Revelation 6

Revelation 6:1

Grow in the Grace and Knowledge

2 Peter 3:10. When you read here about “the day of the Lord”, it is not meant a period of twenty four hours, but a longer period of time. A little further you read about “the day of God” (2 Peter 3:12) and in the last verse of this chapter about “the day of eternity”. Needless to say that by that not days are meant as we know them. ‘The day of God’ is the period wherein God is in publicly control and ‘the day of eternity’ is the day without an end. ‘The day of the Lord’ is a period in which the Lord is publicly in control.

At present man is still in control. That’s because satan is still the ruler of the world and has power over man. There will come an end to that period and that end is near. The day of the Lord begins when He appears on the clouds and radically beats down the resistance of man against Him and the henchmen of satan will be thrown in hell (Revelation 19:11-21). Then satan will be caught and thrown in the abyss where he will be locked up for a thousand years (Revelation 20:1-3). In that time the Lord Jesus will be reigning in righteousness and peace (Revelation 20:4-6).

The dawning of the day of the Lord will be completely unexpected and also undesired to the mockers and all godless people, just as it applies to the visit of a thief (Matthew 24:43; 1 Thessalonians 5:2; 4; Revelation 3:3; Revelation 16:15). That day will end with “intense heat” by which “the elements will be destroyed”. At the end of the millennial kingdom the great white throne, on which the Lord Jesus will be seated, will be established. When that happens, the earth and heaven will flee from Him (Revelation 20:11). That will not happen noiseless, but with “a roar”.

All the elements of which heaven and earth are consisted of and secured its existence, including all works that were ever done by people, will melt with intense heat. Everything that man has built for his own glory and comfort, will appear to be fuel for the fire of God’s judgment. Nothing will remain hidden, nothing will remain unfindable for that fire. All wicked works and all wicked things “will be burned up” (cf. John 3:19-20). Everything that the flesh has ever put its trust in, will disappear forever.

2 Peter 3:11. If you read this and allow the content to penetrate you, it will activate you to a “holy conduct and godliness”, which is a Godly life. What Peter has just described cannot help but arouse a desire to live like that now, that sin in no way has any grip on any part your life. Besides, it is not a request, but you, who confess to be a child of God, ought to.

If everything is to be destroyed – and that’s what will happen! – what are you then living for? A holy conduct is a conduct separate from the world. Godliness means that you are focused on God’s honor in your life. Of course, there are a lot of things in life that are fun to do or to have. The world knows nothing better and cannot do any better than seeking for those things. Your position in this is determined by your view on the future. Is it like Peter presents it here? Is it a reality for you that the day of the Lord is at hand (James 5:8-9)? You don’t answer this question with your mouth, but by your way of life.

2 Peter 3:12. Your life on earth and the things on earth are temporary. The things on earth will be destroyed, but your life is standing in the perspective of “the coming of the day of God”. On the day of God there will be nothing else to be seen than God and everything that is His (1 Corinthians 15:28). You may expect that day. Your holy conduct and your godly life will stir up resistance and hostility of the world. That can only increase your desire for the day of God. You can reach out for that day, you can expect it.

Peter even speaks about the “hastening the coming” of that day. The exact meaning of that is not quite clear to me, but I have some thoughts about it. It may be that by looking forward intensely to that day, it will come sooner. The more you live in connection with God and doing His will, the sooner time will pass and in that way that day will also come sooner. Another thought is that it may be that by your testimony people will repent, whereby the last one will soon be added to the church. When the church is complete, the Lord Jesus will come and then the fulfillment begins of everything which Peter has talked about.

In itself, the moment of the dawning of the day of God is fixed in God’s plan (Matthew 24:36). In His sovereignty, however, God has also given the lives of His own a place in His plans. It is the same as with praying. You may say that praying is useless, for everything happens anyway as God has determined it. Nevertheless, you read several times that God lets Himself be entreated (Genesis 25:21; Ezra 8:23). God gives the prayer of His own a place in His plans. By praying you can help in hastening the day of God by your way of life.

God Himself will let that day come by burning the heavens and making the elements be melted. Still, you do not look forward to the final judgment, but to the day of God. It is necessary for the judgment to have taken place, so that the day of God may come.

2 Peter 3:13. What you of course are looking forward to and what you are expecting is the fulfillment of the promise that there will be “new heavens and a new earth”. That is the moment that sin will be taken away from the world (John 1:29). Everything that reminds of sin will then be removed. There will be absolutely no remembrance of that anymore. Everything will then completely be made new (Revelation 21:1-5). Then “righteousness” will “dwell” there. That means that righteousness has come to rest, for there is nothing more left for which justice needs to be maintained.

Also in the millennial kingdom of peace there is a new heaven and a new earth (Isaiah 65:17-18). The curse will then be removed from creation which came on it through the sin of man (Romans 8:19-22). “The face of the ground” will be renewed (Psalms 104:30). There will be peace everywhere, for the King of peace will reign (Isaiah 9:5-6). Many prophecies speak about it (Isaiah 11:6-10; Isaiah 35:1-10). Still it is not the perfect condition. People can still sin, which will then immediately be punished with death (Isaiah 65:20; Psalms 101:8). The Lord Jesus reigns and righteousness rules.

2 Peter 3:14. If you look forward in that way to the new, the desire will be there to be diligent to meet the Lord in a condition that is according to His heart. “Spotless” means that nothing of the old life, that is your life in sin, can be found with you anymore. It is about you who do not maintain any old, sinful habits anymore. “Blameless” means that other people cannot blame you for anything anymore. Briefly said it means that the Lord Jesus is seen in your life. He was and is the perfect One without spot and Who is blameless.

Your efforts to meet the Lord like that will give you inner peace. Then He will not find you in a condition where you are quarreling with others. You will, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men (Romans 12:18).

2 Peter 3:15. “The patience of our Lord” is not slackness or forgetfulness. He will really return. You do not need think that He will forget you if He delays His coming for a longer time. Consider that His patience is “salvation”. You may keep in mind that as long as He doesn’t come He is seeking the salvation of sinners (1 Peter 3:20). When He comes to take you up, then the time of grace will be definitely over.

To underline his teaching, Peter appeals to “our beloved brother Paul”. It is wonderful to see that Peter writes about Paul like that. You may recall that Paul once opposed him to his face (Galatians 2:11-14). That did not cause Peter, as it appears here, to have any sense of a grudge or bitter feelings toward Paul. Paul was a wise reprover and Peter had a listening ear (Proverbs 25:12; Proverbs 15:31).

Peter reminds his readers that Paul also wrote to them about patience. He probably means the letter to the Hebrews. Also in other letters Paul wrote about it. He did that, Peter says, “according to the wisdom given him”. He fully acknowledges the ministry of Paul as a ministry given to him by the Lord. It is important that you too acknowledge each ministry that the Lord gives to another person and that you also see the wisdom of the Lord in them carrying out that ministry.

2 Peter 3:16. Peter also takes note that “all letters” of Paul, “speaking in them of these things”, are a part of the Holy Scripture. With the words “as also the rest of the Scriptures” – which are the Scriptures of the Old Testament – he puts these letters on par with them.

Not everything that Paul has written is easy to understand. Even Peter had some difficulties with some things. But what is hard to understand is therefore not untrue. That must never cause a person to justify his ignorance about the Word of God. Even less should it lead to “distort” it. Nonetheless, it happens by “the untaught and unstable”. An ‘untaught person’ is someone who has not learned because he presumes to know everything better. He who trusts in himself is stupid. He is also ‘unstable’. Such a person has no foothold and wanders through life. He is in fact dangerous, for he is eloquent and pretends to know everything. Such people are trying to get hold of you.

2 Peter 3:17. But you are warned. You know everything “beforehand”. “Be on your guard”, watch over yourself and over what you have become and have got in Christ. If you are not steadfast you are in danger to be “carried away”. The “unprincipled men” are erring because they do not take account of God and His Word. Keep them at a distance. Do not consult them with your cares and need. They will only drag you away into their corrupt view on things with the result that you lose “your own steadfastness”. You will then wander together with them and end up in ruin, if you do not return to Him by His grace .

2 Peter 3:18. To be kept from that you ought to grow spiritually. ‘To grow’ means to become mature and strong. You must grow “in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ”. It is about you becoming more and more aware of the “grace” of the Lord Jesus, understanding it better and living in it more and more. Just consider it often that He is your Lord and Savior and how that happened. To succeed in that you should read God’s Word. By reading God’s Word you also learn to know Him better, for also by growing in “knowledge” it’s all about Him, “our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ”.

He alone is worthy of all glory, “now”, on earth in your life of suffering, and soon it in “the day of eternity”, that is when the everlasting perfection has come.

Now read 2 Peter 3:10-18 again.

Reflection: What efforts do you make to be found without spot and blameless when the Lord comes?

Revelation 6:4

Introduction

The first letter of John is the second writing that we have of him in the Bible. His first writing is the Gospel according to John. After his first letter a second and third letter follow. Also the book of Revelation is from his hand. Therefore we have five writings in total from him in the Bible. His five writings are characterized by Who and what God is. In his Gospel he presents the Lord Jesus as God the Son. In his first letter he shows what eternal life is that God has given to the believer. That life is the Son Himself. That is the life you possess, for “he who has the Son has the life” (1 John 5:11-12). In the book of Revelation we see God in His government.

Therefore, since we are now going to read and study his first letter, it is about the believer in whom the new life, i.e. the eternal life, is. The letter is not written to a local church, but to the individual believer, thus personally to you. At the same time you are addressed by him as someone who partakes of a company of believers, the family of God. The name ‘children of God’ also reflects that very well. Children who are born of the same parents are related to one another. Children of God are related to one another because they are born of God. That’s why they have life, eternal life, i.e. life in its most abundant form (John 10:10b). This eternal life is the Lord Jesus Himself (1 John 5:20).

John shows in this letter how this eternal life works in you as a believer. To see how it expresses itself, you should look at the Lord Jesus. After all He is that new life in you. Therefore you also see that new life in the Gospels. Therein you see the Lord Jesus in His life on earth. Just as life is in Him and has been revealed by Him in the world, it also is in you. Therefore it cannot be otherwise than to manifest itself in your life in exactly the same way.

Now you may say that in your life – and that I say also about myself – the Lord Jesus is not always clearly visible. That is true when it comes down to the practice of your life of faith. However – and it is important to establish and hold that at the beginning of reading this letter – John does not speak in the first place about our practice, but about the essence or the nature of the eternal life you possess. That goes together with absolute statements.

I will clarify that to you with an example. If you want to examine what water is, what it is made of, you should not examine coffee. Coffee indeed consists nearly one hundred percent of water, but it contains elements that change the taste and color of water and thereby it is not one hundred percent water. You ought to take pure water to know what water consists of. In the same way, if you want to know what eternal life is, which is in you, you are not supposed to look at your practice. In your practice there are many elements that cloud the expression of that life. Therefore you should look at the Lord Jesus.

The Lord Jesus is that new, eternal life in its full form. In this letter John also speaks about the practice of your life of faith, but his starting point is the perfection of eternal life as it is in itself. This perfection is in the Lord Jesus and also in you, because you possess Him as your life. John writes penetratingly about this because in his day false teachers crept into the church with a false doctrine that affects the perfection of eternal life. They teach that Christendom is quite a nice start, but that they have more light and a higher knowledge about God.

John makes it clear that if you have eternal life, you have everything. The eternal life is complete and not ‘quite a nice start’ of your relationship with Divine Persons. John exposes the spirit of the antichrist. He gives you the proofs that you really do possess eternal life, that this life is from the Lord Jesus and that this life in itself is perfect and unchangeably the same. Therefore, do not let yourself be fooled by people who claim that they are able to help you to go deeper into the mysteries of the Godhead. There is no development of the truth of God about Christ into something that would be more perfect.

The Word of Life

1 John 1:1. John begins to speak without any introduction about the Lord Jesus. He does that in an exceptional way. He presents Him as “the Word of life” which “was from the beginning”. John and the apostles had Him with them in this way. The ‘Word of life’ was perceivable to people.

‘The beginning’ John is speaking about is not the beginning of Genesis 1 (Genesis 1:1), where we are brought back to the beginning of the world, the creation. It also does not refer to the beginning he is speaking about in the first verse of his Gospel. That beginning surpasses time, to what had no beginning, for it is said what “the beginning was” (John 1:1). What John means to say here with ‘beginning’ is the manifestation of eternal life on earth through the life of the Lord Jesus. This ‘beginning’ therefore refers to the revelation of the Lord Jesus as Man on earth, as God revealed in the flesh.

The letter is a response to the error of the so-called ‘gnosticism’. This error is found with people who claim that they ‘know’ – the word ‘gnosis’ means ‘to know’ or ‘to be familiar with’. Gnosticism denies that the Lord Jesus really became flesh and it proclaims the error that He had only been on earth in a human appearance. In response to that John describes Him as true Man Whom he and his fellow apostles have truly seen and with Whom they had fellowship.

The response to all errors and deviation is Christ. In order to see Who He is, we ought to go back to the beginning, i.e. His coming and His life on earth. In Him ‘the Word of life’ has been manifested in all its perfection. Herewith John points back to the first verses of his Gospel: “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men” (John 1:4). The fact that John calls Him here ‘the Word of life’, means that in Him you can see what life is. There is no life outside of Him. That what is separated from Him has no life. He alone is life and indeed life in perfection.

John and the apostles – he writes about “we” – have “heard”, have “seen”, have “looked at” and have even “touched” the Lord Jesus. In the words that John uses you draw nearer and nearer to Him: 1. ‘To hear’ can happen from a great distance; 2. ‘to see’ is closer; 3. ‘to look at’ is very close to it; 4. ‘to touch with the hands’ is the closest you can get.

The life that John is presenting to you in this way is therefore not a mythical story, but a concrete reality that is perceivable with the senses. He speaks about a true Person and not about a fictional person (cf. Luke 24:39).

In your discovery of the Lord Jesus you, in a certain sense, also have gone through the four phases John mentions: 1. You first heard about Him and owing to that you came to faith. Faith comes by hearing (Romans 10:14). 2. That made your eyes got opened for Him and you began to see Him by faith. 3. That caused you to look at Him by exploring further in God’s Word Who He is. 4. The result is that you also have touched Him with your hands in a spiritual way: you have really experienced that He is there and that He is Who He says to be.

1 John 1:2. If eternal life had not been revealed, you could never have known what it is. As it was with the Father, you did not know it. The awesome thing is, that it has been revealed. The eternal God has come out in His Son, the Lord Jesus, and He did that in a place of humiliation and contempt. In that way He can be heard, He can be seen and looked at and also be touched with the hands. He came out to introduce Himself to man. He came to bring you into the overwhelming fellowship with the Father. He manifested the eternal life.

What eternal life is, is seen in Him. He has shown it. He was born as a Baby, He, the eternal life, which was with the Father. Men were able to come that close to Him that they could even touch Him (Mark 5:27). He came to give to you too that exalted place of fellowship and the full enjoyment of it. As a human being you could not perceive it, let alone enjoy it, if it had not been revealed to you by God’s Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:9-10). What John mentions here, is also written in Micah 5 (Micah 5:2). There you read about the Lord Jesus as born in Bethlehem and at the same time as the eternal One.

Before we continue with the next section, I would like to make a general remark about ‘eternal life’. Eternal life is presented in two ways by John. In the first place he is talking about eternal life which is in God and that He has given to you when you believed in the Lord Jesus (John 3:16). That’s how you got eternal life within you. In the second place he also talks about eternal life as a sphere of the life in which you live, a life sphere or a living environment that you have entered and in which you enjoy eternal life (John 17:3).

You can compare it with your natural life. You live, you move and you think. Those are expressions of the life that is within you. At the same time you also live somewhere. You may live in a city or in a rural area. That is your living environment.

Both aspects of eternal life show how full eternal life is. It is within you and you are living in it. It includes everything. Isn’t it awesome to partake of that? The next verses will demonstrate that to you.

Now read 1 John 1:1-2 again.

Reflection: What do you see of the Lord Jesus in these verses?

Revelation 6:5

Introduction

The first letter of John is the second writing that we have of him in the Bible. His first writing is the Gospel according to John. After his first letter a second and third letter follow. Also the book of Revelation is from his hand. Therefore we have five writings in total from him in the Bible. His five writings are characterized by Who and what God is. In his Gospel he presents the Lord Jesus as God the Son. In his first letter he shows what eternal life is that God has given to the believer. That life is the Son Himself. That is the life you possess, for “he who has the Son has the life” (1 John 5:11-12). In the book of Revelation we see God in His government.

Therefore, since we are now going to read and study his first letter, it is about the believer in whom the new life, i.e. the eternal life, is. The letter is not written to a local church, but to the individual believer, thus personally to you. At the same time you are addressed by him as someone who partakes of a company of believers, the family of God. The name ‘children of God’ also reflects that very well. Children who are born of the same parents are related to one another. Children of God are related to one another because they are born of God. That’s why they have life, eternal life, i.e. life in its most abundant form (John 10:10b). This eternal life is the Lord Jesus Himself (1 John 5:20).

John shows in this letter how this eternal life works in you as a believer. To see how it expresses itself, you should look at the Lord Jesus. After all He is that new life in you. Therefore you also see that new life in the Gospels. Therein you see the Lord Jesus in His life on earth. Just as life is in Him and has been revealed by Him in the world, it also is in you. Therefore it cannot be otherwise than to manifest itself in your life in exactly the same way.

Now you may say that in your life – and that I say also about myself – the Lord Jesus is not always clearly visible. That is true when it comes down to the practice of your life of faith. However – and it is important to establish and hold that at the beginning of reading this letter – John does not speak in the first place about our practice, but about the essence or the nature of the eternal life you possess. That goes together with absolute statements.

I will clarify that to you with an example. If you want to examine what water is, what it is made of, you should not examine coffee. Coffee indeed consists nearly one hundred percent of water, but it contains elements that change the taste and color of water and thereby it is not one hundred percent water. You ought to take pure water to know what water consists of. In the same way, if you want to know what eternal life is, which is in you, you are not supposed to look at your practice. In your practice there are many elements that cloud the expression of that life. Therefore you should look at the Lord Jesus.

The Lord Jesus is that new, eternal life in its full form. In this letter John also speaks about the practice of your life of faith, but his starting point is the perfection of eternal life as it is in itself. This perfection is in the Lord Jesus and also in you, because you possess Him as your life. John writes penetratingly about this because in his day false teachers crept into the church with a false doctrine that affects the perfection of eternal life. They teach that Christendom is quite a nice start, but that they have more light and a higher knowledge about God.

John makes it clear that if you have eternal life, you have everything. The eternal life is complete and not ‘quite a nice start’ of your relationship with Divine Persons. John exposes the spirit of the antichrist. He gives you the proofs that you really do possess eternal life, that this life is from the Lord Jesus and that this life in itself is perfect and unchangeably the same. Therefore, do not let yourself be fooled by people who claim that they are able to help you to go deeper into the mysteries of the Godhead. There is no development of the truth of God about Christ into something that would be more perfect.

The Word of Life

1 John 1:1. John begins to speak without any introduction about the Lord Jesus. He does that in an exceptional way. He presents Him as “the Word of life” which “was from the beginning”. John and the apostles had Him with them in this way. The ‘Word of life’ was perceivable to people.

‘The beginning’ John is speaking about is not the beginning of Genesis 1 (Genesis 1:1), where we are brought back to the beginning of the world, the creation. It also does not refer to the beginning he is speaking about in the first verse of his Gospel. That beginning surpasses time, to what had no beginning, for it is said what “the beginning was” (John 1:1). What John means to say here with ‘beginning’ is the manifestation of eternal life on earth through the life of the Lord Jesus. This ‘beginning’ therefore refers to the revelation of the Lord Jesus as Man on earth, as God revealed in the flesh.

The letter is a response to the error of the so-called ‘gnosticism’. This error is found with people who claim that they ‘know’ – the word ‘gnosis’ means ‘to know’ or ‘to be familiar with’. Gnosticism denies that the Lord Jesus really became flesh and it proclaims the error that He had only been on earth in a human appearance. In response to that John describes Him as true Man Whom he and his fellow apostles have truly seen and with Whom they had fellowship.

The response to all errors and deviation is Christ. In order to see Who He is, we ought to go back to the beginning, i.e. His coming and His life on earth. In Him ‘the Word of life’ has been manifested in all its perfection. Herewith John points back to the first verses of his Gospel: “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men” (John 1:4). The fact that John calls Him here ‘the Word of life’, means that in Him you can see what life is. There is no life outside of Him. That what is separated from Him has no life. He alone is life and indeed life in perfection.

John and the apostles – he writes about “we” – have “heard”, have “seen”, have “looked at” and have even “touched” the Lord Jesus. In the words that John uses you draw nearer and nearer to Him: 1. ‘To hear’ can happen from a great distance; 2. ‘to see’ is closer; 3. ‘to look at’ is very close to it; 4. ‘to touch with the hands’ is the closest you can get.

The life that John is presenting to you in this way is therefore not a mythical story, but a concrete reality that is perceivable with the senses. He speaks about a true Person and not about a fictional person (cf. Luke 24:39).

In your discovery of the Lord Jesus you, in a certain sense, also have gone through the four phases John mentions: 1. You first heard about Him and owing to that you came to faith. Faith comes by hearing (Romans 10:14). 2. That made your eyes got opened for Him and you began to see Him by faith. 3. That caused you to look at Him by exploring further in God’s Word Who He is. 4. The result is that you also have touched Him with your hands in a spiritual way: you have really experienced that He is there and that He is Who He says to be.

1 John 1:2. If eternal life had not been revealed, you could never have known what it is. As it was with the Father, you did not know it. The awesome thing is, that it has been revealed. The eternal God has come out in His Son, the Lord Jesus, and He did that in a place of humiliation and contempt. In that way He can be heard, He can be seen and looked at and also be touched with the hands. He came out to introduce Himself to man. He came to bring you into the overwhelming fellowship with the Father. He manifested the eternal life.

What eternal life is, is seen in Him. He has shown it. He was born as a Baby, He, the eternal life, which was with the Father. Men were able to come that close to Him that they could even touch Him (Mark 5:27). He came to give to you too that exalted place of fellowship and the full enjoyment of it. As a human being you could not perceive it, let alone enjoy it, if it had not been revealed to you by God’s Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:9-10). What John mentions here, is also written in Micah 5 (Micah 5:2). There you read about the Lord Jesus as born in Bethlehem and at the same time as the eternal One.

Before we continue with the next section, I would like to make a general remark about ‘eternal life’. Eternal life is presented in two ways by John. In the first place he is talking about eternal life which is in God and that He has given to you when you believed in the Lord Jesus (John 3:16). That’s how you got eternal life within you. In the second place he also talks about eternal life as a sphere of the life in which you live, a life sphere or a living environment that you have entered and in which you enjoy eternal life (John 17:3).

You can compare it with your natural life. You live, you move and you think. Those are expressions of the life that is within you. At the same time you also live somewhere. You may live in a city or in a rural area. That is your living environment.

Both aspects of eternal life show how full eternal life is. It is within you and you are living in it. It includes everything. Isn’t it awesome to partake of that? The next verses will demonstrate that to you.

Now read 1 John 1:1-2 again.

Reflection: What do you see of the Lord Jesus in these verses?

Revelation 6:6

Fellowship and Complete Joy

1 John 1:3. John and the apostles cannot and do not want to keep to themselves what they have seen and heard. It was revealed to them, but they love to pass it on to you and me. They want us to partake of that. They must “proclaim” it, for they cannot but speak about it (cf. Acts 4:20). Their mouths spoke out of the abundance of their heart (Matthew 12:34b).

‘To proclaim’ has with the meaning of making up a report of what you have learnt. John has learnt from the Lord and he made up a report of that to pass it on to us. Here it is written in a way that whenever you read his report, that proclamation comes to you. This is how I experience it too when I read it. If you read his report and you make yourself aware of it thoroughly, it is like time disappears and it makes you feel like you are in the company of the Lord Jesus during His life on earth.

The purpose of his report is that you “have fellowship” with him and the apostles as witnesses. For the word ‘fellowship’ you could perhaps use the nowadays word ‘relationship’. However, the word relationship does not rightly reflect the real meaning of ‘fellowship’. A relationship makes you think of being related to someone in a certain way or a connection you have with someone. But the word ‘fellowship’ contains much more. It means that you share something together with a person. You have the same part.

Children of God have fellowship with one another because they have Christ as their life. John wants you and me to have fellowship with him and his fellow apostles. By that he thus means that you and I share with them what we and they have in common and that is the Father and the Son.

But having fellowship with the apostles is not a goal in itself. It surpasses that. John wants you to be involved in the fellowship that he and his fellow apostles have “with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ”, i.e. with Divine Persons. It is the desire of the apostles to expand the circle of fellowship. John’s purpose is that you together with him and the other apostles have fellowship with the Father and the Son. By saying that he means that they share in the part that the Father has and in the part that the Son has. That fellowship together with the apostles is possible because you have the same life as they have.

In the way John writes it down here – he mentions the Father first – the emphasis is on the fellowship with the Father. Of course the Son is not less, for He is God as the Father is, He is one with Him (John 10:30). The distinction is that He, the Son, has explained the Father (John 1:18). All who have received Him, the Son, as their life, are now able to consciously enjoy the same fellowship with the Father as He has with the Father. You know the Father as the Father, because the Son is your life. What is always the case with the Son, is now the case with you too. Just as the Son, you want to glorify the Father and magnify and honor Him.

The fellowship with the Father is therefore at the front. Immediately after that follows, as it were in the same breath, that the fellowship is also ‘with His Son Jesus Christ’. It is a fellowship that is at the same level as the fellowship with the Father. John is perfectly clear about that. By what has been declared to you about eternal life and what you have believed, you also have fellowship with the Son. The heart of the Father is focused on the Son and now your heart is also focused on Him.

I repeat what I said earlier, that it is not about the degree that you live up to and experience it, but about what is typical to the new nature that you have received.

1 John 1:4. John declares with words, but he also declares by ‘writing’. In doing so, he records what he has proclaimed for the coming generations, so that everyone who hears it in this way, can be involved in the fellowship. Everything is recorded in the written Word. Therefore you do not need to follow some training or be taught by some or other enlightened spirit about this. It is written in God’s Word, you can read it yourself and personally enjoy it.

John addresses all believers in what they have in Christ. He who has life, has fellowship. He who has fellowship, enjoys it. It gives the highest degree of joy. How could it be otherwise? There is “complete” joy if you enjoy fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.

This joy is the joy of the Lord Jesus, Who speaks twice about “My joy” (John 15:11; John 17:13). It is a joy which He fully wishes His disciples to have. The way He went, shows the content of His joy. He walked in undisturbed fellowship with the Father and always did what pleased the Father. That was His joy. He knew and enjoyed the undivided love of the Father. If you want to know and enjoy that full joy, His joy, you ought to abide in His love (John 15:9). That happens if you keep His commandments (John 15:10). The enjoyment of complete or full joy depends on a life in obedience.

You see that in the life of the Son. He is your life and therefore it is the same with you. You will certainly feel your incompetence. Do you know what you may do because of that? You can pray to the Father in the Name of the Lord Jesus. The result will be that you receive full joy (John 16:24).

1 John 1:5. After his introduction, in which he mainly deals with life, John speaks in 1 John 1:5 about light. In his Gospel ‘life’ and ‘light’ are also closely connected (John 1:4-5). The life that you received from God is life that is lived in the light. It belongs to the light and not to anything else. Your new life has got nothing to do with darkness and sin. That’s why that is the point of John’s message. He has not invented that message, but he announces what he has heard from Him, the Lord Jesus. The message says ”that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all”.

You will seek in vain in the Gospel according to John for a statement of the Lord in which He uses these precise words. There is no need for such a statement, because it is clear that His whole life proclaimed that message, as it were. If you read about Him in John’s Gospel and see Him, you see light, while you see nothing that has got to do with darkness.

When it is stated here that God is light, it doesn’t mean that it is a feature of God, but that it is about His Being, about Who He is. His whole Being is light. All His features come from that. God is also love. That is said hereafter in the letter, even twice (1 John 4:8; 16).

It is important to announce that God is light. It is about fellowship with Divine Persons. That fellowship can only happen in the light, in accordance with the perfect purity of God. God is always light. He was that too when there was no creation yet. He is light and is also in the light, He is surrounded by it (1 John 1:7).

The fact that despite that, it is still said that in Him “there is no darkness at all”, has to do with time. It indicates that God is related to His creation, where spiritual darkness entered through sin. You also read that the Lord Jesus came in the darkness and that the darkness did not comprehend it (John 1:5).

1 John 1:6. The fact that God is light and that our fellowship can only be enjoyed in the light, excludes any possibility of walking in the darkness. It is absolutely not possible to say that we have fellowship with God and the Lord Jesus, while we walk in the darkness at the same time. John speaks in general terms and even includes himself thereby. You can derive that from the word “we”. After all, it is about speaking out a particular confession. Then it is something that concerns each one who confesses to be a Christian and says to live in fellowship with God and Christ.

John points out that it is basically impossible that there is a relation between light and darkness. It is not possible to belong to light and to darkness at the same time. Here you see again that John presents the things in black and white. His concern, so to speak, is not how you walk, but where you walk. His concern is not your practice, but your new life. Practice is certainly important and your new life ought to be visible in it. We will pay attention to that later. The point now is, what is typical for the new life, where it is taking place and where it cannot possibly take place.

It is a lie if a person says he has fellowship with the Father and the Son, while he walks in the darkness. Such a person does not live in accordance with the truth. He ‘does not practice the truth’, for he does not know it and does not have it. He may present himself as a person who knows and has the truth, but his walk in the darkness, thus apart from God, shows that he is lying.

Now read 1 John 1:3-6 again.

Reflection: What do you learn in these verses about fellowship and about joy?

Revelation 6:7

Fellowship and Complete Joy

1 John 1:3. John and the apostles cannot and do not want to keep to themselves what they have seen and heard. It was revealed to them, but they love to pass it on to you and me. They want us to partake of that. They must “proclaim” it, for they cannot but speak about it (cf. Acts 4:20). Their mouths spoke out of the abundance of their heart (Matthew 12:34b).

‘To proclaim’ has with the meaning of making up a report of what you have learnt. John has learnt from the Lord and he made up a report of that to pass it on to us. Here it is written in a way that whenever you read his report, that proclamation comes to you. This is how I experience it too when I read it. If you read his report and you make yourself aware of it thoroughly, it is like time disappears and it makes you feel like you are in the company of the Lord Jesus during His life on earth.

The purpose of his report is that you “have fellowship” with him and the apostles as witnesses. For the word ‘fellowship’ you could perhaps use the nowadays word ‘relationship’. However, the word relationship does not rightly reflect the real meaning of ‘fellowship’. A relationship makes you think of being related to someone in a certain way or a connection you have with someone. But the word ‘fellowship’ contains much more. It means that you share something together with a person. You have the same part.

Children of God have fellowship with one another because they have Christ as their life. John wants you and me to have fellowship with him and his fellow apostles. By that he thus means that you and I share with them what we and they have in common and that is the Father and the Son.

But having fellowship with the apostles is not a goal in itself. It surpasses that. John wants you to be involved in the fellowship that he and his fellow apostles have “with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ”, i.e. with Divine Persons. It is the desire of the apostles to expand the circle of fellowship. John’s purpose is that you together with him and the other apostles have fellowship with the Father and the Son. By saying that he means that they share in the part that the Father has and in the part that the Son has. That fellowship together with the apostles is possible because you have the same life as they have.

In the way John writes it down here – he mentions the Father first – the emphasis is on the fellowship with the Father. Of course the Son is not less, for He is God as the Father is, He is one with Him (John 10:30). The distinction is that He, the Son, has explained the Father (John 1:18). All who have received Him, the Son, as their life, are now able to consciously enjoy the same fellowship with the Father as He has with the Father. You know the Father as the Father, because the Son is your life. What is always the case with the Son, is now the case with you too. Just as the Son, you want to glorify the Father and magnify and honor Him.

The fellowship with the Father is therefore at the front. Immediately after that follows, as it were in the same breath, that the fellowship is also ‘with His Son Jesus Christ’. It is a fellowship that is at the same level as the fellowship with the Father. John is perfectly clear about that. By what has been declared to you about eternal life and what you have believed, you also have fellowship with the Son. The heart of the Father is focused on the Son and now your heart is also focused on Him.

I repeat what I said earlier, that it is not about the degree that you live up to and experience it, but about what is typical to the new nature that you have received.

1 John 1:4. John declares with words, but he also declares by ‘writing’. In doing so, he records what he has proclaimed for the coming generations, so that everyone who hears it in this way, can be involved in the fellowship. Everything is recorded in the written Word. Therefore you do not need to follow some training or be taught by some or other enlightened spirit about this. It is written in God’s Word, you can read it yourself and personally enjoy it.

John addresses all believers in what they have in Christ. He who has life, has fellowship. He who has fellowship, enjoys it. It gives the highest degree of joy. How could it be otherwise? There is “complete” joy if you enjoy fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.

This joy is the joy of the Lord Jesus, Who speaks twice about “My joy” (John 15:11; John 17:13). It is a joy which He fully wishes His disciples to have. The way He went, shows the content of His joy. He walked in undisturbed fellowship with the Father and always did what pleased the Father. That was His joy. He knew and enjoyed the undivided love of the Father. If you want to know and enjoy that full joy, His joy, you ought to abide in His love (John 15:9). That happens if you keep His commandments (John 15:10). The enjoyment of complete or full joy depends on a life in obedience.

You see that in the life of the Son. He is your life and therefore it is the same with you. You will certainly feel your incompetence. Do you know what you may do because of that? You can pray to the Father in the Name of the Lord Jesus. The result will be that you receive full joy (John 16:24).

1 John 1:5. After his introduction, in which he mainly deals with life, John speaks in 1 John 1:5 about light. In his Gospel ‘life’ and ‘light’ are also closely connected (John 1:4-5). The life that you received from God is life that is lived in the light. It belongs to the light and not to anything else. Your new life has got nothing to do with darkness and sin. That’s why that is the point of John’s message. He has not invented that message, but he announces what he has heard from Him, the Lord Jesus. The message says ”that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all”.

You will seek in vain in the Gospel according to John for a statement of the Lord in which He uses these precise words. There is no need for such a statement, because it is clear that His whole life proclaimed that message, as it were. If you read about Him in John’s Gospel and see Him, you see light, while you see nothing that has got to do with darkness.

When it is stated here that God is light, it doesn’t mean that it is a feature of God, but that it is about His Being, about Who He is. His whole Being is light. All His features come from that. God is also love. That is said hereafter in the letter, even twice (1 John 4:8; 16).

It is important to announce that God is light. It is about fellowship with Divine Persons. That fellowship can only happen in the light, in accordance with the perfect purity of God. God is always light. He was that too when there was no creation yet. He is light and is also in the light, He is surrounded by it (1 John 1:7).

The fact that despite that, it is still said that in Him “there is no darkness at all”, has to do with time. It indicates that God is related to His creation, where spiritual darkness entered through sin. You also read that the Lord Jesus came in the darkness and that the darkness did not comprehend it (John 1:5).

1 John 1:6. The fact that God is light and that our fellowship can only be enjoyed in the light, excludes any possibility of walking in the darkness. It is absolutely not possible to say that we have fellowship with God and the Lord Jesus, while we walk in the darkness at the same time. John speaks in general terms and even includes himself thereby. You can derive that from the word “we”. After all, it is about speaking out a particular confession. Then it is something that concerns each one who confesses to be a Christian and says to live in fellowship with God and Christ.

John points out that it is basically impossible that there is a relation between light and darkness. It is not possible to belong to light and to darkness at the same time. Here you see again that John presents the things in black and white. His concern, so to speak, is not how you walk, but where you walk. His concern is not your practice, but your new life. Practice is certainly important and your new life ought to be visible in it. We will pay attention to that later. The point now is, what is typical for the new life, where it is taking place and where it cannot possibly take place.

It is a lie if a person says he has fellowship with the Father and the Son, while he walks in the darkness. Such a person does not live in accordance with the truth. He ‘does not practice the truth’, for he does not know it and does not have it. He may present himself as a person who knows and has the truth, but his walk in the darkness, thus apart from God, shows that he is lying.

Now read 1 John 1:3-6 again.

Reflection: What do you learn in these verses about fellowship and about joy?

Revelation 6:8

Fellowship and Complete Joy

1 John 1:3. John and the apostles cannot and do not want to keep to themselves what they have seen and heard. It was revealed to them, but they love to pass it on to you and me. They want us to partake of that. They must “proclaim” it, for they cannot but speak about it (cf. Acts 4:20). Their mouths spoke out of the abundance of their heart (Matthew 12:34b).

‘To proclaim’ has with the meaning of making up a report of what you have learnt. John has learnt from the Lord and he made up a report of that to pass it on to us. Here it is written in a way that whenever you read his report, that proclamation comes to you. This is how I experience it too when I read it. If you read his report and you make yourself aware of it thoroughly, it is like time disappears and it makes you feel like you are in the company of the Lord Jesus during His life on earth.

The purpose of his report is that you “have fellowship” with him and the apostles as witnesses. For the word ‘fellowship’ you could perhaps use the nowadays word ‘relationship’. However, the word relationship does not rightly reflect the real meaning of ‘fellowship’. A relationship makes you think of being related to someone in a certain way or a connection you have with someone. But the word ‘fellowship’ contains much more. It means that you share something together with a person. You have the same part.

Children of God have fellowship with one another because they have Christ as their life. John wants you and me to have fellowship with him and his fellow apostles. By that he thus means that you and I share with them what we and they have in common and that is the Father and the Son.

But having fellowship with the apostles is not a goal in itself. It surpasses that. John wants you to be involved in the fellowship that he and his fellow apostles have “with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ”, i.e. with Divine Persons. It is the desire of the apostles to expand the circle of fellowship. John’s purpose is that you together with him and the other apostles have fellowship with the Father and the Son. By saying that he means that they share in the part that the Father has and in the part that the Son has. That fellowship together with the apostles is possible because you have the same life as they have.

In the way John writes it down here – he mentions the Father first – the emphasis is on the fellowship with the Father. Of course the Son is not less, for He is God as the Father is, He is one with Him (John 10:30). The distinction is that He, the Son, has explained the Father (John 1:18). All who have received Him, the Son, as their life, are now able to consciously enjoy the same fellowship with the Father as He has with the Father. You know the Father as the Father, because the Son is your life. What is always the case with the Son, is now the case with you too. Just as the Son, you want to glorify the Father and magnify and honor Him.

The fellowship with the Father is therefore at the front. Immediately after that follows, as it were in the same breath, that the fellowship is also ‘with His Son Jesus Christ’. It is a fellowship that is at the same level as the fellowship with the Father. John is perfectly clear about that. By what has been declared to you about eternal life and what you have believed, you also have fellowship with the Son. The heart of the Father is focused on the Son and now your heart is also focused on Him.

I repeat what I said earlier, that it is not about the degree that you live up to and experience it, but about what is typical to the new nature that you have received.

1 John 1:4. John declares with words, but he also declares by ‘writing’. In doing so, he records what he has proclaimed for the coming generations, so that everyone who hears it in this way, can be involved in the fellowship. Everything is recorded in the written Word. Therefore you do not need to follow some training or be taught by some or other enlightened spirit about this. It is written in God’s Word, you can read it yourself and personally enjoy it.

John addresses all believers in what they have in Christ. He who has life, has fellowship. He who has fellowship, enjoys it. It gives the highest degree of joy. How could it be otherwise? There is “complete” joy if you enjoy fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.

This joy is the joy of the Lord Jesus, Who speaks twice about “My joy” (John 15:11; John 17:13). It is a joy which He fully wishes His disciples to have. The way He went, shows the content of His joy. He walked in undisturbed fellowship with the Father and always did what pleased the Father. That was His joy. He knew and enjoyed the undivided love of the Father. If you want to know and enjoy that full joy, His joy, you ought to abide in His love (John 15:9). That happens if you keep His commandments (John 15:10). The enjoyment of complete or full joy depends on a life in obedience.

You see that in the life of the Son. He is your life and therefore it is the same with you. You will certainly feel your incompetence. Do you know what you may do because of that? You can pray to the Father in the Name of the Lord Jesus. The result will be that you receive full joy (John 16:24).

1 John 1:5. After his introduction, in which he mainly deals with life, John speaks in 1 John 1:5 about light. In his Gospel ‘life’ and ‘light’ are also closely connected (John 1:4-5). The life that you received from God is life that is lived in the light. It belongs to the light and not to anything else. Your new life has got nothing to do with darkness and sin. That’s why that is the point of John’s message. He has not invented that message, but he announces what he has heard from Him, the Lord Jesus. The message says ”that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all”.

You will seek in vain in the Gospel according to John for a statement of the Lord in which He uses these precise words. There is no need for such a statement, because it is clear that His whole life proclaimed that message, as it were. If you read about Him in John’s Gospel and see Him, you see light, while you see nothing that has got to do with darkness.

When it is stated here that God is light, it doesn’t mean that it is a feature of God, but that it is about His Being, about Who He is. His whole Being is light. All His features come from that. God is also love. That is said hereafter in the letter, even twice (1 John 4:8; 16).

It is important to announce that God is light. It is about fellowship with Divine Persons. That fellowship can only happen in the light, in accordance with the perfect purity of God. God is always light. He was that too when there was no creation yet. He is light and is also in the light, He is surrounded by it (1 John 1:7).

The fact that despite that, it is still said that in Him “there is no darkness at all”, has to do with time. It indicates that God is related to His creation, where spiritual darkness entered through sin. You also read that the Lord Jesus came in the darkness and that the darkness did not comprehend it (John 1:5).

1 John 1:6. The fact that God is light and that our fellowship can only be enjoyed in the light, excludes any possibility of walking in the darkness. It is absolutely not possible to say that we have fellowship with God and the Lord Jesus, while we walk in the darkness at the same time. John speaks in general terms and even includes himself thereby. You can derive that from the word “we”. After all, it is about speaking out a particular confession. Then it is something that concerns each one who confesses to be a Christian and says to live in fellowship with God and Christ.

John points out that it is basically impossible that there is a relation between light and darkness. It is not possible to belong to light and to darkness at the same time. Here you see again that John presents the things in black and white. His concern, so to speak, is not how you walk, but where you walk. His concern is not your practice, but your new life. Practice is certainly important and your new life ought to be visible in it. We will pay attention to that later. The point now is, what is typical for the new life, where it is taking place and where it cannot possibly take place.

It is a lie if a person says he has fellowship with the Father and the Son, while he walks in the darkness. Such a person does not live in accordance with the truth. He ‘does not practice the truth’, for he does not know it and does not have it. He may present himself as a person who knows and has the truth, but his walk in the darkness, thus apart from God, shows that he is lying.

Now read 1 John 1:3-6 again.

Reflection: What do you learn in these verses about fellowship and about joy?

Revelation 6:9

Fellowship and Complete Joy

1 John 1:3. John and the apostles cannot and do not want to keep to themselves what they have seen and heard. It was revealed to them, but they love to pass it on to you and me. They want us to partake of that. They must “proclaim” it, for they cannot but speak about it (cf. Acts 4:20). Their mouths spoke out of the abundance of their heart (Matthew 12:34b).

‘To proclaim’ has with the meaning of making up a report of what you have learnt. John has learnt from the Lord and he made up a report of that to pass it on to us. Here it is written in a way that whenever you read his report, that proclamation comes to you. This is how I experience it too when I read it. If you read his report and you make yourself aware of it thoroughly, it is like time disappears and it makes you feel like you are in the company of the Lord Jesus during His life on earth.

The purpose of his report is that you “have fellowship” with him and the apostles as witnesses. For the word ‘fellowship’ you could perhaps use the nowadays word ‘relationship’. However, the word relationship does not rightly reflect the real meaning of ‘fellowship’. A relationship makes you think of being related to someone in a certain way or a connection you have with someone. But the word ‘fellowship’ contains much more. It means that you share something together with a person. You have the same part.

Children of God have fellowship with one another because they have Christ as their life. John wants you and me to have fellowship with him and his fellow apostles. By that he thus means that you and I share with them what we and they have in common and that is the Father and the Son.

But having fellowship with the apostles is not a goal in itself. It surpasses that. John wants you to be involved in the fellowship that he and his fellow apostles have “with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ”, i.e. with Divine Persons. It is the desire of the apostles to expand the circle of fellowship. John’s purpose is that you together with him and the other apostles have fellowship with the Father and the Son. By saying that he means that they share in the part that the Father has and in the part that the Son has. That fellowship together with the apostles is possible because you have the same life as they have.

In the way John writes it down here – he mentions the Father first – the emphasis is on the fellowship with the Father. Of course the Son is not less, for He is God as the Father is, He is one with Him (John 10:30). The distinction is that He, the Son, has explained the Father (John 1:18). All who have received Him, the Son, as their life, are now able to consciously enjoy the same fellowship with the Father as He has with the Father. You know the Father as the Father, because the Son is your life. What is always the case with the Son, is now the case with you too. Just as the Son, you want to glorify the Father and magnify and honor Him.

The fellowship with the Father is therefore at the front. Immediately after that follows, as it were in the same breath, that the fellowship is also ‘with His Son Jesus Christ’. It is a fellowship that is at the same level as the fellowship with the Father. John is perfectly clear about that. By what has been declared to you about eternal life and what you have believed, you also have fellowship with the Son. The heart of the Father is focused on the Son and now your heart is also focused on Him.

I repeat what I said earlier, that it is not about the degree that you live up to and experience it, but about what is typical to the new nature that you have received.

1 John 1:4. John declares with words, but he also declares by ‘writing’. In doing so, he records what he has proclaimed for the coming generations, so that everyone who hears it in this way, can be involved in the fellowship. Everything is recorded in the written Word. Therefore you do not need to follow some training or be taught by some or other enlightened spirit about this. It is written in God’s Word, you can read it yourself and personally enjoy it.

John addresses all believers in what they have in Christ. He who has life, has fellowship. He who has fellowship, enjoys it. It gives the highest degree of joy. How could it be otherwise? There is “complete” joy if you enjoy fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.

This joy is the joy of the Lord Jesus, Who speaks twice about “My joy” (John 15:11; John 17:13). It is a joy which He fully wishes His disciples to have. The way He went, shows the content of His joy. He walked in undisturbed fellowship with the Father and always did what pleased the Father. That was His joy. He knew and enjoyed the undivided love of the Father. If you want to know and enjoy that full joy, His joy, you ought to abide in His love (John 15:9). That happens if you keep His commandments (John 15:10). The enjoyment of complete or full joy depends on a life in obedience.

You see that in the life of the Son. He is your life and therefore it is the same with you. You will certainly feel your incompetence. Do you know what you may do because of that? You can pray to the Father in the Name of the Lord Jesus. The result will be that you receive full joy (John 16:24).

1 John 1:5. After his introduction, in which he mainly deals with life, John speaks in 1 John 1:5 about light. In his Gospel ‘life’ and ‘light’ are also closely connected (John 1:4-5). The life that you received from God is life that is lived in the light. It belongs to the light and not to anything else. Your new life has got nothing to do with darkness and sin. That’s why that is the point of John’s message. He has not invented that message, but he announces what he has heard from Him, the Lord Jesus. The message says ”that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all”.

You will seek in vain in the Gospel according to John for a statement of the Lord in which He uses these precise words. There is no need for such a statement, because it is clear that His whole life proclaimed that message, as it were. If you read about Him in John’s Gospel and see Him, you see light, while you see nothing that has got to do with darkness.

When it is stated here that God is light, it doesn’t mean that it is a feature of God, but that it is about His Being, about Who He is. His whole Being is light. All His features come from that. God is also love. That is said hereafter in the letter, even twice (1 John 4:8; 16).

It is important to announce that God is light. It is about fellowship with Divine Persons. That fellowship can only happen in the light, in accordance with the perfect purity of God. God is always light. He was that too when there was no creation yet. He is light and is also in the light, He is surrounded by it (1 John 1:7).

The fact that despite that, it is still said that in Him “there is no darkness at all”, has to do with time. It indicates that God is related to His creation, where spiritual darkness entered through sin. You also read that the Lord Jesus came in the darkness and that the darkness did not comprehend it (John 1:5).

1 John 1:6. The fact that God is light and that our fellowship can only be enjoyed in the light, excludes any possibility of walking in the darkness. It is absolutely not possible to say that we have fellowship with God and the Lord Jesus, while we walk in the darkness at the same time. John speaks in general terms and even includes himself thereby. You can derive that from the word “we”. After all, it is about speaking out a particular confession. Then it is something that concerns each one who confesses to be a Christian and says to live in fellowship with God and Christ.

John points out that it is basically impossible that there is a relation between light and darkness. It is not possible to belong to light and to darkness at the same time. Here you see again that John presents the things in black and white. His concern, so to speak, is not how you walk, but where you walk. His concern is not your practice, but your new life. Practice is certainly important and your new life ought to be visible in it. We will pay attention to that later. The point now is, what is typical for the new life, where it is taking place and where it cannot possibly take place.

It is a lie if a person says he has fellowship with the Father and the Son, while he walks in the darkness. Such a person does not live in accordance with the truth. He ‘does not practice the truth’, for he does not know it and does not have it. He may present himself as a person who knows and has the truth, but his walk in the darkness, thus apart from God, shows that he is lying.

Now read 1 John 1:3-6 again.

Reflection: What do you learn in these verses about fellowship and about joy?

Revelation 6:10

To Walk In the Light and Cleansing

1 John 1:7. In 1 John 1:6 you have read about ‘walking in the darkness’ and now you read about “walk in the Light”. Needless to say that ‘walk’ does not regard an activity with your legs, but it is about your whole conduct. You may say that the ‘walk’ makes visible to others what you confess with your mouth. Furthermore it is important, I repeat, that it is about where you walk. The point is a person is walking either in the darkness or he is walking in the light. As a believer you do not walk in the darkness, but you are always in the light.

If you sin – and that unfortunately can happen, as it is also noticed by John – you sin, so to say, in the light. In that case you join together what can not to be joined together. The contrast between walking in the light and walking in the darkness is not the contrast between faithful believers and unfaithful or failing believers. The walk in the light and the walk in the darkness indicate the difference between the walk of believers and the walk of unbelievers. Every person who has new life, walks in the light. He who has no new life, walks in the darkness.

The walk in the light is the walk that perfectly fits with Him Who “is in the Light”. You do have Christ as your life. He is perfectly in the light and He is the light. Because He is your life, you are also in the light and you walk in it.

However, you do not walk there alone. You are in the light and you walk in it with everyone who also has eternal life. You have fellowship with everyone who walks in the light and everyone who walks there has fellowship with you. You share with one another what you have received in the Father and the Son. The new life is not a strictly individual matter, but something you share with others. It is about fellowship.

The basis of that fellowship is the cleansing “blood of Jesus His Son”. John mentions the name ‘Jesus’, which refers to Him Who became Man to be able to shed His blood. At the same time he calls Him ‘His Son’, which refers to His eternal existence as the Son of God. The value of the blood is eternally unchangeable. John emphasizes that the blood is the ground on which you stand before God. Only God knows its full value and He deals with you according to that. If you let that sink in well, it gives peace in your heart. The important thing is not your valuation of the blood, but God’s valuation of it. If you realize that you may also know that it is the basis of all blessings that God has given to you.

1 John 1:8. This awareness will keep you from saying that you have no sin. You would deceive yourself if you would say that and it would prove that the truth is not in you. In the light of God’s truth, you have seen rightly and also acknowledged what is in you.

Perhaps the danger is not so great that you will say you have no sin. Nevertheless, it may happen that you do not specifically call sin ‘a sin’, but you call it a ‘little mistake’. You may also see sin as a disorder, as something for which you may probably excuse yourself, as if you could not help it anyway. In fact you are then saying that you have no sin and you are deceiving yourself. It is important that call sin real sin. Then you really prove that the truth is in you.

1 John 1:9. The truth causes you to confess your sin. If you do that, God forgives you your sin. He does not do that only because He is full of love and because He is merciful, but also because He is “faithful and righteous”. If a person confesses his sins, He can, and you may even say, He has to, cleanse him from all unrighteousness. Why is it that you are allowed to say that he has to? Because otherwise He would be unfaithful to the value of the blood of Christ. He would be unrighteous if He would deny the power of the blood of Jesus, His Son. Of course He cannot deny the power of the blood. Therefore, if a person confesses his sin, He forgives him.

Confession, by the way, is a profound work. To confess means that you speak out that you judge sin in the same way God does. Therefore you do not speak about a ‘little mistake’ and you do not look for an excuse. Only if you see things in the way God does, you will understand the necessity of confession and you yourself will come to confession. The forgiveness you then experience, is a blessing, a relief. It gives you room and new strength to continue to live with Him (Psalms 32:1; 7).

1 John 1:10. If you know what it is to confess your sins, you do not say that you have not sinned. Such people were there in the days of John and they still are in our days. As in 1 John 1:6 and 1 John 1:8 John again puts it in general terms in 1 John 1:10 and says: “If we say.” He again includes himself. He says it this way because what he is talking about applies to everyone who confesses to be a Christian.

Saying that you have not sinned goes a step further than saying that you have no sin, as it is said in 1 John 1:8. He who says that he has no sin, denies that he has a sinful nature within himself. Saying that you do not have that sinful nature, is self-deception. But he who says that he has not sinned, claims that he has never committed a sin. That is much worse than self-deception, for in this way God is made a liar. After all, God says in His Word that all men have sinned (Romans 3:23). In such a person there is nothing of God at all. He shows an attitude of rebellion and an own will, an attitude that is clearly against the Word of God. “His word is not in” such a person.

Now read 1 John 1:7-10 again.

Reflection: What do you learn in these verses about walking in the light and about sin and the cleansing from it?

Revelation 6:11

To Walk In the Light and Cleansing

1 John 1:7. In 1 John 1:6 you have read about ‘walking in the darkness’ and now you read about “walk in the Light”. Needless to say that ‘walk’ does not regard an activity with your legs, but it is about your whole conduct. You may say that the ‘walk’ makes visible to others what you confess with your mouth. Furthermore it is important, I repeat, that it is about where you walk. The point is a person is walking either in the darkness or he is walking in the light. As a believer you do not walk in the darkness, but you are always in the light.

If you sin – and that unfortunately can happen, as it is also noticed by John – you sin, so to say, in the light. In that case you join together what can not to be joined together. The contrast between walking in the light and walking in the darkness is not the contrast between faithful believers and unfaithful or failing believers. The walk in the light and the walk in the darkness indicate the difference between the walk of believers and the walk of unbelievers. Every person who has new life, walks in the light. He who has no new life, walks in the darkness.

The walk in the light is the walk that perfectly fits with Him Who “is in the Light”. You do have Christ as your life. He is perfectly in the light and He is the light. Because He is your life, you are also in the light and you walk in it.

However, you do not walk there alone. You are in the light and you walk in it with everyone who also has eternal life. You have fellowship with everyone who walks in the light and everyone who walks there has fellowship with you. You share with one another what you have received in the Father and the Son. The new life is not a strictly individual matter, but something you share with others. It is about fellowship.

The basis of that fellowship is the cleansing “blood of Jesus His Son”. John mentions the name ‘Jesus’, which refers to Him Who became Man to be able to shed His blood. At the same time he calls Him ‘His Son’, which refers to His eternal existence as the Son of God. The value of the blood is eternally unchangeable. John emphasizes that the blood is the ground on which you stand before God. Only God knows its full value and He deals with you according to that. If you let that sink in well, it gives peace in your heart. The important thing is not your valuation of the blood, but God’s valuation of it. If you realize that you may also know that it is the basis of all blessings that God has given to you.

1 John 1:8. This awareness will keep you from saying that you have no sin. You would deceive yourself if you would say that and it would prove that the truth is not in you. In the light of God’s truth, you have seen rightly and also acknowledged what is in you.

Perhaps the danger is not so great that you will say you have no sin. Nevertheless, it may happen that you do not specifically call sin ‘a sin’, but you call it a ‘little mistake’. You may also see sin as a disorder, as something for which you may probably excuse yourself, as if you could not help it anyway. In fact you are then saying that you have no sin and you are deceiving yourself. It is important that call sin real sin. Then you really prove that the truth is in you.

1 John 1:9. The truth causes you to confess your sin. If you do that, God forgives you your sin. He does not do that only because He is full of love and because He is merciful, but also because He is “faithful and righteous”. If a person confesses his sins, He can, and you may even say, He has to, cleanse him from all unrighteousness. Why is it that you are allowed to say that he has to? Because otherwise He would be unfaithful to the value of the blood of Christ. He would be unrighteous if He would deny the power of the blood of Jesus, His Son. Of course He cannot deny the power of the blood. Therefore, if a person confesses his sin, He forgives him.

Confession, by the way, is a profound work. To confess means that you speak out that you judge sin in the same way God does. Therefore you do not speak about a ‘little mistake’ and you do not look for an excuse. Only if you see things in the way God does, you will understand the necessity of confession and you yourself will come to confession. The forgiveness you then experience, is a blessing, a relief. It gives you room and new strength to continue to live with Him (Psalms 32:1; 7).

1 John 1:10. If you know what it is to confess your sins, you do not say that you have not sinned. Such people were there in the days of John and they still are in our days. As in 1 John 1:6 and 1 John 1:8 John again puts it in general terms in 1 John 1:10 and says: “If we say.” He again includes himself. He says it this way because what he is talking about applies to everyone who confesses to be a Christian.

Saying that you have not sinned goes a step further than saying that you have no sin, as it is said in 1 John 1:8. He who says that he has no sin, denies that he has a sinful nature within himself. Saying that you do not have that sinful nature, is self-deception. But he who says that he has not sinned, claims that he has never committed a sin. That is much worse than self-deception, for in this way God is made a liar. After all, God says in His Word that all men have sinned (Romans 3:23). In such a person there is nothing of God at all. He shows an attitude of rebellion and an own will, an attitude that is clearly against the Word of God. “His word is not in” such a person.

Now read 1 John 1:7-10 again.

Reflection: What do you learn in these verses about walking in the light and about sin and the cleansing from it?

Revelation 6:12

To Walk In the Light and Cleansing

1 John 1:7. In 1 John 1:6 you have read about ‘walking in the darkness’ and now you read about “walk in the Light”. Needless to say that ‘walk’ does not regard an activity with your legs, but it is about your whole conduct. You may say that the ‘walk’ makes visible to others what you confess with your mouth. Furthermore it is important, I repeat, that it is about where you walk. The point is a person is walking either in the darkness or he is walking in the light. As a believer you do not walk in the darkness, but you are always in the light.

If you sin – and that unfortunately can happen, as it is also noticed by John – you sin, so to say, in the light. In that case you join together what can not to be joined together. The contrast between walking in the light and walking in the darkness is not the contrast between faithful believers and unfaithful or failing believers. The walk in the light and the walk in the darkness indicate the difference between the walk of believers and the walk of unbelievers. Every person who has new life, walks in the light. He who has no new life, walks in the darkness.

The walk in the light is the walk that perfectly fits with Him Who “is in the Light”. You do have Christ as your life. He is perfectly in the light and He is the light. Because He is your life, you are also in the light and you walk in it.

However, you do not walk there alone. You are in the light and you walk in it with everyone who also has eternal life. You have fellowship with everyone who walks in the light and everyone who walks there has fellowship with you. You share with one another what you have received in the Father and the Son. The new life is not a strictly individual matter, but something you share with others. It is about fellowship.

The basis of that fellowship is the cleansing “blood of Jesus His Son”. John mentions the name ‘Jesus’, which refers to Him Who became Man to be able to shed His blood. At the same time he calls Him ‘His Son’, which refers to His eternal existence as the Son of God. The value of the blood is eternally unchangeable. John emphasizes that the blood is the ground on which you stand before God. Only God knows its full value and He deals with you according to that. If you let that sink in well, it gives peace in your heart. The important thing is not your valuation of the blood, but God’s valuation of it. If you realize that you may also know that it is the basis of all blessings that God has given to you.

1 John 1:8. This awareness will keep you from saying that you have no sin. You would deceive yourself if you would say that and it would prove that the truth is not in you. In the light of God’s truth, you have seen rightly and also acknowledged what is in you.

Perhaps the danger is not so great that you will say you have no sin. Nevertheless, it may happen that you do not specifically call sin ‘a sin’, but you call it a ‘little mistake’. You may also see sin as a disorder, as something for which you may probably excuse yourself, as if you could not help it anyway. In fact you are then saying that you have no sin and you are deceiving yourself. It is important that call sin real sin. Then you really prove that the truth is in you.

1 John 1:9. The truth causes you to confess your sin. If you do that, God forgives you your sin. He does not do that only because He is full of love and because He is merciful, but also because He is “faithful and righteous”. If a person confesses his sins, He can, and you may even say, He has to, cleanse him from all unrighteousness. Why is it that you are allowed to say that he has to? Because otherwise He would be unfaithful to the value of the blood of Christ. He would be unrighteous if He would deny the power of the blood of Jesus, His Son. Of course He cannot deny the power of the blood. Therefore, if a person confesses his sin, He forgives him.

Confession, by the way, is a profound work. To confess means that you speak out that you judge sin in the same way God does. Therefore you do not speak about a ‘little mistake’ and you do not look for an excuse. Only if you see things in the way God does, you will understand the necessity of confession and you yourself will come to confession. The forgiveness you then experience, is a blessing, a relief. It gives you room and new strength to continue to live with Him (Psalms 32:1; 7).

1 John 1:10. If you know what it is to confess your sins, you do not say that you have not sinned. Such people were there in the days of John and they still are in our days. As in 1 John 1:6 and 1 John 1:8 John again puts it in general terms in 1 John 1:10 and says: “If we say.” He again includes himself. He says it this way because what he is talking about applies to everyone who confesses to be a Christian.

Saying that you have not sinned goes a step further than saying that you have no sin, as it is said in 1 John 1:8. He who says that he has no sin, denies that he has a sinful nature within himself. Saying that you do not have that sinful nature, is self-deception. But he who says that he has not sinned, claims that he has never committed a sin. That is much worse than self-deception, for in this way God is made a liar. After all, God says in His Word that all men have sinned (Romans 3:23). In such a person there is nothing of God at all. He shows an attitude of rebellion and an own will, an attitude that is clearly against the Word of God. “His word is not in” such a person.

Now read 1 John 1:7-10 again.

Reflection: What do you learn in these verses about walking in the light and about sin and the cleansing from it?

Revelation 6:13

To Walk In the Light and Cleansing

1 John 1:7. In 1 John 1:6 you have read about ‘walking in the darkness’ and now you read about “walk in the Light”. Needless to say that ‘walk’ does not regard an activity with your legs, but it is about your whole conduct. You may say that the ‘walk’ makes visible to others what you confess with your mouth. Furthermore it is important, I repeat, that it is about where you walk. The point is a person is walking either in the darkness or he is walking in the light. As a believer you do not walk in the darkness, but you are always in the light.

If you sin – and that unfortunately can happen, as it is also noticed by John – you sin, so to say, in the light. In that case you join together what can not to be joined together. The contrast between walking in the light and walking in the darkness is not the contrast between faithful believers and unfaithful or failing believers. The walk in the light and the walk in the darkness indicate the difference between the walk of believers and the walk of unbelievers. Every person who has new life, walks in the light. He who has no new life, walks in the darkness.

The walk in the light is the walk that perfectly fits with Him Who “is in the Light”. You do have Christ as your life. He is perfectly in the light and He is the light. Because He is your life, you are also in the light and you walk in it.

However, you do not walk there alone. You are in the light and you walk in it with everyone who also has eternal life. You have fellowship with everyone who walks in the light and everyone who walks there has fellowship with you. You share with one another what you have received in the Father and the Son. The new life is not a strictly individual matter, but something you share with others. It is about fellowship.

The basis of that fellowship is the cleansing “blood of Jesus His Son”. John mentions the name ‘Jesus’, which refers to Him Who became Man to be able to shed His blood. At the same time he calls Him ‘His Son’, which refers to His eternal existence as the Son of God. The value of the blood is eternally unchangeable. John emphasizes that the blood is the ground on which you stand before God. Only God knows its full value and He deals with you according to that. If you let that sink in well, it gives peace in your heart. The important thing is not your valuation of the blood, but God’s valuation of it. If you realize that you may also know that it is the basis of all blessings that God has given to you.

1 John 1:8. This awareness will keep you from saying that you have no sin. You would deceive yourself if you would say that and it would prove that the truth is not in you. In the light of God’s truth, you have seen rightly and also acknowledged what is in you.

Perhaps the danger is not so great that you will say you have no sin. Nevertheless, it may happen that you do not specifically call sin ‘a sin’, but you call it a ‘little mistake’. You may also see sin as a disorder, as something for which you may probably excuse yourself, as if you could not help it anyway. In fact you are then saying that you have no sin and you are deceiving yourself. It is important that call sin real sin. Then you really prove that the truth is in you.

1 John 1:9. The truth causes you to confess your sin. If you do that, God forgives you your sin. He does not do that only because He is full of love and because He is merciful, but also because He is “faithful and righteous”. If a person confesses his sins, He can, and you may even say, He has to, cleanse him from all unrighteousness. Why is it that you are allowed to say that he has to? Because otherwise He would be unfaithful to the value of the blood of Christ. He would be unrighteous if He would deny the power of the blood of Jesus, His Son. Of course He cannot deny the power of the blood. Therefore, if a person confesses his sin, He forgives him.

Confession, by the way, is a profound work. To confess means that you speak out that you judge sin in the same way God does. Therefore you do not speak about a ‘little mistake’ and you do not look for an excuse. Only if you see things in the way God does, you will understand the necessity of confession and you yourself will come to confession. The forgiveness you then experience, is a blessing, a relief. It gives you room and new strength to continue to live with Him (Psalms 32:1; 7).

1 John 1:10. If you know what it is to confess your sins, you do not say that you have not sinned. Such people were there in the days of John and they still are in our days. As in 1 John 1:6 and 1 John 1:8 John again puts it in general terms in 1 John 1:10 and says: “If we say.” He again includes himself. He says it this way because what he is talking about applies to everyone who confesses to be a Christian.

Saying that you have not sinned goes a step further than saying that you have no sin, as it is said in 1 John 1:8. He who says that he has no sin, denies that he has a sinful nature within himself. Saying that you do not have that sinful nature, is self-deception. But he who says that he has not sinned, claims that he has never committed a sin. That is much worse than self-deception, for in this way God is made a liar. After all, God says in His Word that all men have sinned (Romans 3:23). In such a person there is nothing of God at all. He shows an attitude of rebellion and an own will, an attitude that is clearly against the Word of God. “His word is not in” such a person.

Now read 1 John 1:7-10 again.

Reflection: What do you learn in these verses about walking in the light and about sin and the cleansing from it?

Revelation 6:15

Advocate and Propitiation

1 John 2:1. From what John said in the above-mentioned, two misconceptions can arise. The first is that you may be overwhelmed by a kind of discouragement. After all you cannot do anything about it if you sin, for sin is still in you, isn’t it? The second is that you may think: ‘It is not a big deal if I sin, for if I sin, I can just confess it, right?’ As a response to these questions the word of John sounds: “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.” Right, you may say, I am willing to accept that, but unfortunately, it still happens that I do sin. Well, says John, in case you sin you may know that you have “an Advocate with the Father”.

In the way John takes note of this, you see that he takes into consideration that it is possible for you to sin, but he does not consider it inevitable. But in case it does happen, you do not need to despair. It’s not that sin is not bad. Sin is always awful. How terrible sin is, is best seen on the cross of Calvary, where God brought His nothing-sparing judgment on sin upon His beloved Son. At the same time that is the basis for the work of Jesus Christ as an Advocate with the Father in case it does happen that you sin.

If you sin, it will cause your fellowship with the Father to be disturbed. You indeed still remain His child, but because of the sin you’ve committed you cannot enjoy it. When one of my children does something that causes him to deserve punishment, it stands in the way for me to show him that I love him. Indeed I love him, but our relationship has been fractured. What has come between us must first be resolved by repentance.

As an “Advocate with the Father” the Lord Jesus does what is necessary to restore your relationship with the Father. The way He does that you see in the denial by Peter. The Lord leads Peter to repentance by reminding him of what He said to him earlier (Luke 22:61-62). Because of that repentance Peter’s fellowship with the Lord has been restored. If you come to a confession of sin, you owe that to Him; it is His work.

He is pleading your case as “the righteous” with the Father. He represents you with the Father as the One Who bore the judgment on the sin that you have to confess. He is the Righteous because He always has perfectly fulfilled the righteousness of God in His life.

1 John 2:2. He also perfectly fulfilled God’s righteousness toward sin. After all, He is the “propitiation” for the sin that you have committed. The work that He has accomplished is the basis of the restoration of your fellowship with the Father.

He is of course not only the propitiation for that particular sin of yours. You may know that He is the propitiation for all your sins and also for all the sins of all God’s children. Of course it couldn’t be otherwise. When He accomplished the work at the cross He knew exactly who have believed in Him since Adam and who was going to believe in the future. Of all those people He knew all their sins and became the propitiation for them.

But it does not stop there. It goes further. He is also the propitiation for the whole world. Now it is important for you to read well what is said here. It is not written that He is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world. This is how some people read it which can lead to the erroneous conclusion of the false doctrine of the so-called universal atonement. [Note: In this verse the words “[those of]” are put in brackets, which means they don’t belong to the inspired Bible text.]

According to those who defend the universal atonement, all people and even satan with his angels will ultimately be saved. This is a reprehensible conclusion that is against the clear statements of the Scripture concerning an eternal torment of unrepentant sinners in hell (Revelation 20:10). Do not let yourself be deceived by this!

The work of the Lord Jesus is that great and the value of His blood reaches that far, that on that ground God can save each person. That is God’s side of the truth. The other side of the truth is that only the person who repents, becomes a partaker of that. These things go beyond our logical thinking. We can only look at the different aspects of God’s truth separately – we know in part, in pieces (cf. 1 Corinthians 13:12) – and admire and worship Him for what we see then.

Now read 1 John 2:1-2 again.

Reflection: What do you learn in these verses about the work of Christ?

Revelation 6:16

Advocate and Propitiation

1 John 2:1. From what John said in the above-mentioned, two misconceptions can arise. The first is that you may be overwhelmed by a kind of discouragement. After all you cannot do anything about it if you sin, for sin is still in you, isn’t it? The second is that you may think: ‘It is not a big deal if I sin, for if I sin, I can just confess it, right?’ As a response to these questions the word of John sounds: “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.” Right, you may say, I am willing to accept that, but unfortunately, it still happens that I do sin. Well, says John, in case you sin you may know that you have “an Advocate with the Father”.

In the way John takes note of this, you see that he takes into consideration that it is possible for you to sin, but he does not consider it inevitable. But in case it does happen, you do not need to despair. It’s not that sin is not bad. Sin is always awful. How terrible sin is, is best seen on the cross of Calvary, where God brought His nothing-sparing judgment on sin upon His beloved Son. At the same time that is the basis for the work of Jesus Christ as an Advocate with the Father in case it does happen that you sin.

If you sin, it will cause your fellowship with the Father to be disturbed. You indeed still remain His child, but because of the sin you’ve committed you cannot enjoy it. When one of my children does something that causes him to deserve punishment, it stands in the way for me to show him that I love him. Indeed I love him, but our relationship has been fractured. What has come between us must first be resolved by repentance.

As an “Advocate with the Father” the Lord Jesus does what is necessary to restore your relationship with the Father. The way He does that you see in the denial by Peter. The Lord leads Peter to repentance by reminding him of what He said to him earlier (Luke 22:61-62). Because of that repentance Peter’s fellowship with the Lord has been restored. If you come to a confession of sin, you owe that to Him; it is His work.

He is pleading your case as “the righteous” with the Father. He represents you with the Father as the One Who bore the judgment on the sin that you have to confess. He is the Righteous because He always has perfectly fulfilled the righteousness of God in His life.

1 John 2:2. He also perfectly fulfilled God’s righteousness toward sin. After all, He is the “propitiation” for the sin that you have committed. The work that He has accomplished is the basis of the restoration of your fellowship with the Father.

He is of course not only the propitiation for that particular sin of yours. You may know that He is the propitiation for all your sins and also for all the sins of all God’s children. Of course it couldn’t be otherwise. When He accomplished the work at the cross He knew exactly who have believed in Him since Adam and who was going to believe in the future. Of all those people He knew all their sins and became the propitiation for them.

But it does not stop there. It goes further. He is also the propitiation for the whole world. Now it is important for you to read well what is said here. It is not written that He is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world. This is how some people read it which can lead to the erroneous conclusion of the false doctrine of the so-called universal atonement. [Note: In this verse the words “[those of]” are put in brackets, which means they don’t belong to the inspired Bible text.]

According to those who defend the universal atonement, all people and even satan with his angels will ultimately be saved. This is a reprehensible conclusion that is against the clear statements of the Scripture concerning an eternal torment of unrepentant sinners in hell (Revelation 20:10). Do not let yourself be deceived by this!

The work of the Lord Jesus is that great and the value of His blood reaches that far, that on that ground God can save each person. That is God’s side of the truth. The other side of the truth is that only the person who repents, becomes a partaker of that. These things go beyond our logical thinking. We can only look at the different aspects of God’s truth separately – we know in part, in pieces (cf. 1 Corinthians 13:12) – and admire and worship Him for what we see then.

Now read 1 John 2:1-2 again.

Reflection: What do you learn in these verses about the work of Christ?

Revelation 6:17

Obedience and Love

1 John 2:3. In the next verses John will pay attention to the characteristics of the new life. In that way he wants to teach his readers, including you, how they can recognize the new life. That is how he wants to encourage them and you. The fact is that false brothers have crept in who can say wonderful things about knowing God. They claim to know God and they even say that they know Him in a special and profound way. However, those people turn out to be deceivers. That leads to the question about how you can recognize whether a person knows God, and how you can recognize it with yourself.

To end all uncertainty and to confirm the children of God in their faith, John gives five characteristics. Those characteristics are important for you too. Two of them are in the section that you have now before you. These are obedience and love. The third characteristic is that the new life does not sin (1 John 3:6). The fourth is about the possession of the Holy Spirit (1 John 3:24) and the fifth is in connection with the doctrine of Christ (1 John 4:2).

The first characteristic to recognize whether a person knows God, is that he is obedient. That applies also to you. The proof that a person knows God, is not delivered by speaking about spectacular visions that he may have had or impressive gifts that he may have. The point is whether a person obeys the commandments of God and of the Lord Jesus. Can you say that you want to do the commandments of the Lord Jesus? Do you love Him that much that you are willing to obey Him and walk in His ways? When Paul came to conversion, the proof of the conversion was not that he suddenly spoke in tongues, but that he asked: “What shall I do, Lord?” (Acts 22:10).

It’s not about thinking: ‘I do not always walk in obedience and therefore I am not converted.’ The point is that you as a child of God discern in your heart the desire to walk after His commandments. That desire proves that eternal life is in you. By the way, the commandments here are not the ten commandments that were established in the law of Mount Sinai (Exodus 20:1-17), but everything that the Father says. You see that perfectly in the life of the Lord Jesus. The law was not His life principle – although He perfectly fulfilled the law – but the commandments of the Father (John 10:17-18; John 12:49; John 14:31).

1 John 2:4. Now if someone comes who says he knows God, then to you is now given a means by John to test that. Do you see with such a person that he does not consider the commandments of God and do you notice that there is no desire for him to do the will of God? Then you must classify him as a liar. He is doing his own will. The truth is not in him. He doesn’t have the Lord Jesus, Who is the truth, as his life.

1 John 2:5. If you notice with someone that he keeps the word that the Lord Jesus has spoken, you can be sure that he knows God. It is striking that John speaks about “His word” in 1 John 2:5, while in 1 John 2:4 he talks about “His commandments”. You may probably define the distinction as follows. ‘His commandments’ are all desires the Lord has regarding your life. Each of His desires is a command to you. This is how He dealt with the desires of His Father. ‘His word’ encompasses more. It regards not only His desires, but also Who He Himself is in His Person, what is within Him, what His own glory is.

If you keep His Word, you do not only fulfill His desires, but you show Who He Himself is. Then it is not only about a practice, but also about an attitude, a radiance. It is the radiance of the love of God that is perfectly present in such a person and which comes to expression unimpeded.

If that is the case with you, then in that way you acknowledge that you are in Him, i.e. in God, that is, that you live in fellowship with Him. I repeat, it is not about the extent of your experience, but about whether you acknowledge that this is true. How weak it may be seen and experienced in practice, each child of God will wholeheartedly say that this is the case with him. At the same time he will desire to experience more and more of it and that it will be more and more visible in his life. That is also an extra proof that it is present.

1 John 2:6. That also means that you abide in Him, that you dwell in Him. That is not a temporary matter that can change, but it is a permanent dwelling place. It is not that at one moment you abide in Him and at another moment you are not. How could it be possible for you to have eternal life at one time and at the other time don’t have it? That you abide in Him also becomes visible in your walk. Therein also becomes visible what was visible in the walk of the Lord Jesus. Just as He did, do you seek the honor of God. He is the center in your life. The sphere of your life is your relationship with Him. At the same time it is a touchstone to test if it is really true when a person claims to be in God.

1 John 2:7. The commandment John speaks about in this verse and the following verses, is the commandment of love. As an introduction and in accordance to that he addresses the readers as “beloved”. The commandment of love is not a new commandment, but an old one. By that John does not refer to the commandment that God gave to His people at Mount Sinai to love Him. That commandment only made clear that man was not able to keep it. The commandment that John is talking about is spoken out by the Lord Jesus. It doesn’t come from Mount Sinai, but, so to speak, from the Father’s house. The new commandment has another starting point.

That’s the reason why you read here that it is a commandment “which you have had from the beginning”. That refers to the time that the Lord Jesus was on earth. When the Lord Jesus spoke it out, He spoke of a new commandment (John 13:34). That proves that it does not refer to the commandment of Sinai. Now that John speaks about it, he can say that he is speaking about an old commandment that they’ve heard, for it was already mentioned by the Lord Jesus.

1 John 2:8. On the other hand, it is also “a new commandment”. What then is new? It is the commandment that is given to people who have the new, eternal life that enables a person to love. That new life is the Lord Jesus. The new commandment, therefore, has another origin and it also has another target group. There is a new company of people on earth. Those people are not only born again, just as each believer in the Old Testament was, but they have the Son as their life and in that way they have been brought into fellowship with the Father. Therefore it is said “which is true in Him”, the Son, and it is also true “in you”, the believer.

At the same time that makes the enormous contrast with the world around you clear and it also shows what is happening to the world. The world is in the darkness; it is completely surrounded by it. The true light that shines in it only makes the darkness more tangible. The darkness is a temporary matter. The light is not a temporary matter. It is shining now already and it will always shine. It is the “true Light” and therefore it has got nothing to do with the wandering light of the false teachers who boast on having higher light and higher knowledge. Those people belong to the darkness and are just as temporary as the darkness.

It is a good thing to consider that the darkness indeed will pass away in creation, but it will last forever as the place where everything that is related to the darkness is locked-up. The Lord Jesus addresses that as “outer darkness” (Matthew 8:12).

1 John 2:9. Also he is “in the darkness” who “says he is in the Light”, while he “hates his brother”. You may think: ‘But a brother is of course not in darkness, right?’ That is true. Therefore it is not about a true brother here, but about a person who pretends to be one (cf. 1 Corinthians 5:11). He acts as a brother and approaches the believers as his brothers, while in reality he hates them. That appears from his efforts to convince the believers of his so called great insight in Who God is and thereby spreads false doctrines about the Lord Jesus and His work. There has never been any light in him, he has always been in the darkness and he is there “until now”.

You may possibly dislike a brother occasionally. That is not right and it must not remain like that. But hating your brother means that there is totally no love for him present at all. If you are dealing with a true brother you will always discover something of the new life in him. Ultimately the love for that brother will prevail. You will surely notice that love with yourself because you will dislike yourself for disliking your brother.

1 John 2:10. The observation that you love your brother – and you will be able to sincerely say that about yourself –, means that you abide in the light. Love and light belong together. They are the Being and nature of God. Because you have the Divine nature, love and light are perfect with you. Therefore you will not be a stumbling block for another person by tempting him to sin. There is nothing in you that could possibly cause another person to fall into sin. That what is in you, comes from God (Psalms 119:165). And He certainly tempts nobody to sin, does He? The new life that you have, is the life of the Lord Jesus. You follow Him and therefore you have the light of life (John 8:12; John 11:9-10; John 12:35; Proverbs 4:18-19).

1 John 2:11. That’s altogether completely absent with a person who hates his brother. The contrast is enormous and again typical for the way John presents the things. Love makes a person to walk in the light. Hatred makes a person walk in darkness, without knowing where he is going. These kinds of people have eyes blinded by darkness. So how could such a person be a good guide for another person (Matthew 15:14)?

Now read 1 John 2:3-11 again.

Reflection: What are the characteristics of the new life? How do you recognize them and where are they missing?