Grab your notes for this episode by completing the form
and we will send you the link to all our notes.
John says some challenging things. This one stops us in our tracks. Our first reaction is to neutralise his words. Not the best response!
Dan:
Hi everyone and welcome to Training for Life Redeemed. I am Dan. I’m here with my father, David Jackson. We are looking at the first letter that the Apostle John wrote to a bunch of churches in, so somewhere in Turkey, east West , Ephesus area , Ephesus, colossi, that kind of area. We’re now halfway through chapter two. Yep . Dad , the heading here is about eternal life. So we have eternal life. That’s fairly straightforward. We’re going to have this anointing in verse 27 of receiving the Holy Spirit that Jesus promised. We’ll receive that, but then says that because we have Holy Spirit, I don’t need anyone to teach me. So <laugh> ,
David:
We can pack up shop . and go home.
Dan:
No, no need to listen to my pastor when he gives you sermons. No need to grow up as a kid going to Sunday school. Don’t need all that. I can just read the Bible myself and
David:
I’ll be right. So then we don’t need one John. Cause he was
Dan:
That’s a good question, isn’t it ?
David:
Yeah . Yeah . Clearly John is teaching and clearly this church needs teaching. This is a , a reference back to an Old Testament prophecy that when the Holy Spirit comes, he will reveal the whole story. And the whole story is about Jesus. So in the Old Testament, you’re looking forward to something you don’t understand. It’s , it’s hidden. It hasn’t been revealed yet. Now he’s been revealed. These are things Peter says, into which angels long to look. And we’ve got to see it all. And we’ve had it laid out for us. What he’s contrasting is the cults that are popping up, challenging the gospel, challenging that Jesus is the Christ. And these cults. at the time when John was wr iting t his, there was a cult in, Palestine. I think it actually has spread its tentacles into the other synagogues, maybe even in Ephesus, that we know them as the Essenes of t he Dead Sea Scr o lls. Th ey had a fellow they refe r to as the teacher of righteousness. Mm. An d the teacher of righteousness is a guy who claims to have. You know, the Holy Spirit has come, God’s Spirit has come and revealed to him all this stuff that was in secret, the mystery that you need to get saved. And that mystery takes you all the way back to all these secret books that the Essenes had collected. and that people, people wrote in the name of people like Enoch . So they’ re forg eries, they’ re fake books, and they’ re fake revelations.
Dan:
And just to clarify, for those of you who aren’t aware, Enoch is in Genesis,
David:
<laugh> , the real Enoch is in Genesis, the book that Jude quotes was written somewhere around 200 BC Yeah .
Dan:
But by, in inverted,
David:
Well , it says dodgy fellow who claimed that he’d had, you know, visions and angels had restored, lost books and all sorts of things. We still have that experience. Yeah . And one of the things that you find is with these cults, every one of them has a second Bible. I , I refer to it as a second Bible. So if you, if you want to run through, the Bible is t he only final authority for all doctrine an d l ife. That’s the point John’s making here. the Holy Spirit, the on e wh o an oints you, is taking you to the book, the words that he breathed out and caused to be written, including one John. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So here is our source of final authority. If you then put another book beside that, the other book is the one that rules over the Bib le. A nd so we have lots of them. if you go on the website and pull down the notes, you can see we’ve dealt with a few of those. They’re putting another way of salvation in the place of Jesus. And you don’t want to go ther e. Yo u don’t need a teacher of righteousness. You don’t need a cult lead er. Yo u don’t need a latt er day pro phet, all you need is what the Holy Spirit is delivering to us. And that’s this book.
Dan:
So if we continue on your theme of righteousness here mm-hmm . <affirmative> verse 29 here talks about, y ou k now, we know that Jesus is righteous. Y ep. A nd then it talks about therefore anyone w ho’s righteous or practices righteousness on this translation or Y eah. Who does righteousness Y ep. Is born of Christ or b orn of the Holy Spirit, depending o n, y ou k now, which hymn you want to have that referring to. Y ep. Does that mean I can just go and do righteousness? Y eah. And
David:
<laugh> , you can go and do righteousness
Dan:
And it means I’m born again.
David:
It better
Dan:
<laugh>. Can I do righteousness without being born again? No.
David:
<laugh> . No. So you look at this contrast, it’s absolute the good works that an unregenerated unbeliever does, they do as an enemy of God. I liken it to being, if you are the best shot in the army, that doesn’t make you a good person if you’re on the wrong army. Y eah. if you are a medical practitioner and you’re going into surgery to heal people, and you are carrying some huge infectious disease that’ll kill you, I don’t want you operating on me. And that’s what God is saying. If your nature is to be an enemy of God, everything you do is corrupt. You cannot do righteousness. Ye ah. But the person who is born again, who sins are forgiven, who stands before God, innocent of all charges, we have a new nature and we can not sin. And that’s great news. That means I can do things that are pleasing to God and that are in R i ght. That ar e r i ght i n accordance with his character. I can obey him, I can resist sin. And in fact, I’ve got no excuse.
Dan:
Yeah. Well, we’re going to come down to that now. Chapter three. Yeah . As we continue through. So I’m born of Jesus, therefore I can do righteousness. Yep . But it also means that I can not sin.
David:
Yes.
Dan:
So <laugh> John says here that if I sin, basically I’m not of Christ,
David:
Doesn’t give you much wiggle room, does he?
Dan:
So what does that mean
David:
his language is really confronting and everybody, John paints things in black and white. You’re in darkness or you’re in light, truth or lie, love or hate. And when we come down to this l ittle section, do obedience, doing right or doing wrong, he i s saying point blank. If you are in Christ, you cannot sin. If you are not in Christ, you cannot do righteousness. T here’s, there’s a , it’s a total, exclusion there. Mm . So we know that we sin. Ye p. And therefore we read on e J ohn and we go, he c an’t mean that <l augh>. I mean, I, he starts his letter by saying, if you say you don’t have sin, you’re a liar. Yea h. O kay. Well, I I , I k n ew I had sin when I got converted. I recognized I had sin. I, y ou know, ran to Je sus and I confessed my sin. I was converted and he took away my sin. I’m good now. And then John says in chapter two, okay, I’m writing so that you don’t sin. Yep . S o he knows that we do sin. He’s writing so that we don’t sin. And if we do sin, we go running straight back to Jesus. Yea h.
Dan:
Our advocate.
David:
Right . So when he comes over here now and he says, you can’t sin what’s going on? So
Dan:
That’s my question, <laugh> , that’s
David:
Your question. That’s right. It’s everybody’s question. The solution that most people come to, and I’ve set it out in the notes, is to bend over backwards to minimize what John is saying here. Somehow we’ve got to take the statement you cannot sin and turn it into Yes you can. As long as you don’t do it too much or too seriously, or you don’t keep on doing it too long.
Dan:
Yeah. For a lot of people try and make it so it’s , you cannot keep on sin . You can’t continue sinning all the time . The
David:
Bible, I mean, even this New American standard has, you cannot practice sin. Well , it doesn’t say practice, it says you can’t do it.
Dan:
Yeah .
David:
you cannot s in. I ts simple present tense. So we tie ourselves in k nots trying to come up with a way to explain it away. Y eah. N ow, a nd
Dan:
I look on , I just remember sitting in a lecture with Don Carson talking about this verse. Yep . His approach was basically that it’s a very clear instruction from John to his children. Kind of like I would give an instruction to my child of You can’t do that. That’s right. You’ve got bubble gum or whatever in my house. You’re chewing it . You can’t have bubble gum in here. You’ve got to get rid of it. Yeah . or as a school t eacher, we have rules t hrough our classrooms. Y ep. You can’t do this. Doesn’t mean that they, that it’s impossible for them to do that. It just means that they can’t < laugh>. T hat’s, i t’s k ind o f setting the,
David:
This is, these two things don’t go together. Yeah . You read in the rest of the Bible that if you are, he talks about God’s seed is in you, and you think of the parable of the, sower. The , the word of God goes in, you grow into this fruitful plant, and you glorify God. Okay. So if I have, if I’m born again and God’s seed is in me, that means that I’m a different nature. Sin is contrary to my nature. now we’ve got to get that through our h ead. Sin is contrary to who I am in Christ. we want to have two natures. You know, I’ m, this is where I get into a b ig argument with Martin Luther an d h e , he quoted th is s illy ph rase, I think it’s a silly phrase. Simul justus et peccator in Latin. Mm . If i t’s in L atin. That sounds good. <l augh>.
Dan:
you s ound smart, Dad. Y eah.
David:
<laugh> . Yeah . But it means at the same time, I’m a sinner and a saint. I’m righteous and I’m sinning. And John’s saying , no, Martin Luther, listen. No, you can’t do that . You can’t be that. You can’t do that. You’re one or the other. So how does this work? It means that I’m a , a born again believer, and I make the wrong choice. I sin. Now, the problem is that doesn’t work. It’s not an option. I can’t make sin work. And at the , at some point in the process of trying to make it work, I have to give up and come back to Jesus. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, the two things cannot exist side by side . it’s not about, you k now, I mean, if you want to say, John is just saying that you can’t keep on s inning. Well, I m ean, hang on. Go back to chapter two. He wrote that 2000 years ago. We’re still sinning < laugh>. ye ah.
Dan:
Yeah . And even the oldest and most experienced and wisest Christians still Sin.
David:
They keep on sinning. You know, the , his point is, it , it is totally inconsistent with who you are. There’s who you are, and then there’s what you do. You are righteous. You can do the righteous, you cannot do the sin. This is not who you are. Hmm . It’s got to, it , it can’t work. Now, that’s, that’s a reality. we can’t walk in two worlds. we can’t be two people at the same time. And that’s what John is saying here, and it’s really good news. Remember he wrote the book to assure us that we’ve go t e ternal life <laugh>. Ok ay.
Dan:
Yeah . To make you ,
David:
Yeah. So we don’t go to chapter three and go, oh, I’ve got eternal life. Isn’t this wonderful? Oh, but if I have eternal life, I can’t sin, I did sin. Oh, does that mean I’m not saved? Yeah . That , that’s not what he’s putting this, there for. He’s writing this so that you will know that you have eternal life. Because in your life, sin won’t coexist. If you sin, you are going to go through a massive crisis. If an unconverted person sins, it’s natural. This is contrary to who we are. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t sit with us. So these two things have to be separated. And just like the people who don’t follow Jesus had to leave the church. And that assures us that we are staying with Jesus just the same way with our sin. If we sin it , we , it just doesn’t coexist exist. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> Now that, that I think is, that’s good news. And so every time I do the wrong thing and I feel guilty about it, and I wrestle with it, that’s reassuring me that my nature is saying, this doesn’t belong. Yeah . You think of, think of your body absorbing a foreign object. You know, I , some years ago I had a splinter go in that wouldn’t come out <laugh> . And it was too painful. It was too dangerous actually, to dig it out. We just left it there and my body rejected it. You wake up one morning and there it is. My mother woke up one morning and found a pin in her sock it h ad come out of her skin. H mm. Because she’d stepped on it and a bit h ad broken off. I t actually traveled up her leg and came out her ankle and she goes, o h, <laugh>,
Dan:
That’s why my ankle’s been hurting for the last few days.
David:
My body has rejected it . It’s kicked it out. And that’s our nature. The two things cannot coexist. That’s a great assurance.
Dan:
Yeah . Well , thank you very much, Dad. If you want to come and grab the study notes and have a look bit more detail about what dad’s been chatting about here, head over to trainingforliferedeemed .com/ 95. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, come back and join us again next week. We’ll continue to look through the first letter of John halfway through chapter three. We’ll continue going through that. Come and join us for that. And have a great week.
