1 John 5 – Quiet Home

5:1-2. The evidence that we believe Jesus is the Christ is our obedience to his commandments (cf. John 14:15, 21). Believe, and love, and Christ, should not be redefined to give false comfort to those who are yet in their sins.

5:3-4. As in Vv. 1 and 2, our faith, which is born of God, involves seeking to please God because we love him, whereas the yoke the law imposed on worldly unconverted hearts was unbearable. But our faith has given us the victory over the enmity towards God that is in the world by sin (cf. 2:16; 4:2-5; Mt. 11:30).

5:5-12. How do we know that Jesus is the Son of God? Because of the testimony God has borne concerning him by three witnesses: the Spirit, the water, and the blood (8-9; cf. Deut. 19:15 & Mt. 18:16). Our faith is reasonable, for it is based on the testimony of three reliable witnesses:

1. The Spirit, who bore witness by the works of power Jesus did (John 5:36); by the word of God found in the Scriptures (John 5:37, 39); by direct voice from heaven (Mt. 3:17; 17:5); and by the witness in every believer, a new heart testifying within himself (10);

2. The water. Both water and blood signify cleansing (John 19: 34 f.; Heb. 9:19), and the Spirit witnessed to Jesus’ purity as God’s Son when he was washed in the water of baptism by John (Mt. 3:17). The water testifies to his righteous life;

3. The blood testifies that Christ came in the flesh (4:2), and that he died an atoning death for our sins (6; cf. Heb. 9:13-14, 22). By raising Jesus from the dead, God has testified that Christ’s blood has been propitious, and that he who has the Son has been given eternal life in him (11-12).

5:13. John’s purpose is to assure those who believe in God’s testimony that the man Jesus was also his eternal Son, that they may know they have eternal life in him (11-12).

5:14-15. The love God has for us in Christ gives us confidence to approach him with any request (cf. 1 Pet. 5:7). Just as Jesus cast all his cares on God in the garden of Gethsemane, so we are to do, but always as he did, asking in accordance with his will. It was not possible for him to avoid the cross, but by it God gave him all things. God hears our prayers, and in Christ we also have been given all things (cf. Mt. 6:33; Luke 12:13 f.; Ro. 8:32; 1 Cor. 3:21-23; 1 John 3:22).

5:16-17. I assume here that John speaks of the sin that is suicide to the soul, rather than the outrage of self-murder. Sometimes the two may be related (as in Judas’ case), but they are not identical sins. I believe 10 b. defines the sin John calls the sin to death. It is the irrevocable rejection of the witness of the Holy Spirit concerning the only way of salvation (11-12). There is a sin that results in spiritual death, and it will not be forgiven (cf. Deut. 29:19-20; Mt. 12:31 f.; Heb. 6:4-6; 10:26 f.; Rev. 22:11). (This does not contradict the perseverance of the saints; see 2:19.)

We are certainly to pray for those who are mired in sin (16; cf. Jas. 5:19-20). But does John instruct us not to pray for those who have seemingly irrevocably rejected the Spirit’s witness concerning the only way of life? Perhaps such a time does come (cf. Jer. 7:16; 14:11; 15:1 ff.; John 17:12). But possibly John simply means that we are not to inquire into this, except to say as the disciples did, “Lord, is it I?” (Mt. 26:22, KJV). (Alfred Marshall’s The Interlinear Greek-English New Testament translates the last phrase of 16 thus: “There is a sin unto death; not concerning that do I say in order that he should inquire”.)

5:18-21. When the apostle says no one who is born of God sins (18), he is not contradicting the fact that we deceive ourselves if we say that we have no sin (1:8). He is

saying that God guards and keeps us, and that in Christ all our sin debt to the law is paid. We serve a new master, grow in sanctification, and are accounted fully just in God’s sight (cf. Ro. 7:17 ff.; 8:33). In the Father’s eyes, we are covered by the perfect righteousness of his Son Jesus Christ. “We are in Him who is true” (20). “This is the true God and eternal life.” Looking for God or eternal life in anything other than Jesus is to turn to idols (21).