ASSURANCE OF SALVATION

JOHN’S FIRST LETTER - 1

John wrote his first letter because of the presence of false teaching that interfered with the truth about Jesus Christ. It promoted a diminished view of Jesus Christ. A diminished Christ is not the real Christ. Faith in such a lesser Jesus is ultimately useless.

John begins his letter by affirming that he and the other apostles preached the authentic Gospel about the real Jesus Christ. In 1:1-3, John identifies Jesus Christ as God – he is ‘from the beginning’, he is ‘the Word of life’, he is ‘the eternal life’, he was ‘with the Father’, he is ‘the Son’. John also identifies Jesus Christ as human – ‘that which we have heard, which we have looked at and our hands have touched’, ‘has appeared to us’, ‘what we have seen and heard’. The real Jesus is both God and human. Knowing this real Jesus gives assurance of salvation. Hence,John wrote in verse 4 ‘We write this to make your joy complete’.

To deny either the true and full deity of Jesus Christ or the true and full humanity of Jesus Christ is to believe in a non-real Jesus. Such faith in such a ‘Jesus’ simply cannot save.

John refers to this powerless kind of ‘faith’ several times:

‘They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us’ – 2:19.

‘Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist – he denies and Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father…’ – 2:22, 23.

‘… every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God’ – 4:3.

‘Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son’ – 5:10.

‘…he who does not have the Son of God does not have life’ – 5:12.

In contrast, John says about true faith in the real Jesus:

‘…whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also’ – 2:23.

‘Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God…’ 4:2.

‘If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God’ – 4:15.

‘Everyone who acknowledges that Jesus is the Christ is born of God …’ 5:1.

‘Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God’ – 5:5.

‘He who has the Son has life; … I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life’ – 5:12, 13.

These verses, with their contrasting views of Jesus Christ, show us that the key failure, that leads to all the other failures that John speaks about in this letter, is the failure to know and believe in the real Jesus Christ. The person who acknowledges the real Jesus Christ cannot lose their salvation. In receiving him, they have also received ‘eternal life’, because Jesus Christ is eternal life. He is the salvation that he gives. – 1:2; 5:11-13, 20. The person whose ‘Jesus’ is not the real Jesus has never been ‘saved’. They cannot lose their salvation, because they never had salvation.

So John warns his original readers, and us also, not to listen to those who shrink Jesus: not to put aside the true gospel about the real Jesus, not to substitute a diminished, non-real Jesus, for the real Jesus:

‘See to it that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you’ – 2:24.

‘I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. …the anointing you received from him remains in you … that anointing is real, not counterfeit – just as it has taught you, remain in him’ – 2:26-27.

‘Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God’ – 4:1.

John closes off his letter with a strong affirmation:

‘We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true – even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life’ – 1John 5:20.

And a strong warning as his final word:

‘Dear children, keep yourselves from idols’ – 5:21. That is, keep yourselves from the idolatrous, substitute, powerless, non-real ‘Jesus’ promoted by false teaching.

It’s only the real Jesus – the Lord, the Son of God, the true God, who came to earth as one of us – who grants us assured salvation.

[Note: we will look further at John’s letter in the next meditation.]