Latest / Reformed Thinking / Faith That Overcomes (1 John 5.1-5)

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Faith That Overcomes (1 John 5.1-5) · Reformed Thinking

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So picture this scenario for a second.
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An elderly man is trying to, you know, just relax in a public
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bath house in the ancient city of Ephesus.
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And this is not just any elderly guy.
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This is the apostle John, the last surviving member of the
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original 12 disciples. So he is resting in the steam
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and suddenly he sees another man walk into the building.
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Just a random guy. No, that, that is the thing.
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John instantly panics. I mean, he scrambles to his
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feet, sprints out of the bath house completely naked, and
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starts screaming. Oh my goodness.
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Yes, screaming for everyone to flee into the streets before the
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roof caves in. He is shouting that the enemy of
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the truth is inside. And if the judgement of God is
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about to bring the whole structure down?
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Now, on the surface, that sounds like the definition of an insane
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paranoid overreaction. It really does.
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It sounds completely unhinged. Right.
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But as we're going to see today, for the Apostle John, the
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theological stakes in that exact moment were, quite literally,
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life and death. It is an incredibly visceral
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image to start with, and you know, that anecdote actually
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comes to us from the early church, Father Irenaeus.
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Irenaeus, right? Yeah, and it sets the perfect
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tone for what we're looking at today because John was not
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reacting to a Roman soldier or like a government official
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coming to arrest him. He wasn't running from the
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police. Exactly.
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He was reacting to a man named Sarinthus, a theologian.
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The theologian? Yeah.
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And to understand why John reacted with such absolute
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terror, we really have to grasp the theology he was fighting
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against. Which brings us to the core of
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what we are doing today. Welcome to reformed thinking.
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We are really glad you have pulled up a chair to the table
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with us today. We definitely are.
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Our objective for this deep dive is quite specific.
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We are looking at an intense set of theological commentaries and
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they are analyzing a very concentrated section of
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Scripture. First John chapter 5 verses one
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through 5. Right.
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And our goal is to unpack what these texts refer to as the
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infallible marks of the new birth.
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We want to understand how the original author linked faith,
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love, obedience, and total victory into a single
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unbreakable chain. And as we work through this, we
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are going to rely on a reformed framework to understand the
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actual mechanics of what the Apostle John is laying out.
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And we should probably establish right away that these verses are
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not dealing with casual suggestions for a better life.
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No, not at all. The commentaries we are
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evaluating, they take very firm stances on massive centuries old
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debates. The monarchism.
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Yeah, monarchism, which is the idea that God is the sole actor
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in human and salvation. They also deal with the absolute
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necessity of the moral law and. One of the sources even brings
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in highly specific end times timelines like a pre tribulation
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rapture and a literal millennial reign.
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Right, which gets really detailed.
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And we're going to look under the hood of these doctrines,
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examine the Greek grammar, and try to figure out the why behind
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these passionate arguments. And just a quick disclaimer for
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you listening at home, our goal here is to objectively analyze
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and report on the arguments presented in these texts.
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We want to understand their logic.
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Right. We are just conveying the ideas
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contained in the original source material without endorsing one
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side or the other of these specific theological debates.
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So. Let us go back to Ephesus,
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somewhere between, say, AD 85 and 95.
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OK, set the scene for. Us.
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Well, if you were listening to this and wondering why John was
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so on edge, we have to paint the picture of the city.
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Ephesus was a chaotic, wealthy, massive urban center.
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Wasn't a quiet little village. Oh no.
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It was completely dominated by the Temple of Artemis, which was
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one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
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The entire local economy revolved around paganism,
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idolatry and temple prostitution, so the cultural
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pressure on early Christians to just blend in must have been
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suffocating. It had to be.
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But here's the really striking detail the commentaries bring
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out. What is that?
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The biggest threat to this specific Christian community was
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not the Pagan culture outside their doors.
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The Roman. You know, the Roman Empire was a
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threat. Sure, the worshippers of Artemis
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were a threat, but the disaster that nearly destroyed this
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church was an internal defection.
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Oh wow. Yeah, the call was coming from
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inside the house. They were dealing with a church
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split. A catastrophic 1A group of false
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teachers had infiltrated the congregation, sown an incredible
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amount of confusion, and then walked out.
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Taking people with them I. Assume right.
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Taking a large portion of the church with them, they fractured
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the community. The specific threat was an early
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form of Gnosticism. Gnosticism and that man in the
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bath house, Sorrentus. He was one of the primary
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architects of this movement. So listen to what Sorenthus was
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actually proposing, because it sounds somewhat subtle at first,
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but it is essentially a spiritual A.
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Spiritual Timeshare. Yeah, timeshare, right?
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Sorenthus was promoting A theology that separated the
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human Jesus from the divine Christ.
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OK, break that down for us. So he taught that Jesus of
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Nazareth was just a normal, everyday physical human being.
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Then at his baptism in the Jordan River, this divine Christ
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Spirit descended upon him from heaven.
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So this year just moves in. Right.
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And the Spirit empowered him to do the miracles, preach the
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sermons, draw the crowds. But the moment things got
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difficult. Like right before the
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crucifixion. Yeah, right before the cross,
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that divine Christ Spirit broke the lease and moved out.
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The Spirit went back to heaven and the physical man, Jesus died
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alone on the cross. When you phrase it as a
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spiritual timeshare, it highlights the absurdity of the
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heresy, but it also reviews the catastrophic danger of it.
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Oh. Absolutely.
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This destroys the entire mechanical foundation of
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Christian salvation. How so?
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Well, under the Reformed understanding of the atonement,
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humanity has committed an infinite offense against an
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infinite holy God, right? Therefore, the penalty for that
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offense must be infinite. A mere human being just
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suffering for a few hours on a Roman cross cannot pay an
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infinite penalty. Because a regular man's life
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only has a finite value. Precisely, only God himself
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possesses infinite value. Therefore the person on that
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cross had to be truly God and truly man simultaneously.
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I see. If the Divine Christ leaves
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before the crucifixion, then the person bleeding out on that wood
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is just a guy from Nazareth. His death has no saving value
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for anyone else. So Cerinthus was dismantling the
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Incarnation and the substitutionary atonement in one
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single move. He was removing the engine from
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the car and telling everyone that could still drive to
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heaven. Wow.
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If you look at through that lens, sprinting out of a bath
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house does not seem like an overreaction at all.
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Not even a little. Bit it shows how severe the
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stakes were. I mean, if Cerinthus is right,
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Christianity is complete fraud and everyone is still condemned.
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And the chaos did not stop at the cross.
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These early Gnostics also claimed to possess an elite
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superior spiritual knowledge. They.
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Thought they were the enlightened ones.
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Exactly. They believed that the physical
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realm was inherently evil and the spiritual realm was
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inherently good. OK, so a hard split between the
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physical and the spiritual. Yes, and because they possessed
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this secret spiritual enlightenment, they felt
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liberated from standard moral constraints in the physical
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world. So they didn't have to follow
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the rules anymore. Right.
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They looked down on the ordinary working class believer.
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They felt they were way above the basic rules of loving their
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neighbor, helping the poor, or following God's moral law.
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They basically claim to love God in the abstract, invisible realm
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while treating actual human beings with complete contempt.
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That is the perfect way to put it.
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That context really explains the sheer trauma of the Ephesian
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church. I mean, I imagine you are a 1st
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century believer. People you took communion with,
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people you worship next to for years are suddenly telling you
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the crucifixion was a sham. And that basic morality is only
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for the unenlightened. You would be reeling.
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And because they were dealing with this specific trauma, John
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had to construct his letter in a very specific, unbreakable way.
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The literary structure here is vital to understand.
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The commentaries actually spend a good amount of time
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contrasting John's writing style with other biblical writers.
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Like who? Well, if you read the Apostle
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Paul, for example, in the book of Romans, he builds his
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arguments like a prosecuting attorney.
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Step One. Step 2.
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Yeah, it is a linear step by step progression.
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Premise A leads to premise B, which results in conclusion C He
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builds a logical staircase. But John does not write like a
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lawyer. He writes more like a Symphony
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conductor. That is a highly accurate way to
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view it. The commentaries describe his
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structure as cyclical or symphonic.
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Like a musical motif? Yes.
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He introduces a theme, moves away from it to discuss
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something else, and then circles back to the original theme, but
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at a louder, more intense level. Right, with more instruments
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playing. Exactly in this letter, he
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blends together three main tests of spiritual life over and over
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again. The commentaries outline these
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three tests really clearly. First, there's the doctrinal
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test, which is do you believe that Jesus is the Incarnate Son
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of God, truly God and truly man? OK.
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Second, the relational test. Do you visibly love the brethren
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like the other Christians sitting right next to you?
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And 3rd, the moral test. Are you actually keeping God's
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commandments? And throughout the 1st 4
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chapters, John hits these notes individually.
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But this brings us to chapter 5, verses one through 5.
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The climax. The commentators point out that
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this specific passage functions as the grand climax of the
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entire letter. It is the moment where John
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brings the doctrinal, relational and moral tests together.
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He synthesizes them into one single cohesive argument.
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Now if you are listening to this, you might be wondering why
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John countered this elite mystical cosmic gnostic
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philosophy with such basic grounded tests.
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It does seem a bit simplistic at first glance.
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Right. I mean, if the false teachers
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were talking about the high heavens and secret knowledge,
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why is John talking about something as ordinary as loving
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the annoying guy sitting across from you at dinner?
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Because John's strategy is intentionally subversive, The
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false teachers were trying to elevate religion into the
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clouds. They wanted to make it an
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abstract, untouchable, invisible philosophy.
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John just drags it right back down to the dirt.
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He does. He is establishing that true
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divine life does not float away from physical reality.
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It radically alters how you interact with physical reality.
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You can't just have theoretical love.
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No, you cannot claim to have invisible mystical love for God
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while you visibly hate your brother.
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John binds the invisible spiritual reality to observable
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physical actions. And the commentators issue a
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pretty severe warning right here.
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They argue that if you isolate Chapter 5 from the rest of the
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letter, you fall straight into the trap of moralism.
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Oh. Easily.
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You start looking at these three tests, believing, loving,
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obeying as a checklist of chores you have to complete to earn
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your way into heaven. Which completely contradicts the
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reformed understanding of grace. The symphonic structure proves
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these virtues are not a checklist to earn salvation.
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They are the visible fruit of a single invisible root.
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Exactly. You do not do these things to
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get life. You do these things because you
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already possessed life. That sets us up perfectly to
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look at the exact grammar John uses to prove that point with
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this structural spiral. Understood the commentary.
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Zoom in on the absolute starting point of John's argument in
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verse one. And honestly, a single Greek
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sentence here drops a massive theological bomb regarding the
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mechanics of salvation. The linguistic breakdown in
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these texts is really rigorous. Let us look at the first half of
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first John 5 verse one. OK, what does it say?
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In English, it reads everyone who believes that Jesus is the
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Christ has been born of God. Right.
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And to the casual reader today, that sounds like a very
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standard, simple sequence. You make a decision to believe,
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and in response to that belief, God gives you the new birth.
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But the commentaries bring out the Greek verbal tenses, and
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they completely invert that modern assumption.
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They invert it entirely. Tell us about the verbs.
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The text utilizes 2 very specific verb tenses.
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The phrase believes is translated from a Greek present
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active participle. And active.
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What does that mean practically? This indicates an ongoing,
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continuous, habitual action. It is not a one time event.
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It is a state of continually believing.
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So it is not just walking down an aisle A decade ago and
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checking a box on a card. No, it is an active, present
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tense reality of trusting Christ today.
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Correct. Now contrast that with the
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second phrase has been born of God.
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OK, this is translated from a Greek perfect passive
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indicative. Perfect passive.
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That sounds complicated. It's actually pretty clear when
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you break it down. In Greek grammar, the perfect
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tense describes an action that was completely finished in the
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past, but the results of that action continue into the
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present. OK.
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Finished in the past. Continuing results.
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Yes. Furthermore, the passive voice
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means the subject did not perform the action.
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The action was performed upon them by an outside agent.
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In this case, God. Right, God did the birthing.
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So if you are listening to this and wondering why we are
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spending so much time on 1st century greed verb tenses, think
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about the practical reality of what this means for human pride.
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It changes everything. The commentators use a Latin
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phrase here, ordo salutis, which translates to the order of
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salvation. Right, the logical sequence of
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events. Based on the grammar, the
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ongoing present belief linked to a completed past birth, the
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reformed commentators argue fiercely that regeneration has
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to precede faith. That is the core of their
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argument. They are stating that a person
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does not believe in order to be born again.
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The birth happens first. Yes.
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Instead, their ongoing act of faith is the visible, outward
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proof that God has already regenerated them in the past.
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The invisible new birth causes the visible belief, right?
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Let's put a real world analogy on this.
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Think of a newborn baby in a hospital delivery room.
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The baby takes its first breath and lets out a loud cry.
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That cry does not 'cause the birth.
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No, obviously not. The baby does not cry to
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convince the mother to go into labor and deliver the child.
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The cry is the physical, audible proof that the birth has already
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happened, that the lungs are functioning, and that life is
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present. The commentators are saying that
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faith is that first spiritual cry.
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That visual captures the mechanics perfectly and the
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commentators use this grammatical reality to launch a
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serious critique against opposing theological system.
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Specifically, Arminianism. Yes, they specifically challenge
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Arminianism. In very broad strokes,
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Arminianism, named after the Dutch theologian Jacobus
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Arminius, teaches that God provides a sort of prevenient
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grace to everyone. Prevenient grace, meaning it
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comes before. Right.
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And this grace levels the playing field and allows a
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person to use their free will to choose to believe.
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So it's up to the human. In that system, human faith is
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the catalyst, and God responds to that faith by granting the
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new birth. But these sources are arguing
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for monarchism. Yes, the word monarchism comes
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from 2 Greek words, mono meaning 1 and ergon meaning work.
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One worker. It is the doctrine that there is
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only one worker in the act of regeneration, and that worker is
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God. And they tie this directly to
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the Reformed doctrine of total depravity, don't they?
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They do, and we should clarify. Total depravity does not mean
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that every human being is as evil as they could possibly be.
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Right, People still do nice things for their neighbors.
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Exactly. It means that the corruption of
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the fall has extended to every part of the human condition,
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including the mind and the will. The whole system is infected.
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Yes, humanity is so spiritually dead that a person literally
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cannot generate saving faith on their own.
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God has to perform the surgical act of the new birth first.
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I have to introduce some friction here because this is
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where modern listeners almost always hit a wall.
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Go for it. If the commentators are right
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that man is totally passive in the new birth, and that God
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alone acts, how do they avoid the accusation that this strips
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away human free will? That is the classic objection.
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Does this not reduce human beings to robots who only
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believe because a divine software program was forcibly
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installed into their hard drive against their will?
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I would not phrase it as a software program installed
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against their will. That implies a violation of the
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person's desires. OK, so how do they explain it?
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The commentators addressed this by redefining how the human will
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actually functions in a spiritual context.
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They argue that an unregenerate person absolutely has a will.
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They make choices. They make choices every single
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day, and they choose freely according to their own nature.
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But because their nature is fallen and fundamentally hostile
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to God, they will always freely choose to reject Him.
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So they aren't being forced to sin.
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No, they're not victims. They are willing slaves to their
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own desires. So they are freely choosing from
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the menu, but their appetite is entirely opposed to the things
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of God, right? It is not that they desperately
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want God, but are blocked from choosing Him.
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It is that left to their own devices, they actively find him
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repulsive. Precisely what regeneration
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does, according to this monarchistic framework, is
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change the appetite. It changes the nature.
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The menu stays the same, but the cravings change.
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Yes, God does not drag someone to Christ kicking and screaming
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against their will. He gives them a new heart with
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new desire. And once that happens.
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Once that nature is changed, the blindness is removed, the
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person's will is free to see the actual beauty and value of
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Christ, and they freely, joyfully run to Him.
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So the passivity is only in the birth itself.
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Yes, the passivity is only in that microsecond of the new
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birth. After that, the person is
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actively, continuously choosing to believe.
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Which takes us right back to that present active participle
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we saw in the grammar. Exactly.
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So if faith is the first cry of this new life, the commentators
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argue that love and obedience are the ongoing vital signs the.
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Vital signs, I like that. This moves us into verses 2 and
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three. We can call the inseparable trio
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faith, Love and Law. OK.
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John writes. By this we know that we love the
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children of God when we love God and observe his commandments.
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You know John does something rhetorically brilliant in verse
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2. He completely flips the script
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on his own relational test. How so?
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Well, in chapter 4, John established a firm rule.
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You prove your invisible love for God by visibly loving the
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brethren. If you claim to love the God you
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cannot see, but you harbor hatred for the church member,
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you can see you are a liar. The visible love validates the
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invisible claim. But right here in chapter 5, he
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reverses the flow of traffic. He does now.
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He says that your love for the brethren is proven by loving God
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and keeping His rules. He is providing A boundary for
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what Love Actually looks like. And the commentators view this
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reversal as a direct confrontation with modern,
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subjective definitions of love. Oh for sure.
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In contemporary Western culture, love is almost exclusively
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defined as unconditional affirmation.
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Just accepting everything. The cultural rule is very
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simple. If you genuinely love someone,
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you validate all of their choices, you affirm their self
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identified truth, and you never under any circumstances, make
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them feel judged. But the texts are arguing that
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biblical love can never be separated from God's moral law.
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It is not just a squishy, sentimental feeling of
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affirmation, right? But why?
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I mean, why is it so dangerous? Dangerous, from their
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perspective, to separate love from the law.
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Because in the Reformed view, God's moral law is not an
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arbitrary set of rules designed to ruin everyone's fun.
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It's not just a cosmic killjoy. Exactly.
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The Law is the divine blueprint for human flourishing.
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God designed human beings to operate in a specific way.
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Like a manufacturer's manual. Yes, therefore, true love for
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another person must be governed by what God defines as good.
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So you can't redefine good on your own terms.
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No, you cannot truly love a fellow believer by encouraging
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them or affirming them in behavior that God clearly states
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will destroy their soul. That makes sense.
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True love is seeking the brothers ultimate good under the
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authority of God's design. It ties human affection directly
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to divine law. And then verse 3 delivers a
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statement that I find incredibly striking and frankly, a bit hard
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to swallow on a surface surface reading.
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What is that? It says his commandments are not
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burdensome. Ah, yeah.
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The commentators spent a significant amount of ink
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analyzing this concept because for the unregenerate person, the
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moral law of God is a crushing, terrifying weight.
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It is an impossible standard of perfection that constantly
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condemns them and highlights their failure.
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But for the regenerate person, the dynamic entirely shifts.
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To understand this, we need to introduce a concept the
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commentators rely on, known as the three uses of the law in
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reformed theology. OK, the three uses.
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Walk us through them. The Reformers categorized how
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the law functions. The first use is like a mirror.
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It shows you your sin and drives you to Christ for mercy.
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So it exposes the dirt on your face.
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Right. The second use is like a bridle.
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It restrains evil in society through the threat of
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punishment. Keeping civil order.
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Exactly, but it is the third use that John is talking about here.
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The third use is for the believer.
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Right. The third use of the law is for
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the Christian. For the believer, the law acts
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as a map or a guide. OK.
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The commentators argue that because the believer has been
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given a new disposition, a new heart, through regeneration, the
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law ceases to be an oppressive condemning burden.
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Now, to be clear, they still battle sin.
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They still stumble. Oh, of course.
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But their fundamental relationship to the rulebook has
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changed. The law becomes a delight.
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A delight. Yeah, a detailed guide for how
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to live out their new nature and please the father they now love.
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There's a really vivid analogy mentioning in one of the texts
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to explain this, the eagle's wings.
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I love that one. Think about the law of gravity.
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Gravity is an unyielding law that constantly pulls things
22:18
down toward the earth. To a creature without wings,
22:21
like a turtle, the law of aerodynamics might seem like an
22:24
impossible, frustrating barrier. Because the turtle can't fly.
22:27
Right. But to the Eagle, the law of
22:30
aerodynamics does not restrict it.
22:31
It is the very mechanism that allows it to fly.
22:34
That's a great image. The eagle's nature is designed
22:37
to interact with that law joyfully.
22:39
The commentators are saying that the new birth gives the believer
22:43
the wings to interact with God's law joyfully.
22:45
That analogy clarifies the mechanics of the third use of
22:49
the law perfectly. It really does.
22:50
The law does not give the eagle life, and the law does not save
22:53
the believer, but it guides the believers Grateful response to
22:57
having been given life. Let me push.
22:59
Back on this a bit, because we live in an era where many people
23:02
who grew up in the church view strict commandment keeping as
23:06
toxic legalism. That is a very common sentiment
23:09
today. How do the commentators
23:11
reconcile this intense demand for obedience with the concept
23:15
of grace? Does focusing this heavily on
23:18
keeping the rules not just recreate the exact Pharisaical
23:22
system that Jesus constantly condemned?
23:25
That is a very fair question, and the commentators answered
23:28
that critique by pointing right back to the sequence we
23:30
established in verse one. The order of operations.
23:33
The order of operations is everything legalism says.
23:36
Obey the commandments, get your life together, and then God will
23:39
love you and give you life. Which is exhausting.
23:41
It is a crushing burden because it relies on flawed human effort
23:45
to earn salvation. Sequence is the exact opposite,
23:48
right? He says.
23:49
God has already given you life. God has already given you His
23:51
love. Therefore, as a result, you
23:52
obey. So the engine driving the
23:55
obedience completely changes. It goes from fear to gratitude,
23:58
yes. The obedience is no longer a
24:00
wage paid to a harsh taskmaster to avoid being fired.
24:04
It's totally different. It is the natural family
24:07
resemblance of a child imitating a father they adore.
24:10
The commentators argue vigorously that severing
24:13
obedience from grace is not freedom.
24:15
It is antinomianism. Let us define that for the
24:18
listener. Antinomianism against and nomos
24:22
meaning. Law against the law.
24:23
Antinomianism is the belief that because we are saved by grace,
24:27
the moral law no longer applies to us at all.
24:30
We can just live however we want.
24:32
And John is combating that directly.
24:34
The commentators insist that true grace always, without
24:37
exception, produces a desire for holiness.
24:39
Always. Always.
24:41
If there's no desire for obedience, there is no evidence
24:44
of the new birth. But that desire for holiness,
24:47
that alignment with God's law, inevitably puts the believer in
24:51
a state of direct, unyielding conflict with their surrounding
24:54
environment. You're going to stand out.
24:56
Yeah, if you start living according to a completely
24:58
different blueprint, the world is going to notice.
25:01
Which pushes us into the fifth section of our analysis, the
25:04
cosmic battle and the concept of the cosmos.
25:07
We are looking at verses four and five now, right where John
25:10
talks about overcoming the world.
25:11
To fully glasp the magnitude of this conflict, we really have to
25:15
look at the specific Greek word John uses for world, which is
25:19
cosmos. Cosmos.
25:21
The commentators provide a fascinating linguistic contrast
25:24
here. In ancient Greek philosophy,
25:27
particularly among thinkers like Pythagoras, the word cosmos
25:31
referred to the beautiful, highly adorned, perfectly
25:35
ordered arrangement of the universe.
25:37
So it was a positive word. Very positive.
25:39
It was a term of aesthetic and systematic perfection.
25:43
It is actually where we get the English word cosmetics.
25:46
Interesting, but John completely subverts that classical usage he
25:50
does. He takes this word that means a
25:52
beautiful ordered system, and he turns it into a theological
25:56
weapon. He absolutely does.
25:58
In johanning literature, the cosmos is indeed an organized
26:01
system, but it is organized in tonal, unified rebellion against
26:04
God. It's an anti God system.
26:06
Yes, it is a satanically orchestrated matrix of human
26:09
society, philosophy and culture arrayed in hostile defiance
26:12
against its creator. And what runs this system?
26:15
The commentators point out that earlier in this letter, John
26:18
explicitly stated that this system operates on three
26:21
specific principles. OK, what are they?
26:24
The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful
26:27
pride of life. You know, I think the best way
26:30
to visualize John's concept of the cosmos is to compare it to
26:34
an artificial intelligence matrix from a sci-fi movie.
26:37
I like where this is going. Imagine a scenario where humans
26:41
are plugged into a massive, highly ordered digital
26:44
simulation. OK, the system is designed to
26:46
look beautiful, to appeal directly to their physical
26:49
desires, and to keep them endlessly distracted with
26:52
entertainment and status. So it feels good to be inside
26:55
it. Right, but the core function of
26:57
the Matrix is malicious. It is designed to keep its
27:00
inhabitants asleep, enslaved, and completely hostile to the
27:04
true reality outside the simulation.
27:06
That is a brilliant way to picture it.
27:08
John is arguing that the world system, the cosmos, is a
27:11
spiritual matrix designed to keep humanity blind to the glory
27:15
of God. And John makes a definitive
27:16
claim in verse 4. Whatever is born of God
27:20
overcomes this matrix. It beats the simulation.
27:22
Exactly. The new life injected by
27:24
regeneration cannot be permanently contained or
27:27
neutralized by the cosmos, and the specific instrument of this
27:31
victory, according to the text, is faith.
27:34
And notice what it is not right. The victory is not achieved
27:38
through sheer human willpower. It is not achieved through
27:41
political dominance or passing better legislation or taking
27:45
over the cultural institution. The instrument of victory is
27:48
faith. Because faith is the mechanism
27:50
that unites the believer to Christ.
27:52
And Christ is the ultimate overcomer.
27:54
The commentators stress that Christ defeated the world system
27:57
comprehensively at the cross and the empty tomb.
28:01
He beat the matrix. He exposed the world's judgment
28:04
as fraudulent and its power as temporary.
28:07
The believer shares in that exact victory solely through
28:10
their spiritual union with him. Now here is where we need to
28:13
look at how different theological frameworks handle
28:16
this text. This it's really interesting.
28:17
One of the commentators takes this concept of overcoming the
28:21
world in a very specific, detailed direction.
28:24
Yes they do. This author connects the idea of
28:26
victory in verse 4 to a highly detailed eschatological
28:30
framework, specifically dispensationalism.
28:33
A pre tribulation rapture and a literal millennial reign of
28:37
Christ on earth. For listeners unfamiliar with
28:39
those terms, dispensationalism is a theological system that
28:42
divides history into distinct eras or dispensations in which
28:46
God administers his purposes in different ways.
28:49
A key feature of the system is maintaining a sharp distinction
28:53
between the nation of Israel and the Christian Church.
28:55
Right. And the specific commentator
28:57
argues that because Christ triumphs spiritually, believers
29:01
will physically and geopolitically overcome the
29:04
world when Christ returns. They argue He will rapture the
29:07
Church out of the world before A7 year period of global
29:10
tribulation. Followed by a literal 1000 year
29:13
reign on Earth where the cosmos is finally subjugated by force.
29:16
And if you are tracking with the flow of John's argument, you
29:19
have to ask a structural question here.
29:21
I definitely am. How does this commentator
29:24
logically move from a present day localized spiritual battle
29:29
against the cosmos, like battling pride and lust in your
29:32
daily life right now, to future apocalyptic events involving A
29:36
rapture and a Millennium? It seems like a massive leap.
29:40
Is that not taking John's pastoral encouragement to an
29:43
embattled 1st century church and mapping it onto a highly
29:47
specific future calendar that is not actually present in these 5
29:51
verses? That is a very common critique
29:53
of reading dispensationalism into this specific text.
29:57
Reformed covenant theology views it differently, right?
29:59
Generally, yes, they would interpret the victory here much
30:03
more presently in spiritually, without requiring a future
30:05
millennial Kingdom to validate it.
30:07
OK, so how does the dispensational commentator
30:09
justify it? But the dispensational
30:11
commentator gets there by linking the concept of Christ's
30:13
victory in verse 5 to the ultimate physical consummation
30:17
of that victory. So they are pulling from the
30:19
Book of Revelation to interpret first John.
30:21
Exactly. They argue that if faith
30:24
guarantees total victory over the world system, that victory
30:27
cannot remain purely spiritual or internal forever.
30:31
It has to have a physical reality eventually.
30:32
Right. It must have eventually manifest
30:34
in a literal, physical, visible triumph over the governments,
30:38
economies and structures of this Earth.
30:40
For this author, the present spiritual reality demands a
30:43
future geopolitical fulfillment. Yes.
30:46
While the text of First John stays heavily focused on the
30:48
prefect tense, this is the victory that overcomes.
30:51
The source author extrapolates that theological concept to
30:55
include their specific understanding of the end times.
30:57
It is a clear example of how a single concept like victory can
31:02
be interpreted through very different systematic lenses.
31:05
It really is. But regardless of their
31:07
eschatology, all the commentators agree on the
31:09
immediate, practical weight of this passage.
31:11
They all feel the urgency. Which brings us to the final
31:15
major section of our analysis, the two edged sword of
31:18
application. Because this text describes A
31:20
literal life and death battle with the cosmos, the authors
31:23
apply these verses with striking urgency to the modern listener.
31:27
They do not treat this as abstract history.
31:29
Not at all. The commentators outline a dual
31:32
intended effect of John's writing.
31:34
It is meant to do 2 very different things to two very
31:37
different types of people. OK, leave it out for us.
31:40
On one hand, John intends to absolutely cry rush the false
31:44
assurance of hypocrites. Hypocrites.
31:46
Yeah, people who claim to know God, who sit in the pews, but
31:50
who shows 0 evidence of a changed life.
31:52
Zero love for the brethren and 0.
31:54
Desire to obey God's law. Exactly.
31:57
On the other hand, the text is meant to provide a healing balm
32:01
to broken hearted, trembling Saints who are terrified they
32:04
might not be genuinely saved because they still struggle with
32:07
sin. To highlight why they feel this
32:09
aggressive 2 edged application is so necessary today, the
32:12
sources cite some startling statistics.
32:14
From a recent State of theology survey.
32:16
Yeah, conducted by Legionnaire Ministries.
32:18
They look at the modern visible church and point out that 43% of
32:21
self identified evangelicals view Jesus only as a good moral
32:25
teacher. Not as the Incarnate God.
32:27
Right. And furthermore, 56% of these
32:30
self identified evangelicals accept religious pluralism, the
32:34
believing that. God accepts the worship of all
32:37
religions as equally valid paths to heaven.
32:40
Those numbers are staggering when you consider the historical
32:42
context we opened with. They really are.
32:44
Those statistics represent the exact heresy Sarinthus was
32:48
teaching in the 1st century. The guy in the bathhouse.
32:50
Yes, it is the exact same Gnostic impulse, diminishing the
32:55
unique exclusive deity of Christ and suggesting alternate
33:00
mystical paths to truth. The commentators view these
33:03
survey numbers as proof of a massive theological crisis in
33:07
contemporary Western Christianity.
33:09
And because of this crisis, the commentators view First John
33:12
Chapter 5 as a severe diagnostic tool.
33:15
They use it to evaluate everything.
33:16
They launch a heavy attack on modern church trends,
33:19
specifically targeting the seeker sensitive movement,
33:22
pastoral pragmatism and liberal theology.
33:25
They accuse these modern movements of watering down
33:27
John's rigorous tests to make the religion more palatable to a
33:31
culture that hates absolute truth.
33:33
Yes, they argue that by lowering the bar for what constitutes a
33:36
Christian, the modern church is filling its buildings with
33:39
unregenerate people. Therefore, the commentators
33:42
demand visible, tangible obedience as the necessary proof
33:47
of the invisible reality of the new birth.
33:49
One of the sources specifically uses the ordinance of believers
33:53
baptism as a primary example. Baptism.
33:56
OK. They are very careful to argue
33:58
that the physical water of baptism does not save a person.
34:01
Because that would violate monarchism and grace.
34:05
Right. But they argue it is the first
34:07
required outward proof of the inward new birth.
34:11
It is the first public test of obedience.
34:13
So refusing to be baptized, in their view, casts severe doubt
34:18
on the validity of someone's profession of faith.
34:20
Because it shows a refusal to submit to Christ's explicit
34:24
command. I hear the intensity of this
34:25
application, and I have to ask about the psychological weight
34:28
of this doctrine for the person sitting in the Pew.
34:31
It is heavy. If you are a listener trying to
34:33
apply this to your own life, the tests of true faith here are
34:36
rigorous. They are uncompromising.
34:38
John demands orthodox doctrine regarding the Incarnation,
34:41
constant sacrificial love for the Church, and joyful obedience
34:44
to the moral law. Right.
34:46
And does that standard not naturally create a culture of
34:50
massive anxiety and paranoia in a congregation?
34:53
It certainly can. If I am constantly checking my
34:56
own fruit to see if my invisible root is real, how do I ever have
35:00
a moment of peace? How do the commentators balance
35:05
the terror they want the hypocrite to feel with the
35:08
assurance they want the genuine believer to have?
35:10
That tension you just described is the central pastoral
35:13
challenge of this text, and the commentators spend a lot of time
35:16
addressing it. How do they resolve it?
35:18
They attempt to resolve this anxiety by continually pointing
35:21
the believer away from their own performance and back to the
35:24
object of their faith. Back to Jesus Christ, yes.
35:27
They argue that if you look inside yourself for your primary
35:29
source of assurance, you'll always find failure,
35:32
inconsistency, and despair. Because we still sin, right?
35:35
The law, even the third use of the law, will always expose your
35:38
weakness and how far short you fall.
35:40
So you cannot find lasting assurance by staring at your own
35:43
fruit. No, you cannot.
35:45
The evidence of love and obedience confirms that life is
35:47
present, but your performance is not the source of your peace.
35:51
Where does the peace come from? The commentators state that
35:53
true, lasting assurance comes when the trembling believer
35:57
recognizes their own weakness, admits their failure, and clings
36:01
desperately to the fact that Christ has already overcome the
36:04
world on their behalf. Oh, that's good.
36:06
The marks of the new birth, faith, love and obedience are
36:10
not demanded as a standard of sinless perfection.
36:13
If they were, no one would be saved.
36:15
Exactly. They are demanded as a general
36:18
trajectory of a changed life. It's about the direction of the
36:21
ship, not whether takes on a little water during the storm.
36:24
That is the perfect way to summarize it.
36:27
When a believer sees a desire for holiness in their life, even
36:30
a struggling, faltering desire, they should take that as
36:34
evidence of God's regenerative work and find comfort in His
36:37
sovereign grace. What about the hypocrite?
36:40
The hypocrite feels no conviction about the water.
36:42
Feeling the boat. They do not care and they might
36:44
even enjoy the water. But the true believer is furious
36:47
about the water. Right.
36:48
The true believer furiously bails the water out because they
36:52
care deeply about reaching the destination.
36:54
The commentators argue that this text should terrify the person
36:58
who is comfortable and complacent in their sin, while
37:01
comforting the person who is exhausted from battling it.
37:04
That is a very clarifying distinction.
37:06
As we bring all these theological concepts together,
37:09
we can really see the full picture of what these
37:11
commentators are arguing. It is a massive picture.
37:14
They're telling us that according to the Apostle John,
37:16
true spiritual life cannot be fragmented into pieces.
37:19
No, you cannot choose to take the doctrine but reject the
37:22
morality. You cannot take the love but
37:25
reject the theology is an all or nothing reality.
37:28
It is presented as a singular, unbroken sequence of divine
37:32
action and human response. Let us review the chain one more
37:35
time. OK, God sovereignly begets new
37:38
life in a spiritually dead person.
37:41
That new life immediately produces an active, ongoing
37:44
faith in the true, historical Incarnate Son of God.
37:48
That faith inevitably produces a supernatural love for other
37:51
members of God's family. And that love naturally
37:55
expresses itself through a joyful obedience to God's moral
37:58
law. Exactly.
37:59
And that obedience, fueled entirely by faith in Christ,
38:03
ultimately triumphs over the rebellious world system.
38:06
It is a completely closed loop system of reformed theology.
38:10
Every single part depends entirely on the part that came
38:13
before it. And it leaves absolutely zero
38:15
room for the cultural idea of a casual believer.
38:19
It destroys the notion of someone who agrees with the
38:22
theology intellectually, maybe attends a service on a holiday,
38:25
but lives a life completely detached from the ethical
38:28
requirements of the Kingdom. We have covered a massive amount
38:31
of theological ground today looking at these intensely
38:34
detailed arguments about grammar, church history and the
38:37
mechanics of salvation. It was a lot to get through.
38:40
But we want to leave you with a challenging idea to ponder on
38:42
your own, something that builds on the text but takes it a step
38:45
further into your daily routine. Think back to our discussion on
38:48
the cosmos. That highly organized matrix of
38:51
rebellion. Right.
38:51
The system that operates on the lust of the flesh, the lust of
38:54
the eyes, and the boastful pride of life.
38:57
If the cosmos is truly a highly organized system specifically
39:01
designed to blind its inhabitants, as these sources
39:04
suggest, we have to ask a difficult, practical question.
39:08
What is that? How much of what we consider
39:12
standard, everyday normal culture is actually subtle
39:16
conditioning designed to pull you away from these truths?
39:19
That is a scary thought. When you scroll through your
39:21
social media feed for an hour, when you watch the latest
39:24
streaming series, or when you listen to the prevailing
39:26
financial or relational wisdom of modern society, how much of
39:30
it is truly neutral? Probably very little.
39:33
And how much of it is the cosmos actively running its code in the
39:36
background, appealing to your pride to keep you asleep to the
39:39
reality of God? It forces you to evaluate your
39:42
environment not just as a passive backdrop to your life,
39:45
but as an active participant in your spiritual formation.
39:48
It. Requires a constant state of
39:50
vigilance. It definitely changes how you
39:52
view the glowing screen in your pocket.
39:54
Thank you for joining us at the table today for this deep dive
39:57
on reformed thinking. Keep questioning, keep analyzing
39:59
the text, and we will see you next time.