Down an Unfamiliar Road

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R. Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FIVE (Lesson CXXXVIII) 05/24/23

^5:21 So, dear children, keep yourselves away from false gods.

EXPOSITION

These words by the Apostle John are right out of the Jewish Torah.^[1] The Apostle Paul does the same by reminding the Corinthians that the Spirit warned us not to desire evil things as Israel’s fathers did nor worship idols as they did. Don’t the Scriptures tell us, “The people sat down to eat and drink and then got up to dance” in the worship of the golden calf? So be careful and avoid getting involved in any idol worship.”^[2]

That’s why believers must never become partners with those who reject God. How can you make a partnership out of right and wrong? That’s not partnership; that’s war. Let me ask you, is light a best friend with the dark? Does the Anointed One walk arm-in-arm with the Devil? Do trust and mistrust hold hands? Who would think of setting up pagan idols in God’s holy Temple? But that is what we are, each of us a temple in whom God lives. God Himself put it this way:^[3]“

            I’ll live in them, move into them;

                I’ll be their God, and they’ll be my people.

                So, leave the corruption and compromise; leave it for good,” says God.

                “Don’t link up with those who will pollute you.

                I want you all for myself.

                I’ll be a Father to you; you’ll be sons and daughters to me.”

                The Word of the Master, God.^{[4] [5]}

If the Apostle John’s words were sufficient to persuade all who hear or read them to turn away from idols and worship the Living God, what he saw in his revelation must have changed his mind. Thus, after Earth’s population was put through some of the most horrendous and terrifying experiences ever upon humanity, John noticed that the remaining men and women who survived these plagues and wars went on their merry way. They would not renounce their demon worship, nor their idols made of gold and silver, brass, stone, and wood – which neither see nor hear nor walk!^[6] Although World Wars I and II and September 11, 2011, New York’s Twin Towers massacre were not as appalling, still those drawn to churches and synagogues for prayer were soon back in their old sinful haunts.

We can see why Jesus taught His disciples to call on their Father in heaven, blessed be His name, that His kingdom would come, and will be done on earth as in heaven. Ask Him for His provisions and protection and to forgive our wrongdoings the same way we have forgiven those who mistreated us. And don’t let us be led into temptations we can’t resist but rescue us from hardships and annoyances.^[7] Some scholars believe that asking God not to lead them into temptation was the defense they needed against idol worship. Notably, the Greek adjective ponēros is a derivative of the Greek verb peirazō used to explain Satan’s temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. The devil’s main aim was to tempt Jesus into trusting him instead of God.

Why would you want a dead god when you have a living God? When you have an omnipresent God who can speak, why would you talk to a brainless idol who can’t answer prayer? When you have an omniscient God who can see everything, why would you want a wooden god with no eyes? If you have an omnipotent God who can pick you up when you fall, why serve an inanimate god who cannot pick itself up if it topples over? No, says John. Stay connected with the living Anointed One, who is united with the living God, so you can live for eternity.

Though this is a separate sentence, it is as if it were an appendix to the preceding doctrine. The reviving light of the Gospel ought to scatter and dissipate not only darkness but also all fog from the minds of the ungodly. Therefore, the Apostle not only condemns idolatry but commands us to beware of all images and idols, by which he implies that the worship of God cannot continue uncorrupted and pure whenever people begin to venerate icons or images. For so innate in us is a superstition that the least occasion will infect us with its contamination. Just like a match can start a fire, so a spark of idolatry will inflame and engross the minds of many when an occasion arises. And who does not see that images are such sparks? But what can sparks say that will save lost sinners? Torches are needed to set the whole world on fire.

At the same time, John speaks not only of images but also of altars and includes all the instruments of superstitions. Moreover, down through the ages, some churches have perverted this passage and only apply it to the statues of Jupiter and Mercury and the like, as though the Apostle did not teach against the corruption of Christianity whenever a manufactured bodily form is ascribed to God, or whenever statues and pictures form a part of worship. Let us then remember that we ought carefully to continue in the spiritual worship of God to banish far from us everything that may turn us aside to gross and carnal superstitions.

And we know. The “and” instead of “but” here is proper – it sums up the whole with a final assertion. Whatever a godless society and its philosophy choose to assert, Christians know that God’s Son has come in the flesh and endowed them with mental faculties capable of attaining knowledge of the true God. The Christian’s certainty is not fanaticism or superstition. And if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it;^[8] by the gift of the Anointed One, they can obtain an intelligent knowledge of Him who is indeed God. “Him that is true” does not mean God, who is not, like the devil, a liar, but “God through and through,” as opposed to the idols against which John goes on to warn them. Thus, the Epistle ends as it began, with the fulfillment of the Anointed One’s prayer.[9]

We must be content to leave the question open; both interpretations make excellent sense and none of the arguments favoring either one is decisive. Moreover, the question is not essential. That Jesus is the Anointed One, God’s Son, who was with the Father from all eternity, is the very foundation of John’s teaching in the Gospel and Epistles; and it is not of much concern whether this particular text contains the doctrine of the Divinity of the Anointed One or not.

But if with Athanasius of Alexandria (296-373 AD), we interpret the word “this” to be of the Anointed One, the conclusion of the letter is brought into harmony with its opening,^[10] in which the Anointed One is spoken of as “the Eternal Life which was with the Father and was manifested to us.” Moreover, we obtain a striking contrast with what follows. “This Man, Jesus the Anointed One, is the Godhead: it is not idolatry to worship Him. Whosoever says that He is not Divine makes us idolaters. But idolatry is to us an abomination.”

So, let’s look at this final “we know” here in verse twenty-one. Christians know with certainty that God’s Son came in the flesh. This penetrates the point of difference with the false teaching John addresses throughout his epistle. It is impossible to fellowship with God apart from Jesus the Anointed One. Furthermore, the phrase “God’s Son” occurs six times in this last chapter. It expresses His eternal relationship with the Father.

In addition, the Greek word for “come” includes the ideas of arrival and personal presence. The Son of God came in personal presence in His incarnation.^[11] For this reason, Christians have spiritual understanding through the Holy Spirit.^[12]  Gnostics taught that salvation came through speculation but not believing in the incarnate Anointed One. Such “understanding” is the power or capacity of knowing.  Christians received the ability to recognize the incarnate Anointed One at the point of regeneration. This transformation allows believers to experience God in intimate fellowship.  “Know” here is knowledge held with assurance, not just by the acquisition process. 

Then notice the three uses of the word “true” in this verse. “True” means real as opposed to false. Jesus, through His person and ministry, stayed in line with the truth.  Everything He is and does follow the facts. He resembles the truth and corresponds by His very nature to what is genuine about God. There is nothing fictitious, imaginary, or counterfeit about Him.  God did not simulate Him.  There is no impression of pretension in Him.^[13] By being like Him, we see that Christian living is life at its best. 

Therefore, the truth of Christianity rests upon Jesus the Anointed One as God’s Son.  Man-made Christianity is a religion, God-made Christianity is a relationship. It does not rely on relative or pluralistic thinking but on an eternal person. This reality transcends finite, human truth. No matter how brilliant a person may be, if they have never come to know God personally, they cannot understand God’s Word or its Author. God requires that we be introduced to the Author before we can comprehend His writing.^[14] 

But we must ask, who wants to know anything about God these days? We want to know how to become a success. So, we became interested in stock market investments and political issues. But few of us have a vibrant interest in eternal things. As a result, people relegate God to the outer edges of the universe. Those who embrace the incarnation have an entirely different take on God. They not only want to know about Him but also to fellowship with Him. They cannot get enough of Him. Knowledge of God in the incarnation is knowledge on a personal and intimate basis.

Now comes the hard part. Do we know our spiritual address? The spiritual address of every believer is in the same status quo as Jesus the Anointed One. Every Christian has the status quo in God’s eyes. When God looks at us, He sees Jesus because we have Jesus’ perfect righteousness. Jesus has eternal life, so we have eternal life. Jesus took our condemnation, so we will never be condemned.^[15]

It leads us to John’s last emphasis. In verse eighteen, we had ”he keeps”^[16]here the verb “you guard” – (KJV “keep”).^[17] The aorist, rather than the present imperative, is used to make the command more forcible, although the guarding is not momentary but will have to continue. Also, what is the meaning of “the idols” here? In answering this question, it will be well to hold fast to the common canon of exposition, that where the literal interpretation makes good sense, the literal interpretation is probably correct.

Here the literal interpretation makes excellent sense. Remember, Ephesus was famous for its idols. To be “temple-keeper of the great Artemis” was its pride.^[18] The moral evils which resulted from the abuse of the right of the sanctuary caused the Roman senate to cite the Ephesians and other states to submit their charters to the government for inspection. Ephesus had been the first to answer the summons and strenuously defended its claims. It was famous for its charms and chants, and folly of this kind found its way into the Christian Church.^[19]

As so often happens with converts from a religion full of gross superstition, many observances survived by adopting Christianity. With these facts before us, we can hardly be wrong in interpreting “the idols” quite literally. The apostle’s “little children” could not live in Ephesus without constantly interacting with these polluting but attractive influences. Therefore, they must have nothing to do with them: “Guard yourselves and reject them.” But, of course, this literal interpretation places no limit on the application of the text. To a Christian, anything is an idol that usurps God’s place in the heart, whether this is a person, a system, a project, wealth, or whatever. All such intrusions come within the sweep of John’s injunction, “Guard yourselves against idols.”

Besides stone, wood, or metal idols, John opens the door for other substitutes for God by calling it idolatry. It means following a model of one’s invention or imagination. The Christian life will be severely stunted if a believer acquiesces to false teaching. That’s why “keep” expresses urgency and decisiveness – “Do not hesitate.  Do not fool around with false religion because of the serious damage it can do to your soul.”  The meaning is guard, defend – “Defend yourselves against idols. Do not desert the reality of God’s Word for an illusion.”  Anything or anyone that substitutes for God is idolatry.

As such, an “idol” is anything that represents itself as God. It is a substitute for the real thing. It can be any false idea of who God is. It could be any value that is central and most important to the believer. It is anything that comes between the soul and the Savior. That might be a person, a pleasure, or an ambition. Some Christians think that when “worshipping” an idol, people use a format similar to Christian worship. But that is not true. The Hebrew verb for “worship” is šāḥâ and means to bow down before a superior image.^[20] And the Greek verb proskyneō implies kneeling facing the floor to show homage to superior beings in rank.^[21] And in the English language, it defines as “showing reverence and adoration for.”

So, the command to keep us from idols is a command to protect ourselves against spiritual corruption.  This mandate presents a contrast to “the true God” of the previous verse.  John pits the true God against false teaching.  Their teaching was the idolatry that John refers to here: “Since you already know the true God, defend yourself against any teaching that would violate who God is.”  How can we forsake the One who saved us and gave us operating assets for living the Christian life?

Twenty-first-century music and movie stars are as authentic as first-century idols. The terms for such images may change, but the principle behind them does not. By contrast, first-century people venerated the Greek god of extreme vanity and self-absorption ‒ Narcissus,^[22] but we adore the “self.” They revered the god of wine, vegetation, fertility, festivity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theater ‒ Bacchus,^[23]and we addict ourselves to drugs, alcohol, and immorality. They worshiped the goddess of love ‒ Venus and we worship illicit sexual pleasure. They worshiped the god of physical beauty ‒ Apollo and we adore the body. Finally, they worship the goddess of science ‒ Minerva and we put great trust in science to answer the ultimate cosmological questions of life.^[24]  God wants us to guard ourselves against anything that would ruin our march toward maturity in the Anointed One. Anything that masquerades as truth will blunt development in the Christian way of life. We can tell if we are idolaters by what we give our commitment, attention, interest, energy, time, or money. Whatever controls our thoughts is our god. What do you get animated about? That is your god. 

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[1] Exodus 20:3-4

[2] 1 Corinthians 10:6-7, 14; cf. Exodus 32:6

[3] Cf. Leviticus 26:12; Jeremiah 32:38; Ezekiel 37:27

[4] Cf. Isaiah 52:11; Ezekiel 20-34, 41

[5] 2 Corinthians 6:16-17

[6] Revelation 9:18-20

[7] Matthew 6:9-13

[8] 1 Peter 3:15

[9] See John 17:13-19

[10] 1 John 1:2

[11] John 10:10; 1 Timothy 1:15

[12] 1 John 2:20

[13] John 6:32; 15:1; 17:3

[14] 1 Corinthians 2:14; Luke 24:45

[15] Romans 8:1; 1 Corinthians 15:22; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Ephesians 1:3, 6; 2:6, 10

[16] Cf. 1 Timothy 5:22; See Revelation 3:3 (“hold fast”)

[17] 1 John 5:21

[18] Acts of the Apostles 19:35

[19] Ibid. 19:13-20

[20] Genesis 18:2; Exodus 23:24; 34:14

[21] Matthew 2:2; 8:2; Acts of the Apostles 7:43

[22] Narcissus in Greek mythology, the son of the river god Cephissus and the nymph Liriope. He was distinguished for his beauty.

[23] Bacchus was the Roman god of agriculture, wine, and fertility, equivalent to the Greek god Dionysus.

[24] Luke 12:15; Ephesians 5:5; Colossians 3:5

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R. Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FIVE (Lesson CXL) 05/23/23

^5:20 And we know that God’s Son has come and given us understanding. So now we can see the true One and live in union with that true God. We are in His Son, Jesus the Anointed One. He is the true God, and He is eternal life.

A man who loves sharing God’s Word, Robert W. Yarbrough (1948) states that the third “we know” statement in verse twenty is a summation because “but” should be “and.” Despite the evil one’s sway, John issues a concluding threefold reminder. As it turns out, this is the final indicative declaration of the epistle. He and his readers share certainty regarding three matters. First, “God’s Son has come;”^[1] Modern translations are unanimous, it seems, in rendering the present tense “He has come” in the perfect tense. Whatever the nuance of the verbal aspect, John’s point is that the incarnation is not at issue in the community he addresses. The epistle affirms that all of the good things flow from God’s Son.

Second, “Son of God.” Moreover, followers can anticipate his return.^[2] It will mean vindication for them and judgment for the Gospel’s detractors. As John closes his epistle, he reminds them of the basis for the big picture dominating the landscape of his worldview: the appearance of the invisible God in human form. Third, “has given” us understanding so that we will know Him who is trustworthy. Yet, even at the end of his letter, John never stops insisting on the “correct doctrine.” However, there is more that God gave the Anointed One’s followers:^[3]

Skilled in Dead Sea Scroll interpretation and Final Covenant writings, Colin G. Kruse (1950) sees the Apostle John’s reassurance continues into verse twenty. Using the third of his “we know” expressions, John reminds his readers: “We also know that God’s Son has come and given us understanding.” Two elements of the work of God’s Son are alluded to here, His coming as the historical Jesus and His giving understanding to people when they become believers. The Greek word dianoia, translated as “understanding,” is found only here in the Johannine writings, but the context makes its meaning clear enough: he has given us understanding “so that we may know Him who is true.” The Son of God’s wisdom is knowledge of God the Father. In John’s Gospel, Jesus addresses His Father as the “only true God.”^[4]

The Apostle John refers to the God and Father of Jesus the Anointed One, when he uses the expression “the one who is true,” is made abundantly clear in the following sentence: “And we are in Him who is true” – even in His Son Jesus the Anointed One. The True One is the one whose Son is Jesus, the Anointed One. However, John wants to stress that those who believe are actually “in Him who is true,” that is, in God the Father, because they are “in His Son Jesus the Anointed One.”^[5]

Believing that Christians can fall away from the faith, Ben Witherington III (1951) notes that the conjunction “but” begins verse twenty, thus contrasting what has just been said about the Evil One’s control of a godless society: But the Apostle John is not talking about cerebral knowledge, for believers also “know” that they are “in the True One.” Here it seems likely since, throughout this discourse, John often refers to Jesus as “The One” or “Righteous One” and the “True One,”  not God the Father. The closest heavenly relative for the Greek word yhios (“Son”) here clearly is Jesus.

Thus, Jesus is called both God’s Son and Divine here in this verse is not a surprising conclusion for John, who also wrote the Fourth Gospel prologue and recorded Thomas’ response to Jesus as “my Lord and my God.”^[6] Some have found here an echo of Jesus’ prayer.^[7] Jesus is genuinely Divine and has everlasting life, so these remarks serve as a closing doxology. Finally, John wishes to stress that if someone heard the true Gospel, as the false teachers did, then fail to recognize and honor Jesus as the Anointed One, God’s Son, Savior, and indeed as God means that one is guilty of idolatry in verse twenty-one.^[8]

With her crafted spiritual insight, Judith Lieu (1951) says that the third affirmation, “We know,” here in verse twenty, again alludes to the story that shaped the narrative of chapter four. John does not directly identify God’s Son with those born of God because each of these affirmations independently evoke significant themes. It is as one also born of God that protects those who share that dependency; it is as God’s unique child that he acts on God’s behalf to survive all that opposes God and to bring into the realm of life those who belong to God.

That “He has come” is decisive, for only by that intervention into the situation could victory be won. The verb “has come” tense emphasizes that coming is not a past event but something whose effects can neither be reversed nor surpassed. “We” refers to direct beneficiaries of His coming that are not expressed in light of past events (such as forgiveness) but as the gift of a new understanding and relationship with God.^[9]

Contextual interpretation specialist Gary M. Burge (1952), says that in verse twenty, the Apostle John finally clarifies our hope. If a godless society is experiencing disintegration and many are aligned with the forces of evil, what hope is there for us in this world? John answers that Jesus the Anointed One has penetrated a godless society and worked as a saboteur, undermining its worldly system, and reversing its possibilities.

Note that here John describes the work of the Anointed One as bringing knowledge, but this should not be seen as a type of Gnostic enlightenment – the very thing to which John is opposed! Instead, Christian knowledge is focused on genuine reality, which happened in history. Thus, John does not say we merely know the truth; instead, we know “Him who is Truth.” Furthermore, John uses an adjective rather than the usual noun to underscore that Christian certainty is not about abstract reason or inspired enlightenment but about God, the real God, “Him who is true,” the only true God.^{[10] [11]}

Emphasizing the Apostle John’s call to Christian fellowship, Bruce B. Barton (1954) mentions that the Apostle John reminds the believers of what they “know” to be true: they know that God’s Son has come. The false teachers had done their best to set the Anointed One aside, to make Him unimportant, and to have so-called “knowledge of God” without Him. But John has been explaining throughout this letter that this is impossible. Jesus the Anointed One is central to the true Christian faith. Jesus came to earth, returned to heaven, and now is present through His Holy Spirit.

The Son’s purpose in coming to earth was to reveal God the Father and to enable the believers to know Him experientially through Him.^[12] The Holy Spirit has given [believers] understanding so that [they] can know the true God. Just as the Holy Spirit teaches believers about the Anointed One and points to Him, the Son teaches about and points to the Father. To be in fellowship with the true God is to be in harmony with His Son, Jesus the Anointed One, for when believers are united to the Son, they are also united to the Father.^[13] Thus John is saying that Jesus, the Anointed One is the truly Divine.^[14] The Father is the source of eternal life, and Jesus the Anointed One reveals that life,^[15] so also, He is eternal life. Only through His death and resurrection was eternal life made available to humanity.^[16]

With a classical thinking approach to understanding the scriptures, Bruce G. Schuchard (1958) makes the point that here in verse twenty, the last of three consecutive references to “we know” is made. To “knowing that,” unlike the two in verses eighteen and nineteen, this time begins with the support of the initial conjunction “and” then moves toward a hymn of praise climax. John again emphasizes certainties that can and must, in the end, be known.

And we know that God’s Son has come. The phrase “Son of God” along with the same designation at the passage’s beginning in verse thirteen and with “His Son, Jesus the Anointed One” here in verse twenty frames the message. To know the coming one^[17] is to understand what can and must, in the end, be known. To know is to abide. To abide by and not to leave.^[18] To benefit from and for the fellowship of the beloved is to gain from and for the confidence that ours is indeed the knowledge of the One True God through the Anointed One whom He sent. ^[19]

Prophetically speaking, Ken Johnson (1965) supposes that the followers of Carpocratians,^[20] much like modern Jehovah’s Witnesses, taught Jesus would not physically return to earth. However, in verse twenty, the Greek verb hēkō (“is come”) says we know that God’s Son “yet is coming.” So true believers know Jesus will physically return to earth. He is the only true Diety and the only giver of eternal life. Because of this, we do not practice sin but obey the Anointed One’s mandates.^[21]

As a lover of God’s Word, Peter Pett (1966) notes that the Apostle John concludes by stressing what we can know with assurance. The first thing we can know is that those born of God do not plan to go on sinning. They hate sin. They long to be rid of sin. They mourn over sin. They bring it to God and agree with His condemnation of it.^[22] They seek its removal by cleansing in the blood of Jesus the Anointed One.^[23] Thus they keep themselves within His love and His Kingly Rule so that the evil one cannot touch them. Alternately the meaning may be that “He Who was born of God keeps him,” that Jesus, uniquely begotten of God who was, acts as Savior and Redeemer.

The second thing that we know is that we are God’s property, while a godless society seems comfortable in the evil one’s embrace. It was the picture portrayed at Jesus’ temptations, where the devil had such unseen power that he could control nations.^[24] A godless society thinks that it gets its way. The truth is it is deceived and led along by the evil one. He is the hidden but true ruler of the world’s godless society. It is in his arms. Yet not because of His supreme power but because people choose for it to be so in their foolishness. Worldly behavior, trends, and attitudes come because of the fraudulent activity of the evil one over those who love worldliness. They can only be delivered by responding to Jesus the Anointed One and being born of God.

The third thing that we know is that God’s Son has given us an understanding (through the Spirit) so that we know Him who is true, in contrast with the deceit and lies of the devil. We have been enlightened and entered into Him Who is true, dwelling in Him Who is true, even in His Son Jesus the Anointed One.

Notice the closeness of the relationship between Father and Son. To dwell in one is to stay in the other. Thus, the Father and His Son are the true Godhead and eternal life. So, John finishes with this stark contrast. On the one hand, a godless society, lying under the evil one (not ‘in him’ but as good as), deceived, without understanding, alienated from the spiritual life in God through the ignorance that is in them because of the hardness of their hearts,^[25] existing in darkness, dead in trespasses and sins,^[26] lulled into a false sleep.

On the other hand, being in the One who is trustworthy, receiving understanding, knowing the truth, dwelling in union with God, and His Son Jesus the Anointed One, walking in the light,^[27] enjoying in and through Him eternal life, we rejoice because we have vitality and a spiritual relationship because of living in union with God. Indeed, this last situation is the reason for John’s final appeal.^[28]

In his unorthodox Unitarian way, Duncan Heaster (1967) mentions that the coming of God’s Son is through the gift of the Spirit, the Comforter, whereby we feel His presence even more than when He visibly lived here on earth.^[29] So John says that we can be confident that we have received His Spirit for greater spiritual understanding. This same Greek noun dianoia (“mind” or “understanding”) elsewhere of how the Lord, through His Spirit, enlightens our mind;^[30] the gift of the Spirit envisioned in the Final Covenant is God’s way of being put into and written in our mind,^[31] and “the mind” purified by the Spirit.^[32] So a mindset is given to us; we do not develop it solely through mental effort. And that mind (disposition) is provided so that we might know we have a genuine relationship with Him. For “the spirit of truth” would teach us all things.^{[33] [34]}

Bright seminarian Karen H. Jobes (1968) agrees that Christian knowledge of the truth must be more than acknowledging Jesus’ birth and death; it must entail trusting Jesus as the source of understanding about God. Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, has given us “understanding” – that facility and disposition to comprehend the significance of His coming. Jesus used this same Greek noun, dianoia when He summed up the greatest commandment.^[35] We also find dianoia in the Septuagint Greek translation of God’s promise, where He will write His laws of the new covenant.^{[36] [37]}

Systematic Theologian Fred Sanders (Current), Professor at Torrey Honors College, states that it is one thing to notice about discipleship’s trinitarian fulfillment grows even more profound and reaches back even further to show that the ultimate reason that the Father and the Spirit are not distractions from the Son or displacements of Jesus from His central place in our lives is that God is One. The unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is a deeper, stronger, more intimate union than anything in creation.

Therefore, it’s simply not possible to know one Person of the Trinity without the others. Any experience of Father, Son, or Holy Spirit is firmly, inwardly bound to the fullness of triune deity. In that perfect triune oneness above all worlds, which would have eternally been itself in divine blessedness whether disciples existed or not, the Son is never without His Father and Their Holy Spirit. That is why, when we live as disciples of the Anointed One, we can focus our attention on Jesus and counter the Father and Spirit in that very event. This is why, if you follow Jesus, you follow Him to His Father by the Spirit. ^[38]

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[1] 1 John 5:20; cf. John 8:42

[2] Cf. 2:28; 3:2

[3] Yarbrough, Robert W., 1-3 John (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament), op. cit., pp. 317-318

[4] John 17:3

[5] Kruse, Colin G., The Letters of John (The Pillar New Testament Commentary). op. cit., loc. cit., Kindle Edition

[6] John 20:51

[7] Ibid. 17:3

[8] Witherington, Ben III., Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on Titus, 1-2 Timothy and 1-3 John, op. cit., loc. cit., Kindle Edition

[9] Lieu, Judith: A New Testament Library, I, II, & III John, op. cit., p. 232

[10] Cf. 1 Samuel 3:7; Jeremiah 24:7; 31:34; John 1:9; 15:1; Revelation 3:7

[11] Burge, Gary M., The Letters of John (The NIV Application Commentary), op. cit., pp. 217-218

[12] See John 17:3

[13] Ibid. 17:21-24

[14] See John 1:1, 18; 20:28; Romans 9:5; Titus 2:13; 2 Peter 1:1

[15] John 1:4; 14:6

[16] Barton, Bruce G., 1,2,3 John (Life Application Bible Commentary), op. cit., p. 120

[17] 1 John 4:2; 5:6; 2 John 1:7; see also John 1:9; 11:27; 21:22

[18] See 1 John 2:19; 4:1; 2 John 1:7: contrast 3 John 1:7

[19] Schuchard, Bruce G., Concordia Commentary, 1-3 John, op. cit., pp. 582-583

[20] Carpocrates was a 2nd-century Christian Gnostic, i.e., a religious dualist who believed that matter was evil and the spirit good and that salvation was gained to a limited number with knowledge. 

[21] Johnson, Ken. Ancient Epistles of John and Jude, op. cit., p. 85

[22] 1 John 1:9

[23] Ibid. 1:7

[24] Matthew 4:8-9

[25] Ephesians 4:18

[26] Ibid. 2:1

[27] 1 John 1:7

[28] Pett, Peter: Commentary on the Bible, 1 John, op. cit., loc. cit.

[29] John 14:18

[30] Ephesians 1:18

[31] Hebrews 8:10; 10:16

[32] 2 Peter 3:1

[33] John 14:26

[34] Heaster, Duncan. New European Christadelphian Commentary: op. cit., The Letters of John, p. 81

[35] Matthew 22:37; cf. Mark 12:30; Luke 10:27

[36] Jeremiah 31:33

[37] Jobes, Karen H., 1, 2, and 3 John (Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on The New Testament Series Book 18), op. cit., p. 241

[38] Sanders, Fred: Discipleship in a Trinitarian Key, Revivalist Magazine, January/February 2023, pp. 18-19

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R. Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FIVE (Lesson CXLII) 05/22/23

^5:20 And we know that God’s Son has come and given us understanding. So now we can fellowship with the true One and live in union with that true God. We are in His Son, Jesus the Anointed One. He is the true God, and He is eternal life.

Then there is the minor permiss,^[1] in the assertion, particular and personal; “we know” that we individually “are of God” and, therefore, separated from “a godless society that lieth wholly in the wicked one.” The strict logical conclusion would be, thus, “we know” that we do not sin. John, however, puts it somewhat differently to place our not sinning on a surer footing, more humbling to us, more glorifying to God – “We know that God’s Son has come.” And yet this is a fair enough inference and fits well enough into the argument when viewed in its full spiritual importance. Nor is it inconsistent with the other. For if those born of God do not sin, and if we consequently, being of God, sin not, it is all in virtue of “God’s Son being come;” come, in the first place, to “give us a knowledge of the True One;” come, secondly, to secure in that way our “being in the True One.”^[2]

In line with Apostle John’s conclusion, Henry Alford (1810-1871) mentions that in verse twenty, there is yet another “to know.” That generally sums up the certainty that God’s Son had come and given us a better understanding of God. Our being in Him solidifies one crucial fact – knowledge of God now and in the everlasting hereafter.^[3] God’s Son, who bestows this knowledge, is prominent here at the end of the Epistle.^[4] He is eternal life, and those who have Him have the Father. This understanding is the divinely empowered inner sense by which we judge divine truths. It is not wisdom or judgment but the ability to attain it.^[5] The early Church Fathers against the Arian error and most orthodox expositors since then have regarded this passage as a treasured testimony for the Godhead of the Son.^[6]

As a faithful and zealous scholar, William Graham (1810-1883) says that verse twenty is the substance of the Anointed One’s deity. We have seen that the “and” after “we know” connects verse nineteen with verse twenty in a conflictive correlated way. Thus, “We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in the wicked one.” However, we also know that to neutralize the power of the wicked one, God’s Son is come and given us understanding. The first great truth taught in verse twenty, therefore, is the coming of God’s Son, which, more than any other, reveals to us the joined love of the Father and the Son, the Sender and the Sent One, as well as the love of the Holy Spirit, by whom the divine and the human natures were united, and the Mediator of the new covenant qualified for His earthly and heavenly work.

John’s epistle begins and ends with this glorious theme; throughout the entire epistle, it occupies a very conspicuous place. When we consider the weighty consequences to mankind and the creation which depends on the incarnation of God’s Son, we will be inclined to think that John mentions it too often. But it is connected, in the closest way, with the whole plan of redemption and the office and constitution of the Mediator and forms the radiating center from which the operations of Yahweh, in His love and power, in providence and redemption, proceed to the edge of His boundless kingdom.

Indeed, two facts in the Bible can be appropriately called the poles in the mighty purpose of the redeeming God, around which all the various parts, prophecy and history, faith and hope, the workings of providence, and the proclamations of grace, perpetually revolve, they are the coming in the flesh and the coming in glory – the cross and the crown – by which the faith and the life of the Church have been sustained from the beginning, through all ages and dispensations, before, during, and after the fulness of the times united in the glorious person of the Redeemer.

If you consider deeply, there is no fact in the history of humanity which, for the wonderfulness of its nature, for the breathtaking grandeur of the conception which it develops, and for the priceless results which spring from it, may for a moment be compared with the coming of God’s Son. Its author is God; the incarnated person is the eternal Son; the mode of union and manifestation is the Holy Spirit; the natures united are the divine and the human, and the result is God’s glory and the salvation of every human being that wishes to be saved.^[7]

With the zeal of a scriptural text examiner, William E. Jelf (1811-1875) states the difference in the moral nature of Christians regarding the sphere in which they live and the Prince to which they belong; there is a difference in their intellect. They have a power of intellectual apprehension given them whereby they know the true God and know Him to be the true God, and as a result, the mission of His Son. On the contrary, the heathens had neither any adequate conception of the true God nor any knowledge whether or not the God they believed in was true God. The Christian, as a consequence of the revelation of the Anointed One, has both these privileges. To know the true God would be imperfect was not to it; the knowledge added that He whom we worship is the true God.

By saying that the Anointed One has come or is now in a godless society, He is accepted as Head of the Church and proclaimed by His apostles and evangelists. By calling Him “the true one,” He is distinct from all others, not regarding His attribute of truth, but His being the true God. Thereby Christians have an indwelling communion with the true God by their abiding fellowship with His Son. The next question is to whom “this” refers, whether to the Anointed One or to Him in whom we are. Of course, it is interpreted according to the doctrinal views of the interpreters; and at first sight it seems as if it were scarcely possible to define it more accurately. But, when we analyze it, it would seem enough to weigh the balance in favor of making the Anointed One the substantive to which “this” refers.

If we substitute another word for “this,” that other interpreters make a pronoun, it reads, “the true God is the true God.” He had already spoken of “the true one,” with Whom our communion places us in fellowship with the Anointed One, and therefore, to say again that “This is the true God, and eternal life,” has a sufficient difficulty to make us prefer the Anointed One as “this.” On the other hand, it may be said that “this” refers to the Anointed One implied in “the Son of Him,” or, more properly speaking, to the person signified by “him,” of whom the Anointed One was the Son; but “him” itself only refers to “true,” so that the difficulty is not gotten rid of by this suggestion. Moreover, the Anointed One is called “life,”^[8] though the same might be equally predicated of the Trinity, personally or collectively.^[9]

Welsh preacher David Thomas (1813-1894) says three extraordinary things in verse twenty. (I) The greatest FACT IN HUMAN HISTORY. There are many incredible facts in the history of the human race. But of all the points, the advent of the Anointed One to our world twenty-two centuries ago is the greatest. This fact is the most — 1. Undeniable. 2. Influential. 3. Vital to the interests of everyone. (II) The extraordinary CAPABILITY OF THE HUMAN MIND. What is that? “An understanding that we may know Him that is true.” Humans have many distinguishing faculties – imagination, memory, and intellect. But the capacity to know Him who is true is, for many reasons, more significant than all. 1. It is a rare faculty. The mighty millions do not have this power.^[10] 2. It is an Anointed One-imparted faculty – “He has given us.” What is it? It is love. “Those that do not love don’t know God.” The Anointed One generates this love. Love alone can interpret love, “God is love.” (III) The incredible PRIVILEGE IN HUMAN LIFE. “We are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus the Anointed One.” This means that Jesus is the one true God.^[11]

A staunch conservative who upheld the doctrine of eternal torment for sinners,  Joseph Angus (1816-1902) noticed that in addition to the moral themes in the Scriptures, evidence suggested by the morality of the Final Covenant, the character of our Lord, the open and honest sincerity and self-denial of the first Christians, and the ethical beauty of Christian principles, as illustrated in the lives of consistent believers, suggest a spiritual component. The intellect partly appreciates this evidence but still more by the heart and conscience. (1) So far as it treats unregenerate as the Gospel finds them, it applies equally to all.^[12] (2) As far as it treats the regenerate as the gospel forms them, it appeals only to the believer.^[13] Angus also notes that the Greek adjective alēthinos (“true”) in the sense of real, genuine, contrasted with fictitious, pretended, is found nine times in the Gospel,^[14] six times in the Epistles,^[15] and nine times in the Revelation.^{[16] [17]}

After observing the Apostle John’s attention to detail, John Stock (1817-1884) feels that the Apostle John’s words are comparable to the many beautiful rays of a setting sun, which adorn the sky and forecast another coming day of splendor. So much is in them, and in inspired condensation, they exhaust every effort to unfold them. Though the Jews as a nation did not receive the Lord, a remnant according to the election of grace did receive Him, believed in Him, and know, with believing Gentiles, that He has come and no longer look for another. Therefore, they need not say with the Church before His first advent, “Hurry, my love! Be like a gazelle or a young deer on the spice mountains.”^[18] Nor do they, like Abraham, look by faith and rejoice in anticipation of the great incarnation, and see the Anointed One’s day, and be glad;^[19] for they know that God’s Son has come, that He, the Sun of Righteousness, has risen with healing on His wings;^[20] and that He is near to all them that call on Him; yes all such as call upon Him in truth.^[21]

Dr. Stock then goes on to defend his view of the majestic message John has in verse twenty:

“We see days that kings and prophets desired to see, but did not.^[22] We sit not in the twilight of Christianity but enjoy the glory of the Lord risen upon us; for our light is come, even He who is both our Light and Life.^[23] By faith, we now see Him who is invisible and rejoice with unspeakable joy and full of Glory.^[24] The Church now looks for the reappearing of the Lord Jesus, who will appear for a second time.^[25] But unlike His first coming, where He who had no sin was made sin for us,^[26] but coming to bestow on all them that trust in Him, salvation with eternal glory; salvation which He, as the Son of Man, now thoroughly enjoys, as the forerunner of His people.^[27]

The blessed Lord gave Him an understanding that no human intuition can supply. He made God’s wisdom to His people; He gives them the Spirit of Truth, who searches all things, even the deep things of God so that they know the things freely given to them by God.^[28] Therefore, they know Him that is true and are in union with Him that is true, even in God’s dear Son Jesus the Anointed One.

The Apostle Paul calls the faithful the children of the light and the day^[29] and says that though they were sometimes darkness, they are now light in the Lord. Therefore, he urges them to walk as children of “the Light.”^[30] Paul then prays that they may possess the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of the Anointed One to gain understanding and be enlightened^[31] to understand the Scriptures.^[32] The closer we walk to God, the clearer and more assured He gives a believer good insight, wisdom, knowledge, and joy.^[33]

The blessed Apostle John commended little children as knowing the Father and fathers as knowing Him from the beginning,^[34] as all God’s children are taught about Him.^[35] Thus they know Jesus, who is faithful, who embodies Truth, in whom the Mosaic ceremonial laws have found true fulfillment and in whom God’s people rest securely by having discovered Him of whom Moses and the Prophets wrote.^[36] Therefore, they can repeat the words of the Apostle Thomas with complete confidence, “My Lord and my God!”^[37]

Consequently, they are in Him, as the branch of the vine is in the vine from whence it derives its fruit: as the member of the body is in the head of that body, and hence has life; and here life eternal: for Christians are one with the Anointed One, and He one with them, and can say, “My beloved is mine, and I am His.”^[38] Therefore, in this knowledge, which is in the heart and head, is life eternal; “For this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus the Anointed One, whom Thou hast sent,” as the Lord said in His prayer to His Heavenly Father.^[39] 

Such believers know and have faith in the doctrine of the ever-blessed, undivided Trinity in unity, and unity in Trinity; that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not three Gods, but one God. They know the infinite meritoriousness of the Anointed One’s sacrifice,^[40] His power as our Mediator, and the certainty of spiritual and eternal life to all who have Him. And this knowledge will never fail to bless and secure them from deadly errors to rob eternal life God affirms He will not forsake them as they bring the spiritually blind in a way unknown to them and dispels the darkness of ignorance around them by His light of truth.^[41]

The Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, are one; this is the true God and eternal life. Furthermore, He is its cause, fountain, bestower, and preserver until it will be revealed in the glorified bodies and consecrated spirits of the redeemed. At this time, its fullness is beyond conception until the Lord Jesus will be celebrated with His saints and admired by all who believe,^[42] with the glory of eternal life!”^[43]

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[1] “Permiss” is a noun used as a rhetorical device in which a thing is predicated on the decision of one’s opponent which is “a permitted choice.”

[2] Whedon, Daniel D., Commentary on the New Testament, op. cit., pp. 281-282

[3] Cf. 1 Thessalonians 5:23; 2 Thessalonians 3:16; Hebrews 13:20, 22

[4] 1 John 5:13

[5] Cf. John 1:12, 18; 17:2ff, 6, 25ff; 2 Corinthians 4:6; Ephesians 1:18; Eph 1:18 ) 

[6] Alford, Henry: The Greek Testament, op. cit., Vol. IV, p. 513

[7] Graham, William: The Spirit of Love, op. cit., pp. 353-355

[8] 1 John 1:2; John 14:6

[9] Jelf, William E., Commentary on the First Epistle of St. John, op. cit., pp. 81-82

[10] John 17:25-26

[11] Thomas, David: Homilist, Baptist Magazine by a Clergyman in England, 1862

[12] 1 Corinthians 14:24-25

[13] Romans 8:16; 1 John 5:20

[14] Luke 16:11; John 1:9; 4:23, 37; 6:32; 7:28;15:1; 17:3; 19:35

[15] 1 Thessalonians 1:9; Hebrews 8:2; 9:24; 10:22;1 John 2:8; 5:20

[16] Revelation 3:7, 14; 6:10; 15:3; 16:7; 19:2, 9, 11; 21:5; 22:6

[17] Angus, Joseph: The Bible Handbook, op. cit., pp. 110, 769 (4)

[18] Song of Solomon 8:14, The route the Nabateans took across the Negev with their camel trains was called the Spice Route; it stretched from the Persian Gulf (Arabia) to the ports of Gaza, passing through Petra (their capital) and Avdat. Their constant travel made for a transitory life. They did not live in houses, but they did build elaborate tombs for their dead, especially at Petra and Egra. Self-denial was a way of life, and they would not touch alcohol, which they saw as a sign of settling down.

[19] John 8:56

[20] Malachi 4:2

[21] Psalm 145:18

[22] Luke 10:24

[23] John 1:4

[24] 1 Peter 1:8

[25] Hebrews 9:28

[26] 2 Corinthians 5:21; Hebrews 9:26

[27] Hebrews 6:20

[28] 1 Corinthians 2:12

[29] 1 Thessalonians 5:6

[30] Ephesians 5:8

[31] Ephesians 1:17, 18

[32] Luke 24:45

[33] Ecclesiastes 2:26

[34] 1 John 2:13, 14

[35] Isaiah 54:13

[36] John 1:45

[37] Ibid. 2:28

[38] Song of Solomon 2:16

[39] John 17:3

[40] John 17:3

[41] Isaiah 42:16

[42] 2 Thessalonians 1:10

[43] Stock, John: An Exposition of the First Epistle of General of St., John, op. cit., pp. 462-465

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R. Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FIVE (Lesson CXLI) 05/20/23

^5:20 And we know that God’s Son has come and given us understanding. So now we can fellowship with the true One and live in union with that true God. We are in His Son, Jesus the Anointed One. He is the true God, and He is eternal life.

A dynamic speaker, and British Christadelphian critic,^[1] H. P. Mansfield (1933-1987) states that anyone can look in vain in the Final Covenant where those people that bowed down to God’s Son and revered Him looked upon Him as God. Thomas said, “my Lord and my God.”^{[2] T}he Apostle John speaks of Jesus the Anointed One as God.^[3]In Hebrews, the Father says of His Son, “Your throne, O God, will last forever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom.”^[4]and in John’s Revelation, we read  about the rider on the white horse “treading the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.”^[5] So, Mr. Mansfield says the critic, please do not misrepresent God’s kingdom over which Jesus the Anointed One reigns. He reigns and will reign after He comes again.^[6]

As a capable scripture analyst, Ian Howard Marshall (1934-2015) suggests that if humanity is divided into these two camps, how can a person find their way from one to the other? How could the church ever come into existence in a world that lies under the control of Satan? John’s third great declaration answers. God’s Son – none other than Jesus – has come into a godless society. He brought us an understanding of the truth, so we may know God’s true identity. Jesus’ mission was to bring knowledge of salvation. However, Jesus was misunderstood in terms of Gnosticism, the ancient religion which claimed that salvation comes through knowledge of the truths conveyed by the Revealer.

But the knowledge of which John speaks is different from that offered by Gnosticism. Throughout this Epistle, John has insisted on the incarnation of God’s Son, whereas the Gnostics would only allow that God’s Son was mystically united with Jesus. Moreover, John insisted on the death of Jesus to make an atoning sacrifice for our sins, whereas the Gnostics understood people’s need in terms of ignorance rather than of sin and hence saw no need for atonement. Finally, John insists on the need for belief in Jesus, whereas faith was replaced by knowledge in Gnostic types of religion.^[7]

As a seasoned essayist on the Apostle John’s writings, John Painter (1935) points to the third “we know” in verse twenty and how it moves from statements about God’s children to address what we know about God’s Son. We know that he is coming. The verb “has come” is in the present tense. It implies a coming from the past with a continuing presence. Elsewhere the Apostle John uses the aorist passive “was revealed” to speak of His coming.^[8] He was said to have come with a purpose: to take away sin and destroy the devil’s works.

Here the achievement of His appearance is viewed retrospectively. First, he has given us dianoia, “understanding,” a word used only here in the Johannine writings and twelve times in the Final Covenant, where it sometimes translates as “heart.”^[9] It says that God “has scattered the proud in the imagination of their heart,”^[10] making “understanding” an aspect or function of the heart. That God has given us understanding suggests that it is a new understanding, a new heart, or a renewed mind,^[11] a mind to know the True One.

The final sentence of verse twenty resonates with John’s Gospel^[12] and continues to pose problems. To whom does “this” refer? The last person mentioned before this sentence is Jesus, the Anointed One. John does not hold back from referring to Jesus as God,^[13] so reference to Jesus cannot be ruled out. However, the one implied appears to be God as “the one who is true.” When Jesus the Anointed One is referenced in the previous sentence, it is as “His Son Jesus the Anointed One,” so God is still the subject. The objection that the final reference to God as “this is the true God” is somewhat tautological is not without force. At the same time, John has a fair share of statements that approach repetition. Here, however, there is a point to the clear message because “this is the true God” is about to witness against idols in verse twenty-one. ^[14]

We see that John has been writing to refute the false dogma of the Gnostics who taught that Jesus was not the Anointed One, nor Divine. Then by what better way to conclude his remarks than to emphasize with such a positive statement that Jesus the Anointed One is indeed the true God, and He has eternal life? The Son, Jesus the Anointed One, has manifested as the very God of heaven. God covered Himself in the fleshly tabernacle of Jesus the Anointed One. As a human, our Savior walked among His creation. As God’s Son, our Redeemer died on the cross so blood could be shed to bring about humanity’s redemption, but God raised Him from the dead and highly exalted Him, taking Him to heaven as the disciples watched Him ascend. Jesus is the One who is coming back for His church shortly.^[15]

As an articulate spokesman for the Reformed Faith movement, James Montgomery Boice (1938-2000) points out that verse twenty leads the Apostle John’s third “we know,” which is, as Stott notes, “the most fundamental of the three.” It strikes at the very root of the heretical Gnostic theology, for it is the affirmation that God’s Son, Jesus, has come into this world to give us knowledge of God and salvation. In other words, it is the assurance that He and nothing else is at the heart of Christianity; He and only He provides what all sinners desperately need. The need is not for philosophical enlightenment, as valuable as that may be in some areas.

The requirement is, first, to know God, and second, for a Savior. Knowledge of God, The first gift Jesus has brought us is the capacity to know God. It suggests that Jesus is God and that we see God in him, as he said to Philip,^[16] and that we are incapable of spiritual sight until he gives it to us. Indeed, we are like the blind man in John’s Gospel,^[17] who could not see the Anointed One and did not even seek Him until Jesus sought him and healed him. After that, we grow in knowledge as the blind man grew.^[18]

The second gift of Jesus is salvation, which John suggests by one of his favorite terms: “eternal life.” Elsewhere he has indicated that the basis on which we enjoy such life is the atoning death of Jesus the Anointed One, to turn away God’s wrath against sin, and a new relationship established between God and the sinner. He has also indicated that the channel through which this life flows is faith, that is, believing in what God has said concerning the work of his Son and committing oneself to Him as Savior. Finally, however, John dwells on the idea of “eternal life,” indicating that the knowledge of God and union with him is life in complete salvation. ^[19]

Expositor and systematic theologist Michael Eaton (1942-2017) points out that the third thing we know is that God’s Son is come and given us understanding so that we may know the True One, and we are in the One who is true, in His Son Jesus the Anointed One. This is the true God and eternal life. John is utterly confident that he and his disciples are the authentic heirs of the message of Jesus. His words summarize the gospel over and against the teaching of the heretics. Jesus has come as God’s Son. The Son of God is also the man, Jesus, and the divine Savior, the Anointed One.^[20]

Great Commission practitioner David Jackman (1945) finds that verse twenty brings a new awareness of God. This last great conviction is the ground and substance of the two preceding mentions of “we know.” Our victorious faith is grounded in what God has done in history, in the Anointed One. Christians know that Jesus the Anointed One has come in the flesh^[21] and that He came by water and blood.^[22] Understanding this seems to be a spiritual and intellectual capacity to receive the truth. God’s truth is addressed to the mind and penetrates the heart to activate the will, but it is not primarily understood intellectually.

There is always a further moral and spiritual aspect involved. Understanding Christian truth is not a matter of mastering doctrinal formulations, vital though they are or grasping abstract philosophical ideas like those the Gnostics spread, of meeting, knowing, and submitting to the person who is Truth. This kind of knowledge becomes fellowship. For Jesus, God’s Son, came to bring us into a personal relationship with God. The faithful Christian can be sure, therefore, that his mind has been illuminated and his will motivated by the Holy Spirit of truth, who has revealed Jesus as the true Son of God and through whom we come to know the true God, who is eternal life. ^[23]

After studying the context surrounding this verse, John W. (Jack) Carter (1947) imagines that the early church, much like the church today, was attacked by opponents both outside of the fellowships and within.  The culture tended to draw Christians away from the truth, pressuring them to accept their pagan beliefs and practices.  In addition, there were those within the body attempting to influence others using anything from erroneous doctrine to outright lies and deception.  The Apostle John wrote this letter as a resource to return an embattled and scattering fellowship to the truth of the Gospel, the validity of the nature and purpose of Jesus, and the truth concerning the surety of their salvation. ^[24]

According to Robert Jamieson (1802-1880), Andrew Fausset (1821-1910), and David Brown’s (1803-1897) way of thinking, the Apostle John wanted everyone to discover and understand that the Anointed One, God’s Son, came to give us eternal life is the summary of Christian privilege. The Anointed One’s office is to provide the inner spiritual understanding to discern the things of God. Some of the oldest Greek Manuscripts read, “(so) that we know” Him who is the authentic God – as opposed to every kind of idol or false god.^[25] Jesus, by His oneness with God the Father, is also “He that is true.”^[26] Even – “we are in the true” God, by being “in His Son Jesus the Anointed One.”^[27]

With his lifework well-illustrating the biblical and reformation ideal of a pastor-theologian, Robert S. Candlish (1807-1873) points out that this is the third and last “we know” in verses eighteen to twenty. John insists that the Gnostics were the heretics of his day but in a better and safer sense. They pretended to be all–knowing in the intellectual sphere of abstract speculation about divine nature. In contrast, the Apostle John would have us to be knowing, in the humbler yet really higher and holier experience of honest, direct, personal acquaintance and fellowship with the Divine Being, as coming down to us, poor sinners, in His Son, and taking us up, by His Spirit, to be sons and saints in His holy child Jesus. Those born of God do not sin because they keep themselves so that the wicked one cannot touch them.

Consequently, we are of God in contrast with a godless society, which lies wholly in the wicked; these are the two former examples of “we know.” And now the third “we know” has respect, neither to our standing as being of God, nor to a godless society’s position as lying in the wicked one but to Him who causes or occasions the difference, “God’s Son.” It would almost seem as if there was a regular syllogism^[28] here; an argument built up in three propositions; two premises and a conclusion. First, there is the major premiss, in the general assertion, abstract and impersonal; “we know” that being born of God implies not sinning, since “he that is born of God keeps himself, and the wicked one cannot touch him.”

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[1] The unitarian Christadelphian organization says there is no central authority to establish and maintain a standardized set of beliefs and it depends upon what statement of faith is adhered to and how liberal the ecclesia is, but there are core doctrines most Christadelphians would accept. In the formal statements of faith, a more complete list is found; for instance, the Birmingham Amended Statement of Faith has 30 doctrines to be accepted and 35 to be rejected.

[2] John 20:28

[3] 1 John 5:20

[4] Hebrews 1:8

[5] Revelation 19:11-15

[6] Mansfield, H. P., The Truth Vindicated, Sixth Debate February 27, 1962, p. 139

[7] Marshall, Ian Howard: The Epistles of John (The New International Commentary on the New Testament), op. cit., pp. 253-254

[8] See 1 John 1:2; 3:5, 8

[9] Matthew 22:37; Mark 12:30; Luke 10:27; and see Deuteronomy 6:5; Luke 1:51

[10] Genesis 6:5

[11] Romans 12:2

[12] John 17:3

[13] John 1:1, 18; 20:28

[14] Painter, John. Sacra Pagina: 1, 2, and 3 John: Volume 18, op. cit., loc. cit., Kindle Edition

[15] Walls, Muncia: Epistles of John and Jude, op. cit., pp. 96-97

[16] John 14:9

[17] Ibid. 9:1-38

[18] Cf. Ibid 9:11, 17, 33, 36, 38

[19] Boice, James Montgomery: The Epistles of John, An Expository Commentary, op. cit., pp. 147-149

[20] Eaton, Michael: Focus on the Bible, 1,2,3 John, op. cit., p. 197

[21] 1 John 4:2

[22] Ibid. 5:6

[23] Jackman, David: The Message of John’s Letters, op. cit., pp. 171-171

[24] Carter, Dr. John W. (Jack). 1,2,3, John & Jude: (The Disciple’s Bible Commentary Book 48), op. cit., p. 137

[25] 1 John 5:21

[26] Revelation 3:7

[27] Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown’s Commentary on the Whole Bible, New Testament Volume, op. cit., p. 731

[28] Syllogism is an instance of a form of reasoning in which a conclusion is drawn from two given or assumed premises, each of which shares a term with the conclusion and shares a common or middle term not present in conclusion (e.g., all dogs are animals; all animals have four legs; therefore all dogs have four legs).

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R. Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FIVE (Lesson CXL) 05/19/23

^5:20 And we know that God’s Son has come and given us understanding. So now we can fellowship with the true One and live in union with that true God. We are in His Son, Jesus the Anointed One. He is the true God, and He is eternal life.

Fourth, we come back to this confession of John, for to question it is to make missionary enterprise, if not a laughing stock, at least a much-ado-about-nothing. “We are of God, and the whole world is wicked.” Of course, we may not always confidently say who are God’s children and who belongs to the wicked ones. Nevertheless, these are the certainties of the Christian heart, never to be let go or explained away; these form the basis and inspiration of missionary purpose and work. And indeed, the measure of our assurance is the measure of our obligation. The more we know these things, the greater our burden of responsibility.^[1]

With his stately speaking style,  William M. Sinclair (1850-1917) focuses on the truth that God has given us an understanding of Himself. ^[2] This spiritual faculty of discernment was one of the gifts of that Spirit that the Anointed One was to send.^[3] Therefore, we believe in Him that is true, who is the personality of God amidst all the deceptions and fluctuations of a godless society.  The Apostle John felt, with the most absolute and penetrating and thankful conviction, that the followers of the Anointed One were rooted and grounded in perfect, unshakable, unassailable truth.

This firmness could not happen unless they rested on the living Son of God and held fast to Him. In addition, a sacred and shining crown to the whole Epistle is that this God, “as seen in His Son,”is the true God. If the Word had not been God, God could not have been seen in Him. And God, seen in His Son, is eternal life. It is only another way of putting what John says in his Gospel.^[4]  Making “this is the true God” refer only to the Son is equally admissible by grammar but hardly suits the argument well.^[5]

One of the most influential Anglican reconcilers, Charles Gore (1853-1932), here, we observe the Apostle John’s insistence on the importance of proper thinking about God. “We are to love the Lord our God with all our understanding, as well as with all our heart and soul and strength.”^[6] It is shallowness, or shortness of thought, which causes so many to talk as if “what exactly people believe” is not essential as long as their hearts are right.

The fact is that however much inconsistency there may be between intellectual belief and practice at any particular moment or for any specific individual, in the long run, how people behave – the character of their whole civilization, indeed – depends upon what they believe about God. Thus John has a clear idea of the fellowship of mutual love to establish a Christian society.

Still, he remains convinced that this sort of society can come into being and maintain itself only if people believe that the very being of God is love, which must, therefore, be the law of a godless society. John is convinced that this assurance about God’s nature has come to us and can be maintained in no other way than through the belief that the hidden Father has shown, His mind and being in the historical person, Jesus, the Anointed One and Son of God – so truly one with the Father that in knowing Him we know the Father, and in being joined to Him we are united to the Father. He says this is the real God, in contrast to all the idols of men’s ungoverned imagination.^[7]

Beyond any doubt, remarks Alonzo R. Cocke (1858-1901), that in verse twenty, we come to another of the Apostle John’s “we know.” Even though a godless society lies in sin, we have the sweet knowledge that God’s Son is come and gone as far as to touch our understanding with such heavenly enlightenment that we can “know Him that is true.” Only through the Son comes that knowledge of the true One, for all spiritual knowledge, is grounded in our fellowship with God through the spiritual life He gave us. The Anointed One brings us that life and engrafts us upon the root where all life and power flow. The Son must lead us to the true God and endow us with that keen sense of the spiritual life whereby the true God is known. But this knowledge goes even further: we know the true One; but more, we know that “we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus the Anointed One.” What divine knowledge!

What a holy sphere in which to live, in Him that is true; but how exalted the privilege to know with the most resounding assurance that we are in that home of the soul. John arises on the wings of confidence to the heavenlies themselves. But those disciples were in a world of idol worship. He desires them to keep themselves pure from all contamination with idols. So, first, he reveals the true God. “This,” that is, “Him that is true, even His Son Jesus the Anointed One, is the true God.” He is the God to be worshipped, the eternal and infinite One; yes, He is “eternal life.” “In Him was life,”^[8]and hence he is said to be “eternal life.” Life is, by figure, but for the author or procuring cause of life. Thus this beautiful epistle draws to a close, assuring us of the eternal life in its opening verses told us had been “manifested.”^[9]

Esteemed ministry veteran James B. Morgan (1859-1942) It is apparent how frequently the Apostle John uses the expression “we know” and how many insights he applies. Confining our attention to the chapter before us, we read: “we know that we love the children of God,” … “we know that we have eternal life,” … “we know that we have the petitions we desired of Him,” … “We know that whosoever is born of God does not sin” … “we know that we are of God …” “we know that God’s Son has come” and “we know Him that is true.” This style is uncomplicated and is no less instructive but provides an example of the Christian religious nature. That is not an opinion but a certainty. Neither is it doubtful speculation but a reality we are conscious of. This remark applies to all essential elements in the Gospel of the Anointed One, the significant objects of faith, and our interest in them.

Everyone who truly apprehends it knows its truth and, with their fellowship, knows the Anointed One and the salvation He has conferred upon them. They know this to be true in the same way that they see the value of the food that nourishes them or the attire that clothes them by experience. Therefore, they can say, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel of the Anointed One, for it is the power of God and the wisdom of God to salvation to everyone that believes.”^[10] They know it’s true because they have felt its power.^[11]

A man who appreciates Jesus’ embodiment of the divine transforming emotion on how we live in this world, Robert Law (1860-1919) states that in verse twenty, we find the certainty of Christian Belief and the facts upon which it rests, and the supernatural power which has quickened it to the perception of those facts. Then with a final reiteration of the real significance of the Epistle, “This is the true God and Eternal Life,” and an abrupt and sternly affectionate call to all believers to beware of yielding the homage of their trust and dependence to the hopeless shadows which slink nearby to usurp the place of the True God.^[12] 

Most scholars assume that in the Epistle, God is the absolute final source of that life – Eternal Life – the possession of which is the supreme end for which man, and every spiritual nature, exists. So, it is implied in John’s testimony, “This is the witness, that God gave us Eternal Life,^[13]” and in all the passages, too numerous to be quoted, that speak of the existence of this Life as the result of a Divine birth. That God is also the inherent source of Life – that it exists and is maintained only through a continuous vitalizing union with Him, as of the branch with the vine – is no less implied in those equally numerous passages that speak of our abiding in God and God abiding in us.^[14]

Thinking as a dispensationalist, Arno C. Gaebelein (1861-1945) notes that the conclusion of the Apostle John’s Epistle consists of three statements that “we know.” We know that whoever is born of God does not sin, but He (he) that is born of God keeps himself, and that wicked one does not touch Him (him).” Sin is the touch of the wicked one. If the believer guards himself by living in fellowship with the Father and the Son, walking in the Light, the wicked one cannot reach him; he lives according to his new nature without sinning.

So, we who are of God in a world that cohabits with the wicked should remain separated. If believers are not, they move around in the wicked one’s territory, and the author of sin finds occasion to touch them and lead them to sin. However, since we know that God’s Son has come and given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus the Anointed One – the true God and eternal life, we should be safe in this world.^[15]

In reviewing what the Apostle John says in this verse, Archibald T. Robertson (1863-1939) mentions the Apostle John’s use of “understanding” is only here in verse twenty, while it appears in the Apostle Paul’s^[16] and the Apostle Peter’s writings.^[17] John only uses “knowledge” and “mind” in Revelations.^[18] It is essential in understanding these references to note why the Apostles chose the word they did.^[19]

With characteristic fundamental thinking, Alan England Brooke (1863-1939) highlights the fact that the Anointed One, God’s Son, fulfilled His mission by doing the work characterized by His name (Yeshua – “Savior”), and the effects continue to this day. Thus, the Apostle John uses the word “understanding” not found elsewhere in his writings. The faculty of “knowing” or “discerning” is what it expresses. The faculty of knowing, or discerning, seems to be what it describes. It is worth noting that “knowing” or “knowledge” is also absent from the Johannine writings, and “understanding” occurs only twice elsewhere.^[20] Also, “that we may know” is well supported here, as in John’s Gospel.^[21]

Furthermore, God, the One who alone completely corresponds to His ‘‘Name,” in whom the idea is completely realized. The attempt to make God the subject of “understanding,” notwithstanding the preceding “has come” and to interpret “the true” of the Anointed One, hardly needs serious refutation. The God who “fulfills the highest conception” of the Godhead can only be known through the faculty of discernment given by His Son, through His historic appearance on earth. John is already mentally contrasting the true with the false conceptions of God against which he warns his readers in the last verse of the Epistle.

The phrase, “and we are in Him that is true,” must have the same reference here as in the preceding clause. Therefore, there is no difficulty supposing that John, who uses the phrase “that we may know Him that is true,” should use the words “we are in Him that is true” concerning God. The following clause supports this interpretation. To interpret the words “in His Son Jesus the Anointed One” as being in apposition to “in Him that is true,” appended to leave no doubt as to the change of reference in “in him that is true,” is far less natural than “the Son of Him” description of the method in which union with God is realized.^[22]

With an eye for detail, David Smith (1866-1932) states that the assurance and guarantee of it are the facts of the Incarnation, an overwhelming demonstration of God’s interest in us and His concern for our highest good. Not simply a historical fact but an ongoing operation not “came,” but “has come” and “has given us.” Our faith is not a matter of philosophical theory but of personal and growing acquaintance with God through the enlightenment of the Anointed One’s Spirit, “the real” as opposed to “the false” God of the heretics.^[23]

As a spiritual mentor, Ronald A. Ward (1920-1986) notes that when the Apostle John says that God’s Son has come, the usual effect of using the present tense would be “He is now here,” but this does not apply in verse twenty. Therefore, His abiding is not physical but spiritual in every believer. That means “a godless society will never be the same again” as before He came. Yes, He came and made atonement for our sins to gain God’s forgiveness, which is still available by grace. And this gift God gave us through His Son – which we now possess – as insight to know Him; we need this gift because before we received it, we were “living in the darkness of ignorance.”^[24] Our confidence stands on the fact that we are in Him who is genuine, whose permanent gift of the Spirit^[25] and the perpetual offering of understanding^[26] includes moral and spiritual discrimination and discernment.^[27]

With academic precision, Stephen S. Smalley (1931-2018) mentions that for the third and final time, John speaks of the grounds of Christian confidence by using the verb “we know” or “we can be sure”). But on this occasion, the reference is to the Anointed One; it is accordingly fundamental in character and triumphant in tone. How, it may be asked, can we “cross the line” from death to life and be rescued from a godless society and the evil one? John answers the question by speaking of God’s Son, whose person and work are the means of eternal life and the basis of all Christian certainty.  Nevertheless, we can be sure that God’s Son has come even while the whole world lies in the grip of the evil one.^[28]

An insistent believer in Grace, Zane Clark Hodges (1932-2008) agrees that the coming of God’s Son granted believers an understanding which made possible a more excellent knowledge of God. John and his circle were in Him who is true (and so were his readers as they continued to “abide” in Him). But to stay in God is to abide in His Son Jesus the Anointed One. For that matter, Jesus the Anointed One is the true God^[29] and eternal life.^[30] With this grand affirmation of the deity of the Anointed One, John concluded his summary of apostolic truths that stand against the antichrists’ falsehoods.^[31]

Inspired by Jesus’ words, “go into all a godless society,” Edward J. Malatesta (1932-1998) says the Christological reflection of 5:18-20 clarifies while summarizing several points of the Christology of 2:29-3:10, as the following comparison shows:

3:9 the one born of God does not sin	5:18 the one born of God does not sin
3:9 because His seed remains in them	5:18 because the One who birthed them protects them
3:8 God’s Son came to destroy the works of the devil	5:18 the evil one does not touch God’s children
3:6 everyone who remains in Jesus does not sin	5:20 we are in the truthful One, in His Son, Jesus the Anointed One

The three certitudes introduced by “we know” are followed by a final proclamation which is the letter’s most developed confession of faith concerning Jesus: “He is the truthful One, God and Life eternal.”

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[1] Greenhough, John G., The Cross in Modern Life, The Expositor’s Library, Published by Hodder and Stoughton, New York, 1914, Ch. XII, The Certainties of our Warfare, pp. 120-121.

[2] Cf. Acts of the Apostles 26:18; 1 Corinthians 2:12-15; Ephesians 1:18

[3] Cf. 1 John 2:20, 27; See John 14:26; 16:13

[4] John 17:3; cf. 1 John 5:11-13

[5] Sinclair, William M., New Testament Commentary for English Readers, Charles J. Ellicott,  op. cit., Vol. 3, p. 494

[6] Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22:

[7] Gore, Charles: The Epistles of St. John, op. cit., p. 218

[8] 1 John 1:4

[9] Cocke, Alonzo R: Studies in the Epistles of John; or, The Manifested Life, op. cit., pp. 137-139

[10] Romans 1:16-17

[11] Morgan, James B., An Exposition of the First Epistle of John, op. cit., Lecture LI, pp. 508-509

[12] Law, Robert: The Tests of Life: A Study of the First Epistle of St. John, op. cit., p. 273

[13] 1 John 5:11

[14] Law, Robert: The Tests of Life: A Study of the First Epistle of St. John, op. cit., p. 54

[15] Gaebelein, Arno C., The Annotated Bible, op. cit., pp. 160-161

[16] Ephesians 1:18; 4:18

[17] 1 Peter 1:13

[18] Revelations 13:18; 17:9

[19] Robertson, Archibald T., Word Pictures in the New Testament,  op. cit., pp. 1971-1972

[20] Revelation 13:18; 17:9

[21] John 17:3

[22] Brooke, Alan E., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Johannine Epistles, op. cit., pp. 150-153

[23] Smith, David: The Expositor’s Greek Testament, 1 John, op. cit., p. 199

[24] Ephesians 4:18; cf. John 14:17; 1 Corinthians 2:14

[25] 1 John 4:13

[26] Ibid. 5:20

[27] Ward, Ronald A., The Epistles on John and Jude, op. cit., pp. 59-60

[28] Smalley, Stephen S., Word Biblical Commentary, Vol. 51, 1,2,3 John, op. cit., pp. 305-306

[29] Cf. John 1:1, 14

[30] Cf. 1 John 1:2; 2:25; 5:11-13

[31] Hodges, Zane C., Bible Knowledge Commentary, op. cit., loc. cit.

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R. Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FIVE (Lesson CXXXIX) 05/18/23

^5:20 And we know that God’s Son has come and given us understanding. So now we can fellowship with the true One and live in union with that true God. We are in His Son, Jesus the Anointed One. He is the true God, and He is eternal life.

What object is gained by saying this? (4) the Anointed One is not only the immediate antecedent; whatever may be said to the contrary, he is the principal subject of the preceding part of the verse. To be convinced of this, one must read it carefully. (5) Life eternal Is the predicate, not of the Father, but the Son, especially in John’s writing.^[1] The Scriptural thought is that the Father has life, but the Son is life. To call the Anointed One life eternal is to unite the closing of the Epistle with its beginning. (6) To call the Anointed One, the Son, the true God harmonizes with statements in the Gospel and Revelation of John.^[2]

With the ability of a linguist’s concentration on nuances, Greek word scholar Marvin R. Vincent (1834-1921) says we should compare this verse with scriptures in the Apostle John’s Book of Revelations.^[3] Also, on “true,” look at what John says in his Gospel.^[4] Vincent then suggests reading what Evangelist Henry Drummond (1851-1897 wrote. Here is what we found:

“Just as naturally as the flower and the mineral and the Man, each in their way, tell me about themselves, He tells me about Himself. He strangely condescends in making things plain to me, assuming for a time the Form of a Man that I may better see Him at my poor level. It is my opportunity to know Him. This incarnation is God making Himself accessible to human thought – God opening to man the possibility of correspondence through Jesus, the Anointed One. And this correspondence and this Environment are those I seek. He assures me, ‘This is Life Eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus the Anointed One whom You sent.’ Do I not now discern the more profound meaning in ‘Jesus the Anointed One whom You sent?’ Do I not better understand with what vision and rapture the deepest of the disciples exclaims, ‘The Son of God is come, and has given us an understanding that we might know Him that is True?’”^{[5] [6]}

Noting the Apostle John’s doctrinal implications, John James Lias (1834-1923) examines the Apostle John’s three concluding thoughts in verses eighteen, nineteen, and twenty. First is the knowledge that a Divine power protects us from sin. (I) This promise rests on the fact that we have been born of God; for example, our confidence is in God, not in ourselves, in the new life, not the old one. We have not yet attained the condition of which the Apostle speaks. But (a) we are tending there, and (b) the practical value of knowledge is that whenever we realize this one source of strength, we have it. The feebleness of our hold on the truth is the cause of our many falls. We never fall, but when we forget on whom we are to rely.

(II) It also rests on God’s Son’s protection. Since our faith is too feeble to conceive of God (a) He has taken man’s shape and thus brought Himself within reach of our capacities. And (b) He is one of ourselves. If we have been born of God, it is through the agency of one the One. The allusion here may be (1) to the eternal Son by the Father or (2) to His assumption of human flesh. But whichever it be, “He was not ashamed to call us brethren.”^[7] (3) The evil one has no power over those over whom Jesus watches. It is not that he cannot tempt them, for he tempted Him.

It is not that we have not sinned, for “in many things, we offend all.” But it is that He Who conquered sin in our mortal flesh, in our fallen nature, can defeat it in us. And hence, however many the assaults of the evil one may be, we have only to believe that we are in the Anointed One to overcome them all.^[8]

With his systematic spiritual mindset, Augustus Hopkins Strong (1836-1921) proclaims that being in God has its basis in the Anointed One, His Son, and this also makes it more natural that “this” should refer to “the Son.” But ought not “is true” then to be without the article as in John’s Gospel? ^[9] No, for John’s purpose here in verse twenty is not to say what the Anointed One is but who He is. In declaring what one is, the predicate must have no article; in declaring who one is, the predicate must have the article. So John says that this Son, on whom our being in the true God rests, is this faithful God.^[10]

A tried and tested biblical scholar who believes in the up-building of the Christian life, Robert Cameron (1839-1904) concludes that the Apostle John has a third truth he wants his readers to know. What we learn in this case is only imparted to us, however, that we may understand something else – the highest and the most divine thing that may come to the understanding of man. We realize that God’s Son has come and given us understanding. A better rendering would be insight, or to be still more exact, a through and through knowledge. We have the power to penetrate things, to understand them as they are. In the spiritual realm, we have given what the X-ray is in the sphere of matter. We can trace life’s complex facts and mysteries and arrive at correct conclusions.

This gift is doubtless through the illuminating power of the Holy Spirit, who guides us into all truth. He has entered our hearts, giving us this penetrating insight that we may come to know, by a continuous and progressive apprehension, “Him that is true.” “That I may know Him,”^[11] said Paul, long after he had become a believer. Thus, outwardly to our senses, we have a person revealed; inwardly to our consciousness, we have a personal revelation.

This opens the eyes of our understanding so that “we know” the trustworthy Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are here, although John does not mention them by name. The Son makes the revelation; the Spirit he gives furnishes the illumination, and the everlasting God, even the Father, becomes known to our hearts. “This is eternal life that they may know thee, the only true God.” 

What blessed knowledge this is! We know that the one begotten of God does not practice sin; we know that we are of God, while a godless society lies in the evil one; and we know that Jesus has come and has given us a clearness of perception that by this means we may know the real and true God. We are back to God, and we know Him better than knowing anyone – better than we can know ourselves.^{[12] [13]}

As a secular and sacred Law enforcer, Sir Robert Anderson (1841-1918) mentions that calling someone by their first or nickname implies excellent familiarity. So, if there are Christians who have gained such a position with their Lord and Savior, it is not for us to judge them. But when those who claim no such place must not allow ourselves to be betrayed by their example into thoughts or modes of speech which His presence would rebuke and silence. If we desire “to sanctify the Anointed One in our hearts as Lord, we will be careful and eager to own Him as Lord with our lips.” And all influences that hinder the realization of that desire are unwholesome, and we do well to shun them.

However, the message the Apostle Paul had for the Corinthians^[14] give us faith and hope in Christianity, and no one who lets go of any part of the truth they express has any right to the name of Christian. To reject the hope of His return is a mark of apostasy as denying the Atonement. And no spiritual Christian will need to be reminded of the significance of the word, the Lord’s death. “The death of Jesus” might mean the end of His earthly life in Judea long ago. It is the prevailing thought in Christendom, with the crucifix symbolizing it.

Faith brings us into the presence of the Lord in His glory, and we rest upon His words, “I am the living one. I died but look – I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the grave.”^[15] Therefore, as John says in verse twenty, “We know that God’s Son came”^[16] – that is the Christian’s past. However, “But from now on the Son of Man will be seated in the place of power at God’s right hand”^[17] – that is present. And as for the future, “We eagerly waiting for Him to return as our Savior.”^{[18] [19]}

With his Spirit-directed calculating mind, Alfred Plummer (1841-1926) agrees with other commentators that verse twenty introduces the third remarkable fact of which believers have specific knowledge. The first two Christian certitudes are that the believer, as a child of God, progresses under the Anointed One’s protection towards the sinlessness of God. At the same time, the unbelieving world lies wholly in the power of the evil one.

Therefore, Christians know that both in the moral nature they inherited and in the moral sphere in which they live, there is an ever-widening gulf between them and a godless society. But their knowledge goes beyond this. Even in the intellectual sphere, in which the Gnostic claims to have such advantages, Christians are superior by being joint heirs with the Anointed One.

Also, the Greek δέ (“and”) brings the Epistle to a conclusion:^[20] Or it may mark the opposition between a godless society’s evil case and what is stated here; in which case δέ should be rendered “but.” Furthermore, the phrase “is come” includes the notion of “is here,” but it is the arriving at the incarnation rather than the perpetual presence that is prominent in this context. Giving us “an understanding” means the capacity to receive knowledge.

In John’s writings, the Greek noun dianoia “understanding” occurs nowhere else. But John isn’t finished yet. This was all done “that we may know” literally, “that we may continue to recognize, as we do now” (the Greek conjunction,  ἵνα, “that”) with the indicative. It is the appropriation of the knowledge John emphasizes; hence “recognize” (Greek verb ginōskō) rather than “know” as used in the opening of verses eighteen, nineteen, and twenty, meaning: the possession of the knowledge.

Finally, “Him that is true” God; another parallel with the Anointed One’s Prayer; “that they should know You the only true God,”^[21] where some authorities give the conjunction ἵνα (“that”) with the indicative, as here. “True” does not mean “that cannot lie,”^[22] but “genuine,” “real,” “authentic,” as opposed to the false gods in verse twenty-one. What is Gnostic’s claim to superior understanding in comparison with this? We know that we have the Divine gift of intelligence, which means we attain the knowledge of a personal God who embraces and sustains us in His Son. As such, “we are in Him.”

Also, “Him that is true” again means God. It is arbitrary to change the meaning and make this refer to the Anointed One. Thus, “The Son has given us understanding by which to attain the knowledge of the Father.” Instead of resuming “and we do know the Father,” John advances by saying: “And we are in the Father.” Knowledge has become fellowship.^[23] God has appeared as a human; God has spoken person to person; and the Christian faith, which is the one absolute certainty for humanity and means of reuniting them to God, is the result. Yes, “even in His Son Jesus the Anointed One.” Omit “even” in the KJV and Revised Version (RV) to make “in Him that is true” refers to the Anointed One. This last clause explains how we are in the Father by being in the Son.^{[24] [25]}

With regal etiquette, Ernst von Dryander (1843-1922) hears the Apostle John’s urging to resist evil, which we as Christians must make, as was taken and adhered to by the Apostle, yet he did not take it nor carry it out in his strength. “We know,” he says, “that whosoever is born of God does not sin,” but this certainty rests upon a further conviction, “We know that we are of God.” That is the foundation of his Christian life. This blessed conviction gives believers the spirit of peace, which assures their faith is “the victory that survives living in a godless society.” And from where do people get this conviction? None received it by good decisions nor gained it in Bible School or Seminary but learned they were not born of God. The discipline of repentance is needed before anyone can belong to Him.

Instead, it is discovered here in verse twenty: “We know that God’s Son is come, and has given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son, Jesus the Anointed One.” They received this new Divine life from the Anointed One, and from Him, they also received this blessed conviction of their salvation. In following the Anointed One, a new “understanding” dawned upon them, whereby they perceived the unseen world, learned to know their God as “Him that is true,” and realized that life on earth is but a shadow. Redemption in Jesus the Anointed One is the act of grace that snatches us from the service of the evil world and gives us new life from God, over which sin has no more power. The coming of God’s Son (i.e., His work of Redemption) has given us a new “understanding,” whereby “we may know Him that is true” (i.e., God).^[26]

A prominent Baptist minister John Gershom Greenhough (1843-1933), who focused on the key role played by Nonconformity in nurturing the labor movement in late Victorian and Edwardian Britain, opines that this has been called the Epistle of Love, and it well deserves that title; but it might be more appropriately called the Epistle of Certainties. There is a ring of absolute assurance from the opening words to the finish. Nor was the language of this Apostle John at all unfamiliar or hard to understand. As he wrote and spoke, he felt and testified to all those first witnesses of the Anointed One.

First, John testified that the strength and dominant power of the early disciples were in their certainties. It was the age of skepticism, a period of almost universal uncertainty. People were everywhere boastfully declaring or mournfully confessing that nothing was or could be known about the higher powers and a future life. And then these Apostles went forth with triumphant certainty on their lips, holding the clue to all the great mysteries in their hands. No wonder people gathered around to hear them.

Second, the certainties of the Apostolic Church made it a missionary Church. The boldness of that early faith was magnificent. There was no hesitation because there was no doubt. They could neither fear nor hold back nor sit still in their absolute assurance. Every church must stay alive and earnest and aggressive. In this respect, the Gospel never changes. Third, the measure of our certainty is the measure of our power. In all future ministry, the one essential is the absolute assurance we hold proven truths, that our weapons have been forged in God’s furnace, that the Holy Spirit has given us directions, and Divine lips uttered the promises which inspire us. Also, that He in whose Name we go out is the only true God and eternal life. The Church has had enough of the pruning hook and the dissecting knife. She wants to use the sword again in her real warfare. She wants to feel her feet again planted on apostolic certainties.

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[1] 1 John 11; 2:5: 1,1,2; 5:11m 12m 1311, 12, 13

[2] Sawtelle, Henry A., Commentary on the Epistles of John, op. cit., pp. 63-64

[3] Revelation 3:7, 14; 6:10

[4] John 1:9

[5] Drummond, Henry: Natural Law in the Spiritual World, Published by Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1898, pp. 240-241

[6] Vincent, Marvin R., Word Studies in the New Testament, op. cit., p. 374

[7] Hebrews 2:11

[8] Lias, John James: The First Epistle of St. John with Homiletical Treatment, op. cit., pp. 411-420

[9] John 1:1

[10] Strong, Augustus H: Systematic Theology, Vol. 1, p. 556

[11] Philippians 3:10

[12] Philippians 3:10

[13] Cameron, Robert: The First Epistle of John, or, God Revealed in Light, Life, and Love, op. cit., p. 248

[14] 1 Corinthians 11:26

[15] Revelation 1:18

[16] 1 John 5:20

[17] Luke 22:69; cf. Romans 8:34

[18] Philippians 3:20

[19] Anderson, Sir Robert: The Lord from Heaven, op. cit., pp. 79-80

[20] Hebrews 13:20, 22

[21] See John 17:3

[22] Titus 1:2

[23] 1 John 1:3; 2:3, 5

[24] Cf. 1 John 2:23; John 1:14, 17, 18, 23

[25] Plummer, Alfred: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, N. T., Vol. IV., pp. 171-172

[26] Dryander, Ernst von: A Commentary on the First Epistle of St. John in the Form of Addresses, op. cit., p. 249

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R. Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FIVE (Lesson CXXXVIII) 05/17/23

^5:20 And we know that God’s Son has come and given us understanding. So now we can fellowship with the true One and live in union with that true God. We are in His Son, Jesus the Anointed One. He is the true God, and He is eternal life.

Familiar with John’s writing style, William B. Pope (1822-1903) says that the Apostle John’s words in verse twenty should remind us of the only occasion “God’s Son is come,” is used in this sense is when our Lord declared to the Jews in one sentence the mystery of His eternal Sonship, His presence in a godless society by incarnation, and His mediatorial mission: “If God were your Father, you would love me, because I have come to you from God. I am not here on my own, but He sent me.”^[1] The children of God know with an assurance that is above all doubt that God’s Son is incarnate with the human race and “lived among us.” 

It is John’s triumphant closing of his Epistle, as it is a testimony to the manifestation of eternal life and a protest against all anti-Christian error. Keeping both these objects in view, John goes on: “and has given us understanding that we may know Him that is true.” This word “understanding” signifies the inner faculty of the Spirit, which discriminates “know,” which is the result of the “unction from the Holy One.”

Through this inward enlightenment by Him, who is the Truth, through His Spirit, we “know” Him that is true, as the “only real God.” It is the “only true God” in His unapproachable distinction from all false gods or objects of hope, who is eternal life. In the words of Jesus, the Anointed One has come because He was sent. But He came as God revealed, and John hastens from the spiritual knowledge to the spiritual experience of fellowship with that Father, not “and” Jesus but “in union with Him.” Thus, we are one with His Son Jesus the Anointed One. The absence of “and” leaves the plain assertion that we are in the true God by being in His Son – thus making the true God and His Son one – is the solution to the question to whom the following clause refers.

This is the true God and eternal life. His Son Jesus the Anointed One is Himself the true God, His revelation and presence with us; nor know we any other. Since He has come, those who do not see God in Him serve a god of their imagination. When the apostle adds “and eternal life,” it brings joy for the privilege of all believing Christians. They have in the Son the Father’s perfect Love manifested to us. Thus, the end of the Epistle revolves back to the beginning. Christian doctrine is the revelation of the true God in the Anointed One, and Christian blessedness is life everlasting in the Father and the Son.^[2]

A strong supporter of church laity in ministry, Willibald Beyschlag (1823-1900) notes that the Apostle John saw God only in the face of Jesus the Anointed One. No person could be more pierced than by John becoming conscious that through Jesus, new knowledge of God, the only actual knowledge of God, had come into a godless society. That’s what John is talking about here in verse twenty. Before this knowledge of God in the Anointed One, everything narrated in the First Covenant of Moses seeing God and the prophets grow pale. Don’t you know, no one has seen God at any time?

This concept contradicts the Scriptures that say the only begotten Son in the Father’s bosom has revealed Him.^[3] This new knowledge of God is expressed in the name of God as Father, which, in confirmation of what we have learned about Johannine Christology, is nowhere narrower in its extent than the name “God,” to leave room for a God the Son beside a God the Father; it coincides throughout with what we read in John’s Gospel,^[4] with that is said in his Epistle,^[5] and gives to the idea of God the character of eternal love made manifest to humanity.^[6]

With holiness doctrine expertise, Daniel Steele (1824-1914) gives us a point-by-point exposition of verse twenty and remarks that even in the intellectual sphere, in which the Gnostics (knowing ones) claim to have such advantages, the Christian is, by the Anointed One’s bounty, superior. In the Greek, this reiterated “we know” is in this case introduced by the adversative particle “but,” making a startling antithesis with the preceding clause. Bad as a godless society is under the tyranny of Satan, there is no ground for pessimistic despair. “That which is as yet dark will be made light.”^[7]

We are given the power of ever-advancing knowledge and present divine fellowship. We can wait, even as God waits. The words “The Son of God has come” implies His permanent presence, inspiring life, hope, and strength in every believer. And the promise “He has given us an understanding” expresses the permanency of this gift elsewhere described in the Paraclete who came to stay, whose office it is to reveal the Anointed One to the eye of faith to give insight into spiritual truth.

The Apostle John continues, “That we may know.” It means knowing more and more of the depths of Divine love through a never-ending exercise of our ever-expanding powers. This is eternal life. “Him, that is true.” The Heavenly Father revealed in His Son the loftiest and purest idea of God possible in mankind’s mind, in contrast with the imaginary, unreal and imperfect objects of worship which mislead and debase all the pagan nations. So the statement, “We are in Him that is true,” is not by physical incorporation into the body of the glorified Anointed One but by genuine and blissful fellowship. Thus, “So far as believers are united with the Anointed One, they are united with God.” Shows John’s assumption of humanity explains how the union is possible.” Therefore, John says, “This is the true God and eternal life.”

All the scholars agree that “this” may grammatically refer to the Father, the principal noun in the previous sentence, or to Jesus the Anointed One, the nearest noun. In favor of the first theory are the following arguments: (1) The Father is the leading subject of discourse. (2) It is precisely John’s style to repeat with some addition what has been already written. (3) The Father is the primary source of life, and the Son is secondary.^[8] (4) This view harmonizes with John’s Gospel.^[9] (5) The fact that God is the true God is in reference to the argument against idolatry, a more special point than the Divinity of His Son.^[10]

The following are reasons for referring “this” to the incarnate Son of God: (1) His is the noun last mentioned. (2) The Father, having been twice called “the true one” in verse nineteen, to call Him so the third time would be needless repetition. (3) In this Epistle and John’s Gospel, the |Anointed One is styled “the life.”^[11] (4) Athanasius thus interprets this text in his controversy with the Arians. (5) The primary purpose of this Epistle is to establish the reality of the Anointed One’s humanity, that God’s Son who has come in the flesh is worthy of worship. He is the revelation of the true God; He is the true God.^[12]

A novelist whose specialty was composing allegories about mankind’s pilgrimage back to God, George Macdonald (1824-1905), shares his story about the Marquis of Lossie. In describing the groom, Malcolm MacPhail’s sister Florimel’s frustration with Lady Clementina for refusing to join her to discuss Malcolm’s mistreatment of a treasured horse named Kelpie. But after a good night’s sleep, she woke up somewhat humbled.

So, Macdonald comments, “All sorts of means are kept at work to make the children obedient and simple and noble. Joy and sorrow are servants in God’s nursery; pain and delight, ecstasy, and despair, minister in it; but amongst them, there is none more marvelous in its potency than that mingling of all pains and pleasures we especially give the name of Love.”^[13]

For Macdonald, this illustrates what the Apostle John was saying that we know that God’s Son has come and has given us understanding. So now we can understand the true One and live in that true God. We are in His Son, Jesus the Anointed One. He is the true God, and He is eternal life. So, John concludes that we should live like a person who knows God equipped for these situations.

British Critic, journalist, and theologian Richard Holt Hutton (1826-1897) states that it seems that a great deal of the wonderful beauty of the Book of Psalms consists in the fact that this time had not yet come. The sacred heart was in those days alone with God, in a sense in which it has never been alone since. The lesson which the Apostle John enforces here in verse twenty, and which it was most accessible for those to implement, in whom a single human love had concentrated at once all that they counted most authentic in their whole life, human or Divine – was a lesson entirely foreign to the minds of the more significant number of the Psalmists. The authors of these beautiful poems found it much easier to love God than to love humans, and their only theme of perpetual wonder was how it had been possible for God to love humanity.^[14]

After sufficient examination, Brooke Wescott (1825-1901) acknowledges that the Apostle John’s third affirmation of knowledge is introduced by the adversative particle (“and”). There is, this seems to be the line of thought, a startling antithesis in life of good and evil. We have been made to feel it in all its intensity. But at the same time we can face it in faith. That which is as yet dark will be made light. We are given the power of growing knowledge and present divine fellowship. We can wait even as God waits.

The Greek particle de (“that”) is not frequent in John’s writings.^[15] Faith rests on the permanence of the fact and not upon the historical record only.^[16] This is the only place in which the term occurs in John’s writings; generally, nouns that express intellectual powers are rare.

Thus, John never uses dianoia (“mind,” disposition,” “thought,”^[17] nor is nous (“understanding”) found in his Gospel or Epistles. That with which “God’s Son” Incarnate has endowed believers is a power of understanding, of interpreting, of perceiving the correct issues, the complex facts of life; and the end of the gift is that they may know, not by one decisive act but by a continuous and progressive apprehension “Him that is true.” Thus the object of knowledge is not abstract but personal: not the Truth, but Him of Whom all that is true is a partial revelation.^[18]

Considered a monarch in the pulpit, Alexander Maclaren (1826-1910) notes that once more, John triumphantly proclaims, “We know.” The sound of deep conviction rings in his voice. He is sure of his footing. He does not say “We incline to think,” or even “We believe and firmly hold,” but he says, “We know.” A very different tone from that of many of us, who, influenced by currents of present opinions, feel as if what was a rock to our fathers had become quicksand to us! But John in his simplicity thinks that it is a tone which is characteristic of every Christian. I wonder what he would say about some Christians now. This third of his triumphant certainties is connected closely with the two preceding ones, which have been occupying us in former sermons. It is because “God’s Son is come” that people are born of God and are of Him.

It is so in another way, for the words of our text should not read “And we know” rather than “But we know.” The preceding observations suggest them, and they present the only thought that makes it tolerable to know that while the whole world lies in the wicked, we know that God’s Son has come. Falling back on the certainty of the Incarnation and its present issues, we can look in the face of humanity’s grave condition and still have hope for a godless society and ourselves.

So these three things – the coming of the Anointed One, the knowledge of God which flows into a believing heart through that Incarnate Son, and the dwelling in God, which is the climax of all His gifts to us – these three things are in John’s estimation certified to a Christian heart and are not merely matters of opinion and faith, but in cases of knowledge. We must know for ourselves if we would lead others to believe. ^[19]

Like a spiritual farmer planting the seed of God’s Word, Henry A. Sawtelle (1832-1913) points out that in verse twenty, we have the summation of “we know.”^[20] The same “we know” beginning each of verses eighteen, nineteen, and twenty gives them “the appearance of a confession or summary of faith.” So, “That God’s Son is come into a godless society, in the flesh; to emphasize this basic matter, especially against the perversion of the antichrists; and it was a comforting, satisfying fact, at the very basis of atonement and redemption, and the dismay of him who cuddles a godless society in his wickedness. But God gave us understanding. This “understanding” is “divinely empowered inner sense,” or spiritual faculty, which the Anointed One gives us, made compelling by His Spirit on our minds, making us capable of spiritual knowledge, as the following clause shows.

The natural man needs this spiritual action upon his understanding that he may know spiritual things.^[21] And the Anointed One has come and given the Spirit for this creative work. So that we may know or, as in the Revised Version, (the indicative; declaring the object of the understanding and the fact that we already have the thing, in one statement) Him that is true (or the True One). The “True One” is God,^[22] as the pronoun in the expression “His Son” that follows, demonstrates. And He is called the True One, and not “true”), the real, genuine God, to assert his distinction from all fictitious or false gods having a godless society’s heart, whether the devil (god of this world) or images.

It is, then, one privilege of the Gospel to know God; to know Him, not merely by reason or conscience, not merely through theological propositions, but with the knowledge of personal experience, as one knows the scent of flowers, the sweetness of music, or the refreshment of the morning dew, attaining that sensible, satisfying appreciation of God, marked in words of Job’s friend, Eliphaz, “Submit to God, and you will have peace.”^[23]

That we are in Him that is true (the True One) is distinguished from those who are in partnership with the false and “wicked one.” We not only know God in spiritual experience, but we are in Him, in the life element of God the Spirit, in union with His Son, Jesus the Anointed One. Verses nineteen and the first part of twenty are not separated even by a verb that joins a subject to an adjective or noun. It’s as though they are so involved as to repeat what has been said. To be in fellowship with the True One is to be in harmony with His Son.^[24]

These two facts are inseparable. In fact, we have a relationship with the Father through unity with the Son. This same Spiritual association with the Father and the Son stood before John’s mind at the Epistle’s opening; appropriately, it comes back into view at the close. The new life is filled with a conscious partnership with the Father and the Son. This is the true God and eternal life. To whom does the word “this” refer; to the remote True One or His Son, Jesus the Anointed One? We must favor the latter reference with the ancient interpreters and against many modern ones because: (1) The Son is the nearer and more obvious antecedent, apart from all theologizing. (2) The connection calls for it. In effect, John said that to be in the Father was to be in the Son. “How so?” the mind queries. Because the Anointed One is the true God, not less than the Father. (3) It does not advance the thought and seems like repetition after the Father has been designated as the True One twice. This (true one) is the true God.

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[1] John 8:42

[2] Pope, William B., The International Illustrative Commentary on the N.T., Vol. IV, op. cit., p. 42

[3] John 1:18

[4] Ibid. 17:3

[5] 1 John 1:2

[6] Beyschlag, Willibald: New Testament Theology, Trans. Neil Buchanan, Vol. II, pp. 426-427

[7] See Luke 8:17

[8] John 5:26

[9] Ibid. 17:3

[10] Cf. 1 Thessalonians 1:9

[11] Cf. John 1:4; 6:33, 35; 8:12; 11:26; 14:6; 17:3; 20:31; 1 John 1:2; 5:12, 20

[12] Steele, Daniel: Half-Hours with St., John’s Epistles, op. cit., pp. 150-152

[13] MacDonald, George. The Marquis of Lossie, Published by C. Kegan Paul & Co., London, 1878, Ch. XLIII, A Perplexity, p. 198-199,

[14] Hutton, R. H., Criticisms on Contemporary Thought and Thinkers, MacMillan and Company, London, 1894, Vol. II, XXII Dean Church on the Psalms, p. 235

[15] Cf. 1 John 1:7; 2:2, 5, 11, 17; 3: 12, 17; 4:18; 3 John 1:14

[16] Cf. John 8:42; 1 John 3:1; 4:13; see 3:23;24

[17] See Matthew 22:37; Luke 10:27

[18] Westcott, Brooke F., The Epistles of St. John: Greek Text with Notes, op. cit., pp. 195-196

[19] Maclaren, Alexander: Sermons and Expositions on 1 John, op. cit., “Triumphant Certainties – 3”)

[20] 1 Thessalonians 5:23; 2 Thessalonians 3:16; Hebrews 13:20

[21] Ephesians 1:18

[22] John 17:3

[23] Job 22:21

[24] John 14:6, 20; 17:23

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R. Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FIVE (Lesson CXXXVII) 05/16/23

^5:20 And we know that God’s Son has come and given us understanding. So now we can fellowship with the true One and live in union with that true God. We are in His Son, Jesus the Anointed One. He is the true God, and He is eternal life.

A staunch conservative who upheld the doctrine of eternal torment for sinners, Joseph Angus (1816-1902) noticed that in addition to the moral themes in the Scriptures, evidence suggested by the morality of the Final Covenant, the character of our Lord, the open and honest sincerity and self-denial of the first Christians, and the ethical beauty of Christian principles, as illustrated in the lives of consistent believers, suggest a spiritual component.

The intellect partly appreciates this evidence but still more by the heart and conscience. (1) So far as it treats unregenerate as the Gospel finds them, it applies equally to all.^[1] (2) As far as it treats the regenerate as the gospel forms them, it appeals only to the believer.^[2] Angus also notes that the Greek adjective alēthinos (“true”) in the sense of real, genuine, contrasted with fictitious, pretended, is found nine times in the Gospel,^[3] six times in the Epistles,^[4] and nine times in the Revelation.^{[5] [6]}

After observing the Apostle John’s attention to detail, John Stock (1817-1884) feels that the Apostle John’s words are comparable to the many beautiful rays of a setting sun, which adorn the sky and forecast another coming day of splendor. So much is in them, and in inspired condensation, they exhaust every effort to unfold them. Though the Jews as a nation did not receive the Lord, a remnant according to the election of grace did receive Him, believed in Him, and know, with believing Gentiles, that He has come and no longer look for another.

Therefore, they need not say with the Church before His first advent, “Hurry, my love! Be like a gazelle or a young deer on the spice mountains.”^[7] Nor do they, like Abraham, look by faith and rejoice in anticipation of the great incarnation, and see the Anointed One’s day, and be glad;^[8] for they know that God’s Son has come, that He, the Sun of Righteousness, has risen with healing on His wings;^[9] and that He is near to all them that call on Him; yes all such as call upon Him in truth.^[10]

John Stock then goes on to defend his view of John’s majestic message in verse twenty: That is, we see days that kings and prophets desired to see, but did not.^[11] We do not sit in the twilight of Christianity but enjoy the noon day glory of the Lord shinning on us; for our Light and Life is here.^[12] By spiritual insight we see Him who is physically invisible and rejoice with unspeakable joy and full of Glory.^[13] The Church now awaits the second appearing of the Lord Jesus.^[14] But unlike His first coming, where He who had no sin was made sin for us,^[15] He returns to bestow on all them that trust in Him, the glory of eternal salvation which He, as the Son of Man, thoroughly enjoys, as the forerunner of His heavenly people.^[16]

The blessed Lord gave Him an understanding that intuition cannot supply. He made God’s wisdom available to His people by giving them the Spirit of Truth, who searches even the deep things of God so that they know what was freely given to them by God.^[17] Therefore, they know Him that is true and are in union with Him, even in God’s dear Son Jesus the Anointed One.

The Apostle Paul calls the faithful the children of the light and the day^[18] and says that though they were sometimes stumbling around in darkness, they now walk upright God’s light.^[19] Paul then prays that they may possess the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of the Anointed One to gain understanding and be enlightened^[20] to understand the Scriptures.^[21] The closer we walk to God, the clearer and more assured He gives a believer good insight, wisdom, knowledge, and joy.^[22]

With great joy, John praises his little children for knowing the Father and commends the church fathers for being faithful to Him a long time,^[23] as all God’s children are taught to do.^[24] Thus they know Jesus, who is faithful, who embodies Truth, in whom the Mosaic ceremonial laws found complete fulfillment and in whom God’s people rest securely by having encountered Him of whom Moses and the Prophets wrote.^[25] Therefore, they can repeat the words of the Apostle Thomas with complete confidence, “My Lord and my God!”^[26]

Consequently, they are in Him, as a branch in the true Vine from whence it derives its fruit: as a body member is to the head of that body, and therefore has spiritual and eternal life. Christians are one with the Anointed One, and He one with them, and can say, “My beloved is mine, and I am His.”^[27] Therefore, in this knowledge, which is in the heart and head, “Is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus the Anointed One, whom Thou hast sent,” as the Lord said in His prayer to His Heavenly Father.^[28] 

Such believers know and have faith in the doctrine of the undivided unity of the Trinity, in which the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not three Gods, but one God. They know the infinite meritoriousness of the Anointed One’s sacrifice,^[29] His power as our Mediator, and the certainty of spiritual and eternal life to all who have Him. And this knowledge will never fail to bless and secure them from deadly to eternal life errors to rob eternal life.

God affirms He will be with them as they bring the spiritually blind to the way unknown to them which dispels the darkness of ignorance by His Light of truth.^[30] The Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, are one. Furthermore, He is its cause, fountain, bestower, and preserver until it will be revealed in the glorified bodies and consecrated spirits of the redeemed. At this time, its fullness is beyond conception until the Lord Jesus will be celebrated with His saints and admired by all who believe,^[31] with the glory of eternal life!”^[32]

With an inquiring spiritual mind, Johannes H. A. Ebrard (1819-1893) explains that the clause “we are from God” leads naturally to another great truth, to the person of Him through whose mediation we have become God’s children. We know that God’s Son “has come”^[33] and has given us “the understanding, that we may know Him” “Understanding” is not “knowledge,” but the power of capacity of knowing,^[34] especially the facultas cognoscendi (“the ability to know”) as it rests upon an ethical-religious basis.^[35]

It may therefore be translated as “sense” or “discernment.” As the Anointed One has come^[36] and through this act of love sparked in us,^[37] thus communicating His nature to us, He has furnished us with the necessary understanding to know God. For God is, according to John [Light];^[38] and 4:8 [Love]; and only he who is penetrated by His light, and kindled by His love, can know Him. But God is here termed “true,” not as He who is the “truth,” and not as He who possesses the attribute of truth; forms here, as after this verse,^[39] the antithesis to fictitious, or false. The true God stands in opposition to the imagined and vain gods, which are not Light and Truth.^[40]

With precise spiritual discernment, William Alexander (1824-1911) sees verses eighteen, nineteen, and twenty as three seals affixed to the close of this Epistle – three primary canons of spiritual reasoning, perception, and knowledge. Each is marked by the emphatic “we know,” stamped at the opening of each first line.

The first “we know” is a sense of purity made possible to the Christian through Him, who is the one born of God. The evil one cannot touch them with the contaminating touch, which implies association.

The second “we know” involves a perception of privilege, the conviction that by God’s power and love, we are brought into a sphere of light, out of the darkness in which a sinful world has become as if cradled on the lap of the evil one.

The third “we know” is the deep consciousness of the very presence of God’s Son in and with His Church. And with this comes all the inner life – supremely a new way of looking at things, a new possibility of thought, a new cast of thought and sentiment, “understanding.”

Words denoting intellectual faculties and processes are rare in John. “He gave us understanding that we continuously know God.” And in “His Son Jesus the Anointed One [this is the true God and eternal life], we are in the very God.”

This passage interpretation is supported by the pronoun’s position, which cannot be referred naturally to any subject but Jesus the Anointed One. Alexander notes that English theologian Daniel Waterland (1683-1740) quotes Irenæus. “It was impossible, without God, to come to a knowledge of God, He teaches men, through His Word, to know God.”^{[41] [42]} Alexander also notes that children of God, not only do we have the five senses of the body to depend on for gaining knowledge, but we now have a sixth sense called “faith.”^[43] Psychologists call a human’s sixth sense “proprioception.” It is the mysterious ability to locate things in the dark.

It’s something like a game we played as kids called “Pin the tail on the donkey.” First, you look at the picture of the donkey on the wall. They then tried to calculate the number of steps and the height of the tail’s place. Then you were blindfolded. In some games, they even turned you around several times. Then you try to pin the paper tail in your hand on the donkey in the proper place.  Laughter would fill the room as people went in the wrong direction, feeling with their hands till they found the wall, located the picture of the donkey, and finally pinned it on the tail. It was rarely exactly in the right place.

Neurosurgeons have discovered two nerves that serve as receptor switches to our brain: piezo1 and piezo. But when it comes to faith, there are other receptors, something I believe my mother had. She could tell when I was lying just by looking at my face. So when something got broken, and she called us children together, she didn’t take you long to pick out the guilty party.

But let me illustrate this sixth spiritual sense: I was driving from Switzerland to a US Army base in Germany to speak at a Servicemen’s Fellowship in the base chapel. Coming through the Black Forest on a tiny two-lane highway, I noticed that as I went uphill, the road was cut through small hills with high banks and ditches on both sides to channel the rainwater off the road. In other words, one side of the car was just within the middle yellow line, and the other was just a foot away from the ditch. Suddenly I noticed a car approaching me at the top of the hill with a delivery truck behind it.

I calculated it to be no more than fifty yards away when the truck suddenly pulled out to pass the car. They were side by side as they sped toward me. When they got within 20 yards of me. I swerved to the right within inches of the ditch, slammed on my brakes, bowed my head, and said, “Jesus, I’m coming home to you,” as I felt the wind of the passing truck rock my little Volkswagen seconds later. Then, there was silence. I raised my head and thanked God I was still alive. Then I quickly looked into my side view mirror and saw the truck and car continuing down the road. Needless to say, I praised God and knew with my sixth spiritual sense that God let this happen for a reason. I looked at my clock, and it was 2:30 PM.

When I arrived in Germany at Ramstein Air Force Base, I went to the home of the soldier who invited me to come and speak. His wife greeted me at the door. But before I could take off my coat and settle down, she asked me urgently, “Tell me, Brother Seyda, where were you today at 2:30 PM?” Then, before I could answer, she told me she was in the kitchen getting things ready for our meal, when all of a sudden, the Holy Spirit told her to drop everything and go pray for me. She looked at the clock, and it was 2:30 PM. She had never met me until now and didn’t know the route I would take to get there. So, she said, I dropped my utensils, ran into the bedroom, dropped to my knees, and began calling on God to be with you and protect you. I prayed until the feeling faded, then got up and continued cooking. But I’ve been dying to know where you were. When I told her the story, we both began praising God and rejoicing in how He takes care of His children. She responded to what is called the sixth spiritual sense of faith.

After contemplating John’s train of thought, William Kelly (1822-1888) finds that there is nothing indefinite here in verse twenty, no toning down of the absolute contrast firmly and unhesitatingly drawn between ourselves, as the family of God on the one hand, and the whole world on the other in its awful subjection to the wicked one. With the same inward consciousness, the Christians knew that their new being had its source in God and that the whole world lay in the power of the wicked one. What makes each side distinct from each other? ‒ on the one God is their source and on the other Satan is their sorcerer. “We are of God” in our consciousness, and a godless society is of the devil’s viper brood, as we too well know. It belongs to the new life to realize, appropriating by faith the known blessings to ourselves as is God’s will.^[44]

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[1] 1 Corinthians 14:24-25

[2] Romans 8:16; 1 John 5:20

[3] Luke 16:11; John 1:9; 4:23, 37; 6:32; 7:28;15:1; 17:3; 19:35

[4] 1 Thessalonians 1:9; Hebrews 8:2; 9:24; 10:22;1 John 2:8; 5:20

[5] Revelation 3:7, 14; 6:10; 15:3; 16:7; 19:2, 9, 11; 21:5; 22:6

[6] Angus, Joseph: The Bible Handbook, op. cit., pp. 110, 769 (4)

[7] Song of Solomon 8:14, The route the Nabateans took across the Negev with their camel trains was called the Spice Route; it stretched from the Persian Gulf (Arabia) to the ports of Gaza, passing through Petra (their capital) and Avdat. Their constant travel made for a transitory life. They did not live in houses, but they did build elaborate tombs for their dead, especially at Petra and Egra. Self-denial was a way of life, and they would not touch alcohol, which they saw as a sign of settling down.

[8] John 8:56

[9] Malachi 4:2

[10] Psalm 145:18

[11] Luke 10:24

[12] John 1:4

[13] 1 Peter 1:8

[14] Hebrews 9:28

[15] 2 Corinthians 5:21; Hebrews 9:26

[16] Hebrews 6:20

[17] 1 Corinthians 2:12

[18] 1 Thessalonians 5:6

[19] Ephesians 5:8

[20] Ephesians 1:17, 18

[21] Luke 24:45

[22] Ecclesiastes 2:26

[23] 1 John 2:13, 14

[24] Isaiah 54:13

[25] John 1:45

[26] Ibid. 2:28

[27] Song of Solomon 2:16

[28] John 17:3

[29] John 17:3

[30] Isaiah 42:16

[31] 2 Thessalonians 1:10

[32] Stock, John: An Exposition of the First Epistle of General of St., John, op. cit., pp. 462-465

[33] 1 John 4:9, 14

[34] Ephesians 4:18; 2 Peter 3:1

[35] 1 Peter 1:13; Matthew 22:37; Ephesians 2:3; Hebrews 8:10; 10:16; Luke 1:51; Colossians 1:21

[36] In the context of 1 John 4:9

[37] Ibid. 4:10

[38] 1 John 1:7

[39] And John 17:3

[40] Ebrard, Johannes H. A., Biblical Commentary on the Epistles of St. John, op. cit., p. 345

[41]  Irenæus Against Heresies, Bk. 4, Ch. 5, p. 927

[42] Alexander, William: Expositor’s Bible: The Epistles of St. John, op. cit., p. 275

[43] Ibid. The Holy Bible with an Explanatory and Critical Commentary, op. cit., Vol. IV, p. 346

[44] Kelly, William: An Exposition of the Epistles of John the Apostle, op. cit., p. 390

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R. Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FIVE (Lesson CXXXVI) 05/15/23

^5:20 And we know that God’s Son has come and given us understanding. So now we can fellowship with the true One and live in union with that true God. We are in His Son, Jesus the Anointed One. He is the true God, and He is eternal life.

In his captivating teaching style, Jewish convert Augustus Neander (1789-1850) remarks that the Apostle John begins to close this truly noble Epistle with the warning: that persevering in union with Him, the only true God, through His Son, and in that fellowship of eternal life received from Him, they keep themselves pure from all contamination questionable religions. It might be a question whether the word “This” refers here to God or to the incarnate Son in whom He revealed Himself. In either case, the practical import of the phrase is the same. The connection, however, leads us to regard the reference to God as the prominent one since He is later contrasted with Idols.

The Apostle has just been contemplating the Anointed One as the Mediator of this fellowship with God. Hence, we must suppose that, in conclusion, he projects this one prominent thought: This God, with whom believers thus stand in fellowship through the Anointed One, is the only true God, and hence is the primal source of eternal life; through him alone, therefore, we can become partakers of eternal life, in which is contained the Sum of all Good, as the highest good for the God-related spirit.

In Him we have all we need for time and eternity. It is true indeed as we have seen that the Anointed One as the only-begotten-Son of God, is called by John the eternal Life which was with the Father, and which has appeared on earth in order to impart itself to man. With these words he commenced this Epistle. But it is also appropriate that in closing he should point to the Primal Source, to Him who is himself that eternal Life, which has poured itself forth into the only-begotten-Son, and through him into humanity. But in order to hold fast this highest possession, Christians must guard themselves from all contamination with the idols worshipped by a world lying in wickedness.

In its present form, this warning was intended for such as living in a world devoted to idol worship.^[1] To some today, John’s words about idol worship may seem outdated. But that conclusion is only arrived at because the idols of today are different than there were in 100 AD. Some of those are Individuality, Money, Status, Physical Enhancement, Entertainment, Sex Industry, Abortion, Personal Space, Drug Industry, Fame, and Technology, to name a few.

Without using complicated language, Albert Barnes (1798-1870) says the reality that God’s Son has come is supported by what the Apostle John refers to in this epistle,^[2] giving us an understanding. Not “understanding” as a faculty of the mind, for religion gives us no new faculties. Instead, He instructed us to understand^[3] the great truths referred to about His Son. All the correct knowledge of God and His government is to be traced directly or indirectly to the great Prophet whom God sent into a godless society.^[4] That we may know Him, that is true. That is, the true God.^[5] And that we are in Him that is true. That is, we are united to Him; we belong to Him; we are His friends. The Scriptures often express this idea by being “in Him.” It denotes a most intimate union as if we were one with Him or part of Him – as the branch is in the vine.^[6]

The Greek “the true God” construction in verse twenty is the same as “the wicked one” in verse nineteen. There has been much difference of opinion concerning this vital passage, whether it refers to the Anointed One, or the Lord Jesus, or a recent ancestor, or a more remote forefather. Nevertheless, the question is essential to the doctrine of the Savior’s divinity. It furnishes an unequivocal declaration that He is Divine if it refers to Him. The question is whether John meant that it should be God’s Son? Without an extended examination of the passage, the following considerations make it morally certain that by the phrase “this is the true God,” the apostle did refer to the Lord Jesus, the Anointed One.^[7]

With impressive theological vision, Richard Rothe (1799-1867) examines the two clauses of verses nineteen and twenty, where the Apostle John presents two different elements forming the content of the Christian consciousness, which might exclude one another. To know at once that one is of God and the whole world lies in evil seems impossible. If the entire world lies in wickedness, how is it possible that Christians are of God?

In verse twenty, John answers this question and, by so doing, asserts that in fellowship with the Redeemer, we possess eternal life. Therefore, even though the whole world lies in evil, Christians know themselves as deriving from God and why we do so. For we know that God’s Son has given us, who have received Him, the ability to know God, who is our fellowship with this Son of God, we are in God; for He, the Redeemer, is the true God and eternal life.^[8]

Consistent with the Apostle John’s advice, Heinrich A. W. Meyer (1800-1882) says that in his conclusion, the Apostle John indicates that “we are from God” in verse nineteen has come to him and his readers; and he does this by expressing it through “we have seen” in verse twenty as the substance of their Christian consciousness. The conditioning cause of the former is the coming of God’s Son.^[9]

According to Robert Jamieson (1802-1880), Andrew Fausset (1821-1910), and David Brown’s (1803-1897) insights, the Apostle John wanted everyone to discover and understand that the Anointed One, God’s Son, came to give us eternal life is the summary of Christian privilege. The Anointed One’s office is to provide the inner spiritual understanding to discern the things of God. Some of the oldest Greek Manuscripts read, “(so) that we know” Him who is the authentic God – as opposed to every kind of idol or false god.^[10] Jesus, by His oneness with God the Father, is also “He that is true.”^[11] Even – “we are in the true” God, by being “in His Son Jesus the Anointed One.”^[12]

With his lifework well-illustrating a pastor-theologian’s biblical and reformation ideal, Robert S. Candlish (1807-1873) points out that this is the third and last “we know” in verses eighteen to twenty. John insists that the Gnostics were the heretics of his day but in a better and safer sense. They pretended to be all–knowing in the intellectual sphere of abstract speculation about divine nature.

In contrast, the Apostle John would have us to be knowing, in the humbler yet really higher and holier experience of honest, direct, personal acquaintance and fellowship with the Divine Being, as coming down to us, poor sinners, in His Son, and taking us up, by His Spirit, to be sons and saints in His holy child Jesus. Those born of God do not sin because they keep themselves so that the wicked one cannot touch them.

Consequently, we are of God in contrast with a godless society, which lies wholly in the wicked; these are the two former examples of “we know.” And now the third “we know” has respect, neither to our standing as being of God, nor to a godless society’s position as lying in the wicked one but to Him who causes or occasions the difference, “God’s Son.” It would almost seem as if there was a regular syllogism^[13] here; an argument built up in three propositions; two premises and a conclusion. First, there is the major proposition in the general, abstract, and impersonal assertion “we know” that being born of God implies not sinning, since “he that is born of God keeps himself, and the wicked one cannot touch him.”

Then there is the minor implication, in the particular and personal assertion; “we know” that we individually “are of God” and, therefore, separated from “a godless society that lieth wholly in the wicked one.” The strict logical conclusion would be, thus, “we know” that we do not sin. John, however, puts it somewhat differently to place our not sinning on a surer footing, more humbling to us, more glorifying to God – “We know that God’s Son has come.”

And yet, this is a fair enough inference and fits well enough into the argument when viewed in its full spiritual importance. Nor is it inconsistent with the other. For if those born of God do not sin, and if we consequently, being of God, sin not, it is all in virtue of “God’s Son being come;” come, in the first place, to “give us a knowledge of the True One;” come, secondly, to secure in that way our “being in the True One.”^[14]

In line with Apostle John’s conclusion, Henry Alford (1810-1871) mentions that in verse twenty, there is yet another “to know.” That generally sums up the certainty that God’s Son had come and given us a better understanding of God. Our being in Him solidifies one crucial fact – knowledge of God now and in the everlasting hereafter.^[15] God’s Son, who bestows this knowledge, is prominent here at the end of the Epistle.^[16] He is eternal life, and those who have Him have the Father. This understanding is the divinely empowered inner sense by which we judge divine truths. It is not wisdom or judgment but the ability to attain it.^[17] The early Church Fathers against the Arian error and most orthodox expositors since then have regarded this passage as a treasured testimony for the Godhead of the Son.^[18]

As a faithful and zealous biblical scholar, William Graham (1810-1883) says that verse twenty is the substance of the Anointed One’s deity. We have seen that the “and” after “we know” connects verse nineteen with verse twenty in a conflictive correlated way. Thus, “We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in the wicked one.” However, we also know that to neutralize the power of the wicked one, God’s Son is come and given us understanding.

The first great truth taught in verse twenty, therefore, is the coming of God’s Son, which, more than any other, reveals to us the joined love of the Father and the Son, the Sender and the Sent One, as well as the love of the Holy Spirit, by whom the divine and the human natures were united, and the Mediator of the new covenant qualified for His earthly and heavenly work. John’s epistle begins and ends with this glorious theme throughout the epistle, it occupies a very conspicuous place.

When we consider the weighty consequences to mankind and the creation which depends on the incarnation of God’s Son, we will be inclined to think that John mentions it too often. But it is connected, in the closest way, with the whole plan of redemption and the office and constitution of the Mediator and forms the radiating center from which the operations of Yahweh, in His love and power, in providence and redemption, proceed to the edge of His boundless kingdom.

Indeed, two facts in the Bible can be appropriately called the poles in the mighty purpose of the redeeming God, around which all the various parts, prophecy and history, faith and hope, the workings of providence, and the proclamations of grace, perpetually revolve, they are the coming in the flesh and the coming in glory – the cross and the crown – by which the faith and the life of the Church have been sustained from the beginning, through all ages and dispensations, before, during, and after the fulness of the times united in the glorious person of the Redeemer.

If you consider deeply, there is no fact in the history of humanity which, for the wonderfulness of its nature, for the breathtaking grandeur of the conception which it develops, and for the priceless results which spring from it, may for a moment be compared with the coming of God’s Son. Its author is God; the incarnated person is the eternal Son; the mode of union and manifestation is the Holy Spirit; the natures united are the divine and the human, and the result is God’s glory and the salvation of every human being that wishes to be saved.^[19]

With the zeal of a scriptural text examiner, William E. Jelf (1811-1875) states the difference in the moral nature of Christians regarding the sphere in which they live and the Prince to which they belong; there is a difference in their intellect. They have a power of intellectual apprehension given them whereby they know the true God and know Him to be the true God, and as a result, the mission of His Son. On the contrary, the heathens had neither any adequate conception of the true God nor any knowledge whether or not the God they believed in was true God. The Christian, as a consequence of the revelation of the Anointed One, has both these privileges. To know the true God would be imperfect was not to it; the knowledge added that He whom we worship is the true God.

By saying that the Anointed One has come or is now in a godless society, He is accepted as Head of the Church and proclaimed by His apostles and evangelists. By calling Him “the true one,” He is distinct from all others, not regarding His attribute of truth, but His being the true God. Thereby Christians have an indwelling communion with the true God by their abiding fellowship with His Son.

The next question is to whom does “this” refer, whether to the Anointed One or to Him in whom we are? Of course, it is interpreted according to the doctrinal views of the interpreters; and at first sight it seems as if it were scarcely possible to define it more accurately. But, when we analyze it, it would seem enough to weigh the balance in favor of making the Anointed One the substantive to which “this” refers.

If we substitute another word for “this,” that other interpreters make a pronoun, it reads, “the true God is the true God.” He had already spoken of “the true one,” with Whom our communion places us in fellowship with the Anointed One, and therefore, to say again that “This is the true God, and eternal life,” has a sufficient difficulty to make us prefer the Anointed One as “this.” On the other hand, it may be said that “this” refers to the Anointed One implied in “the Son of Him,” or, more properly speaking, to the person signified by “him,” of whom the Anointed One was the Son; but “him” itself only refers to “true,” so that the difficulty is not gotten rid of by this suggestion. Moreover, the Anointed One is called “life,”^[20] though the same might be equally predicated of the Trinity, personally or collectively.^[21]

Welsh preacher David Thomas (1813-1894), Publisher of The Homilist, a magazine of liturgical thought, says three extraordinary things in verse twenty. (I) The greatest FACT IN HUMAN HISTORY. There are many incredible facts in the history of the human race. But of all the points, the advent of the Anointed One to our world twenty-two centuries ago is the greatest. This fact is the most — 1. Undeniable. 2. Influential. 3. Vital to the interests of everyone. (II) The extraordinary CAPABILITY OF THE HUMAN MIND. What is that? “An understanding that we may know Him that is true.” Humans have many distinguishing faculties – imagination, memory, and intellect. But the capacity to know Him who is true is, for many reasons, more significant than all. 1. It is a rare faculty. The mighty millions do not have this power.^[22] 2. It is an Anointed One-imparted faculty – “He has given us.” What is it? It is love. “Those that do not love don’t know God.” The Anointed One generates this love. Love alone can interpret love, “God is love.” (III) The incredible PRIVILEGE IN HUMAN LIFE. “We are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus the Anointed One.” This means that Jesus is the one true God.^[23]

---

[1] Neander, Augustus: The First Epistle of John, Practically Explained, op. cit. pp. 316-319

[2] 1 John 1:1-4; 5:6-8

[3] Luke 24:45

[4] John 1:4, 18; 8:12; John 9:5; Hebrews 1:1-3; Matthew 11:27

[5] John 17:3

[6] Ibid. 15:4, 6

[7] Barnes, Albert: New Testament Notes, op. cit., 1 John 5, pp. 4894-4895

[8] Rothe, Richard: Exposition of the First Epistle of St. John, op. cit., The Expository Times, September 1895, p. 560

[9] Meyer, Heinrich A. W., Critical Exegetical Handbook New Testament, op. cit., Vol. 10, pp. 819-820

[10] 1 John 5:21

[11] Revelation 3:7

[12] Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown’s Commentary on the Whole Bible, New Testament Volume, op. cit., p. 731

[13] Syllogism is an instance of a form of reasoning in which a conclusion is drawn from two given or assumed premises, each of which shares a term with the conclusion and shares a common or middle term not present in conclusion (e.g., all dogs are animals; all animals have four legs; therefore all dogs have four legs).

[14] Whedon, Daniel D., Commentary on the New Testament, op. cit., pp. 281-282

[15] Cf. 1 Thessalonians 5:23; 2 Thessalonians 3:16; Hebrews 13:20, 22

[16] 1 John 5:13

[17] Cf. John 1:12, 18; 17:2ff, 6, 25ff; 2 Corinthians 4:6; Ephesians 1:18; Eph 1:18 ) 

[18] Alford, Henry: The Greek Testament, op. cit., Vol. IV, p. 513

[19] Graham, William: The Spirit of Love, op. cit., pp. 353-355

[20] 1 John 1:2; John 14:6

[21] Jelf, William E., Commentary on the First Epistle of St. John, op. cit., pp. 81-82

[22] John 17:25-26

[23] Thomas, David: Homilist, Baptist Magazine by a Clergyman in England, 1862

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R. Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FIVE (Lesson CXXXV) 05/13/23

^5:20 And we know that God’s Son has come and given us understanding. So now we can fellowship with the true One and live in union with that true God. We are in His Son, Jesus the Anointed One. He is the true God, and He is eternal life.

In the Heidelberg Catechism (1563), they ask this question: “What is the meaning of these words – ‘He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary?’” Answer: That God’s eternal Son, who is,^[1] and continues as the true and everlasting God,^[2] took upon Himself human nature, of the Virgin Mary’s flesh and blood,^[3] by the operation of the Holy Spirit;^[4] that He might also be the true seed of David,^[5] like His brethren in all things except sin.^{[6] [7]}

As a firm spiritual disciplinarian, John Owen (1616-1683) states that the nature of the Anointed One and the essence of His union with God constitutes the person commonly spoken of and discussed in the writings of both ancient and modern scholars. Therefore, it is of great importance that we have the proper conception concerning Him. Not only in general or in opposition to their malicious heresies by whom His divine character or nature is denied, but also in those instances wherein it is most effective due to divine wisdom and grace.

For the knowledge of Him mentioned in the Gospel is not confined merely to His person in its composition but extends to the whole work of Him as a mediator. With God’s design of love and grace, this knowledge of his person becomes the foundation of all the rest. It means that if we are mistaken or fail in our understanding, the whole building of our knowledge of Him will fall to the ground. And although the saving knowledge of Him is not obtained without special divine revelation^[8] or saving illumination,^[9] we cannot fully know Him until He brings us to where He is to behold His glory.^[10] These are the Scriptures’ instructions to lead us to advanced degrees of knowing Him that are attainable in this life.^[11]

Those characteristics of God by which He becomes known and of which there is not the slightest glimpse obtained but by and in the Anointed One. Whoever does not know Him, by these, does not know Him at all. They may be familiar with idols, but not the only true God. Those who do not have the Son do not have the Father.^[12] So, not to have God as a Father is not to have Him at all. He is known as a Father only as He is love and full of pardoning mercy in the Anointed One. How are we to have this? So, the Holy Spirit tells us here in verse twenty. It is by Him alone we have our understanding to know Him that is true.

Now, these Godly essences found in the Anointed One and His teachings reveals Him to be the great prophet of the church who makes God’s will, His will.^[13] And on this account, their knowledge is exposed to all, with evidence unspeakably surmounting that which is given by the creation to his eternal power and Godhead. But the life of this knowledge lies in an acquaintance with Him personally, wherein the express image and beams of this glory of His Father shine forth.^{[14] [15]}

Respected Reformation writer Matthew Poole (1624-1679) mentions that the Apostle John signifies how satisfying the knowledge and certainty sincere Christians had now that the Anointed One indeed came. The blessed effect of such belief was like a clear and lively light shining and transmitting faith into their minds. But, by this light, they had a greater realization of the true God, more vivid and powerful than ever before.^[16] Thereby they were drawn into union with Him, and to be in Him: or, which in effect is the same thing, (so entire is the oneness between the Father and the Son). Thus, we are in His Son Jesus, the Anointed One, who also is the true God,^[17] and eternal life, as He is known.^{[18] [19]}

In his fiery manner, John Flavel (1627-1691) holds that God’s teachings satisfy the human soul. Understanding, like a sundial, is enlightened with the beams of divine truth shining upon it: this no other person’s teaching can do. People can only teach by promoting truth to one’s understanding; they cannot enlighten the mind itself, as God does here in verse twenty. He gives people insight as well as instruction.^[20] Thus we may discern and distinguish the teachings of God from all other dogmas.

In addition, Flavel notes that one of the great miseries under which lapsed nature labors is spiritual blindness. Jesus the Anointed One brings that eye salve that only can cure it.^[21] Those to whom the Spirit has applied it can say, “We know that God’s Son is come, and has given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true; and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus the Anointed One: this is the true God and eternal life.”^{[22] [23]}

To the spiritual illumination of a soul, it is not sufficient that the subject is revealed nor that mankind has the proper use of their reasoning factors; it requires that the grace and special assistance of the Holy Spirit be added to open and calm the heart, to the taste and sweetness of spiritual truth it is due. By opening the Gospel, he reveals the truth to us by unlocking the heart. In addition, having the truth revealed “in us” is much more excellent than “to us.”^{[24] [25]}

Influenced by his Arminian view of salvation, Daniel Whitby (1638-1726) shares that “He is the true God” was never spoken of by the Anointed One by the Socinians. So, the Apostle John endeavors to prove this by adding “the” to the word “God,” which the heretics say we should never do in reference to Jesus as the Anointed One. This is patently false, declares Whitby. The Apostle Thomas called Jesus “My Lord, and my God,”^[26] and the Apostle Paul stated, “The Anointed One, who is God, is over all things. Praise Him forever! Amen.”^[27]

From his strategic viewpoint as a biblical expositor and educational pioneer, William Burkitt (1650-1703) contemplates that what the Apostle John says in verse twenty is as if he said, “We Christians are taught by our religion, to acknowledge and worship the only true God by His Son Jesus, our only Mediator, and thereby keep from worshipping idols.” It implies that the venerating of any other besides this only true God, and any other mediator, besides Jesus the Anointed One is idolatry. And farther, we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus the Anointed One; that is, we are by faith implanted into Jesus the Anointed One, who is the author, purchaser, and disposer of eternal life, and therefore is true God.

In this text, which proves the divinity of the Anointed One, the heretic Socinians pervert the true meaning by applying these words, “This is the true God, not to the Anointed One but God the Father.” But this would make the apostle guilty of talking in circles by saying in verse twenty, “He is the only true God, and He is eternal life.” So, in this fifth chapter, eternal life is used three times,^[28] attributed to Jesus the Anointed One as its author and dispenser.^[29] If then the Anointed One is meant by eternal life, it also means He is the true God, for they are spoken of together.^[30]

With scholarly meditation, James Macknight (1721-1800), the Apostle John’s words are straightforward: God gave us the understanding that He is the true God. The Latin Vulgate translates verse twenty as follows: “And we know that God’s Son has arrived and that He has given us understanding, so that we may know the true God, and so that we may remain in His true Son. This God is real, and this is Eternal Life.” Notice the last person mentioned is “His  Son,” – Jesus the Anointed One. Many commentators and theologians contend that the Greek pronoun hoytos, “this,” is a demonstrative pronoun and stands here for Jesus the Anointed One and that He is the person who is called the true God.

But as pronouns often denote the remote ancestor, when the circumstances of the case require them to be so understood,^[31] others are of the opinion that “this” in this passage does not refer to Jesus the Anointed One the recent relatives but to the true one, or true God, whom God’s Son has given the Christians understanding to know. And they think this opinion is likely because if the apostle by “this” means Jesus the Anointed One, make Him the true God, notwithstanding, in the sentence which immediately precedes, he distinguishes the true one from His Son Jesus the Anointed One. And we are under the true one, His Son Jesus, the Anointed One.

Although our KJV translators have blurred that distinction and made Jesus the Anointed One, the true God, by inserting the word “even” between the two clauses of the sentence in their translation, they have they did so without the authority of any ancient Greek manuscript. The critics who make “this” refer to God and not Jesus the Anointed One think their opinion should have no say in such important matters. They tell us that Athanasius, at the council of Nice,^[32] disputing against Arius, called this verse a written declaration: and added that as the Anointed One testified of the Father, “Everyone will honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Anyone who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.”^[33] Arius then acquiesced to this written proclamation and confessed God’s Son to be the true God.^[34]

After skillfully scrutinizing the Apostle John’s theme, John Brown of Haddington (1722-1787) makes note that from all the undisputed proofs the Apostle John insisted on, we certainly know that Jesus the Anointed One, the eternal Son of God, assumed our human nature and came into our world to put away sin by sacrificing Himself. So also, He has not only given us an external revelation in His Word, but a saving knowledge of Him as the Way, the Truth, and the Life,^[35] by an internal operation of His Spirit. So yes, we are united to Him who is the true and faithful Witness as Mediator, and as God’s Son the only living and true God, together with the Father and Spirit, and who, having all life in Himself, is the Purchaser and Giver of spiritual and eternal life to us.^[36]

More concerned with church than its sacraments, William Jones of Nyland (1726-1800) comments that there are certain things of which the Apostle John writes without even the faintest tone of hesitation or doubt, with the calmest and firmest assurance, and with the accent of deep conviction. And the things which he writes with so much certainty are of the greatest and most important. So, in the paragraph before us he utters his triple “we know” concerning some of the most vital and weighty questions. Let us notice each of these in the order in which they here stand.

THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE CHARACTER AND CONDITION OF THE CHILDREN OF GOD

                Their origination from God

                Their abstention from sin

                Their preservation from the evil one

THE KNOWLEDGE OF PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP TO GOD.

                By our consciousness of Christian character

                By our consciousness of family disposition toward God

                By the contrast between ourselves and the unchristian world

THE KNOWLEDGE OF A HEAVENLY FACT AND OF GREAT PERSONAL BENEFITS DERIVED THROUGH THAT TRUTH

                That God’s Son came into our world

                That God’s Son has given us spiritual discernment so that we might know God

                That we are in vital union with God and with His Son Jesus, the Anointed One

                That God’s Son is genuinely and appropriately Divine.

Let us seek to realize the exalted and blessed knowledge which we have been considering. And if it be already ours, let us endeavor to possess it in clearer light and fuller measure. “Then we will comprehend if we follow on to know the Lord.”^[37]

Straightforward preacher Charles Simeon (1759-1886) shares that it is thought by many, that the doctrines of the Gospel are uncertain speculations, and that their experience in the soul is nothing more than an enthusiastic conceit. We acknowledge that the mysteries of religion are in many respects beyond the grasp of our reason; and that the inward feelings arising from them can be judged of by those only in whose bosom they are found: yet neither the one nor the other can on this account be considered as uncertain: on the contrary, whenever they are mentioned in the Scriptures, they are spoken of as matters that are plain and unquestionable.

In the text, and the two verses that precede it, the Apostle thrice repeats the assertion, “We know:” ‒ “We know that those born of God do not sin:” “We know that we are of God:” and then, in reference both to the Gospel and to his experience of its truth, he adds a third time, “We know that God’s Son has come.”^[38] What benefit do we derive from this? Of course, simple theoretical knowledge of Christianity expands the mind and leads it to higher contemplations. But no tongue can utter the benefits of an experimental acquaintance with the Anointed One.

What view gives us an understanding of worldliness? What peace does it bring into the conscience? How does it disarm death of its sting?^[39] And what bright prospects does it open to us in the eternal world? O let a desire after the full blessings of salvation motivate us in our inquiries after truth! Let us seek to have more enlarged views of the Anointed One and our interest in Him, and thus we will be prepared for that complete vision of His glory, in comparison to our present knowledge but as a burning wick before the sun.^[40]

Considering everything the Apostle John said so far, Adam Clarke (1774-1849) states that we all should know that God’s Son came in the flesh and offered His life for a godless society’s sin, thus giving us an understanding – a more renowned degree of light than ever enjoyed before. And now, as He sits beside His Father, who declared Him unto us, on heaven’s throne, He has given us a spiritual understanding that we may know Him who is true, even the TRUE GOD, and get eternal life from Him through His Son. It is in Him we are by faith, as the branches in the vine, deriving all our knowledge, light, life, love, and fruitfulness from Him. And through this revelation of Jesus, we know the ever-blessed and glorious Trinity, the Father, Word, and Holy Spirit, in the eternal, undivided unity of the indefinable Godhead.^[41]

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[1] John 1:1

[2] 1 John 5:20

[3] John 1:14

[4] Matthew 1:18

[5] Psalm 132:2

[6] Philippians 2:7

[7] Heidelberg Catechism, The Lord’s Day 14, Question 35

[8] See Matthew 16:17

[9] 1 John 5:20

[10] John 17:24

[11] Owen, John: Christologia, op. cit., p. 300

[12] 1 John 2:23

[13] John 17:6

[14] Hebrews 1:3

[15] Owen, John: Of Communion with God, op. cit., pp. 106; 136-137

[16] John 17:3

[17] Ibid. 1:1

[18] Ibid. 1:2

[19] Poole, Matthew. Commentary on the Holy Bible – Book of 1st, 2nd & 3rd John (Annotated), Kindle Edition

[20] Ephesians 1:18

[21] Revelation 3:18

[22] 1 John 5:20

[23] Flavel, John: The Method of Grace: How the Spirit Works, Ch. 23, p. 336

[24] Hebrews 8:10

[25] Flavel, John: The Fountain of Life, Sermon 10, p. 122

[26] John 20:28

[27] Whitby, Daniel: Critical Commentary and Paraphrase, op. cit., pp. 417-472

[28] 1 John 5:11, 13, 20

[29] 1 John 5:11-13

[30] Burkitt, William: Expository Notes, op. cit., Vol. II., pp. 739-740

[31] See Essay IV. 63, p. 222

[32] Schaff, Philip: The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 4, op. cit., Select Writings and Letters of Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria Statement of Faith, p. 372

[33] John 5:23

[34] Macknight, James: Apostolic Epistles with Commentary, Vol. VI, pp. 125-126

[35] John 14:6

[36] Brown of Haddington, John: Self-Interpreting Bible, N. T., Vol. IV, p. 507

[37] Jones, William: The Pulpit Commentary, op. cit., Vol. 22, pp. 167-168

[38] 1 John 5:18, 19, 20

[39] 1 Corinthians 15:55

[40] Simeon, Charles, Horae Homileticae, Vol. XX, op. cit., Discourse 2470, pp. 552-556

[41] Clarke, Adam: Wesleyan Heritage Commentary, op. cit., Hebrews-Revelation, p. 400