CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
1 John 3:18. In word.—Profession, mere boasting. True love finds expression in service. “St. John hints that there is some danger of this conventionality amongst his friends, and earnestly exhorts them to genuineness.”
1 John 3:20. Heart condemn.—There are always sensitive souls, who are much too ready to think evil of themselves, and distress themselves with their evil-thinking. Better never attempt to appraise our own spiritual life and progress; leave it with God, and bend all attention on further progressing.
1 John 3:22. Whatsoever we ask.—Not whatsoever anybody asks. The promise is limited to those who are in the full privilege, power, and holiness of sonship. We receive because we are the Father’s children.
1 John 3:23. His commandment.—One but inclusive, so as to appear as two. Believe.—Not by a mere act of faith, but by a continuous daily trusting, which kept up vital relations. Love one another.—The certain outward sign of our loving and trusting Christ.
1 John 3:24. Dwelleth in Him.—Better use St. John’s favourite word “abideth.” Spirit.—Which St. Paul represents as the “earnest” and the “seal.” “The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of God.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— 1 John 3:18-24
Assuring our Hearts.—Christian assurance, the confidence that we have passed from death unto life, the restfulness of knowing that we are reconciled to God, and are in a gracious standing with Him, is not only desirable, it is even necessary, if we are to live earnest Christian lives, free from the fret and worry of a continual uncertainty. It is not “a point we should long to know”; it ought not to “cost us anxious thought.” It should be a settled thing; the evidences should be clear and sufficient. It should keep a settled thing, for the evidences should be maintained, and should be effectively persuasive upon us day by day. And it must be fully understood that assurance is attainable. It is often sought in wrong ways, through some particular setting of belief, on some minor point of Christian truth, or through some definite phase of religious feeling. St. John delivers us from these mistaken ideas when he sets before us the true grounds on which our hearts may be assured before God.
I. We know that we have passed from death unto life, if we are living a life of active charity and service to others. Then there must have come a change over us; we must be other than our old selves. Everybody looks after his own interests first. Everybody except the man with the new life in Christ; and he looks after Christ’s interests first, other people’s interests next, and his own interests last. “He is not his own.” “To Him to live is Christ.” Or to put it in another form, the service of brotherhood is the satisfying proof of the sonship.
II. We know, by our inner life of soul-culture. “If our heart condemn us not, we have boldness towards God.” It is true that the witness of our heart is not always reliable, and we sometimes have to appeal to God against our own hearts. We often have to when by our hearts we mean only our feelings. But understand that our soul-culture is meant, the growth, under all holy influences, of the spiritual life that has been quickened, and then we may see that our hearts can bring us assurance. Their growth in trust, joy, love, hope, says continually that we must be standing in the full saving relations.
III. We know, through our experiences of answer to prayer. The psalmist persuaded himself that he must be standing in the love of God, for he says, “This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.” This is a way of regarding our answers to prayer, of which sufficient is not made. We think too much of what we get in such answers. We think too little of what is involved in our being answered at all. Our Lord Jesus said to His Father, “I know that Thou hearest Me always.” His assurance rested on His being in such full acceptance with the Father. And if God hears us always, we also may be quite sure that we stand in full acceptance with Him.
IV. We know, by the sense we have of God’s relationship to us. He hath “sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts,” and we feel His Fatherhood. We “abide in Him,” as sons do in the father. He “abides in us,” as fathers do in their sons. The supreme fact concerning us is, that we are “sons of God.” And the assurance that we are is found in our peculiar and characteristic apprehension of God.
V. We know, by the inward impulse of the Spirit. “Hereby we know that He abideth in us, by the Spirit which He gave us.” God is never anywhere as an inactive Being. The quiescent Brahm is man’s conception, not God’s revelation, of Himself. Wherever He is, He is active. If He is in the soul of man, if He is in our soul, then He is active; and the movings and the impulses of the Spirit are His activity; and through those impulses we are assured that He is abiding in us. Assurances based on such grounds as these are altogether healthy, ennobling, and inspiring; and thus we may all “assure our hearts.”
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
1 John 3:18. Profession and Practice.—“My little children, let us not love in word, neither with the tongue; but in deed and truth.” St. John is so full of the family feeling, and uses so constantly the family figures, that we are tempted to think he must have been a family man, centre of a happy family circle. It may, however, only be that he was saturated with the idea of Christ’s Sonship, and that gave tone and colour to every setting of truth and persuasion of duty. The term “little children” here is used in a general sense of the believers, but it suggests the simplicity, humility, and receptiveness which ought to be their characteristics. In the teaching of this text, as in so many other cases, St. John shows how he had been influenced by the teachings of his Divine Master, and did but reproduce them, bearing a certain impress from his own thought and experience. The best illustrations of our text, and of the duty enjoined in it, may be gained by showing how much our Lord made of doing His will—not knowing it merely, not talking about it only, but really doing it in the energetic endeavour of a life of service and charity.
I. The connection of “doing” with “knowing” is characteristic of Christ’s teachings.—We find it constantly made the topic of His parables. In that of the “ten talents,” the Master is represented as expecting, and properly expecting, that the servants who know His will shall be doing, and multiply their talent-trusts by wise trading. In that of the “husbandman,” we find the Lord of the vineyard sending yearly for his proportion of the fruits of the husbandman’s toils. In that of the “sower and the seed,” the farmer looks for a return of his labour and expenditure, hoping to reap thirty, sixty, or a hundred-fold of what the soil has done. The “barren fig tree” is represented as reasonably cut down, because it did nothing in response to all the efforts made to urge it to well-doing. In the parable of the “judgment,” the Divine approval is given to those who did something, who did “visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction”; and the Divine indignation rests on those who knew, who could, yet who did nothing that was merciful and unselfish. Our Lord even exhibits this necessity for doing in His own life and conduct. Anticipating the life, as a twelve-year-old boy, He said, “Wist ye not that I must be about My Father’s business?” Of Him it could be said, “He went about doing good.” At Jacob’s well, though weary with His journey, He roused Himself to talk to the Samaritan woman, when the opportunity for doing His Father’s will was presented to Him. He could not be satisfied with only talking about the Father, though that was so often the duty of the hour. He could say, “My meat and My drink is to do the will of My Father.” And at the close of His life, He could cherish no nobler thought of the life He had lived than this, “I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do.” His direct teachings bore on the same subject—the supreme importance of doing as well as knowing, doing as well as feeling. “He that heareth these sayings of Mine, and doeth them.” “If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine.” “He that doeth the will of God … the same is My brother, and and sister, and mother.” “Yea, blessed are they that hear the word, and do it.” “Why call ye Me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” He told us that we can always judge things and persons by their “fruits”—that is, by what they do. He likened His disciples to “salt,” which does something, savours and seasons; to a “light,” which does something, shines in the room, and enables those present to see their work; to a “city set on a hill,” which does something, acts as a beacon to guide pilgrims on their journey across the broad plain. As if to leave a last impression on those disciples, our Lord rose from His place at the last meal with them, took a towel, girded Himself, and reaching the ewer and basin, did the servant’s work, pouring water over the feet of those disciples, and wiping them with the towel wherewith He was girded. And then, returning to His seat, He solemnly said, “Know ye what I have done unto you? Ye call Me Master and Lord; and ye say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye ought also to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that ye also should do as I have done to you. If ye know these things, blessed are ye if ye do them.” Our Lord showed no sort of fear that doing would nourish a legal spirit, or tempt men to make their good works a ground of acceptance with God. His earnestness shows His sense of our graver danger. We are all much more likely to satisfy ourselves with professions, and to become only good-looking, leafy fig trees, on which, when He draweth nigh in His hunger, He can find no figs. Our peril is, that we may be induced to sever asunder what God has joined together, “knowing” and “doing,” and so be like the foolish man who built his house upon the sand. Doing put in place of Christ is always wrong. Doing for Christ’s sake is always right.
II. The connection of “doing” with “knowing” which both Christ and His apostles taught, is still absolutely necessary.—
1. It is needed to satisfy us, and others, of the reality of our piety. For that piety is like a seed; and if it be not a worthless seed, if there be any real germ of life in that seed, it will do something; it will crack the soil; it will send a green blade forth; it will show itself to the light. A seed that does nothing is worth nothing. A Christian who does nothing is worth nothing before God or men. Indeed, nobody can see anything that is gained by his calling himself a Christian. Let us be quite sure of this, and let us keep the thought ever present before us—men expect to see our religion influencing our conduct. We expect this in others, and are hard upon them if we cannot find their piety in their every-day relations. We may well be reminded, that the people about us are looking at our doings, and will speak dishonouring things of our Lord Christ, if they cannot see His spirit in all our relationships. Solemnly let us say to one another—No creed, however correct it may be, will ever make up, before God, or before men, for unsubdued tempers, unrestrained habits, tyranny at home, offences given abroad, self-indulgences, or neglect of the sick whom we might visit, the poor whom we might feed, or the naked whom we might clothe. Search and see what personal satisfactions you can gain as you compare your “knowing” with your “doing,” your “profession” with your “practice.” Inquire and see whether there is abroad, among those whom you have to do with day by day, an impression which leads them to say concerning you, “Well reported of for good works.” Would the widows and the poor folk come about your house, if you lay dead, showing the coats and garments which you made, as they came crowding round the house of Dorcas, that early Christian woman, who was full of good works and alms-deeds that she did?
2. It is necessary in order to prove the truth of Christianity itself. This system of religion makes marvellous pretensions. It is the last and highest revelation of God to men: it is the supreme remedy for the deepest human sorrows. It is God’s own sunshine to bring spring-time life to an earth lying cold and dead in the long winter of sin. But how shall it support the pretensions? Only by living examples of its power—only as the men and women who profess to have received the life in Christ do something. Experiment tests everything. Constantly fresh experiments are needed. Select a few professsing Christians. See what they are doing. Do not fear to apply the test—judge Christianity by its fruits. In every age it has stood this test. When all the great arguments and evidences have wearied us, we may say—See what Christianity has done. The spirit-possessed, the blind, the lame, the drunkard, the strong-tempered, the selfish, all have been changed; and the charity of the world is to-day in the hands of those who are constrained by the love of Christ. If you would prove to all around you the truth of Christianity, use argument and evidence with all wisdom, as far as ever you can; but this, above everything else, we would say to you—Show men what it can do. Men may resist eloquence; they may even refute reasoning; they may deny your evidences; but they cannot resist the power of goodness. It is like leaven, and, unbeknown, it leavens. It is like the morning light. It peeps above the eastern ridge, flinging great lines of glory up the sky. The night darkness does not like it, but it must feel it. That darkness will have to fly; for the morning light will grow in power until it makes the shadowless noonday.
1 John 3:22-23. Keeping God’s Commandments.—This position taken by St. John is but putting in Christian form the universal condition on which Divine favour must rest. It is declared in the most general way that “the Lord is far from the wicked, but He heareth the prayer of the righteous” (Proverbs 15:29). And in his gospel St. John represents the people as arguing about Christ on the basis of commonly received principles and opinions: “We know that God heareth not sinners: but if a man be a worshipper of God, and do His will [keep His commandments], him He heareth” (John 9:31).
I. Keeping commandments may be regarded as acts of obedience. It is seldom seen with sufficient clearness that moral training, for the child or the child-nation, must necessarily begin with formal acts of obedience. The child must do what it is told to do. Israel must obey the elaborate ten laws of Sinai in the actual details of every-day life and relationship. And even Christian life properly begins in formal acts of obedience.
II. Keeping commandments may be regarded as the expression of sonship.—The true child in a home never tries to obey; he obeys without trying, because obedience is the natural and proper spirit of sonship. Some alien force must be influencing a child if he does not obey. Let a man be born of God, his new life will certainly express itself in keeping God’s commandments.
III. Keeping commandments may be tested by the obedience of two commandments (1 John 3:23).—
1. Our belief in the Son-name of Jesus. There is no point of persuasion if St. John is assumed to be referring to saving faith in Christ, or to faith in Him as Messiah. It must never be lost from view that he is writing to professing Christians, to those who have the life in Christ. He is writing to them about the higher life. What Christians are called by God to do is to believe in the Sonship of Christ, in Him as the Son of God, and in all that such belief involves concerning the actual Fatherly relations of God. If this be the test commandment, how sinful is the hesitation of Christians to receive the full revelation of the Sonship!
2. Our love for those who are our brothers because they are with us sons, through the Son-name of Jesus.
1 John 3:24. The Spirit’s Inward Witness.—“And hereby we know that He abideth in us, by the Spirit which He gave us.” There are two witnesses to our standing before God, to our son-ship in Christ with the eternal Father. There is the witness of our own spirit, and there is the witness of the Holy Ghost; but the testimony of the Holy Ghost is an inward witness, given through the spirit of the man.
I. The witness of our own spirit to our having the Father, and being sons.—It may be asked, Whence comes the assurance of our sonship to our human parents? Whence that spirit of restfulness and satisfaction in our relationship which we felt so strongly when we dwelt at home, and which we have even now, though far away from home, or though even the old home has been broken up, and those who made it so dear have passed away? There is a witness of our own spirit. That spirit tells us it holds cherished memories of home life and joys. Our spirit reminds us that, when utterly helpless, a mother’s bosom was our resting-place; broken rest was thought but little of by her; daily trouble seemed no weight to her, for the greatness of the mother-love she bore us. Our spirit tells us that the love which testified itself in such ways then has been a growing love, ever finding new, tender, and wonderful ways of expression. The testimony of our own spirit about the past is one great assurance of our sonship. But the inward witness tells of more than this; it speaks of our own views, ideas, affections, and emotions. Our spirit bids us see, that towards our father we feel a kind of respect and reverence, and towards our mother we have affections and emotions, which we need some new, and almost heaven-born, word to express. Our spirit testifies to a deference to their opinion, a desire to please them, a willingness to obey them, and a confidence in them, which is the most certain inward witness of our sonship. We are quite satisfied and happy; it is the testimony of our own spirit that we are the children of these parents, and that we are preserving our relationship. So we might ask, What is our assurance that we are children of this beloved England? Do we need to appeal to Magna Charta? or must we anxiously collect and examine the birth, marriage, and death certificates of our ancestry? Surely not. We are abundantly satisfied with the testimony of our own spirit that we have the English thought, and the English ways and habits; and that, in the temper of the child, we are obeying England’s laws, and glorying in her dignities and privileges. This seems to be very plain. And in this way there is a testimony of our own spirit to the reality of sonship with God. Inquire of your own spirit. Is there not cherished in it a memory, a thought—cherished in its very holiest place—of the wonderful love of God in Christ to you: a memory of a great gift, the offering of saving love and pity, once made for you? Does not your spirit tell you it has a most hallowed, inner shrine, and in that shrine you keep the memory of that ever-blessed One, whose beautiful life of heavenly, divine charities closed so sadly, so shamefully, in a death that won life and heaven for you? Does not your spirit tell how that shrine has been opened in the hours of silent meditation, and sweetest odours of infinite love have streamed forth, making fragrant all the temple of your soul? Does not your spirit tell that the memory and the thought of Christ exercise continual power upon you, swaying your nature as with the might of some great principle? If then your spirit has such things as these to tell you, may you not be sure that this is like the child’s memory of parental love?—it is the pledge of your sonship; it is the witness of your own spirit that you are the child of God. But beyond this witness of a cherished memory, our spirit gives testimony to our sonship with God in our views, feelings, dispositions, and in the spirit and conduct of our life. Our spirit renders witness to us of the reality of the great spiritual change that has been wrought in us. Our hearts will tell us whether we are the same now that we were some ten or twenty years ago, or it may be even a few months since. As we set our old life, in its principle and in its spirit, over against our present life, in its principle and in its spirit, we are sensible of a most decided contrast, which cannot possibly be explained by the mere fact of our having grown older. As we compare the things which we loved and sought in those old days with the things we are loving and seeking now, we say—Our present life is not indeed what we would have it to be; still it is different, most manifestly different. “We were sometime darkness, now are we light in the Lord.” Our own spirit testifies within us to the change. Our own spirit witnesses also to a new view of God, and of the relation in which we stand to Him. Our own spirit witnesses to our thinking differently now of goodness and of holiness. Goodness was the highest conception we once could reach, and we meant by it, ordering our life within certain prescribed limits. That has given place to a conception of the claims of holiness; by which we mean a life in conformity with the will of God—a life informed and possessed with the spirit of allegiance, devotion, and love to Him.
II. The witness of the Holy Spirit to our sonship with God.—That Spirit works through the testimony that is given by our spirit. The Holy Ghost does not give oral testimony; He does not speak even by “a still small voice,” caught only by the attentive ear. He does not come with observation, in extraordinary and overwhelming manifestation. He comes as a silent, secret, inward, Divine force of life, strengthening and renewing those who are good and pure in heart and purpose; He comes purifying, perfecting, guiding the witness of our own spirit. In two ways we may recognise the concurring witness of the Holy Spirit and our spirit. We, with our whole powers of spirit, seek to know the mind and will of God, as they have been revealed to us in His word. It is the Holy Spirit who enables us to gain true apprehensions, and to lay personal hold of the truths and promises it contains. He leads into all truth. And we, with our whole power of spirit, seek to cherish all godly emotions, and, in bringing forth good fruit, to live the godly life. It is the Holy Spirit who quickens those emotions, and all the fruits we can produce are but varieties of the “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, and patience,” which we know are the immediate fruits of the Spirit. We might with truth say, “I live, yet not I, the Holy Ghost liveth in me.” It is the recognition of this inner life, the consciousness of this Divine indwelling, which brings rest and peace, and the impulse to nobler things, to the Christian.
CHAPTER 4