Assurance

THOUGHTS FROM JOHN’S LETTERS

ASSURANCE

Because of the impact of false teachers, John has said several things that could have the unintended impact of unsettling some true believers. So in 2:12 – 14 he reassures them of his confidence that their faith is genuine. He addresses his readers as ‘dear children’, ‘fathers’ and ‘young men’, and by doing so includes all generations of believers, from the youngest to the oldest. What he says to each is true of all.

John gives us three points of assurance:

Your sins have been forgiven – 2:13.

All that John has written in 1:7, 1:9 and 2:1 & 2 he here affirms:

That by the blood of Jesus they have been purified from all sin – 1:7;

That because of God’s faithfulness and justice their sins have been forgiven and they have been cleansed from all unrighteousness, that is, from all legal guilt before God – 1:9;

That they have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the Righteous One – 2:1; and

That Jesus Christ has by his sacrificial death turned the wrath of God away from them – 2:2.

John wrote the verb ‘have been forgiven’ in the Perfect Tense to assure his readers, including us, that forgiveness is permanent: that at some point in the past (when they received Jesus Christ as Lord) God forgave their sins, and that forgiveness is still in place in the present. What John is saying is that ‘your sins have been forgiven and they still are forgiven.’

This permanence of forgiveness has got nothing to do with them. It was not grounded on any quality or any achievement of theirs to begin with. It cannot be diminished or removed because of some sin of theirs in the present. It is ‘on account of his name’ – Jesus Christ: our Advocate; Jesus Christ, the Righteous One; Jesus Christ, the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

You have known the Father – 2:13, 14.

Here again John used the Perfect Tense: you, at some point in the past, came to know the Father, and you still know him now. By saying ‘you have known the Father’ John states his confidence that they really have acknowledged Jesus Christ as the Son of God – the eternal One, who was there, with the Father, at the beginning, and who came to earth as a real human being. It is only through knowing Jesus Christ, the Son of God, that God the Father can be known:

‘no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him’ – Matthew 11:27.

‘Jesus replied, “If you knew me, you would know my Father also’ – John 8:19.

‘When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. When he looks at me, he sees the one sho sent me’ – John 12:44, 45.

‘We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true’ – 1John 5:20.

When John tells his readers ‘You have known him who is from the beginning ... you have known the Father’ in 2:13 & 14, he is affirming their true recognition of Jesus Christ, because it is only those who know Jesus Christ who can know the Father.

You have overcome the evil one – 2:13, 14.

Yet again John uses the Perfect Tense: you have overcome the evil one at some point in the past, and are still now in that position.

John refers to overcoming several times in this letter:

‘I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one’ – 2:13, 14.

‘You, dear children, have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world’ – 4:4.

‘...everyone who is born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God’ – 5:4,5.

In 2:14 John tells us that the one thing that has made the difference is the word of God. In the very act of believing the word of God, revealed by Jesus Christ and proclaimed by the apostles, believers have overcome the evil one. By that word, and through faith in that word, they have been redeemed, delivered, from his deceptions, from his accusations, from his dominion. The false perceptions of God and the separation from God that began in Genesis 3 as a result of the evil one’s deceptions have been overturned and reversed by the word of God.

By Jesus Christ the evil one’s deceptions about God have been exposed and proven false. By Jesus Christ’s atoning sacrifice and his advocacy/mediation all the evil one’s accusations have been legally disempowered.

May we each live with this threefold confidence: that our sins are all forgiven because of Jesus Christ; that we know God because of Jesus Christ; and that we have overcome the evil one because of Jesus Christ.

For a longer study on this assurance go to this study on 1John 2:12 – 14.