First John/Chapter 5:1-9/Commentary

First John Chapter 5:1-9

Outline I. Faith, Obedience and Love: 5:1-5 II. The Sonship of Jesus Verified: 5:6-12 III. The Resulting Confidence: 5:13-17 IV. Final Admonitions: 5:18-21 “We have by now become familiar with the three tests which John applies, with repeated but varied emphasis. In chapter 2 he describes all three tests in order, obedience (3-6), love (7-11) and belief (18-27). Now in the brief opening paragraph of chapter 5, we meet the three together again. The words ‘believe’ and ‘faith’ occur in verses 1,4 and 5, ‘love’ in verses 1,2 and 3, and ‘obey’ or ‘keep his commandments’ in verses 2 and 3. What he is at pains to show is the essential unity of his three-fold thesis. He has not chosen these tests arbitrarily or at random and stuck them together artificially. On the contrary, he shows that they are so closely woven together into a single, coherent fabric that it is difficult to unpick and disentangle the threads” (Stot pp. 171-172). We might say that much of what John wrote is a commentary on the two great commandments, love God and love your neighbor as yourself.

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1John 5:1 “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is begotten of God: and whosoever loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him” “Whosoever”: “Lit., everyone that believeth” (Vincent p. 362). Throughout this book John has stressed that salvation is open to all who would place their trust in Jesus Christ (John 3:16). The whole book contradicts the concept of Calvinism, for Calvinism denies that “whosoever” can have a relationship with God. “Believeth”: Continues to believe. “That Jesus is the Christ”: The faith that saves must believe something very specific about Jesus, i.e. that He is the Christ. Again we find an atack upon the Gnostics, who tried to distinguish the human Jesus from the divine Christ. “Is begotten of God”: “Is a child of God” (Wey). This statement actually connects with the last chapter. John has been talking about loving our brethren (4:7-21). Now John answers the question, “But who is my brother?”

“Clearly the sons of God will manifest the fact that they have been begoten of God by recognizing and believing in God's eternal, only begoten Son” (Stot p. 172). The true child of God will recognize that Jesus is the Son of God. Some people try to argue, “But we are all God's children”. Not according to God. Only the person who submits to and trusts Jesus is a child of God. “Continuing in the status of a child of God depends on continued faith in Jesus” (Roberts p. 126). Which also includes holding to the true faith about Jesus. From other passages we learn that the "faith" in the above passage includes obedience. In Galatians 3:26-27, such faith includes submitting to baptism.

“And whosoever loveth him that beget”: “Whoever loves the Father” (NASV). “Loveth also that is begotten of him”: “Loves the child born of Him” (NASV). The person begoten of God in the context is another Christian (5:1).

When one becomes a Christian, they become part of God's family (1 Timothy 3:15; Galatians 3:26ff), a family that includes other children. “Family love is a part of nature. The child naturally (or should naturally) and instinctively loves his parents; and he just as naturally loves the brothers and sisters whom his father begat. Put much more simply, that means: ‘If we love the father, we

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also love his child’” (Barclay p. 121). The line of reasoning is as follows: “To believe that Jesus is the Christ is evidence that one is begoten of God. To be begoten of God necessitates loving God. To love God requires one to love God's children. Those who love God's children have been begoten of God. Therefore, to believe that Jesus is the Christ requires one to love God's children” (Woods p. 309). From this statement we also can see the immaturity and selfishness of the person who can't get along with their brethren. It is like the child in a large family who insists that they have no obligations towards any of their other brothers and sisters. Too many Christians want an "only-child" relationship with God. 1John 5:2 “Hereby we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and do His commandments” “Hereby”: “By this” (NASV). “This is how we can be sure” (Gspd). “We know that we love the children of God”: John gives us another objective test, to make sure that we simply haven't adopted a mere intellectual faith or a love in word only. But how are we to know that we truly love God's children...or how may we know when we love the children of God in the right manner?

“When we love God”: Thus love for God and love of brethren are inseparable (4:20). “And do His commandments”: Present active tense, keep on doing.

Thus the faith mentioned in 5:1 is a faith that obeys. Woods notes, “It was pointed out that the faith by which one accepts the proposition that Jesus is the Christ, the evidence of sonship, must include obedience. There (5:1), faith is declared to be the test of sonship; here, love of God and obedience. It follows, therefore, that the love and obedience of this verse are embraced in the faith of that (i.e. the previous verse)” (p. 310).

Love will motivate us to keep every commandment that impacts our brethren (Romans 13:8-10). Observe that there isn't such a thing as a "brotherly love" which is divorced from obeying God's commands. Too many try to argue, “I can love my brethren without having to keep a bunch of rules”. In fact, love can't express itself outside of God's commands (John 14:15; 1 Cor. 13:4-8).

Some definite rules and regulations govern "love" (Romans 13:8-10; Romans 14:15; Galatians 5:13).

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1John 5:3 “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments: and His commandments are not grievous” “For this is the love of God”: “For the love of God consists in this” (P.P. Comm. p. 139). Love is not a vague concept, or something that can't be defined. Neither is love different for every individual. Everything and anything isn't an expression of love. Our society may resent the following statement, but an objective test does exist for what is an expression of love and what isn't. “The love of God”: This is how a love for God is expressed properly. This is a real love for God in contrast to a mere verbal profession.

“That we keep His commandments”: Observe that John includes himself ("we").

“That we keep on keeping” (Robertson p. 238).

“His commandments”: Observe the plural “commandments”. It is not enough to simply keep the commandments which are easiest for us or which don't require much effort on our part.

“And His commandments are not grievous”: Observe that these are not the words of someone who is naive or shut up in a comfortable study. “These are the words, not merely of an inspired apostle, but of an aged man, with a wide experience of life and its difficulties” (P.P. Comm. p. 139). “Grievous”: A burden, heavy, irksome, hard to keep or difficult to fulfill. Thus we shouldn't find it difficult to express our love for God. The above statement is a logical conclusion. Since God is love and God wants us to express our love for Him, and the expression of that love involves keeping His commandments, then mankind must be able to obey such commands. Jesus claimed that Divine regulations are lighter than what we will find from other masters (Mathew 11:28-29). Stot noted, “God's will is ‘good, acceptable and perfect’ (Romans 12:2). It is the will of an all-wise, all-loving Father who seeks our highest welfare” (p. 173). This is one reason why we must oppose every atempt to add human rules or substitute human traditions for the will of God. For human rules are often a burden (Mathew 23:4).

Barclay reminds us, “for love no duty is too hard and no task is too great...There is an old and often-retold story. Someone once met a lad going to school long before the days when transport was provided. The lad was

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carrying a smaller boy on his back, and the smaller boy was clearly lame and unable to walk. The stranger said to the lad, ‘Do you carry him to school every day?’ ‘Yes’, said the boy. ‘That's a heavy burden for you to carry’, said the stranger. ‘He's no' a burden’, said the boy. ‘He's my brother’. Love turned the burden into no burden at all. It must be so with us and Christ. His commandments are not a burden, they are a privilege; for to have to carry them in an opportunity to show our love” (pp. 123-124).

This also means that the commandments given are designed for the man God created. God never requires of us something which we cannot fulfill. Some people are trying to talk about a love affair with God that doesn't include obedience to rules. That's just as immature and selfish as the man who wants all the benefits of marriage, without making the commitment. A love affair with God involves keeps the rules of God, because love is anxious please such a wonderful Creator.

1John 5:4 “For whatsoever is begotten of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that hath overcome the world, {even} our faith” “For whatsoever is begotten of God”: “Whatever is born of God” (NASV).

“For”: “Because”, to indicate to us why the commandments of God aren't grievous. “Whatsoever”: “John uses the neuter gender, to comprehend all sorts of persons; males and females, old and young, Jews and Gentiles, freeman and slaves” (Macknight p. 103). “Begotten of God”: A child of God. And in the context, the person who faithfully remains a child of God, continues to trust and obey God, continues to love God and their brethren, continues to believe that Jesus is the Christ (5:1-3). “Overcometh”: “Conquer, overcome, vanquish” (Arndt p. 539). “Present active indicative, a continuous victory because a continuous struggle, ‘Keeps on conquering the world’ (the sum of forces antagonistic to the spiritual life” (Robertson p. 238).

“The world”: “Gathers up the sum of all the limited, transitory powers opposed to God which make obedience difficult” (Westcot). “The reason why we do not find the commandments of God burdensome lies not,

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however, only in their character. It lies also in ourselves. The commandments of God appear intolerably burdensome to the world. We have been delivered from the dominion of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of God's dear Son (Col. 1:13). The spell of the old life has been broken. The fascination of the world has lost its appeal” (Stot p. 174).

Overcoming the world involves: (a) Rejecting the false teaching found in the world, i.e. like Gnosticism. (b) “Sometimes these are moral pressures--the outlook, standards and preoccupations of a godless, secular society, ‘the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life’ (2:16). Sometimes they are intellectual (heresy) and sometimes physical (persecutions). But whatever form the world's assault upon the Church may take, the victory is ours” (Stot p. 175).

“And this is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our faith”: If men and women during O.T. times could overcome the world, even when they had a more limited knowledge of God and apart from the knowledge that the Son of God would die for our sins, then certainly we can overcome!

(See Hebrews 11). The faith that enables us to overcome is clearly more than mere intellectual assent. “The verb ‘overcometh’ is in the present tense and thus denotes a continuous struggle. The faithful one continues to overcome because ‘his seed’ (the Word of God, Luke 8:11), continues to abide in him (1 John 3:9)” (Woods p. 312). Faith overcomes, because faith is grounded in some of the following truths. Barclay notes, “What, then, is this conquering faith? It is the belief that Jesus is the Son of God. That is to say, the conquering faith is belief in the Incarnation. Why should that be so important and so victory-giving? If we believe in the incarnation, it means that we believe that in Jesus Christ; God entered the world and took our human life upon Himself. If God did that, it means that God cared enough for men to lay aside His glory. If God did that, it means that God shares in all the manifold activities of human life. It means that God is involved in the human situation.

It means that everything that happens to us is fully understood by God. Faith in the incarnation is the conviction that God shares and God cares. We have the indestructible hope of final victory. The world did its worst to Jesus. It did everything humanly possible to break Him and to eliminate Him--and it

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failed” (pp. 125-126). Stot put it this way, “The unshakable conviction that the Jesus of history is ‘the Christ’ (5:1) the pre-existent ‘Son of God’ (5:5), who came to bring us salvation and life (4:14,9), enables us to triumph over the world. Confidence in the deity of Jesus is the one weapon against which neither the error, nor the evil, nor the force of the world can prevail. E.M. Blaiklock rightly points out the daring of this first century claim that the victory belongs not to Rome, then reigning supreme, but to Christ and the humble believer in Christ” (p. 175).

1John 5:5 “And who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” “Who is he that overcometh the world”: “It may be asked, What is involved in the proposition which one must believe in order to overcome the world?”

(Woods p. 312). “That Jesus is the Son of God”: “To believe anything less about Jesus is to believe in somebody who does not have the ability to save us from the power of the godless world” (Marshall p. 231).

Proof that Jesus is the Son of God “We have already noted that the previous paragraph begins and ends with a reference to faith, viz. believing that the human Jesus is (i.e. is the same Person as) the Christ. But how can we come to faith in the divine-human Person of Jesus? John's answer here, as in the Gospel, is that faith depends on testimony, and that the reasonableness of believing in Jesus is grounded upon the validity of the testimony which is borne to Him. Verses 6-9 describe the nature of the testimony (by the three witnesses) and verses 10-12 its results; while in verses 13-17 the Christian's consequent assurance is unfolded” (Stot p. 176).

1John 5:6 “This is he that came by water and blood, {even} Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood” “This is he that came by water and blood”: Which admits: (1) One came. (2) The one who came is Jesus Christ. (3) He came by water and the blood.

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“Came”: “Make one's appearance, come before the public, ‘he that publicly appeared and approved himself (to be God's Son)’” (Thayer p. 251). “He it is whose coming was atested by means of Water and Blood” (TCNT).

Therefore, the "coming" must be more than His incarnation, but rather, His public appearance as a teacher come from God. “Water and blood”: Various views exist concerning what is referred to by the expressions "water" and "the blood". A popular view has been that they refer to the water and blood that flowed from the side of Jesus in John 19:34. Yet a beter view does exist: The water and blood in the above verse contributed to demonstrating that Jesus is the Son of God. They seem to refer to events that definitely marked Him as the Son of God. Therefore, the water seems to refer to His baptism, at which time Divine evidence was given of His Son-ship (Mathew 3:16-17 “This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased”; John 1:31-34.) The blood refers to His death upon the cross (John 19:34). Thus we find one witness at the beginning of His ministry and one witness at the end.

Behind this statement is probably also an atack against various elements of Gnosticism. They rejected the full doctrine of the incarnation. Various false teachers would teach that at the baptism of Jesus, the Divine Christ descended and came into the man Jesus then at the end of his life, the Divine Christ departed from Jesus and returned to glory, thus it was only the human Jesus who suffered on the cross and who was afterwards resurrected. Hence only a human Jesus died for our sins. 'It is clear that all such teaching robs the life and death of Jesus of all value for us. By seeking to protect God from all contact with human pain and the human situation, it removes God from the act of redemption and empties the Cross of its value” (Barclay p. 128).

“It was to refute this fundamental error that John, knowing that Jesus was the Christ before and during the baptism and during and after the cross, described Him as "he who came through water and blood. Cerinthus and his followers are dead, and their particular creed has no adherents today. Yet all who deny the incarnation, whether or not they believe that the Person of Jesus underwent a change at the baptism to fit Him for His public ministry, deny that He came by water and blood. This is no trivial error. If the Son of

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God did not take to Himself our nature in His birth and our sins in His death, He cannot reconcile us to God” (Stot pp. 178-179). The death of Jesus proved that He was the Son of God: (a) Fulfilled O.T. prophecy (Isaiah 53; Psalm 22). (b) He confessed His Sonship at the trial (Mathew 26:63-65). (c) The Father provided His testimony in the events that surrounded His death (Mathew 27:51-53). (d) And His death naturally includes His resurrection (Romans 1:4).

“Even Jesus Christ”: One person came through water and blood, that one person was Jesus Christ.

1John 5:7 “And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is the truth” “It is the Spirit”: The Holy Spirit. “That beareth witness”: In the context the Spirit must testify (bear witness) concerning the same thing as the water and the blood, i.e. that Jesus is the Son of God. “Because”: Why does the Spirit bear witness or what qualifications does the Spirit possess to afford such testimony? “The Spirit is the truth”: A witness that can neither deceive or be deceived. Jesus spoke of the Holy Spirit as the “Spirit of Truth” (i.e. whose characteristic is truthfulness or Who reveals God's truth) (John 16:13).

“Conveying either that He is ‘essentially fited’ to bear witness, or that He is ‘constrained’ to do so (Westcot). The truth cannot be hid” (Stot p. 180). In addition, since the Spirit is also Deity, He is completely qualified to reveal the mind of God on this subject (1 Cor. 2:10-11). The Spirit bore testimony at the baptism of Jesus (John 1:31-33). The Spirit also has revealed all the information we need to believe in Jesus (John 15:26; 16:14; 20:30-31). This testimony is found in the writings of the apostles (Ephesians 3:3-5).

1John 5:8 “For there are three who bear witness, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and the three agree in one” “The three agree in one”: “The three are in agreement” (NASV). That is, all three bear the same testimony concerning Jesus, i.e. He is the Son of God. “The Spirit”: “Is mentioned first because He is the only living Witness, and

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the testimony of the water and the blood depend upon the revelation of the Spirit. The Spirit's revelation in the Scriptures speaks to all generations” (Woods p. 314). “The importance of the ‘three witnesses’ is that according to the law no charge could be preferred against a man in court unless it could be confirmed by the evidence to two or three witnesses (Deut. 19:15; John 8:17,18)” (Stot p. 181).

On this verse a few late manuscripts read "in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness on earth, the Spirit” (Side Reference NASV). The common view of the above words, which are found in the KJV, is that they probably owe their origin to a scribe who inserted them into margin of a copy of 1 John and later were viewed as part of the text. People say this because: (1) The words do not occur in a single Greek uncial manuscript or in a single Greek cursive earlier than the 14th century. (2) Neither are they quoted by any who wrote following the days of the apostles. (3) “Nor are quoted by a single Greek Father during the whole of the Trinitarian controversy, nor are found in any authority until late in the fifth century” (P.P. Comm. p. 140). “Not even by those who have joyfully seized upon this clear biblical testimony to the Trinity in their atacks on heretics” (Marshall p. 236).

They ended up in the KJV, because Erasmus promised to insert them into his Greek text if they could be found in any Greek manuscript. Discovering them in the later Codex Britannicus, he kept his commitment. And the KJV was translated from the 1512 and 1522 versions of Erasmus' Greek text. Now the reader should note that the words, whether genuine or not, don't change anything. They don't alter any biblical doctrine. In addition, what the statement says is true. The three persons of the Godhead do agree and they do give their testimony (in the Scriptures) and that testimony being, Jesus is the Son of God. 1John 5:9” If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for the witness of God is this, that He hath borne witness concerning His Son”

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“If we receive the witness of men”: The word "if" is in the indicative mood.

“If we receive, as we do” (Vincent p. 367). “States an admited fact gently” (P.P. Comm. p. 140). John is arguing from the lesser to the greater. Since we do accept human testimony and especially testimony that is supported by witnesses, on a daily basis, when we are without excuse for not accepting what God has said. “The witness of God is greater”: “Surely divine testimony is stronger” (NEB). Greater in the sense that God is infallible, God has access to every bit of information that could and does exist, and God cannot lie or even stretch the truth (Titus 1:2; Hebrews 6:18).

When confronted with the gospel message people will at times say, “But how do I know whether or not what the Bible says is true?” John makes a powerful point. On a daily basis we accept wholeheartedly the words of fallible, finite and imperfect individuals. If we regularly accept (without any qualms) the testimony of fallible men, then we are bound to accept the testimony of an infallible God. Our previous practices of believing fallible people--morally obligates us to accept what is revealed in the Bible. “The apostle appeals here to his readers to be as REASONABLE WITH GOD as with their fellowmen” (Gr. Ex. N.T. p. 196).

“For the witness of God is this”: “This is the testimony God has given”. “That He hath borne witness concerning His Son”: He bore such witness at the baptism of Jesus (Mathew 3:16-17); the transfiguration (Mathew 17:1-5); through the miracles of Jesus (John 5:36-37); the resurrection (Romans 1:4).

And God continues to testify that Jesus is the Son of God through the writings of the apostles. Carefully observe that in all the "evidence" that is given in this section concerning the Sonship of Jesus, we are never given a "subjective test" that He is the Son of God. That is, John never says, “You will know that Jesus is the Son of God, if a warm feeling comes into your heart”. Neither does John ever say, “Simply ask God if Jesus is His Son and God will open your heart to the answer”. John never appeals to some mysterious "inner witness".

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