3By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. 4The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him …
Knowledge, according to the apostle John, is rooted in knowing God through Jesus Christ. Again, he uses the word “gnosko.” At the time of John’s writing this letter, the beginnings of Gnosticism were taking root, though that philosophy would not come to its full-blown manifestation for some time. Later gnostic proponents would take John’s lofty concepts of knowing, life, the Word, faith, etc. and make them into such mysterious ideas that only the select few “insiders” could really understand them. John, however, writes not to hide the truth behind a mysterious shroud but to elucidate it. He wants us to understand, not so that we would revel in the mysteriousness of truth, but that we would rejoice in the truth and live accordingly for Christ.
The best way to test whether have come to know Christ genuinely is by examining our behavior in black and white terms. Notice, John is not calling for a standard by which we judge other people. No, he is speaking of how we evaluate ourselves. His use of “we” is not meant to be simply rhetorical; he invites us all to the self-examination above which he does not even place himself. The evidence of genuine knowledge of Jesus is the same for all of us.
For those accustomed to casting all things into theological terms, the apostle John deals with assurance, not security. He is not addressing whether a genuine Christian who once kept God’s commandments could fall away if he stops keeping God’s commandments. Even the idea of that is suspect—after all, John has already asserted that we continue to sin: “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8, notice the present tense, which conveys ongoing action). However, our keeping God’s instructions, while not the effective cause of our salvation, does indeed supply the proof of our salvation.
I cannot examine another person’s life as to whether he or she is keeping God’s instructions. God sees into people’s hearts and motives, which I cannot do. But I can know my own heart and search for the evidence there. We are not talking about perfection since we all continue to sin in various ways. But true knowledge of Christ results in a propensity to obey God rather than rebel against Him. This is a heart issue; only God and I know the truth of this. If my desire is not to obey Him, I may fool everyone else, but I am not fooling God, nor am I fooling myself. Scripture correctly calls me a liar.
Prayer: Lord, show me areas where I am not obeying You. I don’t want to be a liar.
0 Comments