Advancing to Spiritual Maturity; 1 John 2:4-5

 

Knowing and loving God is what relates to the maturing adult believer. There is one phrase in 2:3 that needs explanation: “By this we know.” When we look at such a phrase, all things being equal, it can refer to either that which comes before or that which comes after. In the Greek “By this” is en touto. It can refer to that which precedes, and that is called the anaphoric view; or it can refer to that which comes after, and that is called the cataphoric use. How do we determine whether a phrase like this refers to that which has already been stated or that which is to follow? There are usually certain syntactical clues, certain things in the passage that make it clear as to what is coming or what precedes. Usually when something follows there is a subordinate explanatory clause that follows. If that is true then it is a cataphoric use of the phrase. If it is referring to something preceding then it lacks that subordinate explanatory clause. What we have here is the statement, “By this we know that we have come to know Him if we keep His commandments.” The “by this” is going to be cataphoric because it has a subordinate explanatory clause. The “if” clause is subordinate; it explains the “by this.” The reason for making issue out of this is because John uses this terminology, “by this,” about six different times in the epistle, and each time we have to look at it in terms of the context in the Greek. The English isn’t going to give us a clue. For example, 1 John 2:5 NASB “but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him.” Verse 5 ends with “By this we know that we are in Him,” and then verse 6 starts, “the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.” Most commentaries will say that the “by this” is also cataphoric, focusing on verse 6. But verse 6 is not a subordinate explanatory clause. So the “By this we know that we are in Him” is going to be anaphoric. That tells us that what we have here is what is called an inclusio. It is like two bookends: we have a “By this we know” in v. 3, and a “By this we know” in v. 5 and they are both referring to what comes in between. We see here that we have an inclusio form by both the cataphoric and then the anaphoric use of en touto. 

 

1 John 2:3 NASB “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.” The word “keep” is a present active indicative of tereo. The present tense is continuous, but here it doesn’t mean that you can continuously obey the commandments. It is what is called a habitual present, and that means that this is something that generally characterises your life. It is also called a customary present and a customary present emphasises repeated action. It also has the idea that there are interruptions, so there is repeated action but there are interruptions between the actions. And that is what is true in the life of the believer. We get to a point where we keep His commandments but we still sin, we still disobey God, so we are out of fellowship and need to confess our sins and get back in fellowship. But when we reach maturity we are generally characterised by the fact that we are obedient to those commandments. This word tereo is an important word and it goes back to what is called the great commission, the commission that was given by the Lord to His disciples in Matthew 28:19, 20 NASB “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” This is the marching orders to the disciples. What is a disciple? A disciple is not somebody that gets in a small group. (We don’t find the term “disciple” after Matthew 28) The word “disciple” means student. It simply means “Make students of all nations,” to turn people into students of the Word of God, to make Bible study the highest priority in the Christian life. What is going to go along with this? “… baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” That relates to salvation—teaching them saving truth, and then that is exemplified by water baptism which is nothing more than a physical representation of what has already taken place in the spiritual realm. Then, “teaching them.” Notice it is not preaching, it is teaching. The key in the spiritual life is to be taught, to learn something. Preaching focuses primarily on encouragement or exhortation, but that is not the word we find here. We find teaching here. Teaching should be verse by verse, line upon line, precept upon precept. The purpose of teaching is to drill things into people so that they learn, so that they think in a completely different manner from that which they thought prior to salvation. “… teaching them to observe [TEREO: keep]” They were to teach people to keep all the mandates of the New Testament. There are hundreds and hundreds of imperative verbs in the New Testament.

 

What does this word “commandments” mean? Some think it means the Ten Commandments. But remember, the Ten Commandments were given to Israel. They were part of a document that began in Exodus chapter twenty. It was simply the preamble to the Mosaic Law. Not one non-Jew was ever held accountable to the Mosaic Law and the Ten Commandments; it wasn’t given to them. The commandments here in 1 John, the Greek word entole does not refer to the Ten Commandments, it refers to the mandates of God given in the New Testament for the church age. The second thing we can say about this is that it is a positive test for the believer who has experienced ongoing fellowship with God, a way of self-evaluation to see how far we have come in our spiritual life. The word entole, translated “commandment,” means order, command, charge, precept or injunction. It indicates that there are absolutes for the life of the believer. It suggests that there is a command from someone in authority to someone who is inferior, and it demonstrates that authority orientation to Scripture or to God the Father must precede knowledge of God. Authority orientation is part of grace orientation and doctrinal orientation. This emphasises for us the stages in spiritual growth.

 

Saying that there are commandments is not legalism. Legalism is not the emphasis on absolutes or right or wrong or obedience to commandments. Legalism is saying that I receive blessing from God and approval from God because I have obeyed those commandments. But obedience is necessary for advance in the spiritual life. We do not grow because we are obedient, but because we are obedient we maintain fellowship and growth takes place. When we are disobedient we are out of fellowship, growth can’t take place, and there can’t be any spiritual maturity, so it is all wood, hay, and straw. This is why the test is “if we keep His commandments,” because only as we come to know God through a study of His Word are we then motivated by understanding His grace to love Him, and we come to love Him because we have come to know Him. 

 

This emphasis on obedience to commandments as a barometer for spiritual growth is evidenced from numerous other passages in Scripture. For example, John 13:34 NASB “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” John 14:15 expands on that and says NASB “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” So there is a relationship between keeping commandments and loving Him. And there is a relationship between loving Him and knowing Him. John 14:21 NASB “He who has My commandments and keeps [threw] them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” What is the barometer for loving God? It is not what you feel, it is what you do. Notice in that verse that there is a progression to our understanding of God and His self-disclosure to us. This is not talking about new information about God apart from the Scripture, it is our understanding of the Scripture and our relationship with Him. It comes incrementally as we obey that which He has already taught us. If we don’t obey Him we are not going to move to the next level of understanding of God. There is this incremental advance of our understanding of God and His revelation based on what we do with what He has already given us. John 15:10 NASB “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” [12] “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.” From this we see that obedience to God precedes the advanced knowledge of God. To be obedient to God we have to know what God expects of us, which means we have to study His Word.

  

1 John 2:4 NASB “The one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; [5] but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him.”

 

Now in verse 4 John gives us the example. Here, instead of saying “If we say,” he is going shift to an impersonal articular present participle of lego, which is correctly translated “The one who says.” This could refer to a believer or an unbeliever. Here we have a person who makes a claim, perfect active indicative of ginosko, meaning that somebody is making the claim that they have reached spiritual adulthood. If someone makes that claim and does not keep His commandments—there is the application or standard—he is a liar and the truth is not in him. So if this person claims to have this advanced knowledge of God, this advanced personal relationship, and is not applying doctrine their lifestyle doesn’t match with their talking. They are divorced from reality. If you don’t apply doctrine you are not in fellowship, if you don’t apply doctrine you don’t know God, you don’t have that deeper relationship with Him. There are three options in v. 4. When John says the truth is not in him, that could mean first of all that they are not saved, which would indicate they have no understanding of doctrine because no unbeliever can understand doctrine. Secondly, it could refer to the saved believer who has no knowledge of doctrine, no teaching. All they know is Christ died on the cross for them, they are just barely saved and have no information about the spiritual life, no knowledge of doctrine so there is no obedience. Third, it could refer to the saved believer who has advanced to spiritual maturity but at this moment is out of fellowship, maybe living in carnality, and in this case it would be a believer who is ignoring doctrine, operating on human viewpoint and walking according to the sin nature. So John says: “He who says I know Him—makes a claim of knowledge of God and spiritual maturity—and does not keep His commandments, is a liar and there is no doctrine operational in him.” To John, “in Him” is a term of relationship, so that would mean that there is no relationship at this point with doctrine in that believer’s soul.

 

In contrast, v. 5 begins with the Greek word de, which is an adversative conjunction indicating contrast. So we see how John teaches by way of contrast. He is contrasting the false response with the true response. “…but whoever keeps His word.” Once again it is an impersonal participial form. Notice that in v. 3 he refers to the Word by “commandments”: if we keep His commandments. Verse  4: the one who does not keep His commandments. But in v.5 he changes: “whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected.” Perfection means flawless or without error, and this is not what this word means. It is the Greek word teleioo and it means to bring to completion, to bring to maturity, or simply to mature something. It indicates maturity, not perfection. So what John is saying here is that whoever is obedient to the mandates of Scripture. Remember, Jesus prayed in His high priestly prayer: “Father, sanctify them in truth; they Word is truth.” It is the keeping of the Word that is the process of sanctification, spiritual growth.

 

The phrase “love of God” in the Greek he agape tou theou. The genitive case is going to tell us something about the head noun, which is agape or love. This kind of genitive can be called a subjective genitive or an objective genitive. Love is a noun here but it is a noun of action; a noun but it is describing an action. An action can be toward something, in which case the action has an object. That would be an objective genitive and would mean love for God. The subjective genitive would indicate that the genitival noun, God, is performing the action. There are some passages where this phrase means God’s love, but we have to look at the context. This is not talking about God’s love for us isn’t brought to maturity because we obey Him. That is works. This is an objective genitive. Our love for God is brought to completion by obedience. As we study the Word and learn about God we learn more about God. Love is always based on knowledge, not on emotion or feelings. It is based on an intimate knowledge of the object. Our love for God grows because we spend time studying His Word, meditating on His Word, and applying His Word. By this we come to know who God is, we understand the dimensions of His grace in our lives and all that He does for us. The result is greater gratitude, our grace orientation develops and we respond to His love, as John will say later in 1 John 4: “We love Him because He first loved us.” As we come to understand the dimensions of His love for us then our love for Him advances and is brought to completion or maturity.

 

Then we come to the anaphoric use of the “By this.” “By this [obedience; love being brought to completion in us] we know that we are in Him.” The phrase “in Him” is not talking about salvation, it is about abiding, being in fellowship. It is relational, not salvation. It is remaining in fellowship and growing and advancing to maturity.

 

John 14:21-23 NASB “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him. Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, ‘Lord, what then has happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to us and not to the world?’ Jesus answered and said to him, ‘If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him’.” 1 John 2:3-6 is John‘s expanded commentary on what Jesus says in these three verses. He even uses the same shift. He starts with commandment and shifts to Word. Same thing happens here. Jesus starts with commandment in verse 21 and then He says: “Keep my Word.” This is not salvation, this is talking about the advance in intimacy that the believer enjoys in spiritual adulthood with God the Father. Because he is no longer bouncing in and out of fellowship all the time, he is spending more and more time in fellowship with the Lord, having that fellowship with the Lord, and advancing to spiritual maturity. That love for the Father is manifest by obedience.

 

John 14:24 NASB “He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.”

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