1 John 3

     John 8 has many parallels to this chapter.

     3:1-24.  God loves his children, and such we are (1).  But how do we know for sure, since we have not yet come into our full inheritance (2)?  When we call God our Father, do we take his name in vain?  Whom do you obey?  Do you love your brother?   Do you walk in the truth?  Once again, these are the tests by which we know we are the children of God, and not just a cowbird chick in a song bird’s nest, by nature filled with greed and murder in our hearts toward the true nestlings (10-12). 

     3:4.  The law defines sin.  Sin is lawlessness (“sin is the transgression of the law”, KJV).

     3:5-6.  We know what the true Son of God is like.  He appeared to take away our sins, and in him there is no sin.  Those who abide in him are like him.  They obey the Father.

     3:7-13.  The children of the devil are obvious, too.  They practice sin.  Regeneration is the first work of sanctification.  You can’t walk in the Spirit and sin at the same time (cf. 1:8-10).

     Do we love our brothers, the other children of God?  Do we love them even more when they are more righteous than ourselves?  The devil’s children do not, but like Cain, hate the brother more righteous than themselves, because their deeds are evil.  Natural men with enmity like Cain’s crucified Christ, and they hate his people (13; cf. Mt. 5:10-12, 21, 22).

     3:15-16.  V.16 is the opposite of murder.

     3:17-18.  The testing by love and truth (cf. Jas. 2:14-26).

     3:19-21.  We have a right to assurance in these things, and even when our heart condemns us, God knows his own children, and is greater than our hearts.  A clear conscience gives us confidence.

     3:22.  The obedient confident heart prays in faith, is pleasing to God, and is rewarded by God’s favor in whatever it asks.  In Christ, God freely gives us all things (Ro. 8:17, 32).

     3:23-24.  The two tablets of the OT law (the ten commandments) were a shadow of the righteousness of Christ.  He is the substance of that shadow.  God’s commandment is to believe in the name of his Son, and love one another.  Doing this keeps the whole law, and assures us that we abide in him, and he in us.  This is the evidence of his Spirit in us (cf. Ro. 8:4, 14-16; Gal. 4:6-7).