ultimate salvation. God’s preservation is a preservation of our sanctification. And that’s why we can say that the ones who are convinced of the perseverance, the preservation of God, and who persevere are those who are sure of the love of the father for them and they are those who their sanctification is not an issue. They will grow in grace. God preserves not just our salvation and justification but our sanctification as well.

This is the great message of God’s word to us today. This is who you are.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you Lord God for the wonderful proclamation of who we are in Jesus. Thank you, Father, that it’s counterintuitive to us. We are used to commanding people and threatening them to do things. And yet you, Lord God, while there are threats in your word, the basic message of who we are is we are those who have been given the great love of you, our father.

Thank you for that relationship. Help us, Father, to walk this week as who we are—beloved children of yours. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.