Lesson 30
Today we’re going to start with John 15 just by way of a little bit more review before hopping back into 1 John. The reason we’re doing that is because we want to be very, very clear how the Apostle John uses one word; and that word is abide. So we want to spend some time there this morning. So let’s open with a word of prayer.
(Opening prayer)
Hopefully you all have the handout. On the handout we have the outline there, the beginning from 2:28 to 4:19. That’s the main section of the epistle. We’ve been talking about getting into that for weeks. The section we’re on 2:29 to 3:10 - that’s distinguishing the work of God in believers. There’s a logic to this even though John’s epistle is a… Are we running out? Are we short on this? Oh dear. Okay, thank you because we have some verse references on the handout. She’ll get some in just a minute.
We want to distinguish 3 phases to salvation. It’s failure to distinguish these three phases of salvation that gets you in trouble with texts like 1 John. By way of review, we have first phase, which is salvation. That occurs at an instant of time. It’s not a long temporal process. It occurs when we trust in Christ initially. It includes justification. It includes the work of the Holy Spirit. An easy way to remember the work of the Holy Spirit is r-i-b-s, RIBS - R for regeneration, I for indwelling, B for baptism, and S for sealing. That’s a quick way of firming up in your mind what happens when someone trusts in Christ. These are not experiential. They lead to experiences, but these themselves – we don’t sense them. You can’t change your heart rate to feel it although there can be an emotional accompaniment to this when someone trusts in Christ. People have reported that. Some of you when you trusted in Christ you could sense it. But the point here is that that is the basis for experience – that phase 1. That’s justification. That has to be clear. Because it wasn’t clear for a thousand years, you had the Protestant Reformation clarify it. That was what basically tore up Europe.
John Calvin and Martin Luther had to say, “Look, you’ve got to distinguish salvation from sanctification.”
That’s what the whole Reformation is about. It was a very important advance in the church’s understanding of Bible doctrine.
Then we have the last phase, phase 3, which is not part of our experience yet but will be. That’s resurrection. For believers it’s evaluation of our phase 2 life, gain or loss of rewards. This is to receive the resurrection body and that gets rid of all aches, pains, sickness and all the other stuff that we put up with in our mortal, fallen bodies. That is also an instantaneous thing.
What’s not instantaneous, what is a process, is the time gap between those two. That’s phase 2. That’s called sanctification. Theologians like to use 3 nouns to describe this. They don’t like to use phase l, phase 2, phase 3. Phase 1, they like to use justification; for phase 2 they like to use sanctification;. and for phase3 they like to use glorification. So those are the proper theological terms for what we’re talking about here. That’s the 3 parts.
Now the point is that John over and over in his epistle is going to say, “Abide.” In fact remember he says:
NKJ 1 John 2:28 And now, little children, abide in Him, that when He appears, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before Him at His coming.
That’s the key verse that goes into the section we’re going to deal with in the coming weeks. So abide is the issue.
So now when you look on the outline, you’ll see where I say abide or continue is the Greek word meno, m-e-n-o. That’s the Greek verb that’s used that’s translated continue or abide. It’s the meaning of that verb that we want to look at. Down underneath that, I point out that’s there been confusion on this part almost up until the beginning of the 20th century in church history. You’ll see first you have those who are Arminians. Those are people who followed Jacob Arminius and others in the days of the Reformation who believed you could lose your salvation. The reason they thought that was they saw passages in the New Testament that referred to discipline. They saw passage like we’ll look at today in John 15 about the branches – that he that does not abide in Me is cast forth as a branch and burned. So they interpret that as loss of salvation.
In denominations, Arminianism was prevalent with John Wesley, the Methodist movement. It’s prevalent in some Assembly of God circles, that area. I think the Nazarene Church tends to be Arminian also. So those are the areas still with us that are Arminian that believe that you can lose your salvation.
Then we have the lordship Salvationists in the reform camp. They believe that you can’t really tell that you are of the elect or saved until you persevere to the end of your life and take your last breath.
The problem with both of those positions is there is no assurance of salvation now. The counseling side of that, the practical side of that in personal life is this – that if you’re not assured of your salvation, you have no tools to sustain yourself in coming out of long-term sin patterns and sanctification issues. If you’re working say with a drug addiction, or any addiction, it’s a life dominating behavior. You can’t just trust in Christ on Tuesday and walk away on Wednesday all taken care of. It doesn’t work that way. There is a long-standing battle to get out of addictions; but you can’t get out of the addiction if you’re not sure you’re saved. That’s the fallacy of not having assurance.
It gets back to the fact that if you go back to John Calvin’s original writings and scholars have done this. Those who have looked at this question…
Calvin himself is often said probably said wasn’t a Calvinist. In John Calvin’s day, John Calvin didn’t make a distinguishment between the noun believe and the noun assured. Faith and assurance for him in his writings were synonyms. Later reformed people did not make those two nouns synonyms. They said assurance is not the same as faith. You have faith; but you’re not sure you have faith. Assurance is the assurance that you have faith. But faith is assurance. It’s assurance that Jesus died for my sins and that I share His righteousness. So we don’t distinguish those two.
We come back to abide. The question here is – is John talking about abiding as trusting in Christ and not abiding is doing what? Losing your salvation.
So I’m going back to John 15; and we’ll review the vineyard situation. So let’s go back to John 15. We’re going back to the Gospel of John, not the epistle of John, for this reason. John is writing his epistle later than he wrote the gospel. He’s writing his epistle out of what he learned when he was writing the gospel. In John 14, 15, 16, and 17 is the section in his gospel that’s called the Upper Room Discourse. That is Jesus briefing to His disciples.
The important thing is that briefing began after somebody left the room. Who was it that left the room before the Upper Room Discourse? Judas Iscariot. Once Judas left the room, now Jesus goes into this exposition. Is He talking to believers or is He talking to unbelievers? He’s talking to believers. So this is addressed to believers.
Now he gives a metaphor. The metaphor is the vine and branches. So we want to review the vineyard here again. This is courtesy of the Furches family. The vineyard was a common plant, a common agriculture crop in that day so it’s metaphor that would have been understood.
Now a word about metaphors because today’s English literature classes are all screwed up when it comes to the theory of language. The language theory that is embedded in all English literature courses today, bar a few that know what they’re doing, is that language is an evolved series of noises that came out of our ape ancestry. Because of that, language is nothing more than the projection of individuals that are the result themselves of accidental collocation of atoms. That results in a theory of language that is discord – it’s disjunct from truth.
An ape may be hungry and another animal may not be. They sound different. So they may communicate a little bit that they’re hungry or they’re not hungry. The point is they’re not talking about God. They’re not talking about whether something is true or false. They’re not talking about the fact – am I distinguished from other kind of species of animals. They’re not talking about that. That’s the basis of language in the modern English class. It comes out more recently in the postmodern idea of language that you can’t really if you read the text you can’t really know what the text says because we’re so separated from the author. We really don’t know his intent and so forth and so on. All of that comes about because there is the rejection of the Bible doctrine of language.
The biblical doctrine of language goes back to Genesis 1. What was the tool God used to create the entire universe - hammer, sword or language? Language God spoke the universe into existence. I don’t know why modern people have problem with this. We know the DNA structure has four protein letters in the alphabet. Now if God can make all of our biological design using a 4-letter alphabet, what is our problem with languages? So language in the Bible is structured because God created it.
By the way, no one can learn a language except someone teaches them. A child that is born…The Canadians did a study on this. A feral child growing up in Canada was a very interesting report. This was decades ago. A feral will never learn languages. They will learn to make noises, but they cannot learn a language. That shows you you need another language speaking person to teach a language to somebody. Babies do not spontaneously learn language. They learn language because they watch their mother, their father or someone close by. That’s where they’re learning language. So if that’s the case, who taught Adam to speak? Who walked with him? See the details in the text. If you look at the text, you’ll see answers to these questions. God taught Adam to speak.
Yes, Joel.
Comment The act of translation between one line and another requires a standard of truth that…refer to.
That’s right.
Comment
Exactly
The act of translating requires a transcendent standard or you’re not translating. All right.
By the way speaking of translating, how many languages were there before the flood? So the multiplicity of languages is an after effect. It’s a corruption and a perversion of what happened in history. We don’t understand what went on. Apparently the original language on earth was a proto-Semitic language. We know that because the nuances in Genesis don’t make sense in anything but a Semitic language. So it’s probably a proto-Semitic language. There is evidence that the early settlers in New England, long before the American Indians, New England was visited by people who spoke a Semitic language. It’s there in the debris. So this earth was colonized apparently after the flood by a proto Semitic people. So language is important. All that to come back to the metaphor.
Today metaphors are treated in language studies as though they are the arbitrary selection of the author. That is not true. In the Bible, metaphor is due to God’s deliberate designs. There are two key metaphors to think about. Both of these are metaphors that depend on God’s design. One is the vine, the grapevine. The other is sheep. One is a botanical metaphor. The other is a zoological metaphor. What is the same about s grapevine and a sheep regarding man? A sheep requires a shepherd. A grapevine requires a vinedresser if it is going to produce good grapes. A grapevine is designed that way. Thousands of years ago when God designed the plant life kingdom, He designed certain plants with certain designs because He was going to use those designs as metaphors to communicate truth. When God designed the zoological kingdom, He designed the sheep with certain behaviors because He knew ahead of time that He was going to use that animal, not that one but that one, to teach truth with.
So now we come to John 15. Let’s look at John 15and look at what Jesus is saying.
NKJ John 15:1 "I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.
Does that distinguish the roles within the trinity? Remember we said John the Apostle is very Trinitarian. You pick it up in his writings when you start looking at details like this. Jesus is the vine. The Father is the vinedresser. The Father is the one who cares for His Son and wants His Son to produce fruit. So now we’re learning something about how the trinity works here.
NKJ John 15:1 "I am the true vine
Notice Jesus says:
NKJ John 15:1 "I am the true vine
…to distinguish from false vines.
Not Israel the nation, “but I,” He says.
NKJ John 15:1 "I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.
Now we have a series of branches.
NKJ John 15:2 "Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away;
In the King James it says, “ He takes away.” Do any of you with a different translation; do any of you have a different translation of that second verb? Anybody? I’m not up with all the translations. I think most of them have “take away.” Is that right? Well, that’s the Greek verb eiro. The Greek verb eiro when used for viticulture and we know this by going back to first century texts. When used in a viticultural context, it doesn’t mean take away. It means support. It means lift up.
Now in the Furches vineyard here’s what Mike and his sons did. See the wire. That’s lifting up the branches. That’s what Jesus is talking about. You can’t lift a branch up that isn’t in the vine.
So now we’re back to – what does “in Me” mean here? If Jesus is the vine, every branch in Me that does not bear fruit…”
Some people see “takes away” and say, “Oh, oh. That means loss of salvation.”
Wait a minute. The branch is in Him. It doesn’t make sense to translate to take away because do that for the third branch. But the first branch is in Him. So now we have to deal with another thing; and it’s noted in your handout that in John the preposition en is not used the same way Paul uses it. John uses it as relational. Paul uses it as legal, as a reference of justification.
In your handout I give you John 17:21. So if you look halfway down on page 1 there – John 17:21. Notice what 17:21 says. Here’s how you learn how John uses the preposition en. This is a prayer that He prayed out in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Jesus says to the Father:
NKJ John 17:21 "that they all may be one, as You, Father, are
Preposition
in Me,
Preposition
I in You;
Preposition en
and that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me
Now if that is soteriological as Paul, what is the conflict in John 17:21? The preposition en, the preposition en is referred to the trinity. The Father is in the Son. That’s not talking about justification. The Father doesn’t need to be justified. Christ doesn’t need to be justified. That’s talking about a relationship between the Father and the Son. That’s how en is used in Johannine writings.
as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You;
So there’s the relationship.
Then he says:
We pray that they also may be one in Us
So that’s sharing the relationship of the trinity. So you see the preposition en here is talking about relationship, talking about personal relationship.
All right now let’s go back to John 15:2.
NKJ John 15:2 "Every branch in Me
This branch, branch #1, is in a relationship with Jesus. The problem with branch #1 is that it isn’t bearing fruit. As a good vineyard keeper - notice the subject of the verb that’s translated inaccurately in the King James “takes away.” What’s the subject of that verb? Who is the subject of that verb? Who’s doing the taking away or lifting up? The Father - because who did Jesus say was the vinedresser? So it’s the Father who lifts up the branch. That’s the Father’s care for us as believers in Christ.
He lifts it up. Then it says the next branch, branch #2:
NKJ John 15:2 … and every branch that bears fruit…
Now he doesn’t take away; he doesn’t lift up. What does he do? The vine keeper?
He prunes it
So now we have a different thing the Father does. Now in both cases, branch #1 and branch #2, they’re in a relationship with Jesus. They’re both in Him. So what’s the difference between branch #1 and branch #2 then? They’re both in fellowship. Fruit bearing, that’s the result of growth - same thing in the vine. New believers don’t produce much fruit. You can’t expect… This is why in the New Testament it says don’t put a new believer in leadership position. They’re not ready for leadership yet. You let a believer grow a little bit before they are qualified to be leaders so they have fruit so they can be effective leaders. So you have branch 1 is a new believer; branch 2 is an older believer that is producing fruit.
Now what is the act of pruning? What do you suppose that corresponds to in the Christian life?
Comment Correction
Correction. Why does a vine owner prune? What’s the vineyard owner trying to do by pruning? What’s he trying to accomplish in his investment? He’s trying to get production. He’s trying to get quality production. So he trims, and he prunes it. It’s not because he hates the vine. It’s not because he’s angry at the branch. It’s because he’s trying to get the branch to be fruitful. You remember back when we talked about this in the fall, Joel was saying that the act of pruning stresses that branch.
Now does that sound familiar in our Christian life? This is Father - Our Father who loves us as a parent bringing stressful tests into our life just as the vine owner is stressing that branch because the vineyard owner wants to see grapes come out. So when the Father – it’s a nice picture. It shows you the harshness sometimes in our Christian life; but behind the harshness there’s a concern and a plan that “God dropped this problem in my lap. Man, He must not like me anymore. I must have sinned.”
Not necessarily because you have a stress problem due to sin. It could be discipline; but it’s not here. It’s just simply the Father stressing you and stressing me because He wants us to bear more fruit. I think this is a very easy to see metaphor. It makes a lot of sense when we come over to the epistle with this metaphor in our head so we understand when we see abide. Okay. That’s the second branch.
NKJ John 15:2 "Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
I’ve asked Joel later on if he can get a photograph of how much he and his brothers pruned those vines so you can get an idea of the volume of stuff off the vine. Until I talked to Joel’s dad about it, I always casually walked through John 15 and thought, “Ah, this is just a haircut.”
It’s not just a haircut. It’s a pretty severe pruning of that vine. So that all of a sudden sobered me up in thinking about this metaphor – thinking, “Wow, that means that God really does introduce high stress environment into people He loves because He wants us to produce fruit.”
It’s not always due to sin. It’s due to fruit bearing.
Now in verses 4 and 5 Jesus explains this. So He says:
NKJ John 15:3 "You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.
There’s the assurance of justification.
Now he says - command, a verb, an imperative mood:
NKJ John 15:4 "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.
See the connection. The fruit bearing is contingent on us being in fellowship with the Lord. Out of fellowship means carnality. Carnality means dead works. We can produce moral things; but it’s not the fruit the Father wants to see in our lives. He wants to see fruit that is born because we are abiding in Him. It comes out of Him. That’s a great verse to remember that you can’t do anything unless you abide in Me.
Then He doesn’t do that to straighten it out. In verse 5 look what Jesus does.
NKJ John 15:5 "I am the vine, you are the branches.
Now he’s addressing believers. He says, “I want you to understand the metaphor here. I’m the vine. You guys aren’t the vine. You guys are the branches so get your position right. You’re the branches.”
NKJ John 15:5 … He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit
Then He emphasizes again at the end of verse 5, what He did in verse 4.
for without Me you can do
What?
nothing
So they can’t be much clearer here of the necessity of remaining in fellowship with the Lord.
NKJ John 15:6 "If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; …
Now you notice what he does here. He breaks the metaphor. Every metaphor has limitations because after all, the vine is a plant and we’re people.
So now Jesus says:
NKJ John 15:6 "If anyone
He doesn’t say the branch. He says:
NKJ John 15:6 "If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire…
Now if you’ll turn over to the backside of the handout, I’m going to read Sperry Chafer’s quote there. Beyond the quote drop down, half way down, the backside of John 15:6. That’s the verse we just talked about.
NKJ John 15:6 "If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.
Now why are they burned? It’s just useless. You might even press this metaphor a little more. One of the reasons they burn the stuff is because if it’s got infection and fungus on it, they don’t want it messing up the rest of the vineyard. So that might also be a little spiritual lesson.
It’s not a shocking verse because look at Matthew 5:13 that I typed right under that. Jesus was teaching the same thing in the Sermon on the Mount.
NKJ Matthew 5:13 " You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.
Same teaching. So it’s ultimately saying out of fellowship we’re useless. It’s pretty blunt. This is why in 1 Corinthians 11 when we have communion here, pastors, no matter what church you’re in, you’ll usually hear the pastor read 1 Corinthians 11. What is one of the instructions in 1 Corinthians 11? Remember? We evaluate ourselves, judge ourselves so we do not come to the communion table. We’re saying we’re in fellowship. By participating in communion, we’re publicly saying we’re in fellowship. Well, if we’re not really in fellowship; then there’s a collision here. That’s why there’s the time before communion to straighten out - confess sin if necessary, that sort of thing.
Okay. Now this difference between branch 1 and 2 was growth issue. Remember branch #1 and #2, they’re both in the vine. It’s just a fruit thing there. The third branch is a branch that refuses to stay in Christ – out doing its own thing. This is the useless branch. Now that third branch introduces a category of sanctification that really historically wasn’t clear until almost 1900 because before that people were kind of confused. They knew the idea of Christian growth and that you had to abide in Christ to grow, that sort of thing. When dispensational interpreters began to work in the Bible conferences in1878 to 1790 in those areas, they began to read the text more literally. By that time the country was very literate. People could pick up the Bible and read it. So there was a back to the Bible movement, a literal reading of the text.
People started reading this and realizing, “Wait a minute. These verbs like he’s saying abide in me, if they’re addressed to me as a believer and they’re a command…”
An imperative verb only has two responses. Right? Every parent knows this.
“You listen to what I say or you don’t.”
It’s either or. There aren’t 3 responses. There are 2 responses. Every command is a binary response.
So the issue now is how do we describe what’s going on in the Christian life? Well, back around 1890 in that area, they began to realize - in order to distinguish phase 2 from phase 1 and phase 3 we’ve got to classify Christians into two groups – not just the young and the old. That’s growth. But we also have at any instant of time we’re either abiding in Christ or we’re not. We’re either walking in the Spirit or walking in the flesh. So there’s that bifurcation.
Here’s the quote of Louis Sperry Chafer who was the founder of Dallas Seminary. I put this extensive quote in there. Follow me as we read through this. He wrote this in 1919. This was almost a new truth, a new realization in the early 1900’s. But he’s trying to deal – in 1919 here’s the problem. Historically in America, the church was in a mess because modernism had started to take over the pulpits of the large denominations.
Here’s what happened. Congregations would finance their young people; and they’d send them to Germany because Germany was the place (the place) to get your doctrine if you wanted to have (you know) influence in the system. So the kids would go to Germany. They’d learn the German. They’d go through the PhD program; and they’d come out with all the liberalism that had been going on in Europe for 100 to120 years before. Then they’d come to America, get in the pulpit.
They don’t want to tell the congregation, “I really don’t believe all this stuff.”
So they’d talk about resurrection. They’d talk about Jesus and the cross. But they didn’t really mean by that…if you asked them what they meant by resurrection they’d say, “Well, it’s the idea of a new look on life.”
That’s not the meaning of the resurrection. The meaning of the resurrection is Jesus physically walked out of the grave within several hours. That’s what resurrection means. And it’s defined in the text, not what your theology professor at Berlin taught you. So there was a modernist fundamentalist big debate going on.
Well the fundamentalists, the loyalists, the people that hear the Scripture, began to get into a siege mentality. We have to watch that because we’re kind of the culture right now, our evangelical circles. They retreated inside the glass greenhouse, and they put up defenses. They thought one of the thoughts in defenses was - we’re going to teach young people all the legalistic dos and don’ts.
“Boom. Boom. That will protect the young people. We’ll give them a set of rules; and we’ll grill them with rules.”
Well, Chafer and these other guys recognized realized – rules, that’s legalism in the Old Testament. It didn’t work in the Old Testament; it’s not going to work in 1919 in America. They have to have a positive idea of what being in fellowship with the Lord is. Then the rules make sense. Some of the rules still didn’t make sense; and they shouldn’t follow because they weren’t scriptural. That’s the context.
Follow me now as we go through this and you can see the struggle back in 1919. This was going on in our evangelical circles.
It is the devise of Satan to make the blessings of God seem abhorrent to young people who are overflowing with physical life and energy. It is to be regretted that there are those who in blindness are so emphasizing the negatives of the truth that the impression is created that spirituality is opposed to joy, liberty, and naturalness of expression in thought and life in the Spirit. Spirituality is not a pious pose. It is not a thou shalt not; it is a thou shalt. It flings open the doors into an eternal blessedness, energies and resources of God. It is a serious thing to remove the element of relaxation and play from any life.
This is a fundamentalist of the fundamentalists. This is not what most people think of a fundamentalist so that’s why I’m showing you this quote.
We cannot be normal physically, mentally or spiritually if we neglect this vital factor in human life. God has provided that our joy shall be full. It is also to be noted that one of the characteristics of true spirituality…
And this is another great metaphor he picks up here. We don’t see that except in the fall and in the spring here. But we do see it in our four-season climate here in Maryland.
It is also to be noted that one of the characteristics of true spirituality is that it supercedes lesser desires and issues.
That “supercedes lesser desires” is the key to getting out of addictions. You don’t get out of an addiction by trying to get out of the addiction. You get out of the addiction by being more attracted to Christ than you are the addiction – totally different strategy.
The biblical as well as practical cure for worldliness among Christians is so to fill the heart and life with the eternal blessings of God that there will be a joyous pre-occupation on one hand and an absentmindedness to unspiritual things on the other. A dead leaf…
And here’s the metaphor
A dead may have clung to the twig through the external raging storms of winter will silently fall to the ground when the new flow of sap from within has begun in the spring. The leaf falls because there’s a new manifestation of life pressing from within outward. A dead leaf cannot remain where a new bud is springing nor can worldliness remain where the blessings of God are flowing.
See what he’s doing here? This is a classic statement written decades before he even founded Dallas Seminary to get people to realize that legalism isn’t of the Spirit. Legalism all too often just breeds rebellion and particularly it does so with young people. That’s the background. That’s why we want…
So lets go to 1 John as we finish today and go back to our starting verse in this section. We’re back to abide. Now were going to move forward and watch the logic that John uses here. 1 John 2:29 - we want to start of course in the context in 1 John 2:28.
NKJ 1 John 2:28 And now, little children, abide in Him,
There’s the command. Now we know what abide is because we’ve learned from John 15 the big idea of the metaphor, all the nuances.
NKJ 1 John 2:28 And now, little children, abide in Him, that when He appears, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before Him at His coming.
Now does that make sense in terms of the vineyard? Is the plant…what does the plant want to do or what should the plant try to do there to please the vineyard owner? When the vineyard owner comes, what does he want to see? He wants to see fruit. See how it fits with verse 28.
That we may have confidence and not be ashamed before Him at His coming.
In other words we will have fruit if He has worked in our life and not sit there with you know two grapes instead of a whole bunch of grapes. Okay.
NKJ 1 John 2:29 If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him.
Now let’s start logic. We’re going to end here because I want to look at verse 29 carefully. If you master the way of John’s thinking in verse 29, you can master the rest of this epistle. That’s why this verse is so important to see.
In verse 29 he says:
NKJ 1 John 2:29 If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him.
Now one of the slides that I’ve shown here – there’s the fruit. There’s the fruiting vine. That’s what the owner, the Furches family, wants to see. When they walk out after all the work they’ve done, that’s what they want to see. That’s the idea, the analogy of what God wants to see in our lives. He wants to see fruit produced. Okay.
Remember the fellowship with God – the Father, Son and Spirit. Here’s the Father’s nature – righteous and just. We acknowledge our sins.
NKJ 1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from
.
From how much unrighteousness?
all unrighteousness.
There’s an instantaneous thing that happens. It’s not growth; but this is switching from being out of fellowship to in fellowship. Then the Son is submitting to the revelation. These are all simultaneous; but they are aspects of the same thing. We submit to His revelation because He’s the Word. The Spirit is the worker. This we’ll have to work on a little more as we go through 1 John 3.
In 1 John 2: 29, introducing 3
NKJ 1 John 2:29 If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him.
Now there’s a logical inference here. So let’s look at this. Let’s break it down. This is a syllogism. First major premise, the Father is righteous. Notice what it says.
NKJ 1 John 2:29 If you know that He is righteous,
The Greek verb there is oida meaning you know this. This is part of your knowledge base. You’re not learning this. You already know this. This is the attribute of God. So that’s the major premise. The Father is righteous.
Now what does the verse say?
NKJ 1 John 2:29 If you know that He is righteous…
What’s the consequence? What tool does that give you in the church? That you know if He is righteous…now this isn’t oida. This second verb to know here is - you will perceive, you will deduce, you’ll learn.
you know (discern) that everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him.
Why? Because that person is manifest in what? God’s nature. Now that’s what John us going to….He does this backward, forwards and side ways as we go through the next ten verses. We want to master this one set up here. The major premise is God’s nature; the minor premise is what’s going on in our circumstances and then we conclude. This teaches you something else about discernment. What do you need to discern and analyze circumstances? The major premise. You need to go back to the Word of God. If you don’t start with the Word of God as your major premise, you can’t come to correct conclusions. See the point? This is why this is all interconnected. That is why learning the Word of God is so important. Our society has no standards because they have no acquaintance with the Word of God. We have a steady diet of sermonettes for Christianettes when we do have sermons. Then we have people who show up on Easter and Christmas or something; and think they’re believers. This is why our society reflects that. We can’t make decisions because as Ravi Zacharias recently said…He said something to the effect that we listen with our eyes and think with our emotions. That’s what’s going on in the culture. The reason people are thinking with their emotions is because they have no standards, no framework with which to think. They’re not taught to think.
So when we come to John now, we’re going to go through this. We’re going to go over it and over it and over it. By the time we get done you’re going to see that John is perfectly logical. John is a thinker; and he’s teaching the believers in his day how to think, how to come to correct conclusions. So that’s verse 29.
Our time up so we’re going to move on next week into the bulk of these next 10 verses – or 9 ½ verses.
(Closing prayer)