Abiding in God

1 John

 

 

 

What is eternal life?

 

Is it more of what we have here? Does eternal life mean living a long time?

 

Surely, none of us wants to live forever with the evil we see in this world. Disease, death, and suffering keep getting worse and worse.

 

The book of 1 John is about eternal life and, more to the point, it is about fellowshipping with God, or as I have chosen to say, “Abiding in God.”

 

John states his purpose in writing in 1 John 1:3-4.

1 John 1:3-4 (NKJV) 3 that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship [is] with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. 4 And these things we write to you that your joy may be full.

 

Let’s take this from the bottom and work our way up. The conclusion that these two verses reach is found in the words, “We write to you that your joy may be full.” Just before saying this, John tells us what will make our joy full. He says that they are declaring what they have seen and heard so that we can have fellowship with them. (Perhaps someone was with John when he was writing, so he writes in the plural “we.”) Pay attention because the following phrase is the key to the letter. He says, “And truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.

 

All that this letter is declaring and teaching is so that we can have fellowship with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ, and when we have fellowship with the Father and the Son, we have fellowship with the Body of Christ, the Church. We should each belong to a local branch of the Church, which exists in many localities around the Earth. Our fellowship with each other is based on the premise that we have fellowship with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.

 

 

1 John teaches us that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.

1 John 1:5 (NKJV) This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.

 

We each should explore what is meant by “light,” and the implications that has for our lives. We should consider God’s commandments, our relationship to them, and whether they are important to us. We should talk about the dangers of deception in the world and how we should approach teachings that differ among us. We should contemplate what it means to be God’s children. And we should learn how we can have confidence to stand on the day of judgement.

 

Each of these: Light, commandments, deception, God’s children, and confidence, are fields of study by themselves, but John writes about each of them in this brief letter. Each subject is well worth our time, yet it seems we can only ever scratch the surface. However, no matter how deep we are able to go, these are crucial subjects for us to understand.

 

In 90 AD, when John was writing, deceptive teachings were a real threat to the Church. They still are. John was writing, in part, because of bad teaching regarding Jesus Christ. Some were saying that as a begotten Son of God, Jesus was not the same as God. Others were denying that Jesus was God in the flesh. They taught that the “Christ Spirit” descended on Him at His baptism. There were (and are) many such teachings. Some of the false teachings are very complex and appear and feel spiritual and intelligent, but the truth John declares is quite simple. John emphasizes repeatedly that any teaching that denies Jesus as the Son of God (God in human flesh) is not from God.

 

The Deity of Christ is attacked in many ways, and John makes it clear that we must hold fast to the truth that Jesus is God come in the flesh. The Gospel of John also clearly and boldly declares that Jesus is God. The idea of the Trinity is clearly seen in both the Old and New Testaments, starting with Genesis 1, where the God who made the heavens and the earth is written in the plural, i.e., "Gods." Then in Genesis 1:26, God says:

Genesis 1:26 (NKJV) Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

[Who is God speaking with?]

 

Our fellowship with God starts here at this truth. Romans 10:9 says:

Romans 10:9 (NIV) If you declare with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

 

I used the NIV translation because it is clearer in its representation of what is being said in the original. When Romans 10:9 says, “Jesus is Lord,” the literal meaning is “Jesus is God.” In English and in Greek, Lord can mean master or boss depending on context. And, taken in the context of what is being said in Romans 10:5-13 about faith and calling on the name of the Lord, it is clear that the confession spoken of is that Jesus is God.

 

This is what John begins with in his letter when he says:

1 John 1:1 (NKJV) That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life--

 

John saw, heard, and handled the One who is the Word of life. 

 

Now, I want to answer the question I asked at the beginning. What is eternal life? Look with me at what John says in His gospel.

John 17:3 (NKJV) “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.

 

Eternal life is not a continuation of what we see in the world around us. Eternal life is fellowship with the Father and the Son. It is life, never-ending, but it is life in the presence of the Father and the Son. If you do not know or enjoy the Father or the Son now, you do not have eternal life. But if you: “If you declare with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” This is the promise of God.