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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHarry Ironside Collection: Ironside, Harry A. - Addresses On The Epistles Of John And Jude: 01.2 Living In God's Light
TOPIC: Ironside, Harry A. - Addresses On The Epistles Of John And Jude (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 01.2 Living In God's Light
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Chapter Two - Living In God's Light
Christ Our Advocate (1Jn_2:1-2)
These two verses constitute the second part of the message we were studying in Chapter One. Remember in verse 5 of 1 John 1 (1Jn_1:5) we read, “This then is the message,” and then in the rest of that chapter, including the first two verses of the second chapter, we have the message in its entirety. This is the message that John and the other apostles were commissioned by Christ to carry throughout the world. It is the message of man’s utterly lost condition in darkness, and of the atoning value of the precious blood of Christ. This message tells us the importance of facing our sins in the presence of God, and finding forgiveness. Now John goes on to address the failures of believers, those who have been cleansed judicially from all sin. What about our failures?-for you know we do fail, all of us, much as we may regret the sad fact.
I remember one summer I was rather amused listening to a sermon in which the speaker was telling about a little girl who had been left by her parents with another family while they were away. When at last the mother and father returned for her and she was on her way home, she said to her father, “Daddy, there were four little boys at that house where I have been staying.”
“Yes, I knew that,” he said.
“Daddy, they have family worship there every night.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“Daddy, every night their father prays for those four little boys.”
“That is very nice.”
“He prays, Daddy, that God will make them good boys, and that they won’t do anything naughty,” said the little girl.
“That is very nice.”
She was silent a moment and then said, “But Daddy, He hasn’t done it yet.”
There are a great many folk like that. We are praying that God will make us good, and holy, and that our lives may be lives of victory. But I’m afraid many of us have to confess that God hasn’t done it yet. We recognize the fact that we do sin, and we do fail. Our hearts are nearly broken by our failures. What about the sins of believers?
First of all, believers should not sin. John tells us, “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1Jn_2:1). The word translated “little children” could better be translated “children” or “dear children” because the original word does not refer to age or size. It is a word that takes in everyone who is born of God. It literally means “born ones,” those who are born into God’s family. “My children, these things write I unto you, that ye should not be sinning.” It is the desire, the will of God for His children that we should not sin. God has redeemed us to Himself not only to take us to Heaven, but that we should live to the praise of His glory in this world.
Farther on we read, “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin” (1Jn_3:9). In other words, they do not live in the practice of sin. When an individual is saved, a change takes place. If there is no change in a person’s life, they have never been born of God. From the time of their new birth they hate sin and love holiness. If they do not hate sin and love holiness, they are not born of God. On the other hand, I recognize the fact that “there is not a just man upon the earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not” (Ecc_7:20). There is no one who does not fail. It is not that God is powerless to deliver us, but we fail to steadfastly keep our eyes fixed on Christ-to reckon ourselves “to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom_6:11).
The moment a believer becomes self-occupied, undisciplined, and negligent in prayer, he sins. Remember that sin consists not only in doing overt evil acts, but also in not doing the good that you know you should. ‘To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin” (Jam_4:17).
I frequently meet people who say they never sin. I ask them, “Just what do you mean by that? Do you mean that you never break any of the ten commandments?” “Yes,” they say. “Do you mean that you never commit any actual overt acts of iniquity?” “Yes.” “Do you also mean that you do everything that you know you could do for God, that you take advantage of every opportunity of doing good, of every opportunity of speaking for Christ, of every opportunity of glorifying your Lord and Savior?” If there is the least bit of honesty, they bow their head and say, “No, I am afraid that I do not.” Then you sin. Sin is not merely the violation of certain moral principles, it is also failure to do the good that you know you should do.
“If any man sin”-here the word sin is in the Greek aorist-it means, “If any man commit a sin at a given point of time.” It is not a question of the practice of sin, but of a definite failure. “If any man sin,” what then? Some believe that sin immediately severs the link that binds the believer to Christ. If that were true, no one would ever have the assurance of being a Christian. But there are two links that bind us to Christ. First there is the link of union. That link is so strong that the weight of the world could not break it. Our blessed Lord Himself said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish” (Joh_10:27-28). Nothing can ever break our link with Christ once it has been formed by the Spirit of God.
But there is another link that binds the believer to the Lord, and that is the link of communion. This link is so delicate, it is easily broken. One unholy thought will snap it. One unchristlike action will destroy it. One minute given to foolishness will break it, and that link could never be formed again if it depended entirely on us. We often speak of the finished work of Christ, and rightly so. Our blessed Lord as He hung on the cross cried, “It is finished” (Joh_19:30). He bowed His head and dismissed His spirit, and there the work that saves our guilty souls was completed. “Whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him” (Ecc_3:14). The finished work of Christ stands alone in absolute perfection. Our souls can rest on that finished work.
As a believer was dying, someone leaned over him and asked, “Is everything all right?” The man replied,” ‘It is finished’; on that I can rest my eternity.”
Upon a life I did not live,
Upon a death I did not die,
Another’s life, Another’s death,
I stake my whole eternity.
It is finished, yes, indeed;
Finished, every jot!
Sinner, this is all you need!
Tell me, is it not?
Nothing can be added to a finished work. While it is perfectly Scriptural to speak of the finished work of Christ, it is just as Scriptural to speak of the unfinished work of Christ. Our blessed Lord who completed one work when He died for our sins, began another when He ascended to the Father’s right hand in Heaven. There in the glory “he ever liveth to make intercession for [us]” (Heb_7:25). That intercessory work has two aspects. We read in Hebrews that He is there as our High Priest with God. As High Priest He is able to give us a perfect representation before God. We are seen in Him, and He is there to minister grace in our time of need. As a High Priest He can be “touched with the feeling of our infirmities”, and sympathizes with us in all our weakness. His sympathy has nothing to do with our sins, but with our infirmities-our weaknesses. If we avail ourselves of His high priestly work, we will not fall into sin. We can go to Him-our great High Priest-to “obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb_4:15-16).
Scripture not only presents Christ as our High Priest, but also as our Advocate. It is as our Advocate that He confronts the believer’s sins. He is said to be a High Priest with God, but He is our Advocate with the Father. The more I read the Bible the more I realize the exactness of Scripture. The more I hear people talk about the Bible, the more I am impressed with how inexact we are when talking about divine things. It is quite natural for us to talk about Christ as the High Priest with the Father, or the Advocate with God, but that would dilute the truth of Scripture. My sins are put away by the blood of Christ, and I have a perfect representation before the throne of God in my great High Priest. “Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them” (Heb_7:25).
When I was converted, God became my Father. There is no such thing in the Bible as the universal Fatherhood of God. He is Father only to those who are born again. As a believer if I fail or fall into sin, I read, “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father” (1Jn_2:1). Not an Advocate with God, but with the Father. Why with the Father? Because the Spirit of God teaches me that our relationship has not been disturbed! When you sin, the devil says, “Now you’ve done it; you were a Christian before, but not any more. God is no longer your Father.” This is just a lie of the devil, for it is written, “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father” Our relationship is undisturbed.
In the original the word paraclete (translated “advocate” in 1Jn_2:1) means “one who comes to your side to help.” This same word is translated “Comforter” in Joh_14:16; Joh_14:26; Joh_15:26; Joh_16:7. In the Gospel Jesus spoke of the “Comforter” that the Father will send in His name. The Comforter-the Spirit of God-comes from the Father and is sent both by the Father and the Son. The Lord said in effect, “I am going away, but I will send the Paraclete-One who will come to your side to help in every time of need.” On the other hand, in 1Jn_2:1 we read that we have a Paraclete or “advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” In other words, God sent the Holy Spirit down to earth to dwell in me, to be my Advocate here on earth-to look after God’s interests in me. Then He took the blessed Lord up to Heaven to be my Advocate with the Father-to look after my interests with the Father.
Why do I need an Advocate in Heaven? Because I have a great adversary. An advocate is someone who goes into court to represent you and to plead your case. You cannot defend yourself, but, when you go to your advocate, he defends you and pleads your case against your adversary. Satan is called in Rev_12:10, the “accuser of [the] brethren…which accused them before our God day and night.” When you sin, the devil appoints himself the prosecuting attorney in the high court of Heaven. The devil goes right into the presence of God and says, “Is this one of your Christians? Listen to what he is saying now; see what he is doing!” He is there to accuse, but the blessed Lord is there. He shows His wounds and spreads His hands, and says to the Father, “I took all that into account when I died on Calvary’s tree.”
I hear the accuser roar
Of ills that I have done;
I know them well, and thousands more,
Jehovah findeth none.
Though the restless foe accuses-
Sins recounting like a flood,
Every charge our God refuses;
Christ has answered with His blood.
I realize my unrighteousness when I fall into sin, and could easily give up in despair. But I have an Advocate in the presence of the Father who gives me a perfect representation. God sees me in Him. I do not plead my case on the basis of my own righteousness but on the absolute righteousness of Christ Jesus. And so I can plead with power; I can plead effectively, because Christ died for the very sin that is now troubling me. “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins” (1Jn_2:1-2).
This word, propitiation, as used in John’s Epistle is a different word from the one used in Romans. Propitiation in Romans means the mercy seat. Rom_3:25 reads, “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.” The reference is to the mercy seat-the meeting place between God and man. But in 1Jn_2:2; 1Jn_4:10, propitiation means an “atonement” or an “expiation.” My failures cannot undo the work of the cross. Christ has died, been raised, and gone up to God’s right hand, and is there as my Advocate interceding for me. There He undertakes my case. He Himself is the propitiation.
1Jn_2:1 does not say, “If any man repent, we have an advocate; if any man confess his sins, we have an advocate; if any man weep over his sins, we have an advocate.” Instead it says, “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father.” It is not just when I am repentant that I have an Advocate, but the very moment I fail, Christ takes up my case, even before I am sorry about it. The moment that unkind word left my lips, the moment I did that spiteful thing, the moment I was thoughtless in some business matter, that very moment before my conscience was exercised and I was troubled, the devil was in the presence of God to accuse me. But the same instant the Son of God was there to represent me. As a result of His advocacy, the Spirit takes the Word of God and applies it to my conscience, and I confess my sin. It is possible that my conscience was not troubled until some time after my failure. Perhaps I did not realize the true condition of my heart until the night I could not pray, and I said to myself, “What is the matter?” Then I cried, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts” (Psa_139:23). In answer to the advocacy of my blessed Lord, the Spirit of God says, “Don’t you remember that unkind word, that unholy thought, that spiteful thing you did, that unforgiving spirit, that selfishness, that worldliness?” The guilt overwhelms me, and I break before God and say, “O God, I cannot go to sleep tonight until I have told You all about it.” Then I tell my story, confess my failures, my weakness and my sins, and as I do so, I know the blessing of the promise, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1Jn_1:9). You see the wonderful truth is that all the experiences I have gone through have not touched my relationship in the family of God.
My wife and I have raised two boys. Like other boys they are usually very good, but sometimes they give us a great deal of trouble. There are times they have given us a great deal of comfort, and then there are times when they have not been everything they should be, and it has concerned us. Often we have had to discipline them and say, “Go up to your room and stay there until you can face this thing, until you are ready to acknowledge your wrong and ask for forgiveness.” Sometimes the child’s will sets itself against the will of the parents. Hour after hour goes by without acknowledgment of wrong. Then suppertime comes and as the child hears the rattling of dishes, he calls out, “Father!” I go upstairs and he asks, “Can I go down to supper?” “That depends on you. Confess your wrong and you may come down.” “Well,” he says, “if you think I have done anything wrong, I am sorry.” “No, that won’t do,” and so I leave him and go back downstairs. Soon the meal is served and the odor wafts upstairs. He is getting hungry, and so he calls again. I go upstairs, and he tries to avoid the issue by saying, “Since you and Mother both think what I did is wrong, I guess it is, and I am sorry.” “No, guessing will not do,” and I turn to go downstairs. Maybe halfway down the stairs I hear him cry, “Father, Father, Please forgive me. I have been very naughty and stubborn.” Oh, how glad I am to throw my arms around him and put the kiss of forgiveness on his forehead, and say, “Come on down; we will all enjoy dinner better with you there.”
So it is with our God and Father. Sin does not touch our relationship, but it does hurt our fellowship. But our blessed Lord is in the presence of God the Father to plead for His people, and as a result of His advocacy, we are brought to repentance and confession, and He graciously restores our fellowship.
Obedience, the Proof of the New Life (1Jn_2:3-11)
The apostle now presents to us some tests of our Christian profession. It is one thing to say, “I am a Christian,” but it is another to possess eternal life. It is one thing to say, “I am a child of God,” and quite another to know the marvelous blessing of regeneration. Do we say we are Christians? Do we claim to be children of God? Then we must prove it by our lives.
“We do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments” (1Jn_2:3). He is not speaking from a legal standpoint. In the Old Testament the commandments of God were presented to us with a view of obtaining life. The law said of the man who kept His commandments, “Which, if a man do, he shall live in them” (Lev_18:5). But here, under grace, it is the opposite. The man who lives by faith will do His commandments. The one who says he lives for God and yet is completely indifferent to the will of God, has never been born of God. He is still in “the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity” (Act_8:23). The child of God delights in obedience to the will of God. Not that his obedience is perfect, for it is never that. There is only One who could say, “I do always those things that please him” (Joh_8:29). But love for the will of God springs up in the soul of the man who is truly regenerated. He delights to walk in obedience to God’s Word, and thus he proves that he is a child of God. He not only rests on the Word that says, “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life,” but he finds within himself that which corroborates his faith-that which proves he has been born of God. This new desire to do the will of God is not of the natural man. By nature we prefer to do our own will, we prefer to take our own way. But in trusting Christ, we learn to delight in His divine will.
“He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1Jn_2:4). How outspoken the apostle John was! Some people do not appreciate this kind of strong language. But we need to realize that the apostle was dealing with great abstract truths. Men either love God or do not. They either walk in darkness or they walk in light. There is no in between. The principle here is that we can test ourselves to see where we are. We should ask, “Do I delight in the will of God; do I love His commandments?” If I do not, there is no use professing to be a Christian, for I am professing a lie. It is hypocrisy to claim to be a Christian while my works deny my profession.
“He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him” (1Jn_2:4-5). There is a difference between keeping God’s word and keeping His commandments. Of course, a little farther down we are told that the “commandment is the word” (1Jn_2:7), but we could hardly say the word is the commandment. The commandment is included in the word, but the word is more than the commandment. The word is the expression of the will of God, either given in direct commandment or otherwise, and we who are saved delight to keep His word. This is the commendation that the Lord gave the church in Philadelphia, thou “hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name” (Rev_3:8). The Lord Himself makes this distinction between keeping His commandment and keeping His word. In Joh_14:15 He says, “If ye love me, keep my commandments,” but farther on He adds, “If a man love me, he will keep my words” (Joh_14:23).
The following story illustrates the difference between “commandment” and “word”. There is a little girl who after school enjoys playing with her friends. One day her mother said, “My dear, when you come home from school today, there are some chores I want you to do. Dust the living room and set the table for supper. I will be out for a while, but when you are finished you can go out and play.” Because she is an obedient child, when she returned from school she did the things her mother had commanded her to do. She showed her love in this way.
On another occasion she was under no such command, but coming home heard her mother speaking to the next door neighbor. Her mother said, “You know, I really don’t know how I am going to get through this afternoon. I have invited company for dinner, and I am in a panic because I don’t have anything ready. I am so exhausted and yet there are potatoes to peel, vegetables to prepare, and I don’t know how I will get it all done.” Now in the morning the mother had told her daughter, “When you come home from school today you can go out and play until I call you for dinner.” But the little girl, after hearing this conversation between her mother and the neighbor said, “Mother, you go and lie down for an hour. I will peel the potatoes, prepare the vegetables, set the table, and help you get dinner ready.” “But I told you you could play today,” the mother answered. “Oh, but I wouldn’t be happy out playing knowing you were here at home feeling so badly,” the child replied. Yesterday the little girl kept her mother’s commands; today she is keeping her word. How it must have delighted the mother’s heart to have her daughter doing these things even when she was not commanded to do them!
The believer, in studying the Word of God, finds direct commands-certain things the Lord has told him to do, and because he loves his Lord, it is his delight to keep those commandments. But as he continues to read, he comes across passages containing no command whatever, but that express God’s desires-the longings of His heart for His own people. The true believer says, “Because You have won my heart, dear Savior, I will keep Your words.” “Whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him” (1Jn_2:5). The word is the revelation of what God is and of His dwelling in the believer. Therefore keeping His word is the demonstration of the life of Christ in the one whom He has redeemed.
So the apostle added, “He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked” (1Jn_2:6). I cannot be all that Jesus is; that is impossible. Jesus is the Holy One of God, and I, although regenerated, am still a poor, failing, sinful man. But I am called to walk as He walked, for Christ has left us “an example that [we] should follow his steps” (1Pe_2:21). I am to glorify Him by following in His footsteps.
“Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning” (1Jn_2:7). Earlier we examined the expression, “From the beginning,” and saw that it differs from the words in Gen_1:1, which speak of the beginning of creation. When John said, “I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning” (1Jn_2:7), he was not referring to something strange and new, but was referring back to the word spoken by the Lord when He was here on earth. He was referring to the beginning of the Christian dispensation.
False teachers had come into the church and were deceiving the people of God with their teachings. The apostle said to test these teachings by asking, were these things taught from the beginning? As we have already seen, in Christianity, “What is new is not true, and what is true is not new.” We are not in the process of discovering Christianity. Christianity was a revelation committed to godly men by the Holy Spirit in the very beginning of the church age. In other words John said, “Go back to the records of our Lord’s life, see what He Himself taught, and walk in obedience to His Word.” Our Lord was not merely summing up the commandments when He said, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another” (Joh_13:34), but it was His instruction concerning obedience to the will of God.
But now the commandment takes on a new character. Since Christ has died, risen from the dead, ascended to Heaven, and sent the Holy Spirit to dwell in the hearts of believers, there are millions of regenerated men and women. To them the apostle declared, “Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth” (1Jn_2:8). The commandment is the word of God, and the word was expressed in the life of Christ. If we are born again, the life of Christ has been given to us, so what is true in Him is true in us. The only thing Jesus could do when He was here on earth was the will of God. He had no other thought or desire. Now He dwells in us, and if we are Christians, we have His life in us. When John speaks of His commandment, he says it is new because divine life is ours, and so the word is both in Him and in us. By calling on the believer to do the will of God, our Lord is asking him to do the very thing he longs to do.
Suppose a mother calls the doctor to see her young child. The little one seems to be very ill. After a careful examination, the doctor says, “I’m afraid the baby is very sick. I’m going to leave you some medicine. Don’t neglect the child, or be indifferent to its needs. Watch it carefully, see that it gets the medicine regularly, and is protected from anything that might make it worse instead of better. Please take good care of this child!” Is he asking the mother to do something that is difficult? No. She would probably reply, “That is exactly what I want and intend to do. I love that little child and nothing would cause me to be careless with it. I want to do the very best that I can for it.” The mother is told to do the very thing her heart yearns to do. And so it is with the believer, “You, that were sometime alienated, and enemies in your mind by wicked works” (Col_1:21), now love to do the things He asks. We delight in the will of God.
“A new commandment I write unto you…because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth” (1Jn_2:8). The word past does not exactly suggest the tense of the original. What he was really saying is, “The darkness is passing, and the true light is now shining.” We can see as we look on the world around us and in us that the darkness is not past. Even though the gospel of the grace of God has been preached for almost two thousand years, the darkness is not gone. There are still millions in darkness and in the shadow of death. And no matter how well I know my Lord and His Word, I cannot say that the darkness is past even in me. But the darkness is passing, and the true light is shining. Every day I am getting to know my Lord better, and every day I understand His will more perfectly. But until the time comes when I leave this body and see my blessed Savior face to face, there will still be a measure of darkness in me, even though all is light in Him.
Schiller, the German poet, said as he was dying, “I see everything clearer and clearer.” It won’t be long until all the darkness will be gone, and we will see everything in all its clearness in His own blessed presence.
In verses 9 and 10 (1Jn_2:9-10) the apostle speaks very seriously and very solemnly concerning something that may well convict some of us. “He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now” (1Jn_2:9). If you hate your brother, no matter what you profess, you are still in darkness. Notice he did not say you may be a real Christian who has fallen into darkness; but he said, if you hate your brother you are “in darkness even until now.” You have never been anywhere else. You have never been in the light at all. You cannot have divine light or the Holy Spirit or the love of God dwelling in you, and still hate your brother. And yet we often see people professing the name of Christ while showing hatred toward others.
“He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him” (1Jn_2:10). With new life comes light and love. God is light and love, and as we walk in fellowship with Him, nothing will cause us to stumble. Instead, we will constantly demonstrate the love of Christ. There is no room for hatred in the heart that is filled with the love of God.
“He that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes” (1Jn_2:11). This is the natural darkness in which all men are born. “Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart” (Eph_4:18