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Transcript
CHRISTIANS ON CAMPUS BIBLE STUDY THE FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN The Fellowship of the Divine Life CHAPTER 1 I. The Fellowship of the Divine Life 1:1-2:11 C. The Condition of the Divine Fellowship 1:5—2:11 1. Confessing Our Sins 1:5—2:2 the Spirit. This God, as revealed in the light of the gospel, is light. The message that John and the other early disciples heard was, undoubtedly, the word spoken by the Lord Jesus in John 8:12 and 9:5 --that He is the light. However, John said here that the message was that God is light. This indicates that the Lord Jesus is God, implying the essence of the Divine Trinity. 1 John 1:5 note 1, God 1 John 1:5 note 2, light Expressions such as God is love in 4:8, 16, and God is Spirit in John 4:24 are used not in a metaphoric sense but in a predicative sense. They denote and describe the nature of God. In His nature, God is Spirit, love, and light. Spirit denotes the nature of God's person; love, the nature of God's essence; and light, the nature of God's expression. Both love and light are related to God as life, which is of the Spirit (Rom. 8:2). God, Spirit, and life are actually one. God is Spirit and Spirit is life. Within this life are love and light. When the divine love appears to us, it becomes grace, and when the divine light shines on us, it becomes truth. John's Gospel reveals that the Lord Jesus brought grace and truth to us (John 1:14, 17) that we might have the divine life (John 3:14-16), whereas John's Epistle unveils that the fellowship of the divine life brings us to the very source of grace and truth, which are the divine love and the divine light. John's Epistle is the continuation of his Gospel. In John's Gospel it is God in the Son coming to us as grace and truth that we may become His children (John 1:12-13); in John's Epistle it is we, the children, in the fellowship of the Father's life, going to the Father to participate in His love and light (see note 8(2) in ch. 4). The former was God's coming out to the outer court to meet our need at the altar (Lev. 4:28-31); the latter is our entering into the Holy of Holies to contact Him at the ark (Exo. 25:22). This is further and deeper in the experience of the divine life. After receiving the divine life by believing into the Son in John's Gospel, we should go on to enjoy this life through the fellowship of this life in John's Epistle. The entire Epistle discloses to us this one thing, that is, the enjoyment of the divine life through our abiding in its fellowship.. In the preceding verses the Father and the Son are mentioned in plain words, and the Spirit is implied in the fellowship of the eternal life. Here God is mentioned for the first time in this Epistle, and He is mentioned as the Triune God --the Father, the Son, and 1 John 1:5 note 3, darkness As light is the nature of God in His expression, so darkness is the nature of Satan in his evil works (3:8). Thank God that He has delivered us out of the satanic darkness into the divine light (Acts 26:18; 1 Pet. 2:9). 5 And this is the message which we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and are not practicing the truth; 7 But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from every sin. 8 If we say that we do not have sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. CHAPTER 2 1 My little children, these things I write to you that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous; 2 And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for those of the whole world. Footnotes: Text and footnotes taken from the Recovery Version of the Bible The divine light is the divine life in the Son operating in us. This light shines in the darkness within us, and the darkness cannot overcome it (John 1:4-5). When we follow this light, we shall by no means walk in darkness (John 8:12), which, according to the context, is the darkness of sin (vv. 7-10). 1 John 1:6 note 1, have fellowship To have fellowship with God is to have intimate and living contact with Him in the flow of the divine life according to the Spirit's anointing in our spirit (2:27). This keeps us in the participation and enjoyment of the divine light and the divine love. 1 John 1:6 note 2, lie Lying is of Satan; he is the father of liars (John 8:44 and note 3). The satanic darkness is versus the divine light, and the satanic lie is versus the divine truth. As the divine truth is the expression of the divine light, so the satanic lie is the expression of the satanic darkness. If we say that we have fellowship with God, who is light, and walk in the darkness, we lie in the expression of the satanic darkness and do not practice the truth in the expression of the divine light. This verse inoculates against the heretical teaching of the Antinomians, who taught that one is free from the obligation of the moral law and said that one can live in sin and at the same time have fellowship with God. 1 John 1:6 note 3, practicing This Greek verb denotes doing (things) habitually and continually by abiding (in the things); hence, it has the sense of practice. It is used also in 2:17, 29; 3:4 (twice), 7, 8, 9, 10, 22; 5:2; Rom. 1:32; and elsewhere. To practice the truth is to live the truth habitually, not merely to do it occasionally. 1 John 1:6 note 4, truth The Greek word means reality (the opposite of vanity), verity, veracity, genuineness, sincerity. It is John's highly individual terminology, and it is one of the profound words in the New Testament, denoting all the realities of the divine economy as the content of the divine revelation, conveyed and disclosed by the holy Word as follows: (c) all the divine and spiritual things, such as the divine life and resurrection (John 11:25; 14:6), the divine light (John 8:12; 9:5), the divine way (John 14:6), wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption (1 Cor. 1:30). Hence, Christ is the reality (John 14:6; Eph. 4:21). (3) The Spirit, who is Christ transfigured (1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 3:17), as the reality of Christ (John 14:1617; 15:26) and of the divine revelation (John 16:13-15). Hence, the Spirit is the reality (5:6). (4) The Word of God as the divine revelation, which not only reveals but also conveys the reality of God and Christ and of all the divine and spiritual things. Hence, the Word of God also is reality (John 17:17 and note 3). (5) The contents of the faith (belief), which are the substantial elements of what we believe, as the reality of the full gospel (Eph. 1:13; Col. 1:5); these are revealed throughout the New Testament (2 Cor. 4:2; 13:8; Gal. 5:7; 1 Tim. 1:1, note 1, points 1 and 2; 2:4 and note 2; 2:7b; 3:15 and note 5; 4:3; 6:5; 2·Tim. 2:15, 18, 25; 3:7, 8; 4:4; Titus 1:1, 14; 2·Thes. 2:10, 12; Heb. 10:26; James 5:19; 1 Pet. 1:22; 2 Pet. 1:12). (6) The reality concerning God, the universe, man, man's relationship with God and with his fellow man, and man's obligation to God, as revealed through creation and the Scriptures (Rom. 1:18-20; 2:2, 8, 20). (7) The genuineness, truthfulness, sincerity, honesty, trustworthiness, and faithfulness of God as a divine virtue (Rom. 3:7; 15:8) and of man as a human virtue (Mark 12:14; 2 Cor. 11:10; Phil. 1:18; 1 John 3:18), and as an issue of the divine reality (John 4:23-24; 2 John 1a; 3 John 1). (8) Things that are true or real, the true or real state of affairs (facts), reality, veracity, as the opposite of falsehood, deception, dissimulation, hypocrisy, and error (Mark 5:33; 12:32; Luke 4:25; John 16:7; Acts 4:27; 10:34; 26:25; Rom. 1:25; 9:1; 2·Cor. 6:7; 7:14; 12:6; Col. 1:6; 1·Tim. 2:7a). Of the eight points listed above, the first five refer to the same reality in essence. God, Christ, and the Spirit --the Divine Trinity --are essentially one. Hence, (1) God, who is light and love, incarnated to be the these three, being the basic elements of the substance of reality of the divine things, such as the divine life, the the divine reality, are actually one reality. This one divine nature, the divine power, and the divine glory, divine reality is the substance of the Word of God as for us to possess, that we may enjoy Him as grace, as the divine revelation. Hence, it becomes the revealed revealed in John's Gospel (John 1:1, 4, 14-17). divine reality in the divine Word and makes the divine Word the reality. The divine Word conveys this one (2) Christ, who is God incarnated and in whom all divine reality as the contents of the faith, and the the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily (Col. 2:9), as contents of the faith are the substance of the gospel the reality of (a) God and man (John 1:18, 51; 1 Tim. revealed in the entire New Testament as its reality, 2:5); (b) all the types, figures, and shadows of the Old which is just the divine reality of the Divine Trinity. Testament (Col. 2:16-17; John 4:23, 24 and notes); and When this divine reality is partaken of and enjoyed by Text and footnotes taken from the Recovery Version of the Bible us, it becomes our genuineness, sincerity, honesty, and trustworthiness as an excellent virtue in our behavior that enables us to express God, the God of reality, by whom we live; and we become persons living a life of truth, without any falsehood or hypocrisy, a life that corresponds with the truth revealed through creation and the Scripture. The word truth is used in the New Testament more than one hundred times. Its denotation in each occurrence is determined by its context. For instance, in John 3:21, according to the context, it denotes uprightness (the opposite of evil --John 3:19-20), which is the reality manifested in a man who lives in God according to what He is and which corresponds with the divine light, which is God, as the source of the truth, manifested in Christ. In John 4:23-24, according to the context of that chapter and also according to the entire revelation of John's Gospel, it denotes the divine reality becoming man's genuineness and sincerity (the opposite of the hypocrisy of the immoral Samaritan worshipper --John 4:16-18) for the true worship of God. The divine reality is Christ, who is the reality (John 14:6), as the reality of all the offerings of the Old Testament for the worship of God (John 1:29; 3:14) and as the fountain of living water, the life-giving Spirit (John 4:7-15), partaken of and drunk by His believers to be the reality within them, which eventually becomes their genuineness and sincerity, in which they worship God with the worship that He seeks. In John 5:33 and 18:37, according to the entire revelation of the Gospel of John, truth denotes the divine reality embodied, revealed, and expressed in Christ as the Son of God. In John 8:32, 40, 44-46, according to the context of that chapter, it denotes the reality of God revealed in His word (John 8:47) and embodied in Christ, the Son of God (John 8:36), which sets us free from the bondage of sin (see note 32(1) in John8). Here in v.·6, truth denotes the revealed reality of God in its aspect of the divine light. It is the issue and realization of the divine light mentioned in v. 5. The divine light is the source in God; truth is the issue and realization of the divine light in us (see note 8(2) in ch.4; cf. John 3:19-21). When we abide in the divine light, which we enjoy in the fellowship of the divine life, we practice the truth --what we have realized in the divine light. When we abide in the source, its issue becomes our practice. Text and footnotes taken from the Recovery Version of the Bible