We will remain children of God as long as we continually
seek to return to God the love and faithfulness that God has breathed into
us.
Lesson Outcomes:
Through this lessons students should:
1. Understand
that we are children of God.
2. Understand
that we do not need to sin.
3. Seek
to participate in spiritual exercises and disciplines such as acts of service
and mercy, prayer and worship, as a means of remaining in fellowship with God
and neighbor.
Catch up on the
story:
John continues to instruct those who are the intended
recipients of the letter. As we recall,
John’s intention, first and foremost, is to remind us that Jesus, the one the
believing community of faith has seen, heard and touched, is really fully God
as well as human. We are to have
fellowship with God through Jesus so that we might have fellowship with our
brothers and sisters in Christ. Sin, on
the other hand, keeps us from both forms of fellowship.
John goes on to warn us about deceiving ourselves. If we say we love God, but don’t follow God’s
commands, then we are liars. If we obey
God’s word, however, then the love of God has reached perfection in us
(2:5). The chapter we have skipped,
2:1-29, can be broken down into two sections.
The first, 2:1-15, deals with God’s command for us to love our
neighbor. John makes it really clear
that we cannot walk in the light of God’s fellowship while hating our brother
and sister. The second, 2:16-29, warns
us about the “antichrist.” Here, John is
not making specific claims about who the antichrist is. In fact, he claims there are many who have
been “antichrists,” that is, deniers of Christ.
Anyone who has denied that the Son and the Father are one is an
antichrist. We are warned not to listen
to their teaching, but to remain (abide) in fellowship with the community of
faith and in fellowship with the Father through the Son.
The Text:
Section #1: Who are we?
Verse
29 of chapter 2 acts as a bridge between the two chapters. The proof about who enjoys true fellowship
with the Father through the Son is found in their deeds and their
teaching. Those who believe and obey
have been born of God.
Throughout
the letter so far John has addressed his hearers as “little children.” Now, John will help us consider more fully
what it means to be children of God.
First and foremost, being called children of God is rooted in the
initiative that God has taken in calling us to be children of God because of
his love for humanity. In the Father’s
great love for creation he sends forth his Son so that we might be adopted into
God’s family. We are God’s children
because God wants us to be God’s
children. In love God has called
us. John is speaking to those who have
heard the loving call of God and have responded in mutual love. The initiative is God’s. We respond to God’s love and we are thus
adopted into God’s family, which begins our transformation into a people who
look like the Son.
Our
status as children of God, who are becoming more and more like Jesus, creates
for us a bit of static with the world around us. We are misunderstood, rejected, harassed and
the like because, in our Christ likeness, the world does not recognize us as
something it needs. This is precisely
how the world responded to Jesus. It
rejected him because it did not know him.
In
verse 2, John leaves the world behind to further the conversation about who we
are and what we will become as God’s children.
John reminds us that we are now God’s children, but explains that this
status as children has consequences for all of eternity. We will not stop being children of God at our
death. We will, however, change. Even now, as we are becoming more and more
like Jesus, our transformation is not complete and will not be complete until
Christ returns. John says, “what we will
be has not yet been revealed.” We do not
yet know what we will be like in the end because we do not yet fully know
Christ. When Jesus returns he will be fully
revealed and we will finally and fully see who he is. This revelation of the fullness of Christ
will transform us into his likeness.[1]
Section #2: “Those who have been
born of God do not sin…”
In
this section, John’s main concern is to set up the first negative condition for
those who seek to live as children of God.
That is, the renunciation of sin.[2] For John, everyone who commits sin is guilty
of lawlessness. In fact, John says, sin
is lawlessness. Sin is a rejection of
the law of God, and Jesus has summed up the law for us, that we love God with
all we are and that we love our neighbor as ourselves. We are guilty of lawlessness when we reject
the notion that our fullest response to the love of God is expressed through
love of God and neighbor. John will make
this connection more directly at the end of the passage.
Indeed,
John says, Jesus was revealed precisely so that sin might be taken away. In Jesus we find the fullest completion of
the law as Jesus obeys and loves the Father and creation by giving himself up
for us. There is no sin in Jesus because
he loves fully and perfectly. As
children, we are called to “live” (NIV) or “abide” (NRSV) in Jesus. Conversely, no one who remains or lives in
sin can be a child of God. This entire
section has very much to do with actions.
The “live” and “abide” of verse 6 is less static than our English
translations might suggest. Often the
images that are evoked by living, abiding or remaining are passive. We remain somewhere until a force causes us
to move. The Greek, as it is used here,
however, connotes an active posture, to “keep on, continue in an activity or
state, as an aspect of an action…”[3] Those who actively remain in sin
cannot be children of God, but rather are children of the devil who has been
sinning from the beginning.
It’s
at verse 9 that we run into an apparent contradiction with what John has said
earlier. As you will recall, in chapter
one John warns us that if we say we are without sin we are liars. Remember, John is speaking to believers, not
unbelievers. How now can John say that
those who have been born of God cannot sin?
John Wesley devotes an entire sermon to just this verse from First John. In, The
Great Privilege of Those That Are Born of God, Wesley helps us see what
John really means. In Wesley’s opinion,
John is not contradicting himself. You
can find the sermon here.
We,
who have been born of God, have been transformed from the inside out. Our existence is changed. “The Spirit or
breath of God is immediately inspired, breathed into the new-born soul; and the
same breath which comes from [God], returns to God: As it is continually
received by faith, so it is continually rendered back by love, by prayer, and
praise, and thanksgiving; love and praise, and prayer being the breath of every
soul which is truly born of God."[4] What Wesley is saying here is that as we
receive God’s Spirit our constant response is to exhale it in a response of
love, praise and prayer. It is this
continual respiration of the Spirit of God that keeps us from sin. As long as God’s breath is in us, as long as
we take it in and continue to respond to it, we cannot sin. This spiritual breathing is not entirely
natural to us, and so, it becomes a choice for us to continually respond to
God’s grace.
Our
ability to not sin, First John’s “they cannot sin,” is less a determined thing
than it is a continued choice on our part.
This living or remaining as children of God, as we said above, is not a
passive or static thing; it is active.
We remain as children of God by choice.
But, Wesley says, when we cease to breath back God’s Spirit in love for
God and others, in prayer and praise, sin creeps back in.
Wesley
uses two examples from scripture to demonstrate what he means. The best known one is that of King David and
Bathsheba. If there were anyone who was
“after God’s heart” it was David. But,
Wesley argues, David does not keep himself in God through the continued
discipline of love, prayer and praise.
As David lets the temptation into his heart, it gains mastery over him
and sin is born. Wesley describes the
process like this:
You see the
unquestionable progress from grace to sin: Thus it goes on, from step to step.
(1.) The divine seed of loving, conquering faith, remains in him that is born
of God. “He keepeth himself,” by the grace of God, and “cannot commit sin.”
(2.) A temptation arises; whether from the world, the flesh, or the devil, it
matters not. (3.) The Spirit of God gives him warning that sin is near, and
bids him more abundantly watch unto prayer. (4.) He gives way, in some degree, to
the temptation, which now begins to grow pleasing to him. (5.) The Holy Spirit
is grieved; his faith is weakened; and his love of God grows cold. (6.) The
Spirit reproves him more sharply, and saith, “This is the way; walk thou in
it.” (7.) He turns away from the painful voice of God, and listens to the
pleasing voice of the tempter. (8.) Evil desire begins and spreads in his soul,
till faith and love vanish away: He is then capable of committing outward sin,
the power of the Lord being departed from him.[5]
As
long as we are willing, cooperating with God’s Spirit by breathing back the
love and grace we have received from him, he will help us resist the
temptations that lead to sin. When,
however, we fail to keep ourselves in God, we give temptation a hold in our
lives and are thus pulled into sin. “For
it plainly appears, God does not continue to act upon the soul, unless that
soul re-acts upon God... He will gradually withdraw, and leave us to the
darkness of our own hearts. He will not continue to breathe into our soul,
unless our soul breathes toward him again; unless our love, and prayer, and
thanksgiving return to him, a sacrifice wherewith he is well pleased.”[6]
Finally,
John tells us that we will know who are children of God or children of the devil
by their actions. Those who do what is
right, which John defines as “love their brothers and sisters” are children of
God. Those who do not love their
brothers and sisters are not children of God.
So What…?
The
beautiful truth of this passage is that sin no longer needs to have mastery
over us. The very purpose that Jesus the
Son has been revealed to us is that sin might be defeated. Using very strong language, John declares for
us that sin has been defeated. We have
been born again as children of God. This
means that we breathe a different sort of air than we did before. The air we now breathe as children of God is
the air of God’s Holy Spirit. We take it
into our lungs and it is transported throughout our body, transforming us,
strengthening us just as does normal air.
As
with our body, this spiritual respiration is not engaged in passively by
us. No, we take this new spiritual air
into our bodies and then we exhale it back out.
God longs for us to continually bring in his Spirit, but will not make
us do it. We must continually react to
God’s love and grace by tending to the things that help us love our neighbor
and God. Our part of this spiritual
respiration is acts of service and mercy toward those around us. It is our continual engagement in worship
with the Body of Christ, as well as personal and communal prayer.
As
Wesley would say, we must “keep ourselves.”
Our resistance to sin is only as good as our willingness to allow the
Spirit to keep us from sin. When we fail
to engage in spiritual practices like acts of service and mercy, prayer and
praise, we seriously limit the Spirit’s ability to keep us from sin and our
status as children of God comes into danger.
So,
let us persist in the practices and disciplines that we took up during
Lent. May our practices of denying
ourselves; our practices of loving and serving our neighbor, our practices of
worship and prayer continue to lead us into fellowship with God and with
others.
Critical Discussion Questions:
- What does God look like in this text/Who is God in this text/What is God doing in this text?
- God, through Christ and the Spirit, is constantly engaged with helping us live into our status as children of God. God is working in us and with us so that we might not sin.
- What does holiness/salvation look like in this text?
- Our salvation and subsequent holiness rely on our response to God’s Spirit-given grace. We are children of God when we, as Wesley says, breathe in and breathe out God’s love and grace.
- How does an encounter with this story shape who we are and who we should become?
- Our fellowship with God and neighbor is not static or passive. It is a continual breathing in the Spirit of God and breathing out of God’s Spirit through service and mercy, love, praise, and prayer. As we engage in continually giving ourselves to spiritual practices and disciplines such as these, we are strengthened to go and sin no more.
Specific Discussion Questions:
Read
the text aloud. Then, read the text to yourself quietly. Read it slowly, as if you were very
unfamiliar with the story.
1. John
states in verse 1 that the world does not know us because it did not know
Jesus. What does he mean by that?
2. What
does John mean when he says that we will know what we will be like when Jesus
is revealed. When will Jesus be finally
revealed?
3. In
verse 4, John says that everyone sins is guilty of lawlessness. What is the law to which John refers? (For a clue, see Matthew 22:36-40). What are practical ways that we often fail to
keep this law?
4. John
says, in verse 6, that “No one who abides in him sins.” The word “abide” can have the meaning, “keep
on, and continue in an activity or state, as an aspect of an action.” How is “abiding” in God a continual
action? What types of habits or
practices might help us abide in God in an active sense?
5. Respond
to John’s statement, “Those who have been born of God do not sin…they cannot
sin.” (Verse 9) How could it be possible
to not sin? Keep in mind the active
nature of abiding with God.
6. John
tells us at the end of the passage that those who “do not do what is right are
not from God.” Given all the things that
First John has already said, how do you think John would define “what is
right”?
7. How
are you doing personally with abiding in God?
[1] John
Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New
Testament, Fourth American Edition (New York: J. Soule and T. Mason, 1818),
661.
[2] Stephen S.
Smalley, 1, 2, 3 John, Word Biblical Commentary, (Nashville: Thomas
Nelson, 2009), 153.
[3] James
Swanson, Dictionary of Biblical Languages
with Semantic Domains: Greek (New Testament) (Oak Harbor: Logos Research
Systems, Inc., 1997).
[4] John
Wesley, Sermons, on Several Occasions
(Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1999).
[5] Ibid.
[6] Wesley.
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