ASSURANCE OF SALVATION

JOHN’S FIRST LETTER - 2

Because of the presence of false teaching, which promoted a diminished view of Jesus Christ, John points out a number of attitudes and actions that expose a faulty understanding of the truth:

Claiming to have fellowship with Jesus Christ, yet living in the darkness – 1:6.
Claiming to be without sin – 1:8, 10.
Claiming to know him, yet not obeying his commands – 2:4.
Claiming to be in the light, but hating our brother – 2:9 – 11; 3:11-20; 4:20, 21.
Loving the world – 2:15.
Continuing to sin, that is, continuing to live a life of sin – 3:4 – 10.
Not loving – 4:8; 5:2,3.

If we are or do the above, John says:

We lie and do not live by the truth – 1:6.
The truth is not in us – 1:8.
We make God out to be a liar and the truth is not in us – 1:10.
Are a liar, and the truth is not in us – 2:4.
We are still in the darkness, and are blinded by the darkness – 2:9, 11.
The love of the Father is not in us – 2:15.
We have neither seen Jesus Christ nor know him – 3:6.
We are of the devil – 3:8, 10.
We do not have eternal life in us – 3:15.
The love of God is not in us – 3:17.
We are not from God, but from the world – 4:4-6.
We do not know God – 4:8.
We are liars – 4:20.

To put it simply, we do not know the truth, we do not know Jesus Christ, and we do not have eternal life. We have never been saved. We still belong to the world and the devil.

In contrast, those who do know God, who know the truth, who have acknowledged that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who came in the flesh, express that knowledge, that truth, that personal acknowledgement, in the way they live. Their actions and attitudes are the evidence that their verbal confession that ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’ is more than mere words, more than an academic statement. What they know with their minds they also know deeply in their hearts. What they confess with their lips they also demonstrate with their lives.

It is easy enough to say ‘Jesus is Lord’, but if saying it is all that it is, it is nothing, and it accomplishes nothing.

Jesus pointed this out:

‘Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven’ – Matthew 7:21.

James pointed this out:

‘…faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead’ – James 2:17.

Paul’s statement in Romans 10:9 ‘I you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved’ does not contradict these statements of Jesus and James. Rather Paul affirms them: that the verbal acknowledgement that Jesus is Lord goes hand in hand with a deep inner conviction.

Real faith in the real Jesus includes both.

John reported: ‘…many people saw the miraculous signs he was doing and believed in his name. But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all men. He did not need man’s testimony about man, for he knew what was in a man’ – John 2:23-25.

There is ‘faith’ that claims to believe in Jesus, but the way a person lives their life, as John points out in his letter, exposes that claim as false.

There is faith that actually does believe in Jesus; that faith is proved genuine by the way that person lives.

We are not saved by how we live; but how we live expresses whether the faith we claim to have is real faith in the real Jesus. Only real faith, in the real Jesus, saves.

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